Read Managing Death for Free Online Page B

I’ve been such an idiot lately.’
    ‘I think the correct word is dick,’ Lissa says, and kisses me hard. Apology accepted.
    After dinner I walk into the bathroom and my good mood evaporates at once. The walls are covered with blood. It’s a typical portent for a Pomp but this is the worst one I’ve seen in a while. A stir is coming, and a big one.
    We need unity in the face of the Stirrer god, and that’s not going to happen unless my Death Moot goes off without a hitch. With the exception of the odd alliance, regions keep to themselves outside of these biannual meetings, partly because the work load for each Death is phenomenal and mainly because most of the RMs don’t trust, and/or actively hate, each other. I need the Death Moot to succeed.
    I try to be quiet about it, cleaning furiously at the walls – all tiled because my parents were Pomps, too, and no one wants to make work for themselves – but Lissa catches me in there.
    ‘Oh, no,’ she says.
    ‘Yeah.’
    She looks so tired. I don’t let her help, she’s worked hard enough today, and she needs her sleep.
    Bad shit’s on its way. That’s what this wall is telling me. The blood dissolves easily enough with soap and water and scrubbing. It’s not the real stuff, but anectoplasmic equivalent. Regardless, it takes me a good half-hour to clean it all away, and clean myself up.
    When I finally get to bed, Lissa’s asleep.
    I lie next to her for a while, but don’t close my eyes. I wish I could follow her, but I can’t. I’ve no desire for nightmares tonight. After all, I’ve already faced some of them today, and been reminded of others.
    People die as I lie there. Heartbeats stutter and fail.
    Then my eyes shut.
Wham
. I’m back in that madness of knives and laughter. And then the scythe. My hands clench around its snath, the blade humming at the other end. Two hundred people stand before me, their eyes wide, their mouths small Os of terror. And I start swinging.
    I jolt awake. Only a moment has passed.
    I pull myself from the bed, pick up Tim’s notes and finish them off.
    I also started on another bottle of Bundy.

5
    I open one eye a crack. There’s half a bottle of rum settling uneasily in my stomach. I’d fallen asleep again. Well, I don’t know if you could call it sleep, but I was definitely unconscious.
    My mobile phone’s ringing.
    The clock radio gives out a hard red light: 2:30 in the am. Bloody hell. Lissa nudges me with an elbow, soft, then not so. When did I come back to bed?
    ‘Going to answer that?’ Her voice is a late-night mumble, with just a hint of edge to it.
    It’s the first night in two months that I’ve actually fallen asleep – totally by accident, Lissa’s head on my chest – and someone calls.
    At least they dragged me from that cackling nightmare. The swinging scythe, though in this version it was in time to Queen’s ‘We Will Rock You’. Maybe I was awake before the phone started ringing, just trying to pretend I was asleep. Either way, I’m awake now.
    If this is Tim calling, drunk and doleful, from the Regatta in Toowong, there are going to be serious words. Particularly after his and Lissa’s intervention.
    Another elbow nudge. She’s going to crack a rib at this rate. ‘Well?’ Lissa says.
    The sheets tangle as I try and get up. Lissa grabs a handful, tugs, and I’m free enough of the sheetly bonds to move. I scramble for the phone on the bedside table. It’s the brightest (loudest) light source in the room, so it’s easy to find. Still, 2:30! And it keeps on ringing. Who’d have thought a Queen medley ring tone could get annoying?
    Not Tim. Caller ID sets me straight on that.
    Suzanne Whitman.
    Mortmax Industries’ North American Regional Manager. What the hell is the US Death doing calling me now?
    ‘Hello,’ I croak.
    ‘I’m sorry, did I wake you?’ She sounds surprised. Sleep is hardly de rigueur in the RM crowd.
    I pause, long enough to get my game voice on – sort of. ‘Not