Chapter 62

Birmingham lay cloaked in a pearl-grey dawn fog; pedestrians drifted past one another like ghosts in a sea of clouds.

"Boss, one copy of the latest Birmingham Times."

At the newsstand a customer flipped a crown onto the counter. The vendor glanced at the forgettable face, slapped a paper onto the stack, and the buyer vanished into the mist.

(A crown: twenty-five pence, withdrawn from circulation in 1990.)

In a nearby breakfast shop Baron bought the classic English pairing of black bread and red tea—dry, respectable, and perfectly joyless. While he ate he listened to the café radio read the morning headlines aloud: "Peace-loving Birmingham robbed again—armored van from Lloyd's Bank relieved of a million pounds, hijackers and loot still at large."

From his first life to this one, Baron had never missed a morning paper. In that earlier existence he devoured the news simply to know what the world had done while he slept, even when those events had nothing to do with him. Knowledge, he believed, was a coin that always appreciated.

Now his reasons had shifted. The headlines still mapped the world's changes, but more importantly they warned him of threats with his own name on them.

Take today. From the paper he learned that Rankow had honored his oath and confessed: the notorious killer known in the Outside (and the Inside) as the Bloodsucker was none other than himself. Not only had he murdered Mrs. Eleanor's family, but every other unsolved case had been laid at his feet as well.

The article added that Mrs. Eleanor, unhinged by grief, had dug her family's corpses out of the cemetery. A passer-by had glimpsed the ghastly scene through a window and fled in terror, likely carrying the image to his grave.

Yet the reporter had appended a curious note. Mrs. Eleanor's relatives, he insisted, had perished six years earlier in a car accident—he remembered, because he had covered the story himself. When he went back to verify the old article, every copy, every publisher's archive, had vanished as though the tragedy had never occurred. Anyone still possessing that edition was urged to ring the number below; compensation offered.

Baron folded the paper in silence and hailed a taxi.

The cab halted in a puddle. Baron paid four pounds fifty for a five-mile ride—worth noting, since in 1987 the flag-drop was already four pounds, with ten pence for every third of a mile after. Clearly the three-pound fares Baron had paid before had been fantasy.

Rain came next, the endless Birmingham monsoon. Grey clouds rolled in from the western sea and drowned the iron city by the thousand-ton.

Following memory Baron entered an apartment block and stopped before door number six on the fifth floor. This had been his Outside self's home. As expected, yellow police tape sealed the entrance. The local authorities had presumably lifted the wider manhunt; unless an enforcer organization had taken up residence inside, entering would not technically be trespass.

Baron gripped the handle. Golden eyes flared as he listened for movement within. Hearing nothing, he peeled away the tape and slipped inside.

He closed the door behind him, leaving it ajar for a quick escape. The flat was tiny; within a minute he had assured himself no Battle-Sister or Templar crouched in ambush.

Small mercies of being presumed dead after a Timed Death Sentence.

With a slow breath he began searching for anything his former self had left regarding the Inside. Rankow's talk of "split personality" still needled him.

Split personality—dissociative identity disorder. Two or more distinct identities coexisting within one body, each with its own memories, behaviors, even physiological quirks such as allergies. The classic sign: lost time, blank spots in memory, waking to find belongings one does not remember acquiring.

Baron realized that, had he not spent twenty-eight verifiable years in another world, his own arrival would have fit the diagnosis perfectly.

Everything since had felt uncanny. The gaps in memory had forced him to reconstruct his circumstances from the former Baron's diary—yet who, truly, keeps a diary except for an audience? And if the diary had not been meant for its author alone...

Ever since learning of the Blessing of Pain, Baron had wondered: had the original Baron known of the split, and left the journal to warn the "other" self? Did the "other" self keep a second diary to inform the first? Might the original notebook contain hidden clues he had missed in the chaos of arrival?

That possibility had lured him back, despite the risk of enforcers lying in wait.

Baron locked the door behind him. Before he could begin, he noticed several envelopes wedged beneath it. Three letters.

The first proved to be dismissal papers from Sheffield Industrial Bank, together with a compensation cheque for over eight hundred pounds—two months' wages. He pocketed it.

The second was a supermarket flyer announcing new stock and discounts.

Baron opened the last. The sender's name sent a tremor through his pupils.

2887 Frankendy

Warrington

Cheshire

13 November 1987

Dear Older Brother Baron,

Edward and I miss you very much. Please come home soon.

With love,

Your Younger Sister, Yelena

Yelena...

Flashes surfaced unbidden: an ancient keep, a late-summer night, leaves drifting down like soft confetti. A boy and girl bent together over a book, blue roses nodding outside the window, moonlight silvering the petals.

People speak of objects stirring memories—was he now recalling a life that had never belonged to him?

Come home... and lead the hunters straight to their door?

He shook the memories away, slipped the letter into the Dragon-Gall ring, and began a systematic ransacking.

Within minutes he located the oversized notebook the original Baron had used for daily logs, wrapped in black calfskin and clasped shut. A quick glance told him it held value, but he dared not linger; if enforcers had marked the flat, speed mattered more than caution. Into the ring it went.

Every other scrap followed: school certificates from Warrington, photographs—nothing escaped.

At the back of the bookshelf he found a dark-red lacquered volume, reminiscent of the demon-hunters' Sin Ledger of the Silver-path. Curious, he opened to the first page.

"One sentence—ten pence."

He turned the leaf.

"Read the letter—ten pence."

Baron fished a ten-pence coin from his pocket and laid it on the paper. The pages snapped shut, swallowed the coin, and fresh script bled across the paper—columns of dates.

Baron selected the most recent and tapped it.

The script rearranged.

"Read the letter—ten pence."

Swindler. Addicted to coin, were we? Pay-per-view would bankrupt him before he learned anything useful. A million pounds might not cover "one sentence."

Had the original Baron's empty purse been the work of this very book?

Grumbling, he paid another ten pence. The date index dissolved like tadpoles and re-formed into a single line.

[Number Two: Older Brother, trust none of my letters. Do not come back.]

Baron's scalp prickled.

A sudden knock at the door.

Enforcers.

Every hair on his body stood on end. PTSD clawed at his nerves. Without a thought he snapped the book shut, flung open the window, and vaulted out, dangling from the sill with the curtain drawn across him just as he had done that night in the Inside.

He was now hanging with his back to the street; anyone walking by could glance up and spot this British Spider-Man.

Unfortunately, the fifth floor was far too high. Baron figured that if he jumped, he would either die or be crippled for life; otherwise he would have leapt long ago.

Though the dual regenerative powers of a Dragon-Knight and a Blood-Sect cultivator were formidable, the "crippled" debuff would be crippling in every sense. Baron dared not gamble on escaping the ring of enforcers with broken bones.

The knocking persisted, growing impatient. Baron ran through the possibilities in his head:

The Inquisition? No—Battle-Sisters never bothered with doors; they descended from the sky and fought their way in.

The Knights Templar? Probably not. On the Outside, griffin-knights handled security, and they would have spotted him clinging to the window long before now.

That left only two options: the Tower of London or the Templars of the Holy Cross.

Then he heard a soft mutter through the door: "Strange... the address says the flowers should go here... Why isn't anyone home...?"

Flowers? Before Baron could process it, footsteps receded down the stairs. He counted another half-minute on the ledge, then climbed back in through the window. A white envelope had been slipped beneath the door.

He tore it open. A few lines, nothing more: the florist had delivered the bouquet, left it outside, and requested a confirmation postcard.

Baron pulled the door wide. A riot of irises, lilies, roses, and baby's breath greeted him—spring itself in a single, extravagant bundle. Among the stems lay a small card.

"Mister L, congratulations on your acquittal. In gratitude, please accept these few blossoms..."

His composure shattered.

...

Back inside, Baron stared at the message, thoughts racing.

Who on earth knew that he was L?

Jack? Stella? The Deputy Director?

No—the card bore no sender's name. Whoever sent it clearly wished to remain hidden. If it had been Jack or the others, there would have been no reason for secrecy.

"In gratitude..." Gratitude...

Baron's mind snapped to attention. He had almost forgotten: the identity of L carried more than one layer of meaning.

L had not been born in Westminster at all, but in—

"Prol," Baron murmured.

Could it be that, besides himself, someone else in this world had also been to Prol?

A chill crept up his spine, but another knock at the door scattered the thought.

Same routine: open the window, climb out, crouch on the ledge.

Had the florist returned? Yet the knock sounded different, and it stopped almost at once.

Two voices whispered on the other side of the door; then the lock rattled softly and the door swung inward.

Two sets of uneven footsteps crossed the threshold; the door clicked shut.

"Quick—check if the money's still there! If the police find it, we're finished," one hissed.

"Relax. I've watched this place. The tenant barely ever comes home. He never noticed we hollowed out the floor under the rug. Plus—"

"Plus what?"

"Haven't you seen the news? The owner's supposed to be a murderer. Even if the cops do find the stash, they'll never suspect the guys living upstairs from a killer."

Police? Money? Hidden in a murderer's flat?

Baron's brow furrowed as he lifted the curtain a fraction. The two intruders rolled the rug aside and pried up a floorboard with practiced ease, then exhaled in unison.

"A million pounds," the first man breathed. "Fifty grand each—enough to live on for life. Not bad for robbing an armored car."

Baron understood at once: these two were hijackers—bank robbers.

The second man replaced the boards and rug. "With all the heat, we can't spend the numbered notes yet. We wait until things cool off."

"How long?"

"At least a year. After a couple of months the police will ease up; then we move the cash somewhere else."

When the thieves finally left, Baron eased the window open, lifted the rug and floorboards, and stared at two bulging sacks of banknotes.

Question: If you find a million pounds in your own flat, do you hand it to the police?

Answer: Spend it wisely.

The Dragon-Gall ring flashed on Baron's finger. A young millionaire was born.