Trent Jamieson - Death most definite

Morrigan and I share very few traits, if any. I've never met a more disciplined man. He jogs every morning and lifts serious weights, though he has the lean, muscly build of a runner. His gaze is usually as direct as Eastwood's Man With No Name, only harder.

But for all that I have never seen him look so old, or so fragile. The last couple of days have wounded him, but there's no surprise there. The job is Morrigan's life in a way that it has never been mine. I doubt if Morrigan has ever made a friend outside of the pomping trade. This must be tearing him apart, almost literally if he's experienced as many pomps as I have recently. The front of his shirt is streaked with dark patches that can only be blood.

But he's alive. Can't say that about many of my friends these days.

"You're late," Morrigan says, looking up at me and wincing with the movement. And all at once I am unsettled and back on the defensive.

"Not according to my watch," I say, and stare at him with as much suspicion as I can muster.

"Enough of this bullshit. You don't trust me. I don't blame you." Morrigan coughs and wipes his lips with a handkerchief. Blood dots the material. He looks in pretty bad shape, his face colorless, his hands shaking as they bring his cup to his lips. "Yeah, I was winged," he says, in response to my expression. "I've got a cracked rib at the very least, and every time I lose a sparrow, I lose more than a sparrow."

He pulls up a sleeve. Bloody outlines of sparrows track up his arm. The neat Escheresque pattern of birds is ruined. One of the sparrows has lost an eye and dark blood scabs the wound.

I whistle, remembering the brutal efficiency of the crows. "How did you escape?"

"Luck, I suppose. They hit Number Four hard and fast. We're not a military organization." He nods to the bulge at my hip. "We're not killers. Jesus, Steven. I'm so sorry. Your parents. If only I'd seen this coming. But I didn't. The only one who could have was Mr. D, and he's gone."

Tears come-well, try to-and I staunch them. Now's not the time for crying. We have a Regional Apocalypse to stop. "You've got nothing to be sorry about," I say. "And there's no time. What's going on?"

"A Schism."

"A what?"

"I didn't believe they were real. There are records but only a few. When a Schism is successful, there's not a single Pomp left to record anything. As far as I can tell, once they got Mr. D, they left Queensland until last. We were deemed the least threatening of the states that make up the region, I suppose.

"Look at us-two days and there's only you, me, Don and Sam left. And the other regions would stay quiet about it. These things can spread."

"So you're saying someone has their eye on Mr. D's window office?" Lissa says, and I can tell from her tone that she has a fair idea who is to blame, and that he's sitting directly in front of me.

"Good afternoon, Lissa," Morrigan lifts his gaze to her, shielding his eyes from the sun. I realize that Lissa has chosen the spot where she's standing in order to make it difficult for him to see her. It's not helping me, either, her body doesn't really cut out the sunshine, rather it is filled with it. She's not the wan beauty I'm used to but a luminous, translucent figure that stings the eyes.

"Miss Jones, thank you." Her arms are folded. Well, I think they are. Her voice suggests it at the very least. "You don't deserve such familiarity."

Morrigan shrugs. "Miss Jones, if that's what you want."

"I don't want to be dead. I don't want to see my body parading about, inhabited by a Strirrer."

"Oh," Morrigan says. "I'm sorry, I can't even begin to understand how that must feel."

"It doesn't feel good."

"Feelings are all you have, Miss Jones. And you're right, it is my fault. If only I had been more focused."

No one says anything and the silence is long and awkward, until a coffee arrives.

"I took the liberty of ordering you a long black-asked them to bring it over when you arrived," Morrigan says.

I thank him and sip at it, then grimace. The coffee's burnt and bitter, but it's still coffee. "So what do we do?"

"We need to get to the morgues. We need to get to the funeral homes. We have to stop the stirring. If we can contain it here we might stand a chance."

Morrigan's phone rings. He jumps, then flicks it open. "Yes… No… If you must, but there isn't much time… All right."

He hangs up. Lissa and I are both looking at him suspiciously.

"Don," he says. "I spoke to him, too. He took some convincing, but he's swinging around to Princess Alexandra Hospital. Sam's on her way to Ipswich. I'm going to use the Hill and get to the North-Cairns and Rockhampton. If we want Queensland to keep going we need to do this."

"What about the rest of the country?" I ask.

"I'm trying to arrange some support from other RMs, Suzanne Whitman in the U.S. for one, but there's a hell of a lot of trouble getting calls out. It's not easy, but I don't think anyone wants a Regional Apocalypse. That doesn't matter-I want you to do Wesley Hospital."

A prickle runs up my spine. The place had tasted terrible yesterday. It's not going to be any better now.

"You'll be a target," Lissa says to me.

"Weren't you listening, Miss Jones? We're already targets." Then Morrigan grabs my arm. "Be careful."

"I always am," I say, and almost believe it.

We part company, I don't know how he's going to make it down to the Hill. It's probably better that I don't. I look at my watch: five minutes until the next bus.

"I still don't trust him," Lissa says.

"That's your call."

"I want you alive. I want to see you through this. It's all I've got left."

"You don't know the man."

"Neither do you."

That hurts a little. I think of all the parties, the time he got me out of jail for some stupid misdemeanor involving beer and a fountain in South Bank. "Yes, I do."

I'm walking toward the bus stop when another voice stops me.

"Mr. de Selby, I need you to come with me."

"Shit," Lissa says.

Shit indeed.

"There doesn't need to be any trouble," the police officer says.

He's a young guy, no older than me, and tall, though hunched down, maybe self-conscious like me about his height, or maybe because he has a bad back. But I don't care either way because he is an officer of the law, and here I am on Mount Coot-tha, my house a smoking pile of wood, having stolen a car (well, borrowed a car, and only for a little while) and my own car having exploded. Oh, and I'm not happy to see him, that is a gun in my pocket. Shit, I'd forgotten about that. I consider my options.

"Just why do you need me to come with you?" Maybe I can talk my way out of this.

"I think you know why."

Honesty seems the best policy. At least the one most likely to end without bloodshed.

"I have a gun in my pocket," I blurt out. His face immediately tenses. "I'm going to lie down on the ground. You can take it from me, I'm not going to put up a fight."

"Just pass it to me," the officer says. "Handle first. Slowly."

I do what he says, I'm in enough trouble already. It's all I can do to stop my hand from shaking.

"Do you want to handcuff me or something?"

"Do I need to?" He's got a no-bullshit sort of expression. I shake my head.

Well, this is about the worst thing that could have happened. At least I don't have to wait for a bus. Every cloud, right?

I'm bundled into the back of the police sedan. It smells like pine disinfectant. The seat is immaculately clean, though someone has still managed to scrawl phalluses deeply into the headrest.

The car starts up.

"Hell of a day, eh," he says, passing me back the gun. I hold it uncertainly. This is not how I expected it to go down. "I put the safety on your pistol, Mr. de Selby, I'm amazed you didn't blow off your foot. Do you even know how to shoot that thing?"