Jonathan Howard - Johannes Cabal the Necromancer

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 Hell 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.”