Greenwich, London

  Winter(?) 2004 – Several months after

  “… we are on the air with Gentleman Pirate Radio, hosted by your only true friend on the streets of Hallow London, Robb Huxley. For those of you burning the midnight oil, we’ve got exactly what you’ve been dying to hear.

  Ah, figuratively, of course.

  Up next, we’ve got Matchbox Twenty with 3AM! After all, what better time to play the song than the time in the name itself? But before that, the Club would like me to read off the ever-so-important updates on recent wolfpack movements that have just been hand-delivered to yours truly…”

  Within a dimly lit apartment in the run-down borough of Greenwich, the only surviving radio station cut through the static of the otherwise dead airwaves. A midnight breeze drifted in to the room where it played, curtains flapping gently in the wind as shafts of moonlight filtered through a grimy, damaged windowpane. Smashed furniture and debris lay strewn about the main area. Despite this, these details were not part of the biggest train wreck present.

  “I’m just saying, maybe this time we try asking her? What would be the harm, anyway?”

  That award went squarely to the two perfectly identical duplicates, arguing with one another as the night wore on towards early morning. One tasked itself with sorting through the damaged mess to clear a path from which to defenestrate the vampire corpse. The other, in preparation for the night watch, was performing routine weapon maintenance while brewing a pot of coffee in an effort to combat the heavy sleep deprivation they both suffered from equally.

  “Because,” the other remarked pointedly as he cleaned the barrel of the snubnose revolver. “As both of us already know, she’s already up to her ears in work making sure the scavengers come back in one piece. And regardless, we’ve got the lives to burn for this. She doesn’t.”

  “So you’re suggesting we just stick to the same plan, then? Another suicide run? We’ve already squandered our way through all the equipment Cecil could spare us with that last attempt.”

  “Hey, what do you want from me?!” He set the gun and cleaning tool down, gesturing wildly as he threw up his hands defensively. “It’s been long established that we’re pretty much on our own for pushing our way into that clock tower, anyways!”

  In rapid succession, the irate duplicate rattled off multiple big players in the current era post-magical doomsday.

  “The Constable’s off on his own personal war killing God knows what, the majority of the Palatial Remnant is tied up trying to save folks from the vampire thrall-camps, and every other member of the Devil’s Dozen either sees us as a threat or is too busy playing petty warlord to bother.”

  “Not all of them,” the original insisted.

  “You know what I meant.”

  Before their enlightened debate could continue any longer, a ringtone with a cheery piano and an electric bassline interrupted his point midsentence. Both of them winced at the sudden arrival of the tune. He’d picked the ringtone long ago, back when he’d first gotten his hands on it for a bargain. Nowadays, the lyrics that went with it hit a little too close to home for his comfort.

  I really should find something other than Warren Zevon, Henry chastised himself. Unbeknownst to him, his clone had the exact same thought but was otherwise preoccupied.

  The copy sighed, put out from being halted mid-discussion and fished the mobile phone out from the satchel. The caller ID confirmed what he’d been dreading to receive.

  “Shit, Cecil’s calling. I’ve got to take this.”

  Henry gave him a sympathetic look, returning to tidying up once more. The doppelganger began talking, allowing him to tune in to the half of the conversation he was privy to.

  “Morning, Colonel… Yes… yes… no, we weren’t able to get my body back…”

  Disappointingly, the intense melee had left the screen of his television smashed in its entirety. Glass was shattered, Tech Domain crystals lay powderized within, even the frame had crumpled like a soda can. So much for all of the recordings he’d taped to the VCR.

  Careful to not let any more glass shards fall on the ground, Henry heaved the CRT television onto the windowsill, tipping it slightly to fall unceremoniously to the street below. The sound of shattering enchantments and electronics rose up from underneath, startling the crows outside but doing little to actually shoo them away. They just squawked louder than usual.

  “Look, I’m doing the best with what I have, okay?” The version of him on the phone allowed his frustration to lend an edge to his voice. “That sucker’s had much more time to entrench himself deeper since the last attempt. Hell, we were barely even able to hack through the outer webbing that oversized arachnid’s laid out before we got surrounded!”

  Shards of glass crunched underneath his shoes. He wasn’t quite sure whether they were from the TV screen or the bullet over-penetrating the window, but he made a mental note to watch his step later.

  “I’m well aware that the Shroud won’t come down until I can get it back. Matter of fact, I’d be absolutely ecstatic to be able to reoccupy it myself! Do you think I enjoy being a lost soul trapped in a replicating crystal prison?!”

  Few things stayed constant from one copy to another over a long enough period of time. One was the magical alterations his soul had undergone in order to exist physically in the first place. The other was the opinion that the trade-offs that made it possible were universally awful.

  “Admit it, there’s no way this third-rate magic I got is going to be nearly enough to pull this off! I don’t care how functionally immortal I technically am, four men just isn’t up to task!”

  Odd. It hadn’t taken long for this copy to start acting like a complete grouch. Usually, it took a lot longer for any sort of value drift to become visible. The voice from the other end increased in volume, but not enough to make out any specific words.

  “OH YEAH?! Well maybe if you gave us some decent equipment last time, we wouldn’t have gotten stuck at the edges, either!”

  The copy took the finished pot off the burner, pouring the steaming contents into a waiting mug. Rummaging around in the fridge, he found a carton of milk that still seemed to have some left in it.

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  It only took one whiff to figure out it had long since spoiled. He pulled a disgusted face as he held the phone between his ear and shoulder, screwing the lid back on tightly before tossing it over to the original for him to dispose of.

  Out the window it went. It probably would reek later, but it didn’t matter much when the room already stank of death.

  “What do you mean, ‘go ask the Gentleman's Club if you need bullets so bad’?!?! Is it so hard to get just a little bit of material support for this?!” The clone kicked at the head of the slain vampire in anger. Which, in hindsight, he really should not have done.

  As it turns out, the vampire was hanging on to life by a thread. And unwilling to pass up on a chance for free blood.

  “JESUS CHRIST! GET IT OFF!!”

  The clone dropped the phone to the ground with a clatter, hot coffee splashing over the rim of the mug while he fumbled on the counter for the discarded handgun. The crystal in his chest flared to life with a feeble white light, activating what meager magical countermeasures his shell offered.

  Reactive mana shielding flared around the duplicate’s ankle as the apparently not-dead vampire attempted to clamp its fangs down on it. Its jaw strained against the wall of semi-visible force for the briefest of moments, scraping along the surface in an attempt to find purchase somewhere with either its two protruding canines or the rows of teeth behind it.

  Henry sprang into action, dropping the smashed furniture he’d been tidying and sprinting across the room to assist. The pressure on the force shield was proving too much to handle for a sustained period. Visible cracks of glowing white spiderwebbed out from the point where the vampire clenched its teeth around the barrier, black spittle leaking from the back of its throat as the damage began to mount.

  “GAAAAHHHH!!!”

  Too late. With a ringing peal of shattering crystal, the vampire’s fangs broke through the barrier and sank deep into the skin, letting out a sickening crunch as the bite force shattered the bone beneath. His body began to rapidly desiccate before Henry’s eyes, the copy’s irises rolling into the back of his head as every last drop of blood in his body was pumped directly into the creature’s waiting maw.

  Mere moments after the bite was executed, the crystal in the copy’s chest disintegrated into motes of light, leaving behind the faint scent of ammonia and signifying he was well and truly dead.

  Putting his full weight into leaping for the enchanted revolver, the remaining Henry was able to snatch it off the shelf where the other’s attempts had fallen short. He flicked the cylinder shut with one hand, blind-firing the remaining four shots directly through the vampire’s cranium. Speed mattered more than accuracy, at this range and time. If he waited too long, it would use the ill-gotten blood to regenerate its missing parts.

  Crows cawed on the nearby rooftops, flying away startled into the misty night as light from the gun’s muzzle flashed bright enough to be visible from outside. Henry couldn’t care less about what the damn carrion birds thought. His carelessness had nearly been enough to cost him his life, permanently.

  No longer could he afford to take chances. With reckless abandon, he aggressively utilized the heel of his foot to cave the monster’s head in.

  “Stupid, stupid-”

  Stomp. Crack.

  “Could’ve gotten us both killed-”

  Crack.

  “And for what?! A singular bullet?!”

  Crunch.

  He didn’t stop until his shoe hammered through the damaged corpse and split it open like an overripe watermelon. Oily black viscera spattered, staining his shoe and pant leg. The ink-like liquid pooled on the floor below.

  Henry’s breathing came slow and heavy, as the adrenaline rush from his counterattack slowly faded away.

  The pitch black blood seeped down through the four holes in the floor, draining away into the room below that he’d inadvertently perforated in his assault. Frustrated with himself, he scooped up the abandoned phone and flopped down on the single surviving chair in the apartment. He massaged his temple with one hand while he speed-dialed the number that his former self had unwillingly abandoned.

  He felt tense as the tone rang for several long seconds, unanswered. Anxious, he started tapping his foot impatiently.

  “Come on, come on…”

  After what seemed like ages, he finally got through to the man on the other end. Who, currently, appeared to be utterly incensed.

  “Oh, great,” Colonel Morowitz snarked. “Have you got so many complaints that you felt the need to call twice to fit them all in?”

  Henry winced at the sharp voice in his ear. “No, sorry, just…” He spared a quick glance over at the remains near the kitchenette. “…had a surprise encounter with the locals that interrupted the last guy. Dead now. Both of them, to be specific.”

  “Hmm. Pardon me if I don’t feel the need to bawl my eyes out over your loss.”

  “Yeah, not really sure what his deal was, either… But, uhm…”

  Henry took a deep breath, picking his next words as carefully as he could muster.

  “Look, I’m sorry. We go back, you and I, right? I bought you and the rest time to escape that vamp attack during the Second Witching Hour, and…”

  He trailed off, unsure where he was going with the tangent. Abandoning it altogether, he opted for a more direct line of questioning.

  “Are you sure you don’t have something I can make use of to try again? I think I might be able to make something happen, this time around.”

  Silence reigned over the line for a short period. For a second, Henry thought that he’d lost the connection, but Cecil’s weary sigh put those concerns at ease.

  “Sorry, Henry, but there really is nothing left for me to dedicate to this little operation of ours. At least for the moment, you’ll have to figure this one out on your own.”

  His face blanched at the implications that statement held.

  “Nothing? Nothing at all?”

  “Absolute zilch. Had to redirect the last of it to shore up a hole in the perimeter around the Cavendish estate. Nasty-looking pack of wolves took a swing at it, from what was reported.”

  He said nothing, a completely sullen expression blanketing his features as the reality of the situation sunk in.

  “You’re on your own on this one, now,” Cecil said with finality. “As much as I want to help you get back at that eight-legged sorry excuse for royalty… you’ll have to improvise something for this. It’s… it’s out of my hands.”

  Henry nodded numbly, not that that was something the military leader on the other end could pick up on. It didn’t take a genius to notice that conventional munitions had been dwindling for some time now. While enough time had passed for infrastructure to develop to a solid enough foundation to support the surviving inhabitants of Hallow London, most of that was limited to agriculture or light industry, from what others told him. Only a few factions left had both the capacity and the desire to make use of the larger industrial facilities left inside the Shroud. The first, naturally, was Cecil and the rest of the survivors taking refuge under the banner of the Landed Nobility, but the other…

  The other was the Gentleman’s Club. It took a special kind of crazy to get into the good graces of those gangbangers.

  Although, given the extended circumstances, most of us are already there at this point. Which is probably why their recruitment has been through the roof, recently…

  Henry bid his friend goodbye. “Thanks for your help, Cecil. And… well, good luck, I guess.”

  “Likewise. I reckon you need it more than I do.”

  He hung up the phone, setting it off to the side to clear his thoughts. As he idled, he turned his palm upward, the magical identifier tattooed into the skin shimmering slightly under the glow of the moonlight. His finger traced the numerical digits as he stared wistfully at the marking bestowed on him what felt like a lifetime ago. In reality, it had only been just shy of a month.

  0013. The last entrant into the Devil’s Dozen there would ever be.

  “…Of all the people to have the weight of the world dropped on their shoulders, why did it have to be me…”, he complained tiredly.

  He switched off the radio as the song playing came to a close. Shuffling tiredly as he made one last sweep of the apartment to lock the door and close the curtain.

  He finally got around to disposing of the vampire corpse as he’d originally intended. Out it fell onto the street below, squelching as it splashed down into a puddle of sour milk.

  A thought crossed his mind. Some extra exertion later, the body of his clone fell unceremoniously to down to the earth aside the corpse of the vampire. Right into the exact same puddle.

  He hoped it would serve as a reminder to not be so foolish when he woke up tomorrow. After today, he doubted he’d be getting any more second chances.

  From now on, he’d have to be on top of his game until the very end.