Trent Jamieson - Managing death

'It's not the time to discuss this,' Kiri breaks in. 'We have deeper issues at stake. Rillman has killed an RM. Mortmax's thorn has grown thornier. We all felt it, we've all borne that new burden.'

'Which is why de Selby must know these things,' Charlie says. 'Why he must understand the issues of our regions before it's too late.'

'It's what I'm after,' I say. 'A unified approach to dealing with this problem.'

'Yes, but what you don't understand, Mr de Selby, is that the threat Rillman offers is more immediate,' Anna Kranski says.

'How can it be more immediate than this?' I slam my hand on the projector and the inky black illustration of the Stirrer god that covers the far wall shakes. 'It's coming. And it's getting faster and hungrier and more powerful.'

'We have months, if not years, to resolve that issue. Well, you will,' Charlie says. 'Perhaps you might want to work out how to use PowerPoint, too. All those transitions!'

My jaw drops. 'I thought the transitions worked very well.'

Charlie Top snorts. 'In my experience things aren't ever as neat.'

'And what exactly is your experience?' I demand.

'I was old before you were born.'

'Ha! What's a few centuries?' I say.

'Actually, Mr de Selby, a few millennia.'

'Well, I've yet to see the wisdom of them.' I close the PowerPoint presentation. 'We know so little, because we share so little. We have to be united. We have to be because there is no one else but us.'

Charlie looks over at Suzanne, and smiles sombrely. 'He may just be ready.'

What the fuck is he talking about? And what the fuck have all those veiled comments been about? I get the feeling I'm about to find out.

Kiri whistles and jabs a thumb towards the doorway. 'There's one motherfucker of a storm coming.'

Wind shakes the marquee like some curious, angry giant. Then the tent is gone, hurled into the air, and I'm having some sort of Dorothy Gale moment. Lightning dances across the river, spanning the water at some points so that it looks like a bridge of flame. And at its heart is a figure, grinding two knives together. Around him stand half a dozen Stirrers, their arms tattooed with a familiar pattern, their hair writhing with esoteric energies.

Sensing the threat, my sparrows and crows swarm, but they can't draw close. The moment they do, lightning blasts them out of existence.

Suzanne grabs my hand. 'This is it, Steven. I'm sorry it's all going to rest on your shoulders.'

'What the hell are you talking about?'

'You never were the brightest one, were you? Just look after Faber for me. He has always been such a loyal Ankou.' She grabs my face, kisses me once on the cheek, and then the lips, the latter a lingering thing that possesses a surprising tenderness. 'Pity, I think I would have enjoyed getting to know you better.'

They can't be serious. They can't leave all this to me! I didn't even want to be RM, and I certainly don't want to run all of Mortmax Industries. I can't.

The other RMs surround us. I remember them circling me while I fought Morrigan in the Negotiation, with all that hunger in their eyes. There's none of that rapacity now, just a grim fear. These Deaths are going to face their own mortality. They've forgotten what that is like, and now it's time to die. But for me, it's all too familiar.

It's one thing to serve it out, to be the creeping replication of cancer cells, the rupturing or blockages that halt a heart, or the shriek of metal against metal and the burn of petrol waiting to ignite on a highway. But it's an altogether different thing to be on the receiving end.

'We've been working hard to bring Rillman out into the open. The man has been actively lobbying against us in various parliaments for a long time. And he can be extremely persuasive, as you would expect from a man who came back from the dead. We never though he'd get his hands on the knives so swiftly. Steven, you have proven a remarkable accelerant.'

'Yeah, people say that about me.'

Suzanne ignores me. 'You were the perfect bait though; imagine, an RM who had also completed a successful Orpheus Manoeuvre. How could Rillman ever resist that? I'm sorry about what he did to you.'

'And Lissa? Walking in on you – me…?'

'We needed Lissa out of the way. She was in too much danger, and if anything happened to her, we know how that might affect someone at the stage you are in of your career. The last thing we wanted was a rogue RM. I must apologise for that. It was my idea. I sent one of my own Pomps to the Princess Alexandra so that she'd come home. You were set up again.'

'Again?'

'Well, Morrigan did it so successfully. We thought we could as well.'

'Successfully? Look how that ended up.'

'Hm, well, there's a theory that bait is best when it doesn't realise just what it is. Even Mr D agreed on this. Why do you think we allowed you to have him as a mentor? You are the first RM in the history of the Orcus to have such a guide!'

Mr D was in on this, too? I thought we'd reached a nice balance of trust and untrust, and now…

'Who else knew about it? Tim?'

'Tim's canny, but no. He does now. All the Ankous do. He loves you too much to keep something like that quiet. Steven, people love you, despite you making it so hard for them. They really do.'

'So you baited the hook with me? Thank you very much.'

'You were being watched. We wouldn't have let Rillman hurt you very much. And as for your relationship with Lissa, you did a good enough job of messing that up yourself, despite my help.'

'But did your spies have to punch me in the face?'

'Let me tell you, he was disciplined for that.'

'For punching me?'

'No, for being caught and needing to.'

The lightning cages and crackles around us, a net of fire that sets the hair on my flesh on end. The other RMs look at each other, and then at Suzanne.

The Ankous' marquee follows its twin into the air. Twelve Caterers rush towards the kitchen, place their hands on it and are gone. Can't guess how much this is going to cost.

I can hardly hear Suzanne's voice. 'You have to get away from here,' she's saying. 'The Ankous are already gone, including Tim. They're safe for the moment. And find your Lissa. Things may not end as badly as we fear, and if that's the case we'll find you. If they do end badly, well… you'll know.'

But I know it will end badly. I know they're all preparing to die. This is the path they have chosen, the plan they laid out when I became RM.

Suzanne is shaking her head. 'Steven, you may be a bit slow on the uptake, but really, your heart is in the right place. You're the only one of us who might stand a chance with the Hungry Death inside of them. You're the only one who might hold out against the coming darkness.'

I want to hit something, anything. 'So all that shit about you having a plan, about doing something. The plan was to leave it all up to me.'

'Not just you. You will have our Pomps, our Ankous, and your precious Mr D. Let me tell you, he won't give in to the One Tree for anything now with the kind of influence he'll have.'

Like I'm ever going to talk to Mr D again. Fuck him. Fuck all of them.

'You have to realise that the Hungry Death has been manipulating us all these years, driving our Negotiations to greater and greater violence. We started playing its game, and that's not how you control something like the Hungry Death. You made me realise that. So, Steven, you're not as stupid as you think.

'You'll succeed at this in a way that none of us can. Surely you can perceive what an important moment this is? Just what we're giving up? This is you. This is all your doing. You've made us all a little bit human again with your presence, your… flaws. Don't forget that.'

She leans towards me, fast, and kisses my lips hard, one more time. My face burns. 'There has to be another way. It's not too late. Please -'