Jacob Frye: Fallout

by SlushBro19

Just when we all thought it was over...

'Why did you do it? All of it?'

'What?' the man with the burned right side of his face sneered. 'Snap a baby crow's neck between my thumb and forefinger? Slice to bits the ones you deem innocent?' His bloodied smile widened. 'For the same reason I do anything,' he whispered before dragging the younger man's head down to kiss him deeply and fully on the lips - o those damn lips! 'Why not?'

'Evie, why not?' Henry really could not understand her sometimes. Here was the ideal opportunity to test the Shroud and she was balking. 'What if it works? It healed Starrick's wounds even as he got them,' he reminded her.

'I know but…' Her hands tightened around the cane sword she was holding. 'What if… he's not the same!' Her glinting blue eyes found his. 'Henry, what if he comes back a changed man?'

'Is that not what you wanted, Evie?' he asked her, directly to her face. 'Ever since you two came to London, you've been trying to get him to change, to grow.'

'He never believed the Pieces' powers,' she whispered, not turning to look at the bed where her brother lay, dead to the world in a very literal sense. They'd brought him back here, for now. While they tried to think of something, of funerals, of ….

'Perhaps he will,' Henry pointed out logically. 'Evie,' he said softly, coming closer. 'If you do not try, you will always wonder.'

'Have you ever pondered the consequences of your actions, Jacob Frye? Or did your father teach you nothing?'

'You lurk in the shadows like a coward.'

'We're not playing games anymore, Roth!'

'No, we're not…'

Evie was not entirely sure what she had expected would happen once her brother's corpse was wrapped in the Shroud, the powers of which he had never given credence to. For him, the Shroud of the precursor race was just a puzzling curio, an object for the occultists like his sister to study. His worldview had been entirely different: he had dealt with the present, the concrete, the criminal, the stuff of life as he had known it. Anything that could not be submitted to the experiences and explanations of his six senses wasn't relevant or worthy of further investigation. Maybe that had been why he'd been rather successful in dismantling the Templar Order in London: his rather roughshod tactics had been based in the here and now vision of the world. He had had this uncanny way of cutting through the complexity - sometimes quite literally and thoroughly. None of the Templars he'd killed had been truly ready for that kind of severity. They'd plotted and intrigued and all that rolled off Jacob like water off a goose. He'd had his own views, his stubborn will, his fists and his Blade - all he'd needed.

What she had not foreseen was an utter lack of anything. Nothing happened. Absolutely nothing. Not a twitch of an eyelid. Not a tremble of hand. Nothing at all. He was dead, was her incorrigible brother and that was not going to change. A bullet through the heart wasn't something that could be cured or remedied. It was over. All over…

She raised her head to look at Henry and Holmes, the latter giving off the impression of worn out scepticism. He too did not believe in the precursor artifacts. He too doubted the veracity of what Henry had told him. Because to his logical mind it was impossible to bring someone back from beyond the grave. Resurrection was a matter for the Bible and the preachers, not for the modern rational men and women. If she'd not seen the Shroud heal Starrick, she would have doubted too. Still did - because nothing was happening. Not a damn thing!

'What a shame… Good partnerships are hard to come by.'

'Ours is most certainly dissolved.'

'Yes, but do tell me more about Balaclava.'

'What a prick.'

He convulsed, eyes opening wide, blazing the gold of Eagle Vision. For a split second he stared straight up, unseeing and unaware of whatever was going on around him. Another paroxysm shook him to the bone as he inhaled deeply, his heart starting to beat frantically to pump the blood through his veins and arteries. Sweat broke out all over him as he rolled across the stony floor of the vault unaware of where he was or who he was. It was all irrelevant, all subsumed in so much pain, his body tossing and writhing in the throes of revival, of coming back, of restarting the systems all at the same time. There was just so much occurring all at once that the aches and pains that split his skull into pieces were all that filled his world.

He spat congealed blood out of his mouth, a reflexive motion, heaving his guts out, his lungs at the limit of functioning. He crawled on his elbows and knees, moving, regaining his motor skills in twitches and spasms, his reawakened mind touching and reactivating him like a machine that pitched one way and another. He fetched up against something hard and cold, his quivering hand grasping the edge with enough force to crack the unyielding material, his feverish face pressed into the pleasant cold. He had to stop this heat, this fire that surged all through him, had to bite back a howl that wanted to rip itself from his strained throat as he trembled in every muscle, every bone and particle of his being. It hurt. He hurt. Everything hurt!

'Jacob?'

He gasped, not recognizing the sound so startled by it that for a moment he thought he should know it. His mind was still so overwhelmed with the reawakening of each sensation he'd ever felt, the restarting of the physical self which had been torn from him. Which...

'Jacob, it's alright.' The intonation was hesitant: somehow he could tell that whatever made that sound was not totally certain. And what did it mean 'alright'? 'Jacob'?

'...Jacob Frye? Or did your father teach you nothing?'

'It's business, Mr. Frye…. One must do what one must to come out on top.'

'My brother, m'am, Jacob Frye.'

Jacob… brother… Mr. Frye…

'Jacob, listen to me, the sound of my voice.' He should know that voice right? He should… 'It's me, Evie, your sister..' Sister? What did that mean? His mind was so tired, so exhausted... ideas, concepts that he should know were… unimportant, far away from where he could put his hands on them… it didn't matter because there was so much PAIN! Raw and searing like flames… flames…

'Toast em!'

'Burn! Buuuuurn! BUUUUUUURRRN!'

Throwing his head back he screamed the fact that was a miracle of his reawakening, rebirth, resurrection, body and mind at last rejoining, soul melding to the flesh of which it'd been a part, memories and feelings and thoughts all a massive jumble rushing like an out of control steam train to bowl him over into another oblivion where there was more fire, more ache, more recognition, more of himself. His thoughts. His memories. His feelings. His… Jacob's… Mr. Frye's… His OWN!

Doctor Watson, late of Her Majesty's Afghan and Indian campaigns, stared in complete and utter disbelief at what had been a corpse of a criminal about to be hanged, a man who had been slugged right through the heart, a man whom he had seen die in the arms of his sister, blood gushing from the two holes in his body made by the bullet from the rifle of an unnamed but not unknown marksman. Professor Moriarty had ensured that Mr. Frye had held up his end of the heinous agreement: a life for a life, the rogue's life for the detective's. Even now the former army surgeon found it hard to believe that what had occurred had in truth occurred. It was unthinkable. Incredible. Absolutely beyond his one life experience of a rational scientific man.

And yet, here he was, a miracle that by all ordinary and logical accounts could not and should not have taken place. A man had arisen from the dead! The only other person that he had heard of to do so had been Jesus Christ, the Son of God. Jacob Frye was in no way near being divine - quite the contrary. It was a total impossibility! Jacob Frye as a putative Son of God? Preposterous!

So, then, what HAD happened? Had it been a trick to lure the Professor into a false sense of security? A deception? After all, Mr. Frye and his sister did seem to be possessed of some rather extraordinary talents in the areas of dissimulation, combat and general mayhem, with the sister being the more serious and stable of the two. Her brother was quite frankly a walking-talking catastrophe: impulsive, thoughtless, heedless of any danger which, in fact, appeared to attract him like a moth to a flame. He thrived on danger. He loved it insofar as the retired surgeon could tell. The more risky the circumstance, the better the young reprobate liked it. Was the thrill of it the main reason he'd agreed to Moriarty's proposal? Because of the enormous odds stacked against him should he lose the gambit?

'Just what are you, Mr. Frye?' he asked the living breathing impossibility laying on the bed, unconscious and inconceivable. 'What are you really?'

'Tell me, Miss Frye, how did you do it?'

The young woman turned her freckled face up to stare at the flabbergasted doctor whose features were full of disappointment, indignation and curiosity.

'How did you trick Moriarty into believing he'd killed your brother?' His tone was harsh, demanding belying the politeness of his features.

'Dr. Watson,' she said with an attempt at a smile that died. 'What are you talking about?'

'I saw your brother die,' he insisted, struggling with the unimaginable. 'I pronounced him dead.' He took a deep breath to steady himself. 'And yet.' He pointed a finger at the closed door of the spare bedroom that had been his once upon a time. 'There he is, oblivious to the world but alive, his heart beating as if it'd never been punctured.'

Evie Frye sighed, her slender shoulders lifting. Here it was. The moment she had hoped to avoid. The questions that she did not feel ready to answer because doing so would violate the Creed and its three tenets, one of which was never to reveal to an outsider what the Brotherhood truly was. Because it would be unbelievable, disastrous, catastrophic.

'Miss Frye,' the doctor recalled her, his hands shaking slightly as he lit a cigarette, a habit in times of stress. And was he ever under duress now! 'Please…'

'You are correct, Mr. Watson,' she admitted, looking him in the eye. 'It was a deception. I suggested to my brother that there was no need to really sacrifice himself to save Mr. Holmes,' she lied with all the sincerity she could muster. 'The blood, the bullet, all set up to convince the Professor that he'd gotten his target, that my brother had fulfilled their agreement.'

'I see,' the doctor said, deflated by the admission that it'd all been a hoax. For a good cause, of course, but still a trick. 'I did feel him die, though.' He was a professional medic with many years' experience in death: he'd seen his fair share of dead men, women and children. He was SURE that Frye had been truly dead.

'My brother does have a surprising talent for acting,' Evie Frye noted with a bit of a smile. 'I never thought he had it in him.'

'Of course,' the surgeon said with a nervous chuckle. 'An act… that's what it was.'

'It convinced you,' she noted, with a little relief - it seemed he'd believed her. 'It surely must've done the same for the Professor.'

'One of Frye's gang must've shot him then. On his orders,' he said, nodding to himself as the final pieces fell into place.

'Yes, Jacob and I, we had our gang help us in this,' she added more conviction to the good medic's story. There was no reason for him to think anything unnatural or supernatural had occurred: that Jacob had in fact sacrificed his own life for another's. SHE still couldn't believe that her brash and spontaneous twin was even capable of such an act. Had she and their father misjudged him? Had they been so blind, so quick to pigeonhole him based on the actions that they disagreed with?

Now that she'd come to realize that personal feelings were not a burden that interfered with a mission, she'd been reassessing and reevaluating their father's words and deeds. It was becoming quite clear that Ethan Frye had not been a perfect man, a perfect father. He'd tried to cram Jacob into what he saw as the ideal Assassin, to make him in his image as he had Evie, who'd been a dutiful student and followed her father's teachings to a letter. He had not seen Jacob for himself: her brother wasn't bored with the Creed or its tenets. Despite his heavy handedness he obeyed the central dogma of the Assassins. And perhaps that was the problem: the Creed that enjoined freedom had taken that freedom from Jacob, who hated to be constrained, detested having his actions nitpicked. No wonder he'd turned against everything that their father had tried in vain to impart to them both. No wonder he'd gone about with the 'bad' sorts, brawling, drinking, disregarding his father's words and deeds.

And she'd taken her father's side in this fight between the two. She'd picked up exactly where father had left off: searching for the Pieces of Eden and ragging on her brother. She had become Father. Unsurprisingly, her brother had not reacted well to that, to her, had argued and gone his own way, created the ridiculous Rooks and brought down Starrick's empire in the most bumbling fashion imaginable. But he'd DONE it. That fact was inescapable. What the Assassins had failed to do for over a hundred years, her whirlwind of a brother had accomplished in less than a year. Perhaps HE had been exactly what had been needed: the right man at the right time in the right place.

'O brother, you won't let me live this down, will you?' she muttered, staring out of the window at Baker Street, lit by the dying rays of the setting sun.

'Not ever, dear sister,' came the croaking voice that she had believed silenced forever. 'Not ever.' Evie spun around to find the impudently-grinning Jacob bloody Frye framed in the door of the bedroom, barely standing up, the oh so familiar glint of mischief in his eyes despite the wan appearance of what could only be described as a very wet chicken - or a man newly awakened from his deathbed. The simple fact that he was on his feet already was astonishing - at least for those who didn't know Jacob Frye as well as his sister did (or thought she did). 'You lied to Watson. I'm impressed.'

'I do live for your approval, brother dear,' she said with a sweetly sarcastic smile that she reserved for him. 'He is not ready for the truth.'

'Never will be,' he agreed, slowly breathing in the warm room air, something he'd never expected to do again. 'Miracles are not something Watson understands.' Leaning to one side, he rubbed his chest where the bullet hole had been. There was a scar now: that kind of damage not even the Shroud could repair completely. 'I'm not sure I do either.'

'The Shroud, brother,' she told him shortly, pouring water into a glass from the dinner table and giving it to him. 'Henry suggested we test it.'

'Greenie is rather full of ideas lately, isn't he?' he smirked, drinking the entire glass in one go. Boy, was he thirsty! And water had never tasted so good! He'd rather a pint about now but perhaps it was best to take things slowly for a while. Being resurrected wasn't exactly a run of the mill miracle. 'I suppose I should thank him,' he added with a dramatic sigh that became a mild cough.

'Jacob?' she asked in concern, one hand on his arm.

'I'm fine,' he said, clearing his throat, not admitting what was really going on - as was his way. He'd closed himself off, almost as far back as their arrival in London and the arguments about the correct approach to dismantling Starrick's and Templar hold on the city. 'Don't worry.'

She squeezed his arm and then unexpectedly for them both hugged him tightly, feeling him stiffen up. He'd never had much tenderness in his life from those close to him, so physical contact wasn't something he was ready for - besides the fist to the face, knee to the groin kind. That, though, was different. This… This was family. His sister, his only living relative now that their father was no longer among the living. She was all that he had left, really, in this world. Without her he'd be alone, all on his own. Not as if he'd not been on his own before but… she'd had his back and he'd had hers. That was the kind of partnership they had, the Frye family syndicate if you will.

'Evie…' Without meaning to, he put his arms around his sister, who for all her faults loved him and he loved her. 'Evie… why did you bring me back?'

The lonely figure at the bar, large tankard in one hand, the other resting on the well-polished wood of the bar counter, stylish hat next to his right elbow, his eyes far away. It was quiet in the pub, extremely so considering the riotous party of an hour earlier. In fact there were men and women in green and yellow laying on the floor and sprawled out in chairs, some snoring, others with their faces close to their mostly empty beer mugs, yet others curled up on the couches in the booths. The barkeep, wiping down the last of the mugs from the latest batch, ignored them all for now, aware that he'd have to start collecting and washing those other steins too. He tried not to pay any attention to the statue-like last customer standing - or rather sitting on a tall stool, a new invention for his pub acquired from overseas, from the former colonies of the United States. A rather ingenious idea, that: instead of having half drunk customers standing and shoving each other, they could simply pull up to the counter and sit down to drink, chat, have a good time. He threw a curious look over his shoulder at the not unfamiliar man who had not moved in the last ten minutes, nor taken a sip of his warming ale. He didn't think that anything was wrong with the drink: this one had had five already, taking his time drinking them down with relish and appreciation. The barkeep had seen many men's faces and he knew a connoisseur when he saw one. He had had no idea that Jacob Frye was one such.

Because it was the leader of the Rooks sitting here at his bar, staring into space, long tattered leather coat, grey vest, red cravat and danger in one menacing package. This was not the first time he'd been here and trouble had followed him. The man seemed to attract it like a magnet. Even if he wasn't doing anything to draw attention to himself in the first place.

'Sir?' No answer. The head of the Rook syndicate seemed to be withdrawn into his thoughts, the ebullience of a few hours ago replaced by what looked like a lethargic, almost catatonic, state.

'Mr. Frye?'

A start, a blink, dawning of comprehension and awareness of his surroundings, that someone was talking to him.

'Yes, Emmett?' He sounded slightly distracted, his eyes finally focusing on the slender bartender with a fashionable stache over his upper lip.

'I'm about to close up, sir,' the barkeep said softly. He had learned that a gentle but firm tone went far with an inebriated customer who had to be told to leave. He had found that reason usually worked with the Rooks and their boss. They tended to leave quietly, without much fuss - especially if their boss was around to chivvy them along. The last thing they wanted was to cause trouble for him or face discipline at his hands.

'Right,' Jacob agreed, setting down the tankard and reaching for his money. 'Here is ten.' He jerked his head at the comatose masses of the Rooks. 'And another five to let them sleep it off here.'

Emmett nodded, lips curved into a conspiratorial smile. The Rooks boss was generous, paid for his men even if they forgot to. Fifteen sovereigns was more than enough to cover the drink, the food and the sleep.

'Thank you, sir,' he said, gathering the shiny coins and opening the strong box in which he kept the day's earnings before depositing them into a safe at the bank down the road.

'Hows about you give us some too?' said a rough and raspy voice behind the syndicate boss who'd just been about to pick up his hat and depart. 'Since you're so generous.' A knife prodded him in the left kidney.

'I wouldn't do that if I were you,' he said very very gently as the second of the two toughs who'd come up behind him leaned on the bar to his left, sneering toothlessly.

'Oh yea?' cackled the invisible knife man. 'What ye gonna do eh?' His breath stank like a sewer, his voice coming really close to his left ear.

Emmett observed what happened next from the safe distance of the other end of the bar counter. From being an abstracted late customer the young leader of the successful syndicate of the Rooks went to a merciless savage. Splashing the last of the ale into the sniffing thug on his left he spun around, off the stool, and smashed the tankard on top of the head of the knife wielding sewer rat behind him, squashing the soft metal of the beer container into a flat pancake.

'Apologies,' he muttered to the barkeep who nodded and pointed behind him as the beer-faced thief tried to knife him in the back. Instead he received a faceful of the hard bar counter, in a sickening crunch of nose cartilage giving way, forehead cracking and jaw breaking.

'Nice and sturdy,' Jacob remarked cooly, tapping the wood, smeared with blood and snot now that the bastard was unconscious, having slid off to the floor like a sack of potatoes. His partner yelled something incoherent - being clonked on the head with a lot of force would do that - and swung his knife up only to have his wrist grabbed, the knife wrenched away and his hand literally stapled to that same counter with that same knife with all the casualness of a man swatting a fly.

'Like I said,' he whispered, not even out of breath, into the ear of the screaming thug, holding him by the oily hair. 'I wouldn't do that if I were you.' He released the still shrieking piece of human refuse and glanced at Emmett. 'Would another five guineas be enough to cover the damage?' he asked in a conversational tone of a man who had not just slugged two would be thieves with enough brutality to deter them from ever trying something so stupid again.

'Yes, Mr. Frye,' the phlegmatic bar keeper responded in equally urbane tones. He'd seen bar brawls before. Usually they were stumbling affairs between drunk patrons, easily broken up by the somewhat sober bouncers courtesy of the Rooks. When they involved the Rooks boss, however, the level of savagery increased and the time it took to resolve the conflict decreased dramatically. He wasn't one to beat about the bush, was Mr. Jacob Frye. 'But I would appreciate you taking out the garbage,' he remarked with an absolutely straight face.

'Of course,' was the equally measured response of the other who without much thought or even a glance at the groaning degenerate punched him out of consciousness. 'I wouldn't want to inconvenience my favourite barkeeper.'

Emmett's smile was genuine this time.

'I thank you, sir,' he said, inclining his head. 'The garbage dump is this way,' he added, leading the way out back to what indeed was a midden heap, a communal one as there were other businesses and residential buildings that all used the same dump for refuse of any kind. That is where two bundles of human waste were deposited rather unceremoniously.

'Well, that's that,' said the barkeeper wiping his hands one on the other. 'Have a good night now, sir,' he added, turning to go back inside and finish up the cleaning.

'Same to you, Emmett,' smiled the gang boss. 'Oh, when those louts inside wake up, kick them out, would you?'

'Yes, sir, right to the back side it is, sir,' Emmett replied, his face unreflective of any emotion now.

'Good man,' Jacob said, tapping him on the shoulder before heading off into the darkest time of night in London.

'You are a hard man to find, Jacob,' said the familiar rough voice of the detective behind him. He sounded a little out of breath, actually. 'Very hard indeed.'

The Assassin, elbows on the railing going around the roof of St. Paul's Cathedral, looked back at the somewhat red-faced unofficial arm of the law. 'Apologies, detective,' he murmured. 'I had no idea you were looking for me.' He turned his face back into the evening breeze, which would have been more refreshing if it didn't smell of Thames and coal and smoke. He inhaled it, taking his time: he had found he'd missed this stinky miasma. He'd missed a lot of things: dying and coming back had opened his eyes, given him new notions to think about, to consider, to analyze. He'd never been one for being maudlin but… So much had happened ever since he and Evie had come to London. He'd seen things in a very simple light: destroy the Templar Order, return the city to its people. Job done. Go home. Rest.

Right?

Well, look how it had all turned out!

He massaged his face with one hand, another thing he'd thought he'd never get to do again. Simple gestures like that had taken on a new meaning, a new significance after he'd been resurrected, had come back from the one place he'd never believed anyone could return from.

'The city seems different from up here, does it not?' Holmes remarked, coming to stand beside him, waving with his pipe at the sun-lit peaky roofs and the smoke-belching chimneys of the houses and businesses. 'Observable. Comprehensible. Worth fighting for.'

'Yea,' was the monosyllabic response from the young man clearly struggling with novel concepts and conclusions that he had never before imagined or took the time to study.

'But why, Jacob?' The steady grey gaze of the older man took in the sharp profile of the other. 'Why do you fight for this?' He swept his arm out over the square below. 'That man in the green suit with the lady on his arm. He could be her husband. She could be a prostitute. What makes either of them worth saving? Worth dying for?'

No answer. Because he couldn't think of any. Any easy response to those questions. Because they were not about the two people down there who went about their lives oblivious to the currents swirling around them. They had this moment, this time, this walk. They could be anything they wanted to be and they were here: had they chosen to be here? Or were they compelled to be here at this moment by some invisible directing hand?

'I don't know,' he said at last after a long silence in which he'd watched the pair stroll around the square, stop at a fruit vendor's to buy two apples and continue on. 'I don't know… anything anymore.' His voice had become a whisper by the last word.

'You died,' said the foremost private investigator in the land, his eyes now also roving the roofs of the evening city. 'For me.' He tapped his pipe on the soot-stained railing. 'Why?'

'I don't know,' the youth repeated, his inner struggle written large on his face, his hands gripping the stone with so much force that it would have cracked as had the altar in the vault underneath the park at Buckingham Palace.

'I think you do,' the detective insisted gently. 'Assassin.'

Eyes opening wider, the young man who'd made the ultimate sacrifice for this man on the roof with him right now, turned to him.

'What did you say?' he asked in a strained whisper, his left hand flexing out of simple habit, the repaired gauntlet embracing the left forearm and marking him as an unusual man, an extraordinary being who'd never believed himself to be anything but another bloke out on the town. Never mind starting a gang called the Rooks - had he ever considered the double meaning of that word? The small black bird that filled London's sky. The chess piece that offered protection to the other pieces on the board. The Rook, the common as dirt bird and the protector. The sly fox and the shield. Never mind the fact that he'd returned from the dead, albeit he'd had help there. Because according to his sweet sister he had unfinished business still. Moriarty was loose somewhere. His two henchmen undoubtedly with him. Not to mention other unsavoury elements and his gang which also needed expanding. Which had been giving him an idea…. He and Evie and Henry couldn't be the only Assassins in London. Obviously the removal of the Templars had left a void: an emptiness that had to be filled by the Assassins, the city returned to its people and the defenders of their free will.

'Assassin,' the unruffled deductionist repeated, his gaze boring into the other's. 'The man who didn't kill me when he had the chance. The man who destroyed a complex organization which had gripped the city and its people. The man who stirred those same people out of their torpor. The man whose actions permit that couple and others to walk about the square below, live their lives in peace.' He sighed, glancing out at the darkening skies and the windows lit round about. The street lamps were just coming alight like little stars. 'You died for them, Jacob, not for me.'

'How… how….?'

'I've known for some time now,' the other shrugged. 'I didn't have the chance to bring it up earlier because…' He chuckled softly. 'I wasn't sure what you would do.'

'You were afraid?' Finally something he could understand - because what Holmes had suggested earlier was incredible: that he, Jacob bloody Frye would sacrifice his life for others'? Really? Ridiculous! And yet… had he not done just that? Come to London to liberate and rescue the benighted souls here? Had he not fought and killed Templars precisely because they stood in the way of free will? Had he not created the Rooks to be his army in the struggle for the minds and hearts of the citizens who were under the Templar yoke?

'What was it you said once in your delirium?' the detective frowned, trying to remember. 'Something pithy, something profound I think.' He tapped his fingers on the railing and then his face lit up as the words returned to him. 'Nothing is true, everything is permitted.' He watched as shock was replaced by the beginnings of comprehension, of realization in his young friend's scarred face which matured right in front of him. It was quite the sight to see the boy drop off the face of Jacob Frye and the man begin to emerge, the ideas and the feelings start to go deeper into his mind, into his soul, the connections taking root, the recognition that indeed his work wasn't done, that his life was just beginning, that there was a point to all his struggles, a reason for all that he had done and would do. That he had the choice, the free will to decide what to do with himself, with this second chance at life. That what he had done before was only the starting point, the root for what would follow - and that was up to him to choose, to decide, to create.

The Creed bound him and set him free, all in one paradoxical notion: that within the bounds of the will there was the liberty, the ability to make his own way. As he had done in rebelling against what his father had wanted him to be, had tried to make him. He'd made a choice then and he understood that at this moment on this roof he faced another, an even more difficult one, more weighty than giving his life for Holmes', more weighty than deciding not to kill this too perceptive man beside him (how easy that would be, wouldn't it? Just push him off the roof and watch him fall). Going up against a clearly defined enemy was easy: he'd never had a problem with facing those who stood against him.

But what of facing himself? He'd never done that. He'd never looked at himself in the mirror and seen an enemy, someone to oppose him. He had not seen anything, in fact. There had only been Jacob Frye, chaos incarnate, untamed by any limits or any ideas. And he'd been unleashed on the unsuspecting Templars who'd underestimated him greatly. They'd all paid for that with their lives - but he had also paid a price, a heavy one of having to grow up, to think and consider what his actions meant. Especially with Roth… oh, how that hurt even now! He'd liked the man. Roth had been like a father almost: understanding, accepting him as himself without trying to change the essence of what Jacob Frye was. And then… he'd revealed the lie, himself as anarchy without bounds, the Creed without the tenets to hold back the utter immorality of a mind so consumed with pleasure and its own power that it saw the world as its playthinging: do anything you want, with no consequence, no thought about the effects your actions might have on others. That had been a bitter pill to swallow and had reminded him of Malcolm Millner, the bus company owner whom he'd been duped into killing by a Templar. He'd jumped feet first into that one and… an innocent man had died. Perhaps not so innocent in the eyes of the law but from the standpoint of the Assassins he'd done nothing to obstruct free will - and had died for it. Been ended by his blade. That one was on him and him alone. He'd have to live with that for the rest of his life, the mistake he'd made. Maybe… maybe this… this resurrection meant something then. A chance to begin anew, to be a new man, one who thought things through before jumping in feet first. One who could become a Master Assassin and maybe more.

Now there was a thought: he'd never been overly ambitious but had wanted to be a leader. The one giving orders as opposed to following them. He'd never seen himself as a disciple: part of his rebellion had probably been influenced by that - he hated being told what to do. Telling others what to do, well, that was easy right? His well-disciplined Rooks were a perfect example. And a beginning for something bigger…

'Unfinished business indeed,' he whispered, one hand kneading the precise spot where the bullet that had ended his old life had exited, his eyes opened anew.

'Welcome back, Mr. Frye,' the deductive mind of the age spoke from beside him in his uninflected voice. 'Welcome to life.' A glint of amusement in the cool grey stare. 'As you have never known it before.'

'You!... You're supposed to be dead!'

Startled, eyebrows rising up to his hairline, the champion of the Thames fight club, torso shining with sweat, hair plastered to his skull with the same salty substance - five rounds of hulking brutes would do that - turned around at the unexpected voice that he had heard only once before.

'Lord Victor Alfred Buxton…' he drawled as his eyes caught sight of a half-naked young man of his own age without much in the way of muscle but with a long sheathed slightly curved sword in his hand which he held with some ease. 'As I live and breathe.' Oh, the irony of those words! So cutting and caustic that the newcomer, youthful unscarred face twisted into a mask of naive incomprehension, could only gasp in wonder of indignation: how dared this impossible madman talk to him like that! He was a LORD for the love of God!

'You can't be here!' the young lord insisted despite the evidence of his eyes. His mind simply could not grasp this unimaginable situation: that Jacob bloody Frye was still among the living when the Professor had assured him that the renegade villain was dead, shot through the heart by the best marksman in the Empire. The Professor had not lied, he was sure of that. Moriarty's glee had been hard to contain: he'd been practically giddy as a girl with it, glad that at last he'd removed the biggest thorn in his side. Now he could focus on re-establishing his criminal empire and ruling Britain's underworld. The King of the criminal classes: that's how the dear old professor fancied himself. Well, all the power to him!

'I think you got that wrong, my lord,' the unthinkable and irrepresible Frye responded with that same habitual sneer that truly was enough to incite murder. 'You do not belong here,' he said, spreading his arms to indicate the rough-looking spectators who had fallen silent, watching this new drama playing out before them. These two clearly had had dealings before so it was interesting to see where it would all go. Judging by the concealed steel in the patsy's hand, this could go far indeed.

'Neither do you,' the young lord bit back, each word hissed with the sibilance of angry nobility. 'You belong under the ground.' A significant stamp of his booted foot indicated where exactly he thought the sodden miscreant whose very existence mocked him should be right now. 'With the refuse and the worms.'

'Choose your words with care, my lord,' was the urbane yet menacing recommendation of the top bill at the club, the bookies' favourite 'son',who had been slowly circling the ring, forcing the other to do the same in order to avoid an immediate confrontation. 'These fine gents are not above filleting a fine stag such as yourself,' he added, smiling slyly and throwing an appreciative eye at his audience who rumbled warmly in response: they liked this one. He was brutal yet knew how to show them a good time. He was not only a fighter sans compare but also an entertainer. And they liked to be entertained.

'You whoreson!' the red-faced lordling finally lost his composure, drawing his cavalry sabre halfway from its sheath in his hands. 'You dare to challenge me!'

'That's what you're here for, isn't it, Lord Buxton?' was the maliciously easy reply of the gangster reprobate whose smirk had only gotten larger with each word. 'To challenge me?' He stopped, in the light of the lamp above the ring. 'Because you want revenge.' He leaned forward, hands on knees. 'Up close and personal.' He chuckled, turning away from the cowardly lordling to pick a staff from one of the racks built into the side of the ring for more armed combat than only fisty-cuffs. Sometimes it paid to practice knife and staff fights: you never knew when a stick might come in handy. 'Come on, then,' he invited the other, twirling the long wooden pole and laying it across his shoulders as he began to pace again around the ring, sensing the crowd's anticipation. How much money was Topping going to rake in tonight? He wondered….

'Hit me.'

'You were right, sister dear,' he said, lolling on the sofa nailed to the floor of their 'guest room' train car. 'I did have unfinished business.' He'd cleaned up a bit after the most stimulating fight against the young idiot who fancied himself a vengeful righteous son. 'Lord bloody Buxton.' He shook his head, rolling it across the top of the sofa back, sighing sharply, eyes on the panelled ceiling of the car. He was tired but in a good way: he'd made Topping a killing tonight and had pocketed a good percentage for himself. The gang wasn't a cheap operation to run. What he had in mind was going to be even more expensive.

'And did you finish him, dear brother?' she asked, cocking one eye at him while reassembling her revolver which she'd taken apart to clean and oil.

'Unfortunately, no,' he said regretfully, fingers tapping on the curve of the sofa's back. 'Much as I wanted to.' He sat up with a wry twist of the mouth and glanced at her. 'I reflected on the consequences of my actions.'

She gasped, theatrically. 'You did?!' One hand rested lightly on her chest. 'Why, dear brother, I never thought you had it in you!'

Their eyes met and a moment later they were both laughing, a moment of ease that had become all too rare in the last few years as they'd drifted apart somewhat. And her upcoming wedding to Henry Green didn't make accepting the imminent permanence of their separation any easier. He would miss her even if he buried himself in Rooks and London up to his ears. Between them they'd had more success than either alone. Now the burden was going to be his alone, at least here in London. He could feel that coming and wasn't too happy about that. He had never liked to be burdened with serious work and just because he'd been given a second chance at life, it didn't mean that he was a new man. The old Jacob was not dead and buried. He was even now very much a part of him, his sense of self.

'He wanted to avenge his father,' he explained in a more serious tone, sitting forward, elbows on knees.

Evie, her own mirth dying off, frowned, staring at the half-assembled revolver on the table and then looking up at him. 'But how was it possible that you met at all?' Which was a very good question, one that he had been pondering himself on the way back. Buxton had seemed to be surprised to see him at the club. That meant that he'd also thought him dead as had most of the known London world. He'd not openly been parading his resurrected self about town. It was too early for that yet. His plan of getting at Moriarty and his henchmen did not involve a premature exposure of his return.

'Probably just bad luck,' he shrugged, drawing his hands through his hair. 'Although…' He paused and looked up at her. 'Why would a lord be visiting a lowdown dive like the fight club by the docks?'

'You think he had business there?' Evie leaned back in her chair, one leg crossed over the other, tapping one finger on her lip, a thoughtful expression on her face. 'Business that had nothing to do with you.'

'That's my thinking exactly,' he remarked, eyes straying to the worktable that they shared and the picture of their father above it. 'Just what is he up to?'

'You were precipitate in your actions, my young friend,' the gaunt gentleman rebuked his younger associate whose weak-chinned face reflected his chagrin and noble hauteur in equal measure. Malleable he was. Weak of heart. But not so spineless as to allow the killer of his father to walk free, strutting about the city. 'But no matter… our plans to restore your father's legacy to you will proceed apace, despite that meddler.'

'He. Must. Pay,' ground out the young lord, for once angry enough to disagree with his mentor and partner in crime. 'He didn't die…'

'Do not be foolish,' said the other with the patience that his words did not quite convey. 'He did die. He had a bullet shot into his heart. Mr. Finch never misses a shot.'

'Then why…?' was the hot remonstrance of the young protege, his fist hitting the table top, his chin shivering. Truly, how could he believe that he would ever take back his father's old estates, confiscated from him by the Professor's conniving in order to get him under his influence, to make an instrument of empire building out of him? His father had been rich, extremely rich. His money and wealth would be enough to ensure a most luxurious life for the young stripling and more than adequate financial backing for his older 'counsellor'. Such was the title that the Professor had chosen: a rather inoffensive word that aroused no suspicions in others.

'Dear boy,' the professor said with some modicum of warmth in his voice. 'How he is alive is immaterial.' His slender fingers picked up a white rook from the chess board, caressed it. 'We can make his life living hell,' he said sweetly, smiling at the naive youth whose watery eyes were full of righteous fire to avenge his father. 'I have a plan.'

'TAKE COVER!' he yelled as the machine gun unloaded a rapid and deadly barrage of bullets that would have ripped a body apart in seconds. The long cylindrical slugs, not buzzing but screaming and thundering through the air in the narrow confines of the two lane road between rows of warehouses and storage depots by the docks, ricocheted off the paved surface of the soiled and cracked cobblestones, striking those unfortunate enough to be too slow to take cover under the loaded wagons stacked with burlap sacks, wooden barrels, and strong crates - all smashed to pieces, burst open, their contents spilling all around them and over the corpses of his Rooks, the old mates and the new recruits for whom this was supposed to be a routine supply pickup operation. They'd gotten deep into Muttoner territory to exact payback for having a shipment of choice cognac brought in by Wynert's smugglers destroyed en route by the sheep-loving reprobates. They'd expected some sort of ambush but not like this. Not with a machine gun hammering a lethal hail of lead down on them, pinning them under the carts, unable to move, to escape or even go to help those who were still alive somehow but injured and calling for help.

'Boss!'

'Jacob!'

'Mr. Frye!'

They were calling him, asking him to help, to save them, to do something! He closed his eyes for a moment, contemplating his options, listening to the thunderous storm, and then quickly rolled out from underneath the wagon, grappling hook away. It yanked him off his feet and up to the top of the nearest building where he crouched, eyes shifting colour for a moment. There! That chimney! Machine gun smoking - clearly about to blow up into its users' faces. Good, he decided, mouth twisted into a maliciously sweet smile.

'Let's help it along, shall we?'

'You promised to save me from him!' the sewer rat squealed shrilly, eyes glinting with anger and fear in equal measure. His entire body shivered as if in a fever.

'Oh?' was the indifferent response from the taller of the two men in the tavern in the middle of Southwark. 'You were supposed to end his life, Mr. Hodge, he was reminded oh so gently as the bloke who'd paid him leaned over the table on his forearms, his stare without any human emotion whatsoever - except perhaps for a mite of contempt for this lowlife whose jowls were quivering in terror. 'Which you failed to do.'

'I.. bu….'

'Your pathetic excuses are not necessary, Muttoner,' interrupted the shorter of the two, his somewhat pudgy face unsmiling. 'You did not fulfill our contract.' No amusement on his face at all. 'Therefore, you do not get paid.'

Roger, face pale and livid by turns, opened his mouth to object. He had TRIED, damn it! It wasn't his fault that the Frye bastard was so unpredictably canny and hard to pin down - even with a machine gun. It wasn't HIS FAULT!

'Calm yourself, Mr. Hodge,' advised in a tone as cold as a snake's the leader of the duo. 'There is no need for further violence or childish tantrums.'

The Muttoner froze, his fist seemingly glued to the table which he'd smacked in chagrin.

'We have another proposition for you.'

'Oh Hodge, you poor bastard!...'

Behind him Henry Green choked and gagged. He turned around in time to see the Indian Assassin go behind the door they'd just come through and retch. A bit amused he glanced at his sister whose face, truth be told, looked a little green too. He himself wasn't entirely unaffected. What had been done here….

Hodge, the former comrade turned traitor, was dead. But not just dead. Hung up and eviscerated with the kind of horrible surgical precision that indicated great skills and much premeditation on the part of the killer or killers. This… this was so masterfully done that… this was bad… nasty in a cold-blooded inhuman kind of way...No, in truth, this was way past nasty… this broke the scale of nasty on so many levels…

He walked around the mutilated corpse, whose entrails had been exposed and then wrapped around the neck in a grotesque display of a hanging, flies and shit adding noise and a powerful stench that was indeed enough to gag a maggot, let alone three people who were used to death but not like this… not… butchery. Yes, that's what this was. Butchery. Plain and simple. Blood, bodily fluids, and organs that should have been inside the body were not. Lurid streaks of red painted the walls of the dilapidated room in the Muttoner shack at the outer edge of the city. The table where a meal had clearly been eaten stood in the far corner, so innocent amid the carnage, so incongruous. The closed window, grimy with soot from the gas lamp nearby, had not escaped the fountain of red as the carotid had been cut. Hodge's fingers had been broken, nails pulled out, his eyes… the sockets gaped empty.

'Who…?' Evie trailed off, swallowing and barely breathing. The reek of death and despair was almost overwhelming.

'I have no idea,' her brother said slowly, his shock evident in his voice - at least to her. 'Someone got to him before we did, though.'

He and Evie had been searching for Mr. Roger for at least three weeks now - ever since that machine gun ambush by the docks. If Muttoners were involved, Roger was involved too. He was too close to power to risk losing it. Apparently botching this operation had been the last straw for whoever led the Muttoners now. If it had been them… he'd never taken the sheep-loving thugs for torturers. It was fairly clear that this had been nothing but torture: terror and fear and death in one as a lesson to be taught.

'A rival gang perhaps?' Evie suggested, a reasonable enough possibility. 'To send a message…'

'Oh this is a message arlight,' Jacob said quietly, staring at something on the other side of the brutally treated corpse that he'd noticed only now upon closer inspection. 'It's for me.'

'What?' Evie, startled by the frozen expression on her brother's face, came around to see what it was he'd found. Cut into the back of the corpse, right into the skin, was a rather good reproduction of the bird which was the symbol of their syndicate: the rook, etched in blood.

'Help me get him down,' he said hoarsely. 'It's better if we bury him. Now.'

Evie, squinting at her brother, opened her mouth to ask why when Henry stumbled in through the door. His face still had the slightly frazzled look of a man in shock but he managed to speak anyway.

'The police,' he gasped, not looking at the body at all. 'They're coming.'

'Freddie, do you really think I would do THAT?' Jacob asked the only police inspector with whom he was on speaking terms. 'That I would order torture?' Getting up out of the chair in the same interrogation room as the one used last year for the Alice Woodsbury murder he paced, shaking his head unaware of the shock to the system that had been his appearance at Scotland Yard, cuffed but unresistant. Inspector Abberline had gaped at him, literally in absolute disbelief: this was not POSSIBLE! Frye was DEAD! He had heard the shot, had seen him fall, had watched the grief on Miss Frye's face and Holmes aging by the second. And this…. this... 'He may have been a Muttoner,' the impossibly alive and larger than life Jacob Frye added in a soft but coarse tone. 'But he was a Rook.' He paused, turned to Abberline, his gaze revealing something new, something besides the ordinarily flippant gang boss. He did not feel the same to Abberline. He was… there was something else going on here. Something novel. 'Once.'

'Frye,' the pale-faced copper attempted to interject, to say something that would not sound inane. 'I…' Nervously he adjusted the papers in front of him, fiddled with the ink pen. 'You died!' he managed to choke at last, his total astonishment breaking through. 'I saw!'

'Oh for God's sake, Freddie!' the clearly annoyed younger man who wasn't supposed to be among the living - not after a bullet through his heart - threw up his arms. 'Get over it!' Taking one long stride he loomed over the shaken inspector who already had grey in his sideburns and moustache (when did Freddie start aging, he wondered idly). 'I'm alive. I set it up so Moriarty would think I had fulfilled our agreement,' he lied, 'borrowing' his sister's idea. 'Now, can we get back to the case at hand?'

Inspector Abberline, realizing that he wouldn't get anything more out of the agitated gang boss, sighed loudly and gathered his thoughts.

'Fine,' he agreed with some semblance of his old policeman self. The incorrigible youth was right: there were more immediate matters like the grotesque murder of the former gang member. 'So, you just happened to be in the vicinity?'

'No,' was the curt reply of the other, his fingers hooked together behind his neck as he looked up at the ceiling. 'Three weeks ago, the lads and I were attacked making a routine pickup for a friend,' he said in a matter of fact tone, making it seem so ordinary that a gang would be picking up illicit goods. 'We were attacked, ambushed, in rather narrow quarters on the docks.'

'By…?' Abberline prodded him, writing in neat shorthand.

'By Muttoners, a rival gang, who had brought a machine gun to a knife fight.' He couldn't resist a light smirk after that last part. 'I lost some good people that day…' His tone had become darker. Abberline gave him a keen look: he'd never heard that kind of sombre growl from him before. It was obvious that losing his gang members had hurt Jacob: they worked for him, bled for him, died for him and he did the same, had done the same.

'Jacob…' he prompted the improbable and vivacious chief of the Rooks after a long silence. 'What happened when the Muttoners opened fire with the machine gun?'

'I rappelled to the top of a building and took it out,' was the shrugged but not insolent reply of the witness who wasn't quite a suspect yet.

'Right, and then?'

'And then I buried the dead, Freddie,' responded the leader of the largest syndicate in London. 'And started looking for the bastard who I knew had to be part of it.'

'So, you were looking for Mr. Roger?' Abberlne asked to clarify, his gaze intent on the younger man's. Surely he had to understand how the answer to that question would make him appear.

'I was,' came the slow but honest response of the resurrected Assassin. 'But someone got to him first.'

'So you deny eviscerating him and wrapping his intestines around his neck? You deny stringing him up from the ceiling of the Muttoner hideout?'

'I most certainly do,' Jacob said firmly, his hands gripping the back of the chair on which he'd been sitting. 'When I kill, I kill. Clean. Efficient. As painless as possible.'

The good inspector had to admit that that much was true. Frye had never given him the impression of being a toyer, one who enjoyed his victim's suffering and wanted it prolonged. From what he had seen of the younger man's work, he was brutal but in a direct, straightforward way: kill and be done with it. No unnecessary games.

'I believe you, Frye,' he said, a little wearily. The Rooks boss did have that exhausting effect on him: his unpredictability was truly something of a cross to bear for the London inspector. 'However, the evidence… the mark on his skin… your previous dealings…'

'Circumstantial,' cut in the stubborn gang boss. 'Wrong place, wrong time.' He squinted, suddenly struck by a thought. 'Speaking of…' He sat forward, elbows on the polished table, his piercing eyes riveted on the copper's. 'How did the police know to come there at that exact moment, hmm?'

Abberline would have answered if he had known. However, he did not. He had had no idea about any of the events surrounding the Muttoners and the Rooks until Jacob had been brought in. He had not been informed of any open investigation or any rumours or orders about Mr. Roger or any of it. He had been left in the dark until the fox-faced Assassin had walked into the precinct and turned his world upside down. Why? Was it because of their previous history together? But who knew of it? Who would want to keep him in the dark about a matter that could touch on him personally? Who would want to make him jumpy by dropping Jacob bloody Frye into his lap to prosecute AGAIN?

'Evans,' he muttered, staring at the wall of the interrogation room. 'It must be Evans.'

'Who?' Jacob was puzzled.

'Chief Inspector Evans, my superior,' explained the other, waving his hand vaguely. 'He must have received word as he was on duty at the time. I was working on another case…' he shook his head dismissing that as unimportant. 'Anyhow, he must have sent those constables over to check the house. On a tip or something like that…'

'A tip?' Someone must have been watching the house then. 'Any chance of getting a name of that tipper?'

'I'm afraid not…' the inspector trailed off, chewing his lip. 'Or maybe…' He stood up. 'Wait here. Don't move. Don't go anywhere.'

'Promise,' was the wryly smiling Rook's response. Now he looked like the usual Frye of yesteryear: cheeky and irreverent. And for some peculiar reason the inspector found that oddly comforting.

'We were being watched,' the newly resurrected Rook informed his sister and future brother in law later that same day. He was sitting in the holding cell at Scotland Yard, uncuffed but not unobserved. Constable Relish was located, rather discreetly too, far enough away that he could not hear what they were discussing. This was not the kind of behaviour that he was used to from that particular copper. He'd given his guard dog a very penetrating glance which had made the other squirm, just a bit. Obviously something about him had created a completely opposite impression from their last meeting.

'Someone led the police there deliberately,' Evie said, nodding as if to herself. 'Probably someone connected to that attack you mentioned.'

'Right,' her brother agreed and leaned closer. 'I think we need to find that special someone.' He looked from one to the other of his visitors.

'How are you going to do that from inside here?' Evie asked with a somewhat sarcastic air, glancing at his current accommodation.

'Who said I am going to stay here?' he asked her with that sly smirk that he had not lost at all.

'The police, brother dearest,' she answered sweetly, not glancing at all at the pugnacious copper (not) attending this little meeting.

'I am sure that my sister and Greenie here can pull a few strings, yes?' he suggested, the foxy charm of old coming through.

'And what makes you think that we would?' she asked, smiling. 'Perhaps it would be good for you to stay here for a while. Reflect.'

'Reflect? Really?' His tone conveyed his ironic disbelief. 'There is no concrete evidence to hold me here in the first place.'

'You're sitting here because you want to?' Henry's tone had taken on a tinge of irony too.

'No,' he replied, leaning back against the wall. 'I'm waiting.'

'Waiting?' Henry was confused.

'For inspector Abberline to let me out.' The wryly-smiling Assassin rested his wrists on his knees. 'Because he knows he needs me out there to hunt down whoever killed Hodge.'

'What do you think, Mr. Grimsby?' Evie asked the big-boned coroner who had just straightened up from examining the body of the disembowelled former Rook.

'A professional did this,' he replied, wiping his bloodstained hands on his apron and glancing between the two young people in his mortuary. Clearly related. Closely related. Brother and sister. Most interesting. 'Each cut was made with deliberate accuracy and precision. Even the ripped nails.' He gestured at the mutilated hands of what was left of Mr. Roger, drunk and traitor. 'There are no signs of infection or any contamination on the cuts,' he added, carefully enunciating every word. 'Which means…'

'The instruments were sterilized,' spoke a raspy voice from the doorway and Mr. Sherlock Holmes waked through it, dressed in a dark blue long coat, his huntsman's cap properly sat on his head of short hair. 'Surgical precision.' His grey eyes moved from the disfigured corpse to the two siblings. 'Miss Frye,' he nodded, smiling and lifting his hat. 'Jacob.' His tone was a bit less warm even if the smile didn't die.

'Holmes,' the young man greeted him, a little guarded. 'What brings you here?'

'Mr. Grimsby's patient,' was the cool reply. 'And Miss Frye's request.'

Jacob stared at his sister in surprise. 'You asked him here?'

'I thought that he could help us find out what happened to Mr. Roger and who set you up,' she explained with patience. 'Again.'

'You might have told me,' he said with some asperity, running his fingers through his hair.

'What would be the fun in that, brother dear?' she asked with that innocently freckled face of hers.

Mr. Grimsby cleared his throat loudly. 'Well, perhaps Mr. Holmes can shed some more light on this poor chap.'

'Indeed,' the tall lanky detective replied, removing his coat and hanging it up close by the door. Rolling up his sleeves he approached the hapless body on the spattered and crimson table. 'The man drank heavily,' he remarked urbanely, moving around the corpse and studying it with care, peeling back the skin with a forceps, bending closer to observe the bones and the intestines. 'And as I suspected he did have gout.'

'You've met this man before?' the coroner asked, bemused.

'During that infamous race,' was the unruffled almost absent minded reply. 'He attempted to send Mr. Frye and myself to the other side.' He regarded his former partner in crime briefly. 'The Needle, I believe?'

Jacob nodded shortly. 'An alley rigged with dynamite and nitro,' he explained for the benefit of the coroner who nodded in understanding.

'Set to explode if one wrong move were made,' he commented with a most keen stare at the young man. 'You live dangerously, Mr. Frye.'

'You have no idea,' murmured the head of the Rooks, his hand straying to that spot on his chest where that bullet had ended him.

'Are we looking for someone who knows how to use surgical instruments then?' inquired Evie in an attempt to break the awkward moment. Just what was going on between Holmes and her brother? They'd been thick as thieves and now… Jacob had not visited or seen the older man in almost a month. Had they had a fight? Over what? Was it Dr. Watson? Had he shared his suspicions with the detective? But Holmes had been present at the vault: he had seen Jacob return to the world of the living. Unless… he'd believed his other friend's story that everything they'd done had been a sham, a game for their own ends. But…. She rubbed her temples. Later. She would talk to Jacob later. Now, they had this on their hands.

'Not only use,' Mr. Grimsby corrected her slightly. 'An expert proficient in their utilisation.'

'A surgeon or a coroner,' surmised Jacob, almost the first words he'd spoken ever since they'd come here. 'How many of those are here in London?' he asked rhetorically.

'I can assure you that no coroner did this,' Mr. Grimsby remarked in a firm tone. 'We work with dead tissue. This,' he gestured at the incision on the belly where the innards had been pulled out. 'This was done while the victim was still alive.'

'A rogue coroner or a renegade surgeon then,' the leader of the notorious gang said with a touch of impatience. That was so like the old Jacob that Evie opened her mouth to reprimand him. 'Let's go find him.'

'It might be easier to start by visiting the pubs he went to on that last night of his life,' Holmes suggested softly, still not really looking Jacob's way. 'He did like his gin, did he not?'

'What is going on between you two?' Evie whispered as they were leaving the coroner's office. 'I thought you and Holmes were working together on catching Moriarty.'

'Nothing….' he trailed off, stopping at the top of the steps to the morgue. A four-wheeler passed by, the black horse snorting as its hooves struck the pavement. 'This has nothing to do with Moriarty. This is just a rival gang trying to set me up.' He shrugged: there was nothing unusual in that. Torture was uncommon but not quite unheard of among the London gangs.

'I believe you may want to rethink that supposition, Mr. Frye,' the detective extraordinaire said from behind them. The twins turned, identically puzzled expressions on their faces. 'I found this in his inside pocket.' He extended a rounded medallion, more of a coin really, bearing the familiar stag symbol, caked in dried blood which the long-fingered consulting detective had been attempting to clean off.

'Lord bloody Buxton,' Jacob muttered, shaking his head and sniffing in disgust. 'I should have known….' He squinted out into the street, his thoughts leaping from one idea to another. 'The Needle, the dockside ambush… Buxton must have put Hodge up to both, paid him.'

'And when he failed both times…' Evie began.

'He had him killed.' Closing a fist over the stag-bearing coin, the Assassin glanced over his shoulder at his sister and the detective. 'I think it's time for another delightful chat with My Lord.'

'Well fancy this,' drawled the one voice that the young lord truly did not wish to hear ever again. 'What could a son possibly be doing at the site of his father's death?'

Lord Victor Alfred Buxton, watery eyes flashing briefly in the mirror of the gentleman's room at the Blackjack Club, adjusted his cravat with quivering fingers, attempting with great difficulty to ignore the looming presence of the black shadow that stood behind him, its eyes staring at him with devilish glee. It was not easy given the fact that the devil incarnate was standing right there and could kill him instantly.

'What do you want?' he hissed, his voice hitching just the slightest bit. Their last encounter at the fight club was still rather fresh in his mind and his bruises were hurting even now, albeit fading. It was not really the physical damage as the devastation dealt to his pride. He'd been training in arms since childhood even if he'd not been very good. He'd clearly met his superior that night: Frye had walked all over him, literally and figuratively. What was a man supposed to do but lick his wounds after that? After being manhandled by someone who'd risen from the grave?!

'I want to know about this,' said the canny demon in human form and a round coin with his family's crest appeared in the lamp light. He stared at it in the mirror, a frisson of cold snaking its way down his spine. How had the bastard gotten a hold of that? This had been his father's gift to him on his twelfth birthday, a keepsake to remind him of where he came from and who he was.

'I see it's not unfamiliar to you,' was the gently ironic remark of the voice breathing down his neck.

'How did you come by it?' he whispered, chagrined that his face had betrayed him. He'd never learned to be the master of his emotions.

'I found it,' was the abrupt reply. 'In the pocket of the man who tried to kill me.' A short pause. 'Twice.' Another pause. 'On your orders.' The last three words were a sibilant breath of air on the sensitive skin of his neck.

'I didn't!' the young lord bristled, the old spirit of hurt aristocratic honour finally rising a bit. 'I have no idea what you're talking about!'

'This,' the renegade Rook flicked the stag coin. 'This says you do.' He laid it on the counter in front of the mirror. 'So be out with it.'

The weak-chinned aristocrat opened his mouth to… he wasn't sure what he was going to do: call for help or explain to this thick-headed reprobate that he knew nothing of any attempts on his life - useless as it was - or killings. He had been about to offer objections, remonstrances, threats. However, feeling something rather pointy press into the small of his back, he closed his dry mouth and inhaled slowly.

'It's a bit stifling in here, don't you find, my lord?' came a soft whisper in the region of his right ear. 'Why don't you pick up that coin and we'll take a stroll?' A dark chuckle. 'On the roof of this fine establishment.' His arm was taken most companionably by the same man who'd murdered his father and who probably planned to do the same to him, only up on the roof and not in the alleyway.

'Fine!' he said shrilly as they exited the gentlemen's room of the club, soft carpeting muting the sounds of their footsteps. 'I'll talk, just…'

'Shh, my lord,' he was assured suavely. 'Act natural. We're just two old chums catching up on old times.' Another of those wicked chuckles that he was truly beginning to detest - how did the man do that? 'Are we not?'

The two of them walked leisurely along the hallway at the end of which was a service door, already unlocked by the crafty fingers of the Assassin, who'd used the roof to get inside. Leading his 'victim' up the several flights of stairs, aware that the other wouldn't try to make a run for it, concerned for the physical integrity of his skin as he was, the gang boss pushed open the door of the attic.

'This is not the roof!' shrilled the young lord, bucking a bit now that he was beginning to realize that perhaps he was not going to live long, not if the intimidating recreant holding his arm in a vise grip had decided that his captive wasn't worth it.

'It's close enough,' replied the other, guiding him away from the door which he closed and pushed a heavy crate against to prevent any attempts at last minute escape. 'I doubt you'd love to be rained on.' Folding his arms across his chest, now that the captive was more secure than in the belly of the club, the impossibly alive rogue looked the lord up and down with a curl of the lip that indicated a silent contempt. 'No one will interrupt us here,' he warned in a matter of fact tone. 'Let's have us a little chat about the stag mark and Mr. Hodge, a Muttoner, whom you and the Professor hired to get rid of me.'

'What is it, Freddie?' Jacob asked his sometime associate of the police force. 'Your message said urgent.'

Without saying a word, the inspector, pale in the face with a furtive regard about him at the crowded market stalls and aisles, grabbed the younger man's arm and pulled him along a fruit-vendor alley of Spitalfields Market. The smells of fresh and not so fresh produce from all over the country - not to mention the Empire - mingled into a bizarre but not truly unpleasant aroma. On a good day the young man might have appreciated it. His partner's evident agitation, however, precluded that possibility. The harried inspector clearly had discovered something unpleasant and wasn't sure how to explain it.

'Is it about Evans?' asked the bemused Assassin as they perused oranges and lemons at one stall, the twitchy policeman in his detective's togs absently toying with a rounded orange while the vendor, a portly man, served another customer keeping an eye on the two others.

'Yes,' hissed the inspector from Scotland Yard, squeezing the fiery coloured fruit rather hard. 'Don't say it so loudly…'

'It's hard not to be loud given the cacophony here,' Jacob objected, rather reasonably. This was market day in full spate at Spitalfields Market. All the vendors were here, and half of London seemingly too. It was hard to make headway and talking in anything below a bellow was practically impossible. 'If you had wanted somewhere quieter….'

'Evans was the one who set up the police surveillance on that Muttoner,' Abberline explained in a somewhat of a breathless rush. 'There never was a tipper. Evans was the tipper.'

'I don't remember crossing him, so why's he after me?' He still was none the wiser. This made no sense: he'd never heard of Evans until his police associate had mentioned him.

'He's after me,' was the bitter reply of the copper with greying sideburns. 'Because of you.'

'Freddie,' the young rogue said slowly, drawing out the middle vowel and directing the other away from the citrus stand to a point further away from the stalls where it was quieter. 'You'll have to run that by me again.'

'He's using you to get at me,' was the mystifying clarification that elicited two raised eyebrows from the young gang boss.

'What did you do to rattle his cage? Let a suspect go?' He'd tried to inject a jocular tone into his words and understood from the affirmative expression on the other's face that he'd hit the bull's eye. 'You're joking, right, Freddie?'

'No,' said the beleaguered inspector with a sharp sigh. 'He's investigating our relationship and that stake out at the Muttoner shack was yet another point on his checklist.'

'I take it it's personal,' suggested the Assassin, his eyes squinting at the shoppers and vendors round about. That sixth sense, that itch at the back of his skull was back again, warning him of danger, of impending trouble. He'd been experiencing it of late, ever since his little chat with the mighty Lord Buxton, who'd denied any sort of involvement in the murder of Mr. Roger and the frame job on the Rooks boss. Something did not feel right, something was off in the world around him, too many threads pulling in different directions but all leading to one man. That much he was sure of. Moriarty must know by now that the Assassin was alive and had formulated a plan to take him out once and for all. The useless lordling would have run to him after their little tete-a-tete at the club and undoubtedly asked him for help in destroying the whoreson who'd beaten him up and shown him up to be a spineless coward.

'It is… ever since our first days of working at Scotland Yard,' confessed the troubled inspector of the Met, fingering the folded back lapels of his coat nervously. 'We have hated each other since day one.'

'And now he's decided to step the game up a notch,' Jacob surmised, chewing his lip. They had to move. They were too obvious here, too exposed. 'Let's keep on moving,' he decided, heading away from the quiet nook in which they'd been standing and taking the worried policeman's elbow. 'When was the last time you ate apples, inspector?'

'Mr. Gibbs, whatever are you doing here?'

'You know him?' the startled head of the Rooks turned his head to stare at the equally stunned representative of the British criminal law whose features were filled with astonished recognition.

'Yes, I do,' the luxuriously sideburned policeman replied, coming closer and studying the round-faced clean-shaven man up close. 'Mr. Gibbs, aide to chief inspector Evans.'

'Oh, really?' The young man's smile was anything but friendly, his forearm putting a lot of pressure on the captive aide's neck. The moon-faced copper's skin was a flushed red: he truly did need a breath of air which was not forthcoming given the strength with which the young man leaned in. 'A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Gibbs,' he addressed the new acquaintance of Her Majesty's legal force. 'Care to tell us what a respectable copper such as yourself is doing at Spitalfields Market?' A lift of the left eyebrow. 'Buying something for your wife?'

The hazel gaze of the caught-out spy flashed briefly to his colleague who showed no interest whatsoever in extricating him from this embarrassing situation: to be surprised by one of the men he'd been set to follow was bad enough. To be unmasked by the chief of the notorious Rooks, well, that… that trumped all. He had heard of this young thug's reputation: wild, unpredictable, deadly. This one was about read to shank him, probably would have if not for Abberline's presence. What was going on between the two of them anyway? Why was Abberline in cahoots with this criminal lowlife?

'Let him breathe for a moment, Mr. Frye,' Abberline suggested at last, injecting a bit of police formality into his tone. 'If you choke all the air out of him, he won't be able to tell us anything.' His eyes crinkled as his lips curved in a sugary ironic twist. 'You will tell us why you're following me around, right, Gibbs?'

The other nodded, swallowing and massaging his neck once the trigger-happy thug released him but kept a watchful eye: running away wasn't an option, not from this one. He had the look of a born killer. That kukri strapped to his left leg was a mean-looking thing: curved and no doubt jagged to cause maximum of damage.

'Evans asked me to track you,' he gasped once he could get air into his throat without panting too much. 'He plans to expose you as this one's collaborator,' he added, motioning at the gang boss, whose eyes had narrowed down and whose stance had taken on a particularly threatening manner: feet apart, left arm held slightly away from his body, the right fist clenched with the brass knuckles clearly visible.

'And how pray tell does he intend to do that?' Abberline asked, placing himself so as to prevent any sudden outbursts of violence. Returned from the dead he may be, but his young friend did not appear to have lost any of his impulsiveness. He had a duty to keep Gibbs alive even if the man were an idiot.

'The bounties on those criminals,' Gibbs explained, sighing and trying to appear as harmless as possible. To die he did not want. To give the menace-dripping youth any excuse to attack him was not part of his life plan for the day. 'The ones you had Mr. Frye collect.'

'O bollocks,' Jacob swore, sucking in air through his teeth. 'Paper trail. Marvellous.'

'I destroyed all those papers,' Abberline assured him.

'But not before Evans had made copies,' Gibbs said. 'Remember, the man hates you.'

The young thug groaned, drawing one hand down his face. 'Oh you policemen and your papers!'

'He would do anything to destroy you,' Gibbs continued, glancing quickly at the Rook just to make sure that he wasn't going to kill him now. How could a man look so innocent and so menacing at once?

'What else does he know?' the inspector, pale of face and attempting to think through the shock of this revelation. So, Evans had been searching for a way to get at him for a hell of a long time? How had he been so blind as not to see that? Why had he ignored Evans up until now? In fact, why was Evans choosing to act at this point? He could have uncovered Abberline's work with the twins a long time ago. Why had he sat on this information for so long?

'I am not sure,' Gibbs said with care, shivering a bit. Would he be killed now by the leader of the scandalously successful Rooks dispose of him? 'His focus seems to be the two of you, not any of your other…' He paused, searching for a word that would not sound offensive enough to end his life here and now. 'Business,' he finally finished.

'Mr. Frye,' the inspector addressed his criminally minded associate. 'It seems rather suspicious to me that Mr. Evans is choosing this moment to draw attention to our association.'

'You think someone put him up to it?' the young man asked, adjusting the front brim of his hat. 'Someone gave him a nudge?' He locked eyes with the only inspector worth his salt at the Met. 'Someone higher up?'

'Perhaps,' was a somewhat evasive reply of the other with a significant glance at Mr. Gibbs. 'We need to know more, Mr. Gibbs,' he turned his attention to his colleague. 'Since you're not above spying on a fellow officer of the law, then possibly you could be of use to us as well as to your… 'employer'.'

'Inspector…'

'Unless you would like to lose your job…' Abberline said suggestively.

'Or your life,' added the Assassin with a most friendly of smiles.

'The choice is yours,' finished the inspector without batting an eye at his bloodthirsty associate's words or knew how to play this particular game. The reasonable policeman interrogator and his explosive partner: a combination of opposites that was designed to attract and repel the suspect at the same time, while providing useful leverage to gain valuable information.

'Fine,' Gibbs gave in with a bad grace, wiping his sweaty palms. He truly didn't want to die. Not today anyway. 'Here is what I know.'

'Would you look at that?' Jacob muttered, crouching on the edge of the roof, a flat one this time, and staring across at a lit window of an inn on Watling Lane. 'Mr. Evans and one of Moriarty's torturers having a meeting in an out of the way place.' He sniffed, one elbow on his knee. 'What could they possibly be discussing?'

Inspector Abberline, in disguise this night as one of the Rooks, shook his head.

'I have no idea but now Evans' interest in…' He trailed off for a moment. 'In us makes sense.'

'The good professor wants you out of the way,' the Assassin surmised. 'He is aware that you will protect me no matter what. Right, Freddie?' he asked, tapping his sometime friend on the shoulder, cracking a coy smile his way. 'You will, won't you?'

Frederick Abberline exhaled sharply, rolling his eyes. Frye hadn't changed one little bit, as far as he was concerned. He'd never change. He'd always be this walking calamity that blew in and through every place he visited and left wreckage in his wake.

'I wonder if I should, Frye,' he muttered in annoyance. Could the man ever be serious about anything? 'You've caused me enough trouble as it is.'

'I've apologized for that,' Jacob reminded him, seemingly unrepentant. 'And incidentally you still haven't told me if I'm forgiven.'

'That's because I'm still thinking about that,' groused the tired and sleepy inspector. This truly had been an exhausting day. They'd been on Evans' trail for a week now. If not for Frye's street urchins they'd not have found out about this meeting, nor had followed the chief inspector here. 'Look,' the inspector said suddenly intent, pointing. 'Is that a money bag?'

Jacob squinted into the beginnings of a soft rain. It was autumn again in London, which meant rain, more rain, and even more rain, dirt, mud and even more mud. Warmer coats, scarves for the stinging wind that felt more like winter than autumn. Gloves and more work for the shoe-shine boys.

'Looks like it,' he grunted, wiping water off his face and adjusting the hood he wore. 'Moriarty is paying off Evans, presumably to turn a blind eye to something.'

'I have heard rumours that the professor is rebuilding his gang,' Abberline remarked casually. 'That's probably why he doesn't want the police to be on his tail.'

'Huh, rebuilding is he?' He thought, scratching at his scarred cheek. 'So that is why Roger was killed. As a warning…' He sat back on his heels, ideas and bits of information starting to come together into some sort of picture, one that wasn't pleasant. 'Moriarty knows that the Rooks will stand in his way, so he sets up Roger…' He frowned. 'But why implicate Lord Buxton?'

'Maybe so you're fixated on that,' Abberline suggested, his mind also beginning to put two and two together. 'While he….'

'He goes about restoring his power,' Jacob finished for him, eyes opening wide as realizations started to coalesce. 'Sod it, Freddie!' He grabbed the other's elbow. 'He wants me to kill Buxton!'

'What?' Abberline shook his head, not quite understanding how the other had come to that conclusion.

'Look,' Jacob had started to explain when the door of the inn opened and the two men they'd come here to see in secret emerged, shaking hands. The chief inspector watched as the slimmer of the two lieutenants of the professor got into his carriage and drove off, the bag with money still in his hands. When the dark boxer carriage had disappeared from view, he glanced around, the rain strengthening, and then, hiding the bag inside his coat, he walked around back to where his own transport awaited him.

'Well, fancy meeting you here, chief inspector,' drawled a suavely nonchalant voice behind him, just as he was about to get into the carriage. 'Oh, please do not turn around. Step inside your coach by all means.' The tone never changed pitch but nonetheless Evans did feel a chill make its way down his back. 'Come on now,' he was prodded with the barrel of a gun shoved into his back. 'Don't let us keep your dear wife waiting.'

'Who are you?' Evans asked roughly, seated inside his coach, hands carefully held up, away from anything dangerously offensive. 'What do you want?'

'I am the man interested in the bag that you had just hidden in your coat, Mr. Evans,' was the glib reply. 'So, please, do be so kind as to take it out and open it for inspection.' The policeman obeyed after a slight hesitation, especially since he'd clearly heard the sound of a cocking revolver. With no undue haste, he removed the bag with one hand from inside his coat and put it on his lap. Better play it cool and maybe the unknown renegade would let him walk out of this.

'Very good, Mr. Evans,' approved the shadow across from him. 'Now open it and let's see what weighs so heavily on your traitorous soul.'

'What do you mean?' the chief inspector asked roughly, doing as told. He truly did not want to die tonight, not without finding out who was doing the killing anyway.

'You're a traitor to your badge, copper,' was the growled response of the other. 'You'd betray one of your own for coin.'

'You don't understand,' demurred the highly ranked policeman, extracting a round object that did not glitter with the shine of gold. 'This is not money.' He held up the metal object which had the image of a stag on it. 'These are tokens.'

'Tokens….' repeated the other in a hiss that boded ill for the chief inspector's health unless he talked and quickly too.

'To set a trail for someone,' explained the shivering copper. 'To bait them…'

'Into getting rid of Lord bloody Buxton,' completed the black mystery for him with a soft laugh of less than amusement. 'You and your friends really think I'm going to kill that milksop for you?' A whisper of cloth as the other presence inside the carriage moved and Mr. Evans found himself uncomfortably close to the one man he had been looking for on Moriarty's orders. 'You have another thing coming.'

'Did you kill him?' Abberline asked the young Assassin when the latter had returned to their point of meeting at the Crown and Goose, only to receive a long stare in return and a slap of a bag down on the table between them. The bemused copper watched as the other took a long swig at the pint he'd been drinking from before sitting down in the only other chair at the table and extending his legs out to the fireplace to let the mud melt off his boots onto the grille placed there just for that purpose.

'No,' was the short reply of the most impulsive man he'd ever known. 'The traitorous chief inspector lives.' He spat into the fire. 'More's the pity.'

Frederick Abberline lifted his shoulders in a long sigh. No, Frye would never change. Ever. No matter how many times he came back from the dead. For some reason that was a comforting thought. And that was surprising in itself. He'd never been particularly attached to the male half of the twin duo. He'd preferred working with the sister who was more… reasonable and caused less trouble than her brother who simply seemed to be incapable of any forethought. Like tonight with Evans: he'd just disappeared once he'd seen the chief inspector go around the corner of the inn. Abberline hadn't even had the time to object or hold him back. The young thug acted first and reflected later, if he ever reflected at all, that is.

'Jacob…'

'I know what you're going to say, Freddie,' he was cut off with an abrupt gesture of the hand. 'And I don't want to hear it.'

'Fine,' huffed the agent of the British criminal law, opening the bag and reaching inside. 'These are… tokens?' He studied one with care, rubbing it with his fingers and turning it over on the other side. 'A stag… that looks familiar.'

'Lord Buxton,' the Rook told him in a harsh tone. 'Evans was supposed to put one into the hands or pockets of the next victims.' He smiled bitterly. 'To try and convince me that Buxton was ordering the killings of those I had cared for.'

The inspector, straightening up with each word that fell from the lips of the other who still wasn't looking in his direction, reached over to grasp the other's hard forearm. 'And are you?'

'I am not a murderer,' was the slow response after a rather long silence in which the young Assassin's eyes had travelled very slowly along the copper's arm up to his face. 'If that's what you're implying, Inspector Abberline.' There was a subtle hint of menace in his voice and look despite the relaxed posture of a tired man after a long night's work.

'I didn't say that,' was the softly voiced answer to the unasked question. 'You have killed, however.'

Removing his arm with a sudden jerk, the usually glib and flippant Rook got up and began to pace the private room of Goose and Crown.

'I know I have killed, Freddie,' he said harshly, striding around, then turned and leaned over the table. 'I have been killed!' His eyes flashed gold briefly. 'How do you think that makes me feel?' he hissed into the startled inspector's face, clearly angry and… lost. That's what he looked like. Lost. Confused. Adrift. Without a clue.

'Frye…' Abberline whispered, stunned by the sudden outburst. He'd never seen the young cock of the walk so angry, so full of rage and… impotence. Had never thought that the other had any thought for anyone but himself, let alone feelings. He realized suddenly that he'd never truly wondered what Frye was feeling, what Frye may have felt every time he'd killed one of his targets. He'd just taken it for granted that Frye went through life oblivious to what he did, to what was going on around him. Perhaps he had been wrong. Perhaps his unpredictable associate hadn't wanted to share any feelings or thoughts. That didn't mean he didn't feel, that he was an emotionless machine that went where it was driven to. He was a man like any other, albeit with special talents, gifts if you will, that ordinary men didn't possess. But at the end of the day, he still was a man, imperfect and not invulnerable.

'Frye….' he swallowed, staring up into the pain-wracked face of the volatile and unguarded Assassin. 'Let's buy you another drink, eh?'

It was late at night or early in the morning, depending on one's perspective. Two men, drunk as lords which they were not, stumbled and tripped their way down the soaked cobbles of a back one way street, singing at the top of their lungs and giggling by turns, arms around one another. Rats and cats scattered out of their way, not quite used to this kind of nocturnal visitor, two legged and unsteady. The less four-legged denizens of this part of the city watched from the shadows, sitting or laying down in the gutters or by the fire pits which kept them warm on this cold autumn night as winter approached. There was gentle smoke of pipes and acrid pall of cigarettes blending in with the fire smoke to create thick clouds close to where the poorer night dwellers made their living poaching off the hapless rich who'd wandered into the wrong part of town. Eyes lit by the orange flames observed the two drunks, assessing and weighing: should they or should they not? Were these two worth it? One of them looked like a policeman, cravat loosened and his coat unbuttoned. The other was armed to the teeth and despite the inebriated state could probably inflict significant damage to any attacker, so perhaps it was better to leave well enough alone.

'You know we're being followed, right?' whispered the befuddled Assassin into his ear as they'd turned a corner into a less lit street. 'Ever since we'd left that last pub.' He spoke slowly, enunciating every word for the benefit of his too wasted partner. Not that he himself was in better condition. He'd had - how many was it? Six? Seven? Eight? He shook his head, trying to clear it, massaged his jaw which was as yet unbroken. That haymaker had been a beauty - and that was his professional opinion. It'd rang his bell, alright but also helped to knock some of the alcoholic fumes out.

'No….' the obviously hammered inspector sighed. 'They want more?' He hiccuped, releasing a cloud of beer vapour into the fresh night air. 'You think?'

Permitting the for now ineffectual inspector to lean his back against the boarded up window of an old shop which hadn't been open for years now, the Rook, who knew when he was being tracked, sixth sense notwithstanding, took a step back and peeked around the corner back along the way they'd shuffled. He did not see a thing but that did not mean that nothing was there. Or rather no one. He was sure those two nondescript thugs, brims of hats pulled low over their faces, had not just been walking along all the way from that pub, taking care to keep their distance. Not with guns and knives tucked away into their belts and he was pretty damn sure they had more under their leather coats and down their tall knee boots, well worn but cared for. They had the feel of professionals: expert trackers of human prey. They'd sat and watched him and the inspector fight it out with the others, Oilers and Muttoners both. Had they paid those inept oil and sheep-lovers to pick a fight with them?

'Freddie.' He turned back to the slumping copper who truly didn't look good. His face was flushed, his eyes so glazed over from alcohol that he probably wasn't sure where he was or what time it was. 'Freddie.' The leader of the Rooks gang touched his shoulder. 'Freddie!' He snapped the other's ear with his fingers. 'Wake up, inspector,' he said once the weary arm of the British law lifted his face to stare at him blearily. 'Let's-'

He never finished that sentence because two sets of boots dropped down behind him and he dodged, purely out of instinct, a knife that would have lodged somewhere between his shoulder blades but instead missed, swiping through empty air as he twisted from a kneeling position to kick the heel of his boot out at the ankle of the tall figure with the shiny well sharpened blade that had almost killed him. The other leapt back, his partner coming in to deliver a knee to the young tough's face - one that did not quite reach it because a sharply curved kukri opened a gash along his thigh and then an upper cut under his chin stunned him enough for his companion to step in again with what would have been a sucker punch if there had been anyone to sucker punch.

'There is no point in playing this game, Mr. Frye,' he said into the night, aware that his target, his 'contract', wouldn't go anywhere, not with a drunken friend left behind. He'd been told plenty about this mercurial boss of the top London gang. That he was a nuisance. That he was a criminal. That he was vicious. Well, that last was true if the gash and the ankle kick had been any indication. The man obviously didn't take prisoners and, well, neither did they. So a win win for all concerned. 'You will come with us, dead or alive.' His eyes unerringly fixed on the point of blackness where he knew the 'mark' was standing, primed and ready for more. 'The choice is yours.' He glanced back over his shoulder at his companion who had taken hold of the unresisting copper who had no idea what was going on at all. 'However, for the sake of your pal here…' A cocked revolver was placed against the mostly unaware policeman's temple in a clear warning what would happen should the Assassin not comply.

'What makes you think I value his life at all?' were the first words spoken by their target, a raspy tired kind of tone.

'The five hundred pound bounty on your head, Mr. Frye,' replied the unruffled headhunter, standing at ease but ready for any desperate attempts at a last stand. Putting a man's back to the wall by threatening the life of his friend or family member usually got results. How hard was this one to crack? He really wanted to know, he realized: how far could Mr. Frye be pushed before he broke? 'Would you say his life is worth that sum?'

'He's an inspector with the Scotland Yard,' he was informed in a most challenging manner. 'Do you truly think they'll let you get away with the murder of one of their own?'

'Oh but it is not us that will be responsible for his death, Mr. Frye,' the taller of the two hunters replied with mock politeness. 'It is you.'

'Frye?' That was the inspector, whose fate was being discussed over his groggy head. 'Whassgoinon?' The words ran together, slurred by alcohol.

'These two fine gentlemen want to kill you, Freddie,' Jacob informed him, dripping irony, his eyes briefly switching to meet those of the inebriated copper. 'Into the bargain, as it were.'

'Ill me?' the confused policeman inquired, blinking wearily. 'Y?'

'Enough of this!' said the leader of the duo. 'Gregson, kill him,' he ordered, indicating the dizzily swaying representative of the Met who chose at this moment to upchuck his guts all over the boots of the man holding him hostage. With a disgusted yell, the latter let him go, stepping away.

Which is when the well-trained Assassin saw his chance. Lunging forward he feinted a cut at the tall one's neck to get him out of his way, hand raised to deflect the kukri which somehow dropped down and slashed his belly open side to side. His killer didn't stop to admire his work, however, but continued on to headbutt the second of the two bounty hunters, with enough force to stun him and run him through with a savage twist of the Indian blade to inflict even more damage to his insides.

'Freddie, and here I thought you were bottle-head stupid,' he complimented the panting and slouching inspector of the first ever police force in Britain, barely listening as the two hunters expired in pools of blood.

'Oh, shut yer trap, Frye,' was the grateful response of the exhausted copper. 'Me ead hurts,' he added, putting the aforementioned part of his body between his hands, chin covered with what had come out of his mouth, the wrong way really for the contents of a stomach to go, and closing his eyes tightly. 'Get me ome…'

'Of course, Freddie.' Jacob put the sick copper's arm around his shoulders once more. 'Whatever you say.'

He sat on the sofa, elbows on the knees, staring at the board hanging on the other wall of the train car, swaying with the motion of the hideout ride. He thought that if he stared it long enough, something would become clear, something would jump out at him - like it did at Holmes, whose mind could see connections that he simply didn't. At least not yet.

At the top was a paper with Moriarty's name on it and a sketch of the man's face, an ink trail led to two more papers, one with the word 'Torturer' in neat handwriting, the other with the words 'Silent shortie' to identify the two agents of the professor. A third paper was attached to the left of the professor's features, bearing Lord Buxton's name and face. A little further down were the names of Evans and Gibbs, the two policemen who it seemed had connections to Lord Buxton via the bag of tokens he'd taken from the chief inspector, next to the sketch of Freddie, their 'victim'. On the other side was yet another piece of paper, the name of his former comrade on it with a cross in red ink marking him as dead, an arrow leading to Lord Buxton with the word 'token' and a question mark in black ink above it.

'Come on, Jacob,' he muttered, massaging his face with both hands and leaning back on the sofa, hands behind his head. 'Think… Think!'

Muttoners. Bounty hunters. Police. Lord Buxton. Moriarty. It was all linked, all part of some web, some bizarre collection of facts that did have a central meaning. The professor had laid an obvious trail from Roger to the freckle-faced lordling, a trail that any fool could follow, so apparent was it. Well, this Assassin wasn't a fool, not anymore. He'd been duped a time or two but that was the last of it: he'd learned from his mistakes. He wasn't going to jump into this head first. The Professor was an intelligent and clever adversary: look at how neatly he'd cornered him into putting his neck in the hangman's noose! He had to tread with care as an Assassin would: Evie would approve. Father too. Probably. There never had been any way to satisfy Ethan Frye, not from his no good son anway.

'Moriarty and Lord Buxton. What links them?' His eyes moved from left to right, from the old man's face to the young lord's. 'His father… he'd hired Moriarty's gang to get at Holmes.' He pinched the lower lip between his fingers, eyes glazing over a bit as he thought. 'As payback for putting his son in jail. That's how this whole mess began.' One finger pointing at the vapid lordling's face. 'He was released after his father's death and allied himself with Moriarty. For revenge. On me.' His gaze shifted to the gaunt old man. 'He must've figured he could use the aristocratic fool to get at Holmes, his true target.' He chewed the inside of his cheek. 'I derailed that. So… he shifted his attention to me.' He squinted, a tickle of a conclusion beginning to formulate itself deep in his mind. He could not quite get a hold of it, not yet. 'He attacked the street kids with poison.' Head tilted, he regarded the far end of the train car, the closed door with its window into the next carriage that served as a living room. 'When Freddie, Holmes, and I uncovered that, he ran away, hiding. But not without involving Hodge in this affair.' He turned his head to glance at the board once more. 'Hodge…. Paid by either the Professor or Buxton. Most likely Buxton on behalf of his master Moriarty.' That relationship he was sure about: the young coward was under the thin man's thumb. He was too weak to stand up to a strong willed personality such as the dear old professor. 'When Hodge failed to kill me, he was gutted.' He pulled the stag-bearing token out of his vest pocket and bounced it on his palm. 'Evans had a bag full of tokens like this. Why?' He got up, swaying as the train took a turn and walked over to stare out of the window at the night time London, a city that never truly slept. Factories, sawmills, shops: all open, all operating, gas lamps and the new wonder of electricity lighting up the dark sky and blurring out the stars. 'Why would a policeman be working with a lord? Why would he need tokens?' Idly he scratched at his cheek. 'He and Freddie do not see eye to eye. He was investigating our dealings. After all these years he finally decides to poke the bear?' He tapped the glass with a bent knuckle, no particular rhythm. 'He must have been approached, encouraged to dig deeper. Into Freddie and I.' Again, all came back to him. It seemed Moriarty had switched his focus: from his old enemy to a new one. To him. The man with enough energy to stand in his way. The leader of a rival gang. The Assassin, the one man capable of stopping him dead in his tracks, the new adversary who was younger, stronger, and unpredictable like a storm. Moriarty must've been following his and his sister's work on Starrick's empire and when they'd opened that void…

'He had thought he could step in,' he whispered into the emptiness, every thought, event, fact, shred of evidence coming together to point to one thing. 'Starrick had had a firm hold on the city's criminal underworld. Until us. Until his entire operation went up in smoke.' He paced from the window along the length of the train car, rocking with its motions, absently rolling up the sleeves of his white shirt. 'That's what the Professor had been waiting for. He needed his rival out of the way before he could take back control.' One finger pointed up at the ceiling, he stopped in the middle of the rug. 'He couldn't though…. Because the Rooks were in control. So… he concots this elaborate charade in several acts to wipe the slate clean…' Massaging his temples and then grinding the heels of his palms into his eyes, he groaned. 'He has had us all running around like rats in a maze, throwing out bread crumbs to keep us busy, to distract us…' While he rebuilt his power, his network, his gang anew. The Hemlocks were only one version of that gang, the remnants of the old, now giving way to the new. And the Rooks with the twin Assassins at their head were in the way…

'Therefore, eliminate the Assassins, eliminate the Rooks,' he finished, glancing up at the sketch of the old man on the wall, his gaze taking on the steely glint of a hunter. 'Not so fast, Professor,' were the whispered words from the Assassin who smelled prey on the wind. 'Not so fast…'

'Holmes, we need to talk,' were the first words out of the mouth of the young man coming in through the doors of the detective's apartment like a tornado.

'Indeed we do,' spoke the calm voice of Dr. Watson, who rose from one of the armchairs by the table and confronted him. 'About…'

'Where's Holmes?' interrupted the intent leader of the Rooks, looking about the paradoxically cluttered yet organized guest room. There were stacks of books on the floor, papers and files on the chairs and table. Chemical apparatus were set up on another table, curtains behind it.

'Mr. Frye,' the doctor stood right in front of him, barring his way. 'What are you?'

The Assassin, puzzled by the question, blinked, finally realizing that he was being talked to. 'What?'

'What are you, Mr. Frye?' repeated the former army surgeon, his tone heavy and aggressive, the end of his cane against the other's chest: either holding him at bay or attacking him, he wasn't sure which. Seeing the young rogue up and hale was so beyond comprehensible after he'd been sure that the Rook boss had become an inert corpse. One did not simply survive a bullet to the heart! It wasn't possible!

'What are you talking about, Mr. Watson?' the improbably vivacious Frye asked, running his eyes along the length of the well-made cane slowly up to the other's glinting glare. Something was going on here and it wasn't good. The army surgeon's face was slightly flushed and his breathing a little too fast for someone who'd been sitting quietly. Almost as if he'd been working himself up for something.

'What. Are. You,' repeated the man who wasn't a friend, who'd never really believed in him. Not that he'd cared one way or another what Dr. bloody Watson thought of him.

'I'm Jacob Frye,' he said in a tone of one attempting to stay cool and collected in a most bizarre situation. What was the man talking about? What was he implying?

'That is not what I mean,' the doctor said in a soft but irritated voice. Was the youth playing stupid? Surely he knew what the doctor was driving at.

'Then what do you mean, Mr. Watson?' Jacob asked with some asperity, still not having moved the end of the cane away from his chest. He didn't want to precipitate anything just yet. The former army man was Holmes' comrade of old and hurting him would undoubtedly cause pain to the detective. So, control, Jacob, control. Deep breath…

'I watched you die,' the military specialist in life and death said with care. 'I examined you. Your dead corpse.' His voice had dropped down to an astonished whisper of a disappointed man by the last three words. 'You were dead. D. E. A. D.,' he insisted, head leaning forward a little bit as if he were trying to peer closer at the living animated body of the miscreant that Holmes had befriended for some bewildering reason that was not clear even now to the rational surgeon.

'Ah, so that's what this is about?' he said with a mild chuckle, attempting to make light of the fact that he should have seen this coming. Of course, Watson would want to know about his return from the dead, inexplicable as it was! Should've anticipated this…. Well, in his defence, he did have other business on his mind. Like Moriarty and the revelation he'd reached about him.

'Yes, it is about you,' the confused and hurting surgeon pushed unconsciously echoing the young man's thoughts.

'You might want to sit down for this, Mr. Watson,' was the rather subdued response of the other, whose hand had carefully but firmly moved the end of the cane away from his chest. Squinting, the older man gave him a penetrating look - what was Frye up to now? Why this sudden capitulation?

'Sit, doctor,' the Assassin repeated, more firmly, one hand on the back of the same armchair which had been the military man's seat until he'd come in. 'Please.' It was more of a command than a plea. Despite himself, Dr. Watson did as asked, his cane placed upright between his legs, his hands resting on top of it in a gesture of nonchalance that he did not truly feel. The devious youth was up to something, he just knew it. Absently he wondered whether he would be alive at the end of this interview. Clearly, something was on the younger man's mind, something big, something that required Holmes' attention.

'You're correct, Dr. Watson,' were the first words out of the mouth of the Rooks' chief troublemaker. 'My sister and I, we set up this whole pretence.' He adjusted his hat on his hair and gave the attentive doctor a long look. 'To get professor Moriarty off Holmes' back.'

'Yes, yes, I know the story,' the former surgeon interrupted him impatiently, waving his hand. 'Your sister told me as much.'

'What she didn't tell you is that we got the idea from Henry Raymond's story of the 'Twice-dead Professor'.' A light curve of the lips. 'A penny dreadful.'

'You're joking, surely,' the military man scoffed, his smile dying off at the grave and no-nonsense features of the young ruffian who had taken up the other armchair, pouring himself a generous dollop of whisky.

'Am I?' was the dangerously menacing and flippant response of the preoccupied Assassin. He took a sip and let it slide down his throat. 'One of the more interesting details concerned a spider.' He tapped the glass in his hand with one finger, thoughtfully. 'From Bolivia, I think.'

'And?' prodded the doctor, puzzled by the silent and somewhat absent-minded demeanour of the man whom he had been interrogating. 'Mr. Frye?' He suppressed the unexpected urge to poke the reanimated scoundrel, just to see if he'd not become a statue. He was a grown man, not a child.

'Yes, I…' The other shook himself, his eyes refocusing once more. 'Apologies, doctor,' he murmured quietly, taking a longer sip of the fiery drink. 'The spider… a venomous spider.'

'Go on,' the military surgeon, sitting forward intently, encouraged him after yet another prolonged period of nothing but a ticking clock.

'The spider's venom,' the words came one by one out of the rogue's mouth as he continued to stare out of the window. 'It induces a state similar to death. Paralysis I believe is the medical term.' He'd set the glass down, empty, his posture still relaxed.

'You injected this venom?' Dr. Watson, alarmed by the abrupt change in the other's behaviour, glanced out of the window and then back at him. 'What is it, Mr. Frye?' he inquired, his soldier's instincts telling him that his companion had stopped paying any attention to him and was engaged otherwise.

'Get down, doctor,' was the hoarse order of the Assassin, who was already moving out of the chair and away from the window which was shattered by a smoke grenade a moment later, a prelude to three men bursting in, revolvers out, long leather coats swirling around their legs. Shots rang out, smashing the delicate chemical experiment that had been sitting on the table for days, the glass case of the clock and the carafe of whisky. Jacob, who'd wasted little time, had rolled along the floor, up to the leftmost bounty hunter, whose guts were punctured with the humped knife of the Nepalese and whose body was used as a human shield by the deadly killer when the other two unloaded the rest of their bullets at him, ignoring the surgeon for now. He pushed the dead man towards the other two as a distraction.

He was just about to yell at Watson to get himself out of here when he saw the older man, revolver in hand open fire with precision and accuracy at the nearest man, two bullets finding their mark in the headhunter's chest. The taller of the two remaining intruders stumbled backwards and fell into his partner who shoved him aside without so much as a concerned glance his way and whipped out a knife which he flung at the former military surgeon who batted it aside with the kind of reflex that the young Assassin had not expected from him at all.

'Now, sir,' the good doctor said, motioning with his still loaded pistol. 'Be so kind as to take a seat and tell us what brings you here tonight.'

The only remaining assailant gaped at him for a moment as if he didn't understand the Queen's English, his chest heaving. Apparently he was assessing his options: run for it or try and fight two hale men at the same time, one of whom was his intended target.

'The man said sit down,' Jacob growled, raising his own revolver as additional incentive.

Understanding at last that he was done for, the final headhunter surrendered and moved over into the same chair that the young man had occupied a short time before. He kept his hands out in the open, not wanting to provoke any further violence to his person. He knew when he'd been beaten. These two chums obviously had the upper hand. Twas a shame to lose one thousand pounds but…. His life was dearer to him at this point. He'd only joined up with the other two because the money was good and he wasn't going to be alone. He'd heard of this Frye bastard: devious, ruthless, a killer through and through. Taking on him by his lonesome would have been a death sentence. Even three had proven to be no match for him.

'I'd offer you a drink,' drawled Dr. Watson, taking up a position away from the window but within easy reach should the prisoner try to make a run for it. 'But you destroyed the only one in sight.' He indicated the spilled whisky, dripping on the carpet from the table amid the shards of the glass container. 'Good whisky too, was it not, Mr. Frye?' he asked casually the deadly Assassin who smirked, his gun held close but not too close to the other's temple.

'My lads worked hard to procure it, chum,' he informed their silent captive in a slightly hard tone. 'I'm not happy that my friend here,' he gestured at Watson, who was rather surprised by that 'friend'. 'Will be left without a nightcap.'

The headhunter, beefy and truculent, snarled something but did not get up.

'Americans,' sighed Watson. 'All bark and no bite.' He sounded almost disappointed. Almost.

It was at this moment that a knock sounded at the door and Mrs. Hudson's voice asked what was going on.

'Everything is fine, Mrs. Hudson,' shouted Dr. Watson reassuringly. 'Just broken glass. Mr. Frye and I will fix it.'

'Slick,' Jacob congratulated the unlikely partner in interrogation with a curve of his lips.

'I do on occasion improvise,' admitted the former army sawbones with a thin smile of his own.

'Why don't we improvise an answer out of our new friend here?' the young Assassin suggested, his tone honey sweet and o so malicious.

'I had one thousand reasons to be here,' volunteered the only survivor of the Frye bastard hunting expedition. There was no reason to lie or hide anything: there were other hunters on the sodden rascal's trail. Two more groups that he knew of by rumour. 'We was to split the money three ways.'

'Three hundred pound apiece… Not a bad haul,' the prey turned hunter shrugged. 'So tell me how many more of you are out there? Should I be looking under every bush and around every corner?'

'I….' He hesitated, licking his lips, and then felt the mouth of the gun touch the clammy skin of his temple. 'Alright, alright… Jesus!' he threw up his hands which only served to disengage the safety on the doctor's revolver. 'Just… just let me…'

'Well?' he was prodded impatiently by the younger man whose fuse it appeared was getting rather short. Not truly a surprise: he'd been sitting and palavering with the other until they'd come in for a visit so to speak. 'Who hired you?'

'Never got his name, never saw his face neither,' the lone headhunter said, glancing between the two captors. 'It was all done by dropoff or messenger boys.'

Jacob snorted, rolling his eyes. Of course it bloody was! Moriaty and his two loyal hounds were not were not going to expose themselves until they were ready.

'Where were the dropoffs made?' inquired Dr. Watson - before his dubious partner did something rash. Like blow the man's brains out for instance. He was rather capable of doing just that in the practicing surgeon's experience. 'What company did the messenger boys come from?'

'I don't know,' replied the last of the trio of would be bounty collectors. 'Hawkes, the tall one, met with them, he picked up the instructions.' His green eyes shifted between the two men as he wondered which one of them was going to kill him: the older one didn't appear that bloodthirsty. He had the look of a respectable gentleman and those usually were the ones to look out for. The younger one was quite obviously the gunslinger of the pair: he had the look and the feel of menace on two legs. He'd slug him without a second thought.

'You know nothing then,' was the serene comment from the target become interrogator. 'So give me one reason to let you live.'

'I didn't say that!' the hunter shivered angrily, leaning away from the barrel of the pistol that loomed large in his eyes. 'I-I heard Hawkes mention a bar, pub,' he corrected himself quickly, hands up in a defensive gesture.

'Name?'

'The Fox's Fiddle… I think,' he said softly, licking his lips.

'That's in Southwark,' the Assassin said, glancing at the practicing surgeon who had not moved an inch but had the gun trained on their 'guest'. 'Let's take a nighttime stroll, shall we?'

'What about him?' Watson asked with a particularly keen regard for the younger man who appeared to be assessing whether or not to end the life of their murderous visitor.

'I think the carpeting has suffered enough, don't you?' was the cryptically ironic response of the other whose hand rose and then fell sharply, the butt of his revolver connecting with the back of the hapless hunter's head, stunning him into insensibility. 'You wouldn't happen to have a bit of rope, would you?'

'Mr. Frye, what can I do for you?' inquired the lushly bearded keeper of the bar at The Fox's Fiddle. He was of very obvious Irish extraction: his fiery red hair and facial decoration were dead giveaways as was his accent.

'I'm looking for a friend of mine, O'Donnell,' was the grinning Rook's reply as he slid onto the bar stool and leaned his elbows on the wooden and amazingly clean bar counter. 'Tall, wears a long coat, wide brimmed hat, has the swagger of a gunslinger.'

'He's American,' chimed in Watson, hanging his cane from the edge of the bar.

'He's with me,' explained the Assassin with a negligent gesture of the hand, noting the rather long stare of the Irishman. 'Dr. Watson, may I introduce you to Mr. O'Donnell, the owner of this fine establishment?'

The hirsute Celt nodded shortly, his white shirt straining across his back and shoulders. This pub was known far and wide in the district to be the one place to have a quiet pint without any undue interruptions of the obnoxious drunks and rival gangs. The Fox's Fiddle served the finest porter and ale, based on the recipes brought over from Ireland by its owner and founder Mr. O'Donnell of the Dublin clan of the same name. He'd decided to make his fortune in England after disagreeing with his brothers over women and politics one time too many. He'd haid seven brothers and one sister, who had the O'Donnell stubborn streak and was not willing to listen to any man who told her what to do. When she'd gone off with her man, he had been blamed as the one to encourage her to act on her whims. So, he had packed and left the most poisonous atmosphere of the family home.

'A pleasure, Mr. O'Donnell,' the surgeon replied, extending his hand which was taken in a very strong grip by the other.

'You're military,' commented the barkeeper, studying him intently from under bushy eyebrows.

'Formerly, yes,' confirmed the doctor sighing. 'The surgeon's corps. Afghanistan and India. Wounded in the leg, badly. So I retired.' He shrugged it off as had never liked to talk about his military life. It'd been traumatic enough and the lame leg was a constant reminder of the time better forgotten.

'This friend of yours,' O'Donnell remarked, taking out two glasses and pouring Irish whisky into each. 'He wouldn't happen to be standing behind you?' He smirked as the two men swung around, jaws dropping and one single word coming from their mouths.

'Holmes!'

It was indeed the good detective, in disguise that mirrored the lead headhunter's garb. For a moment Jacob thought the man had come back to life and then he shook his head. No one came back from beyond the grave - well, unless one discounted the aid of a stubbornly interfering sister and a mysterious artifact.

'You sly devil, Holmes!' he clapped the lanky long-faced private investigator on the shoulder. 'What are you doing here?'

'Looking for you, Mr. Frye,' was the composed response of the other, whose grey eyes gleamed with the light of success and fatigue. 'I've located professor Moriarty.'

'You don't say…' the Assassin whistled softly, handing one of the whisky glasses to the frozen-appearing secret agent. 'Where is he?'

Holmes, not answering the question, downed the flaming Irish liquor in one go and extended the glass for another helping.

'How did you find us, Holmes?' butted in the good doctor who never quite could understand some of the mysteries of the logic his friend used.

'I spoke to your green-eyed friend who was waiting for me in my living room,' he replied with an absolutely straight face. 'A bounty hunter after you, I believe,' he added with a glance at the young man whose face had lit up on recognizing the premier deductionist in Britain.

'Indeed, he was our bounty,' the youth confirmed, knocking back his first glass of Irish bitterness. 'Watson and I were engaged in a very passionate discussion of my 'return' when he and his two mates dropped in for an unexpected visit.' His tone was filled with merry sarcasm. The two older men exchanged quick glances with Watson appearing somewhat sheepish and Holmes his usual imperturbable self.

'Holmes, surely you cannot believe that it was all a set up!' whispered fiercely the former army surgeon, smacking his hand on the counter top which elicited a low growl from the Irishman barkeep nearby. He did not like his clients getting physical with his bar. 'Apologies, Mr. O'Donnell…'

'Perhaps a private booth would be a better venue for this enlightening discussion,' suggested Jacob, bottle of whisky and three glasses in hand, leading the way to the dimmer-lit corner of the pub where darker business was conducted, away from prying ears and eyes of the general clientele.

'So, Holmes, where is Moriarty hiding?' the young rogue asked once they were safety ensconced in the privacy of the little room and the three glasses were sparkling with the amber coloured firewater.

'I see you have come to the same conclusion as me,' was the measured reply of the smoking detective, his cigarette held casually between two fingers of his left hand, the elbow resting on the arm of the chair he was sitting in.

'Yes, indeed,' was the soft growl of the youngest member of the trio. 'He's been after me all this time, not you.'

'What?' Watson started, his hand tightening around the glass. 'After you?'

'This whole mess….' Jacob shook his head, his irritation at last beginning to show. 'After Evie and I disposed of Starrick, Moriarty tried to step into his shoes, fill the empty space where Starrick's empire had been.'

'And stumbled into the Rooks,' Holmes added, staring across the room at the wall on which hung the picture of the red-haired proprietor in white shirtsleeves, holding a brimming stein, the white foam just about ready to spill onto his hand. 'Recognizing that they were his chief rivals he attempted to dislodge them by getting rid of their leader.'

'Holmes, he went after you first though,' the doctor said, confused.

'He found out about our… friendship,' said the detective with a slight hesitation which did not go unnoticed by the other two men in the room. Jacob tried to smirk off the discomfort he felt: he'd been avoiding the other man, his too perceptive eyes and discerning mind. He'd needed time to himself to come to terms with what was happening to him - amidst all the running around dodging Muttoners and bounty hunters while attempting to pierce the professor's game. 'He engineered a rather clever scheme wherein Lord Buxton senior hired his gang to rid the world of me and of course our young friend here came to the rescue, rising to the occasion most splendidly.' His smile wasn't cutting. Quite. But still it stung. Obviously, the great detective was offended by the seeming indifference and distance of the Rooks' chief troublemaker. Logically of course he understood the young man's need to analyze and come to grips with what had occurred. Being pushed away though still hurt.

'The way I remember it,' the Assassin demurred slightly, gesturing with his glass in the detective's direction. 'You came to me for help. And I gave it. Freely.' His steady gaze held that of the older man whose facial expression did not change from his habitual detachment.

'And that too was part of his clever plan,' Holmes nodded, one knee over the other in a most relaxed position. 'He knew that I would come to you, drag you into this morass of his making.' He sighed in exasperation at his own shortsightedness. Perhaps his involvement with the young man had coloured his perceptions, had dulled the edge of his sharp intellect. Maybe the distance which Jacob had put between them hadn't been such a terrible idea after all.

'And that permitted him to declare open war on me and my gang,' added the increasingly impatient Assassin. Holmes had still not told him where Moriarty was and that was crucial information. He knew what had to be done: Moriarty had to die and he for once did not experience any moral misgivings about that. The man was evil, pure and simple. To call him diabolical was a compliment and not a disservice. He sat behind his desk and had others bleed and die for him. No more. Not after Jacob Frye was done with him. 'He may have started it but I intend to end it,' he continued harshly, staring at Holmes. He did not appear threatening, not to a casual observer, but Watson felt the radiating miasma of the pending explosion of temper. 'Where is he?' the discontented Assassin grated, each word ringing with exasperation and frustration. The past year and a half had truly tested his patience, his ingenuity, his nerves. Dying into the bargain had only added to that burden and quite frankly he wanted it all to be over. Soon. Right now. Tonight. Bounty hunters be damned.

'What about Lord Buxton and the Professor's two aides?' inquired the leading detective mind of London, nonchalantly like a man making small talk with a shrewd grey glance at his young partner whose eyebrows lifted.

'What of them?' he asked, shrugging and swirling the last of the amber colour in his glass.

'The young lord lives,' remarked Holmes quietly. 'Despite the Professor's desperate efforts to have you despatch him from this world.'

Watson's mouth fell open as his eyes moved rapidly between the two other men who had seemed to have forgotten him entirely.

'I am at no one's beck and call but my own,' was the rasping response of the scar-faced youth.

'That is precisely why I cannot divulge the Professor's location to you, dear Jacob,' the slim hound of the law said with finality.

A thick wall of silence descended on the room, solid enough to touch had Watson really wanted to do so. He sat rigid and stiff, holding his breath because he recognized that the long-awaited detonation was about to occur, the boiling chaos he had long since sensed in the leader of the criminal syndicate unleashed. His hand of its own volition moved towards the revolver he had hidden inside his jacket.

'Make no precipitate movements, dear Watson,' was the calm advice of his deductive friend who had not glanced in his direction. 'Mr. Frye has had a lot on his mind lately. It weighs heavily on him.' He had not adjusted his unworried posture one bit but the former army surgeon could tell that he was on edge: he had no more idea of what the temperamental gang boss would do than he had. 'Recovery from a near fatal wound is a drawn out fraught ordeal.' His tone had dropped into a breathy whisper. 'It changes a man. It makes him question who he is. What he is.' His mouth curved. 'You find your principles drifting.' He had the satisfaction of seeing the minute startlement on the young man's face. 'You lash out. You strike on instinct. You hunt the one who had dared to injure you so badly. You play his game. You lose.'

'Holmes…' The practicing surgeon shivered: he could not understand the undercurrents of what was going on here, what the contest of wills was all about between these two headstrong men. 'What are you saying?'

'The professor has set another trap for you,' Holmes said, ignoring the medical professional for now. 'The tokens, Evans, Mr. Roger….'

'He wants me to kill the young fool, I know,' the Assassin interrupted roughly. 'I'm not playing his chess game anymore.' He rose, unhurriedly unfolding from the chair like an angel of darkness. 'I will find him on my own then.'

'The professor stays at the young lord's Coventry estate,' remarked the detective before the impetuous youth had taken one step. 'He waits for you.'

'Then I shall pay him a visit,' was the firm statement of the Assassin who'd already made up his mind. 'And you two will come with me.'

'He is coming,' whispered the emaciated old man, his long black coat lending him a bat-like appearance. He gazed out of the window at the snow settling over the grounds of the young lord's Coventry estate. 'He is coming here.' Not entirely unexpected, this reckless move on the part of his young adversary. He would have done the same in his place. However, he was no Jacob Frye, the dead man arisen from the dead. How? How had that happened? Mr. Finch's bullet had found its mark. The greatest sniper in Her Majesty's infantry had not missed. Neither he nor his aide had any doubt about that. It was not possible to return from the grave. Not possible at all.

And yet….

Was Jacb Frye's spirit so strong that he could will himself back to life?

Had he underestimated this extraordinarily chaotic youth? Again?

Had he grown so old as to make mistakes like this?

'What are your orders, professor?' inquired Mr. Finch, who'd been with him for years. Ever since his dishonorable discharge from the rifle regiment over the matter of killing another officer and placing the blame on a third. Gambling, so he'd heard. Gambling debts had led to the murder and the courtmartial.

'Go to Coventry railway station,' he instructed, shaking himself loose from the dreamy reverie. 'They will undoubtedly be on their train.' He half-turned, hands always clasped behind his back, his features impassive in the lamp light. 'Give them a warm Coventry welcome.'

'Of course, sir,' responded his loyal aide with a crisp nod of the head. 'Mr. Griffiths,' he added, tuning to the shorter and stockier second adjutant to the professor. 'We'll need a cargo cart.'

'There they are,' Mr. Finch said softly, nodding in the direction of the approaching train, its headlight clearly visible even through the thickening snow. The steam locomotive was coming at at slow clip, brakes applied, almost soundless if not for the creak of metal hinges between the train cars and the hard thudding of the wheels as they hit the grooves of the rails. 'Rifles ready,' he ordered cooly, glancing around at the remaining Hemlocks and new recruits under his command. This was just like India where he'd been in charge of crack troops of snipers and sharpshooters. These were far from being so well-disciplined but they knew their trade. 'Shoot anyone that so much as shows their nose.' He laid his rifle across the top of the second crate in the wall of others that served as a barricade closing off access to the stairs and bridges that led to Warwick street, the only way to get into Coventry Station.

'Yes, sir,' muttered one of his 'soldiers' to the left. 'What of the Frye boy?'

'Don't touch him,' Mr. Finch replied, in a tone that brooked no argument. 'He's mine.'

'It's awfully quiet,' Watson remarked, glancing through the closed window of the forward carriage as the train pulled into the dark and silent station. 'Do you really think they're waiting for us?'

'I am sure of it,' Holmes replied, his warm huntsman's garb incongruously clean given the night of work ahead of them. 'The welcoming committee is without a doubt hidden behind those crates, waiting for us to show ourselves.' He gestured out of the dark car at the equally dark platform.

'They will attack surely,' the military mind surmised, rolling the chamber of his revolver and taking up a strategic position so that he could have a clear view of the train station, empty of any people awaiting a train. 'As soon as we open the door.'

'Of course,' the great logician agreed with a slight shrug of his shoulders. 'That is what we are all counting on,' he added with a smile at the extraordinarily dressed young woman who had just finished arming herself for battle. Miss Evie Frye, her hair carefully tucked away under the hood that was the signature of the Order she belonged to, nodded at the tall slim gentleman.

'Distract them long enough for me and the lads to set the explosives,' she instructed, closing her winter leather and fur coat over a vest of dynamite sticks, the same ones being worn by the gang members they'd brought along for this were gathered in another car, just waiting for the order. 'We must buy my brother enough time to reach the estate.'

Perched up in the boughs of an old oak, its dry bark cracked from the many frosts it had been through over the decades, the morose figure in dark garb studied the manor house built in a mix of Tudor and New Gothic styles, a bizarre combination of turrets, chimneys and tall narrow windows recessed into the stonework of the facade. Many handholds for him to use, many points of entry. Which one to choose? Which one would be the best to gain access to the Professor? Which one would keep the young lord out of his hair? He really did not fancy another meeting with the snivelling aristo: killing him would not solve anything, would just be pointless.

'Where would a spider be spending his nights?' he muttered under his breath, vapour steaming in a small cloud in front of his face. He rubbed his gloved hands together, observing the large black edifice which was lit only by the lamps lining the driveway that led up from the fenced gate to the front doors, all locked of course. Windows on this side of the mansion were all black holes, like empty sockets in a skull. He saw no obvious guards or other living means of security. Was the professor truly so confident of his safety? Or was this just another ruse like everything else up to this point?

'Only one way to find out,' he murmured, perusing the thickly wooded surroundings of the mansion. The Coventry manor house of the young aristocrat was set rather nicely amidst a wood made up of oaks, elms, and beeches, large leafy trees that permitted an Assassin to be easily concealed among them. Having left the horse and carriage two miles out, he'd taken to the treetops in order to avoid leaving any footprints behind for the decoys to discover later - if they survived his sister, Holmes and Watson's diversion at the Coventry train station.

With a soft grunt he leapt from his current perch onto the extended thick limb of the tree on his right, waited a moment to balance himself and then walked at a half crouch along the length of the tree's arm to the trunk, which he brushed by in order to get at the next section. From time to time he'd stop to assess if there were any other noises, any alarm raised. However, he heard and saw nothing besides the gently falling snow. It appeared that the good Professor had dispatched all of his troops to the train station. And that made no sense. The old haggard man wasn't a fool. What game was he playing now? And did it matter? He was going to die tonight, either way. Jacob Frye had lost any kind of patience for the cunning underhandedness of the mathematical genius. Enough was enough. He was going to rip through that tiresome tangle with his usual unpredictability of action.

Branches creaked under his weight as he moved across the top of the woods that closed in the wealthy lordling's home, the hideout for his 'friend' and 'advisor'. According to what Holmes did finally tell them on the train, the Professor had indeed tried to get the Assassin to get rid of the nuisance which was Lord Victor Alfred Buxton, whose lands the conniving mathematician had had confiscated in the first place. He was playing with the young lord much as he had been playing with the head of the Rooks. He'd easily had taken charge of the short-sighted Buxton, whose desire for revenge on his father's killer was apparent and fuelled its flames by having him drop into the fight club as if by chance so that he could come face to face with the man who'd murdered his father. What he had not counted on was Jacob's reluctance to kill the aristocratic fool. As far as the Rook was concerned, the wealthy aristocrat was a nonentity: he had no backbone. Eliminating him would do nothing except give Moriarty another axe to hold over his head. Or had the professor been counting on his erratic adversary to do exactly that, ignore the opportunity for ridding himself of a man who clearly hated him?

He kneaded his face, skin a little cold in the fresh and crisp winter night air. The time for questions and reflection was over. He'd been thinking too much for too long these past months since his 'reawakening'. Time to polish off the brash Jacob of old and set him loose. This was a night for reckless action, not maudlin wondering about the whys and wherefores of a nasty old man whose life had to end in a gush of blood by his hand.

'One last lesson, professor,' he whispered from under the warmth of the hood that was the signature of an Assassin on the prowl, his sharp eyes scanning the back side of the house. No lights here either. The mansion gave off the impression of being deserted: no one and no thing stirred in the grounds, no lamps peered from the windows. Could be thick drapes on the other side that hi any light source. So thoroughly? Was that even possible?

'The roof it is then,' he decided, glancing up at the fingers of the chimneys, some of which smoked slowly, curls of dark vapour mingling with the falling snow. Someone must be there then tending the fires. Wouldn't do to leave a flame unattended and have the house burn down, would it?

Finding a thick wide limb of another oak tree, the hunter of two legged prey extended his left arm, the thick bracer shuddering as the rope launcher was released and his body was tugged after it, pulled along the sturdy rope with the strength of his entire body, fit and ready for any kind of action, be it a brawl or a precise strike of the blade that lay next to the grappling mechanism on the underside of the gauntlet. Grasping the edge of the eave that ran around the mansion he pulled himself up and rested a moment, listening carefully. No alarm. No sounds to signal that he'd been seen. What the devil…?

Taking careful steps across the shingles he searched for a hatch into the attic or an open turret window. At the very least a large enough window that could be broken and allow him access inside. He was aware of leaving tracks in the snow behind him. That, however, could not be helped. And who would be smart enough to look up here anyway, besides Holmes, who didn't miss much?

'There you are,' he mumbled into his hands, his eyes finding a door that led into one of the small towers between two tall chimneys. Picking the lock was a matter of seconds for an expert such as himself with the professional tools to hand. The door squealed a little bit when he opened it. He entered and shut it behind him, darkness enveloping him. He sniffed a bit as the slightly warmer air touched his bare face.

'Alright, dear professor, where are you?'

The attic was unlit but that did not prove to be much of a problem. Eyes flashing gold from time to time he found his way warily across the wooden floor, built well and not creaking. Still, it paid to be as noiseless as possible. He didn't want to scare off the malicious old man. He wanted to spring on him from the shadows as a true Assassin would. That's what Evie would do, what his father had expected him to do.

'Damn it, Father, leave me be!' he whispered under his breath. 'I need to find me a door.' Which was exactly what he saw several minutes later: a hatch in the floor. Locked of course. However, for a master lockpicker that didn't prove to be much of a problem. Lifting the wooden square of the ceiling door he held his breath for a moment, listening. No sounds. Only silence. Not even a candle in the room below him. Marvellous. Hanging by his hands he counted to five and then dropped down into a crouch on the carpet, glancing around the room. Small like a servant's quarters. Shelves along the walls but not for books. Drapes drawn on the windows. Now he understood why he couldn't see inside. Another lock picked and a long corridor greeted him, dark too like the room. More shut doors on either side of it as he walked without undue haste. Minimizing the noise was crucial.

'Hm…' He was at the end of the servants' passageway and a staircase led down, well-maintained by the looks of it. Leading to the main floors where bedrooms, guest rooms, dining room and kitchen would be located. An old man needed his sleep, though. Made sense to check the bedrooms first. 'That would be the second floor.'

Thankful for the carpeting that the rich liked to put along the corridors where they walked, the gang boss who was so much more than that paced with caution nonetheless. It wouldn't do for a servant to be wandering around at night and coming upon him: he truly had no wish to kill anyone except the old bastard. Using his special gift, which permitted him to peer inside the sleeping chambers along the way without undue racket he discovered that the professor was not asleep in any of them.

'Well, if he isn't sleeping,' he smiled in the shadow of the leather Assassin hood. 'Then he's planning.'

The study. A scholarly man always had a study. He had probably appropriated Lord Buxton's for his purposes. Speaking of which…. Why wasn't Lord Buxton sleeping? He glanced thoughtfully back along the way he'd come, frowning. That sixth or even seventh sense at the back of his skull was whispering bits and pieces of warning once more this night, premonitions that this had been too easy. No resistance whatsoever. That could not be possible. Nevertheless…

'The course is set…'

Taking another carpeted staircase down to the first floor where the study would be, the head of the London criminal syndicate hesitated for a moment, letting his senses stretch out to seek his prey. Ah… there… on the right, through that door into a suite of rooms which would have been Lord Buxton's study and reception area. Yet another lock undone, despite the increasing volume of the forebodings in his mind, another carpeted room that muffled his steps and at last… he was there… the door swung open on well-oiled hinges to introduce him into the only room that had a light: a table lamp on the desk that sat in front of a thickly draped window, a large well-upholstered armchair with its back turned to the door completed the set up. Various bookshelves and tables lined the walls of the large room, wood panelling on the walls in between. The very epitome of luxury that the poor folks of London and all Empire for that matter could only dream of.

'At last,' he whispered, walking over to the chair, Hidden Blade snicking into place. 'Bloody hell!'

Lord Victor Alfred Buxton, eyes staring sightlessly out front, sat frozen in death in the armchair, his hands resting lightly on the cushioned arms, his bespoke dark blue suit clean and brushed, a bit of drool out of the left side of his weak mouth, his freckled features stiff and the skin the colour of marble. He was dead, as clear as daylight. Dead without any wounds on him except…

'Bollocks!'

Out of the right side of his neck projected a capsule, a very familiar capsule, made of glass and brass, the same kind as the one on his gauntlet. For a split moment he stared in incomprehension and then it came to him in a rush of hot emotion and hasty thought. Damn… someone had beat him to it, had ended the young aristo's life and he knew very well who that was.

'You sodden bastard….'

He had to go, now. All his instincts were screaming and shrieking at him to move, to get his sweet posterior out. Because this was a set up, all a set up. Another trap by that arachnid of a mathematician. A trap he'd walked into, put his foot in as it were. He had to leave.

He was just about to make for the door when it opened and a harsh voice spoke, 'Stay where you are.' A policeman entered, followed by two others, one of them vaguely familiar. He tensed, ready to fight, assassin his chances. 'You're under arrest.' They fanned out in a half circle revealing two more coppers revolvers and batons at the ready. Not too many but… those batons. The coppers carrying them certainly knew how to use them. He'd felt their bite a time or two. 'For the murder of Lord Buxton.'

The Assassin was moving even before he'd formulated a conscious thought, before he could stop the fight or flight instinct which this time told him to fly, flee NOW before he was captured, before they saw his real face. To the shouts of the Bobbies who'd clearly not expected their prey to make a run for it, he leapt at the window, shattering it and falling out in a tinkling shower of glass pieces to the snow. Rolling with the momentum of the fall he got to his feet and ran across the open snow-covered lawn, the driveway to his left, lamps twinkling through the thickening snow.

'Shoot him!'

'Shoot him DOWN!'

He threw himself one way and another, zigzagging so as to present a less well-defined target. Nevertheless, it appeared there was at least one sharp shooter in the lot. He'd just made a lunge to the left when a bullet hit him in the right shoulder twisting him and then another in the left calf, the stinging pain of that dropping him to the snow in a spray of white powder. He crawled, the shock to the system giving him adrenaline to get up and take a few more stumbling steps, ignoring the pain, biting back the groans. Damn, damn damn!

'Grab him!' shouted that same voice that had commanded the shots that pushed him into a different direction. 'Hold him steady!' He was pinned to the snow, one man literally sitting on his back, while another cuffed him and then together they hauled him up, strong hands holding him as that slightly familiar figure approached him past two of the coppers who had their guns trained on him and yanked his hood back from his head.

'Mr. Frye, fancy finding you here, so far from your stomping grounds of London,' drawled the voice he'd heard once before out of a face he'd seen in a tavern, the face of the man who'd picked up a bag of stag tokens from one of Moriarty's agents.

'Evans…' He spat on the snow next to the triumphantly sneering chief inspector of Scotland Yard, his eyes gleaming with anger, mostly at himself, at his stupidity. How had he not seen this coming? Why had he ignored his own disquiet. 'I see you heard your master's call.' Sneer for sneer: Jacob Frye could do it with the best.

'Silence, dog!' was the answer of one of the mustachioed representatives of the local law as he delivered a punch to the young rogue's midsection, with enough force to knock the breath out of him. Compared to the growing pain of his bent shoulder that was nothing. He'd had worse.

'Is that all you got, cur?' he asked as impudently as he could master, well aware of what would come next. Let them. Let them try. He wasn't going down without a fight, slugs or not. He'd never been one to bow down and he wasn't about to start now.

'You!' the insulted copper raised a fist but Evans stopped him, blocking the other's arm.

'No,' he said, staring at all the Bobbies he'd brought with him. 'Not like this.' He turned to the unresisting Assassin, measuring him with a contemptuous stare of the righteous arm of the British law: finally the rebel reprobate would be brought to justice and Abberline with him. 'The law will take its course with this one.' He gestured with his head. 'Take him in.'