Chapter 19: Rescue

Sherlock leaves the bank coolly pleased. Dr. Georgia Linley has established numerous accounts in places ranging from Switzerland to the Cayman Islands. His meticulous digging has exposed that her wealth has grown to several million over the past year. This is the proof he needs to bring Lestrade to the hospital for an arrest. It is a good thing Ridley at the bank owes him such a huge favor. Chasing down the money trail has taken several hours.

He pulls out his phone. No texts, messages or missed calls. Where is John? Surely the "interview" wouldn't have taken more than an hour at most? He's probably waiting at the flat. Sherlock flags down a taxi and climbs in, texting Lestrade as soon as he's settled in the seat.

The flat is empty. Sherlock easily perceives that no one's been here since they left hours earlier. A sick worry begins to pull at his stomach. His fingers fly across the screen of his mobile.

John. Where are you? I have important information. Contact me immediately. -SH

Lestrade. Meet me at the flat instead. -SH

Not five minutes later Lestrade bangs on the door downstairs. Sherlock throws on his coat and swathes his neck in his scarf as he takes the stairs three at a time to the foyer. "Lestrade." he greets unceremoniously. He's not nervous, yet. Exactly. Just feeling very, very efficient and motivated. "Get back in your car. We need to go to Hereford Hospital. I'll tell you on the way." He herds Lestrade to the patrol car and folds himself into the passenger seat.

He explains the dramatic bloom in Dr. Linley's wealth to Lestrade as he weaves his way through the remnants of traffic. "So she's obviously both the broker and the surgeon. Must just give a tiny portion of the take to whomever the lure is... the man from the Viper's Pit."

"Three million pounds." Lestrade shakes his head, amazed and disgusted. "From five bodies. I'm surprised more people aren't doing it."

"Well, it does take a specialized skill," Sherlock comments. "But until the laws become a little more forgiving, the market will only grow. Too much money there for any self-respecting criminal not to stick a finger in the pie."

Lestrade stops at a light and looks around his own car suddenly, as if surprised. "Where is your... friend? Staying home for this one, please god?"

Sherlock frowns repressively at the DI. "He went to hospital several hours ago, to interview with Dr. Linley for a position as a surgeon."

"What?" Lestrade is perturbed to hear that a layman is poking his nose about in a serial killer case. "Why on earth did you let him do that? Has he any training? How does-"

"He's not an idiot, Lestrade. Well. Certainly less so than most of your team. He's an experienced doctor and soldier; give him a modicum of credit. He wasn't going to be doing any actual investigating. Just get a feel for the woman and the traffic through the center, how it's changed over the last year, that kind of thing."

"I told you not to go off on your own! That goes double for your mate! Jesus, Sherlock. Working with you is like wrangling a child."

Sherlock tightens his jaw. He could argue this more effectively if he weren't worried that something untoward may have happened to John. Sherlock can feel fretful tugging under his breastbone, the thin line that has connected them since the moment John hatched. It is always there, a faint irritant that lessens in intensity the closer they are to one another. He doesn't know if John feels it, too. Hadn't mentioned it to him (although he should, just for scientific clarity). Assumes, perhaps, that it is part of imprinting. Although Sherlock's research hasn't thus far uncovered a theory to suggest that imprinting goes both ways.

The pull exists, however, whether or not he can account for it with a reasonable scientific explanation, and he's feeling extremely agitated at the moment. He picks at the bandages around his hand, staring obliquely out of the window as South Kensington begins to drift by.

In the hospital, visiting hours are long over, the shift has turned, and the lobby is empty. Lestrade is talking to the same stupid security guard who was there earlier. Sherlock ignores them, and sweeps towards the elevator bank, pressing the button for floor 16.

Lestrade reaches him just as the doors slide open. "He says Dr. Linley hasn't yet checked out. He offered to page her, but I said no thanks."

Sherlock nods, distracted. "What have you got, Lestrade? Pepper spray? Better get it ready."

"Aw, fuck, Sherlock. What are you expecting? Should I call for backup?"

"Up to you," he brushes off that worry. "Just better to be prepared." He rubs at his chest, to soothe the anxious ache growing there, dense and overwhelming. The door dings and opens onto a now-familiar hallway. Sherlock ghosts down the hall, very careful not to make a single noise. Even the rustling of his coat has been subdued. His feet are silent on the gray carpet. Lestrade slinks next to him. They reach the office. Its door is wide open, there is no sound from inside. Sherlock leans his head around the jamb and sucks in a sharp breath. He moves quickly within.

"Jesus," Lestrade breathes. Papers are strewn about the floor, a chair is knocked over, and spilled coffee intersects, like a disgusting Venn diagram, an alarming amount of blood on the carpet. "This can't be good."

Sherlock shoots out a hand and slaps it over Lestrade's mouth. "Shut up!" he hisses. He pulls his hand back immediately, brushing it unconsciously against his coat. It crosses Lestrade's mind that this is the first time Sherlock has ever voluntarily touched him. Sherlock moves carefully around the perimeter of the room.

"I don't believe the blood is John's," he says at last, very quietly. "See the pattern here, and the fallen mug... Looks like he must have been handed the coffee before he realized anything was wrong. Clearly there was a struggle. John probably sliced his assailant and had him down on the carpet here, you can see from the spread of blood. But then they subdued him." He crouches and stares under the furniture. "Yes, an injection. There's the syringe under the desk. Better leave it for evidence."

He pulls in a long breath through clenched teeth. "We'll follow the blood." His brows knit. "It's several hours old, I believe, going from the rate of coagulation."

There's another door in the office, also opened, and occasional splats of blood delineate the path they should follow. Sherlock moves swiftly, completely focused, down another hallway and to a stairwell. They enter with caution, but it is empty and echoing. Sherlock descends the stairs two at a time, on his toes to absorb the noise. He checks through the first door, floor 15. There! Another spatter, several meters down the hall. He is a bloodhound. He immediately follows.

The heavy double doors of Operation Theater 1506 are closed, and have no windows. Sherlock locks eyes with Lestrade, who drifts to the other side of the doors. He counts silently. One. Two. Three. And then they shoulder into the room together, crouching slightly, still silent.

Sherlock assesses the scene that meets his eyes with his emotions ruthlessly on hold for later. A woman in an expensive, yet still unflattering, pantsuit stands with surgical gloves and a scalpel, evidently directing the man next to her to maneuver the machine he's pushing over an exam table. The flunky is the man from the club, Sherlock sees at a glance. Goatee. Hair. Glasses. He is also the wounded one from upstairs, with a bloody slit in the side of his lab coat advertising where he was cut. Sherlock feels fleeting satisfaction before his gaze moves on.

And on the table. On the table is John. Sherlock's heart stutters, but he ignores it, refuses to let sentiment interfere, just hoovers up data like he always does. The bed is the kind with restraints built in, probably brought up from the psych ward several floors below. John is shirtless, restrained face down, both hands and feet, and a broad band across his hips. His. His. Sherlock swallows hard. His wings are out, cartoonishly bound up in medical tape at both shoulder and elbow joints, so they rise straight above his back. There is a thin, dripping red line along his ribs, scoring a gentle curve (a sick smile) that encompasses the wing. An IV line runs from a pole into his hand.

John flops his head towards the door, and dazed eyes widen. It's the only part of his face that can move. The lower half is wrapped in gauze, and Sherlock can see that his jaw is distended, likely from additional gagging material. What Sherlock can see of his face is ashen, lightly coated in sweat. His hair is wet with it. There's an unnerving bluish tint, and Sherlock realizes that he badly needs air, isn't getting enough oxygen through all the shit wrapped around his head.

After the first shocked pause, wherein everyone in the room remains in a frozen tableau, Sherlock dives forward. The club man is closest, so Sherlock brings him down in a rushed tackle. He doesn't mess about with niceties or warning, just slams his fist as hard as he can right onto the wound. The man screams, high and thin, and staggers back, falling to a sitting position. Sherlock kicks him hard in the temple, using the gently pointed tip of his very expensive Italian shoes, and pole-axed, the man falls bonelessly sideways.

Lestrade stares, confused and uncomprehending, at John, but then tears his gaze away and rushes the woman, who drops the scalpel and begins to plead, voice soft and light. "Oh! Don't hurt me! I'm just doing what he made me-"

Sherlock tunes her out, flying instead to John. "John," he says, voice so deep it's more of a vibration than it is audible. "John." He doesn't know where to start. He unbuckles one wrist with shaking hands, and then begins to tear at the fabric wound around his head. He rips the cannula and tubing out of his hand, throwing them violently away, as he tugs at miles of tangled gauze.

John heaves and twists, manages to pull his one free arm under him, and pushes up. He's making it more difficult, with his frantic, jerking movements, but he's desperate to get out and free. Sherlock finds an end and begins to unwind, dodging the hand that keeps trying to grab onto his arm. "Just a minute, John," he soothes, falling instinctively into his egg-croon voice, gentle and quiet. "Let me get this off you-"

"Bloody hell!" Lestrade shouts from behind them. Sherlock swings around again, and the woman has pulled a taser from the pocket of her lab coat. She has Lestrade's jacket clenched in her hand, and she pulls him forward, off his balance, while jabbing out with the taser. There's a crack and hiss, and Lestrade arcs to the floor and lies there.

She stalks Sherlock. He looks at her in amazement. This middle-aged female, shorter and stouter than John, is thinking to defeat a room full of men. And will possibly succeed. He needs a moment to think. She's at John's feet. "Move away," she demands. "Now. Or I'll shock him again."

Again? Ah. Possibly that would account for the gray shade of John's skin. He sees the dangling paddles of the defibrillator at the head of the bed. She holds the taser against John's ankle, and Sherlock backs up a step, two steps. Lestrade moans from the floor nearby. Club man is still out cold. Sherlock looks around quickly for a weapon, but the instrument tray is on John's other side. She moves around the corner of the bed. "Move back," she says again. "I want you to go into that door over there."

Lestrade pulls himself to his knees and takes in the scene before him. He makes a low gurgling sound.

Sherlock locks eyes with John. He has the one free hand. His eyes widen almost imperceptibly and John nods.

The woman takes another step up the bed, now level with John's thighs, pressing the taser against his lower back. She smiles, dead and flat. "Into the closet with both of you. Now."

Sherlock moves backwards again, a long step with lots of attendant movement, trying to thoroughly engross the woman's attention. John flexes his hand, and there's a flash as the operating light that had haloed him catches on the tilting flat of a blade. And then John jams it down as far as he can reach, catching on the woman's coat, and sinking rapidly into her flesh. As far as John can stretch himself, he pushes and then brutally twists the knife.

Linley screams, jerking back, and the stun gun falls clattering to the tile floor. Lestrade is on her in a moment, twisting her down and sitting across her back as blood pools on the floor at her side. She grunts and groans beneath him. "Jesus fuck," he snarls, grabbing her arms and pulling them tightly back. He grabs his cuffs from his back pocket and snaps them on her, tightening them hard. The knife is still sticking out of her side, Lestrade has to angle his knee to keep from pressing it. And then, while he's maneuvering around it, it. it. Disappears. Gone.

Sherlock is back at John's side, muttering a stream of invective. "Give me the knife," he says, and John pulls it from the woman (this is when Lestrade watches it disappear) and hands it to Sherlock, who absently wipes off the blood on the sheets at his hip. He very, very carefully slides the blade along John's cheek, through the knots of bandaging, not against the skin, careful to leave a few layers so that he won't twitch and cut his hatchling. It is very sharp, this knife, and when Sherlock pulls, it carves through the gauze like cheese. Sherlock's long fingers dance as he pulls the rest away.

John's mouth is still stuffed, gagged with the sodden wad of bandaging that had been crammed in there some thirty minutes earlier. Sherlock fishes it out, throws it to the floor, and John sucks in great, heaving gasps of air that leave him choking and coughing, dry and wretched. He works his jaw against the sharp pain of relieved muscles.

Lestrade mutters something, and Sherlock suddenly is reminded of the wings. "John, can you put them away?" he asks softly. John shakes his head, trying to swallow. He coughs more. "Stay still, then,"

Sherlock begins to saw at the bindings holding the wings at the carpel joint, and Lestrade pipes up. "What the fuck is that, Sherlock? What. The. Fuck ." His confusion and and the adrenaline make him sound both angry and aggrieved.

"Shut it, Lestrade." He gets through the first set and John's wings fall open, slithering along his back and over the sides of the table. A few severed feathers float to the floor as well.

Lestrade stands up, keeping one foot firmly on the back of the woman's neck to keep her down. He cranes his head to look around Sherlock's shoulder. "I am not seeing bloody wings. What in buggering hell is going on?" His phone buzzes. He glances at the screen. "Backup's on the way," he says.

Sherlock finishes the second layer of wrappings and John groans a little at the release of stress. Sherlock strokes his hands down both wings, from the propatagium forming the leading edge to the tips of the tertiary feathers that run down either side of John's spine. He can see the black lines drawn across his back, as if to mark him up for surgery, and rubs his thumb angrily across it, but it won't erase. "John, the wings?" He unbuckles the middle restraint, and then moves around the table freeing John's other arm and then feet.

John is still holding his knife, white knuckled around it. He tries to talk, but keeps coughing. "Lestrade," Sherlock barks. "Get him some water. She's not going anywhere." It's true, the woman is lying, gray and limp now, bleeding heavily. Sherlock, hands gentle, almost tentative, lifts John until he can sit. His head jerks and falls, so Sherlock moves between his knees to hold his head against his chest, stabilizing it. He strokes his hands on the ruffled wings again. "You have to put them away, John," he says again. John shudders, and shakes his head minutely.

Water runs, and Lestrade comes back. Sherlock takes the cup (actually, it's a biopsy sample container, but he's not picky. Obviously it was sterile.) John drinks and drinks. He holds on to Sherlock's waist with the other hand. Lestrade stares and stares, circling around to John's back. John drops the empty cup. "Minute," he finally rasps into Sherlock's shirt. "Vertigo." His voice is broken and raw.

Lestrade's face is colorless behind John. "Is this fucking real?" he asks Sherlock. Limp wings shudder across the surgical bed, draped on either side until the primaries brush the floor. The operating light across feathers highlights the gold and brightens the deep brown into cinnamon. Color and depth and pattern ripple through each magnificent wing, barred pinions twitching minutely as John tries to recover enough to retract them. Sherlock runs his hand along one edge, and feels John relax a little against him.

Sherlock gives Lestrade a look. "Not as far as you're concerned, Lestrade. You have never seen this, do you understand?"

"But. But. Jesus. Can I touch it?"

"No!" Sherlock pulls John in closer, with one hand protectively over his wing, and the wings quiver faintly and then, at last!, slip out of existence.

"Aw, bloody hell!" Lestrade explodes. "What the sodding fuck is going on here?"