His hands shook with the terror that gripped his body. Not terror for himself, but dismay at the improbability he could save Mycroft. He could only delay his brother’s death.
Sherlock was prepared to run forward even though there were almost two dozen people present and it was certain death—he would no doubt be next on the altar.
As he was propelling himself forward a woman screamed.
“Stop!”
He turned to his left to see the hood fall back on one of the women present, revealing her face.
Oh, no! It is Belle! From her expression of anger, she was clearly prepared to show her cards. It was bad enough to see Mycroft here, whom he wasn’t able to protect. The thought of losing both of them was devastating.
He fingered the pistol in his pocket. If the truth be known he wasn’t as good a shot as Watson, but from this distance even he could plant a bullet.
But only one before re-loading. He could, at best, stop only one before another took his place.
Sherlock glanced at the altar. There was no movement. Please let Mycroft still be alive.
“Miss Mabel, you are interrupting our Christian worship.” The priest’s grave expression was dark and threatening. “This will not be tolerated.”
“This ain’t a Christian ritual. This is a bloody Satanic ritual.” Her defiant voice rang through the grove.
A collective gasp moved through the crowd.
The devil take it! What is she doing? Very likely speeding up our imminent murder. This is not a crowd to be reasoned with. Still, an attack always invoked an attack response. Better to invoke cooperation as a stalling technique. To be killed in the end.
And yet Sherlock could not help but admire Belle’s absolute resolution and bravery. She didn’t appear to have the slightest uncertainty in her voice, nor fear the consequences of facing her enemies alone. Always one for method, he conceded it was not a bad tactic to maintain a speech pattern which made her “one of them”.
And she would die anyway.
Sherlock inched closer to the alter while the priest moved towards Belle.
“Blasphemy!” the priest shrilled. “We have a sinner who is an abomination to God.”
“So you speak for God, do you? More like you think you are God! That makes you no different from the swells. Only God has the right to take a life. It says so in the Bible. It’s one of the ten commandments from God hisself! Here you have the golden calf.” She motioned with her hands to the altar. “And you have not even said who you ‘ave here. It’s to be a cold-blooded murder, is it? An how many others ‘ave you killed while you made us all your patsies? Have you purposely cloffed this unfortunate geezer to hide your evil acts?”
Dash it all! Do not return the fiend’s attention to the altar.
Belle turned to the crowd, her fury evident. “This is none other than Mycroft Holmes, right, the Secretary of the Foreign Department, an advisor to the Queen. Not only will you all hang, but right likely your children will be left to die.”
Admittedly that was an excellent tactic. Sherlock nodded with appreciation.
She added, “I thought that was why you was here, for your children. But, no, it’s because evil has entered your hearts. You know I speaks the truth.”
But the priest had effective tactics as well. “God is angry with you all. This is why we continue to suffer. Read Leviticus. The high priest was to take two male goats for a sin offering.” He motioned to the men to remove Belle.
Sherlock was now some three feet from the altar, but he was a good twelve feet from Belle. If he shot the priest in the back, the men would no doubt turn on him for killing their protector.
He was ready to do it, though, if it might save Miss Belle and Mycroft, but there was no guarantee of that. He expected they would all three die in the end. Mycroft was either heavily drugged—or dead. Sherlock shuddered.
His eyes returned to Belle. He didn’t care about his own life, but he would like to be able to save one or both of them before he died.
As the men move towards Belle she screamed, appearing to lose some of her newly found language skills, “You are not a priest! You are not a messenger from God. You are a pharmacist. Or did you forget? You do not have the right to conduct a religious ceremony.” She raised her hands in front of her body as the men approached her. Mirabella lunged forward, pulling on the priest’s robe to reveal . . .
Florence Fairclough.
As I knew. It explains why the crowd is relatively small: Fairclough is unaware of his daughter’s exploits.
Sherlock glanced at Belle, who was astonished. Florence had an alto voice, but she had lowered it even further over the course of the ceremony.
Even so, Belle continued with resolve. “And the sacrifices are only in the Old Testament. Jesus brought a new order. If you don’t heed the Christ, you aren’t a Christian. You are workin’ for the devil.”
One of the men stepped back as if her words had struck home. Sherlock sighed heavily. Belle could handle one man. Sherlock had trained her well and she was an apt student. But six?
He glanced at the altar to see that Mycroft was still breathing, and he thought his heart would pound out of his chest, the degree of his relief so overwhelming.
“What this man has done is wrong,” Florence screamed, waving to Mycroft.
“And what has he done?” Sherlock demanded even while keeping his cloak about his face. Adding his voice to Belle’s could only put the odds more in her favor.
“He is a sodomite,” Florence exclaimed.
“Mycroft?” Belle gulped. “Mr. Mycroft Holmes?” she corrected herself, adding softly as she felt herself swaying. “You’re lying.”
“Ha! ha!” Florence laughed, sounding like a madman. “You little fool! The Diogenes Club is a front for sodomites.”
All eyes turned to Florence, and it was apparent the energy in the forest grove had tipped to her.
***
What if it is true? Mycroft a Marjery? Dismay and revulsion overcame her. Mirabella felt her legs grow weak; she was afraid she might stumble and fall.
She reminded herself that she knew Mycroft. She liked Mycroft. She had a little crush on Mycroft. He was so smart, so amusing, so charming. So kind.
No matter if he is marvelous or not—and he is—he doesn’t deserve to die.
She glanced at Miss Fairclough. Suddenly everything clicked together. Florence is telling the truth. The large membership despite the strange rules one would expect to prevent any interest in membership. The ease with which members were kicked out. The quiet library in the front and the back rooms for private parties.
As if the library were a front.
And the way both Sherlock and Mycroft grew quiet when Constable Jones made his accusations. How bizarre that Athelney might have gotten something right.
And it is irrelevant. There was something so wrong about Florence. Her determination to murder someone who had never harmed her. Florence’s expression of hatred was bone chilling, her eyes appearing almost red with fire.
This female vampire. Who is the scourge upon society? The one who preyed on those different from her? Or Mycroft, who had done so much to help so many? Invaluable to the government.
None of this matters. She glanced at the altar. All that mattered was saving Mycroft from this murderer. She could work out her own thoughts latter—if her own thoughts were of any importance. What did her opinion have to do with anyone else’s life? Only God was judge.
She glanced at the altar and saw a hooded man moving close to the altar.
Could it be? He didn’t move like Sherlock. But then, Sherlock Holmes was a genius at disguising his movements—as he was at all things.
Even though she had only been with Sherlock a little over a year, she could sometimes feel him enter a room, even if she didn’t hear him or see him.
She didn’t feel anything now; she was almost numb with fear and distress.
I must keep all attention away from the altar. She glanced at
the three men drawing near. Mirabella knew she would very likely die, but if she could distract them long enough to keep Mycroft alive, maybe help would come.
“Nothing, absolutely nothing, gives you the right to kill him.” Mirabella planted her feet firmly on the ground. “Whatever he is, Jesus died for him, which leaves you nothing to say in the matter. You and everyone here. His soul is between himself and God. If Jesus died for him, it is none of your business to interfere.”
“It has everything to do with me.” Looking about to observe the true discord amongst the group, Florence was furious. “I had my life ruined because of the sins of these evil men. My life is over. I am spoiled goods. Disgraced and humiliated.”
“I am right sorry for you, but that has nothing to do with this man ‘ere.” Mirabella’s voice grew soft. “And you didn’t marry Overton Bristow. You can still marry someone else.”
“I am spoiled goods. No man wants a woman rejected by a sodomite. There is no man now who would have me.”
Very likely not. Quite scary you are.
“Your fiancé made his own choices. You have no right to inflict suffering on others because your man didn’t want to be wif’ you.”
Florence threw the chalice on the altar and put both hands around the knife, raising it over her head. “No one has suffered enough. No one has suffered as I have. I have been destroyed.”
No one can argue with that. For being insane, there is a surprising amount of truth to what you say.
“Stop! You have caused enough damage.” Sherlock came from behind Florence and grabbed her wrist. “You have your own sins to atone for, Miss Fairclough. Explain to the group how you have been selling the blood for profit and personal gain unbeknownst to your father, their benefactor. I wonder if you cared at all about Overton. Your feigned outrage is its own front for your profitable illegal blood transfusions.”
Mirabella gasped. Blood transfusions were widely frowned upon by the established medical community, but there were those who had made millions of dollars, a fortune beyond imagining. She knew that Dr. James Blundell had performed some ten blood transfusions, publishing the results.
Not all of Dr. Blundell’s patients had lived. It was a highly risky business as no one knew what made a blood match. Even with these disturbing statistics, Blundell had still made something in the neighborhood of two million gold sovereigns.
Could Florence have been doing all this for money? Indeed, it was a great deal of money.
“My father told these people to assist me. I was within my rights.” Florence clutched to her knife as she struggled.
“Because he thought you were running experiments to understand blood compatibility and to further science through legitimate channels. Not through murder. He had no idea you were killing people.”
“The impure blood into the pure,” Florence pronounced. “I sought to purify the world. When the diseased blood met the disease, they raged a battle, both being destroyed to bring about a new order, sometimes saving the recipient.”
She is mad.
“Ridding the world of those you hated while risking the lives of those you pretended to heal,” Sherlock said. “For the right price, and among the desperate. There are those who will pay anything in the hope, however slight, of saving their loved one.”
Mirabella shuddered. It didn’t make sense: killing people to save people.
“Some lived as a result of the blood transfusion,” Florence proclaimed, as if to justify the murders.
“Ah, yes, but all died whom you killed.”
“All sinners,” Florence sputtered.
“You did it for money—and for hate. Lie to yourself but not to us.” Sherlock looked about at the interested crowd.
“You deal in death, Miss Fairclough, not in life. And you shall all hang for her if you do not denounce her now.”
“My father gained his wealth through the opium trade. There is no difference. Those persons are shadows of their former selves.”
“To be sure, while he fought in the Opium Wars he established the channels. I have been his customer for years. There is a vast difference between people choosing their own destiny and having no choice in the matter. And, as far as the law is concerned, it is not illegal to sell opium, while it is illegal to murder people in cold blood.”
“Sodomy is illegal. Those people I killed don’t deserve to live.”
“A judge will very likely decide that you don’t deserve to live, Miss Fairclough.” Sherlock made the fatal mistake of letting himself be distracted with her sick words. She stomped on the inside of his ankle.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Outlaw Justice
“There are certain crimes which the law cannot touch, and which therefore, to some extent, justify private revenge.” - Sherlock Holmes, “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton” by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
He might be the greatest detective in the British Empire, but he still required the use both legs to move with any degree of efficiency. The shooting pain in Sherlock’s ankle threw him down the steps while Florence made her way towards Mycroft. She was a woman with a singular goal in mind.
Sherlock righted himself, favoring his injured ankle, but he realized he couldn’t possibly hobble up the steps fast enough to stop the mad woman from murdering his brother. He drew his revolver and prepared to shoot her.
Hanging be damned!
“No you don’t!” Two of the robed men grabbed Sherlock’s arms in an obvious attempt to drag the intruder to the ground. In spite of his injury Sherlock was able to resist being thrown to the forest floor, jabbing one assailant in the gut with his elbow and clubbing the other on the head with his gun. The elbowed man managed to throw his muscled arm up, knocking Sherlock’s pistol into the grass.
“Mycroft!” Sherlock yelled as Florence raised the dagger above her head. “It’s over Florence, there is no reason to kill anyone else. You won’t be able to sell the blood at this point.”
“You have ruined everything Sherlock Holmes. And I will kill your brother and enact my revenge upon you both.” As Florence plunged the dagger downward, Sherlock saw another body emerge from the shadows and slam into the dark priestess.
Belle! He didn’t think he had ever felt so relieved. Florence tumbled down the stone steps herself, hitting her head against the rocks.
Mirabella moved to stand as a barrier between Mycroft and anyone who might approach. For the first time, Sherlock thought they had a fighting chance. A minuscule chance, but a chance. Mycroft must still be alive or Florence wouldn’t have felt the need to plunge a dagger into his body.
Mirabella’s color was high as she appealed to the crowd. “You must leave this place at once. To stay here will endanger your futures and that of your families forever.”
Good. It was only the group that gave Florence any power. Without her following this high priestess of evil had nothing. Getting them to disperse would save all three of their lives.
Clever indeed, appealing to self-interest rather than to morality.
Doubt began to cross the expressions of many, wondering if they had been lied to about the virtue of their mission of hatred. Just as the plight of the starving poor was a just cause leading to the French Revolution, it became a blood bath of horror.
Sherlock was still under attack himself, but he could see several of the robed figures slipping away quietly.
The injured detective wished his remaining assailant might have been among them, the one he had bonked on the head and sent the ground. His determined foe was still attempting to wrestle Sherlock to join him, and having some luck given the injured ankle.
The pain was throbbing in Sherlock’s ankle, but his mood was much improved seeing Mirabella holding her own in protecting Mycroft with a combination of box kicks and Jiu-jitsu. Encouraged by her tenacity on behalf of his brother, he knew he could fight to the death in the hope that Mycroft and Belle survived.
But Sherlock wasn’t ready to give up the ghost. Yet.
/> Though Belle was handling her opponents admirably, Sherlock’s situation grew worse. While Belle guarded Mycroft admirably, fighting off advancers, some additional four men turned their attentions to Sherlock.
Four against one. Not great odds with an injury, but possible. Sherlock was quite ready to be done with them.
His right leg not of much use, Sherlock utilized both his shoulders and hips, thrusting his right arm down and forward, which caught the man on his right off guard, breaking the attacker’s grip. As the man scrambled to regain his hold, Sherlock snapped the same arm he had only just freed, leaving his assailant screaming in pain.
Unfortunately a second man closed in on Sherlock with the opening left by the first. With lightning fast speed and every ounce of strength he could muster, Sherlock hit the second man full in the face with his elbow. Ordinarily he would utilize a kick at this point, but Sherlock only had one good leg and he had to stand on it. Two punches to the face of his third foe sent the blackguard running for the trees.
Quickly Sherlock swooped up his gun, holding it on his remaining attacker, who backed up before turning and running.
Oh, no! Florence has regained consciousness. The woman was as much machine as monster. Looking toward the altar, he saw Mirabella and Florence struggling. It shouldn’t have been a contest: Belle was the far superior fighter. But Florence had gone into a frothing rage, and the blows Mirabella landed on the villain’s face seemed to have no effect. In one insane thrust, Florence drove Belle off the altar platform.
Sherlock wanted to shoot Florence, but he couldn’t risk it. The pair were fighting so quickly and closely that he would risk hitting Belle.
In an instant Mirabella accessed her own rage. She lunged towards Florence, clearly determined to save Mycroft even at the cost of her own life. Florence knocked Mirabella to the ground, who wasn’t moving. Sherlock limped towards her.
“Belle!” Sherlock screamed. She didn’t move. My precious Belle.
I’ll kill that demon woman, I swear to God I will. He aimed the gun at Florence.
Sherlock Holmes and the Vampire Invasion Page 28
