He replaced the now empty glass to the table, observing the thin film of condensation building around the rim. Alcohol. Such a waste of my time. Clearly having no effect on me whatsoever. Affect? Effect. Definitely.
"Can I tempt you gentleman?"
No. Sherlock turned his head however, his brown tousled hair bouncing slightly with the movement. A slim brunette had paused at the table, hand perfectly balancing a tray of shot glasses holding vibrant and almost neon coloured liquid. Barmaid. Twenty-five. Mature student. Boyfriend. Unhappy. Cheating. With manager.
"What are they?"
"These are glitter-bombs, you've got your jaeger bombs just there, and these are the staff's design, 'Chilli Kiss' – chilli flavoured vodka with tequila and WKD."
"Eurgh," John Watson blanched, draining the last of his beer. "He's the boss," he said, gesturing to Sherlock.
Sherlock had never attended one of these things, let alone organised one. Wasn't the point of a stag do to get the future groom drunk? He pulled out a twenty pound note and placed it flat on the tray. "Two of each please."
"Very brave," the bar-maid winked, placing the shot glasses down in the middle of the table. "Enjoy boys."
"Boys -?" John exhaled, picking up a glass and eyeing it suspiciously. "Whoa, what's that?" he said, pointing to a scrap of paper that had rolled towards Sherlock.
"Phone number," Sherlock replied nonchalantly, scrunching it up into a ball and discarding to one side. "Clearly on the look-out for some extra company tonight." He too picked up a glass. "Bottoms up."
Forty-five minutes, seven shots and two more beers each later, and something strange was happening. The walls of the bar seemed to be warping and distorting, the tables shrinking and moving of their own accord, and the floor rushing up to meet them. The air around them seemed viscous yet hazy, as though they were sitting in some sort of misty soup. Lasers and disco lights flashed and span intermittently, and faceless men and women seemed to be stumbling and falling all around them.
Sherlock tried to turn his head, but felt as though his skull had been weighted; the movement seemed to take an age and the nausea beat his face to its destination. He blinked to try and keep the wave of bile down. What was happening to him? Had they been drugged? With difficulty, he turned back to try and spot John but his eyes were deceiving him and acting too slowly. He pushed back from the table and got to his feet, staggering backwards and it took all his effort not to fall. Someone pushed roughly into him, or he fell into them. A sound fell from his lips, half apology, half indignation but the reveller had already passed by, pulling a laughing woman by the wrist.
Water. He needed water. His tongue was arid and dry and his face felt pinched and parched, his eyelids drooping and heavy. His mind seemed sodden and slow and he didn't like it. Leaving the table behind he lurched into some semblance of a stumbling walk, and followed what he hoped were signs for the bathroom.
Groups of people had migrated from the dance floor and were congregated in pockets all over the place, under stairwells, in the corridors, blocking doorways. The air was thick with the smell of cigarette smoke and the sound of drunken laughter. Sherlock put a palm to his eyeballs and rubbed vigorously. He gripped the polished bannister firmly and as delicately as possibly, stepped over two women sobbing into their tissues on the bottom stairs.
The bathroom was too bright, far too bright. Strip lights that seemed to cover the entire ceiling filled the room with bright white light. But it was what was needed to shake some sobriety into him. Leaning over the sink, Sherlock splashed ice cold water into his face and blinked out his reflection. His eyes were a little bloodshot, but otherwise he looked passably normal. He was genuinely taken aback at the effect a couple of beverages could have had on him… He was normally immune to the ailments that plagued the normal.
By the third splash, he was feeling moderately normal, apart from the dull ache that had begun to formulate in the lower regions of his temples. He gripped the porcelain sink with his large pale hands and stared hard at himself, willing himself back to normal. Something moved behind him.
It was gone as quick as a flash, but his sharp blue eyes, even now, had caught it. Something moving in the background. Subtle, fast, gone. Sherlock focused again. The door out of the bathroom had opened when a man from the cubicle had left, bypassing the sink to get more drink, but now there was a second man at the urinal just behind him who had not noticed when he had come in. His dark eyebrows furrowed into a frown. There was no sound coming from the man, no movement whatsoever. He was simply standing with his back to the detective, silently facing the wall.
It all happened in an instant. Sherlock began to turn and in the same instant the silent reveller turned too, fast as lightning, something flashing in his palm as his arms spiralled through the air. Sherlock dodged the blade and used the man's momentum against him, sending him barrelling into the sinks and smashing into the chipped mirror. Forcing his instincts to come back quickly, Sherlock ripped open the door and pushed into the crowded hallway.
"John!"
Several men turned at the panicked shout, none of them Watson. Women pressed up against him as he surged forward with the crowd, some heading for the toilets, others grasping at his coat and shirt hopefully.
"Hey, watch it!"
Sherlock turned his head, assuming the angry voice was aimed at him, but then he saw his assailant bursting through the crowd, shoving people left and right or to the ground. Screams and pockets of shouts erupted and then the long knife was glinting through the air again, swiping viciously at the air where Sherlock's head and neck had been just a half second ago. A fist came out of nowhere, and connected hard with his sharp cheekbone, and he felt himself sprawling heavily into the wall, teetering dangerously on the edge of the steps, quickly followed by a second and third blow. Instinctively, Sherlock reached out and brought the heavy set man forwards and to him, reigning in his blows and pulling him off balance. The knife fell from his slackening grip, and the assailant lost his footing. Sherlock briefly drank in his dark shadowy stubble, black eyes widening in surprise, and a long red scar scraping down his left cheek towards his mouth that was open in a silent cry, before he was falling down the stairs. Head over heels he tumbled, gaining speed as he rolled. There was a sickening crack as his skull connected with the bannister at the bottom and then he was quietly motionless.
Through the pandemonium that grew in anguished swells around him, Sherlock was aware of one man moving against the crowds, face twisted in confusion, looking around desperately.
"John!"
"What the..? Sherlock, what's going on?" His friend's grey eyes searched his face and then followed his gaze. "Oh god, what's happened?"
"Come on, we need to get out of here," Sherlock hissed, his deep voice low. He grabbed John roughly around the arm and pushed him up back onto the landing, steering him around the second dance-floor and onto the second emptier staircase that led up to the roof. The metal door clanged loudly shut behind them, and the cold winter blast of wind was the biggest hangover cure he could have wished for.
"What the bloody hell is going on?" John demanded, running hands through his ash coloured hair. "I remember having a drink at the table, and then everything went all peculiar… I left, and I thought you had gone and I was trying to find you but then someone kept talking to me…"
"Someone? Who?"
"A girl… That barmaid girl… She kept talking to me…"
"Distracting you whilst her accomplice attempted to finish me off," Sherlock deduced. He searched the small rooftop for an escape route. "Come on, we'll go down the fire escape and onto level ground."
The metal stair case was flimsy at best and it shook from the howling wind and was slick from the falling rain. They grasped the rails tightly and tried to slow their footing, but from up above they heard the heavy fire door crash open and angry voice's following close behind.
"SHER-LOCK!" John cried, but his second syllable was drowned out by the deafening explosion of gun fire echoing off the rattling stairs.
Both men ducked as the bullets rained down around them, with more than one ricocheting off the steps with angry sparks skimming their bare hands. With only four or five left to jump, Sherlock cleared the stairs and landed cat-like on the ground before breaking into a heavy run, John closed behind.
"Where are we going?" John shouted breathlessly, but Sherlock didn't answer. In the reflection of a passing parked car, he saw two heavy set men give chase after them and a third slighter figure which might have been the woman. The side street they were on was deserted and every so often the pursuers let off a round of gun shots. The nearest hit a wing mirror of another car which exploded into a rain of glass shards that showered down onto them and tinkled to the ground.
"Down here," Sherlock commanded, turning a sharp left down an alleyway that appeared to lead to nowhere. There was no illumination down this tight gap and they seemed to be slipping deeper and deeper into oblivion. Just when John was about to shout that they turn back, Sherlock turned right into a gap that John hadn't even known had existed. The space was so claustrophobically small, they had to stumble forwards using their hands to scrabble purchase on the un-even brick work on either side. The labyrinthine passage turned left and then right and with nothing to see, their sense of smell worked overtime, with the stench of urine, rubbish and rat faeces filling the air. Trying not to gag, John didn't realise that Sherlock had suddenly stopped and ran into the back of him.
"What are you doing? Why have you stopped? They could be right behind us!"
"Shh!" Sherlock said, raising an invisible hand to silence him.
Through the silence that had descended without their rushing footsteps echoing off the walls, John could hear what his friend was listening to. Voices, traffic, street noise. The foul smell of the passageway had given way to the smell of ethnic style cooking; back street wok houses, takeaways, Thai noodle huts and shisha café's. Slowly, they emerged into a brightly lit road, where street lamps and fairy lights lit up the night sky. Pedestrians, cyclists and cars filled the area and soon the two of them were lost in amongst the throngs.
Despite the mediocre comfort of knowing people and therefore witnesses were around, John could not help but continually look over his shoulder. Every man with a fist in his pocket was a sniper ready to attack. Every cyclist veering towards them was an attacker ready to pounce.
"Stop staring," Sherlock hissed, "You'll gain attention."
"Gain attention! Gain attention?!" John outraged. "Sherlock it's my bloody stag do and we have just had someone try and spike us both, try and kill you and then been chased through half of bloody London being shot at! I think that's attention enough. Jesus." He took a step backwards and ran his hands through his hair again. "Why on my stag do? A few bloody drinks that's all. And now someone is trying to kill us?"
"I'm not so sure they are trying to kill us plural," Sherlock said quietly.
"Oh that's right, I'm good enough to tag along after you and be your accessory but when the shit really hit's the fan, no it's got to be you. Just you being a bloody drama queen –"
"John!" Sherlock said sharply, pointing a pale finger upwards to a brick wall ahead. A message had been crudely daubed in red paint, still so fresh that it was dripping ominously and pooling on the floor like blood.
SH. NO 4 NIGHTINGALE AVENUE. ALONE.
"You're not thinking of actually going? Sherlock, it's obviously a trap!"
Sherlock rolled his eyes. "They have left an address where anyone with half a brain cell could track them. The bullets missed us. This will be conversation only, I think."
John looked disparagingly at his friend. "Are you willing to chance it? You've only just come back from the dead, don't go straight back there. You don't have to be alone in this. Communicate with me."
Sherlock rounded on his friend, and he could see the concern there. Genuine compassion. His expression softened. "If we were meant to be killed, they could have easily finished us off. It was a ploy, a big distraction to get us here. And they want me, alone. It could be a double bluff, wanting us both in one go – so why fall into it? I am convinced it will just be talks, and John, I need information. Go home. Go home to Mary, to your future wife. Get ready for your wedding and hang on, on the outside." He turned and began to stride away, his long legs carrying him away quickly.
"Don't think dying this time will get you out of the best man's speech," John called warningly.