Johannes Cabal: The Necromancer by Jonathan L. Howard

Author:Jonathan L. Howard [Howard, Jonathan L.]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Devil, Magic, Humorous, Fantasy fiction, General, Fiction, Fantasy, Humorous Fiction, Wagers
ISBN: 9780385528085
Publisher: Random House, Inc.
Published: 2009-07-07T07:30:29+00:00

the engine’s firebox, a firebox that had been

damped down and cold but ten minutes before.

Now it raged like a furnace. The brothers Cabal

had looked at each other: there were still a good

few things they didn’t know or understand about

this carnival of theirs.

hat was then Now Johannes Cabal and Joey

Granite stood before Billy Butler and said nothing.

The smell of smoke said it all for them.

Butler smiled nastily. “Oh. It’s—” As famous

last words go, they lacked a certain something.

“Uppercut, Joey,” said Cabal. Joey Granite

delivered an uppercut of surpassing science and

pugilistic artistry. It was a thing of beauty and

kinetic poetry that might be long admired among

people who enjoy watching other people beat the

living daylights out of one another. It was also

powerful enough to lift a small building off its

foundations. Anything up to a branch library would

have tottered and fallen. Billy Butler, despite a bit

of a gut, simply wasn’t in the same league weight-

wise. By some miracle, his head stayed on his

body, but there was little doubt that the police

would be making enquiries long before he hit the

ground again. “Let us leave, Joey,” said Cabal as

Butler vanished through the cloud base.

They walked quickly back through the Butler

fairground, Butler’s men shouting abuse but staying

comfortably out of danger, the women running

around in predictable hysteria. They pointedly

ignored the catcalls and screaming and were soon

back on the road to Murslaugh.

Half a mile on, Cabal stopped.

Something was bothering him. It was the idea of

predictable hysteria. Hysteria verging on the

rehearsed.

Thinking back, he could have sworn several of

the women were screaming “Rhubarb! Rhubarb!”

And the abuse the men had shouted— there’d been

a lot of fist shaking going on, but what had they

actually said? Something like “Raffeln-huffeln-

ranty-raa!,” was it? “Grrulveln gnash raffer”?

“You’re cogitating, old bean,” said Joey, mildly

curious. “What’s amiss?”

“I’m going back,” said Cabal determinedly.

“Oh? Why?”

“There’s something wrong here. Something fishy

about that fair.”

“You mean apart from their proprietor being in

low Earth orbit?”

“Yes, apart from that. I have a sixth sense that

tells me when I’m being made a fool of.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that. ‘Clinical paranoia,’ I

think it’s called.”

“I have a sixth sense,” said Cabal as he gave

Joey the look of a man who knows where to lay

hands on a pneumatic drill and isn’t afraid to use

it, “and it’s telling me somebody somewhere is

trying to play me for a fool.” He turned on his heel

and marched back towards the Butler fairground.

It wasn’t there. There was barely a sign it ever

had been. “I knew it!” Cabal strode across the

abandoned site. “I knew it!”

“Well, fancy,” said Joey, his great hands on his

hips as he looked around with open-faced

astonishment. “That’s quite a trick.”

Cabal stopped and looked at Joey. The ogreish

man was very convincing in his surprise, but when

all was said and all was done, he was still a

product of Hell, created from the very blood of

Satan. How far could he be trusted? Even Bones,

his major-domo, sprang from the same wellhead.

Perhaps Horst was the only one he could really

trust. Blood was thicker than water, after all. He

had its relative density written down somewhere to

prove it.

Joey’s hand descended gently on his shoulder

and drew him to one side.

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