"No, mistress don't-" Theodore screamed to be cut off by the sound of breaking china and a hysterical giggle. Sherlock pressed the cushions on each side of his head ever more tightly to it, though his electric blue globes displayed his obvious discomfort. I, however calm I would seem, was as uncomfortable and jittery as Sherlock. My hands would not stop shaking whenever a loud sound was made downstairs and could not type without adding an extra letter in every other word. Needless to say, Sherlock and I had already been down there and surprisingly could not unlock the door either by force or by lock picking, something that both Sherlock and I had worried over.
"WOULD YOU BOTH BLOODY SOD OFF?!" Sherlock shouted over the din.
Immediately, silence.
Sherlock smirked in his victory and lowered the cushions from his head. Soon, my hands stopped shaking, though I kept sneaking glances at the door. After a few moments of blissful silence, I picked up my laptop and opened up an entry on my blog titled, "Silence." No sooner had I typed in the words, "Finally, the neighbor downstairs has" then Sherlock abruptly stood up and put on his jacket.
"Going out?" I questioned, saving the blog entry. His eyes squinted at something that was obviously bothering him as he absent-mindedly tied his scarf around his neck. "Sherlock?" I placed the computer down, also grabbing my jacket. His eyes jumped and landed on me, clouded and confused.
"They're being awfully quiet," he muttered.
Without another word, both Sherlock and I descended the stairs to the mouldy flat of 221C Baker Street. Sherlock rapped on the door four times. "Paling?" he demanded. When there was no response, he tried the knob and to both of our surprise, the door swung open easily.
The room inside was not destroyed, nor even remotely messy. In fact, judging from the state of the pure white drapes, the unbroken china cradling delicate blossoms, the just-cleaned carpet and the calm man soaking up the sunlight while casually reading a book and sipping tea, this was not Theodore's flat at all, but instead, a stranger's. I did a double take and looked to the doorway where scratch marks were still evident the one time Theodore decided that taking an untrained hound home was a good idea to be sure at all that this was indeed Theodore's flat.
The click of a gun attracted my attention to an otherwise innocent-looking girl. Her wide blue eyes were glazed over in a shade of boredom I knew all too well, while her posture for a gunman suggested that she had experience. Her arm was held straight out, the other supporting it, with most of the weight on the back foot in a warrior's stance. Her eyes were trained on her target, but also flicked to me once in a while. Her hair was braided straight down her back, just like Theodore, and if her face was not in a neutral frown so unnatural for a bubbly child of six, she would bear a striking resemblance to Theodore. Her pale blue dress hid a gun's holster in it, judging from the extra material around the waist, and though she was small, I could tell that if provoked, she would actually shoot Sherlock, and would not only account for me pushing Sherlock out of the way, but also account for the door swinging shut behind us.
Never before, not even in battles where frightened children were used as suicide bombers, had I ever witnessed a child so devoted to her cause, convinced that killing Sherlock and myself was the right thing to do, and it sickened me.
"Ah," the man on the couch sighed, closing his giant lexicon with one hand. "It seems we've been found out, Ageha."
Ageha? But Ageha was the name of the bright bubbly ball of joy that had pounced on me a few days ago, calling me Mr. Teddy Bear and Sherlock Mr. Blue, not this killing machine. And that meant that Theodore was...
"What are you planning?" Sherlock muttered aloud, inching his way forward to the little girl. The girl held up the gun, a L106A1, as a warning. He respectfully stopped inching forward. Something clicked in Theodore's direction and my eyes shifted to him just in time to see him place a flaming book on the glass coffee table, right next to his empty cup of tea. Silently, he stood up and brushed the imaginary motes of dust from his pants, his shoes clicking with their metal soles on the hardwood floor. His steps did not slide even a centimeter as he made his way over to us, temporarily blocking Ageha's line of fire from Sherlock.
In that split second, I rushed forward to catch hold of Sherlock, but with nary a hair out of place, Theodore gracefully grabbed my wrist and twisted it behind my back with such force that it made me break out in a cold sweat. A calm, collected voice behind me whispered, "We wouldn't want you to die now, would we?" and in the next moment, I was sprawled on the floor. Something warm surrounded me and a sharp, ringing sound emanated from behind me, growing softer with every revolution. A groan and a thump beside me told me that Sherlock had been similarly incapacitated, with short plastic clicks between us signaling that the gun Ageha had been holding was now on the floor.
My head swam with the blood I now recognized as oozing from my nose, but I was still able to sit up and meet the muzzle of a gun as Ageha retreated towards the door. I blinked a few times and realized that she was smiling at me, a sort of kind, genuine smile that only little children used when asking their parents for a treat of some kind.
"Father says thank you," she announced, to both me and Sherlock. I attempted to grab the gun from her, but only ended up making her shift to a different angle. Damn she was fast. Not a spot of my blood flew onto her pale blue dress. "He doesn't usually stay with someone for this long." Her eyes were downcast and wistful, almost misty. Perhaps she was speaking the truth, but perhaps she was not.
In her moment of distraction, I was easily (perhaps too easily) able to snatch the gun from her and fumble with the safety, pointing the deadly weapon at her now. She seemed unfazed by this change, as if she still held the gun to my head instead of me to her. In fact, she made no move to shield her vitals, only placing her hands behind her back like a naughty child. When I checked the gun, I realized that the bullets had been removed. When had she...?
"Father never liked staying in one place, you know," she stated as Sherlock groggily sat up from his ungainly fall. In a few steps, she stood in front of him. "He would usually only stay for a week or so, but he stayed here for three full months, not even letting me join him until last week." Her eyes switched to Sherlock, who now examined the little girl curiously. His eyes alighted upon something, then switched to me, but kept silent. What did he find?
Ageha now took a step forward, holding her hands out as if to deposit something in Sherlock's hands. "Father wanted me to give this to you," she stated happily. "He said something about a puzzle, I'm not sure." Out of her hands dropped three bullets, each coated with blood. Sherlock's eyes widened at these bullets, but widened even more when Ageha came closer to kiss him on the cheek.
She maintained her cheery smile, even as she handed me a wrapped present. The wrapping paper was a faded yellow while the bow was of homespun cloth and was frayed at the edges. "This one isn't from Father," she explained, "It's from me. Father agreed that it would make things more...interesting." She also placed a kiss on my cheek, which, to be honest, made me shudder slightly.
"Ageha, it's time to go! Jim's waiting!"
The last two words made Sherlock's eyes rivet back onto the girl, memorizing everything about her once more, and made me reconsider my opinion of her as well. Jim? Jim Moriarty? How was she connected to him?
With as much happiness as she could muster, Ageha bowed, as an actor would when finishing a play, and rushed up the stairs, right into the arms of Theodore, her presumed father. "Bye, Mr. Teddy Bear! Bye, Mr. Blue! Let's see each other again sometime~"
I held up the gun in my hand, and pulled the trigger. The gun. She held up the solid black object while mine crumbled in my fingers. Plaster? Sherlock scrambled to his feet, but it was too late. She raised the gun to me.
"WATSON!"
(A/N) Please say if I've made the characters too OOC, or if there were any grammar or spelling mistakes.
Ageha and Theodore Paling are both my OCs that I am prepping for NaNoWriMo, so if anyone has any questions about them, please do not hesitate to PM me.