Chapter Two: The Blue Problem, Part III
John opened the refrigerator door and immediately yelled, "Sherlock!"
"What is it, John?" the detective shouted back. "I'm a bit busy at the moment."
After they'd returned from Molly's lab, Lestrade had confiscated the sapphire from Sherlock and given it right back to Molly for further investigation, failing spectacularly to see the irony in this. Apparently, the DI felt that the "actual" scientists would find out more than Sherlock. And it would look better for Scotland Yard, having the letters PhD after the scientist's name. Sherlock spent the rest of the day moping like a child whose favorite toy had been taken away.
John desperately needed a cup of tea by the time they returned to 221B, and to his eternal disappointment found that Sherlock had used the last of the milk. For a science project.
"I told you to go buy more yesterday!" John complained.
"John, I never get the milk. That's Mrs. Hudson's job, isn't it?" Sherlock asked innocently.
"Not your housekeeper!" the landlady reminded them from downstairs. "So don't think I'll get it for you today!"
John rolled his eyes and sighed dramatically. "I suppose I'll have to get it, then," he complained, giving Sherlock a meaningful look. "Just like I always get it. Whenever we run out. Which is often."
"Well, off you go," Sherlock said absentmindedly, and he waved John off, returning his attention to his laptop.
John stomped off to get his jacket. "Bloody Sherlock can't get off his bloody arse to do a single bloody thing..." he muttered to himself, slamming the door behind him as he left.
Outside, the cool autumn air drifted through the city, carrying crunchy brown leaves with it. John didn't bother to call a cab—it was, after all, a very nice day.
He stuck his hands in his pockets and strolled down the sidewalk in the direction of the corner store.
"John!" Sherlock yelled for the thousandth time. "Jaaaaaaaaaawn!"
Mrs. Hudson called up the stairs, "What's going on up there, Sherlock?"
"It's eight-thirty, and John still hasn't come back from the grocery," Sherlock said, mostly to himself. "Either that or I just didn't notice that he came back..."
Usually, this was when John would make some offhand comment that made Sherlock remember something very important, but instead Sherlock ended up staring at Billy the skull for a full fifteen minutes. He didn't remember anything particularly earth-shattering.
Silence was a poor companion.
"John Hamish Watson," a voice with a Dublin accent drawled.
His ears rang faintly, and John had to blink a few times to clear his eyes. A bright light shone on him from above in the mockery of a spotlight.
"Who—who're you?" he asked, licking his dry lips.
The voice didn't respond, but footsteps approached John from behind, clacking on the floor.
"Why am I..."
A hand slid over John's mouth almost seductively. "It wouldn't matter to you. This is a game between elementals."
And John almost smiled. There was his ace in the hole. Whoever this person was, he'd realize soon that if you played with fire, you got burnt.
"You don't seem surprised," the other man murmured in John's ear. He abruptly drew away, circling around in front of John's chair.
"You're Moriarty," John accused, twisting at the zip ties binding him to the chair.
"I hope your boyfriend comes to get you soon, John." Moriarty sat down in John's lap and stared at his nails. "I know he got my number."
Molly's boyfriend Jimmy, John thought in sudden horror. Moriarty and Molly?
"I honestly don't know why he's fighting against me," Moriarty sighed, tracing one finger lazily along the side of John's face. "It's not like those scientists were blameless."
"That isn't the point," John protested.
Moriarty smiled as if John had gotten the answer to a particularly tricky question. "It's about the game. The only game, really."
And then Moriarty's phone began to ring. "Hello?" Moriarty turned on the speakerphone, a bright smile on his face.
"You have my blogger," Sherlock said without preamble, voice cold and harsh.
"SH—" John tried to yell, but Moriarty covered his mouth again.
"Your blogger?" Moriarty giggled. "Tell you what, Sherl. Come and get him." And he hung up the phone.
HELP. BAKER STREET. NOW. HELP ME. PLEASE, Sherlock texted to Lestrade mere seconds after Moriarty hung up. Then he went into the kitchen and sat by the refrigerator, waiting.
Lestrade burst into the flat under five minutes later, and Sherlock could hear the thump and whoosh of helicopter blades outside the window. Sirens blared down Baker Street.
"What's going on?" Lestrade demanded. "Sherlock?"
"John went out to get milk, and he isn't back yet," Sherlock explained. "It's eight thirty-seven."
Lestrade stared at Sherlock in mute disbelief.
"He left at four," Sherlock added. And in case the finer points of mathematics had escaped the DI, he said, "That was four and a half hours ago."
"What? You called me here because your boyfriend is late?" Lestrade growled furiously.
"Four and a half hours. John is never that late; he always buys milk at the store two and a half blocks from here, and that's a twenty minute trip tops," Sherlock tried to explain a bit more clearly.
Lestrade sighed. "Well, I'm sure one of the twenty cop cars I have outside saw him wandering around downtown London or something..."
Sherlock picked up his phone and showed it to Lestrade. "Guess who I called. He left his number at Molly's lab, but I didn't recognize his face."
"Mori—why didn't you say that sooner? Priorities! You cryptic bastard..." Lestrade sighed again, running a hand through his silvery grey hair.
"Oh, I didn't say that?" Sherlock fiddled with the phone in his hands and started to pace around the room, eyes flicking from Billy the skull to Lestrade and back. "Send Donovan and Anderson back to Scotland Yard. You know, send back everyone whose IQ is less than a hundred. That'll be roughly half the force, I expect..."
He pulled on his coat and scarf hastily, and marched out of the flat with Lestrade in tow.
"And the corner store is... that way..." Sherlock muttered to himself. He glanced back at Lestrade and wished he'd brought the skull. At least it would have been better company.
John could hit a soda can from a mile away, if the wind was right. But he couldn't burn through a zip tie? John tried to keep his face neutral even though he wanted to set everything on fire. The heat never bothered him anyway.
Moriarty didn't seem to realize that John was a fire elemental, which struck John as unusual. He knew that elementals of the same kind could tell at a moment's notice, but he didn't know about different elements.
Moriarty had a smirk on his face, both feet kicked up on the table in front of John; he'd procured his own chair, to John's immense relief.
The zip tie was starting to smell a bit like burning plastic. John knew next to nothing about Moriarty and how he'd been trained in the past. And there was the matter of water. Wherever this place was, it couldn't be too far from the Thames. Faint watermarks stained the ceiling, and other patches dripped water onto the stone floor of the room.
Without Moriarty two inches from his face, John could get a better sense of where he was. It looked almost like part of the London Underground.
Moriarty checked his watch conspicuously, a fake yawn splitting his mouth.
"Why am I here, if you just want Sherlock to find me?" John asked when he'd finally worked up the courage.
The other man just smiled heartlessly. "You'll figure it out soon enough."
Sherlock reached out and snatched the blue gem from where it was hidden in the stone wall before Lestrade even realized it was there.
"River King," Sherlock growled, startling the DI.
"Excuse me?"
"Moriarty was here, just minutes from the flat. He must've taken John somewhere along this street..." Sherlock started pacing in circles, thinking intently, the sapphire cradled in his hands. Then he stared down at it in shock. "This is the Stuart Sapphire."
Lestrade craned his neck to get a better view. "Isn't that part of the crown jewels?"
"Then the one Molly has must be St. Edward's Sapphire." Sherlock jumped up and let the precious sapphire fall to the ground. "The Tower of London, of course!"
"Hey, careful with that! It belongs to the Queen." Lestrade scooped the gem off the ground and rubbed it off on his jacket. "You were saying?"
Sherlock suppressed an exasperated sigh. "They're clues. The sapphires, with the words River King engraved on them. We found one earlier, remember? And they're all from the Tower of London... it's not much to go on, but why else would Moriarty have gone through the trouble? Getting the jewels and just throwing them away?"
Lestrade grinned and said, "Well, looks like we're breaking John out of prison."
John clenched his hands, still trying to focus more heat on the zip ties. He was sure Moriarty would smell the plastic and kill him without a second thought any moment now.
"Maybe I should have dumbed down the puzzle a bit more," Moriarty drawled. "Our dear Sherlock is taking... awhile."
"Sherlock is a thousand times more clever than you'll ever be," John shot back without thinking.
This just made Moriarty beam, the kind of crazy smile that Sherlock got when he knew something no one else did.
John grit his teeth, pulling at the melting plastic and trying to keep the action inconspicuous.
Suddenly, Moriarty turned his cold, dead gaze on John. "Plastic," he murmured quietly, reaching one hand towards the wall.
In a split second, John had flung the still-melting-hot plastic at Moriarty and scrambled back from the table.
"My dear Watson!" Moriarty cried with horrific delight. "You're elemental!" The plastic had seared the side of his face, but he didn't seem to notice or care. Water surged from the side of the cavern, flowing around Moriarty like a cape. "Looks like Sherlock will have to wait."
John sent a huge semicircle of flame at Moriarty, who brought his arm in front of his face and blocked with a wave of water.
In the two seconds he'd gained, John ran for the exit. It was a metal door set to the left of Moriarty, and it was locked. John swore and pressed his hands to the lock, knowing it would take at least a minute to melt the metal. Moriarty had clearly trained with his powers, while John had spent his life hiding them.
A wall of cold river water smashed into John and spun him away from the door. "Now, now, none of that," Moriarty scolded.
John let out a yell and burned, feeling the soft lick of flames against his skin. He'd forgotten the rush of power that came with the fire, and for a second he thought he knew how emperors felt.
"Mmm, you're just like my Sebastian was," Moriarty hummed delightedly. "Maybe I'll keep you."
"Don't you know Moran's still alive?" John asked, trying to stall Moriarty as he inched back towards the door. The air was starting to smell like ozone.
"Nice try." The water elemental spread his arms out, head tilted back, and the river burst through the cavern wall.
"I know it's not the regular tourist hours, but this is a matter of national importance!" Sherlock yelled, slamming his fist down on the visitor's desk. "I have no time to bandy words with a mentally incompetent tourist guide!"
Lestrade grit his teeth. "I'm so sorry," he began.
The floor underneath them rumbled, and Sherlock's gaze magnetized to the window. "John," he whispered, just a hint of fear creeping into his voice.
Lestrade didn't stop him from leaving.
The consulting detective bolted from the Tower and ran as fast as he could for the river, scarf trailing behind him in a ribbon of blue.
Without a moment's hesitation, he dove into the river. The cool water brushed against his face, welcoming, but he paid it no mind.
A hole had opened in the depths of the Thames, and Sherlock swam towards it. He could feel a strange sort of glow coming from the cave it led to, and he couldn't quite put it into words. It felt like the soft whisper of water, raindrops on tin roofs and streams in forests.
How distracting.
John pushed all the heat he could muster into the door, feeling the hardened steel soften and turn red-hot under his touch. The water hit him like a brick wall, hissing and sizzling on his skin.
He took a huge breath and felt the water around him bubbling with heat. John ripped into the door's lock, and strands of molten steel clung to his fingers, warm and sticky like caramel.
The heat around him seemed to fade just as the door moved under his touch, the water pouring through the door and the hallway behind it.
John hit Lestrade full force, surprising the DI and sending them both crashing backwards with the river.
Lestrade spluttered and said, "Nice to see you too."
John turned a light shade of pink and hurriedly extricated himself from their tangle of arms and legs.
Sherlock strode into the room moments later, coat billowing behind him. "He's gone," he said, a look of uncertainty flitting across his face. In his hands, he held an enormous clear stone that cast tiny rainbows on the walls, shimmering in the faint light.
"Is that a diamond?" John's hand brushed against Sherlock's, and the detective jerked back like he'd been burned.
Which he had.
"Sorry, I'm so sorry," John apologized, hands reflexively reaching out to soothe the burn and pulling back just as quickly.
"It's fine, John," Sherlock reassured him, reaching one hand out behind him for water. He smoothed it over the burn and quickly returned his attention to the diamond, which had Lestrade fascinated.
"That's... that's the Koh-i-Noor diamond, Sherlock," he stuttered, pointing at the enormous stone. "Do you know how much that's worth?"
"Well, I suspect it'll be worth a great deal less now that it's been vandalized by Moriarty." Sherlock held the stone up to the light so they could see the words etched deep into the surface of the diamond.
River King
"What does that even mean?" Lestrade demanded. "Who is this River King?"
"You have to ask?" Sherlock sighed and pushed past Lestrade and the growing crowd of people in the hallway. "What are you waiting for, John?"
"Right. 'Scuse me," John said, following Sherlock and nudging some more people out of the way. "Sorry."
"We'll have to call Molly. Maybe she can help us..." Sherlock trailed off, staring at the pink iPhone in his hand. The other cradled the enormous diamond, which still sparkled and shone like white fire.
"Hmm?" John asked. He peered over Sherlock's shoulder with some difficulty. "What does that mean?"
Lestrade finally caught up to them and asked, since it appeared no one else would, "Why is that written in gibberish?"
"Molly," Sherlock said, and then he grabbed John and ran out of the Tower of London. "It was all a plot!" Sherlock explained to John while he hurriedly flagged down a cab. "Moriarty knew I'd waste no time—"
"No time? You were four hours late—!"
"—in rescuing you. And he knew I'd call in Lestrade. You were a distraction." Sherlock read out the text he'd received from Moriarty. "Gotcha."
"How do you know that means Molly?" John asked as they climbed into the cab. "What does that even mean?"
"All of this was just an elaborate façade. The jewels, capturing you. He wanted to distract me." Sherlock looked furious with himself. "He has some larger scheme in mind."
John still felt like he was missing a piece or four from the puzzle. "Which involves...?"
"Of all the ways to get his number to me, he picks dating Molly? There are surely far easier methods to choose." Sherlock sighed, ruffling his hair with one hand, and picked up his phone again.
Molly's ringtone sounded entirely out of place in the dark, gloomy recesses of the underground station. The sound echoed across the walls and came back as a cheerless dirge.
The answer phone came on.
"Molly, listen... I'm really, truly sorry about what happened today. Yesterday. It's one in the morning. I should... never have said those things I did. I hope you can forgive me." Click.
"Aww, look at that, Molly. He really does like you. I just hope he likes you enough to care if you die," Moriarty said cheerfully.
"Molly?" Sherlock asked hopefully. The lab seemed empty, even with all of the lights still on.
John went down to look for her in the morgue while Sherlock looked in the upstairs labs. The chilly, dry air cut right through John's sweater, and he decided to risk a light. A single lick of fire flickered in the palm of his hand like a candle, casting sharp shadows against the metal walls of the morgue.
"Molly?"
A glint of rainbow light caught John's eye, and his heart sank at the sight of another priceless gem. He knew without looking the two words carved into its surface.
"The Great Star of Africa," Sherlock said somewhat bitterly when John showed him the diamond. "That was in rather poor taste."
A/N: Sorry for the late update! I went to Spain for two weeks, had a blast, but no computers. Hope you liked the chapter! And stay tuned for the next case, Wanderlust.
Please leave a review; it's a great way to let your author know what you think of the story ^_^
