Cabal by Clive Barker Page A

called Boone?’ she said.
    The woman opened her mouth to reply, her face a mass of contrary feelings. She wanted to answer, that much was clear; but fear prevented her from speaking. It didn’t matter. Her hesitation was answer enough. She
did
know Boone; or had.
    ‘Rachel.’
    A voice rose from the door that led down into the earth. A man’s voice.
    ‘Come away,’ it demanded. ‘You’ve nothing to tell.’
    The woman looked towards the stairs.
    ‘Mister Lylesburg,’ she said, her tone formal. ‘She saved Babette.’
    ‘We know,’ came the reply from the darkness, ‘We saw. Still, you must come away.’
    We
, Lori thought. How many others were there below ground; how many more of the
Nightbreed?
    Taking confidence from the proximity of the open door she challenged the voice that was attempting to silence her informant.
    ‘I saved the child,’ she said. ‘I think I deserve something for that.’
    There was a silence from the darkness; then a point of heated ash brightened in its midst and Lori realized that Mister Lylesburg was standing almost at the top of the stairs, where the light from outside should have illuminated him, albeit poorly, but that somehow the shadows were clotted about him, leaving him invisible but for his cigarette.
    ‘The child has no life to save,’ he said to Lori, ‘but what she has is yours, if you want it.’ He paused. ‘Do you want it? If you do, take her. She belongs to you.’
    The notion of this exchange horrified her.
    ‘What do you take me for?’ she said.
    ‘I don’t know,’ Lylesburg replied. ‘You were the one demanded recompense.’
    ‘I just want some questions answered,’ Lori protested. ‘I don’t want the child. I’m not a savage.’
    ‘No,’ the voice said softly. ‘No, you’re not. So go. You’ve no business here.’
    He drew on the cigarette and by its tiny light Lori glimpsed the speaker’s features. She sensed that he willingly revealed himself in this moment, dropping the veil of shadow for a handful of instants to meet her gaze face to face. He, like Rachel, was wasted, his gauntness more acute because his bones were large, and made for solid cladding. Now, with his eyes sunk into their sockets, and the muscles of his face all too plain beneath papery skin, it was the sweep of his brow that dominated, furrowed and sickly.
    ‘This was never intended,’ he said. ‘You weren’t meant to see.’
    ‘I know that,’ Lori replied.
    ‘Then you also know that to speak of this will bring dire consequences.’
    ‘Don’t threaten me.’
    ‘Not for you,’ Lylesburg said. ‘For
us.’
    She felt a twinge of shame at her misunderstanding. She wasn’t the vulnerable one; she who could walk in the sunlight.
    ‘I won’t say anything,’ she told him.
    ‘I thank you,’ he said.
    He drew on his cigarette again, and the dark smoke took his face from view.
    ‘What’s below …’ he said from behind the veil, ‘… remains below.’
    Rachel sighed softly at this, gazing down at the child as she rocked it gently.
    ‘Come away,’ Lylesburg told her, and the shadows that concealed him moved off down the stairs.
    ‘I have to go,’ Rachel said, and turned to follow. ‘Forget you were ever here. There’s nothing you can do. You heard Mister Lylesburg. What’s below –’
    ‘– remains below. Yes, I heard.’
    ‘Midian’s for the Breed. There’s no-one here who needs you –’
    ‘Just tell me,’ Lori requested. ‘Is Boone here?’
    Rachel was already at the top of the stairs, and now began to descend.
    ‘He is, isn’t he?’ Lori said, forsaking the safety of the open door and crossing the chamber towards Rachel. ‘You people stole the body!’
    It made some terrible, macabre sense. These tomb-dwellers, this Nightbreed, keeping Boone from being laid to rest.
    ‘You
did! You stole him!’
    Rachel paused and looked back up at Lori, her face barely visible in the blackness of the stairs.
    ‘We stole nothing,’ she said, her reply