Tim throws me a small spray can of deodorant. I manage to catch it before it hits my head. Then he hurls a pack of breath mints. Not so lucky with those, they skitter all over the desk. I scoop up a few of them.
'I'm guessing you didn't clean your teeth before you headed over here,' Tim says.
'You guessed wrong. Anything else?' I pop a handful of mints into my mouth, regardless.
'Oh, I haven't started yet.' His hands rest on his hips. 'You cut it this fine again, and you can find yourself another Ankou.'
'Where am I going to find one as good as you?'
'Exactly. Which is why you are never going to do this again. Now, I've been thinking about this Death Moot -'
'Is Cerbo here?' I interrupt.
'Not yet. Wonder of wonders, we've actually got five minutes.'
'Good. I had a meeting with Suzanne Whitman last night.'
'And you have only told me this now because…?'
'Look, it was late. I didn't want to wake you. At least you can sleep.'
'Still having trouble, eh?'
'Shit, Tim, I've been whingeing about this for a month.'
'Pardon me if I've been too busy to notice.' And as if to prove his point, his mobile starts ringing.
He looks at it. 'It's only mildly urgent,' he says. 'I'll call them back.'
Tim slips his phone into his pocket and smiles at me. 'Now, this is interesting, really interesting. If the US RM is so keen to negotiate, the others can't be too far behind. What did she want?'
'She said she wanted to help.'
Neither of us successfully choke down the laugh that follows.
'Said I could do with an ally.'
Another snort.
Tim checks his watch. 'We'd better get to your office. Cerbo will be there in a minute.' We walk past the desks of Pomps and the hallway that sits in the middle of the office, the one that leads directly to Aunt Neti's parlour. She's baking scones or muffins or biscuits; the smell drifts down the hall. Probably expecting a visitor. I can't help wondering who.
My office is a bit stuffy. I switch on the lights and the aircon. It's your basic sort of corner office, except for Brueghel's painting, 'The Triumph of Death' against one wall (not a copy, the real thing, all those skeletons bringing on the apocalypse, herding the living to Hell) and the throne, of course.
I drop into the throne, and my region immediately grows more vital around me. The beating hearts, the creaking tree.
Sitting in my throne I feel what Tim's reports can only tell me. We're stretched painfully thin. My Pomps are struggling out there. It might be a picture of industry in the offices, but it's little more than a veneer painted over chaos. I've been ignoring this for far too long.
'We need more staff,' I say to Tim.
'Lissa's doing the best she can,' he says irritably. 'It's not exactly easy to advertise for Pomps. There's a whole bunch of stages that we have to steer people through. I think it's remarkable that we have as many staff as we do.'
'We've got to do better.'
'You could take a more active role. That might help,' Tim says sharply.
'I'm doing the best I can,' I say, mimicking his tone.
Tim groans, shakes his head. 'How about a unified front?'
'Yeah, how about it?'
'Sometimes you piss me off, de Selby.'
I grin at him. 'That's what family is for.'
'Maybe that's why I decided to become a Black Sheep.'
'Nah, you can't escape it no matter what you do. As long -' and I stop myself there. I was going to say as long as there is family left, but there isn't that much family remaining. There are some things neither of us are ready to joke about.
I'm almost relieved that Faber Cerbo shifts into the foyer at that moment. Apparently Ankous can do that, if their RM is sufficiently skilled. Morrigan could, and it didn't seem to hurt him, either, the prick. Cerbo's appearance is presaged by a slight pressure in my skull. His heartbeat, a sudden addition to my region, is loud – like you'd expect from an Ankou – even louder than Tim's, and at a steady sixty beats per minute.
I glance at my watch. He is exactly thirty seconds late, and I can't help feeling that Suzanne is making a point. Lundwall – heartbeat ninety-three bpm, up from seventy, now that Cerbo has appeared at his desk – leads him into the room.
Faber Cerbo, like any self-respecting Pomp, is in a suit. We all are, here. As though Death was truly like any other business. Well, we can pretend. The real reason is the vast number of funerals we attend and morgues and mortuaries we visit. In those places a suit makes you virtually invisible – even in Brisbane on a forty degree day. Unlike Tim and I, Cerbo is wearing a hat, a bowler. That, and the pencil-thin moustache, make him look like a mash-up of a British accountant from the thirties and the filmmaker John Waters, and are completely at odds with his Texan accent. I've never liked wearing hats, they mess up my hair. But it suits him, somehow. Gripped in his left hand, his nails coated with black nail polish, is a brown leather folder.
Cerbo doffs his bowler, and rolls his shoulders. Bones click with the movement.
I don't get up from my throne, in fact I make a point of swinging back on it, looking as casual as I can. After all, here I am in the seat of my power, so to speak. It is poor form to neglect it.
I nod at Cerbo and gesture to one of the chairs in front of the desk. He gives a swift and slightly mocking bow – well, I think it's mocking, and if I can't be sure, the odds are high. My rise to RM was something of a shock to a lot of people – myself included – and I'm not treated as seriously as I could be. But then again, it fits into my tactic. Just grin and let them think you're stupid.
Tim shakes his hand. Cerbo gives him a warm smile then sits down, so lightly it's as if he's hardly sitting at all. He puts the folder on the table.
'My mistress says she met with you last evening, Mr de Selby.' He gives Tim a pained look, and Tim nods sympathetically. I wonder what Ankous say about their bosses when they're not around. Hell, Morrigan ran over Mr D with an SUV. Maybe we push them to it.
'Yes, we had an interesting chat.'
'Unfortunately, since I have not been appraised of your chat,' another pained look in Tim's direction, 'I can only tell you what it is that I was briefed on, and hope that our topics of conversation are in some way sympathetic.'
He opens his folder, extracts a single sheet of paper, and slides it towards me, pushing aside a half-dozen unopened envelopes, a Mars Bar wrapper, and a scrunched up packet of salt and vinegar chips. We all jump back a little when a cockroach scurries out of the chip packet. Tim whacks it with a packet of envelopes, misses, and the insect's off and running towards a distant corner of the room. Tim glances at me. OK, so I need to clean up a little. Cerbo doesn't say a word (his pursed lips and raised eyebrows are enough) and deposits the sheet of paper in front of me.
The number 10 is written across the sheet in black marker.
I look from it, to Cerbo, then to Tim, then back to the paper. I shrug. 'And this means what? You're shifting to the metric system?'
Cerbo gives out a rather theatrical sigh, as though it's painfully obvious what the number represents. 'That, Mr de Selby, is the number of Pomps Ms Whitman is willing to add to your ranks from her own.'
I raise an eyebrow and lean across the desk, my elbow crunching down on the chip packet. 'And what is expected of me if I accept?'