Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

CHAPTER 16 in which a scientist returns to Hell and a deal is broken

“Mad Dan” Clancy carefully considered his next answer. As an outlaw of the Old West, he had never really considered what awaited him after death; he had been far too busy rooting and tooting at the time. Coming off second best in a gunfight, however, he had been flung into the abyss, and confronted with eternity, Limbo, and a fistful of printed foolscap sheets in rapid succession. Of the three, the last terrified him most.

The question (Form UNCH/14/K, Section 45, No. 215) was headed with a warning: “This Form Will Be Invalidated by Any Metachronism Whatsoever.” Clancy didn’t have the faintest idea in — or just outside — Hell what a metachronism might be, and that frightened him. He’d had seventy-six earlier stabs at filling in UNCH/14/K rejected, but was never told why. Trubshaw, hated Trubshaw, loathed Trubshaw, had said, “We ain’t got the hands to mark every one up with all the mistakes. This ain’t a schoolhouse, boy! If’n you want to get through this here door, you’d better just get a mite more careful, y’hear?” Then he would cackle and slam the little window in the door shut. Clancy made an almost physical effort to shut Trubshaw out of his mind and concentrated on the question. Halfway through answering it, he distractedly put an extra stroke on an “F” — “All responses must be made in BLOCK CAPITALS except where otherwise noted” — and turned “FOUR FEATHER FALLS” into “FOUR FEATHER EALLS.” He stopped and stared at the mistake, trying to erase the errant stroke with sheer willpower. No good. He tried artfully re-forming letters to make it look a little closer to the correct answer but just ended up with “BALLS.” It was hopeless. There was nothing for it but to queue for three months again to get a requisition form to get a new copy of this form.

A shadow fell across him, and before he had a chance to turn, something fell onto the parched ground between his crossed legs. He reached down, and what he found amazed and astonished him. It was the holy of holies, the thing he’d wished for almost as long as he’d been in that godforsaken place. An eraser.

“It’s a little greasy, but that should rub off,” said the shadow. It had a faint German accent. “Enjoy.”

Johannes Cabal approached the Gates of Hell for the second time in his life. Nothing much had changed here except the introduction of a melamine notice over the porter’s door reading Queue Here. Cabal headed straight for it.

At the door, the procession of transient pre-damnees was in temporary hiatus thanks to a pitched argument that had broken out between Hawley Harvey Crippen and Kunigunde Mackamotzki, aka Belle Elmore, aka Cora Crippen.

“Why am I here?” she wailed theatrically. “He’s the one who murdered me! And cut me up!”

“Cora, please listen,” said Crippen for what was clearly not the first time. “I didn’t murder you. It was manslaughter. An accident.”

“You accidentally cut me up and buried me under the cellar floor? In quicklime? That’s some accident, you little worm!”

“Damage limitation, ma’am,” said a U.S. soldier in the line behind them, better known for his skill with a document shredder than with a rifle.

“But I’m the victim!” she screamed. “What am I doing here? Why am I here? Why, why, why?”

Arthur Trubshaw looked up from the Rolodex he was consulting. “Adultery. Multiple counts,” he said in a bored voice. He flicked onto the next card. And the one after that. “Lots and lots and lots of counts.”

Everybody looked at Cora Crippen. She wilted slightly under the attention. “Well,” she said quietly, “I was lonely.”

“Fascinating,” said a new voice. The sight of the fully clothed Cabal parted the head of the queue from the door like a razor shaving a hair. “Hello, Trubshaw. I’m back. Kindly open the door.”

Trubshaw squinted at him for a moment. Then a horrid grin settled upon his face. “Oh, so it’s you again, is it, Mr. ‘Let me in, I ain’t got no appointment’ Cabal? Well, sure, you can come in.” He cackled again, ducked out of sight, and then reappeared with a hefty form that he thrust out of the little window at Cabal. “Soon as ye’ve done the paperwork!”

Cabal didn’t bother taking the wad of sheets but just cocked his head to read the top leaf. “‘Form VSKW/I, Special Circumstances Living Person Admittance Docket Application.’” Cabal straightened up and looked at Trubshaw. “You’re not serious, are you?”

“Damn right I’m serious! I wrote this ’n up jus’ for you. Gotta admit, it’s kinda tricky. You might find yerself havin’ to do it a few times afore ye get it right! Say two, three hundred? Heh-heh-heh-heh-he-urrrk!”

It is received wisdom that you can’t put a square peg in a round socket. As is common with received wisdom, this isn’t entirely true. It is quite possible to put a square peg in a round socket if you are very stupid, are very wilful, or just don’t like the square peg very much.

Cabal reached through the window with both hands, grabbed Trubshaw by the ears, and pulled. Shrieking woefully, Trubshaw was dragged through the window until there was enough head showing for Cabal to put him in a neck lock and bring his weight to bear. Trubshaw was not a large man, but his shoulders still wouldn’t fit through the window frame at all, until one broke with a crack that made the onlookers wince. Cabal dragged him all the way through and dumped him on the baking ground.

“You sonovabitch!” Trubshaw sobbed. “You goddamn sonovabitch! You jus’ wait ’ntil I tells His Worshipfulness what ye’ve been a-doin’ an — ”

Cabal wasn’t about to listen. He dragged Trubshaw to his feet and snapped fiercely in his face, “I really, really don’t care. As for you, you’ve got other things to concern yourself with. Arthur Trubshaw …” He whirled Trubshaw to face out onto the plains of Limbo. As far as the eye could see, there were people. People with forms and pencils that they were throwing to the ground as they rose to their feet, a great expanding wave of outraged humanity face-to-face with its tormentor. “Meet your public,” finished Cabal, planting his foot in the small of Trubshaw’s back and shoving him into the great sea of people, which closed over him in a second.

Cabal had little time for lynch mobs as a rule, but at least if one had ever caught up with him, unconsciousness or death would have made the experience a brief one. No such mercies were available to Trubshaw. As Cabal reached through the little window in the Gates of Hell and undid the porter’s door bolt, he smiled. If he was going to have a lousy day, he didn’t see why a few other deserving cases couldn’t share the fun.

When General Ratuth Slabuth, general of the Infernal Hordes, received word of an invasion of Hell and some sort of riot on the plains of Limbo, he checked his pocket diary against what had happened a year ago, tutted, and said that he’d deal with it. He caught up with Cabal on the Fourth Circle.

“Hello, Cabal,” he said, manifesting as discreetly as possible. “Back again, I see.”

“You worked that out all by yourself? I can see why you became a general, Slabuth.”

“Sarcasm ill behoves you,” replied Slabuth archly as he made a mental note to look up “behove” later.

Cabal gave him a look that made him wish he’d looked it up beforehand. “I’m not interested in your ideas for my personal development. I’m here to see Satan, as you well know. Now, step aside” — he looked at Slabuth’s distinct lack of legs — “or do whatever it is that you do to get aside. I have an appointment.”

“Very well. But first, purely as a matter of interest, did you get all the souls? All one hundred?”

“Hardly your business.”

“So you didn’t.”

Cabal looked at him evenly, then reached into his ubiquitous glad-stone bag and produced the box of contracts. “Every contract in here is signed,” he said, carefully sticking to the truth, the partial truth, and some stuff as well as the truth before replacing the box.

“Oh,” said Slabuth, the crest of his Grecian helmet falling, “I was sure you were going to fail. Rats.”

“Your concern is noted. That Billy Butler stunt was a nuisance, I admit.”

“All’s fair in love and war, though. No hard feelings, eh?” said Slabuth banteringly, and obviously not caring one way or the other what Cabal’s feelings were on the matter.

“I wasn’t aware that we were at war, and I’m sure there’s no love lost. Still, that’s very decent of you.”

“Is it?” said Slabuth, dismayed.

“Oh, yes. No hard feelings.” They looked at each other for a long moment. Finally, Cabal said, “I’ll be on my way.”

General Ratuth Slabuth watched Johannes Cabal disappear around the corner of the tunnel and stroked his bone chin with one claw thoughtfully. He hadn’t got to where he was today without being able at least to detect double-talk, even if he couldn’t always read it. Something smelled very fishy here. In fact, something did smell very fishy here. He turned to look around and knocked over something that clattered and rolled. He reached down and picked up an almost empty glass jar with a brush running through the lid. A glue jar. What was this doing here?

A mob of imps came barrelling around the corner from the Third Circle, screeching to a halt when they saw him. There was the usual tugging of forelocks, even though none of them had anything faintly similar to locks sticking out of their leathery foreheads, but Slabuth noticed some muffled giggles and an air of mild insubordination about the whole scene. He tapped the peak of his helmet and guardedly said, “Carry on, imps.”

They bundled past him in a mad rush to get somewhere quickly. As they disappeared around the corner, he distinctly heard one of them call back, “See you later, Ragtag!” to a sudden explosion of laughter. Ratuth Slabuth glared after them, his ivory brow beetling with suspicion. Whirling about, he flew up towards the Third Circle.

Some minutes later, Cabal barely prevented himself from stepping in some hideous slimy leavings, no doubt the spoor of some bone-chilling, nameless creature of the abyss, like the thingy or the whatnot. For a moment, though, there was an almost psychic flash of recognition, a flash that smelled distinctly of aniseed. Nor was Cabal the only one to feel it as the filthy patch itself shuddered and, unexpectedly, formed an eye that glared at him. It looked a little sore. “Ah,” said Cabal, crouching by it, “you must be all that’s left of the hapless imp that was sent to suborn me into making a mess of things up top. They obviously have difficulty accepting failure here. As it happens,” he said, straightening up, “I was in a hurry when we parted. I think I let you off far too easily.” So saying, he stamped on the eye, which made a liquid pop. “Good day,” he said as he left.

Mimble Scummyskirts lay all-of-a-puddle and thought extra-bad thoughts.

Satan was listening to the prayers of his worshippers on the material plain of Earth and finding it slow going. Voices floated from a glowing point in the sulphurous air while one of the Satanic secretaries fluttered about on leathern wings and made exhaustive notes in shorthand. “O Lord Satan, grant me mine most devoutly desired boons …,” “… an’ I want a car an’ I want lotsa chicks an’ I want…,” “… just the Philosopher’s Stone, I mean, that’s not much to ask …,” “… to allow me to better do thy bidding …,” “… all dead! All dead! They’ll learn not to laugh at me!”

“Anything at all interesting today, Betty?”

The secretary floated down to his shoulder and checked her notepad. “Not really. Oh, there’s somebody beseeching you for aid in their hour of need, et cetera, et cetera, how could you forsake him after he did your bidding, blah, blah, blah, yakkety-smakkety.”

Satan scratched the back of his neck. “And did he do my bidding, as a matter of interest?”

“No. He played a record backwards and thought he heard you talking to him.”

“Heavy metal?”

“‘Spanish Eyes.’”

Satan nodded thoughtfully. “Now, if it had been ‘The Girl from Ipanema,’ he might have had a case. This hour of need of his, what is it exactly?”

“Sacrificed a maiden aunt to your greater glory. Now he’s going to be executed.”

“And so he ought. What do I want a maiden aunt for? I wish people would think these things through.”

“No action, then?”

“No action. When he turns up, I want him told that he’s been very silly, and stick him in with the faithless priests. That’ll take the wind out of his sails.”

Betty made a note and checked the list of appointments. “Oh, you’re due to meet with a Mr. Johannes Cabal.”

“Ah, yes. I’ve been looking forward to this. When does he arrive?”

“Now,” said a familiar voice near his feet. Satan cocked an eyebrow at Betty, who shrugged. He leaned forward to look past his knees. Johannes Cabal stood by the lake of fire, polishing his dark glasses.

“On time, as always,” Satan said, and smiled unconvincingly.

Cabal said nothing until he’d finished removing the last streaks from the lenses, checked them by the infernal light, and put them back on. “I suffered interference in the commission of my part of the wager,” he said soberly. “Thus, the wager is null and void.”

“And it’s lovely to see you, too,” replied Satan, stifling a stagy yawn. “As to the wager, it is no such thing. There was nothing in the rules that said I couldn’t make things more interesting if I saw fit. I saw fit.”

“Don’t be fatuous,” replied Cabal. “There were no rules per se in the first place.”

“Then you have nothing to complain about.”

“Fine. Then I claim the period of one year to be a Plutonian year.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“A Plutonian year. That’s two hundred and forty-nine terrestrial years. Approximately.” He crossed his arms. “You don’t have a monopoly on facetious interpretations.”

“Am I to understand that you’re looking for a time extension?” A splendidly smug and supercilious smile slid onto Satan’s face. “That you failed to get the hundred souls? I must admit that I’m a little surprised. I was given to understand that you succeeded with fifteen seconds to spare.”

“There was a clerical error. I only had ninety-nine.”

“Oh, what a shame,” said Satan, fluttering his eyelashes. “So I get ninety-nine souls and I get to kill you, too? O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!” he chortled in unctuous joy. “My cup runneth over.”

“Your cup does nothing of the sort. It’s one or the other.” Cabal reached down to open the bag that lay by his feet. He removed the contract box. “Even by the most lax interpretation of the rules, it was a case of either/or. Either I get a hundred souls for you, or you kill me. There’s no mention of any other number. If you want the contents of this box” — he waved it demonstratively — “then we scrap the previous wager and start afresh. Otherwise, their ownership dies with me, and the donors get their souls back.”

“But your soul would still belong to me, Johannes,” said Satan slowly, “and eternity is a long time.”

“I respond badly to threats,” said Cabal without hesitation, and made to throw the box into the lake of lava.

“Wait!” barked Satan. Cabal paused. “Wait,” he repeated in a more even tone. He smiled ingratiatingly, a smile that said, Let us just skip over this unpleasantness, for we are both reasonable men, at least figuratively.

His nostrils also flared as he drew in the delicious scent of innocence. Ninety-seven of the souls were worthless, spiritual slag: hopeless cases whose names had never appeared in the celestial ledger more than very lightly pencilled. But those last two, the Winshaw and Barrow women, they were sweet. Nea Winshaw had acted out of character and had required a degree of temptation to sin so grievously. Still, she had willingly damned herself to save her child’s life. That was piquant. Now, as for Leonie Barrow, absolutely a good person, and apparently incapable of committing an even slightly naughty act. Well, words failed him (although he could probably have made some grunting noises that put his feelings over adequately). And her soul was all his. At least it would be if he could just get it away from Cabal. Of course, Nea and Leonie would only be his little playmates until Judgement Day, but his mouth watered at the thought of all the fun he could have in the meantime. He suffered from the usual problem of the dissolute epicurean — a jaded palate — and new thrills were rare around here.

Besides, if he played one more hand of cribbage, he’d scream.

The dramatic entrance of General Ratuth Slabuth — he hurtled through the cavern roof and plunged into the lava — shattered Satan’s considerations. The molten rock had only a moment to close over his head before it exploded back and Slabuth erupted upwards into a towering column of limbs, angles, and volcanic fury. Lava dripped from his empty eye-sockets, and there was a terrifying scream of primordial rage that battered at the limits of perception. He swept across the surface of the lake and came to a halt standing over Cabal. “You little bastard!” he roared.

Satan settled back in his throne. “You seem distressed, General. Would you like to talk about it?”

Without looking away from Cabal, who seemed only to be concerned by the tiny drops of red-hot rock that rained from Slabuth’s body and was otherwise not worried, the furious general growled, “This … human has been posting notices in the first three rings of Hell!”

“Oh,” said Satan, passingly interested while he thought through the soul situation, “and what did they say?”

“They…” For the first time, Ratuth Slabuth seemed to falter. Indeed, he seemed embarrassed. “They’re personal.”

Satan looked at Betty, who shot off into the air. Brief moments later, she returned with a small poster. Satan took it and read,

Satan frowned. “I was listening to a performance of Paganini — one of my favourites, as it happens — the other day on the Light Programme and there was this dreadful hissing and popping all the way through it. That was your doing, was it?”

“No!” said Slabuth, mortified. “It’s a lie! That poster has nothing to do with me! This mortal” — he pointed at Cabal, who tutted infuriatingly at such manners — “made it all up!”

“But you were called Ragtag Slyboots, I’m sure?”

“Well, yes, that bit’s true, but I left that behind ages ago. Radio hadn’t even been invented then! It’s all lies!”

“Oh,” said Satan, “that’s a bit embarrassing. I’m supposed to be the father of lies. Fancy not spotting my own kids. Tch.”

Slabuth/Slyboots turned on Cabal. “I’m really glad you lost the wager, mortal, because that means I get to kill you. Prepare to die!” If he was expecting Cabal to cringe in piteous fear, he was to be disappointed. In fact, if he’d been expecting Cabal to do anything other than shake an admonishing finger and point at Satan, he’d have been disappointed, for that was what Cabal was doing.

“Actually,” said Satan in a calm voice that boded bad things, “I think you’ll find that the wager was with me, Corporal Slyboots. If anybody has the right to kill him, that right is mine. As it happens, Mr. Cabal and I are renegotiating the terms of that wager. Therefore, I would thank you to return to the barracks and stay out of matters that don’t concern you.”

“Don’t concern me? DON’T CONCERN ME? I’ll have you know … Hold on. Wait a minute. What was that?” His voice dropped to a disbelieving whisper. “Corporal Slyboots?”

“You heard perfectly well, Corporal. I haven’t been happy with your performance for some time. In line for gingering up.”

“Corporal,” echoed Ragtag Slyboots in a ghastly voice.

“I wouldn’t look upon this as a demotion if I were you. Although clearly that’s what it is. Try to think of it as a challenge. You swept up the ranks in a blink first time around.”

“Twelve hundred years,” said Slyboots, enunciating each syllable. He slowly took off his helmet, looked at it longingly, placed it at Satan’s feet, and slinked slowly away. Satan started laughing long before he was out of sight or earshot.

“You can be terribly small-minded,” said Cabal.

Satan wiped a tear from the corner of his eye. “You were the one who put up the notices.”

“I don’t have pretensions towards deification.”

Satan gave him a wry look. “Do tell. Anyway, to business. You have a commodity that I’d rather like. I’m sure I have a little something that you covet. Shall we deal?”

“There’s nothing to bargain about. Will you give me my soul in return for this box? Yes or no?”

“Oh dear,” said Satan, “you’ll have to do better than that. You forget that, amongst my other creations, I spawned the lawyers. I’m not interested in the box. I want the contents.” Satan was delighted to see Cabal’s eyes narrow behind his spectacles (looking through smoked glass is a natural ability when one lives in caverns of stinking sulphur fumes). He really had been trying to pull a confidence trick on Satan himself. The past year had obviously changed him. “I’m not one of your rubes, Cabal: don’t forget that.”

Cabal debated inwardly for a long moment. Satan wondered if he might actually sacrifice himself to save the signatories. Surely he hadn’t changed that much? “Very well,” Cabal said finally, “you get the contents as well. I’ll throw in the box for free.”

“Deal,” Satan said, and laughed thunderously. “Deal!”

Rocks began to fall from the walls. Cabal looked around in sudden fear for his life. Surely Satan couldn’t go back on a deal, especially one that he’d made that very minute? Tiers started to thrust out of the walls. Flying things in swarms settled upon them, imps bundled out of small tunnels that opened like geological sphincters in the walls. Several immediately fell in the lava, but that’s imps for you.

Satan rose to his feet and stood, massive and malevolent, his head almost lost in the reeking clouds. Behind him, the floor shivered and shattered as his generals, princes, and barons rose behind him: Balberith, Beelzebub, and Carreau; Melmoroth, Shakarl, and Mr. Runcible; Olivier, Leviathan, and Yog-Sothoth, who just happened to be there because he couldn’t help it. “Forgive me, Johannes Cabal. Pride drives me, and I want an audience when I really rub your nose in it.” He addressed the gathered hordes. “Ladies. Gentlemen. Other things of less certain description. Before us we have a man who attempted to beat me, who attempted to cheat me.” Everything booed, hissed, and jeered, stamped hooves, trumpeted. Satan raised his hand for silence, which he got on the moment. “This is a man who was willing to send a hundred of his fellow mortals to never-ending torment” — there were a few ragged cheers — “for the sake of his own immortal soul, for a whiff of spirit that he never valued while he had it but was prepared to whore himself for when it was gone, for this …” And, like a cheap children’s-party conjuror, he produced Cabal’s soul.

From the tip of Satan’s outstretched index finger, depending from the very tip of his exquisitely manicured fingernails, dangled a sad, dirty white thing, like a bed sheet from a flophouse. It writhed miserably, devoid of intelligence but aware that its true owner was nearby. Cabal had a faintly pleasant feeling, as if he was going home for the first time in years and it would be just like it had always been. He dropped the box onto the floor and stepped back from it. “Very well,” he said, “they’re yours. Fulfil your part of this.” He spoke quietly beneath the renewed shouting and roaring from the deliriously aggressive audience.

But Satan heard him. “Fulfil my part? Let me tell you a joke, Johannes Cabal. I was going to give you your soul back anyway. Kill you? You’re far more use to me on Earth than down here.”

“I won’t work for you. Not anymore,” said Cabal evenly, but he coloured slightly all the same.

“You don’t have to. Your pathetic schemes do as much damage as a convent-full of possessed nuns. You need your soul to spread chaos in the world of mortals? Fine! Have it!” Satan bared his teeth. “I wouldn’t have anything that tawdry in the house.” So saying, he flung the soul at Cabal.

Cabal never felt it hit him physically, but he suddenly felt he was home, and as he closed his eyes and the derisive screams and jeers grew fainter and fainter, he thought that was where he should really be.

Fortuitously, so did Satan.

We could smell grass and trees, hear birdsong and a nearby river, feel a fresh breeze upon his face that ruffled his hair and took the scent of brimstone from where it lay hidden in his clothes and blew it away and away. He took a long, very deep breath, held it for a long moment, and released it. He opened his eyes. He was on the path in the valley, a stand of trees on the hillside above him, the river running fewer than a hundred paces away to his right. He knew exactly where he was: two miles behind him was the village, a mile ahead was home. He started walking.

It was late afternoon now, and he took the time to enjoy the walk, feeling every stone beneath his shoes, pausing to look up at the clouds, the birds that flew high overhead. He smiled a smile that betokened only a simple pleasure and continued on his way.

He halted abruptly and the smile fell off his face like a badger off a billiard cue. One of the birds was behaving in a very distinctive way: circling around and around something out of sight behind a bend in the path. A black bird that was no blackbird, a great ugly shambles of a creature that went “Kronk!” The day suddenly lost a lot of its appeal.

Cabal rounded the corner to find that the crow was circling over a boulder lying on the hillside near the path. On it sat Denzil and Dennis playing an extemporised version of Rock, Scissors, Paper of Denzil’s invention: “Rock, scissors, paper, dynamite, punch Dennis in the face.” Judging from the state of Dennis’s nose, they’d been playing a while.

Dennis saw Cabal first and turned his ghastly mess of a face towards him. He tried to smile, and the varnish around his mouth cracked and crazed. Denzil took the opportunity to make a cunning winning move in their game and punched Dennis sharply in the side of the head. Dennis made a sound like raffia and fell over sidewise. The crow had come in for a horrible fling of a landing and was hop-skipping hopefully across the grass to Cabal. He looked down at it without fondness.

“Why couldn’t you have been something with a bit of style?” he asked it. “A raven. A rook.”

“Kronk!”

“A penguin. I really wouldn’t have been fussy.” He looked at the crow, and the crow looked expectantly at him. “Oh, very well,” he said finally, and tapped his shoulder. With the bird ensconced, and in company with the quarrelling dead men, Cabal set off for home with rather less enthusiasm.

Still, even with the unwished-for company, it was still impossible not to feel some small pleasure at seeing his house when finally they approached it. The tall house thrust up out of the hillside as if it had always been there, although its style was only mid-Victorian, the cut stones of its construction somehow appearing soot-stained despite the nearest factory chimney being over thirty miles away. Considering that the nearest neighbour was three miles away, back along the path, it seemed somehow out of place that it should have a garden wall and a front gate. After all, surely the whole hillside was its garden? One might think that, but one would be wrong; there were things in Cabal’s garden that he had no desire should get beyond it, which was why every coping stone along the wall top concealed a sigil of warding, magical markings that kept the things inside, inside, and the things without, without.

Cabal paused before the gate. By the post, there were a few bones that certainly hadn’t been there a year ago. A couple still had gobbets of fresh meat attached. These he threw down the hillside for the crow, which swept after them making joyous noises, all of which were “Kronk.” He shook his head. Circulars, hawkers, and salesmen were welcome here — it was cheaper than having to buy in meat. At least the denizens of the garden would be fed, and he wouldn’t have too much trouble with them.

He opened the gate and walked in, followed by Dennis and Denzil. A multitude of tiny chiming voices started whispering from the herbaceous borders. “It’s Johannes Cabal! Johannes Cabal! He’s back!” Dennis and Denzil, clown faces creaking, looked dubiously at each other. Cabal stopped by the corner of the house and pointed down the path that led around the side. “You two. Nothing personal, but I’m not having a couple of shambling disasters like you shedding pieces all over the Persian rugs. Down there you’ll find a hut. That’s your new home.” As he watched them shuffle slowly out of sight, he ruminated that — not for the first time — he’d have something rather nasty in the woodshed.

The crow clattered down onto the wall and looked at the herbaceous borders with a lively interest. It was in the market for some small snacks, and the whispering things seemed likely contenders. “I wouldn’t, if I were you,” warned Cabal, as he searched through his key ring. “My garden is a remand home for criminally insane fairies. Where do you think those bones by the gate came from?” The crow looked at him, cocked its head, and demonstrated the intelligence that had its species on vermin lists the world over. It flapped its wings and landed on the small portico over the front door, safely out of the way of fairy darts and slingshots. Discretion wasn’t the greater part of valour for crows. It was the only part.

The front door swung open almost soundlessly beneath Cabal’s hand. It was dark inside; every curtain was drawn, every shutter closed. On the mat by his feet there was some post, which wasn’t unexpected; he’d had a long talk with the garden folk about acceptable visitors and enforced it with flashcards and cold iron. What was surprising was a circular for patios that had somehow got through. Turning it over, Cabal found scribbled frantically on the back, “They’ve got me cornered for gods sakes get help.” He crumpled it up and threw it in the wastepaper basket. What use did he have for a patio?

He dropped his gladstone bag on the hall table and breathed in the air. Musty and a little damp, but not as bad as he’d feared. He would set about airing the place tomorrow, but right now he was expecting a visitor, and it wouldn’t do to be unprepared. Where to begin? A fire would be pleasant and serve to start drying the place out. The living-room grate was clean if slightly dusty, just as he’d left it a little over a year ago. In the scuttle he found sufficient coal and some kindling. It all felt cold and a little damp, and Cabal doubted that it would catch without some help. Taking some paper that he had handy, he padded it around the wood and built the coal on top of it, lit a match — a Lucifer, to be exact — and set fire to the paper. He sat cross-legged on the rug and watched the flame drive the moisture from the wood, watched the kindling began to char and, finally, to burn. Some gentle blowing to provide encouragement for the nascent fire, and finally he could lean back, satisfied. He would really have liked to toast some crumpets or pikelets, but there was nothing perishable in the larder; he would have to renew his order at the grocer. He took out his notebook and opened it, touching the tip of the thin pencil with his tongue. Perhaps some tea, then. It would be stale but still drinkable. He started making notes.

Abruptly it became a lot colder in the room, and he realised tea was going to have to wait. His visitor had arrived a little earlier than anticipated. Out of the deep shadows in the corner stepped the Little Old Man. “Ahem,” he said, using slightly more phlegm and hacking than was considered polite even amongst camels.

“I was wondering when you’d be making an appearance,” said Cabal, without looking up from the notebook in which he was making a list of things to do.

“His Worshipfulness isn’t best pleased,” said the Little Old Man gravely. “In fact, he’s in a regular ranting bate.”

“Good. If I can give him so much as a tiny fraction of the pain and disappointment that this year has given me, I shall be a happy man.”

“He’s saying that you cheated him.”

“I did nothing of the sort. Tell him that if he continues to disseminate such slander, then he shall be in receipt of a sharp letter from my solicitor.”

“But he owns all the solicitors.”

“Then perhaps he should look up ‘petard’ in a dictionary and take his medicine. Our dealings are at an end, and I did not cheat him.”

“The deal was the ninety-nine souls you’d managed to get. You’ve short-changed him. He’s not best pleased, I can tell you. You’ve made an enemy there.”

“Surely that’s his job.”

“You know what I mean. I mean a special enemy. Look, Johannes, my boy, you and me, we go right back, maybe we can work something out?”

“The only thing I’d like to ‘work out’ of you is your liver with a cold chisel.”

The Little Old Man took an angry step forward, his pretence at bonhomie vanishing like a snowflake on a griddle. His face worked violently, as if he were having some seizure; then he roared a roar not heard around those parts since the late Mesozoic and started to swell. Growing larger in the flickering firelight, he took a step towards Cabal, who finally deigned to look up at him.

“Ah,” said Cabal, “so there you are. Finally taking some notice, are you?” For the Little Old Man was certainly looking rather more Satanic.

The thing that was now not nearly as little or manlike as it had been a moment before clacked its claws on the floor and snarled, “Where are the contracts for the Winshaw and Barrow women? They were part of the deal!”

“No,” said Cabal. He got slowly to his feet and looked the thing in the face. “The deal was for the contracts in the box. You’ve got them.”

“Those aren’t the ones I wanted! They’re garbage!”

“My, don’t you sound petulant? I know you were going to get those souls anyway in the course of time, but it’s still no reason to be ungrateful. I may have removed a couple from the box before I arrived, that’s true. But the deal was for the ones left inside it. No less, no more.”

“Nea Winshaw! Leonie Barrow! They’re the ones I want! Give them to me!” Over the fireplace was a deep shelf upon which sat a wooden box perhaps a foot along each edge. The box had no obvious lid. It giggled unexpectedly. The Little Old Man looked at it sharply. “What was that?”

“Nothing. Somebody once told me that manners maketh the man. Lucky for you, you’re not really. A man, that is. Come along, there’s no reason for all this animosity. Draw up a chair.” He raised an eyebrow and added pointedly, “Enjoy the fire.”

“Enjoy the fire? Have you any idea how much fire I’ve already got? I can’t imagine why …” The Big Old Thing paused and looked at the fire. “You didn’t?”

“I’ve been away a year. The kindling was a little damp. Fortunately, I had some wastepaper that started the fire splendidly. Actually, it wasn’t paper so much as parch — ”

“You …! You …!” The thing that wasn’t quite the Little Old Man seemed stuck for imprecations. “You didn’t?”

“I did,” said Cabal. “And I had every right to do so. You only had yourself to blame; you should have had Trubshaw oversee the exchange. His pathetic little penny-ante, nit-picking, anal-retentive mind would have insisted on every contract being counted out. Speaking of whom, how is dear Arthur?”

“We can’t find him,” seethed the Thing. “The damned out on the plain won’t hand him over! Your doing again!”

“Oh, yes,” said Cabal, matter-of-factly. “My doing again.”

“You haven’t heard the last of this!” the Thing roared, and vanished, leaving a stinking fog of sulphur fumes.

Cabal wafted at the smoke with his hand. “I rather think I have,” he said to himself. He put his hands on his hips and looked around the room, turning on the spot. “Now, what was I doing?” He consulted his notebook. “Ah, yes. Tea.”

The day died slowly, and the night came to the valley Cabal didn’t notice; he had drawn up many observations and plans over the last year and would soon start the great task of cataloguing them properly in his extensive coded records. The preliminary work took him several hours, two pots of tea, and a tin of luncheon meat that he ate from the can. The Assam tasted like boiled wood shavings; he would certainly have to go to the village and lay in new supplies the next day. He also drafted a couple of letters to addresses in Penlow on Thurse, explaining that their contributions, although appreciated, had proved surplus to requirements. Finally, as the evening wore on, he saw that he had written the same line twice and realised that his attention was wandering. It was time to rest.

He snuffed the candles out, poked the glowing coals a little, placed the fireguard carefully, and left the room. Out into the hallway and back towards the kitchen. He stopped by the door under the stairs, opened it, took down the oil lantern, and lit it. Then he descended into the cool air of the cellar.

In the corner was the generator, and this received his immediate attention; he’d been quite happy to work by candlelight earlier, but now he needed electricity. He tapped the fuel gauge, found it satisfactory, and turned over the motor. After a couple of dry attempts, it caught, and the maintenance lights on the wall started to gently glow.

He looked around. The cellar looked innocent enough: a few shelves with empty paint cans upon them, some old tools, bundles of ancient newspaper, a couple of mousetraps here and there. Cabal had made a study of cellars to make sure that his looked utterly average. He had done a good job. He stepped into the small, empty fruit cellar, ran his hand over the nitrous stonework, and worked a hidden catch. Placing both hands against the wall at shoulder height, he pushed hard, and it swung in and away. He fumbled in the darkness for a moment before finding a switch.

Beyond lay a large room, some forty feet along an edge and ten feet high. Along the walls were workbenches, shelves lined with specimens hanging in formaldehyde, instruments, and bookshelves loaded with dark tomes stolen from restricted collections. In the centre of the floor, beneath a surgical light, was an operating table that doubled as a postmortem slab. Cabal looked around for a moment as the last of the bluish fluorescent lights finished flickering into life. Everything was as it should be, everything in its place, that which he had left dead was still dead. That always simplified things.

He shrugged his jacket off, slung it onto the table, braced himself, and shoved the heavy piece of surgical engineering out of position. Moving the light to one side revealed the end of a block-and-tackle run that extended over to the far wall. He shifted the block from its storage place until it was over the slabbed floor exposed by the table. The slabs were massive — some four feet wide by eight long — but the one that usually lay directly beneath the table was special in two respects. First, it was only faced pumice, and so nowhere near as heavy as its neighbours. Second, there was a recessed ring in its exact centre. Cabal drew the hook down from the block and tackle and latched it onto the ring. He took the rope and pulled. He often thought he should replace this manual system with an electrical one, but he had put it off so often he had finally realised that he liked to use his own strength here. It was important to him that lifting the stone was an act of personal effort.

The gear clicked and ratcheted as he slowly raised the great slab. When it was safely clear of the floor, he gently pulled it away to one side on the rail, careful not to let it build up any difficult momentum. Once he had it clear, he walked back and stood, with his hands on his hips, over what lay revealed. The pit exposed was topped by a great pane of thick glass, and Cabal looked at the dark, reflective surface for a long moment. He thought of the last year and all that had happened to him and been done by him. He thought of all the towns and all the people, the tears and the misery. He thought of the carnival now rotting on the lost spur line, and all the undeniable evil it had wrought. He thought of Nea Winshaw in the interview room, and Leonie Barrow’s defiance right to the last. He thought of his brother, Horst. Then he looked at the glass and said to himself, “It was all worthwhile.”

He knelt by the pit and felt for a concealed switch beneath the lip. In a moment, bright neon tubes were flickering into life a yard below — beneath the great glass tank a yard square by two long that lay there.

Cabal looked down at the young woman lying suspended in its heart like a beautiful insect in amber, her hair — as rich and as yellow as a lioness’s — floating in a halo about her head. He touched the glass with his fingertips. This was all he had. All he had ever had since a day ten years ago. His glance darted around to ensure that seals were secure and none of the strange, perfect preservative had leaked. This was as close as he could get for now; he dare not break the seals and open the glass coffin until he was sure of success. Now, at least and at last, he could finally hope. He lay down on the floor with his face on the cool glass and felt comforted. His eyes flickered and closed. He spoke a word, a name, quietly, his breath clouding the glass. Then Johannes Cabal slept.