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 Ministeriums 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?’
‘We don’t,’ said the professor ruefully. ‘We know very little about her.’
‘She’s a bandit queen,’ said Alisha. ‘From the north, up in Katamenia. The story is that she led her forces straight through Senzan territory to reach Mirkarvia. The Senzans tried to stop her, but when they realised she was only interested in their territory for as long as it took her to lead her brigands through it and then into Mirkarvia, they stepped back and let them pass unchallenged.’
‘Brigands,’ said Cabal. ‘How very picturesque. A bandit queen. I can envisage their campfire dances now. There are a lot of tambourines involved.’ He looked around the council of war, such as it was. ‘And what happened when this romantic creature reached Mirkarvia?’
‘The government was on the edge of collapse anyway,’ said Atropos Straka. ‘The arrival of the barbarians caused its final dissolution. The Red Queen took over.’
‘And nobody knows her real name?’
There was silence.
Cabal snorted contentiously. ‘I am saddened. I truly am. All my professional career, I have been dogged by assorted societies, conspiracies, and interested parties such as yourselves. I feared for my life, and my work, and I took measures to protect both.’ He looked at those there assembled. ‘What a colossal waste of effort. You people are dolts.’
There was a general feeling of deepening threat from his audience, for which Cabal did not give a fig, nor even half a fig. ‘All your vaunted investigative abilities, your sources, and your techniques, and you cannot find out that trifling fact?’
‘She ’as covered ’er identity well,’ said Palomer, shrugging. He seemed very magnanimous about his own defeat, which was very decent of him. ‘My people could find no trace of ’er previous life in Katamenia.’
‘Well, of course they couldn’t,’ said Cabal wearily. ‘She isn’t Katamenian. She’s plainly Mirkarvian. She’s highborn, which is why the establishment accepted her rule so easily, and she knows enough about the corridors of power here that she was able to immediately target and dispose of anyone who might cause any trouble.’
‘That’s quite a series of deductions, Mr Cabal,’ said the professor. Cabal could see the cogs of his intellect were whirring and it pleased him to see at least one other person present was thinking. ‘Unless, of course, they aren’t deductions.’
Cabal smiled coldly at him. ‘And what else could they possibly be?’
‘They could be foreknowledge, just like your foreknowledge of Harslaus Castle.’
Cabal rose. ‘Just like my foreknowledge of Harslaus Castle.’ He looked around the assembly. ‘Your “Red Queen” is, with a high degree of probability, Lady Orfilia Ninuka, daughter of the late Count Marechal, arch-manipulator and professional bastard. That description applies to both father and daughter, by the way. I thought she was dead, too. Obviously killing Rufus Maleficarus isn’t going to be enough, after all. I shall also have to kill Ninuka.’ He sighed heavily. ‘Chores just multiply, don’t they? Well, I shall need my rest. Good night.’
So saying, Cabal turned his back on several semi-professional killers who loathed him, and went off to find a bed.
Chapter 15
IN WHICH THE RED QUEEN MAKES HER MOVE
Horst followed Cabal out. ‘You never cease to astonish me, Johannes.’ It was not clear from his tone whether this was a good or bad thing.
‘How so, on this particular occasion?’ said Cabal without turning.
‘You just arrive and know everything. How do you do that?’
‘I’ve had dealings in Mirkarvia before, as I think I mentioned earlier. Also Senza, and very briefly in Katamenia.’
‘Who is this Orfilia Ninuka, anyway?’
‘My description to the august gathering back there was essentially correct. Lady Ninuka is a spoilt brat, a sensualist, and utterly divorced from any moral scruples.’ He suddenly halted. ‘You’re giving me a look, aren’t you? I can almost feel the raised eyebrow.’ He turned and found Horst was, indeed, standing there with arms crossed and eyebrow raised. ‘Staggering as it may seem, Horst, I am not as single-minded—’
‘Bloody-minded…’
‘—as I was. On occasion I have been known to not do something despite it being logical, or done something despite it being somewhat irrational.’
‘That is the most grudging description of a conscience I have ever heard.’ Horst unfolded his arms and instead leaned against the corridor wall. ‘So she’s a spoilt brat. How did she get from having tantrums over dresses to bankrolling a supernatural empire of evil?’
Cabal looked out of the window into the darkness as he considered his answer. ‘I can’t say for a certainty, but I think she always had the capacity for such things, just not the opportunity. She understands how people think, and uses that to manipulate them, and I suspect she has always had great ambition. When the lines of succession were in place, I expect she had a plan to get herself the last few steps up the ladder into the topmost echelon, perhaps even the emperor’s wife or mistress. Now all that structure has gone, she has used the chaos to her advantage. I would not be surprised if she envisions herself as Empress Orfilia the First. As far as I can make out, she already is the de facto ruler of Mirkarvia. “The Red Queen”. I wonder how much blood was spilt to give her that name?’
‘You might be wrong,’ said Horst. ‘You can’t know for sure that it is Lady Ninuka.’
‘I could be wrong,’ admitted Cabal. ‘It pains me to confess to fallibility, but Lady Ninuka may not be the Red Queen.’ He rubbed the bridge of his nose, deep in thought. ‘But it is her. I am sure of it.’
‘Necromancer’s intuition?’
‘Would that there were such a thing. No, the ambition and the melodrama on show convince me. That, and the impatience of it. She does not merely wish to rule, she wishes to rule while she is yet still young. Risks have been taken in this enterprise that may have been avoided with a little more time. You were chosen too easily, Horst. Marechal once told me that Mirkarvia used to have a population of vampire—“nosferatu”, he called them. Why go to the trouble of raising a vampire in England when they had their own home-grown examples?’ The rhetorical question seemed to trouble him. ‘Why indeed?’ He shook his head. ‘Insufficient data with which to postulate.’
Horst smiled indulgently. ‘I’m glad you’ve got your soul back, and I’m very glad it seems to have come with a conscience but—really, Johannes—you’re still a bit thick, aren’t you?’
Cabal regarded him icily. ‘Define “thick”,’ he said slowly.
‘Do I have to? Look, work it out yourself. What was your relationship with this woman?’
‘Relationship? There was none. We merely travelled on the same aeroship for a few days.’
‘Oh, and there was no interaction between you at all?’
Cabal shrugged. ‘Well, yes, but nothing extraordinary. Let me see. There was a murder, I invest
igated, she tried to seduce me, there was all sorts of unpleasantness, and then I thought she died.’ There was no reply. Cabal looked at his brother to discover him thunderstruck. ‘Did I say something?’ asked Cabal.
‘You said quite a lot. Attempted to seduce you?’
Cabal wrinkled his nose. ‘Apparently. I didn’t notice at the time. That must have been galling for her.’
‘I can imagine. No. No, I can’t. Why did she…? No, it doesn’t matter. So, you didn’t part the best of friends?’
‘No,’ admitted Cabal. ‘I think she holds me responsible for the death of her father.’
‘The death of her…? I am getting such a sense of déjà vu. May I ask why she thinks you’re responsible?’
‘I shot him.’
Horst took a moment to consider this. ‘And … he died from his injuries?’
‘I would hope so. I shot him in the head. He was shooting at me at the time, too, so don’t imagine it was entirely cold-blooded.’
‘Does Lady Ninuka know that?’
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