A/N: Not entirely happy with this chapter, but I wanted to go ahead and post it before the new year. I hate writing action. It's so hard to make it flow smoothly and not sound choppy. Only one or possibly two chapters left to go. Coming down the home stretch!
I love your reviews. They make my day! If you get a chance, you could go to my profile and read my little Christmas one-shot, What Child is This? Just sayin'. . .
Chapter 21: Blood, Sweat, and Vomit
Molly was driving too slowly. Far too slowly and cautiously. It shouldn't take so long to make a right turn. Sherlock was wedged into the passenger seat of the little Fiat 500 with his knees practically touching his chin. "Faster!" he urged as she took yet another corner at a stately speed.
"I'm going as fast as I can," she shot back. "It's not my fault there's traffic. Why don't we call 999?"
"And say what? My friend went to see his sister and now he's not answering his phone? And even if they believed us, if the police show up with sirens wailing, it will put John's life in further jeopardy!"
"Well, did you try calling John then?"
"No! Mary already tried and he didn't answer. If his phone rings too many times, she'll know we're on to her."
"But Sherlock, we don't really even know if there's any problem. Maybe his phone battery died."
"He missed his date with Mary."
"Maybe he lost track of time. Maybe—"
Sherlock cut her off. "He didn't lose track of time. He's in danger."
Molly signaled a right turn and came to a stop to yield to an oncoming car. "That's it, let me drive!" Sherlock snapped.
"Sherlock, you cannot possibly drive this thing! You wouldn't fit!"
"Yes, I can! Get out!"
"Fine!" Molly completed the turn and pulled over. As soon as the car had slowed down enough, Sherlock flung open the door and started unfolding himself out of the passenger seat. By the time he had untangled his knees from the dashboard, Molly was already standing next to the passenger side of the car, waiting impatiently for him to finish getting out so she could slide in.
Sherlock quickly discovered that he could indeed drive a Fiat 500, with the seat pushed all the way back and the steering wheel tilted up as far as it would go. As soon as he had the seat adjusted properly, he whipped the car back out into traffic, cutting off a lorry and earning himself a long, irate honk. Molly hung onto the grab bar as he weaved from lane to lane to get past traffic, her mouth pressed into a tight line.
It still took far too long to reach Crispin Mews, but when they finally did, Sherlock pulled the car over a half-block from their destination and yanked up the handbrake. He leveraged himself out of the car and headed up the street, tucking the keys into his pocket as he did so, counting on Molly to follow. After the first few steps, he felt her presence behind his shoulder, then her hand slid into his. Her hand was cool and shaky, but when he shot a glance at her, her face showed nothing but grim determination.
Sherlock stuck to the edge of the sidewalk on the way to the house—not noticeably so, but just enough to stay out of the line of sight of the windows of their target. To Molly's credit, she stayed close and didn't say anything. Just before they reached the end of a row of hedges beside the walkway, Sherlock turned to Molly.
"You wait here."
"No."
"Then wait in the car."
"No, I'm coming in with you."
"It's not safe."
"I know. That's why you need me with you."
"Molly. . ."
"I'm coming with you."
Sherlock huffed through his nose in exasperation. Stubborn woman! "Fine!" he hissed. "Just stay close to me."
"I'm planning on it."
Sherlock didn't like it one bit. He needed to be able to move quickly, and Molly would only slow him down, but it would take time to convince her to stay behind, and he didn't have that time. Tightening his grasp on Molly's hand, he headed up the curving walkway, making sure to stay out of sight of the windows. The light was on in the sitting room that was visible from the front window, but he didn't see anyone in the room. At the door, he silently tried the knob. Locked.
"She's home," Molly whispered in his ear. When he turned a questioning eye on her, she pointed up. "Porch light's off. A single woman would turn the porch light on if she were going to be gone in the evening."
Sherlock dropped Molly's hand, reached into his pocket and pulled out his lockpicking tools. The doorknob was a British Standard Asec sash lock—shouldn't be too hard to open. While he worked, he noticed that Molly had turned a little and was using her body to block what he was doing from view of anyone who happened to be passing on the street. Good girl. Maybe she would come in handy after all.
It only took him twelve seconds to open the lock, a new personal best. He smirked in satisfaction, but the smirk dropped immediately when he eased the door open and spotted John's black jacket on the coat rack next to the entryway. A tiny start from Molly told him she had recognized it too.
Sherlock paused in the doorway to ease John's Browning out of his inside pocket. There was a small gasp from Molly, and when he turned to look at her, she was staring at the gun in trepidation.
"Where did you—" she began in a whisper, but he put his finger to his lips and mouthed Shhhh. No time for questions. She rolled her eyes, but when he put out his arm to pull her behind him, she went without a fuss. He felt her grab a fistful of the back of his coat and follow him through the empty sitting room.
Ignoring her as best he could, Sherlock focused on what he could deduce from the room. Cluttered with knickknacks, but everything lined up perfectly straight, perfectly matching, and completely dust-free. Spoke to obsessive-compulsive disorder. He sniffed. Some sort of acrid stench hung in the air—vomit? Two pots of tea on the tray on the coffee table sat with a matching cup for each. The blue cup, with residue of tea in the bottom, perched half-on the saucer, askew. That one must have been John's—a woman such as Sylvia Paddington would never have left the cup off the saucer. The green one half-full, with pink lipstick on the rim. She must have been in a hurry or she'd have wiped it away.
Sherlock laid his hand on the green teapot—it was cold. Scanning the room, he spotted something that made a hard knot form in his stomach: drag marks on the otherwise pristine white carpet, leading toward the back hall.
Molly didn't spot the marks in the carpet until Sherlock pointed them out—twin lines where the nap had been disturbed, like someone had been dragging something heavy, but what? She turned back in time to catch the look on Sherlock's face. She had seen that look before, when she had told him how one of Moriarty's men had showed up at her door and threatened her. It was murderous rage, Sherlock-style. Suddenly she saw what he did: the heavy thing being dragged was John.
She followed Sherlock down the hallway a few steps until she could see around the wall into the kitchen. Sherlock started to continue down the hallway, but Molly tugged on the back of his coat and pulled him back toward the kitchen. She didn't fancy going into there unarmed, and she had spotted a likely-looking fry pan hanging on a hook over the stove. He shook his head at her vehemently, but she nodded back just as vehemently, pointing toward the kitchen. When he seemed disinclined to move, she let go of his coat, quickly tiptoed into the kitchen, and noiselessly unhooked the fry pan.
She turned back to find him smirking at her. Resisting the urge to stick out her tongue at him, she simply shrugged, hoisted the fry pan over her shoulder, and fell into line behind him again. Together they crept silently down the hall. After a couple of meters, Sherlock suddenly stepped to the side, pulling Molly with him just in time to avoid putting her foot into a pile of sick. Molly's eyes widened in alarm.
All the doors were closed, but a thin line of light showed under the second door on the left. Sherlock paused next to the door, more abruptly than Molly was expecting. After she bumped into him and nearly lost her balance, she realized that he had stopped before the door so the shadow of his feet would not be visible to whomever was inside.
Sherlock half-turned toward her with his finger on his lips. She nodded. Silently he mouthed "one—two—"
Just as Sherlock mouthed "three" and kicked the door open, Molly suddenly heard an out-of-place sound coming from the bathroom. A very familiar high-pitched whine. Bone saw? Why would-?
The next couple of events happened almost too quickly to process. Through the open door she caught a glimpse of John, in the bathtub, head awkwardly slumped to the side, lips blue, a flash of pale skin from a bare shoulder. Gasping, Molly took half a step forward and swiveled her heard to find the source of the whining noise, just in time to see a woman with short blond hair hiding behind the door, face contorted into a snarl, bone saw held above her head like an ax. Then the saw swung down in an arc toward Sherlock, who Molly could see was looking wide-eyed at John and hadn't spotted the danger yet.
"Sherlock, watch out!" she shouted, but too late. Sherlock turned, gun raised, just as the saw came down and impacted his arm below the elbow. She heard a strangled cry, then a shot that nearly deafened her. A section of pink wall tile shattered from the bullet, which had missed its target cleanly, and the gun fell from Sherlock's hand and clattered across the floor. Bright red blood spurted from his arm—arterial spray, Molly's brain supplied helpfully.
She watched numbly as the saw swung upward, blood flying against the walls and spattering Molly in the face. The woman took a step forward and prepared to swing again; this time the saw was aimed toward Sherlock's head.
With a savage cry, Molly darted forward and swung the fry pan like a cricket bat. She was aiming for the head, and this time she didn't miss. The fry pan connected with the woman's skull with a solid thunk and down she went. The bone saw fell from her hand and hit the floor but didn't shut off, the blade skipping and screeching on the lino like a wounded animal. Then the deadman switch finally kicked in and the noise cut out, leaving a deafening silence.
Molly dropped the pan and scrambled toward Sherlock, who had sat down on the floor with his left hand gripping his right arm. Blood squirted through his fingers.
She dropped to her knees in front of him. "Sherlock—Oh, God. . ." He just blinked at her, his breath coming too fast and harsh through his mouth. Frantically Molly fumbled her phone out of her pocket and dialed 999. As soon as it started ringing, she punched the speaker button, dropped the phone on the floor and put her hands over Sherlock's to apply pressure to the wound. Oh, God, there was so much blood.
"999, what is the nature of the emergency?" came a man's voice from the phone.
"Medical emergency!" Molly shouted, not able to stop an edge of hysteria from creeping into her voice. "I need an ambulance and police immediately!"
"John!" Sherlock gasped at her. "Help John!"
"Sherlock, I don't even know if he's—"
"He's alive! If he were dead she would have cut him up already!"
"Ok, yes, but first triage. We stop the bleeding, then I need your help to get John out of the bath."
"My scarf. Tie my scarf around my arm."
"Good idea." She grabbed the scarf, wrapped it around his bicep and pulled it as tight as she could. As she did so, she became aware that the 999 operator was shouting at her through the phone.
"Ma'am, are you in immediate danger?"
"No, I'm OK, it's not me!" she cried. "Send an aid car quickly please! Better yet, send two!"
"Can you tell me what's happening?"
"No time! Just come!"
"All right, ma'am, I've dispatched medical and police. They should be arriving soon. Please stay on the line."
Molly moved to pick up the phone, but Sherlock barked at her, "Leave it. Help John!" So she left the phone where it lay on the floor and stood, trying to hold back the bubble of panic that was rising in her throat. Blood was still dripping steadily from Sherlock's arm despite their makeshift tourniquet. It was oozing now, not gushing, but it was still too fast. Despite her stern protests to the contrary, her mind was calculating how quickly he would bleed out vs. how long it might take for the ambulance to arrive.
Sherlock struggled to his feet beside her. When she put a hand under his elbow to steady him, he leaned into it and let her help him over to the tub. John was only in his pants, completely limp, and his skin had an alarming grayish cast to it. There was a thin sheen of sweat on his upper lip. Molly spotted traces of sick on his bare chest and a yellowish pool of it in the bath underneath him.
Frantically, Molly pressed her shaking fingers to John's carotid artery, transferring a crimson smear of Sherlock's blood to the skin under his jaw. It took several seconds of agonizing waiting before she felt a sluggish heartbeat, and then finally another.
"He's alive, Molly," Sherlock said impatiently. "Dead men don't sweat. Let's get him out." He grabbed John's bare leg in his blood-soaked left hand and looked up at her. He may have been calm on the surface, but she spotted of hint of panic in his eyes.
Molly nodded and slid her arms under John's shoulders. "On three." When she counted it off, together they lifted John's limp body up and over the side of the bath onto the floor. Sherlock dropped to his knees gracelessly next to him with a disturbing thud.
Molly pressed her fingers to John's neck again, and this time found that his heart was racing far too fast and arrhythmically. First bradycardia, and now tachycardia.
"What did you find?" Sherlock demanded.
"Tachycardia. A minute ago it was far too slow, and now it's much too fast."
"Aconite poisoning. All the symptoms fit. He's near cardiac arrest." Sherlock's voice was clipped and clinical, but the expression on his face was anything but detached. He looked as terrified as Molly felt.
Tipping John's head back, Molly watched and listened for a breath but found nothing. "I need to start CPR. Can you move back?"
"You do the compressions, I'll do the breathing," Sherlock said abruptly, scooting back a bit to let her pass.
"Sherlock, you can't—"
"Yes, I can."
So Molly sidled past him and let him move into position. When he was ready, she locked her elbows and started in on compressions, feeling John's ribs crack under the pressure from her palms. She counted off as she pressed down, and Sherlock gave a breath at the right time. Molly tried to quell her anxiety over the pool of blood that was growing on the floor beneath his arm.
After only a couple of minutes, Molly's arms and shoulders were aching, but she completely ignored them as her world narrowed to the small section of John's chest, her rhythmic counting, and the sound of Sherlock breathing for his friend.
Suddenly a horrible, familiar noise cut through the quiet—the whine of the bone saw starting up again. Molly saw a swift movement out of the corner of her eye. Before could raise the alarm, Sherlock suddenly had the gun in his hand, and almost without breaking rhythm on the breathing, he raised his arm and fired. There was a thud and the bone saw hit the floor again and cut out. The gun clattered to the floor again, and almost immediately Sherlock followed it, collapsing into a boneless heap half on top of John.
"Sherlock!" Molly screeched, her cry echoing off the hard tile walls over the reverberations of the shot. As the echoes died away, Molly finally heard the wail of a siren in the distance.