The Brothers Cabal

by Jonathan L. Howard

  ‘You haven’t mentioned exactly why he wanted revenge on you in the first place. Professional jealousy?’

  ‘Oh, he’d got the idea I’d killed his father from somewhere.’

  ‘And … had you?’

  ‘No. I destroyed his father, but he was already dead at the time.’

  Horst raised his eyebrows, which he felt showed impressive self-control under the circumstances. ‘You destroyed his father’s corpse?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cabal emphatically. ‘The idiot had already killed himself, so there was no point in his son becoming so very upset over it.’

  Horst shook his head. ‘I feel I’m missing some important factor here. If Maleficarus Senior was already dead, why did you destroy his body?’

  ‘Because he was trying to kill me at the time,’ said Cabal, surprised at having to explain such an obvious thing.

  ‘His son was trying to kill you, so you destroyed the father’s body?’

  Cabal looked at him as if realising his brother was actually a complete nincompoop. ‘No,’ he said. ‘This was long before I even knew there was a son. The father tried to kill me.’

  ‘Before he killed himself?’

  ‘After he killed himself. Really, Horst, this isn’t complicated.’

  Horst grimaced. ‘I would accuse you of having an unnecessarily convoluted lifestyle, but then I remember that I’m a vampire on the run from a huge supernatural conspiracy. Very well; so this all boils down to Rufus Maleficarus would be dangerous enough with a box of matches, never mind the keys of life and death? Is that it?’

  ‘You have it. Conspiracy or not, Maleficarus is too dangerous to have running around, summoning monsters and wearing bad tweed. For that alone, I would join you.’

  ‘“For that alone”?’ Horst looked seriously at Cabal. ‘You have other motivations?’

  ‘They are legion. They somehow raised Maleficarus as a functional human being. Well, at least as functional as he was before I shot him. That is very interesting, and I intend to discover how they did it.’

  ‘They raised me, too. Somehow,’ said Horst.

  Cabal looked at him and frowned. ‘Yes. About that. I honestly had no idea that it was a possibility, Horst. You know that, don’t you? I would have tried if I had but known.’

  ‘I didn’t die in an accident. Not the second time.’ Horst’s tone was cold. ‘I wouldn’t have thanked you.’

  ‘No,’ admitted Cabal. ‘No, I doubt you would have.’ He coughed, embarrassed. ‘Although that is another major reason that I am offering my help. If the Dee Society had asked me, I would probably have agreed, despite my recent experiences of working with secret organisations. But I would have considered it at greater length than, in reality, I have, and would likely have asked for much in return. I am familiar with the Dee Society, Horst. Their archives are a tar pit for certain books and artefacts. Once the Dee people have their hands on something, it might as well have been destroyed for all the good it will do for certain enterprising individuals.’ He saw how his brother was looking at him. ‘Yes. Like myself.’

  ‘You’d have made them pay for your help in possibly saving the Earth?’

  ‘Don’t overstate affairs.’

  ‘The Ereshkigal Working, Johannes. Rufus Maleficarus still knows it, even if he may have learned not to use it.’

  Cabal nodded. ‘That is fair. But I would still have sought some advantage.’

  Horst suddenly sat upright. ‘My God. Johannes, are you saying that you’re accepting this task because I asked you?’

  Cabal did not reply. Instead he found a loose thread on the eiderdown and fiddled distractedly with it. Horst sat on the side of the bed, embraced his brother around the shoulders with one arm, and rubbed the top of his head with the knuckles of the other.

  ‘Horst!’ snapped Cabal. ‘I am no longer eight years old!’

  Horst kissed him on the top of the head. ‘You’ll always be my little brother, Johannes, even if you look older than me now.’

  ‘Ah, yes. Only you could find the redeeming virtue of vampirism to be savings in male toiletries.’

  Horst rose and looked at Cabal expectantly. ‘You’re with us, then?’

  ‘I’m with you. The rest of the miscreants and ne’er-do-wells you have in your train are pure corollary.’

  ‘Good enough.’ Horst grinned. ‘Well, look at us. The necromancer and the vampire against the forces of elemental evil. The Brothers Cabal ride again!’

  ‘Yeehaw,’ said Cabal evenly.

  Chapter 13

  IN WHICH THE BROTHERS CABAL RIDE AGAIN

  ‘What are the transport arrangements?’ demanded Johannes Cabal, a necromancer, of his brother, Horst, a vampire.

  ‘What makes you think anything has been arranged?’

  Cabal wrinkled his nose irritably. ‘While I have never entirely seen eye to eye with the Dee Society, and while on the rare occasions our paths have crossed there has been some acrimony, harsh words, and a little shooting, I still respect their pedigree and their efficiency. By your own admission, you consulted with this Professor Stone and Fräulein Bartos before heading for England.’ He paused. ‘How exactly did you find me? You had little enough time to stop and ask en route.’

  Horst was many things—dead, for example—but there were times when his natural glibness deserted him in the face of a direct question and traipsed out of the door, taking his ability to dissemble with it. This being one such occasion, he could only smile weakly.

  ‘Ah,’ said his brother, looking at him steadily. ‘I sense the Dee Society at work again. They know where I live?’

  ‘They had a very good idea. I’m sorry, Johannes; they have very nearly chapter and verse on you. The professor is something of an expert on the subject of Herr Cabal the Necromancer. Once he got talking about you, it was hard to shut him up. I think you impress him.’

  ‘Yet they have never seen fit to visit. Perhaps for tea. More likely to kill me and burn the house down. Why would that be?’

  ‘This isn’t going to sound flattering, but let me finish before you lose your temper, yes?’ Cabal’s eyes merely narrowed, which didn’t bode well. ‘It’s because you’re not considered a threat.’ He saw his brother’s eyebrow loft and pressed on rapidly to forestall the storm. ‘They used to. You’re right, Johannes. They were going to get around to dealing with you and your researches at one point. Yes, when I say “dealing with”, I mean killing you and burning this house down. Then they realised that you weren’t the kind of necromancer they were used to “dealing with”. More so since after I … after I took my sabbatical from reality.’ He coughed, embarrassed. ‘The professor tells me that you, well … that you saved the world.’

  Cabal shrugged. ‘Probably. I do a lot of things.’

  Horst gave him a hard look. ‘I mean, saved the world. You. You did.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Cabal innocently. ‘I know. I heard you.’ He looked at his brother, very faintly inquisitive. ‘Which particular time was that?’

  ‘Don’t test me.’

  ‘I’m not. I’ve saved the world on two occasions of which I am aware. You remember our little chat about the Ereshkigal Working? Well, that was once, although it was some time ago, and whatever I have done to unblot my copybook with the Dee Society is apparently more recent than that. A clue, please?’

  Horst did not trust himself to say anything for a long moment. Then he said, ‘Some sort of super wizard.’

  ‘Well, it’s very kind of them to say so, of course, but … Oh, you mean that was the occasion? Then that must be Umtak Ktharl, yes?’

  Horst snapped his fingers. ‘That was the name. Couldn’t remember it. You mean it’s true?’

  ‘Well, of course it’s true. It was very bad luck finding him in the first place, of course, but yes, I extemporised a little and brought things to a satisfactory conclusion. It was also necessary to brutalise an archbishop, thereby combining business with pleasure. Yes, at the risk of apparent conceit, that was a good d
ay’s work.’

  ‘Since when have you cared about appearing conceited?’

  The question took Cabal by the lee, and he was unable to answer immediately. ‘I don’t care. It’s just a turn of phrase.’

  Horst looked at the clock on the chest of drawers. ‘To return to your original question, dawn is three hours away. In an hour or so, Miss Virginia Montgomery will be arriving in her entomopter. It will be the third time she’s crossed Europe by air in the space of a week, and she will then embark on the fourth immediately. You will be in the co-pilot’s seat, and I shall be wrapped in tarpaulin in the cargo space, because being a vampire is so glamorous. So…’ He waved a hand around the room. ‘You’d better get cracking.’

  ‘“Cracking”, he says. “Cracking”,’ muttered Cabal. ‘Might I remind you that I am not at the peak of my physical powers at present. I shall have a bath and a shave, both less leisurely than I would have liked, and then put together some accoutrements that may prove useful. I would be obliged if you could pack a bag of the more mundane necessities for me.’

  Horst folded his arms. ‘I’m not your valet, Johannes.’

  ‘No sensible person would tolerate you as a valet. I am merely asking you to help expedite matters.’ He waved a finger at the wardrobe. ‘Oooh, clothes. How exciting. You love clothes, Horst. Think how much fun you’ll have sorting out some outfits for me.’

  Horst did not unfold his arms and skip joyfully off to the wardrobe. Instead he cocked his head to one side. ‘All your suits, cravats, socks, and shoes are black. All your shirts and underwear are white.’ He looked at the rug by the bed. ‘And your slippers are red tartan. You don’t have outfits, Johannes. You have a uniform.’ He shook his head and went to the wardrobe anyway. ‘Very well. Where’s the suitcase?’

  ‘Under the stairs, as was it ever. Ah, before you start on that, bottom drawer of the chest of drawers, please.’

  Horst opened it. ‘Socks,’ he said, underwhelmed.

  ‘Behind the socks, at the back of the drawer.’

  Horst pulled the drawer most of the way out and paused. ‘Oh. Of course. I forgot the other necessary part of your dress. Johannes, there are two guns here, both in their original packing.’

  ‘There should be three.’

  ‘What?’ Horst picked up a bundle of soft cloth from the corner and unwrapped it. Within was a rolled-up shoulder holster, a semi-automatic pistol secured within it. ‘Not a Webley?’ he said in mock outrage. ‘They’ll be so upset when they hear that you’ve been seeing other gunsmiths.’

  ‘Don’t flaunt your ignorance, Horst. It is a Webley. It holds eight .38 rounds and, as the man in the shop assured me, has decent stopping power. I have decided to start carrying one as a matter of course.’

  ‘What about that big fat revolver you normally use?’

  ‘I shall, of course, continue to carry a Boxer .577 in my bag. Bring that, too. Oh, and the two boxes of ammunition, and the cleaning kit, please.’

  ‘Johannes, there are two .577 revolvers here.’

  ‘They’re both the same. Just bring me one.’

  ‘That’s not what I mean. I mean, you’re bulk buying handguns. What does that say about your lifestyle?’

  ‘It says I’m prudent and farsighted.’

  ‘That’s not all it says.’ Horst put one of the gun boxes on the chest of drawers, stacking a box of .577 and a box of .38 ACP ammunition on it, and then topped the pile with the automatic pistol and holster rewrapped in its cloth to form a convenient load. He picked them up together and turned to Cabal. ‘May I ask what happened to your last revolver?’

  ‘It turned into a sword.’

  ‘Of course it did.’

  ‘And then the ghouls probably stole it.’ Cabal smiled with an expression so close to fondness that it made Horst stare. ‘The naughty rapscallions.’

  * * *

  Johannes Cabal fairly creaked around the house as he performed his toilette and gathered his necessities. Both were routines he performed efficiently and as quickly as his slightly atrophied musculature would allow. But while the former was a necessity attended to grudgingly, the latter was something in which he took some pleasure.

  The small suitcase, taken from the hallway cupboard beneath the stairs, was wiped down and divested of dust and dead spiders, before Horst set about filling it with assorted items of clothing in black and white (the slippers could stay in the house, he decided). Cabal, however, took himself up into the attic laboratory, recovered a retired but serviceable Gladstone bag from beneath his workbench, and started to fill it with the accoutrements of an ungentlemanly necromancer. A standardised notebook,* a roll of cloth containing pockets in which nestled assorted surgical instruments, a small padded box of about the dimensions required to hold a pair of opera glasses yet which actually contained several sealed test tubes in which liquids and powders of strange creation and composition flowed, the two boxes of ammunition now lightened by several rounds, and—freshly emerged from its packaging, cleaned, and loaded—a Webley Boxer pistol of outrageous calibre.

  In a little over an hour he was almost ready. He dropped a switchblade knife into his jacket pocket, took a cane topped with a silver skull from the umbrella stand in the hall, slid blue-glass spectacles equipped with side-baffles into his breast pocket, and took down a slouch-brimmed black hat from the cloak rack.

  As he brushed the thin layer of dust that had settled upon it during his absence and his recuperation, he said to Horst, ‘I wore this hat to Hell.’ He held the hat up to his nose and inhaled. ‘Still faintly redolent of brimstone. That smell gets everywhere.’

  Horst, waiting by the door with the packed suitcase, said, ‘When a normal person uses a phrase like they wore a hat to Hell, one naturally assumes they just wore it a lot.’

  Cabal smiled slightly and donned the hat. ‘Are you suggesting I’m not normal, O brother mine?’

  ‘You’d be outraged if anyone ever called you normal, O odd sibling. Come on. Our ride should be along soon.’

  They stepped outside into the last hour or so of darkness. Cabal closed, locked, double locked, and performed a small ritual upon the door. To human eyes, it was no more efficacious than saying ‘Bless you’ after a sneeze, but to Horst’s senses, there was a feeling of tautness, as if the building had suddenly been wrapped in ethereal chains, drawn tight.

  ‘Do you ever get the feeling you’re not coming back?’ Horst said, looking up into the old house’s eaves.

  ‘Every time,’ said his brother as he drew on black kid leather gloves. ‘Even when I go out to purchase groceries.’

  ‘Your defences aren’t as good as you think. I walked through them easily enough.’

  ‘They are more than sufficient. They are also highly discerning. I made them thus.’

  ‘Discerning? What, do you mean to say they let me through?’

  Cabal did not answer. He hefted his Gladstone bag and walked down the garden path to the gate. Horst followed him, still talking.

  ‘But you thought I was dead. Really dead. Properly dead. Why would you…?’

  ‘I created a ritual such that the house will defend against intruders, not those who are invited, and not those who call—or called—that house “home”.’ He opened the gate and walked through. ‘It was once your home, too, Horst.’

  Horst picked up the suitcase and followed him out. He watched as his brother closed the gate behind them. ‘I think I feel quite flattered,’ he said.

  ‘As long as it doesn’t overflow into a disgusting display of emotion, you’re welcome,’ said Cabal.

  Then he turned to the garden and addressed it. ‘I was unimpressed by my welcome when last I stood beyond this wall. The terms of our compact are clear.’

  Within the garden, small things watched him with beady little eyes full of malice, guile, and severely limited intelligence.

  ‘We didn’t actually eat you,’ said a tiny wheedling voice.

  ‘I didn’t actually give you the chance, but your
duplicity was evident all the same. Allow me to refresh your obviously faulty memories. I allow you to stay within my front garden on the understanding that you defend the house against all intruders, except the ones I have described, on numerous occasions. Torch-bearing mobs?’

  ‘Eat them!’ chorused the criminally insane fey of Cabal’s garden, a tribe whose stature was inversely proportional to their malevolence.

  ‘Correct. The postman?’

  ‘Eat him!’ they cried joyfully.

  ‘No!’ snapped Cabal. ‘You let the postman by!’

  ‘Oops,’ said the garden. There was some small shuffling while they hid a peaked cap behind a rosebush.

  Cabal grunted angrily. ‘Salesmen?’

  ‘Eat them‽’ came the reply, only half the chorus being entirely sure.

  ‘Yes.’

  Horst leaned into Cabal’s view and mouthed Salesmen? Cabal wafted him away impatiently. ‘Do not worry. We don’t get salesmen out here,’ he said, before adding in an undertone, ‘not anymore, anyway.’ Horst’s acute hearing caught the addendum, but he decided to let it pass for the time being.

  Cabal turned his attention to the garden once more. ‘Johannes Cabal?’

  ‘Eaaaa…’ The word drained away like a sinkful of embarrassing water. There was a heated discussion in the undergrowth. ‘Don’t eat Johannes Cabal,’ they finally said, with none of the enthusiasm of their previous answers.

  ‘And why don’t you eat Johannes Cabal?’

  More discussion. They seemed honestly nonplussed by this for a minute or so. Then one of the brighter ones had a revelation, communicated it to the others, and they took up the cry, ‘The Compact! The Compact!’

  ‘Correct. But not just the Compact between us. Can you think of another reason?’

  Evidently, they could not, although they took a while to admit it. Cabal leaned over the wall and snarled, ‘Remember the Skirtingboard People. You get one warning, and this is it.’