Sorry about the delay in getting this chapter up! Won't happen again. Life is a pain in the butt sometimes.
Thanks to christallh24, SilenceFalling, conchepcion, Yulya18, timelordsdaleksandsherlockoh my, EbonyFox, RockingtheRedhead, Kendrapendragon, Lono, Miss Writer Girl, Calicar, startrekjunkee, Doctor WTF, CreamCrop, Vi-Violence, Adi Who Is Also Mou, Patemalah21, Empress of Verace, PocketSizedWolf, Elliesmeow, orangesherbert06, MorbidbyDefault, hihiyas, Mrs Dizzy, and librarygirl157 for their reviews of the previous chapter.
This chapter is quite bloody with some violence, so fair warning.
One more chapter to go after this!
The music of the Lupercalia grew louder and more savage, the horns and strings clashing and bleeding into the night. Revelers meandered through the muddy streets, some bored with the theatrical preliminaries and finding the tavern's ale more entertaining. No one paid any attention to Jefferson Hope when he moved between the stumbling groups. The snow fell lightly, sparkling on his vest before melting away.
The white-haired man whistled as he strolled down the busy cobblestoned road, following the scent of the Spider. Zhi Zhu's scent was powerful and unique, like moss and oranges, with traces of vetiver and the juniper that grew wild in the northern mountains. It was easy to track the Spider even in the Village that stank of low humanity.
Was I ever this pathetic? Hope wondered. No. I was always better, smarter. Meant for something more.
He searched until the trail grew stronger and twisted together with the odor of another wolf- female and known to Hope.
"The bitch," he cursed, remember the beautiful woman who'd humiliated him on his trip to the Village when he'd last poisoned the town well. How Moriarty had snickered when he admitted to Zhi Zhu what occurred when he visited the man's sister.
The Spider had merely smiled, looking almost proud.
"No matter," Moriarty said when he was finished giggling. "She'll either die or she'll join the fold. Problem solved. I'd remove your windpipe for such a failure, Hope, but we need every wolf for the Lupercalia. Be glad our numbers are so low, or else you would be breakfast."
The Professor's lips curled in a grin then but his eyes were hard and night black.
Hope hustled down the street, following the path of the siblings' odors until they led him down a narrow alleyway just off the main square. The scent of his pack touched his nose, but he ignored it, hearing the trumpeter sound off. Moriarty's precious Lupercalia was beginning.
He scratched his head and stepped cautiously into the dark alley. His pupils dilated and yellow bled through his normal pale irises. His vision shifted and he saw clearly in the dimness.
Splatters of drying blood were smeared over the wall to his right. The smell of Zhi Zhu and his sister was overpowering. Huge paws had dragged a trail down the alley and into the trees beyond it. Snow coated the ground thickly enough to show pink blotches, and a pool of blood sinking into the wet grass.
She died fighting, Hope thought with a smirk. I wish I'd seen it. Maybe he'll let me have a taste of her blood before we toss her carcass.
With that in mind, he strode cheerfully out of the narrow passage and scanned the area with a sniff. Before he could process it, a gurgling cry was heard behind the pine trees to his left. He heard one strong heartbeat, and one weak fluttery pulse.
Hope dashed over to the pile of fur he spotted beyond the bushes. He squinted and frowned.
The coloring of the wolves was identical, rich grey fur that glistened even in the darkness. Limbs tangled and bent painfully, with scarlet splattered across their bodies. Hope smelled torn flesh and the delicious, incomparable tang of arterial blood pumping into the air. He waited, and the faint heartbeat stopped.
Hope grinned.
The massive furry bodies on the ground blurred and shifted, until they lay nude in the grass, dusted with snow and mud and pine needles. Soo Lin's raven hair twisted around her body, draping low over her breasts and back. Her now-human hands cradled her brother's face.
Zhi Zhu's eyes were half-open, and beneath the woman's hands, red poured from the wolf's throat. It splashed down the Spider's chest and over Soo Lin's body until she was covered in it.
As Hope watched in horror, Soo Lin's hand twitched and caressed her brother's cheek. Her fingers skimmed over his eyelids, closing them. A ragged whisper cut through the silence.
"Goodnight, Xu Guan."
Fear ripped through the white-haired man and he staggered backward. Soo Lin's head turned and her eyes captured his.
They shone brilliantly like gold, and at once, his mind was locked, squeezed in a vice from which there was no escaping.
The woman shook off her brother's arm, brushed a smear of blood off her cheek, and stood.
Hope blinked, and she was standing before him, cloaked only in long silky hair with her hands shifting into claws.
When she spoke her voice was rough as though she'd been choked, but it was strong nonetheless.
"I told you not to return."
This can't happen, Jefferson Hope thought weakly as his mind slipped away from him, crushed under her power. The world spun around him. I am better than her, I am better than this. I'm a genius, you are nothing, you are…
And then he was drowning inside her.
When her claws found his throat, he barely even felt it.
When Soo Lin walked into the alleyway, she had never expected to come out. The centuries of fleeing had stripped away most of the joy of living. The guilt that she survived while her brother murdered alongside Moriarty plagued her.
In that last bleak moment when she looked up at the sky, she thought of her family and understood what she had to do.
It should be me. I hid from him, but we should be together at the end. It was cowardly to hope someone else would take care of him.
Zhi Zhu was her Spider, the boy who flew between trees, but Soo Lin was always gifted at laying low and taking people unaware.
When her brother shifted to wolf, there was only a split second of regret before she flowed to her own wolf form, and gouged his belly while he leapt to attack from above. They thrashed and rolled and he dragged her down the alley into the open grass. He'd hoped to finish it there without obstruction, she sensed, but instead he slid on the wet grass, his paws mired in the snowy mud. In a last desperate attempt to save himself from her unexpected resistance, Zhi Zhu threw her against the tree and jumped after her to finish it.
He found her teeth and claws waiting, even as her own wounds gushed blood.
Xu Guan has been dead for centuries, she admitted to herself at last. Zhi Zhu was the ghost of a boy killed by hatred.
Hatred caused by Moriarty, she remembered. Soo Lin cleared her head and tried to think calmly, though her veins surged with the vicious energy and thrill of battle.
It all ends tonight, she promised herself. In the distance, she heard the music playing and the crowd's roar growing.
Soo Lin tugged on the clothing she had stripped from Hope's corpse, ignoring the aching and bleeding wounds all over her body.
Step by agonizing step, she trudged through the alley, back toward the square.
I've done what I can in removing these two, she thought fervently. Pray to the gods it's enough because I don't know if I can help you anymore, Molly.
The forcibly transformed wolf yipped and howled from within its cage, and the audience laughed nervously.
"Despicable," Moriarty purred, with a twinkle in his eye.
Molly shuddered, her skin crawling at the pleasure the man took in torture. She squeezed Sherlock's hand tight, the heat and strength of his touch helping clear her head. His thumb stroked her palm, but he kept his steely gaze trained straight ahead.
The grey wolf in the cage snapped his teeth at the Professor in vain, butting his head against the bars. The covered cage beside it rocked.
"The bars have a thin silver core, with iron wrapped around it," Sherlock muttered. "I can smell it. Break the iron and the wolf'll run into silver and poison themselves. Brilliant, really."
"What are we going to do?" Molly asked. "All these people here have no idea the danger they're in. And what about the Prince- your friend?"
"I don't have friends." Sherlock's face was an unreadable mask, but his eyes were hard. "His 'Lestrade' was Llewellyn once upon a time, yes. Not so strange really; wolfkind shed names like fur."
"Sherlock? That is what Molly called you, isn't it?" Stamford piped up from the bench behind them. Molly turned her head to better hear the apothecary through the rising cheers of the audience. His round face was creased with worry, as he leaned forward.
"If there is danger, why stay? People must be warned about the poisoned wells. And the Colony…we must send word to Molly's grandmother."
Sherlock shrugged, his eyes still locked on the cruel performance. Moriarty drew the stolen silver knife from his belt and taunted the beast with it.
Sherlock steepled his hands in thought. "What's the most important structure in the Village? One that isn't close by."
"I don't know," Molly said, taken aback by the odd question. "Maybe the town silo? It's full, with the harvest done only a few weeks ago."
"Perfect!" Sherlock's eyes lit up. He hopped onto the bench, startling those around them.
"Everyone shut up! Shut up and listen!" A few villagers stared at the tall stranger and some laughed, assuming he was drunk and about to make an ass of himself.
"FIRE," Sherlock shouted. "The grain silo's on fire. Your food is BURNING, you idiots!"
Within a minute, the crowded square had turned to pandemonium.
"Run back to your cottage," Sherlock said to her as they ran for cover. They ducked behind the inn and Stamford lumbered after them.
Sherlock pushed Molly and the apothecary behind him in the alleyway, and he observed the stampeding villagers headed for the silo near the edge of the town. The lurid festival music had stopped abruptly; screams and alarm bells filled the night air instead.
"Follow the crowd but head for home instead. Bar the door once you're safe."
"No," Molly refused. Her cheeks were flushed and she shivered under her warm cloak. Snow was falling again, the flakes melting into her uncovered hair. She pulled her hood up and huddled tighter to the wall as another panicking group ran by the alley. "I'm staying and fighting here with you."
Sherlock swore under his breath and ran an agitated hand through his curls.
"I know my wolf wouldn't choose a stupid mate. Go." His blue eyes were flecked with gold, and Molly saw his beast rising to the surface.
"I wouldn't be safe in my house if a wolf came knocking at my door, and you know it, Sherlock. If I'm going to die, it won't be huddling under my blankets. I know I'm not very…loud, but I'm not a coward either." She summoned her fiercest expression, and hoped it would be enough to shut down his protests.
"Eh, pardon me," Stamford interrupted. "I'm not entirely clear on what's happening with these bloody carnival creatures…but what's going to happen when they see the silo's not on fire? They'll come right back."
"Good point." Sherlock rummaged through his cloak pockets and produced flint. "Go light it on fire."
"Sherlock, that's our food," Molly protested.
"Fine," he replied, rolling his eyes. "Go light on fire something else near it. A barn, a shed, anything. If you don't, they may be eaten by a pack of wolves like the one you just saw. Don't ask questions, I'll explain later. No- Molly will. I don't care. Just go."
Stamford's mouth dropped open and he looked to Molly for confirmation.
She nodded, hoping he would trust her judgment as he had every time they collaborated to heal. She may never have been in love with the man, but she hoped the years of friendship were enough to sway him to accept the madness of the situation.
Whatever he saw in her face was enough. Stamford nodded slowly. "Be safe, Molly." He grabbed the flint and ran faster than she had ever seen him.
She turned back to Sherlock and slid into his arms before he could protest and push her away. Her fingers tangled in his hair, and she offered up her lips silently. To her surprise, Sherlock squeezed her tight and captured her lips with his.
Without breaking the kiss, his hand slipped under her hood to brush her damp waves away from her neck. His mouth worked over her jaw and down her neck to nuzzle the exposed skin, his teeth scraping over the pink mark where he'd bitten her before.
"This is an inconvenient time to discuss the future," Sherlock said, lifting his head. His eyes blazed gold. "But when I contemplate you mating with someone else, I want to howl and bite something. I wouldn't have let you go hungry if the silo burned. I'll feed you. My wolf seems to….I like you. And I have grown used to you assisting me in my work," he added.
Molly flushed, caught between anger, panic and hope. Sherlock had shoved her away and embraced her; he'd rejected her and kissed her senseless in the span of a fortnight. Would he change his mind again when the fighting was all over, if they survived?
She searched his face for clues, but he was a mystery. Her body coursed with the strange energy that had been flowing through her since Sherlock nipped at her neck and brought her body back to life.
No, even before then, he had restored passion and curiosity and challenge to her boring life without even trying. She walked into the forest one day and emerged an entirely different woman on the other side. But he was so strange and solitary. Was there room for her in his cluttered, closed-off world?
She tried to speak clearly, but her throat was tight with the fear he'd turn away. "You have to trust me, Sherlock. And no more running away. I want to know you. We haven't had enough time, but I see so much in you. I really like you."
Sherlock's brow wrinkled in confusion. "You like me?"
Molly pushed onward. "If we survive this, I want to keep spending time with you." Her eyes darted away nervously, and she buried her face against his chest to hide her fear.
She likes me.
With her head nestled against his body, her scent filled his nose and he breathed deeply. She smelled of apples, lavender and even traces of nashia, the root that created the Falling but also brought them together.
Sherlock felt something break and come together again, whole and heavy in his chest.
"That's…good. I like you, Molly Hooper."
Inside, his wolf rumbled happily, already energized by the fire and madness of Lupercalia.
Yes, her. Run together. Learn. Hunt. Mate.
And beyond the simple pleasure of holding his woman was the understanding that it was possibly the last time.
His wolf didn't like that. He was ready to kill.
"Come and play, Sherlock," a lilting voice in the square called. "The pawns have cleared out, and the proper game can finally begin."
"This is perfect, more perfect than you know, Sherlock. We were meant to run together. Or die together; it makes no matter to me anymore." Moriarty's ghastly grin faded into flatness. His eyes were unexpectedly dark, not glaring yellow like the gathering souls of the Lupercalia.
The dark-haired taranga dancer, her tin bells ringing with every step, flanked Molly and Sherlock on the left. A pair of redheaded strongmen paced on the right. A trio of musicians closed the circle behind them, their instruments set aside. The benches that formed the audience had been knocked over in the haste of the fleeing villagers, but the firepits still blazed. The bare branches of the trees around the town square offered no protection from the falling snow.
Perched on the edge of the covered cage, Moriarty laughed. The inhabitant of the enclosure was tossing their body to and fro, and the cage rocked.
"A new wolf," Sherlock observed with a sniff.
"Oh yes, Henry's had a bit of a tough transition. You know, since we ate his father." Moriarty pulled a face, and then laughed. "I was going to unleash him on the town, watch him tear into his neighbors before we killed the rest, but this is much more intimate. I am glad I got a chance to show off my real prize, though."
He knocked on the bars of the other cage, and the wolf inside snarled and settled on the floor. The creature watched them warily, his muscles tense.
"Llewellyn. Lestrade. Going by the scar on his left back paw, and the degree of starvation, you've had him three years?"
Moriarty tapped his nose. "You are good. Yes, about that. I'd planned on keeping him from the day I turned him, but he escaped a few centuries ago and I got bored searching. He was a traitor to his own blood, hunting all creatures except for you, his pet. And then hunting the rest of us. I knew he would, after his brat kicked off. Boo-hoo," he said scornfully. "Stupid short-lived humans, believing they have the right to rule every domain, even in our own woods where wolfkind is king."
"Was king," Sherlock corrected. "And wolf was never ambitious."
"Your big brother would disagree, but he's out of our fur for a few years."
"Yes, he went to the eastern continent to search for more of our kind. Ah… that's why you rose again in the last few years." Sherlock's lips curled. "You're afraid of Mycroft."
"Oh no," Moriarty denied. "Someday I'll dance with him too, after I send him your skull in a picnic basket. Unless you join with me, as these wolves have."
The taranga dancer shifted and the tin bells rang. Molly glanced over and was surprised when the woman caught her eye.
And winked.
Molly's eyebrows rose and she opened her mouth to speak, but the dancer pointedly shifted her gaze back to her employer.
"Your numbers are looking a little low, Professor. I don't smell the two big greys I encountered in the woods last week. Having recruitment issues, are we?" Sherlock taunted.
"The blood potential is rare these days, and thickheaded wolves run into hunters more and more. But one wolf is worth a dozen humans and to tell you the truth, I've never lost one that I actually wanted to keep." He shrugged and plucked a stray blade of grass off his emerald coat. He hopped off the cage, and the rocking ceased. The occupant of the cage yelped.
Moriarty crossed his arms and studied them. "I meant what I said before though, this is perfect. We're just alike, you and I. My loyal greys- one of them went off to take care of his sister. He should be back shortly to join the fun. The other, my dear Moran…he's a valuable soldier. Truly, genuinely adores slaughter. He's an artist in his own way. But tonight we have no time for subtlety; winter came early and we've other villages to level." Moriarty covered his mouth but a few giggles spilled out nonetheless. "While you were here, setting the fat fellow to lighting barns on fire, my man Moran is paying a visit to the Colony. He's brought flint and vials of that flammable swamp gas that is so fantastically explosive, and common in these parts. As I'm sure you know."
Moriarty laughed joyously now. "The Colony, and everyone in it, is going up in flames as we speak. So you see, we think just alike. It's really quite nice when you think about it."
Picturing Grandmother, Angelo, John the healer, and the Falling victims like young Peter, Molly cried out. "No! You can't! They're harmless, they're weak."
Sherlock squeezed her hand. "Not now," he said coolly, and she bit down on her lips to stifle the words.
The Professor looked delighted at her tears. "Yes, no more pesky Falling to deal with, no more rotting noses dropping into their soup bowls. No more Grandmother welcoming you to her loving bosom, or whatever it is you humans do with each other."
The covered cage began to rock frantically, and the creature inside howled pitifully.
"Poor Henry, changed and cooped up like a chicken with nothing to peck. Hmm, well I suppose I could let him rip into your woman." Moriarty's gaze skimmed over Molly and he smiled brightly. "But I've developed a taste for her sweet scent. She's just so ripe."
Sherlock growled, and his golden eyes shimmered. Moriarty's mad grin fell away, and answering yellow flecks rose in his irises.
"I think I'll tear her apart," he said calmly. "I'll make her love me first. I'll turn her, and she'll beg me to take her hard, and then she'll beg me to kill her just to end the pain. And there will be a lot of pain, Sherlock. A world of it."
With his last hissed words, a dizzying rush of power poured from Moriarty, knocking Sherlock to his knees. Echoes of it touched Molly and she rubbed her temples, trying to focus and stay on her feet. The force of the mindfog was aimed at Sherlock, but the Professor's gift was so overwhelming, it spilled into the air around him.
The strongmen gasped and stepped back, and the dancer shied away from the pair in the center.
Moriarty jumped, one long blur of motion that had him straddling Sherlock's chest a heartbeat after he'd left the stage.
Sherlock lay stunned on the ground, completely silent. His mouth was slack and his arms limp. Snowflakes drifted down into his open eyes.
Moriarty ripped the silver knife from his belt, and lifted it high, the point angled toward Sherlock's throat.
Lestrade growled in his cage and stood, with hackles raised.
The wolves of the Lupercalia rushed forward, and Molly screamed.
The stars disappeared and the sky had bled from black to green to red to a sickening orange before Sherlock realized something was wrong.
Above him was a swirl of shifting color that his mind couldn't grasp. The ache in his head grew, but Sherlock was unable to look away from the splintering world. His arms and legs vanished, and he felt the ground rise to smack his back, but it didn't matter.
He had to know what the color was in the sky, why the variations were so unique. How did they manifest in more shades than he'd ever spotted in the prisms he created experimenting with glass? He spent decades mastering the craft but he had never seen anything like the shimmering shades bleeding through his brain at that very moment.
In the distance, he heard a thin high sound, a wordless sorrow nagging him away from the rapture of color. He pushed it away and lost himself in the colors again, wondering vaguely why the cry sounded like Molly.
Molly screamed and the taranga dancer held her back with an unforgiving grip. The strongmen, the musicians, and three stagehands clustered around them.
"Hush now, be a good girl," the dancer crooned in Molly's ear. "Let us take care of him."
"Yes, let us, dear. Well this is boring," remarked Moriarty. He held the knife aloft over Sherlock's neck. "Went down as gentle as a baby."
The knife shook in his fingers. Moriarty frowned at his hand. He squeezed the handle of the silver blade and glanced down at Sherlock.
His eyes were open but lifeless. Molly thrashed in the dancer's arms, cursing and kicking futilely.
Moriarty's hold tightened and the lethal knifepoint plunged toward Sherlock's bare throat-
And froze, hovering a half inch over the stretched cord of his neck.
Moriarty's brow furrowed and his eyes glowed yellow and furious. His arm muscles flexed and his teeth gritted, but the blade remained locked in place.
"…no more…" a voice whispered faintly.
The Professor's head swung around and he screamed in rage.
Molly followed his gaze, and found lying on the ground to her everlasting wonder, the bloody and battered form of Soo Lin.
"Well now, this is exciting!" Moriarty laughed. "You're covered in Zhi Zhu's blood, arterial if I know my scents…and I do. So my wolf has fallen." He sniffed, sucking in the smells covered her wafting through the air. "And Hope as well? I have to admit, I'm rather impressed.[ I knew the Yao clan was among the oldest of wolfkind bloodlines, but you, you, are just full of surprises."
Moriarty hopped off the supine body of Sherlock, and faced the woman. He smiled, took a step toward her with blade in hand- and stumbled.
Soo Lin dragged herself to sitting. She held herself painfully, clutching her unnaturally bent arm but her face was calm and focused. Her eyes had bled to gold, and they locked on Moriarty without blinking.
"What exactly…do you think you're doing?" Moriarty winced, and took another unsteady step. Molly gasped, and the dancer holding her was oddly quiet. The Lupercalia wolves held fast, watching as their leader struggled to move.
"She's giving you a hefty dose of your own fog, I would imagine," a cool voice commented. "You do have strange taste in friends, Molly."
"Sherlock."
He jumped to standing and tore Molly from the grip of the taranga dancer. The dark-haired woman let go of her easily.
"Finish it," she commanded.
"Pardon?" Sherlock's left eyebrow rose.
"He's weakened. Finish him." The dancer pushed past him, her ankle bells ringing and skirts swishing. She zeroed in on Moriarty and waves of power flowed from her to join Soo Lin's blast directed at the monster.
"Dumb bitch," Moriarty muttered, shaking his head. His eyes had bled back to dark brown, but his fist still clenched around the knife handle. "Should have let you rot in that village prison where I found you, Irene. Take her," he shrieked at the strongmen.
"No rescue is worth centuries of service or this much death. Die," she hissed.
The strongmen glanced at one another, and Molly saw resolve form in their expressions. Their golden gazes captured Moriarty's, and the tide of power grew.
The wolves of the Lupercalia gathered round, and pummeled the fallen man with the weight of the mindfog. Onstage, Lestrade shifted back to human form, and his power linked with theirs. Soo Lin's gift flowed over them and guided the ones who had been weakened and abused for so long under the murderer's watch.
"Mutiny..." Moriarty swayed and his eyes fluttered.
"Hate will never bind people together truly," Soo Lin said. Blood trickled from the corner of her mouth, and Molly heard the exhaustion in her voice. "You killed my brother, not me."
Moriarty dropped to his knees and screamed raggedly, his face twisted in agony. Sherlock brushed a kiss over Molly's forehead, and let go of her. He trotted over to the discarded knife, and picked it up carefully, avoiding the silver edge.
The others held the Professor imprisoned in the collective force of their minds.
Sherlock's gaze met Molly's. She understood and nodded.
There is a time for mercy, and a time for none. We harvest what we sow. This is the only way.
"She's right. Finish him."
Sherlock held the knife's point over the jugular of Professor Moriarty, and this time nothing came between the blade and the flesh.
Blood flowed, and silver saturated the wound. He gasped and gurgled, and for an agonizing moment, his hands scrambled to close the cut in his throat. There was no escaping the silver though, as it soaked into his veins and stilled his heart. Then there was only silence.
Sherlock threw the knife aside, and rushed to take Molly back into his arms. She kissed him on the cheek, but then tugged him over to Soo Lin.
"She'll be fine," he said calmly. "Stitching might help, but the broken ribs and arm will heal on their own within a few days. The fractured femur will take longer."
Molly gasped, and cradled her friend on the ground. Soo Lin was so coated in t blood seeping through the man's clothing she wore, that Molly couldn't properly catalogue the injuries.
"Femur? How did you walk at all? You're amazing." Tears flowed, and she wiped them away with the corner of her red cloak.
Soo Lin almost smiled. "Had to. Really does hurt. Need a bath. I want to get these clothes and the stink of that man off of me. It's…been a long night."
"Molly," Sherlock said tensely, standing over them.
"Busy, Sherlock," she replied. Molly rummaged through her pockets for the bandages she'd tucked in there before the festival began.
"Molly, the Colony. Moran. I have to leave."
What Moriarty had said earlier ran through her mind.
"Fire. Grandmother. John. Damn. You have to save them."
Sherlock nodded and stripped out of his clothes. He tossed them onto an overturned bench. "You need to stay here this time. I can run faster without you."
He blurred and changed, and the wolf who saved her in the forest stood before her with his mixture of black and red fur. He nudged her with his wet muzzle and bumped his furry head against her arm. Molly stroked the fur of his head, and he yipped.
"You're a beautiful wolf." Molly smiled. "I won't leave Soo Lin like this. Go. But you have to promise to come back."
The wolf yipped again, licked her hand, and then darted into the woods.
"We'll take care of the corpse," the dark-haired woman remarked. "The villagers will wander back this way soon." She opened Moriarty's coat and dug through his inside pockets to retrieve a ring of keys. She threw the keys to the redheaded strongmen, who hurried onstage to unlock the cages.
"Were you going to let him kill us until Soo Lin turned up? Irene, he called you."
"That wasn't the plan, no. Your Sherlock seemed like our best bet for making a move for freedom, but then he went down hard under the mindfog. I should've known it would be a woman who saved us." She winked at Soo Lin.
To Molly, Irene said, "I'm going after him. Moran is a nasty bugger. Your man is strong, but we'll be stronger as a pack and this is a rare opportunity. Boys." She waved at the strongmen and the trio of musicians. "One last mess to clean up before we're free. I can bite you- turn you, I mean, if it's what you want. You have the blood and you're clever. If Sherlock doesn't come back-"
"He will come back," Molly insisted. "He will. I'm certain of it."
"A touching degree of faith. Right then- off to the Grandmother's Colony we go."