Chapter 7: For The Throne of Fear~
An hour later, Mycroft returned, with the keys to a Jeep, and outfitted in hiking wear.
"Hello again, Mycroft. I'd say you look like a Winter version of the Crocodile Hunter." Sherlock greeted his brother, spray-painting a yellow ring around the message he'd found on the ceiling, borrowing a can of spray paint from the room of a Californian artist visiting Scandinavia for "yuletide inspiration".
"May I ask why you are defacing the expensive hotel suite I paid for?" Mycroft asked, with a smile that looked painful to wear. John was still asleep, thus not noticing that Sherlock was practically dancing around him, once halfway stepping on his nose, and snapping his lips open and shut with his sock-foot toes .
"Not defacing. The owner gave me permission. It's a crime scene, Myc! I've solved the message on the Miata."
Just then Major came in, dragging Yeats behind him.
"STATUS IS NEUTRAL!" the Major howled, waking John up, who sat upright so suddenly that he accidentally head butted Sherlock in the seat of his pants, scooping him up into a mid-air sitting position,which he immediately utilized, posing like a teacher sitting at his desk before his class, whilst John sat blinking, and confused as to why Sherlock was sitting on his head.
"Thank you, Major." Mycroft muttered, as Sherlock began his lecture, poising the can of spray paint like a teacher does a piece of chalk, or the stick he points to the chalkboard with.
"It's brilliant! The random phrase we found on the Miata is actually part of a series of like phrases all forming a death note. It's a contest!"
"I'm not sure we follow." Major said, and Yeats squinted, and both his brows twisted beyond what seemed humanly possibly, wondering what the heck Sherlock was saying, or how he could balance so gracefully on top of John's head, and not seem to notice that he was even sitting on it?
"Yeah, I'm not sure why exactly you're on my head?" John asked, trying to look up at Sherlock, having his face accidentally slapped by his animatedly flapping hands.
"No, no, don't you see? They are absolutely brilliant! It's a contest, they are voting to see who will reign in "Terror" ,as in, they are building the human notion of Fear up, as if it were itself a kingdom they could rule! Blood Eagle is using Yeats' mistress as his leverage in this contest. He is her pupil; as long as he has her, he has an advantage in the Game. Which is why he doesn't want us to get to her;if we bring her in for questioning, it will lessen his chances in the Greater Scheme"
Sherlock's voice wavered as John shoved him off his skull, his hair suddenly standing up static from the fabric of Sherlock's pants, like a rooster's crown would. Sherlock fell head over heels, said heels thumping against the head board and clicking together impatiently, so absorbed in his lecture, that it didn't matter to him that he was talking to them all upside down.
"You see what's going on! Whoever wins this contest of sorts becomes the next reigning king or queen of the quote/unquote Blood Trade Moran was talking about the night he died! Now that the Great Accomplice is dead, they have to name a successor, and Moriarty's Network was only the business end of the world of crime. It has its own government; that would be Loki's Gauntlet, and other like criminal orders, and ancient "dark art" religions. It has an academic field, which is where your Mistress comes in ,Yeats..."
Suddenly John leaned over Sherlock, cocking his rooster-crowned head in a 180, so that they were eye to eye, and not eye over eye.
"Oi, will you flip over, all the blood's about to run to your head, and then you're of no use to anybody!"
"Circulation is boring!" Sherlock cried, and John grabbed him about the waist, forcing him to do a cart-wheel and land on his knees. Without missing a beat, he continued his lecture.
"If nobody wins the contest, then they rubbish the whole thing, that's what this," he pointed to the ceiling, "Is about."
"And how...did you know all that?" Yeats asked, voice sing song, feeling dizzy, and disturbed by the eccentric detective.
Sherlock licked his hand, and reached and slicked John's hair back down the way it was supposed to be.
"It was all simple logic, really. I just took all the facts from this case, and the pieces I didn't need to use in the result for finding Moran, and I linked them together, did the math... this was the result."
John shrugged, "He's Sherlock Holmes;it's what he does."
"And he is always amazingly accurate." Mycroft admitted, raising a brow, as if keeping a mental score board of the efficiency of his little brother's deductive powers, and being pleased with the results.
"So we trek out to the Forest, in an Operation Rescue Ms. Yeats / seek and destroy mission to eliminate or incarcerate this maniac woman, and by doing so we throw a monkey wrench into the Great Scheme ,and the murderers guild can't name a successor, so they come after us, and we rubbish them?" asked Major, as it all began to make sense.
"Yeah!" Sherlock said, a bright smile on his face.
John and Mycroft exchanged empathetic glances , both of them wishing for more sleep. John being ex-military, however, was more accustomed to this sort of thing, and he leaped out of the bed, landing gracefully in his new boots.
"So are we leaving now, or are we waiting for the Jeep to warm up?"
Sherlock had some how translated himself from the bed, to the chair where he'd hung up his coat and scarf, and he put them on with practiced swiftness. Mycroft threw some boots at him.
"Switch shoes, those will soak straight through, two steps into the forest."
Sherlock gave John a mischievous wink.
"Better perhaps than alarming-pink ,faux-fur house slippers?"
John realized then that he would never live that down, but that accidentally wearing Mrs. Hudson's clothes was the least of his problems now. They were about to walk into Pandora's woods, and whatever they would find was totally beyond him...