The Business Of Death, Death Works Trilogy by Trent Jamieson Page B

an eye, they’re gone.
    The last contact I get is their passage through me. Such a swift pomp. I’m never going to see them again. I try to hold on, to keep their souls with me, but there’s nothing I can get a grip on. All it does is draw out the hurt.
    The grief is almost paralysing when it hits.
    I’m right out in the open, not yet at the escalators sinking down into the station. I stop and hunch over, because this is agony. I’m not numbed by their absence, I’m hurting. A coughing sob shudders through me. I’m going to lose it.
    Just because I know what goes on in the afterlife doesn’t mean I’m not missing my parents. I need time.
    But there isn’t any.
    “Hey. Hey,” Lissa says.
    “You’re still here?”
    I look at her, and even that hurts me. She’s beautiful, and I won’t get a chance to talk to her in the flesh. My mourning tugs me this way and that. Have to slap myself. My cheek stings.
    Doesn’t help.
    Lissa looks at me as though I am mad. There’s pity in her expression as well, and that makes me more than a little angry: mostly with myself.
    She isn’t gone yet. I’m not quite alone.
    I walk into the station.
    “Hey!”
    I spin on my heel, cringing. When’s the bullet coming?
    “Your ticket!” The guard at the gate frowns at me, looking through Lissa, though I know how uncomfortable that must make him. It doesn’t help that she then swings a tight circle around him. His face twitches in synchrony with her movements. At any other time it would be amusing to watch.
    “Yeah, right. Sorry.” I dig my pass out of my wallet.
    He takes it from me. Nods. “Next time think about what you’re doing.” He pushes it back into my hand.
    I nod, too, smile stupidly, and walk through the gate into the underpass that leads to the platforms.
    “You have to be more careful than that,” Lissa says. “You have to stay focused. Something like that may get you killed.”
    “I’m doing the best I can.”
    She’s clearly not happy with my answer. But it’s all I’ve got.
    I know where I have to go. The only place that I might possibly find some answers.
    It might also kill me. That’s on the cards anyway. In fact, I imagine that’s where this will all end up. I’m a Pomp after all. Death is what it’s all about. Death is what it’s always about.
    So I keep moving.

7
    A re you sure this is a good idea? I mean the Hill…”
    I’m sitting in the train heading west along the Ipswich line, out of the city, my forehead resting against the cold glass of the window. People sniffle and cough all around me. The carriage is heavy with the odors of sickness: sweat and menthol throat lollies duke it out. It’s flu season all right, I can feel something coming on myself—or maybe it’s the last remnants of the hangover, combined with the ache of all those pomps.
    I pat my suit jacket. “At least I’m dressed for a cemetery. Do you have any better suggestions?”
    Lissa shrugs. I know she wishes that she did. So do I.
    “The Hill’s the only place I might get some answers,” I say. Problem is, the answers I’m after are just as likely to kill me as save me.
    I try Tim’s work number. Can’t get through. His mobile switches straight to voicemail.
    How do I tell him? I need to warn him. I need to tell him that his mother and father are dead. His voicemail spiel ends and I’m silent after the beep, working my mouth, trying to find words.
    Nothing comes. The silence stretches on. Finally: “Tim, I don’t know what you know. But I’m in trouble, you too, maybe. You have to be careful. Shit, maybe you already know all this. Call me when you can.”
    I hang up.
    Lissa stomps up and down the aisle. People shudder with her passage, burying themselves in their reading matter or turning up their mp3s. She’s oblivious to it, or maybe she is taking a deep pleasure in the other passengers’ discomfort, the dreadful chill of death sliding past life. I don’t know. Our carriage is emptying out fast,