‘No!’ She was pointing furiously into the middle of the unlikely group of attackers.
A man wearing the uniform of a Mirkarvian commissioned officer but with the air of a civilian was climbing to his feet in the middle of the triangle of forces arranged about him. He took a moment to dust himself down and then—Fischer drew his small binoculars from their case to confirm it—strolled over to an abandoned forearm that lay on the ground not far away. The forearm still wore the lower sleeve of a Mirkarvian uniform, and Fischer judged it as belonging to a major by the rings of rank around the cuff. The hand gripped a service pistol, and before Fischer’s astonished gaze, the man placed his foot on the severed forearm and wrestled the pistol free from the dead fingers. Pleased with his prize, the man rejoined the monstrous squad of women and started a conversation with them while placidly plinking 9mm rounds at the unhappy conscripts.
‘That is Johannes Cabal!’ The queen’s teeth were bared. ‘On no account is he to be killed or seriously injured, General. Any man who breaks that order will suffer my profound displeasure.’ Given the awful fates that had befallen those who merely peeved Queen Orfilia Ninuka, this was not a warning to be lightly ignored.
Very aware that he was likely exposing himself to such displeasure, General Fischer felt compelled to point out the realities of the situation. ‘Your Majesty, he is protected by a monstrous spider … woman … thing, a witch, and a woman who seems very comfortable with a rifle. Capturing him may be impossible.’ Ninuka turned on him, scenting insubordination. He raised his hands in pacification. ‘I speak only of practicalities. The troops we have to hand are green, barely out of training. It would take experienced men to do as you wish, and we have none.’
‘None? There must be a few veterans. They cannot all be dispersed around this wretched country.’
‘There were a few squads I might have trusted to mount a competent attempt to take that man unharmed, but…’ He nodded aft where the flames of the burning palace rose high into the sky.
Orfilia Ninuka looked at the glowing smoke rising from the unloved palace, and her jaw became set. For a moment Fischer was sure she was going to demand his pistol and, in all likelihood, shoot him dead. It would not have been the first time she had retired troublesome senior officers whom she felt had disappointed her. Instead she smiled. ‘Then we shall consider an alternative stratagem. Listen carefully, General.’
* * *
Horst did not feel at all lucky to be blown up, yet he was, which only goes to show something or another. The reader is at liberty to draw their own lesson in irony.
Even at his accelerated state wherein hummingbirds seemed slothful and sloths seemed geological, the detonation of an artillery round as it passed through the room into which he was about to enter was still an unavoidable surprise. Admittedly, he saw it as no mortal might with their own eyes—the sudden twitch in the far wall, the ripples travelling across the torn wallpaper, the glow of light around the door frame, then the hot, radiant gas of the explosion ramming in glowing planes under and over the door and even through the keyhole, the shudder in the wood, the eruption as the hinges and lock were torn from the disintegrating frame, the door shivering into smaller and smaller pieces, the floorboards lifting beneath his feet, waves rushing along the carpet as the gas got beneath it, and then the waves turning to smoke and fire as the material flashed—but he stood no chance of escaping it.
The blast picked him up, threw him back down the corridor as easily as if he were a scrap of paper, and then projected him through a window to fall thirty feet. As he lay there, burning, peppered with wooden splinters the least of which was the size of a pencil, and his suit utterly ruined, he did not feel very lucky. Yet he was, for he had been thrown out of the side of the building away from the guns of the Rubrum Imperatrix and so did not finish the moment punctured and destroyed by the arcane ammunition devised by the inventive mind of Orfilia Ninuka.
He became aware of somebody appearing over him, and then all became black. He felt some hard textile thrown over him and somehow dredged up the memory of lying on carpet offcuts in a den he had made in the woods near his home when he was perhaps nine or ten years old. Somebody was using a length of salvaged carpet to put out the flames upon him, which was kind of them, whoever they were, and probably not the actions of the enemy. This was reassuring and he allowed himself to relax a little. Presently the carpet was removed, and he found himself looking up into the face of Johns. His morning suit looked the worse for wear, and his top hat had entirely gone.
‘Are you all right, my lord?’ he was asking anxiously.
‘Oh, call me Horst.’ He said it vaguely; the blast had taken more from him than he realised. ‘What happened?’
‘They fired on their own barracks! They must be insane!’ Johns looked back at the burning building. ‘And they have some kind of special weapon, my Lord Horst. It kills those who are like us. There’s only a handful of us left who were lucky enough to be on this side of the building when they opened fire. What shall we do?’
‘Lucky?’ Horst managed to sit up, but it hurt more than anything had ever hurt him since he had become nocturnal by necessity. He made a mental note to avoid third-degree burns and blast injuries in future.
‘Wait here.’ Johns vanished into the smoke.
‘Righty-ho,’ said Horst, and waited there. Presently Johns returned dragging a terribly injured corporal, also a victim of the short-range artillery bombardment.
‘There you go, old chap. Tuck in. Got to keep your strength up if we’re to confound the Mirkarvians.’ He noted Horst’s dismay, and added, ‘I know, I know. I must admit, I’ve never really understood how some of our number can be so gleeful about feeding. But needs must and, for what it’s worth, he’s quite insensible and not long for this world in any case. Poor fella’s already lapsed into shock, and I doubt the best doctor in the world could bring him out of it. Go on … Horst. There’s still work to be done.’
Horst nodded reluctantly, muttered a few words of regret and apology to the comatose man, and fed.
* * *
He lifted his head some minutes later feeling physically much better, but mentally much worse. The soldier was quite dead and, even if he was technically one of the enemy, using him as a handy panacea to a vampire’s injuries seemed unfeeling at best. But it was done, and there was no point crying over spilt blood.
‘I hope the others have made some use of the distraction.’ Horst climbed easily to his feet, now as limber as a boy once more. He stepped away from the body, putting it out of sight, and proceeded to attempt to put it out of mind. ‘How many of us are left?’
‘Including us? Six.’ Horst looked at him, dumbfounded. Johns shook his head. ‘I don’t know if they fired into the barracks simply out of panic and were lucky, or if it was a very deliberate trap. Surely they wouldn’t sacrifice their own people like that?’
‘They wouldn’t. She would.’ The identification needed no further clarification than that, Ninuka’s public relations disasters being common knowledge internationally.
‘I’d heard stories of what she did to her own country—’
‘All true. She is perfectly capable of any act. Rally the few we have left. We have to make this count before they realise they haven’t destroyed all of us.’
Johns nodded, and ran off, dodging through the ruins, seeking cover as he went. He was barely gone a minute before Horst saw him running straight back in as straight a line as he could manage in the terrain. He looked terrified.
‘My lord!’ Horst couldn’t tell if he was calling to him, or sending up a prayer to an uncaring God. ‘They’re dead! They’re all dead! We have to—’
The bullet took him high in the back and went clean through, exiting from the left side of the chest. Horst, who as a vampire had been shot often enough to remove the novelty of it, was momentarily unconcerned; what could a bullet do to such as they? But almost instantly smoke began to issue from the exit wound. Johns looked down
at it in uncomprehending horror. Smoke curled from around his collar, and he tore at it as if he believed his clothes were on fire. They were, but only because the body on which they hung was starting to burn. Johns tore away the collar and half his shirt, his waistcoat buttons popping under the frantic violence, and the flesh exposed beneath was already incandescent with escaping energy. Johns started to scream. It lasted barely three seconds before he collapsed in a rain of charcoal and hissing bones.
Eight men appeared seconds later, and they were very different soldiers from the majority of the Mirkarvian forces. They wore steel helmets finished in a matte carmine, and gorget patches in the same shade on the collars of their black uniforms. These were the queen’s own Imperial Bodyguard, an elite force used not only as a personal guard but frequently for special operations at the Red Queen’s behest. They were well trained, well equipped, and feared by friend and foe alike. There was also the rumour that any new recruit had to endure a ceremony during which the queen took the soldier’s soul for safekeeping and to ensure loyalty. Of course, that was just silly hearsay. As if such things were possible.
How stylishly they were apparelled was of secondary interest to Horst at that moment. That they carried ugly, squared-off carbines that could apparently kill vampires with a single shot occupied his thoughts far more acutely. His recent dismay that his feeding upon an, admittedly, already dying man had shortened a life by a few minutes was now replaced by a very pragmatic relief that he had done so; his reserves were full, and that was just as well. By the time the Imperial Bodyguard arrived, there was no hint Horst had ever been there but for a slight breeze in the otherwise still air.
* * *
Cabal, Leonie Barrow, Miss Smith, and Zarenyia had sought cover not long after the aeroship lowering nearby laid fire into Buckingham Palace, thereby putting the last vestige of the building out of its misery. It had occurred to Cabal that he had made a mild error in forgetting that the Rubrum Imperatrix was positively bristling with guns of assorted kinds and that it might take it upon itself to use them at some point. Thus, he led his party at a sprightly trot to cover by a tumbled wall. It would offer no protection from an artillery shell, it was true, but at least they would be invisible to the gun-aimers.
Cabal peered cautiously around the corner and settled a purposeful eye upon the aeroship’s entrance ramp. The top part of it was the vessel’s own; a broad deployment point that would touch the earth should the ship set down, or be used for dropping rappelling lines or even at greater height yet, the use of parachutes. These were a newish contrivance, and Cabal wondered at the nerve required to bet one’s life on a large sheet conducting one from hundreds or thousands of feet in the air down safely to very solid ground. He understood the science of it, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
The lower half of the ramp built to span the gap was a semi-permanent affair of sapper bridge sections raised at an angle, supported by girders, and rooted in concrete. Any sentries that were supposed to have been there had been drawn off by the action or perhaps even taken cover from the effects of the heavy guns over their heads. It seemed to have ceased for the moment at least, and he was relieved to note that every gun barrel was pointing resolutely towards the raging conflagration previously known as Buckingham Palace. He spotted movement at ground level and saw troops leaving the end of the ramp and heading in discreet sections towards the fire. Their professionalism was apparent, and Cabal lapsed into tactical ratiocination.
‘Ninuka’s sending her bodyguard out.’
The others joined him and watched the figures disappear from view around the sides of the burning building. ‘That’s a lot of men,’ said Leonie. ‘She can’t have many left aboard.’
Zarenyia regarded the aeroship with disfavour. ‘It’s going to be full of little corridors, isn’t it? Hardly room to swing a baby. I’m not going to have to fold up again, am I?’
‘You’re assuming that I intend to board.’ This was disingenuous; Cabal’s distracted air as he weighed up the approach to the ramp made it perfectly clear that this was precisely his intention. ‘But, no. I am concerned for Horst and his cadre. We’ve seen that the Mirkarvians have access to weapons that make short work of vampires. Would you be so kind as to find my brother and any survivors and bring them to the aeroship as quickly as you can, madam? I think they would be both safer and more useful aboard the…’ He squinted at the vessel’s prow. ‘The Rubrum Imperatrix? Truly? Oh, the utter arrogance of the woman.’
‘Yes, that would be entirely alien a concept to you, of course.’ Miss Barrow’s smirk was distinct, but forgivable. Certainly Cabal had nothing to say to it.
‘Give us a leg-up,’ said Miss Smith, holding a hand out to Zarenyia. Zarenyia looked at her with astonishment for a brief moment before it was replaced with delight.
‘You’re coming with me, then, darling?’
‘Why not? I sort of enjoyed riding around on you in Hell.’ The expression of Leonie Barrow, who was observing this exchange, became one of perturbed puzzlement. ‘And this time I’m armed.’ She held up her wand, as proud as any child with a wonderful new toy on Christmas morning.
Zarenyia lowered herself and offered a knee, of which she had a surplus. Miss Smith clambered up easily behind Zarenyia’s human torso (to distinguish it from the arachnoid thorax upon which she sat) and made herself comfortable, exposing a shameful amount of ankle as her long skirt was pushed up in the process. Ankle all the way up to the mid-thigh to be precise. Stockings exposed to what was surely a scandalised London (zombies and vampires and foreign invaders were bad enough, but just cover yourself up, woman!), she placed a hand on Zarenyia’s shoulder and held her wand at the ready in the other. ‘I feel like a cowgirl,’ she said.
Zarenyia laughed. ‘You just cannot help feeding me straight lines, can you? I like you, poppet. Shall we go and kill some people now?’
Without waiting for an answer, Zarenyia galloped out of cover.
Cabal watched them vanish in pursuit of the Imperial Bodyguard with naked irritation. ‘Wonderful. Now there are only two of us to storm an enemy warship. What could possibly go wrong?’
‘I hope that was rhetorical, Cabal, or we’re going to be here for quite a while listing things that could possibly go wrong.’
Cabal said nothing, but only checked his pistol. He did it in such an offhanded, inconsequential way, however, that she realised with some surprise that he was procrastinating.
‘We are still going to try, though? Zarenyia and Smith can buy us some time, and God knows they’ll provide a spectacular diversion, but if we’re going to attempt this, we have to do so now.’
Cabal cocked the pistol and checked its safety was on before replying, ‘You know me, Miss Barrow. Better than most, I would say. You would not characterise me as given to irrational fancies?’
‘Not for a second. If you did have the occasional irrational fancy, you would probably be more likable. What is this about?’
‘Well, for one thing, you have a basis for possibly finding me more likable, for I am prey to an irrational fancy.’ He looked up at the aeroship hanging impassively before them. ‘I have a bad feeling. I cannot characterise it beyond that; believe me, I have tried. I have a sickness of spirit that drains me of any desire to go forwards.’
Leonie Barrow gawped at him. ‘Are you saying you’re afraid?’
He did not deny it, did not quibble with the term. ‘I believe so. The Phobic Animus is very much at home in me at the present moment. I fear that my luck is running out. I fear I will not leave that vessel alive. I fear that I shall, at this very late pass, fail finally, totally, irrevocably. I am afraid.’
She went to crouch by the wall by him. ‘Well, I suppose that’s that, then.’ She started thumbing fresh rounds into her rifle’s magazine. ‘I should have expected it to happen under stress. I did expect it to happen under stress. And here we are.’
Cabal looked quizzical. ‘You anticipated my failure of nerve?’
‘Not exactly. I anticipated the moment when your soul finally settled back into where it’s supposed to be, and stopped misfiring every five minutes. You are afraid, Mr Cabal? I am afraid. For all of her hooting and carrying on, I suspect Miss Smith is afraid. We are in danger. Of course we are afraid. Welcome back to the human race, Johannes Cabal. We were beginning to wonder if you’d received your invitation.’
‘You are mocking me.’
‘I am. But that doesn’t mean I’m not telling the truth. Look, just do what you always do—walk in like you own the place, be sardonic, shoot people. It’s the only way that we can get out of here and back to the real world. That’s the game, Cabal.’
Cabal gave her a hard look, then glanced away while he thought. Leonie, painfully aware that any door of opportunity they had could well slam shut any second, somehow held her silence. Cabal straightened up. ‘I shall need another gun.’
‘That’s my boy.’ Leonie clapped him on the shoulder and smiled far too broadly to be ladylike at the vile look he gave her in return. ‘Can’t go in there with only one gun; there might be lots of people to shoot.’
* * *
It took an unconscionably long time to run the length of the Rubrum Imperatrix. Cabal was aware that much of the subjective time was simply down to how very uncomfortable it is to run beneath a massive flying artefact whose underside is liberally laden with ways of swatting humans into sticky little red puddles. As they ran, he could hardly help but glance up now and then to see if an inquisitive turret had noted them as they scuttled beneath the colossus, and swung its maw to bear upon them. In truth, there were so many turrets bearing machine guns, he could hardly keep an eye on them all, but their run was not interrupted by a rain of lead falling upon them to smash their bones and puncture their internal organs, so he supposed the gunners were still far too interested in the last throes of the burning palace, its walls falling around the inferno, to look straight down.
The Fall of the House of Cabal Page 32