Donovan and Andersen slipped through the traffic on Baker Street at speed, lights on, sirens blaring, but they still had not beat Mycroft's people, who had already swept through 221b and gathered up the few clues left to discover. They had left Greg asleep on the floor by the sofa, his fingers still clinging to one of Molly's socks. Donovan filled a pitcher with cold water and threw the lot over Greg's head. He gasped and shook his head, trying to regain sight and motion through the haze of whatever he'd been gassed with. Donovan knelt in front of him, staring at his face, trying to determine if he was with it enough to answer questions.

"Where are Molly and Sherlock?" she demanded.

Greg reached his hand onto the sofa, patting and gripping and hoping to find them still curled together. He had still been awake when Sherlock laid down on Molly and passed out.

"They were here, on the sofa, cuffed together," he said. "I threw the keys out the window."

"Handcuffed?" Donovan raised an eyebrow.

"Sherlock didn't want them to be able to take her alone," Greg groaned, holding his head in his hands. "Is there any blood? A hand missing a body?"

Donovan quickly shook her head. "No sign of a struggle."

"I saw four of them, three men and a woman. The woman was squirming, angry, scared, fighting them. She knew me – called me by name. I couldn't focus enough to see her face." He thought. Fight for the image, he swore at himself. Get it back. Posh voice, dark hair… "Adler. It was Irene Adler." Greg nodded to himself.

He heard clapping from the doorway. Donovan's head whipped around to see Mycroft leaning against the doorframe, slowly applauding. "Well done, detective inspector," he said. "That makes sense given that we found this –" Mycroft held up a tiny chunk of hard, black plastic. "The heel of a woman's boot. Well, The Woman's boot. It still has traces of mud from Bunhill graveyard. We've tracked her prints as far as the kerb outside the building. A car must have been waiting." Mycroft shot Greg a piercing glance and added, "No, we haven't found them. Yet."

Greg struggled to his feet. Anderson helped pull him up and steadied him. Donovan examined the walls of the hallway and came back. "They must have left a trail if they took Sherlock, too, and they wouldn't have been expecting to take him. They would only have been prepared to take a small woman, and wound up with 6+ feet of unconscious Sherlock cuffed to her."

Mycroft nodded. "They would have needed to carry them out together, at least initially. I suspect my brother has already been relieved of his…" Mycroft studied the trail from the sofa to the door, "…left hand. It was a foolish move."

Greg snapped at him. "It was a brave move. He was willing to risk that to stay attached to Molly even if only temporarily."

Mycroft kicked his foot against the door in a rare sign of annoyance and frustration. "Pull yourself together, Lestrade, and follow me. We have to work quickly. You haven't recovered any women alive from this lot."

Greg sat down on the sofa, resting his hands against the leather where he had last seen Molly and Sherlock. "We are not going to let any of them die. I don't know why they had Adler, but she was awake and with it. Not drugged. She must have left us some sort of trail."

Mycroft and Donovan both agreed. Greg got down on his hands and knees at the spot where he had seen Adler. He had listened, smelled, watched, and he remembered her struggling in a determined, purposeful way. "The floorboards," Greg said. "She snapped that heel digging it into the floorboards right here."

Mycroft dropped down next to him and ran his fingers over the scarred wood. "A straight line with another coming off it at a 45 degree angle. And the letters lb."

"Lb? Pound? Weight or money?" Andersen wondered aloud.

"Why write lb for money? That makes no sense. Scales?" Greg asked.

Mycroft grabbed his nearest agent. "Get all your people. Start scouring the south side of London Bridge." Mycroft looked down his nose at Greg and Donovan on the floor. "The line is the bridge, the angle is the concrete spike on the south side. LB for London Bridge."

Greg's face drained of all colour. "South."

"What?" Mycroft demanded.

"I think the killers are drawing a cultish map with these killings. Points of a star, either five or 8-sided. They haven't gone south of the river yet."

Donovan jumped to her feet and started shouting down her radio, "Get search teams to the south side of London Bridge. We're looking for a building near an unconsecrated graveyard. Feckin' Southwark must be lousy with them." When she looked up from her call, Mycroft had already disappeared with his team. She ran down the stairs with Greg and Andersen behind her, all rushing to London Bridge.

…

Sherlock awoke slowly, starting to use his legs to support the fast pace of whoever was dragging him along a long corridor. He could make out details by focussing to the top and bottom of his blindfold. They pushed him into a room with uneven hardwood floorboards, scuffed and worn and spattered with white paint, the colour of the walls and ceiling. The room was lit by strings of twisted fairy lights, but contained no furniture whatsoever. He was shoved to the floor beneath a small window, and the chains of his handcuffs were secured to a hook on the wall at his back.

Something seemed strange about that as he fully regained his senses. How had both of the cuffs made it around his wrists? Where was Molly?

A man appeared before him, dressed in sharp white trousers, a starched white shirt and a clerical collar. He removed the blindfold, and Sherlock could see the white balaclava covering his features. Sherlock deduced what he could: white male, mid-40s, no pets, doesn't own a car, takes the Tube to work but not far, not married but wearing a wedding ring – strange – has children but estranged… and then his deductions were cut off. The man spoke (native Londoner, mainstream school, not educated past A-levels): "You'll want to see this next bit. I brought you some friends."

Sherlock's heartbeat sped up and his blood ran cold. Please, please let Molly be safe. Don't let it be Molly's body. All the while he was out, he had thought of nothing but the image of Molly, carved like the other women, her precious body cut, raped, lifeless.

A very live Molly was pushed unceremoniously into the room with him. The man stepped out and shut the door behind him. Sherlock heard the lock click into place, and he turned his full attention to Molly. She was wearing a white tank top and a white skirt so short that a pair of blood red knickers were visible from his vantage point on the floor. Sherlock felt his heart stop; someone had undressed her and then put these clothes on her. Pulled off her knickers and slid new ones over her hips. Touched her. He gritted his teeth and tried not to obsess about the possibility that Molly had already been hurt, assaulted.

She squealed when she saw him, delighted. A lazy smile lit her face. No, not just a smile, she was beaming at him with the wattage of a naval searchlight. She crossed the room in a few uncertain steps and fell to her knees across his outstretched legs, her bare thighs gripping into his trousers.

"Molly," he whispered in relief, and he leaned forward to kiss her. She kissed him back with a sexy slowness that struck him as somehow off. It lacked emotion and desperation, all the things he was feeling. Her pupils were too wide, her focus too dim, her smile too pacific and dopey. Dopey. Doped.

"Molly, what have they given you?" he asked urgently. "Focus, look at me. Molly, stop doing that to my neck. Have they injected you with something?"

"Sedatives plus MmmmDMA," Molly grinned. "Wanna taste?" She licked his lips and despite himself he opened his mouth to her. She kissed him lazily, all sexual longing and not a trace of expected fear. Sherlock briefly wondered what adventures taking drugs with Molly in a much safer setting, say Baker Street, might lead to. He pushed the thought away as unworthy. Intriguing, but unworthy.

She removed her tongue from his mouth long enough to for him to speak again. "Molly, listen to me. Listen to my voice. Can you unchain me?"

"But I love you chained. I've never tied you up and my god it suits you so well. You just stay right there, and I'll make you feel really good," she purred. She unbuttoned his shirt, but lost concentration halfway down his abdomen and abandoned the project. She stopped for giggle. Remembering what she'd been up to, she licked across one nipple and over the expanse of his chest to the other. "You taste salty and lovely," Molly told him sincerely, bringing her nose to rest near his mouth. "Have I ever told you that?"

"No, but you've never done quite this much licking." He tried to find a sober spark of Molly in her eyes, and failed. The unworthy thoughts of Molly returned: on his bed in Baker Street, high on E, acting out all her fantasies while he was tied to the headboard... Not now. "I need you to concentrate, even if I rather enjoy the licking."

"Oh, so do I," echoed a seductive voice. Sherlock looked up to see Irene recovering her footing from being pushed through the same door. The lock clicked shut behind her again. Irene wore simple white slip dress, cotton, unassuming but revealing, nothing that The Woman would have chosen herself. "Isn't she marvellous, Sherlock? Didn't I tell you she'd be marvellous?"

"Yes, I am already thoroughly acquainted with Molly's marvelousness," Sherlock nodded, distracted by the path Molly's mouth was taking down his chest. Her fingers had rediscovered the abandoned buttons and were making quick work of undoing them. One small hand was poised over the button of his trousers.

The sound of Irene's voice called Molly away from her task. He cursed silently. Still standing above Sherlock and Molly, Irene slid her hands down her own body, from her shoulders to the apex of her thighs, pausing for a lengthy exploration of her breasts and nipples. Sherlock tried to remain impassive; it was hard to tell at first if this was The Woman on Ecstasy or simply The Woman being herself. Molly turned around between Sherlock's outspread legs and lounged on the ground at Irene's feet, licking her lips in anticipation. Molly watched as Irene stroked her breasts through the thin cotton of her outfit. As Irene's hands drifted to her cunt, Molly collapsed with her back to Sherlock's chest, reaching her hands behind her to rub her fingers in his hair. Molly inched herself up his body until her arse was positioned directly over his erection. He felt all the blood in his body, and a significant proportion of his brain, rush to his cock.

Irene gave up on touching herself and moved to stand between Molly's spread thighs.

"Sherlock," Irene whispered reverently, "have you tasted Molly? I've wanted to taste her. Is she as utterly delicious as she looks?" Irene kneeled down and ran her hands up Molly's skirt, rubbing either side of Molly's hips and exposing the tiny red knickers. Sherlock threw his head back against the wall and groaned, slamming his head into the wall a few times for good measure. Irene brought her aristocratic nose just centimetres from Molly's sex and inhaled with a grin. "Oh, Sherlock, she smells amazing."

"All right," Sherlock boomed. "I am officially not enjoying this. Molly. Molly!" He strained against the cuffs still binding his arms to the wall. "Molly! Listen to me, Molly. You will do as I say."

Molly blinked. She wriggled away from Irene's hands and turned to sit on her knees between Sherlock's splayed thighs. She settled in front of him expectantly. He hoped that he could command her enough to make her bend to his will through the fog of Ecstasy.

"Molly, I forbid you to have sex with The Woman. Do you hear me?" Sherlock knew that these words and this tone would earn him a door slammed in his face – or worse – if Molly had her wits about her. "Answer me when I speak to you."

Molly blinked again. She sighed sadly and looked down at Sherlock's bare chest. "Yes, Sherlock."

"Yes, what, Molly?"

"I won't have sex with Irene." Molly sighed again and bit her bottom lip. He spotted the little crease between her eyebrows that indicated she was thinking hard. Suddenly, her eyes lit up with what could only be a wonderful idea. "Could I have sex with you?" she asked hopefully, eyes wide.

Sherlock tried to achieve a look of distaste on his face. God, yes, please, he thought. "Not right now," he managed to say. "Now, can you unhook the chain from the wall behind me?"

Molly smiled at him, eager to please. She reached both arms out behind him, crushing her cleavage into his face as she did so. She grappled with the handcuffs, unseen behind him. He managed to catch one of her cotton-covered nipples in his mouth as she did so. He bit down gently on it and pressed his tongue against the hard nub, but then forced himself to release her. Molly managed the free the cuffs from the wall. Sherlock stood immediately.

"Hairpin, Woman," he said sharply to Irene. "I know you can do this."

Irene snorted angrily. But she fought through the fog of the drugs, released a pin from her long hair, and worked at the lock on the cuffs. They sprang open quickly.

Sherlock rewarded her with a caress on her cheek and jaw. "Trust a dominatrix to know how to unshackle a man," he smiled. Sherlock quickly gathered up Molly in his arms. He hugged her tightly to his chest out of equal parts relief and fear. He may be holding her, but they were nowhere near safe.

Sherlock looked up to the window above him. It was just above his eyeline, standing at his full height, but he calculated that he could make it through unaided. He shrugged off his unbuttoned shirt and wrapped the handcuffs up, then used the makeshift weapon to break the glass. Shards drifted down to the floor. Sherlock cleaned out the window best he could, knocking away extraneous glass to make it safer. Then he held out his hand to Irene, helped to lift her up and slid her through to the street outside. Irene ran straight across the small road and into a brightly-lit off-license. Even in her drugged state, he knew she would call for help.

Sherlock turned to lift Molly out of the window. The sound of the door unlocking again stopped them both for a moment, and the sight of the guns pointed at them stopped them both for good.