Work Text:
They said that he wore an opera cloak, and a beautiful wig of long brown hair. His face was covered by a sackcloth, two ragged holes for eyes and a stitched rictus of a smile. Underneath, it was said, there was no mouth, just a gaping maw with rows of jagged teeth like a lamprey eel. His one surviving victim could only speak of his eyes, his soft dark gaze. She was found by a butcher’s boy one morning, slit neatly from cunt to throat, holding her guts in her hands and moaning, dear gods, his eyes.
-
Sherlock Holmes was running.
His quarry was fast, nimble, but he was faster; he glimpsed it, a dark shape against the gleam of the cobbled street. It darted up the side of a building, long fingers scrabbling at the brickwork, and in through an open window. Careless. So close to the dead city, leaving a window ajar after dark was suicide.
He shimmied after it up the crumbling brickwork, swinging his legs through the window and landing with a soft thump in a small, sparse bedroom. The cradlejack was nowhere to be seen, but Sherlock could see the scrape of a claw faintly in the cracked wood of the floor. He stilled, breathing slowly and evenly, ears pricked.
There! A soft slithering sound from the room next door. He slowly moved into the hall, feet soft and silent on the wooden floor. There was one other open door and he crept towards it. The creature was perched on the painted wood of a crib, clawed hand slowly reaching down towards the sleeping babe. Sherlock moved forward suddenly, rosary in one hand, knife in the other, but the creature was too swift. It snatched its fingers back and leaped straight over Sherlock’s head before he could react, fleeing towards the open window with a rasping shriek. He cursed himself as he scrambled to follow; he should have closed it.
“Stop! Stop right there! I’ll shoot!”
Sherlock stopped, one leg half out of the window, raising his hands and turning to show the rosary in his palm. The man in the doorway had a gun held in one trembling hand, the other clutched at the collar of his dressing gown. His eyes were round and red-rimmed, and his hair wild, the remains of some sort of pomade causing it to stick up in all directions.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
“You left the window ajar,” said Sherlock. “I have been hunting a cradlejack. It escaped.”
“Oh, gods.” The man dropped the gun on a chair and hurried to the crib, picking up the child, which begins to wail. “Did it--?”
“It did not touch the child. Why is your house not warded?”
“It is,” the man said, cradling the screaming child against his chest. “Oh gods, it is. How can it have--?”
“Your wards are weak, then. I can strengthen them.” He hovered his hand over the sill, and yes, he could feel the laughably feeble pulse of a protective ward there. The creature would have brushed it off with no more effort than it would a fly. He skirted the perimeter of the room quickly; there, above the door, two near the window (should be more, for a house with a child, tempting to too many things).
Sherlock reached into an inner pocket of his coat, fishing out a bag filled with a thick, reddish paste. He smeared a crude circle on the windowsill, adding three downward strokes and one at a sharp angle, murmuring under his breath and feeling the pulse of the wards as they took. He repeated the process around the small flat until the air was half-vibrating with the strength of them. The man followed him into every room, hovering nervously behind him as he worked.
“Have they taken?”
“You cannot feel them?” Sherlock’s throat was thick with tingling power.
“No, I. No. I don’t--I can’t…”
“Find someone who can,” rasped Sherlock. “Your child was almost bitten, you utter fool. There is no cure. You become like them, or you die.”
The man paled. “Th-thank you,” he said, crowding Sherlock back towards the window. “Thank you.”
Sherlock ducked under the glass, sliding back down the wall and hearing the thunk of the window above him as it was slammed and bolted. He frowned in distaste and licked his lips, the sharp taste of the bloodstone paste clinging to them still. Windows open after nightfall, wards allowed to fade so badly that they are practically useless, and a man who hardly knew which end of a gun to point at a foe. It was no wonder they were spreading.
He realised as soon as he straightened from his jump that he himself had erred. The smog was soupy and it was noticeably darker than before; the sun was almost completely set. He was too far away from his own home to get back safely before the black dark settled in, and he was not armed well enough for a full night in the bosom of London. He’d only been returning late from the markets when he’d heard the tell-tale screeching cry of the cradlejack, and all he had with him was a long, curved knife. He cursed (quietly; something might already be listening).
He cast his mind around, and ah, yes, there was a lodging house within near enough walking distance. The landlady there owed him a small favour. He swirled back in the direction he had come from, stride quick and steady as he kept to the shadows.
-
After dark, in the stinking smog-thick belly of the dead city, Witch-kin prowled.
In Sherlock’s memory, in his father’s memory, there had never been a time that London had not been a torn, broken mess, scrabbling for survival. There were remnants, of course, of an age when the dead city hadn’t been rubble. The shells of the great cathedrals, delicate stained glass long since blown through. Books and manuscripts that survived the burning libraries, hoarded into private collections or government vaults.
In the early days, things had begun seeping through the cracks. They were thought at first to be hallucinations, figments of traumatised imagination. Shell-shock, as they came to call it. So much had been destroyed in this doomed war, so many driven mad by relentless blood and gunfire that those who sensed them were thought to have lost their sanity entirely. They screamed of strangling mists, of being followed by a man with his skin turned inside-out, of strange, slithering noises in the night and waking to find their children disembowelled in their beds, claw marks raking their faces. By the time the broken government had realised that this new horror was just as real and as deadly as the bombs, the Witch-kin were too numerous and too widespread, and the shattered shell of the city had begun to fester like a giant wound.
In the sunlit hours, the dregs of London fucked and fought and thieved in the streets of the dead city, but after sunset even they scurried like rats from the sewers to escape the terrors that lurked in the dark. The slapping wet step of the draug as they roamed in packs, icy breath paralysing, the clack, clack of the long claws of the night gaunt scraping over tiled roofs.
There were many horrors in the London night. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a velvet frock coat swinging round a corner, a flash of glossy brown hair catching the flickering light of an oil lamp.
He was near the docks now; the drifting stink of the Thames, fish oil and coal was unmistakable, and he swiftly rounded the corner into a winding alley, foot sliding slightly on something wet. The cobbles under his feet were slippery, gleaming in the dim lamplight, and his steps echoed loudly in the darkened space. Tap, tap, tap.
He stopped; the echo stopped. He made to start again, but didn’t touch his foot to the ground.
Tap.
The sudden stench of old blood thickened the air.
He began to walk again, gritting his teeth against the echoed sound of his steps, and did not turn, though the urge was almost irresistible. Do not turn around, do not turn around. The knowledge of what stalked him did not ease the panic in his chest in the slightest.
Rawhead close behind you treads
Three looks back and you’ll be dead
Close your eyes and count to ten
Sherlock quickened his pace; his heart thumping in the cage of his ribs. He desperately wanted to look. I must not look back.
He would see nothing, even if he did.
The texts said that he had no skin, that he oozed ichor from exposed flesh and muscle. There was a drawing in one of Sherlock’s father’s books: the ghostly shape of a flayed man, huge of stature, following a young woman like an enormous shadow. The image showed her turning her head unseeingly behind her.
Tap, tap, tap, tap, tap.
He felt a soft gust of hot breath on his neck, and before he could help himself, jerked his head to glance backwards. He immediately shut his eyes; too late.
He’ll suck the marrow from your bones.
Rawhead stood behind him, at most a few centimetres between them. Sherlock could see nothing, but the sound of harsh, bellowing breathing was so close to his ear that it was practically touching him.
He’ll rend skin from flesh.
“One…two…three,” a puff of sour, hot breath ruffled his hair. He smelled the sharp-iron scent of blood, “four…five,” a wet, rattling inhalation, so close to his ear, “six…seven…eight,” a slippery dragging sound, “nine…ten.”
Silence.
He turned, slowly. There was a pool of clotted gore on the ground behind him, the scraped marks of a clawed foot smeared in the blood. Footprints disappeared into the dark of the alley behind him. He felt his heartbeat pounding down to his fingertips and dread threaded through him. If Rawhead stalked the streets, then more would be dead come morning.
He stood, breathing harshly, for too long; the light almost dimmed entirely.
It was quiet as he came to the lane where the lodging house was. There was light glowing in the downstairs window – the distinctive flickering of a fire. He strode hurriedly past the inky black entrance to another alleyway when he felt a tug at the edge of his senses. He skidded to a halt, sinking into the shadows a little, and slowed his breathing.
Something was there. Something not human.
There was a flicker of movement in the corner of his vision and he spun around.
Nothing.
He stood stock still for such a long time that to any passer-by he might have been a statue. Still nothing emerged from the shadows, and he allowed himself to relax slightly, letting out a long, slow breath.
In that instant, the humanoid figure of a Witch-kin exploded from the darkness and barrelled straight into him, knocking him back into the street where it made a fumbling grab for his throat, then, incongruously, snatched its hands back and tried to squirm away. Confused, Sherlock made to seize it by the arms and it struggled viciously, managing to throw him over and wrap its fingers around his neck. He recovered quickly from the shock; he was larger than it and soon had the upper hand, pinning it hard against the ground. The Witch-kin abruptly went limp.
Sherlock gingerly leaned backwards to look down, and his mouth dropped open in surprise. Not Witch-kin at all.
A man.
-
He hefted the man over his shoulder – not the easiest of tasks, he was solidly built – and shuffled to the door of the lodgings, banging on the wood.
“Who goes there?” came the timid voice of the landlady.
“Sherlock Holmes, ma’am,” he shouted through the door. “I am in need of lodgings. Do you remember me?”
He heard the click and slide of several bolts, and the door swung open. Sherlock shifted the limp man on his shoulder.
“I have a man here in need of medical attention. Will you allow me inside?”
The landlady stepped aside, eyes wide.
“Come in, Mr Holmes. Quickly!”
She hurried to shut and bolt the door behind him, before leading him through to the drawing room, where a dying fire smouldered in the hearth. He dropped the man carefully onto a worn settee, turning back to the landlady where she stood in the doorway, wringing her hands.
“Fetch smelling salts and water. And laudanum, if you have it.”
He turned back to the man on the settee. He was still young, maybe only four or five years older than Sherlock himself. His long eyelashes were possibly the only part of him not covered in filth, and they were a lovely golden colour, creating spidery shadows over his cheeks. His shoulder was injured; Sherlock could see the way it lay at an odd angle, and when he dragged the neck of the filthy shirt down there was the starburst of a bullet scar, still pink and painful, the skin shiny and stretched. He traced his finger over the wound and down, until there. Slight shrapnel scarring scattered about his shoulder. Not a simple street brawl gone awry, then, but war; he was one of the few sent overseas to have survived. Sherlock took in the rest of the man, all evidence supporting this conclusion – calluses from holding both a gun and a knife, more erratic scarring on his left arm. His shirt was stained with blood, both old and fresh, and Sherlock could see it crusted dark under his fingernails.
He drew the man’s shirt upwards slightly, revealing a smooth, concave abdomen and prominent ribs (malnourished, fainted from exhaustion most probably). He stilled himself, curiously, watching the slow, steady inhale and exhale of the man. His senses were quiet now, but that he had been mistaken was quite inconceivable. In this, he was never wrong, had never been wrong. He frowned as he traced the soft curve of one rib (broken, not recently, not cleanly) then drew his hand back with a jerk as he heard footsteps approaching.
The landlady returned with the requested items, dropping them on a table and quickly scurrying through the door. Sherlock took first the smelling salts, uncorking them and holding them close under the man’s nose. There was no reaction for several seconds, until suddenly he choked and jerked upright, coughing. His eyes were wild, and they darted quickly around the room before settling on Sherlock.
“What--where--?”
“Calm yourself,” said Sherlock, gripping the man by the shoulders, “you are safe, you were…” he faltered slightly, “you were out after sunset. I brought you here.”
The man looked around, wide-eyed. The several months’ worth of dark tangled beard and the grime on his face made the whites of his eyes stand out shockingly.
“Did I--do I know you?” he asked.
“No,” said Sherlock. “I found you. You were faint from exhaustion, no doubt.”
“I don’t--” The man slumped back down onto the cushions, blinking rapidly. “I do not remember anything.”
Sherlock carefully fed him some of the water with three drops of laudanum, and he quickly slipped back into sleep. He waved the hovering landlady off, and stayed in the room with the man, watching his face in the lamplight until the cool light of dawn began to brighten at the windows.
-
“Where do you live?” he asked the man over breakfast.
“I don’t know,” said the man, spooning gritty porridge into his mouth like it was the most delicious nectar. That was his answer for most things, but it hadn’t stopped Sherlock from asking questions. The man had known his own name – John – but every other question had been met by a look of thoughtful blankness.
“Do you have anywhere to go?”
“No,” said John.
“You may stay with me,” said Sherlock slowly, unsure of why he was offering. He did not know this man, other than that he seemed prone to fits of violence and lurking in dark streets at night. Not one of those things should have endeared him to Sherlock, and yet…
There was something curious about John. Every so often, Sherlock felt a tiny tug at his senses, as if at the corner of his mind’s eye, and then it was gone again. It happened twice at breakfast, and John just continued gulping down porridge, oblivious.
-
The journey back to Sherlock’s lodgings took almost half the day, scurrying to and fro between buildings to avoid the gaze of the wasplike, droning zeppelins – omnipresent grey shapes in the shifting` grey sky. He did not trust that their guns were manned only after dark.
His cramped flat was not quite inside the dead city, but it was close enough to the edge to make him uneasy about leaving it for long stretches of time. John peered over his shoulder curiously as he unlocked the several large bolts on the door and checked the wards carefully. Nothing had been disturbed.
“What are these?” asked John, touching a tentative finger to the edge of the rounded glyph where it was scrawled on the painted frame of the door.
“Protective ward,” said Sherlock.
“For….for Witch-kin?” he asked, hesitant.
Sherlock nodded, eyeing him.
“I know they exist. Just as I know London exists. I do not remember them,” said John, tracing fingertips over the ward.
He followed the lines of it until Sherlock nudged him in through the door, and once inside he seemed fascinated by the others daubed over the room. Sherlock left him peering closely at a ward against night gaunts, and quickly cleaned out the fireplace, coaxing a flame to life with a muttered spell and a handful of greased paper. Once it was crackling he poured on a glut of black coal, the air clouding thick with the dust.
“They feel queer,” said John, hand hovering over the gaunt ward. “Like they are alive, somehow.”
“Yes,” said Sherlock, “that is how you know they remain effective.” He prodded the fire with a blackened poker until the flames began to lick at the coals, before hefting a scorched, scratched copper pot onto the hook above the grate and filling it with water.
“Do you wish to bathe?”
John brought his hands to his face, grimacing as they came away dark with soot and grime, and nodded. “Yes,” he said, “and--”
“I have provisions for shaving,” said Sherlock, “and you may fit into my father’s clothes without much difficulty.”
“Thank you,” said John, looking at his own ragged breeches and shirt as if seeing them for the first time. “Thank you, where--?”
“Upstairs.” Sherlock hefted a fireguard in front of the flames and checked the water before leading John upstairs to his own rooms. There was a dented tin bath in one corner of the room, his bed and wardrobe in another. Aside from that, the room was sparse, daubed wards the only form of decoration.
“The water will boil soon,” he said, with a gesture at the tin tub, “I shall bring it up for you.”
John nodded, already walking the perimeter of the room, running his hands over the peeling papered walls.
Sherlock carried the boiling pan up the stairs carefully along with a pail of cold, and filled the tub. He laid out brushes, soap and blades and a pile of his father’s clothing – breeches of deep blue, a paler blue shirt with shell buttons, braces, and thick woollen socks. John was already tearing off his bloodied, filthy clothes; no doubt they were crawling with lice. He threw them through the door, and Sherlock took them with him to burn them on the fire.
When John came back down the stairway nearly an hour later Sherlock almost started in surprise. He’d estimated that John was perhaps a few years older than himself, but seeing him clean shaven, hair trimmed, he looked impossibly younger. His hair was dark with water, but a few dry strands gleamed gold as they haloed around his head, and his lips were curved into a tentative, boyish smile that slowly spread across his entire face. Sherlock felt his mouth twitching helplessly in answer. His father’s clothing hung a little long on the leg – John had rolled the breeches up – but otherwise were a surprisingly good fit.
John held his gaze, and edged close to the fire with a murmur of thanks. He was shivering, hair dripping down and spreading a dark patch on the pale blue shirt; the bath water must have become freezing by the time he had finished. Sherlock moved slightly to allow him to sit closer and they sat side by side, a whisper of blue fabric shifting against the bare skin of Sherlock’s fingers as the fire crackled and spat.
They sat in silence, John’s eyes eventually slipping closed as he absorbed the roiling heat of the flames. Sherlock watched him curiously, taking in the long shadows of his golden eyelashes, the small pink curve of his mouth. He hadn’t felt the queer tugging sensation all afternoon, and although he was sure he was not mistaken, he could not entirely contain the sense that he was missing something tremendously important. He tried reaching all of his senses out towards John, but attained nothing. John didn’t seem to notice, content to merely bask in warmth and cleanliness.
When the sun hung low in the sky, Sherlock assembled a stew of meat and small, hard potatoes. He had just a little precious salt left, and he sprinkled a pinch into each bowl before passing one to John.
He sensed John watching him as he ate. There was a little bread, and he tore it in half and soaked it in the thin gravy, chewing perfunctorily.
“You have questions.”
John swallowed, wiping his mouth.
“Yes. Um,” he laughed a little, no humour in it. “I…do not know where to start. Who are you, perhaps?”
“Sherlock Holmes,” said Sherlock, holding out his hand. John took it tentatively. His eyes darted around the room, pausing on the cast iron crucifix nailed to the back of the door, the bookshelves heavy with elderly leather-bound volumes, the set of throwing knives sunk to the hilt in the mantel.
“You…what do you do?”
“Hunt,” said Sherlock. “I inherited the Sense from my father.”
“The Sense,” murmured John, eyes flicking downwards. “You feel them?”
“I am at less disadvantage than most,” Sherlock conceded, head tilting.
“That is what you were doing yesterday? When you came across me?”
Sherlock hummed in agreement. “I had been stalking a cradlejack – a particularly malevolent breed of Witch-kin that transfers its foul disease through a scratch or a bite,” he explained, at John’s blank look. “There is no cure; they are spreading faster than they can be slain.”
John frowned a little as his eyes darted over Sherlock’s face, intent. “How old are you?”
“I will have nine and twenty years come winter.”
“And you have been hunting since you were a boy?”
“With my father. He died.” He paused, grimaced. “And there is my brother.” He looked up, gaze skipping over John’s curious face, the lines of his fingers as they gripped the tin spoon.
“You were overseas, in the war,” he said, to break the odd silence. “Injury to your shoulder; you developed a fever from the wound and were thought to be beyond hope. That was…hm, perhaps a year ago, possibly closer to two. You returned to London some six months ago, and you have been lodging with an unwitting member of the aristocracy.”
There was a clunk as John set his stew on the table.
“How can you…how do you know these things?”
Sherlock took another bite of bread, chewing slowly.
“Even if I had not seen your injury with my own eyes it is clear from the way you move your arm – obvious in the restricted movement that it pains you from time to time. The slight tremor in your left hand is a product of the injury. I had chance to observe the scar tissue – it has the properties of a wound inflicted and scarred over more than a year ago and yet was still inflamed – recurring infection, then, just beginning to abate. Difficult to tell, after a certain amount of time, exactly when a wound was sustained. Nevertheless a guess can be made. Fever from the infection is a possible cause of your memory loss, but unlikely. It is clear that you were thought to be close to death as no fighting man returns to London lest he is dead, mad or greatly incapacitated. This also indicates a grave fever, as what shoulder injury could be thought to be so life-threatening otherwise?
“As for the six months in London, the growth of your whiskers before you shaved them this evening was consistent with that timeframe. What could have happened six months ago for you to stop shaving? It was when you left, or were discharged from the army. Even injured soldiers in the most squalid field hospitals are shaved by the nurses for cleanliness.
“Finally, the lodgings. There were carpet fibres on your boots and on all of your clothes. Too many for a brief visit. The fibres were from a fine Persian weave. Only the very richest could afford such a luxury, and yet you were dressed in rags and covered in filth? Not a friend then, nor a servant. A stowaway.”
He stopped, and looked up into John’s face. John, whose mouth had fallen open, eyes wide and bright. Sherlock looked away, steepling his fingers.
“Incredible,” John said eventually, staring at Sherlock as if he could not believe his eyes. Sherlock raised his eyebrows, faintly surprised. John was not smiling, but neither was he angry. He looked a little confused, a little astounded and entirely impressed. Sherlock did not resist the urge to smile at him. John smiled slowly back.
“Ah,” John finally said, expression sobering, “the war, you said. What…” He coughed, picked up the bowl and pushed his stew around with his spoon. “The concept is…nebulous in my mind. There is a war, yes. Has always been a war, perhaps?”
“For as long as anyone living can remember, yes. I am not convinced that any man knows what it is that we were fighting for. Land, perhaps. Ideals. Now it is blood. And in recent years, Witch-kin have been sliding more and more easily through the fissures.” He sighed, glancing at the dark silhouettes of nearby buildings through the window. “London is disintegrating, and I am trying to hold it together with glue and twine.”
“What…happened to me?” John asked hesitantly. “In the last six months, I mean.”
Sherlock felt his mouth twist. “You are aware I am not omniscient.”
John blushed and dropped his gaze. “I know, just. It is amazing, what you can do. Just from looking at me. I mean, I cannot know that it is true,” Sherlock made a noise of derision, “but I feel that it is.”
Sherlock scoffed, but could not contain a smile until he directed his gaze at John again, eyes darting over him.
“There was a little blood,” he gestured to himself, “here, on your shirt. The directional spatter indicated that it was…not yours. Superficial wounds on your arms, fading bruises and cuts on the palms of your hands and knuckles suggest that you have been fighting. With whom or what I could not say. Not Witch-kin, or I suspect you would not have lived to tell me the tale.
“When I came across you last night, you leapt on me without provocation, only to pull away almost immediately.”
“Yes, I think I—There are flashes of a dark haired man, you. It is…” He gripped his head in his hands, rubbing the heels of his palms into his eyes. “It is muddled, but it must be you. Must have been you.” He looked up, pale. “There are a few other images. They seem…odd. Oddly dreamlike.”
“What are they?” asked Sherlock, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees.
“Useless.”
“Nothing is useless. Describe what you see.”
“A…corridor. Stone walls. A strong smell that I cannot well describe, almost sweet in its intensity. Cloying. Like some sort of oriental spice.”
“Anything else?”
John shifted closer to the fire, drawing his arms around himself.
“Faces I feel I should recognise, their features unclear. Blurred, perhaps.” He glanced at the flames, then back at Sherlock.
“I did say. Useless.”
“And I said ‘nothing is useless’, and I do not say things I do not mean.” Sherlock sat back in his chair and steepled his fingers under his chin once more. John leaned forwards for a moment, expectant, until it became clear that nothing more would be forthcoming and he curled in closer to the heat of the fire, closing his eyes with a sigh. Sherlock gazed at the ceiling.
-
He was awakened, suddenly, to a sharp knock at the door. Light streamed through the curtained windows. He blinked a little blearily, feeling a faint surprise that there was someone curled on the floor in a blanket. The young man, John. Yes, how curious.
The fire was at little more than embers, but John was as close to it as he could possibly get, everything from the nose down cocooned in blanket. His face was soft in sleep, the lines of it relaxed. Sherlock stretched his legs out as another urgent rap came on the door.
“Sherlock!” The distinctive west-country drawl of Lestrade, as if Sherlock couldn’t have already told who it was from the knock.
“Yes yes, Lestrade, I hear you!” His voice was rough from sleep and he dragged a hand through his unruly hair, stretching extravagantly before leaning down and giving John a quick shake.
“We have a visitor, I’m afraid.”
John blinked blearily up at him and there, that tug, like a flickering movement seen out of the corner of his eye. A moment later he realised he had suddenly taken hold of John’s shoulders and he released them, flustered. The banging at the door increased in volume.
“Do hold on, Lestrade!” He shouted towards the noise, rising awkwardly from his seat and straightening out his rumpled clothing as best he could. Nothing to be done about that. John shuffled onto one of the badly stuffed settees, looking nervously through the window.
Sherlock opened the door and Inspector Lestrade burst through it, closing it hurriedly behind him. He was a tall, solidly built man of around forty, dark hair peppered with grey, brown eyes wide. He was flushed, and had obviously been running. Ah, murder.
“There has been another one, Sherlock. Will you come?”
“You think it is Stitch-Face,” said Sherlock.
“It’s just like the other ones,” said Lestrade.
“And I have told you, Lestrade, that it does not make sense.”
“It’s the only thing that does make sense, Sherlock.”
“No, no there is something missing, something wrong, I--”
“Oh, hallo.”
Lestrade stepped around Sherlock and offered his hand to John, who clasped it unsurely.
“Inspector Lestrade, a pleasure to make your acquaintance Mr--?”
“John,” said John.
“Mr John.”
John did not endeavour to correct him. Lestrade swept his hat off belatedly.
“I do apologise,” he said to Sherlock, “I didn’t know you were entertaining guests.”
“Neither did I,” he said, with a slight smile in John’s direction. He considered, for a moment, leaving John in his flat while he went with Lestrade, but dismissed it quickly; the little tugs at his senses were making him uneasy.
“Would you join us?” he asked John.
“I--yes. Are you sure?”
“Certainly. You aren’t of delicate sensibilities, are you? Perhaps you can help shed a little light on the matter.”
“You are sure you’re not mistaken, Sherlock?” asked Lestrade, looking troubled.
“Have you ever known me to be mistaken?” Sherlock pulled a pair of sturdy black boots on and retrieved his fathers’ from their box to give to John.
“No, no. But--”
“Well then,” said Sherlock, halting further pointless discussion. He packed up a little bread and dripping to break their fast on the way as John rubbed his eyes and began to lace his boots.
-
The corridors at Scotland Yard hummed with the static buzz of electric lamps. The sound stirred the beginnings of a headache behind Sherlock’s temples and he rubbed at his eyes as John looked about, wide-eyed.
“Holmes,” said the Chief Inspector as he strode past them. “Lestrade. I hope you know what you are doing, Inspector. I will not have this case founded upon the wild theories of an amateur.” He looked pointedly at Sherlock, who opened his mouth to respond just as Lestrade stepped heavily on his toe.
“Chief Inpector Gregson,” said Lestrade.
Sherlock grimaced as they stepped away into Lestrade’s cramped office, feeling the Chief Inspector’s gaze heavy on them.
“Here,” Lestrade said, removing his cloak and pressing another green-headed pin to the sprawling map of London spread out on the wall. Sherlock stepped back, eyes narrowed, counting quickly under his breath. Ninety-eight. The map was scattered with so many pins that some street names were almost obscured by them. The Green Tack Murders, as they had come to be referred to by the police, had been happening at seemingly random intervals over the previous six months, and at each crime scene the most remarkable thing had been the lack of any discernable evidence.
The latest tack was by the docks, less than a quarter mile from where Sherlock and John had lodged the previous night. Sherlock’s eyes roamed the map, as though it would reveal its secrets to him if he stared hard enough.
“He was sighted,” said Lestrade. “Near the docks.”
“It is not him,” said Sherlock, remembering uneasily the flash of glossy brown hair he’d glimpsed that night. “Do not listen to that idiot Gregson. He is blinded by what he wants to be true, rather than what is true.”
Lestrade gave a frustrated growl and flung himself into his chair. “How do you know, Sherlock?” he said. “What makes you so sure?”
“Because nothing about them makes sense!” said Sherlock. “His victims have always been women. Always. Beautiful women. Prostitutes. The Green Tack Murders are seemingly random: prostitutes, yes, but also thieves, beggars, men, rich and poor. Why would he change that? He has been killing for years, always the same way. It does not fit!”
“He is a murderer, Sherlock. A particular breed of person for whom reasoning and sense do not matter.” He paused, glanced at Sherlock a little tentatively.
“I have heard it said that he is part Witch-kin. That…that he was created by a Society.”
Sherlock scoffed, and Lestrade looked like he wished he hadn’t mentioned anything.
“A Society?” asked John.
“Foolish speculation,” said Sherlock dismissively, just as Lestrade started to speak.
“A cult—” he trailed off as Sherlock glared at him.
“They are nothing of the sort. And you chastise my methods, Lestrade, when you are as easily snared by silly stories as the sensationalist rags.
“When people cannot conceive of explanations,” he said, turning briefly to John, “they will invent half-truths to satisfy themselves. The Chief Inspector has you questioning your own logic simply because he wants to believe what he sees as the obvious answer. You must alter your truth to fit the evidence, never the reverse! ”
He turned back to the map, hand hovering.
“He is meticulous,” said Sherlock, unable to contain a hint of admiration in his tone as he ignored Lestrade’s sputtering protests. “Very skilled; the hands of a professional. The Green Tack killings are similar, but just that little bit more careless. It is someone copying him.”
Lestrade fell silent, and Sherlock was suddenly aware of John standing close behind him, peering at the map. He stepped back. John moved closer and ran his hand over a few streets, then turned to look at Sherlock.
“How is it,” he said, “that I could recite every street on this map but I cannot remember walking down one of them?”
Sherlock didn’t answer. John’s fingernail scraped the edge of a tack.
“These are all murders?”
“All within the last six months,” Lestrade confirmed. John’s eyes widened.
“What have they in common?” he asked. “That you know it is the same person.”
“The method of the killing,” said Lestrade. “You are not weak of constitution?”
“No, I don’t think so,” said John.
Lestrade pulled a file from his desk and flicked through it, withdrawing a dark, blurred photograph from within. Despite the low light and the slight movement caused by a clumsy photographer, the image was still horrifyingly clear. A young woman of no more than fifteen, limbs splayed in some sort of parody of the Lord on the cross. Her gown was torn from neckline to skirt and lay open like the bloom of a flower under her body. There was thick, ghastly dark line that started in the centre of her lower lip and continued deep and unbroken to her bloodied cunt, splitting her open, a twisted mockery of the female form. John gasped quietly, but he didn’t look away.
“This is the approach of the murderer known as Stitch-Face,” said Lestrade. “He has been active in London for the better part of ten years and in that time had claimed around thirty victims. In the last six months he has added a further ninety-eight, mostly within the dead city.”
Sherlock made a snort of disbelief; Lestrade turned on him.
“Sherlock, you must give us something. We are no closer to catching him than we were six months ago.”
“That is because it is not him; Lestrade, are you wilfully ignoring everything I am saying? We are looking for a copycat.”
“But how do you know?” Lestrade exclaimed.
“I have told you,” he huffed impatiently. “The bodies. There is something inconsistent about the knifework. Stitch-Face himself would never be so inelegant.” He pointed to the photograph, at a ragged piece of flesh that hung loose on the edge of the gash. On the opposite page in the file was a picture of a long, flat blade. A Bowie knife. John traced a finger over the photograph.
Lestrade sat heavily, running a hand through his dark hair.
“I do not know what to believe, Sherlock. Stitch-Face is a known killer. This is how he operates. I cannot work with speculation and happenstance.”
“And now you accuse me of speculation,” spat Sherlock, running at the end of his patience.
“Well who do you think it is?” said Lestrade. “If it’s not him.”
“I do not know,” said Sherlock sourly. “I have been kept busy these past few months, Lestrade. Witch-kin seem more numerous and more deadly by the day. I cannot remember the last time a day went past without a hunt. A year ago, I could go a week.”
“I know,” sighed Lestrade. “I had a young boy this morning scratched by a cradlejack.”
“Where?” said Sherlock sharply. “Where was this?”
“The Old Nichol,” said Lestrade, looking up in surprise as Sherlock cursed.
“I would have caught it the night before last were it not for my own foolishness. Stupid.”
“It is no matter now,” Lestrade said. “The boy’s father shot the beast.”
“With iron?”
“So he says. The child perished of the wounds. A mercy, some would say.”
Through all this, John had been flicking through the file that lay open on Lestrade’s desk. He traced over the rictus smile of a young man, the photograph taken just hours after death.
“I recognise him,” he said quietly. “Sherlock. I recognise this man.”
“From where?” said Sherlock, coming up behind him to look at the file.
“I do not know,” said John. “Only that his face seems familiar to me.”
They lapsed into silence, leaving only the sound of rustling papers. Sherlock was still studying the image when the odd tugging feeling at the corner of his senses returned, stronger than ever. He was certainly not mistaken; it was overtly malevolent and it was all coming from John. He turned it over in his mind thoughtfully, watching as John licked his fingers to turn another page. John looked up to find Sherlock studying him and smiled slightly. Curious.
“If only we could discover a pattern,” said Lestrade in frustration. “All that comes from joining the tacks is a tangled muddle. If we could but find out where the next murder was going to take place…”
“Can I see?” said John.
“Here.”
Lestrade pulled a smaller map from one of the files and spread it out on the desk. Where the green tacks were on the wall, there were red dots, connected to each other chronologically. John frowned at it.
“There is something about that shape,” he said. “It’s odd.” He didn’t elaborate.
-
It was mid-morning by the time they arrived at the scene of the murder. The body was shrouded by a white sheet, the police photographer by a black one as he adjusted his equipment. Lestrade instructed John to stand away, and beckoned Sherlock close. Sherlock tugged John to come with him, and they peered closely as Lestrade removed the sheet. The body was splayed out in much the same way as the one in the photograph, only this time it was not a young woman, but a man. The only difference appeared to be that instead of the torn dress, the man had been stripped of his clothes before being sliced almost in two. His face, clearly once handsome, was contorted horribly, lush red beard clotted thick with gore and grime. The faces of the dead were almost never elegant. Sherlock circled the body intently.
He was more convinced than ever that Stitch-Face was not the perpetrator of most of these crimes – the knifework was similar, no doubt, but it was not the delicate surgery performed on the corpses of those beautiful prostitutes. There was a certain artistry to the bodies of Stitch-Face’s victims that the Green Tack murders lacked. Devotion to the subject, Sherlock might call it, were he a more sentimental man.
As ever though, the lack of material evidence had the police stumped, and Sherlock struggling to come up with more than “conjecture” as Lestrade called it. Sherlock scoffed. Conjecture.
“Anything, Sherlock?” Lestrade called hopefully.
Sherlock sighed irritably, wishing that this slipshod killer would perhaps be slightly more sloppy. The body was meticulously free of anything useable, as always.
“Nothing more than I have gained from the others. Though I am still sure of who it is not.”
Lestrade removed his hat and smoothed a few strands of his hair back tiredly, mouth downturned.
“Is there anything else you can do? With regard to uncovering who you think our real perpetrator might be?”
He still sounded sceptical, but not dismissive. Sherlock nodded, grimly pleased.
“I can make inquiries.”
“Good. And as quickly as you can, Sherlock. I am beginning to think half of the inhabitants of London will have turned up dead in the gutter before the year is out.”
Sherlock tapped the brim of his hat and strode back over to John. He was still standing over the body, looking into its twisted face. Sherlock clasped his hand gently and tugged him away.
-
They spent two hours strengthening the wards in Sherlock’s flat until he was sure leaving John alone would be safe.
“How do they work?” asked John, seemingly fascinated as Sherlock swept a slow hand over each one, murmuring soft, cracked incantations.
“Magic,” said Sherlock dryly, licking his lips.
“Did your father teach you?”
Sherlock made a noncommittal noise, turning to the packed bookshelf and pulling down a volume bound in thin, tough leather. He set it in front of John and flipped through it, gesturing to the shapes of wards scrawled amongst cramped, archaic symbols.
“All we have are such books, in languages we do not know the meaning of. My father taught me what he knew, which was…scant. Practical, but ultimately as much use as trying to empty an ocean with cupped hands.
“Oftimes the spells herein are useless, or worse. Those of us who know the incantations, who have the skills to conjure wards, we are perhaps slightly less vulnerable than a newborn babe.”
He frowned, staring into the fire as John flicked through the book.
“And,” John said, after they have been silent for a time, “the Societies? ”
“Groups of the lazy, fattened upper classes frittering away their riches in whatever ridiculous fashion takes their fancy. The only reason there are rumours surrounding them at all is because they cultivate the image. Dark, mysterious.” He waggled his fingers. “Absurd.”
When he glanced over, John was smiling into his book. Sherlock plucked a notebook down from his shelf, dropping it open onto John’s lap.
“Here, you may read about them if you care to,” he said, pointing to where Fraternity, Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius was written in his father’s hand. The rest of the page was filled with a sketch – a large circular emblem, two small ovals contained within a mass of stripes. Sherlock had long thought it ridiculous. If one was going to found a mysterious organisation, the effect was somewhat tempered when one’s symbol resembled a silly striped face.
“There are many of them?” John traced a finger over the symbol.
“Oh, dozens,” said Sherlock. “This is the oldest of them, The Fraternity. They are the most enigmatic, and the most fashionable among the upper echelons, naturally. Here,” he flipped the page, “the others are more informative.”
On each page following there was a Latin motto, a symbol sketched with his father’s familiar painstaking care, and a paragraph or two of his cramped handwriting outlining each group’s suspected headquarters and known members. Despite the general uselessness of such notes, Sherlock had been loath to throw anything of his away. He supposed he was becoming sentimental.
They supped on thin mutton stew and bread in silence, Sherlock deep in thought, John poring over the notebook. John looked up only as Sherlock rose from the table to begin pulling on his hunter’s garb. He adjusted the straps around his shoulders, checking each holster was secure before pulling on a long coat, which did well to hide most of his weapons. John gazed wide-eyed at the selection of guns strapped to his sides.
“Lead, silver and iron,” Sherlock said, gesturing to each. He slipped a small dagger into a gap in one boot, and finally swung a long, curved knife over his back. Intimidation would not affect Witch-kin, but they were not the only malevolent things lurking in the dark of the London night.
“Will you be all night?” asked John.
“Most probably. You will be perfectly safe inside. The wards are strong.” He didn’t mention that most of the new wards were designed to keep John in, rather than keep anything out.
John nodded, a line creasing his brow, and turned back to his book.
-
Sherlock was on the trail of something big. He was not close enough to tell exactly what it was yet, but the trace it had left was large, and vivid. He didn’t even need his heightened senses to know that he was on its trail – globs of slimy yellow-green ichor were smeared at regular intervals, and its dragging gait was recorded as clear as day in the sodden filth underfoot. There were the clear tracks of three primary limbs, followed by the lighter impressions of several others, longer and dragging. The thing was oozing some sort of yellowish muck. He would be upon it soon. He slipped quietly between the shadows of buildings, careful not to attract any undue attention.
Ahead of him, a wet, rattling sound echoed.
Sherlock had been hunting for nigh-on ten years, and still the sight of the thing was enough almost to make him turn and balk in horror. It was almost humanoid at first glance - animalistic features on a long, deformed head - but what was certainly not human was the sheer size of it. It was the height of three men, and the width of four. The red, wet slash of a mouth was turned towards him, gaping open, and although he could not discern any eyes, the beast seemed to be watching him. Below the shoulders, if they could be called such, its many limbs spilled forth sickeningly from its body. Some like long thick tentacles dragged useless on the ground, and others closer to the legs of some enormous sheep or goat folded up underneath it as it readied itself to spring towards him.
Sherlock pushed thick terror aside and sprung up onto the flimsy guttering of a nearby building. He scrambled upwards onto the sill of a window, looking down as the thing turned its sightless gaze on him once more. His stomach dropped in useless fear as it began to lurch, slithering, towards him. He had never encountered a beast such as this, but he drew his most useful weapon – a gun with iron bullets – and aimed directly in the centre of the misshapen forehead. It dropped instantly when he fired, greenish fluid bubbling from the wound and the hole that was its mouth. Sherlock dropped to the ground and forced himself to step tentatively closer, examining it. It twitched in death and he jumped backwards, heart hammering a staccato rhythm.
Curious. Very curious. It was a Witch-kin, certainly, but of a type he had heard no tale of. There was nothing in his father’s books about a monster such as this, and it looked like no Witch-kin he had ever seen. He only knew that it was from the way his senses had thrummed as he had stalked it. He circled it, prodding gently at its swollen limbs with gloved hands. A little more bile-coloured fluid seeped slowly from its monstrous head.
Sherlock was busy sketching the creature in his notebook when he heard the distinctive sound of a London growler, hooves clattering loudly against the cobbles. He sunk into the shadows and watched warily as it emerged into the soft glow of an oil street lamp and pulled up beside him; the driver was dressed in black, top hat pulled down until the shadow obscured his face. He pulled his reins sharply and the horses, one black, one white, trotted to a halt. The door opened.
“Mr Holmes?” came a soft voice.
“I am him,” said Sherlock.
“Do step inside, won’t you?” the voice said. A gloved hand emerged to beckon him inside. Sherlock caught the gleam of shiny brown hair in the dim light.
Gripping his gun tightly, he stepped up into the carriage. Across from him, a figure was swathed in a velvet so dark it seemed almost to absorb the light, giving the impression that nobody was sitting there at all. His face was covered by sackcloth, upon which was perched a chin length wig of smooth chestnut brown, and his stitched mouth was a smile. Through two ragged edged holes, his eyes gleamed, expression unreadable.
“I have heard much about you, Mr Holmes,” he said as the growler began to move, stitched smile rigid.
“And I you,” said Sherlock. He kept his eyes fixed on the figure in front of him, wary.
“That beast you killed,” said Stitch-Face, gesturing elegantly with one hand, “you had not seen the like before?”
“I had not,” confirmed Sherlock, tilting his head to the side.
Stitch-Face was silent, gazing from the window of the carriage. Sherlock counted the threads in his smile.
“I admire you, Mr Holmes. Your quick mind, your perception.” He turned his eyes on Sherlock.
“I have no wish to be associated with butchers. My work…” he paused, “my work is for the greater good.”
Sherlock could not resist the urge to scoff dismissively. “The greater good? You are indulging your own twisted whims under the guise of some fanatical initiative.” His eyes darted over the shadowed form, but the swathe of velvet and sackcloth gave him almost nothing.
“They are killing innocents. Thieves and beggars they may be, yes, but they are not filth. They are not selling their tainted bodies. Their rank painted lips. Their ragged cunts, rife with foul disease.” It was entirely disconcerting, such words spat from behind that rigid smile. “A pestilence on this city…” he trailed off for a moment, before cocking his head. “I see you do not agree, but no matter. My work does not concern you, and is not the reason I choose to speak with you.”
“And yet you treat their bodies with all the sick devotion a man such as yourself might show a lover. Betrayed by such a woman, perhaps? Did she sell the body that belonged only to you?”
“What you say is irrelevant,” said Stitch-Face, after a short pause. Sherlock opened his mouth, snapped it shut again as a glint of silver caught his eye amongst a soft fold of velvet. “Mm,” he said instead, muscles tensing. “And you chose to speak with me for what reason? It seems to me like rash foolishness. You have evaded the police for this long only to show yourself to me now, and why?”
The silver moved slightly. “Those who are responsible have influence that reaches far enough to obscure themselves even from me, to my consternation,” he said, sounding no more than mildly irritated. “You have the ability to uncover what I cannot.”
He turned his dark eyes to gaze directly into Sherlock’s.
“There is very little that escapes my notice in this city,” he said, and his smile looked wider than ever. “Nor yours.”
“And you expect me to believe that there is some sort of…conspiracy? To cleanse the city, as you do? You are aware it is much more likely to be an individual. You.”
Stitch-Face let out a barking laugh. “I know you believe it, Sherlock Holmes, whether you shall admit to it or not.”
“And for what reason do you tell me this? You do have a flair for the dramatic, perhaps the police are getting a little too close for comfort? You are aware they are certain of your guilt in this.”
“Do not insult yourself,” said Stitch-Face, sharp for the first time. “You saw the beast on the ground; some new abomination. The cracks widen, Mr Holmes, and the city balances on the edge of something terrible. My supposed innocence or guilt does not concern me, but this...
“I may be a monster,” he murmured, suddenly soft, “but even monsters want to live.”
Sherlock regarded him, gazing at those dark eyes. They told him nothing.
“Why now?” he asked instead.
“The boy,” said Stitch-Face, drawing his velvet around himself and sinking back into the darkness. “You have the boy. He has something they want, and they will most certainly want it back.”
The carriage drew to a stop abruptly, door opening, and Sherlock found himself ushered out into the courtyard where he’d stood not half an hour earlier. The dead beast was gone, no trace left that an ordinary eye would spot. The door of the growler closed abruptly and it disappeared into the gloom, the only sign anything had occurred was the thick pool of greying blood, already mixing with the filth on the cobbled street.
The rest of the night was fruitless; he caught several trails and lost them, and allowed a lurking ghoul near enough that the fingers of his left hand would be numb for several hours. His mind was not on the hunt.
His inability to read Stitch-Face had left him most unbalanced, unable to determine if he was being led in circles. It was an unfamiliar feeling, and one he liked not at all. The appearance of the young man, John, seemed too curiously timed to be coincidental, and Stitch-Face’s curious eagerness to share information was…disconcerting. He rubbed at the thumb of his left hand, feeling nothing.
-
As dawn loomed he returned to his flat, not empty-handed by any stretch but still feeling strangely uneasy. As he approached the building, something made him look up.
On the roof, a figure moved.
It had the shape of a man, but it was on hands and feet, crawling, its gait odd, stilted, as if the position was unnatural. A trickle of fear gripped his guts and he fought the urge to run inside cravenly and lock the door; something about the shape and the movement of it was so horribly wrong that he almost could not bear to look upon it any longer. Yet there was something familiar…
Steeling himself, he checked that all his weapons were in place before grasping hold of a window ledge to pull himself up, effortlessly scrambling up the brickwork towards the shingled roof. With every inch he climbed, dread tightened thick and almost overwhelming within him. When he neared the overhanging eaves and heard a distinct dragging scrape above him he had to pause and grit his teeth to stop the trembling of his hands where they gripped at the wall.
He could hardly bring himself to pull his head up, but as he did, there was a skitter of movement above him that almost made him lose his grip and he pulled himself fully onto the roof to avoid plummeting the fifty feet to the ground.
Oh, Christ. He almost crossed himself, a gesture he hadn’t made since he was an ignorant child.
In front of him, crouched on all fours like a beast and smiling a dreadful, twisted grimace of a smile was John. Sherlock’s heart leaped, and he could not do more than stand still, pinned by John’s inhuman gaze. It flicked over him at length in a way that was almost animal in its cold, predatory indifference before John suddenly turned and crawled over the side of the roof, limbs moving in aberrant ways. Sherlock collapsed on the shingle, closing his eyes and breathing heavily as his heartbeat galloped. He eventually recovered himself, still trembling, and padded to where John had disappeared, half fearing that ghastly smile still be staring up at him. He found nothing. He stayed on the roof until the thick, dark clouds began to pink in the first light.
-
His hand shook over the doorknob.
The wards were all down, each and every one; he could feel no trace of their comforting pulse, and the latch was broken. He stepped inside.
On the floor, a figure was curled up, clothes ripped and filthy. Sherlock’s eyes darted over the prone form of John, taking in the bloodied, scraped palms, fresh blood on his shirt. Warily, he stepped closer. There was something…moving under the ripped collar of his shirt. Something dark. He clutched his rosary tightly in one hand and swallowed as he edged closer before he noticed something else. John’s fingertips were blackened with soot. Sherlock looked to the fire, and there, in the ashes, were the remains of his father’s notebook.
Sherlock stepped back and carefully began to move around John’s sleeping form, daubing wards onto the floor, hands shaking as he pulled the red paste hurriedly from the pouch at his side. He finished the last ward, staggering back with relief as he fell onto a chair. He stared at John, considering, before reaching out to shake him awake, keeping the rosary clutched tight. John came to with a gasp and blinked up at him.
“Sherlock?” he said sleepily. “Are you well?” John’s friendly face was concerned, drowsy. “You look ill. Is there a doctor you should call?” He looked around himself, frowning in confusion.
“How did I end up here?”
“No,” said Sherlock. “No, I am not well. And I do not think a doctor would help me.” He rubbed his hand over his eyes tiredly and looked back at John, who was looking at his hands. They were filthy, blood drying as it snaked sticky down his wrists.
“Do you remember anything about this morning?” said Sherlock.
“I have just woken!” exclaimed John. “Of course I remember, Sherlock. Are you sure you don’t need a doctor? And why am I on the floor? I am filthy! And my hands…”
“I mean do you remember anything from before you awoke here?”
Sherlock stood from his chair and circled the room. John’s eyes followed him, a frown creasing his brow.
“I remember you leaving yesterday evening. I read until the candle burned low, and I slept all through the night, until right just now, but--” said John.
“Mm, no,” murmured Sherlock. He filled a bowl with water and took a cloth to John’s bloodied palms. John held them out obediently.
“John, there is something I wish to look at. There is a…curious mark on your back. Do you know anything of it?”
“A mark? No!” He twisted round, pulling his hands from Sherlock’s grip. “What is it? What is going on, Sherlock?”
“I do not know. Would you mind…?”
“I—of course, yes,” he blushed pink, and Sherlock found he had to force himself to glance away, “I shall just have to remove my shirt, if...well, alright.”
Sherlock gestured for him to go ahead, leaning forward slightly in his seat. John winced a little as he fumbled with the buttons. Sherlock watched as the bullet scar was revealed, strangely fascinated by the constellations of scars that decorated John’s torso. He had not had the time to fully consider them when John had been unconscious, and his fingers twitched against his thigh.
“There…there is a spot between my shoulders that often itches, as though some insect were crawling there,” he said tentatively. “Is that the spot you mean? I have not had a mirror to look upon it.”
He turned, and Sherlock drew in a jagged breath, scars forgotten.
Upon the smooth pale curve below where John’s back met his neck, directly in between his shoulderblades, was a blackened, circular tattoo. Sherlock blinked and shook his head; it seemed to be almost moving against John’s skin. A trick of the light, but disconcerting all the same. He moved closer. As he saw it more clearly, it became obvious that it was not a simple circle at all, but in fact depicted an enormous mass of tentacles, rendered in the darkest black and a deep, rich blue. The only spots of bright colour were a pair of yellow eyes that gazed malevolently from the centre of the tattoo. It looked alive.
“What is it?” said John, twisting his neck to try and see.
“It is a…Chackh’Morg,” said Sherlock, the syllables sitting thickly on his tongue. He reached out a tentative finger towards the tattoo and flinched back at the wave of hatred that pulsed from it.
“A what?” John said, voice wavering. “Gods, what is that? I felt it!”
“A ward,” said Sherlock. How had he not felt this before? Now that he was looking at it, seeing it, he was almost blinded by the thick thrumming power of it. It had been hiding itself. He shivered.
“A ward?” breathed John, just a little fear trickling into his voice. “I did not know they could be used on people.” He shifted uncomfortably.
“Nor did I,” said Sherlock. He looked at John’s small, pale face. He had only ever seen sparsely sketched depictions of it in one of the ancient books belonging to his father, as if the artist did not want to render it in any detail, but it was unmistakable. And here it was, drawn beautifully on the skin of a person. John.
“It has been…doing things to you,” he said, breaking the silence.
John becomes, if possible, even paler. “What?”
“I found you on the roof this morning,” said Sherlock, pressing his hands together to stop them quivering and not meeting John’s gaze. “You were…not you. There was something looking out at me from behind your eyes.”
John stared at his scratched hands.
“I have felt since we met two days ago that there was something I was missing. Something about you that was puzzling.
“I had a very unusual conversation last night when I was hunting. I encountered a beast I had no knowledge of, and a person who should by all rights be avoiding me at all cost. Strange things are occurring in the dead city, and I…I am beginning to believe that this ward holds some clue to it all.” He paused, peering at John’s face.
“Will you come with me to see Lestrade? I believe we have something to show him.”
“Are you—is it going to happen again?”
“I do not know,” said Sherlock.
It pained him to admit it, even to himself, but the tattooed ward had him not only puzzled, but frightened. The sheer malevolence contained within it; he could not suppress a shudder at the mere thought of it, yellow eyes gazing out at him, strangely alive in the thick, dark ink.
John’s cool hand touched his arm gently and he shook himself, throwing his cloak on and peering out of the window at the sun rising in the sky.
-
Lestrade greeted them at his door, hair in disarray and dressed still in his nightclothes. His dark eyes were alert, however, and he ushered Sherlock and John into his front room, hurriedly setting out tea on the small table.
“What has happened, Sherlock?” he asked, once he had poured them all a cup. Sherlock, vibrating with impatience, leapt to his feet. His tea sloshed over the side of his cup.
“Everything. Everything has happened, Lestrade.” He paced back and forth, unsure of where to start, hands clutching at nothing.
“It began last night, with a Witch-kin I slew on my hunt. Such a beast I have never encountered nor heard encounter of. Not even in my father’s writings can I recall a being such as that. It succumbed to an iron bullet, but it was sheer dumb luck.”
He set his tea down, so as not to betray the trembling in his hand.
“The closest creatures I can relate it to are the ancient writings about beings known as the Deep Ones. They, though, were said to stand so tall a man could not see their full form all at once. This was perhaps a single storey in height.” He paused, and turned to consider Lestrade.
“I have made clear, have I not, that I do not believe Stitch-Face is responsible for these murders?”
“Quite clear,” Lestrade said, frowning.
“I spoke with him, last night, as the beast was still warm and bleeding on the ground.”
Lestrade choked on his tea. Sherlock continued, ignoring him.
“I am…unsure of his motives,” he admitted. “He suggested the involvement of someone…influential, perhaps.”
“The church?” said Lestrade, doubtfully.
Sherlock frowned. “It could refer to any number of people. Those with money and influence do like to do foolish things with it. Just look at my brother.”
“This is absurd,” said Lestrade. “He was merely trying to divert your attentions. And nobody has ever looked at your brother.”
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “He is merely lazy, not a monster, Lestrade. That he is never seen does not mean he is not human. He would not disintegrate upon being touched by sunlight, most unfortunately.”
Lestrade grimaced, rubbing between his eyebrows. “And Stitch-Face? He knew he would not be believed in either case, but this would catch your attention. And it has, has it not, Sherlock? You are intrigued. It is exactly what he wants, you have to see this.”
Sherlock sat once more, fiddling with his undrunk cup of tea before leaning back, steepling his fingers together thoughtfully.
“When I returned home this morning I had the odd sense of being watched.” The pause rolled out as Sherlock’s throat worked to form the words. “I saw a figure upon the roof and I climbed to investigate.” He turned to Lestrade, whose expression was tinged with exasperation and tiredness.
“It was,” he glanced quickly at John, “it was John. Upon all fours, and with such a look upon his face I shall not ever forget it.”
Lestrade’s eyebrows furrowed together, and he set his cup heavily on the table. John’s face looked small and pale where he sat swamped in the dark fabric of the settee.
“When I returned, I found the wards broken, all of them. And a mark on John’s neck. A Chackh’Morg.”
Lestrade sucked in a sharp breath, “What--?”
“I believe it may mark a possession. A powerful Witch-kin, perhaps.”
“May I see?” asked Lestrade, looking both horrified and deeply curious. John nodded, blushed pink as he removed his shirt and vest, turning to face the wall to let Lestrade peer at him. In the light of day the contrast between the pale skin of John’s back and the thick black ink was almost startling.
“Extraordinary,” breathed Lestrade. “It seems almost to be moving.”
“I have felt it,” said John, “before today. I did not think…I thought it was an itch.”
“You were not to have known,” said Sherlock. “Had you not ripped your collar it would have gone entirely unnoticed. I should have felt such a powerful ward as soon as you approached me.”
“What relevance do you think this has to the case, Sherlock? You would not have called for me had you not thought it would give some insight,” said Lestrade, seeming to regain some steadiness as he examined the tattoo so closely his nose almost touched John’s back. John squirmed uncomfortably under the scrutiny.
“Look closely, Lestrade. Does the shape not seem familiar to you?”
Lestrade frowned as John twisted to retrieve his clothing, and shook his head.
“No. It looks like nothing more than a mass of limbs.”
“Hm,” said Sherlock. “We will need to pay a visit to your office. When can you be ready to depart?”
Lestrade ran a tired hand through his greying hair and took a long gulp of tea.
“Give me a quarter hour, and I shall be ready,” he said wearily.
-
The moment they reached the office the Chief Inspector appeared, his eyes bloodshot, as if he had not slept. He passed Lestrade a short report.
“Another?” said Lestrade.
“Yes,” Gregson snapped. “What is Holmes doing here, Lestrade? I am certain I told you I did not want him interfering with this investigation. Remove him at once, along with this…man.” His eyes flicked to John, darkening.
“Yes sir. Won’t be a moment sir,” said Lestrade, pushing them into his office and shutting the door.
“You are not going to force me to leave?” said Sherlock, raising his eyebrows.
“That man is a close-minded fool,” said Lestrade, tiredly. “Without your help we shall never have this solved, and more will die.”
Sherlock regarded him for a moment, taking in the weary slump to his shoulder, the determined set to his mouth, before pulling out the file. He flicked through the pages until he came upon the smaller map of London, the one with the macabre little red dots marking each victim. Lestrade studied the new report before dipping his quill into a pot of red ink and pressing it carefully to the paper.
“Have you a pencil?” Sherlock said, holding out his hand impatiently. Lestrade unearthed one from a desk drawer, and he and John looked on curiously as Sherlock scribbled quickly on the map. Each red dot he joined to the one adjacent, hand moving without hesitation.
As they watched, Lestrade’s face began to pale and John drew in a quivering breath. Sherlock continued, the lines converging, forming into something recognisable; a huge, writhing shape drawn in blood over the whole of London. To others, it could still be a mess of unrelated connections, but that tentacled shape etched into the skin of John’s back was not easily forgotten. Its eyes gazed sightlessly up at them.
At most there were one, perhaps two connections missing; a gap in the curve of one giant limb, right next to the newest dot.
Sherlock stood back, dropping the pencil on the desk and running a shaking hand through his hair.
“What do they mean to do?” said John. His voice was soft, but his stance was tight, fists curled.
“It’s a blood ward,” said Lestrade, suddenly. “Is it not, Sherlock?”
“Yes,” said Sherlock softly, drawing his finger over the gap in the drawing. “The power in blood will strengthen a ward tenfold. Quite illegal, of course.”
“And the Chackh’Morg is for,” Lestrade swallowed, “summoning. I have never heard of anything like this. The size…” he trailed off.
Sherlock paced, hands shifting through his hair, trying to shake his brain into action.
“The ward will be completed very soon. They grow impatient, do they not, Lestrade? Four murders in the last five days, I’m sure you said. And now we know where the last is likely to occur.”
“If this is for summoning,” said John, “what is being summoned?”
Sherlock paused. It seemed so far fetched as to be unbelievable, but he remembered his father telling him of how the Witch-kin came to be. How people were thought to be mad, talking of fairy-tale monsters stalking the streets. A ward of this size could be meant for only one thing.
In his father’s books, they were called the Outer Gods. He could not suppress a shudder, thinking of the scant pages that spoke of them. Incomprehensible. Unspeakable. A horror that would drive a sane man to madness just to look upon it. To summon such a being would be nothing short of insanity, but the evidence was there before his eyes, in a blood ward the size of a city.
The Witch-kin that haunted the dead city were tangible, real. Their blood spilled (in shades of green and yellow); they hunted like any other creature. They were fought with wards and muttered spells alongside than blades and bullets, but they died all the same.
He looked up at John, who had an expression of such stubbornness on his face that it almost made Sherlock smile. Murder, possession, and a dread ward of inconceivable proportions, and John looked prepared to fight his way out of it with his fists if he had to.
“I am…unsure,” he said.
“You think it is something terrible,” said John, an unreadable look on his face. He rubbed the back of his neck.
“Yes,” said Sherlock.
“What can I do?”
Sherlock did let himself smile, this time.
-
With instructions left to Lestrade to station police officers on every street corner in the area where the gap in the ward is, he knew that they would be looking ever harder for John. There was a hazy conclusion beginning to form in Sherlock’s mind, though there were still pieces missing, and he knew that they were almost certainly being watched.
As soon as they arrived back at his rooms, he pulled out several enormous tomes that once belonged to his father. John sat on the chair, the lines of his body tense, and Sherlock flicked through the pages, muttering to himself. Nothing of even scant use. Finally, he peeled apart two pages that had almost worn through, soft and stuck together, and there. There it was. The eyes gazed up at him, thick black ink etched darkly into the page. He must have made a noise of some kind, because John was suddenly behind him, peering at the paper. Sherlock watched as he tentatively reached down to trace the outline of it, before snatching his hand away.
“Here, Sherlock. What does it say?” His voice was a little strained.
Sherlock squinted at the writing, so small it was almost unreadable, crammed into the space around the enormous blackened etching.
“There’s…a spell.” He followed the strange syllables, recognising only the shapes of some. “It is…yes, for…cleansing. Banishment.” He looked up at John. His face had a faint sheen of sweat, and his eyes were dark with something shifting, dangerous. Sherlock suppressed a shiver.
“Do it. Do something, please Sherlock,” John’s voice cracked a little. “Gods, I can feel something rising up in me and I cannot hold it back.”
“I will have to tie you,” Sherlock said, propping the book open and opening his bag. John offered his wrists without protest.
“Tightly,” he said. “Get rid of it.”
Firstly, he mixed up a paste of bloodstone and water in a stone pestle. He ground quickly, murmuring half-remembered spells as it slowly turned the familiar deep red ochre. John watched him from where he was tied tightly to the wall, eyes wide and still dark.
Sherlock could tell from the tension in his shoulder that the position was uncomfortable, but the spirit was strengthening with every hour and John could succumb at any moment. An hour in, and the room was half covered in wards on every surface. The air was thick with the thrumming power of them, and Sherlock’s hair dripped sweat onto his nose. John’s teeth were gritted.
In the centre of the wards, Sherlock placed a large cage containing a fat, scrabbling rat. He lay a short dagger beside it. John stared at it for a second, before turning his head away.
“It requires a vessel,” said Sherlock. The rat pressed itself to the bars fretfully. John just nodded, eyes screwing closed in pain for a second. He gasped out loud, suddenly, and Sherlock saw the moment that awareness flickered in his eyes before he wrestled back the control.
“Hurry,” he ground out.
Sherlock fumbled for the book, the spidery scrawl almost unreadable in places. As he began to speak the first few words, John went rigid in his bonds. He thrashed for a moment and then went suddenly, eerily still. Sherlock kept talking.
“Stop,” growled John, beginning to move again, his voice a hoarse, inhuman rasp. “Stop, Sherlock. Please.”
Sherlock did not stop, continued to recite from the book in front of him, slow and careful, stumbling a little over the unfamiliar sounds. His hands were slippery with sweat on the leather bindings, and the air pulsed and throbbed, the rat bloodying itself on the cage as it tried desperately to escape.
“Sherlock,” came that scraping voice. “Stop, now. You’re hurting me, Sherlock!”
He slurred one of the words a little, mind fogged by heat and exertion. That rasping, scraping voice did not belong to John. It was not him. Not him. John twisted and shrieked in sudden fury, slamming the bonds against the wall and splitting the skin of his knuckles, blood trickling down his arms. His eyes were black and depthless.
“No!” he said, voice deep and thick now, like he was having trouble forming words. “You…do not know. You do not know. I will…destroy you!”
Sherlock faltered, panting. His head swam, the words on the page blurring in front of him. He could feel the presence of the spirit, strong, stronger than anything he had ever felt, and it was pressing at his mind. Cracks were forming.
No. No! He dug his fingers hard into the flesh of his thigh, the pain grounding, and started on the next group of thick, strange syllables. John was screaming now, high and tight, and the spirit was wailing along with him. The rat was squeaking. The noise filled Sherlock’s head up, and he could not think, could not see anything past the wall of noise and the sight of John, thrashing bloody in his bonds.
-
“John!”
Sherlock’s flat was dark. He blinked into consciousness with a start and a shout and immediately closed his eyes, head splitting with pain. The sharp scent of fresh blood hung in the air, and his heart pounded in panic until he spotted the limp body of the rat lying uselessly at the bottom of the cage.
John. The spirit. Gods it had been stronger than he’d thought possible, and John was gone. He was gone. Sherlock looked to the door, smashed open and hanging on its hinges. The bonds on the wall hung empty. Sherlock pressed his face against them, and his breath felt thick in his throat.
-
“Sherlock?”
A tentative knock on the shattered door. Sherlock gazed over at the figure of Lestrade where he stood silhouetted in the dark.
“Sherlock! Are you here?”
Sherlock made a noncommittal noise, attempting to pull himself to his feet. Lestrade rushed over as he stumbled.
“Good Gods, man! What happened? Where is the young man, John?”
“Gone,” Sherlock rasped. “Taken.”
Lestrade dropped to his knees beside where Sherlock sat slumped on the floor. “Sherlock,” he said intently. “This morning, not an hour ago, there was a woman found dead. Her blood was still warm and my men saw nothing until it was done. It is the final piece, I know it to be true. The skies outside are black and a queer storm brews. See!”
Sherlock stood shakily and moved to the door, eyes wide as he took in the skies outside. Above London, the clouds were as black and thick as oil, roiling like an ocean and blocking out the sun. Sherlock caught a flicker of movement on the street and tugged Lestrade inside, shutting the door as best he can.
“It is morning, you said. Yet it is dark as night.”
“What happened, Sherlock? What happened here?”
“The spirit was beginning to gain strength. I could…see it flickering behind his eyes; he was lapsing, would not have lasted the night before being overcome entirely.”
He paused, passing a shaking hand over his eyes. “There was a spell in one of my father’s books. I misjudged…I was not strong enough to complete the ritual, and when I regained consciousness he was gone.”
“We need to find him, then.”
“Yes,” Sherlock said, strained.
“Where do we go?” said Lestrade.
There was a tense, stretched out pause in which Sherlock slumped a little more against the wall.
“To see my brother,” he said, finally. “He will be able to help us.”
-
Sherlock gathered what he would need as quickly as he could manage, arming himself as heavily as he could. He pulled on his long, heavy coat and slipped a hand into the pocket to feel for the reassuring shape of the powdered bloodstone bag.
“We shall have to move swiftly, Lestrade. Are you armed?”
Lestrade nodded, silently pulling a long pistol from his coat and flicking back the hammer. They peered through the door, and Sherlock could already feel that tug at his senses that told him there were Witch-kin nearby. The darkened clouds created an artificial night that allowed every foul thing lurking in the shadows to creep out onto the streets. He saw the hunched shape of a cradlejack scuttle across a nearby roof.
“Follow me closely,” he murmured, and then moved quickly out into the street, keeping close to the shadows of the buildings. The clouds were thick and low enough that the looming shapes of the ubiquitous gunships were only just visible, giant shadows moving in the dark.
Lestrade stepped behind him, low and close. That Mycroft lived so near was, for once, a blessing. His head was pounding with the swarm of Witch-kin flooding the streets and the artificial grey-dark had an odd quality to it, making things seem to move in the corner of his vision. They hurried forwards.
Mycroft liked to think of himself as another of the cities enigmas. Right on the edge of the dead city, his extravagant town house was locked as tight as a gaol. Odd noises were said to be heard through the boarded windows. Strange lights in the night. It was rumoured that he founded The Fraternity. That the reason he was never seen was that he had become half Witch-kin, and could appear in the light of day for fear that the sunlight would kill him. That he was Stitch-Face himself.
Sherlock knocked once on the heavy, wooden door, and they were ushered in quickly by a blank-faced servant.
“Sherlock,” came the familiar smooth cadence. “I am glad you came.”
Sherlock heard Lestrade’s indrawn breath behind him. The real reason Mycroft was never seen, Sherlock knew, was almost entirely down to vanity. Perhaps with reason, he thought, as he considered the sewn-shut lids of his brother’s eyes. Mycroft tilted his head up as Sherlock looked at him, as though he was not blind at all.
“You wish to know of the boy,” said Mycroft.
“How--?” said Lestrade, incredulous.
Sherlock rolled his eyes. “The Sight. So he never has to venture into the world to know of it. Craven and lazy, are you not, Mycroft?”
Mycroft smiled indulgently.
“I have never claimed it to be a curse, though it was meant to be so, my brother.” His eyes moved behind the lids, flickering back and forth. Lestrade looked away.
“Only you could talk a curse around to your advantage.”
Mycroft’s smile grew even wider. Sherlock recalled, suddenly, his screams as his lids had been stitched by their father with a trembling hand. The blood running down his cheeks like tears. The pale, long-fingered hand of the witch as it quavered against Mycroft’s lashes.
“Do not open your eyes, little boy. Better to gouge them out than suffer the madness the first blink will bring.”
“I can help you,” Mycroft said, raising his hand to beckon behind him. The servant, somehow having secreted himself in the shadows without being noticed, drifted close and hovered behind his chair.
“Harry,” said Mycroft. His voice was a little softer as he beckoned the man closer. Harry leaned down and Mycroft murmured something in his ear. Harry nodded, straightening.
“Harry can take you,” said Mycroft. “You will need to travel by air. The streets are swarming thicker by the hour. If you had set out any later you would not have made it as far as the first street corner.”
“Where is it?” said Sherlock. “Where have they taken him?”
The urge to pace was almost overwhelming, but he liked to maintain a modicum of control around his brother. Being unable to scour the streets was maddening, and relying on Mycroft for information even more so, his brother’s gift a source of contention as always. Sherlock could hardly bear to look upon him, to see the way his great mind atrophied, surrounded only by books and trinkets and bored with knowing.
There was no time to lose, however, and he could suffer Mycroft for this. For John. He sat heavily in the high-backed chair facing his brother.
“There is a church in Seven Dials. It is ordinary in every aspect but one; I have detected that it is warded against those with Sight, which, of course, drew my attention immediately.” His eyes swivelled under their lids. “There was activity in the surrounding area earlier tonight, prior to the forming of these…clouds. I have long kept one eye, if you may excuse the phrase, on this particular church.” He paused, rubbing long fingers on the arm of his chair. “It is a feeling I have, more often than not, and you know, Sherlock, that I dislike to be imprecise.”
Sherlock frowned. Mycroft never had feelings; he either knew or he did not.
“If there is something hiding from me there, and I have long suspected that there is,” he paused delicately, “then we should be…wary.
“It is a thirty minute flight by dirigible.” He heaved himself bodily from his seat, and, surprisingly nimble for a blind man, unhooked a black umbrella from the back of his chair. “Travelling on foot is out of the question.”
“You are joining us?”
We, he had said. And oh, Sherlock must have been more distracted than he had thought. His brother was fully dressed under his gown. He had not seen Mycroft step outside since they were boys, and he took no joy in it then, preferring to surround himself with books than venture out into the stinking London air.
“Needs must, my brother. It is the end of the world, is it not?”
He took hold of the manservant’s arm, though it did not look like he needed the support, and lead them from the room.
-
The dirigible was a compact, minimal machine with an open basket, a propeller and winglike rudders for steering. The long, cigar shaped balloon was a dull silver, filled with highly flammable hydrogen, and the basket was of a dark, solid wood. Sherlock eyed it warily. His experience of airships amounted to his observations of the enormous beasts that hovered ubiquitously on the London skyline, armed with fat, mounted guns which spewed out bullets at a hundred a minute at any Witch-kin that strayed into their sights. Sherlock had come upon many an unwary man or woman gunned down in the streets for venturing out in their view after the sun has set, and often before.
This one was much smaller, basket built to fit no more than half a dozen. They clambered aboard, Sherlock almost vibrating with impatience as Mycroft and his servant made checks on the equipment. Lestrade clasped a soothing hand on his shoulder and he shrugged it off, gripping the edge of the basket to still his shaking hands.
“Do you have a plan, Sherlock?” said Lestrade.
Sherlock looked to his brother.
Mycroft was silent, appearing to ignore him, but after a long moment he gave a shudder and his eyes moved rapidly under thin lids.
“We must hurry,” was all he said. The little smile that had hovered on his lips earlier was gone, and his expression was as grim as Sherlock’s own as he watched Harry throws the ballast to the ground, hauling on ropes and pulleys. The airship began its slow, steady rise into the sky.
Unlike the massive zeppelins, the small dirigible hovered only just above roof level, and Sherlock stared down into the streets in horror, fear clenching his throat. The artificial dark was as dim as any winter’s night, but he could still see quick, scurrying movement everywhere as hundreds of Witch-kin emerged from their nests into the dark of the day. He watched as a man ran from the grasping clutch of a clawed hand into the waiting jaws of something in the dark. He dragged his gaze away as a sudden shout came from the basket.
Harry was pulling the rudder desperately, Lestrade throwing the last of their ballast overboard. Sherlock scrambled to help, and as he looked forward he could see the source of panic. They were approaching a rooftop swarming with draug.
As the last sandbag dropped into the streets, he could see that it had only raised them a scant foot or two. The dirigible was too slow, too unmaneuverable, and it swerved only slightly before the creatures were upon them, long wet fingers clinging to the wood, pulling the basket down. Sherlock went swiftly for his pistol, but he was stopped by Mycroft’s firm grip on his arm.
“Use your knife, brother,” he said sharply, gesturing skywards. Sherlock holstered the gun with a curse; one spark could ignite even the tiniest leak in the hydrogen balloon.
For a moment, the inside of the basket was a flurry of panic. Somewhere underneath them, a draug shrieked and then was silenced. And suddenly they were slithering over the side.
Lestrade shouted as one of the creatures got a grip on his arm and began to slowly pull him from the basket, its huge, toothless mouth opening wide and black. Sherlock was upon it in seconds, and it gave a long, rattling breath as he sliced into its flesh, slippery grip pitching it backwards towards the ground. There was a choking sound to his left and he pushed the hilt of a long knife into Lestrade’s hand before turning towards the source; one of the foul beasts had slid over the edge and was slowly, inexorably enveloping Mycroft’s manservant. Mycroft himself was engaged in a struggle with one that had clung to the side, before it suddenly gave a dry, gasping sound and was pulled from the basket. Mycroft almost fell backwards in surprise before recovering himself and stumbling towards the struggling servant, putting his hands out blindly, more clumsy than Sherlock has ever seen him. Lestrade took control of the rudder and cleared them of the roof while Sherlock took his knife to the remaining creature.
It died quickly, and he dragged it off and flung it from the basket, but the damage had already been done. Harry’s breathing was shallow, and oddly wet sounding. Mycroft crouched over him, fine wool trousers scraping on the filthy bottom of the airship as he drew a small bottle full of white powder from the pocket of his waistcoat. He sprinkled it delicately over Harry’s mouth, finding his way with his fingertips. Sherlock slumped momentarily against the side, watching.
“Will he live?” he asked, quietly.
“Yes,” said Mycroft, voice strained. He sprinkled more of the powder and Harry drew a choking breath, beginning to shiver. Mycroft removed his fine coat and tucked it around him.
Less than a half hour since they had taken off, they began to descend.
-
The church was a small but ornate building, the intricate carvings that adorned it a clear indication of pre-war architecture. A woman holding a child, a man with a staff and robe, their faces worn with age and neglect. There were long, thin windows all along one side of the building, but the interior was too dark to clearly see anything but slightly shifting shapes. Witch-kin prowled the perimeter but ventured no further than the graveyard with its headstones like rows of jagged, rotting teeth.
“I am no more use to you, Sherlock,” Mycroft said as they ascended the steps at the entrance, “I am as blind as you are here, and I cannot…” he trailed off, head turning back towards the dirigible.
Sherlock looked down at their clasped hands and felt the strangest urge to embrace his brother, before shaking it off. Mycroft squeezed his fingers once, sharply, before turning away.
Despite their reluctance to approach hallowed ground, Sherlock could feel the pressing presence of more than one Witch-kin nearby, and he urged Lestrade inside, stopping just beyond the threshold to draw some simple wards, to dip his fingers into the little flask of blessed water in a pouch on his belt and smear it hastily on the door.
“Empty!” said Lestrade, his voice echoing in the hall. “It is empty!”
Sherlock ignored him, and remained crouched near the door over his ward. On the stone floor, almost invisible, was a very faint print of a fine boot. He tilted his head. Pinpointed the shoemaker. Wear on the inner edge of the heel. And there, ah, a trace of grease. He leaned down, ignoring Lestrade’s exclamations, and sniffed long and deep. Beyond the cloying scent of incense that permeated the church, he could detect fish oil, charcoal, and that unmistakable stink of Thames filth. Someone had come on foot from the docks very recently. Someone well dressed with flat feet. There was a drag in the print as if a long piece of fabric had been pulled over it. A cloak. Black velvet, from the fibres stuck in the traces of oil. Sherlock straightened, eyes darting around in the dark and yes, there, gleaming in a pool of dull lamplight streaming in through one of the windows; a long, brown hair.
He reached down and picked it carefully from the floor, staring at it. It felt abruptly like there was a lump of lead in his belly.
“Have you found some clue, Sherlock?”
Sherlock opened his mouth, then closed it once more. There was nothing to say. He tried to make some more logical sense of the evidence, but the only conclusion that presented itself was so hard to swallow that it sat thick in his throat.
“Stitch-Face,” he managed, finally. “The print is not ten minutes old.”
Lestrade turned slowly, gaze meeting Sherlock’s wide and shocked.
“But you…” he trailed off.
“We must find John,” Sherlock said, the words falling heavy from his lips. Lestrade nodded, mouth a grim line, and stood to one side as Sherlock scanned the floor. There were several narrow passageways leading away from the church, each one descending on a slight slope into the darkness below. On the floor, at the entrance to one of them, was a long, scraped scuff mark.
“Someone has been dragged this way,” he said, making off down the corridor without checking to see if Lestrade is following.
It was as black as pitch, and as he descended the smell of damp and decay rose in his nostrils. There was no way to tell if they were moving in the right direction, but with the knowledge that John had been taken down this very corridor (for it could be no one else), Sherlock pushed on. He felt disorientated; some moments he was certain they must be descending, others he felt the ground was rising under his feet.
The darkness felt almost solid around him; Lestrade’s footsteps sounded muffled though he was not far behind. Sherlock ignored the unease that prickled at the back of his neck.
“Sherlock,” Lestrade said, quiet and close. And there was something else, there.
“Be silent, Lestrade,” he murmured.
They stood as still as stone in the thick, enveloping blackness for what must be over a minute before he heard the sound again.
Movement. A shuffling, clumsy scrape of a sound. He felt rather than heard Lestrade’s sharp intake of breath near his ear.
Cautiously, he moved forward towards the source of the sound. Slowly, slowly, and then all of a sudden his heart leaped in his chest as there came another quick shuffle. So close it’s almost upon them. He kept Lestrade behind him with one hand and drew his pistol with the other, carefully pulling it out and thumbing back the hammer with a quiet snick.
Not quiet enough.
The shuffle of movement up ahead grew purposeful, approaching them with speed and Sherlock aimed steady and true, heart pounding, eyes straining in the darkness to see anything, anything at all.
“Sh-Sherlock?”
He almost dropped his pistol in sudden, drenching relief.
”John.”
And then John was next to him, shaking hands clutching at Sherlock’s arms, nose pressing cold against Sherlock’s neck and Sherlock was drawing him close, breathing in the familiar, warm scent of him. John clung like a drowning man, breathing long, deep breaths.
“I thought I was going mad, or blind in the dark,” he whispered in gasps against Sherlock’s neck. “That I was trapped in my own head. Oh, gods, you cannot know,” he swallowed audibly, lowered his voice to a murmur. “You cannot know how sweet it is to find you here. I--” he paused, tightened his grip briefly.
Sherlock let out a long, shuddering breath.
“I am not blind? Only it seemed as though you could not see me.”
“No,” murmured Sherlock into his soft hair. “No, we are deep underground, I suspect.”
John didn’t lessen his grip at all. His lips brushed against Sherlock’s neck as he breathed and Sherlock felt his heartbeat slow until it was a steady, comforting rhythm against him.
Only a sudden rustling movement behind him reminded him that Lestrade was there, and he stepped back from the embrace, embarrassed, before realising that it was still utterly dark.
“Is that—?”
“Inspector Lestrade, yes,” said Sherlock.
“It is a pleasure to hear your voice clear and well, young sir,” said Lestrade. “Are you injured?”
“Only my wrists. I was cuffed for quite a time, I think.”
Sherlock trailed a hand down John’s arm to find his wrists and felt the tacky trails of still-drying blood there. His teeth clenched.
“You escaped?”
“I was…freed, actually, and not more than a handful of minutes ago, Sherlock! A man. His voice was muffled, though, and I could not recognise it. He said you would be following, though I could not be sure if I had already gone mad.”
“Muffled,” said Sherlock sharply. “As though spoken through fabric?”
“That could have been it, yes,” said John.
Sherlock closed his eyes. It made no difference, and he shook his hands through his hair, trying to force his brain to draw the pieces together. He felt like it was just beyond his grasp, and he reached, reached as far as he can, gaining nothing. He growled in frustration.
Suddenly realising something, he spun for John once more, grasping him by the shoulders clumsily before tracing a hand over his face.
“I am sensing nothing from you,” he said. He pushed a little harder.
“It is not there,” John said, voice gone abruptly flat. “That is what you were looking for? As soon as I woke, I knew it.”
“Knew it? How? You remember--?”
“I…remember the war. I remember the illness, the fever. Delirium. The edge of madness. I remember a man at the docks, when I was half-dead already. And then after that, I remember you.”
“And in between? After?” Sherlock urged. John batted him away, twisting from his grip.
“Nothing,” he said.
He was lying. Why was he lying? He wished he could see John’s face, see the expression on it that accompanied that cold, flat voice. Only moments before, John had been warm and alive in his grip.
“We are running out of time,” Lestrade hissed from behind them, making Sherlock start. “Sherlock, we must move.”
Sherlock stilled, and for just a moment the urge to hold fast to John and pull him away from this place flared up strong and almost overwhelming. His hand began to move to grasp John’s when John’s voice came from the darkness, wavering but clear.
“This way, Inspector. He went this way,” and, pushing aside his own useless fear, he followed.
The ground was steadily rising beneath their feet again. He estimated that they had travelled for at least a mile underground, but losing his sight had disorientated him to the point of unsurety. Something pressed at the edge of his senses, distracting, illusory. It could easily have been half a mile, or two. If they were to encounter something in this tomb there would be no escaping it. He quickened his pace, following the light tread of John’s steps until he was so close he could feel the heat of John’s arm against his own. Lestrade followed close behind, a large, comforting presence.
After what could be ten minutes or longer, he sensed a change in the quality of the air around them; it was less stifling, and he fancied he could almost see John’s familiar profile beside him. After another five minutes it was clear than he could see it, and he pressed forward, upwards, until muffled sounds begin to drift faintly down the corridor. Sherlock stopped John so suddenly that Lestrade almost bowled right into the back of them, and he held his fingers to his lips.
“Listen.”
Shouting, up ahead. It was quiet but just audible; two voices, both male. The first was the voice of Stitch-Face, that much was clear, but the other was too faint to identify at such a distance. Sherlock began to move again, increasing his pace as the ground under their feet gently sloped upwards. Gradually it became light enough that he could see John’s determined expression whenever he glanced over. It made something tight in his chest ease slightly.
Shortly, the stone corridor began to widen, and the voices became clearer. They hurried around the final curve in the corridor and emerged into a vast hall lit with hundreds upon hundreds of torches. The walls were a smooth, unbroken stone. The entire cavernous room had clearly been hewn from the bedrock of London itself, and hundreds of feet above there were countless windows through which it was just possible to see the blackened sky outside. The thick smell of incense was almost choking.
Upon setting foot in the hall, Sherlock felt that slight pressing presence implode within him so suddenly that he almost fell to his knees. He stopped dead, drawing in a gasping, choking breath, feeling John’s hand clench on his arm. John and Lestrade stopped too, and Sherlock followed their line of sight to the two figures at the far end of the hall.
Engaged in a fierce looking fistfight were Stitch-Face – sleek wig and hat discarded on the ground, leaving him looking oddly naked in just his sackcloth mask – and, moving as if badly injured, Chief Inspector Gregson. Gregson had an odd patterned cloak draped from his shoulders.
As they watched, Sherlock still reeling from the shock of contact with…something, Stitch-Face pulled out a long, gleaming knife and began to advance. The glint of cold steel must have awakened something in Lestrade, for he gave a shout and suddenly rushed forward to Gregson’s aid.
At the sound, Stitch-Face faltered, surprised, and Gregson managed to knock him backwards with a powerful blow that seemed to stun him. Sherlock shook his head and took off on Lestrade’s heels, John shortly behind them. John was shouting something, but Sherlock’s mind was clamouring, information and magic hurtling in twisting circles as his eyes darted around, looking for something, anything. His mind was a cloud of confusion, connections faltering in the smog of the thick, invading presence in the hall, and it was familiar, so very familiar.
Gregson turned, his movements queer and jerky, and Sherlock could see that he had a hand full of bloodstone. Then he crouched down, the cloak spreading out around him, displaying the embroidery on the back.
Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.
And there, below that, the ridiculous circular symbol that looked like a peculiar little striped face. The image of the Chackh’Morg appeared suddenly before Sherlock’s eyes, the yellow eyes in the centre of a mass of tentacles. Oh. The Fraternity. A group with influence, money. The rich and stupid doing foolish things. Blood wards the size of a city. Christ.
“Stop, sir!” John was shouting. “Stop, it is not him, not who you think!”
Sherlock managed to grasp a handful of Lestrade’s billowing cloak to slow him, and as they approached, he could hear that familiar, rasping voice chanting in low, hoarse syllables, power spilling from them in waves.
“Gregson!” Lestrade bellowed. “Tobias, are you hurt?”
“Inspector,” John gritted out, taking hold of his arm. “It is not him, please.”
Lestrade slipped from their grip and reached Gregson, who immediately turned to knock him back with inhuman strength. John gave a shout and ran to his side, and Sherlock started to move forward, fumbling for his pistol.
“If you shoot him, the spirit will take the boy,” came a low voice from beside him. “It needs to complete the ritual. Leave him to me.”
Sherlock spun round towards the masked face and grasped a handful of velvet cloak. “How did you find this place?” he hissed. “Why are you here?”
“I followed you, of course, Mr Holmes.”
Sherlock looked more carefully. Fingernails cracked and splintered, bleeding, scrapings of wood. Blackish blood splattered delicately over his neck. Draug blood. The dirigible. Gods, how it had hung so close to the rooftops despite all the ballast gone. They had had an extra passenger.
“None of you can stop it,” Stitch-Face said, gesturing to John. John, who was still bleeding from the cuffmarks on his wrists, who looked as if one blow would fell him. Lestrade beside him, slowly regaining consciousness. He turned back towards Gregson, whose arms moved against their joints, shaping the space in front of him. The air was so thick with magic that Sherlock could almost see it blurring and moving in front of his eyes. Closing them did nothing to ease the roiling behind them.
“You cannot, but I can.”
Stitch-Face rolled one sleeve of his fine shirt slowly up his arm, and, as Sherlock watched, brung his Bowie knife up to the soft pale skin at the crook of his elbow. He exhaled a soft grunt of pain as the tip slipped inwards, and, as if through soft butter, he began to trace that unforgettable shape into his very flesh, each tentacle drawn in a bright spill of red. Blood oozed from the wounds, blurring the crisp outlines, but he did not stop. His hand was perfectly steady, deft artistry in each stroke.
Sherlock watched. Sherlock could not look away, could not tear his eyes from each bloom of blood as it spilled over pale skin and dripped thickly to the floor. “What—” he managed, before Stitch-Face gave a little stilted gasp, gripped the knife more firmly and began to make towards Gregson.
Sherlock watched as he limped forward. He felt somehow as if what he was watching was not real. As if he was a spectator to his own body standing dumbly, gun clutched uselessly in his hand, wavering stupidly between Gregson and Stitch-Face. As he watched, Stitch-Face approached Gregson and lashed out with the knife. Gregson clearly saw the blow coming and blocked him, and they grappled for a few moments before Stitch-Face wrenched himself out of the grip and, before Gregson could react, connected a blow to his temple so fierce that he was clearly knocked unconscious. Gregson dropped to the ground, and Sherlock could suddenly see the air quivering around him, the shape of it strangely human as it moved. The power in the room shuddered along with it, on the edge of collapse.
John made a pained, choking noise and Sherlock turned to see that he was gripping the back of his neck, dropping to his knees. Lestrade was holding his shoulders, shouting, and Sherlock shook his head against the confusion there, taking a step towards John. John suddenly went limp, and then Sherlock looked back to where Stitch-Face appeared to be convulsing on the floor, the shimmering shape above him, around him, sinking downwards. His knife was gripped tight in one hand, the mark on his other arm vivid and red, gushing fresh blood onto the floor.
Sherlock watched, head pounding, as Stitch-Face lurched for a moment towards the bag of bloodstone discarded on the floor, and then in one sudden, wrenching movement, brought the knife upwards and gouged a line of red into his own throat.
-
Everything happened at once.
There was a sudden cut-off shriek, piercing and terrible, which hung in the air for a second before
the half-constructed ward humming and throbbing in the hall collapsed entirely. Its power failed like a falling building, shaking the foundations of everything around it and echoing through the blast radius. The pressure that had been building in his head released like a valve opening and Sherlock gasped, gazing up in stunned horror as the roof high above them began to crumble, revealing the black clouds retreating and the distant horrifying death wails of Witch-kin outside as they were bathed in sudden sunlight.
“Sherlock!” John was beside him, shaking him, pulling him upwards. “Sherlock, we must go, now!”
He staggered upwards, lurching towards where the body of Stitch-Face lay twitching still in a pool of red. His head was clear; he needed to see. The answers would be written on the corpse as clear to read as any book.
“Sherlock, please come,” said John, voice tight and desperate. Sherlock hesitated, glancing between John’s face and the crumpled form on the floor. John pulled on his sleeve, urging him away.
Sherlock spared the hall one last look, then turned to follow with a curse, leaving the body on the floor, blood spreading slowly. The ceiling was still slowly breaking apart, bits of masonry hitting the floor heavily and smashing into pieces as if they were made of fine china. Sherlock stumbled, following John as he darted between fallen stone towards the dark smudge of the doorway. Lestrade had reached it already and stood, face pale, shouting encouragement. Sherlock ran, unthinking, following John, and from behind him came a deafening bang. A huge piece must have fallen, but the floor did not tremble as it had done before. He slowed without meaning to, glancing down in frustration at his own legs, which were suddenly stumbling
There was a spreading patch of red on the front of his shirt. Confused, he turned. Saw Gregson scrambling to his feet even as he dropped his pistol to the ground.
“Sherlock?” shouted John, from up ahead. “Hurry!”
He touched his fingers to the blooming patch on his chest, looked up. John was staring back at him, a look of horror on his face. Sherlock smiled, reassuring, he hoped. Then everything exploded in blackened agony.
-
Sunlight. Sunlight and chaos. John’s face, wet, streaked with filth and blood, hovering over him. He reached his hand out, and fingers threaded through his own.
-
Gods, the pain was unbearable. He awakened, choking, only to have it lance through him white hot and devastating, enough to blacken his vision, and—
“Sherlock.” Quiet, soft, and soothing. A hand touched his face.
He opened his mouth to speak, but drawing air into his lungs was an agony like he had never known, and he let out a wrenching sob instead.
“Bring water! Laudanum!”
-
“Sherlock,”
He was dreaming, he thought. His brother, when they were younger. Eyes bright, inquisitive. He had forgotten their colour.
“I am so sorry, I did not see.”
He laughed. Mycroft, you have no eyes!
“I’ve failed you, brother.”
-
Touches of water, of soft fingertips over his face, salt on his tongue.
-
He opened his eyes, unsure if he was still dreaming. He lay in his own bed, the shutters on the windows closed, the cracks letting in slivers of sharp-bright sunlight that illuminated the small room. A wooden chair, next to his bed, indentations in the cushion. Mycroft? No. John. He took in a slow breath, pain stabbing with long, relentless needles at his lungs. Coughed. Agony.
Footsteps.
The door was flung open with a bang that made him wince, and there stood John. Sherlock stared at him.
“You are…awake.”
“A stunning observation,” Sherlock managed, shifting a little to try and ease the ache. And John’s face transformed. It was like spring into winter, watching the smile spread slowly onto his face. He took careful steps closer to Sherlock’s bed until he stood beside it, suddenly dropped to his knees and, carefully, as if something might break, reached his hand out to touch Sherlock’s face briefly. His eyes were bright.
Sherlock let his eyes slip closed. Felt the echo of warmth against his skin.
-
He woke again to a shuffling movement, feeling a short spark of panic before the scant moonlight outside lit John’s shape curled up awkwardly on the little chair. John shifted again in his sleep.
“John.”
John was awake instantly, eyes wide and alert before they skimmed over Sherlock’s face and softened.
“Sherlock,” he murmured, reaching out before pulling back. “How do you feel?”
Sherlock grimaced, skating a hand down his chest to touch the edges of ragged skin. He stifled a gasp at the pain.
“I did the best job I could, but I am afraid you will have quite a scar. You can be thankful I retrieved the pellet before you awoke, at least, and that the stitches have had a little time to settle. It has been but three days, though you have slept for most of it.”
Sherlock stared blankly at him for a moment, before slowly opening his mouth.
“You,” he said carefully, turning this over in his mind, “you are a doctor.”
“A surgeon,” John corrected. Then he turned away, hands clenching into a fist.
“The hands of a professional, by gods, John.”
John stared down at his hands, mouth a thin line where moments ago it had been a soft curve.
“Yes. I…I knew it as soon as I awoke in that corridor. I thought perhaps being blind was not such a punishment for what I have done.”
Sherlock tried to sit up but the white knife of pain in his chest forced him backwards.
“Do not be…ridiculous,” he gasped out. “You were a vessel, nothing more. It is I who failed to see the obvious. It is I who has been as blind as my brother.”
His words came quickly now, as everything began to coalesce with startling clarity. “The calluses on your dominant hand, oh! They come not only from a knife, but from a scalpel. A surgeon,” he said again. “Who better to hide behind than a murderer? Who better to hide than a person who does not know their own actions? Gods, they have been clever. And you…you must have been a gift falling into their laps, I can see it.”
And he could. John, half delirious with fever and pain after months at sea, abandoned to the mercies of the London night. No family to miss him, no strength to fight. Too weak to resist the scant kindness of a faceless stranger offering food, warmth, safety.
“I could have—I should have—”
“Fought?” said Sherlock. “But you did, John. The night near the docks. You were beginning to get stronger, were you not? I noticed it then, that the infection of your shoulder was nearing its end. The spirit was stronger than any I had ever encountered, and it could only control you when you were half-dead. Remarkable.”
He looked up into John’s face, studying him.
“You are…remarkable,” he said.
John shifted on the chair, resting his elbows on his knees and pressing his face into his hands. He took a long, shuddering breath.
“I can see their faces,” he whispered, voice muffled. “Looking at me. So many of them, Sherlock. And they all look so afraid. Afraid of me.” A shaking gasp. “I am a monster.”
Sherlock twisted to sit up, ignoring the stabbing pain radiating from the wound, and tentatively reached out, pulling one of John’s hands away from his face. John looked up, blinking quickly.
“You should,” he saaid wetly, “you should not be sitting. Here, I am being absurd and you have been shot. Lie back, come now.” A sniff, and he scrubbed his eyes quickly, standing to manoeuvre Sherlock back into bed. Sherlock winced a little, but allowed himself to be pressed backwards. He laced his fingers through John’s and did not let go, even when John moved to pull away.
John sat on the bed, and Sherlock listened to the sounds of their breathing, of the rustling of bedclothes, and of the muffled sounds of laughter and shouting from the streets. His breathing slowed. The pain in his chest eased slightly. He rubbed a thumb along John’s, the touch small and addictive.
“I thought you were dead,” John said abruptly. “In that moment, in the hall.”
“I am not, thanks only to you,” Sherlock murmured, only half awake.
“I am not a worker of miracles, I…had it only been an inch to the left, Sherlock. It…your heart, it would have…” He stopped, and Sherlock looked up at him. His eyes were closed.
Sherlock shifted to the side, making room in the small bed. He tugged lightly on John’s arm. John hesitated, and then slid down beneath the blanket. Their hands were the only point of contact between them, but still Sherlock felt warmth suffuse him that had nothing to do with shared body heat.
“Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius,” he murmured into the dark. “Do you have any Latin?”
“None,” said John. “They-”
“Whom the Gods would destroy, they would first make mad,” said Sherlock. He let out a quiet huff of, laughter, it sounded hollow even to his own ears. “I have been…blind to everything around me. That absurd little symbol of the Fraternity,” he moved a hand to the back of John’s neck, felt him shift, “and I did not see it. I did not observe.”
“You have been…extraordinary, Sherlock,” John said, turning so that they were nose to nose and his eyes looked very dark. “Without you I…I would no doubt be dead. And I would have taken the rest of London with me.”
Sherlock drifted his fingers against the tattoo on John’s neck. It was not a ward any longer, just ink, and it felt like any other skin. The fine hairs under his fingertips began to stand on end. “Then we stand even, I suppose,” he murmured. John released a long, shivering exhale against his mouth and Sherlock felt something curl delicious within him before there was a slow, hesitant press of lips against his own, the softest of touches. He felt John’s sigh as a tiny rush of warm air and he drifted towards sleep, breathing John’s breaths, the taste of him on his tongue.
-
“It is an entirely odd sensation, that of having memories not my own,” John said. He was lying on his back in Sherlock’s bed, gazing at the ceiling. Sherlock was stretched sitting, back against the wooden headboard.
“They found me, as you said, at the docks. A doctor; Pyke was his name. I thought him a kindly soul, for I was still delirious and half-dead, and what respectable gentleman would show such compassion?” Here he turned his head to look at Sherlock, eyes bright, mouth curling.
“Dr Pyke held me in his house, and here my memories are not entirely clear. It could have been the fever, but I suspect now that he was administering me with some substance to cloud my thoughts.
“I remember the faces of many men who were presumably brought to observe me or deem me…suitable for their means. I cannot recall at what time they must have marked me, but it is here that my thoughts become…tangled. Not my own.”
“The spirit,” said Sherlock, nodding. “They used you as a vessel, evidently.”
“Yes,” said John. “It had a name. Azath. It was…cold. Gods, the cold was unbearable, maddening.” He shivered, and Sherlock shifted closer.
“They did not clothe or feed me more than I needed to simply survive.”
“They wanted you weakened.”
“Yes, I was more use to them in such a state. But Azath grew impatient, I believe, with the damaged vessel it had been gifted. My injuries inhibited it. It grew in strength and with it so did I.
“I began to regain my own consciousness for short periods of time,” he said, fingers clenching fitfully in the bedclothes, “but each time I left something of myself behind. When I awoke I lost all sense of myself, yet when I slipped back I was trapped within my own body. I suspect weeks at a time went by while I was unawares that time was passing at all. Sometimes I watched as my own hands…” he stopped, swallowed, “my own hands held a person down as they screamed and I could do nothing but watch.”
Sherlock turned his head to look at the soft lines of John’s profile.
“I found it within me to escape that place on the night you came across me – I was not shackled or kept under key, for Azath was bound to them in a contract signed in blood.”
“And the contract?”
“Azath was merely a tool, just as I was. I do not know what was bargained, but Azath had the skills, the knowledge to summon…I…I am not sure how to describe it.”
“An Outer God,” said Sherlock. “That is how they are referred to in my father’s books.” He felt a chill settle in his belly.
“It is as good a name as any for such a creature. Azath had…knowledge of them. Thinking of them is…terrifying. I could not easily describe it. It is not knowledge meant for human minds.”
“And yet you have not succumbed to madness.”
“Perhaps,” said John, and a slight smile hinted at the corners of his mouth. “One can never be entirely sure.”
“If you are mad, then I too have suffered the same fate. If a man had suggested to me that I would see a day come when Witch-kin were no more I would have laughed right in his face, John.”
“Would that all the evil in this city had suffered such a fate as those wretched creatures,” said John, expression darkening.
Sherlock drummed his steepled fingers together, looking down at him, considering.
“I was wondering if you might entertain a proposition of mine,” he said.
-
Sherlock twisted, tightening the holster around John’s waist as best he could – the fit was far from ideal and he huffed in frustration as John sighed in amusement above him. The waxing moon gleamed down on them bright and cold, the skies free of everything but drifting wisps of cloud.
“Do stop fussing, Sherlock.”
“It will suffice,” he said, giving it one final tug. Their guns were filled only with lead pellets, the iron and silver beginning to gather dust in their cabinet, and John smoothed a fond thumb over the barrel of his pistol before tucking it alongside its partner in his belt.
They took a short detour through Rosemary Lane and Sherlock ducked into a crooked, cramped alley to lend an ear to a whispering wisp of a girl. He pressed a shilling into her outstretched palm and she scrambled away as he emerged. John’s eyes darted over his face, and then he smiled a slow, complicated smile. His hand drifted to his belt.
“Vauxhall Bridge,” said Sherlock
“An hour,” John said softly. “Come, then. Let us not waste any more time.” His eyes were bright, gleaming with dark pleasure and his teeth showed up white in the shadow of his face. He swirled around, setting a brisk pace that Sherlock hurried to match.
Their journey was silent for the most part. John was not one for idle chatter and Sherlock was content to let the thrill of the chase sing in his blood as they came closer to Vauxhall and the cavernous, crumbling arches of the decaying bridge. The stench of the Thames followed them around the curve of it, and soon Sherlock could see the looming, distinctive shape of the arches over the water. His heart beat a thumping rhythm in his chest.
“John,” he murmured, as they slipped into the first shadowy hollow. “Follow my lead.”
John nodded, sliding into position behind him, expression inscrutable. His pistol was gripped lightly in one hand, and his stride was soft and even behind Sherlock’s. The silence weighed heavy, aside from the faint scrabbling of something small in the gloom. Sherlock’s hand was on his revolver before he could think, and he started at the soft weight of John’s fingers clasping his wrist.
“A rat,” John said softly.
The darkness under the arches was thick and enveloping, but thin threads of moonlight made their way into even the blackest corners and Sherlock could make out the shapes of people huddled together, of dogs curled sleeping on the sodden ground, of makeshift shelters formed of wood and fabric. They moved slowly, quietly, John a constant solid presence at Sherlock’s elbow, Sherlock’s eyes darting this way and that against the gloom. It was not twenty minutes before he spotted something that nearly made his breath come out in a huff of laughter. He put out his hand to stop John and motioned towards a shape curled under a rich embroidered cloak, the gold threads glinting in the moonlight.
John looked up at him, and his eyes were as black as the night and twice as cold. Sherlock nodded. John cocked his gun.