Johannes Cabal The Necromancer (35 page)

“Hold hard. I think I caught the word ‘fool’ there. Are you calling me a fool?”

“Sure, yo a fool, fool! Yo a— Oh, I say! Yaroo! Get off, you oik!”

For Cabal had grasped him firmly by the scruff of the neck and thrown him head-first down the chute.

“I trust you can make your own way down?” he said to the girl as he put the glasses back to his eyes.

“Oh, rather. Sorry about Rupert. He’s a bit of a nitwit, but frightfully good-looking Well, ta-ta.” She smiled sweetly and swept down the chute and out of sight.

“Ta-ta, lady,” said Mr. Bones, who had just arrived at the top of the stairs. “Mr. Bones reportin’ in, general. There ain’t a sign of the guy. He’s so gone”—Bones paused while a suitable simile came to mind—“that he’s comin back. Kind of.” Cabal looked at him oddly. Bones tried again. “What I’m sayin’ is, we can’t find the man. He’s vanished, boss.”

“The perimeter is secure?”

“Oh, yeah. Ain’t a blue-eyed weasel gonna get out of this place we don’t know about. Can’t figure it, myself.”

A good-natured clattering up the steps presaged the appearance of Bobbins. He seemed upset in a bright way. “Sir! Oh, sir! Look!” He held out a brown paper bag.

Cabal looked into it and then slowly reached in to remove an eraser dripping with goo. He dipped in again to find an old advertisement for ladies’ arch supports, also soaked in the stuff. “Layla?”

“Somebody killed her, sir! Who would do such a thing?”

Cabal thought Bobbins was far too nice to be an expression of Satanic influence. “What about her bodyguard?”

“Dead, too! And one of the chaps from Laidstone is missing.”

Barrow’s work, it had to be. Now that he knew he wasn’t fighting humans, he clearly didn’t feel morally bound to take prisoners. The gloves were really off now. Cabal bit a knuckle and thought hard. It was half past eleven now; he had half an hour left in which to neutralise Barrow and locate one last soul. Time was too pressing to juggle both without Horst’s help—where was Horst, anyway?—so Barrow would just have to be the lucky donor. Cabal concentrated; if he were Barrow, where would he be heading for? He can’t get out of the carnival, he knows and violently disapproves of its function, nowhere is safe, so he’s gone on the offensive. What would he target?

“Scheßle! The contracts! Barrow’s going to destroy the contracts!”

Bones nodded thoughtfully. “That’s bad.”

“We have to get to the train before he does! Come on!” He made a move towards the steps, decided urgency outweighed dignity, and jumped onto the chute.

he train was unguarded and unoccupied behind the main body of the carnival grounds, although still within the fences that ran across the track fore and aft. After the trouble with Billy Butler, Cabal had become quite paranoid about the train’s security. Barrow spent a couple of minutes locating a crowbar from one of the flatcars and made his way to the office. It was locked with a heavy chain and padlock, but the wood beneath the staples gave way first. Barrow was glad of the never-ending din that floated down from the rides and shows: it hid the shrieking as the pins tore out. After looking around to check the coast was still clear, he heaved himself up into the cabin. He pulled the door to behind him and looked around.

In the gloom he could just about make out the desk and a large blanket box, the kind of thing his uncle had always told him contained bodies. He doubted even Cabal kept corpses in his office, though, and turned his attention to the desk. All the drawers were unlocked, and none contained anything of interest. The top drawer on the right-hand side, however, refused to budge. He didn’t have time for subtlety; he’d just have to jemmy it open. At least, he would if he had the faintest idea what he’d done with the crowbar. He had the blasted thing a second ago; where might he have—?

The lights came on suddenly, leaving him blinking and shielding his eyes.

Johannes Cabal, who’d taken a moment to put on his blue glass spectacles before turning the light switch, was not at the same disadvantage. “If I were in a better mood, I might make some small joke about asking if you have a search warrant,” Cabal said. “As I’m not, we shall get straight onto the business of what I am to do with you.”

Barrow blinked the tears from his smarting eyes. Behind Cabal were three huge riggers like the ones from the Ferris wheel and a very thin man. The only other way out of the car was through the windows, and he didn’t think they’d stand still while he did that. Even if they did, it was a long way down to the tracks.

Cabal picked up Barrow’s crowbar from where he belatedly remembered putting it on an overstuffed armchair. “Very subtle,” he commented with light sarcasm. “I would have expected you to have acquired some lock-picking skills from a friendly thief or similar.”

“Most thieves couldn’t pick a lock to save their lives. If they had enough application to learn a skill like that, then they’d have enough to get a job that would certainly pay more than crime. ‘Criminal genius’ is an oxymoron. The vast majority of criminals get in by smashing their way in. That’s why it’s called ‘breaking and entering,’” said Barrow, and hoped Cabal wouldn’t know playing for time when he saw it.

“Really? How disappointing. Another shattered illusion. Still, that’s of little concern at the moment. The thing we should be applying ourselves to is the question of your immediate future.”

“What about it?”

“Whether you have one. Would you like to live, Mr. Barrow?”

“We all have to die sometime.”

Cabal smiled, although there were elements of sneer about it. “So I’m told. Let me rephrase my question. Would you like to live past midnight, Mr. Barrow?”

“Why? What happens at midnight?”

“Well, if I don’t have your signature on a form, I’ll have your brains all over that wall as a consolation.”

Barrow added this to some of the other facts that had come up during the last thirty hours. It all came together beautifully. “You have a time limit, don’t you? Midnight. And you need me to sign because you have a quota to fulfil. Now it all makes some sort of sense,” he said.

The smile slid off Cabal’s face like a wet fish off an umbrella. “How did you know that? Who’s been talking?”

“Nobody told me, per se. I worked it out.” Barrow took a leisurely look at his watch. “Less than fifteen minutes left. Sorry, Mr. Cabal, no time-and-motion awards for you. I won’t sign.”

Cabal took a threatening step forward. “I don’t think you understand the gravity of your situation.”

“I think I understand it entirely. If I sign, you get some sort of great reward and I spend the rest of my days on this Earth awaiting damnation. Not really a life at all, is it? If I don’t sign, you kill me, I go to whatever awaits me, and you take whatever punishment you have coming. I hope it’s something very unpleasant, Mr. Cabal, because I really have no intention of helping you. So you’d better get on with it.”

Cabal hefted the crowbar. “I’ve killed before—”

“Good for you,” interrupted Barrow. “I hope you enjoy bashing my brains out with that, because, when midnight comes, mine will be the last life you will take. I have to weigh my life against making sure that you lose yours. I think it’s worth it. Go ahead, Cabal. Kill me.”

Cabal looked at him, appalled. “This is ridiculous. You’re behaving as if I’m just some sort of common murderer.”

“There’s nothing common about you.”

“Thank you,” snapped Cabal. “I’m serious. I deal in death in the same way a doctor deals in disease and injury. I don’t want to spread it, I want to defeat it.”

“Necromancer.”

“Yes! Yes, I’m a necromancer, technically a necromancer. But I’m not one of those foolish people who take up residence in cemeteries so that they can raise an army of the dead. Have you ever seen an army of the dead? They’re more expensive than a living one, and far less use. A shambles; they march ten miles and their legs fall off. Napoleon would have approved—that really is an army that marches on its stomach. Until it falls out.

“That’s not what I’m interested in. I want to deny death. I want to … well, for want of a better word, cure it. Is that such a bad thing? Can you look me in the eye and tell me that there was never a moment in your life when, given the power, you wouldn’t have brought somebody back from the dead? Not as some sort of ghoul or monster but just as they were? Warm? Living? Breathing? Laughing?” Barrow realised with a shock that Cabal was pleading with him. “Can you tell me that there was never a moment when you would have given anything to have woken up and for them still to be there?”

Barrow thought of a cold October day fifteen years before and said, “We have to accept it.”

“No!” roared Cabal in a sudden fury that made Barrow step back. “No, we don’t! No, I don’t!” He reached into his jacket and produced a piece of paper, some sort of contract. He shook it at Barrow. “Sign this! Sign it, damn you! I am so close to success, so close.” He calmed himself to a hoarse whisper, which was more threatening by half. “I need your signature, Barrow. You’re standing in the way of science. You don’t want to go down in history as a Luddite, do you?”

“What went wrong with you, Cabal? What twisted you up like this? Can’t you see that what you’re doing is wrong?” He sighed. “No, of course you can’t. I admit I’ve made one mistake about you, Cabal. Up until this moment, I thought you were at the very least a bad, bad man. Perhaps even evil. I was wrong about that.”

“Then you’ll sign?” asked Cabal, not understanding Barrow’s gist, hoping it meant acquiescence.

“You’re not bad, you’re just mad.” Cabal’s look of hope turned hard. “When we spoke today, I had the oddest feeling that we had something in common. I think that, somewhere inside you, there’s a decent man trying to get out. I even think that all this”—his gesture took in the office, the carnival, the contract in Cabal’s hand—“is the result of you just trying to do the right thing the wrong way. If I’m right, then I’m not unsympathetic, but I can’t let this go on. No, I won’t sign your dirty little contract. Do as you will, but you’ll have no co-operation from me.”

“Fine,” said Cabal, and struck him a glancing blow with the crowbar. He watched without emotion as Barrow folded and fell at his feet. He sighed and started to accept what he’d known ever since the sun went down and things had gone from bad to worse. That, at the last, he’d failed.

“What do you want us to do with ’im, guv?” asked Holby, pointing at Barrow.

“I don’t know,” said Cabal. “Does it matter? Just throw him in the furnace or something.”

He went to the door and climbed down, deep in thought. Perhaps he could collar the first person who passed him, check their ticket number, discover that they’d won the end-of-season big, big prize draw, and award them the entire year’s takings. Of course, there was a bit of paperwork they’d have to fill in first. It wasn’t a bad scheme, now that he thought of it: desperate but practical, like so much of the rest of his life.

He’d hardly set foot on the ground when somebody was saying, “Excuse me? I wonder if you could help?”

“Certainly, but first may I check your ticket?” he started as he dusted himself off and turned. “You may already have won the end-of-season, big, big …” The words died in his throat.

“Have you seen my father?” said Leonie Barrow.

“I’m sure I, uh, I think I saw him back at the carnival. Somewhere. He’s round and about.” Cabal gently took her arm and started to steer her away from the train. Dolby’s bellow made them both turn.

“’ere, guvnor.” He pointed at Barrow’s limp form dangling between Holby and Colby. “I fink ’e’s too big to get in the furnace in one piece. Can we chop ’im up a bit first?”

“Oh!” said Leonie Barrow.

“Ah,” said Johannes Cabal.

hey sat at Cabal’s desk, Cabal behind it, Barrow—wet from the dousing he’d taken to bring him around, a thin line of blood running from his head wound and mixing with the water—opposite, and Leonie at Cabal’s right. On the desk lay the contract and a pen. Cabal watched but did not interfere as Leonie’s hand found her father’s.

“Are you all right?” she whispered, as if Cabal and Mr. Bones, who stood behind the little group, wouldn’t be able to hear. “What did he do to you?”

“It’s only a scratch,” said Barrow, gesturing at but being careful not to touch the wound. “I was expecting far worse.”

“You’re not out of the woods yet, Mr. Barrow,” said Cabal, hating the way it made him sound like a music-hall villain. He checked his watch. Less than five minutes. He shot a sideways glance at the hourglass on the shelf. The top globe seemed to be empty, but grains still fell and sparkled. It was now or never, all or nothing. “I still have a contract that needs signing, and I’m under some time pressure here, so if we could cut along, I’d be very grateful.”

“What are you doing here?” said Barrow to Leonie, ignoring him entirely.

“Well, what was I supposed to think when you left the ticket in my room? I thought you’d had second thoughts.”

“I burnt that ticket. There was absolutely no way that I wanted you here. I’d do anything if you weren’t.”

“Ah,” said Cabal butting in, “I can help you there. Safe passage home for the pair of you.” He tapped the parchment. “Just sign.”

Barrow looked tiredly at him. “Go to Hell, Cabal.”

“That,” replied Cabal, with a very tight rein on his temper, “is rather what I’m trying to avoid. But if I go, rest assured that you’re going to your just rewards, too.”

“And my daughter? What about her?”

Cabal looked at Leonie. She’d been well named: her mane of hair was as yellow and rich as a lioness’s, and her face, although pinched with tiredness and worry, showed a certain determination and will that he found affecting. The precious, irreplaceable seconds drew out. Two minutes left. Abruptly, Cabal reached down beside his chair, opened the glad-stone bag that lay there, and drew his handgun.

“I’m afraid the time for subtlety has long since gone, Mr. Barrow.” He levelled the revolver at Barrow. “Sign or die.” Leonie gasped. Cabal ignored her.

Barrow actually yawned. “We’ve been though this once already, and my answer hasn’t changed. No.”

“Very well.” Cabal hadn’t expected him to crumble suddenly, but it had been worth the attempt. He swung his arm until the gun was bearing on Leonie. “Sign or she dies.”