Trent Jamieson - Death most definite

"Get away, Steven," he says, and pushes my hands from him. He's still strong-I'm flung from the road, the breath knocked out of me.

Mr. D stands, his legs shaking, his face messed up. One of his eyes has closed over. "Perhaps you should run," he says to me.

But I'm stuck to the spot. The SUV has come back and it hurtles into him. This time it turns in a tight circle and hits him again, then again. Morrigan's behind the wheel, smug as all hell, and by the time he's done, Mr. D is a lump of blood and rags on the ground. Finally I regain the will to move.

"Don't even think about it." Dad steps from the passenger-side door and points a rifle at my head.

"Dad, I-"

"How thick are you, Steven? I'm not your father," he says in my father's usual irritated tone. How can I think of him as anything but my dad? But the moment my eyes meet his, there can be no doubt. There's a wild, tripping madness there, and a vast alien hatred. His skin glows with a lurid, sickly light. Stirrers shouldn't inhabit the Underworld this way. Its true form is slowly burning through his flesh.

A week ago this was my father, though that animated spark has gone and has been replaced by the enemy. Still, if you're going to die, die pissing something off. "Dad-"

He swings the rifle at my head.

"None of that," Morrigan says, sliding out of the SUV.

The rifle butt stops just centimeters from my skull.

Morrigan rolls Mr. D's body over with his foot, and smiles. "So it's done. Death be not proud and all that," he says, rubbing his hands gleefully. This is Morrigan as I have never seen him. So damn happy. He terrifies me, more than Mr. D ever did. "Death is dead."

"Why?" I demand, and Morrigan wags a finger in my face.

"Need to know basis only, I'm afraid. And you know too much as it is. But don't be too sorry for him. The bastard deserves every last instant of pain." Morrigan glances over at Dad. "End it."

Dad fires.

At the same time cold fingers run over my flesh. Everywhere. They're brushing everything. I'm smothered in a rushing, tapping, piercing density of ice.

A voice whispers in my ears. "The rules are changing, Steven."

Then I'm in that dark space again, and the last thing I hear is Morrigan's weary voice.

"Oh, fuck," he says.

Crack!

That's how I wake, with a jolt and a deep gasping breath, as though I've been drowning.

Crack! The door nearby shudders.

Crack!

Dust, centuries old, spills from the top of the bookcases that line one wall.

Crack!

Mr. D sneezes. "Don't worry, I made this office with my own two hands. The doors are reinforced with my own blood, and the blood of my enemies. There's a bit of strength in them yet. Do you take milk?"

I nod my head as Mr. D pours my tea into a fine china cup. I've been here once before, so long ago that I'd almost forgotten about it. It's the inner sanctum, the throne room. Mr. D's big chair is up at the other end of a long wooden desk, and it's covered with carvings of figures running, fighting, dying, all of them gripping daggers, and is utterly incongruous with the metal, plastic and leather business chairs that face the desk. Morrigan covets that deathly throne. It shivers and sighs and seems to stare back at me. I feel the intensity of its regard. How can an inanimate object have such a tangled scowling presence? I can't imagine anyone ever wanting to sit in such a thing.

The desk is submerged in paper-scrunched up balls of it, rough teetering piles of it, and all of it covered in Mr. D's dense scrawl. Post-it notes fringe one side of the desk.

Mr. D catches me glancing at the papery chaos. "I never bothered with a computer for the real work." He lifts a hand and Post-its flutter like jaundiced butterflies from the table toward his wrist. "Who needs one, eh? Though I do like my Twitter." He reads the notes that he'd called to him, and frowns. "There are too many names I know on these things."

I'm quick to forget about that, though. Something else has grabbed my attention. Mr. D really does have the original "Triumph of Death" on his wall. There are all those skeletons getting jiggy with the damned. Mr. D has always seemed a little too smug about this picture for my liking, but here it is, in all its splendor.

I walk up to it and shudder. Looking closely, I don't see the Orcus in those skeletons, or Pomps, I see Stirrers. And I'm thinking about that impending Regional Apocalypse.

"Quite a piece of work, isn't it?" Mr. D says. "I, um… procured that for myself a long time ago. One of the benefits of this job. Well, it was."

"What the fuck is going on?" I ask, turning away from the picture. It's bigger than I expected, and I can feel all those mad eyes staring at the back of my neck.

Mr. D sends the Post-it notes fluttering back to the desk. "Death and death and death, I'm afraid."

There's an almighty crack and the door behind him shudders. We both jump.

"Well, that was a big one." Mr. D passes me my cup and saucer. His mind is already wandering to a new topic. It's not just his face that jumps around.

"There are other spaces, other places, and they proceed endlessly, universes and universes. One day, death may not be needed. But we're a long way from that." Death sips his tea casually, even as the door and bookcases shake. "I keep up with my reading. I like physics, I like the possibility that one day death will be irrelevant. After all, death is merely a transitional state. The body is devoured, and made alive again in all the creatures that devour it. And the souls of those gone are absorbed into the One Tree, sinking through it to eventually track across the skies of the Deepest Dark.

"Death's job, Steven, is to shape the Underworld, to bring to it a neatness, a less savage afterlife. And that's all I've ever done, managed my little alternate universe. Other RMs do it differently, but we're all here to provide a peaceful transition, to make sure the dying continues as it should, and to stop the Stirrers. That's the position Morrigan hungers for."

I'm still a couple of steps behind. I think I always will be. "He killed you. How are we even here?"

"Think about it." Mr. D taps his skull.

"I'm a Pomp-"

Death nods, and takes a loud slurp of his tea. Lissa would hate him. He also takes sugar. Mom would have hated him too. "Exactly. You pomped me here and I took you with me. Things are different for RMs-the manner of our deaths-particularly in such situations as this. We're given some leeway. You being a Pomp meant I could use you as a portal to get us here. When that door they're so desperately trying to break down does, things will become a little more… final. The rules are changing, Steven. I'm not the first RM of Australia, nor will I be the last unless, of course, we have come to that time when death is made redundant." The door jolts, metal shrieks. Mr. D considers the door. "I'm quite certain that we haven't reached that point yet, not even close. For one, you're still breathing." He finishes his tea and gestures toward mine, frowning. "You haven't touched yours."

Crack!

Mr. D turns toward the sound. "Don't worry, we've time enough, believe me."

The dark carried me here half an hour ago and Death made tea with all the speed of a man who has no idea of the concept of the word "hurry" or "apocalypse."

I wish I could say that I share his lack of urgency, but I want out of here. And I want answers. "So what is Morrigan planning? To become the new RM?"

"Morrigan has always been extremely diligent in the application of his duties. It was only a matter of time before he wanted my job." Mr. D shakes his head ruefully. "Something much easier to recognize with hindsight, of course."

"So what can I do?" I look down at my cup.

"The first thing would be to get young Lissa Jones down from the tree."