Fic: Of The Logic Of Magic -Part 3
The two men paid the cab fare and glanced up and down the street. There was no sight of the black sedan, but neither of them let down their guard. One could never be too careful. Even if one couldn’t die.
The door at 221B Baker Street was opened by a middle-aged woman who introduced herself as Mrs. Hudson.
“Oh dear, has someone hurt themselves?” she asked, hand to mouth as she let in the two men dressed in hospital scrubs.
“No, no,” Will reassured her. “We are friends of Sherlock. You know, from the hospital?”
“Oh, thank the saints!” she said, hand to heart. “You can never tell, with them chasing after those murderers like they do. You just go on up, dears. I’ll make you some tea.”
“Thank you, that would be kind…” Will started to say before Jack interrupted.
“You got any rum?” he asked bluntly.
Mrs. Hudson wasn’t flustered a bit. “I’m sure I have something stronger in the cupboard, love. My husband was just like you, always wanting a bit of the hard stuff, instead of a nice cuppa.” She patted Jack’s arm and added cheerfully, “It’s how I met Sherlock, you know. He made sure they had him executed. And not your tidy little hanging either.” She leaned in and whispered to them, “This was in Florida. They use the electric chair there.”
Will’s hair on the back of his neck stood up as he watched the woman walk towards her own flat. “Won’t be a moment!” she said cheerfully, waving them towards the stairs.
“A regular black widow,” Jack remarked, as they climbed the stairs.
Will grinned. “ I rather like her.”
Their knock was answered by the John Watson who had attended Will when he fell.
“Are you feeling better?” he asked Will as they entered the flat.
“Yes, just had the wind knocked out of me,” Will told him. “I’m perfectly fine, really.”
“So that’s how you eluded Mycroft. Clever.” Sherlock said languidly from the sofa, eyeing their attire. “He was quite put out, you know.”
“Bugger threatened us, got what he deserved,” Jack groused. He hoisted the bundle he was carrying over his shoulder and asked, “May I use the head?”
“ Of course, it’s down the hall to the left.” John cleared some paper off a chair and offered it to Will.
“I’d rather stand, thank you.”
“You must be tired…no wait, you can’t be tired because you’re…DEAD!” Sherlock laughed at his own joke, with no one joining in.
“Oh, just shut it, will you?” Jack said irritably, joining the others and now garbed in his tour guide clothes. Tossing a pair of jeans and shirt to Will, he added, “If you’re not going to take us seriously, mate, there’s no sense in staying.”
“But I do take you seriously,” Sherlock said, sitting up abruptly. “Like that disappearing through the wall. How did you do that, I wonder? Must have been a trick. Perhaps you had this planned before you arrived, had a confederate to help you?”
Will sighed and turning, walked through the flat’s door.
“Oh my goodness, you startled me!” They heard a muffled exclamation. “I was just bringing you…”
“Thank you, Mrs. Hudson. I can take that.” The door opened and Will reentered, carrying a tea tray, a bottle of rum tucked under his arm.
“Right. Okay, not a planned trick.” Sherlock’s eyes scanned the man intently. “Well, at least you might let the doctor here examine you.” Sherlock was obviously puzzled, but unwilling to concede defeat.
“Certainly, why not.” Will pulled off the top of the scrubs, revealing a well-muscled chest down which a jagged scar was clearly visible.
John went and quickly retrieved his medical bag from his room upstairs. Out of the antique Gladstone bag, he removed his stethoscope. Breathing on the diaphragm briefly to warm it, he listened to Will’s chest.
Jack was grinning rather manically from his position near the lintel of the fireplace.
Frowning, John glanced at the other man - who gave him an expectant look in return - before he took Will’s wrist and felt for a pulse. Frowning harder still, he dropped the wrist and moved his hand up to Will’s neck, pressing against the carotid artery. He picked up his stethoscope, with a huff of air, and listened again, - both front and back, his fingers lingering curiously at the faded but still visible lash marks.
Removing the stethoscope from his ears, he looked at Sherlock helplessly, “There is no heartbeat.”
“Impossible, you must’ve done something wrong!” Sherlock sprang up, and stepping on and off the coffee table, came to where Will stood, arms folded, staring up at the ceiling with as much patience as he could muster. Sherlock placed an ear to Will’s chest, listening intently whilst John glared at him with affronted dignity.
Sherlock shook his head. “It’s impossible,” he repeated, musing to himself. “You have no heart, yet you’re alive and breathing. You walk through walls yet you are solid flesh and bone. It defies all logic, all laws of physics and physiology. Incredible. Like something out of a superhero comic, or one of those dreadful Bond flicks.” As he mused he ran his hands along Will’s body, arms, chest, trying to figure out the enigma in front of him.
Jack watched him with narrowed eyes. Sherlock was examining Will as one examines a prize race horse’s conformation. All that was left was to look at his feet and in his mouth.
Finally, unable to stand it any longer, Jack stepped between them with a possessive gesture and growled, “Now do you believe us, Mr. High and Mighty Consulting Detective?”
“If I remember, it was you who came to me needing my help.” Sherlock waved a dismissive hand. “I still contend it is a trick of some sort.”
“Look, the tea’s getting cold,” John said, trying to defuse the situation. “I’ll just see if we have any biscuits,” he added, heading for the kitchen.
“No trick, mate,” Jack huffed, folding his arms. “We’re both immortal, we told you that, at least four times now.”
“Immortal, hm? Shall we test your little theory, then?” Sherlock asked with a gleam in his eye. Rummaging around in a drawer, he pulled out John’s gun, and turning, BANG, shot Jack in the chest, the dark haired man reeling backwards onto the floor.
John raced over to the form laying sprawled on the carpet. “WHAT THE BLOODY HELL DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?!”
“Testing a theory, obviously,” Sherlock said coolly.
“OW! That hurt, goddammit!” said the body on the carpet. Sitting up, Jack groused, “Bloody watch where you're shooting! You nearly tore a hole in my jacket! This is VINTAGE, mate!”
Sherlock, smoking gun in hand, slowly sank onto the sofa. “That's not possible!” he protested. It was as if science and logic had deserted the building, and London entirely.
John cast a quick glance over his shoulder at the consulting detective. “You’re the one who's always saying that, ‘Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.’”
“Yes, but,” Sherlock waved a hand frantically in Will's direction. “He has no heart. Which means, by all the laws of science, that he's DEAD!”
Jack cocked his head to the side contemplatively and gave an impish grin. “More like Death when you really get down to it..."
“Jack!”
Will helped his partner up and turned to the stupefied Sherlock Holmes. “Now do you see the seriousness of our problem? Think of what might happen if the map falls into the wrong hands.”
“Map? Excuse me, what map?” John asked.
“The map to the Fountain of Youth,” Jack said matter-of-factly, brushing himself off. “The Aqua Vitae, the Waters of Life. - though they may not be so keen if they knew how bloody awful it tastes! - Call it whatever you want, the map points to it.”
“Sorry, the fountain of youth?” John gave a snort. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“It makes sense that it would really exist.” Sherlock sat back, an incredulous smile spreading across his face. “Tales of such a fountain have been recounted across the world for thousands of years, a legendary font that restores youth to those who drink from it. The indigenous peoples of the Caribbean during the Age of Exploration spoke of the restorative powers of the water in the mythical land of Bimini. Ponce de Leon sought this fabled land, only to die at the hands of those same peoples. Generations have sought it, all in vain.”
“Not all, mate.” Jack said, rather proudly.
“It doesn’t just restore youth,” Will explained. “Apparently, it makes the person who drinks from it immortal. Much like the Elixir of Life, the ultimate alchemy, the Philosopher’s Stone.”
“And you have a map to this?” John asked, incredulously.
Jack nodded. “That’s why they want it.”
“But who? Who are ‘they’? Do you know?”
“Obviously something to do with Mycroft, if his antics are anything to go by. Did you REALLY throw a rubbish can at him?” Sherlock laughed. “That’s absolutely brilliant! That alone is worth me taking this case on.”
“I gather this Mycroft is that slimy git in the bowler hat,” Jack said.
“Oh, don’t disparage my dear brother. He’d be most hurt to think you didn’t appreciate his little efforts.”
“Threatening us with a gun? No, wait. Shooting at us with a gun? I wouldn’t exactly call that ‘little’ effort.” Jack grumbled. “And he’s your bloody brother? Now why doesn’t that surprise me.”
“We’re estranged.”
“’S not all that’s strange,” Jack muttered.
Will decided to change the subject. “You wouldn’t happen to have a beer, would you?” Will asked John, looking at his long-cold tea.
“Yes, in the fridge” John said. “Think I might join you.”
Will opened the door and blinked. The disembodied head sitting inside did not. Shrugging he rummaged around and pulled out a couple of bottles, sinking wearily into a kitchen chair.
John joined him, moving aside some of the clutter that constituted Sherlock’s last chemical experiment. He looked at the other man curiously. “I wouldn’t expect you to be able to drink. Or eat, for that matter.”
Will shrugged. “Habit.”
“Ah.”
Will looked out at the two men in the living room. “Is he…?”
“Yes, he’s always like that.”
“Mine too.” Will smiled, more at the thought of Jack being ‘his’, than at his behavior. “How long have you two been…?”
“Oh! No, we’re just flatmates,” John hastily interrupted. “Friends. Colleagues, actually. No… friends.” He amended, as if remembering the conversation he’d had earlier.
Will didn’t comment, just glanced over at Jack and Sherlock, both as full of themselves as peacocks. At the moment they were eyeing each other like two recalcitrant terriers who’d been told to behave. Sherlock lay on the sofa, staring up at the ceiling. Jack, fidgeting in his seat, finally took to wandering around the flat, picking up an object here and there and studying it aimlessly.
“I used to have a skull,” Sherlock said indifferently, without looking. “Before Mrs. Hudson took it one day.”
“Trifles,” Jack said with a dismissive hand. “I was a skeleton, once. That bloody bastard Barbossa ran me through with his cutlass. There I was, all bones in the moonlight. Bloody crazy. Was the curse, you know. The one we told you about. No wait, that was the other curse. This one made you immortal too, but you just couldn’t enjoy it. Will insisted I return the coin. Good thing, too. Put a bullet right through the bastard’s heart.”
Sherlock stopped his contemplation of the plaster to look over at Jack. “Whose? Will’s?”
“What? No! Hector’s.. Mutinous bastard stole my ship, marooned me on an island and left me to die. Saved one bullet for him. Ten years I waited.” Jack paused, then added bitterly, “Then that fucking bitch of a sea goddess went and brought him back. He wanted the map, but I outsmarted him.” Jack turned with wide golden grin. “Course it weren’t too hard, being Barbossa had less brains than that infernal monkey of his.”
Sherlock sighed. “You are telling me you actually were a real pirate?”
“Course I were real!” Jack jabbed a finger at him. “Found the font, drank the water. Don’t you ever listen?”
Meanwhile John and Will were have their own conversation.
“One time, I got shot because Sherlock got us into a situation...”
“Really? Well, that's nothing. Thanks to Jack, *I* got my heart carved out and put in a magical chest!”
“THAT WAS NOT MY FAULT!” Jack and Sherlock shouted in unison.
They were all interrupted by a knock on the door. Jack immediately put a hand on the hilt of his sword, while Will rose and joined him. Mrs. Hudson’s voice called out cheerfully, “Your takeaway’s here, dears.”
“Did you..?”
“I didn’t…”
The door opened to reveal a dapper man in a bowler hat. He limped into the flat and said cheerfully, “I see you’ve taken on the case, Sherlock. How very convenient.”