Pounding. Loud, obnoxious, painful-to-his-head pounding. And here he had always believed that the afterlife was a place of uninterrupted peace! Actually, that was one reason he had been skeptical of even wanting to pass the veil, if he would only spend eternity bored to tears (if there were tears there).
But someone was shouting, distracting him from the blankness he had relapsed into. Unfortunately, the shouts were apparently in fragments.
"…don't care about your bloody formalities, Sergeant!" Dear me, such language. "…air down here…the lamp went out, you great…if you have to chop up the entire blessed floor but get some air down here!"
Ouch, that last had been far too close to his ear. He did not know many people who could bellow like that…or swear like this…
"Holmes? Oh, you are so not going to do this. Take a deep breath, or by heaven I'll choke you myself!"
He started as cold air suddenly swept through the passages of his lungs, and wondered what the devil Lestrade was doing in Sussex. Coughing and gasping, he was struggling to a sitting position even before he could see against the jagged light overhead.
"Whoa, here now! Steady on, Mr. Holmes!"
Now he knew he was not dead, for a crochety retired police inspector was not his idea of an angelic being.