The Brothers Cabal (35 page)

All this he had told himself as he left the country burning behind him. He had never troubled to open a newspaper subsequently to discover the current state of affairs there. Turning the place into a testing ground for some sort of absurd magocracy funded by foreign venture capitalists of the most despicable kind was a surprise, a very unpleasant surprise. Ever since recovering his soul, he suffered occasional prickles of mental pain that he had learned to characterise as his conscience making itself felt. Now he felt a spiritual sickening and he knew it was guilt. This was indirectly his fault, and the knowledge clung to him like clay.

Still, there was no need to go around telling people about it.

‘You seem to know a lot about the castle for somebody who was just passing through,' said Miss Virginia Montgomery.

‘I was here to secure a book that was not available elsewhere.'

‘That's Johannesese for “I came to steal it”,' explained Horst.

‘Exactly so,' agreed Cabal. ‘It did not quite go to plan and, subsequently, I was briefly a guest of Harslaus Castle.'

Horst started to translate that, too, but Virginia waved him to silence. ‘It's okay, I know what he really means.'

‘It appears that the revolution left a power vacuum that this
Ministerium Tenebrae
has sought to fill.'

Professor Stone shook his head. ‘Not quite. Our information is that they were invited in.' He rubbed his hands together. ‘It's getting chilly. We should retire to one of the carriages to continue this conversation. I think representatives of some of our allies would like to talk to you, too.'

‘I came here to help,' said Cabal. ‘I will not be interrogated.'

‘Nor shall you,' said the professor quickly. ‘Some of the others were a little … circumspect about you being upon the strength. Excluding them from discussions will only breed distrust.'

Cabal looked at Horst a little truculently. ‘This would be politics, then?'

‘I know, Johannes, I know.' Horst patted him on the shoulder. ‘You came out here spoiling for a fight with arcane powers and things man was not meant to know, but before you get to the juicy stuff you have to sit on a committee. Life's cruel. I know.'

‘Do shut up,' said Cabal.

*   *   *

The meeting was held in the train's guard van around an impromptu table constructed from crates and the seating consisting of a fine variety of chairs, none of which was a brother to another. Cabal took pains to choose a decent office chair of the swivelling type, and manoeuvred it to the head of the table before the other attendees arrived. If he were to be examined by the sort of reactionaries and Luddites that had dogged his steps for years, he would at least suffer it from a position of authority and in the nicest chair, distressed though the leather of its seat and back were.

Horst sat at his left and Professor Stone at his right as the table filled. It did not take great powers of deduction to place most of those present within their assorted secret societies. The Templars sent their regrets, but they were currently engaged in saving the world in North Africa where a great terrible evil had emerged from the sands. They were sure that, whatever the situation in Mirkarvia, the other societies would prove sufficient in dealing with it. The note was polite, elegant, and carried a beautifully crafted subtext that the terrible evil in North Africa was inestimably more dangerous and serious than anything likely to occur in Mirkarvia, but that such a kindergarten level of menace was within even the limited capabilities of the dim-witted bumblers of the Dee Society
et al
.

Professor Stone read out the decoded note, and it was greeted with a withering silence. The professor coughed and tossed the note into the open grate of the stove, an action met with unspoken appreciation by all those there gathered.

Thus, there were only four secret societies around the table. The languid man sitting opposite Cabal could have come from anywhere on the Mediterranean coast from the boot of Italy westwards to Gibraltar and thence around the Bay of Biscay, and gave the impression that his standard state of facial hair was an eternal five o'clock shadow. If he had been picking his teeth with a stiletto, he could hardly have looked more crooked. Cabal made an educated guess that he was likely to be a Yellow Inquisitor, a creature of one of the Vatican's less clever ideas for freelance counter-heresy operations of which they had lost control within a year of institution. Rather than admitting to fallibility, the Vatican simply cut them loose and, when pushed, made indistinct noises about rogue Jesuits before noticing something amusing out of the window. If one ever wants to have a cardinal suddenly become fascinated by a passing squirrel, one need only mention the Yellow Inquisition. Cabal had little personal experience of their operations, since he mainly confined his activities to the British Isles, and the Yellow Inquisitors preferred warmer climes.

Still, he had once visited a certain address in Marseilles to take certain texts from the private library of a certain necromancer who was a blockhead and did not, in Cabal's professional opinion, deserve them. He found the place unguarded and the air foul, for the certain necromancer was certainly dead, a parody of a papal bull attached to his chest by a steel stake driven clean through, nailing him to the floorboards. What little of the parchment Cabal could read (due to the blood staining) was in execrable Latin, but identified the Yellow Inquisition's involvement to his satisfaction. Much more to his satisfaction was that the killer had done a very cursory job of destroying the dead man's papers and missed the hidden cubbyhole that housed the rarest works altogether. Cabal was able to fill a suitcase with rare and useful books and manuscripts with neither let nor hindrance, which was delightful to him and well worth the stink and the flies. Thus, Cabal was kindly disposed to the Yellow Inquisition, brutal idiots though they were.

Two women took places directly opposite one another and were so icily polite to one another that Cabal gauged one of them to be a representative of the Daughters of Hecate and the other an agent of the Sisters of Medea, a splinter group. To the outsider, the groups were functionally identical, but Cabal had once been lectured at near unendurable length on the differences between the two. He had been taking cover behind a tumbledown wall of a ruined farmhouse at the time while the Medeans angled for a clear shot at him, and he had made the awful
faux pas
of mistaking them for Hecatians. Apparently the Hecatians were all ivory towers and theory, never getting anything done, while the Medeans were more militant. Interestingly, he had once found himself in possession of Hecatian documentation that said exactly the same but with the names swapped around. For what little it was worth, he found himself irrationally preferring the Daughters of Hecate, if only because he preferred Hecate to Medea. There was more to admire in a chthonian goddess than an infanticidal sorceress, he felt.

The presence at the table was completed by Professor Stone, Alisha Bartos, and Miss Virginia Montgomery, the later nursing yet more coffee and a febrile glint in her eye indicating that the ‘pilot's salts' had not yet entirely run their course. Horst lurked in a corner, sitting upon a tea chest, and undermining any menace his vampiric presence might have brought to proceedings by reading an ancient copy of
Comic Cuts
that he had found somewhere.

‘This will be brief,' said the professor, taking the role of chairman. ‘Mr Cabal and especially Miss Montgomery have travelled a long way today and need to rest. Essentially, we are here to introduce ourselves to one another, and to avow our joint determinations to see this business through. While I appreciate that there may be some … tensions between parties, it's desperately important that we are united in this current endeavour.' There was neither a rumble of assent or dissent, just a stony silence. Almost everybody at the table seemed to be looking at Cabal.

The professor coughed, sensing the awkwardness of the gathering. The Yellow Inquisitor produced a stiletto and started picking his teeth with it, all the while looking intently at Cabal. ‘Well, perhaps if I go around the table, we can all intro—'

‘Johannes Cabal, necromancer,' said Cabal. He was about to expand on the point, specifically citing that there was hardly a one of them there who didn't want to kill him, and if they wanted a go, they should get it out of their system now (in this piece of bravado, he would be trusting primarily to the good offices of his brother to defend him rather than his own marksmanship).

‘We know,' said the Medean agent, or possibly the Hecatian. ‘Your infamy precedes you.' There was nodding around the table.

‘Does it?' Cabal felt slightly disturbed by this. ‘I was under the impression my infamy was some little thing.'

Horst laughed. ‘You can't decide whether to be worried or flattered, can you?'

‘Don't talk nonsense,' snapped Cabal, irked because it was true.

‘Well, Mr Cabal seems to be known to the company. Anybody unfamiliar with…? No?' Professor Stone looked around the table, but it was very clear that Johannes Cabal's presence was concentrating the minds of many of the other attendees wonderfully. ‘No. Very well. Well, we shall move on, then. I am Professor Jeremy Stone—'

‘And I'm Alisha Bartos,' interrupted Alisha Bartos. She looked around the table, giving them all looks not dissimilar to those they had been lavishing upon Cabal. ‘We're here representing the Dee Society. First on the scene.'

‘And first to put the
Ministerium
on their guard,' said Cabal to himself. He was feeling a little deaf at that exact moment, however, so everybody heard the comment.

One of the women smiled. The one who did not said, ‘I am Atropos Straka, a sister of Medea. You and your brother are abominations, Cabal. When this is over, we shall seek you out.'

Cabal glowered, but Horst smiled brightly. ‘You will?' he said with delight. ‘Well, that's lovely! My brother doesn't get many visitors, and I'm always trying to socialise him a bit. If you come around, please call ahead and I'll lay in some Battenberg.'

Atropos wavered slightly. ‘When I say we shall seek you out…'

Horst looked concerned. ‘But what if you don't like Battenberg? Do you like Battenberg? I'd have thought everybody would, but I once met a man who hated almonds.' He spoke as if of a tragedy. ‘Can you imagine? Nothing's certain in this world of ours, is it? If you don't like Battenberg, just say. We can always get some other sort of cake in. I suppose. Just tell me if you don't like Battenberg.' He visibly steeled himself for possibly harrowing news.

‘I…' Atropos was aware of the rest looking at her. ‘I don't know what “Battenberg” is.'

‘You don't?' Horst was so astounded he almost leapt to his feet. His smile returned in full power. ‘Then you have a treat waiting for you! It's wonderful! I mean, I remember it as being wonderful. I do not eat cake. Not now. Being a vampire and everything. You did know I'm a vampire, didn't you?' He suddenly seemed to remember that they were doing introductions and held up his hand. ‘Horst Cabal, vampire. Didn't especially want to be, but there you go. I miss Battenberg. Hello, everyone!'

There was a baffled pause followed by a couple of desultory greetings, all but the Yellow Inquisitor, who grinned with pleasure and said, ‘'Allo, 'Orst!' in a broad French accent. Cabal, for his part, recognised it as a Marseilles accent, and had a short yet vivid remembrance of a dead man in an apartment that stank of decay. ‘My name is Henri Palomer, representing
l'Inquisition Jaune
. Delighted to meet you all.' There was an easygoing mockery in his manner that was constructed in equal parts of charisma and provocation, a man who made one want to embrace him one moment, and punch him the next.

‘Melkorka Olvirdóttir,' said the other woman, and she, too, smiled. Cabal couldn't help noticing it was directed at Horst. ‘Daughter of Hecate.' Where Atropos had the appearance of a woman looking for a Greek tragedy to enact—something horrid with entrails and heavy irony, dark and dramatic, and terribly serious (both the simile's tragedy and her physical appearance)—Melkorka was blond and pink and smiley and—Cabal reminded himself—highly dangerous. Which wasn't to say Atropos wasn't, only that she looked it, too. Melkorka, on the other hand, was tantamount to a white bunny with a machete—sweet, winsome, and fully capable of taking one's hands off at the wrist should she so desire. The Hecatians and the Medeans were witches to a woman, and it did not pay to antagonise witches.

‘Virginia Montgomery,' said Virginia Montgomery, ‘and this is my damn train.' She looked around the table as if challenging somebody to fight her for it. There were no takers.

‘Marvellous,' said Cabal. ‘I feel I've known you all my life. Can I get some sleep now?' He cast a sideways glance at Miss Virginia Montgomery. ‘And a sedative for this lady?'

‘I am
fine
,' she said a little too abruptly.

‘No. You're not. You are awash with amphetamines. You need liquids, and to run around a bit to metabolise it. Then you need a sedative to put you out.'

‘You're a doctor,' said Alisha.

‘I am not, and I would thank you not to say such an appalling thing to someone on first acquaintance. I am, however, a scientist who deals with biological functions and although amphetamines aren't something I tend to play with, I do understand their effects.' He looked around, feeling pleasantly belligerent. ‘Any other comments? No? Then…'

‘We'll be sure to tell the Red Queen you need your rest if she turns up tonight,' said Atropos Straka.

Cabal cocked his head. ‘Is that likely? I mean to say, have you received any intelligence that she's on the move? I shall be frank, ladies and gentlemen. My interest here begins and ends with Rufus Maleficarus. Him, I shall deal with for you, and I shall be delighted and satisfied to do so. You can keep your
Ministerium
s and your Red Queens and…' He paused as a thought occurred to him. ‘My brother's lurid but haphazard recounting of events skipped such trifling details as who this Red Queen is anyway. I assume you know who she is?'