Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

CHAPTER 11 in which Cabal preys upon misfortune and there is unpleasantness

It was an utter impossibility that the carnival be up and running the night it arrived. Yet, with less fuss and much less time than putting out a picnic table, a full-fledged carnival featuring thirty sideshows, stands, rides, and exhibits was lit up and functional. Nobody could explain how it had been done; by coincidence, the crowd of two hundred and fifty citizens at the station were all facing the other direction at the time. They all jumped in unison as the steam calliope started up behind them, all turned, and said minor variations of “Oooooh!” one less “o” here, one more exclamation mark there.

“A first-night special offer!” cried the tall, dark-haired pale man with the charisma, while his brother, the tallish, blond pale man who only ever seemed to deploy a smile as an offensive weapon, stood behind him, arms crossed. “Entry free!”

The good folk of Penlow on Thurse had been brought up to believe that it was rude to refuse a gift, so they politely filed in under the archway of gleaming painted woodwork and light bulbs. Barrow walked until he stood beneath the arch and looked up. For a second, it seemed to say Abandon All Hope, Ye Who Enter Here, but after a moment it definitely proclaimed how the crowned heads of here, there, and everywhere regarded the carnival as ideal entertainment for those of inherited money and limited gene pool, this being regarded as a fine advertisement in some quarters. Barrow decided that he had been mistaken but that his subconscious was trying to tell him something. Forewarned and forearmed, he entered.

Johannes Cabal, necromancer and unwilling carny-huckster, watched the crowd and fretted. This was their penultimate night, and things just weren’t… right. He couldn’t put his finger on it. The crowd seemed to hang together, moving like an extended family from tent to ride to sideshow. Beneath the constant calliope music and the cheerful banter of the barkers lay near silence. People just stopped and looked and moved on. There was a small sensation when somebody bought a toffee apple from a concession stand. “What’s wrong with them? I thought I was supposed to be a hero now. Why are they still so suspicious?”

Horst appeared at his elbow, where he most definitely hadn’t been a second before. “They’re nervous. I may have given them an explanation for the station, but that doesn’t mean that they have to like it. This place reminds them that something weird has happened, something inexplicable and out of the ordinary. Face it, Johannes, I doubt anything out of the ordinary has happened in this place since some passing peasant thought it was a clever place to start a town in year dot. Did you see that fuss over a toffee apple? They couldn’t have been more astounded if we were selling lark tongues in aspic. This place may be a washout.”

“It can’t be a washout. It’s the last port of call. Two souls. I have to get two souls or this whole thing has been a waste of time.”

“And ninety-eight souls.”

“Ninety-nine. My life is forfeit.”

Horst looked at him sharply. “What? You never said anything about that!”

“Strangely, it wasn’t the sort of thing that I like to dwell on. What does it matter? If I don’t get my soul back, then I can’t continue my researches.”

“You just leave a trail of metaphysical disaster behind you, don’t you? You made a mess of your life, my life, however many people you doomed in the eight years and thirty-seven days I was stuck in the cemetery, and now you want to spread the good word to another hundred. And for what?”

“You know damn well.”

Exasperated, Horst shook his head. “No, no, I don’t.” He wagged his finger in his brother’s face. “I used to know. I even sympathised, idiot that I am, and look what it got me. But for what now? I don’t know. I don’t think you do. I think you just carry on this way because if you stopped and asked yourself, ‘Gosh, Johannes, why am I such a total shit to everybody?’ I don’t think you’d be able to give yourself an honest answer.”

Cabal flared. He slapped Horst’s hand to the side. “I don’t care what you think. I am supremely unconcerned by what you think.”

Horst shrugged. “Great. So long as we understand each other.”

“No, no, we don’t understand each other. Or at least you don’t understand me. You never concentrated on anything in your life. You don’t understand what it is to be dedicated. You don’t understand what it means to go to sleep and wake up with the same thought and for that thought to always be there.”

“That’s not dedication.”

“No?”

“No, that’s obsession.”

“And this is your big effort to understand me, is it? A label. I shouldn’t have expected anything but.”

“It’s not a label. Look at yourself. Ye gods, Johannes, you were going to be a doctor! You wanted to help people.”

“Doctors. Frauds and quacks. Just trying to hold back the dark and full of pat excuses when they fail. Too stupid or too scared to bring back the light. Not me. Not me! I’ll be the modern Prometheus no matter what I have to do, no matter how dark I have to make it before I can find the secret.”

“And what if there is no secret to find? What if it’s beyond mortals? What then? What about you?”

“There has to be,” said Cabal, but he seemed very old and very tired as he said it. “There has to be.”

Horst took his younger brother by the shoulders. “Listen to me. We’ve got twenty-four hours — less, allowing for the sunlight — but we’ve got time. We can think of a way out of this.” Cabal just blinked uncomprehendingly. “These contracts always have a hole in them somewhere. I think it must be traditional. We burn the contracts, get you out of this wager, and then find a hole in the contract you signed when you sold your soul.”

“There’s no hole in my contract,” said Cabal. “I signed my soul over in return for the tenets of necromancy.”

“And that’s all?”

“I don’t know. ‘The secret of life after death,’ the usual stuff.”

“That’s what you asked for?”

“Something like that.”

“Then that’s easy! Don’t you understand? You wanted the secret of life after death. All you’ve got is a few formulae that allow you to bring people back as parodies of what they were. And you’re the one who’s had to do most of the work to get that far. They failed to deliver their side of the bargain!”

“That’s just quibbling with definitions.”

“Oh, come on! You think Satan would miss an opportunity like that if the situation were reversed?”

“What would I want with Satan’s soul?”

“Not what I meant. We’ve got him. It’s a philosophical minefield!”

Cabal had a brief mental image of Aristotle walking halfway across an open field before unexpectedly disappearing in a fireball. Descartes and Nietzsche looked on appalled. He pulled himself together. “But I was given the power to invoke the formulae. That was the real boon.”

“It’s got you nowhere. Give it up. Start again.”

“I … I don’t know.” He tried to work out how much research it would require to recoup mundanely the ground that he had lost to the diabolic. It seemed a very great deal.

“Johannes. Do it. It’s redemption.”

To Horst Cabal, his brother, Johannes, looked like he had when he was six and his dog died. The same numb inability to understand what had happened. Johannes Cabal looked at the floor and the night sky and, finally, at his brother. He seemed very lost. “I don’t know,” he whispered.

Horst opened his arms. He hadn’t held his little brother since he was a child. They had never been close, and Cabal’s admission that he’d hated Horst had explained a lot. But even now and even here, blood was still thicker than water.

“Hey! Boss!” Bones came out of nowhere. In the moment that Horst’s gaze flicked from Johannes Cabal to Mr. Bones and back again, his brother had vanished and been replaced by Cabal the necromancer.

“What?” snapped Cabal.

“I think we got a live one,” Bones said, grinning widely. Horst sighed. The moment had gone. Up until now, he’d quite liked Bones, with his easy smile and bonhomie. Up until now, it had been very easy to forget that he was nothing more than a tiny bit of Hell that had been brought to Earth and put in a boater. That smile had changed everything. They were talking about taking somebody’s soul, and it was a cause for delight.

“Where?”

“The penny arcade. She’s just wallowin’ around and lookin’ pretty damn miserable. We gotta have somethin’ she wants.”

“The arcade? About time that place earned its keep.” Cabal strode off with Bones at his heel.

Horst blurred and was there before them.

The penny arcade had consistently proved a good attraction to people wanting to get rid of spare change but had performed badly in the soul-reaping stakes. Now, as always, it was packed with children and teenagers playing the bagatelle boards and one-armed bandits, testing their strength against a brass arm, and watching the macabre events of the penny tableaux. Horst looked around frantically. They would arrive soon, and he would have lost his chance to get the prospective victim out of here. Impeded by bodies, he was unable to move at high speed and was forced to push politely through the throng. He couldn’t see anybody who fitted the bill until, finally, a mob of pubescents gave up trying to win fluffy toys from the crane machine and moved away. She was young, probably not even twenty, and Horst had rarely seen such an expression of ingrained misery. Here she was surrounded but untouched by people, her unhappiness a tangible thing that must have seemed to her almost deliberately ignored by others. Horst moved firmly through the mass.

“Excuse me, madam.” He was at her elbow. She looked up. Too many nights without sleep. Too many nights crying. He looked towards the entrance. He could see his brother and Bones approaching. He didn’t have enough time for subtlety or even just to mesmerise and steer her out of there. “You seem unhappy. May I be of assistance?” She just smiled wanly, uncertain. “I am Horst Cabal, one of the proprietors. It pains me to see one of…” Cabal and Bones were almost at the entrance. “Look, what’s wrong? Can it be fixed with money? We’ve got more money than we know what to do with. I can give you as much as you need.” Her smile faded, and she just looked confused. He had no more time. He leaned forward and whispered in her ear. “Whatever you do, do not give in to temptation. Promise me!” He leaned back to find her looking at him un-comprehendingly “Don’t give in,” he hissed, and moved away.

Cabal looked around the arcade. There were any number of women who might have been either miserable or just fashionably inexpressive. Any knack for spotting misery that he may have once possessed had long since atrophied through lack of use. “Who?” he asked Bones.

“That one, boss. She’s got a face longer than a wet day.”

Cabal studied her. She looked a little baffled to him, frankly. “So what does she want?”

Bones shrugged ineloquently. “I don’t know.”

Cabal sighed with exasperation and tried to remember how the arcade worked. The sideshows were so much easier. There you could just ask. He looked around for somebody to ask here, and his eye fell upon the mechanical fortune-teller. Inside her glass case, Madame Destiny promised to tell the gullible punters their fortune, printed on a small piece of card, and all for a single penny of the realm. She’d proved useful in the past, he recalled. Perhaps again?

Cabal walked over to it and surreptitiously struck the case with the base of his fist by the coin slot. Nothing happened. “Stump up, Destiny, or it’s a rendezvous with a hacksaw for you,” he whispered harshly.

The mannequin in the case immediately whirred into life, obligingly looked into her crystal ball, and stopped. A moment later, a card fell into the tray. Cabal took it and read:

Cabal read it through twice before crumpling it up. He leaned close to the front of the cabinet, as if putting a coin in. “That is precisely no help to me,” he whispered. “What does she have that she doesn’t want? A disease? Lice? A distinctive and irritating laugh? Give me specifics and save the meaningless generalities for the rubes.” To the imaginative, the mannequin might have seemed to purse its lips. Certainly it ran through its little fortune-telling dumb show at an undignified gallop. The card spat into the tray with so much venom that Cabal had to stop it before it fell to the ground. This one read:

With the exception of the advice, it was exactly the kind of news Cabal had been hoping for. “Bones, I want this arcade evacuated, with the exception of that woman.”

“Sure thing,” said Bones, and moved quietly and surreptitiously around, handing out free ride tickets to all and sundry. Within five minutes, the arcade contained only Cabal and the woman, who was slowly feeding coins into a fruit machine called Fun Time. Or so it seemed to Johannes Cabal, unaware of a figure in the corner who had forced himself into near transparency. Horst Cabal watched and hoped.

In the row of penny tableaux was one covered with a tarpaulin and an Out of Order sign on the front. In truth, the Cabal brothers had run out of ideas by the time they’d got to that one, so it was actually empty. Now Johannes approached it, concentrated, mouthed, “I invoke thee,” and pulled the tarpaulin away. Inside the cabinet was a tableau of a room. Within it was a tiny automaton that looked strikingly like the young unhappy woman. The room was a tiny squalid bed-sit with laundry hanging from lines strung over a bath visible through an ajar door. The automaton stood by a cradle in which a tiny doll of a baby lay. Small it may have been, but, somehow, there was enough detail to make it clear that this was a child it would be hard for anybody to love. The tableau was entitled “The Mother’s Escape.” Folding the tarpaulin over his arm, Cabal walked to the far side of the arcade and pretended to be in conversation with the old man in the change booth. In reality, he watched the woman. Nor was he the only one.

The young woman was disappointed when Fun Time started to hand lemons out with harsh regularity. Soon she was short of coins, and the reversal of fortune had depressed her. She left the machine and walked the ranks of its comrades. She would have to be heading for home before long, she knew, and wanted some small piece of pleasure to bide her through the night. She saw the row of penny tableaux and inspected them one by one. They were all horrible: tales of murder and execution, hauntings, and harsh justice. Nothing that she wanted to know. She was about to leave them when her eye fell upon the last in the row. Whether it was the title, or the striking resemblance the automaton bore to her, or the tableau to her own bed-sit, neither Cabal could tell, but it drew her inexorably.

She stopped by the case and looked into it. It was strange, dreamlike. It was as if somebody had taken her life, re-created it in wood, wire, and paint, and put it here, on public display. On slips of paper — aged and yellow despite in truth being less than ten minutes old — were written “The Unhappy Mother” and “The Troublesome Baby,” pinned to the tableau’s floor in front of their respective subjects. Her eyes prickled. She wasn’t alone after all. Somebody else must have suffered as she suffered for the story to be retold here. As she fumbled for one of her few remaining coins, another pair of eyes nearby prickled, grew moist, and silently wept.

She had to know, she had to see how this other person had fared. The tableau was after all “The Mother’s Escape.” How? How had she escaped? She needed to know with a strange urgency. She put the coin to the slot and dropped it inside.

With a whirr, the tableau came to life. The baby’s arms rose and fell with mechanical rhythm as the head rolled from side to side. Crying. Demanding. Never shutting up. In time to the baby, the mother put her hands to her ears and shook her head. She was at the end of her tether. Not a day went by when she didn’t consider suicide. The woman rested her forehead against the cool glass and bit her lip.

There was a distinct click, and the floor rotated by one-third of a revolution anti-clockwise, changing scenes. Now the mother stood in the bathroom. Using the washstand as a table, she was mixing something. Powders and liquids from the cabinet. It was a strange thing, but, although the largest bottle she handled was the length of a thumbnail, the labels were clearly legible. A jigger of this, a pinch of that went into a mortar and were thoroughly mixed. When she had finished, the tiny mechanical mother poured the solution into a baby’s bottle. The implication was all too clear. As she read the label for the scene, “A Solution Presents Itself,” the amazing dexterity of the automaton never struck her as remarkable. She was living the little drama herself. She almost moaned aloud as, click, the scene rotated again to its final third. Here was retribution, be it earthly or divine; she had seen too many of these machines in her life to doubt a moral outcome. But … no. The final scene was of a graveyard. In her funereal weeds, the mother looked radiant as the mourners lowered a tiny coffin into the dark grave. And behind her handkerchief, was that a suspicion of a smile? The automaton looked out of the case, straight into her eyes, and she saw her own face there. Happy. The label affixed to a convenient tomb read, inevitably, “The Mother’s Escape.”

The machine made another click and returned to the hateful first scene. Barely had the whirring stopped before she was feeding it another coin. This time, when the second scene arrived, her lips moved as she memorised the ingredients of the baby’s bottle.

The police arrived an hour before dawn. Cabal was perfectly polite with them as they busied around and asked a lot of obvious questions. He was less happy to see that Barrow was in attendance. “I wasn’t aware that you were a member of the police force, Mr. Barrow,” he said, stifling a yawn.

“I’m not. Just a concerned party,” replied Barrow.

“Well, then,” Cabal said to the sergeant in charge, “I believe I’m within my rights to ask Mr. Barrow to leave?”

“No, you’re not,” said the sergeant. “Ex-Detective Inspector Barrow is here at my request and is acting as a consultant in this case.”

“‘Ex-Detective Inspector’?” said Cabal, impressed. “My, you are a man of many parts. ‘Case.’ What case is this?”

“There has been a murder. A particularly horrible one. The suspect claims that this carnival was involved.”

“A murder?” said Cabal, shocked and innocent.

“An infanticide, to be exact,” said Barrow. “A mother killed her own child. Claims that you have some machine in your arcade that tells you how to make poison.”

“Good heavens! Really?”

“You mean to say you didn’t realise that your arcade featured such a machine?”

“Oh, no, not for a second. We have no such machine. I was just surprised that anybody could concoct such a bizarre story. And that anybody would believe it.”

The sergeant bridled. “We have to follow up every lead, sir.”

“Of course you do. I understand entirely. Well, what else can I help you with? You have my word, there is emphatically no machine like the one you describe within this carnival. I’ve never even heard of such a thing.”

“The poison she made was a very cruel one, sir. The baby died in agonies.”

“Terrible.”

“She seems to have been under the impression that it would be un-detectable,” said Barrow. “She’s only a simple girl. I think she’s telling the truth in most respects.”

“Meaning what?”

“She came to this carnival last night. The very same night she concocts a poison and uses it. I don’t think she could have become Lucrezia Borgia at such short notice without professional help.”

“What are you insinuating?”

The sergeant coughed. “The arcade, sir, if you would. We would like to look at the machines.”

“Very well, but you’re wasting your time.” Cabal led the way for the little entourage of three police officers and Barrow to the arcade. He unlocked the big padlock that sealed the entrance and stepped aside. “Be my guests.” The party entered and stood in a huddle near the door while Cabal went around and opened the shutters.

Barrow’s eye lit upon the penny tableaux and he went to investigate, followed by the policemen. Cabal leaned against the wall and affected nonchalance. Barrow studied the row, reading the titles as he moved along it. “‘The House of Bluebeard,’ ‘The Pit and the Pendulum,’ ‘The Court of Ivan the Terrible,’ ‘The Haunted Bedroom,’ ‘Tyburn Tree.’ Very Grand Guignol, Mr. Cabal,” he said disapprovingly.

“It’s what people like,” replied Cabal, “Mr. Barrow.”

Barrow had arrived at the end of the row, a machine covered with a tarpaulin and with a sign fixed to it. “Out of order? What’s wrong with it?”

“I don’t know. Something mechanical. Quite beyond me.”

“We’d like to have a look at it if we may, sir,” said the sergeant.

“I don’t think that would be wise. You have my word there is no machine like the one that you have described. Isn’t that enough?”

“We’d like to see for ourselves, sir. The tarpaulin, if you please.”

“I really don’t think I ought.”

“That’s as may be, sir. But if you’ll pardon me …” The sergeant quickly undid the tarpaulin and pulled it away.

The machine was stuck in mid-action. On a moonlit street, an enraged husband chased a police officer down the garden path of a house. In an upstairs window, a woman with an unfeasibly large bosom mimed screaming with dismay. The police officer was notable for his uniform trousers being around his ankles. The machine was called “Cuckolded by a Copper.” The sergeant blushed. The little policeman looked really rather like him, a resemblance that wasn’t lost on his constables. Worse yet, the woman looked a lot like Mrs. Blenheim on Maxtible Street, whose husband worked a lot of night shifts. “Well, that would seem to be that,” he said quickly while attempting to put the tarpaulin back. It kept falling off, almost wilfully. “We’ll be on our way, sir. Thank you for your cooperation. You’ve been very patient.”

“Not at all, sergeant,” Cabal said pleasantly to the officer as he left, shooing his smirking subordinates before him. He watched them go and adjusted his spectacles.

“An interesting place, this carnival of yours, Mr. Cabal,” said Barrow from behind him.

“Thank you, Mr. Barrow,” he replied, turning.

“It wasn’t meant as a compliment. Just a comment: an interesting place. This arcade, for example.”

“Oh?” Cabal raised his eyebrows. “How so?”

“These machines.” Barrow pointed at the tableaux. “Horror and death the whole length. Then we get to the last one — the machine, incidentally, that the police was told was the one with the recipe for poison — and that one is broad comedy. Odd, wouldn’t you say? Out of place?”

“People like that sort of thing,” repeated Cabal. “So I’m told. It was put in as an afterthought.”

“An afterthought.” Barrow walked to the door and looked out across the carnival, pondering. “I don’t like this carnival of yours, Mr. Cabal. It’s distasteful.”

“We can’t guarantee to cater to everybody.”

“That’s not what I meant. When I was still in the job, I had hunches the same as everybody else. Sometimes they were right and sometimes they were wrong. But sometimes I would have a feeling that came to me as an actually bona fide bad taste in my mouth. Horrible taste, and unmistakeable. I was once sitting in on an interview of a chap who was a possible witness in a murder case. Just a witness, you understand. Respectable man who might, just possibly, have seen something useful.”

“And you got this magical bad taste of yours?”

“In spades. And, yes, he was our killer. But at the time he wasn’t even a suspect. That’s the important thing. I had no reason to suspect him.”

“Sure you got the right man? Not just a case forced through because you forgot to brush your teeth that morning?”

“I don’t think even the most rabid police-conspiracy theorist would believe that we would frame a man by burying four bodies in his back garden and then building a rockery on top of them.”

“A rockery?” Cabal considered. “No, that does stretch credulity a little. You may have a point, in that case. I assume that when you say my carnival’s distasteful you are referring to this uncanny forensic palate?”

“When I get home, I’m going to have a very strong cup of tea in the hope it will wash it away.”

“You do that. Perhaps, one day, criminological epicurean evidence will be admissible in a court of law. In the meantime, I shall bid you a good day. I should like a few hours’ sleep if at all possible.”

“Good day, Mr. Cabal,” said Barrow, and walked back in the direction of the town.

Cabal walked back towards his office sedately until Barrow was out of sight. Then he ran. He entered the car breathless, unlocked his desk drawer, took the topmost contract from the box, and put it in his inside breast pocket.

“So she did it?” said Horst, and Cabal jumped.

“I didn’t see you there,” he said, putting away the box and carefully locking the drawer.

“I didn’t want you to. She killed her baby, then?”

“Yes. Isn’t it marvellous?” He stopped. “Not that she killed her baby, obviously.”

“No. It’s not obvious. It’s not obvious at all. I presume you’re going to go and offer her a way out of her dilemma?”

“That was the idea,” said Cabal. He didn’t like his brother’s tone at all.

Horst looked at him for a long moment. He checked his watch. “The sun will be up soon. We creatures of the night should be tucked away by then. Leave the day to creatures of the light.”

“You’re trying to make me feel guilty. It won’t work.”

“My little brother just engineered the murder of a child. There’s nothing I can do to make you feel remorse if that didn’t. I offered you the chance of redemption last night. Sorry, my mistake. Father always said I couldn’t spot a hopeless case.”

“Really?” Cabal pulled on his coat. “How unlike Father to criticise you for anything.”

Horst rose from where he was sitting on the blanket box, and Cabal fought to prevent himself shying away. “Don’t be specious. You can’t keep returning to sibling rivalry as an excuse for everything. ‘Oh, don’t blame me for my crimes against man, God, and nature. It’s my brother’s fault for being so perfect.’ No jury would convict.” He smiled and sat down again. “Would you like to hear something ridiculous? When you came for me a year ago, I was glad to see you. It was my brother who’d come back for me after all. It had taken him a while to get around to it, but better late than never. Yes, you’d sold your soul and I’d become a monster, but, apart from that, it would be just like old times.”

“And now you’re saying you were wrong?”

“Now I’m saying I was half wrong. I was wrong about which of us had become the monster. This whole year, I’ve watched who’s signed those contracts and I’ve said nothing, because, as far as I could see, they were going to Hell whether they signed a piece of paper or no. Some might have been a little borderline, but not by enough to make me concerned. That woman last night, though. She would never have done what she did unless you’d suggested it. She’d have worked it out. Now she’s damned whether she signs that contract or not. That’s your doing. I don’t doubt you’ve got some deal lined up for her if she signs. Do me a favour, would you?” “A favour?”

“Just do what you’re going to do and leave the contract here.” Cabal frowned. “But then it doesn’t count against the hundred.” Horst rested his chin in his hand and looked at his brother. He’d never dreamt that his brother could be so obtuse. “That’s the point,” he explained.

Cabal looked at Horst as if he were mad. “Then there is no point.” He clapped his hat on and left, slamming the door behind him.

Horst looked at the door for a very long moment, then glanced over at the hourglass. The time was all but gone: a few grains of inestimably fine sand remained in the top bulb. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly to himself. “I’m more sorry than you will ever know.”

Cabal arrived at the police station and made enquiries. He was sorely distressed that some poor woman — he managed to avoid saying “soul” at the last moment — had done such a terrible, terrible thing while the balance of her mind was disturbed. It seemed that the visit to the carnival had somehow provided, all unwittingly, the impetus for her psychosis, and — while he naturally couldn’t accept any liability — he really wanted to help any way that he could. He had to be quite insistent before he was allowed to see her. He was quite sure that Horst could just have walked straight in and they’d have fallen over themselves to make him a cup of tea. Finally, with heavy hints that he would be paying her legal expenses, he was allowed in alone.

“Well, then,” he said finally, sitting down across a plain, square table from her. “This is a sticky mess you’ve got yourself into.” She looked at him miserably, her eyes red from crying.

“I’m afraid the authorities are going to treat you very harshly for this. You probably already realise that.” She nodded and looked in her lap, where she pulled and worried a handkerchief endlessly.

“They’ll have told you that there is no machine like the one you thought you saw at my carnival, hmmm?” She gave no response. “‘The Mother’s Escape,’ I think it was.”

She stopped fidgeting. She looked sharply at him.

“It was there all right. I got rid of it the moment you walked out of the arcade. I’m sorry to say it was the most ruthless piece of entrapment I have ever been forced to commit. Yes, forced. You see, I really would be very appreciative if you would sign something for me. If you do so, you have my word that I’ll reverse what has happened. If you don’t, well, you’re obviously going to Hell anyway. If you don’t sign, the torment will start before death with a life sentence. I understand child-killers have rather a miserable time of it.”

While he’d been talking, he’d allowed his gaze to wander around the room: the barred window, the institutional green paint on the walls, some schedule of regulations framed and hung by the door. Then he looked at her and realised that if looks could kill he would assuredly have been dead for some moments. She glared at him, teeth slightly bared, an expression of hot, animal loathing on her face. She spoke so quietly, he almost didn’t catch it.

“Necromancer,” she said, as if it was the worst word she knew. At that moment, it was.

“An inference is no proof of an implication,” he replied, and produced the contract. “Do you want your life back, such as it is? Or shall I leave? I’m a busy man. A rapid decision would be nice.”

She looked at the folded paper as if its blank exterior would tell her all that she needed to know. Cabal laid it out flat, turned it so that it faced her, and slid it across to her. She looked at it, obviously not reading. Cabal had an uncomfortable feeling that she was going to start crying again. He drew his pen and offered it to her.

“Sign. Now.”

She took the pen and, her hand trembling slightly, she signed.

Cabal walked out into the new day. The last day of the carnival. He needed one last soul and had every chance of succeeding. Why, then, he wondered, did he feel so wretched?