Jack stood there in the bathroom, shuffling his foot, waiting for the pain to subside from his stubbed toe. He ran his eyes over the filthy tiles on the walls, the dust on the floor and debris in the sink and bath. He had broken a mirror, and seven years' luck was gone. What now?

The wards he had drawn on the back wall and the door would work for a while yet. So he brushed some of the wreckage of wallpaper, dust and ash from the bath, curled up and trained his pistol on the door. He did not remember falling asleep.

He came to muzzily, a weird sensation of animal heat and wetness his face. He flailed his arms about him, and dislodged a dog which had been licking him about the cheeks and forehead. The thing shrank back against the far wall.

Wait a minute, a dog? Jack eyed the creature in shock. It was about a metre tall, rangy but not skinny. He extended a hand over the lip of the tub. The mongrel loped over slowly and sniffed his fingers. He tousled its ears while it squinted at him contentedly.

"I thought all of you were long dead by now, kid," muttered Jack. The dog took no notice of the words, but it liked having its ears scratched.

Jack had found himself one day in the burnt-out remains of a great city. It was all anyone could do to stay alive. No-one remembered anything but garbled scraps about the way things had been, except for the half-crazed Seers desperate folk flocked to in the Enclaves dotted about the wastes. Each had managed to hold onto a sliver of the past life: a few verses of song, some snatches of poetry, or images lodged in the memory that the Seer felt compelled to paint incessantly. People clung to them. Luck and fear were the twin currencies that held eternal in this chaos, enforced by shadowy beings it was always better to hide from. Jack had always valued his own skills more highly than most, and saw an opportunity.

He hadn't given much thought to how the world had got the way it had. But one thing was certain. Any dog that had managed to survive in this place for so long - how long had it been now? Jack couldn't remember - without being eaten and skinned for clothing had to be the luckiest animal in history.

"Sooo..." drawled Jack, stepping stiffly out of the bath, "Actually, I suppose you need a name."

The dog eyed him coolly.

"Guess it has to be Lucky, doesn't it?"

No change in the dog's expression, but the notion fixed in Jack's mind. He bent down low, and looked Lucky in the dirty, ash-coloured face.

"How about you show me how you got in here, and then we find some breakfast?"