Hallow London [Apocalyptic Urban Fantasy]

"Ah, there's the weaselly little prat…"

Across the river, three hidden observers tracked Henry as he emerged from the fog. It was hard not to notice him, being preceded by a literal army of skeletons and all, but for the Constable and the two Devils with him those held little significance. At best, they were on par with starved vamps, in terms of strength.

Numbers were their only advantage, and there were certainly plenty of ways to counter that. The location from which they watched the oncoming horde was well-positioned to do so, holding every advantage they could ever need. It was discreet, it had a good view of the entire playing field, and most importantly, it provided avenues for getting the drop on their target without having to contend with the chaff. The moment they got a good window of opportunity, all he had to do was measure a path out in front, and the fight would start on his terms.

It was everything the Constable wanted in setting up his long-awaited rematch.

He couldn't help but grin to himself as Henry finally came into range of his binoculars. The man of the hour had arrived… meaning he had the perfect chance to start fixing the mess made in the fall of the Gentleman's Club.

Nobody spoke a word as they watched him approach. The skeletons tore up silk threads and freaky-looking amalgamations alike, acting as a vanguard for Henry and one, two… three others. It allowed each of them safe passage in the direction of the site Bentley had picked out, pushing them deeper and deeper into monster controlled territory.

Almost right up to the foot of the bridge spanning the width of the river. In short order, they would cross, and that was when they'd have their chance.

Come on... Ye know ye want to...

Nobody said a word. The Constable was anticipating his upcoming fair duel, so he was too excited to speak. Bentley, by his side, had taken one look at the abominations and gone deathly silent. Unfortunate, but brave that he'd wanted to face them regardless. He'd been warned they weren't a pretty sight.

As for the third Devil with them… well, he was a bit of an odd duck.

He just plain didn't speak. Ever. Hadn't said a word to any of them the whole time he'd been joined up, but the strangeness didn't stop there. He also insisted on constantly wearing an outfit that was equal parts mall ninja and Power Ranger.

The midnight blue fabric was as cheap as cheap got, and the plastic helmet wasn't much better. No one had seen him take any of it off. Not even the helmet, the few times they'd seen him decide to grab something to eat.

And… apparently he considered the Constable as some sort of mentor figure? For what wasn't entirely clear, but...

After a while, he'd decided to just shrug it off and roll with it. Made his job easier, so why not?

"Right," he muttered to his two conspirators. "Everyone ready to go once they start crossing?"

He got a nod from both sides. Though one of them looked a lot less confident than the other.

"U-um…"

The response got him to quirk an eyebrow curiously. The kid wasn't much of a people person, so the times when he decided to talk… tended to be important.

"Something wrong, Bentley? If yer worried about the monsters, jus' try ta relax. Even if they do find ya, that's what we gave ye the flare for."

"No, it's not that… I just got a r-really bad feeling about my prediction…"

"…What, now?"

The Constable put down his binoculars to pay closer attention to the conversation. "Are you certain? And if you are, define bad."

"A-as certain as I can be… but the th-there's not really a definition I can give. W-we're getting close to the bit that was cloudy for me, s-so I tried to concentrate on it harder. N-nothing showed up, but all of a sudden I got this feeling like there was something crawling on my shoulder…"

"...And that's never happened before?"

"No! ...A-at least, not so vividly. This felt like there was an actual spider crawling on me!"

A spider?

"Ah, Christ-"

The Constable desperately hoped that he had the wrong idea about this, but… he had a bad track record of hunches panning out for him. He snatched the binoculars back up, recentering his focus on Henry and crew before broadening his field of view to search their immediate surroundings.

Nothing immediately threatening about… yet. But that didn't mean the signs present didn't indicate a threat was imminent.

I thought we'd have a window of opportunity since that madman recently switched to sending out underlings to hold his borders. But, if they keep getting canned at the rate they're going… that assumption might not last. They're already pushing their luck by a kilometer's worth at least…

The skeletons in front continued to chew through webbing without a care in the world. Once the Mad Prince inevitably showed up, he made sure to target them all first. Just before the point of impact, the Constable watched him walk up to the edge of one of the rooftops, shoulder cape aflutter, and drop down on all of them like a meteor. They were all reduced to powder in seconds.

The shockwave hit them even all the way back here. Wind whistled through the narrow gap in the window, rattling the pane like crazy as he watched the drama unfold. The three accompanying Henry – apparently having more sense than he did – decided smartly to back off and wait somewhere they could easily escape from if needed.

Henry, on the other hand… did absolutely none of those things. A move which immediately had the Constable rethinking which one of the two was the madman.

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The bloody hell does he think he's doing?! Administering that Devil's test nearly killed me outright, and he thinks he can walk right up to it without any consequence whatsoever? Does he have a death wish?!

The Constable's mind raced as he watched them strike up an unfriendly conversation with one another. There must be some sort of plan here, he thought to himself. Why else were those three with him? One of them was clearly Death Jr, even if the skeletons hadn't given it away the makeup would have. But, from what he could gather-

Wait, what was that?

He blinked in utter confusion, as the two figures lining up for what had to be a fight just… snapped back. Like someone had flipped a switch somewhere and set everything back up the way it was moments ago.

I can't be seeing things. There must be something going on here.

He squinted harder through his glasses, this time combing over every foggy detail even closer than he had before. Right now there was no time to theorize. Everything needed to be captured and seared into his brain, because something was happening to the two of them, and he wanted to know what it was.

There. Another blink back to those same positions. Like a reset of some sort. It happened a few times more, and though the events correlated with its occurrence became obvious rather quickly… the why of it still eluded him.

It definitely has to do with that coin of his… so either he knows and is exploiting it to stay ahead of the Prince, or he doesn't and they're both just repeating endlessly…

At the tip of a hat, the Constable got answers to his deductions. Just… not in the manner he'd been anticipating. The pattern broke, and Henry started sprinting straight past the Mad Prince, towards the river and the bridge. As he ran, he yanked an oblong glowing board out of the pack he was carrying mid-flight.

...An honest to God hoverboard. Wow.

Talk about a throwback, the Constable thought to himself. I remember having to chase kids around for using those to- no, focus!

Henry was now headed straight for the ambush point, as predicted. Normally this would have been great news for the three of them, but unfortunately, the Mad Prince wasn't too far behind.

If this plays out the way it looks like it might, then I'm the only one who stands a chance within a few dozen meters of them, the Constable realized. Now the question is… do I run that risk myself?

He pondered the question for a moment. Then realized he was kidding no one. Of course there was only one way he'd let things happen.

"Keep the kid safe," he told his silent apprentice as he loaded his guns.

< -|- -|- >

Some things don't exactly click as verifiably insane until you happen to be there, in the moment doing them. Not many things, mind you, but they do all share one very important pattern.

Namely, that once you're in the process of actually doing them, stopping is almost completely out of the question.

Henry was neck-deep in one of those choices now, he realized. For all that was going for him right now, it could all easily come crashing down if he stopped paying attention for even a millisecond.

"You dare to disregard ME?!" a grotesquely distorted voice boomed behind him. "Enjoy your decision, Henry Thompson. Because I swear to you – it is your last!"

The unclean feeling was reaching a crescendo, now. It felt like a whole swarm of locusts had cocooned him in a writhing mass of tiny little limbs. Very distracting. It was taking everything he had just to maintain balance, speed, and pull the phone out of his pocket with his free hand.

As the hoverboard transitioned from solid ground onto the web bridge, the slight sway in the threads nearly caused him to tumble onto the sticky surface below. Henry lurched, just barely managing to hang on as he jetted across the river belly first, arm with the shotgun curled precariously around the underside of the board.

"I see your game here!" The Mad Prince howled. "You think to rush past me and reach your body before I catch up to you, don't you? As if I'd leave that prize so poorly defended after all this time!"

He hadn't been thinking of that, actually. But, now that he mentioned it…

The sound of many legs thundering closer behind made him reconsider that line of thought. Henry looked back.

He shouldn't have.

All pretenses had been dropped. Where there had once been a normal...ish looking person seconds ago, a tarantula as big as a double-decker bus was now barreling towards him. It's mandibles clicked in indignation, the legs moving in eerie tandem with one another as each step it took left deep gouges in the pavement. Markings around the eyes of the beast shimmered in the moonlight, revealing the numbers 0001 plain as day.

"The Shroud will stay exactly where it is now, you brat!" the spider bellowed, maw opening wide with a screech of raw fury. The words felt projected, seared into his primal understanding of the world rather than spoken aloud. "I alone will decide when the world is ready to be ruled by me! When they bow to MY authority!!"

Henry felt as stiff as the board he was riding. Every muscle in his body locked up for just a moment, as pure, unadulterated fear set into his bones. It wasn't natural, he knew, but try telling yourself that when you're being chased by the literal stuff of nightmares and see where that gets you the next time it happens.

He jammed his finger on the speed dial and pressed the phone up to his ear. It rang once. Twice. Way too many times for the situation they were in already. Why the hell was Dee taking so long to pick up?

"Come on, come on…"

The whole bridge flexed as the spider climbed onto it behind him, just as the click from the phone indicated the other end had picked up.

"Yeah!" Dee half questioned, half stated over the line.

"Get the dustbin!" Henry shouted back, using a phrase they'd prepared for one of the more… outrageous possibilities they'd considered. He was about to go into more detail, but never got the chance.

"A cell phone? Laughable. As if there was anyone who could come to save you now."

A thin string of webbing darted out from the tarantula's spinnerets, zigzagging through the air in a dance of straight lines and sharp angles before impacting with the back of the phone's case, yanking it painfully from Henry's hand. The sudden pull felt like whiplash localized entirely on his wrist, forcing him to reluctantly let the device go rather than be pulled off the board along with it. He hissed in pain, then cursed his luck immediately after.

How I keep getting into situations like this should be studied, he thought grimly to himself as he switched his grip on the careening board to something less painful. At this point, it's safe to say I can rule out coincidence.

Slowly, carefully, he started pushing himself back upright. Too slowly, he realized. So he went less carefully. That got him to a crouch at a speed more to his liking, though he nearly fell backwards off his ride in the process.

Nearly was good enough for him, so long as it never came to pass. He'd had a lot of near misses in his life by this point. What was one more? Especially if this one put him in the perfect position to pull off an even wilder, even more necessary stunt.

He snapped up the end of his shotgun to point at the far bank, and fired.

The kick rolled him backwards on his ride, gouts of flaming crystal catching the far end of the bridge. The webbing lit up faster than dry tinder in a forest fire, quickly devolving into a raging inferno. By the time the board was about to reach its boundary - two seconds later - there was nowhere for him to go but over the flames. Something the hoverboard wouldn't be able to manage as it was.

The right moment needed to come for him at exactly the right moment to not get burned. And, inadvertently, the Mad Prince would bring it to him on a silver platter.

The tarantula's legs pushed down on a high spot on the bridge, causing ripples to push through the fabric-like surface towards him. He tensed, waiting for the moment where the crest of the wave was directly beneath the board. The height of the board suddenly swelled high, and at the apex he made a flying leap towards the far shore.

He yelled at the top of his lungs as his arms pinwheeled on the way back towards the ground.

"NOW!!!"

The noise of the shout had no problems reaching the Walworth side of the river, if not the contents of the message. Fortunately, Dee was smart enough to read between the lines and execute his part of the maneuver. Skeletons flanked the entire width of the bridge, and as one they tore the connecting webs apart, leaving their side completely disconnected from solid ground.

The flames ate through the other side shortly after. As the final supporting threads began to sever one by one, the Mad Prince realized just a moment too late what Henry had been up to.

He plummeted into the Thames, tangled up in webs that were likely of his own creation.

Henry hit the ground on the far side hard, skidding several meters before coming to a stop. The reactive shield was the only thing that saved him, sparking furiously with every step of the way and still managing to rub his head, hands and knees raw. It made one final, keening noise like nails on chalkboard as he came to rest, and despite most of the damage being countered, some of the friction still managed to get through to him.

As he ground to a halt face-first on the asphalt, he was disoriented, in pain, borderline having a heart attack from all the adrenaline… but he was, miraculously, alive.

Then he felt the barrel of a gun press to the back of his neck.

"I hafta admit," a familiar Scottish accent admitted almost respectfully. "That was a mighty fine trick ye just pulled there. But there's only one way this is gonnae go down, now, isn't there?"

Henry bemoaned internally. He'd just thought he'd gotten the hard part taken care of!

Talk about kicking a guy when he's down…

"Now, since I'm pretty sure I gave ya the right to last words the previous time, I'm gonnae go ahead and skip-"

"Down the river," Henry blurted out. "Go down the river and help the survivors there escape from Kensington. If you do, I promise I'll give you a fair, one-on-one fight next time, no questions asked."

The Constable shouted right back at him, incredulous at his assumptions. "Are ye daft? Why would I do anything other than finish the job right here, right now?"

"Well, I thought it would've been obvious. What, you think a little running water would be enough to do anything other than make him angry?"

A geyser erupted from the depths of the river, as if to prove his point.