The Memory of Death (5 page)

I don’t like the way Clash is breathing. The bleeding’s stopped at least, sopped up with a shirt snatched from a hanger at the front of a shop. He doesn’t bleed like a real person. I’ve got his hand in a plastic bag, another snatched thing. And I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t relieved that it wasn’t my hand.

Okkervil is scanning the streets furiously. We all are.

Another hour, another drunk. A dozen birds. Even the air is angry at us. Twice tiny tornados have borne down on us, gyring, raging tubes of choking dust and bruising rubbish.

The mall was too obvious a place; instead we walked through Queensland University of Technology’s Gardens Point. Like most unis, it was loaded with CCTV cameras, but I think we avoided the worst of them.

The hardest part was not sticking out. Three identical triplets, one in a suit, one with a bleeding stump. Still, most people wouldn’t notice anything even when it’s shoved in their faces.

Dad used to say that was Pomp’s greatest defence, the damn stupid obliviousness of the general public. He liked to phrase it a little differently: most people don’t notice shit until it’s on their shoe, and then only after they’ve tracked it through their carpet.

Explains why people ignored Pomps for the most part, until they were directly involved with our activities – i.e. dead. Also goes a long way to explaining why the world is pretty much as I left it, even after a regional Apocalypse, a battle with Stirrers in Queen Street Mall, a near End of Days, and a giant tidal wave stalled on the Gold Coast that had receded back into the sea, taking me with it.

People lived their lives, and most of the rest of the world flashed by.

At best, it happened subliminally; at worst, it ate you.

*

The crows are harder to avoid. There are always crows, and where there are crows, Lissa can see me. She has her Avian Pomps, and they act as her eyes on wings. Crows, sparrows and ibises. I need to be wary of all of them. A dog snarls at us, growling as it yanks on its chain, its owner barely able to hold it back.

Roots lift and trip us up. Ants swarm over us. When we get to the river again, on the other side of the campus, fish leap out of the water. A swarm of bees attacks us, until we pass under the Victoria Street Bridge, and there in the shadows we quaver, and rest, wide-eyed as frightened children.

‘Well, that wasn’t very nice,’ I say.

It's early evening. The heat of the day isn’t so much fading as consolidating, sinking into the cement and stone, smothering the night air. You always think you know what that kind of heat is – that summer heat – but you forget until Brisbane reminds you.

‘We’re free for the moment,’ I say.

‘But, it’s not going to last.’ Clash presses the shirt tight over his stump. I don’t know how he’s doing it, but he’s holding it together somehow. Does that mean he’s the real me, or does it mean he isn’t? ‘Brisbane isn’t big enough for us to melt away. Lissa said she can’t hear our heartbeats; that’s got to work to our advantage.’

Okkervil nods at the nearest CCTV camera, a crow standing on top of it. ‘Too many of those around for my liking.’ I can’t tell which he’s referring to.

‘Last time I remember we didn’t have any CCTV connections. Plenty of crows and sparrows.’

‘And ibises.’ There’s one digging around in a bin nearby; it doesn’t seem to be paying much attention, but I nod to it and it gives me such a predatory look that I cringe. ‘Perhaps we should go somewhere else.’

Most of the crows are gone by now; the ones that we come across will most likely be Lissa’s. We keep moving, we should be okay.

Of course, the question is: where should we be moving to?

This time of day the traffic sounds like the sea meeting the shore, all sighs and roars and shifts of pressure. My ears pop with it.

Urgency bleeds out of everything, particularly the road. There, momentum gives way to a crawl. There’s an ambiguity, a gloaming-ish uncertainty that is as close as the living world gets to the undead. I usually like it. But not now.

We’re standing by a pay phone when it rings. Thing is, it shouldn’t be ringing – the handset is broken, and the box is curved in from the steady argument of a boot.

Okkervil looks at me. ‘You going to answer that?’

Everyone defers to a suit. I pick up the handset. ‘Hello.’

Someone clears their throat. ‘Steven, this is James. You have to be careful. There are things that you don’t know.’

‘And why should I trust you?’

‘Because I am a good man. I didn’t shoot you in the back, did I? If I’d wanted you dead, believe me, you’d be dead.’

‘You got people coming for us?’

‘No, but we have a possibility of help for you.’

‘And what might that be?’

‘Steve, in your situation I think I would have killed myself.’

‘Thank you for your candour.’

‘I don’t have time for anything else. Steve, I don’t want you to die. You and the others are going to need to get to the Underworld.’

Hmm, the easy way to do that would be to kill ourselves.

‘I thought you wanted to recruit us for something.’

‘That doesn’t matter now.’ James sounds exasperated.

‘Which one of us is the real Steve?’

‘That’s irrelevant also.’

My turn for some exasperation. ‘Maybe to you.’

‘Look, I have been reliably informed that the longer you stay here, the more dangerous things will get for you.’

‘More dangerous than they already are?’

‘Do you really want to be torn apart limb by limb?’

I look over at Clash. He’s on the ground, knees pressed up against his chest, probably hoping, as I’d hope if it was me – and it sort of is – that we’re not looking.

I think my silence is answer enough.

‘There are bikes down by the river, red Hondas. You’re to take those to … I’ve been told they will know.’

‘They?’

‘I don’t know. Just find the bikes.’

‘And what are you going to do?’

‘Hope you survive.’

‘And if I don’t?’

‘I suppose we’ll all just have to start again. Now, go and find those damn bikes.’

‘Are you sure you don’t know who the real Steve is?’

James has already hung up.

*

There they are, three red bikes beneath the expressway, the traffic thrumming above us. Road bikes that almost seem to hum with energy, like leaves caught in eddy in a stream, all too ready to be carried free. I’d wanted something like this as a young man, but could never quite justify it. Perhaps I’d feared the freedom they’d represented.

They draw us close. We’ve no hesitation left to us. I can’t trust James, but I certainly can trust my people to hunt me down. The bike I choose has a piece of chalk and a note.

Door: you will know soon enough what that means.

I slip the chalk into my pocket.

I look over at Clash. ‘You going to manage?’

He shakes his head.

‘Get on with me then, you annoying bastard,’ Okkervil says.

I could give these guys a big hug, but we don’t have time.

It’s been a long time since I’ve ridden a motorbike, but it’s surprisingly easy. These bikes almost ride themselves.

And then they do. Maybe they were from the moment we got on.

I try to turn left down George, but the bike takes me right. Go the magic, and all that. I turn to look at my compatriots; Okkervil and Clash shrug and we give in to the inevitable. The bikes take us onto the expressway and over the Captain Cook Bridge, the Brisbane River chocolate brown beneath us. I feel the crackle of its presence. I look over at the Kangaroo Point Cliffs; in the daylight they’re gorgeous, but now, in this in-between time, nudging into night, they’re flat, almost menacing.

There are more crows about too. High and circling. Not much we can do to avoid them.

And then the first one descends, snapping at my head. It misses, but there’s another. This one pulls up fast, lands on my shoulder and starts to peck. Hard.

We ride out of town towards Princess Alexandra Hospital, then swing back on ourselves and enter the Clem Jones Tunnel. As we descend into the tunnel something dark passes above us. But we’re moving too quickly.

We ride ‘our’ bikes down the tunnel. Okkervil and Clash together, me on my own. Down we go, until we are under the river. I can feel it above me. Through the walls of the tunnel and the bedrock. Here I can feel the remembered vibrations of the great digging machine that made this deep road, and more – I can almost hear the One Tree. There’s something magical about rivers; not as potent as the sea, but there nonetheless. All rivers lead to the Underworld, all rivers are a tributary of the river Styx. The Brisbane River is no exception.

We pull to the side of the road. Cars beep at us, but no one stops. I get off, look at the wall of the tunnel.

‘We don’t have much time,’ I yell.

I fish the chalk from my pocket and draw the door, resisting an inclination to get all fancy with panelling and whatnot. This is nothing more than a rectangle, with a circle for a handle, a bit crooked around the edges. Already a siren is ringing, lights are flashing. A dark shape is bounding down the road.

‘The Hound, the bloody Hound!’

‘Quick,’ I say. They put out their hands, though Clash puts out his with a painful hesitancy, keeping the stump by his side; I draw the blade across them, finishing with mine. Together, hands held, we bleed.

We slap our bloody palms and stump against the door, and it becomes … it changes – where I’ve drawn the handle, a handle has grown. I turn the handle; it’s warm then cold to touch. The door opens stiffly, all those bloody crooked edges. But it opens and there is room enough for us and the bikes. I grab my bike and walk through; the others follow, and the door closes. The sound of sirens stops. Dead.

And we’re in Aunt Neti’s rooms.

I don’t know whether to be excited or terrified. This is the once-home of a creature that hated me. An RE, Recognised Entity like Charon, but if he was an ally, she had been an out and out enemy.

Neti’s rooms are covered in damask wallpaper – a parlour with many doors, to other rooms and other places (none of which I have ever seen) and a front door that leads to Number Four. Walk through that and down a hallway and we’re back where we started.

Neti had hated me. No surprise there; a lot of people did.

Feels like the wallpaper’s watching us. Probably is. Neti was part spider and her offspring remain. I’ve had run-ins with them before. Run-ins of the ants in the pants variety. Makes me shudder thinking of it.

But from here we can enter the Underworld proper.

I glance down at my tattoo, the cherub I’ve had since a particularly drunken night in my late teens. Once it used to come alive in the Underworld, where it was an Inkling named Wal with a smart mouth and no pants.

I could do with Wal’s company now. But there’s nothing.

*

For a moment there I heard a beat, a single heartbeat, familiar. Then it was gone and I couldn’t even be sure if I had imagined it. I still can’t understand why my Avians decided to attack Steve. That wasn’t my intent; all I wanted was to follow him, not waste their lives in some useless kind of assault.

That they decided not to follow my command worries me. That's not how this works.

I shift to the Clem and the sirens ringing, I look at the Hound and it looks back at me, like some sort of guilty puppy. It starts scratching behind its ear. I could almost feel sorry for it. Except I’m so angry at Charon for his ineffectiveness. That’s what you get when you put your faith in Recognised Entities. They always turn out to be trouble. Neti, now she was the worst, but Charon, he was nearly as bad as Mr D.

The Hound sits there, scratching itself. I frown at it.

‘
Find them,’ I say.

And it gives me a look that is pure Steve. The hunter becomes the prey.

‘
Go! Now!’

And it’s off, bounding away down the Clem, heading north. I’m not even sure it knows what it’s doing. But sometimes that is the best approach. The magic around death isn’t always logical, in fact that’s the most tenuous of elements at play. Death is ridiculous, cruel and necessary all at once – every emotion concerning it is conflicting. It’s one of the reasons that we keep the pomping business on the QT. People fall into the habit of blaming the messenger; it wouldn’t stop us from doing our job, but it would make it harder. And it’s hard enough.

I touch the chalk outline, feel a residue of Power. There’s even a hint of Steve there, which is confusing. These aren’t Steve. They can’t all be.

My gaze lingers on the door. I peel my hand from the wall. Police cars pull in beside me. No one questions me, and I leave before anyone thinks to ask, or wonder why Australia’s Death is standing in the Clem. There’s always one or two who recognise me, but this time I don’t want that. This time it would be embarrassing; they’ve cut us a little slack after we saved the world, but I don’t want to test that.

There’s been a truck accident on George Street, two pedestrians dead. A woman’s just died in PA Hospital. Someone’s sensed a Stirrer in Perth – still plenty of those who don’t follow our agreement. I’ve work to do.

And these bikes, and this chalk-drawn door, aren’t any use to me at all.

‘
Where did they get bikes from?’ I ask Tim, and he shrugs, though he’s smiling.

‘
It’s Steven, sort of. The bugger always had a bit of a lucky streak, though I can’t remember the last time I saw him on a bike.’

I can smell the cigarettes on him, which is annoying; he’d made such a show of giving up last year. Said he’d survived the Apocalypse, now he wanted to enjoy as much time as he could.

‘
But not that lucky.’ I’m feeling very cross. This is my town and the three Steves have managed to escape it.

We watch the video again. The bikes entering the Clem, and then the three Steves, one of them missing a hand (which affects me more than it should, and that also pisses me off), leaving and entering … wherever it is that they are entering.