Chapter 28: John's Return

John flung open the doors of his mansion to find five vampires in his house. Of which he knew four, Irene, Kate, Lestrade and Mycroft and their dark haired friend. He was tired, he was dressed ridiculously, he was dirty and grimy. He didn't have time to deal with these vampires right now.

"John! Thank goodness you're back!" Sherlock whispered as he hugged the disheveled hunter to him, "I thought something bad had happened…" he trailed off as John pushed at his chest, roughly shoving him away.

"Get off. You don't just go around hugging people you don't know. For your information just because I let you guys in my house," he said directing the words to Lestrade and the others, "doesn't mean I let you bring your friends over as well. Now if you're finished. I have to bathe and sleep."

Sherlock raised a brow at that, "John? I live here…with you…" he said.

"Very funny," John snapped, "I don't let vampires I don't know into my house. Much less live with them," he muttered pushing past the dark haired man. "Lestrade, take him home please."

"John it's me. Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes."

The name itself resonated through his being, 'You will kill Sherlock Holmes,' came the voice in his head. Kill…him…his hand moved to the holsters and he drew his gun his finger hesitating on the trigger before he turned and shot.

It all happened so quickly then. Lestrade and Mycroft tackled John to the ground, knocking the gun out of his hands and putting him to sleep while Irene and Kate held Sherlock back.

"What the hell was that?" Lestrade said looking down at John who lay on the floor out cold.

"He didn't seem to remember you…" Irene muttered looking to Sherlock who was still frozen in place, shocked at what had happened. "Hey, did the bullet hit you?" she asked, touching Sherlock. He shook his head, then moved over to the couch and sank down into the seat still in shock. John had tried to shoot him. Tried to kill him.

"We'll get John up to his room first," Irene said, indicating that Kate take the hunter up to his room, "get him cleaned and then we'll talk again okay?"

"You should tie him up, just in case," Mycroft said, he wasn't going to trust the hunter not after what he had just done to Sherlock.


They worked quickly stripping John of the tattered dress, and as they did so, a vial containing a blue concoction fell out. Irene picked it up, setting it on the bedside table now. Irene had the hunter dressed back in his normal attire, the dress left in a corner of the room. He was badly bruised. She could tell he'd struggled a hell lot and failed in the end. John had gotten slapped right across the cheek and his wrists were bloody and raw from trying to escape from his ties. Once Kate had cleaned his wounds she sat there next to his body, holding the rope in her hand.

"I don't want to do this…" she murmured, letting the rope run through her hand.

"It's for our safety," Kate whispered to her mistress as she slipped the rope from Irene's fingers, tying one end to John's right wrist, just a little higher than the rope burns before securing the other end to the wooden post of the bed.

Irene looked away from the sleeping image of John. She felt responsible for this. "If we'd actually watched him properly maybe this wouldn't have happened," she said, leaning in to Kate. "And this," she said reaching for the vial, "We need to know what this is."

"At least we know whatever happened he put up a hell of a fight," Kate whispered trying to comfort her mistress, "We should go down and tell the rest."


"He shot me..." Sherlock said, blinking, "John tried to shoot me…he tried to kill me…"

"He didn't seem to know who you were," Lestrade said, remembering the events of the moments before. The hunter had only registered knowledge of who he, Irene, Mycroft and Kate were and he'd had completely no recognition of Sherlock. He didn't understand it.

Just then Irene and Kate joined them, taking a seat on the couch, "He put up quite a fight against his captors, his body is bruised and his wrists bloody," Irene murmured and then she produced the vial, "and who ever took him, gave him this."

"A vial of blue liquid?" Mycroft asked.

"Shall we try it out?" Lestrade asked.

"I'm going to assume its poison." They all looked to Sherlock, who had his hands in a steeple, "Who ever did it sent John here to kill me…and anything you find on him, would be for that purpose."

"You're jumping to conclusions here," Lestrade said, he took the vial from Irene now uncorking it as he fanned the contents. It didn't have any smell. He walked over to the only other thing in the room that he could test this concoction on, the plant in the corner of the room.

He tipped the vial over letting a few drops fall into the soil as they watched. The plant still remained green. Then slowly the leaves turned brown, shriveled up, faded and fell off as the plant shriveled up and died before their eyes. "Okay…" he trailed off, replacing the cork on the vial.

"I told you so," Sherlock said.

"Fine. So whoever did it wiped his memory of you and sent him to kill you. Is that it?" Lestrade asked.

"It would seem that way. Yes," Sherlock muttered, he took the vial back from Lestrade, looking at the blue contents. A concoction to kill…a concoction to erase a person's memory…the red contents in the syringe flashed in his mind again, the crooked laughter and the golden eagle cane. And a face, the face of someone he didn't want to acknowledge.

"Lestrade, I need to talk to you," Sherlock said standing now and making his way to the kitchen.

Lestrade followed after him once they stood in the kitchen together, Sherlock handed the vial back to him, "Run some tests on it and tell me about it tomorrow morning."

"And?" Lestrade pushed, he knew there was something else that Sherlock wanted to say even though he wasn't voicing it out.

Sherlock sighed, "I don't know what to think…"

"You can tell me anything you know. I've heard some pretty crazy things."

"The forgetting potion. Remember I told you all about it last time? How it would erase only a single portion of your memory with the help of magic? What if that's what was used on John?"

Lestrade looked to him, "Then it had to be someone who knew about it and the only one who knows is us two."

"I was intending to use it on Jim…if he became too violent," Sherlock said, clearing his throat now, it had become awfully constricted, "What if…he's behind this? What if he didn't die. If he's alive and he's taken on the role of The Father…then he did this to John."

"John did say he saw Jim at the masquerade ball but I thought he was joking. He said the one you were dancing with was him, but it was the brown haired vampire instead."

"No. This is bad. The only one who'll remember is John and I need to get him to talk to me about it," Sherlock said.

"How are you going to do that?" Lestrade asked, "You didn't make any remedy for the memory potion did you?"

Sherlock sighed, shaking his head, "I'll find a way. There's got to be some part of John that remembers something. Anything at all," he said.

"We can help you, if you need."

"No, you all need to go back home. Let The Father think that his plan is going well. John is only after me so obviously you will all return home unscathed. I'll think of something in the mean time."

"Alright. If you need us, just give us a call," Lestrade said patting Sherlock on the back before he left the kitchen and gathering the rest, they left John's mansion.