The Vampiric MysteryChapter One: A Bite to Eat.
Several minutes had passed since they had arrived at the crime scene and still Holmes had not said a thing. Usually he would walk straight into a room, take a quick glance and make some quick-witted quip over the situation. This time however, he seemed rather perturbed. He was crouched over the body of the victim, a Miss Stella Flaherty of Dunbasin Road, and was closely inspecting every part of her naked form. Unlike the usual crackpots and psychopaths that they had to deal with in their line of work, this particular murder showed signs of premeditation and, what John loathingly referred to as, workmanship. The body had been stripped completely naked with the exception of a single crucifix dangling on a chain around the poor girl's neck. Her arms were spread slightly and her legs were opened and positioned carefully. She almost looked like a life-sized "Vitruvian Man" (or woman as the case may be). It had been many years since John had seen Sherlock Holmes, a man so brilliant that he had single-handedly solved the majority of the most difficult and mind boggling cases ever to grace the desks of Scotland Yard, look so confused and worried. Finally, after what felt like an hour, Holmes jumped to his feet, buttoned the top of his long trenchcoat and turned around.
"Well, I must say Lestrade; you have certainly got your work cut out for you this time. This" Holmes said, waving his hand in the general direction the girl, "human seems to have no credible or visible signs of physical damage."
Lestrade, whom Holmes seemed to have a fondness for belittling so often, opened his mouth to speak before he was cut off once more by the bass tone of the greatest (and indeed only) Consulting Detective in the world.
"Don't even consider that she had been poisoned. I can detect no trace of any form of poison. Even potassium cyanide, one usually so effective in eluding the search efforts of your best men, is recognisable through its ever so sweet scent of almonds. This girl was not beaten nor shot nor poisoned nor was she strangled. It seems that we have a phantom murderer in London."
John Watson couldn't believe how good this man was. He was fast approaching forty years of age and he simply seemed to become more brilliant with each passing year. He was like an enormous book or a walking Wikipedia. He knew everything that he needed to know for his line of work. Unfortunately, this had led to him becoming an increasingly difficult individual to be around most of the time. In fact, if it weren't for the fact that Holmes had saved his life countless times, John would have jumped ship years ago. He shook his head and apologised for Holmes' sarcasm and tone for the millionth time before following Holmes out the door. Catching up to the tall frame of Sherlock Holmes, John Watson commenced his usual ritual of questioning Holmes over the multitudinous sea of information that he had taken from the crime.
"I'm afraid I must disappoint for once John. The only information that that girl's body gave to me was that our murderer was either a spectre or, much more likely the case, a vampire."
John Watson stopped and pulled Holmes back by the arm.
"I'm sorry, did you say vampire? Vampire? As in Count Dracula vampire? What in the world has you saying something so, so fantastical?"
Holmes huffed and jerked his arm from John's grip.
"How many times must I tell you not to grab me like that? Yes I said vampire, have you lost your ability to hear? The girl had two small pinhole sized marks just under her jaw on the left side of her neck. To the untrained eye, oh who am I fooling anymore, to any eye other than my own, this" He extracted a perfectly square, skin-coloured patch from his pocket "would have concealed the wound. I myself only found it because it held in the girl's final drops of perspiration which caught the light ever so faintly. The marks were approximately a centimetre and a half apart and were perfectly bored, meaning no ordinary human canine teeth could have been the cause. Seeing as she was so perfectly laid out and without any form of scratch on her, I deduced that she had not been bitten by a dog, leaving only one, as you would call it, fantastical conclusion. The murderer was a vampire or finds the old legends of such nocturnal creatures fascinating enough to practice their methods."
Holmes calmly fixed the sleeve of his jacket where John had grabbed him and continued walking towards the nearest taxi rank, leaving John standing on the spot, dumbfounded at what he had just heard. Regaining his motor functions, John took off after Holmes, shouting the words 'A vampire!' over and over again.
The taxi ride home consisted of Holmes thinking quietly to himself, his hands together, as if in prayer, tucked under his pointed chin and John shaking his head disbelievingly, muttering the word 'vampire' under his breath. When they finally reached 221B Baker Street, Holmes left John behind in the taxi to pay the driver.
"'E don't say much, do 'e?" The driver asked, his cockney accent showing his status as a working class Londoner.
Looking out the window at the tall black haired detective, Watson shook his head.
"Not if he doesn't want to, no."
Having paid the man, John climbed out of the back seat and made his way through the front door of 221B Baker Street, which Holmes had so graciously left ajar for him. Bounding up the stairs, John found Holmes already in his favourite chair, stuffing tobacco into his pipe. The pipe was definitely new for Holmes. He sometimes smoked, even succumbing to the temptation of drugs at times, but the pipe had become the newest addition to the 'many habits of Sherlock Holmes'. It had started with a fan of his asking, outside of the Yard one day, a simple question of why he smoked cigarettes and something more befitting a man of his style and class, like a pipe. Intrigued by the fan's musings, Holmes had returned the next day with a pipe and enough tobacco to last a heavy chain smoker for a year. John had given up trying to convince him to quit after the third day, in which many puffs of smoke had been blown his way by the incorrigible Holmes. Taking his jacket off and throwing it over his own chair, John sat down and studied Holmes' expression. He could usually tell what Holmes was thinking just by looking at his eyebrows. One raised at an angle meant he was waiting for John to say something, an eyebrow raised in an arch meant he was thinking hard about a particularly puzzling aspect of the current case, both eyebrows raised meant that Holmes had surprised even himself with his own brilliance and of course, both eyebrows furrowed meant that he was stumped. This time, it was the furrowed brow that greeted John's eyes.
"Having trouble?" John asked innocently.
Scoffing loudly, Holmes tucked his hands underneath his chin once more, the pipe balancing between his teeth on the right hand side of his mouth. Removing one hand from its pointed roof, he removed the pipe from his mouth, puffed a small ball of smoke out and returned both the pipe and his hand to their original positions. For several minutes, he repeated this action of puffing out smoke and tucking his hand underneath his chin until he finally put down the pipe, clapped both hands together and pushed himself up from the chair.
"Brilliant you've got something!" John noted.
Offering no clarification, Holmes simply put on his long black coat and beckoned for John to follow him.
"Come along John, there's researching to be done!" The great Sherlock Holmes quipped before swinging the door open and striding out.
Shaking his head in disbelief at his close friend's erratic mannerisms, Watson pulled on his own coat before following suit, switching the light off as he left.
Well here's a rather simple attempt at some Sherlock fan fiction. Firstly, I'd like to say that while this version of Sherlock is based heavily off of the BBC show and indeed the original Holmes, it is not carbon copy. This Holmes will reflect certain aspects of my own experiences and personalities as well as certain expansions and reductions in the showing of some of his more well known characteristics. Also, seeing as the age of Holmes is usually left up to interpretation (I say usually because there is probably some account that I have not found that details his age so forgive me for that) I have placed this particular adventure in Holmes' late thirties. The events with Moriarty have unfolded so no, Holmes will not be falling once again. As for the ridiculous nature of the story, I chose vampires because I have a mild curiosity for them as well as a large fondness for the character of Holmes so I thought I'd bring two interests together in one tale, also there is the whole case of 'The Case of the Sussex Vampire' of which this story should not (I hope) bear too much resemblance. I intend to make this story around 10-15 chapters long but knowing my own mind it will either end up being a lot more than that or a lot less. The next instalment of this story should be up by next Friday evening (Irish time of course) at the latest so if you are somehow entertained by my scribbles then that shall be my deadline for chapter two. Anyways, I hope you enjoyed this first instalment. Do feel free to comment or even PM me with criticism (positive and/or negative) or just general feedback. If convenient, follow and favourite. If inconvenient, follow and favourite all the same. Hoping this story will appeal to many of you and I look forward to writing for you all! ~ An Inconvenient Arrival.