The Brothers Cabal

by Jonathan L. Howard

  ‘The Risen?’ Horst looked closely at Lady Misericorde. The paleness brought on by long hours away from the sun, the intense gaze of a driven personality and a keen intellect, the chemical burns on her fingers. It all seemed very familiar somehow. Then he understood, and almost laughed. ‘You’re a necromancer.’

  She frowned slightly at his tone. ‘I am, my lord. That amuses you?’

  ‘Not in itself, no. Just a coinci … Oh, it doesn’t matter. I’m pleased to meet you,’ he said, silently adding I think. He leaned over and looked at Devlin. ‘Transfigured. Meaning what?’

  Predictably, Devlin took the opportunity to behave in a superior fashion. ‘What? You’re saying you can’t work it out?’

  Horst wasn’t entirely listening. He was looking at the enormous steak on Devlin’s plate, and detecting a scent that was not entirely human. More canine, but somehow moderated. He made the obvious guess based on it. ‘You’re either a lycanthrope, or you need to stop sleeping with dogs,’ he said. ‘You stink of mutt.’

  There was an awkward silence. Then Devlin laughed drily. ‘Right first time.’ He returned his attention to his steak. ‘You were right the first time.’

  Misericorde, who appeared to have been bracing herself for a confrontation, looked in some wonderment at Devlin, then at Horst with a slight smile albeit one still topped with a frown of curiosity. She returned to eating her own dinner of chicken and green vegetables.

  If she was tacitly congratulating him on his muscular approach to diplomacy, Horst knew it was ill deserved. Devlin was not backing down; he was biding his time. Still, trouble piled up in the future may conceivably be avoided, a luxury unavailable when trouble is toe-to-toe and breathing heavily in one’s face. He would deal with Devlin when the time arose, by which he meant he would avoid Devlin, or buy him a beer and let bygones be bygones, or perhaps simply tear his head from his shoulders and drink deep from the fountain of arterial blood rising from the fool’s still-beating heart.

  Horst blinked. Where had that come from? Furthermore, why did his mouth water at the prospect?

  He could smell blood, and he could hear the sound of one of the servants approaching, hear the weave of the cloth of the servant’s trousers brushing so near absolutely silently as to make almost, almost no difference. But he could hear it, hear the tiny creak of joints in the man’s ankles, hear the slop of liquid in a bowl.

  Then it was in front of him, a red circle of blood in a gleaming white circle of the soup bowl against the matte whiteness of the tablecloth. His silverware sparkled so brightly, the orange light of the wall sconces and the great fire in the fireplace in the wall behind him, and how had he not noticed it before, when it stank of smoke and dry wood and coal? His silverware sparkled so brightly, the pale yellow light, so close to white, reflected there, falling from the great chandelier now refitted with electric light bulbs, a nod to modernity or perhaps an embracing of it, and yet Horst was aware of it all, the sound of Devlin’s knife as he sawed through his steak with an anger he thought he was hiding and the sound of Misericorde’s throat as she swallowed her food, her fine white throat. And Horst’s mind ravened and whirled within his head—there was too much, too much world to deal with sanely, too many sensations and thoughts, his mind was losing its grip. But that was fine. That was good.

  There was a new way of thinking just waiting to be accepted. All he had to do was let it go, all that detritus he’d carried around with him, those inefficient ways of thinking, what his brother would have called thought processes. Cloying, filled with muck that just hurt as he tried to think through it, how did he, how did they, how had he ever put up with this garbage, this filth blocking his mind?

  He looked at the red circle, and his head drooped a little towards it. He inhaled and the smell of death filled his senses. His hand shifted across the tablecloth until the tips of his fingers touched the tip of the soupspoon’s handle. Some of the filthy mess in his mind suggested perhaps he might like croutons with that? What did that even mean? How did that do anything but waste time and effort that might be more profitably used?

  Distracted by the clash of thoughts, somehow the words slipped out.

  ‘I think I’d like croutons with this.’

  The three men across from him looked at him with expressions varying from bemusement to mild amusement. The Lady Misericorde, however, laughed. A quiet laugh, true, and one that was as much a release of tension after the scene with Devlin as much as anything else. It was still a laugh, however—an honest, unforced laugh, and it reminded Horst suddenly exactly what the point of saying such things is.

  The mess in his mind became familiar instead of alien, and the clarity of thought that had abhorred it so withdrew into the shadows where it had lain for such a long time. With a careful, gentle impetus delivered through the thumbs and forefingers of both hands, Horst pushed the bowl away from him.

  ‘I will not feed like this,’ he said. He glared across the table at these men, these rich, powerful men who had gone to so much trouble to bring him here because of something they desired so much they could not easily express it. ‘Blood in a wine glass. Blood in a soup bowl. Are you mocking me?’

  Without waiting for a reply, he rose and walked out, the abruptness of his action catching the servants by surprise such that when he reached the door, nobody was in place to open it for him. He opened it himself and enjoyed doing it, leaving the diners staring at an ajar door since he could not even concern himself enough to slam it behind him.

  Chapter 3

  IN WHICH HORST MEETS THE HELP AND THERE IS MILD SAUCINESS

  Horst located his chambers by the simple expedient of finding a passing servant and demanding to be led to them. Although Horst had never seen the man before, the footman seemed very aware of who Horst was, taking him there with marked swiftness and courtesy. Horst could smell the fear on the man, and it took a conscious effort not to predate on him to make up for his interrupted dinner. Oh, yes, he told himself, because feeding on the help shows so much more panache than lapping blood from a soup plate. He wasn’t sure if it was the thought of drinking blood, or how it was taken, or from whom it was taken, but whatever it was, it disgusted him and the footman was allowed to scuttle away with whatever decorum he could summon the moment the door of Horst’s rooms was opened.

  As a boy Horst had read far too many lurid romances full of sword fights, towering castles, inscrutable Orientals, luxuriant potentates, evil uncles, poisons unknown to science, and some kissing. Despite the broadening and heightening such material had provided his imagination, his chambers still caused him a moment of astonishment as he stepped inside. There was an antechamber, which was something of a surprise in itself, as he wasn’t used to bedrooms having architectural overtures in this fashion. There was a maid reading on a chaise longue on the right as he entered. Ruffled by his unexpected appearance, she threw the book under a cushion and leapt to her feet, smoothing down her skirt as she did so.

  ‘Who are you?’ demanded Horst, his own surprise manifesting as curtness.

  ‘Alisha, mein Herr. My lord,’ she said, the correction following the error without hesitation. ‘I am part of your staff.’

  ‘Are you? Well, that’s…’ He stopped to consider whether he had heard aright. ‘Staff? I have staff?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. Myself and Herman.’ Horst could almost see the train of thoughts as she expressed inner irritation with a slight tautening of her brow, followed by grudging esprit de corps by a wry drawing back of one side of her mouth, and then finally re-engaging him with frank eye contact. ‘We weren’t expecting you quite so soon. I apologise for both of us, my lord.’

  For his answer, Horst walked past her and recovered her book from its hiding place. ‘The Art of War?’ He looked at her quizzically. ‘I’ll be honest. I wasn’t expecting this. I expected a novel with…’ He quickly ran through the usual activities practised within novels in his experience, discarding most of the subject matters as he went. ‘… kissing, p
rimarily. I don’t suppose Sun Tzu has much to say about kissing. Does he? I don’t know. I’ve never read it.’

  ‘I’m sorry, my lord. I’m not supposed to read on duty.’

  ‘No?’ He wafted the slim volume at her. ‘Funny sort of book for a maid to be reading.’

  Again the eye contact, and there was a flicker of anger there. ‘I’m trying to improve myself,’ she said. The anger guttered out. ‘Please don’t report me, my lord.’

  ‘Very well. I shan’t, on one condition and for one reason. The condition is that when those stuffed suits aren’t around to be outraged, you call me “Horst”.’

  ‘Of course, my Lord Horst.’

  ‘Don’t be awkward. Just Horst. And the reason is’—he smiled, feeling a lot more human in himself—‘you share my mother’s name, Alisha.’* He tossed the book to her. She caught it easily. ‘Best hide that a bit better in future. Don’t want them thinking you’re getting ideas above your station or anything seditious like that.’

  ‘Thank you, my…’ She saw his eyebrow rise and stopped herself. ‘Thank you … Horst.’

  ‘There. That wasn’t so hard, was it? Right.’ He walked to the antechamber’s inner door and rested his fingers on the handle. ‘Let’s see what this lot thinks is suitable lodgings for a dead man.’ His smile slipped. ‘You do know I’m dead, don’t you? Technically, anyway.’

  Alisha nodded. ‘We were told what … you are.’

  Horst sighed. ‘Good. Much as I love surprises, some things shouldn’t be, you know? Looking after one of the undead—effortlessly charismatic and supernaturally charming, I grant you, but nevertheless, a dead bloke—it’s not something that should just be foisted upon you. That doesn’t really make for a good work experience, does it?’

  ‘I’m enjoying it so far.’

  Horst dropped his hand to his side and turned to regard her. ‘Are you? Really?’

  She shrugged. ‘You’re not at all what I was expecting.’

  He laughed, a little bark of a laugh that made her jump. ‘I don’t think I’m at all what your employers were expecting, either.’ He swung the door open and walked in.

  Somebody had been reading too many novels of the sort Horst had once favoured, and then topped them off with a course in interior decorating. The walls were papered in a deep maroon pattern detailed in crimson, and it took a moment of déjà vu involving memories of several mid-market restaurants before he realised that the colours were those of venous and arterial blood respectively, at least by intent. The overall effect was of trying rather too hard.

  He smiled ruefully. He was no lord, no matter what people kept telling him. A real lord would probably have harsh things to say about such decor. ‘Déclassé,’ he muttered quietly to himself. Not quite quietly enough as it turned out, as Alisha appeared beside him.

  ‘Hmmm,’ she said, looking around and nodding. ‘It is dead classy, isn’t it?’

  Horst laughed. ‘It’s just as well I’ve given you leave to be familiar, because some people would be kicking you around the room by now for your damned impudence. I gather you’re new to the whole business of being in service?’

  Alisha looked a little crestfallen. ‘I’m sorry. I’m not doing a very good job of it, am I?’

  Horst was only half listening. The large room he was in was some sort of reception room or possibly a lounge, full of candle stands, overstuffed sofas, and low tables. He looked around and saw a door standing open. This, he gathered, was the bedroom, although the bed itself was no longer in evidence. Instead, his coffin stood on an impressive bier of red and black silk, each corner guarded by a tall floor-standing candelabra, each bearing three black candles.

  ‘Oh, good heavens,’ he said to Alisha. ‘Will you look at that? It’s all very pretty and everything, but how’s a chap supposed to get in there?’ He took a couple of steps closer, craning his head to see further into the room. ‘Is there a footstool or anything handy? All those candles are a dreadful fire hazard, too. You’d think they’d have electrical lighting in here, all the money that’s washing around, wouldn’t you?’

  He received no answer, and turning to Alisha, found her wearing an expression that contained elements of amusement and puzzlement. ‘Have I said something funny?’ he asked.

  ‘No, my … No, Horst. Just … well, it’s just that you’re really not what I was expecting.’

  ‘Oh?’ Horst noticed the one remaining window in the chambers—arched double French windows opening onto a semi-circular balcony. He could guess from the proportions of the room where other windows might have been, but for all their failures in the choosing of colours, whoever had prepared the chamber had done an exemplary job of filling and covering the old openings for there was no trace of them at all. ‘And what were you expecting? This faces north, then?’

  ‘Just something … somebody more … yes, that’s north … somebody a bit more…’

  Horst reached the balcony and leaned on the stone balustrade. Looking over the edge, he could see the sheer curved wall of the castle’s corner tower extend into the gloom, to its foundations within a narrow grass-covered bank, beyond which a moderately sized river crept sluggishly by, protecting the castle within its natural meander. ‘The part?’ he asked.

  ‘A bit more scary,’ admitted Alisha.

  For a moment Horst felt a sort of dizziness, but it was nothing to do with vertigo induced by the view, or even any sense of instability—physical or psychic—that he had ever experienced before. He felt divorced from everything for a moment, more invulnerable than the great castle, and with a sense that he would outlive it. Everything seemed so small, so ephemeral, so insignificant. Everything but he himself. He looked at his hands resting upon the cold ancient stone of the balustrade rail, pitted by time, and imagined himself holding the world in them, imagined himself crushing it. It felt easy. He looked over his shoulder at Alisha. She recoiled a little at his expression, the distance in his eyes. ‘My dear, dear Alisha,’ he said. ‘I can be a great deal more scary.’

  He looked back out into the night again, but his eyes were closed. Inside the mansion of his mind, he was putting snakes back into boxes.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said eventually. ‘I’ve been given a role, and I keep finding myself playing it instead of myself.’ Alisha did not answer and, when he turned to look at her, he found her gone. ‘Nicely done,’ he said out loud to the empty room. ‘Wonderful that a year’s contact with Johannes ended up with his social skills rubbing off on me and not vice versa. That worked out well.’

  Or maybe it was mutual, he mused. Perhaps right that moment Johannes was in a tavern somewhere, employing a warm eye, an easy smile, and an insouciant line in chat to add new recruits to his coterie of adoring women. Horst smiled at the image, until it faltered at the memory of why Johannes would never do such a thing, would never betray the one woman he’d sacrificed so much for. Then the smile vanished altogether. Of course. Silly of him. His brother was dead and in Hell. How had he forgotten that, he wondered. After all, Horst had put Johannes there himself.

  He looked at the clock, suddenly eager to be back in his coffin and insensible. Things usually seemed better when he was incapable of thought. The hour was late, but only to the diurnal. He realised he wasn’t even sure of the time of year. There was a nip in the air and he had a feeling it was early autumn even if the leaves hadn’t started falling yet. Still, it could be early spring. Nobody had even told him what year it was. Perhaps that was because he hadn’t asked anyone. It had all seemed so stupendously irrelevant in the days immediately after his re-rebirth when it had all seemed a little dreamlike. But now he was up to his knees in rich men not explaining things to him, and lady necromancers, and men whom he disliked for reasons that he appreciated weren’t just to do with how they wore their cravat. Now he realised he would have to start being more methodical, not really for reasons of self-preservation nearly so much as curiosity. He’d been dead twice now, and was beginning to understand why it had concerned J
ohannes so little.

  There had been nothingness.

  Horst frowned. Why hadn’t he gone to Heaven or Hell? Johannes had been very vocal about his scorn for the former and personal animosity for the latter. Shouldn’t Horst have found himself in one place or the other? It was a peculiar sort of theological question and not the sort that was best suited for answering by a priest, should one be handy within the castle, and that seemed remarkably unlikely. Again, Horst found himself wishing Johannes was about. It was a shame about the whole sending-his-brother-to-Hell thing. It had seemed like a good and moral thing to do, but now it was turning out to be a bloody nuisance. Where was he supposed to find a necromancer at that time of night?

  There was a gentle, perhaps nervous tap at his door. Before he could say anything, the door opened and Lady Misericorde leaned around the edge. ‘I hope I’m not intruding, my lord,’ she said, despite the very obvious fact that she was. ‘There was nobody around so I just…’ She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

  ‘Ah,’ said Horst regretfully. ‘I appear to have frightened away my maid. I hope she comes back.’

  ‘I doubt she has any choice,’ said Misericorde, smiling a little wanly. ‘The castle is very secure. She can’t just walk out.’

  ‘That sounds like the voice of experience.’ He waved vaguely at one of the ludicrously over-appointed ottoman sofas, dripping with cushions and decadence. ‘I’m forgetting my manners. Please, sit.’

  She looked at the sofa and shook her head. ‘I dislike seats without backs. I’ll forget myself, lean back, and fall over, and where shall my dignity be then? I shall stand.’

  Horst half smiled. He regarded her shrewdly. ‘That accent of yours. Not quite German and not quite French. Are you from the Alsace?’