AN: This is my first story. Sadly, I do not own Sherlock. Please read and review.
Chapter one:
Sherlock sat with his head bowed over his steepled fingers. A month had passed since Moriarty's cryptic message. A dozen crimes with his signature 'Did you miss me' scratched into a wall or written in blood had swarmed through England like a plague. His most recent act had been the murder of Jason H. Williams, an unremarkable dentist whom Moriarty had no reason to target.
Lestrade paced the floor of 221B, running his fingers through his trimmed grey hair, muttering to himself.
"It doesn't make sense. The man was clean. He was a dentist not a drug dealer for God's sake! What the hell is that psychopath doing? What's the pattern?"
Behind him, the scrawny figure in the dark chair let out a frustrated growl. Anderson and Donovan stared daggers at him, their disapproval of the man's long silence evident. Finally, when she couldn't take it anymore Donovan scowled and ground out:
"Well Freak, have you got anything or not?"
Sherlock gazed at her with a bored expression, his ice-blue eyes boring into her's.
"Still having an affair with Anderson I see. Pity. I suppose even you could do better than that Sally."
He gestured at a gobsmacked Anderson with his chin, as though referencing a particularly hideous form of vermin. Sally grit her teeth, her rat-like partner in adulterous relations gaping like a bass choking on air. Lestrade pinched the bridge of his nose muttering "Sherlock" exasperatedly. Sherlock rolled his eyes like the petulant child he was in the eyes of New Scotland Yard.
"In answer to your ridiculously ineloquent question, yes and no," Sherlock stated blandly in his resonating baritone. "No, I don't know don't know where Moriarty's going with this. As you so keenly observed, the man is psychotic. That makes him unpredictable, especially since his crimes share no visible connection other than his little love notes."
Sally grinned like a cat who had caught the canary. The day had finally come that the great Sherlock Holmes, pompous ass of Baker Street, was floundering without a clue.
"However," he grumbled at seeing her so pleased, "I do know that James Moriarty would never be so random. There is a method to this madness, this great game, set up to make me dance."
Sherlock steepled his fingers once again, delving back into his mind palace.
"It takes a madman to know one," Sally stated, not bothering to lower her voice. Anderson grunted his approval, long since disenchanted with Holmes since his return. Without the conspiracy theories behind his survival or the guilt he felt for the man's death, Sherlock was the same callous man Phillip had always loathed. All was right in the world once more. Except it wasn't.
One factor was conspicuously missing. The cluttered room lacked John Watson, lounging in his faded red armchair, halfheartedly telling Sherlock to be polite. Sherlock vaguely recalled in the catacombs of his mind that John really should have been there by now. Mary would be out of town for a few weeks visiting friends, an elderly couple who had become the parents she had never had, and showing off baby Sherly. During her absence, John had made it a habit of coming to Baker Street to help with the Moriarty conundrum. The detective was secretly pleased that the good doctor had been present so often of late. Mary had gone specifically without John, knowing that her adrenaline junkie husband would be bored out of his wits, and would prefer spending time with London's resident sociopath.
Said self-proclaimed, 'heartless' sociopath was wondering after his friend, not with concern but with irritation. He didn't get 'concerned'.
"John really is quite late though," he thought, consulting his watch. Three hours had passed since the end of his shift at the clinic. The latest he had been before was two hours, as he had stopped to buy provisions for the detective and once again got into an altercation with a chip-and-pin machine. Sherlock smirked at the memory.
"Given his compulsive politeness (dull) he should have at least texted by now." At that moment a text alert sounded from Sherlock's Belstaff pocket hanging by the door. Without opening his eyes he muttered, "Phone," directing the statement at Lestrade. Greg sighed as he rifled through the pockets of the great black coat in search of the mobile.
"It's from John."
"And?" Sherlock prompted.
Greg's brow furrowed in confusion.
"It doesn't make any sense. It just says JMIA, all capitals."
The mobile sounded again.
"He says…help."
Sherlock's eyes snapped open, worry dancing in them.
"Well that's a bit not good."