I die for a heartbeat then.
So does Tim. I can feel it.
I cry out, but my lips don't move. The air tightens around us. The One Tree's creaking becomes a roaring. Great dark shapes loom and cackle. Then, out of nowhere, I see the Kurilpa Bridge. Its tangle of masts and wires. Mount Coot-tha rising in the north-west. Lightning cracks, a luminous finger trailing down.
And then the knives are back in our hands, bloodless. The wounds gone.
Sometimes I would like a job that involved less stabbing.
Tim coughs, his fingers scramble desperately over his chest. 'What the fuck was that?' He waves the stone knife in my face. 'Christ. Christ! Christ!' I snap my head backwards to avoid losing my nose.
Then he seems to realise what he is doing, breathes deeply, slowly, in and out, and puts the knife down carefully on my desk, as though it's a bomb.
And it is, I suppose. I follow suit, and the knives mumble at the both of us. They sound happy.
'Shit, I don't know,' I say. 'It wasn't what I was expecting.'
'Wasn't what you were expecting? What the hell were you expecting?' Tim's looking down at the front of his shirt.
There's no blood. I haven't bothered checking, I'm an old hand at these sorts of things now.
'No one told me that would happen, believe me. Not Mr D or Neti.'
'I can see why.' Tim drops into one of the chairs at my desk. He grins a little though, surprising me. 'It was a bit of a rush.'
'So Kurilpa,' I say. 'Yeah, the new pedestrian bridge.'
Kurilpa Bridge sits on the curving Brisbane River just on the edge of the CBD. It's a wide footbridge; steel masts rise from its edges like a scattering of knitting needles, and between them are strung thick cables. You either love it or hate it.
Can't say that I love it.
'How do you hold a Death Moot on a bridge?' I move to sit in my throne, shaking my head. The moment my arse touches the chair the black phone on my desk rings. I jump then look from the phone to Tim.
'Well, I'm not answering it,' he says.
I snatch it up.
This is no regular phone call. Down the line a bell is tolling, distant and deep. I keep waiting for some slamming guitar riff to start up.
Instead a thin voice whispers, 'You have engaged us, across the peaks and troughs of time. And we will serve you.'
There's a long pause.
'Thank you,' I say at last.
'We are coming,' the voice says. 'The bridge has been marked with your blood. The bridge has been marked and we are coming. Oh, and there will be a set menu. And canapes.'
The line goes dead.
'They're coming,' I say, looking at the handset.
'Who?' Tim looks at me blankly.
'The Caterers.'
'Excellent,' Tim says, taking this whole being-stabbed-in-the-chest thing very well.
'Oh, and there will be canapes.'
'As long as there aren't any of those little sandwiches, then I'm happy.'
'But when do these guys arrive? I forgot to ask.'
'That I know,' Tim says. 'Four days from now. We'll take them out to the bridge then.' He gets to his feet. 'Well, that's that. The Death Moot has begun. Pub?'
I shake my head. 'You and Lissa are right,' I say. 'I need to start actually being here. I need to make sure that I'm ready.' I pick up the knives. 'And I need to get these back to Aunt Neti. They're much too dangerous to leave lying around.'
Tim grins at me. 'Nice to have you back.'
There's an angry bruise on the horizon when I get home. It's six o'clock and a storm is coming. I feel virtuous, and pleased that, after two visits in one day, I won't have to speak to Aunt Neti for some time. The Knives of Negotiation are safe. The Caterers are on their way, and the Death Moot has a venue. Not bad for a day's work. I've texted Lissa, told her I'll be waiting at home.
I'm determined to show her I can do this. That I'm not dropping out, and that she isn't losing me.
She's right, I do need to practise my shifting, and I want to read as much of Tim's briefing notes as I can before she gets home. Here, where I'm relatively free from distractions. I've been drifting. Dad once said that pomping is for Pomps and that business is for dickheads. Of course, it didn't stop him being very good at both. Pomping's all I've ever known, but managing a business is uncomfortably new to me. I like people, but I'm not sure I can tell them what to do. After all, I spent a lot of my time as a Pomp arguing with management. The shit I gave my immediate superior Derek… I almost miss the guy.
Tim's last words to me this afternoon, after a very quick beer, were: 'Meeting tomorrow morning at 8:15. Cerbo. Do not be late. And you would be better off for reading my notes.' Faber Cerbo is Suzanne Whitman's Ankou. I've not had much to do with him. I wonder what he wants?
Tim's notes are extensive, and amusing. He knows his audience, I guess. And I can understand why he might be hurt that I haven't read them yet. He's obviously put a lot of work into making it de Selby digestible.
By the time Lissa pulls into the driveway, I'm a third of the way through the notes and aware of various allegiances within the Orcus or, as Tim has subtitled his report, Who Hates Who. The most prominent allies on the list surprise me: Neill Debbier, South Africa's RM, and Suzanne Whitman, the RM of North America. Between them they seem to wield the most influence.
It's fascinating. As is the fact that Cerbo is Mortmax's resident expert on the Stirrer god. I should have been pushing for a meeting earlier. Tim's notes suggest that now, with the Death Moot so close, the lobbying is going to start in earnest. Hence my meeting with Cerbo, I assume.
I watch Lissa get out of the Corolla. Her face is pinched with the weight of a day's work. She pomped five souls today. I felt them all, as I did the stall she performed at the Wesley Hospital.
There's a bandage wrapped around her hand, and she's bending over to pick up some groceries. I leap down from the front steps and run to carry them for her.
'You don't have to,' she says.
'Bullshit.' I take the bags from her. 'Let me look at that hand.'
'It's nothing. Dr Brooker's seen to it. Says to say hi.'
Dr Brooker's the Brisbane office's medico. He's tended to that office since before I was born.
I take her bandaged hand and kiss it, gently. Wrap my arms around her, and hold her tight. Just liking the way she feels. The corporeality of her.
The storm's coming, dark clouds boiling, dogs howling and barking in response to bursts of thunder. The rain sighing, exhaled from above and beating down on a thousand suburban roofs not too far away. The air's electric and, with it, my region's heartbeats are shed from me like a cloak. Steam rises from the road.
Bring on the lightning. Bring on this moment of peace.
'Let's get inside,' Lissa says.
And we do. Just before it starts pissing down.
I lug the groceries to the kitchen and I'm a few minutes putting stuff away. Looks like there's cooking going on tonight. For the first time that feels all right. I grab a Coke from the fridge for Lissa and a beer for myself, and we sit out on the balcony. It's too hot inside.
Lissa holds my hand and we sit there, drinking our drinks, sweat cold against our skin, and watch the rain fall. Storms build slowly but pass too quickly, and soon the pulse of the world is back.
'What are you cooking for dinner?' I ask.
Lissa arches an eyebrow.
'What are we cooking for dinner?' I offer.
'You'll find out.'
'I'm sorry I've been such an idiot lately.'
'I think the correct word is dick,' Lissa says, and kisses me hard. Apology accepted.
After dinner I walk into the bathroom and my good mood evaporates at once. The walls are covered with blood. It's a typical portent for a Pomp but this is the worst one I've seen in a while. A stir is coming, and a big one.
We need unity in the face of the Stirrer god, and that's not going to happen unless my Death Moot goes off without a hitch. With the exception of the odd alliance, regions keep to themselves outside of these biannual meetings, partly because the work load for each Death is phenomenal and mainly because most of the RMs don't trust, and/or actively hate, each other. I need the Death Moot to succeed.
I try to be quiet about it, cleaning furiously at the walls – all tiled because my parents were Pomps, too, and no one wants to make work for themselves – but Lissa catches me in there.
'Oh, no,' she says.
'Yeah.'
She looks so tired. I don't let her help, she's worked hard enough today, and she needs her sleep.
Bad shit's on its way. That's what this wall is telling me. The blood dissolves easily enough with soap and water and scrubbing. It's not the real stuff, but an ectoplasmic equivalent. Regardless, it takes me a good half-hour to clean it all away, and clean myself up.
When I finally get to bed, Lissa's asleep.
I lie next to her for a while, but don't close my eyes. I wish I could follow her, but I can't. I've no desire for nightmares tonight. After all, I've already faced some of them today, and been reminded of others.
People die as I lie there. Heartbeats stutter and fail.
Then my eyes shut. Wham. I'm back in that madness of knives and laughter. And then the scythe. My hands clench around its snath, the blade humming at the other end. Two hundred people stand before me, their eyes wide, their mouths small Os of terror. And I start swinging.
I jolt awake. Only a moment has passed.
I pull myself from the bed, pick up Tim's notes and finish them off.
I also started on another bottle of Bundy.