Warlock Holmes--My Grave Ritual

by G. S. Denning

  He was unsteady, but he managed to rise and slump numbly against the wall.

  “Any medical attention needed?” Holmes asked.

  “Just this, really,” I said, then reached down, grabbed his two wayward fingers and yanked them back into place. Gilchrist let out a howl of pain. “Very sorry, but it’s for the best, you know.”

  “Good,” said Holmes. “Now, Gilchrist, I want you to look at me and pay attention to my words…”

  Holmes placed one finger against Gilchrist’s bruised forehead and pushed hard.

  “Ow!” the youth complained.

  “Cats are all carnivores, but one never ate me,” Holmes said.

  “What?” said Gilchrist.

  “Trees can’t be trusted, yet they’re the tallest fellows I know.”

  “What’s he doing?” asked Soames.

  “I’ve no idea,” I admitted.

  “Verbs aren’t like herbs, for they grow on the tongue. Up is a lie, but down is just the state of things. You’re only feeling down because nobody’s feeling you up. Had you ever never not have neglected to think of that?”

  I think I was about to take up Gilchrist’s cause and ask Holmes if he’d gone completely off his nut, but I never got the chance. Holmes’s nonsensical observations gained in speed, blurring together into an uninterrupted curtain of noise until suddenly there was a loud bang. Holmes and Gilchrist were gone. Soames leapt back with a cry, staring at the empty stairwell, then rounded on me and demanded, “What has he done? Where are they?”

  I shrugged. “No idea whatsoever.”

  Then, with a second bang, Holmes was back.

  “Well,” he said, “that’s done.”

  “Where is Gilchrist?” Soames stammered. “What have you done with him? Is he dead?”

  “Don’t be silly; I would never. He was an all right fellow, really. Sounds like his father is a bit of a pest, yet young Douglas is nothing but a long-jump enthusiast who found himself in a bit of a bad spot.”

  “So… what did you…?” Soames said.

  “Oh, I merely scrambled his memory up with a bit of good old babblemancy and sent him somewhere out of the way. You said yourself, Soames, he did not belong in a school like this. Well, I am happy to report young Gilchrist has begun anew. He is a promising young police cadet in Rhodesia.”

  “Where?” asked Soames.

  “It is a country in southern Africa.”

  “No it isn’t,” I said.

  Holmes began to look very troubled. “Well… it was. Twenty years ago.”

  “Nope.”

  “Well then, it will be within the next twenty years, certainly.”

  I shrugged. “We have no way of knowing that, Holmes.”

  “No, we do! Because I tried to step straight across, you see? And I can’t possibly have gotten more than two decades off on either side, because my legs aren’t that long. So if Rhodesia isn’t a place and wasn’t a place then it will be and that is where you will find Douglas Gilchrist! Oh… though from the sound of things, when we do find him, he may be somewhat younger than he ought… Sorry about that.”

  Soames—who had grown quite pale during this exchange—gasped, “Impossible!”

  “I detest the word,” Holmes sniffed.

  “Poorly done, Holmes,” I said, shaking my head.

  “Well, I had to do something, didn’t I? Anyway, there’s no sense worrying about it now. I say, Watson, it’s a fine day. Fancy a walk home?”

  “I’d love a breath of air. It’s a bit too Bannister-y, in here.”

  “Quite,” Holmes agreed.

  “Who knows, you may have time to finish putting together that jigsaw puzzle.”

  Holmes’s face went pale. “Finish… what?”

  “Your puzzle. You may finally get it put together.”

  “Oh! Oh, that’s so much… That’s all you do?”

  “Holmes! Had you not realized? Yes, you merely fit the pieces together, until they make the picture on the box.”

  “But that’s so easy! That’s all it takes to release its trove of secrets?”

  “What? No! There are no secrets. No trove. It’s just a picture of a boy and a goat.”

  “…”

  “…”

  “That’s a bit of a disappointment,” said Holmes. “Nevertheless, I shall have it completed in a day!” He tilted his head to one side and conceded, “Well… two days, at most. There’s only one thing left to do. We have Gilchrist’s copies, but not the originals. Hilton Soames, I will thank you to hand over the Fortescue’s Binding manuscript, if you please.”

  Soames drew himself up to his full height, stuck out his chin and said, “You’ve no right to demand it.”

  “And yet, I do demand it,” Holmes said. “You’ve seen what I can do, Soames. Do you suppose you have the power to keep it from me?”

  Soames bristled for a moment, then turned on his heel and marched into his office. He returned a moment later, holding several sheaves of paper. He brusquely deposited these in Holmes’s hand, pouting. “It matters not a whit, really. I gathered the information once, it won’t take me long to put it together again.”

  “I suppose not,” said Holmes. He took a moment to spare me a gleeful smile, then turned back to Soames with his eyes twinkling and said, “But I don’t suppose anybody’s told you: cats are all carnivores, but one never ate me…”

  * * *

  Two minutes later, we stepped out into the welcoming summer breeze.

  “You’re sure you’ve taken care of it, Holmes? You’re sure Hilton Soames is no threat?”

  “Tut, Watson! I gave him a stiffer dose than young Gilchrist got. Hilton Soames has no idea there’s even such a thing as magic, now. He’s living a cheerful new life in France as an aeroplane mechanic.”

  “A what mechanic?”

  “Oh, best not to worry about it,” Holmes said. “But do remind me to take good care of our timeline, won’t you? If I’ve stranded those two in a future that doesn’t end up happening… well… that would be poor form on my part.”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure I can help with such things, Holmes. Indeed, what most concerns me is that people are bound to notice the disappearance of two men and one demon butler.”

  “Agh! I hadn’t thought of that! How shall we explain it, Watson?”

  “By happy chance, the disappeared parties are the only men who can place us at St. Luke’s, so… might it not be better to simply return home and make no attempt to explain anything to anybody?”

  “An excellent solution, Watson,” said Holmes, smiling. “Oh! Do you know what I’ve just realized? Technically, I engaged a demon in single combat today, and slew him with my bare hands.”

  “Holmes… it would be equally true to say you won a one-shot slappy-fight with an aging butler.”

  “Yes, but, since it would be equally true…”

  “Oh, very well! Single combat. Bare hands.”

  “You are a gentleman, Watson.”

  “I am a charity.”

  We drew deep drafts of healing summer air and turned our steps, once more, towards Baker Street.

  A SCANDAL IN BOH-GRAH-GRAH-GRAH

  AS I STEPPED IN THROUGH THE DOOR OF 221B AND BEGAN the business of setting my coat and hat upon their proper hooks, Holmes greeted me with, “I say! Watson! It is well that you should choose today to drop by.”

  “Er… I live here.”

  “Well, whatever the reason for your visit, the hour is a propitious one. I am about to receive royalty.” He beamed broadly and waved a single-sheet letter in my direction. The paper was thick, strong, a pleasant shade of light pink, and clearly alive. It waved its corners lazily back and forth.

  “Royalty?” I asked, stepping forward to examine Holmes’s highly suspicious note. “From where?”

  “Bohemia, wherever that is.”

  “It’s a small half-German, half-Czech state, ruled by Emperor Franz Joseph. Which means… this letter, Holmes… it’s all wrong!”

>   He recoiled from the accusation that his newfound royal connection might be tinged with any trace of disrepute. Breathlessly, he demanded, “What? How dare you, Watson!”

  “This note is false. Why, I would in no way expect it to herald the arrival of a Bohemian king. In fact, I would be little surprised if it heralds the arrival of an assassin.”

  “Why on earth would you think such a thing?” Holmes asked.

  “Because the last line tells you so.”

  For the sake of the public record, here is the note in its entirety:

  Hello.

  I am a Germish king from Bohemia, which is a real place. I have come to consult with you on a matter of extreme delicacy. You are the only one who can help me. You are the best person of all the people; we have this report of you received from all a bunch of other people, who are all real. I shall call at a quarter to eight o’clock tonight. Try to be alone and not have too many witnesses about. Do not take it amiss if your visitor wears a mask and tries to kill you.

  Warm regards,

  Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein,

  Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein,

  and hereditary king of Bohemia

  “I see no problem with this letter, Watson. Or anyway, none which your xenophobia has not invented.”

  “Holmes, he says he is going to try to kill you. Right here. Last line.”

  “No. He says he may try to kill me. It is by no means assured. And besides, why would he? He needs my help. Unless you choose to arbitrarily believe the end of the letter and not the beginning, you must admit the truth of this.”

  “Holmes…”

  “Or, who knows, it may be a Bohemian social convention we are unaware of.”

  “I can’t think so, Holmes, or else I would have heard before now what a dangerous place Bohemia is. And this language, it’s positively atrocious. ‘We have this report of you received’? Who speaks that way?”

  “The Bohemians. Obviously.” He rose and petulantly snatched his precious letter from my hand.

  Yet, I could not let myself be dissuaded. I was certain Holmes’s safety stood in great jeopardy.

  “Holmes, if the content of the letter is not enough to warn you, I urge you to look at the paper itself.”

  “What of it?”

  “It’s alive. See how it moves and twists?”

  “In the finest Germish tradition!” Holmes insisted.

  “Oh yes, that’s another thing: that is not a word. Have you ever heard any German describe himself as Germish?”

  “Ha!” Holmes scoffed. “I make it a point never to listen to a German describe himself at all. It is a tedious process. In fact, I think all your protestations spring from the same source. You are upset that the king should seek my aid and not your own. You are merely jealous, Watson.”

  “Jealous?” I cried.

  “Yes and it does not suit you. It is the ugliest of man’s baser emotions.”

  “Jealous?” I howled again.

  Holmes gave the tiniest nod of confirmation. Oh, how I hated that trite, condescending manner he could conjure. How dense he could be! How infuriatingly superior!

  “Well at least I, sir, am not about to be murdered by a fake Bohemian!”

  I stormed into my room and began digging out my service revolver. Peeved as I was, I had no intention of allowing Holmes to be killed. It is well that I hurried, for I could hear the rattle of a fine little brougham coming to a halt beneath my very window. The carriage’s occupant had no patience for waiting. He did not ring the bell at the street door, but admitted himself, stomped up the stairs to our landing and knocked upon our chambers’ door. Even as I leapt back towards the sitting room, Holmes swung the door wide and said, “Ah, Your Majesty. Do—”

  “No! Do not! Do not admit that person. Look at him!”

  There was simply no way our guest could have been human. Yes, he shared basically our same form, but his was a race bred for battle. His shoulders were broad and muscular. He hunched towards our sitting room in a ready crouch. His gloved right hand curled around the hilt of a sheathed sword, which he wore at his belt. He did, indeed, have a mask—a black vizard affair which widened at the bottom, into an altogether inhuman shape. Through the mask, his eyes were visible—aquiline things with neither white nor iris; only the liquid blackness of a sea creature’s soft, fleshy orbs. He wore a military uniform, strung with altogether too much golden tasselry and braiding.

  Holmes, incensed at my behavior, spun from the door to declare, “How rude! His Majesty is—”

  “His Majesty is an impostor and an assassin!” I said. “Do not invite him in!”

  “You must admit me,” our visitor gurgled, in a deep, foreign tone. His voice sounded like two impertinent fish, arguing at the bottom of a bucket of brine.

  “Does that sound like a human to you, Holmes?” I asked.

  Holmes shrugged. “Well… he is German.”

  “Is he?” I laughed. If England is not the world’s preeminent seat of medical science, then that honor must surely go to Germany. Thus, I’d had enough contact with German physicians to pick up a few words of that language.

  “Wäre Ihre Majestät, diese Konversation auf Deutsch fortzusetzen wollen?” I asked.

  Which means: “Would Your Majesty care to continue this conversation in German?”

  Our guest tilted his head to one side, as if trying to determine my meaning, then replied, “Roglrughrusssmrurgle? Serfngir, Grrres?”

  “There you are, Watson,” said Holmes, “German.”

  “Those are not German words, Holmes.”

  “Well then, it must be Czech.”

  “But… but…”

  “Do you speak Czech, Watson?”

  “Well, no… but…”

  “German and Czech are the two languages of Bohemia, are they not? Well then, process of elimination dictates that it must be Czech. The rules of deduction, which you love so well, prove it. Now please, Your Majesty, do come in.”

  Four things happened, almost at once.

  First, Von Ormstein ripped the sword from its scabbard and lunged into the room. I gasped at the sight of it. The weapon had the most evil countenance I had ever seen. Its curved blade was composed of a matte black metal and bathed in an angry green flame, so liquid in its composition that little burning drips of it scorched our floor.

  Second, Holmes beheld the blade that was, no doubt, meant to end his life and declared, “Hey! That’s mine!”

  Third, I shot a king. As Von Ormstein lunged through the door, I blasted him right through the hip.

  Finally—and I’m ashamed to admit this—I murdered some stationery. Even as Von Ormstein fell, I spun and sent a second shot right into the middle of his letter. I don’t know why I did it, except that it was a moment of action and I was scared of the thing. It died with a thin, papery scream, spilling blueish stationery blood all over our table.

  Von Ormstein collapsed forward into the room, mewling piteously. As he hit the floor, his ebon mask slid to one side, revealing a row of writhing tentacles where I had rather expected a chin and mouth. To put it bluntly, our guest had an octopus where his head ought to have been. Oh, and also: he had no sense of decorum, whatsoever.

  “Ow. Oh. Owwie. Why would you do that to me?” he whined.

  Let me just say that, for a big muscly battle-monster, I found his conduct most unbattle-monsterly.

  The sounds of our skirmish had not gone unnoticed by Mrs. Hudson. How could they? Shouts. Two pistol shots. A 250lb octopus monster falling to the floor and bawling about it. Luckily our landlady confined her comments to her usual, which is to say that she banged three times against her ceiling with the broom handle she kept nearby for that purpose and shouted, “Oi! Noise!”

  Holmes stepped to where the burning blade had clattered to rest, scooped it up and regarded it joyously.

  “I say, Watson, look!”

  “What the devil is it, Holmes?”

  “It is me,” he said. “Or,
a part of me, I suppose. It is my self-blade. The weapon of my innermost soul.”

  “Well, it looks positively evil.”

  “Excuse me? What a thing to say, Watson! This is a piece of me. Do you think me evil?”

  I did not mean to insult him, but it did look nefarious in the extreme. So unsettling was it that I could think of no response, but to huff, “Well… you called me jealous.”

  “I suppose I did,” Holmes admitted, “and it was small of me. We are even, I think. But ye gads, I’m glad to have this thing back! I’ve felt a bit incomplete without it, if truth be told.”

  He gave it a few experimental swings. I have since heard a few unnatural fellows speak of how much they feared Holmes as a swordsman. Nevertheless, there was little of the master fencer in his current actions and much of the excited-schoolboy-with-a-stick. One of his overzealous backswings chopped our armchair nearly in half and I found myself shying back from him.

  “But what is it, exactly?” I asked.

  “Everything that lives has an aspect of its self which is violent, which has the capacity to do harm. If one learns the true name of that part of oneself, one can conjure it into physical being. You could do it too, if you knew the right word. This is Melfrizoth. And he’s happy to meet you. Say hello. ‘Hello.’”

  He swung it joyously about his head and sliced off one corner of our bookshelf.

  “So… this entire time I’ve known you, Holmes, a part of you has been missing?”

  “In a sense. It still existed, of course. I just didn’t have access to the physical manifestation of it. Ah, it’s nice to have it back.”

  “But, how did you lose it?”

  “Killed Moriarty with it,” he said, raising his eyebrows as if to say, “Yes. I did that. Me. Pretty impressive, eh?”

  But a moment later, he demurred and added, “Well… if ‘killed’ is the right word. Turns out I wound up with his personality stuck in me and my sword stuck through him, while his body plummeted down a mineshaft.”

  “And you made no attempt to recover it?” I asked.

  “Well, Watson, you’re assuming I could. You have not considered that I may have been somewhat slashed up and half-unconscious and… you know… not at my best.”