Chapter 7
To his credit, after leaving the Malorys' Merlin entertained the possibility of going after Sherlock and keeping an eye on him for approximately ten seconds. After all, they were supposed to be working together….weren't they? Then he mentally shrugged.
The real priority in his opinion was solving the murder, and he couldn't work effectively trailing around after that irritating bastard. At first he had thought observing the detective's antics up close would be immensely funny, but after that debacle at the Malorys' Merlin had realized that Sherlock Holmes, with his complete lack of tact and his disturbingly accurate deductions was best kept off the case as much as possible. What if Sherlock did discover magic and use it? He would be testing the limits of reality within a week.
Merlin shuddered to think of it.
Out of courtesy to Mycroft, he'd watch out for Sherlock if their paths intersected again, but he wasn't going to go out of his way.
Minimal involvement. Minimal impact. Minimal attachment. That was always best.
He slid earbuds into his ears and listened to Nearly Forgot My Broken Heart by Chris Cornell while he walked to the Questing Beast.
The nightclub previously owned by Thomas Malory was housed in an old industrial warehouse. It was dark by the time Merlin arrived, and people were already trailing in by the twos and threes, each pausing briefly at the front door until the doorman allowed them in.
Merlin paused down the street, and took a moment to put a spell on himself that would prevent detection of his true identity by druids. Most people thought he was just a myth nowadays, but druids of the old school always recognized him, and in social settings he preferred to be anonymous.
Once suitably shielded, he approached the door of the Questing Beast.
"Identification?" the doorman growled.
Merlin let his eyes flare gold and conjured a fireball to dance on the tips of his fingers.
The doorman nodded in satisfaction, and stood aside, letting the warlock pass. Once inside, Merlin halted, as Fighting by Saints of Valory struck his ears, the base so heavy he could feel it vibrating in his chest. He'd been to the Questing Beast a few times, but it never ceased to amaze him; it was the only club exclusively catering to the magical community in all of England. Everywhere he looked, there were people dancing, drinking…and performing magic. A girl leaning over the balcony that ran around the cavernous space was summoning birds made of colored smoke, letting them fly out over the people below before they dissolved into nothing. An obviously drunk man over at the bar had bewitched his tie to hiss and coil like a snake.
And they were only representatives of the human customers. Flocks of Shee chased the gyrating colored lights, and Merlin thought he spotted several werewolves and other shapeshifters, not to mention the centaur that was kicking up his heels on the dance floor.
Merlin smiled as he made his way over to the bar. The bartender, a pretty girl with an abundance of dark hair and huge green eyes, gave him flirty one-sided smirk.
"Hey there, handsome. What'll you have?"
"A Guinness, to start."
When she returned with the beer, she leaned her elbow on the counter and propped her chin on her hand. "You know, I can put names to the faces on most of the regulars here. This community's pretty small, after all. But I don't know you. What's your name?"
"My name's Merlin."
She rolled her eyes. "Sure. In that case, Merlin, you can call me Morgana. People say I look like her, going by old paintings anyway. Like any of those people actually existed."
Merlin grinned. "You don't believe that any of them were real?"
"Morgana" shrugged. "I don't think so. I mean, they're just myths, right? Kid's stories. Why, do you?"
The memory of Arthur throwing his goblet at Merlin's head seemed to echo down through the intervening years.
Merlin laughed. "Let's say I've seen some pretty convincing proof…"
She rolled her eyes again. "You're like my mum. She lives and dies by the old religion. Poor old dear is convinced that Arthur will rise again. In fact, she called me earlier saying the actual Merlin had been by to see her. I think grief's turned her brain."
Merlin had a pretty good idea by now that "Morgana" was actually Terri, Thomas Malory's daughter.
"Grief?" he asked.
"My father died recently."
"Pardon me saying so, but you don't seem very upset."
"We shared a house, but we weren't close. You could say we had different views about things. Of course, the way he died….I wouldn't wish that on anybody."
Merlin looked at her sadly. She suddenly reminded him very much of that other Morgana, all those years ago, who had been kind and good, and then fire and ice and burning hate. Today, there were neat labels for people like that: sociopaths. Delusional. Fixated. But in his experience, reality was more complicated than a single adjective; people like Morgana were a labyrinth at their very core, layers of pain and conflicting motives stacking on top of each other, uniting into a blaze of harsh purpose and idealism.
"I've heard about how your father died," he said. "So violently….do you know if he had any fights lately with non-magic people who knew about his sorcery?"
She frowned. "Yeah…as a matter of fact….I walked in on him having a huge row with some bloke about a week ago…"
"Really? Who?"
"I don't know…some posh bugger in a suit. He had brown hair, and a funny kind of name I think…I heard my father call him by it. Mike? Mikecrift? Something like that."
"Mycroft?"
"Yeah, that sounds about right-"
Of course, it was just then that Sherlock Holmes came bursting in from the door into the kitchen accompanied by the sound of shrieking alarms.
Chapter 8
Some time earlier
After leaving the widow's house, Sherlock stalked along in brooding silence, ignoring John who practically had to run next to him in order to keep up with Sherlock's longer-legged stride.
The detective had been attracted to the Malory case by its unusual characteristics from the start (who believed enough in magic to kill a man for it?), but the case was rapidly becoming even more fascinating.
Who was Merlin? The widow knew him, he could tell. But she also feared him, and seemed to be of the opinion that Sherlock should be afraid of him as well. But what was odd was that Sherlock had been afraid of him, just for a second….And Sherlock, who was almostnever afraid, was at a loss to logically explain why.
And what were the "interests" they spoke of that they seemed to think had gotten Malory killed? Obviously Malory had been a student of the arcane. Was that what Merlin "specialized" in? That would make sense. Was a cult involved? But if that was the case, why would Mycroft be so damn twitchy about it?
And moreover, why was Merlin so convinced that Malory's fellow collectors of the weird and unusual had nothing to do with his death? Given certain facets of the case…..
Dammit, Mycroft had been right. He did find Merlin an interesting study.
"Taxi!" Sherlock yelled, throwing out his arm to summon a cab.
"Where are we going?" John panted.
"To the Questing Beast nightclub," Sherlock informed both the cabby and John simultaneously.
"Wait, I thought that people had to have a membership to get in-"
"We're breaking in. Obviously."
In the back of the cab, Sherlock continued to attack the problem of Merlin. It was strange, but Merlin in some way reminded Sherlock of himself. There were some superficial physical similarities, of course, but the resemblance ran deeper than that. As a child, Sherlock had suffered from a profound loneliness, a harsh knowledge of the fact that he was deeply different from any of his peers. This loneliness had largely persisted into adulthood, masked by Sherlock's icy intellect and armor of razor-sharp sarcasm.
Sherlock had always been called a freak, inhuman.
Somehow, he knew the same was true for Merlin.
Now, Sherlock had John, Molly, Mrs. Hudson, and Lestrade.
As far as he could tell, Merlin had no one.
After struggling through London traffic, Sherlock ordered the cabby to drop them off a block from the Questing Beast. He and John cut into the alley behind the nightclub, were Sherlock then presumed to inflict his considerable lock-picking abilities on the nightclub's rear door.
"I'll have you know I'm not taking the fall when this goes wrong," John hissed.
"Why would I need to be told that," Sherlock said absently, listening to the minute clicks emitting from the lock.
"Remember that incident with the spray paint?"
Sherlock held up a hand for silence; with one final click the door swung open. The two of them walked with studied confidence through the door and into a storeroom, then down a hallway, following the sound of music.
Everything went perfectly until they walked through the kitchen and into the main body of the club.
Then the alarms began.
Chapter 9
Merlin shut out the club lights the instant the alarms started, plunging the area into complete darkness. He didn't fancy having to explain a centaur to Sherlock Holmes. There was an instant deafening uproar; the music was still playing and now everyone was shouting.
Then everyone started trying to put the lights back on. Spells were flying so thickly Merlin could practically taste them.
Actually, he could taste them; some spectacularly drunk idiot seemed to have thought a spell to exponentially enhance the sense of taste would be useful.
With a pop the lights briefly flickered on, and then exploded in a shower of sparks when Merlin blew out the lights for the entire block.
He removed the taste-enhancing spell, and used magic to let him see in the dark. It didn't take him long to find Sherlock and John standing in shell-shocked surprise by the kitchen door.
Or at least, John was standing in shell-shocked surprise.
Where Sherlock had been standing was a very confused-looking otter.
Merlin grabbed the otter by the scruff of its neck and John by the collar of his coat and dragged them both back outside to the alley, leaving a great amount of very angry drunk sorcerers behind him.
"Where's Sherlock?!" John yelled, struggling to run back inside.
"Here," Merlin said coldly, and handed him the otter, which promptly nestled into John's coat, making contented grunting sounds.
John blinked. "What. The hell. Where is he?!"
"He's the otter. It's magic. Try to keep up."
"Impossible," said John.
They both looked at the otter, which was chewing on John's lapel.
"He was apparently hit by a spell that transforms its subject into their inner animal," Merlin said.
"Sherlock's inner animal is an otter?" John asked in a dazed tone.
"You don't think it's accurate?"
"No, no, it's very accurate…..what's mine?"
Merlin stared at John intently. "I should say a hedgehog. Definitely a hedgehog."
John shook his head like he was trying to rid himself of a buzzing fly.
"Prove it. Prove the otter is Sherlock."
"Fine. We'll have to go back to my flat. This is going to take some supplies."
They both looked at the otter again.
"Bloody hell," said Merlin.
"This can't be actually happening," said John.
Squeak, said Sherlock.
Ehehehe;) Sorry about the cliffhanger but I couldn't resist…. I'll update as soon as I can. In the meantime, this is my first fanfic, and so feedback would be welcome. Sooo….reviews? *cue puppy eyes*
