Part 13.

"Me, Sherlock, in court on Tuesday!" Thea startled awake, John's voice breaking through her dreams. "They're givin' me an ASBO."

She looked over to her father sleepily to see him clearly not paying attention, sifting instead through his books on the ancient languages of the world. "Good. Fine."

"You have to be in court?" Thea asked, stretching out her tired limbs. "What do you mean?"

John turned to her and said stiffly, "You ought to tell your little pal he's welcome to go and own up to his artistry at any time."

Thea groaned and sat up, "I'm really sorry. I'll sort it out, don't worry."

Seemingly placated, John nodded slightly and began to take off his coat. Sherlock slammed his book shut and tossed it onto the table nearby as he let out a frustrated sigh. "This symbol: I still can't place it." He walked over to John and quickly pulled the jacket back onto the poor doctor's shoulders. "No, I need you to go to the police station –"

"Oi!"

"– ask about the journalist."

"Jesus, Sherlock."

"His personal effects will have been impounded. Get hold of his diary, or something that will tell us his movements."

Thea stood, "Dad, come on. He just got home. Can't he rest for a bit before you send him on a wild goose chase?"

Sherlock raised an eyebrow at her. "There aren't any geese involved in this case, that was the one with the orange cat and wooden flute – "

"No, it's a figure of… never mind."

He looked at her for a second in wonder then turned back to John as he reached behind the door for his coat and scarf. "I'm going to go and see Van Coon's P.A. If we retrace their steps, somewhere they'll coincide." He looked back to Thea. "Coming?"

Her phone buzzed in her pocket, and she glanced at the text. "Actually, I have another engagement. Let me know if things get interesting, I'll meet you in a heartbeat." Sherlock nodded and ushered John out the door with hardly another word. Thea watched as her father walked down one side of the street, John opting to hail a cab. He looked across the street momentarily to a woman of Oriental descent. Thea watched as she aimed a camera at John, then turned the lens to 221B. Thea hid in the curtains from the view of the window, her breath catching, and counted the seconds in her head. Ten seconds later, she looked back out to see the street empty. The woman had vanished.

Thea stared at the folds of cloth that draped across the ceiling of the hideout, her mind spinning them to be rippling rivers crisscrossing across a barren desert. Her senses felt clearer than they had been in months, and she swore she could feel the hot wind of the sands shifting across her skin. She looked to the assortment of candles that burned on the table beside her, the flames dancing like Arabian belly dancers to music only they could hear. Her heartbeat was slow and steady to the bass of the music that thrummed in the room as it permeated her visions. The dimmed lights transported her to a rainforest with lush tropical plants, though her skin still felt hot from the scorching sun of the desert despite feeling quite shaded in the canopies of the forest. She slowly turned her head to look at Claude, sprawled out on the couch with her head in Thea's lap. A blunt rolled with a chemist's precision was between her lips, Claude's long fingers barely hanging onto it as she took two long drags from it. Smoke curled from her slightly parted lips as a plume erupted from her nostrils.

Suddenly, Thea broke into a fit of giggles. "D'you know what's funny?"

Claude looked up at her best friend and half-smiled, "W'sat, love?"

"For a second, it looked as if you had become a dragon, and I was your damsel in distress awaiting her knight in shining armour," Thea slurred, her lips numb and careless as the words slipped through. "The way you're curled up on me."

Claude gave a small laugh and passed the joint, warm to the touch, to Thea. The detective's daughter took a long, deep breath from the psychedelics and immediately felt the pull of the drug as it took hold anew. Her mind felt as if it were being pulled to the heavens above as her body stayed behind, connected only by the tendril of her consciousness. She examined the feel of the lights surrounding her, blinking in tandem as they acknowledged her existence. For a while, all she could do was envelop herself in the warmth and light of the cosmos. She could feel the energy radiating outwards from them, seeping into her skin and lungs.

A minute later, however, she was being brought quickly back down to earth, the sounds of children screaming erupting in her thoughts. She spun around and saw a younger version of herself, cheeks tear-stained and red in distress, clinging to an older figure.

"Charlie's not moving, he won't get up," younger Thea cried, "I keep telling him to stop pretending but his arms are all black and his eyes won't blink."

Thea turned from her younger self and felt her hands go cold as she stared down at Charlie's body – the first dead body she had ever bared witness to. His dark eyes were turned to her in an everlasting look of terror, and his body was covered in severe burns, his arms sustaining most of the damage. They were raised stiffly in the air, as if he had been holding something in his last moments.

Thea began to scream, and suddenly she found herself with her hands tangled in her hair, surrounded by her friends.

Claude was shaking her shoulders. "Thea! Love, it's alright, you're here now. You're alright."

She took an unsteady deep breath and coughed violently, dryly retching as she tried to clear the image from her mind. Claude rubbed circles on her back as the two boys they had come with made room for her. A few seconds later, Thea sat back and wiped sweat from her brow.

"I'm so sorry. I didn't mean for that to happen," she whispered, and cleared her throat as her voice shook. "The memory came so quickly."

Claude shook her head. "Don't be sorry, it's just one of the side effects."

Thea placed a hand on Claude's arm and offered silent thanks as her phone buzzed in her coat pocket. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand and stood, albeit unsteadily, to reach for it. As her mind unclouded a bit, she made out the text from her father.

Headed towards Chinatown. Van Coon's receipts are promising. Should be fun. –SH

Thea turned to Claude and waved her phone slightly. "I've got to dash. Duty calls."

The blonde smiled and shook her head. "Yeah? Catch a murderer for me, would you? And give my love to Papa Holmes!"

Thea paid the cabbie and examined the Chinatown streets before her. John and Sherlock had collided while cross-checking the diary and receipts left by their victims, and their search had led them to a little touristy shop some ways into the heart of Chinatown. In a matter of minutes, she had found the shop and was welcomed by a small Chinese woman insisting John buy something.

"Ten pound! Ten pound!" she insisted, but John only shook his head.

"No." He looked over and relief swam across his features as he saw Thea. "You made it."

"Of course, Papa said things were getting fun." She looked over at her father, who hadn't seemed to notice her entrance and was perusing ceramic Oriental figurines.

The shopkeeper persisted in her sales pitch, "I think your wife, she will like!"

John's features shifted to horror as he looked back at the woman, "She's not my – she's only a teenager!"

Thea looked over to the woman and motioned for her to go away, "Guǎn xiánshì, lǎo wūpó!"

The older woman, visibly surprised, moved away and focused her attention on the cash register on the other side of the counter. John glanced back at Thea.

"What did you say to her?"

"'Mind your business, old hag.'"

John cleared his throat as he tried not to laugh. "Erm. That's not very nice."

"You're welcome."

Thea moved to examine other tchotchkes in the shop, ending up close to her father. "Any further developments?"

Sherlock shook his head. "Not as of yet. We know they both came here but the trail is cold." He glanced over her then did a double take, anger settling in his crystal eyes. "What was it this time?"

Thea couldn't bear to look him in the eyes. "Nothing bad, just something to get my focus realigned."

"Thea, I may have had my mistakes in the past, but that does not give you a free ticket to explore drugs of your choosing!" He turned her to face him, scrutinizing over her. "Smoking then, a hallucinogenic it seems."

Thea knocked his hands from her shoulders and set her mouth in a fine line. "It's nothing harmful, and I keep it in controlled doses. There's honestly nothing to worry about."

Her father stared at her features with little expression. "We all say that at first."

"Sherlock." John called suddenly from the next aisle over.

Sherlock turned to where John was calling and said quietly to his daughter, "We will discuss this tonight. For now, you're forbidden from leaving Baker Street unless you're accompanied by either John or myself."

Thea begrudgingly nodded, then trailed closely to her father as they made their way to John. He was holding a small handle-less teacup, and written in felt marker on the sticker was the cipher that had led two men to their deaths.

As they walked down the street surrounded by stalls, Sherlock explained the symbol. "It's an ancient number system. Hangzhou. These days, only street traders use it. Those were numbers written on the wall at the bank and at the library." They stopped at a small produce stall, the signs above the groceries written in both English and Hangzhou. Sherlock pointed them out. "Numbers written in an ancient Chinese dialect."

Thea pointed to the number that matched their cipher, "That's a fifteen, then. It's not an artist's tag as we thought – it's a number."

John looked over the other signs. "And the blindfold across Sir Shad's portrait?" He pointed out a straight line in Hangzhou, underneath which was a number one.

Sherlock grinned triumphantly. "It's a Chinese number one, John."

John looked as if he could laugh over the whole incident, and Thea felt the mirth bubbling in her breast. "We've found it!"

She smiled broadly as her father turned to walk away, when across the way she made out the eerie figure of the Chinese woman from earlier. A camera was still pressed to her eye. John seemed to have noticed her as well, but before either of them could make a comment, a passerby walked in front of their line of sight and the woman vanished. Thea swallowed hard and looked to John, but he didn't look to be in any position to offer reassurances either. They exchanged a worried look but took no further action towards the situation and instead opted to follow Sherlock to a small restaurant a little ways away.

In the restaurant, Thea and John munched happily on dishes of warm Chinese food as Sherlock took down notes. Thea had made up a small plate from hers for her father, but he had hardly touched it.

"Two men travel back from China. Both head straight for the Lucky Cat emporium. What did they see?" John asked between bites.

Thea shook her head, "It's not what they saw; it's what they both brought back in those suitcases. Remember? Van Coon had a large indenture in his suitcase from where something had been packed."

Sherlock nodded. "Think about what Sebastian told us; about Van Coon – about how he stayed afloat in the market."

The army doctor thought for a second, "Lost five mil…"

"…made it back in a week," Thea finished as she reached for the salt. "That's how he made such easy money."

"He was a smuggler, then," John surmised, and Thea nodded.

"And he was the perfect candidate, a business man who made frequent trips to Asia," she said, then raised an eyebrow at her father, "Think it's too late to decide I want to go into business?"

"Much too late," Sherlock deadpanned, "And Lukis was the same, a journalist writing about China… Both of them smuggled stuff out, and the Lucky Cat was their drop-off."

John chewed for a second, then furrowed his eyebrows. "But why did they die? I mean, it doesn't make sense. If they both turn up at the shop and deliver the goods, why would someone threaten them and kill them after the event, after they'd finished the job?"

Thea and Sherlock leaned back in their seats, but it didn't take long for them to draw the conclusion. She took a sip from her drink as she said, "Maybe one of them was light-fingered."

"How do you mean?" John asked.

"Stole something; something from the hoard," Sherlock replied, scribbling more down on his notes.

John nodded slowly as it dawned on him, "And the killer doesn't know which of them took it, so he threatens them both. Right."

Thea looked over to Sherlock, but he was no longer focused on their lunch. His attention had turned to the flat complex across the street.

"Remind me…" he said quietly as his piercing eyes took in every detail, "…when was the last time it rained?"

Before either Thea or John could respond, Sherlock was on his feet and out the door. She glanced forlornly at her plate before taking money from her wallet and tossing it to the table. John reluctantly stood as well, and the two were soon chasing after the consulting detective once more.

Sherlock's fingers danced over the tops of the Yellow Pages that sat on the doorstep of the flat complex, still in its plastic cover. "It's been here since Monday. No one's been in that flat for at least three days." Thea observed the name on the flat and buzzed the doorbell. She stepped back and looked over the building before noting the alleyway next to it.

"Papa." He looked in the direction she pointed and began walking that way, Thea and John close behind.

John glanced behind him to see if others were watching then said, "Could've gone on holiday." But Thea was examining the building again and pointed to a window.

"Do you leave your windows open when you go on holiday, Dr Watson? I think that could affect your half of the rent," she teased. He rolled his eyes at her but gave no further comment.

Sherlock had taken a few steps back and now ran toward the fire escape. He gave a short leap and grabbed the ladder of the fire escape, dragging it down until it touched the ground. He climbed up and Thea followed closely behind. Unfortunately, she hadn't checked to see if John had followed her, and with a clang, John was left standing in the alley. She looked down at him.

"Sorry, we'll let you in up front!" Then she clambered into the flat after her father. As she stood, he greeted her by handing her a vase.

"I knocked this over on the way in, but there's already a wet patch on the carpet. Someone's been here before us." Thea set it down behind her as he muttered more to himself than her, "Somebody else broke into the flat and knocked over the vase just like I did." Thea went around the table to the washing machine and opened it. Inside was Soo-Lin's lingerie, still slightly damp. She sniffed it and grimaced as her father touched a towel above her that was apparently dry. He moved to the fridge and opened a carton of milk, of which he sniffed and found obviously spoiled. "We're not the first." He replaced it in the fridge and they moved on.

Thea didn't hear the commotion John was making from the front door; in fact, she had completely forgotten that she'd promised to let him into the building this time. Instead, she and Sherlock moved into what appeared to be the bedroom. Sherlock took out his pocket magnifying glass as he noticed a marking on the rug, while she examined a photograph of two small Chinese children, a boy and a girl.

"Size eight feet," Sherlock said, "Small…but athletic."

Thea noticed a fingerprint from where someone had pressed their hand against the image of the girl and pressed her gloved hand against it to measure it. "Small, strong hands." They exchanged a look.

"An acrobat," they said quietly in unison. Thea put the photograph back down and made her way back to the kitchen as her father continued to examine the bedroom. As she looked at the vase, a question bloomed in her thoughts. It never made it to her lips because the next thing she knew was darkness.

Thea felt someone shaking her, and it was a few seconds before she could register their voice. She slowly opened her eyes and was greeted by her father's eyes, looking surprisingly worried at her.

"Thea," he said comfortingly, his voice a little more rough-sounding than before, "are you alright?"

"What do you mean?" she asked as she sat up, and it was then that the pain came. There was a hot, dense throbbing at the back of her head that pulsated forwards to the frontal lobe of her brain. "What happened?"

Sherlock helped her to stand and put an arm around her shoulders to steady her. "The intruder was still here. He caught us by surprise."

"The acrobat? Are you alright?" she asked, "He must have cut off your airways. Strangulation?"

"An attempt, yes. He also slipped these, into our pockets," he said, then revealed two black origami flowers. Thea's throat felt as if it had closed, and she took a deep breath to clear the tears from her eyes.

"We're marked, then." She stumbled a bit and her father caught her. They sat on the bottom stair of the flat's steps. "We're marked for death."

Sherlock kept his arm around her but took her other hand in his, rubbing it with his thumb as he attempted to comfort her. "It could just be a warning. We should continue forth with the investigation."

Thea thought of Van Coon and Lukis, who thought themselves safe from inside their homes, before nodding. "Yeah, let's go then."

They exited the flat and were greeted by a very angry John, whose glare could have burned a hole through their coats.

Sherlock loosened his scarf around his neck and cleared his throat. "The, uh, milk's gone off and the washing's starting to smell. Somebody left here in a hurry three days ago."

"Somebody?" the doctor asked with a tone of irritation.

Thea nodded, looking both ways down the street. "Soo Lin Yao. We have to find her before someone else does. She's in great danger."

"But how do we find her?"

Sherlock picked up an envelope sitting on the ground by the Yellow Pages and held it up. "We should start here." He handed it to Thea, who found the printing NATIONAL ANTIQUITIES MUSEUM along the bottom on one side. On the back, a man named Andy was asking Soo Lin to ring him.

John kept pace with Sherlock, asking, "You've gone all croaky. Are you getting a cold?"

"I'm fine," her father replied, casting a glance back at Thea. She stuffed the card into her pocket and turned over the origami flower that rested there.

They were playing a dangerous game this time, and she could only hope that her father knew what he was getting them into.