"Winter’s Luck" (ACD Vampire AU, Rated PG, Watson's Woes October 2015 Prompt)
Title: Winter’s Luck
Author: gardnerhill
Universe: Sherlock Holmes ACD (“The Vermilion Problem” AU)
Word Count: 5176
Rating: PG
Warning: Body horror, gun violence. Surprisingly little blood.
Summary: Poor ‘Killer’ Evans (aka John Garrideb, aka James Winter). He never could catch a break, ever.
Author's Notes: For the October 2015 Watson's Woes prompt: A Halloween tale set in my Vampire!Holmes “Vermilion Problem” AU.
Close - so damned close, and he just had to run into the only two bulls on the whole damn’ British Isles who couldn’t be bribed into silence. Peachy. Just Jimmy Winter’s goddamn luck once again.
Prison for killing that cheating son of a bitch counterfeiter Prescott? Should have gotten a goddamn parade for that one. What made it worse was sweating it out in stir, thinking of Prescott’s treasure-generating printing press hidden where no one would find it - and getting free just to learn that some loco skull-collector was squatting on top of it, a chap who never left his rooms.
All right. He’d gotten the damn’ idea from those detective stories he’d read in lock-up, especially the one about the red-head society created to lure some sucker of a pawnbroker out of his shop. The old bird’s strange surname provided a basis for cooking up a get-rich-quick scheme that would crowbar Nathan Garrideb out of his rooms long enough for James Winter to lay claim on Prescott’s press.
But damn if those two damn’ Pinkertons from that red-head business weren’t real after all - and gunning for him!
Large as life and twice as natural, and hard to miss after seeing their pictures in the magazines. A tall lean pale chap who held his gun like it was a walking-stick - didn’t act like someone who’d fire it if provoked. But the quiet mustachioed man right behind him knew what it was to fire that Webley in hand, the way he held himself shouted soldier. The fancy English detective Sherlock Holmes, and his bodyguard.
Heh heh. They’d drawn on him first, he’d easily get off on self-defence if he was caught.
Rueful laugh, acknowledgement of their triumph - and a gun-draw that Wyatt Earp couldn’t beat. First shot whipped off to drop the bodyguard with a thud, second straight through the detective’s heart. There. Now one more between the bodyguard’s eyes to finish him off, and he could -
An explosion of stars behind his own eyes. The ground rose up and hit him.
Then two icy hands clawed into his shirt and hauled him up, and James Winter looked past the whirling stars and clanging in his head to stare into the glittering eyes of a mad dog and a snarling mouth like an open black pit.
“You killed Watson. Your blood is mine for this,” Sherlock Holmes hissed like a snake. His breath stank like an opened grave.
He’d shot the son of a bitch straight through the heart.
All thought fled his clanging head in the face of pure icy terror. He’d seen that bullet go true into the man’s upper left chest, he’d seen it - the same shot he’d used to drop three other men and that had gained him his nickname. He’d heard of men so overcome with rage that they kept moving in the few seconds after being fatally shot, just before they dropped dead. Hell, he’d even joked about cusses so goddamn mean that shooting them would only make them mad. And here was the joke in the flesh.
All right, joke’s over now drop dead. Dead. Drop dead.
The gaping black pit of an open mouth opened wider, his teeth - oh God teeth like a rattler’s fangs but close together in front like a rabbit’s. What the goddamn everloving hell - ?
“Ohhh.”
Such a small noise from behind both of them.
The viper’s mouth snapped shut. The eyes were a man’s eyes again, shining grey. Sherlock Holmes whipped his head around to see the bodyguard - Watson - sitting up and groaning in pain. His gripping hands let go without second thought.
Winter fell back, no longer held up, moaning himself as he banged the back of his head on the floor. More stars, pain swirling. Every limb he had felt made of water.
This didn’t make sense, this didn’t make sense. He knew he hadn’t fired a deadly shot at Watson, but - those mad eyes, those ghastly rattler-teeth - surely Winter hadn’t been coshed so hard that he saw things that weren’t there. He’d seen anger in the recently-wounded or fury in men whose pals he’d just shot. Nothing like that cold mask. Nothing.
By the time Winter could sit up Watson was in a chair, his trousers torn open to reveal a bloody thigh wound where the first shot had nicked him, and Holmes was on his knees on the floor before him, long pale hands running over the red trickle. Watson was saying something in a soothing tone, clapping the other man on the shoulder. Not just his bodyguard, then - they were pals. What kind of idiot lawman got chummy with his hired muscle?
When both men stood and looked into the cellar, Winter tried one last time - one thing about cops and Pinkertons was how easily they could be bought off. But not these two, of course - wouldn’t accept a fiver. Why couldn’t he have been tailed by some corrupt, log-stupid Peeler eager to supplement his measly salary?
No - it was out to flag down a cab and off to the police station, between the two men he’d tried to kill. Prison again, and his pot of gold smashed. God damn it, he never could catch a break.
Watson was quiet and calm despite sitting next to a man who’d just tried to kill him, fingers tapping lightly over his roughly-bandaged thigh; it was clear he’d been a soldier and didn’t take these things personally. But Holmes trembled like an aspen, very lightly but constantly, as if he’d been lost in a blizzard, and spent the ride looking out at the dusk-lit streets. Winter remembered those glittering mad-dog eyes, his shot straight at the man’s chest (did he wear some sort of armour beneath? Did he keep a cigarette case or a book there?), and suppressed his own shudder.
“Poor Mr. Garrideb,” Watson said. “Your cruel ruse will be a terrible blow to him, Evans.”
Winter snorted, back on solid ground with that comment. “Gullible old fool. Suckers deserve to be rooked.”
“Including the ‘suckers’ who would have been in dire financial straits by taking your false banknotes?” Holmes’ voice dripped with revulsion at his callousness.
Winter laughed. “It’s a cold cruel world, Mr. Holmes, and it’s every man for himself. Eat, or get eaten.”
“Oh. I quite agree.”
Winter suppressed another shudder. Holmes’ tone on those words felt like he’d just bitten down on a knife that had been buried in ice.
Watson turned to look at Holmes. And there was a fear in his eyes Winter hadn’t seen when he’d shot the son of a bitch. “Holmes. I am all right. I’ve taken worse injury sharpening my scalpels.”
The hell? What did his dang bullet-scratch have to do with this?
A long pause. Then the ice-knife voice again - thawed, just a hair, enough to drip frigid humour. “That is true, Watson. You have taken far worse bloodlettings in my service, many times.”
Watson smiled as if it was a private joke. “Many times, old man. This adventure has been worth many wounds.”
Holmes kept his face toward the window; but his rigid shoulders relaxed.
Not Watson’s words but his affectionate tone made realization dawn in Winter - and with that realization, revulsion. Oh. These two were friends, not just pals - friends the way women and pansies had friends. On the Chicago streets where he grew up, real men didn’t have friends. Even here in England, they understood that much - a chap could play cards with the same fellow for 20 years and only say “what a pity” if the other man was murdered, instead of snarling a vow of vengeance. These two? Hell, they might as well be queer for each other.
Winter couldn’t keep his mouth shut - it wasn’t in his nature, and this open display of warmth, on top of his lost plan, fortune and freedom, turned every word into a sneer. “Maybe I oughta walk to the police station so you two lovebirds can spoon. Sorry I put a hole in your sweetheart here, Mr. Holmes.”
The stillness in the cab, broken only by the clopping hooves, fell like a load of snow on branches, and as warm. Oh, that did it, Jimmy Winter - if they’re real men they’ll thrash you proper for that before handing you to the coppers.
Holmes raised his fist. Winter tightened his jaw and clenched his own bound fists. He wouldn’t take a beating lying down, cuffs or no goddamn cuffs.
But all the detective did with his clenched hand was to thump the roof of the cab, twice. His voice was level and cool as if ordering a drink at a posh club. “Cabbie? Pall Mall.”
The cab shifted as the driver changed direction.
Winter blinked and frowned. Pall Mall? The swells district? What were they going to do, give him a flogging with a diamond necklace? Sic some dowager’s lap-dog on him? Or maybe some of those rich old coots in those gentlemen’s clubs kept boxers on retainer for just such a purpose.
He turned to smirk at Watson. What was a beating or two here? What were the scales of English law to fear by a man who’d survived the streets of goddamn Chicago?
Watson glared at him, clearly furious at the innuendo. But there was something else in his expression. Pity?
The cab stopped. The descending summer sun was still in the sky - it was not 8 o’clock - but the lamps were alight already, their electrical glow testifying to the wealth on this street. Lights shone from curtains and from doorways and through windows. The place felt posh - safe and comfortable, miles removed from the stark poverty and violence a few streets over. Winter’s fists balled up in his lap. All right, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, time for you to -
A snick, and the cuffs dropped from his wrists. Holmes withdrew the key he held. His eyes glinted like silver. “Get out.”
Oh. An English gentleman, he wanted everything fair before giving him a drubbing. Well no one had to tell Jimmy Winter twice how to save his own skin. He tumbled out of the cab and whirled around, fists up, ready.
Both men were still in the cab. Holmes had no expression at all, nor did he make a move to get out. Watson's face was still a mix of pity and anger.
Winter gaped at them both. They were just freeing him? Here?
…Oh. My. He must have hit the jackpot with his little joke, hadn’t he? They were nancy-boys for each other. They threw you in prison over here for that sort of thing, like that Oscar Wilde fairy. Now everything made sense. They didn’t dare turn him in or he’d blab. He tamped down his grin.
“All I ask of you, Mr. Evans,” said Sherlock Holmes, “is to think about what you have done. I want you to ruminate on exactly how close you came to killing Dr. John Watson - whose death would devastate Sherlock Holmes beyond any recovery in this life.”
Winter’s gorge rose at the confession and the maudlin affectation. If this Holmes ponce burst into tears or started reciting romantic poetry Winter would sock him anyway, just on principle. He couldn’t say anything that wouldn’t get him into more trouble with these benders, so he only nodded. Why, of course he’d sit in the corner and think of what a naughty boy he’d been.
“Good.” Holmes disappeared back into the cab. “Cabbie?”
“Wait.” It was Watson, still at the window. He looked at Winter long and hard. “Evans. I cannot hate you for this wound, for what it has revealed is immeasurable to me. But for what you have surely done to a harmless old man with your lies and your greed, and the terrible damage to an empire’s financial trust you would have perpetrated, you must be stopped. It stops here. Tonight.” Watson's head went back into the cab, and off it went.
Winter bit back his grin as he watched the cab recede. Suckers. Looks like there was one benefit to them being queers - for him, anyway. Well, off to find a drink-house in this fancy neighborhood to -
Something clattered on the macadam from the hansom and lay on the ground.
As the cab clopped out of sight, Winter approached warily, eyes squinting at the dark object.
It was his gun. They’d given him back his gun. And when he picked it up he saw they hadn’t even unloaded it - still 4 shots left. He only just kept himself from throwing his head back in a bark of laughter. Ha! They didn’t want any evidence that they’d ever had him, so the bobbies wouldn’t rag them for not bringing him in.
Winter tucked the pistol into his trousers, eyes darting everywhere, just in case this was an elaborate trap or an ambush. He got a few curious looks - his clothing really did not fit in here - but men went about their business on the thoroughfare, going into doorways all along the street that were clearly for private clubs.
Now what? He couldn’t go back to the house, his Prescott press was in the hands of the police by now, and they’d no doubt have his boarding house surrounded by now too. Of course (Winter grinned) he could do what he’d been asked, and think good and hard about what a bad boy he had been and how close he’d come to killing Sherlock Holmes’ bosom companion. He restrained himself from guffawing aloud; that would be out of place here.
He needed a drink. For that he could use some cash. He had his gun. If he lured some rich sucker into the shadows that would -
Come in.
Had someone spoken?
He looked at the front of the building where he stood. He walked up to take a better look.
A handsome establishment like all the other buildings along Pall Mall, wealth showing in every neat detail from the impeccable cast-iron stair railings to the congenial electric lamp bathing the doorway in friendly illumination and glinting off the brass plate beside the door. In the foreyard stood a marble statue of an old man in a toga holding a lantern - marble, not plaster. A gentleman’s club all right, and dripping with money.
The building seemed almost to exude an air of bonhomie, as if pleased that he was there. Such a warm, inviting glow the light cast.
Come in.
His instincts must be right on the nose for this place - this club was practically begging him to enter.
Winter looked himself up and down. His clothes were too rough and dirty for him to pass as a gentleman. But they might forgive the clothes if his American accent and rough life found favor with them; a lot of these stodgy old English gents liked Wild West stories, and it wouldn’t be the first time a curious Londoner had cheerfully bought him a drink for such yarns. Play up the roughneck and he was set - and the worst they’d do was throw him out. And if not, the one thing he knew about these clubs was there was always a card game going on - and where there was a card game there was another source of income.
No knocker and no bell-pull. No timidity either. He turned the handle and walked in, as he’d seen the previous two men do.
There was no doorman or valet on duty. There was no one in the anteroom. The place was quiet, so quiet; plush velvet carpeting under foot, a grandfather clock that made no ticking sounds. All he could hear was his own breathing. Winter looked at a row of gleaming silk toppers on pegs and grinned, pulling off his own tweed cap to keep them company. By the time the night was through he’d have them believing he’d shot desperadoes in Dodge City.
He turned and almost gave a start as a stout man walked into the antechamber, his feet having made no sound on the carpet. The stout man held up one hand to stop whatever Winter had been about to say, and put a finger to his lips. Winter nodded; the silence was deafening.
No butler, this fellow; his suit was well-made but plain, not ostensibly costly, the suit of a higher-up in a law firm or in politics. One of the club bigwigs, here either to let him in or throw him out. Winter stood straight and looked the large man in the eyes.
The man looked him up and down, his eyes somber and grey, and nodded without a word. Winter opened his mouth to speak, but the man shook his head once again. With an incline of his head, he indicated that Winter should follow him. Winter walked behind the man, smiling a little. Finally, his luck was changing.
The two walked through a doorway into a vast sitting room full of men dozing in armchairs, fingers laced on their bellies or newspapers draping the somnolent forms. None of the men’s chairs faced each other, and none roused to watch the two men walking through the sumptuously-appointed chamber; not so much as a ticking clock disturbed the silence of the room. The windows were covered by heavy velvet curtains. Winter fought the urge to yell or fire his gun in the air to startle the lot of them.
They left the chamber and entered another room; this one was nearly identical to the first room, appointed with sumptuous chairs, dark walnut bookcases and handsome paintings, but was empty of people save for the stout clubman and the American interloper. The single door to the room closed.
“You may speak in here,” the stout man said, and Winter nearly jumped at hearing a voice after so much silence. The sound seemed to bounce off the walls. “This is the Strangers Room, the only place where speech is permitted in this club.”
“Dang!” Winter stared at the closed door and shook his head. “I’ve seen some crazy things, but if that don’t beat all!” He took another hard look at the clubman. This mixed his luck once again - lucky to find an eccentric club that just took odd fellows off the street to join them which would explain why he’d felt so welcomed going in, but… “No talking in this little saloon of yours?” Then how the hell did these blamed old codgers play cards or billiards, and how could he spin American yarns if his lips were sealed?
“Those who break that rule are removed. It is a peculiarity of our particular club, one of many.” The man’s voice was deep and sonorous, and pleasant to listen to. “Have a seat if you wish, sir, and I will tell you about yourself.”
Winter bristled at the presumption, even though he was the one who’d walked in uninvited. “Seems to me I’d be the better one to speak of myself, if I was so inclined.”
The man’s eyes did not leave his face, and his expression of calm regard did not change. “You are an American, obviously, but one recently released from an English prison - Newgate, I would say, from how your accent has changed. You were born in Chicago and spent most of your life there, though you have spent the last six to eight years in London, most of them in the aforesaid prison. You are fond of cards, have a violent temper, and know very well how to use that pistol you currently have hidden in your trousers.” The man regarded him with a placid expression, his pleasant tone changing not a jot.
Winter stared at the man, the hair lifting on the back of his head. “How in the hell - “
“We forbid all speech in my club save in here, and not even in the Strangers Room is profanity permitted.” The man’s tone was still light and pleasant but a cool thread ran through it. “A man’s aspect reveals all to those who can perceive. Certain other indications, from other senses, let me know that you have killed men in the past - most likely the reason you were in prison - and one particular sign lets me know that you engaged in gunfire tonight and spilled a man’s blood, to the great distress of another man. Fortunately you are faster than you are accurate, as that is the sole reason you are alive right now.”
Ice crawled up Winter’s back. He’s a mind-reader he guessed he has a telephone he’s a Pinkerton this was a trap show nothing show nothing - He made himself laugh. “Mighty tall storytelling, Mister. But I just came here looking for a drink and chose your place on my own.”
“I think not.” The man’s eyes were calm, even benign as they remained on Winter’s face. “You would not be here unless one particular person wished you to wind up inside. My brother and I share a similarity of thought processes, though his have become clouded with irrelevancies of late. Such as the love he bears for his companion.” Revulsion flickered across the man’s face; he stressed that word as if forcing it out. “His distress alone told me whom you wounded.”
Winter looked at the level grey eyes and aquiline nose of this portly man, and everything fell into place like a wall of solid fear as he recognized whom this clubber resembled. His instincts about going in couldn’t have been wronger. Oh sweet Jesus Christ, Sherlock Holmes had a brother? But there in the substantial flesh before him was the Pinkerton’s sibling, stout where the detective was whippet-lean - this fellow must have a better cook. He clearly knew his brother was a fairy, that disgusted expression said as much, but family was family.
Was that why they’d dropped his gun in front of this place? To lure him into a trap?
His gun.
His gun was out and aimed between the man’s eyes. “I don’t want to plug you.” He made his voice as low and dangerous as he could, the voice of Killer Evans. “But I will if you don’t let me leave here.” Kill Sherlock Holmes’ brother and it was the rope if they caught him again. But if this British chap thought he was desperado enough not to care…
“You won’t kill me, that much is true.” The man’s voice was unchanged by fear or agitation; he might have been chiding a new member instead of facing the muzzle of a gun. “If you are a man of reason, you realise that the prison sentence for attempted murder is far less than the fate for deliberate, willful murder. I am only taking you in hand as a favour from one brother to another. You will remain in this room until the police arrive in the morning; they know not to trespass here sunset to sunrise.”
“I’ll stay in Hell first,” Winter snarled. “I’m leaving, now, with whatever valuables I can coax out of your members. And I’ll say whatever the Hell I want in this goddamned establishment of yours.”
“Enough of this.” The man reached for Winter’s pistol as if taking a drink off a tray.
Self-defense.
Two perfect shots - one between the portly man’s eyes and the other straight through his heart. The sound of gunfire filled the room and bounced off the walls.
Winter’s dash for the door out was blocked. By the man he’d just shot. Level grey eyes were now crowned by a black gaping bullet-hole in the forehead like a third eye.
“How odd,” said the brother of Sherlock Holmes, “that you have exactly described our club with that profane statement.”
Winter screamed.
“Precisely the reason I brought you to the Strangers’ Room. No sound escapes these walls.” The man’s voice was as calm and courteous as ever, despite the gaping bullet wound in his forehead and the tattered hole over his left breast that shed no blood. “Club members loathe disturbances during daylight hours, and make their unhappiness plain to the one who disturbed them; it was for your own safety I requested silence as you walked through the rooms. Please have a seat.”
Winter all but fell into a chair behind him. Every bone and muscle in him had turned to water. He could not stop staring at the creature whose three-eyed face swam before him (the gaping forehead hole seemed to be a little smaller now).
“The sun is nearly set. The police will be here precisely at dawn tomorrow, when our regulars will once more seek rest. You will be safe here as long as you do not attempt to leave the room. You did notice that this club produces a certain aura that is very pleasing to certain passers-by. Most so affected walk in and never walk out. Club members will mistake you for such a fly in our web, should you open this door. You have free use of this room; these chairs are comfortable, the electric lights will remain on all night and the library is extensive. I regret that I cannot offer you any nourishment, as our club’s fare is not the sort taken by outsiders.”
The words flew in and out of Winter’s mind without remaining. His eyes were fixed on watching the bullet-hole in the man’s forehead dwindle and diminish like a rapidly-healing puncture wound.
The clubman continued to address him as coolly as if discussing his investments. “Do not confuse this act with mercy. What I do, I do for my brother’s sake. Once again, I remind you that it is because you wounded Dr. Watson instead of killing him that you will walk out of that door and see another sunrise.” The grey-eyed man made a moue of disgust again. “Sherlock’s instincts are fouled with the taint of mortal love, or he would demand retribution for what you had stolen from him. But mortals have their own justice, and it is that you will face.”
He was dreaming. The Pinkerton had given him a bigger knock on the head than he’d thought, and he was dreaming all this Edgar Allen Poe stuff.
“I have other duties that require my attention elsewhere. Again, I remind you that you are safe in this room as long as you do not attempt to leave. You will return to police custody at sunup. Perhaps you will learn a more useful trade in prison than shooting other men over cards.
“At the very least, you may learn not to come so pitifully armed against an older and better-equipped opponent.”
And the elder Holmes grinned, showing a row of wolf’s teeth in a man’s mouth, his eyes black and shining as coal-oil.
Winter pissed himself.
With a last look of disgusted contempt (his eyes were grey again, the bullet-hole nearly vanished), the stout besuited fellow walked to the solitary door in or out of the Strangers Room, and was gone. The door closed with a snick.
He had to get out. He had to get out of here. Oh dear God in heaven if he stayed here another minute he’d go mad. Winter dragged himself to his wobbly legs, heedless of his damp stinking trousers, and tottered toward the door.
Something scratched at the other side, like a dog begging to come in.
He froze.
More scratching, that grew until it sounded like a whole pack of dogs testing the door.
He took a step back.
No howling, no bays of bloodlust, no human roars. No human speech. Only that scratching - and what sounded like a large creature sniffing at something. The door creaked a little.
The sun had set.
***
“…and the Killer returned to those shades from which he had just emerged.” Watson set the manuscript down on the table next to his teacup, with only one small apprehensive glance at the nearby humming from the bees weaving through the flowerbeds. “Well?”
Sherlock Holmes smiled as liplessly as a cobra under the broad-brimmed hat that kept the sun off his face. He still carried a faint flush on both cheeks from their activity the night before. “Ambiguous ending, Watson. Your readers will simply assume he was re-imprisoned.”
“I could speak of him babbling about demons to his keepers at Bedlam, but then I’d leave the readers with the unexplained mystery of why Killer Evans became a shrieking, gibbering madman during an overnight stay at the Diogenes Club. Ambiguity protects all the guilty parties, Holmes.” Watson reached for his tea with the hand that bore a bandaged wrist. “Poor fellow.”
Holmes snorted inelegantly, and poured his own tea. “You are entirely too soft-hearted, my dear.”
Watson smiled. “I owe him, for more than your declaration - ah, you smile, dear chap, but human beings do like to hear these things now and then even if they know them to be unspoken truths. Evans was a brute, and he would shoot my already-damaged leg, but he galvanized our plans to retire from the field.”
“Your plans, my dear boy. Retirement is a foreign concept to my family.” The former detective looked around at the rolling downs and the garden, as bemused as if dropped here. “But yes. That was when I finally realised that you were indeed getting older, and it was time to stop endangering ourselves. This will give us a safer, longer time together before the only fortunate creatures you feed are flyspawn and mold. And I crumble to dust.”
Watson bowed his head under the guise of spreading honey on his bread. “You need not end your own life with mine. I keep telling you that.” He knew of the morocco case under lock and key in Holmes’ study; the syringe, vials of holy water and powdered garlic, and the blessed bread that was poison to his kind.
A long-fingered hand, still warm from Watson's blood, stroked the man’s cheek light as a bee landing. “Not life, dear one. Existence. You have carried life for both of us these decades together. And when your life ends, it will be my choice to trade immortality for the honour of becoming the soil that covers your grave.”
“Your brother -“
“Mycroft has disowned me thoroughly by now. He remains in London with his club and those who gather there.”
Watson shuddered. “Poor Evans. I wouldn’t have wished that fate on him.”
And for just a moment the grey eyes he knew so well went cold as steel ball-bearings, and the cheekbones tightened. “He spilled your blood. No one takes what is rightfully mine.” Then the eyes were warm grey again, and Sherlock Holmes savoured his tea.
The mortal man drank his own tea, sitting in the garden with his companion while bees wove patterns in the Sussex air overhead, his bandaged hand resting on the walking-stick propped against the table. Two bullet-wounds in that leg now - and each one leading to the best thing about his life. He was the luckiest man in the world.
Author: gardnerhill
Universe: Sherlock Holmes ACD (“The Vermilion Problem” AU)
Word Count: 5176
Rating: PG
Warning: Body horror, gun violence. Surprisingly little blood.
Summary: Poor ‘Killer’ Evans (aka John Garrideb, aka James Winter). He never could catch a break, ever.
Author's Notes: For the October 2015 Watson's Woes prompt: A Halloween tale set in my Vampire!Holmes “Vermilion Problem” AU.
Close - so damned close, and he just had to run into the only two bulls on the whole damn’ British Isles who couldn’t be bribed into silence. Peachy. Just Jimmy Winter’s goddamn luck once again.
Prison for killing that cheating son of a bitch counterfeiter Prescott? Should have gotten a goddamn parade for that one. What made it worse was sweating it out in stir, thinking of Prescott’s treasure-generating printing press hidden where no one would find it - and getting free just to learn that some loco skull-collector was squatting on top of it, a chap who never left his rooms.
All right. He’d gotten the damn’ idea from those detective stories he’d read in lock-up, especially the one about the red-head society created to lure some sucker of a pawnbroker out of his shop. The old bird’s strange surname provided a basis for cooking up a get-rich-quick scheme that would crowbar Nathan Garrideb out of his rooms long enough for James Winter to lay claim on Prescott’s press.
But damn if those two damn’ Pinkertons from that red-head business weren’t real after all - and gunning for him!
Large as life and twice as natural, and hard to miss after seeing their pictures in the magazines. A tall lean pale chap who held his gun like it was a walking-stick - didn’t act like someone who’d fire it if provoked. But the quiet mustachioed man right behind him knew what it was to fire that Webley in hand, the way he held himself shouted soldier. The fancy English detective Sherlock Holmes, and his bodyguard.
Heh heh. They’d drawn on him first, he’d easily get off on self-defence if he was caught.
Rueful laugh, acknowledgement of their triumph - and a gun-draw that Wyatt Earp couldn’t beat. First shot whipped off to drop the bodyguard with a thud, second straight through the detective’s heart. There. Now one more between the bodyguard’s eyes to finish him off, and he could -
An explosion of stars behind his own eyes. The ground rose up and hit him.
Then two icy hands clawed into his shirt and hauled him up, and James Winter looked past the whirling stars and clanging in his head to stare into the glittering eyes of a mad dog and a snarling mouth like an open black pit.
“You killed Watson. Your blood is mine for this,” Sherlock Holmes hissed like a snake. His breath stank like an opened grave.
He’d shot the son of a bitch straight through the heart.
All thought fled his clanging head in the face of pure icy terror. He’d seen that bullet go true into the man’s upper left chest, he’d seen it - the same shot he’d used to drop three other men and that had gained him his nickname. He’d heard of men so overcome with rage that they kept moving in the few seconds after being fatally shot, just before they dropped dead. Hell, he’d even joked about cusses so goddamn mean that shooting them would only make them mad. And here was the joke in the flesh.
All right, joke’s over now drop dead. Dead. Drop dead.
The gaping black pit of an open mouth opened wider, his teeth - oh God teeth like a rattler’s fangs but close together in front like a rabbit’s. What the goddamn everloving hell - ?
“Ohhh.”
Such a small noise from behind both of them.
The viper’s mouth snapped shut. The eyes were a man’s eyes again, shining grey. Sherlock Holmes whipped his head around to see the bodyguard - Watson - sitting up and groaning in pain. His gripping hands let go without second thought.
Winter fell back, no longer held up, moaning himself as he banged the back of his head on the floor. More stars, pain swirling. Every limb he had felt made of water.
This didn’t make sense, this didn’t make sense. He knew he hadn’t fired a deadly shot at Watson, but - those mad eyes, those ghastly rattler-teeth - surely Winter hadn’t been coshed so hard that he saw things that weren’t there. He’d seen anger in the recently-wounded or fury in men whose pals he’d just shot. Nothing like that cold mask. Nothing.
By the time Winter could sit up Watson was in a chair, his trousers torn open to reveal a bloody thigh wound where the first shot had nicked him, and Holmes was on his knees on the floor before him, long pale hands running over the red trickle. Watson was saying something in a soothing tone, clapping the other man on the shoulder. Not just his bodyguard, then - they were pals. What kind of idiot lawman got chummy with his hired muscle?
When both men stood and looked into the cellar, Winter tried one last time - one thing about cops and Pinkertons was how easily they could be bought off. But not these two, of course - wouldn’t accept a fiver. Why couldn’t he have been tailed by some corrupt, log-stupid Peeler eager to supplement his measly salary?
No - it was out to flag down a cab and off to the police station, between the two men he’d tried to kill. Prison again, and his pot of gold smashed. God damn it, he never could catch a break.
Watson was quiet and calm despite sitting next to a man who’d just tried to kill him, fingers tapping lightly over his roughly-bandaged thigh; it was clear he’d been a soldier and didn’t take these things personally. But Holmes trembled like an aspen, very lightly but constantly, as if he’d been lost in a blizzard, and spent the ride looking out at the dusk-lit streets. Winter remembered those glittering mad-dog eyes, his shot straight at the man’s chest (did he wear some sort of armour beneath? Did he keep a cigarette case or a book there?), and suppressed his own shudder.
“Poor Mr. Garrideb,” Watson said. “Your cruel ruse will be a terrible blow to him, Evans.”
Winter snorted, back on solid ground with that comment. “Gullible old fool. Suckers deserve to be rooked.”
“Including the ‘suckers’ who would have been in dire financial straits by taking your false banknotes?” Holmes’ voice dripped with revulsion at his callousness.
Winter laughed. “It’s a cold cruel world, Mr. Holmes, and it’s every man for himself. Eat, or get eaten.”
“Oh. I quite agree.”
Winter suppressed another shudder. Holmes’ tone on those words felt like he’d just bitten down on a knife that had been buried in ice.
Watson turned to look at Holmes. And there was a fear in his eyes Winter hadn’t seen when he’d shot the son of a bitch. “Holmes. I am all right. I’ve taken worse injury sharpening my scalpels.”
The hell? What did his dang bullet-scratch have to do with this?
A long pause. Then the ice-knife voice again - thawed, just a hair, enough to drip frigid humour. “That is true, Watson. You have taken far worse bloodlettings in my service, many times.”
Watson smiled as if it was a private joke. “Many times, old man. This adventure has been worth many wounds.”
Holmes kept his face toward the window; but his rigid shoulders relaxed.
Not Watson’s words but his affectionate tone made realization dawn in Winter - and with that realization, revulsion. Oh. These two were friends, not just pals - friends the way women and pansies had friends. On the Chicago streets where he grew up, real men didn’t have friends. Even here in England, they understood that much - a chap could play cards with the same fellow for 20 years and only say “what a pity” if the other man was murdered, instead of snarling a vow of vengeance. These two? Hell, they might as well be queer for each other.
Winter couldn’t keep his mouth shut - it wasn’t in his nature, and this open display of warmth, on top of his lost plan, fortune and freedom, turned every word into a sneer. “Maybe I oughta walk to the police station so you two lovebirds can spoon. Sorry I put a hole in your sweetheart here, Mr. Holmes.”
The stillness in the cab, broken only by the clopping hooves, fell like a load of snow on branches, and as warm. Oh, that did it, Jimmy Winter - if they’re real men they’ll thrash you proper for that before handing you to the coppers.
Holmes raised his fist. Winter tightened his jaw and clenched his own bound fists. He wouldn’t take a beating lying down, cuffs or no goddamn cuffs.
But all the detective did with his clenched hand was to thump the roof of the cab, twice. His voice was level and cool as if ordering a drink at a posh club. “Cabbie? Pall Mall.”
The cab shifted as the driver changed direction.
Winter blinked and frowned. Pall Mall? The swells district? What were they going to do, give him a flogging with a diamond necklace? Sic some dowager’s lap-dog on him? Or maybe some of those rich old coots in those gentlemen’s clubs kept boxers on retainer for just such a purpose.
He turned to smirk at Watson. What was a beating or two here? What were the scales of English law to fear by a man who’d survived the streets of goddamn Chicago?
Watson glared at him, clearly furious at the innuendo. But there was something else in his expression. Pity?
The cab stopped. The descending summer sun was still in the sky - it was not 8 o’clock - but the lamps were alight already, their electrical glow testifying to the wealth on this street. Lights shone from curtains and from doorways and through windows. The place felt posh - safe and comfortable, miles removed from the stark poverty and violence a few streets over. Winter’s fists balled up in his lap. All right, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, time for you to -
A snick, and the cuffs dropped from his wrists. Holmes withdrew the key he held. His eyes glinted like silver. “Get out.”
Oh. An English gentleman, he wanted everything fair before giving him a drubbing. Well no one had to tell Jimmy Winter twice how to save his own skin. He tumbled out of the cab and whirled around, fists up, ready.
Both men were still in the cab. Holmes had no expression at all, nor did he make a move to get out. Watson's face was still a mix of pity and anger.
Winter gaped at them both. They were just freeing him? Here?
…Oh. My. He must have hit the jackpot with his little joke, hadn’t he? They were nancy-boys for each other. They threw you in prison over here for that sort of thing, like that Oscar Wilde fairy. Now everything made sense. They didn’t dare turn him in or he’d blab. He tamped down his grin.
“All I ask of you, Mr. Evans,” said Sherlock Holmes, “is to think about what you have done. I want you to ruminate on exactly how close you came to killing Dr. John Watson - whose death would devastate Sherlock Holmes beyond any recovery in this life.”
Winter’s gorge rose at the confession and the maudlin affectation. If this Holmes ponce burst into tears or started reciting romantic poetry Winter would sock him anyway, just on principle. He couldn’t say anything that wouldn’t get him into more trouble with these benders, so he only nodded. Why, of course he’d sit in the corner and think of what a naughty boy he’d been.
“Good.” Holmes disappeared back into the cab. “Cabbie?”
“Wait.” It was Watson, still at the window. He looked at Winter long and hard. “Evans. I cannot hate you for this wound, for what it has revealed is immeasurable to me. But for what you have surely done to a harmless old man with your lies and your greed, and the terrible damage to an empire’s financial trust you would have perpetrated, you must be stopped. It stops here. Tonight.” Watson's head went back into the cab, and off it went.
Winter bit back his grin as he watched the cab recede. Suckers. Looks like there was one benefit to them being queers - for him, anyway. Well, off to find a drink-house in this fancy neighborhood to -
Something clattered on the macadam from the hansom and lay on the ground.
As the cab clopped out of sight, Winter approached warily, eyes squinting at the dark object.
It was his gun. They’d given him back his gun. And when he picked it up he saw they hadn’t even unloaded it - still 4 shots left. He only just kept himself from throwing his head back in a bark of laughter. Ha! They didn’t want any evidence that they’d ever had him, so the bobbies wouldn’t rag them for not bringing him in.
Winter tucked the pistol into his trousers, eyes darting everywhere, just in case this was an elaborate trap or an ambush. He got a few curious looks - his clothing really did not fit in here - but men went about their business on the thoroughfare, going into doorways all along the street that were clearly for private clubs.
Now what? He couldn’t go back to the house, his Prescott press was in the hands of the police by now, and they’d no doubt have his boarding house surrounded by now too. Of course (Winter grinned) he could do what he’d been asked, and think good and hard about what a bad boy he had been and how close he’d come to killing Sherlock Holmes’ bosom companion. He restrained himself from guffawing aloud; that would be out of place here.
He needed a drink. For that he could use some cash. He had his gun. If he lured some rich sucker into the shadows that would -
Come in.
Had someone spoken?
He looked at the front of the building where he stood. He walked up to take a better look.
A handsome establishment like all the other buildings along Pall Mall, wealth showing in every neat detail from the impeccable cast-iron stair railings to the congenial electric lamp bathing the doorway in friendly illumination and glinting off the brass plate beside the door. In the foreyard stood a marble statue of an old man in a toga holding a lantern - marble, not plaster. A gentleman’s club all right, and dripping with money.
The building seemed almost to exude an air of bonhomie, as if pleased that he was there. Such a warm, inviting glow the light cast.
Come in.
His instincts must be right on the nose for this place - this club was practically begging him to enter.
Winter looked himself up and down. His clothes were too rough and dirty for him to pass as a gentleman. But they might forgive the clothes if his American accent and rough life found favor with them; a lot of these stodgy old English gents liked Wild West stories, and it wouldn’t be the first time a curious Londoner had cheerfully bought him a drink for such yarns. Play up the roughneck and he was set - and the worst they’d do was throw him out. And if not, the one thing he knew about these clubs was there was always a card game going on - and where there was a card game there was another source of income.
No knocker and no bell-pull. No timidity either. He turned the handle and walked in, as he’d seen the previous two men do.
There was no doorman or valet on duty. There was no one in the anteroom. The place was quiet, so quiet; plush velvet carpeting under foot, a grandfather clock that made no ticking sounds. All he could hear was his own breathing. Winter looked at a row of gleaming silk toppers on pegs and grinned, pulling off his own tweed cap to keep them company. By the time the night was through he’d have them believing he’d shot desperadoes in Dodge City.
He turned and almost gave a start as a stout man walked into the antechamber, his feet having made no sound on the carpet. The stout man held up one hand to stop whatever Winter had been about to say, and put a finger to his lips. Winter nodded; the silence was deafening.
No butler, this fellow; his suit was well-made but plain, not ostensibly costly, the suit of a higher-up in a law firm or in politics. One of the club bigwigs, here either to let him in or throw him out. Winter stood straight and looked the large man in the eyes.
The man looked him up and down, his eyes somber and grey, and nodded without a word. Winter opened his mouth to speak, but the man shook his head once again. With an incline of his head, he indicated that Winter should follow him. Winter walked behind the man, smiling a little. Finally, his luck was changing.
The two walked through a doorway into a vast sitting room full of men dozing in armchairs, fingers laced on their bellies or newspapers draping the somnolent forms. None of the men’s chairs faced each other, and none roused to watch the two men walking through the sumptuously-appointed chamber; not so much as a ticking clock disturbed the silence of the room. The windows were covered by heavy velvet curtains. Winter fought the urge to yell or fire his gun in the air to startle the lot of them.
They left the chamber and entered another room; this one was nearly identical to the first room, appointed with sumptuous chairs, dark walnut bookcases and handsome paintings, but was empty of people save for the stout clubman and the American interloper. The single door to the room closed.
“You may speak in here,” the stout man said, and Winter nearly jumped at hearing a voice after so much silence. The sound seemed to bounce off the walls. “This is the Strangers Room, the only place where speech is permitted in this club.”
“Dang!” Winter stared at the closed door and shook his head. “I’ve seen some crazy things, but if that don’t beat all!” He took another hard look at the clubman. This mixed his luck once again - lucky to find an eccentric club that just took odd fellows off the street to join them which would explain why he’d felt so welcomed going in, but… “No talking in this little saloon of yours?” Then how the hell did these blamed old codgers play cards or billiards, and how could he spin American yarns if his lips were sealed?
“Those who break that rule are removed. It is a peculiarity of our particular club, one of many.” The man’s voice was deep and sonorous, and pleasant to listen to. “Have a seat if you wish, sir, and I will tell you about yourself.”
Winter bristled at the presumption, even though he was the one who’d walked in uninvited. “Seems to me I’d be the better one to speak of myself, if I was so inclined.”
The man’s eyes did not leave his face, and his expression of calm regard did not change. “You are an American, obviously, but one recently released from an English prison - Newgate, I would say, from how your accent has changed. You were born in Chicago and spent most of your life there, though you have spent the last six to eight years in London, most of them in the aforesaid prison. You are fond of cards, have a violent temper, and know very well how to use that pistol you currently have hidden in your trousers.” The man regarded him with a placid expression, his pleasant tone changing not a jot.
Winter stared at the man, the hair lifting on the back of his head. “How in the hell - “
“We forbid all speech in my club save in here, and not even in the Strangers Room is profanity permitted.” The man’s tone was still light and pleasant but a cool thread ran through it. “A man’s aspect reveals all to those who can perceive. Certain other indications, from other senses, let me know that you have killed men in the past - most likely the reason you were in prison - and one particular sign lets me know that you engaged in gunfire tonight and spilled a man’s blood, to the great distress of another man. Fortunately you are faster than you are accurate, as that is the sole reason you are alive right now.”
Ice crawled up Winter’s back. He’s a mind-reader he guessed he has a telephone he’s a Pinkerton this was a trap show nothing show nothing - He made himself laugh. “Mighty tall storytelling, Mister. But I just came here looking for a drink and chose your place on my own.”
“I think not.” The man’s eyes were calm, even benign as they remained on Winter’s face. “You would not be here unless one particular person wished you to wind up inside. My brother and I share a similarity of thought processes, though his have become clouded with irrelevancies of late. Such as the love he bears for his companion.” Revulsion flickered across the man’s face; he stressed that word as if forcing it out. “His distress alone told me whom you wounded.”
Winter looked at the level grey eyes and aquiline nose of this portly man, and everything fell into place like a wall of solid fear as he recognized whom this clubber resembled. His instincts about going in couldn’t have been wronger. Oh sweet Jesus Christ, Sherlock Holmes had a brother? But there in the substantial flesh before him was the Pinkerton’s sibling, stout where the detective was whippet-lean - this fellow must have a better cook. He clearly knew his brother was a fairy, that disgusted expression said as much, but family was family.
Was that why they’d dropped his gun in front of this place? To lure him into a trap?
His gun.
His gun was out and aimed between the man’s eyes. “I don’t want to plug you.” He made his voice as low and dangerous as he could, the voice of Killer Evans. “But I will if you don’t let me leave here.” Kill Sherlock Holmes’ brother and it was the rope if they caught him again. But if this British chap thought he was desperado enough not to care…
“You won’t kill me, that much is true.” The man’s voice was unchanged by fear or agitation; he might have been chiding a new member instead of facing the muzzle of a gun. “If you are a man of reason, you realise that the prison sentence for attempted murder is far less than the fate for deliberate, willful murder. I am only taking you in hand as a favour from one brother to another. You will remain in this room until the police arrive in the morning; they know not to trespass here sunset to sunrise.”
“I’ll stay in Hell first,” Winter snarled. “I’m leaving, now, with whatever valuables I can coax out of your members. And I’ll say whatever the Hell I want in this goddamned establishment of yours.”
“Enough of this.” The man reached for Winter’s pistol as if taking a drink off a tray.
Self-defense.
Two perfect shots - one between the portly man’s eyes and the other straight through his heart. The sound of gunfire filled the room and bounced off the walls.
Winter’s dash for the door out was blocked. By the man he’d just shot. Level grey eyes were now crowned by a black gaping bullet-hole in the forehead like a third eye.
“How odd,” said the brother of Sherlock Holmes, “that you have exactly described our club with that profane statement.”
Winter screamed.
“Precisely the reason I brought you to the Strangers’ Room. No sound escapes these walls.” The man’s voice was as calm and courteous as ever, despite the gaping bullet wound in his forehead and the tattered hole over his left breast that shed no blood. “Club members loathe disturbances during daylight hours, and make their unhappiness plain to the one who disturbed them; it was for your own safety I requested silence as you walked through the rooms. Please have a seat.”
Winter all but fell into a chair behind him. Every bone and muscle in him had turned to water. He could not stop staring at the creature whose three-eyed face swam before him (the gaping forehead hole seemed to be a little smaller now).
“The sun is nearly set. The police will be here precisely at dawn tomorrow, when our regulars will once more seek rest. You will be safe here as long as you do not attempt to leave the room. You did notice that this club produces a certain aura that is very pleasing to certain passers-by. Most so affected walk in and never walk out. Club members will mistake you for such a fly in our web, should you open this door. You have free use of this room; these chairs are comfortable, the electric lights will remain on all night and the library is extensive. I regret that I cannot offer you any nourishment, as our club’s fare is not the sort taken by outsiders.”
The words flew in and out of Winter’s mind without remaining. His eyes were fixed on watching the bullet-hole in the man’s forehead dwindle and diminish like a rapidly-healing puncture wound.
The clubman continued to address him as coolly as if discussing his investments. “Do not confuse this act with mercy. What I do, I do for my brother’s sake. Once again, I remind you that it is because you wounded Dr. Watson instead of killing him that you will walk out of that door and see another sunrise.” The grey-eyed man made a moue of disgust again. “Sherlock’s instincts are fouled with the taint of mortal love, or he would demand retribution for what you had stolen from him. But mortals have their own justice, and it is that you will face.”
He was dreaming. The Pinkerton had given him a bigger knock on the head than he’d thought, and he was dreaming all this Edgar Allen Poe stuff.
“I have other duties that require my attention elsewhere. Again, I remind you that you are safe in this room as long as you do not attempt to leave. You will return to police custody at sunup. Perhaps you will learn a more useful trade in prison than shooting other men over cards.
“At the very least, you may learn not to come so pitifully armed against an older and better-equipped opponent.”
And the elder Holmes grinned, showing a row of wolf’s teeth in a man’s mouth, his eyes black and shining as coal-oil.
Winter pissed himself.
With a last look of disgusted contempt (his eyes were grey again, the bullet-hole nearly vanished), the stout besuited fellow walked to the solitary door in or out of the Strangers Room, and was gone. The door closed with a snick.
He had to get out. He had to get out of here. Oh dear God in heaven if he stayed here another minute he’d go mad. Winter dragged himself to his wobbly legs, heedless of his damp stinking trousers, and tottered toward the door.
Something scratched at the other side, like a dog begging to come in.
He froze.
More scratching, that grew until it sounded like a whole pack of dogs testing the door.
He took a step back.
No howling, no bays of bloodlust, no human roars. No human speech. Only that scratching - and what sounded like a large creature sniffing at something. The door creaked a little.
The sun had set.
***
“…and the Killer returned to those shades from which he had just emerged.” Watson set the manuscript down on the table next to his teacup, with only one small apprehensive glance at the nearby humming from the bees weaving through the flowerbeds. “Well?”
Sherlock Holmes smiled as liplessly as a cobra under the broad-brimmed hat that kept the sun off his face. He still carried a faint flush on both cheeks from their activity the night before. “Ambiguous ending, Watson. Your readers will simply assume he was re-imprisoned.”
“I could speak of him babbling about demons to his keepers at Bedlam, but then I’d leave the readers with the unexplained mystery of why Killer Evans became a shrieking, gibbering madman during an overnight stay at the Diogenes Club. Ambiguity protects all the guilty parties, Holmes.” Watson reached for his tea with the hand that bore a bandaged wrist. “Poor fellow.”
Holmes snorted inelegantly, and poured his own tea. “You are entirely too soft-hearted, my dear.”
Watson smiled. “I owe him, for more than your declaration - ah, you smile, dear chap, but human beings do like to hear these things now and then even if they know them to be unspoken truths. Evans was a brute, and he would shoot my already-damaged leg, but he galvanized our plans to retire from the field.”
“Your plans, my dear boy. Retirement is a foreign concept to my family.” The former detective looked around at the rolling downs and the garden, as bemused as if dropped here. “But yes. That was when I finally realised that you were indeed getting older, and it was time to stop endangering ourselves. This will give us a safer, longer time together before the only fortunate creatures you feed are flyspawn and mold. And I crumble to dust.”
Watson bowed his head under the guise of spreading honey on his bread. “You need not end your own life with mine. I keep telling you that.” He knew of the morocco case under lock and key in Holmes’ study; the syringe, vials of holy water and powdered garlic, and the blessed bread that was poison to his kind.
A long-fingered hand, still warm from Watson's blood, stroked the man’s cheek light as a bee landing. “Not life, dear one. Existence. You have carried life for both of us these decades together. And when your life ends, it will be my choice to trade immortality for the honour of becoming the soil that covers your grave.”
“Your brother -“
“Mycroft has disowned me thoroughly by now. He remains in London with his club and those who gather there.”
Watson shuddered. “Poor Evans. I wouldn’t have wished that fate on him.”
And for just a moment the grey eyes he knew so well went cold as steel ball-bearings, and the cheekbones tightened. “He spilled your blood. No one takes what is rightfully mine.” Then the eyes were warm grey again, and Sherlock Holmes savoured his tea.
The mortal man drank his own tea, sitting in the garden with his companion while bees wove patterns in the Sussex air overhead, his bandaged hand resting on the walking-stick propped against the table. Two bullet-wounds in that leg now - and each one leading to the best thing about his life. He was the luckiest man in the world.