Woo Hoo! The climax! To give credit where it's due: there is an idea in this chapter that I stole directly from both Snogandagrope and Simply_Isnt_On's comment last week. I won't say what it is, because that may give something away, but they'll recognize it when they see it. Also, the whole climax scene and ultimate resolution was the result of an intense brainstorming session with TheScienceofObsession months and months ago. I hope y'all are as surprised and satisfied as we thought you'd be. Ok. Enough with the note stuff. Go read!
Chapter 22: The Ritual
The en suite is huge, a vast and pretentious layout with too much gold and marble: heavy-handed baroque. There is a sunken tub large enough to hold 8 people, a glassed in shower box with four shower heads, a heated towel rack and warmed tiles under John's feet. Aditi fidgets nervously behind him and he immediately dampens a flannel in cold water, wringing it out and pressing it gently to the bruise forming on across her face.
"You have to wash up," she whispers, looking agitatedly at the blood drying on his body. "I can't draw until I… can see your skin."
"Alright," John soothes. "I will. Why don't you get that thing I'm supposed to wear, and I'll… do something about all this."
Aditi steps out, and when she returns she's holding gauze and stiff velvet sewn with tiny round mirrors and curled slippers and John knows exactly what it is that is folded in her arms. He rolls his lips in, pressing them harshly together to keep from spitting out curses. There is no need to frighten the girl more than she already is. The bedroom and bathroom have no windows, there will be no escape for them except through the locked door guarded by the Tank. For now, it is best to go along with Moriarty's deranged instructions.
He examines the cabinet behind the mirror, and finds an unexpected pharmacy, all the little bottles made out for Stewart Crowley. Ethyol, Adriamycin, Oncovin, antibiotics, narcotics for pain, sleep aids. It appears that the owner of this house, Mr. Crowley, is a cancer patient, and John files that information away in case it can be used to his advantage. He helps himself to some pain meds, nothing so strong that it will blur his mind or reactions, just something sufficient to continue functioning. He takes a quick shower, hissing as the warm water flushes out his wounds, the sting of it cutting sharp through muscles and nerves, red water swirling around the drain at his feet.
For a moment, just a moment, he lets himself feel overwhelmed: he looks downwards, pinching the bridge of his nose hard, and tears burn behind his eyelids. But he quickly washes that away, and makes his shaking way out of the shower. The pain medication has begun to soften his violent headache, but can't do anything about the room going in and out of focus, or loss of balance resulting from the concussion. John wraps a towel around his waist and heads back to the medicine cabinet. Slowly, he begins to use plasters and steri-strips to bring together the edges of the lacerations on his chest, hand and head. He mops up the blood, staining fluffy white towels red and ugly, and then dropping them on the floor in a small show of defiance.
He has to stop and lean on the counter for a minute, gasping shallow, painful breaths, the cracked or bruised rib blaring its infirmity at him with every motion. He glances again at the pain meds, but knows better than to render his mind too hazy. He shakes out the clothes and rolls his eyes.
"Fucking hell," he says again. He steps gracelessly into the sheer harem trousers, grey, like Sherlock's, with the same embroidery at the waistband and cuffs. He can't help but check in the mirror to see if his package is visible, not that it matters much at this stage. He's lucky, he supposes, that he's not required instead to be fully, vulnerably, naked. Aditi can be thankful for that small stroke of fortune, at least. He groans as he struggles into the vest. He'll have to get Aditi to help bind those ribs up tight, so he can move a bit. The vest is midnight blue, heavy velvet, shot through with gold embroidery and tiny round mirrors. The damned slippers match, and he uneasily considers how impeding they'd be in a fight. He puts them on anyway, and glimpses himself in the mirror.
He looks an idiot, he thinks… nothing like Sherlock, tall and lean and elegant. John is merely a man in an unfortunate costume, sinewy but for the encroaching softness of his belly, body hair obtrusive and interrupted by many rows of steri-strips and plasters, blood soaking through a bit and bruising beginning to show. His face is ghostly and clammy with exertion, the shadows under his eyes almost green. He shakes his head a little. What is this vanity? Who cares?
He grabs a large roll of gauze and heads out to the bedroom, stumbling over the curled toes of his ridiculous slippers.
Aditi has trouble pulling the bandage tight enough to be useful, afraid of his groans, fearful of hurting him. Finally, she gets it right, and he quickly ties it off, lying carefully on the bed and closing his eyes. "Tell me when you need me to move," he says.
Aditi murmurs something, and gets her brushes and pots ready. John, to his shame, slides into sleep soon after she begins, the tickling of her brush dimly penetrating his awareness as she paints henna onto his hands and feet, obnoxious slippers tossed to the floor.
He wakes later, a glance at the clock telling him it has been almost a full hour. He huffs out a shocked breath, and darts a look at the girl working on his abdomen. She narrows her eyes at him. "Don't move, please, or you'll mess me up."
John looks back at the clock, appalled that he's slept, and more appalled that he's slept for this long. "Have they been back?"
"No. I told that… that man… um… it normally takes me about two hours to do the full mehndi."
John holds up his arms and stares in shock at his hands. Intricate, tiny patterns coat his fingers and palms, dancing in flowers and sunbursts and coils, trailing up his wrists all the way to his elbows. She's even drawn across the top of the bandage on his hand, seamlessly integrating it with his skin. His hands are transformed. No longer the small, square, common hands he's stared at all his life; now they've become elegant. Fine. Delicate and rare works of art reminiscent of Sherlock's. "This is amazing," he breathes, forgetting for a second about anything else. "You're very good."
"Yes," the girl agrees sadly. "I suppose that's why he took me. Do you…" she looks at him, at his battered face and stained bandages. She gives a hitching sob, and stubbornly blinks away tears which render her large, dark eyes luminous. "Do you think he'll let me go? Will I get to go home?" Her voice rises and cracks, and John sits up, ignoring the protest from his head and ribs. He gathers the girl into a loose, one-armed hug, careful not to mar her work, and pats her hair.
"I think so, honey," he lies. "It'll be ok. I. I'm sure there are people looking for us already. Just… keep your head down, yeah?"
She takes a few shuddering breaths, and then asks him to stand up so she can do his back. John does so slowly, and determines that he's going back for another painkiller after this, fuzzy mind be damned. He's stiffened over the past hour, and has to squint in order to see through the thick, roaring aura of his headache. Small fingers turn him this way and that, pulling the vest out of the way, painting more rusty designs around his hips and swirling across the dimples of his lower back.
John tries to think of a plan.
The door opens before anything useful comes to mind. It's Moriarty, prancing in behind Sebastian, grinning maniacally. "Oooooh," he breathes. "Just look at you. Turn around for me."
An elderly man stands in the doorway, staring at John with hollowed, hungry eyes. He closes the door behind him and leans on it, looking wretchedly fatigued. John assumes that this must be Crowley.
"I said, turn around for me!" Moriarty repeats.
John glares. Moriarty makes a move for Aditi, who squeaks and sidles behind John. He can hear her terrified, serrated breathing and to offset her hysteria he takes a long, calming breath of his own. He blanks his face and turns around in a slow circle, seeking to cloak himself in the calm of battle. Moriarty touches him, touches him, cold fingertips poking at the henna patterns, knocking loose bits of dried powder, pressing against his bandages, raking red tracks down his biceps. He giggles. "Well, you're no Sherlock," he grinds his thumb into the scar on John's shoulder, and a couple steristrips pull free. "But I suppose you can dance for me."
John can't help but give him a skeptical look, and Moriarty pulls an exaggerated surprised face. "Do you not know how to dance? Don't worry, Little John," he laughs, high and soft. "It will come with the territory. Now, tell me, which do you prefer?"
He turns to Sebastian, who has a small bag in the hand not holding the gun. Moriarty reaches inside and pulls out two lamps, dropping the bag negligently on the carpet. John's world narrows down to the two metal objects in his pale, pale hands.
He should not be surprised. He should not, but he is. Everything stops. His breath freezes in his lungs; cells fat with hemoglobin and vitality are now arrested in his veins; his ears cannot hear, his eyes cannot blink.
The first lamp is Sherlock's. John knows it intimately. But the other. There is another. It is smaller than Sherlock's, and a bright bronze rather than matte cast iron. It is shiny and plain, the only decoration being filigree at the stand, and an extra strip vining from the base to the spout. Ludicrously, John thinks that polishing around that thin wire would be an irritating endeavor. Someone's clearly done it, though, since the lamp is softly gleaming.
"What-" he rasps. "What is that?"
Moriarty looks at him with feigned disappointment. "Come now, Johnny. Surely you're sharper than this!" He shakes his head mournfully to himself. "Honestly, I'd have credited Sherlock with better taste, I really would." He swings the brass lamp from one finger. "This one is for you, you dullard. Unless you're willing to call Sherlock here?" He holds out the other. "One simple wish, and you can trade places. Wish yourself wealthy and at home, hmmm?" He raises an eyebrow at John and flashes a hollow smile. "You can be a fat cat, Dr. Watson, if you just walk the other way."
John simply stares at him. He's tempted to spit on the man, but he can feel the heat from the girl behind his back. She is shaking, huddled against him as if that will save her. He cannot defy Moriarty and put her at risk, especially for such an empty gesture.
He straightens his shoulders and his spine, ignoring the instant, acute objection of his rib. Both in a bid to stall for time, and to better understand the process (because if he can understand it, he can possibly interfere with it), he asks, "How are you planning on getting me inside that thing?" The shining lamp swings hypnotically in front of his gaze, pivoting gently from left to right.
"Oh, it's likely much too complicated for you to understand, my dear," Moriarty sings. "Just know that it involves me and Lord Crowley, here. Why, you'll be a savior. Just imagine. I should think that's what you doctor fellows like the most. Saving someone's life."
"Just get on with it," the old man says. His voice is thin, as ephemeral as his looks. But there is no warmth in his eyes. No compassion or regret. Only self-righteous eagerness.
Moriarty suddenly tosses both lamps at John, who instinctively moves to catch them. He grits his teeth as he fumbles them, terrified he'll accidentally activate Sherlock's. He desperately thinks of… his eyes light on Moriarty's shoes… shoes. He thinks of black shoes. Black shoes. Red foxes. Summer grass. Anything but Sherlock. He is not calling Sherlock.
Moriarty holds up his phone. "Pose for your portrait, Pet," he says. John stares stolidly at Moriarty, mind resolutely blank, one lamp in each hand. Moriarty sighs when his pictures are done, as if disappointed that John won't play with him. He takes the lamps back, dropping them carefully into the bag Sebastian proffers, and heads for the door. "Come along, then. Let's go get this ceremony started. I'm sure Sherlock will turn up soon enough on his own." He turns to glare at John. "Sherlock never believed I could do this, you know. He lacked confidence." He laughs, thready and wild. "I assume that you do, Dr. Watson. I'm sure you know exactly how successful this will be."
Sherlock is staring through the windows of the taxi into the unrelenting blackness beyond when his phone, still tight in his hand, chimes again. He swipes it immediately, to find another message with a picture.
I expect he'll want to wish himself out of this. Don't you? I look forward to seeing you VERY SOON, Sherlock.
John is cleaner than he was in the other photos, blood washed up a bit and wounds held together with plasters and gauze. More striking than his injuries, however, is his dress. A short embroidered vest. Loose, sheer, mid length trousers. Slippers with long, curled toes.
Sherlock sucks in a stunned breath, aghast. This... This. He never saw this coming. Threats and torture and abuse, yes. Possibly murder. But never this. Never the centuries of slavery that Sherlock has had to endure; never imposed on John. Hands painted with henna hold two objects in front of him. Two lamps. One is recognizably Sherlock's, matte and black. The other is a tacky brass affair.
One for each of them.
There's another chime, and this one has text only.
Do you like my new lamp?
and
Oh! I managed to find the Aquilaria resin without your help this time. The Internet is such a wonderful thing.
Moriarty's obscure reference is not lost on Sherlock. This particular manifestation of the resin of the Aquilaria tree is one of the more exotic items Moriarty had used in his ritual involving Sherlock those many years ago. It was an essential ingredient, and Sherlock has never gotten over the fact that he had helped Moriarty locate enough for the ceremony on that fateful day.
He is fiercely angry that John hasn't wished himself back to Baker Street, escaping this impossible situation. Sherlock is ensnared, has been, always will be: there is nothing John can do to save him. But John. John can leave.
John losing his life, or even worse, losing his death and his freedom: there is nothing he can do for Sherlock that would make that sacrifice worthwhile. At best, they'll both be trapped in their lamps, bound to Moriarty or his minions.
Sherlock realizes, with faint embarrassment, that he's gasping, fingers squeezed tight around the phone, a subsonic moan lacing stuttering breaths. The cabby looks back at him in the rearview mirror, vaguely uneasy, and Sherlock shuts his mouth, bites his tongue, and closes his eyes. He must get there soon. Moriarty is a showman. Surely he won't start without an audience. "How much longer?" he asks the cabbie.
The swarthy gentleman shrugs. "GPS says 20 minutes."
"Very well." Sherlock rubs his eyes, then begins to chew on his thumbnail. "Don't go all the way to the drive. Drop me off at the end of the lane."
The cabbie, with a hundred pounds in his pocket and the promise of more to come, nods comfortably. "Shall I wait?"
"Please," Sherlock responds optimistically. Either he'll succeed, and he and John can be free…. Or he'll fail, in which case the waiting cabbie will no longer be his affair.
He scrutinizes the picture on his phone. There's a thick wrapping around John's waist, and Sherlock's eyebrows draw down in concern. Was he cut more? What happened there? He catalogues all the bandages, stomach churning as he thinks about the injuries underneath, lips drawing tight together in fury. He learns by chance how to enlarge the image, and examines the henna on John's hand. The ink continues over a bandage, joining gauze and skin. Who had done that work? Surely not Moriarty.
He briefly closes his eyes, teeth grinding, but quickly fixes them again on the picture. Sherlock is ashamed of how his breathing quickens at the sight of John in that revealing outfit. His arms are hard and defined, the bulge of his bicep enticingly pressed against the velvet of the vest. Designs curve around the balls of his shoulders, creep up his neck. Part of his scar peeks out behind the garment, crumpled plasters and trickling blood only adding to the rugged strength he displays.
John's expression is harsh, unyielding, his character adamantine in such dire straits, and he wears the silly costume with defiance and barely restrained aggression. This is the body Sherlock had so recently traced with his own hands, with his tongue: the gentle curves of John's chest; hard muscle still under his belly; legs strong and sturdy, in contrast to the diaphanous fabric which fails to conceal them.
He touches the screen gently with a fingertip. Hang on, John. I'll be there soon.
Fifteen minutes later his phone dings again:
Are you coming? Of course you are. We're going to have SUCH FUN, Sherlock. Don't be late! But make sure you are completely alone. Because if anyone comes with you, I'll just slit Little John's throat right now. We'll see what happens to you when I rub the lamp after that, hmmm?
It is not until Sherlock reads that sentence that he remembers he could have, should have, called Mycroft once he was certain of his destination. He would berate himself for failure, but it is too late now. He will not risk John's life for backup from someone he has only met once. Moriarty's threat is unambiguous: Sherlock must come in alone.
Sebastian indifferently shuts the door on Aditi's frightened face, leaving her locked alone in the bedroom. John is again prodded to follow Moriarty, who surprisingly dons his coat and gloves. "We're going outside," he comments, as if John had asked a question. "I need a pool."
John's not sure what to make of that statement, so he leaves it for the moment. The four of them make an uncomfortable procession through the house and out through massive french doors onto a patio that must be in the back. Light spilling from the windows shows the patio, snow-covered furniture making shapeless blobs and casting eerie shadows. The grass below the steps is hidden in a blanket of snow, and the blackness beyond is complete but for small fires glimmering in the distance. They head for those lonely lights.
The pool terrace is made up of wet, grey flagstones, massive and icy. Someone's evidently been out to sweep them off; the snow has stopped falling, only a flake or two floating its lonely confused way here and there. The pool is decorative, large enough to qualify as a lap pool, long and narrow, strangely bereft of ice. An open-front cabana beckons temptingly from the far side, where several braziers burn merrily and orange light flickers around stone columns, tendrils of comfort licking the slicked step leading inside.
John is shoved along, Sebastian's gun nudging impatiently at his neck whenever he slows to gasp or blink back his vision. The slippers on his feet are sodden from the snow, and clammy against his skin. Shivers rack him continually, for he is nearly naked in the frigid, windy weather. His jaw aches from clamping down on chattering teeth. The partially enclosed space ahead of him appears welcoming and warm, and John longs for it with an absurd optimism.
John slips once on the ice, twisting his knee, but it isn't enough to distract from the pulverizing tempest of his headache, or the savage rack of cold. Moriarty flicks an expressionless glance at him and simply says Restrain him now to Sebastian, who pushes John into a puffy lounge chair. The dichotomy is disorienting. His hands are wrenched behind the chair, and he cannot prevent a low cry of pain as all the bandages on his chest are pulled awry, and his rib grinds and pulses in protest. He is quickly and efficiently bound, arms agonizingly wrapped around the circumference of the wide back and zip tied together. Sebastian roughly secures his hands to the chair legs, further straining his chest. He won't be moving anytime soon.
The skeletal old man, Lord Crowley, limps his way up the single step to the little shelter and sinks, groaning, into a seat very close to another of the braziers. He's bundled from head to toe in furs, nothing much visible except for dull eyes and sunken cheeks. He watches John with an uncomfortable lust, and tracks Moriarty with something approaching veneration.
Moriarty opens a large chest and begins to set up what will obviously be an elaborate ritual, peeling off posh leather gloves in order to draw what John assumes are alchemical symbols on the floor of the cabana. He moves outside and paces the perimeter of the pool, drawing symbol-filled circles, setting out fat pillar candles in red and white and black at each face of it. Next he digs up a large flask and begins to sprinkle the contents inside their perimeter. The liquid rolls and beads reflectively with the unmistakable sheen and behavior of mercury.
John stares incredulously. "That shit will poison you, you know," he wheezes conversationally.
Moriarty doesn't even spare him a glance. The next thing looks like salt, sprinkled in studious patterns, and the remainder flung into the pool. Moriarty does look at John after that, and gives an empty smile, chucking the heavy glass container into the pool with a splash. "Salt water," he smirks. "That's why there's no ice. It's still just as cold, though," his lip curls and his black eyes gleam. "So you should enjoy that fire while you can."
John is actually not enjoying the fire. It isn't nearly enough, and what little heat it puts out dissipates before it reaches him. His shivering is doing as much damage to his cuts, bruises and concussion as being manhandled by Sebastian had done. His skin is turning blue, which nicely compliments the color scheme of the damn genie costume, but isn't something a doctor wants to see. Even his eyeballs feel frozen, and each inhale burns the inside of his nose with the sensation of dry ice.
Moriarty turns back to his trunk and pulls open a little silver box, slinking his way to John. He upends the contents, some type of powder, directly onto the flames, which go yellow and leap high at the contact. The unmistakable odor of sulphur fills the air, and John struggles not to cough. "Oi, mate," he needles, not seeing the point in holding back now. "Couldn't you have picked something sweeter?"
Moriarty stares at him for a long minute before laughing delightedly. "Aren't you a brave and foolish thing?" He smiles, feral and cold. "That, mate, was sulphur, which, with mercury and salt make up the three philosophical elements. With sulphur, mercury and salt I shall bind your soul, your spirit and your body." He pulls both lamps out of his coat pockets, tosses Sherlock's with painful accuracy onto John's lap, flourishes the brass one, and minces to the large circle he's drawn at the head of the pool, setting it down in a ring of candles there.
"With earth, air and flame, I shall call upon the Power to do my bidding, and with water I shall transform thee," his eyes are fever bright, reflecting the dancing flames of the small fires. He licks around his mouth, tongue a darker triangle passing swiftly over pale, narrow lips. "I shall sever you from your essence, with bone and herb and crystal, sweep your vitality in the direction I dictate. Infuse it into a new host," he slants an emotionless look at Lord Crowley, who gazes back with hope that is degrading and nakedly avid, "with the same mechanics by which I shall incarcerate you in that lamp and sublimate you to my will."
John is simultaneously enraged and terrified. He jerks at his bound wrists, fear and adrenaline making him wild and senseless. He growls, loud and animal: he'd gnaw his arms off for freedom at this point, base instinct adjuring him to get loose, to neutralize this threat. He struggles until the plasters across his lacerations pop loose, and blood is the only thing that warms him, in thin trickles catching in the fur of his chest, wending down to catch in the gauze around his ribs.
Moriarty laughs. His face is ravenous, cheeks flushed with fanaticism. "Yes," he whispers, bending closer to John. "Yes. Fight me. Don't give up. Show me what I will soon take, show me your spirit, your foolish bravery, your lust for life." He nudges the brazier closer, too close, mere inches away, until John's arm begins to redden, motley, from the heat.
Moriarty drops yet another powder on the flames and acrid, resinous smoke fans over John's face. He coughs it in, lungs straining, and he can feel something in the smoke affecting his brain as well, skewing his perceptions. His thoughts slow as an unnatural haze filters over the scene, and he's caught in Moriarty's round black eyes, mired in a foul molasses of insanity and avarice.
A few more useless yanks at his bonds and John slumps backwards, mouth open, helplessly gasping in more smoke, dizzy and dissociated and frighteningly numb and lethargic.
"Very good," Moriarty croons. "Lovely, very nice."
Moriarty's pupils are huge, and John notes with dismay that the two of them are most certainly drugged. Shadows take on a more solid dimensionality, reaching across the floor to stroke his painted feet, to tug at the mirrors on his vest, flicking him with brumal fingers to offset the burning heat on his other side.
John stares at the henna patterns across the blued tops of his feet. He has one last, mournfully sober thought: he knows what he should have wished for. All this time, so many opportunities. How many times has Moriarty handed John the lamp and told him to wish. Three? And now, although it rests right on his lap, his hands are bound and he cannot touch it. He wonders what would have happened if he had… .
So he shouts in his mind, I wish that Sherlock could be the Master of the Lamp.
Nothing happens.
John coughs on the smoke, and his head droops down. Nothing happened.
There's a brief flare of light, from the fire or the camera, John cannot discern which. The world is spinning, and he fights vertigo. Sebastian looms through the smoke like a devil, handing something to Moriarty. "It's all ready for you, Master," he says, and his voice has the cadence of ritual, which pulls John down deeper, swaddled in fear and acceptance, confusion and regret slowly slipping away.
Sherlock jumps at another soft chime from his phone. With controlled hands, he opens it: a pale blue square rests innocuously in the center of an otherwise empty message. This picture shows John in a chair. His hair is bedraggled and clumped, his vest is skewed, chest bleeding again, soaking dark into the bandages around his ribs. His eyes are wide, pupils enlarged in spite of the flash, and smoke swirls heavily to his left. His stare is glassy, dissociated, and Sherlock has a vivid sense-memory of the resinous smell of the Aquilaria, pungent and cloying, remembers how it drained him of stability and motivation, the shapes swirling in the smoke suddenly less real, everything less immediate.
And he knows. He knows, and he burns with it; fear and fury, until his skin will split trying to contain it. He asks the cabbie again, face feral and taut, "How long?"
The cabbie pumps the gas, riskily increasing speed given the conditions of the road. "Five minutes," he replies.
"Set me down out of sight of the address," Sherlock reminds him.
The cabbie nods and continues to drive.
Sherlock holds his breath the entire time.
The cabbie finally pulls over, nestled in a graveled drive leading into a pasture. "GPS shows this is just around the bend."
Sherlock already has the door open. He shoves another wad of notes at the driver. "Wait here," he commands, and takes off at a jog, thin smooth soles of his city shoes slipping on the icy road. He moves to the graveled verge and runs lightly on his toes, silent.
The imposing manor looms to his right as he crests the bend in the road. Lit rooms shine like beacons inside; landscape lighting shows the facade, follows the winding entrance, highlights trees and shrubs so that the place looks like a fairyland. The old estate is quite transformed from the last time Sherlock saw it. Ancient spruce trees line the drive, and Sherlock slips from trunk to vast trunk, staying in black shadows, eyes and ears hyper alert.
He had recognized the little cabana in the last picture. Knows it too well... it was the last place he ever saw as a free man. It is painfully clear what Moriarty intends, and Sherlock has John's gun out of his pocket, pulls the glove off his hand with his teeth so that he can hold it steady, aim and fire with assurance and accuracy. He hides it in his pocket, primed and ready, finger curled around the trigger.
He does not feel the cold.
He rounds the corner of the giant estate, makes for the grounds in the back where the pool lies. Snow crunches softly under his feet, and he curses the weather. He drifts closer, and hears a voice in the dark, reaching out to him the same way the flames beckon, flickering and surreal in the endless expanse of these giant lawns. The only illumination comes from candles and the three glowing coal fires in the little house. It is a new moon (of course it is, damn these rituals), so there is no light from that source. Sherlock leans around the trunk of the nearest tree, and takes careful stock.
John is slumped in his chair, to the left of center, strangely lit by the fire, appearing to be only half a person, his other side lost in darkness. His head is drooping; he is possibly unconscious.
There's another person sitting on the right. Not bound. His head is propped on his hands, which are resting in their turn on his knees. His bulk is due to furs, rather than physiology. Sherlock scans the cadaverous face beneath its fur cuff hat and dismisses the man as the sickly Lord Crowley, current owner of the estate.
So, Crowley's involvement is voluntary. This information doesn't surprise Sherlock, but there is not much he can do with it. He seems unlikely to be a threat, although Sherlock can't be sure he doesn't have a firearm. He'll keep half an eye in that direction. Moriarty stands on the step, midway between the columns, silhouetted against one of the braziers. He's stage center, and this deliberate choreography is ludicrous to Sherlock.
Moriarty throws his arms wide and shouts, "Sherlock! Come up, come up! It's been so very long, my pet. But I always knew we'd get here." He summons with both hands, tawdry in his overdone theatrics.
Sherlock walks forward. There is no more point in subterfuge. Damn the crunchy snow, for giving him away. "Moriarty," he says. Now all his fear has morphed to rage and he is the tool, the weapon he needs to be: focused, intent, murderous and unhindered by morals. "You must let him go." He gets halfway down the pool, close enough to be bathed in firelight, red candles at his feet.
Moriarty smirks at him. "What? No greeting? No protestations of how much you've missed me?"
Sherlock snarls.
"Oh, and I have missed you. Yes I have. Missed you, and what I could do for you. To you. Or really, more to the point… what you could do for me. Sherlock. It is such an honor that you've deigned to attend yet another of my little rituals."
"What do you think you're doing?" Sherlock infuses his question with snark and disrespect. "Still playing games? After so many years?"
Moriarty frowns, an expression of playful disappointment on his face. "Have you forgotten already, Sherlock? Or perhaps you never figured it out. This," he throws out a hand to encompass the house, the fires, the pool, "is the protocol by which I create longevity. You… what happened to you… that was just a lovely side effect. Now I know, of course." He nods his head to the wizened old man on his right. "Assuming Lord Crowley can hang on for another few minutes, I'll have him youthful and energetic in no time at all." He grins, and light gleams oddly off his teeth so that for a moment they look like fangs. "And Johnny, too, of course. Johnny gets youth and longevity, too. He just has a … slightly higher price to pay."
Sherlock growls, and takes two steps forward, stopping when Moriarty flings out a palm. He's been trained for too long not to let it affect him.
"What if we threw a virgin into the mix, Sherlock? Could you stand in for that?" His laughter is cold and sharp; shards of it fall to the stone under his feet, brittle and cutting. "I mean, I know you're not a virgin now, of course. We made sure of that, didn't we? And wasn't that so fun? I cherish that moment, Sherlock, I really do."
Sherlock is frozen in place, he can't move, and Moriarty's words fall on him, piercing, paralyzing, taunting and cruel.
"Are you no longer virgin if it was involuntary, Sherlock? Did you ever learn to like it, after me? What have you given to John?"
John's head had snapped up when Moriarty first bellowed Sherlock, his eyes clear and his body taut, ready for action. The smoke-induced daze seems to have receded. John lunges forward with a roar, mouth open, teeth bared. The heavy lounge chair screeches several inches across the floor before stuttering to a halt.
Sherlock pulls his hand from his pocket and produces the gun, aims it steadily at his enemy.
Moriarty laughs. "John. Johnny-Boy! Your knight has come. Look at this." His sweet voice drops an octave, becomes hissing and cold, "Remember this, John. Mark this failure. And tell Sherlock what that little red dot on your chest means."
John looks down with dismay. Indeed, an LED sight is obvious over his heart. He growls in frustration. "Sherlock, there's another man here." He tips his head to the shadows on the left of the pool. "Somewhere over there. The laser on my chest means he's got his weapon aimed at me."
Sherlock's eyes, shining in the dim light, flicker sideways. He can see nothing, but the little red pinpoint dancing across John's chest. It floats from the blood-stained bandages up to his forehead and then back down. The message is clear.
"Put down your little gun, Sherlock," Moriarty sings. "It is over. We can kill him now or later, but you are here, and that's all I need." He peers at his old slave. "I've missed you so, I really have." He laughs and sucks on his index finger, hanging the weight of his hand from his teeth.
The old man behind Moriarty speaks up. His voice is withered, petulant, worn through with long-term sickness. "Get on with it, man. I've no desire to sit out in the cold all night. Do what you promised to do."
Moriarty shoots him a venomous glare, quickly suppressed into a fixed, supercilious expression. "Of course, my Lord. Wouldn't want to keep you waiting." Sherlock is familiar with that tone of voice. The old man won't survive to see dawn, he's certain.
Moriarty glides over to John, and the red light remains fixed on his chest. "Gun," he reminds Sherlock kindly. "On the ground, if you don't mind, my dear."
Stiffly, furious, Sherlock bends to place it near his feet.
"Kick it away, you foolish boy." His high tenor, laced with Irish warmth, is disorienting. "No tricks."
Sherlock complies, agonized. Moriarty produces a knife from his pocket and holds it against John's throat. John jerks once, pulling against his bonds, but his hands are clearly tied around the back of the chair. A thin black line appears under the blade, darker than the shadow under his chin, and John goes very still. Sherlock cannot see his eyes, but he can feel the intensity of his stare.
"Kneel," Moriarty rasps. He points to the far end of the pool. "There, in the circle. Be careful not to muss my lines."
Sherlock's eyes dart around the pool area, but there is no help in any quarter, no tool, no bright ideas that wouldn't leave John dead before he could implement anything. He moves confidently to the circle, stepping carefully over alchemical symbols decorating its boundary. He's mere inches from the foot of the pool, and slashing, visceral memory makes his blood ice, one quick shiver wracks his body.
Moriarty snatches up Sherlock's lamp, from where it's been balanced on John's lap, and then drops it into one coat pocket. He grimaces toothily at Sherlock in what may have originally been intended to be a smile, but now is now redolent of dark, uncontrolled passion.
He slices the rope tying John's hands to the chair, but leaves the zip tie tight around his wrists. He forces John to standing, pushing up against his neck with the knife, slipping through the thin trail of blood already there. John struggles awkwardly to his feet.
Moriarty pushes him to one side, and John has to hurry to step around the bulk of the chair before he trips over it. His face is pallid, sheened with strain. But his expression is fierce, and Sherlock knows his partner is prepared in spite of his discomfort.
If only he can manufacture a plan!
Moriarty sneers at the old man and has him take his place in a circle on the long side of the pool. He shoves John to his knees in the place that mirrors Sherlock's, opposite him across the dark water. Moriarty has the ugly brass lamp in his hands now, and moves to the unoccupied side of the pool, facing Crowley, smiling and triumphant. He steps into his own marked ring and sets down the lamp. He bends to a small chest at his feet and begins to sprinkle herbs and powders over certain symbols. Incongruous, cheerful whistling accompanies his actions as he completes his preparations.
A brazier in the pool house flares up and smoke roils out, pungent and thick, creeping heavily around the pool like fog: menacing, overwhelming. It sinks around John's hips, rises to his shoulders, slides stinging tendrils inside his nose and mouth. Moriarty is murmuring to his left, the old man to his right, rigid and covetous, huddled in his obscene furs.
Sherlock stares across the pool at John, distraught, anguished. He is mere meters away, but it might as well be the ocean between them. The temperature doesn't affect John anymore. His skin is thoroughly frozen; the peril of the situation so much worse than inclemency that it's not even worth registering.
The old man coughs, and Moriarty glares at him.
The red sight stays steadily trained on John's left breast, targeting his heart with a sniper's accuracy.
A small line of fire has risen around Moriarty's circle, sulphur strong in the air, and Moriarty grins. "Sebastian," he says conversationally. "On my command, you need to toss John into the pool." He looks around at his strange, frozen audience, two kneeling and furious, one amorally desperate to extend a life that seems already gross and attenuated.
"You recall, do you not, Sherlock? After all, it was right here, this very spot. Not too much has changed since that night, has it?" Moriarty swings his head to the side to give Sherlock a heated stare. The soft Irish lilt is obscene, emanating from features sculpted by firelight into something inhumanly reptilian.
Another handful of powder is scattered, and the ring of flame around Moriarty leaps momentarily higher, casting writhing shadows across his face, pits of black around his eyes, hair wild, mouth a grotesque maw before the light dies back down. "Total immersion, John," he explains, licking his lips. "A symbolic drowning, don't fear. You're not as much use to me dead, after all. Although, and please keep this in mind, it's not absolutely necessary for you to live.
"A baptism, if you will, beginning your new life, with a new Master. All the elements must be combined to work such powerful magic. Water, air, fire, earth," he clunks his heel on the slate flagstones. "And sulphur, mercury and salt to bind you, to transform you," here he includes Lord Crowley in his singsong oration, "to ensure the manifestation of your fate." He stoops to the chest, grabs a box, and casts the contents into the pool at his feet. The water bubbles, greasy and foul.
Moriarty squats gracefully on his heels. "And now, the symbol for completion…" he holds a wand of chalk, and the brass lamp gleams, eldritch and bilious in his hand as he leans forward….
Sherlock does know this ritual, and he tightens his muscles, ready for movement. The red light disappears from John's chest as a large shadow resolves at the periphery of the light. A huge man prowls over to John, and stands just outside his circle, staring at him, coiled and alert, awaiting the direction to push.
Sherlock looks at John, really looks. John is staring right back, and his soul seems to shine through his eyes, pain and weakness shucked in the face of his dedication to Sherlock. His innate decency, his strength of will, are predominant and enticing.
He is ready for whatever message Sherlock should send him. And Sherlock is ready too. He blinks. An eyebrow twitches. There's the tiniest jut of his chin. John. On my signal, you must jump.
John blinks back. A corner of his mouth lifts, falls. His question is unmistakable. Jump? In there? What bloody good will that do?
On my mark, Sherlock insists, communicating through the cant of his body. He listens to the incantation he could never forget, waiting for the moment.
"... and mercury for transition." Gleaming silver drips from Moriarty's fingers. "Vitality from one to another. Freedom from one to another." He grinds bone and crystal under his shoe, dips the brass lamp into the pool and rises to his feet, holding John's future lamp, dripping fire, in both hands, raising it above his head, knee-deep in smoke, and his round black eyes are consumed with madness. "Sebastian-"
But Sherlock snarls, and launches himself forward, John matching him move for move from the other end, and there are twin splashes, synchronized bodies, unified in motion and intent, strangely graceful.
The lamp slips from Moriarty's hands and he screams in frustrated fury. Sebastian quickly lifts his rifle, aiming at the pool. The old man staggers, curls over, sinks to the icy rock behind him, and two gunshots ring out.
Moriarty and Sebastian fall. Weakened fire licks, intrigued, at the cuff of one man's bespoke trousers.
Figures in black slink from the periphery, closing in on the pool. Mycroft's face coalesces out of the night, pinched, worried and angry.
Waves rock the pool. The water is black, impenetrable. There are no bodies to be seen within.