Trent Jamieson - Death Most Definite (Death Works)

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Copyright 2010 by Trent Jamieson

Excerpt from Managing Death copyright 2010 by Trent Jamieson

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

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First eBook Edition: August 2010

ISBN: 978-0-316-08542-7

They may not be able to see her but they can feel her, even if it lacks the intensity of my own experience. Electricity crackles up my spineand something else, somethingbleak and looming like a premonition.

Shes so close now I could touch her. My hearts accelerating, even before she opens her mouth, which Ive already decided,ridiculously, impossibly, that I want to kiss. I cant make up my mind whether that means Im exceedingly shallow or prescient.I dont know what Im thinking because this is such unfamiliar territory: total here-be-dragons kind of stuff.

She blinks that dead person blink, looks at me as though Im some puzzle to be solved. Doesnt she realize its the otherway around? She blinks again, and whispers in my ear, Run.

D EATH W ORKS

Death Most Definite

Managing Death

For Diana

But lo, a stir is in the air!

E DGAR A LLAN P OE , T HE C ITY IN THE S EA

Brace yourselves.

O LD RM H UMOUR

I know somethings wrong the moment I see the dead girl standing in the Wintergarden food court.

She shouldnt be here. Or I shouldnt. But no one else is working this. Id sense them if they were. My phones hardly helpful.There are no calls from Number Four, and thats a serious worry. I should have had a heads-up about this: a missed call, atext, or a new schedule. But theres nothing. Even a Stirrer would be less peculiar than what I have before me.

Christ, all I want is my coffee and a burger.

Then our eyes meet and Im not hungry anymore.

A whole food courts worth of shoppers swarm between us, but from that instant of eye contact, its just me and her, and thatindefinable something. A bit of deja vu. A bit of lightning. Her eyes burn into mine, and theres a gentle, mocking curl to her lips that is gorgeous; it hits mein the chest.

This shouldnt be. The dead dont seek you out unless there is no one (or no thing) working their case: and that just doesnthappen. Not these days. And certainly not in the heart of Brisbanes CBD.

She shouldnt be here.

This isnt my gig. This most definitely will not end well. The girl is dead; our relationship has to be strictly professional.

She has serious style.

Im not sure I can pinpoint what it is, but its there, and its unique. The dead project an image of themselves, normallyin something comfortable like a tracksuit, or jeans and a shirt. But this girl, her hair shoulder length with a ragged cut,is in a black, long-sleeved blouse, and a skirt, also black. Her legs are sheathed in black stockings. Shes into silver jewelery,and what I assume are ironic brooches of Disney characters. Yeah, serious style, and a strong self-image.

And her eyes.

Oh, her eyes. Theyre remarkable, green, but flecked with gray. And those eyes are wide, because shes deadnewly deadandI dont think shes come to terms with that yet. Takes a while: sometimes it takes a long while.

I yank pale ear buds from my ears, releasing a tinny splash of London Calling into the air around me.

The dead girl, her skin glowing with a bluish pallor, comes toward me, and the crowd between us parts swiftly and unconsciously.They may not be able to see her but they can feel her, even if it lacks the intensity of my own experience. Electricity crackles up my spineand something else, somethingbleak and looming like a premonition.

Shes so close now I could touch her. My hearts accelerating, even before she opens her mouth, which Ive already decided,ridiculously, impossibly, that I want to kiss. I cant make up my mind whether that means Im exceedingly shallow or prescient.I dont know what Im thinking because this is such unfamiliar territory: total here-be-dragons kind of stuff.

She blinks that dead person blink, looks at me as though Im some puzzle to be solved. Doesnt she realize its the otherway around? She blinks again, and whispers in my ear, Run.

And then someone starts shooting at me.

Not what I was expecting.

Bullets crack into the nearest marble-topped tables. One. Two. Three. Shards of stone sting my cheek.

The food court surges with desperate motion. People scream, throwing themselves to the ground, scrambling for cover. But notme. She said run, and I run: zigging and zagging. Bent down, because Im tall, easily a head taller than most of the peoplehere, and far more than that now that the majority are on the floor. The shooters after me; well, thats how Im taking it.Lying down is only going to give them a motionless target.

Now, Im in OK shape. Im running, and a gun at your back gives you a good head of steam. Hell, Im sprinting, hurdling tables,my long legs knocking lunches flying, my hands sticky with someones spilt Coke. The dead girls keeping up in that effortlessway dead people have: skimming like a drop of water over a glowing hot plate.

Were out of the food court and down Elizabeth Street. In the open, traffic rumbling past, the Brisbane sun a hard light overhead.The dead girls still here with me, throwing glances over her shoulder. Where the light hits her shes almost translucent.Sunlight and shadow keep revealing and concealing at random; a hand, the edge of a cheekbone, the curve of a calf.

The gunshots coming from inside havent disturbed anyones consciousness out here.

Shootings arent exactly a common event in Brisbane. They happen, but not often enough for people to react as you might expect.All they suspect is that someone needs to service their car more regularly, and that theres a lanky bearded guy, possiblylate for something, his jacket bunched into one fist, running like a madman down Elizabeth Street. I turn left into Edward,the nearest intersecting street, and then left again into the pedestrian-crammed space of Queen Street Mall.

I slow down in the crowded walkway panting and moving with the flow of people; trying to appear casual. I realize that myphones been ringing. I look at it, at arms length, like the monkey holding the bone in 2001: A Space Odyssey. All Ive got on the screen is Missed Call, and Private Number. Probably someone from the local DVD shop calling to tellme I have an overdue rental, which, come to think of it, I doI always do.

Youre a target, the dead girl says.

No shit! Im thinking about overdue DVDs, which is crazy. Im thinking about kissing her, which is crazier still, and impossible.I havent kissed anyone in a long time. If I smoked this would be the time to light up, look into the middle distance andsay something like: Ive seen trouble, but in the Wintergarden, on a Tuesday at lunchtime, cmon! But if I smoked Id beeven more out of breath and gasping out questions instead, and theres some (well, most) types of cool that I just cant pulloff.