‘It is. Still, your ability to climb aboard quickly and, one hopes, unnoticed gives an extra sinew to any new plan we might hatch. As it is, I think we should turn off this road as soon as possible, and … damn it.’
An army truck was pulling away from the eastern end of Constitution Hill and clearly manoeuvring to enter the Mall. There was every likelihood that they would be questioned if spotted, and a fight within eyeshot of the hostile barracks situated in the surviving northern corner of the palace would probably not end well for them.
They were closer to the park side of the road, and Cabal led them into the trees without hesitation. The foliage closed behind them, and a few moments later the lorry rumbled by. It did not check its speed at all as it passed. It seemed that they had been unobserved.
Horst looked around the unnatural gloom of the park. ‘Minty says the park is full of nasty things.’
‘It certainly is now. I pity the zombie that crosses our path.’
Buoyed up by the bravado engendered by such—not unreasonable—thoughts, they pressed into the darkness.
* * *
Cabal’s opinion of their chances of passing through doom-haunted St James’s Park unmolested turned out to be entirely reasonable and not the piece of bravado it may have seemed. There were indeed creatures and entities lurking in the shadowed places that would have done a common or garden gang of humans to death or thereabouts in a twinkling. But the senses of the uncanny can perceive the uncanny, and—while the flickering spirit of a young girl might not have given them great pause—the presence of something cheerfully devilish, something engagingly vampirical, something stoically witchy, and something peevishly necromantic proposed more pain than gain for any predatory observers. Even the sole figure untouched by strange energies carried a bloody big shotgun. The dangerous forces within the park decided there were easier ways to amuse themselves than mixing it up with this particular covey, nor did any of the Mirkarvian troops stationed at the ruins of the palace notice five figures surreptitiously cross the bridge over the park lake.
They emerged from the park at the eastern end of Birdcage Walk and made their way towards the river. The Palace of Westminster was hardly in any better state than Buckingham Palace. The body of the structure looked to have been bombed, and the northern clock face of St Stephen’s Tower was bisected at a jagged angle a few degrees from the vertical where the tower’s top had been shorn away as if by a blow from a giant’s axe. The remains of the great bell Big Ben lay in shattered curves at the tower’s base in Bridge Street. Only the southern end of the complex where the House of Lords lay was relatively untouched. It seemed the bomb-aimer’s mark had been the tower; this had been the surgical destruction of a symbol.
Horst looked to the south and frowned. ‘There’s something going on here.’ His voice was uncharacteristically serious. ‘Can’t you feel it?’
Cabal went to stand by him, removing his cap as he did. He did not care to be in military uniform of any kind, but chafed at the sheer showiness of grey. He felt like a fashion model. ‘What sort of thing do you mean?’
Minty drifted by. ‘You don’t wanna go in there. It’s all full of leeches. That’s where they ’ide. The soldiers don’t know it, though, ’cos the leeches are really careful ’bout bein’ seen around ’ere.’ Having delivered this report, she drifted away again.
‘How many?’ called Horst after her.
‘Loads,’ she replied, enigmatic and unhelpful.
When Cabal was apprised of this intelligence, he grew thoughtful. ‘We haven’t run into any of the supernatural horrors spawned by Ninuka’s assault with the exception of the girl—’
‘Oi!’ said an otherworldly voice possessed of outrage and poor diction.
‘—but perhaps we should make the acquaintance of a few.’
Horst regarded him quizzically. ‘I’m waiting for the wisdom of that idea to come to me, but it’s taking its time. Why would we wish to pay a house call upon a bunch of vampires? They’re not all as couth as me, you know.’
‘I’m rather hoping that they’re not.’
Leonie Barrow pushed her cap back on her head. She didn’t like the uniform nearly as much as the adventuress outfit with which this reality had seen fit to gift her on leaving Sepulchre. ‘Is this another of those ideas of yours that only seems to be insane, Cabal, but that when put into operation actually turns out to be suicidal?’
‘You really do know my brother, don’t you?’ said Horst.
‘Only too well, and I have the scars to prove it.’
‘Oh?’ said Horst with unfeigned interest. ‘Where?’
Cabal grimaced. ‘Largely psychological, Horst.’ Ignoring his brother’s expression of disappointment, Cabal turned and pointed at the dark building that had once housed the lords and bishops whose great wisdom and imagination had never been anything but an unparallelled boon to the empire. ‘That hall is apparently home to a horde of bloodsucking leeches that have been forced to maintain a very low profile due to the proximity of the centre of Mirkarvian power in the British Isles, or whatever Ninuka calls them these days. I doubt they enjoy that. Let us test that theory.’
‘And if you’re wrong?’ said Leonie.
‘Then we fight our way out and think of something else, assuming the first part of that sentence comes to pass.’ He nodded at her shotgun. ‘I would have thought that would make you happy, Miss Barrow. You have barely had a chance to use that ostentatious weapon yet.’
‘I am not fond of guns, Cabal.’
‘As you say. May I ask a favour of you? I should like to examine one of those cartridges, please.’
As taken aback by his politeness as anything else, Leonie slid a black-and-blue-banded cartridge from her belt and handed it to him.
‘Thank you,’ he said as he studied it closely. His switchblade snapped open in his hand. Using a low nearby wall as a workbench, Cabal quickly worked the cartridge’s crimp open and spilt out the contents into his palm. He swirled the pellets around with the tip of his forefinger ‘Interesting. Observe: silver, undoubtedly blessed; Lengian metal; grains of rock salt; lead. This cartridge is intended to wound anything, no matter how resistant the target usually is against mundane weapons. Here…’ He dumped the shot and opened case into Leonie’s cupped hands. ‘Thank you.’
Leaving her to wonder what to do with the gutted cartridge, Cabal brushed off his hands and said, ‘From what I have observed, and as I have previously stated, the greatest concentration of pure threat to be found in this blasted metropolis is us. Madam Zarenyia, what is your view of vampires?’
‘Your brother’s nice,’ she said, offhandedly picking twigs from her bustle, ‘but the rest can go hang. Awful boors. All fangs and tuppenny-ha’penny mesmerism. They’re not even very good at it.’
‘Excuse me.’ Horst was somewhat offended despite the disclaimer. ‘I happen to think I am rather good at it.’
‘Sweetness.’ She said it like a not entirely sympathetic aunt breaking the news about Father Christmas to a wide-eyed nephew. ‘You aren’t. No vampires are. You only think you are because humans have such silly, feeble brains. Really, anyone can mesmerise a human.’ She looked around. ‘Ah, me. I fear I have upset the whole company one way or another.’
‘So you would feel no compunction in destroying vampires if they prove difficult?’ Cabal dragged Zarenyia back to the topic at hand, a chore that accompanied most conversations with her.
‘Oh, yes. Bit soulless and bland, but they pop nicely if you poke them hard enough.’
‘Thank you. Miss Smith, have you any experience of them?’
‘Not directly, but I know what they’re vulnerable to.’ She drew her wand and smirked a smirk sufficiently wicked to grace a witch of any persuasion.
‘Excellent. Horst, how do—’
‘Yes, yes, I’ll cheerfully smash any vampire into pulp if it gets us out of here. Can we crack on, please, Johannes?’
Undaunted, Cabal addressed the group as a whol
e. ‘Splendid. I think my faith in our general level of threat is well placed. Let us visit the lords in their den.’ And he smiled a smile that echoed Miss Smith’s in that it was entirely sincere and entirely forbidding.
* * *
After being largely destroyed by fire in 1834, the Palace of Westminster was rebuilt throughout the middle decades of the nineteenth century. The resulting building in the perpendicular Gothic revival style is notoriously labyrinthine, giving the impression at least internally of a building that evolved rather than being designed. It was to the advantage of the exploring party, again with Minty the helpful ghost leading the way, that unfriendly Mirkarvian bombs had simplified the matter of reaching the chamber of the House of Lords tremendously. Whereas it would once have involved a degree of aimless wandering of corridors, it was now merely a matter of climbing over a great mound of rubble that had once been the offices of the parliamentary leaders and the chief whips, over further rubble that had previously constituted the Moses Room used for Grand Committees, and finally through the inward slope of rubble that used to be the northern and western walls of the peers’ lobby.
This brought them to the very door of the House of Lords. Pausing only to check firearms and wand, they entered.
Formerly, the chamber was of great pomp, some eighty feet long by forty-five wide, the five ranks of benches on either side covered in expensive red leather, the sovereign’s throne down at the southern end—used only at the state opening of Parliament yet representing the symbolic presence of the monarch for the rest of the parliamentary year—the Woolsack before it upon which the Lord Chancellor sat, and the Judges’ Woolsack before it.
Being pressed into service as a nest for a bunch of itinerant bloodsuckers had done nothing for its aesthetics at all, however. On every bench sprawled dishevelled bodies beneath windows inexpertly painted out in black. On the Woolsacks, even on the throne, were limp vampire bodies from every walk of life, creed, and colour. When Ninuka had unleashed her strange curse upon the capital, it had plainly been indiscriminate and random in its workings. Here vampire broker lay by vampire sweep, vampire debutante by vampire waitress.
‘I once visited the Houses of Parliament with my dad,’ whispered Leonie Barrow to Zarenyia. ‘We stopped here and watched for a while in the public gallery’—she pointed—‘just up there.’
‘This must be quite a change, darling.’
‘Actually, less than you might think.’
Cabal coughed, loudly and in a mannered fashion. A couple of vampires raised their heads and looked at him blearily. It was very disappointing of them. He had gone in there expecting at least a degree of trouble and instead found something like a club around dawn on New Year’s Day.
Coughing made a couple of them blink, but it was all going far too slowly for Cabal. ‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he bellowed, picked up a chunk of plaster debris, and threw it at the nearest vampire.
It struck the creature with a satisfying thud, and the predator of men and lord of nocturnal terrors so targeted said, ‘Owwwww…’ in a whiny nasal voice and rubbed his plaster-smirched hair slowly. ‘What you go and do that for, eh? That hurt.’
‘What a shower,’ said Zarenyia. Her clear tones penetrated to every corner without necessitating the raising of her voice a single decibel. ‘What an absolute shower.’
‘You’d better be careful just what you say,’ said a gent of the City, rising with some difficulty from a bench, and recovering a battered top hat from the floor. He donned it with great dignity. ‘Do you realise where you are?’
‘We were given to understand this was a hotbed of vampiric activity,’ said Cabal. ‘We were misled, and have discovered only a flophouse for the haemovorous community. It does one’s heart good to see that the mere collapse of Britain has not resulted in any lowering of standards.’
‘Who are you, and why do you come here, mortal?’ The voice came from the throne. The City gent looked fearfully to it, and sat down quickly, his deference clear.
The man on the throne uncurled slowly and rose to stand before it. Possessed of height, looks, and an aristocratic air, he, at least, filled the role of vampire better than any of the other wretched creatures thereabouts. His suit was rumpled from lying in it, but was obviously his own tailored possession before the great collapse, and hung well upon him. He emanated an air of authority that flowed over the horde around him and brought them to heel.
Cabal did not give a tinker’s cuss.
‘You there,’ he said, waving a finger in the vampire’s direction. ‘Are you the one to talk to? I am Johannes Cabal. Who are you?’
‘Cabal. A foreign-sounding name belonging to a cove with a foreign-sounding accent. A Mirkarvian, perhaps?’
‘I am neither Mirkarvian nor do I hold that state of thugs and blowhards in any degree of respect. My accent is Hessian, but I hold a British passport.’*
‘Then you should bow before me. I am the King of England.’ The vampire gave a mocking half bow.
‘He’s a bit irritating, isn’t he?’ said Zarenyia in a sotto voce whisper that would have filled the Colosseum. ‘Can we kill him now?’
‘’E’s a snotty geezer,’ agreed Minty.
The vampire narrowed his eyes at them, but held his temper. ‘I do not boast emptily. I am, as far as can be ascertained, the highest-ranking noble in line to the throne still extant. Therefore, I am the King.’
Cabal slowly drew in a deep breath, and then let it out just as slowly. He wanted no possibility that his exasperation was not painfully obvious to all present. ‘I notice you say “extant”. Most would say “alive”. I think being alive is probably regarded as quite important to a smooth succession, wouldn’t you?’
‘These are strange times.’
‘They are indeed. And about to get stranger. But you still have the advantage of me, sir. What is your name?’
‘I am Lord Varney of Clemsy, baronet—’
Any further quoting of Debrett’s was interrupted by an unseemly nasal outburst of mirth. Horst found himself the centre of attention. ‘“Varney”? Really? And you’re a vampire? Varney the Vampire? That is, without a breath of intentional irony, your name?’
‘You find that amusing?’ Varney clearly didn’t.
‘Well, no. Sorry. It’s your name and I suppose…’ Horst started laughing again. ‘I’m sorry, truly. It’s ridiculous. Your name, that is. Please don’t tell me your first name’s “Vincent” or I may split my sides. Actually, please tell me it is; I could do with a good laugh. It’s been a bit grim recently.’
‘My name is not—’
‘It’s a tonic to run into somebody as ridiculous as you. I should thank you.’
‘My name is not—’
‘“Vincent Varney the Vampire.” That would be tremendous, wouldn’t it? You could get top of the bill in the music hall with a name like that. What a turn.’
‘Enough!’ The murmurings that had been growing by the waking nest grew quiet. The noble chamber was silent, but for Horst giggling. ‘I will not be mocked, certainly not by the likes of you.’
Horst’s giggling slowed. ‘The likes of me? What likes would that be, exactly?’ Varney said nothing. Horst nodded. ‘Let me ask you the same thing, but back to front. What exactly are the likes of you? Look at you, in your expensive yet tasteless suit, sprawling around on a stolen throne and proclaiming yourself the King of England. You want to know how big your realm is, Your Majesty?’ Horst held out his arms to indicate the chamber. ‘Here. This is it. All of it. Outside this room the country is held by a real monarch. The Red Queen herself, Orfilia Ninuka. A very nasty piece of work, but you cannot fault her for energy and will. She has taken Britain and, I would guess, several other places along the way westward from Mirkarvia. It’s because of her that the Queen is dead, so long live King Vincent Varney the Vampire in his huge kingdom of one room.’
There was a tense silence. Every vampire in the place was awake and watching now. ‘My name,’ said Varney slowly an
d with the sort of exquisite menace that only comes with fangs, ‘is not Vincent.’
Horst wasn’t playing any more. Cabal watched him from the corner of his eye; sometimes his brother almost sank beneath the surface of the monster he had become. It was a rare enough event, but every time it happened the effect was more noticeable, the capacity for violence closer to the surface.
Horst spoke. ‘I don’t care. I really have no interest in your name any longer. You were vaguely funny for a while, but now I think I am done with you. We came here with the intention of rallying the vampires against the invaders. After all, you were all born Britons, were you not? A force of you sent in at the right time and the right place could do wonders in reversing this poor country’s fortunes. But that would be an effort. So Lord Muck over there has you avoiding the Mirkarvians so as not to rock the boat. They know you’re here; you do realise that? How could they not?’ He reached inside his uniform tunic and pulled out a map. He held it up for the company to see. ‘This is a military map. A Mirkarvian military map. Here on the House of Lords it says, Leech Nest: Avoid. Low threat.’ He threw the map on the chamber floor. ‘“Low threat.” There must be three or four dozens vampires in here, and they regard you as slightly less of a worry than a wasps’ nest. Because they know, they know that you are terrified to touch them, so you feed off other survivors. As far as they’re concerned, you’re an actual asset to their invasion. Proud Britons all.’ He took a step forwards, and spat on the floor. ‘Your Majesty.’
Varney simply disappeared. There was a sense of speed that excelled the ability of the human eye to discern movement, a disturbance in the air and in the dust and debris on the chamber floor travelling in a straight line from where Varney had been towards where Horst stood.
A hair’s breadth of a second after Varney vanished, so did Horst. Before merely human reactions were sufficient to draw breath in surprise at these phenomena, Varney reappeared in mid-air two-thirds of the way from the southern to the northern wall, tumbling helplessly and at high speed as if launched from a siege engine especially designed for propelling mid-ranking nobles in the least dignified way possible. He crashed into the Table of the House whereupon the clerks once did their work, and shattered it as it half turned over from the massive impact.
The Fall of the House of Cabal Page 27