CHAPTER 2: QUEEN OF POISONS

THURSDAY, APRIL 16, 2015

The world fell away.

Sherlock felt as though unseen hands were arresting him, clutching his shoulders and pushing him back by the chest as he sprinted for the door. It was like running in a dream, legs paralysed and heartbeat slowed to a steady throb. The only sound was the strident tick of an unmerciful clock. But this was no dream. At least, not the kind he could wake from. Behind him, like a distorted echo:

Wait for me! Wait for me! Don't open the door!

They were words he couldn't heed. He could not stop, not even when his half-healed ankle twisted on the bottom step and he collapsed to his chest. He felt no pain, only bodily numbness as he scrambled up again to keep pace with his thrumming heart and the eternal clock.

He threw open the front door. The cool air shocked his senses, and everything came into pinprick focus: Beneath the streetlamps, laid out on his side, his brother's unmoving form lay like a fallen giant. Sherlock hit the ground beside him, knees oblivious to his crash, and took hold of Mycroft's shoulders to roll him onto his back.

Eyes sealed. Mouth slack. Body cold.

No. No no no think! See, observe, reason. No no no! Not happening, this could not be happening!

His brain skittered as eyes darted from the wet line of tears tracking down the side of Mycroft's face, to his swollen, reddened lips, to flecks of vomit down his front. His chest was flat, hands senseless.

Not real not real, this could not be real. He felt like he was dying.

'John!' Sherlock cried in anguish, a ragged scream shaking his whole body.

As if conjured there, John was instantly at his side, pulling him to his feet and away from the body. 'Back, I need you to move back,' John said. Then, 'Take the gun.'

Sherlock didn't know where it came from, but suddenly there was a cold pistol in his hands, and John was on the pavement, checking for signs of life.

Please, he thought, lips moving but unable to speak for the constriction in his throat. Please.

'He's not breathing,' said John. 'No pulse. Vomit on his breath. May be asphyxiation. Call 999, right now.' Then he raised himself up, interlocked his fingers over Mycroft's breastbone, and began chest compressions to do the work Mycroft's heart could not. He pumped a sure, steady rhythm. Press. Press. Press.

Sherlock stared, frozen. Mycroft's body jarred like a mannequin with each downward thrust, merely an object being acted upon by a greater force. A head lolling against the hard pavement, heavy like a rounded stone.

'Sherlock! Now!'

He pivoted for the door and launched himself across the threshold, the gun still in hand. 'Mrs Hudson!' he cried, but he needn't have done. She had heard the blasts of the car horn and his and John's footsteps crashing down the stairs. Standing in her doorway in her nightdress, she hit the switch and looked fearfully out into the hallway.

'Call an ambulance!'

He didn't wait to see her disappear from her doorway before he was rushing back outside in time to see John lifting Mycroft's chin with two fingers, pinching his nose, and lowering his mouth.

Something flashed in his brain, bright as lightning, and he thrust an arm forward to seize a fistful of John's shirt. 'No!' He jerked John away from Mycroft's body so violently John cried aloud and landed on his backside.

'Sherlock!' John protested.

'He's been poisoned!'

The text:C34H47NO11. Not just a random sequence of letters and numbers. It was a chemical formula, and it had led him to aconitine, a lethal poison ingested or absorbed by the skin. And there, right there, was the inflammation around Mycroft's lips. He saw it more clearly now: lipstick, smudged, rubbed away, and there, too, was the proof of it, smeared on the back of his right hand, which had also taken on the inflamed quality of a rash. Mycroft had been given a deadly kiss.

'It's on his lips, his hand, in his skin and blood. You can't touch it, John, you can't.'

'He needs air!'

'You can't,' Sherlock sobbed. 'She's killed him. My god, she's killed my brother.'

But John had scrambled upright again and did not cease to pump Mycroft's heart. Press. Press. Press.

'An ambulance is coming, Sherlock.'

He heard Mrs Hudson's voice behind him, and he whirled, shouting, 'Stay inside!'

'Oh, Mr Holmes!' she said, seeing Mycroft on the pavement.

'Plastic, I need a sheet of plastic!' said John. 'Cellophane, a shopping bag, anything!'

'Go!' Sherlock barked, and Mrs Hudson fled back inside.

For seven minutes, as the neighbours watched in horrified but silent fascination from behind dark windows, Sherlock paced, pistol quivering in his hands, eyes locked on John's futile efforts. Seven minutes and ever-ticking seconds. Mrs Hudson had brought Cellophane, and John used a sheet of it as a glove to first clear Mycroft's mouth of vomit, and another with a hole torn through to act as a shield as he performed rescue breaths, their two mouths sealed together with Cellophane and pressure. Mycroft's chest swelled with John's air, and deflated again, a bag squeezed of oxygen. Two breaths, and thirty chest compressions. Then two more. Sherlock counted them. For seven minutes, he counted the artificial pumps designed to keep the blood circulating (seventy-seven, seventy-eight, seventy-nine); he counted the forced breaths delivering oxygen to deprived cells (eleven . . . twelve). His lips formed the numbers; his brain stored them in an ever-increasing series in a registry. Aloud, he whispered, for he had no breath with which to speak, 'I'm sorry, Mycroft. Oh god, I'm sorry.'

'Shut up, Sherlock,' John snapped, but Sherlock heard it in his voice: he was tiring, and Sherlock didn't know how much longer he would last. He didn't know whether every downward press was in vain.

Then came the wailing call of an approaching ambulance. Seconds later, speeding up Baker Street, flashing lights and a yellow emergency vehicle came into view. Still administering compressions, John looked up and murmured, 'Put the gun away, Sherlock.'

But Sherlock stood insensate, arms hanging uselessly at his sides, right hand barely even curled around the grip. Getting no response, John reached for the pistol himself from where he sat on his knees, tucked it into the back of his trousers, and resumed the work of Mycroft's lungs and heart.

Next Sherlock knew, the pavement was crowded with a team of paramedics. John took his arm and pulled him out of their way. Perhaps John said something to them, or to him; perhaps he even answered. If so, he was on autopilot, a computer receiving commands and returning information. As for the man, he heard nothing, felt nothing. It was as if his brain had stopped functioning altogether, registering nothing but the sight of Mycroft's body being lifted, set upon a gurney, and slid into the back of the ambulance like meat on a tray. Just as they were closing the doors, he felt jolted to life. With his flinch, John's hand tighten around his arm, but he pulled away, rushing for the ambulance.

'Let me in!' he cried. 'He can't be alone, let me in!'

'Mr Holmes, there's no room.'

'Let him in, that's his brother,' said John, steady and commanding. 'There's room enough.'

They let him into the back of the ambulance, where one paramedic was squeezing the bag of an oxygen mask, and another was straddling Mycroft's body, continuing the chest compressions John had begun. John.

Sherlock turned back, looking for him, and found him standing barefoot in the street. 'John?' he said, reaching back for him.

'I'll be right behind, Sherlock.'

'John.'

The doors closed, trapping him in a large, steel box, which began to move at once. It felt like the inside of a coffin.

Anthea awoke in a different kind of steel, moving box, blood pounding in her temples and shoulder muscles wrenched. Disoriented in mind and body, minutes passed before she could identify the loud hum filling her ears, shaking her skull: a car's engine. She tried to move, but in that dark, constricted space she discovered her hands bound. Electric tape, she thought, which circled her wrists and pulled the small hairs of her hands and arms. It sealed her mouth, too, as she discovered when she tried to part her lips to breathe more easily, or to scream.

She was in the boot of a car. Whose car? She struggled to remember, but her mind was still fogged, rendering the memory hazy. Last she had known for certain, she had been in the back of the town car. She had received a phone call. Two minutes. Have the car ready. But having anticipated his command, as she always did, she was already on her way. It's what made her such a good assistant. Thirty seconds later, they had pulled up to the building, she and Davenport, as reliable as ever, and then . . .

Davenport. That's when she noticed him: He was in the boot with her. The fog evaporated in an instant, and she remembered it all: The moment he had parked the car, in the very second she had put her hand on the door to push it open, someone else had pushed inside. They came in from either door, two men, and while one wrestled her into the backseat, the other stuck her. A needle on the end of a syringe, plunging into the side of her neck. She could now feel the soreness, the swelling. The drug had been fast-acting. For another twenty or thirty seconds, she fought, but she was too well pinned. Her phone had been knocked to the floor; in the front, Davenport huffed and struggled, his muffled grunts of pain telling her that he was losing his battle as well. And then she was gone.

Sodium thiopental. She was sure of it. A short-term anaesthetic, it meant that no more than ten or fifteen minutes could have passed since the syringe had been emptied into her bloodstream and flooded her brain. Her nose was now crushed against Davenport's knees; his chin dug into her shin. But he was as yet unmoving. While she waited for the effects to wear off for him, she wondered: Had Mycroft Holmes discovered their abduction? Was he deploying his resources to get them back? Or had he been left with bigger fish to fry? Given the choice between saving his assistant and driver or handling far graver matters, she knew which Mr Holmes would choose. She and Davenport were expendable. He had always made that perfectly clear, and it was a truth she had accepted long ago.

The minutes dragged by quietly, but for the drone of the engine and the jostling of the car that rocked them back and forth like an aggressive cradle. Still, Davenport was not waking. Maybe he had put up a greater fight. Maybe they had used something stronger on him. Whimpering—for she could not speak his name with her tape-covered mouth—she tried to jar him with her legs, but he remained unresponsive. What's more, his body blocked her access to the boot's release lever. If she could but wake him, they could coordinate an escape. The vehicle had to slow eventually, and when it did, they had to be ready to push open the lid, drop, and roll.

For several miles, she fought the binds on her hands and worked the tape across her mouth, forcing her tongue between her lips to dampen the sticky side and loosen its hold. Fingernails scraped at the edges but had difficulty finding purchase. When at last they did, she pulled, and it felt like she was tearing off her own skin. But she swallowed her scream, and when her mouth was finally free of the tape, she used her teeth to gnaw at the binds on her wrists. In that oxygen-depleted box, the work exhausted her, but she never paused, never succumbed to the likelihood that her efforts would prove pointless, and never once felt sorry for herself. In her task to free herself and her companion, she was single-minded, and she would fight until her last breath to see it done.

Just as she had chewed through the last of the tape, the car slowed and turned. More than half an hour had passed since she had woken, and Davenport still had given no signs of life. She thought surely he was dead. But as the roar of the engine lessened, she heard his laboured breathing, and she felt the paradox of relief: they were both alive, but surely they were headed to their deaths. With hands now free, she tried rousing him again, but the most she was able to evoke was a senseless grunt.

She deduced that they were far outside London by the time the car came to a near stop. The track below the tyres changed from smooth asphalt to bumpy dirt. Then something new: the creak of metal, the rumble of a ribbed surface, and a slight incline. She had been reasonably scared before, but now she felt panic begin to swell. More desperately now, she tried to reach beyond Davenport's knees to the release lever, but his body filled the cramped space. Frustrated, fearful, she whined more loudly in her throat, behind sealed lips and gritted teeth, and scraped her fingernails against the metal of the trunk.

The car's engine died. Anthea stilled, too, and listened. She became aware of a new sound now: water. It slapped and sloshed and moved the whole car, gently, causing her to sway, and she realised where she was—in a boot, on a ferry, and it was pushing away from the dock and into open waters.

She gripped Davenport by the legs and shook him more roughly. 'Adam,' she hissed. 'Adam.'

He moaned.

The side doors of the car opened and closed. She heard men's voices but couldn't make out their words. Their footsteps circled the car, three or four different sets, she didn't know, she was too panicked to count. Her grip tightened, not to wake Davenport but to give herself an anchor to reality as various scenarios of her certain death occurred to her. Maybe they would shoot her in the head and dump her body overboard. Maybe they would weight her body and let her drown. She knew that the chances of her escape had slimmed to nil. On the water, there was nowhere to run, no one to hear her call for help. Not that she expected any. She was in the hands of murderers. Assassins. The sort who would target a prominent man, such as Mycroft Holmes, and the lackeys working for him. They would not allow for the possibility that she might be saved.

Suddenly, without the turn of a key to reignite its engine, the silent car began to roll. Her breath caught in her throat. In her mind's eye, as if she were already floating incorporeally above the scene, she could see what was happening. They had taken off the brake; they were rolling the car to the edge; they would push it into the waters nose first. It would sink, the boot would flood, and she and Davenport would be entombed in a watery grave.

Frantic, Anthea scraped once again for the inaccessible lever, pinned behind Davenport's body, until suddenly, she was free-falling.

The car slammed into the water. Crushed under Davenport's body, the air knocked from her lungs, and Anthea's vision darkened; but she fought to maintain consciousness. The car was bobbing, sinking, but its violent upheaval had jarred Davenport away from the release lever, and it was reaching that lever that was her paramount concern. As she stretched her arm, water seeped through the seams of the car. She curled her fingers; her skin was on fire with the icy cold spray. And though she had little leverage with which to wrench it, she let out a cry of desperation and pulled, just as the car fully submerged.

The boot popped. Water gushed into their cavern, filling it completely. The pressure from the surface pushed down, threatening to close the lid on them again and trap them in the steel box. So Anthea stuck out her hand. The lid came down, hard, gashing the skin and crunching the bone. Her scream escaped as a bubble. But the boot didn't lock. As the car continued to sink, lower, faster, the loose lid of the boot floated up and gaped wide. Anthea acted instinctively, heaving Davenport out of the boot. Kicking with all her might, she swam through the icy black water. Below her, the car turned over and disappeared into the depths.

She could see nothing. The water in her ears was like a roaring engine. Disoriented, freezing, suffocating, she scarcely knew in which direction the surface lay. But she found Davenport, her only companion in the harsh and lonely water. And she seized him around the waist with one arm. With the other, she stretched forth a hand, searching, and kicked ferociously toward what she hoped would prove to be free air.

Suddenly, she broke the surface. She gasped and choked and spit, even as the water sought to reclaim her, to pull her and Davenport back under. She resisted. Her muscles were seizing up in the cold, and her lungs were filling with water, but she fought to keep her chin above the surface. She tried to turn Davenport onto his back, to help him float, but she could barely tread water enough to keep herself above the surface. Davenport was dead weight. Grabbing him under the arms, she kicked for the distant lights of the shore, but he was sinking. She was drowning. And with each gasp, with each kick of her tiring legs, she was one stroke closer to dying. She couldn't do it.

It was a decision made in an instant, one she knew she could never take back, one that would haunt her for the rest of her life. In the end, it was barely a decision at all. She released him. Without drama or ceremony, his head sank into the dark water. Just like that, he was gone.

And there, she floated, alone. Treading water. Fighting exhaustion. Enduring the ice-sharp pain of the freezing water. The ferry was gone, and the shore was too far. She knew she couldn't make it. The sky was black above, and the water black below.

But then, a single circle of light, growing larger, and the purr of a speedboat.

They took Mycroft to the A&E nearest Baker Street: St Mary's Hospital on Praed Street, just over a mile away. With the trouble of finding proper coats and shoes and then calling for a taxi, John and Mrs Hudson took twenty minutes to arrive. By the time they did, the emergency department was eerily still. John's first thought, upon walking through the sliding glass doors holding Mrs Hudson by the hand, was that he had got it wrong and they had taken Mycroft somewhere else. Then he spotted Sherlock, just outside the double doors leading to the trauma centre, still wearing his midnight-blue dressing gown and slippers. His back was to them, and he stood stock still, staring dead ahead. John felt his heart sinking. He dropped Mrs Hudson's hand, jogged past reception, and came up beside him.

'Sherlock,' he said softly, taking his arm and turning him, but though Sherlock's body followed John's lead, his face still pointed at the doors, as if by taking his eyes off of them he would miss something important.

'Sherlock,' he tried again, putting more pressure on his arm. 'What do we know?'

Sherlock's lips moved, but he had to try again before any sound came out. 'Nothing,' he said. 'We're still waiting.'

By that time, Mrs Hudson had caught them up. Without a word, she put her arms around Sherlock's waist and laid her head against his chest.

'Where did they take him?' John asked.

'Through there. Last I saw, they were trying to restart his heart.' For all his effort to sound composed, his voice quavered on the final syllable. Gently, he removed Mrs Hudson's arms and turned away. A hand came up to drag across his scalp as he shuffled down the hall, seeking solitude.

Digging into his pocket, John turned to Mrs Hudson, whose eyes were wide and wet. 'They'll have already alerted the police,' he said, passing his phone into her hands. 'But I need you to call Lestrade directly. Wake him up. Get him down here.'

She nodded, accepting the charge. John followed after Sherlock.

'Come on,' he said quietly, steering Sherlock toward the waiting area. 'That's it, get off that ankle.' Sherlock let himself be lowered onto a waiting room sofa with all the cushion and comfort of a seat on the Tube, and John joined him there. For a while after that, they spoke no words between them. Sherlock sat elbows to knees, his forehead pressed into his palms. For his part, John kept a warm hand on Sherlock's back, between his shoulder blades, occasionally rubbing a thumb or smoothing his palm, small gestures of comfort and presence, and all the while fixed an eye on the double doors and the passing doctors. He felt suspended in time, waiting for an answer neither of them could bear.

She's killed my brother, he had said. He's been poisoned. John didn't know how Sherlock had discovered the culprit, or the weapon, but though he trusted Sherlock in both of those things, he couldn't bring himself to believe this declaration. Not yet. Denial was safer. A future without Mycroft Holmes was too terrible to even imagine. Not yet.

And what would such a loss cost Sherlock? Here, he stood on the cusp of losing the most stable figure in his life, no matter the unspoken difficulties of their past or the thorniness of their relationship. Whatever he said about his brother and no matter how often he rolled his eyes, John knew Sherlock loved Mycroft, in his own way, and it was no trivial thing. Bicker and needle as they might, John had also been witness to a particular kind of care, one brother to the other. He had long suspected the depth of feeling Sherlock harboured for Mycroft, hidden beneath layers and layers of indifference and annoyance. But only recently had he become aware of just how much Mycroft reciprocated, the lengths to which he would go to see his little brother safe and well. It was a love John had not ever known himself. Not really. His own relationship with Harry had always been antagonistic, to one degree or another, and yet losing her . . . losing her had been its own special agony. So he knew only too well what Sherlock must be feeling, the horror of it. And the torment of waiting to know for sure.

John leant closer, his hand sliding to Sherlock's far shoulder to hold him more securely. In response, Sherlock lowered one hand from his face and reached over, gripping John at the knee. John read the message clearly: Sherlock was afraid. So he held on tighter.

The minutes crawled by on broken limbs.

'Mr Holmes?'

Their heads came up as one. A doctor was standing in front of them, dressed in theatre blues and a surgical cap. He'd removed his mask and apron and latex gloves, but John could see light flecks of blood on his sleeves, perhaps from a hasty IV, perhaps from a more invasive emergency procedure. And John knew that if he noticed those tiny pricks of red, Sherlock sure as hell did.

He helped Sherlock rise.

'Let's go somewhere more private,' the doctor said, stepping back and gesturing with an arm. John noticed, then, that the A&E was humming. Hours had passed, and the waiting area was scattered with patients waiting to be seen and a triage nurse evaluating each in turn. Just outside, EMTs were pulling a stretcher from an ambulance, bearing a woman in a neck brace. How he'd failed to notice all the noises and activity was beyond him.

'Are you the mother?' the doctor asked, addressing Mrs Hudson, who was standing on Sherlock's other side. 'Family only, for now.'

'Oh!' said Mrs Hudson, a little surprised. 'Well, I'm—'

'Yes,' said Sherlock. He stood a little taller, though his face was still wan and voice thin, like he might faint at any moment. John tightened an arm. 'And my partner, John Watson. Somewhere private, then.'

They followed the doctor through the double doors and stopped in the hallway before advancing any further. John's hand, pressed firmly to Sherlock's back, sensed a throbbing heart beating through his shirt.

'Mrs Holmes,' said the doctor to Mrs Hudson, 'your son is in stable but very critical condition.'

'Alive?' said Sherlock. 'He's alive. John, did you hear?'

'I heard, Sherlock,' said John, but he had also heard the second half of the doctor's statement, and he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.

'He's not out of the woods yet. Mr Holmes, your brother was administered aconitine, which contains lethal cardiotoxins and neurotoxins. It appears to have entered his system through the skin on his right hand and around his lips and tongue, so it may have also been ingested. There are also deep scratches on the back of his neck, like from fingernails, deep enough to bleed, leading to more direct contact to the aconitine. We don't know how much he was exposed to, but as a poison, it is fast acting, and even the smallest amount can prove fatal.'

'There's no antidote,' said Sherlock numbly.

The doctor nodded but said, 'Fortunately, with modern medicine, we don't, strictly speaking, require an antidote to save his life. But it's an ongoing and uphill battle. By the time he arrived, the toxins had already done a fair deal of damage to his heart and gastrointestinal system. We've had to operate. Right now, we're managing ventricular arrhythmias with a cardiopulmonary bypass to keep his blood oxygenated. We're also treating him with charcoal haemoperfusion to eliminate the toxins.'

Sherlock was blinking rapidly and staring at a spot on the floor, and John knew that, despite his brilliance, he was too overwhelmed to fully comprehend the information. So John offered a quick layman's interpretation: 'Cleaning the blood.'

'A transfusion?' Sherlock asked.

'The technique pumps the blood outside the body, treats it, and pumps it back,' said the doctor. 'If he responds well to this treatment, a transfusion won't be necessary.'

'If he needs blood, at any time, for any reason, take mine. We share the same blood type.'

The doctor started to nod and say thank you, but John turned his head and said under his breath, 'Sherlock you can't. Not yet.'

It had been just five weeks since both he and Sherlock had been exposed to Darrin Hirsch's blood. Although they had been cleared in initial blood screens, until a full ninety days had passed and they had been given the all clear, neither of them could be confident they weren't infected with something dire.

'There will likely be no need,' the doctor assured them.

'You said the aconitine also contains neurotoxins,' said John. 'Do you know if . . . ?'

'We won't be able to accurately assess that until he wakes up.'

Sherlock started. 'When?'

'I'm afraid I can't say. We've induced a coma to control the pressure dynamics in the brain, and I'm sorry to say this, Mr Holmes, but there is no guarantee he will come out of it.'

'Oh Sherlock,' murmured Mrs Hudson.

'It's still too early to know much,' the doctor said. 'But I assure you, we're doing everything within our power for him. Because poisonings like this are rare, we're bringing in Dr Amelia Webster to consult. She was the primary care physician in the Singh poisoning back in 2009. You may remember it from the papers. It was the same poison.'

'Lakhvinder Cheema died after an hour in hospital,' said Sherlock in a monotone.

'But his fiancé survived,' said the doctor. 'And we're working hard to see that your brother does, too.'

Sherlock rubbed a hand across his face, still dazed. 'May I see him?'

'Maybe just one at a time,' said the doctor.

'Go on, Sherlock,' John said. 'We'll wait for you outside.'

Sherlock nodded stiffly and followed after the doctor. John watched him go, until Mrs Hudson put an arm through his and led him away.

Only four hours earlier, Greg Lestrade had left Baker Street in good spirits. It was a funny thing, really: that's not how he usually left Baker Street.

The evening had gone well. Good food, good conversation, and the best company in London. As Molly had remarked to him on their drive over, it wasn't often (was it ever?) that they all got together on purely social terms. But tonight was meant to be just that. No talk of work or cases or criminals. No one had established it as a rule, exactly, but they all seemed keen to follow it. Then Greg and Molly had given John that gift, and the rule was broken.

Yet Lestrade's good spirits remained. Despite the upset, he now had a new lead, and, coupled with the recent testimonies of the likes of Eddie Stallman, George Yarrow, and a dozen others, he felt like, for the first time in months, he was about to get a leg up on the case dubbed the Moriarty Mayhem. He felt energised. Going home (home being a generous word, as he and Molly were currently living in a space little better than a hotel room) seemed almost a waste of time. He wanted to get straight to work. But the new lead would keep until morning.

So they returned to their temporary flat, turned down the lights, undressed for bed, and kissed one another good night.

At one o'clock, the phone rang.

Deep in sleep, he rose slowly to the surface. Too slowly. A hand on his shoulder urged him rise more quickly.

'Greg,' said Molly. 'Greg, wake up.'

The light snapped on. He rolled onto his back and tried to clear the fog.

'It's John.' She held his phone up to his face well enough for him to read through squinting eyes the 'John W' on the screen, right under the numbers 1.08. Why was he calling at this hour? Was it—oh! Had he remembered something about Bill Murray? Something that couldn't wait? Lestrade pushed himself up to sitting and swung his feet to the floor. He took the call.

'John?'

But it wasn't John who answered.

'Greg, I'm so sorry to wake you!'

Lestrade looked over his shoulder and mouthed to Molly: 'Not John.' Her eyebrows went up in surprise, not sure if she should be worried.

'Mrs Hudson, is everything okay?'

'I don't mean to alarm you, but something's happened. Something awful's happened to Mr Holmes.'

The fear in her voice as she teetered on the edge of tears infected him. He shot to his feet and whirled to face Molly as he asked, 'Sherlock?'

'Mycroft,' said Mrs Hudson.

Lestrade's world narrowed. The ground tilted. Without fully realising it, he had been prepared for a midnight call about Sherlock, announcing some tragedy, some expediency, and necessitating a stalwart response. He was not, he discovered, prepared to hear that the unshakeable, untouchable Mycroft Holmes had been thrown from the watchtower.

'We're in A&E,' said Mrs Hudson. 'St Mary's Hospital. John, he wanted me to call you, said you needed to know.'

'Mrs Hudson, what happened to Mycroft? Is he hurt?' He pulled the phone away from his ear and quickly turned it to speaker phone as he handed it back to Molly. Then he ran to the wardrobe for his clothes.

'He's alive,' she said, her voice coming faintly. 'But the doctors, they don't know if he'll make it.'

'What happened!' he asked again, pushing his arms through the sleeves and fighting the buttons.

'I—I don't know! He was on the pavement just outside the flat, and I thought he was dead! The doctor said something about poison, but I don't know!'

Lestrade shoved his feet into his shoes. Molly was now moving around the room, holding the phone in one hand and grabbing her trousers and a jumper with the other. 'Sherlock and John. Are they—?'

'They're here, with me. They're okay.'

'Okay. All of you, stay put. I'm on my way.'

Molly tossed him his coat. He took her hand and pulled her out the front door. There was no question of leaving her behind.

Lestrade arrived and brought with him six officers, having sent half a dozen more to Baker Street besides, to gather evidence and question the neighbours. While four worked up a security detail in the hospital, the other two set about interviewing the doctors, nurses, and EMTs who had anything at all to do with the care of Mycroft Holmes. Sherlock and John were also asked to give report, though John did most of the talking. 'You'll want to look at the CCTV footage from the cameras pointed at our front door,' he said.

'We'll also need to look at your phone,' Lestrade said, closing his notebook, 'and the text messages you received.'

Sherlock merely nodded; it was hard to tell whether he was really listening.

Molly sat with Mrs Hudson while the interviews took place, but otherwise tried to make herself available to run errands or place phone calls, whatever was needed. But there was nothing to be done but wait. And even though she had to work come morning, and even though John gave her permission to go and rest, she stayed, and she answered Sherlock's questions about bodies that had come through her morgue who had died of this poison or that as tactfully and optimistically as she could, until John softly but firmly bade Sherlock stop. At long last, as the morning began to break, she offered to find teas or coffees, and though no one exactly accepted, neither did they try to stop her, and she returned from the hospital cafeteria bearing five steaming Styrofoam cups.

Though he wished to, Lestrade couldn't stay. There was work to do and a manhunt to direct. He started to make his apologies for leaving, to voice his confidence that Mycroft would be all right and they'd get the bastards, but still, Sherlock didn't seem to hear him, and at last, John said it was fine, they'd be fine, just go. So he and Molly left, though not without insisting he be contacted just as soon as they knew anything about Mycroft's condition, hoping John understood the subtext, if Sherlock didn't. He needed to know whether he was chasing a murderer.

John resumed his place at Sherlock's side.

At half seven, a nurse came to tell them that Mycroft's condition had stabilised enough for them to move him to ICU, and if they wished, they could return home and rest; she would call if anything changed.

'I'm staying until he wakes,' said Sherlock.

'Mr Holmes, that may be hours or even days from now.'

'I'm staying.'

And John would have, too, if not for Mrs Hudson. She was not yet eighty years old, and a sturdier, more resilient woman John couldn't name; but she was fatigued. Like they, she had been awake all night, and John could see how the weariness dragged down her shoulders and aggravated her bad hip. She continually rubbed her weary eyes and struggled to read the clock on the wall, having left her glasses at home. Of course she made no complaint, and probably wouldn't for hours more, but John couldn't let her go on like she was.

So he shifted in his chair, leant into Sherlock, and said, 'I'm going to take Mrs Hudson home. I'll pack an overnight bag for you and be back.'

Sherlock raised his eyes, which shone with the same exhaustion. 'You should sleep.'

'So should you.' He covered Sherlock's hand and gave it a light squeeze before rising. 'I'll be back,' he said again.

Mrs Hudson made only a token objection, and she and John left the A&E.

Thanks to Mycroft Holmes, the flat was a stronghold. Nevertheless, John reviewed with Mrs Hudson the safety features on her door, reminded her that using the panic room was not an overreaction, and cautioned her to always have her phone on hand and fully charged. Then he left her to sleep, making assurances that he would exercise all the same precautions.

Back in the flat, he thought he might kip on the sofa—no more than twenty minutes—but as he stepped toward it, his eyes were drawn to the framed photograph lying face down on the floor atop a bed of shattered glass. Slowly, he bent to retrieve it, hoping the damage was not too great. As he carefully turned it over, more broken pieces slid and tinkled to the floor. But the photograph itself was untouched. No broken chip or sliver or shard had cut the glossy finish. His Mary's face was unmarred by his carelessness, and still she smiled up at him, eyes sparkling like light on water. For just a sliver of a moment, it was as though no time or terror had separated them at all. Grateful for its wholeness, his kissed the tips of his fingers and pressed it to her image. Then, straining only slightly, he rose to his feet and set the photo safely on the coffee table.

Sleep had fled. He didn't like the thought of Sherlock waiting alone as his brother struggled for survival, and he was eager to get back to St Mary's. So he got to work. He swept up the broken glass and disposed of the frame. As for the picture, he slid it between the pages of a notebook for safekeeping. Then he climbed the stairs. Once properly dressed, he unzipped an overnight bag and stuffed it with a change of clothes before carrying it to the bathroom and gathering basic toiletries. Setting it by the door, he proceeded to Sherlock's room and packed another.

Grasping two bags at either side, he was just about to head back down the stairs when he heard a soft, musical ding, which he recognised at once as Sherlock's text alert. Of course—he'd almost forgotten to retrieve the mobile, which Sherlock had dropped. It lay on its face at the foot of one of the tall windows.

John picked it up, unlocked it, and checked the screen, which was still open to a web browser and an online encyclopaedia page about the aconitum plant. It chilled his blood to think it, how they had alerted Sherlock to the deadly poison, let him research it and puzzle over the text, perfectly unaware that it was his brother who had been afflicted and was already dying as he sat in the quiet flat, scrolling through information while they speeded Mycroft's body to be left on the stoop like a greeting card. That's how it was with these people. Their ceaseless taunting was mere prelude to the devastating blows that followed.

Anger prickled the corners of his eyes and he closed the webpage, not wanting Sherlock to return to the moment too soon. He knew how it was, to be forcefully reminded.

In closing the browser, however, he saw that Sherlock had seven unseen texts waiting for him. Stacked one on top of the other were the missed calls, all from Unknown.

He knew he should ignore them, though not because it was an invasion of Sherlock's privacy. Such things as secrets and privacy didn't really exist between them anymore, not after all that had happened, all they'd gone through together. No, it was experience that admonished him to ignore strange texts; no good had ever come from an unknown caller. At the same time, he feared what might follow if they were left unread.

John tapped a thumb, such a seemingly innocuous gesture, and read the earliest message from Unknown, sent at half two in the morning:

I've not forgotten you.

John felt his heart still and his hands go numb. He tapped an arrow to move to the next, sent at 3.30.

You took one of mine.

And the next at 4.30:

I've taken one of yours.

And so on (5.30) . . .

Our game is only just beginning.

. . . and so on (6.30) . . .

Come and play.

. . . and so on (7.30) . . .

You can bring your pet.

With each new message, John felt the single flame of rage, hidden deep with inside him, flare to greater and greater light.

Now, as London clocks struck half eight, the seventh text had reached Sherlock's phone.

You know my number.

John's breath burned in his chest, trapped. The familiar sensation of panic began to edge out the anger, and they battled together inside his mind. The one cried out for him to rush back to St Mary's Hospital and warn Sherlock: They've made contact; they've renewed their threats! But there was a different force inside him now, sharing space with his fear. Darren Hirsch's demise had awoken something in him, something angry, something reckless. Maybe it was courage, maybe madness. Whatever it was, it claimed the greater part. And so, wrangling the panic into submission, and keeping a firm grip on the tremor in his hand, he opened the keypad and slowly punched in the digits to his old mobile.

He held the phone to his ear and listened to it ring.

A soft click. A breathless pause. Then, a man spoke.

'Hello, Sherlock.'

It was a voice he'd not heard in nearly six months, except in his worst nightmares and waking visions, and with it were resurrected a thousand and one memories of horrors he didn't even know he had buried. Silent as the grave, John clasped his free hand across his mouth, as much to stave off a shuddering gasp as to keep breath inside his body. As if he were in the very room, John saw those cold, dark eyes, heard that terrible laughter, smelt the faint odour of peppermint. His vision whitened with hatred. He knew—he knew—that if Sebastian Moran were indeed in that very room, John would murder him.

He lowered his hand from his mouth. In a steady but gravelly voice, he spoke into the receiver. 'Try again.'

Sound was suspended, indefinitely, and he knew he had caught the man on the other end of the line off his guard. When at last he spoke again, however, a sultry kind of pleasure marked his tone, and with relish, he answered:

'Johnny boy.'