The Fall of the House of Cabal

by Jonathan L. Howard

  He may not have been possessed of fangs and fashion sense, but Johannes Cabal was not without notable qualities, too. One of them was that he was rarely caught at a loss for more than a moment, no matter how dreadful the situation, no matter what the possible repercussions. In the house of his mind, the servants of his personality had permanent standing instructions that, not only was Herr Cabal never at home to Mr Panic, but that Mr Panic should be afforded a good larruping and sent away with a flea in his ear.

  Thus, with no more time to think than was necessary for him to look away, sniff, and nod, a scheme was hatched and committed to wholeheartedly.

  Cabal went to an old workbench in the corner, sorted through a small crate sitting on the corner of the bench’s top, and returned with a short crowbar of the sort known as a jemmy. He handed it to Horst. ‘You can do this more quickly than I. Open the barrel.’

  ‘We’re doing this now?’

  ‘We have little choice.’ Above them, something thudded heavily to the floor, making them both glance up. They looked at one another, their thoughts the same. Cabal nodded at the barrel. ‘Quickly, please.’

  Horst required no further assurance. He drove the bar’s beak into the edge of the lid and levered violently. Perhaps too violently; the topmost hoop strained against the forced stave and threatened to snap. Horst paused, but Cabal said, ‘Break it,’ so he did. Without requiring direction, he shifted his attention to the band around the barrel’s equator. This refused to break, but the stave Horst was levering against moved in, and a curious fluid escaped, colourless and transparent, but seemingly flecked with tiny motes of light, pouring to the floor. Cabal joined in then, taking up a lump hammer from the workbench and smiting the neighbouring staves until they, too, loosened.

  The liquid was escaping rapidly now, and the pressure against the inside of the barrel was diminishing. Horst loosened more staves from where the hoop had dug into them and was finally able to get a good grip on it and pull it up and off the barrel altogether. Without the metal band to hold them in place, the staves required little persuasion to disengage from the barrel’s bottom and fall outwards like the petals of a wooden flower. The brothers leapt back, but were still soaked from the thighs downwards. In the centre of the flower lay the naked corpse of Alisha Bartos, former Prussian spy, former agent of the Dee Society, and victim of a döppelganger ambush.

  ‘I’m glad at least one of us has a jacket,’ said Cabal, kneeling by her in the pool of thaumaturgical liquid. ‘She’s going to get very cold otherwise.’

  ‘Johannes, what about…?’ Horst nodded at the secret laboratory.

  ‘Berenice will be safe. I constructed her resting place with a mind to possible disasters, especially fire. The ceiling is heavily reinforced, as is the cover of her tomb, and I diverted a brook to run through around the walls of the glass coffin to keep it cool. She will be safe. She has to be safe.’

  ‘But all this was for Berenice, really! I mean, wasn’t it? If you use that phial on Alisha—’

  ‘Zarenyia may still have her prize,’ said Cabal. ‘There were five ways. If she no longer has her phial, then I shall find a sixth somewhere, somehow. Now hush. Necromancer at work.’

  He took his cigarillo case from his trouser pocket and opened it. Snuggled safely between a pair of the black cigarillos was his share of the prize. He extracted it, lifted the corpse to a sitting position by him, and leaned back her head so the dead mouth flopped open.

  ‘Oh, gods.’ Horst turned away. ‘I can’t look at her like that.’

  ‘My brother the squeamish vampire,’ said Cabal in an undertone. He flicked off the phial’s lid and, with no ceremony whatsoever, dashed the contents into the cold, lifeless mouth and throat.

  They waited expectantly. After a few moments, Cabal rolled back one of the corpse’s eyelids for something to do in what was becoming a fraught silence. The exposed eye bore the unpromising blue-white glaze of the very dead.

  ‘Any signs of life?’

  Cabal shook his head. ‘I admit, I’m very disappointed. Miss Barrow regained life with great promptitude. Perhaps being within the weave of the Five Ways was part of that effectiveness, or perhaps the length of time post-mortem may—’

  He was interrupted by Fräulein Bartos’s eyelid snapping shut as she reared up in his arms and vomited a spectacular quantity of clearish fluid speckled with silvery glowing motes. ‘That was a third possibility I was considering,’ he told Horst.

  Horst was crouching by her in a second. ‘Alisha! Are you all right? Can you speak?’

  ‘What…?’ She stared wildly at them. ‘What happened?’ She looked around. ‘Where are we? The monsters—’

  ‘The monsters are dead. You’re safe.’

  ‘A very relative statement, given the state of the house,’ muttered Cabal.

  ‘Safe? They speared me, Horst! Straight through me, here!’ She looked down to indicate a place over her heart, and paused.

  ‘Why am I naked? And wet?’

  ‘That,’ said Horst cautiously, ‘is a long story.’

  ‘And we do not currently have the leisure to explain it to you,’ added Cabal. ‘Here’s a jacket. You’re welcome. May we cut along now?’

  ‘Wait, wait.’ She looked narrowly at Cabal. ‘This is your doing, somehow. You’ve done something.’

  Cabal sighed. ‘We are in a burning building. May we cut along now?’

  She looked around her again. ‘What?’

  ‘You’ve been … ill, Alisha. A … coma! Yes, you were in a coma, we’ve been looking after you, you’re all better now, and the house is on fire. We really had better go.’

  ‘A coma?’

  Cabal sighed. ‘My brother’s new euphemism for “dead”. But he’s right about you being all better and the house being on fire. May we cut along, now, before we’re all dead? Please? Yes? Splendid.’

  Alisha Bartos’s legs were weak under her, but Horst was more than delighted to carry her out, at first in an heroic cradle lift and then, after he managed to crack her head on a support beam, in a less heroic but far more practical fireman’s carry, and crabbing his way up the stairs.

  Behind him, Johannes Cabal hesitated and looked across to the unassuming section of wall that hid the entrance to the second laboratory. ‘It’s a setback,’ he whispered to the dead, ‘but it was the right thing to do. You would never have forgiven me if I’d let Fräulein Bartos boil in her barrel. So close. I will never give up.’

  He followed Horst out of the cellar.

  * * *

  The hallway was impassable to mere mortals, so they went the back way and out into the small garden and paved yard there, and thence down the side passage to the front of the building. There they found Dennis and Denzil still engaged in throwing pitiful amounts of water through the broken window, despite Denzil himself being on fire. It was only a small patch of his ancient and horribly stained Casey Jones hat, but it promised to spread over him as surely as the fire was claiming the house, so Cabal told them to desist from fighting the fire and confine themselves to trying to put out Denzil’s hat. This proved challenging until Dennis hit upon the happy strategy of using soil rather than water, the former being more immediately to hand. Denzil sat and patiently waited while Dennis threw handfuls of soil and clods of earth in the general direction of his head. Remarkably, the fire was doused by a lucky hit quite early on, but by then Denzil had forgotten why it was necessary to have soil thrown at him, and Dennis had forgotten why he was throwing soil at his colleague, but as both remembered it pertained to something important, they continued to do so with stolidity and perseverance.

  As Dennis slowly but surely proceeded to bury Denzil (hardly prematurely), Johannes and Horst Cabal stood and watched their home burn down, while Alisha Bartos sat naked but for a gentleman’s jacket and still with no clear understanding of how she came to be there.

  ‘Wait,’ she said. ‘Horst, the sun’s up. Why are you … not—’

  ‘Bursting into flames? Ah,
well, now, that’s quite the story.’ He tried to look wise and failed. Alisha looked to Cabal for elucidation.

  ‘My brother has experienced a transfiguration akin to your own, Fräulein, but whereas yours has brought you cleanly and perfectly back to full life and health, even your injuries healed in their entirety, it has done something rather different to him.’

  Horst nodded. ‘Transfiguration,’ he said to Alisha. He still didn’t look wise.

  ‘I will need to conduct a few experiments upon him,’ continued Cabal, causing Horst to give him a hard look, ‘but my belief is that his mental state affected what happened to him. I do not believe he entirely wished to give up the perks of being a vampire. Would that be true, Horst?’

  Horst looked shamefaced. ‘It’s not all bad,’ he admitted. ‘Actually, most of it’s pretty good. It’s just the daylight thing and all the business with the blood makes it a bit off-putting.’

  ‘So, the effects were moderated in him. Instead of becoming merely human like you or I, he has become something that has aspects of what the Albanians call a dhampir, which is to say, a vampire without all the usual problems.’ He looked at Horst, who was smiling brightly at this diagnosis, dispassionately. ‘The dhampir are also associated with unbridled sexual habits, so that will suit Horst very nicely.’

  Horst’s smile vanished. ‘Don’t listen to him,’ he told Alisha.

  She hugged the jacket more closely around herself. ‘Nobody’s told me why I’m naked yet.’

  The brothers had returned their attention to the burning house. ‘Oh, because I took your clothes off,’ said Cabal with regrettable offhandedness.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because they would have contaminated the preservative fluid.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Horst. ‘My brother’s seen lots of naked women.’ They watched the fire a little longer. ‘Admittedly, mainly dead naked women, but still…’

  ‘Whereas my brother has seen plenty of living naked women, usually while naked himself.’

  ‘Don’t listen to him.’

  ‘Lacrosse team.’

  ‘Johannes.’

  * * *

  The remainder of the day was absorbed in storing the books and paraphernalia away in the woodshed and warning Dennis and the recently disinterred Denzil not to touch anything. As to the matter of putting a roof over their own heads, Cabal had applied a little thought to the matter, and led Horst—carrying Alisha Bartos to protect her feet from sharp stones and her legs from brambles more than anything—up the hillside overlooking the house. There they found the well-established encampment of Vlatez and Muk, recently re-provisioned and with a store of freshly washed clothing, a Katamenian bandit regarding cleanliness as being next to beastliness. Vlatez was about the same height as Alisha, and so she appropriated his garments.

  Cabal and Horst decided to sleep under the sky, the weather being clement enough, leaving the two-man pup tent to Fräulein Bartos, at least for the time being. The daylight was beginning to fade as Cabal busied himself making a meal of bacon and eggs, washed down with tea. Alisha, recovering slowly from her recent resurrection, commented that she was surprised that he could cook so assuredly, to which Cabal replied that making three plates of bacon and eggs was hardly testing, and that, in any case, cookery and chemistry are very much the same thing.

  Three plates of food were required because, to his amazement and pleasure, Horst found himself salivating as his brother made the food, requested a morsel, ate it, and ate some more. ‘This is wonderful!’ he said, laying into his fourth rasher. ‘I’m not dependent on blood any more.’

  ‘You may still be,’ warned Cabal, ‘simply in smaller amounts. I suspect that it is necessary for your more superhuman feats. That said, it makes your life a great deal more practicable.’

  After they had eaten, Alisha Bartos began to fade with fatigue, and Horst suggested that she had endured quite a day, all things said, and that she should get some rest. They would make plans for how to reinsert her into her old life with minimal fuss, even if it meant concocting some story about only being in a coma and having been abducted by the notorious Johannes Cabal for nefarious, nebulous reasons. He was, after all, a necromancer of some little infamy.

  When she was abed and asleep, Johannes Cabal and his brother, Horst, settled on the hillside and admired the view, marred though it was by a house in the latter stages of burning down. The bandits had chosen an excellent lookout point that gave them a perfect view of the House of Cabal without being too obvious themselves.

  Cabal had avoided looking at the house more than necessary, but Horst saw he did so now in the manner of a man grasping a nettle. For all his words of assurance, Cabal could not be entirely sure that his precautions would prove sufficient, and that the hidden laboratory’s ceiling or door might not be breached by the fire or collapsing masonry. But, there was nothing to be done now. Not until the fire burnt down and the ruin cooled.

  ‘Awful to see the old house go like that,’ said Horst. ‘I have so many happy memories of the place. I’m surprised nobody from the village has come out to see what’s going on; the smoke must be visible for miles.’

  ‘They are fractious creatures, the villagers, and Sergeant Parkin is probably keeping them from investigating until he has had a chance himself. We shall see him on the morrow, I have no doubt. Without his intervention, there would be a party down there even as we speak. Yokels roasting potatoes in the ashes of the necromancer’s house.’ He nodded in the direction of the village. ‘The tavern will be doing very good business this evening. They think they have something to celebrate.’

  ‘And do they? What will you do now, Johannes?’

  His brother was silent for a long moment. Horst looked across and thought he saw a tear at the corner of his eye, but that might just as easily have been an effect of the light of the low sun. That was how he decided to interpret it, at any rate.

  Johannes Cabal took a long breath, exhaled, then said, ‘I shall rebuild. The same site, I think—I like it—but something perhaps a little larger this time.’

  ‘That will take time and money, won’t it?’

  ‘Less than one might suppose. I shall use the same methods to construct a new house as I used to bring the old one to that place. The employees work remarkably quickly and do not require payment.’ He took out his cigarillo case, offered one to Horst—who demurred—selected one himself, and lit it up. He smoked in silence for a while. ‘Not in money, anyway.’

  Treading carefully, Horst said, ‘What … just playing devil’s advocate here, brother, but what if the cellar—’

  ‘Then it is all moot.’ Cabal said it with finality.

  Horst didn’t know how to reply to that. So much depended upon what they would find in the morning, but fretting would not bring the hour a whit closer. Yet for all his apparent phlegmaticalness, Horst could see every passing second until that moment of discovery dripped upon his brother like acid.

  A crow settled upon a nearby tree. ‘Kronk!’ it said in an over-familiar tone. Both of the brothers ignored it.

  They sat in silence as the house burnt dully, the sun kissed the horizon, and Cabal lit another cigarillo.

  ‘And you, Horst,’ he said suddenly, startling his brother. ‘What are your thoughts?’

  Horst grimaced a little, home to a disagreeable consideration. ‘I wonder how awful a life must be for death to be more enjoyable.’

  Cabal glanced across at him. ‘You speak of the ghost girl.’

  Horst nodded. ‘Do you think Minty really exists, or was she just something fabricated by the Five Ways?’

  ‘It seems likely everything we saw in that London was a reflection of the real world, such as it is. Even Lord Varney, should you wish to reacquaint yourself.’

  Horst’s grimace returned. ‘In his case, I’d rather not. She was so bright, though. Could we do something to help her?’

  Cabal blew smoke out of his nostrils. ‘A well-dressed man wandering the stews of East Lo
ndon enquiring after a young girl. I am sure that your intentions couldn’t possibly be misconstrued.’

  ‘There has to be something we can do. I know this world’s Minty has no idea what the ghost version of herself did in the false London, but I still feel we owe something to her. She deserves a better life. Can we do that?’

  ‘Let us rebuild the house first; building materials will still have to be bought, even if the labour is cheap. Then I shall examine my … our finances, and see what we can do for her. You’re right; there is a debt there, and I dislike feeling indebted.’ He blew a smoke ring, which travelled a full yard before an errant breeze tore it to wisps. Cabal watched it disappear with equanimity. ‘Any other thoughts?’

  Horst considered the glowing eastern horizon before them. He leaned back upon the hillside, his hand behind his head. It looked altogether too louche a posture for Cabal, who remained sitting upright upon the grass.

  ‘I was thinking how beautiful the sunset is, and how nice it is not to burst into flames while watching it.’

  Cabal considered this, and assented with a thoughtful nod. He turned his face also to the setting sun, and his pale skin glowed in its light.

  ‘You were ever the poet, Horst,’ said Johannes Cabal.

  AFTERWORD

  And there you have it.

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I acknowledge nothing but the burnished shine of my own golden genius.*

  Also by Jonathan L. Howard

  THE JOHANNES CABAL SERIES

  Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

  Johannes Cabal the Detective

  Johannes Cabal: The Fear Institute

  The Brothers Cabal

  STAND-ALONE NOVEL

  Carter & Lovecraft

  YOUNG ADULT NOVELS