--Holmes--

Blurry images and muffled sounds were the next pieces of awareness I had. I tried with great difficulty to blink away the cloudiness in my eyes. I moved my head just slightly and felt a staggering jolt of pain in return.

I tried to reorient myself and decipher my situation. I forced myself to focus on the stimuli I could make out. I was cold. My body was not properly covered by my clothing. I heard voices speaking in a language I could not understand. My head was in great pain. My arms were wrenched so tightly behind my back that my breathing was hampered. I tried moving my arms to the front of me to no avail, realizing they were bound together. This knowledge helped to bring my mind back to awareness.

I looked at my surroundings. I was underground. There were men in red cloaks saying chants amongst a littering of candles. At once, the memory of the case returned to me and I remembered being knocked unconscious while spying on the cult.

I was sitting on the cold, earthen ground, naked save for my trousers and under things. My hands were tied around a tall, wooden stake and pulled behind my back. Father McKinn knelt before me silently, just out of the reach of my outstretched legs.

"What are you planning to do?" I asked, bluntly.

His face broke into a kind smile. "My Master's work," he simply said.

Before I could press him further, the cult's leader appeared before me and removed his black hood. All chanting stopped and my heart thumped wildly in my ribcage.

"Very nice to see you awake, Inspector," the man said. "I knew you would arrive sooner or later."

I studied him. He was in his fifties and owned a white cat. More likely than not, he lived alone and had not been in town for very long. I had to stop myself, reasoning that deduction would not save my skin in this case. Would Watson arrive in time to come to my aid? How long had I been unconscious? I tried to determine this by guessing how much of the candle wax had melted away and deriving a formula for wax burned per amount of time elapsed.

At any rate, the man was turning away from me and toward his followers. "So it is written in the diaries of our Lord, that the second sacrifice will deliver itself unto our hands." I noticed, in a detached way, the level of attention he commanded from his subjects. "And, now my children, we will send this non-believer to hell."

I was quite unimpressed by this short speech, although I did become quite flustered when one of the cultists emerged from behind me with a blazing torch and a maddening smile.

"Set this doubter afire!" shouted the leader.

"Listen, listen!" I exclaimed, desperate to talk my way out of the situation. "You cannot do this now! You must wait. Gentlemen, I implore you, be reasonable!" I tugged and struggled against the ropes that held me. I attempted to strike the man holding the torch with my feet as he approached. I cried out as the flame was placed against my bare side! The agony I felt--!

—was imagined. Moments passed and I opened my eyes, hardly even realizing that I had clenched them shut to begin with. I barely even felt a shade of heat coming off the flame. Not to be swayed by my non-reaction, the cultist moved the torch to my chest and neck. This time I felt a little burning, but only in a very small centimetre of flesh above my left pectoral muscle. Nothing but that and the unshaven hair on my chin was singed.

A flush of emotion overcame me, even as I tried to hide it from the others in the room. Oh, thank heavens! Thank God! Praise Buddha and Shiva and Vishnu! To my relief, I realized that all my experimenting with that confounded fireproof solution had resulted in my being covered in the stuff. It was a lucky stroke that I had been too busy in the last two days to properly bathe.

"He does not burn, Master!" cried the man holding the flame. "What does it mean?"

The Master glared at me as all his disciples turned to him for answers. I saw the briefest flash of panic pass over his face as he realized how badly this could turn out for him. Nausea built up in my throat as I determined that he would just find another way to kill me to save face.

He swiftly lowered himself until there were mere inches between our faces, and held down my legs so that I would not attack him. "I don't know how the hell you did that," he whispered vehemently so that only I could hear, "but I will make you regret it, and your decision to stick your nose into my affairs even more."

He rose to his feet and faced his obedient disciples. "My dear child," said he to a nearby man, "bring to me the sacred preparation." The follower merely bowed and rushed off out of my line of sight. The Master addressed all of his followers, pulling his words out of thin air, I assumed. "Children of Lucifer, this too has been written about in the diaries of our dark Lord. This man is the ultimate enemy of our Worship, and he must be dealt with very carefully."

The man who had run to fetch the "sacred preparation" returned with an iron box, covered in designs of a devilish nature, and handed it to his leader. From within the box, the Master withdrew a syringe filled with a pinkish opaque liquid. I was helpless to do more than lash out uselessly with my legs as I was injected with the stuff. The last completely sane thing I experienced was the Master backing away from me, donning a heinous smile that would be the envy of Satan, himself.

The effect of the preparation was nearly immediate. It was starkly different than any drug I had ever used upon myself. I grew hot, and felt out of my head. I imagined that I was leaning over a cliff, and I heard music, a violin being played. I was distantly connected to the things that were going on around me. I was faintly aware of the sensation of being lashed and struck with fists. So many unfamiliar faces drifted through my sight. Briefly, I imagined Watson being there, being a participant. My ears rung and fluid burned my throat. I heard my brother's voice, from my childhood, scolding me. I felt my mother's gentle hands caring for me. Then pain ruptured in my leg and I disconnected from my body, falling into unconsciousness again.

--

Marill: With a guilty heart, I admit that I quite enjoyed writing that. ^_^ Some of it was meant to be humorous, I'll admit, haha, such as Holmes thanking the gods.