Jonathan L. Howard

“Cats, as any rational person knows, are solitary, opportunistic, ambush predators, much like spiders, but with fewer legs and a better fan club.”

“His pièce de résistance was the-thing-I-shot-with-my-crossbow-au-vin, which was universally praised on the second evening.”

“You wish to isolate fear. Ah, well, if only I'd realised your ambitions were so simple. Perhaps we can work up to it by capturing faith, bottling hope, and presenting love to the world as a commodity, available by the pound, wrapped in greaseproof paper and topped with a bow.”

“The lesson seemed to be twofold: do not anger the gods, but if you must, at least make sure your city isn't next to a lake, as that's just asking for trouble.”

“Lesson one: expect to get screwed over for the convenience of others on a regular basis.”

“All this bunch of so-called 'adults' was doing was making enemies of one another when what they really needed to be concentrating on was how to get out alive.”

“She felt oddly complimented. Petrov hadn't thought she's just a girl; he'd thought she might be a desperate criminal.”

“Being an adult isn't a matter of age. It's a matter of responsibility.”

“Now you're an adult, Katya!" he'd said, picking her up under the armpits like he'd been doing since she'd been born.”

“I had wanted some cheese, but couldn't find any at short notice. It was a shame. Cheese goes so well with tragedy.”

“As the barman’s hand rose from beneath the bar, Cabal was filled with a presentiment and a strange foreboding that he hadn’t felt since the last time he’d watched the nightmare corpse city of R’lyeh rise, effulgent with the ineffable and fetid with fish, rise from the depths of the Pacific.”

“He found Satan on his throne in the cavern of lava, reading a large-print edition of Wheatley’s The Satanist. 'It’s a rum way to warn people off from worshiping me,' Satan commented, indicating the book. 'It seems to be lots of fun, according to this. Still, I bet they all die horribly at the end. Oh well. Who wants to live forever?”

“The Mayor of Murslaugh was a jolly, ebullient man of the sort who, in a well-ordered world, would be called Fezziwig. That his name was Brown was a powerful indictment on the sorry state of things.”

“There is possibly no insult so calculated to sting the English as the suggestion that they may at any time be considered foreign, as this flies in the face of the obvious truth that the whole of Creation actually belongs to the English, and that they are just allowing everybody else to camp out on bits of it from a national sense of noblesse oblige.”

“No churchmen, I notice. Of course not. What use have they for a world without irrational fear?”

“But when it comes to applied sciences, technologies, any spotty Herbert with a degree and a lab coat can perform greater wonders than Merlin.”

“You've had your warning, Cabal. Now, prepare to face the terrible arcane wrath of Maleficarus!" Somewhere, a sheep bleated and quite ruined the effect.”

“Cabal dimly recalled that the musical genius who'd decided to put on Necronomicon: The Musical had got everything he deserved: money, fame, and torn to pieces by an invisible monster.”

“Cabal regarded her with mild amusement. “Smile when you whisper,” he advised her. “You’re supposed to be flirting with me, if you recall?” She stared at him icily. Then suddenly her expression thawed and she smiled winsomely, her eyes dewy with romantic love. “Oh, sweetheart… somebody tried to kill you? Whosoever would do such a thing to my nimpty-bimpty snookums?”Cabal could not have been more horrified if she’d pulled off her face to reveal a gaping chasm of eternal night from which glistening tentacles coiled and groped. That had already happened to him once in his life, and he wasn’t keen to repeat the experience. “What?” he managed in a dry whisper.“Smile when you whisper,” she said, her expression fixed and blood-curdlingly coquettish. You’re supposed to be flirting with me, remember?” “Please don’t do that.”

“He's painted himself into a corner and a thousand lazy reporters and ever-so-sincere politicians had rendered the only word that he could use comically melodramatic. 'I think ... Johannes Cabal ... is evil.”

“He smiled with all the warmth of a dollhouse oven.”

“... the first few minutes of a person's death are the most vitally important minutes of opportunity for a necromancer, [so] Cabal added, "Look, I have to go. Without the necessary chemicals, we'll lose whatever wits are still floating around his cooling brain. The only more immediate alternative that I can think of is a Tantric ritual involving necrophiliac sodomy and, frankly, I don't think my back is up to it. So, if you will excuse me?”

“They served to remind Cabal - should a reminder ever be necessary - why his social skills were so poor: people were loathsome and not worth the practise.”

“You know, I don't believe they noticed I had murdered them. I really don't. They just seemed faintly put out, as if it were a bit of bad luck, an act of God. 'Oh, my carotid artery has been severed with an open razor. I knew I should have cut down on greasy foods.' 'Botheration, I'm being belaboured with a fourteenth-century battleaxe. What are the odds, eh?”

“Rufus Maleficarus has sorely disappointed me personally. I thought he was making quite a good recovery from what the previous director had unhelpfully referred to as "a soul-searing, sanity-dissolving, profoundly malevolent appetite for power and revenge." As it happens, I think the finger-painting lessons were going very well, at least up until Rufus used the paint to create a summoning circle, and then rode out of here on the back of an obliging Hound of Tindalos...”

“Horst passed him a bottle he had picked up in his rapid trip from there to here. Remarkably, it's contents had survived the transit. "Drink this," he said, unmoved by Cabal's anger. "You need to save your voice for your next session." Cabal took the bottle testily and swigged from it. there was a moments pause, just long enough for Cabal's expression to change from testy to horrified revulsion. He spat the liquid violently onto the grass like a man who has got absent-minded with the concentrated nitric acid and a mouth pipette. He glared at Horst as he took off his spectacles and wiped his suddenly weeping eyes "Disinfectant? You give me disinfectant to drink?" Horst's surprise was replaced with mild amusement. "It's root beer, Johannes. Have you never had root beer?" Cabal looked suspiciously at him, then at the bottle "People drink this?" "Yes." "For non-medical reasons?" "That's right." Cabal shook his head in open disbelief. "They must be insane.”

“Not entirely fair?" His voice became that of the inferno: a rushing, booming howl of icy evil that flew around the great cavern, as swift and cold as the Wendigo on skates. "I am Satan, also called Lucifer the Light Bearer..."Cabal winced. What was it about devils that they always had to give you their whole family history?"I was cast down from the presence of God himself into this dark, sulfurous pit and condemned to spend eternity here-""Have you tried saying sorry?" interrupted Cabal."No, I haven't! I was sent down for a sin of pride. It rather undermines my position if I say 'sorry'!”

“It's a philosophical minefield!"Cabal had a brief mental image of Aristotle walking halfway across an open field before unexpectedly disappearing in a fireball. Descartes and Nietzsche looked on appalled. He pulled himself together.”

“Do shut your mouth--you'll catch flies sitting there like that.”

“You're familiar with the theory of evolution?" asked Cabal."Sir?""They're about to find out why intelligence is a survival trait.”

“A census taker once tried to test me. I let my front garden eat him.”

“Zombies are so passe”

“This is Hell," he tried to explain for the third time. "Not a drop-in centre. You can't just turn up and say, 'Oh, I was just in the neighbourhood and thought I'd call by and have a bit of a chinwag with Lord Satan.' It simply isn't done.""No," said the infuriating mortal. "It hasn't been done. There is a difference. May I pass now?""No, you may not. Satan's a very busy . . . um, is very busy right now. He can't go interrupting his work for every Tom, Dick, and Johannes"--he paused for effect, but the human just looked at him with a faint air of what seemed to be pity--"Harry, that is, who turns up demanding audience.""Really?" said Cabal. "I had no idea. I thought this would be an uncommon occurrence, unique even, but you seem to imply that it happens all the time. Fair enough.”

“Lo!" cried the demon. "I am here! What dost thou seek of me? Why dost thou disturb my repose? Smite me no more with that dread rod!" He looked at Cabal. "Where's your dread rod?""I left it at home," replied Cabal. "Didn't think I really needed it.""You can't summon me without a dread rod!" said Lucifuge, appalled."You're here, aren't you?""Well, yes, but under false pretences. You haven't got a goatskin or two vervain crowns or two candles of virgin wax made by a virgin girl and duly blessed. Have you got the stone called Ematille?""I don't even know what Ematille is."Neither did the demon. He dropped the subject and moved on. "Four nails from the coffin of a dead child?""Don't be fatuous.""Half a bottle of brandy?""I don't drink brandy.""It's not for you.""I have a hip flask," said Cabal, and threw it to him. The demon caught it and took a dram."Cheers," said Lucifuge, and threw it back. They regarded each other for a long moment. "This really is a shambles," the demon added finally. "What did you summon me for, anyway?”