Sherlock Fic: Broken beyond repair, Chapter Three
Well hello again,
this time I was kind of fast. Actually I wanted to put even more into this chapter, but after writing the three paragraphs I decided to stop there at ~1500 words and leave the rest for the next chapter. There will be something about the "relationship" between Sebastian Moran and Jim Moriarty, and something about Sherlock going berserk, I think ;)
But first Sherlock needs to visit the Heartbreak Hotel...
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And now, let the bleeding begin.
3. Heartbreak Hotel
From somewhere comes the sound of Jazz, he can hear muffled trumpets. He briefly lifts his head, looks up at the ceiling behind which the music vibrates. Then he lightly taps his toes, Jazz, Swing, he could never hold still when music like this was playing, he smiles.
When he looks down at John Watson again, that man is staring at him. It’s the same stare as before, grimly, controlled, but around his lips a smile appears, just a twitch in the corners of his mouth. Nevertheless Sebastian Moran feels like he got caught, and he grits his teeth.
With his clenched hand he strikes out, hits the former army doctors left cheek so hard that his head is thrown aside. Sebastian briefly shakes his fist, massages the knuckles, then he plants himself in front of Watson, grabs his sandy yellow hair and pulls his head back. Blood trickles out of John’s mouth which is bend upwards, and the smile even remains when Sebastian Moran takes out a knife with his free hand.
He allows himself so feel the cool hilt and the ornament on it for a while. He remembers the day he bought it, how the sun burnt down on him, and that he killed a man the very evening, the same person that had sold him the knife before, and Sebastian Moran had thanked the dead man while he stole back his own money out of wide trouser pockets.
The knife lies still comfortably in his hand, after all these years, and he puts the blade on bare skin and applies pressure until the skin breaks and the first red drops emerge and run down the steel to his hand, and John Watson is still smiling and Sebastian accepts that and he even feels a bit pity for him, because he knows he will cut the smile out of his face, bit by bit.
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Sherlock Holmes looks into the mirror. The scar is only pale pink, and in the middle, where the butterfly bandages had been, it is nearly invisible. He removed the stitched under his ears yesterday, now he opens the upper buttons of his shirt, pushes it over his shoulder and observes the healed cut. The inflammation abated more than a week ago.
Carefully he pulls at the stitches with tweezers, they detach without problems, nowadays they are made out of organic material so that they are biodegradable. Some stitches don’t even need to be removed.
When Sherlock extracted the last parts, he lowers his hand, bends his neck even more and observes the cut in its full length. On his shoulder white scar tissue already formed, a pale line, and will probably remain there and always remind him of this incident. Like John said, Sherlock bitterly thinks. Then his eyes widen when he realises that John never really said this, and that this scene only existed in his mind.
Sherlocks mobile phone vibrates in his pocket, without taking his eyes off the mirror, he pulls it out.
We found the club.
Meet us there in 30. - GL
In his excitement Lestrade must have forgotten to send him the address, but Sherlock knows it anyways. He himself suspected the club and only waited for a confirmation. Frantically he shoves the mobile back into his pocket, pulls the shirt back over his shoulder. Five minutes later he sits in a cab heading for the north.
OoOoOoOoOoO
When he leaves the cab, Lestrades approaches him.
“We did some research. On ground floor there is the former club you mentioned. There are illegal parties taking place by night, by day an old lady gives dancing classes here. We didn’t enter yet. Outside everything seems clear, no guards, no cameras.”
Sherlock wrinkles his nose, gazes up the narrow brick building. The sun stands behind the house, among the shades it’s cold, the wind tugs on ragged posters hanging on the walls. The name of the club is hidden behind graffiti, under red and yellow paroles the words ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ are written.
Moriarty left him with nothing, no message, not even a clue. Not even the dead bodies of Mycrofts men were of any help. But after two days a neighbour reported that he had seen a grey van driving away the day the incident happened. He recognised it because of the car sign, he couldn’t tell from which country it was but he could describe what it looked like. So they learned that the car was German and came from Hamburg.
The car didn’t show up after that, but Sherlock knew someone who would probably know when a German van was crossing the city. A week after the incident he was sitting at table with Edgar Harris one evening, and while the guy shovelled pasta into his mouth and drank expensive Italian wine, he got chatty, and soon talked about rumours that two German professionals were in town. He gave him some names of people Sherlock could ask about this matter, and so he happened to talk to a man who had been on the phone with these said professionals.
“Almost accent-free, you wouldn’t recognise it. There was Jazz music in the background, I remember it because with made some jokes about it. They didn’t name their whereabouts, but they mentioned an old club. They wanted a save exit after a mission in London, I was willing to get them one. But they didn’t get in touch since then, so either they found a better offer, or they’re still in town.”
Now they’re standing in front of the ‘Heartbreak Hotel’, an old club in the north of the city, and when Lestrades radio crackles and a distorted voice tells them that a grey van had been found some streets away, Sherlock starts to grin. Two weeks are a long time, he thinks, and pulls his scarf closer. But in the end he solved the riddle, Moriarty lost again. Sherlock feels a tingling in his extremities, the endorphin which streams through his body.
Lestrades hand wanders down to his weapon; he presses one finger lightly against the metal, and then waves Sherlock nearer. Two policemen go first, the pistols produced. At first they enter the building through a rusty backdoor, inside it’s dark, the light switch is dusty and even after pushing it a few times no light bulb flickers.
Then they reach the dance hall, the sun breaks through top lights whose cover disintegrated long time ago. The officers raise the dust; it dances in the light beams, trundles over the old, corroded dance floor. Through another door they go down, they follow some long corridors, here and there the lighting still works, the walls are yellowed, wallpaper and plaster flakes off in big scraps, dust and rubble accumulated on the ground.
Finally they find a stair which leads down into the cellar. The two policemen stare irritated at the clean steps, turn around quizzical to Lestrade, who for himself looks at Sherlock. He nods, even the others know what it means that there is no dust on the steps.
While they go down the stairs and sneak silently through the corridors, Sherlock has this strange feeling in his stomach again. The first time, after the attack, he had blamed hunger and the painkillers for it. But now there it is again, like a ball forming in his abdomen, weighting heavy, and that presses against his ribcage from the inside, it makes breathing harder and constricts his heart. It’s the first time that Sherlock realises that maybe John isn’t alive anymore. In his thoughts the last two weeks John didn’t matter that much, in fact Sherlock concentrated on solving the case, Moriartys riddle, a scavenger hunt through London. Sherlocks theories always included, that John was hold captive somewhere, not treated well but still alive. But suddenly, here in the dust and mould, it dawns on Sherlock that John could likely be dead. He remembers Moriartys words.
In front of him the policemen stop, pointing nervously at a narrow light beam showing under a door crack on the other side of the corridor.
‘I’ll burn the heart out of you.’ The words echo through Sherlocks head.
Lestrade produces his weapon and nods towards the door, the policemen position themselves on both sides of the entry. Only mouthing the words the detective inspector counts down from five before he kicks in the door and storms the room, the officers following him.
‘Heartbreak Hotel’. Sherlocks heart contracts, his arms and legs feel stony, but then he can break away all the same, approaches the room with grand strides and enters it without protection or precaution and realises that the men have lowered their guns.
Then his gaze meets two bodies which are lying lifeless on the dirty ground. The men, dressed in black, lie in a pool of coagulated blood. On the back of the two dead men someone painted a smiley with yellow colour.
Only now he becomes aware of the stench and he places his hand above his nose and mouth. He slowly turns around, looks into the puzzled and disgusted faces of the others, then searches the walls and corners of the room, but there is nothing, it’s empty.
Red herring, Sherlock thinks.
And then: John isn’t here.
And this is where a new Chapter begins
It may surprise you. But if you click me, you will be directed to Chapter Four!