Pardon the unpardonable delay. Par for the course...

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"Sherlock!"

It felt like he was standing on the shoreline of a vast fog-shrouded river and someone was calling him from the far shore. The distance and disturbing acoustics of the mist warped whatever the stranger was trying to say. Sherlock stepped closer to the raging river as he strained to hear the garbled words.

"Sherlock! Get out of the street! What are you doing?!"

Fingers wrapped around Sherlock's arm and yanked him sharply backwards. The detective stumbled, and in his mind, he was pulled away from the churning current.

"What did you take? Sherlock, look at me. What. Did. You. Take?"

The hand released his wrist and was suddenly questing through his pockets, emptying precious work out onto the pavement. Sherlock grabbed the intrusive hand and held it as it writhed like a fish. While he kept the hand at bay, he did as commanded and looked into John's eyes.

"Nicotine."

"We don't have time for you to play games. Nicotine did not make you run through the flat screaming that Moriarty was waiting for you outside."

Sherlock took a shaky breath. He then released John's wrist so he could pull up his sleeve and reveal a line of three nicotine patches. "I've got another on the opposite shoulder, and that is it. I'm not on anything hallucinogenic."

Instead of looking relieved, John blanched. "You're sure?"

"What would you like me to say, that I'm so high I can't remember?"

John never thought he'd say so, but yes, he would have preferred to hear either Sherlock was wearing two dozen nicotine patches or had basically consumed a pharmacopoeia. Because drugs were something he could deal with quickly. He could force Sherlock to detox, or remove nicotine patches in a matter of seconds.

"Alright, let's go back to the flat before someone runs us over."

Sherlock let John lead him across the road and up the stairs. He was even compliant as John sat him at the kitchen table. But when John pulled out the medical instruments, Sherlock decided he'd had enough.

"Sit back down. I need to make sure you didn't have a stroke."

Sherlock snorted. "I have no facial drooping, unilateral weakness, or speech difficulties."

John shined a penlight in Sherlock's eyes. "Both your pupils are reactive, too. Whatever it was, it probably wasn't an actual stroke. Could have been a TIA."

"Or," Sherlock countered, "it could have been enormous amounts of stress, frustration, mild nicotine toxicity, and a great deal of caffeine you didn't know about until right this second combining with memories to resurrect my greatest foe for a brief hallucinatory second."

"Very possible. You're still going to a hospital."

By the time Sherlock had endured enough pokes, prods, blood-draws, scans, and invasive procedures to satisfy John, it was dark and Sherlock had long-since caffeine-and-nicotine crashed. While he was physically able to ambulate on his own, Sherlock preferred to slump in a wheelchair and act like his bones were missing. This left John to push him out in front of the hospital and hail a cab.

It also left John to half-drag the detective to his bed and throw a blanket over him. More exhausted than Sherlock actually was, John still couldn't retire. He put the kettle on, sat down at the table, and fell asleep within minutes.

An intermittent time later, John started awake.

"Bugger, the tea!" he exclaimed, stumbling out of his chair.

John reached for the control knob but found he had nothing to do. There was no flame lit on the range. Had he been so tired he hadn't actually turned the stove on? John pressed the back of his hand against the kettle and disproved his initial theory. The kettle was warm to the touch.

So Sherlock had turned off the stove. Before the kettle had whistled and awakened John.

"He wouldn't have," John muttered, knowing yes, he certainly would have.

Sherlock's room was empty. Well, empty of him. His bizarre experiments and collections were still spread everywhere. John sighed and looked around, not sure what he was even looking for. A note? Like Sherlock could be that considerate...

There was no use looking for overt clues, and if John hadn't spent years watching Sherlock pull miracles out of messes, he would have given up and just gone to bed. The tiniest hope that an iota of Sherlock's observational skills had rubbed off on him or passed to him through osmosis made John at least try to glean something.

He let his eyes rove wherever they wanted. Sherlock's bed, the crowded shelves, the skull that was definitely not a plastic model, the floor, the bag of books Sherlock had wanted to throw out the window before his little meltdown.

John zeroed in on the bag. He keenly remembered Sherlock having three books: the children's book, the physics book, and the terrifying grimoire covered in human skin. The first two were safely nestled in the bag. The third was nowhere to be seen.

Dylan Webley was indulging in his favorite genre of entertainment: schlocky, silly horror movies that were either remakes or sequels nobody asked for. Or, in the case of Pterodactyl Park, low-budget rip-offs of films of actual repute.

A CGI dinosaur that looked like it had been created by drunk pretending to be an animator swooped across the sky. It did not have a shadow and its wings were obviously different lengths. The blonde it aimed its talons at had some of the largest breasts Webley had ever seen. They were as fake as the approaching dinosaur.

"So that's where you end up when your career in cat-burglary doesn't take off."

Webley toppled out of his chair, scrambled for something to protect himself with, and came up with the remote for the telly.

"Are you going to mute me with that?" Sherlock asked.

"What are you doing breaking into my home? I'm a police officer! You can't just go breaking into cops' houses!" Webley shouted from the floor.

"I'm guilty of entering, but not of breaking," Sherlock replied. "You left the window open in the bedroom."

"It's hot. Wait, that's not the point! What are you doing here?"

Sherlock dropped a heavy book in front of Webley. "What do you know about this?"

Webley stared at the book. "Nothing?"

"You said your grandmother had books on the occult when you identified the magic devil circle," Sherlock refuted. "This is a book about demons."

"How am I supposed to know that?"

"Your grandmother's books! Do you have a ten-second memory?"

"Most of them were written in English and the two that weren't, I used a translator online. It wasn't a great one, the grammar was all wonky, but I got the gist of them. I think. Want me to do that? Pull up the translator?"

Sherlock grunted in annoyance. "No, I do not want you to 'pull up the translator!' I'm perfectly fluent in Latin. I need to know why this exists."

"Because someone wrote it?"

Webley found himself hoisted off the floor and pinned against his armchair. "Three women are dead, one is insane, your boss was assaulted, faces have been burned, the post service is being misused, and someone absconded with a collection of illicit ancient artifacts!"

Webley held up his hands and desperately shook his head. "I'm sorry, I'll be serious! I just, I'm really not an expert. My gran was a bit of an eccentric, we didn't see much of her, so-"

"So it took a few weeks before anyone noticed the smell," Sherlock cut in.

"What smell?"

"From your dead eccentric grandmother."

"There was never a smell! What goes through your head?"

Sherlock smiled grimly.

"Forget I asked. What I was going to say is, it was a while before we realized she wasn't just ignoring us or too busy to be arsed to give us a ring."

Sherlock rolled his eyes. "However you phrase it, my point stands."

"No it doesn't. She wasn't dead. I mean, she probably is, but it's not like we stumbled upon her body. And neither has anyone else in the past four years."

The consulting detective said, "Your grandmother just disappeared four years ago."

"Yes. Of course there was an investigation, but there were no signs of foul play, and given my gran's tendencies, maybe she ran off to France or something," Webley said.

"And left her collection of arcana behind?"

"If that word means 'collection of bloody weird books,' then yes. It's not like she'd be able to take it on a plane or a boat without raising the wrong eyebrows."

"What happened to it?"

Webley scratched the back of his head, trying to stimulate memories. "We sold a good chunk of it to a coven in America. And there was a bloke in North, West, eh, one of the Dakotas who bought a few of the older ones. The weird kid who lived next to my gran stole one of them..."

"Are there any you didn't send across the pond or lose to miniature criminals?"

"My mother didn't want to keep any of them, thought it was all too dodgy and creepy, but I held onto one. When I translated the title, I sort of felt my gran was watching out for me."

"Get me the book."

"Uh, sure. Would you mind letting me up?"

Sherlock realized he was still pressing Webley into the armchair. He released the cop and stepped back to allow him passage.

Webley gave Sherlock a nervous grin and scurried off. While he waited for Webley to return, Sherlock plonked his backside down in the armchair and ran some calculations through his brain. The consulting detective figured there was a thirty percent chance Webley would leap out a window, crawl under the bed, or find some other way not to return. The chances Webley was right then calling either 999 or Lestrade was a solid fifty percent. And the chances he wouldn't be able to locate the book? Sherlock glanced around the flat, noted the various trash Webley had failed to find and bin, and estimated fifteen percent.

Quicker than expected, Webley returned with book in hand. He took one look at the interloper who'd stolen his chair, decided on appeasement, and handed Sherlock the book.

Sherlock's thick, leather-bound book commanded attention and oozed creepiness. What Webley passed into his hands could have been purchased at a flea market for a pound. The book was cloth-bound, and that was the only nice thing Sherlock could say about it. The cover was an unattractive faded brown and the title had nearly become one with the background.

"Praesidium," Sherlock read. "Protection."

He cracked open the book and was surprised to see the king's English. Sherlock flipped through a few pages and found no more Latin. He thumbed a bit deeper into the book and discovered something more interesting than proving his linguistic prowess.

It was the intricate circle that had been spray-painted on the ground where Trevor had been scalded by still-unknown forces. As Webley had said, it was helpfully labeled a Devil's Trap. And there was a detailed description of it, its functions, useful materials for creating one, and clever places to hide one.

In the following chapter, there was the Latin Sherlock had been looking forward to so eagerly. Two whole pages of it. And, even more fun, it was a prayer. No, wait, it was an exorcism.

Sherlock was sure to use that every morning, noon, and night...

The consulting detective turned past the exorcisms and found himself mired in more symbols. The most prolific one was a star surrounded by a flaming circle. This symbol had even found its way off the page.

And onto Webley's bicep.

"I needed a cover-up anyway and it looks righteous and reminds me of my gran." Webley touched the black tattoo. "And, hey, it's got history. Could you imagine trying to get this tattooed on you 100 years ago?"

Sherlock glanced at the black-and-white illustration in the book, which was indeed a shoulder bearing the symbol indelibly inked into it. Modern tattoos were scary enough, with a needle stabbing the skin faster than the eye could follow, but without a machine to do it at a reasonable rate, the process fell to a human hand.

All that infection-inducing history aside, Sherlock needed this book. At least a few pages from it. He considered his options. Webley probably would appreciate getting his book back in one piece; anything else might convince him to complain to Lestrade, who would in turn pass the buck to John, who would then give Sherlock a lecture he would ignore entirely but that would take up his precious time.

And speaking of John...

If he wasn't already awake and planning one of his famous lectures, he would be soon.

"I'm taking this," Sherlock said. He pushed himself out of the armchair and scooped up his creepy book. He then set Webley's more benign book atop it.

"But-"

"I'll return it when I'm finished." Sherlock paused. "No, that won't work."

"Why not?" Webley asked.

"Because I'll delete the idea from my mind the moment I walk out the door. If not before that. Wait, John has a much higher capacity for banality. I'll text him to return it."

Sherlock took a moment to glance at the irritated messages John had left him before ignoring them and replying with the non sequitur "Return Webley's grandmother." That accomplished, he shut the phone off so John wouldn't annoy him until he was good and ready.

"Uh, can I have your number in case-"

"Nope!"

"But that book-"

"Enjoy the mammoths."

Webley turned to the telly. "Those are dinosaurs. If you want mammoths, you have to wait for the second sequel which-"

The slamming door cut Webley short. He sighed and returned to his chair. "I'm never going to see that book again."

Author's Note:

A TIA is a transient ischemic attack. It is also known as a mini-stroke, and occurs when blood is blocked to a part of the brain very briefly.