Managing Death by Trent Jamieson Read Free Book Online

at all. Just came back from a run.’
    ‘At 2:30 in the morning?’
    ‘My personal trainer’s a bloody bastard. What can I do for you?’
    Lissa sits up next to me and mouths, ‘Who is it?’ I shake my head at her. She frowns. If there’s one thing that Lissa hates, it’s secrets. She’ll have to wait.
    ‘It’s not what you can do for me, Mr de Selby, but what I can do for you – and it’s quite a lot,’ Suzanne says, somehow sounding both threatening and sexy at once. ‘Meet me in the Deepest Dark in an hour.’
    ‘An hour?’
    ‘I assume you’re going to need a shower after your run.’ She hangs up.
    I drop my phone back on the bedside table, and pull myself completely out from under the sheets. Lissa’s bedside light switches on.
    She looks at me intently. ‘So … who was that?’
    ‘Suzanne Whitman.’
    Lissa’s face tightens. ‘Her. Why now?’
    ‘She wants to see me in an hour, in the Deepest Dark.’
    ‘Death Moot?’
    ‘What else would it be?’ The ceremony has set more than just the Caterers in motion.
    ‘You want me to come?’ Lissa asks.
    ‘You know you can’t go there. There’s no air, for one, none that you can breathe, anyway.’ I drop back down next to her, rest my chin on my hand. ‘Are you concerned about me spending the wee small hours of the morning with another woman?’
    Lissa purses her lips. ‘No, of course not, but the Deepest Dark’s a bloody odd choice.’
    Lissa’s been there. She wasn’t alive at the time. I don’t know how much she remembers, but she certainly doesn’t look too keen to return.
    I shrug. ‘It was her decision.’
    ‘Don’t let Suzanne Whitman make your decisions for you.’
    ‘I won’t. No one makes decisions for me but me. You’re starting to sound like you don’t like her.’
    ‘I don’t.’
    ‘And why’s that?’
    Lissa rolls away and pulls the sheets over her head. Then reaches out and switches off the light. ‘I need to sleep,’ she says.
    The shift to the Deepest Dark is a blazing supernova of agony in my skull.
    It’s
really
that bad.
    I arrive bent over and coughing. Desperate as I am not to show any weakness, it’s as good as I can do.
    It’s a moment until I’m aware of my surroundings.
    The creaking of the One Tree permeates everything because, in a way, the One Tree
is
everything in the Underworld and the Deepest Dark. The sound rises to us through the dark soil beneath our feet, it builds in my bones. To say that it is loud is to emphasise one aspect of it to the detriment of everything else. It is a sound against which every other sound is registered.
    And this place is hardly silent. The dead whisper here, a breathy, scratchy, continuous whispering. They release their last secrets before ascending into a greater secret above.
    Up and down are relative in the Deepest Dark. Around us, through dust and soil that comes directly from the Underworld, wend the root tips of the OneTree: each is the width of my thigh. In the Deepest Dark we are beneath Hell itself. The air smells of blood, ash and humus. It’s a back of the throat kind of bouquet. Not the best thing when you’re already gagging.
    Suzanne doesn’t speak until I’m standing straight, and I’ve wiped a hand across my mouth. ‘You’re late.’
    I make a show of peering at the green glowing dial of my watch. ‘I’d hardly call thirty seconds late.’ I’m being deliberately provocative. I find it helps when people think you’re stupider than you are. It’s about the only advantage I have.
    Suzanne smiles thinly. Her dark eyes regard me impassively.
    Suzanne’s got a Severe – yes, with a capital S – sort of Southern Gothic thing going on. Her hair is cut into a bob. A black dress follows sharp lines down her lean body. Pale and muscular limbs jut from the sleeves. It’s certainly not sensible garb for the cold fringes of the Underworld. She could be going out for the night, or about to chair a meeting. If she could get away with it in the