The Brothers Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard

 

The Brothers Cabal by Jonathan L. Howard, the fourth in a series of rollicking adventures featuring Johannes Cabal, a necromancer of some little infamy. However, in this tale, although Johannes plays a major part, it is brother Horst who takes on the role of central character - and why not? After all, he's resurrected on the first pages as a vampire and addressed as Lord of the Dead by a band of occultists who raised him at the behest of their mysterious leader, the Red Queen.

But Horst is a vampire with a personality more akin to a refined, aesthetically attuned gentleman then a Dracula from Gothic horror. Nowhere is this more in evidence then when Horst, moments after having been returned to life, tells the thirteen occultists who worked their diabolical magic to raise him from the dead, that feasting on the blood of three young ladies who planned to willingly sacrifice their lives for his nourishment wouldn't be very polite. Rather, Horse beckons everyone to form an orderly queue and he'll take a nip from each.

Not long thereafter, Horst overhears their leader reflect in shock regarding the nature of the vampire they raised from the dead. ""Did you hear what he said? He never killed anyone. What kind of vampire's never killed anyone? None of us understand why he was chosen." And later in the conversation: "We fulfilled our orders to the letter. It's not our fault the "Lord of the Dead" is a namby-pamby, is it?"

Indeed, much of the novel's humor derives from the expected behavior of a traditional vampire as opposed to Horst's actual behavior. And since this is the fourth book in the Cabal series and the fourth Cabal novel where I'm writing a review, I'll focus on an aspect of Jonathan L. Howard's writing worthy of a special shout-out: his quick character sketches, which are always sharp, biting and contain more than a tincture of cynicism. Here are two examples when vampire Horst enters a castle's dinning hall and meets a pair of the company -

Velasco de Osma introduces himself to Horst. “A strong brow and nose were betrayed by a weak chin on an otherwise noble countenance. It was the sort of face that would have looked at home over a polished chest plate while busily engaging in the infection of South American natives with Catholicism and smallpox, while all the time robbing them blind of every grain of gold they might have.”

Horst is about to take a seat for dinner. “He was conducted to the left side of the table, the woman being seated by another of the ubiquitous servants as he approached. As was his wont, honed over years of hot-blooded hormonal exhortation and still ingrained despite his changing nature, he cast an evaluative eye upon her as he approached. Her hair and eyes were dark, what he would have said was a Mediterranean type but for her deadly paleness. She was thin, too, and the suspicion of illness rose in his mind. He gauged her to be in her mid-to-late twenties, though the simple black dress she wore would not have looked out of place on his grandmother, down to the choker and locket at her throat.”

Events quickly move apace with a number of unexpected twists best discovered when a reader turns the pages (or listens to the audiobook expertly narrated by Nicholas Guy Smith). Thus I'll make a shift to several highlights -

ZOMBIES, WEREWOLVES AND OTHER ASSORTED SUPERNATURAL NASTINESS
The forces of evil amass an army of every sort of being, apparently the most twisted, the more diabolical, the better. Among others, Horst must deal with the likes of these specimens: “The creatures had no right to...no right to anything at all. They had no right to fly, lacking wings. They had no right to breathe, lacking mouths or nostrils or even spiracles. They had no right to see, lacking eyes. They had no right to exist, yet they did, and they screamed without mouths, seeing their prey without eyes. Offcuts from failed species, cancers given autonomous life, wriggling, writhing entanglements of animate offal, they descended towards the lorry, dripping acid and hunger as they came.”

STUNNING STEAMPUNK
Fans of Steampunk (and especially Johannes Cabal, the Detective) will be delighted when a squadron of entomoptors make their way on the scene. For those unfamiliar, an entomoptors is retrofuturistic technology, part jet, part helicopter, the size of a piper cub. And here all the seasoned pilots are women. Horst ganders at these flyers as we're given a detailed description of how each is painted with its own design. Here's a snatch: “The next machine also used an American theme, equally dramatic but more sober; on a field of blue skies, white clouds, and tan desert sands, the profile of an American Indian chief of indeterminate nation, arrayed in full headdress, looked forward on either side of the entomopter's nose above the legend Queen of the Desert."

JOHANNES, HIS USUAL LESS THAN DIPLOMATIC SELF
Johannes displays his customary level of tact and regard for other people's feelings when meeting with a number of women and men he'll align himself with in the battle against that zombie army and other supernatural nogoodnicks. We read: 

 

Cabal snorted contentiously. “I am saddened. I truly am. All my professional career, I have been dogged by assorted societies, conspiracies, and interested parties such as yourselves. I feared for my life, and my work, and I took measures to protect both.” He looked at those there assembled. “What a colossal waste of effort. You people are dolts.”

CABAL SERIES PLUG
One could read The Brothers Cabal without having read the other Cabal novels but I would strongly suggest reading the preceding novels since a number of locations, personages and happenings (the entomopters, for example) will have a familiar ring and your overall reading pleasure will be greatly enriched.

"Good enough." Horst grinned. "Well, look at us. The necromancer and the vampire against the forces of elemental evil. The brothers Cabal ride again!"
"Yeehaw," said Cabal evenly.


British author Jonathan L Howard