Trent Jamieson - Death most definite

"We all have," I say as he pulls away.

Sam runs over to me and her hug is even more crushing. She smells a lot nicer though, mainly lavender and a hint, just a hint, mind, of some good quality weed.

"I'm so glad you're all right," she says.

If you can call this all right, then you're way more optimistic than me, I think. Still, I hug her tight, and this time I can't quite hold back the tears.

"It's all right," she says. The bloody Pomp mantra: It's all right.

Does she think Morrigan's responsible? Surely not.

"You want a cup of tea?" Don asks, looking a little embarrassed. He nods toward a Thermos in the corner of the room sitting somewhat incongruously next to a sledgehammer, a new one, its handle coated in plastic.

"Tea?" I say, wondering at the hammer.

Don smiles ruefully. "I'd get you a beer but, well, I haven't had time to run to the bottle shop."

Too busy worrying about Morrigan, I think.

"Tea would be great," I say.

"I'll have one, too," Sam says, then blinks, staring out the open door. "Lissa? Oh, I'm sorry."

Does everybody know this girl? So I wasn't a member of the Pomp Social Club, but Jesus, how did I never meet her?

"Don't worry, Miss Edwards," Lissa says. "It was quick. I've had time to adjust."

"Miss Edwards?" I'd always known her as Sam, and this throws me.

"Some people are more polite than others. In your case, most people," Sam says to me. "You were lucky she found you."

I nod my head. "Lissa's the reason I'm still alive."

"No surprises there," Don says. "You couldn't piss your way out of a urinal."

Well, isn't this the Steve de Selby support group. I'm about to say something narky but I notice that Don's hands are shaking, enough that I think he may soon spill the tea. I take the cup gently from his grip.

"No arguments from me," I say, even if I'm grinding my teeth slightly. "How did you two make it?"

"They got a little over-enthusiastic," Don says. "I was finishing at a wake-no stir, oddly enough-when some bastard just starts shooting. They missed, and I could see something wasn't quite right. Turns out he was a damn Stirrer. That in itself was peculiar, because I should have felt him. Then I realized he was a Pomp… well, used to be. I recognized him, but didn't know his name, though I've since seen a few I do. I blooded up and touched him, too quick to get some answers, and then all I had was a still body and a rifle. Then I got the hell out of there, once I'd made sure." His fingers brush at his blood-smeared shirt.

It has to be touch, and it has to be blood to stop them. Death is intimate, and bound in life. And blood and death are entwined. Think about all those ancient tales that mix them up, like vampire myths. Stirrers don't feed on blood, but life, and a Pomp's lifeblood is the only way to shut the gate.

Death is up close and personal and we're all staring into its face. Which is why pomping can hurt, though death is less traumatic than life. If every pomp was as painful as childbirth, the world would be crowded with dead people desperate to cross over to the Underworld. And they'd damn well want to be paying us more.

"I got lucky, too," Sam says. "I saw the Stirrer before it saw me, stalled it, took its pistol and got in touch with Don."

"We were both lucky," Don says.

Sam wraps an arm around his waist. I look at Lissa, she smiles at me. I didn't know that these two were a couple: one of the many things on the list of stuff that I don't know about my friends, family and colleagues. Don bends down and gives Sam a kiss.

"I'm sorry about your parents, Steve," Don says. "But there was nothing you could have done."

I don't know how to respond to that. Was there something I could have done? I run the options through in my mind. I was just as much in the dark as anyone.

Don changes the subject fast. "So you said that Morrigan's alive?" He looks over at Sam as though to say, I told you so.

"Doesn't prove anything," Sam says. Aha! So Sam doesn't agree with Don!

"Last time I saw him, via the Hill, he was in Number Four, and he was wounded," I say. "Then an hour or so ago, a sparrow got a note through to me. I suppose he had a fair idea where I might be. Sparrows are good hunters."

"A sparrow. One of those inklings of his?"

I nod. "Yeah."

Don and Sam exchange looks. "He sent you here?" Don asked.

"Not here, exactly, just the general direction." I don't know where he's going with this, but I'm starting to not like it.

"We haven't spoken to Morrigan."

"Do either of you have your mobiles on?" Lissa asked.

Sam pales. She pulls her phone out of her handbag, it's a hot-pink number. She flips it open. "Shit."

"Turn it off," I say.

It starts ringing, and Sam jumps. We all do. She hurls it at the ground and stomps on it with her purple Doc Martens until it stops ringing and is nothing but bits of plastic and circuitry. But still it looks sinister somehow, and puissant, because we know it's too late.

Other than Morrigan, we're probably the last three Pomps in Brisbane, the lucky ones, and now we're clumped together. If Morrigan is behind all this…"We have to get out of here, right now."

And then a dead guy appears in the middle of the room. We're standing in a rough circle. He's tugged this way and that by our individual presences.

He blinks at us. "Um, where am I?"

We all look at each other.

"Queensland," I offer.

He shakes his head, and looks about the squalid room. "Shit, eh? Queensland. What's this? Am I…?"

"Yes," we all say.

"Well, what does it all mean?" He scans the three of us, as though looking for a point of egress. He's about to make a break for it. But I'm not anxious to pomp him, my insides are feeling tender enough. Don gestures furiously at me to do it, but I'm pretending I don't notice him.

"I don't know what it means. But it's all right," Don says. He winces and then gently touches the dead guy on the back. The fellow's gone.

"We're all playing our A game today," he says, looking from me to Sam and back again. When we say nothing, he shrugs. "I'll check the back."

I feel like an absolute shit, but I'm so glad I didn't have to make that pomp. Don's at the back door, peering out, his rifle held clumsily in one hand. He stiffens, closes the door softly and backs away down the long hallway to the living room. "There's someone out there." Don's pale as a sheet. "Couldn't see them, but I could feel them."

Now that he's said it, I can too. It's similar to the darkness that I had felt around the Wesley Hospital. The air is slick with an unpleasant psychic miasma. It's catching in the back of my throat like smoke. Don is looking worse and I'm not surprised: he took that last pomp.

"Time to use the exit plan, I think," he says, glancing over at Sam.

She nods and lifts up the sledgehammer from the corner of the room. She looks like some weird combination of Viking god-blonde plaits hanging from beneath her beret-and hippy grandma.

Sam passes it to me and I grunt, the thing's heavy. Its plastic grip crinkles in my hands. I look at her, confused. How is this part of the exit plan?

"Steve, would you mind smashing a hole in the floor?"

"Not at all."

She points to the middle of the room. "About there would be good." Then she runs to the window, peers out and fires her pistol into the dark.

It's surprisingly easy to make a hole in the wooden floorboards-they're rotten-though every time I strike the floor, the whole house shakes and I wonder if I'm going to bring it down around our heads. Once the hole is big enough, even for Don, I step aside for the others.

Don drops down first, grunting as he hits the ground. Sam motions for me to go. I hesitate and she grimaces.

"Steve, I've got the gun. You go, and now."