by Janina Woods
The woman had frozen solid underneath me, while I delivered my monologue. I made sure to deliver every detail with enough underlying threat to take the fight out of her before it even began. The words fell readily from my lips as a means to an end. My determination to actually shoot her if she gave me any problems made it even easier.
She had killed a child, after all.
“I have the case,” Watson said, voice quiet and timid.
“Good,” I nodded at him, then turned back to the murderous fiend I had captured. “Now, I will release your legs and you will stand up. Make an attempt to flee and you will quickly notice that it will only last for a two steps at most.”
As I removed my weight from the woman, she groaned in pain. Her body had been pressed against the edge of the steps, stone digging painfully into her skin and bones. Without the support of her hands she could barely move, so I dragged her upright with a harsh pull at the handcuffs. After a few awkward twists she stood shakily, battered and disheveled - still her posture expressed everything but defeat. The woman held herself straight and proud, chest puffed and chin raised. I couldn’t see her face, but from the way Watson faltered under her gaze, I imagined it to be a mask of hate.
“Move into the area between the two statues right in front of you, right up against the wall. Good. Now I have a few question for you, which you will answer quickly and truthfully. You answer satisfactory and you might walk out of this alive.”
“I don’t believe one word out of your dirty mouth.”
“That’s for you to decide. Now, where is my brother?”
“Gone.”
I received a hateful stare as an answer that would’ve made the gargoyles on cathedral roof proud. Still, I continued the interrogation, but the woman kept quiet, no matter how many questions I threw at her. Fine, we could do this another way.
“You are from London, which is evident from your choice of words and speaking pattern. Well, when I say London, I mean slightly to the north, as it doesn’t quite fit with the city centre,” I stated and kept a close eye on our captive to observe her reactions, small as they might have been. The abysmal lighting on the cathedral roof made me unable to discern the tiny patterns of her facial expression, but it would have to do. “The hairpin you wear is of a make only a single jeweller in London produces, as it carries his signature style. It would’ve been possible for you to steal such a thing, but I wager it was given to you as a present and still kept in high regard, as you carry no other adornments on your rather... functional clothing.”
Watson stood back as I elaborated on my observations to make the assassin feel as unnerved as possible.
“No answer? Fine. You’ve been wearing your clothing for about three days. The dark layer on top is made from threads of a plant origin, and the weave pattern would make me place it south of Turkey. The clothing underneath is worn, but well-maintained and of British origin - mostly sheep’s wool. You’ve spent a lot of time in the sun in recent months, as your skin is visibly darkened, even in the twilight.”
The woman made a point of turning her head away from me as soon as I mentioned her skin - as if that would’ve made any difference at that point. I cleared my throat before I continued, determined to touch on a detail that would make her crack. There had been so much uncertainty in this mission already, that actually having someone in front of me, whom I could analyse to my heart’s content was almost gratifying. It gave me back the sense of control, which had slipped ever further from my grasp during the last days.
“There are many British military operations in the east, which could explain your reason to spend time in the warmer climate, but you wouldn’t be here if you were really part of a troop,” I continued and exchanged a glance with Watson, whose history gave him the authority to confirm my words. “As you’ve already told me that my brother isn’t here anymore, you’re not on this... mission alone.”
I could be mistaken, but the possibility of a mastermind, who let herself be caught so easily was negligibly small. So: a group from the Far East, with a grudge towards Sherlock, some substantial resources and a knowledge of his modus operandi. I knew people in each of the listed groups, and had already made a mental comparison to see where they overlapped. But there wasn’t one organisation or even person, who shared all aspects. Not a single case of my brother’s had taken him this far from London, and I couldn’t remember any brush with a group within our hometown that would fit my current line of inquiry.
The assassin showed me a knowing smirk, teeth glinting even in the dark. I knew roughly where she was from, but I didn’t know who she was and more importantly: just who she was working for. She mocked me openly and I wouldn’t have it.
“Watson, empty her pockets,” I ordered. “And then bring over her weapon.”
I desperately needed more information to go on. Maybe there was something in her belongings that could set me on the right path. Without knowing exactly who she was, I would never be able to connect the dots.
As the doctor approached her, the woman actually hissed at him again. My, my. Was this her usual demeanour? My travel companion wasn’t fazed by her behaviour and reached into the outermost pocket of her coat-like covering. I couldn’t yet see what he’d find, but knew another way to occupy our time.
“What does this mean?” I asked and held the clay figurine in front of her eyes.
“That you like to play games, Mycroft Holmes,” she smiled, crooked and wrong, uttering my name in a familiar tone as if she had known me for years. “And that you’ve already lost.”
Seemingly to emphasize her statement, a flash of white light exploded and almost blinded me. Watson fell over - if from the blast or simply from shock I couldn’t tell - squarely on his back. He didn’t utter a single sound, which made me highly alert, because I had to assume he was unconscious or worse.
The woman had already jumped to her feet as she took advantage of our confusion. After-images flickered in front of my eyes as I propelled myself forward to apprehend her once again. In my haste, my foot caught Watson’s leg. I stumbled and lost precious seconds, during which the assassin made it to the doorway of the stairs.
“Get them!” she shouted and just like that, a number of spectres in wide robes descended upon me. They had exited the stairs after the woman disappeared within the darkness and now swarmed me like a flock of angry birds. Many claw-like hands grabbed at my clothes, pulled me down and the only things I could see were confusing patterns in black and white. Their faces were hidden behind metal masks and their heads adorned with countless red, swaying feathers. For a brief moment I wondered how they could’ve even made their way through the city like this. I felt dizzy just looking at them and I would’ve lost my balance, had I not already been pushed down to the ground.
My brain couldn’t comprehend this assault on my visual senses and my eyes started to hurt fiercely, but there was no way I could close them now. Tears streamed down my face as I curled up and rolled to the side. I expected at least one of them to brandish a weapon any second. With my motion I pushed two of my assailants off balance and they fell to the floor behind me. Even though I was still positioned horizontally, at least I had left their circle and gained a few vital seconds to contemplate my situation.
Firstly, the woman was gone. From the moment I was hindered by her lackeys, it was clear that there was no way I could get to her again in time. The sudden, but definite, defeat hit me hard. This wasn’t something that usually happened to me. I had let my guard down, and now I was suffering for it... No, it would be my brother, who’d be suffering. I could beat these people and get away with Watson, but we had only limited information to get to Sherlock.
My anger and irritation with myself was many times larger than the emotions I felt towards the strange people. But I could still use these aggravated feelings to fuel my counterattack, because no matter how hopeless the situ
ation looked, it would definitely all be over should we die on the roof of the cathedral. I moved backwards in an effort to gain more time and just then my hand touched a familiar object on the ground. At least I had retained a little bit of luck.
With both hands I grabbed my cane and swung it in a wide arc in front of me. The powerful strike was delivered roughly on the height of my attackers’ heads, whom I judged to be slightly shorter than Watson. The resistance I encountered proved me right. I hit at least two people hard, strafed another and felled all three bodies in one swift swoop, then jumped to my feet again. Finally the space was cleared and I could see that there were another three strange henchmen still with us.
For all their enthusiasm during the first attack, they now seemed almost reluctant to step forward. Maybe I proved to be a more formidable opponent than they had expected. Through my teary, blurred vision I strained to make out their next moves. It was weird that none of them carried any weapons, but I wasn’t about to complain. Watson was still on the ground a few feet away, hopefully only unconscious, but at least he wasn’t in immediate danger. And I wasn’t about to let the attention of our attackers waver.
“Isn’t any of you going to attack me?” I asked and held my cane out in front of me, daring the men to step forward. If they came at me one at a time I had a better chance to get rid of them without risking any bodily harm. Well, at least not any additional harm, as my hand and arm were already burning up again and I could barely use them anymore.
But then they all jumped me simultaneously. I was pushed back against the wall, but this time I was prepared for the attack. Leveraging the unyielding stones behind me I kicked out with both legs and hit two of my adversaries squarely between the legs. This single action eradicated all doubts about their gender, because they were on the floor in an instant. I could imagine their pained faces even behind the masks, but this was not the time for empathetic feelings. There was still one man left, and he had decided to go directly for my neck.
Spindly fingers closed around my throat and squeezed with a power that was entirely unpredicted. For just a brief moment, that I would deny outright if anyone asked, I panicked as my air supply was restricted. The mask came close to my face, polished metal glinting menacingly even in the dark. I reached up, grabbed the head full of feathers and ripped the ugly thing from his face. A foul stench assaulted me as he shouted something vile in a language that sounded vaguely familiar but was at that moment incomprehensible. His skin was dark and wrinkled, his hair all but gone. The man’s eyes were blown wide, pupils darker than the night. And in the next moment they were gone.
A dull thud was audible as Watson connected his heavy pistol with the lunatic’s head, following my earlier example. The grip around my throat loosened as the man slipped away and collapsed into a pile of limbs at my feet. I kicked him once for good measure. Before the other imbeciles could attempt another attack I performed upon them the same treatment, so they were all definitely, and literally knocked out.
“Are you hurt?” I asked the doctor, voice still hoarse from the abuse to my throat.
“I think I hit my head again, but the pain doesn’t seem to linger.”
“Good.”
I smoothed down my hair and righted my clothing, then pulled my own pistol from a pocket of the suit jacket and trained it on the head of the closest attacker. I fired without skipping a heartbeat. There were six of them and we only needed one to answer our questions. Before Watson could tell me otherwise, I had already gotten rid of the remaining, superfluous baggage. With my cane I poked the man I had chosen to be our informant - the one that had had the audacity to put his hands around my neck. He didn’t move, which wasn’t surprising, so I placed my boot on his shoulder to keep it that way.
But something was amiss. I turned towards the doctor, who was usually so eager to complain about my behaviour, and saw him simply staring at me. He looked back and forth between my firearm and the dead henchmen, his face as emotionless as their metal masks. Then he dropped his own pistol in disgust and took a step back, which brought him with his back against a column, at which he sunk to the floor.
“Head getting worse?” I asked as I checked my pistol for any remaining heat, deemed it sufficiently cooled down and put it back neatly into my pocket.
“I... Mycroft... What did you do?”
“Lessened our workload considerably. It’ll be easier to handle just one person.”
“But the others... You killed them.”
I cocked an eyebrow and inclined my head to indicate that he had simply stated the obvious. Watson harrumphed exasperated and his expression turned into an angry frown.
“You killed them in cold blood!”
“Do you think they would’ve hesitated to do the same to us? Any of them?”
“You couldn’t possibly know that...”
I looked down at the pile of black and white cloth between us, dark stains spreading along the fabric where the blood oozed from their skulls. We would have to inspect the bodies before we’d move the remaining lunatic to a location more suitable for a proper interrogation. The drapes looked exactly like the one, which the single attacker in Dover had worn.
“You’re right, I couldn’t. But now I’m one hundred percent sure that they won’t. I like these odds much better. Don’t you?”
I heard a sharp intake of breath from the doctor. “That doesn’t justify your actions.”
“Doesn’t it? Let me tell you about the situation we’re in, because you seem to have forgotten all about it. Sherlock has been abducted by a group of lunatics, who have tried to thwart us at every junction of our journey. All of this - this whole city - is a trap, and they’ve tried to get rid of us every step of the way. I don’t know if they want my brother or used him and his letter as bait to get to me, but the fact is that we’re out here, exposed and at their mercy... at the mercy of whatever it is that they employ to make nature itself turn against us!” I kept my voice intentionally low and steady, as I just knew that I couldn’t let my feelings get the best of me now. “There’s no telling what they’ll do to Sherlock now that we know their leader’s face, and I, for one, am not going to wait around six potential killers. This is not how this works, doctor, and if you’re unhappy with my handling of the situation, you’re welcome to return to London anytime.”
With this I grabbed our would-be informant and pulled him out of the body pile. I ripped a piece of cloth from one of the other’s cloaks and tied his hands, as the woman had made off with my only pair of handcuffs. Well, good riddance. Then I threw the man over my shoulder and turned towards Watson.
“Are you staying here?”
“You don’t need to interrogate the man,” the doctor said quietly and held out a small notebook. “I grabbed this from her pocket just before the explosion happened.”
Could we be so lucky?
I dropped the man unceremoniously and received the notebook from the good doctor. It was tiny and grubby, obviously having been carried in the coat for a long time. The edges showed clear signs of repeated use. The pages carried scribbles in several languages, mostly English, but also some in Arabic, curiously. So my theory about her stay south of Turkey held up, but it still didn’t connect to a pretty picture. The writing was all very small and meticulous and so impossible to decipher in the twilight. Most of it was numbers, anyway.
On the last page, was a sketch of a rough street layout with an unmistakable X marking a building. Surely the assassin never suspected someone to find it, because even though there were no labels, the street layout looked distinct enough for anyone with half a brain to place with the help of a map. But I didn’t need one, because I already knew the place it depicted. It was of a city, whose streets I had learned by heart a number of years ago. There was no mistake and I was confident in my memory.
We would have to travel on to Rome.
The doctor kept quiet through it all, retrieved his own pistol to stow away and stood at a distance from me while I perused the contents of the notebook. I sighed inwardly and felt a sliver of regret as I put the man, who I had wanted to carry away and interrogate, out of his misery. Regret, because it wouldn’t be easier to work with Watson that way, and I knew that he wasn’t about to abandon the mission to rescue Sherlock, no matter what I had just done. Regret because the man’s quick death robbed me of the opportunity for a little payback. And... well, regret because it wasn’t my usual style to get rid of potential information sources prematurely.
But somehow I felt that our time was slowly, but surely, running out.
That Is What You See. Now, What Can You Observe?
I didn’t speak much to Watson after the episode on the roof. In hindsight I should’ve just insisted on him going back to London. I couldn’t exactly blame him for sticking to his convictions and moral code, because I did the very same, but it was once again clear that we just didn’t work well together. Well, I wasn’t my brother and I had no ambition to become him, so the doctor would just have to bear with me for a few days longer.
We spent the day on the train to the ancient city of Rome almost in complete silence. With a strange satisfaction I observed Watson grow more uncomfortable and behave awkwardly for the better part of the day. I was reading a book and ignored his squeamish behaviour completely. From time to time I would hold the clay figurine and turn it about, trying to find anything of use about it. But it was just a simple thing, crudely made and absolutely non-descriptive. Like a piece of a board game for children.
