Two blocks away from the cemetery, after a dash through suburbia-streets filled with jacarandas dripping with blooms, and with enough cars parked on the road that we have some cover-we come across a bus shelter.
Miracle of miracles! There's a bus pulling in, on its way toward the city, but I don't care where it's going, I just need to be heading somewhere that isn't here. I'm on it. It's the first time in my life that a bus is exactly where and when I want it. With what little sense of mind I have left, I realize I still have my pass and I flash it at the driver. He looks at it disinterestedly, and then I'm walking to the back of the bus, past passengers all of whom assiduously avoid eye contact. Ah, the commuter eye-shuffle. I must look a little crazy. I certainly feel it.
I'm breathing heavily. Sweat slicks my back, and is soaking through my jacket. It's only the middle of spring but the air's still and hot. For the first time in about an hour I'm aware of my body, and it's telling me I'm tired, and hung-over. The adrenaline's not potent enough to keep that from me forever. Sadly, I feel like I could do with a beer.
Lissa looks as fresh as the first time I saw her, if you discount the bluish pallor. You're never fitter than when you're dead.
Finally we've time to talk with no rifles firing.
"So why are you back there? And how?" I ask beneath my breath, but it still comes out too loud. People turn and watch.
"That's not me!" Lissa is furious, and I can understand. I wouldn't want someone wandering around in my body, either. But I'm also wondering why she's so worried. Worry's a living reaction; it's not like she needs that body. She is acting most unlike a dead person, but then she has from the start. "That's not me," she says again. "Don't you dare think of that as me."
I raise my hands. We're tripping up on semantics here. "Your body… Why was your body back there?"
Lissa looks out the window. "I-I don't know. Whoever's doing this is using Number Four and shipping Stirrer-possessed Pomps around via the upper offices. And they're using my body. Shit, shit, shit."
I really want to hold her and tell her that this is going to be OK, but I can't do either, because I really don't believe it, and the Lissa I might possibly be able to hold without pomping is behind us somewhere, and she would kill me without hesitation.
This relationship is complicated.
"The upper offices? Can you really do that?" I think about Number Four, and those labyrinthine upper floors.
"You can if you know what you're doing. It's dangerous if you're not an RM, but people do it from time to time-saves on airfares. I've heard that you can enter any one of Mortmax's offices through them. It's probably how the Stirrers got into the Brisbane office. They could have come from anywhere."
"We'll work this out," I say.
She glares at me. "How, Steve? Just how the hell are we going to work this out? I'm dead. My body's walking about the Hill, inhabited by a bloody Stirrer. It's not enough that I've been killed-whoever is doing this is rubbing my face in it. You were right, as much as I didn't like it, the Hill's the only place we had a chance of finding out what's going on."
"Which was exactly why it was being guarded," I say. "They knew we had to get there. And my parents were there, too. This isn't just about you."
Lissa shakes her head. "Who deals with Stirrers? It's freaking insane! You can't deal with Stirrers. They've nothing to offer but hatred and hunger."
Apparently someone has, and quite successfully. I don't understand it any better than Lissa does. The idea chills me and I'm even more afraid about this whole thing. But at least it explains why Jim McKean was shooting at me. I couldn't work out how I might have pissed him off. There are others with whom it almost wouldn't have surprised me (Derek being one of them) but Jim hadn't made any sense.
"We just need to keep moving," I say.
"No point in running." The voice startles me, coming from behind. It's all rather too pleased with itself. I jerk my head around.
There's a dead guy sitting on the rear seat. He looks at me, and then at Lissa. When he sees her the wind comes out of him. "Sorry, darl," he says, "they got me too, just out of Tenterfield."
That's it. I'm dead. I don't see how I stand a chance.
The guy with us is Eric "Flatty" Tremaine, state manager of the Melbourne office, which puts him almost as far up the ladder as Morrigan. He's a friend of Derek's-maybe his only friend-and another paid-up member of the Steven de Selby Hate Club.
I notice the way he's looking at Lissa, and the way that she's looking back. There's definitely a history there. I catch myself; I'm not going to survive this if all I'm really thinking about is Lissa and her previous relationships. But it does no good. Jealousy, wearing Eric Tremaine's smarmy face, has brought matches and it's lighting them up inside of me.
"So what's going on, Flatty?" I ask, and for the first time Eric seems truly aware of me, even though my presence must have drawn him here. He gives me a wide, almost manic grin, and slaps his knee.
"Steven de Selby. Wonderful, so you've managed to stay alive. I wouldn't have put money on it. You never really struck me as the sharpest knife in the drawer."
"Enough of that," Lissa says. "Play nice."
"Who's behind this?" I demand. I don't have time for point scoring, even if I am still hunting for some sort of witty comeback.
Eric shrugs. "I don't know. All I can say for sure is that they're very good at their jobs, and they know a lot about ours." He glances significantly at Lissa. "Why the fuck are you hanging with this loser?"
"You tried to call Mr. D?" I ask, ignoring the insult. After all, he has just died.
"Of course I have." Eric nodded. "Line was busy, which makes sense for a couple of reasons."
"Yeah, everybody would be trying to call," I say. Though, to be honest, I really hadn't thought of it. Thinking about Mom and Dad had been occupying my mind more-that, and the running. Besides, Mr. D is… difficult. I take a deep breath. "Maybe I should try him. Can't be too many Pomps left."
Tremaine makes an ineffectual grab at my arm-his hand passes through my flesh and he's nearly dragged through me with it. His face strains as he struggles to stay in this world, and part of me can't help laughing at such a basic mistake. I have to respect his strength of will, though, because he pushes against the pomp, his form solidifying.
"No! You don't want to do that!" he says, once he's managed to stabilize his soul. "I tried to call him just out of Tenterfield. The buggers got me there on the New England Highway. They're obviously using the phones to find us. Please don't tell me you've got yours on."
"Oh." The blood's draining from my face. I switch off my phone, and then slide it into my pocket.
Eric gives Lissa an "I told you so" look. His gaze, when it returns to me, is condescension stirred with pity. He doesn't expect me to live much longer, either.
"You're going to have to talk to Mr. D, but not now," he says. "I suspect he's out of the loop somewhat. He has to be, I can't believe that he'd let this happen."
"Someone has," Lissa says.
"Yes, and I have my theories, but they're just theories. Steve, you're going to have to talk to him face to face. Draw him out of wherever he's hiding, or being held."
"You think he's being held?"
"He's hardly on a fishing trip now, is he?" Tremaine says archly. "He's too intimately connected to all of us. Every death must be filling him with pain and anger. For something like this to succeed you'd need to remove the RM as quickly as possible, before you start trying to kill Pomps. You know how Mr. D is. He knows when one of us dies, and he's always there. Let me tell you, he wasn't there for me. This has to be an inside job."
He lets that sink in.
"Then how am I going to be able to talk to him?"
"There are ways that can't be stopped. If you know what you're doing." He looks at me.
I take a deep breath. Maybe I should just pomp the prick. I'm a little threatened by the thought of one-on-one time with Mr. D. I've only ever met him a few times, and they were with my dad.
"Mr. D's not that bad, really," Lissa says, and I realize that she is almost touching my hand with her own. At the closest point her form is wavering. It must be uncomfortable for her, but she holds the position. I'm the one who pulls away in the end. Tremaine gives her a look, and I smile like the cat who got the cream.
"If you say so. I've just never had much to do with him."
"Regardless, you're going to-and soon," Tremaine says with all the nonchalance that a recently dead person can muster. "Maybe too soon." He points out the rear window.
There's my dad's body, driving his red Toyota Echo, not too well, but well enough to be gaining on the bus. But this is the least of my worries because Mom's body is on the passenger side, and she's scowling in a most un-Mom like way and pointing a rifle at me.
"Shit!" I drop to the floor behind the seat as the rear window explodes.