Chapter Six: Climax

"Are you Jack Holmes?" asked David McGuiness. From my position, curled into a ball on the floor with my wrists and ankles bound, I searched Mr. McGuiness for injuries before I responded. There was a dreadful jagged cut above his right brow, and it was still dripping with blood. Rips and tears appeared as I scanned my eyes over his torso. This man was handled roughly. Finally, I met his eyes again. His face was dreadfully pale.

"I have a reason to know your name, Mr. McGuiness, but how on earth came you to possess mine?" I asked, trying to pull myself into a sitting position. My head swam, and I thought better of it. Mr. McGuiness shifted uncomfortably, his hands tied behind him and his legs tied in two different places. He had put up quite a struggle.

"Gerald and his men have been talking about you non-stop since this morning," Mr. McGuiness informed me with a growl, his now vicious eyes darting to the shadowy form of his former best friend in the next room. He looked back to me. "Hannah went to Scotland Yard to look for him, which was where he was supposed to be in the first place, when he had actually returned here to make sure that I hadn't found a way out. They met halfway between the two points, I suppose. Anyway, Hannah told Gerald about going to see you, Mr. Holmes, and he's been pouring over the newspapers and getting paler and paler. Sorry it had to come to this, Mr. Holmes." I knew that he was referring to the rather large welt that was forming on the back of my head.

"No, the fault lies with me..." I trailed off, then berated myself softly. "Why did I leave Watson behind? You're a damned fool, Jack Holmes."

"Mr. Holmes?" Mr. McGuiness's voice was lower now, as one of the paid thugs lumbered past. I nodded to indicate that I was listening. "... How is Hannah?"

"She is doing well, considering the circumstances," I murmured lowly. "Though she nearly lost herself at the sight of your blood." Mr. McGuiness moved his arm as is he was to wipe away the blood from his brow, but he sighed, remembering the abrasive rope at his wrists.

"Why would Gerald do this? He hasn't sent for ransom, and he hasn't told me why, other than 'You know' and a quick laugh."

"Mr. Heyman is a man who does not think things over before he does them, Mr. McGuiness," I added in a louder voice as Gerald Heyman himself walked by. I could see his cold eyes look down at me, then a smirk. I continued. "He is also a man who has no thoughts other low, primal instincts. He sees a woman, and it must be his." Heyman's pupils contracted in fear, for only a moment. "But what to do," I mused sarcastically, "when a woman cannot be his? Why, get rid of the only thing standing in his way, of course. And, how fortunate that the only obstacle thinks himself to be your best friend, am I correct, Mr. Heyman?"

Stars flashed before my eyes as Heyman's boot connected with my stomach. I doubled up painfully, allowing for a groan to exit my lips.

"You're too cocky for your own good, Mr. Holmes." With that, he walked away into the adjoining room. I nodded in consent, closing my eyes against the pain. Yes, I could be awfully cocky, couldn't I?

'You could stand to tone it down a bit, Jack,' Holmes said with an unreadable tone in his voice.

"Thank you," I muttered sarcastically. The room became quiet after Heyman's departure. I listened to the mutterings through the walls. They apparently were planning our executions. How pleasant of them.

A small noise in the far corner of the room caught my attention. The window had shifted open. But no one was standing at the window. It had opened from the outside. I squinted in the half-darkness of the dim room to see who it was. A head covered in messy blonde hair shoved its way in through the window and dashed noiselessly across the room in bare feet. I did not realize who it was until the creature had pulled a dirty Swiss knife from a pocket and began to saw away at my bonds.

"Judith!" I exclaimed in a soft whisper. Her jovial little face bobbed up to flash me a smile, and she continued to work at severing the thick rope with the dull knife. "How on earth did you know that I was here?"

"It's what we're s'posed to do, Mr. Holmes, sir." She was trying her damnedest to cut the ropes, but they did not want to yield. Mr. McGuiness, thankfully, said nothing of the urchin intruder, or how I came to know her name. Just as the first layer of rope began to feel the cut, a shout sounded from outside the door.

"Oh, Watson," I chided softly, feeling my heart sink, "why now?" Just as these words left me, the front door to the room burst open to reveal Watson, Ron, and Sara McGuiness, each with a gun in their hand. I winced again when I saw that they were simply props from the traveling troupe, and Heyman would surely notice. Judith jumped at the sound and ducked behind me, cowering.

"Mr. McGuiness! Holmes!" Watson's voice called. I inhaled. The two hired thugs were down, hiding beneath a long table, for they had not yet glimpsed the amateur intruders. Heyman, on the other hand, was up, his gun pointing at the door. A round was fired. A gasp and a thud. Another loud shot, but it echoed as it drilled through the wood of the doorframe. The thugs were up, and two screams as the two remaining children were captured. I exhaled. My heart, having jumped into my throat at the sound of Heyman's gun, dropped low into the very pit of my gut, seeing Watson and Ronald carried into the room by the thugs, and Heyman himself throwing the bleeding Sara McGuiness at the feet of her brother.

"Another rescue attempt, McGuiness?" Heyman asked as he looked at the bullet wound in Ms. Sara's side. "You must've become very popular while you were gone." He shrugged, holstering his gun. "Then again, they say you're only truly famous after you're dead."

"Sara!" Mr. McGuiness's sorrow-laced voice echoed through the empty house. Ms. Sara stirred, but only to moan in agony and shift position. Watson, his face pale and distraught as he stared at her writhing form, tried to shake himself from the thug's grasp.

"Let go! She needs a doctor!"

"I thought you were a journalist, scout," Heyman said as he absently thumbed through one of Watson's stories in the usurped notebook. He closed it with a snap. "Make up your mind, because I would want to know what to put in your obituary."

Watson stopped struggling, his face devoid of color. Judith shivered from her hiding spot, still unseen by Heyman and his lackeys.

"But," Heyman shrugged, retrieving his gun once again, "why start with the little sidekick when I can off the hero first?" The barrel of the gun flashed to point straight at my forehead. I was frozen, and my heart skipped a beat. "You've bothered everyone for far too long, Mr. Holmes." The hammer clicked back, and I squeezed my eyes shut. This was it. The famous detective loses his life before he's even famous.

"Wait!" A voice cried out. It took me a moment to recognize it as Ron's. I opened my eyes. Everyone was staring at the boy, including Heyman. I was shocked to see that he had great, fat tears rolling down his face. "Don't kill him!" Ron cried, literally. Then came the shock that bowled me over completely. "Don't kill him! He's my brother!"

Everyone was still. It seemed to me as if time itself had stopped to listen. I stared, open-mouthed, as Ron brought his eyes up to look at me, the same brown eyes of my father. A jolt cracked through my chest, and I knew that it was true. I looked at the round-faced, dirt-encrusted boy and saw my brother. Ronald Joseph Holmes II.

Time seemed to start once again, and Heyman's eyes were again on me, and his finger pulled on the trigger. Judith's tiny hands grabbed me from where I was half-sitting and pulled me to the ground where she had lain just as the trigger was pulled back, and the bullet whizzed harmlessly through the air. Heyman blinked for an instant, then aimed again for my head, his face red with anger.

The window above us shattered into a rain of sharp glass, and the same could be said for the window that Judith had crawled in through. Heyman's second shot went wild as a sea of dirty urchin children streaming in from all sides diverted his attention. In the surprise of the attack, the two thugs were easily taken down and battered into unconsciousness with a varying array of blunt objects. Heyman was quicker.

Five children launched themselves at Heyman, and with all the strength in their tiny bodies, bit, scratched and hammered away at his body. Heyman, infuriated to the point of insanity, threw the children off of him, and their bodies hit the floor with a series of dull thuds. Watson and Ron were free of their captors, and were helping the Irregulars to subdue them and bind their hands. With a snap, I felt that Judith had finally freed my hands, and without a word, I worked furiously to undo the bindings on my legs.

My hand shot out for the gun that Heyman had dropped in his furious flight, and I took off after him, my long legs aching from my obvious beating while unconscious, but I pushed myself. I had almost failed to notice Ron at my side. Heyman had fled to the kitchen, where he was attempting to fit his overly large self through the tiny window. I held the gun up to aim at him, just as he had done to me.

"Halt, Heyman, or I shall be forced to kill you!" My own voice surprised me, as it came in more of a growl than a shout. Heyman paused, and it seemed as if he was caught in the window. He looked up, and I could see fear in his eyes. I shook my head as I stared at his sad form, at the sad human being he had become. "For a woman, Heyman? You were willing to kill innocent children for a woman?" Heyman's eyes, terribly clear and lucid, began to fog over, and a cruel smile came to his lips.

"For a woman as beautiful as Hannah, I would kill myself."

And he did.

I ran to the window, all too late. Looking down from the shattered glass and the torn window frame, I looked down into the dark alley below, and exhaled in defeat. Heyman's bloody, twisted body lay three stories below, his head caved in upon the side of a discarded writing desk.

I pulled my head back inside, utterly exhausted, physically and mentally. I discarded the gun in the sink, disgusted by its presence. I sat myself bodily into one of the old, creaky chairs and stared blankly in front of me. It was a minute or two before I realized that I was seized between a pair of arms, and a sobbing head was lying on my chest.

"Ron," I murmured throatily, and he looked up with uncharacteristic tears in his eyes. Before I could control myself, I grabbed him in my own arms and embraced him back, tears springing to my eyes. "My brother."

There we sat, for more than five minutes, embracing each other as if we would never see the other again, and weeping. It took Watson's shouts from the other room to stir us, wiping our eyes and getting unsteadily to our feet. I mussed his dark hair, so much like mine.

Ronald Holmes, my brother.

----

AN: There's the twist! AHH! Were you surprised? I hope I didn't give it away too early, though I gave you plenty o' hints. We've still got a chapter or 2 to do, so don't leave your seats yet, ladies and germs. Oh, and tell me what you think of my story... please?