The London and South Western Mystery

by azurelacroix

Sherlock Holmes is engaged to recover a missing train, but when The Woman reappears in London, not everything goes according to plan. Warnings for erotic content, dark themes, and the fact that the author takes sadistic pleasure in torturing Mr. Holmes.

10. Interlude: The Edge of Madness

The Journal

January, 1891

The days all run together. I do not know if I am awake or dreaming, if it is day or night. The curtains have been closed for two weeks. I am beginning to run out of space on my inner arms, and have taken to injecting into my thighs. I have lost count of the needle marks, and hardly know which of the poisons I have taken.

It does not help. I can't stop my mind from racing in circles like some maniacal carousel. I can't get her out of my head. I can smell her scent, that faint smell of gunpowder and roses. The memory cuts into me like a razor.

I can see her now, her face a white shadow above mine. I lay here on the hearth rug, where I landed after the room began to spin and make me dizzy with vertigo. I can feel those claws scoring lines into my chest, my back. I can feel the sting of carpet burns that form on my shoulder blades.

The taste of her mouth, like citrus with a hint of brandy. That delicate blossoming of bruises from my rough hands. Beads of moisture gathering in the hollow of her throat. Skin like velvet, so hot and slick with sweat that I thought it would blister from the relentless friction.

Delicate features contorting, lower lip twitching as she takes gasping, shallow breaths. Her eyes open, pupils dilated like one lost in a fog of opium. My hands tangled in that lovely hair, my face buried in that exquisite neck, tasting her racing pulse and counting the beats. The angry marks around her wrists from my merciless grip fairly gleam in the darkness.

God, let me die. Let me die. I cannot lift myself from this floor, cannot reach the needle to plunge it into my neck and take the deadly solution I have mixed for myself. No, all I have is this worthless little notebook and a dull stub of a pencil.

Would you do it for me, my dear? It is only fair. I would kill you if I had the opportunity, my darling. I have murdered you a thousand times in my waking nightmares, and to my horror, you always return.

Let me sleep. Let me rest. I would cut my own throat if I could but leave this floor. I am aware that I am slowly going mad. These hallucinations, this ceaseless agitation, will undo me entirely.

How I lie, my darling. I would give anything to have you in my arms. I know you are laughing at me, vicious, treacherous Irene...*

*Watson's footnote: here the writing becomes illegible, and trails off in an indistinct scribble.