Author's Note: I am tremendously grateful for the interest people have shown. I'm sure you know what a difference the encouragement makes. Nuns have shown up in a big way in this chapter. I am not sure why, but they're here for right now. It must have been my Catholic childhood. Thanks for coming along with me for this story. Let me know your thoughts.

Fevers

Chapter 2

Watson was deep in the sleep of the dead when someone began shaking him. "Get up, Governor. We need your help."

Watson sat up, looking around wildly. He was still on the floor in the corner of a child's bedroom with a blanket he took from a 14 year-old girl who had died hours earlier. Disease management would have demanded that the blanket be burned, but Watson's exhaustion was too deep for that.

He focused his weary eyes on two bobbies standing before him. "Leave me be. I'm of no use to anyone without another hour or two of sleep."

"The papist birds are flying away. Inspector Horde says to come get you."

Watson shook his head. He had no interest in what birds of any kind were doing at this particular moment, and then it struck him that the bobby in his obvious bigotry was referring to the nuns. "What do you mean? Speak plainly."

"The Catholics are heading off into the slums against orders."

Watson wrestled the blanket off his legs and reached for his cane. The moment his bad leg hit the ground, the pain shot off like fireworks and he was unable to stifle a distinct cry.

"Need a hand, Governor?"

Watson waved them away. "Where are they?"

He hobbled after them out into the street where an inspector was arguing loudly with a group of nuns. Watson gestured at him with his cane. "Hold up. Hold up. What's all the fuss?"

The red-faced inspector turned to him. "These women are crazy. The best thing for all involved is if I lock the whole lot of them away."

"Inspector! Bold talk! These are ladies of God, and their help in this epidemic has been invaluable."

He pointed at them, blustering, "You don't understand, Doctor. They are headed for the slums."

Watson turned toward the nuns. "Explain this to me."

One of the nuns who had earlier told him to call her Michael stepped forward. She gestured toward deep into the quarantined area. "They won't let us go in to help the poor."

The inspector rolled his eyes. "Here we go again. The only ones left down there are thieves, beggars, prostitutes, and foreigners. I won't risk a single life on 'em."

"Surely Inspector, you must know that God will be with those of his children who are most in need."

"They'll rob you and cut you before you can do any acts of charity."

"That's enough, Inspector!" Watson stamped the ground with his cane. "Sister Michael, there is no safe access to the slum neighborhoods. We have plenty to do right here."

"I appreciate that, Dr. Watson, but we are obligated to go where we are needed most."

Inspector waved them away. "Then go! I'll not stop you."

"Inspector!"

The nuns gathered up their bags and started down the street into the unknown. Watson ran after them, the pain in his leg momentarily forgotten. "Sisters, please!"

Sister Michael walked up to him, her pert nose sprinkled with freckles. "We have to go, Doctor. Our order demands that we be where the need is most urgent."

Watson stared at her for a long moment. Then he turned to the waiting police. "Send one of your men in for my bag."

"Doctor! This is wild!"

He waved his cane at them. "Hurry up now! They can't go alone. Decency demands that they have a male presence for protection."

"You won't shame me into this. It's pure folly."

Watson pointed at a young bobby. "You, Boy, run into the building and fetch my bag. It should be on the second floor in one of the bedrooms."

His natural authority reigned. The young bobby jumped up and disappeared into the building. Watson glared at the inspector. "You, Sir, are a coward."

The bobby appeared with his bag, and Watson turned and hobbled after the Sisters of St. Joseph.

No kind of logic could begin to explain the procession he led into London's ghettos. The nuns noticed the difficulty he was having with his leg almost immediately. Without warning, one sister took his bag from him and two others braced him on each side, using themselves as makeshift crutches. He protested mightily yet they ignored him completely. He finally had no choice but to relax onto their shoulders. The relief it offered his leg was incalculable.

Strangely, these sisters and their immense capabilities reminded him of the women he saw in his travels to Afghanistan. Fierce and strong, these women seemed capable of doing all that men could do as well as doing it more effectively. Most British women were expected to conduct themselves as the most delicate of creatures, and while Watson appreciated the beauty of this, he chose Mary for simple fact that she was capable of the same strength he was experiencing among these remarkable nuns.

The risk they were taking was immense. He could bring no real sense to why he was doing what he was doing, but he knew that there was something about the way Inspector Horde talked about the people in the slum areas that cut him deeply. They weren't people at all to Inspector Horde. He talked about them as if they were completely expendable as how one might discuss ridding the sewer of rats.

Watson had grown up secure in his beliefs about class structure and his place in it. And while he never strayed from what one would expect from a man of his standing, he also never felt that other classes, particularly the impoverished were any less human than he was. There was something so base about the notion that basic medical care was not being considered for a group of people that it sickened Watson, and he suspected that his decision to follow the sisters was as much about needing to separate himself ideologically from Horde as it was about protecting the honor of these women.

Holmes pulled his robe around him tightly. The pounding on his door was heavy. A glance at crack through his heavy drapes told him that morning had broken. While that might signal action for many, it meant nothing to a man who spent most nights in his many diversions until the wee hours. He pulled open the door, a dark scowl on his face. Constable Clark stood there.

"Clarky, this won't do. If Queen Victoria herself had been kidnapped, I would insist that you wait until ten in the morning to roust me. I'll forgive you only because I haven't the energy to kill you. Off with you now. It'll take me time to fall asleep again so don't come back until noon at the earliest." Holmes pushed the door in the constable's face.

Clark inserted his foot and caught the door. "Sir, Inspector Lestrade sent me. It appears there may be a problem with Dr. Watson."

Holmes turned sharply. "Go on."

"It seems that the doctor has gotten himself in a bit of a jam. One of our recruits was at the scene and came to get Lestrade a couple of hours ago. It seems the good doctor has followed a group of nuns down past the quarantine line. Inspector Horde refused to send protection. Rather, he allowed them to go down into the slums. Recruit said that Dr. Watson or the sisters haven't been seen since 6 p.m. last night."

"A man named Horde sent Dr. Watson down into the bowels of this city in the middle of an epidemic without one member of the police force?" Holmes growled.

Clarky nodded.

"I'll have his head! Where's my pistol!?"

"I have a wagon outside for the two of us."

Holmes disappeared into his bedroom. Clarky stood in the drawing room, his cap in hand, and continued his narrative. "Probably nothing to worry about. The inspector went ahead. The doctor and his Catholics are surely retrieved by now, but the inspector recalled a threat you once made about what would happen if concerns for Dr. Watson weren't immediately brought to your attention. He knows you to be a man of your word, and while this is undoubtedly a false alarm, the inspector feels it's best to avoid some sort of misunderstanding. Are you sure you'll need your pistol? I am sure the Inspector has the whole situation in hand by now."

Holmes darted past him, a shirt half tucked into his trousers. He found his writing pad and began scribbling. He looked up at Clark. "Don't stand there, Clarky. I can't find my pistol. Look around. It's somewhere. I'm obligated to leave a note for the doctor's fiancée. On your hands and knees now, I'm almost sure I saw Gladstone dragging it about just yesterday."

Holmes leapt out of the wagon before it had rolled to a stop. Clarky tripped off the back and scrambled to his feet, eager to keep pace with the angry detective. The quarantine line had twice as many police this morning, but that didn't stop Holmes from barreling between two of them and bellowing, "Lestrade!"

A head popped up from a group of policemen gathered and Lestrade trotted his direction. Holmes ignored the men pulling at him, content to let Clarky wrestle with them a bit.

"Let him go." Lestrade ordered and four bobbies let go and then collectively landed on top of Clarky.

"Clarky said they'd be back by now. Clearly, Clarky isn't the psychic that we all thought."

"We're assembling a team right now, Holmes."

"Where is Horde?" He turned to look for Clarky. "Have you my pistol? I'll need it now."

Lestrade shook his head. "Now, you leave Inspector Horde to me. He's a poor example of a British policeman, there is no doubt, but I'll handle him."

"I only plan to shoot him," Holmes countered. "In the leg, I think."

Lestrade turned to Clarky. "You will not give him his gun under any circumstances, Constable."

"Yes Sir," Clarky replied, eyeing Holmes warily.

Holmes turned his anger toward Lestrade. "So tell me about this team assemblage. How many steps to that activity? Shall the assemblage of a team be completed by the end of the week? Shall we ever find out what's become of Watson?"

Lestrade turned away.

Holmes bristled. "I'm going in, Inspector. You'll not stop me without a bullet to my heart."

Clarky stepped forward. "Sir, I will go with him. I grew up down there. You know that."

Lestrade stared at the young constable for a moment. Then he nodded at Holmes. "The three of us will go."

Holmes frowned. "You have a family, Inspector."

"And my self-respect. One isn't much good without the other."

Holmes found his first clue a mile in when he noticed a pail of fresh water on the stoop of a tenement building. Clarky stood guard while Holmes and Lestrade entered. It was on the third floor that they heard movement. Holmes reached for his pistol, but found nothing. Lestrade saw his empty hand and sighed.

Holmes looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "I left it with Clarky."

Lestrade pulled out his own weapon and took the lead. Sounds were coming from a room at the end of the hall. They proceeded slowly until they were at the edge of the door, and then Lestrade pushed in, his gun drawn. Screams erupted. Holmes barreled in after him to find three sick children in a bed and a nun in a chair attending them.

Holmes pushed Lestrade's gun down and bowed. "Our apologies, Good People. We were unsure just what we would find."

To his consternation, the children continued to sob. The nun flashed fierce eyes at him. "It's a shameful thing you did. Brutes!"

"My good sister, we truly didn't know."

The young nun ignored him, whispering calming words to the children. They finally succumbed and drifted off. Holmes and Lestrade stood there the whole time, feeling every minute more like the brutes she'd called them.

Finally she turned her attention back to them. "And what can I do for you?"

Holmes shifted. "You came with a friend of mine, Dr. John Watson."

She smiled. "Yes, I don't know where we would be without the good doctor."

"We haven't heard from anyone in almost 24 hours?"

She nodded. "The need down here is tremendous."

"Where is my friend, Sister?"

"They left me here to care for these children almost half a day ago. All I know is that they traveled on."

Lestrade said, "The streets are dangerous. They should not be traveling without escort."

"We asked but we were denied by an inspector dressed exactly like yourself. We were obligated to serve the poor without your help."

Lestrade cleared his throat. "Ma'am, that was a mistake, pure and simple. Our forces are on their way."

Holmes raised an eyebrow. "That's good to hear, Inspector."

"Ma'am, don't you worry about a thing. I'll have the police in numbers down here within the day. We'll go back, Holmes. I'll drag them out of the holes, remind them that they serve her Majesty, Queen Victoria, and bring them down here."

"No, Lestrade, you will go. My mission is clear."

Lestrade looked for a moment like he would argue, but then he turned on his heel and left.

Holmes sat down across from her. "Before I go, I have a question. I smell a broth of much potency. What are you feeding these children?"

Watson rested his head against the wall. Sleep was not possible. This tenement was the worst yet. He found no less than 30 people being ravaged by the pox. The healthy ones were too few to be of much service. The nuns were everywhere, tending the sick. They fed people that most noxious broth Watson had ever smelled, and he wondered at the recipe of such a brew.

It was a dirty building, and everywhere he looked it bore signs of the lives these people lived. Watson found syringes everywhere as well as liquor bottles and hookahs. The nuns undoubtedly saw the same, but they said nothing. To them, these citizens were no more or less than any others. Watson marveled at their powers of equity.

It had been almost 24 hours since they had started this ill-advised adventure. Watson was doing the best he could to keep them all safe, but they were only nominally willing to comply. Each time they came to a new tenement, he shouted things about going in first and securing the building, but they followed on his heels each time as if he had said nothing at all.

They had some sort of system where he was to sit until they evaluated all of the sick. Then he was steered toward the ones in most need. It was the only thing that kept him from dropping in a dead faint. Watson found that he could control almost nothing. He could only react to this new and strange world as it came rushing at him.

More on Sunday or Monday