Twenty-eight years after the Great War ended, Duncan Ward found himself naked on top of a woman in a marshy hotel bed.
He could feel her hot breath on his chest as he kept his hands on both sides of her head, pressing her wrists down. Her cheeks were pink with pleasure, her mouth slightly open in a silent groan. Duncan continued thrusting, watching her panting get heavier by the second. It wouldn’t take much longer now.
With a collective long moan, both of them gripped each other in a tight, rough embrace, releasing the fruits of their climaxes simultaneously. And then they let go, with the woman only releasing her grip a few seconds after he did.
“Masterfully done, as always. Happy birthday, Duncan,” the woman sighed in a sultry voice, flipping her dark hair from her face and resting her hand over her head. “Fortune doth favour the maiden betrothed to you.”
“Come now, Lucy.” Duncan leaned against the maple bed frame. “Do not tell me that is your way of asking for my hand.”
Lucy Carpenter clung to her ethereal beauty even at her age, looking not a day above thirty. Despite the vigorous activity earlier, her fashionable bombshell hairstyle remained perfectly in place.
She mock-gasped, placing a hand on her chest. “Why, I never! How unseemly is it for a fair maiden to ask a man for his hand?”
“A ‘fair maiden’ with teeth such as thine?” Duncan smirked, gesturing to the two fangs spilling over the woman’s bottom lip.
Lucy widened her night-black eyes for a brief moment before her fangs slowly retracted into her gums. Duncan slid out of bed and reached for his trousers, which were folded neatly on a nearby velvet chair. His shirt, on the other hand, was strewn somewhere else in the room, so he didn’t bother looking for it.
Duncan spent the next few minutes looking out of the hotel window.
Crowds of people lined Oxford Street. Some were waving flags, while others were holding signs. Confetti littered the floor while glimmering chrome cars strolled languidly. Uniformed bands blared a happy, familiar tune, marching down the road beside the vehicles. There were a few wrong notes here and there, but people weren’t exactly paying attention. They were too busy celebrating the victory of the Second World War.
“What are you thinking about?” Lucy walked up to Duncan from behind, now dressed in a simple camisole.
“England has begun demobilisation,” Duncan commented. “The Second Great War is all but fully won.”
“Do you regret staying away from it?”
“Art thou not a vampire of nine hundred years, Lucy?” he said. “You, above all, should know that immortals such as we have no place in this fleeting world. Life is impermanent for mortals like them—”
He pointed at the dancing crowd below. “—But it’s pretty damn permanent for us. Our choices bear a burdensome weight, and I have chosen amiss for centuries. Nay, I’ve had my fill. No more succour. No more intervention.”
“Is that how you truly feel?” Lucy frowned, placing her hand on his shoulder. “The world has much yet to give, though shadows may fall at times. I know your love for mankind endures; why deny thyself?”
“Thousands of souls have I saved as a healer these four hundred years,” Duncan replied with increasing bitterness in his voice. “I might save a million more, yet none of it shall avail if mankind be bent on self-destruction. I know you still have faith in the world, but I have it no longer. I prithee, Lucy, honour my resolve.”
“And what of your vow to Yuri?”
The man looked away.
“She has long since departed, and my vow unto her is more than fulfilled,” he said after a brief pause. “Siege of Rhodes— fifteen-twenty-two, Anglo-Spanish War— fifteen-eighty-five, Ireland war— fifteen-ninety-three, English Civil War— sixteen-forty-two, French Revolution— seventeen-ninety-two, The Suriname Skirmishes— eighteen-three, American Civil War— eighteen-sixty-one, The First World War— nineteen-fourteen. I think I have helped plenty.”
“It’s not about how many wars you’ve volunteered for, and you know that.” Lucy shook her head. “But if you say so, Duncan. Thy life it is, to do with as you will. Speaking of which, found you yet another lady to settle down with?”
Duncan stared at her.
“I’m serious!” Lucy exclaimed. “As many times as we have slept with each other, you and I are not fated to be lovers—”
“Thy sentiments are shared.”
“—Which is why I am concerned.” The woman folded her arms like a disapproving mother. “Tis a pity that giving up our mortality also means giving up our fertility, but we need not deny ourselves the fortune of family. Dost thou not wish to settle?”
“You pry too much into my personal life.” Duncan smiled wryly. “You may be more than three hundred years older than me, but you are not my mother. Speak for thyself, Lucy. Where is thy kin?”
He turned away from the woman, flicking his fingers to create a sophisticated glowing glyph in the air. A golden pill materialised from within its centre after a few seconds of quiet chanting. He plucked it out and put it in his mouth.
The elixir of life.
Duncan had developed the immortality pill after about twenty years of practising witchcraft. Immortality was the epitome of healing, and it required a comprehensive study of witchcraft medicine. Witch doctors were rare, even back in the early fifteenth century. Most Wiccan sorcerers had chosen to use their learned magic for more selfish reasons, so few had taken to honing their skill in healing magic.
Even so, Duncan’s immortality pill was not developed for himself, but as a last resort for a cursed patient. Witches were highly sought by feuding warlords as mystical mercenaries, and the afflicted patient was an innocent girl foolish enough to take a witch’s curse for her father during an attempted assassination.
Hurriedly brought into a lavish residence by the desperate warlord, Duncan Ward was given the impossible task of lifting the curse from his beloved daughter. Unfortunately, the only way to preserve her life was to grant her immortality, be it by vampirism, lycanthropy, or any other means necessary.
Understandably, the warlord did not want a monster for a daughter, so he instructed the witch doctor to find another way to save her.
As such, Duncan got to work immediately and eventually devised a way to manually transfer a soul’s natural immortality to the physical body. However, the elixir he created was able to do only that.
Not only could it not relieve the girl of her pain, but it would also make her addicted to the elixir. Thus, he reported the drawbacks to the warlord and assured him that he would find another way that did not involve further torture of his daughter.
However, the warlord had been shamed by guilt and blinded by heartbreak for too long. So, he ordered Duncan to feed the pill to his daughter anyway. Both the witch doctor and the girl protested against her eternal suffering, but the warlord’s mind was already made up.
As the soldiers held the warlord’s daughter down to force the elixir into her mouth, Duncan stepped in to push them away. A small scuffle ensued. And in one final moment of acceptance, the girl pulled a ceremonial dagger from Duncan’s scabbard, plunging it into her heart to end everything.
The enraged warlord drew his sword without hesitation, swinging it at Duncan’s neck. Blood spilt all over the gilded floor as the witch doctor’s head was separated from his body. But what happened next would haunt the warlord’s nightmares for the rest of his life.
What should have been a lifeless corpse didn’t collapse to the ground. Instead, it continued moving on its own, groping around the carpeted floor. Everyone in the hall watched in stunned horror as Duncan picked up his own head and attached it to his severed neck, his eyes now glowing a fierce golden colour.
In the earlier chaos, the witch doctor had seized the opportunity to take the elixir of life himself in a desperate attempt to shield the girl from eternal addiction.
Duncan Ward was now immortal.
The soldiers took another few seconds to react. It wasn’t enough. After a few flashes of light and several dozen magic splatters, the warlord found himself lying at the foot of his throne, begging for mercy from the glowering sorcerer. The soldiers were all incapacitated by dark magic, but the warlord himself deserved no such clemency.
With a casual flick of his hand, the witch doctor cursed the warlord with the same affliction that the princess had suffered. He left the residence and vanished from the country, leaving the cursed mortal to suffer until the end of his life.
For the next few months, Duncan continued brewing multiple elixirs of life, driven by the addiction that was already beginning to rapidly consume him.
It took him several more years before he managed to bring that endless hunger under control and reduce his intake to once per year. He had chosen to take the pill on his birthday. Not just because it would be an easy date to remember, but also to remind himself of his age as the years eventually passed.
The witch doctor continued his retreat from the world for another hundred years, remaining under the cosy shadows of other supernatural beings who were ostracised by humanity. Despite their poor history with humans, they were still more than welcoming to Duncan despite his human heritage. Lucy Carpenter was— and still is— one of them.
A sharp knocking on the hotel door caught Duncan’s attention.
He hurriedly picked up a spearpoint-collared shirt, buttoning it as he walked towards the door. Thankfully, Lucy was already fully dressed in her monochrome peach blouse and tapered pants.
Unlike a couple of hundred years ago, couples were fairly common in hotels these days. At least, no one questioned their marital status nowadays or cast disapproving stares if they were seen half-undressed. Still, Duncan would rather get fully dressed to spare whoever was on the other side of the door any awkwardness.
“Mister Charlie Ward? The front desk just received a letter addressed to you.”
The hotel staff was probably ill, considering that he had a face mask on. But Duncan could still tell that he was somewhere in his late forties to fifties, which seemed a little too old for a bellboy. His skin was a smooth caramel brown, and he spoke in a slightly smeared accent. Probably a foreign hire from somewhere in Cuba.
Still, that was not what bothered Duncan most. It was how he was addressed. The only person who would call him ‘Charlie’ was…
He creased his eyebrows, staring at the odd symbol that seemed to have just appeared beside the crudely written ‘Charlie Ward’ scrawled on the envelope. It wasn’t a national flag, nor was it any other recognisable emblem. Instead, it was a simple hexagon whose edges protruded slightly outside the circle around it, almost as though it was designed by a child.
Duncan shook his head slightly. Was it just his imagination, or did the symbol materialise on the envelope?
“Are you Charlie Ward, sir?” the bellboy asked.
“I—”
Intense dizziness struck Duncan without warning. He leaned against the door frame, massaging his temples gingerly. Where the hell did that come from?
“Yes. Yes, he is Charlie Ward.” Lucy walked up briskly to him, grabbing his arm to steady him. “Please excuse my husband; he must have had a little too much to drink. The letter, if we may.”
“Yes, of course.” The bellboy squinted his eyes, presumably flashing a polite smile behind his mask. “Here you go, Ma’am.”
The door closed.
“Hey, are you alright?” Lucy supported Duncan as he shuffled to the bed. “What happened?”
Duncan shook his head to shake the dizziness away. “I… know not. But it should be nought of import.”
He opened the envelope and read the letter inside.
“What does it say?” Lucy peeked over his shoulder curiously. “And why is it addressed to ‘Charlie Ward’? You didn’t tell me you took up a new name.”
“No, I did not. This is…” Duncan’s voice trailed away as his shoulders dropped. “It’s an invitation to a funeral.”
“Whose funeral?”
“An old comrade whom I saved in the First Great War, Bertram Harvey."
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