'You know you can't go there. There's no air, for one, none that you can breathe, anyway.' I drop back down next to her, rest my chin on my hand. 'Are you concerned about me spending the wee small hours of the morning with another woman?'
Lissa purses her lips. 'No, of course not, but the Deepest Dark's a bloody odd choice.'
Lissa's been there. She wasn't alive at the time. I don't know how much she remembers, but she certainly doesn't look too keen to return.
I shrug. 'It was her decision.'
'Don't let Suzanne Whitman make your decisions for you.'
'I won't. No one makes decisions for me but me. You're starting to sound like you don't like her.'
'I don't.'
'And why's that?'
Lissa rolls away and pulls the sheets over her head. Then reaches out and switches off the light. 'I need to sleep,' she says. The shift to the Deepest Dark is a blazing supernova of agony in my skull.
It's really that bad.
I arrive bent over and coughing. Desperate as I am not to show any weakness, it's as good as I can do.
It's a moment until I'm aware of my surroundings.
The creaking of the One Tree permeates everything because, in a way, the One Tree is everything in the Underworld and the Deepest Dark. The sound rises to us through the dark soil beneath our feet, it builds in my bones. To say that it is loud is to emphasise one aspect of it to the detriment of everything else. It is a sound against which every other sound is registered.
And this place is hardly silent. The dead whisper here, a breathy, scratchy, continuous whispering. They release their last secrets before ascending into a greater secret above.
Up and down are relative in the Deepest Dark. Around us, through dust and soil that comes directly from the Underworld, wend the root tips of the One Tree: each is the width of my thigh. In the Deepest Dark we are beneath Hell itself. The air smells of blood, ash and humus. It's a back of the throat kind of bouquet. Not the best thing when you're already gagging.
Suzanne doesn't speak until I'm standing straight, and I've wiped a hand across my mouth. 'You're late.'
I make a show of peering at the green glowing dial of my watch. 'I'd hardly call thirty seconds late.' I'm being deliberately provocative. I find it helps when people think you're stupider than you are. It's about the only advantage I have.
Suzanne smiles thinly. Her dark eyes regard me impassively.
Suzanne's got a Severe – yes, with a capital S – sort of Southern Gothic thing going on. Her hair is cut into a bob. A black dress follows sharp lines down her lean body. Pale and muscular limbs jut from the sleeves. It's certainly not sensible garb for the cold fringes of the Underworld. She could be going out for the night, or about to chair a meeting. If she could get away with it in the Deepest Dark, if it wasn't so dark, I guess she'd be wearing black sunglasses. She glances at the tracksuit pants and tatty old jumper I'm wearing beneath my dad's old duffel coat, and sniffs.
'So, Suzanne, just what is it that you can do for me?'
She smiles condescendingly. 'I chose this place because it is important to you.'
Above us the sky is luminous with souls, glowing faintly red, heading out through the ether to wherever souls go once life and the Underworld is done with them. It should be peaceful except there's a great spiralling void, like a photo negative of a galaxy, eating up one corner of the sky, and it's getting bigger. The Stirrer god.
In the distance, maybe a kilometre away, is Devour, the Stirrer city. Its high walls glow a colour very similar to my watch. I rode a bike through there a few months ago, fleeing for my life and for the life of the woman I love.
That Stirrer god, though, is hard to ignore. It's a sinister dark stain on the pants front of Hell and it's getting bigger. Sometimes it's a great eye, as I remember it, sometimes a million eyes, staring down. Leering at the Underworld.
I've felt the weight of the god's vast and angry gaze upon me, and I've stared back at it. So I've a personal stake in all of this, but then when that god arrives, life itself, from bacteria up, will be under threat. It's amazing, though, just how much people are pretending that it isn't going to happen. RMs, my colleagues. People who should know better.
'You chose this place because you knew it gives you an advantage over me,' I say.
'What a cynic.'
'I prefer to call it realism.' I point towards the dark god in the sky. 'Maybe it's just too big. Maybe it's something that we can't do anything about at all. But we have to try.'
'What do you know about that thing up there?' she asks.
'That the Stirrers worship it and that it's drawing closer. What else is there?'
Suzanne waves her hand dismissively, as though the Stirrer god was nothing more than a buzzing insect. 'Look, I want to offer you a deal. Think about all the resources you would have at your disposal. My offices, my staff – they're much bigger than yours. And that difference in staffing is even larger now after your little problem.'
The 'little' problem she's referring to, the one that led to my promotion, wiped out Mortmax's Australian offices and, almost, due to a minor Regional Apocalypse, Australia's living population. Workplace politics can be genocidal in my line of business. And when things get that way they have a tendency to spill out into the world. The Spanish Flu, the Black Death – they were both preceded by 'problems' in my industry.
'You let that happen, too.' I glare at her. None of the RMs stepped in to help. In the end it had been left up to me. 'All of you are guilty of that.'
Suzanne's eyes narrow just enough that I know I've got to her. 'You know the rules,' she says, 'our hands were tied. Morrigan manipulated us.'
Morrigan manipulated me more than anyone. But I'm not going to let Suzanne get away with her comment. 'Excuses aren't going to save the world. Morrigan was small time compared to that.' I point at the Stirrer god amassing on the horizon.
Suzanne raises her hands placatingly. 'I have my best people working on it,' she says. I open my mouth to speak but she jumps in first. 'But that's not why I'm here. You need me.'
'Like a coronary.' My turn for a condescending grin.
Suzanne grimaces, though I can see that I've amused her, which makes me a little grumpier. 'Try not to be so aggressive. Yes, this is scary for you, Steven, I understand that. You're a newly negotiated RM, in the process of building up your Pomps. It's going to be years before you're at full strength. You're vulnerable. You can barely shift without throwing up.'
Fair assessment so far. But I can't let 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.'