Horst looked at the brightening horizon and felt his skin starting to heat with an odd prickling that was neither pleasant nor unbearable. He could hear his brother, and the naked fear in his voice touched him unexpectedly. He couldn’t look at him; he had to stay resolved. He’d lived, one way or another, longer than some, and that was something to be thankful for. Now it was undoubtedly time to go. His eyes didn’t waver from the distance.
“Sorry, Johannes. I’m going wherever I should have gone nine years ago.”
His last and strongest impulse for self-preservation came and went, and now it was too late. Even he couldn’t reach shade in time. He wondered if this was all his fault somehow, whether the sun was going to hurt, hoped that he’d done the right things, knew that these were his last thoughts and that they meant nothing. “Goodbye, brother,” he said, and then he thought nothing at all, as then the sun caught them both, momentarily blinding Cabal as it spilt over some distant mountain range. He blinked and cursed and tried to find Horst with his outstretched hands, but there was nobody there anymore. He whirled and clutched, but he knew it was already far too late. When finally he could see, there was nothing to see. Just some brown leaves fluttering, and a grey dust flying, and the faint scent of lost chances. Cabal spun around, looking to the far horizons, but he was alone, just as he was always alone.
* * *
The new day found Johannes Cabal the necromancer sitting by a ruined and rotting train on a long-abandoned spur line, his head in his hands, the gravel between his feet splashed wet with drops of saline, his sunglasses tossed carelessly to one side when he couldn’t see anymore.
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 He
ll 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.
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