Chapter 1: The Gathering Dark
It was October the 5th, and the moon shone brightly above the damp alley on the dodgy side of Wansworth in which I was staring at a locked door. It was that time in early autumn when the temperature was still warm, but chilly breezes permeated the drafty London streets, and I shivered as I stood there, clutching my coat around my shortish frame. I silently cursed the anonymous tipster who had led us here, to this dingy door, at a time when decent people were in bed, but I couldn't give up now.
"Right," I said, trying to appear confident in front of the squad, "Break it down."
Fenwick, Clark, and Rogers moved to do so. The hinges were rusty, and it came off easily after a couple of good, strong kicks. The hallway beyond was dark, but I could see a dim glow of torchlight ahead. I motioned to the rest of my squad and they filed in silently. The architecture looked like it belonged in a cathedral, or perhaps a sepulcher. He could hear a sound up ahead, a faint chanting that echoed off the walls as they drew closer and closer to the source of the light. When all of the constables had gathered outside the open door, I hesitated, then quickly rushed into the room, my men following me.
It was a large room with distinctively parochial columns supporting its vast, high ceiling. Inside it were at least two dozen people: figures in black robes, holding torches, all looking towards an altar in the center of the room, where another black-robed figure was stroking, almost lovingly, something lying upon the altar. It was a young man; 16 or 17, pale, blonde, naked, and barely conscious. As my squad entered, the figure threw off his hood, making his robe look like a cape in the semidarkness. I shall never forget his face. Extremely pale, he had bulbous, lamp-like eyes that stared hungrily at us, the intruders. He did not look so much upset at our sudden interruption of the rite, but eager, like a child receiving an unexpected sweet. When he opened his mouth to greet us I could see that his canines were long and sharp, and I wondered what kind of psychopath would file his teeth into points.
"Hello and welcome, constables of London's police force!" he exclaimed with a distinct accent - German, maybe? "I see that you have come to take our little boy, and that we cannot allow you to do!" He said the last part in a singsong voice, smiling broadly at us with his absurdly sharp canines. He pulled from the folds of his cape a silver knife that gleamed in the dim torchlight.
I started forward, drawing from my pocket my little handgun. The other constables rushed forward with their nightsticks and began apprehending the fleeing vassals as I pointed my gun at the leader. His smile did not waver as I approached him.
"Look here - " I said, but with superhuman speed he rushed me and sank his teeth into the warm flesh of my neck. I struggled, trying to point my pistol at him, but before I could, there was a shot, and my attacker dropped motionless to the ground, my blood on his lips.
And there, looking perfectly pleased with himself, was Mr. Sherlock Holmes and his friend Doctor Watson. Watson looked at me dubiously before tucking his smoking pistol into the pocket of his coat.
"Ah, Inspector Lestrade, how pleasant it is to meet a man with an intellect as advanced as my own!"
I couldn't believe my ears. Sherlock Holmes was making a joke?
"So it was you who sent the anonymous tip then?" I growled, trying to disguise how shaken I was with overt distemper.
"So it was. So it was."
"Do you mind telling me what this lot were up to, trying to do who-knows-what to this boy?"
"I should think even you could have worked out that little problem" condescended Holmes.
"Well, I haven't, but if you'd be so very kind, Mr. Holmes, couldn't you enlighten me?" I said with evident sarcasm.
"Touchy, touchy," Holmes remarked with obvious pleasure. Some of my men were beginning to return from chasing off the miscreants, and I was a little startled to see that they had made no arrests. "Well, I see no obstacle to clarity now, and I suppose you'd like to hear some of it, wouldn't you, Watson?"
"Yes" said the doctor.
"Okay then. It was quite simple to deduce that the disappearances of the two boys were related; both sixteen, both from wealthy families, both sheltered all their lives by parents and guardians. It was clear that they had taken refuge in something untoward by their actions immediately before their vanishment."
"But how the dickens did you know it was here, in this strange, midnight church?" Watson entreated.
"Not a church, my dear Watson. A tomb." Holmes corrected. "Anyway, the evidence suggested our subjects had a fascination with death: drawings, and the like. So it was a small matter to find the closest crypt to both of their houses, but the third one" - here he gestured to the boy still laying naked on the table - "confirmed my suspicions. His father confided to me that he had caught him leaving the place at 3 in the morning one night. And thus I simply acted on evidence."
"But who are these, these…" I struggled to find the word.
"Some kind of cult, I would imagine. It is likely there were going to induct this young man. They also appear to be exhuming corpses - note the empty coffins."
By now my squad had returned and were gathering expectantly around myself, Holmes and Watson. Holmes noticed this, and said:
"Well, we'd best be on our way, we wouldn't like to interfere with the business of Scotland Yard." But as he turned to leave he turned back and winked at me, in most unHolmesian style.
"Get a move on lads, and get the boy and this body back to headquarters" I shouted, but no sooner did I say it than I noticed that the body of my attacker no longer dotted the ground.
When I returned home that night, I had the worst nightmare of my life.