"Friend of mine. Well, I say friend ."
John's phone alarm beeps at four o' clock precisely on a Thursday afternoon, making him jump as he makes his third cup of tea today and spill milk across the two mugs on Bart's academic staff room countertop. It's one of Sherlock's alarms, the ones he sets when he has an appointment but can't be bothered to retain the information on the details for, and so makes John carry the burden of getting them places on time instead.
"Everything all right, John?" Mike's sitting at one of the coffee tables, marking some students' essays. John inwardly curses. He and Mike had been about to go to the pub for a pint and a catch-up, and for a moment he's tempted to blow Sherlock's mystery appointment off and not tell him they've got something on - serve the bastard right for not remembering his own appointments - but the same innate Britishness that has him making tea in a foreign environment stops him from being so rude.
"Everything's fine, Mike. I just remembered, Sherlock and I have an appointment to get to. I'm so sorry. Could we do a rain check? We should only be gone an hour, if it was important he wouldn't have held me responsible."
The look Mike shoots him over the top of his glasses is far too knowing.
"Fine, fine. But you owe me something in return. How are you two? You always clam up when I try to ask you, and your blog stopped updating."
"Yeah, I stopped putting my writing up there. I've got a new address - you can have it if you like."
Mike stands up and there's a moment when they should shake hands and John should leave, but instead John picks up the two mugs of tea he's made whilst on autopilot and sets them down on the table across from the papers bloodied by Mike's biro and harsh marking.
"I can't tell everything, but let me fill you in…"
—
You're late."
"How would you know?" John snarks, from inside the black bug that Mycroft had sent to stake out Bart's and pick him up, "Since you didn't deem this important enough."
Sherlock waves an airy hand. "That was to annoy my brother. Naturally, I had assumed I'd be by your side by the time we had to be anywhere at my brother's beck and call. But since he's informed me we'll be using one of his Lear Jets, we have to dance to another's tune, no matter how crass."
"We're going in a private jet."
"Didn't I just say?"
"What are we doing that's so high security? Or important to Mycroft, I suppose, but usually they're one and the same."
"Nothing, actually. My dearest is just over reacting, as normal. We're merely flying to Ireland to see a man about a dog, as you would say. Or more accurately, a woman about an incredibly rare tome."
For a man that has been in wars and visited palaces, top secret institutions and underground lairs - even for him, this seems a bit far-fetched.
"Sorry, back up a bit there, Sherlock. Ireland? Private Jets? Rare books? This sounds a bit Indiana Jones to me-" He bats as if at an invisible fly to stall Sherlock's questioning look- "Never mind who he is, it's a pop culture reference, not important. All I mean is, it beats the pub mid week."
Sherlock smiles faintly, the grin of a cheshire cat. His pale face is almost the only thing visible inside the blacked out car, his grey suit and dark coat blending in with the inky leather interior and making him look a bit like the grim reaper and a floating head all in one.
"Quite. Now, it's long journey to the small airport we'll be flying from, so I'm going to meditate. You're welcome to nap, I'll wake you up in anything important happens that I need you for. The seat reclines if you push the button to the side."
John does that, taking off his jacket and folding it to use as a pillow. I'll be using a whip to fetch household items and take down assassins next, he thinks as he dozes off.
—
Sherlock shakes him awake, and John is immeasurably embarrassed when he realises that Sherlock has been letting him doze on his shoulder
. The building they've arrived at looks old, and beautiful. As the second impossibly sleek car John's been in today drives up to it and parks beside a vintage Bentley John stretches his muscles and brushes off his jeans, trying to catch a glimpse in the rearview mirror to see whether he's presentable. Doubtless he'll be meeting with stern-faced government agents, or even just brains-in-jar academics who think that tweed is a naturally occurring element. Either way, he doesn't want to look sleep-rumpled, and most definitely doesn't want any Professor or Doctor or No Last Name, I'm Too High Clearance types to know he's been wrapped around a certain Sherlock Holmes.
Once they're inside the building housing a quiet library straight out of a period drama, Sherlock seems to come alive, bright eyes scanning the rows upon rows of books with a kind of greed-filled, hungry expression, and John can see why Sherlock decided, for once, to co-operate with Mycroft.
The rooms, reading nooks and antechambers they pass filled through are all occupied with quiet, young men and women who all respectfully study books, their movements co-ordinated and free of the awkwardness usually present in libraries and gathering of young people and strangers. It's extremely odd, and gives them the air of almost working in a synchronised team of learning.
In one side wing they pass, a tall man reaches up to a high shelf and passes down a book to a teenage girl with dark hair who isn't quite tall enough to balance a heavy leather-bound book and reach on tiptoes at the same time.
Why is no one here over forty?
At length, Sherlock and the nameless bodyguard following them stop, and Sherlock indicates that they have reached the person they've crossed borders and driven for hours to meet. John wonders if the room will be filled with equations, piles of papers, chemistry equipment or small scale war dioramas, his imagination throwing every Hollywood cliche at him.
Sherlock steps forward and knocks on the large, heavy door. For a second John swears he can see a raised design in the middle of it, but he blinks and it's gone.
In front of him, Sherlock clears his throat quiet enough so that only John could have heard.
"Ah, Miss Sorrows, it's a pleasure to see you again."
The woman standing in front of John is the most beautiful person he has ever seen. Her large, darkly lidded eyes are the palest blue, and her skin is pale as mist. Her hair is as dark as John has ever, ever seen human hair to be.
"Sherlock, sweetie, how lovely to see you again. I suppose your brother has sent you. Avoiding me again, is he? I wonder if that has anything to do with his wife."
"Ex wife, but yes, they're still together. How did you guess?"
"Books are only half of what I deal in. Information makes up the other portion." She smiles widely and it is a bright lovely thing. John's chest hurts to look at her. Turning toward him, she seems to glow with an inner light, and if John weren't a medical man and an atheist to boot he'd say that it wasn't just an illusion.
"Stop that."
Sherlock's voice is reproving, but for what, John wonders? All she has been is polite, and he really must remind Sherlock to stop being so rude when there's no call for it, especially in the company of wonderful, radiantly beautiful women…
"John." Sherlock's deep velvet voice breaks his train of thought and when he blinks, the painful beauty and impossible glow are gone.
"Terribly sorry, Sherlock," the woman says, not sounding sorry at all. "You know I can't help it."
"Yes, you can. Are you going to introduce yourself to John, or not?"
"I must apologise, my dear. So, this is the very special Doctor Watson? Pleased to meet you. I hear you took out some rogue mages with nothing but a handgun a year or so back, if I recall right."
Did this woman just use the word mage? John wonders. As in wizard? He doesn't remember a gang that called themselves that, and he's sure he would have remembered.
The woman takes a short breath.
"My name is Miss China Sorrows, and it is I that Mycroft Holmes has sent you to collect a package of the utmost importance from. I'm sorry if you were expecting someone a tad more mothball-scented. Of course it's impertinent to inquire after a woman's age, but I'll tell you we sorcerers almost always fare a lot better than mortal academics of the same age. Clean Irish air, I say."
China Sorrows sounds like a name from a Harry Potter book, John thinks. For one, it's far too descriptive; they're not living in the age where people are named after the colour of their hair or beards or what they do for a living; they're in the 21st century.
For another… Did she say 'sorcerers'? And 'mortals'? John feels unpleasantly like he's the victim of a big set up, somehow. It would explain why all of the people outside in the library were so eerily polite and well-mannered, if they were actors.
There's a knock at the door. China waves a hand and - John definitely sees the door glow this time, it must be some kind of fancy electrical LED inlay connected to the door knocker - the teenage girl from the library walks in, bringing a medical model skeleton in after her, its bone hand encased in a glove and resting on her arm.
It's dressed in a dark blue suit that would be comic if the suit didn't fit too perfectly for it to be the prop of a living man's and if the hat atop the skull's head wasn't fixed so jauntily as to show a great deal of care.
"Say hello to introduce Skulduggery Pleasant and Valkyrie Cain. They can be trusted implicitly, including with your names," China adds, dipping her head in Sherlock direction. "Though I advise neither of you to tell those names of yours to anyone that asks until you are back in London, today."
Sherlock looks satisfied with that, and doesn't even question the fact that there's a mannequin - for that can be the only explanation for such a well-dressed model outside of Fresher's Week at a uni offering medical courses - accompanying a young girl like some bizarre ventriloquist's act, or even why she's been allowed in here with the three of them in the first place.
He even smiles at the model, a real lip-twitch of one that John seems to be the only person to notice. Since John has known Mycroft he's been dramatically over the top with his security measures, the same way Sherlock is with his work. He kidnapped John so that he justify himself having a friendly chat with a civilian, for god's sake.
"Ah, what's she doing here? With a mannequin? Is she your niece or a student here, or something?" John has to ask.
The previously open look on the girls' face hardens. With her dark clothes, dark hair and dark eyes she suddenly looks threatening, but she does nothing except scowl in John's direction.
There's a deathly silence, whilst everyone looks at John almost expectantly. Something isn't right at all, and he feels the need to do some damage limitation.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be offensive," John protests, addressing this Valerie - Valkyrie must be the gothicised version of her name, it explains the black theme and the morbid choice of arm candy - directly.
"It's just, everything's going straight over my head, and you two do look alike, so I assumed that you were related, and… Why are you dragging that plastic skeleton around?"
"I am not a plastic skeleton, thank you very much," a low voice replies reproachingly, "I am all genuine bone and… well, not body, but certainly soul and charisma, plenty of that. And I even have my original skull," the model continues speaking, impossibly, "No thanks to you."
Valerie drops her hand from from around the skeleton's waist as a smile graces it once more and John has no idea who is moving the skeleton but its hand extends, pointing a glove-clad finger at Sherlock.
For some reason, Sherlock has no problem with this. He shrugs.
"I wasn't aware it was yours, Detective. If I had I wouldn't have let Mrs. Hudson give it away to charity shop as a halloween decoration, I'm sure."
The skeleton - Skulduggery? - winces, as far as someone without lungs or or a mouth can wince.
"Well it made its way to Valkyrie eventually, so for that I'm thankful to this Mrs. Hudson, whoever she may be. You know, as a mortal you really shouldn't be dropping names this carelessly, Detective."
The - impossibly, moving and talking - skeleton sounds like it's annoyed, but both Sherlock, China and Valerie are smiling genuine smiles at him, and soon all pretence of it drops and he walks forward, smoothly (John was expecting a zombified lurch), embracing Sherlock and clapping him on the back before moving to stand by the girls' side.
"How I've missed running into you, Skulduggery."
"I see you got yourself a partner."
"As did you."
"Ah, but mine's better, so I thought I wouldn't mention Valkyrie. It's hardly fair."
"Is she a crack shot?"
"More than that," Valkryie cuts in, still smiling fondly. "I don't need guns, either."
This seems to sober Skulduggey. "It's times like these when I wonder just why Gordon even lets me take you out. Here we are, talking to these normal people and their guns, and you go and remind me that you're half their age and dealing with worse than firearms." Then he chuckles and the illusion of sadness is gone.
"Shut up, you old bag of bones, you sound like Elder Bespoke."
"Quite, and we can't have me sounding anything like the fishwife he is. Seriously though Sherlock, well done you. Although - have you been to Switzerland yet?"
Beside him, the girls' smile drops, a little.
"No. Should I keep it in mind that you felt it important enough to ask about?"
"If you like. Now China, if you're happy introducing me to people I already know then you won't mind this. Last Wednesday -"
"Skulduggery, Doctor Watson!"
Valkyrie's voice stops the cosy little reunion dead in its tracks. John seems to have gone into shock, sinking into one of the leather armchairs laying around and looking into the middle distance. Sherlock immediately crosses over to him, long strides giving him the air of flashstepping across.
John comes back to reality with a jolt, eyes focusing and sound rushing into the room as if he's been travelling on an aeroplane (which he has, but not long-haul and not high in the air) and the sound is only now coming back with a popping noise. Sherlock and Valkyrie are flanking the armchair he's in, whilst Skulduggery and China are on the other side of the room, apparently deep in conversation.
"He's all right, just shocked. I wouldn't worry. The first time I met Skulduggery I fainted. Mind you, I was only twelve at the time."
"And the two of you have been inseparable ever since… I wonder if he still teases you about it. No, he doesn't; I imagine similar reactions are common enough and he has other things to use in conversational one-upmanship." He doesn't even look the slightest bit satisfied when Valkyrie colours a little, and John judges that Sherlock must like this girl and this - skeleton, man, whatever - a good deal. He wonders how he met him.
Up close, John can see that Valkyrie looks around twenty, or at the very least seventeen to eighteen. Although she's the same height as John she has a serious quietness to her face that John knows from experience comes from discipline and experience more than someone at the age he thought she was could have. Her eyes are old, too. She's not as hardened and threatening as she was at a distance with her threatening face and stance, now that she's kneeling down so as to be eye level with John's sitting, that he can see her clothes up close and discern that she's not some sort of wraith or shadow. Maybe that's the impression that she wants to give to strangers, though. If so, she picked a good name for it.
"I'm sorry for earlier, for being rude. That's usually Sherlock's area."
"No problem. You were in shock, like I said. You two are like yin and yang, right?"
John makes his face where he angles his left ear towards the speaker and twists his mouth into a frown, the face he makes when he's trying to parse something unexpected. Sherlock knows that face well. He stands up in one fluid movement and leaves John to the capable care of Valkyrie, joining China and Skulduggery.
"What do you mean, yin and yang?"
"It's a symbiotic-"
"I know what it means, I just have no idea why you compared Sherlock and I to yin and yang. We're not a couple," John sighs, adding almost under his breath, "for the last ruddy time."
"You act as if certain things are more his area' and others are more 'your area'. Do you make a habit to fit your behaviour according to other people's or is it just him?"
"Valkyrie, don't bait dear Dr. Watson," China calls out. It's more of a slight raising of the voice than an actual call - John doubts her voice could ever lose its delicate, measured tone, like tea being poured from a teapot along with platters of cucumber sandwiches at a private function. But it grabs his and Valkyrie's attention and so the effect is the same.
"Are woman not his area either?"
Valkyrie says this quietly, glancing back from where her eyes had lingered in China's direction. "Along with tact, I guess. When China wants to be heard everyone hears exactly what she has to say, and he didn't even look up at her even though she was standing right by him. Unless he's as old as Skulduggery and has known her as long to have had practise at not being under her spell, I'd say he just wasn't interested."
Why is everyone a detective, these days? Or it's more like John is the only human amongst omnipotent geniuses these days. What's not fair is that now it looks like even a teenager has the upper hand today, as far as 'dissecting your private life with a glance' goes.
"I don't know why I even bother any more. We're not a couple, and Sherlock's doesn't have an area. That way."
Valkrie arches a brow at him, another expression that looks out of place on her unlined features. "Sure you're not. But you know, We're sorcerers. Skulduggery is a skeleton, and he and China are both veterans of a centuries-old war. They don't get out much into the mortal world, and that means they don't pick up too many prejudices.
Though neither of them trust the internet," she adds, thoughtfully. "My reflection started a blog, and China told me she had one of her assistants follow it and transcribe it for her to read at her leisure. Don't worry about what I said about a reflection, it's best you don't know."
The odd feeling washes over John again, and he swallows loudly. "Right. So am I going to get any explanation for this, or-"
Valkyrie sighs. "I hate to be the discouraging one since our positions were pretty much the same a few years ago, but I wouldn't go looking for any. Not here, anyway. Maybe in this room, but after that, no. My people aren't really to be trusted with mort- civilians, anyway."
"I never treated civilians like you do when I was a soldier. That argument won't wash with me."
Valkryie scowls again, but this time it's childish rather than freaky. "Would you prefer the term Muggles, then? I hate saying 'mortal', it makes me feel like some pretentious wazzock who tells everyone they're a god."
Odd choice of words, there. John wonders where a teenage Irish girl got the chance to pick up slang he's only ever heard used in London.
"Okay, fine, that's all fine. So I take it we're not safe until we get back to London, is that right? That's the impression you lot are giving. Are you coming back with us?"
Valkyrie looks up sharply. "What makes you think that?"
"You seem pretty familiar with London, with its safety and slang and…" John trails off under the suddenly ferocious gaze. "I used to have family in London.
I don't any more." She stands up from the armchair and John follows, glad his legs have recovered while he's been talking with her. As soon as he catches up with the other four, standing in a loose circle, they all break move back suddenly. China and Sherlock break off from what they were talking about and Valkrie moves again as if to support Skulduggery with her arm. He doesn't look weak, so John's not sure whether they're leaving and it's part of a disguise or whether it's emotional. Looking at Valkyrie's face and Skulduggery's - it's not so much an expression as a peculiar tilt of his skull - John decides on the latter.
Sherlock has a package under his arm.
"Come along John, we're ready to transport Mycroft's precious package back to England, let's not inconvenience the Detectives and China any longer."
John wants to laugh. Sherlock, not wanting to outstay a welcome? The thought's absurd. But something about the sudden change in the room's atmosphere convinces him not to pry.
"It was very nice to meet you all. And I'm sorry for being such a Muggle."
John can hear the word 'Muggle' repeated faintly, as if being mouthed by a person without a mouth of their own.
"Yes yes, and it was nice to catch up with you too. Skulduggery, if you don't treat your partner well you won't find another."
"That stinks of your brother's advice. And nice to see you too."
"Well caught. For once I'm inclined to agree with him, though."
"Nice to meet you, Valkyrie," John adds, wanting to somehow make amends for all of the accidental gaffes he'd made. Valkyrie smiles again and gives him a sarcastic little wave.
As the two men walk out the door to where Mycroft's man is waiting outside, China sniffs delicately.
"The first time in ages I meet two mortals who neither have forewarning about me nor the shields to stop my charms, and it doesn't work on them. I was looking forward to some fun."
Skulduggery turns back to her, all formality gone from his pose. "Well, for a start they're both in love with each other. It did work on John a little bit though, which makes sense since he's not that way, if you catch my meaning. But I'm not sure it would work on Sherlock in any case. He's very unlike normal people."
"Coming from an imaginary skeleton?"
"Yes, coming from an imaginary skeleton."
"He must be very special indeed, then," China murmurs.
"Oh, he's easily my favourite person under sixty. For a start, he didn't steal my hat when he first met me." Skulduggery's tone of voice is amused as he inclines his head toward his partner.
"He did take your head, though, Skulduggery."
"That he did, Valkyrie, but unlike you he later apologised. And what have we learnt today?"
"That you hold grudges for a stupidly long amount of time?"
"Exactly."