The Brothers Cabal Quotes

“Horst…’ He lowered his voice, ashamed. ‘I’ve done things since then. Things you don’t know about.’ The confession almost choked him, but somehow he forced the words out. ‘I’ve done good things.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“Now, let us consider the life of Johannes Cabal, if briefly. He is closing on his thirtieth year and is ageing better than most, although this is a product of a lifestyle where sunlight is shunned rather than the assiduous use of moisturiser. He stands a little over six feet tall. He is blond, blue eyed, and, perforce, pale. These are not unusual characteristics; those are coming.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“You don't?' Horst was so astounded he almost leapt to his feet. His smile returned in full power. 'Then you have treat waiting for you! It's wonderful! I mean, I remember it as being wonderful. I do not eat cake. Not now. Being a vampire and everything. You did know I'm a vampire, didn't you?' He suddenly seemed to remember that they were doing introductions and held up his hand. 'Horst Cabal, vampire. Didn't especially want to be, but there you go. I miss Battenberg. Hello, everyone!”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“Horst, I am not as single-minded—’ ‘Bloody-minded…’ ‘—as I was. On occasion I have been known to not do something despite it being logical, or done something despite it being somewhat irrational.’ ‘That is the most grudging description of a conscience I have ever heard.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“Horst lurked in a corner, sitting upon a tea chest, and undermining any menace his vampiric presence might have brought to proceedings by reading an ancient copy of Comic Cuts that he had found somewhere.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“My God. Johannes, are you saying that you’re accepting this task because I asked you?’ Cabal did not reply. Instead he found a loose thread on the eiderdown and fiddled distractedly with it. Horst sat on the side of the bed, embraced his brother around the shoulders with one arm, and rubbed the top of his head with the knuckles of the other. ‘Horst!’ snapped Cabal. ‘I am no longer eight years old!’ Horst kissed him on the top of the head. ‘You’ll always be my little brother, Johannes, even if you look older than me now.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“Inside the mansion of his mind, he was putting snakes back into boxes.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“We can’t just go around resurrecting people, Johannes. It’s against nature.’
‘Says the vampire. Truly, Horst, nature lets all sorts of awful things through on the nod. What I propose doesn’t constitute awful in the pejorative sense to my mind.’
‘What gives us the right…?’
‘I’m a necromancer. I claim the right.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“The sergeant was just noting that she was a very handsome woman, from somewhere in the eastern Mediterranean he would guess, when his eyes unexpectedly burst into flames. This distressed him, and he staggered around, blood-red fire erupting from the sockets, while he explained the degree of agony he was enduring and how much he would appreciate assistance of an unspecified form from those present. Then his head caught fire and his conversation became very scream orientated.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“I wore this hat to Hell.’ He held the hat up to his nose and inhaled. ‘Still faintly redolent of brimstone. That smell gets everywhere.’ Horst, waiting by the door with the packed suitcase, said, ‘When a normal person uses a phrase like they wore a hat to Hell, one naturally assumes they just wore it a lot.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“May I ask what happened to your last revolver?’ ‘It turned into a sword.’ ‘Of course it did.’ ‘And then the ghouls probably stole it.’ Cabal smiled with an expression so close to fondness that it made Horst stare. ‘The naughty rapscallions.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“There had been no possibility that he had survived. His body had not tumbled into a foaming sea or into a clouded abyss from which he might later make an unexpected return through the good offices of kindly dolphins or giant eagles. Cabal had himself checked that all life was extinguished by searching for a pulse, looking for clouding on a mirror held to the corpse’s mouth, and by kicking repeatedly.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“I dislike seats without backs. I’ll forget myself, lean back, and fall over, and where shall my dignity be then? I shall stand.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“There are ladies present, and I was raised to believe that being naked in front of strange ladies is something reserved for special occasions.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“that which is supernatural and nasty knows supernatural and nastier when it sees it.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“Apparently the Ministerium Tenebrae had decided to conquer the region using the unusual twin-pronged attack of zombies and avant-garde artwork.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“Being a vampire didn’t mean he couldn’t be socially responsible.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“While many Germans find the Dutch accent inherently hilarious, Cabal’s humours were balanced differently: strong in the choleric, and barely less so in the melancholic, a good showing for the phlegmatic, but the sanguine potters over the finishing line last and alone.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“Removing his shoes, knotting the laces together, and stringing them around his neck, Horst rose from the cold, black water like a primeval amphibian with aspirations towards dapperness assaying a first journey onto land to spread the word about good tailoring.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“I did apply myself, Johannes. Very enthusiastically. Just not anything you'd find interesting.' He leaned forward and said in a confidential tone, 'My lollygagging was of a very high standard.'
'Get away from me, you vile sewer,' said Cabal coldly.
Horst's smile widened. 'You really have missed me.'
'I...' Cabal wavered. He closed his eyes and said, 'Yes, I really have.' He reopened his eyes and was relieved to find Horst looking somewhat surprised rather than smirking. 'I bear a soul now, Horst. A wretched nuisance much of the time. Much of the time.' He waved his pen impatiently at the momentarily befuddled vampire.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“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.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“Horst, I think I may have a conscience.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“Allow me to refresh your obviously faulty memories. I allow you to stay within my front garden on the understanding that you defend the house against all intruders, except the ones I have described, on numerous occasions. Torch-bearing mobs?"
"Eat them!" chorused the criminally insane fey of Cabal's garden, a tribe whose stature was inversely proportional to their malevolence.
"Correct. The postman?"
"Eat him!" they cried joyfully.
"No!" snapped Cabal. "You let the postman by!"
"Oops," said the garden. There was some small shuffling while they hid a peaked cap behind a rosebush.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“According to his upbringing, there were certain subjects that it was ill-mannered to raise in conversation with a new acquaintance. With the likes of politics, religion, fatness, and house prices, it seemed reasonable to assume that "being dead" was likely to be somewhere on the list.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“At our discretion,’ said Collingwood firmly. ‘We’re not charities, ma’am, we are businessmen. No donations. Only investments.’ To punctuate his point, he crossed his arms, adopted an adamant expression, and fell unconscious. The servant behind his chair caught him before he could fall forward.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“All your suits, cravats, socks, and shoes are black. All your shirts and underwear are white.’ He looked at the rug by the bed. ‘And your slippers are red tartan. You don’t have outfits, Johannes. You have a uniform.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“Horst, you are a good man. You have always been so, and your soul is an untrammelled thing indeed.’ Horst winced and interrupted. ‘Ah. Well. Maybe not. There was that business with a lacrosse team…’ Now it was Cabal’s turn to wince. ‘Did anyone suffer?’ ‘Oh, no. Nothing like that.’ ‘Was everyone happy?’ ‘I flatter myself a little to think, yes. Everyone was very nice afterwards, anyway.’ ‘Then shut up. In a world as grimy and sin-ridden as ours, you’re a paragon precisely because your intentions are always good.’ ‘Johannes, I killed a man.’ ‘Pffft.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“I’ve always tried to be good. Decently good, anyway. Not sort of St Francis of Assisi good necessarily, but…”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“Also, please charge my fountain pen and bring it with you.”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal

“What strange creatures brothers are! —Jane Austen, Mansfield Park”
― Jonathan L. Howard, The Brothers Cabal