Rock salt. Why rock salt?
The question had been nagging at Sherlock since the report of the entire incident had made its way to their eyes and ears. He had, of course, considered and immediately discarded the tidbit about the rock salt at first. It was entirely irrelevant to the case as a whole, and the case required the entirety of his concentration until its end. In fact, he nearly forgot about it completely. He probably would have if Watson hadn't asked the question aloud when they first got news of the incident (after spending a few minutes being torn up at the idea of people being injured, of course). She probably didn't even realize she said it, it was obviously more thinking aloud than anything.
"Why rock salt?"
The immediate answer was, of course, the fact that shotgun shells loaded with rock salt were an old way of dissuading intruders without any real chance of them dying. Painful and mildly damaging, but the intruder could walk away from it. But there were other ways of delivering non-lethal shots meant to scare or sting, such as bean bag rounds or rubber slugs. Rock salt shouldn't be written off entirely, of course, but with the possibility of the salt corroding the gun barrel if the rounds weren't used immediately and if it wasn't cleaned thoroughly afterwards (which isn't as much of a problem for a responsible gun owner who cleans their weapons regularly but is a slight problem for a man who was using it in his own absence and thus wouldn't be around to clean it immediately afterward), and since courts often didn't care much about the actual makeup of the rounds involved when it came to suing and conviction after somebody had been shot, it made more sense to just use another method.
So, why rock salt?
Call it a haunch, but Sherlock wasn't ready to write this off as your usual paranoid nut-job just yet. There was something else going on here.
It had, of course, been disappointingly simple for Sherlock to get back into McClenahan's apartment. As far as the police were concerned, there was nothing of interest left. The weapons had long since been cleared out, and any sensitive information that he might have had wouldn't have been in his apartment anyway.
Well, sensitive as far as they knew.
It was really just a simple matter of picking the lock, a skill that Sherlock had of course mastered somewhere around the time he had completed half of his first decade on God's green earth, as it were.
As he (very cautiously) swung the door open, a quick glance revealed that while whichever of Walter McClenahan's few remaining family members who had not been completely alienated by the man's paranoia or been otherwise incapacitated had indeed been through the apartment recently, they had evidently only been performing a cursory glance. It was as relatively bare as before, containing only a thin, passing attempt to disguise the eccentricity of the man residing in the place (though why he bothered when the presence of the gun 'contraption,' as Gregson had called it, was very thorough evidence to the contrary was something of a curiosity; maybe it simply made him feel better). Some of the more obvious, interesting (to a placid, dull mind), and/or commonplace items had been picked up and examined, and in a few cases moved around, but nothing of initially-apparent import had been taken, which made Sherlock's job much easier. Duller, but easier. It took all of a minute for him to locate the books that were obviously not meant to be found by anyone.
Of course, the man had been very paranoid, possibly could have wound up a conspiracy theorist himself given an alternate reality with less military involvement and a lower IQ. So when Sherlock picked up the first battered, well-used, leather-bound journal, bent out of shape by excessive perusal and rendered perpetually partially open due to the numerous multicoloured post-it notes, stapled-in bits of spare paper, and anecdotes and scraps of information hastily shoved between the pages for further intended use that would no longer occur at a later date that would no longer happen, he was struck by a brief, illogical, thankfully temporary thought that he had grievously miscalculated and was in fact in the home of an unrealized conspiracy theorist. However, further thought on the subject reminded him that there would have been signs, signs that perhaps a lesser man would have theoretically missed; but Sherlock Holmes was not a lesser man.
While this was all very well and good, the question of the how and the why of the notebooks still remained, for they appeared to be something straight out of – to be perfectly blunt – a conspiracy nut's wet dream.
"October 20th, 2010
"Reports of an increase of monsters that were previously strictly foreign. Includes a Lamia in Wisconsin and an Okami in Billings, Montana. Some willing to write it all off as general weirdness, but that's what they said about the sharp increase in demonic activity back in 2007 and look what that wound up all being about…"
Some of it appeared to be incoherent rubbish, but some of the writings in the book echoed events that Sherlock knew for a fact had occurred; strange incidents that piqued his curiosity at the time and almost made him wish it was worth the trip to America to investigate.
"April 24th, 2010
"Strange occurrence – frightened citizens reported brief kidnapping at 5-star hotel. When police finally arrived hours later, there were some bodies strewn about and dessicated in extremely bloody, violent ways. Appeared to be some bodies missing. Three of reportedly kidnapped guests did not make it out alive: they were cooked and prepared to resemble a meal (cannibalism?). Kitchen showed signs of further use for same purpose. Strange marks burned into the floor and continuing onto a tabletop where its placement interfered, shaped like massive wings. Forensic evidence suggests that another body laid there – one of the missing ones. It was later reported that the hotel had been considered abandoned."
And then, scribbled hastily into the margin:
"Bodies examined revealed some strange wounds. Wounds match patterns of no known weapon or cause. As if marks just came into being. Demons? Something with telekinetic powers?"
Oh yes, he had been very disappointed that he couldn't investigate that particular incident.
Pulling out a few other promising-looking notebooks, Sherlock settled down to piece things together.
At first, he didn't believe what had been written.
I mean, how could he? Vampires, demons, wendigos, shapeshifters? It was ridiculous.
However, the more he read, the more facts he cross-checked with Google on his phone, the more he called a contact or two to verify something he had read, the more he was willing to believe there was something else going on beyond what he was familiar with.
When you've eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, is the truth.
Unfortunately, this all led to him once again finding himself in one of his least favourite situations: armed with knowledge and nothing to do with it. What should he do? Should he continue on with his life, knowing that there were things out there that defied all previously-known logic and reason? Should he tell someone? Contact one of the so-called hunters he'd been reading about? And do what? On the one hand, he had all these new possibilities, new explanations for incidents that previously could only be written off as inexplicable weirdness, simpler answers for what had originally been convoluted explanations. On the other hand, this was well out of his realm of knowledge. Non-human entities meant very different motives that would be wholly unfamiliar to Sherlock. This also meant that it would be a possibility that he would jump to conclusions about creatures being behind certain crimes where it was likely just a very creative human, and could he really chance that? Sure, he was Sherlock Holmes and thus it would take a very complex case or a very bad state of mind for him to do that, but the chance was still there.
The whole thing was extremely worrying.
One thing was certain, though: Joan should probably know nothing of this. As a down-to-earth medical woman, this knowledge would not settle easily with her, assuming she was even capable of accepting it. Of course, she had been known to exceed his expectations, but still, this knowledge was, well, chilly, and hypothetically she might thank him for being kept as happy as possible by not knowing.
Or she might not.
Assuming she ever found out, of course.
Sherlock's lips twisted into a slight grimace as he carefully set the books back exactly where they had been, pausing only to double-check that he had left behind nothing to indicate his presence.
Although...
He took one of the books back off the shelf, copied down a few lines of names and numbers written there that had seemed significant judging by their repetition throughout the various entries, and put everything back once more. Contrary to common belief it was entirely possible to be too careful, but this wasn't one of those times.
Back at the flat, Watson had not yet returned from whatever outing she had gone on. Good. The less she could extrapolate from his absence the better.
The way Sherlock saw it, he had two options for what to do next: he could forget that there was any importance to what he had learned today and spend the next however long looking for a case or, depending on how quickly he found one, perhaps working on it, or he could open up Google and look for further incidents possibly related to his newfound knowledge, starting with some of the cases he had seen mentioned in the journals.
He stretched as he walked towards the police radio, fingers itching to turn it on. This was what he needed, violence caused purely by humans, with their dull, underused minds and simple, everyday motivations.
"Oh for goodness sake," he muttered to himself as he stopped just feet from the radio and glared at it accusingly. He had a feeling he was going to regret this.
"Sherlock, I'm back!" Watson called, as if her presence was not made obvious by the sound of the door and her heels on the wooden floor. Sherlock's fingers paused on the keys for a moment before continuing his fifty-fourth Google search since he had abandoned the police scanner in favour of his laptop. The notes he had made had more than overtaken the table, and he had relocated to the floor approximately thirteen minutes ago. If he so chose, it would be very easy to explain this all away as more of his conspiracy work, a new theory that one of the fellows had come up with to explain away odd occurrences. It wouldn't even be far from the truth.
Joan walked into the room, rolling her eyes at the sight of Sherlock's so-called workspace. "Found another case already, have we?" she asked, strolling past him towards the kitchen area. "You know, a break every now and then isn't going to make your brain any less effective. It might even help."
"This is a break. This isn't a case at all."
Joan frowned curiously, cocking her head a little as she stopped messing about with a mug and walked back to look at some of the notes left on the table. "Mythology?" she asked, scanning over a half-page of demon lore. "I didn't think that was really your thing."
"Anything can be my 'thing,' Watson, given sufficient reason."
"And what's the reason for this?"
This was it. He could explain it away as more conspiracy nonsense, tell her about a new guy he'd found who thought vampires were real and only irritated by sunlight. Did he really want to open her up to this new world, where the dark was very much something to be afraid of and people might not actually be people? Of course Sherlock had no plans to do much of anything with this information anyway, maybe only research as needed and give some of the hunters that had been mentioned in McClenahan's books anonymous tips about new cases when something particularly bizarre crossed his path. Anything more would put him in circles he had no desire to be a part of, and he would rather not accidentally lose any more credibility if possible. He didn't much care what other people thought of him, but it could interfere with his normal detective work, and he had no desire to give that up.
Watson stared at him, curiosity written all over her face.
Sherlock grinned. It never should have been a question.
"I have the most interesting discovery to share with you, Watson…"