“Is that why you have a slaughtered village hanging on your wall?” He moves his eyes to look at the tapestry. “Sadly, no. That’s more of a family portrait. We’re not the ones on horseback but the ones on fire.” He has a pretty strong magic barrier set up around his thoughts, so I can’t tell if that’s a sad damned story or a pretty effective lie. “I wanted to talk to you about Drifters.” Cabal shakes his head. “It breaks my heart to disappoint you, but the resurrected are not within the purview of my business dealings. I toil in the more prosaic fields of demons and elementals.” “But you’ve used them, haven’t you? Maybe you don’t use them on a regular basis, but how about in some kind of rent-to-own deal?” He shrugs. “As I said, one has to keep up appearances. When a competitor or social upstart oversteps the clearly demarcated boundaries of my sphere of influence, they must and will be dealt with swiftly and in as decisive a manner as it takes so that they might serve as an object lesson to others with similar rash inclinations.” “So, you have used Drifters against your enemies.” “Once or twice. I won’t deny it.” “When was the last time?” “I can’t recall with any great clarity. One gets old. Many of the things that were so crystalline clear in one’s youth become misty and difficult to plumb from the depths in our later years. Though I work hard to keep up appearances, I’m afraid I’m not the man I once was.” Brigitte says, “In my experience, that’s what men say when they’re exactly the man they used to be, but hope to deny it with age and excuse it with youth.” Cabal claps his hands in light, quick applause. “Well said, young lady. You’ve ensnared me in a petite prevarication. Which, unhappily for you, doesn’t alter the fact that I have not consorted with the resurrected, either deliberately or inadvertently, in many, many years.” I say, “It doesn’t help Regina Maab that it was a long time ago. Eaten is eaten and dead is dead.” “Regina? What does she have to do with this?” “Nothing, other than the fact that when she stepped on your toes you sent some Lacunas over with a jar of barbecue sauce and charcoal briquettes.” His eyes narrow and he sits up. All traces of the drunk act are gone. “Listen to me closely, young man. That’s not the kind of thing I’ll tolerate being murmured about me, not by you or any other soul in this sunny burg. Regina and I had our differences, yes. And there came a moment when she required the administration of a lesson that she would remember on a molecular level. And yes, I vainly and foolishly employed a gaggle of resurrected in what you might term a professorial manner to deliver said lesson, but when Ms. Maab took leave of Los Angeles, she was most exceedingly and annoyingly alive.” “Why should I believe you when everyone else is positive you had her snuffed?” He leans back in his chair and takes a box from his pocket, opens it, and pulls out what looks like a wriggling earthworm. “Do you have a light?” he asks. I reach for Mason’s lighter and Cabal picks up the earthworm, running a grimy finger along the length of its body several times. The worm straightens and stiffens until it looks like a pink chopstick. I hold out the lighter and flick it. Cabal leans in, holds my wrist, and puts the worm’s head into the flame. He puffs a few times and the worm catches, the end glowing cherry red. As Cabal smokes, he takes out a small black book and a pencil. He flips through the book, writes something down, and slides the piece of paper across the table to me.
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