Fic: Underland (Sherlock Holmes / Neverwhere), PG-13 (13/17)
I WAS SOOOOOO PRODUCTIVE TODAY! YAY!
Title: Underland
Author: crimson_adder
Fandoms: Sherlock Holmes (ACD) / Neverwhere (Gaiman!verse)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing / Characters: Holmes/Watson; Watson, Holmes, Master Furredears, Mr Croup, Mr Vandemar, a chorus of rats
Word Count: ~ 2900
Summary: John Watson loses a bet, grants a favour, and finds himself in a world unlike anything he has ever seen before. Except for how it's all the same.
Notes / Warnings: So this started with my own prompt on shkinkmeme which never got filled, so I decided to do it myself. :D If you see issues with anything, please feel free to tell me.
Watson's a bit spacey in the beginning of this chapter, but he steps up his game later on. :D Also, just watched Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy again Martin Freeman FTW! and renewed my love for omnipotent rodents. Also, it gets real emotional at the end. <3
Underland - Part XIII
-
When we emerged from the dark of the tunnels it was to the dark of the open night sky - either we had been down for much longer than I had thought, or time just flowed differently in this realm than I was used to. Either one was more than likely, and I chose not to linger on the subject for very long for fear of overwhelming my already harried mind.
Excuse my exaggeration, but it seemed like I emptied an entire pint of water from my shoes, and was none too pleased when Holmes merely sniffed and walked on, boots squelching and leaving sloppy puddled footprints in his wake.
Of course, I thought to my self at the time, the man would take fastidious care of his appearance up until the point that he goes traipsing through the sewers to use a monstrous jellyfish that could have likely killed us both as bait for an even more deadly woman who probably would have killed us both.
My trousers and socks were still wet though, so I believe I was allowed an internal diatribe at the very least.
Unfortunately, I was so caught up in the contemplation of how very much I wished I had thought to bring my rubber-soled tennis shoes, and distracted by how pleasing it would have been to spend the evening lounging in front of a roaring fire with a cigarette and the British Medical Journal, that Holmes managed to lead me down several side alleys and odd, unnoticed turns before I became aware of our surroundings. I do not have Holmes' mind for the geography of London, but I am relatively capable in my own meagre manner of understanding directions and recognising landmarks. Only once, however, when we somehow ended up on Albion Street, did I gain any knowledge of where we were.
All along the street the lights inside the houses were lit, some with the hot glow of a gas lamp, others with the starker glare of an electrical light, but the one we stopped in front of looked dark and abandoned. Holmes bounded up the stairs and knocked loudly at the door, twice with the knocker and once with his gloved knuckles.
The door creaked open into darkness and nobody beckoned us inside. The door slid shut behind us, and from nowhere, Holmes' lantern was illuminated once more, casting light on the small entrance hall.
The absence of anybody was apparent in the dust, thick and heavy over polished floors. Holmes and I left footprints where nobody had walked, the wood glinting where it was uncovered.
I could hear no one upstairs, and somewhere, someone was smoking a pipe. The thick smell of shag tobacco was diluted through the floor, and no one had closed the door to the upstairs sitting room.
Nobody guided us through the halls, and down a flight of stairs into a finished basement. The small gate that signified an entrance to another series of tunnels opened with a squeak and we passed on from that house with no one to see and nobody to care.
Sufficient years of gallivanting after Holmes through the sewers of London made me more comfortable with the intense enclosure of the tunnels than was generally acceptable in a proper gentleman. But even I was growing tired of the unending shafts and deadly dark passages. I do not know if you have noticed, reader, but considering the sheer amount of insanity I apparently have to put up with on a regular basis, I fail to complain an awful lot.
Therefore, while I will not say it was a welcome surprise, it was at the very least a distraction from the monotony of the labyrinth beneath London - and how jaded I must sound, to find constant action a necessity after all I had encountered in so little time - when Holmes ceased his stride abruptly.
He extinguished the lantern, and I dared not ask what had stopped him, but instead focused my attentions on attempting to listen to the echoing hollow that encased us. All too soon, I caught a hint of what had brought him to a halt - there was someone following us, and they were not being subtle about it. I could not tell how many there were - Holmes no doubt could tell not only their number, but their respective weights, drinking habits, and possibly their shoe size - and was only slightly startled when Holmes slipped his hand over mine, grasping in the darkness to squeeze my fingers, though I still held my medical bag. His kidskin gloves were cool and smooth against my wider hands, and lent me the same steady reassurance that had been a keystone to our relationship since it had moved past flatmates and on to friends. I could not offer a reciprocal grasp, but leaned my self closer to him, letting my torso press against his elbow briefly, before stepping back and shifting my grip on my cane to allow more space to manoeuvre.
Our pursuers had moved faster than I thought, or were closer to us from the beginning than I had noticed, for when the leader spoke, it rang as if we were cut off on both sides.
"Good morrow, good sirs, on this fine and beautiful day."
If I had not already felt threatened by their strange presence, I would have shuddered at that man's voice. Aside from the fact that it seemed he had practised what might have been cordial if someone had never met a polite person in their life, he also sounded like the physical embodiment of a pea-souper, thick and oily, leaving the taste of ash bitter and rancid on my tongue.
"If I might beg a moment of your time."
And then he was within a hair's-breadth of my face, and I could smell his teeth rotting in his mouth and the vile odour of his skin and the grease of his unwashed hair and I felt like I was going to gag, like I was going to vomit, weak though it might have seemed, and then Holmes grabbed my hand once more and we were running.
I heard behind us, almost indiscernible under the pounding of our feet and the clanking of my medical bag, a low and dirty chuckle. Their footsteps as they moved to follow were nothing more than a saunter, for they knew, in their wretched, evil minds, that they would catch up to us eventually.
Blind and breathless from the exhilaration, we flew through the tunnels, turning at random. But no matter how many times we changed course, nor how hard we ran, every time I strained my ears I could hear the unceasing drumbeat of their boots, never far enough behind.
Holmes hauled me up a flight of rickety metal stairs, and then down a set of stone steps, and across a bridge, wide and barren, without any railings, just a sheer drop over darkness and despair. The gloom of the tunnels was abating slightly, not enough for comfort, but enough to understand the threats that surrounded us, make them all the more real.
We stumbled around a corner, gasping, and my leg gave out beneath me, no longer holding up under the stress. I collapsed into Holmes' startled arms, and bit my lip near bloody to keep a groan of pain from escaping.
He sucked a deep breath in, filling his lungs to capacity and held it, listening. The sound of his heartbeat against my ear, his chest rising and falling in harsh pants, was all I could hear.
"They're gone. Come, Watson. We have to get to the upside, we'll be safer there."
I finally let my self cough, air rattling into my lungs. "Who were they, Holmes?"
"Moriarty's henchmen. They freelance violence, I believe, selling their trade to the highest bidder." As he spoke, he removed one of his gloves and smoothed my sweat-damp hair from my forehead, and though I could still tell that most of his mind was still focused on our pursuers, my eyes slid shut and I revelled in his touch.
"Moriarty - do I know him?" The name did not ring any bells, but I assumed he was 'the professor' that Holmes had spoke of earlier.
"Professor James Moriarty, yes, I believe I may have mentioned him once or twice - he is one of the greatest criminal mastermind to grace England or the continent, and the most dangerous man in London, Above or Below." He began to guide me along blindly the newest tunnel. "The Napoleon of Crime, I like to call him, for his reach is expansive enough to bridge the gap between the worlds as I my self do. He works through others, like those two we just narrowly escaped - " here his tone was sceptical, for we were not yet out of the woods, "as the puppet master controls his marionettes. Never once is a crime directly linked to him, but he has terrorised London for long enough that it has fallen to me to rid the world of him once and for all."
"Why you?"
I could hear his laugh, and could almost see the outline of his Romanesque head as he threw it back in mirth.
"Because, dear boy, I am Lord Sherringford Vernet, of the Raven's Court, and Sherlock Holmes of 221b Baker Street! It is my calling, as it always has been, to solve what others cannot and take on the greatest minds with my own."
He pulled my medical bag and cane from me, and manoeuvred me in the darkness to the rungs of a ladder heading up to the streets again. He was a warm presence at my back as I gained my footing and began the climb, and when I pushed up the trapdoor, he ascended behind me with that grace that I would never emulate even if I practised it for years.
We had come up in the back room of a small news stand, and emerged onto Aldgate High Street, directly adjacent to the Underground stop.
The night sky was black as tar, without single star to be seen, and it sent a feeling of unease through me. The feeling of being watched slowly crept across my skin, and at once I felt the difference from the keen gaze of Holmes' ravens and the repulsive slide of a predator's eyes across my figure. It came from everywhere though, and I could sense that Holmes felt it too by the tense line of his narrow shoulders.
"We'll head to the Tower," Holmes said, handing me back my stick, and we turned south on Jewry Street. I saw some scattered rooks flap into place along the rooftops and felt some reassurance at their presence, where before there had only been suspicion and distress.
Even with the additional eyes keeping watch, we had only barely made it to the Thames, so close to the half-completed construction of the Tower Bridge, before two men appeared as though from a fog in the middle of our path. They were as different as two men could be, one so unnervingly large he could have rivalled Hammersmith, the other short and almost comically rotund in comparison. He was not a man to laugh at however, for his smile was that of a fox, pale eyes glinting with a malevolent greed.
"The Professor sends his regards, good sirs," the smaller one said, in his voice like oil, slick and poisonous. "Mister Vandemar will now convey His Lordship's message."
The taller one stepped up and cracked his knuckles, and I could feel Holmes' pained breath when he realised that the rings the man wore were fashioned from the skulls of ravens. The man smiled gleefully and raised one adorned fist in preparation for a blow that was sure to be deadly if it fell with any accuracy.
Holmes was not armed, not that I could see, but I had my cane and my old service revolver, and I stepped into my role as his protector as easily as I always had. I let my cane slide through my hand for better torque, and parried with a ferocity that I only manage to achieve in the heat of a fight or the midst of a wager, connecting with the man's solid forearm, and then whipped it back into Mr Vandemar's throat.
It would have knocked an average man out of commission, possibly have crushed his windpipe, but Mr Vandemar was no average man. He was no more human than the woman with the fox-glove eyes and the plum red lips.
Nevertheless I was well prepared for such a possibility and did not falter in my attack, beating him as viciously as I could. Many of the blows merely glanced off his bulging muscles and greater mass, but still I drove him back until he was at an acceptable distance from Holmes and I could draw my revolver without the risk of him regaining ground.
I did not think, but fired three times, once into each of Mr Vandemar's thighs and the last into his barrel-like abdomen, knocking him back and felling him with a great sound as of a tree falling in a forest.
He was not dead though. He could not possibly be, but he was subdued for the moment. His companion's smug face contorted with disgust and outrage, gruesome in his fury, before he pulled up a veneer of maligned apathy.
"I do wish you had not done that, kind gentleman, for it truly bodes not well for you, indeed." He shook his head and clasped his hands before as if in benediction. "My name, good sirs, is Mister Croup, and while my brother Mister Vandemar is the less... sociable of the two of us," here he opened his cold blue eyes and his face twisted into a look of ecstatic brutality, "I my self am quite adept at handling these sorts of situations."
From his poorly-tailored waistcoat he pulled a long, wicked knife that looked sharp as a razor and still coated in the recently dried blood of past victims. And then, because he too was as far from being a man as physically possible, possessing as he did such similar attributes, he moved faster than I could blink and was immediately before me, quite prepared to slit me open as deftly as a surgeon's knife.
Before I could even shut my eyes in desperate anticipation, I heard a loud chittering, and an army of rats rose like a tidal wave up from a storm drain and swarmed across Mr Croup's legs, climbing up and under and over his trousers, biting and squeaking and screeching and clawing.
Mr Croup howled in fury and pain, batting them off as one swats away flies, but the surges of rats kept coming, driving him back to Mr Vandemar, who was already moving again. Some of the warriors went flying, falling with painful crunches to land awful and limp on the pavement, and I found my self breaking from my horror to aim one single shot between Mr Croup's eyes.
He fell back, a sick look of surprise plastered on his foxy face. The rats scurried out of the way, the majority of them returning to the storm drain, and I hurried to check the sad still bodies of the injured ones.
Two of them were already dead, a third twitching so weakly it was a mercy to break it's small neck, and it was with my heart in my throat that I recognised the fourth, with its piebald velvet fur and tufted ears.
It was the rat that had helped me before, the one that Hammersmith had finally introduced me to. Master Furredears, silly name that it was. I laid my hands on his body, so small under my broad palm. His tiny chest was heaving, heart fluttering and racing.
I had not ventured to provide medical aid to such a small creature since my boyhood, when I bound the broken wing of a bird to nurse it back to health, and made several ill-advised attempts to resuscitate a sleeping tomcat.
As delicately as I could, I palpated his tiny bones and found that his left side limbs were fractures, though his ribs and abdomen was still intact, though obviously painful. He squeaked at me weakly, and curled his thick bald tail around my wrist as I slowly levered him into my hand.
Holmes' hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed, and I was astonished to find that my vision was blurred with tears I could barely contain. He made some gestures I could not discern, and then I felt his thin lips against my forehead, against my cheek, and finally cool and briefly pressed to mine.
I had no idea which feeling was more overwhelming, the first kiss from the man I loved, or the soft heat of the creature I owed my life to. My mouth parted on a wet gasp that could have been the prelude to a sob, but Holmes' lips slotted firmer against mine, sucking the air from my lungs and my heart from my chest.
Then the rat I held so dearly in my hands stood on his broken legs, and bit me gently in the same place on the heel of my palm that he had before.
I tore my mouth from Holmes, and stared disbelieving at the sparkling eyes of Furredears, as sound and whole as he had been before my intrusion into his life.
-
| Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X |
| Part XI | Part XII || Part XIII || Part XIV | Part XV | Part XVI | Part XVII |
Title: Underland
Author: crimson_adder
Fandoms: Sherlock Holmes (ACD) / Neverwhere (Gaiman!verse)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing / Characters: Holmes/Watson; Watson, Holmes, Master Furredears, Mr Croup, Mr Vandemar, a chorus of rats
Word Count: ~ 2900
Summary: John Watson loses a bet, grants a favour, and finds himself in a world unlike anything he has ever seen before. Except for how it's all the same.
Notes / Warnings: So this started with my own prompt on shkinkmeme which never got filled, so I decided to do it myself. :D If you see issues with anything, please feel free to tell me.
Watson's a bit spacey in the beginning of this chapter, but he steps up his game later on. :D Also, just watched Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy again Martin Freeman FTW! and renewed my love for omnipotent rodents. Also, it gets real emotional at the end. <3
Underland - Part XIII
-
When we emerged from the dark of the tunnels it was to the dark of the open night sky - either we had been down for much longer than I had thought, or time just flowed differently in this realm than I was used to. Either one was more than likely, and I chose not to linger on the subject for very long for fear of overwhelming my already harried mind.
Excuse my exaggeration, but it seemed like I emptied an entire pint of water from my shoes, and was none too pleased when Holmes merely sniffed and walked on, boots squelching and leaving sloppy puddled footprints in his wake.
Of course, I thought to my self at the time, the man would take fastidious care of his appearance up until the point that he goes traipsing through the sewers to use a monstrous jellyfish that could have likely killed us both as bait for an even more deadly woman who probably would have killed us both.
My trousers and socks were still wet though, so I believe I was allowed an internal diatribe at the very least.
Unfortunately, I was so caught up in the contemplation of how very much I wished I had thought to bring my rubber-soled tennis shoes, and distracted by how pleasing it would have been to spend the evening lounging in front of a roaring fire with a cigarette and the British Medical Journal, that Holmes managed to lead me down several side alleys and odd, unnoticed turns before I became aware of our surroundings. I do not have Holmes' mind for the geography of London, but I am relatively capable in my own meagre manner of understanding directions and recognising landmarks. Only once, however, when we somehow ended up on Albion Street, did I gain any knowledge of where we were.
All along the street the lights inside the houses were lit, some with the hot glow of a gas lamp, others with the starker glare of an electrical light, but the one we stopped in front of looked dark and abandoned. Holmes bounded up the stairs and knocked loudly at the door, twice with the knocker and once with his gloved knuckles.
The door creaked open into darkness and nobody beckoned us inside. The door slid shut behind us, and from nowhere, Holmes' lantern was illuminated once more, casting light on the small entrance hall.
The absence of anybody was apparent in the dust, thick and heavy over polished floors. Holmes and I left footprints where nobody had walked, the wood glinting where it was uncovered.
I could hear no one upstairs, and somewhere, someone was smoking a pipe. The thick smell of shag tobacco was diluted through the floor, and no one had closed the door to the upstairs sitting room.
Nobody guided us through the halls, and down a flight of stairs into a finished basement. The small gate that signified an entrance to another series of tunnels opened with a squeak and we passed on from that house with no one to see and nobody to care.
Sufficient years of gallivanting after Holmes through the sewers of London made me more comfortable with the intense enclosure of the tunnels than was generally acceptable in a proper gentleman. But even I was growing tired of the unending shafts and deadly dark passages. I do not know if you have noticed, reader, but considering the sheer amount of insanity I apparently have to put up with on a regular basis, I fail to complain an awful lot.
Therefore, while I will not say it was a welcome surprise, it was at the very least a distraction from the monotony of the labyrinth beneath London - and how jaded I must sound, to find constant action a necessity after all I had encountered in so little time - when Holmes ceased his stride abruptly.
He extinguished the lantern, and I dared not ask what had stopped him, but instead focused my attentions on attempting to listen to the echoing hollow that encased us. All too soon, I caught a hint of what had brought him to a halt - there was someone following us, and they were not being subtle about it. I could not tell how many there were - Holmes no doubt could tell not only their number, but their respective weights, drinking habits, and possibly their shoe size - and was only slightly startled when Holmes slipped his hand over mine, grasping in the darkness to squeeze my fingers, though I still held my medical bag. His kidskin gloves were cool and smooth against my wider hands, and lent me the same steady reassurance that had been a keystone to our relationship since it had moved past flatmates and on to friends. I could not offer a reciprocal grasp, but leaned my self closer to him, letting my torso press against his elbow briefly, before stepping back and shifting my grip on my cane to allow more space to manoeuvre.
Our pursuers had moved faster than I thought, or were closer to us from the beginning than I had noticed, for when the leader spoke, it rang as if we were cut off on both sides.
"Good morrow, good sirs, on this fine and beautiful day."
If I had not already felt threatened by their strange presence, I would have shuddered at that man's voice. Aside from the fact that it seemed he had practised what might have been cordial if someone had never met a polite person in their life, he also sounded like the physical embodiment of a pea-souper, thick and oily, leaving the taste of ash bitter and rancid on my tongue.
"If I might beg a moment of your time."
And then he was within a hair's-breadth of my face, and I could smell his teeth rotting in his mouth and the vile odour of his skin and the grease of his unwashed hair and I felt like I was going to gag, like I was going to vomit, weak though it might have seemed, and then Holmes grabbed my hand once more and we were running.
I heard behind us, almost indiscernible under the pounding of our feet and the clanking of my medical bag, a low and dirty chuckle. Their footsteps as they moved to follow were nothing more than a saunter, for they knew, in their wretched, evil minds, that they would catch up to us eventually.
Blind and breathless from the exhilaration, we flew through the tunnels, turning at random. But no matter how many times we changed course, nor how hard we ran, every time I strained my ears I could hear the unceasing drumbeat of their boots, never far enough behind.
Holmes hauled me up a flight of rickety metal stairs, and then down a set of stone steps, and across a bridge, wide and barren, without any railings, just a sheer drop over darkness and despair. The gloom of the tunnels was abating slightly, not enough for comfort, but enough to understand the threats that surrounded us, make them all the more real.
We stumbled around a corner, gasping, and my leg gave out beneath me, no longer holding up under the stress. I collapsed into Holmes' startled arms, and bit my lip near bloody to keep a groan of pain from escaping.
He sucked a deep breath in, filling his lungs to capacity and held it, listening. The sound of his heartbeat against my ear, his chest rising and falling in harsh pants, was all I could hear.
"They're gone. Come, Watson. We have to get to the upside, we'll be safer there."
I finally let my self cough, air rattling into my lungs. "Who were they, Holmes?"
"Moriarty's henchmen. They freelance violence, I believe, selling their trade to the highest bidder." As he spoke, he removed one of his gloves and smoothed my sweat-damp hair from my forehead, and though I could still tell that most of his mind was still focused on our pursuers, my eyes slid shut and I revelled in his touch.
"Moriarty - do I know him?" The name did not ring any bells, but I assumed he was 'the professor' that Holmes had spoke of earlier.
"Professor James Moriarty, yes, I believe I may have mentioned him once or twice - he is one of the greatest criminal mastermind to grace England or the continent, and the most dangerous man in London, Above or Below." He began to guide me along blindly the newest tunnel. "The Napoleon of Crime, I like to call him, for his reach is expansive enough to bridge the gap between the worlds as I my self do. He works through others, like those two we just narrowly escaped - " here his tone was sceptical, for we were not yet out of the woods, "as the puppet master controls his marionettes. Never once is a crime directly linked to him, but he has terrorised London for long enough that it has fallen to me to rid the world of him once and for all."
"Why you?"
I could hear his laugh, and could almost see the outline of his Romanesque head as he threw it back in mirth.
"Because, dear boy, I am Lord Sherringford Vernet, of the Raven's Court, and Sherlock Holmes of 221b Baker Street! It is my calling, as it always has been, to solve what others cannot and take on the greatest minds with my own."
He pulled my medical bag and cane from me, and manoeuvred me in the darkness to the rungs of a ladder heading up to the streets again. He was a warm presence at my back as I gained my footing and began the climb, and when I pushed up the trapdoor, he ascended behind me with that grace that I would never emulate even if I practised it for years.
We had come up in the back room of a small news stand, and emerged onto Aldgate High Street, directly adjacent to the Underground stop.
The night sky was black as tar, without single star to be seen, and it sent a feeling of unease through me. The feeling of being watched slowly crept across my skin, and at once I felt the difference from the keen gaze of Holmes' ravens and the repulsive slide of a predator's eyes across my figure. It came from everywhere though, and I could sense that Holmes felt it too by the tense line of his narrow shoulders.
"We'll head to the Tower," Holmes said, handing me back my stick, and we turned south on Jewry Street. I saw some scattered rooks flap into place along the rooftops and felt some reassurance at their presence, where before there had only been suspicion and distress.
Even with the additional eyes keeping watch, we had only barely made it to the Thames, so close to the half-completed construction of the Tower Bridge, before two men appeared as though from a fog in the middle of our path. They were as different as two men could be, one so unnervingly large he could have rivalled Hammersmith, the other short and almost comically rotund in comparison. He was not a man to laugh at however, for his smile was that of a fox, pale eyes glinting with a malevolent greed.
"The Professor sends his regards, good sirs," the smaller one said, in his voice like oil, slick and poisonous. "Mister Vandemar will now convey His Lordship's message."
The taller one stepped up and cracked his knuckles, and I could feel Holmes' pained breath when he realised that the rings the man wore were fashioned from the skulls of ravens. The man smiled gleefully and raised one adorned fist in preparation for a blow that was sure to be deadly if it fell with any accuracy.
Holmes was not armed, not that I could see, but I had my cane and my old service revolver, and I stepped into my role as his protector as easily as I always had. I let my cane slide through my hand for better torque, and parried with a ferocity that I only manage to achieve in the heat of a fight or the midst of a wager, connecting with the man's solid forearm, and then whipped it back into Mr Vandemar's throat.
It would have knocked an average man out of commission, possibly have crushed his windpipe, but Mr Vandemar was no average man. He was no more human than the woman with the fox-glove eyes and the plum red lips.
Nevertheless I was well prepared for such a possibility and did not falter in my attack, beating him as viciously as I could. Many of the blows merely glanced off his bulging muscles and greater mass, but still I drove him back until he was at an acceptable distance from Holmes and I could draw my revolver without the risk of him regaining ground.
I did not think, but fired three times, once into each of Mr Vandemar's thighs and the last into his barrel-like abdomen, knocking him back and felling him with a great sound as of a tree falling in a forest.
He was not dead though. He could not possibly be, but he was subdued for the moment. His companion's smug face contorted with disgust and outrage, gruesome in his fury, before he pulled up a veneer of maligned apathy.
"I do wish you had not done that, kind gentleman, for it truly bodes not well for you, indeed." He shook his head and clasped his hands before as if in benediction. "My name, good sirs, is Mister Croup, and while my brother Mister Vandemar is the less... sociable of the two of us," here he opened his cold blue eyes and his face twisted into a look of ecstatic brutality, "I my self am quite adept at handling these sorts of situations."
From his poorly-tailored waistcoat he pulled a long, wicked knife that looked sharp as a razor and still coated in the recently dried blood of past victims. And then, because he too was as far from being a man as physically possible, possessing as he did such similar attributes, he moved faster than I could blink and was immediately before me, quite prepared to slit me open as deftly as a surgeon's knife.
Before I could even shut my eyes in desperate anticipation, I heard a loud chittering, and an army of rats rose like a tidal wave up from a storm drain and swarmed across Mr Croup's legs, climbing up and under and over his trousers, biting and squeaking and screeching and clawing.
Mr Croup howled in fury and pain, batting them off as one swats away flies, but the surges of rats kept coming, driving him back to Mr Vandemar, who was already moving again. Some of the warriors went flying, falling with painful crunches to land awful and limp on the pavement, and I found my self breaking from my horror to aim one single shot between Mr Croup's eyes.
He fell back, a sick look of surprise plastered on his foxy face. The rats scurried out of the way, the majority of them returning to the storm drain, and I hurried to check the sad still bodies of the injured ones.
Two of them were already dead, a third twitching so weakly it was a mercy to break it's small neck, and it was with my heart in my throat that I recognised the fourth, with its piebald velvet fur and tufted ears.
It was the rat that had helped me before, the one that Hammersmith had finally introduced me to. Master Furredears, silly name that it was. I laid my hands on his body, so small under my broad palm. His tiny chest was heaving, heart fluttering and racing.
I had not ventured to provide medical aid to such a small creature since my boyhood, when I bound the broken wing of a bird to nurse it back to health, and made several ill-advised attempts to resuscitate a sleeping tomcat.
As delicately as I could, I palpated his tiny bones and found that his left side limbs were fractures, though his ribs and abdomen was still intact, though obviously painful. He squeaked at me weakly, and curled his thick bald tail around my wrist as I slowly levered him into my hand.
Holmes' hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed, and I was astonished to find that my vision was blurred with tears I could barely contain. He made some gestures I could not discern, and then I felt his thin lips against my forehead, against my cheek, and finally cool and briefly pressed to mine.
I had no idea which feeling was more overwhelming, the first kiss from the man I loved, or the soft heat of the creature I owed my life to. My mouth parted on a wet gasp that could have been the prelude to a sob, but Holmes' lips slotted firmer against mine, sucking the air from my lungs and my heart from my chest.
Then the rat I held so dearly in my hands stood on his broken legs, and bit me gently in the same place on the heel of my palm that he had before.
I tore my mouth from Holmes, and stared disbelieving at the sparkling eyes of Furredears, as sound and whole as he had been before my intrusion into his life.
-
| Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Part V | Part VI | Part VII | Part VIII | Part IX | Part X |
| Part XI | Part XII || Part XIII || Part XIV | Part XV | Part XVI | Part XVII |