Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

Frank Barrow built a case, it stayed airtight at two hundred atmospheres.

There was none of the behind-scenes stuff that one might expect, he discovered as he peered through tent flaps and listened at ajar doors. Everything was as dead as dust when the townsfolk weren’t there. Nobody spoke, nobody moved (although he was sure he’d heard a mass gasp of exhaled breath when a party had left the hall of murderers in the Sociopathic Mind). Dead as dust. Cold as clay. The cogs of the idea that had started forming earlier were beginning to mesh. He didn’t like the look of the machine that they were forming at all. It seemed too fantastic, like a heart pacemaker made from balsa wood and chewing gum. He must have it wrong. He just couldn’t quite see how, though. After all, if it’s got four legs, yaps, and wants to be best pals with your shin, then it’s likely to be a dog. Barrow felt he had enough circumstantial evidence that, if he threw a rubber bone, this particular idea would bring it back for him, plus a large puddle of drool. Barrow had a bad feeling that he knew exactly what was going on.

“I know you,” said a voice quietly behind him. Barrow whirled to find Horst standing there. “You’re Frank Barrow.” Horst raised his hands in supplication. “Really, I mean you no harm.”

Barrow belatedly realised that he had settled into a boxer’s stance. He grunted with embarrassment and straightened up. Horst looked at him coolly. “I’d got the impression from somewhere that you were Penlow’s mayor or some such. Do your duties include skulking around visiting carnivals?”

“How long have you been watching me?” said Barrow, with some bluster thrown in for effect. He needed time to get over his surprise.

“Me? Oh, I get around. I’m here, there …” Horst seemed to turn into a long smudge on Barrow’s retinas, and then he was standing twenty feet away. “Everywhere,” he said, appearing abruptly not two paces away.

Barrow gawped. He’d seen some neat tricks before, but this aced them all. “How do you do that?” he managed to ask.

Horst shrugged dismissively, as if it were on par with ear waggling. “Practice. Natural talent. Supernatural powers. Who knows? Who cares? I don’t and you shouldn’t. You should be answering my question.”

“I wasn’t doing anything wrong, what business is it of yours?”

“You might not have been doing anything wrong, but you may have been considering it. Certain authorities hold that the thought is morally equivalent to the expression. That seems like an auto-flagellomaniac’s charter to me. Are you a moral man, Mr. Barrow?”

“Eh?” Barrow had been considering escape routes and had just realised what a pointless endeavour it was when up against a man who could break the sound barrier in carpet slippers. “I used to be a police officer.”

Horst raised his eyebrows to demonstrate polite interest. “Really? Well, that’s nice, of course, but, as I was saying, are you a moral man?”

Barrow let that pass without challenge. “Yes, I think I am. Are you, Mr. Cabal?”

“‘Mr. Cabal’ is my brother. Call me Horst. And, yes, I am.” He said the words again, as if realising the truth in them for the first time. “I am a moral man. There are certain things that have to be done, no matter how difficult they are. Forget about blood and water. I have to forget about blood. And you” — he looked into Barrow’s eyes, and Barrow suddenly found he couldn’t move, could barely even breathe — “why do you come here when you’re so afraid?”

Barrow would like to have said something doughty, but his muscles didn’t seem to be returning calls today.

Horst continued speaking. “Don’t give me the saloon-bar talk about not having a nerve in your body. I can smell fear, and you’re upwind of me. What brings you here when you’re so afraid? Your morals?” Horst softened his glance, and Barrow could talk again.

“Yes, I suppose so. I’ve …” Now he was here, it sounded foolish. Foolish but no less true for all that. “I’ve come to stop you.”

Horst showed astonishment, going so far as to tap his chest. “Stop me? In that case, I’m afraid you’ve had a wasted trip. I’ve already slowed to a dead halt. A very dead halt. You wouldn’t believe the half of it.”

“Nea Winshaw. Does that name mean anything to you?” said Barrow sharply.

“No. Should it?”

“She claims, claimed, that this carnival was instrumental in the apparent death of her child.”

“The woman in the penny arcade,” said Horst almost to himself.

“That’s right. She made a remarkable confession.”

Horst didn’t seem surprised. Barrow, who had never willingly leapt to a conclusion in his life, carefully put up a stepladder beside one and ascended cautiously. “You mean her story’s true?”

“I don’t know, I haven’t heard it. But whatever it is, yes, it’s true.”

Despite Barrow’s hunch, it was still a shock to discover that Nea Winshaw’s extraordinary story was true even in part. And with that discovery, the idea that had been gently assembling itself for the last day finally came together, lit its lights, and puffed into action. “Oh my God. Johannes Cabal is a necromancer,” said Barrow slowly, horror-struck. It explained so much, but taking it in was still so difficult. Yes, there was magic in the world, but it was so rare in these modern days. He’d only had to deal with it on a handful of occasions, and even then it had been of the minor hedge-witch sort. Necromancers were at the extreme edge of the world’s magic, they were very, very rare, and every time one was detected by justice — state or rough — they became that much rarer.

Horst was moderately impressed. “Not bad. You must have been a good policeman. Any other conclusions, Hercule?”

“I checked the file on Rufus Maleficarus — ”

“Oh, that’s not fair. If people are going to check the facts every time I open my mouth, where does that leave most of my conversation?”

“He was dangerous all right but not a necromancer, which isn’t to say he hadn’t tried. Your brother did kill him, though. Quite the local hero in Murslaugh. I sent a telegram to the chief inspector there. There were some other incidents that occurred at about the same time. They’ve talked themselves into believing that some of Maleficarus’ mob was still on the loose and causing mischief. Funny thing was that they never found a single one of the lunatics after Maleficarus caught three bullets. Why do you suppose that was?”

“Well, obviously, they came to work for this carnival.”

“Obviously. Your brother has already told me as much, perfectly candidly. It’s only obvious to you because you’ve been sheltering them.”

“Me?” Horst laughed. “What makes you think I have any say in anything that matters around here? I didn’t shelter them, they just turned up holding Johannes’s coattails like a lot of moonstruck sheep. If moonstruck sheep hold coattails. Which seems unlikely, now that I stop to consider it.”

Barrow wasn’t in the mood for analysing shaky similes. “Why? What does your brother hope to achieve? What is all this in aid of?”

“Now, that I can’t possibly tell you. After all, blood’s thicker than water. I could never deliberately dish up my little brother.”

“Little brother? But he looks older than you.”

“You know, I was just considering that very thing the other day. I suppose he must have overtaken me in the ageing stakes at some point.”

Barrow’s idea machine was whizzing its cogs gamely by now, and every little datum was crunched up, associated like with like, and quickly delivered as gorgeous little conclusions in engaging presentation cases. This latest piece of information was duly processed and popped up moments later, labelled “Horst Cabal has probably been dead at some point.”

“You’re dead,” said Barrow, hoping he was reading Horst’s character properly.

“Undead, technically. Not Johannes’s doing, I hasten to add. Not directly, at any rate. He had promised to find some way of bringing me back to the land of the living. Not that I’m not in the land of the living now, you understand? I’m speaking figuratively. Now I’m not so sure. I need a little time to think.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Neither do I, I’m afraid. That’s why I need to think. It all comes to some sort of conclusion tonight, one way or the other, and Johannes, I don’t know what to make of him anymore. I want you to bear one thing in mind.” Horst stepped closer and said conspiratorially, “He’s a desperate man. More so than you might think. A great deal