Managing Death by Trent Jamieson Read Free Book Online Page B

it lie. ‘I’ll get better.’
    ‘Of course you will,’ she says, ‘but I can help you. I can ease the transition. I can lend you more Pomps, for one thing.’ She reaches out, squeezes my hand. Her fingers are warm. I pull away, and Suzanne frowns, but not with anger. She dips her head, even manages a smile. ‘I understand exactly what you’re going through. I can guide you.’
    ‘I’ve already got Mr D for that.’
    Suzanne’s face tightens, her smile attenuates, whatever humour there was in her eyes leaves with it. I’m familiar with that expression – I tend to bring it out in people, and Mr D was even better at it than me.
    ‘Mr D was never one of us,’ she says. ‘You want a second-rate mentor? You stick with that idiot. I’m giving you a chance.’ She bends down, grabs a handful of the dust which coats everything here, and lets it fall. Only it doesn’t. The dust drifts around her lazily, glowing in all the colours of a particularly luminous acid trip. It spirals around her head creating a halo, and beneath it she’s all shadows, sharp angles and full lips. The darkest points of her face are her eyes. When she smiles, her teeth are white and straight. ‘No one understands this place, this job, like I do. Just consider it. That’s all I’m asking.’
    ‘And what do you get out of it?’
    ‘I get an ally, Mr de Selby, and one who is aware of his powers and limits, one who doesn’t go off rushing madly into things, making it difficult for everyone. Mr D isolated himself. He never really bothered with us. Sometimes I think he delighted in making enemies. When you think about all the people who died – all that you’ve lost – remember who let it happen. Morrigan had the schemes, but Mr D allowed him to flourish in your branch.’
    She has a point.
    ‘Steven, I liked your family. Michael and Annie were good people. The things your father did for Mortmax … He even lifted our profits in the States.’
    I can imagine Dad rolling in his grave at that. He’d always been slightly embarrassed by his business acumen. All he’d really wanted was to be a Pomp. NowDad, if pressed, would have made a great RM. Mum, too. I wish they were here. I wish I knew what they would do.
    Suzanne shivers. It’s cold here, and I doubt she would ever show such vulnerability willingly, but my father raised me this way: I shrug out of my coat and put it around her shoulders. She’s wearing Chanel No. 5, my mother’s favourite perfume. I remember coming home, after my parents had died. The house had smelled of it and it was the first time the reality of their deaths really hit me. It was also the first time that I wondered if moving into their place was a mistake.
    I pull away. Suzanne doesn’t notice, or pretends not to, though she does look at me oddly. ‘You are a gentleman, Mr de Selby.’
    I open my mouth to speak, but she’s already gone. ‘Hey! What about my coat?’
    All I have to answer me is dust falling to the ground again. I crouch down and scoop up my own handful. In my palms it’s just dust, gritty and grey. I open my fingers and it drops. Only the souls in the sky, and the nearby city of Stirrers, offer any light.
    My right biceps tingles, then burns. Ah, finally. Wal crawls out from under my shirt and stares up at me.
    ‘I don’t trust her,’ Wal says. No surprise there, that’s Wal’s standard response, though it’s been proven remarkably accurate.
    ‘Where were you?’ I ask.
    ‘Stuck to your arm,’ he says, looking more than a little chagrined. ‘She stopped me, I don’t know how. But she did it well.’
    I grin at him cruelly. ‘Ah, so there are things, very
useful
things, she could teach me.’
    Wal slaps me across the face with all the force of a handful of tissues. ‘You shut your mouth.’
    He actually looks hurt.
    A dim hooting comes from the city of Devour – like a parliament of malevolent and fractious owls. Bells ring and, all around us, the dead whisper their