7. An unexpected pleasure
On their return, Jacqueline and Molly were most surprised to find Andersson curled up in a ball in a corner of the cellar, whimpering and sniffing quite miserably.
"What have you done to him?" ranted the witch.
Sherlock couldn't answer, he was too busy rubbing his face against the shirt on his shoulder, as if he wanted to rub the skin off. "Kicked him" he snapped back laconically, as soon as he was done. His cheeks were burning red and he was panting.
"Whatever for?" a compassionate Molly wanted to know.
"He licked my face!"
"Sorry for interrupting what must have been one of the most romantic moments in your life" Jacqueline threw in with a wry grin "but we have work to do. Molly, I need your help!"
The two women had the whole set up ready in no time at all.
Warily Sherlock goggled at the carving-covered table they had brought to the room's centre. It didn't look very comforting. Especially not with the strong, broad leather straps fastened to all four corners.
As it turned out he should not have worried about the straps, but about the paralysing spell Jacqueline muttered before she released the handcuffs and the ropes on his ankles. Holmes did not regain control of his body before his hands and feet were securely strapped to the table. He gasped when Jacqueline stuffed a rag into his mouth and fastened the gag behind his neck. "Sorry for that" she said merrily. "But we're done listening to pearls of wisdom dripping from your lips."
Sherlock struggled against his bonds, but it was useless.
To Molly, he looked like a child, a small child, struggling in his cot because he wanted to stay up a while longer. The young woman found an almost irresistible urge to laugh out loud tickling her throat from within.
Jacqueline, on the other hand, was still very busy. She unpacked the pastry Molly had brought fresh from the bakery. When she pulled the pieces out of the paper bag, she almost dropped them. Oh, it couldn't be true. This was impossible, it just couldn't be!
Jim's favourites, his absolute favourite pastry. These were Schweinsöhrchen?
Tentatively, she bit off a little bit, chewed and swallowed. Hungrily, she tried a bit more, and more, until she'd almost finished the first piece of pastry. Yes, it was the taste, it was the texture she remembered so well.
With a rash, angry gesture the witch wiped her face. But the tears had a will of their own, they kept flowing, whatever she did. The memory of that sunlit, comfy afternoon, when Jim had first shown this pastry to her – and all that come afterwards …...
Jacqueline was now crying openly.
Molly, on the other hand, lost her fight against the tickling in her throat. First she giggled, then she laughed out, louder and louder. She couldn't stop, she had a virtual fit of laughter. Sherlock writhing on that table like an old, misanthropic overturned tortoise – really, it was too funny for words!
Andersson slowly struggled to his feet.
Bewildered he looked from one to the other, from the struggling figure spread-eagled on the table, to the girl who was by now screaming with laughter, to the crying face. Finally he came to a sort of decision.
The forensic-specialist-turned-zombie sneaked closer to Jacqueline and tried to wipe away her tears; he produced cooing sounds deep inside his throat in an attempt to soothe her.
Angrily she pushed him away. To hell with him, how could he dare interrupt her reminiscence of her dead lover?
Andersson looked hurt. The rejection of his well intended approach ached like an actual injury. His gaze hurried through the room, hoping to find something that might comfort the sad woman by his side, he could not stand her crying. And really, he found something, on the table in front of him. A small tin can without a lid, and in it, the most delightful sort of mud any dog could ever imagine for a toy or a cooling balm if his fur was hot and itchy.
Eager to please, and sure of his success, he lifted the can to the crying being's eye-level. "Look here" that meant. "Isn't it a fine thing? Would you be glad and play with me? Outside, where the sun is warm, and the world is friendly?"
If he had had a tail, he'd loved to wag it. If there ever had been a moment perfectly suited for tail-wagging in his life, this was it.
The crying woman stared at him. She sniffed, and wiped her eyes with her paws. Eh. Hands, he knew it suddenly, women had hands, not paws.
But it did not matter.
He had her full attention now.
As he deserved it, for this really was the best of mud ever! He whimpered softly, to show her how much he wanted to be her friend. Maybe she would still go out and play with him?
Jacqueline looked at him, and at the can with mud in his hand, and suddenly she had a revelation.
With flying fingers, she grabbed a tiny pocket knife she'd brought for the occasion, and without hesitation, she cut into the soft skin of Sherlock's neck.
The cut wasn't very deep, but it hurt, and Holmes yelped under his gag, albeit more from surprise than from actual pain. He struggled harder, but still to no avail.
"What are you doing?" Molly screamed, still shaking from fits of laughter, but alerted to Sherlock's discomfort.
Jacqueline did not even hear her. As loud as she possible could, and just as fast, she yelled the spell from Granny Oggelvie's book at the wall, while the mud in the tin can slowly mixed with the blood trickling from the cut in Sherlock's neck.
The floor under their feet began to shake, harder and harder. The stone slabs burst, and stinking smoke escaped from the ground. A reddish light glowed, brighter and brighter. An unnatural laughter roared from some place within the earth.
Molly screamed in terror when a shadow emerged from the cracks in the floor; the shadow flowed in the air, gained substance, solidified, bit by bit.
All of a sudden, it was all over.
Molly had retreated to the darkest corner she could find in the once more dimly lit cellar. She was shaking with fear and excitement.
Andersson snuggled up against her, trembling with horror. His still paralysed mind could not even begin to comprehend what had just happened.
Molly felt him go limp, his body slided down until he landed on her feet, unconscious. Only now the young woman realized that Sherlock lay still, too. His head had fallen to the side, his eyes were closed and he was ghostly pale.
With a shriek Molly jumped over Andersson's body, and to Sherlock's side. Frantically she searched for his pulse, but she couldn't find one. Sobbing in despair, she tried again and again, but she was shaking so violently, she could even get a firm hold of his wrist.
"You killed him" Molly panted "you unnatural bitch, you MURDERED him!"
The witch didn't answer.
For Jacqueline Clockson wasn't really there. She was in seventh heaven. In her arms she felt the man she loved, his lips pressed hungrily on hers. Warm. Loving. And so very, very much alive. "Jim" she whispered "Oh God, Jim, Jim, Jim, my love, my life …."
The witch almost fell when he stepped away from her, a smile dancing in his amber eyes, the grin of a Mephistopheles, the smile she had thought would drive her mad if she should never see it again...
Gently, almost furtively James Moriarty laid his hand on Molly's ice cold fingers. "My dear" he said. "I'd never believed I'd see the day. What an unexpected pleasure to see you're on my side after all!"
Jim gasped with pain when she ran her elbow into his ribcage with full force. Molly darted round and punched his face with her right fist, with all the strength that despair and wrath lent her. "I am NOT on your side" she screamed as he held his bleeding nose and backed off. "She promised me the world, your bloody harlot over there. Now he's dead, and I swear to you, I'll sent you back where you came from, and if it is the last thing I'll ever do in this world!"
Speechless, Jim and Jacqueline looked at the raving fury the timid, over-polite blonde had turned into. James evaded the chair Molly had grabbed to smash his resurrected head by a hair's breadth only.
"Sherlock is fine, Molly" Jacqueline shrieked in the highest falsetto. "He's just out as a light. A mere hour from now, and he'll give all the insults he can think of. He's fine, put the chair down!"
The three of them were panting heavily when Molly reluctantly lowered the chair. "You're sure?" she ranted at the witch.
"Perfectly" Jacqueline retorted. "Believe me, I know I'm not the kindest person in this world, but I wouldn't do this to you. I know you love him!"
Moriarty, wisely, decided to stay out of the women's quarrel. Besides, he could do with a little time to get used to the idea that his spell in the deepest hell had been a temporary assignment only.
Really, it was much to take in. One moment he felt Sherlock's vicious attack kicking his legs away under him, he fell, hit the ice cold water of the Reichenbach Falls, and sank, deeper and deeper, until his lungs felt like bursting and he couldn't keep his mouth closed, he just couldn't ….
Jim shuddered. People who said that drowning was an easy death sure had never given it a try; not in their own bathtubs and most certeinly not in an icy Switzerland waterfall!
The next moment, Jim remembered his eyes had snapped open, and there had been that stink, that evil laughter, more evil than his own most menacing chuckle, and the heat – this horrible, all consuming heat...
And now he was here, in Jacqueline's cellar. In one piece, alive, and with the woman he loved.
His witch. His Jacqueline. She had brought him back, as she had once sworn she would, should he ever get hurt.
It was unbelievable. It was a miracle. And yet it was true, he could feel his body, hear their voices...
Which reminded him...
"You know nothing, nothing, you're as dumb as bread!" Molly had just screamed, still the raging harpy. "How should he ever love me now, after you tortured him such?"
Jim's brilliant mind worked faster than ever before. Only now he fully recognized the man on the table. So he had not been mistaken in the first moments of awe and disbelief, the man on the table was Sherlock Holmes!
Which explained an awful lot...
Moriarty's gaze wandered to the corner, and he grinned devilishly as he recognized the twisted figure on the floor. Andersson, the fool. Oh heavens above, would miracles ever cease?
Sherlock Holmes and the man whom the Consulting Criminal had swindled out of a veritable fortune. And of Mycroft Holmes' fortune, no less. Oh yes, Jim remembered every little detail of it, if that hadn't felt like Christmas and Easter coming together on one blessed day...
Lucky Jim back then, unlucky Jim now, the battle that ensued before him resembled that of Hells Deep, and he couldn't afford to lose his beloved Jacqueline!
"Molly" Jim shouted, and, when she did not heed him, louder again "MOLLY!"
"What?" the laboratory assistant yelled back, her fists raised to break every bone in Jacqueline's body even if it should be the death of them both. "What the hell do you want?"
"The hell" Jim hastily said "good clue. You saved me from hell, as much as Jacqueline did."
The witch clearly disliked that statement, she wanted to object, but Jim's forbidding look silenced her.
"Without you, Molly, my dear, I would not be standing here, on this beautiful earth" Moriarty went on in his most endearing tone of voice, "you deserve a reward, my precious. You really do." The resurrected Consulting Criminal smiled his best charming smile, the smile he knew could melt Molly into syllabub.
Alas, not any more.
His cheek burned when the palm of her hand connected, and the sound rang from the wall "Get lost, you bastard! There is no reward for me, you betrayed me, both of you!"
And she renewed her attacks on Jim's physical wellbeing with fresh strength and resolve.
Jacqueline waited for an opportunity to intervene that did not come. Molly was too close to Jim to use a spell without endangering him as much as his attacker.
There was nothing for it, Moriarty had to help himself out of his predicament as best he could.
"Molly, my sweet, you're misguided by your fears, understandable as they may be..." Jim danced around the room to evade her attacks whilst he spoke. "There is nothing Jacqueline cannot do, believe me, nothing at all. You want Sherlock's love, you'll have it. Piece of cake. Tell her, Jacqueline, tell her NOW... Oh God, OUCH!" His nose had got a second punch and he was sure this time she'd broken it.
"Do you think I want him paralysed in my bed, enchanted not by me but by Jacqueline's witchcraft? What kind of love is that, huh? I need a lover, not a slave!"
"Goodness gracious me, woman, where is the difference?" Jim shouted. "Women have been enchanting men one way or the other since the world began. Jacqueline has bewitched me, you bewitch Sherlock Holmes – why not? You're doing the oaf a favour, without you taking the initiative he'll die an old spinster!"
Molly, quite suddenly, put the chair down. "You really mean that?" she asked, wide-eyed. "I'll do him a favour?"
"Yes, sure" both Jim and Jacqueline hastily assured her. "A big favour. Think of his life, so very lonely..."
Her wrath spent, her natural insecurity taking over once more, Molly felt helpless and confused. "What... what would you do? I mean... it wouldn't hurt him any more, would it?"
"Oh, no, of course not" Jacqueline said eagerly. "He would love you, you love him, you'd both be happy for the rest of your lives!"
"You promise?" Molly asked, and it was obvious how very very much she wanted to believe that all would be well for her and Sherlock in the end.
"I promise!" Jacqueline said, with all honesty, and she meant every bit of it.
At least in that moment.
James Moriarty, with an angelic smile that was as real and reliable as fool's copper, nodded violently.
"And Andersson too?" Molly said. "You cannot leave the poor man like he is now!"
"And Andersson, too." Jacqueline avowed. "I'll find a solution for him, I swear it."
Behind his back, whilst he felt as proud and as satisfied as Satan himself, James Moriarty crossed his fingers when he made the same promise to Molly Hooper.
Sweet little blonde fool!
A/N: Well, folks, next chapter will be the last one. Unusually short story for Dark Magical sorcres and me, but, hey, we're all busy with christmas preparations, so short stories are what we need.
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