The week before my meeting with Countellinus was marked with a buzz of activity and intrigue. Every paper hummed with variations of the same song; how Count Telos had decided to grace London with a social trip. At the same time, pedestrian traffic in the area of Enfield Wash suddenly increased, to my utter lack of surprise, and inquiries after Sigerson began to pile up. I discovered the need to slip innumerable tails each time I ventured out of my headquarters. For the sake of my identity I avoided Baker Street and took to lodging in my office instead. It wasn't as if I spent any time sleeping anyhow. A letter delivered via Irregular kept Mrs. Hudson from wondering after me. I expected she would seize the opportunity to clean.

I felt that the day of the meeting could not come soon enough. It was not my usual feeling of excitement, of knowing that the third act was only just out of my grasp and that I would conduct every gripping chord to a captivated audience. It was more a feeling of empty anxiety and pointless energy. Not that I was excited, but rather I felt that if I stopped for even a moment, the world would close in around me and crush all the air from my lungs.

Without the distraction so often provided by my chemistry, and unable to focus on further criminal ventures, I was forced to find other ways to fill my time. Rambles through the heart of the city, my mind focused entirely on reading out the life's stories of every person that passed, proved enough to keep me occupied. It also proved to be problematic. Though some of my own men did keep a constant eye on the headquarters, I still returned from one such walk early Wednesday to find signs of burglary about the place. My notes had been rifled, but nothing had been taken.

Nor was the Count's trip canceled or rerouted. In fact, he was confident as ever. The very moment that Count Telos' train was arriving in London, an official in the banking industry was assassinated outside his own home. An unrelated horror, unless one was privileged to know how the unfortunate Mr. Jackson Hall had been standing in the way of Telos' crusade for his father, at which point the matter became such that even Wat- that it was child's play.

Time seemed to drag its heels the whole way, but finally the meeting was only a few hours out, and I was at Baker Street once more. I had arrived only to deliver a letter to Mrs. Hudson, but still I found myself ascending the stair to stand in the sitting-room doorway. Everything was as I had left it, mess and all. I took a deep breath, savoring the scent of home that met me.

It was with some reluctance that I descended again to knock at the landlady's door. It was only a minor imposition that I asked of her, and she accepted the task readily.

Then it was back to my headquarters, to the blond hair and the slightly padded suit and the makeups and cremes. An hour later Sigerson emerged, was met by his bodyguard with a cab, and was off to his meeting.

The site had been agreed upon by both of us, and was simultaneously respectable and confidential: The private party-room of a lovely hotel. It was a large and welcoming room, furnished in warm honey-tones and trimmed in white, with cream-colored curtains drawn over the windows. Flanking each set of windows as well as both doors were large, dark men, each blending into the others in their monotony, their fine dress doing little to mask their rough origins. A single table had been set with a lavish lunch, at which sat Scrivenor as nervous and dapper as ever, and another man whose back was brazenly turned to the entryway. My arrival did not stir him in the least; indeed, he made no move to acknowledge my presence until I was standing at his very elbow.

No attempt at disguise was made by my host, though there was evidence that he had worn one in, and he certainly lived up to his reputation for good looks. He was as tall as I or more by a few inches, with proud nobility written into his every striking feature, from his trim form to his pale skin to his long raven hair pulled back in the Italian style. His tailored white suit and silver watch-chain bespoke his fashionable tastes, and clever ice-blue eyes glimmered with pleasure when they turned up to me. A pleasant smile played at his lips.

Scrivenor, meanwhile, was oddly silent and bore an expression that could only be described as 'smug'.

"Signore Sigerson, I presume?" he said with all the suaveness of his Sicilian ancestry. "Take a seat."

I bowed. "And you, of course, require no introduction, my friend Countellinus."

" 'My friend'? We shall see about that, Signore Sigerson. My acquaintances are many but my friends are few. Would you like some lunch?"

"Certainly a pragmatic viewpoint. No, thank you."

"You are sure? You look so thin."

"I am certain, mister Countellinus. I came to do business, not to eat."

"That is a shame. The food is quite good. I have always had some weakness for your English cooking, although you are perhaps a little prudish with your garlic. The curry more than-"

"Mister Countellinus. As I said, I came to do business, not to go on at length about food. Is there some problem?"

"Ah," the Count said. He dabbed his mouth delicately with a napkin before continuing. "Yes, I am afraid there is a problem. Only a small matter, but it does rather rewrite the script for this conference. I am sure you agree... mister Holmes," he purred, gesturing minutely with ring-studded fingers. The door closed quietly from somewhere behind me; my bodyguard taking the signal to leave. He had been bought off, naturally. Sometime last Tuesday.

I laughed, slipping off the wig from my head and setting it deliberately in Telos' plate. "There always is, Countellinus." His smile flickered a moment. "Tell me, why agree to meet with me at all if you knew who I was?"

"You don't wish to know how I found you out?"

"No, no," I waved him off. "I know that part well enough. Methods are a simple matter of deduction, motives a bit less so."

He looked nothing short of disappointed, but he recovered admirably. "Very well, then, that's the more interesting part of the plan anyways. I met with you, mister Holmes, for two reasons. The first was pure and simple curiosity. You are something of a legend to the criminal class, both by your christian name and your Norwegian alias. Sherlock Holmes is a phantom whose name appears only in whispers, but when said in conjunction with one's own case, the criminal knows that his end has come. It's not many a name that can hold that effect, sir."

"I am flattered. And the second reason?"

Here the Count's eyes sparkled. "Also simple. I shall have the honor of being the man that destroyed such a phantom, not only in person but in name as well. A credit to my career, I should think."

"It would certainly be something to boast, but I should think it would be difficult to arrange."

"Not really. All the events are set quite in order. The public loves me, Mister Holmes, yet here you have been checking up on me, digging into my records and leaving your marks in a few places where you really oughtn't have. Mad with grief over your close friend and biographer's death, you took to this insane path and came after me, convinced of my guilt in some matter or another. You were quite unreasonable when you burst in - the maitre d' will attest to that - and interrupted a peaceful lunch with my friend Scrivenor, launching at me a number of unsightly and unfounded accusations. When you drew a weapon, I was forced to defend myself."

"It's unfortunate that you won't survive the process," Scrivenor added, and laughed. He rose and moved to the door as the Count gestured at him, no doubt to cut off my path of escape.

I raised a brow. "You seem to have it all figured out," I said, and drew out my watch. I did not have to look at him to feel his cold eyes bore into me as his smile started to slip again. "There is but one thing you have failed to take into account. I am Sherlock Holmes, and there is a reason my name is spoken so reverently.

"You see, my dear Count Telos, at this very moment in Florence, the Italian authorities will be receiving a very singular package postmarked from London. This package contains more than enough evidence to connect you to Countellinus and open a warrant. Should they follow the suggestions further laid out in these papers, they will have found irrefutable evidence of your connection before anything you might send could reach your men. You, along with the highest echelons of your network, will be on trial within the month, and I expect the gallows for you all shortly thereafter. There are some things that even the most handsomely-paid attorney cannot refute."

The Count had grown increasingly red as I spoke, though his knuckles were bone-white where they knit against each other. He let out a forced chuckle. "Well, I can see that I've underestimated you, mister Holmes. Perhaps you are a man I can deal with-"

"There will be no deals, Countellinus. The thing is set in motion and no amount of money or promises passed over this table could stop it. In the meantime, there is also the small matter of the Yard, which shall be descending on this very building shortly, to arrest everyone present in connection to the unfortunate murder of mister Jackson Hall."

The Count leapt to his feet. "Do you think that all this will save you?" he all but spat, still barely holding onto his dignity. "I can still cut down the chief witness. The case would fall apart in the hands of my attorney."

"My dear Count," I said with an empty laugh, "Saving myself was never the point. Considering what I have on you, one murder one way or the other will really make no difference."

Any retort he might have formed was cut off by a crash from the front of the building that surprised the both of us. I had expected the Yard, yes, but I had expected them to be a few minutes more - Mrs. Hudson could not have delivered my letter in time for them to respond so quickly, could she?

"Sir!" Scrivenor cried, breaking the Count from his shock.

"Open fire!" he cried to his men. "Dannazione! Damn you! I'll have to start all over because of you!" He turned heel toward the back-door. I was after him in an instant, even as revolvers began to roar behind me.

I only caught up with him again in the alley, and bore him to the grimy street with a flying tackle, ruining his fine white suit. The fight was not as brief as it should have been - his strength was far less than mine, but his energy and will were substantial, and at some point between here and the table he had drawn a beautiful silver pistol. He struggled against me like a frenzied animal, throwing off any attempt to gain a grip or subdue him, until finally he got the gun between us and squeezed the trigger.

The sensation of being shot, I must say, is a singularly unpleasant one. Preceding everything by a fraction of a second is the sound, the sharp crack, though in my case it was somewhat muffled by the two bodies around it. Then came the smell, the acrid aroma of gunpowder. Then came the pain, a bright burst in my lower abdomen that reverberated through my whole system. Then came shock, a detached dizziness, almost euphoric, like the high of the cocaine.

All this happened in a matter of moments. I was vaguely aware as the Count rolled me off him, even tried to stop him but my limbs weren't quite answering to me anymore. He scrambled to his feet and turned to run again, when a blur of dark blue caught hold of him. There was the far-away sound of a strike, and the Count's white form crumpled beside mine.

The blue blur, which I was belatedly able to identify as a constable's uniform, stepped over him and knelt beside me. He spoke, concerned, but I did not care to listen; the voice was a mere buzzing in my ears. Then his face came into my view.

If it had not seemed like too much effort, I would have laughed for sheer elation, the great weight of guilt finally lifting from my shoulders. I knew then that I had done my duty. I would not wake up again. For instead of the constable, I saw Watson. He was here to take me where I belonged. He looked at me with anxious eyes and I could not help but to smile at them. Of course he would not think it was my time yet. Were it left up to Watson, I would live forever, no matter my crimes. My dearest Watson.

So I smiled, and I whispered my assurance. "I'm ready to go now."

And then I closed my eyes and let the darkness take me in.

Count Telos still belongs to my friend Nergalitos, and I take full responsibility for Scrivenor.

Beta'd from this point on by the lovely Adidasandpie.