A wall manifested out from the darkness, scraping a chunk off the carriage as it rounded a corner at high velocity. Animal feces choked up the wheels and sprayed back in spurts. Dr. Watson managed to duck beneath a wooden arch in time to knock only his hat off, mercifully leaving his head intact.
Wherever flits of light appeared down random spats of streets, the steamed breath of their horses would flare with the fiery orange of gaslight as if the beasts were as infernal as the ones partaking in their deadly hunt.
Watson banged a fist against the carriage door. "This doesn't look good," he yelled. "These streets were really not designed for any hoofed thing bigger than a goat. There's no bloody light and these horses are spooked to their brink of death."
A top hatch on the carriage slammed open. Detective Sherlock Holmes popped out to chest level, holding a revolver in each hand.
Handing one to Watson, he issued a prize-winning smug sneer. "Don't worry old chum. We've nearly got this reprobate cornered. The Thames to his south, the maze of the slums to his east, and is closing in on his tail from the west. We're hemming him into quite dire straits."
As Holmes turned his attention to the front of the carriage, a bump into another structure caused a cry from the horses, a horrible shutter throughout their ride, and the detective's own pistol to fly out of his hand.
"I believe you're forgetting a crucial bit of datum from your analysis, old boy," Watson shouted. "We're the ones being chased."
As the carriage plummeted into its longest bout of darkness yet, Holmes guffawed. "No better way for a worm to catch its bait than hang itself upon a hook."
The carriage lurched upwards as it rode over mounds of unseeable detriment. Light blasted their faces from a revealed bonfire.
Two orbs of blistering vibrant orange flying towards them shimmered even brighter than flame. The eyes of a coal-black hound nearly the size of the horses pounced atop the front of their vehicle.
Holmes disappeared down his hatch as the hound's jaws clamped down around where he'd been less than a moment ago.
"Back to whence you came!" Watson shouted, taking aim he fired a round between the two hellfire reflecting portals the hound had in lieu of proper eyes.
One devilish twisted claw stamped forward, the bleeding hound drawing itself closer to the doctor. Watson feared the creature to be beyond concerning itself with such a trite thing as death.
...Until its radiant eyes rolled up into its head, its long and shiny tongue limped out its maw. The large hulking body collapsed atop the carriage before sliding off, lost in the muck.
A wheel struck the giant hounds body. The highly trained ear of the doctor knew the ensuing CRACK to not be the bones of the hound's carcass, but the wooden axle in one of his wheels.
"Hang on for your life," came the muffled yell of Sherlock Holmes. "And tighter still onto that pistol!"
The carriage crashed into the ground, thrusting Watson's ribs into the plank he held in a death grip.
The velocity kept them scraping through the street, but the weight of the carriage caught their horses by their necks.
One horse shrilled, the other gasped what sounded like its last breath, and dropped to the ground.
They plunged into more darkness, turning into an angle that was certain disaster.
Watson felt it before he spotted it. They were skidding uncontrollably into a bottomless chasm with a stark lack of safety preventatives between their renegade cart and the pit's black maw.
"Holmes," Watson shouted too late. They were already airborne, flying into the abyss.
"Fear not Watson," Holmes said, finding time still mid-fall, in that reassuring cadence of his that was somehow more distressing than anything. "If I'm correct, all that's below us is-"
The carriage crashed, not with the violent crunch Watson had feared, but a mushy splash that reverberated through all his bones and guts.
"…Human waste," Sherlock finished.
The smell that assaulted Watson was potent enough to feel like a personal force with a case of vengeance out for him.
He crawled to the side of the carriage that wasn't sinking into the rancid lake they'd fallen within the middle of. Sherlock creaked the door open and hoisted himself out.
A scarf was already fashioned around the detective's mouth and nose.
Motioning to Watson's own lack of protection to his nostrils, Sherlock said, "Do you not mind the stink, old chum?"
Getting out his handkerchief and fashioning his own breathing mask, Watson shot back, "I didn't expect we'd be finding ourselves at the bottom of an entire lake of sewage tonight. In fact, I never figured myself to ever find myself trapped within a mire of fecal muck, so you could excuse me from being a little less than fully prepared for what I'm coming to now realize is my worst nightmare come true."
"Always expect it, dear Watson," Sherlock lit a cigarette and tucked the tip under his scarf. "They say to catch flies, use honey, but you actually catch more using sh-"
"No shit, Sherlock," Watson rubbed his creasing brow. "You know that's my one rule."
"I've never heard you state that before."
Watson eyed their surroundings for any means possible of escaping the dead center of the river of sewage. "It's one of those rules that transcends the need to be said aloud."
"No such thing," Holmes muttered. He began rummaging through the bag Watson carried at his side. "Ah, here it is. Knew I could count on you, old boy," he said, removing a recently sharpened bone saw the doctor kept handy for last minute autopsies.
"Hang on a moment," Watson scratched at his head. "How'd you come to suspect us landing here, of all damned places?"
Holmes set about busying himself to tearing out the leather cushions from inside the tipped sideways carriage. "That large fire you espied before our cart, moments before we were set upon by that hound, was placed by design. An insidious trap awaited us had we kept our momentum plunging us toward that light. As of now, we'll face our enemy on more equal grounds. He'll be disappointed to see we have refused to act the part of a moth as it is drawn toward the-"
"Enough," Watson said. "With the bug related idioms. Besides, how did you know the firelight was leading us into a trap?"
Holmes was finishing strapping the leather strips around his legs like some sort of protective wrappings. "Honestly, I didn't. I just noted that was the exact place I would have laid a trap of my own. Now, I believe that to be enough lollygagging. The game is afoot. Or, should I say, the hunter is."
Low menacing snarls emanated from all around the septic river.
The river was multiple times wider than a reasonably jumpable distance to either side of where the carriage had plopped into the dead center of slow running human feces.
The scene had become a bit more visible as the river was between two steep hills, rather than the claustrophobic city settings from which the cart had fallen. The full moon's light filtered through the fast-moving clouds otherwise unimpeded, thus glistening off the luminescent fangs of four visible giant hounds on the northern riverbed side the bridge had moments ago been taking them.
The bawdy wails of jubilance and vice issued from all sides, a testament to the prodigious number of iniquitous dens in Whitechapel. Despite being two past the witching hour, the city was awake, though no help could be rationally expected.
"Damn," Watson said. "That's more hounds of the Baskervilles than I would have thought possible." The doctor swallowed. "It's been an honor, old friend."
Holmes rolled his shoulders. "Five perceptible hounds to our north, at least two flanking any possible retreat from our south, and us with two men, one pistol, five shots, and one live, albeit drowning, steed…" The detective leaped off the carriage and splooshed onto the back of the insensate horse, straining to keep its head above filth. "Keep in mind, this is hardly a game dependent on the number of pieces. To extend a metaphor, we need only capture the opponent's king."
A howl peeled out into the night, nearer and louder than the encompassing din native to Whitechapel.
"That," Watson said, realizing as he spoke. "Was not from a hound."
Two shimmering crimson eyes bled over the overhanging bridge. A black hound almost twice the size of any of the others poked a snarling head out to peer down at the two trapped companions. The beasts fangs were white hot as brimstone, the dribbling globs from its jowls fell like sparks into the lake below. Mounted atop it was a cloaked figure back-lit by the bonfire. The slight man tilted back his head and released a second uncouth howl at the moon.
"What embarrassing noise," Holmes commented while using Watson's bone saw to sever his own mount from the entangled straps tethering it to the sinking carriage.
In a breath, Watson aimed and fired his pistol at the cloaked Jack Stapleton*.
Stapleton the breeder's hound hopped safely away from the line of fire as Watson's bullet whizzed harmless past the intended target and into the night sky.
The surrounding hounds all growled. Holmes coerced his now liberated horse toward the North bank, and four expectant carnivorous maws.
"Watson," Holmes yelled over his shoulder. "No more mistakes are allotted us tonight. Four more rounds, and four hounds in which I need you to clear a path for me."
The doctor forced himself to look away at the now gloating and prancing Stapleton, and leveled his pistol past Holmes and at the beasts facing him down.
"Not!," Holmes exclaimed, indicating up at the breeder. "While the rogue is watching."
It took Watson a beat to digest that. "He's controlling them? But how?"
Stapleton cackled. "I see you, doctor. And after my sweet boys here feast on your friend, it shall be me, personally, who sets upon devouring your flesh."
Watson shuddered.
Holmes raised the bone saw above his head as if it were a saber and he was leading a grand military charge. "On my mark, old chum. Take aim, but wait to fire on my signal."
The horseback detective drew mere feet from the now snapping and chomping black hounds. Their clamping jaws flared with fire like a blacksmith's hammer to molten iron.
"I'll savor the taste of your bones as I gnaw out your cartilage, doctor," Stapleton said, his voice cracking from his strained manner of speech.
Watson spared a nano-second glance up at the dog-riding breeder.
The doctor's skeleton half shot out of his body in shock as Watson heard splooshes roiling behind him.
The two hounds at our flank, he thought. They'll set upon me any moment!
Not to let down the ever intrepid detective, and Watson's closest friend, he wiped the sweat from his brow and steeled his nerves. His pistol's aim remained steadfast on the hounds before him, ignoring the predators encroaching from behind.
"I warned you," the drool could be heard in Stapleton's bellows. "You'd rue the day you ever underestimated the Hounds of the Baskervilles!"
Four corona issuing jowls chomped feet away from Holmes's person. His horse reared its head as steam billowed out the wretched creature's nostrils.
"Watson," Holmes said. One severe grey eye shot behind his shoulder at the doctor. "Shoot that imbecile."
With no trace of doubt, Watson devoutly turned his pistol on the sneering Jack Stapleton. He squeezed the trigger.
Stapleton threw his hand to his mouth.
His hound darted like the fiend it was straight out of the bullet's trajectory.
Watson fired again.
Again, to no avail.
Twice more he fired in quick succession.
Stapleton's mounted hound dodged as it flung itself and master to safety with apparent ease.
Watson cursed.
Jack let his arms fall to his sides, looked to the moon, and keened a howl that turned into a triumphant laugh.
Watson collapsed to his knees. Holmes had imparted on him they had no more failures allotted to them that night. And, yet, he'd failed.
He looked to the river bank to see what became of the detective.
It was indeed a gory sight.
The four hounds busied themselves, gnashing and tugging in the large corpse of the horse as it threatened to slide down the riverbank and wholly immerse into the sludge.
But what of Holmes?
Watson had hope. The hounds only had the horse. He looked up the embankment and saw Holmes sprinting up and vaulting his way back onto the bridge.
The bridge on which he then came to face the bloodthirsty hound and its even bloodthirstier breeder.
Watson noted Holmes still gripping the bone saw, now dripping heavily with steaming blood.
So that's it, Watson realized. Holmes layered his deceptions. He told me to aim at the four hounds so that he could then signal me to shoot Stapleton instead; all to catch Stapleton off guard. Holmes's plan was to sacrifice the horse to distract the hounds. The horse's blood has riled them into a frenzy, disallowing Stapleton to coerce them back into his control past their baser instincts.
But did Holmes's plan still intend for me to hit my target? Surely Holmes can't assume to slay that hound armed with only a now dulled saw.
Stapleton met Sherlock's steady glare.
The detective slowed to a saunter toward the breeder. The saw hung unthreatening at his side. His other hand was under the scarf over his mouth, idling at a cigarette he puffed at.
"You're the fool," Stapleton said, his voice more a screech than ever. "You haven't a prayer at being spared my hound's fangs… or mine, for that matter. You look to taste a bit too lean for my tastes, but no dish is more savory than justice."
Sherlock, nonplussed, took an extra long drag at his concealed cigarette.
Stapleton's brow furrowed and raised his hand to his mouth with a menacing flourish.
As if on cue, Holmes flicked his arm with perfected alacrity, throwing the saw straight at his antagonist's face.
That time, Stapleton's hound remained still while the breeder swiveled in his makeshift 'dog-saddle,' attempting to dodge the projectile saw.
The saw found its mark, striking Stapleton in the shoulder.
…with the handle.
Watson's mouth hung open, aghast, that Sherlock had simultaneously hit his enemy, yet had failed to do so effectively enough.
Those two lurking hounds me must be just moments from ripping my back to pieces.
Stapleton looked smug* while attempting to hoist himself right-wise upon his mount.
Sherlock's face, or the top visible quadrant, looked even smugger. "You've lost, cur. Time for you to fall on your face and gravel at my feet for mercy."
"Ha," Stapleton barked. "What lunacy has overtaken you, Holmes, to even fantasize I'm not the victor in this-"
The breeder stopped abruptly as he realized, the same moment as Watson, that the two hounds from the south bank were charging at their master's back from his blind spot.
"What? But how-?" Stapleton went white.
The villain rose his fist to his mouth, a move Watson was deducing Holmes had been actively preventing Stapleton from enacting.
Stapleton's hounds beat the man to whatever punch he was attempting.
The large hound he rode on rolled onto its back, while the two others each bit Stapleton's arms.
Stapleton was effectively pinned by his own creations. His other four beasts were wholly placated, tearing into the horse which looked to provide plenty of entertainment and food for hours to come.
Watson looked at the bank behind him, verifying that his two wolfish pursuers from that end were indeed the same two that had flown back around to grapple Stapleton into submission.
—
After the fight had become resolved, it came to the doctor's attention his carriage had more than half submerged into the muck since its initial fall, and also leaned within a comfortable leaping distance to the South Shore.
A minute later, Watson was grasping hands with Holmes as he met him back atop the bridge.
"Just how the devil," Watson beamed as he asked, "did you manage to turn the cur's own creations upon himself?"
Holmes yanked off his makeshift mask, revealing the queerest smoking apparatus Watson had ever espied. A long glass contraption with a pipe bowl on its head and, what could only be several flute-like finger holes down the implement's length. An accouterment blending alchemical tubes with the pipes of a miniaturized musical instrument.
"You excelled brilliantly in executing your part in the plan, old boy," Sherlock's face tried its best to suppress its joy at their victory and fondness for his ally, yet a slight crinkle at his lips corners cracked despite his efforts. "See that small glinting tool he's dropped?"
Watson stared down at Stapleton. His biggest dog was laying happily over of the man's waist, tail thrumming and glowing tongue lulling as it panted. The two other hounds were alert and patient at holding each of his wrists in their clamped fangs. The breeder himself seized with such apoplectic fury. Watson feared for the man's health.
Next to Stapleton's imprisoned hand was a smaller version of Holme's smoking instrument, though, this one missing the smoking components.
"A… whistle?" Watson said.
"Not merely," Sherlock said. "But the latest achievement in design for such a tool. The compact nature and sleek design of this type of whistle produces a sound at such a high frequency no human ear is capable of detecting the noise."
Watson scratched his head. "What? But why-," he snapped his fingers. "A frequency too high for human ears, though perfectly audible for dogs."
Holmes nodded. "Precisely right, old man. The whistle was his means of transmitting commands to the hounds. This smoke cocktail, of course, is to mask myself in the scent of pheromones this mad breeder lathers himself in to give off an air of authority to his commands. I constructed this contraption shortly after we investigated that first crime scene with victims clearly torn to shreds by bigger and improved hounds of the Baskervilles. I'm just glad it came in handy after all the trouble I went to make it."
It took Watson a beat to take in the full extent of the events that had been transpiring around him. "Quite the impressive plan, Holmes." He couldn't help himself from grinning. "…For a man who could have saved himself, and his stalwart companion, a lot of trouble by simply not dropping his loaded pistol before being surrounded by a horde of beasts."
"And waste a perfectly good plan?" Sherlock reflexively puffed at his smoke-whistle.
"Please," Stapleton's voice came out much weaker and raspier than it had earlier. "Holmes. Please."
Watson picked up and pocketed Stapleton's own whistle, for good measure. "Have some dignity. We've caught you nice and fairly, Stapleton. Now it's back to Bedlam with you."
"Please," Stapleton pleaded again. "Holmes, you have to help me."
Looking over at Holmes, Watson was surprised to see the detective looking stern, rather than amused by Stapleton's whines.
Stapleton's tears had begun pouring in enough quantity to mingle with streams of mucus also crying from his nose. "Help me, Sherlock Holmes. It wasn't my fault. It was him. I can feel him inside my HEAD!"
His insane exclamation stirred Stapleton into his most violent fit yet. Veins jutted from his neck and forehead as he writhed. As he became less coherent, he simply repeated the same phrases and sentiments of, "Get him out!" or, "He's in my head! His talons are sunk deep into my soul, even now! I can feel him twisting my will to his!"
Sherlock's face had gone a shade whiter. "Remind you of anything?"
Watson recalled an earlier case involving similar behavior from victims they had interviewed. Though, this was so far the most drastic and violent case the doctor had witnessed. He considered the possibility Stapleton was faking, but there would be no greater evidence to the authenticity of the madness than Sherlock's reaction.
"He's," Watson attempted adjusting his absent hat. "He's been mesmerized."
*Jack Stapleton: Character from Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The man responsible for creating the titular hound.