Heart and Soul - Supernatural/Sherlock BBC - Act One
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Act One: In which John Watson is not a hunter.
Twenty-seven years ago
Sherlock’s dreams tumbled through his head and spilled out his ears like a waterfall, splashing across his pillow. Trying to keep a grip on them was trying to hold the tide in his hands.
He opened his eyes to himself -- a drawing of himself -- standing proudly at the bow of a two-masted schooner. The ship was drawn precisely to scale, rigging and all, but the depiction of himself stood several inches taller than it should have, a broadsword strapped to its side.
From the other side of the room, Mycroft spoke, voice hushed. “I don’t understand what you want me to do.”
Sherlock went very still, deepening his breathing deliberately. He’d once read a book where a boy was trying to feign sleep, and was caught because he’d held his breath.
“But what’ll happen to me?”
Sherlock almost turned over. There had been no one else speaking, he was sure of it. There was no one for Mycroft to be talking to. And on top of that, he’d never heard Mycroft sound like this. He almost sounded scared, but that couldn’t be right, because big brothers never got scared.
“Do you promise? Do you promise he’ll be safe?” Sherlock lay still as Mycroft shifted and crawled out of bed. Listening closely to the sound of footsteps on the thinly carpeted floor, Sherlock waited until he was sure his brother was facing the other way before very quietly, very carefully rolling over. His eyes had to strain to see much in the darkness, but he was positive that there was no third person in the room.
By the desk in the corner, Mycroft stood with his back turned to Sherlock. He seemed to be looking at the model ship, half finished, that the brothers had spent the last month carefully slotting together piece by piece. Moonlight reflected off the glossy football poster on the wall, casting Mycroft’s figure into sharp relief. “And it’s the only way?” There was a short pause before Mycroft said, “Then, okay.” He sounded more determined, now; more like he did when playing Pirate King or telling Sherlock what to do. “Yes.”
In an instant, the room flooded with light. Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the covers over his head, eyes searing. When the glow faded, he peeked out to see Mycroft standing over him, his expression oddly blank.
“Go to sleep, Sherlock,” Mycroft ordered. There was something in his tone, something new, and Sherlock thought -- knew -- that this was no longer his brother. But before the impression could come together to form a coherent idea, Mycroft had reached out to touch two fingers to his forehead, and Sherlock tumbled back into the roaring waters of his dreams.
*
March 29 - SEVEN
"Well?" Lestrade's arms were crossed as Sherlock stood, taking a careful step back from the body. "What've you got?"
Sherlock didn't answer right away, taking a final long look at the corpse and surrounding area before launching into his deductions. "There's salt residue on the shirt," he began, "probably tears -- not his -- and hardly any posthumous bruising. Most killers wouldn't take so much care when dumping a body, so - someone who cared about him. He was a small man, but heavy. It would take two people to easily lift and carry the body. But there are only two pairs of footprints leading to and from the body: the killer, and the jogger who found it. So, someone strong, strong enough to lift a grown man and carry him here from the parking lot. These footprints are obviously the jogger's: athletic shoes, panicked and widely spaced, pacing as she waited for the police to arrive. So this one is the killer's. Deeper coming towards the body than away, because he or she had extra weight. Size six shoes, no, six and a half, a little over five feet by the stride. Definitely a woman. She tripped here." he pointed to a flurry of prints a few meters from the body, where a smudged pair of handprints were clearly visible in the dirt. "Small, strong hands, probably a serious athlete, likely a gymnast. So, close to the victim, around five feet tall, athletic, skinned palms from her fall," he concluded, then turned and strode over to the victim's wife and adult daughter, who were milling around anxiously by the crime scene tape.
"Hey!" the daughter protested as Sherlock seized her wrist and forcefully turned her palm upwards.
"Scraped hands," he proclaimed triumphantly. She was led away by a pair of uniforms, face twisted with anger and despair as she protested the accusation. Next to Sherlock, the widow began to sob, shoulders shaking. "Boring," he declared of the case to no one in particular, and the woman buried her face in her hands.
From across the crime scene, John shot Sherlock a Look. He had many Looks, but this one said quite plainly: Bit not good, Sherlock. Go apologize before I punch you.
Rolling his eyes at his flatmate, Sherlock turned to the sobbing woman next to him. Fascinating, the sheer volume of tears that a grieving widow can produce. He ought to do a study on that. With all the sincerity he could muster, he said to the woman, "I'm very sorry for your loss." He opened his mouth to say more, a comforting statistic on murders committed by family members, but John nodded approvingly in his direction and he decided to leave it.
As he left the crime scene, he distantly heard Sally Donovan comment, "Who would have guessed the Freak would ever have gotten a heart?"
*
March 30 - SIX
"God." John shook his head at the front page of the paper. "Have you seen this, Sherlock?"
"Of course." Sherlock didn't even look up from the chemicals he was oh-so-carefully measuring out. "No data in the article, of course. Dull. Reporters wouldn't know important information if it hit them over the head."
"There are twelve people dead, Sherlock." Sherlock's eyes flickered guiltily at John's disapproving tone, but he held his ground.
"Lestrade won't let me in this early," he said dismissively. "Give it a day or two."
John put the newspaper aside, but the headline (MASS MURDER AT BELOVED DINER) still lingered, bold and foreboding, inside his eyelids.
*
March 31 - FIVE
Sherlock was intrigued.
Papers were strewn about the sitting room floor, scattered with a sweep of his arm to clear a space on the desk. He leaned forward on his elbows, fingers steepled beneath a pale chin as he examined the crisp, perfectly untouched package before him. He couldn't get a single scrap of data from the exterior at all. The address was typed (Mr. Not A Hero, 221b Baker Street, London, NW1 5LA), the stationary and plain brown wrapping Royal Mail standard-issue. Overnight delivery, likely packaged at the post office. Even the tape, prised oh-so-carefully from the paper and checked for fingerprints, yielded no results.
Finally he simply ripped the paper away, revealing a plain white box about the size of a human skull. Again he examined it closely, with the same outcome. Not a single fact could be gained from either the wrapping or the box. This was new, this was fascinating. With only the slightest bit of reverence, he lifted the lid of the box.
Inside was . . . a jug.
It was a little anticlimactic. He carefully removed the jug - more of an amphora, really - and set it down on the desk, running his fingers over the clay. It was ancient, that much was obvious. Probably Middle Eastern in origin, judging from the clay color. Without in-depth analysis he'd put it at around three millennia, but of course it was possible that it was much, much older. But it couldn't be a puzzle all on its own -- a jug, after all, is simply a container, a vessel for holding water or wine or -- oil? Completely disregarding all basic safety precautions, he dipped a finger in the filmy liquid. Yes, definitely an oil of some sort.
His interest piqued, he collected samples of his specimens (the amphora was obviously far too important and fragile to be lugging about London, even by his standards), and in twenty minutes he was settled in at his favorite lab table at Bart's.
*
A little over six hours later, Sherlock received a text.
> Off work. You haven't
> texted me all day. Are
> you dead?
With all the speed of an expert typist with something far more important to be doing, Sherlock quickly returned:
> Bart's. Now. SH
> There in ten. Try not
> to terrorize the poor
> students too much
> before I get there, yeah?
Sherlock didn't bother to reply, returning to his tests on the properties of the mysterious oil.
*
John strolled through the doors under eight minutes later, rather impressed with himself for the casual manner he had commanded all the way from the surgery. "So, what is it that can keep you occupied for seven hours straight? Have you discovered a new form of mold? Or, wait, don't tell me -- the leftovers in the fridge have finally gained sentience. Am I close?"
"Don't be silly, John, that was last week. Come look at this." Sherlock sidestepped, allowing John access to his microscope. Surprised, John leaned forward to take a look.
"It's just a drop of oil."
"Wrong." Sherlock indicated a messy stack of papers, all covered edge to edge in an odd medley of computer readouts and the detective's own neat hand. "It has all the properties of common vegetable oil - viscosity, density, surface tension - but it's highly flammable and seems not to burn out. Look." He pointed at a tiny flickering flame in the midst of the lab equipment. "Its fuel was two drops of oil and a single match. It hasn't gone out since I lit it precisely five hours and eighteen minutes ago."
John briefly studied the rough stretch of chemical structure that Sherlock had drawn out and shook his head. "I've never seen anything like it."
"Nor have I." Sherlock grinned, more excited by this new puzzle than John had seen him in a long while. "It arrived in the post this morning. And that's not all. This--" he pulled a paper from the stack with a flourish "--is the initial analysis of the clay from the container it arrived in. Radiocarbon dating of the organic matter within the clay suggests an approximate age of six thousand years."
John laughed. "Okay, Sherlock, now you're just pulling my leg."
"I assure you, John, the results are real."
"Right. Okay, assuming this jug of oil really is six thousand years old, it's a priceless historical artifact. Why would someone mail it to you?"
"It obviously has a more immediate significance. Come along, John." Sherlock swept all his papers up in one deft movement and dumped them into John's arms. "I'll need more samples. We have work to do."
*
"Good afternoon, Sherlock, Dr. Watson. Would you care for a cup of tea?" Mycroft Holmes smiled in that diplomatically polite way of his, having just replaced the lid on John's teapot. How Mycroft always managed to finish steeping the tea the moment they walked in the door was an ongoing mystery to John. Probably he had an employee notify him when their cab was exactly six and a half blocks away.
"What do you want, Mycroft?" Sherlock sounded distinctly less bad-tempered than he often did when his brother came to call, but bad-tempered all the same.
"Can't a man visit his dear younger brother without a reason?"
"Not when that man is you, no." Flopping down on the couch like a sulky teenager, Sherlock narrowly missed knocking the teapot from Mycroft's hand with his ridiculously long legs. John wasn't sure he hadn't done it on purpose. "I do hope you didn't help yourself to the Jaffa cakes. John is ever so fond of them; it would be a shame if you finished them all."
Mycroft smiled blandly, hooking his umbrella over his arm as he stood. "What a pleasant chat. Good afternoon." He breezed out the door, closing it silently behind him.
John looked blank. "He didn't want anything?"
"He always wants something," Sherlock growled. He pointed at the clay shards beside the desk: the ancient amphora, dashed to pieces on the floor. Not a drop of oil remained.
"Your brother broke into our flat just to steal some oil you got in the post?"
"That appears to be the logical explanation." Anger making his movements quick and jolting, he pulled his results from the hospital lab towards him and began to go through them again.
With a shake of his head, John sighed and moved to get the dustpan. A rustling under his feet made him pause. "What's this?" He stooped to pick up the wrapping from the amphora's original packaging.
"It's useless," Sherlock said, not looking up. "Bin it."
"No, but it's got writing on it. Look! It was on the inside; you must have missed it."
Sherlock was at his side in a flash, seizing the paper from his hands and examining it closely. "The handwriting is immaculate," he noted, tilting it towards the light. "Obviously a disguised hand, quite well done. Likely male, although it's hard to be certain. Some sort of code." He spread the paper out flat on the desk, reading the series of numbers out loud. "One-one-nine-oh-eight-one-four."
"What is it?"
"A code, an address, a phone number, a number sequence, a URL, a password, it could be anything. We'll have to narrow it down."
*
"Sherlock, what are you doing here? I didn't call you, did I?" Lestrade rubbed his forehead wearily.
"Heard about it over the police scanner," Sherlock said, brushing past the DI, but Lestrade caught his arm before he could reach the yellow crime scene tape.
"Sorry," he said, sounding genuinely apologetic. "Not this time."
"Don't be ridiculous," Sherlock scoffed. "Two mass murders in three days and not a single suspect; the police are clearly out of their depth."
"You're not wrong there." (Like he's ever wrong, Lestrade thought privately.) "But it's orders from higher-ups. No consultants on this one, particularly you."
Sherlock scowled. "I'll hear from you by tomorrow evening," he predicted, turning away with a swish of his long coat. "John," he called, as if his flatmate were nothing more than an exceptionally well-trained dog. John, who had been some ways away examining something on his fingers with great fascination, jumped guiltily as if caught doing something illicit or potentially embarrassing and hurried to catch up with the cab Sherlock had seemingly pulled from thin air.
"They'll be begging for my help soon enough," Sherlock sniffed.
"Hmm," John agreed, discreetly wiping his fingers clean on his trouser leg.
"Where to, loves?" the kindly-faced cabbie inquired.
"221 Baker Street," Sherlock said dismissively, turning to John. "Do you smell anything odd?"
"Such as?"
"Sulphur. The odor is also similar to rotten eggs, but no, it's definitely sulphur."
"No," John said firmly, but his eyes flickered warily towards the front seat several times throughout the rest of the drive.
"Here we are, loves," the cheerful driver said finally. "221b Baker. That'll be ten quid twenty."
As usual, Sherlock slipped out on to the sidewalk practically before the cab even rolled to a full stop, leaving John to pay the fare. John handed it over with rather more caution than usual and followed his flatmate out of the cab.
"Oh, and love?" the cabbie called after him, leaning her silver head out the window. "Say hello to dear Clara for me, will you?" Before John could react, the cab sped off into the flow of Central London, leaving him bewildered on the pavement.
"Are you coming inside, dear?" Mrs. Hudson asked from the doorway. "Only it's rather warm outside and air-conditioning doesn't come cheaply, you understand."
"Yes, of course, Mrs. Hudson. Sorry."
"Not a problem, dear." The elderly landlady looked startled as he rushed past, wrestling his mobile from his jacket pocket as he went.
*
April 1 - FOUR
"Oi, John-boy!" John opened the door to find himself pulled into a huge bear hug. Taller than her brother and built like a brick wall, Harriet Watson was a force to be reckoned with. She let him struggle for a minute before releasing him, then stood back with a wide grin. "Think you've gotten smaller, John, what's that about?"
John laughed breathlessly, rolling his shoulders. "Good to see you too, Harry. Clara." He leaned to one side, peering round his sister to nod at the woman on the stoop.
"You called?" she prompted quietly, her American accent strange to hear in the middle of London. Smaller and more soft-spoken then her partner, Clara Warner was nonetheless equally dangerous, when she had to be.
"Yeah, this better be important, John-o," Harry warned with a grin. "We were trailing a couple of storm kelpies up at Inverness when you called; you know how much I like taking those suckers out. You say you've got demons?"
"Yeah." John absentmindedly thumped his sister on the shoulder and she sidestepped in response, so all three could see each other. "It's one of Sherlock's," John continued, "or he thinks it is. But they're not letting him on the case." The additional "Thank God" was silent, but nonetheless hung in the air between them. There was movement from upstairs, and John glanced nervously behind him at the steps that led to 221b. "I'll give you the details later." 'Later' being 'when Sherlock isn't around'.
"Can we meet him?" Harry asked, following his gaze.
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," John said, thinking of how much Sherlock had been able to tell about him with a single glance the first time they'd met. It was probably only thanks to the time that had elapsed since his retirement (if you could call it that) that the great detective hadn't been able to guess at his full past. But Harry was already halfway up the stairs, feet thundering like a herd of cattle.
"Don't worry," Clara said to John with a small smile, stepping inside. "We showered and changed clothes before we came. He won't get much from us."
John shrugged helplessly, waving for her to go ahead of him. "I guess we'll see."
*
Upstairs, Sherlock was sprawled on the sofa, fingers steepled beneath his chin. A sharpie was abandoned on the floor and John looked up to see the code from the package wrapping scrawled on the ceiling several times in various permutations above the detective's head. He opened his mouth to complain but then thought better of it, instead gesturing towards the two hunters. "Sherlock, this is my sister Harry and her wife, Clara."
"Ex-wife," Clara corrected, but neither woman seemed particularly bothered by the mistake.
"Busy," Sherlock grunted.
"Sherlock."
Sherlock huffed. "Sorry, yes, hello, nice to meet you, good-bye."
"What's that you're looking at?" Harry asked, completely unfazed.
"It was written in a package he got in the mail," John answered, when it became clear that Sherlock wasn't about to. "It had a jug of some weird oil, and this." He gestured exasperatedly at the writing on the ceiling, but two pairs of ears had metaphorically pricked at the mention of an unusual substance. John shot Harry a warning glance, but not one of the dozens of kinds of "be careful" looks she'd seen before. This one said, "He's clever and he's important and he knows everything but this. Don't ruin it."
But when had Harry ever listened to John's cautions? "What sort of oil?"
Sherlock waved a hand at his last remaining sample, sealed in a glass vial on the desk. "Don't compromise it," he warned, more of a concession than he usually granted when it came to strangers and important evidence. Clara wandered over to have a look, while Harry returned her attention to the numbers on the ceiling.
"You've gotten the reference already, yeah?"
Sherlock was on his feet in a flash. "What reference?"
Harry looked startled. "Reckon not, then. 1984, like the novel? Room 101? The numbers alternate, see, one, and then the other one, then the nine--"
"Of course!" Sherlock tripped gracelessly over to the pile of books left over from the Blind Banker case. He tore through the stack, throwing irrelevant books back behind him over his head, until he found the one he was looking for.
"Here!" Sherlock rifled quickly through the pages, probably taking in more of the plot in a few moments than most people took in when actually reading it. "Yes. John, I'm going out. Don't wait up." Seizing his coat and scarf, Sherlock threw the book to one side and dashed out the door.
*
John shook his head as he watched Sherlock disappear into the dusk, his arm held out for a cab. He turned away from the window to face his guests.
"Right," he said. "Takeout?"
"Thai," Harry volunteered. Clara shrugged in agreement.
"There's a place down the street that delivers." John began rooting round the mess of papers on the desk, searching for the menu and phone number.
"So, where's that luxurious suite of ours?" Harry hefted her duffel bag over one shoulder.
"Thought you had a hotel?" John said absently, shifting to one side a stack of bills and several pages that looked as though they'd been torn out of a library book on wormholes.
"It was a by-the-hour place." Clara pulled the takeout menus from under the skull on the mantel and passed them to John. "We checked out."
John shrugged, busy trying to type the restaurant's number into his mobile with one hand. "You can take my room. Upstairs, on your left."
Harry nodded, catching the bag Clara threw at her with her free hand, and headed up the stairs.
"You're not sitting up all night for our sake, John Watson," Clara warned.
John's phone buzzed in his hand, and he clicked out of the dial screen to view the text.
> She's been sober nearly
> four months, if you
> were wondering. SH
John smiled as he redialed the takeout number. "Sofa's fine," he said, lifting the phone to his ear as he turned away.
*
"So how are things?" John asked quietly. "Between you and her." Both were leaned back comfortably, Clara's head pillowed on his chest. The television was on, its volume set low enough to be nothing but a soft, comforting murmur in the background. Clara had always been unnerved by silence.
"They're fine," she answered, her eyes shut against the flickering glare from the telly. "Better lately, since she quit drinking."
A smile drifted across John's face. "Sherlock said nearly four months. Was he close?"
"Spot on." Clara looked about as a pleased as John had ever seen her, including the time she'd taken down a whole nest of vampires single-handed. "And I think she'll keep at it this time; I really do. She's been even better since you called. Happier."
He shifted beneath her, his tone colored with surprise. "Really?"
"Really. She loves you more than anything. Hell of a lot more than she loves me." She levered herself up on an elbow and twisted to look at him, auburn hair pooling on his stomach. "Did you really not know that?" He shook his head wordlessly and she lay down again with a sigh, wriggling a little to get comfortable. "Then you're an idiot," she declared, and he chuckled. "Do you know," she continued, and her voice was softer now, so that John had to strain to hear it over the sound of the telly, "do you know, the only time I ever saw her cry was when you walked out?"
John couldn't find anything to say.
"Harry Watson," she murmured into his chest, a secret meant only for his heart, "is the best woman either of us will ever meet."
"That I do know."
Clara reached over and switched off the television, leaving two old friends to lie in friendly darkness and forget the silence.
*
April 2 - THREE
John flew awake with a grunt of surprise as something heavy dropped onto his stomach.
"You know," Harry said loudly, "if I were a less secure woman I'd feel really threatened by this."
Scowling blearily, Clara swatted at her partner's shoulder. "Gerroff us, you big lump."
Laughing, Harry jumped up with surprising grace for someone of her size and moved well out of arm's reach. Clara rolled off John and onto the floor.
"Ooh." John sat up, pulling faces as he rubbed at his shoulder. "Now I know why Mum always made one of us sleep on the couch." He paused, wrinkling his nose. "Has Sherlock left the head out of the fridge again or did Harry try to cook?"
"Ha ha." Harry made a face. "That's the smell of bread catching fire in the toaster."
"The blue one or the metallic one?"
She looked at him blankly. "What blue one?"
John's expression could be described as more than a little smug. "The metallic one is for Sherlock's experiments. But don't worry, he's sanitized it since the thing with the toes. I think."
"Eww." Harry pretended to gag. "Here, Clara, sharing is caring." She crouched down to capture the half-sleeping hunter's mouth in a kiss. Clara responded with enthusiasm.
Rolling his eyes, John tugged at his rumpled shirt and went to collect the myriad of daily papers Sherlock was subscribed to from the front stoop. It was only a few moments later that his feet could be heard pounding back up the stairs. Harry and Clara broke apart in surprise.
"Sorry to interrupt," he said, holding up the front page, "but you've got work to do."
*
"Three killings," John said grimly, adding the clipping from that morning's paper to the small pile on the coffee table. "Thirty-five people dead. No pattern to them, just that they were all public businesses in Central London. Sherlock's already marked the first two." He waved a hand tiredly in the direction of the vast London map pinned to the wall. Clara wandered over to study it, leaving Harry to sift through the pile of articles. John caught glimpses of headlines he'd already seen: MASS MURDER AT BELOVED DINER; SECOND KILLING IN CITY CENTRE; RIPPER STILL AT LARGE, POLICE BAFFLED. The latest one read: RETAIL RIPPER STRIKES AGAIN. John couldn't help thinking that Sherlock was right: the police would be asking for his help any day now. His stomach knotted at the idea of Sherlock on a demon case. A mind that rational and empirical could never accept the idea of the supernatural without proof, and by the time he was close enough to get that proof he'd be long dead.
It was Harry who snapped him out of his silent panic attack. "Was there sulphur at every scene?" she asked, skimming through one of the articles on the second killing, where two writers from the opinion columns argued back and forth on whether this was a serial killer or political terrorism.
"It's not in the articles, but I think so." John reached for a clipping from one of yesterday's papers. "If it wasn't a consistent thing I don't think they would have kept it out of the media."
"No use deterring copycats if it's not all the same," Harry agreed, frowning at a blurred photograph of a pair of body bags being wheeled out of a shoe store. The blinds were drawn, giving the whole place a cold, dead feeling.
"Hey," Clara said from the wall map. "I think I have a pattern."
John and Harry were at her shoulders in an instant. "It's a triangle," John said after a moment, feeling every bit as stupid as he did when Sherlock was urging him to notice something. "And?"
"Look," Clara said, tapping each tack with a long, thin finger. "It's an equilateral triangle. Sixty degree angles and equal sides."
"What's in the center?" Harry wondered, leaning in closer to the map.
"That's a good question." Clara reached for the string taped to the wall probably for just such a purpose and deftly measured off the medians, making a mark where the three lines intersected.
"Oh my God," she said, after a moment of squinting at the tiny penciled label.
"What?" Harry leaned in close to look. "Shit."
"What is it?" Worry flared again in John's gut. Clara sidestepped to make room, and John found himself blinking at the small, neatly labeled words next to Clara's pencil mark: 221 Baker Street.
"John," said Harry, turning wide eyes on her brother. "They're coming for you."
*
The sudden tension in the room was shattered suddenly by a quiet rap on the flat door. They all jumped, and John hurried to sweep the newspaper clippings off the coffee table and under the sofa.
"Boys," called Mrs. Hudson, "Inspector Lestrade is here to see you. Are you decent in there?"
"Yes, come in, Greg," John said, waving Harry and Clara away from the wall map, but he needn't have bothered. Lestrade couldn't see a thing above the two large file boxes balanced precariously in his arms. Harry hurried over, lifting the top box away with hardly an effort.
"Cheers," the detective said gratefully, setting down the second box and rubbing his shoulders with a wince. "Swear those things have gotten heavier over the years. Morning," he added, now directing his speech directly at John. "Sherlock in?"
"Haven't seen him since last night. Are you putting him on the case?"
"The serial mass murders? No, sorry, orders still stand. Bet he's been absolutely insufferable about it." Lestrade sighed, his shoulders slack with exhaustion. "I thought I'd bring him some cold cases. Might keep him busy for a day or two."
John quietly let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Well, thanks. I'll let him know when he gets back." Noting the way the inspector's eyes flickered curiously in the hunters' direction, he added, "Greg, this is my sister, Harry, and her--" he paused, remembering yesterday's slip-up "--partner, Clara Warner."
Lestrade nodded in acknowledgement. "Greg Lestrade."
"Do you know why Sherlock's not allowed on the case?" John asked, hoping to God he only sounded casually curious.
"No idea." Lestrade scratched his wrist absently. "Anyway, I've got to run. Stop by the Yard if you need any more cold cases, though I don't know how many I have left later than 1950." He gave them all a brief, tired smile and showed himself out.
"Did you see the way he scratched his hand?" Harry asked, after the door had shut behind him and his footsteps faded down the stairs. "He knows more than he's telling." She turned decisively to John. "You'll have to get him sloshed."
"What? Why?"
"Well he's already seen us, so we can't exactly pass for MI5," Clara reasoned. "And Moran's not picking up his mobile."
"Moran?" John considered the hunter he'd met in Afghanistan. Best sniper he'd ever seen, and not a bad hunter either. "Since when are you in touch with Moran?"
"Since he saved both our asses from a pair of djinn last year." Clara yawned. "I need coffee."
"Left cabinet, second shelf," John directed. "Check for body parts," he called after her. Harry laughed.
"Harry." Suddenly speaking in hushed, serious tones, John grabbed his sister by the arm. "I need to talk to you."
Eyes flickering towards the kitchen, he soundlessly drew her out to the landing outside the flat door, pulling it closed behind him.
"What is it?" Harry's good humor had dissipated like mist: she was all business now.
"It's Clara," he said. "I think something's after her." In as few words as possible, he briefly outlined his encounter with the demon cabbie. "Can you think of anyone, a demon who got away, or--"
"No, I don't know . . . Are you sure she was a demon?"
"Well, no." He let out a long breath. "But if she was -- just keep an eye out."
"Yeah. Yeah, of course."
John turned to go back inside, then paused. "Could it be a demon she met before she started hunting with us?"
Her eyes widened. "You don't think--?"
"I don't know."
"God," she said, running fingers through her short hair in frustration. She was glaring at the door as if she could burn a hole in it and check on Clara through the wood. "She can't know about this. If there's any chance--"
"Hey." He touched her shoulder. "If anyone can keep a secret, it's us, right?" Without waiting for an answer, he reached across and opened the door.
Clara was already back from the kitchen, just juggling three steaming mugs of coffee onto the table. She looked up as they entered. "Where've you two been, then?"
"Helping Mrs. Hudson with the groceries," John invented wildly.
Though Clara had almost certainly noticed, she said nothing, instead holding up the blue striped mug. "Still black, no sugar?" she asked, handing it off.
"Cheers," John said, glad for the change of subject. He took a sip and pretended to choke on it. "God, Clara, I see your coffee-making skills haven't improved."
"Better than mine, at any rate," Harry said cheerfully, all trace of worry gone from her face. "Bottoms up."
*
Lestrade was drunk.
Really, seriously, pissed-off-his-arse drunk. He'd lost count of rounds somewhere around a dozen, and the world had turned a curious shade of sideways sometime after that.
In his defense, he hadn't meant to get smashed. When John Watson invited him out for a pint he'd thought sure, the Ripper case wasn't going anywhere and he hadn't had more than a few hours away from work since it started. He needed a break before he had a break-down. Just a few pints, night out with a friend, he'd thought. But he hadn't counted on the half-price lager, and he certainly hadn't anticipated just how well the good doctor could hold his liquor. In the morning, when he no longer had the urge to smash every lightbulb in the neighborhood and had run out of ways to curse God and lager and whoever invented alcoholic beverages in the first place, he would wonder if maybe John had invited him to that particular pub with its weekly half-price deals on purpose, and immediately dismiss the idea on the grounds that John Watson was far too ethical and straightforward a man to scheme up something like that.
"'M really sorry," Lestrade said yet again, his tongue doing a drunken jig and tripping over the words. "Up to me, Serlock -- Sherlock'd be on th' case 'n a second. But, bur -- bruro -- brurocraty--"
"Bureaucracy?" John supplied helpfully, his own speech hardly slurred.
"Yes," Lestrade declared. "Tha'sit. 'S all brurocraty, y'know?" He waved a hand vaguely. "Gov'ment says no Sherlock, an' poof, no Sherlock."
John caught the bartender's eye and signaled for another round. She winked and nodded, and he smiled in return. Lestrade had never pegged him for a flirt. Seemed there were many new things he was learning about John Watson tonight, though he wasn't sure how well he'd remember them in the morning.
"The government?" John asked casually, handing Lestrade his drink. "Do you know who in the government?"
"Yeah," Lestrade said, nodding vigorously. He nearly slipped sideways off his stool with the motion, catching himself on the bar just in time. You didn't get to be a DI without decent reflexes, he supposed. "Yeah, yeah. 'S that guy, the big scary one. Serlock's brother, wassisface, Mecraft or summat."
"Mycroft." John no longer sounded casually interested; in fact he sounded rather angry.
"Tha's the one!" Lestrade nodded happily and almost fell off his stool again, but John caught his elbow in time, steadying him.
"It's late," he said, his voice and expression blandly polite again as he helped Lestrade up. He tugged out his wallet and threw down a handful of notes, hand perfectly steady. "Come on, I'll get you a cab."
*
Mycroft.
John swore softly under his breath, cursing Mycroft for tricking him and himself for being an idiot. He passed out from under a streetlight and stumbled over the curb, more than a little drunk himself.
Mycroft. How could he be so stupid? He wondered if this was how Sherlock felt when he deduced; all the dots had connected in his head, linked by bright, shining lines stretched taut between them. Sherlock's lack of access to the crime scenes. Toying with them: leaving a puzzle on their doorstep and then taking it away, or maybe destroying a hint left by an unknown party. It only made sense; no man could wield so much power without someone noticing. Digging through his memories, he was convinced the whiff of sulphur in the air of the warehouse that first day was more than just his memory playing tricks on him. Plastered or not, he was going to pay that hellspawn a visit and give him what was coming to him.
Pulling out his mobile phone, he impatiently checked the screen, only to be confronted again with the irritating phrase: No New Messages.
"Dammit, Sherlock," he muttered under his breath, firing off his umpteenth text. "Call me back." He checked that the ringer volume was on high and shoved the phone away again.
As he continued down the street, he caught sight of a security camera on a nearby storefront and stopped in his tracks, a horrible thought suddenly occurring to him. Was Mycroft watching him right now? Did he know John was (was, he told himself firmly, though his intentions belied his adamancy) a hunter? Harry and Clara-- shit. He fumbled for his mobile again, but before he could even dial the first digit an arm was bent around his throat, a hand twisting at his wrist until he dropped the phone. Instinctively he kicked back at his attacker. His foot connected with a leg (lower thigh, he guessed) but the man didn't even stumble. John was sober now, alcohol flooded out by a rush of adrenaline. Struggling, he was drawn backwards with the help of a second attacker into an abandoned store front with papered windows, invisible to any of the very few people who might walk down the street. John heard his mobile crushed underfoot in the melée and felt a brief flash of disappointment; he had hoped to keep the phone longer than Harry had.
A fist connected with his jaw and stars burst behind his eyes, momentarily dazing him as a gag was slipped into his half-open mouth and his feet were kicked out from under him. He only just kept his head from smashing into the tiled floor. Even before he could turn over, a kick to the ribs knocked the breath out of him, quickly followed by another.
"Enough." The voice was quiet and oddly familiar, with a natural air of command about it. Army training kicking in, John had the sudden urge to snap to attention. He drew in a sharp breath, the pain in his ribs pulling him back to the reality of the situation just in time to hear the man finish, "--Heart. He is not to be harmed."
Very carefully, John rolled over onto his back. Three men loomed over him, their faces cast in shadow. Two held handguns; the third stood a few steps back, arms crossed. He was obviously the one in control.
"You know the orders," the third man said. "We take him to the Boss."
"Y'hear that, Heart?" One of the lackeys knelt, his blandly forgettable face cast into sharp relief by the light from the half-open doorway. "You get to meet the Boss." He grinned wide, his eyes flickering black.
John Watson may have sworn off hunting years ago, but that didn't mean he didn't know how to protect himself. Beneath him, his fingers closed on a small vial of holy water in his jacket pocket, which he uncorked one-handedly. He blinked calmly up at his attacker before throwing its contents in the demon's face.
The demon overbalanced and fell, howling in pain as his face steamed between his fingers. He collapsed into the legs of the one in charge, leaving only the second lackey to stand in place, looking confused and not at all as menacing as he had only seconds before. John was on his feet in a flash, tearing off the gag and already running.
Ignoring the pain that flared in his ribs with every jolting step and gasping breath, he sprinted down the block, towards what he thought would be a busy intersection. He rounded the corner and would have cursed if he could spare the breath; he'd gotten turned around and the new street was just as deserted as the last. Halfway down the block, he turned his head to see if the demons had reached the corner yet. They hadn't, but he could hear them yelling. Still looking back over his shoulder, his foot caught on a crack in the sidewalk and suddenly he was falling, almost in slow motion. It seemed like forever until his palms hit the pavement and he didn't linger, already stumbling back to his feet.
"John!" Someone seized his wrist and dragged him through an open doorway. He heard the lock click solidly behind him, and a few moments later the sounds of the third demon spitting threats at his lackeys as they went thundering by. John stood very still for another few seconds, hand pressed painfully over his injured ribs as he tried to catch his breath. When he was sure the demons weren't about to turn back and kick down the door, he turned to face his rescuer.
"Molly?"
The pathologist's eyes were wide with surprise; she was dressed in sweats with her hair down as if she'd been just about to go to bed. She wordlessly took in his appearance: the bruised jaw, the way he held his ribs, the vomit stain on his shirt. (The last was all Lestrade's, thankfully, but John was sure it didn't help his image.)
It quickly became clear that Molly was waiting for John to speak first, and so he did. "I-- Thank you. Thanks, really, but-- what are you doing here?"
"I live here."
"That's . . . convenient, I guess." He didn't wonder if it was maybe too convenient -- don't look a gift horse in the mouth, and all that -- although perhaps he should have. "Thanks for your help, again, but I really should go."
"Let me take a look first," she insisted, pulling him down the hall and into the kitchen. For such a timid person, she was surprisingly strong. She sat him down at the kitchen table and pulled an ice compress from the freezer. "Take off your shirt and hold this to your face," she told him, frowning disapprovingly. How she had mastered the physician's signature "doctor's orders" look without any live patients to practise on John wasn't sure, but he complied nevertheless. His throbbing cheek had just begun to go pleasantly numb when a sharp prod to his injured ribs made him jump.
"Ow, careful," he griped, readjusting the ice compress. "This one's not dead yet." He had the vague sort of feeling that he was being rather rude, but anxiety and a killer headache were one hell of a combo.
"Guess it's true." Molly smiled, seeming mildly amused. "Doctors really do make the worst patients. It's just a bruise."
"Well at least there's one thing going my way tonight." John frowned at his side, where an ugly purplish spot was already spreading across his ribs, and shifted the ice compress from his jaw to his torso.
"I'll just throw this in the washer." Molly held up his vomit-stained shirt. "Hang on, I'll see if I can find anything to fit you while you wait."
"No, I really--" John began, half standing. But she was already out of the room, and he sank back into his chair with a sigh. Something brushed past his ankles and he started in surprise, looking down in time to see a well-groomed tabby disappear in the other direction from his mistress. Jittery and impatient, John listened to the whir of the washer starting, and a few moments later Molly returned with a gender-neutral white button-down.
"Lucky you're small," she told him, passing it over. "It should just fit."
It did exactly that, the fabric straining slightly to wrap around his sturdy frame but buttoning up without too much trouble.
"Really, Molly, thank you," he said, standing. "But I've got to go. I'll return the shirt next time I'm at Bart's." A thought of the power Mycroft Holmes possessed and what a demon could do with that power propelled him out the door and down the street, whistling for a cab.
*
"Sherlock," John called urgently, 221's front door slamming shut behind him. He thundered up the stairs, jacket and shoes still on. "Sherlock!"
He burst through the flat door, causing Clara and Harry to look up in surprise, tangled together on the sofa. The telly was on again, turned down to background noise. The newspaper articles on the Ripper were spread out across the coffee table, along with John's open laptop and a few old books that seemed to be mainly about spells and demons.
"Haven't seen him," Harry said absently, a bit preoccupied with the fingers trailing across her partner's thigh.
"By the way, John, you really want to think about getting some better security for this thing." Clara clicked the laptop shut. "Honestly, a monkey could hack in."
John chose to ignore the prod at his technological skills in favor of nudging the doormat with his foot, checking that the devil's trap he'd inked on the underside was still intact.
"Listen, I've got news," he said, already heading to the kitchen for salt, and the salt rounds he'd hidden under the sink. "And Harry, I need to borrow your phone."
"What's wrong with yours?" she yelled after him.
"It got stepped on." He tossed a canister of rock salt at each of them before moving to lay lines on the windowsill.
"You stepped on it?" she yelped, though she disentangled one arm in order to lob her own mobile across the room at him without further protest. The two hunters finally separated and got off their arses in order to help John to lay the salt lines. "That phone was a gift from your dear sister!"
"I didn't say I stepped on it, did I?" Shaking out salt with one hand and putting in Sherlock's number with the other, he misdialed twice before finally getting it right. His text read:
> Don't you ever check your
> messages, you arse?
> COME HOME NOW.
> Don't speak to Mycroft.
> JW
To John's surprise, he received a reply before he'd even finished lining a single windowsill.
> As if I would. SH
> I'm serious, Sherlock.
> On my way. SH
*
Sherlock hit send and shook his head, scrolling through his text inbox. How many messages had John sent? (The answer, in fact, was fourteen texts and two voicemails, not including the messages he had just received from what was most likely John's sister's phone. By far Sherlock's favorite text was this:
> Dammit you bastard
> I'm drunk and your brother
> is maybe a murderer.
> ANSWER YOUR BLOODY
> PHONE
All caps indicated urgency, and Sherlock was nearly certain he hadn't done anything in the past twenty-four hours to warrant a row. This led him to the obvious conclusion that John's phone had been lost or destroyed in some sort of struggle in the hour and a half since his last text. Good, the case was finally going somewhere.)
He didn't bother to check the voice messages, assuming that they were all of the same general tone as the texts, but merely put his phone away and walked on. No sooner had he let go, though, than the mobile buzzed out another new text. The caller ID was the same as before -- Harry's phone. John again.
> Keep to busy streets.
And a moment later:
> Better yet, get a cab.
> Be careful.
Though it was only a text, the worry behind it was nearly palpable. Suddenly, the darkness seemed to press a little closer around him, and his legs sped up without bidding. The quickest way back to Baker Street would be to cut through the alley coming up on his left, but John's anxiety lingered deep in the pit of his stomach, and he hesitated.
It was probably nothing but paranoia, Sherlock decided finally. The best way to assuage John's fears was to get home as quickly as possible, anyway. As he turned into the narrow swath cut through the menacingly tall buildings, his phone buzzed yet again. He briefly considered just turning it off, but took it out again anyway.
The brightly lit screen was ruining his night vision, he noticed irritably. The text read:
> If you're not here in
> fifteen minutes I'm
> coming after you. Clear?
> Crystal. SH
Something moved out of the corner of his eye, just out of reach of the phone's glow. There was the slight scrape of shoe on pavement and Sherlock burst into motion, striking out towards the noise. Half-blind in the darkness, he missed, the figure ducking easily out of harm's way. A second figure, previously unnoticed, emerged from behind to give Sherlock a solid hit to the back of the head. It sent him reeling into the alley wall and he went down, phone clattering away into the darkness.
Through a daze, he half-noticed that his eyes had readjusted to the darkness and that all that was in his line of sight was a scattering of mortar dust, knocked loose likely by his head connecting with the bricks. Unable to make his brain stop working overtime even then, he noted the type of mortar and the year and season in which it had been laid. He touched the numb spot on his scalp, and his hand came away sticky with blood.
High above his head, someone growled, "Doesn't seem so tough. We sure this is the right one?"
"Boss said this one," the other man replied. "Didn't he also say to stay away?"
"Don't be stupid. When we hand him over to the boss all nice and tidy-like in a neat little bow, see if you'll want to have stayed away then."
He was used to criminals knowing him, of course. In fact they seemed to be making a point of it lately, and so he tuned out the rest of the exchange (dull) in favor of studying his attackers now that his night vision had returned in full, albeit slightly fuzzed around the edges. There were two of them, both men, aggressive postures with the classic look of stereotypical thugs-for-hire. All in all, perfectly normal members of the criminal class. He did notice that he couldn't see the whites of their eyes, though that was easily explained by the bad lighting or the knock to the head. He'd need more precise data to be sure.
Suddenly the taller of the two seemed to spasm and collapse. It took Sherlock several seconds to notice the gunshot through the pounding in his ears. A rifle butt came down on the second attacker's head and he fell, too. To Sherlock's dull surprise, the first man began struggling to his feet, despite the ragged hole in his stomach.
"Salt rounds," he growled at the gun-wielding man. "That's just not fair."
"Well now, that's debatable," the man said, giving the first attacker a whack about the head with his rifle butt as well. He began to mutter in a foreign tongue -- Latin, some small portion of Sherlock's brain recognized dimly -- but the pounding in Sherlock's ears grew louder, coming in like high tide and sweeping him out to sea.
*
Sherlock came to to the distant sound of sirens. With some effort, he sat up, noting by the congealing blood on the ground that he hadn't been out for more than five minutes.
To his surprise, the man (Sherlock refused to give him such a trite title as rescuer or savior, and anyway, that was John's job) was still there, arms folded, eyes glaring. Tall, black, American. Even through the haze, Sherlock's brain sped off in a whirl of deductions. Jewish, but not devoutly so; some sort of vigilante, possibly. Older, retired for a while, but back to his old lifestyle now. Something had happened to reintroduce him, and he wasn't particularly happy about it. He favored whiskey, his preferred brand Johnny Walker, and he drank more of it than was probably good for him.
"You just gonna sit there oglin' me all night or you gonna say somethin', boy?"
But Sherlock's mouth didn't quite seem to want to work -- a very new, quite disturbing feeling for him -- and just then his phone buzzed, on the ground near the vigilante's feet. He dove for it, knowing John would make good on his threat to storm the streets of London if Sherlock wasn't home on time.
"Yeah, you're welcome," the vigilante muttered. "Cops are on their way. I," he emphasized, jerking a thumb at himself, "was never here. We clear?" Before Sherlock could even look up from the bright glow of his phone, the man was gone in the dark.
> Six minutes.
> Might be late. I'm
> okay, not dead yet. SH
> WHAT? Sherlock, where
> the hell are you? I'm
> coming to get you.
> I'll get a cab. SH
*
John let out a long breath, softly closing the door to Sherlock's bedroom behind him. He made his way back to the sitting room, where Clara was assembling cloth salt bombs and Harry sat in front of several bottles of water, blessing each in turn. She capped the last one and slipped the rosary back into her pocket, studying John with narrowed eyes. "How is he?"
"He's fine." John shrugged and grabbed an empty duffel from by Clara's feet. "Just a bump on the head. Not even a concussion." He took a shotgun from the table and checked the chambers for salt rounds before slipping it into the bag. "He's had worse, believe me." He dropped a few bottles of holy water after the gun, and started for the door.
"Hey, whoa, where are you going?" Harry yanked the bag out of his grasp as he passed.
"To talk to that bastard Mycroft." He reached for the bag, but she pulled it out of his reach and tossed it across the room to Clara, who stuffed it safely under the sofa.
"Not tonight, you're not." Harry gripped his shoulder and pointed him towards the stairs. "We've already had two attacks tonight. In the morning we'll all go together. Clear?"
John seemed to deflate. "Yeah."
"Good. Now, bed." She jabbed a finger upwards. "I'll kip on the floor; Clara'll take the couch."
"Who d'you think you are, Mum?" he muttered, but obediently shrugged off his jacket and clomped up the stairs.
| Act Two -->
Act One: In which John Watson is not a hunter.
Twenty-seven years ago
Sherlock’s dreams tumbled through his head and spilled out his ears like a waterfall, splashing across his pillow. Trying to keep a grip on them was trying to hold the tide in his hands.
He opened his eyes to himself -- a drawing of himself -- standing proudly at the bow of a two-masted schooner. The ship was drawn precisely to scale, rigging and all, but the depiction of himself stood several inches taller than it should have, a broadsword strapped to its side.
From the other side of the room, Mycroft spoke, voice hushed. “I don’t understand what you want me to do.”
Sherlock went very still, deepening his breathing deliberately. He’d once read a book where a boy was trying to feign sleep, and was caught because he’d held his breath.
“But what’ll happen to me?”
Sherlock almost turned over. There had been no one else speaking, he was sure of it. There was no one for Mycroft to be talking to. And on top of that, he’d never heard Mycroft sound like this. He almost sounded scared, but that couldn’t be right, because big brothers never got scared.
“Do you promise? Do you promise he’ll be safe?” Sherlock lay still as Mycroft shifted and crawled out of bed. Listening closely to the sound of footsteps on the thinly carpeted floor, Sherlock waited until he was sure his brother was facing the other way before very quietly, very carefully rolling over. His eyes had to strain to see much in the darkness, but he was positive that there was no third person in the room.
By the desk in the corner, Mycroft stood with his back turned to Sherlock. He seemed to be looking at the model ship, half finished, that the brothers had spent the last month carefully slotting together piece by piece. Moonlight reflected off the glossy football poster on the wall, casting Mycroft’s figure into sharp relief. “And it’s the only way?” There was a short pause before Mycroft said, “Then, okay.” He sounded more determined, now; more like he did when playing Pirate King or telling Sherlock what to do. “Yes.”
In an instant, the room flooded with light. Sherlock squeezed his eyes shut and pulled the covers over his head, eyes searing. When the glow faded, he peeked out to see Mycroft standing over him, his expression oddly blank.
“Go to sleep, Sherlock,” Mycroft ordered. There was something in his tone, something new, and Sherlock thought -- knew -- that this was no longer his brother. But before the impression could come together to form a coherent idea, Mycroft had reached out to touch two fingers to his forehead, and Sherlock tumbled back into the roaring waters of his dreams.
*
March 29 - SEVEN
"Well?" Lestrade's arms were crossed as Sherlock stood, taking a careful step back from the body. "What've you got?"
Sherlock didn't answer right away, taking a final long look at the corpse and surrounding area before launching into his deductions. "There's salt residue on the shirt," he began, "probably tears -- not his -- and hardly any posthumous bruising. Most killers wouldn't take so much care when dumping a body, so - someone who cared about him. He was a small man, but heavy. It would take two people to easily lift and carry the body. But there are only two pairs of footprints leading to and from the body: the killer, and the jogger who found it. So, someone strong, strong enough to lift a grown man and carry him here from the parking lot. These footprints are obviously the jogger's: athletic shoes, panicked and widely spaced, pacing as she waited for the police to arrive. So this one is the killer's. Deeper coming towards the body than away, because he or she had extra weight. Size six shoes, no, six and a half, a little over five feet by the stride. Definitely a woman. She tripped here." he pointed to a flurry of prints a few meters from the body, where a smudged pair of handprints were clearly visible in the dirt. "Small, strong hands, probably a serious athlete, likely a gymnast. So, close to the victim, around five feet tall, athletic, skinned palms from her fall," he concluded, then turned and strode over to the victim's wife and adult daughter, who were milling around anxiously by the crime scene tape.
"Hey!" the daughter protested as Sherlock seized her wrist and forcefully turned her palm upwards.
"Scraped hands," he proclaimed triumphantly. She was led away by a pair of uniforms, face twisted with anger and despair as she protested the accusation. Next to Sherlock, the widow began to sob, shoulders shaking. "Boring," he declared of the case to no one in particular, and the woman buried her face in her hands.
From across the crime scene, John shot Sherlock a Look. He had many Looks, but this one said quite plainly: Bit not good, Sherlock. Go apologize before I punch you.
Rolling his eyes at his flatmate, Sherlock turned to the sobbing woman next to him. Fascinating, the sheer volume of tears that a grieving widow can produce. He ought to do a study on that. With all the sincerity he could muster, he said to the woman, "I'm very sorry for your loss." He opened his mouth to say more, a comforting statistic on murders committed by family members, but John nodded approvingly in his direction and he decided to leave it.
As he left the crime scene, he distantly heard Sally Donovan comment, "Who would have guessed the Freak would ever have gotten a heart?"
*
March 30 - SIX
"God." John shook his head at the front page of the paper. "Have you seen this, Sherlock?"
"Of course." Sherlock didn't even look up from the chemicals he was oh-so-carefully measuring out. "No data in the article, of course. Dull. Reporters wouldn't know important information if it hit them over the head."
"There are twelve people dead, Sherlock." Sherlock's eyes flickered guiltily at John's disapproving tone, but he held his ground.
"Lestrade won't let me in this early," he said dismissively. "Give it a day or two."
John put the newspaper aside, but the headline (MASS MURDER AT BELOVED DINER) still lingered, bold and foreboding, inside his eyelids.
*
March 31 - FIVE
Sherlock was intrigued.
Papers were strewn about the sitting room floor, scattered with a sweep of his arm to clear a space on the desk. He leaned forward on his elbows, fingers steepled beneath a pale chin as he examined the crisp, perfectly untouched package before him. He couldn't get a single scrap of data from the exterior at all. The address was typed (Mr. Not A Hero, 221b Baker Street, London, NW1 5LA), the stationary and plain brown wrapping Royal Mail standard-issue. Overnight delivery, likely packaged at the post office. Even the tape, prised oh-so-carefully from the paper and checked for fingerprints, yielded no results.
Finally he simply ripped the paper away, revealing a plain white box about the size of a human skull. Again he examined it closely, with the same outcome. Not a single fact could be gained from either the wrapping or the box. This was new, this was fascinating. With only the slightest bit of reverence, he lifted the lid of the box.
Inside was . . . a jug.
It was a little anticlimactic. He carefully removed the jug - more of an amphora, really - and set it down on the desk, running his fingers over the clay. It was ancient, that much was obvious. Probably Middle Eastern in origin, judging from the clay color. Without in-depth analysis he'd put it at around three millennia, but of course it was possible that it was much, much older. But it couldn't be a puzzle all on its own -- a jug, after all, is simply a container, a vessel for holding water or wine or -- oil? Completely disregarding all basic safety precautions, he dipped a finger in the filmy liquid. Yes, definitely an oil of some sort.
His interest piqued, he collected samples of his specimens (the amphora was obviously far too important and fragile to be lugging about London, even by his standards), and in twenty minutes he was settled in at his favorite lab table at Bart's.
*
A little over six hours later, Sherlock received a text.
> Off work. You haven't
> texted me all day. Are
> you dead?
With all the speed of an expert typist with something far more important to be doing, Sherlock quickly returned:
> Bart's. Now. SH
> There in ten. Try not
> to terrorize the poor
> students too much
> before I get there, yeah?
Sherlock didn't bother to reply, returning to his tests on the properties of the mysterious oil.
*
John strolled through the doors under eight minutes later, rather impressed with himself for the casual manner he had commanded all the way from the surgery. "So, what is it that can keep you occupied for seven hours straight? Have you discovered a new form of mold? Or, wait, don't tell me -- the leftovers in the fridge have finally gained sentience. Am I close?"
"Don't be silly, John, that was last week. Come look at this." Sherlock sidestepped, allowing John access to his microscope. Surprised, John leaned forward to take a look.
"It's just a drop of oil."
"Wrong." Sherlock indicated a messy stack of papers, all covered edge to edge in an odd medley of computer readouts and the detective's own neat hand. "It has all the properties of common vegetable oil - viscosity, density, surface tension - but it's highly flammable and seems not to burn out. Look." He pointed at a tiny flickering flame in the midst of the lab equipment. "Its fuel was two drops of oil and a single match. It hasn't gone out since I lit it precisely five hours and eighteen minutes ago."
John briefly studied the rough stretch of chemical structure that Sherlock had drawn out and shook his head. "I've never seen anything like it."
"Nor have I." Sherlock grinned, more excited by this new puzzle than John had seen him in a long while. "It arrived in the post this morning. And that's not all. This--" he pulled a paper from the stack with a flourish "--is the initial analysis of the clay from the container it arrived in. Radiocarbon dating of the organic matter within the clay suggests an approximate age of six thousand years."
John laughed. "Okay, Sherlock, now you're just pulling my leg."
"I assure you, John, the results are real."
"Right. Okay, assuming this jug of oil really is six thousand years old, it's a priceless historical artifact. Why would someone mail it to you?"
"It obviously has a more immediate significance. Come along, John." Sherlock swept all his papers up in one deft movement and dumped them into John's arms. "I'll need more samples. We have work to do."
*
"Good afternoon, Sherlock, Dr. Watson. Would you care for a cup of tea?" Mycroft Holmes smiled in that diplomatically polite way of his, having just replaced the lid on John's teapot. How Mycroft always managed to finish steeping the tea the moment they walked in the door was an ongoing mystery to John. Probably he had an employee notify him when their cab was exactly six and a half blocks away.
"What do you want, Mycroft?" Sherlock sounded distinctly less bad-tempered than he often did when his brother came to call, but bad-tempered all the same.
"Can't a man visit his dear younger brother without a reason?"
"Not when that man is you, no." Flopping down on the couch like a sulky teenager, Sherlock narrowly missed knocking the teapot from Mycroft's hand with his ridiculously long legs. John wasn't sure he hadn't done it on purpose. "I do hope you didn't help yourself to the Jaffa cakes. John is ever so fond of them; it would be a shame if you finished them all."
Mycroft smiled blandly, hooking his umbrella over his arm as he stood. "What a pleasant chat. Good afternoon." He breezed out the door, closing it silently behind him.
John looked blank. "He didn't want anything?"
"He always wants something," Sherlock growled. He pointed at the clay shards beside the desk: the ancient amphora, dashed to pieces on the floor. Not a drop of oil remained.
"Your brother broke into our flat just to steal some oil you got in the post?"
"That appears to be the logical explanation." Anger making his movements quick and jolting, he pulled his results from the hospital lab towards him and began to go through them again.
With a shake of his head, John sighed and moved to get the dustpan. A rustling under his feet made him pause. "What's this?" He stooped to pick up the wrapping from the amphora's original packaging.
"It's useless," Sherlock said, not looking up. "Bin it."
"No, but it's got writing on it. Look! It was on the inside; you must have missed it."
Sherlock was at his side in a flash, seizing the paper from his hands and examining it closely. "The handwriting is immaculate," he noted, tilting it towards the light. "Obviously a disguised hand, quite well done. Likely male, although it's hard to be certain. Some sort of code." He spread the paper out flat on the desk, reading the series of numbers out loud. "One-one-nine-oh-eight-one-four."
"What is it?"
"A code, an address, a phone number, a number sequence, a URL, a password, it could be anything. We'll have to narrow it down."
*
"Sherlock, what are you doing here? I didn't call you, did I?" Lestrade rubbed his forehead wearily.
"Heard about it over the police scanner," Sherlock said, brushing past the DI, but Lestrade caught his arm before he could reach the yellow crime scene tape.
"Sorry," he said, sounding genuinely apologetic. "Not this time."
"Don't be ridiculous," Sherlock scoffed. "Two mass murders in three days and not a single suspect; the police are clearly out of their depth."
"You're not wrong there." (Like he's ever wrong, Lestrade thought privately.) "But it's orders from higher-ups. No consultants on this one, particularly you."
Sherlock scowled. "I'll hear from you by tomorrow evening," he predicted, turning away with a swish of his long coat. "John," he called, as if his flatmate were nothing more than an exceptionally well-trained dog. John, who had been some ways away examining something on his fingers with great fascination, jumped guiltily as if caught doing something illicit or potentially embarrassing and hurried to catch up with the cab Sherlock had seemingly pulled from thin air.
"They'll be begging for my help soon enough," Sherlock sniffed.
"Hmm," John agreed, discreetly wiping his fingers clean on his trouser leg.
"Where to, loves?" the kindly-faced cabbie inquired.
"221 Baker Street," Sherlock said dismissively, turning to John. "Do you smell anything odd?"
"Such as?"
"Sulphur. The odor is also similar to rotten eggs, but no, it's definitely sulphur."
"No," John said firmly, but his eyes flickered warily towards the front seat several times throughout the rest of the drive.
"Here we are, loves," the cheerful driver said finally. "221b Baker. That'll be ten quid twenty."
As usual, Sherlock slipped out on to the sidewalk practically before the cab even rolled to a full stop, leaving John to pay the fare. John handed it over with rather more caution than usual and followed his flatmate out of the cab.
"Oh, and love?" the cabbie called after him, leaning her silver head out the window. "Say hello to dear Clara for me, will you?" Before John could react, the cab sped off into the flow of Central London, leaving him bewildered on the pavement.
"Are you coming inside, dear?" Mrs. Hudson asked from the doorway. "Only it's rather warm outside and air-conditioning doesn't come cheaply, you understand."
"Yes, of course, Mrs. Hudson. Sorry."
"Not a problem, dear." The elderly landlady looked startled as he rushed past, wrestling his mobile from his jacket pocket as he went.
*
April 1 - FOUR
"Oi, John-boy!" John opened the door to find himself pulled into a huge bear hug. Taller than her brother and built like a brick wall, Harriet Watson was a force to be reckoned with. She let him struggle for a minute before releasing him, then stood back with a wide grin. "Think you've gotten smaller, John, what's that about?"
John laughed breathlessly, rolling his shoulders. "Good to see you too, Harry. Clara." He leaned to one side, peering round his sister to nod at the woman on the stoop.
"You called?" she prompted quietly, her American accent strange to hear in the middle of London. Smaller and more soft-spoken then her partner, Clara Warner was nonetheless equally dangerous, when she had to be.
"Yeah, this better be important, John-o," Harry warned with a grin. "We were trailing a couple of storm kelpies up at Inverness when you called; you know how much I like taking those suckers out. You say you've got demons?"
"Yeah." John absentmindedly thumped his sister on the shoulder and she sidestepped in response, so all three could see each other. "It's one of Sherlock's," John continued, "or he thinks it is. But they're not letting him on the case." The additional "Thank God" was silent, but nonetheless hung in the air between them. There was movement from upstairs, and John glanced nervously behind him at the steps that led to 221b. "I'll give you the details later." 'Later' being 'when Sherlock isn't around'.
"Can we meet him?" Harry asked, following his gaze.
"I'm not sure that's such a good idea," John said, thinking of how much Sherlock had been able to tell about him with a single glance the first time they'd met. It was probably only thanks to the time that had elapsed since his retirement (if you could call it that) that the great detective hadn't been able to guess at his full past. But Harry was already halfway up the stairs, feet thundering like a herd of cattle.
"Don't worry," Clara said to John with a small smile, stepping inside. "We showered and changed clothes before we came. He won't get much from us."
John shrugged helplessly, waving for her to go ahead of him. "I guess we'll see."
*
Upstairs, Sherlock was sprawled on the sofa, fingers steepled beneath his chin. A sharpie was abandoned on the floor and John looked up to see the code from the package wrapping scrawled on the ceiling several times in various permutations above the detective's head. He opened his mouth to complain but then thought better of it, instead gesturing towards the two hunters. "Sherlock, this is my sister Harry and her wife, Clara."
"Ex-wife," Clara corrected, but neither woman seemed particularly bothered by the mistake.
"Busy," Sherlock grunted.
"Sherlock."
Sherlock huffed. "Sorry, yes, hello, nice to meet you, good-bye."
"What's that you're looking at?" Harry asked, completely unfazed.
"It was written in a package he got in the mail," John answered, when it became clear that Sherlock wasn't about to. "It had a jug of some weird oil, and this." He gestured exasperatedly at the writing on the ceiling, but two pairs of ears had metaphorically pricked at the mention of an unusual substance. John shot Harry a warning glance, but not one of the dozens of kinds of "be careful" looks she'd seen before. This one said, "He's clever and he's important and he knows everything but this. Don't ruin it."
But when had Harry ever listened to John's cautions? "What sort of oil?"
Sherlock waved a hand at his last remaining sample, sealed in a glass vial on the desk. "Don't compromise it," he warned, more of a concession than he usually granted when it came to strangers and important evidence. Clara wandered over to have a look, while Harry returned her attention to the numbers on the ceiling.
"You've gotten the reference already, yeah?"
Sherlock was on his feet in a flash. "What reference?"
Harry looked startled. "Reckon not, then. 1984, like the novel? Room 101? The numbers alternate, see, one, and then the other one, then the nine--"
"Of course!" Sherlock tripped gracelessly over to the pile of books left over from the Blind Banker case. He tore through the stack, throwing irrelevant books back behind him over his head, until he found the one he was looking for.
"Here!" Sherlock rifled quickly through the pages, probably taking in more of the plot in a few moments than most people took in when actually reading it. "Yes. John, I'm going out. Don't wait up." Seizing his coat and scarf, Sherlock threw the book to one side and dashed out the door.
*
John shook his head as he watched Sherlock disappear into the dusk, his arm held out for a cab. He turned away from the window to face his guests.
"Right," he said. "Takeout?"
"Thai," Harry volunteered. Clara shrugged in agreement.
"There's a place down the street that delivers." John began rooting round the mess of papers on the desk, searching for the menu and phone number.
"So, where's that luxurious suite of ours?" Harry hefted her duffel bag over one shoulder.
"Thought you had a hotel?" John said absently, shifting to one side a stack of bills and several pages that looked as though they'd been torn out of a library book on wormholes.
"It was a by-the-hour place." Clara pulled the takeout menus from under the skull on the mantel and passed them to John. "We checked out."
John shrugged, busy trying to type the restaurant's number into his mobile with one hand. "You can take my room. Upstairs, on your left."
Harry nodded, catching the bag Clara threw at her with her free hand, and headed up the stairs.
"You're not sitting up all night for our sake, John Watson," Clara warned.
John's phone buzzed in his hand, and he clicked out of the dial screen to view the text.
> She's been sober nearly
> four months, if you
> were wondering. SH
John smiled as he redialed the takeout number. "Sofa's fine," he said, lifting the phone to his ear as he turned away.
*
"So how are things?" John asked quietly. "Between you and her." Both were leaned back comfortably, Clara's head pillowed on his chest. The television was on, its volume set low enough to be nothing but a soft, comforting murmur in the background. Clara had always been unnerved by silence.
"They're fine," she answered, her eyes shut against the flickering glare from the telly. "Better lately, since she quit drinking."
A smile drifted across John's face. "Sherlock said nearly four months. Was he close?"
"Spot on." Clara looked about as a pleased as John had ever seen her, including the time she'd taken down a whole nest of vampires single-handed. "And I think she'll keep at it this time; I really do. She's been even better since you called. Happier."
He shifted beneath her, his tone colored with surprise. "Really?"
"Really. She loves you more than anything. Hell of a lot more than she loves me." She levered herself up on an elbow and twisted to look at him, auburn hair pooling on his stomach. "Did you really not know that?" He shook his head wordlessly and she lay down again with a sigh, wriggling a little to get comfortable. "Then you're an idiot," she declared, and he chuckled. "Do you know," she continued, and her voice was softer now, so that John had to strain to hear it over the sound of the telly, "do you know, the only time I ever saw her cry was when you walked out?"
John couldn't find anything to say.
"Harry Watson," she murmured into his chest, a secret meant only for his heart, "is the best woman either of us will ever meet."
"That I do know."
Clara reached over and switched off the television, leaving two old friends to lie in friendly darkness and forget the silence.
*
April 2 - THREE
John flew awake with a grunt of surprise as something heavy dropped onto his stomach.
"You know," Harry said loudly, "if I were a less secure woman I'd feel really threatened by this."
Scowling blearily, Clara swatted at her partner's shoulder. "Gerroff us, you big lump."
Laughing, Harry jumped up with surprising grace for someone of her size and moved well out of arm's reach. Clara rolled off John and onto the floor.
"Ooh." John sat up, pulling faces as he rubbed at his shoulder. "Now I know why Mum always made one of us sleep on the couch." He paused, wrinkling his nose. "Has Sherlock left the head out of the fridge again or did Harry try to cook?"
"Ha ha." Harry made a face. "That's the smell of bread catching fire in the toaster."
"The blue one or the metallic one?"
She looked at him blankly. "What blue one?"
John's expression could be described as more than a little smug. "The metallic one is for Sherlock's experiments. But don't worry, he's sanitized it since the thing with the toes. I think."
"Eww." Harry pretended to gag. "Here, Clara, sharing is caring." She crouched down to capture the half-sleeping hunter's mouth in a kiss. Clara responded with enthusiasm.
Rolling his eyes, John tugged at his rumpled shirt and went to collect the myriad of daily papers Sherlock was subscribed to from the front stoop. It was only a few moments later that his feet could be heard pounding back up the stairs. Harry and Clara broke apart in surprise.
"Sorry to interrupt," he said, holding up the front page, "but you've got work to do."
*
"Three killings," John said grimly, adding the clipping from that morning's paper to the small pile on the coffee table. "Thirty-five people dead. No pattern to them, just that they were all public businesses in Central London. Sherlock's already marked the first two." He waved a hand tiredly in the direction of the vast London map pinned to the wall. Clara wandered over to study it, leaving Harry to sift through the pile of articles. John caught glimpses of headlines he'd already seen: MASS MURDER AT BELOVED DINER; SECOND KILLING IN CITY CENTRE; RIPPER STILL AT LARGE, POLICE BAFFLED. The latest one read: RETAIL RIPPER STRIKES AGAIN. John couldn't help thinking that Sherlock was right: the police would be asking for his help any day now. His stomach knotted at the idea of Sherlock on a demon case. A mind that rational and empirical could never accept the idea of the supernatural without proof, and by the time he was close enough to get that proof he'd be long dead.
It was Harry who snapped him out of his silent panic attack. "Was there sulphur at every scene?" she asked, skimming through one of the articles on the second killing, where two writers from the opinion columns argued back and forth on whether this was a serial killer or political terrorism.
"It's not in the articles, but I think so." John reached for a clipping from one of yesterday's papers. "If it wasn't a consistent thing I don't think they would have kept it out of the media."
"No use deterring copycats if it's not all the same," Harry agreed, frowning at a blurred photograph of a pair of body bags being wheeled out of a shoe store. The blinds were drawn, giving the whole place a cold, dead feeling.
"Hey," Clara said from the wall map. "I think I have a pattern."
John and Harry were at her shoulders in an instant. "It's a triangle," John said after a moment, feeling every bit as stupid as he did when Sherlock was urging him to notice something. "And?"
"Look," Clara said, tapping each tack with a long, thin finger. "It's an equilateral triangle. Sixty degree angles and equal sides."
"What's in the center?" Harry wondered, leaning in closer to the map.
"That's a good question." Clara reached for the string taped to the wall probably for just such a purpose and deftly measured off the medians, making a mark where the three lines intersected.
"Oh my God," she said, after a moment of squinting at the tiny penciled label.
"What?" Harry leaned in close to look. "Shit."
"What is it?" Worry flared again in John's gut. Clara sidestepped to make room, and John found himself blinking at the small, neatly labeled words next to Clara's pencil mark: 221 Baker Street.
"John," said Harry, turning wide eyes on her brother. "They're coming for you."
*
The sudden tension in the room was shattered suddenly by a quiet rap on the flat door. They all jumped, and John hurried to sweep the newspaper clippings off the coffee table and under the sofa.
"Boys," called Mrs. Hudson, "Inspector Lestrade is here to see you. Are you decent in there?"
"Yes, come in, Greg," John said, waving Harry and Clara away from the wall map, but he needn't have bothered. Lestrade couldn't see a thing above the two large file boxes balanced precariously in his arms. Harry hurried over, lifting the top box away with hardly an effort.
"Cheers," the detective said gratefully, setting down the second box and rubbing his shoulders with a wince. "Swear those things have gotten heavier over the years. Morning," he added, now directing his speech directly at John. "Sherlock in?"
"Haven't seen him since last night. Are you putting him on the case?"
"The serial mass murders? No, sorry, orders still stand. Bet he's been absolutely insufferable about it." Lestrade sighed, his shoulders slack with exhaustion. "I thought I'd bring him some cold cases. Might keep him busy for a day or two."
John quietly let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding. "Well, thanks. I'll let him know when he gets back." Noting the way the inspector's eyes flickered curiously in the hunters' direction, he added, "Greg, this is my sister, Harry, and her--" he paused, remembering yesterday's slip-up "--partner, Clara Warner."
Lestrade nodded in acknowledgement. "Greg Lestrade."
"Do you know why Sherlock's not allowed on the case?" John asked, hoping to God he only sounded casually curious.
"No idea." Lestrade scratched his wrist absently. "Anyway, I've got to run. Stop by the Yard if you need any more cold cases, though I don't know how many I have left later than 1950." He gave them all a brief, tired smile and showed himself out.
"Did you see the way he scratched his hand?" Harry asked, after the door had shut behind him and his footsteps faded down the stairs. "He knows more than he's telling." She turned decisively to John. "You'll have to get him sloshed."
"What? Why?"
"Well he's already seen us, so we can't exactly pass for MI5," Clara reasoned. "And Moran's not picking up his mobile."
"Moran?" John considered the hunter he'd met in Afghanistan. Best sniper he'd ever seen, and not a bad hunter either. "Since when are you in touch with Moran?"
"Since he saved both our asses from a pair of djinn last year." Clara yawned. "I need coffee."
"Left cabinet, second shelf," John directed. "Check for body parts," he called after her. Harry laughed.
"Harry." Suddenly speaking in hushed, serious tones, John grabbed his sister by the arm. "I need to talk to you."
Eyes flickering towards the kitchen, he soundlessly drew her out to the landing outside the flat door, pulling it closed behind him.
"What is it?" Harry's good humor had dissipated like mist: she was all business now.
"It's Clara," he said. "I think something's after her." In as few words as possible, he briefly outlined his encounter with the demon cabbie. "Can you think of anyone, a demon who got away, or--"
"No, I don't know . . . Are you sure she was a demon?"
"Well, no." He let out a long breath. "But if she was -- just keep an eye out."
"Yeah. Yeah, of course."
John turned to go back inside, then paused. "Could it be a demon she met before she started hunting with us?"
Her eyes widened. "You don't think--?"
"I don't know."
"God," she said, running fingers through her short hair in frustration. She was glaring at the door as if she could burn a hole in it and check on Clara through the wood. "She can't know about this. If there's any chance--"
"Hey." He touched her shoulder. "If anyone can keep a secret, it's us, right?" Without waiting for an answer, he reached across and opened the door.
Clara was already back from the kitchen, just juggling three steaming mugs of coffee onto the table. She looked up as they entered. "Where've you two been, then?"
"Helping Mrs. Hudson with the groceries," John invented wildly.
Though Clara had almost certainly noticed, she said nothing, instead holding up the blue striped mug. "Still black, no sugar?" she asked, handing it off.
"Cheers," John said, glad for the change of subject. He took a sip and pretended to choke on it. "God, Clara, I see your coffee-making skills haven't improved."
"Better than mine, at any rate," Harry said cheerfully, all trace of worry gone from her face. "Bottoms up."
*
Lestrade was drunk.
Really, seriously, pissed-off-his-arse drunk. He'd lost count of rounds somewhere around a dozen, and the world had turned a curious shade of sideways sometime after that.
In his defense, he hadn't meant to get smashed. When John Watson invited him out for a pint he'd thought sure, the Ripper case wasn't going anywhere and he hadn't had more than a few hours away from work since it started. He needed a break before he had a break-down. Just a few pints, night out with a friend, he'd thought. But he hadn't counted on the half-price lager, and he certainly hadn't anticipated just how well the good doctor could hold his liquor. In the morning, when he no longer had the urge to smash every lightbulb in the neighborhood and had run out of ways to curse God and lager and whoever invented alcoholic beverages in the first place, he would wonder if maybe John had invited him to that particular pub with its weekly half-price deals on purpose, and immediately dismiss the idea on the grounds that John Watson was far too ethical and straightforward a man to scheme up something like that.
"'M really sorry," Lestrade said yet again, his tongue doing a drunken jig and tripping over the words. "Up to me, Serlock -- Sherlock'd be on th' case 'n a second. But, bur -- bruro -- brurocraty--"
"Bureaucracy?" John supplied helpfully, his own speech hardly slurred.
"Yes," Lestrade declared. "Tha'sit. 'S all brurocraty, y'know?" He waved a hand vaguely. "Gov'ment says no Sherlock, an' poof, no Sherlock."
John caught the bartender's eye and signaled for another round. She winked and nodded, and he smiled in return. Lestrade had never pegged him for a flirt. Seemed there were many new things he was learning about John Watson tonight, though he wasn't sure how well he'd remember them in the morning.
"The government?" John asked casually, handing Lestrade his drink. "Do you know who in the government?"
"Yeah," Lestrade said, nodding vigorously. He nearly slipped sideways off his stool with the motion, catching himself on the bar just in time. You didn't get to be a DI without decent reflexes, he supposed. "Yeah, yeah. 'S that guy, the big scary one. Serlock's brother, wassisface, Mecraft or summat."
"Mycroft." John no longer sounded casually interested; in fact he sounded rather angry.
"Tha's the one!" Lestrade nodded happily and almost fell off his stool again, but John caught his elbow in time, steadying him.
"It's late," he said, his voice and expression blandly polite again as he helped Lestrade up. He tugged out his wallet and threw down a handful of notes, hand perfectly steady. "Come on, I'll get you a cab."
*
Mycroft.
John swore softly under his breath, cursing Mycroft for tricking him and himself for being an idiot. He passed out from under a streetlight and stumbled over the curb, more than a little drunk himself.
Mycroft. How could he be so stupid? He wondered if this was how Sherlock felt when he deduced; all the dots had connected in his head, linked by bright, shining lines stretched taut between them. Sherlock's lack of access to the crime scenes. Toying with them: leaving a puzzle on their doorstep and then taking it away, or maybe destroying a hint left by an unknown party. It only made sense; no man could wield so much power without someone noticing. Digging through his memories, he was convinced the whiff of sulphur in the air of the warehouse that first day was more than just his memory playing tricks on him. Plastered or not, he was going to pay that hellspawn a visit and give him what was coming to him.
Pulling out his mobile phone, he impatiently checked the screen, only to be confronted again with the irritating phrase: No New Messages.
"Dammit, Sherlock," he muttered under his breath, firing off his umpteenth text. "Call me back." He checked that the ringer volume was on high and shoved the phone away again.
As he continued down the street, he caught sight of a security camera on a nearby storefront and stopped in his tracks, a horrible thought suddenly occurring to him. Was Mycroft watching him right now? Did he know John was (was, he told himself firmly, though his intentions belied his adamancy) a hunter? Harry and Clara-- shit. He fumbled for his mobile again, but before he could even dial the first digit an arm was bent around his throat, a hand twisting at his wrist until he dropped the phone. Instinctively he kicked back at his attacker. His foot connected with a leg (lower thigh, he guessed) but the man didn't even stumble. John was sober now, alcohol flooded out by a rush of adrenaline. Struggling, he was drawn backwards with the help of a second attacker into an abandoned store front with papered windows, invisible to any of the very few people who might walk down the street. John heard his mobile crushed underfoot in the melée and felt a brief flash of disappointment; he had hoped to keep the phone longer than Harry had.
A fist connected with his jaw and stars burst behind his eyes, momentarily dazing him as a gag was slipped into his half-open mouth and his feet were kicked out from under him. He only just kept his head from smashing into the tiled floor. Even before he could turn over, a kick to the ribs knocked the breath out of him, quickly followed by another.
"Enough." The voice was quiet and oddly familiar, with a natural air of command about it. Army training kicking in, John had the sudden urge to snap to attention. He drew in a sharp breath, the pain in his ribs pulling him back to the reality of the situation just in time to hear the man finish, "--Heart. He is not to be harmed."
Very carefully, John rolled over onto his back. Three men loomed over him, their faces cast in shadow. Two held handguns; the third stood a few steps back, arms crossed. He was obviously the one in control.
"You know the orders," the third man said. "We take him to the Boss."
"Y'hear that, Heart?" One of the lackeys knelt, his blandly forgettable face cast into sharp relief by the light from the half-open doorway. "You get to meet the Boss." He grinned wide, his eyes flickering black.
John Watson may have sworn off hunting years ago, but that didn't mean he didn't know how to protect himself. Beneath him, his fingers closed on a small vial of holy water in his jacket pocket, which he uncorked one-handedly. He blinked calmly up at his attacker before throwing its contents in the demon's face.
The demon overbalanced and fell, howling in pain as his face steamed between his fingers. He collapsed into the legs of the one in charge, leaving only the second lackey to stand in place, looking confused and not at all as menacing as he had only seconds before. John was on his feet in a flash, tearing off the gag and already running.
Ignoring the pain that flared in his ribs with every jolting step and gasping breath, he sprinted down the block, towards what he thought would be a busy intersection. He rounded the corner and would have cursed if he could spare the breath; he'd gotten turned around and the new street was just as deserted as the last. Halfway down the block, he turned his head to see if the demons had reached the corner yet. They hadn't, but he could hear them yelling. Still looking back over his shoulder, his foot caught on a crack in the sidewalk and suddenly he was falling, almost in slow motion. It seemed like forever until his palms hit the pavement and he didn't linger, already stumbling back to his feet.
"John!" Someone seized his wrist and dragged him through an open doorway. He heard the lock click solidly behind him, and a few moments later the sounds of the third demon spitting threats at his lackeys as they went thundering by. John stood very still for another few seconds, hand pressed painfully over his injured ribs as he tried to catch his breath. When he was sure the demons weren't about to turn back and kick down the door, he turned to face his rescuer.
"Molly?"
The pathologist's eyes were wide with surprise; she was dressed in sweats with her hair down as if she'd been just about to go to bed. She wordlessly took in his appearance: the bruised jaw, the way he held his ribs, the vomit stain on his shirt. (The last was all Lestrade's, thankfully, but John was sure it didn't help his image.)
It quickly became clear that Molly was waiting for John to speak first, and so he did. "I-- Thank you. Thanks, really, but-- what are you doing here?"
"I live here."
"That's . . . convenient, I guess." He didn't wonder if it was maybe too convenient -- don't look a gift horse in the mouth, and all that -- although perhaps he should have. "Thanks for your help, again, but I really should go."
"Let me take a look first," she insisted, pulling him down the hall and into the kitchen. For such a timid person, she was surprisingly strong. She sat him down at the kitchen table and pulled an ice compress from the freezer. "Take off your shirt and hold this to your face," she told him, frowning disapprovingly. How she had mastered the physician's signature "doctor's orders" look without any live patients to practise on John wasn't sure, but he complied nevertheless. His throbbing cheek had just begun to go pleasantly numb when a sharp prod to his injured ribs made him jump.
"Ow, careful," he griped, readjusting the ice compress. "This one's not dead yet." He had the vague sort of feeling that he was being rather rude, but anxiety and a killer headache were one hell of a combo.
"Guess it's true." Molly smiled, seeming mildly amused. "Doctors really do make the worst patients. It's just a bruise."
"Well at least there's one thing going my way tonight." John frowned at his side, where an ugly purplish spot was already spreading across his ribs, and shifted the ice compress from his jaw to his torso.
"I'll just throw this in the washer." Molly held up his vomit-stained shirt. "Hang on, I'll see if I can find anything to fit you while you wait."
"No, I really--" John began, half standing. But she was already out of the room, and he sank back into his chair with a sigh. Something brushed past his ankles and he started in surprise, looking down in time to see a well-groomed tabby disappear in the other direction from his mistress. Jittery and impatient, John listened to the whir of the washer starting, and a few moments later Molly returned with a gender-neutral white button-down.
"Lucky you're small," she told him, passing it over. "It should just fit."
It did exactly that, the fabric straining slightly to wrap around his sturdy frame but buttoning up without too much trouble.
"Really, Molly, thank you," he said, standing. "But I've got to go. I'll return the shirt next time I'm at Bart's." A thought of the power Mycroft Holmes possessed and what a demon could do with that power propelled him out the door and down the street, whistling for a cab.
*
"Sherlock," John called urgently, 221's front door slamming shut behind him. He thundered up the stairs, jacket and shoes still on. "Sherlock!"
He burst through the flat door, causing Clara and Harry to look up in surprise, tangled together on the sofa. The telly was on again, turned down to background noise. The newspaper articles on the Ripper were spread out across the coffee table, along with John's open laptop and a few old books that seemed to be mainly about spells and demons.
"Haven't seen him," Harry said absently, a bit preoccupied with the fingers trailing across her partner's thigh.
"By the way, John, you really want to think about getting some better security for this thing." Clara clicked the laptop shut. "Honestly, a monkey could hack in."
John chose to ignore the prod at his technological skills in favor of nudging the doormat with his foot, checking that the devil's trap he'd inked on the underside was still intact.
"Listen, I've got news," he said, already heading to the kitchen for salt, and the salt rounds he'd hidden under the sink. "And Harry, I need to borrow your phone."
"What's wrong with yours?" she yelled after him.
"It got stepped on." He tossed a canister of rock salt at each of them before moving to lay lines on the windowsill.
"You stepped on it?" she yelped, though she disentangled one arm in order to lob her own mobile across the room at him without further protest. The two hunters finally separated and got off their arses in order to help John to lay the salt lines. "That phone was a gift from your dear sister!"
"I didn't say I stepped on it, did I?" Shaking out salt with one hand and putting in Sherlock's number with the other, he misdialed twice before finally getting it right. His text read:
> Don't you ever check your
> messages, you arse?
> COME HOME NOW.
> Don't speak to Mycroft.
> JW
To John's surprise, he received a reply before he'd even finished lining a single windowsill.
> As if I would. SH
> I'm serious, Sherlock.
> On my way. SH
*
Sherlock hit send and shook his head, scrolling through his text inbox. How many messages had John sent? (The answer, in fact, was fourteen texts and two voicemails, not including the messages he had just received from what was most likely John's sister's phone. By far Sherlock's favorite text was this:
> Dammit you bastard
> I'm drunk and your brother
> is maybe a murderer.
> ANSWER YOUR BLOODY
> PHONE
All caps indicated urgency, and Sherlock was nearly certain he hadn't done anything in the past twenty-four hours to warrant a row. This led him to the obvious conclusion that John's phone had been lost or destroyed in some sort of struggle in the hour and a half since his last text. Good, the case was finally going somewhere.)
He didn't bother to check the voice messages, assuming that they were all of the same general tone as the texts, but merely put his phone away and walked on. No sooner had he let go, though, than the mobile buzzed out another new text. The caller ID was the same as before -- Harry's phone. John again.
> Keep to busy streets.
And a moment later:
> Better yet, get a cab.
> Be careful.
Though it was only a text, the worry behind it was nearly palpable. Suddenly, the darkness seemed to press a little closer around him, and his legs sped up without bidding. The quickest way back to Baker Street would be to cut through the alley coming up on his left, but John's anxiety lingered deep in the pit of his stomach, and he hesitated.
It was probably nothing but paranoia, Sherlock decided finally. The best way to assuage John's fears was to get home as quickly as possible, anyway. As he turned into the narrow swath cut through the menacingly tall buildings, his phone buzzed yet again. He briefly considered just turning it off, but took it out again anyway.
The brightly lit screen was ruining his night vision, he noticed irritably. The text read:
> If you're not here in
> fifteen minutes I'm
> coming after you. Clear?
> Crystal. SH
Something moved out of the corner of his eye, just out of reach of the phone's glow. There was the slight scrape of shoe on pavement and Sherlock burst into motion, striking out towards the noise. Half-blind in the darkness, he missed, the figure ducking easily out of harm's way. A second figure, previously unnoticed, emerged from behind to give Sherlock a solid hit to the back of the head. It sent him reeling into the alley wall and he went down, phone clattering away into the darkness.
Through a daze, he half-noticed that his eyes had readjusted to the darkness and that all that was in his line of sight was a scattering of mortar dust, knocked loose likely by his head connecting with the bricks. Unable to make his brain stop working overtime even then, he noted the type of mortar and the year and season in which it had been laid. He touched the numb spot on his scalp, and his hand came away sticky with blood.
High above his head, someone growled, "Doesn't seem so tough. We sure this is the right one?"
"Boss said this one," the other man replied. "Didn't he also say to stay away?"
"Don't be stupid. When we hand him over to the boss all nice and tidy-like in a neat little bow, see if you'll want to have stayed away then."
He was used to criminals knowing him, of course. In fact they seemed to be making a point of it lately, and so he tuned out the rest of the exchange (dull) in favor of studying his attackers now that his night vision had returned in full, albeit slightly fuzzed around the edges. There were two of them, both men, aggressive postures with the classic look of stereotypical thugs-for-hire. All in all, perfectly normal members of the criminal class. He did notice that he couldn't see the whites of their eyes, though that was easily explained by the bad lighting or the knock to the head. He'd need more precise data to be sure.
Suddenly the taller of the two seemed to spasm and collapse. It took Sherlock several seconds to notice the gunshot through the pounding in his ears. A rifle butt came down on the second attacker's head and he fell, too. To Sherlock's dull surprise, the first man began struggling to his feet, despite the ragged hole in his stomach.
"Salt rounds," he growled at the gun-wielding man. "That's just not fair."
"Well now, that's debatable," the man said, giving the first attacker a whack about the head with his rifle butt as well. He began to mutter in a foreign tongue -- Latin, some small portion of Sherlock's brain recognized dimly -- but the pounding in Sherlock's ears grew louder, coming in like high tide and sweeping him out to sea.
*
Sherlock came to to the distant sound of sirens. With some effort, he sat up, noting by the congealing blood on the ground that he hadn't been out for more than five minutes.
To his surprise, the man (Sherlock refused to give him such a trite title as rescuer or savior, and anyway, that was John's job) was still there, arms folded, eyes glaring. Tall, black, American. Even through the haze, Sherlock's brain sped off in a whirl of deductions. Jewish, but not devoutly so; some sort of vigilante, possibly. Older, retired for a while, but back to his old lifestyle now. Something had happened to reintroduce him, and he wasn't particularly happy about it. He favored whiskey, his preferred brand Johnny Walker, and he drank more of it than was probably good for him.
"You just gonna sit there oglin' me all night or you gonna say somethin', boy?"
But Sherlock's mouth didn't quite seem to want to work -- a very new, quite disturbing feeling for him -- and just then his phone buzzed, on the ground near the vigilante's feet. He dove for it, knowing John would make good on his threat to storm the streets of London if Sherlock wasn't home on time.
"Yeah, you're welcome," the vigilante muttered. "Cops are on their way. I," he emphasized, jerking a thumb at himself, "was never here. We clear?" Before Sherlock could even look up from the bright glow of his phone, the man was gone in the dark.
> Six minutes.
> Might be late. I'm
> okay, not dead yet. SH
> WHAT? Sherlock, where
> the hell are you? I'm
> coming to get you.
> I'll get a cab. SH
*
John let out a long breath, softly closing the door to Sherlock's bedroom behind him. He made his way back to the sitting room, where Clara was assembling cloth salt bombs and Harry sat in front of several bottles of water, blessing each in turn. She capped the last one and slipped the rosary back into her pocket, studying John with narrowed eyes. "How is he?"
"He's fine." John shrugged and grabbed an empty duffel from by Clara's feet. "Just a bump on the head. Not even a concussion." He took a shotgun from the table and checked the chambers for salt rounds before slipping it into the bag. "He's had worse, believe me." He dropped a few bottles of holy water after the gun, and started for the door.
"Hey, whoa, where are you going?" Harry yanked the bag out of his grasp as he passed.
"To talk to that bastard Mycroft." He reached for the bag, but she pulled it out of his reach and tossed it across the room to Clara, who stuffed it safely under the sofa.
"Not tonight, you're not." Harry gripped his shoulder and pointed him towards the stairs. "We've already had two attacks tonight. In the morning we'll all go together. Clear?"
John seemed to deflate. "Yeah."
"Good. Now, bed." She jabbed a finger upwards. "I'll kip on the floor; Clara'll take the couch."
"Who d'you think you are, Mum?" he muttered, but obediently shrugged off his jacket and clomped up the stairs.
| Act Two -->