Aftermath
In which there are deductions, a radio and holes in the ceiling.
Lana swallowed a sudden rush of vomit and stepped forward. Although most instincts were telling her to run, she refused to stop until she reached the body in front of her. On closer inspection, the wound was even worse than before. Her throat hadn't just been slashed; it had been torn open. And it wasn't just huge; it was also fresh. The blood still ran from the gaping wound in Vixen's neck, dripping down in sickening puddles across the carpet. "Oh God," she whispered.
Sherlock stepped forward and immediately went to work.
"Get Anderson. And LeStrade."
Even as he said it, Lana could tell he was a million miles away; already lost in the twists and turns of his deductions.
Lana didn't need to be told twice. She turned smartly on her heel and ran back down the hallway as fast as her bare feet could carry her. Not entirely sure where she was, she simply chose a direction and ran toward what she hoped would be humanity.
Pausing at an intersecting hallway, Lana leaned against the wall and tried to calm her frantic heart. It was pulsing in some unknown rhythm, the beat of it pounding blood in her ears. She listened past the sound of her own frantic heartbeat, and heard the sound of laughter and chatter echoing down the hallway ahead of her. So, swallowing the last of her shock, Lana hitched up her dress and kept moving.
….
John glanced upward at the flash of blue and brown that had appeared at the top of the stairway. Lana was running down the stairs, hair flying out behind her, and hit the floor with a sense of purpose. She then began striding off among the dancers at a brisk pace, evidently looking for someone.
John grabbed Sarah's arm. "Did you see that?"
"See what?"
John looked around the room again, but Lana was nowhere to be seen. "Lana. She just…went by like she was …."
Sarah looked confused, and then her eyes grew wide. "Where's Sherlock?"
He didn't even bother to look around; John had seen both of them head upstairs, and now only Lana had returned: Sherlock hadn't come back down.
"Oh, no."
Sarah tightened her grip on John, and they headed off into the crowd after their friend.
….
It had all been so EASY.
That was the best part; not the hunt, not the reward.
Not the look of terror on her face when her throat was slit.
No, it was the fact that this job, this act of murder, had been so EASY to pull off.
No one suspected. No one had any idea.
Except, perhaps, the great Sherlock Holmes.
But Holmes could be easily dealt with if he got anywhere close to the truth. And so could his companions.
….
LeStrade turned pale.
Anderson looked sick.
Molly's eyes got huge.
"Where's the Freak, then?" asked Donovan.
"He's upstairs, looking over the crime scene," Lana replied, curling her toes against the floor.
Donovan rolled her eyes.
"What's going on?" asked John, as he and Sarah caught up to Lana and the other members of the group. "Is everyone ok?"
"Not quite," said LeStrade gravely. "We've got a homicide. One of the dinner guests was murdered upstairs in one of the bedrooms."
John's face turned stony. "I see."
As one, the group turned toward the stairs and began working their way through the mass of guests.
….
"Well, he certainly made a bloody mess of things, didn't he?" Anderson commented as the group stepped over the threshold into the crime scene.
"Talking about the murderer or the freak?" Donovan muttered under her breath.
"Who can tell the difference?" he replied in barely a whisper.
"Just so you know, Sally, I didn't kill her," Sherlock called, almost cheerfully, from his position halfway under the bed. "I have an alibi and a witness to attest. Just ask Lana."
Anderson turned back to Lana, eyebrows raised. "You two were together? What were you even doing up here in the first place?"
Lana turned slightly pink and knotted her toes together beneath the dress. All she could think of was the high heels and jacket left on the floor in the bedroom next door. "We were…looking to get away from the noise and…such."
"Lana, shut up," said Sherlock. Donovan snickered and Lana bit back the urge to punch her.
"Right, I'm gonna have to call in some help to form a perimeter. None of the guests or staff gets in or out for the rest of the night till we get this figured out, got it?" said LeStrade to his two officers before turning to Molly and Sherlock's feet (he was apparently engrossed in the underside of the bed and had refused to move.) "I'm leaving you to get anything you can from here before the others show up. I'd give you about ten minutes."
"Longer than usual," Sherlock commented, crawling back out from under the bed to join LeStrade beside the corpse.
Molly flushed. "Oh, I don't he'll be needing me, I should just- "
"No, Miss Hooper, I'm going to need your expertise quite soon, if you can give me a few minutes to finish some observations," Sherlock replied, cutting of her sentence and guiding her towards the body. "I'm going to have to run my deductions past an average mind and see what results I get."
"What about us?" asked John, ignoring Sherlock's lack of tact and stepping forward, the better to survey the crime scene.
"Well, it's not like I can bloody well stop you two, can I?" said LeStrade, reaching into his pocket to pull out a cell phone. "Right, Donovan? Anderson? I need you two to come with me. We've got to at least start keeping people together before more enforcements come."
The three left the room, leaving the Flatmates, Molly and Sarah alone with the corpse.
John immediately turned to Sarah. "The car will be here any minute. Do you want to go back to London?"
Sarah, who was already very green, nodded.
"I'll take her," Lana offered, putting an arm around Sarah and guiding her toward the hallway. "I'll be back in a minute; feel free to start without me."
And with that, Lana pulled the door shut and guided her queasy friend through the halls and down the staircase to the large front doors.
"Some night, huh?" Lana commented, nudging Sarah out her slightly-nauseous stupor.
Sarah pulled off a small smile and nodded. "Not quite the way I expected it to end, but still nice." Together, they stepped out onto the cold steps, the chill tickling Lana's bare feet as she saw her friend out to the waiting car. As soon as the tail lights were out of view, Lana turned and walked back into the hall, where LeStrade, Anderson and Donovan were already working at bringing people in from the gardens and side rooms, corralling all the guests and staff into the main hall. Mycroft stood at the doors to the dining room, looking annoyed.
Lana ran to the nearest staff member, a taller blond man, and asked to get her bag.
"I'm sorry ma'am, no one can leave the premises," he said, slightly pompously.
"I'm not leaving; I just want my bag." Lana replied, staring him down until he cracked.
"All right then, follow me," he swallowed, and led her through the throng of guests to the tiny coat closet off the stairway. Lana stepped inside, amid the forest of furs and wraps and bags and parkas, and breathed in the scent of leather and perfume. Then she reached into the mass and extracted her bag. Once she was sure the waiter couldn't see her, Lana checked to make sure she still had the bag's contents; her camera, her rappelling gear, and her colt. All were accounted for, and, satisfied, she closed the bag and headed back for the entrance to the coat closet.
"Thanks so much," Lana said with a smile to the waiting attendant, and she immediately turned and ran back up the steps to the second floor.
….
Sherlock, Molly and John knelt around the body, staring at the murderer's grisly work. The body, on closer inspection and under the scrutinizing eye of the professionals, revealed much more than the initial shock and general nausea.
At least to Sherlock, anyway.
"Oh, come on you two. There's got to be more you observe then just THAT." Sherlock huffed, "Or are you two really that stupid?"
"Behave," John chided, not taking his eyes off the woman's corpse and trying to come up with something clever to say.
Molly turned pink.
Sherlock sat back and began to rattle off everything his overused brain had to offer. "Victim is in her early twenties, professional musician from her hands, singer and guitarist going by her fingertips, severe alcoholic, going by her eyes, veins and general taste in clothing."
"What does that have to do with the murder?" asked John.
"Everything," Sherlock replied with his now-we're-getting-somewhere grin. "She's been drunk-very drunk- in the past hour, but she was conscience when he killed her." Sherlock rubbed his hair in thought. "The killer wanted her awake when he killed slit her throat."
"Him?"
"Yes, Him. It's a man. A strong man, and he took his sweet time with this."
An eerie silence was interrupted by Lana shutting the door with a soft snap. "I hope I'm not intruding-"
"Not at all; come in." John replied.
Lana crossed the room quickly and squatted down beside Sherlock, set her bag on the blood-stained carpet, and got right down to business.
"Have you found the murder weapon?"
"The killer took it with him," Sherlock replied, still staring at Vixen's corpse. "And based on the force of the attack, the lack of severe struggling on the clothes, and the weapon used, I know who he is."
"You do?" Molly looked amazed.
"Yes, Ms. Hooper, I do. At least, I know WHAT he is," Sherlock replied, getting to his feet. "Now, we only need to alert LeStrade and we can be on our way to catching the killer, I believe."
"But-but, the window's smashed," Molly babbled, pointing out the obvious and pressing on past Sherlock's despairing look. "Wouldn't that mean he's escaped off the grounds?"
Sherlock laughed. "This is my brother's home; no one can leave without his expressed permission. Trust me; he's trapped here just like the rest of us."
That was when the door locked, the sound of the bolt loud in their ears.
John, Molly and Lana gave each other looks of surprise and mild confusion; Sherlock, on the other hand, looked bored.
"So, you think that's enough to stop us?" he called toward the door. "It really is rather pathetic of you, I must say. I expected better."
The door, of course, said nothing. His words were greeted with silence.
John slammed his weight against the door with a painful- sounding thud.
"Don't bother," Sherlock snapped, feeling his pockets and swearing under his breath. "Remember? Mycroft's home-so no one is going anywhere. Damn! No lock picking-equipment-"
"Then what do we do?" asked Molly, wringing her hands. "We don't have any way to contact anyone, and who knows what he might do to us?"
"Calm down, Molly-" John tried to cut in, but Molly seemed right on the edge of a full-blown panic attack and in no mood to listen to anyone, so Lana took control of the situation. Stepping up to Molly, Lana delivered her usual pay-attention routine; a good smack and a shake of the shoulders.
"Listen to me, Molly! I can get us out of here!"
Molly blinked, her hyperventilating slowly returning to normal breathing.
"I don't mean to be rude, but what the bloody hell are you talking about?" asked John, as Lana reached into her bag and started digging.
She emerged, victoriously, holding her gear. "Get rid of most of that glass," she ordered, slipping into the harness and stringing the rope through the curtain rod. Then she looped the rope through the bed post and stepped back to admire her handy-work.
It would hold. Probably.
John kicked away the last of the glass from the frame as Lana stepped up to the open black night. She shivered slightly, then grabbed her bag and swung out over the wall of the house. Below her, the house looked like a sea of rippling black. It wasn't far, only about a three-story drop, but she still felt a surge of nervous adrenaline as she looked back at Molly, John and Sherlock.
Lana smiled. "Five minutes, I promise."
John and Molly nodded. Molly looked relieved and stepped away from the cold as Sherlock drew closer to the open window and held onto Lana's rope.
"Rappelling gear?"
"So I'm prepared," Lana replied. "Now can you move your hand?"
Sherlock stubbornly refused to release the rope. "Just be quick and be careful, alright? There's a murderer out there."
"I think this is hardly the time to remind me," she said, looking down again, almost as if she expected the ground to have moved down about ten stories.
Sherlock sighed and let go of the rope. "Five minutes."
"Four and a half," she said, and dropped out of sight.
Dark and freezing air whipped past her face as she dropped through space, lightly bouncing off the wall to keep from crashing full speed and breaking her back. Down past windows and curtains before the rope stopped with a jerk and she found herself inches from the ground to the right of a huge glass window. The ground next to her sparkled with the remains of the window, and as gingerly as she stepped, she still felt a piece slash through the flesh of her foot. Holding back a cry of pain, Lana skirted the edge of the house until she found an unlocked side entrance.
As Lana opened the door, something white caught her eye, stuffed into the bushes. She drew closer, being careful of her hurt foot, and pulled the torn and bloody shirt and jacket from its hiding place.
And then it started to make sense.
Throwing the jacket and shirt into her bag, Lana slipped into the house and moved through the now-silent halls. Minutes before, this whole place had been filled with Mycroft's uniformed staff, running platters of food to the great room. Now, they were silent and gave off an eerie, depressing feel of lowliness and total solitude.
Which was not a happy thought to have when there was a murderer in the house.
Lana shoved the evidence in her bag as she entered the great room. It was full of guests and staff, talking and trying to act as though nothing was wrong. The band had abandoned their post in the chaos, and music now seeped from a stereo system installed through the room, adding more to the babble. Lana paused despite herself, realizing she recognized the excited tune that was bouncing off the walls.
"Panic! at the Disco?" she asked herself, watching a group of celebrities spin across the dance floor to the tune of 'Hurricane'.
"Lana."
She felt a hand on her shoulder. Lana turned ready for a fight, arms raised…
"Keep your hair on, it's only me," LeStrade muttered. "Any news?"
"They're locked in the upstairs bedroom; so we know the killer's somewhere in the house." Lana explained quietly, showing LeStrade the shirt and jacket as discretely as possible. "We have some evidence in here, and we'll all be downstairs in a minute or two."
LeStrade nodded grimly and watched as she raced up the steps, bare feet barely touching the ground.
….
She had escaped.
It was impossible. IMPOSSIBLE. They had nothing when they went in that room. It was three stories high, and the grass was covered in glass.
SO HOW HAD SHE ESCAPED?
And that meant that if she was out, Holmes wouldn't be far behind.
She left the DI and started to disappear up the stairs.
A plan took shape, and took root in his brain, a twisted smile playing on his face.
She had blundered.
You couldn't trust the coppers with anything. Especially not information.
He started off, following the DI through the crowd.
….
"Five minutes, four seconds." Sherlock replied when she got the door open.
Lana rolled her eyes and tossed him the bag, and then sat down on the bed and yanked the piece of glass out of her heel, letting it bleed out onto Mycroft's already ruined carpet.
Sherlock, ignoring the fact that his girlfriend was bleeding all over the floor, opened the bag and his eyes grew wide with excitement. "Where did you get this?" he asked.
"From behind a bush at a side entrance," she responded, placing the glass on the table and watching him practically dancing on the spot. He then dropped the jacket on the bed, stepped over the corpse, and kissed her.
It was oddly gross and sweet at the same time, Lana thought, kissing at a murder scene.
"This is perfect; we have all the evidence we need now!" Sherlock said, helping Lana to her feet and gesturing to the other two to follow as he led them all out the door. "Now we need to catch him."
"What makes you think he's not hiding?" asked John as they headed down the hall, back toward the other guests.
"He's too cocky for that," Sherlock replied. "And since he's out there, I'll know him when I see him."
They arrived at the top of the stairs to find orderly chaos. The party was continuing with much of its renewed vigor, with the members of the yard walking through and questioning staff and guests at random.
Sherlock plunged his hand into Lana's bag and drew out the Colt. Then he turned and fired three shots into the ceiling. The guests turned in alarm, in time to see a tall skinny man with a gun bearing down on them. And it probably would have turned into absolute chaos then and there if he hadn't commanded all of them to shut up.
Sherlock stepped onto the floor and took charge. "Listen to me, all of you. I need you all to move to the right side of the hall, thank you very much. And now if all the female guests and staff could move to the left that would be sparkling. Hurry up now, we don't have all day."
Terrified and confused, the guests and staff followed his instructions in mute, terrified silence. All the women crowed together in a tight huddle, pressed against the left wall. The men stood stock-still, a forest of black jackets and white shirts, as Sherlock handed the gun back to Lana and walked down the stairs into their midst. Lana could hear him issuing instructions as he wove between them, moving some here and some there, looking for something she couldn't quite understand.
"If you could move here, sir. And you, in the disgusting orange shirt, please join him. Yes, you over there, and you, sir, step back just a bit; thank you."
Sherlock suddenly stopped, and a sly and slow smile spread over his face. He stepped around a portly man in a loud purple suit, past two men in waiter's uniforms, and stopped in front of someone Lana couldn't see.
"You, sir. Don't bother acting surprised, I know it's you. How do I know? Well, first off, you're staff; the victim was a continuous alcoholic and was led upstairs without struggle or signs of suspicion. None of the other guests would have bothered to help her- they're all too busy showing off to my brother to bother- so, staff member it is then. The gender of the killer is statistically more likely a male, and the force used on the body suggested someone of great height and strength; certainly no female on the staff fits that criteria, so male it is. We found a man's staff jacket and shirt stashed in the bushes along the side of the house; large, coated in blood, designed for someone about 6' 7''. That narrows the field considerably, in fact it brings it down to you and two other men on the staff, but the strains on the fabric suggest someone well toned; the other two are too skinny and wouldn't be able to fill out the clothing anyway, nor do either of them possess the strength necessary to tear someone's throat open. Conclusion, the only one with the physical abilities to commit this murder is you. Now if you would please cooperate with the Yard; I know I'm not wrong and I'd like to avoid a scene."
Lana and John, curious and confused, stepped off the stairs and moved into the crowd, pushing past those who couldn't get out of their way fast enough.
….
It was the blond waiter.
Lana blinked twice, and the image didn't change. It was the pompous waiter who had handed her her bag and said 'Please follow me.'
And just when she was starting forward, the waiter picked up Sherlock and threw him against the glass with a resounding crack.
Sherlock had him by the arm and the cops were closing in, and he had simply picked Sherlock up off the ground and swung him into the glass wall.
Sherlock slid to the floor with a groan, and then pulled himself to his feet and threw a punch at the oncoming man that knocked him aside. He wavered into a group of women in small black dresses, and they shrieked and disappeared back into the crowd. As the man turned back toward Sherlock, fists raised, John ran forward and grabbed the man by the back of the shoulders. They staggered across the floor, guests and staff screaming and running out of the way as John brought the man to the ground with a bang. LeStrade ran forward, gun raised, closely followed by Donovan and Anderson. Soon it became impossible to see the blond waiter at all beneath the pile of bodies and fabrics. And then he was on his feet, held by the arms, blood trickling from a small gash in his head. Donovan was pulling him across the floor and LeStrade was screaming for his backup. John stumbled out of the group and came to meet Lana while the officers dragged the killer through the sea of guests. He was swearing in some bizarre language and spitting at anyone who got too close.
As John and Lana headed for the exit, Sherlock came to meet them. He was rubbing his head from, no doubt bruised from the collision with the glass, but seemed otherwise fairly cheerful.
"Well, that was a pleasant evening, I'll have to speak to Mycroft about his staffing choices, though; this just seems lazy on his part…"
He fell silent as they walked through the double doors into the cold night. LeStrade was forcing the killer into the back of a police car, barking orders at the officer in the front seat.
"And get this one back to London quick as you can, you hear me? And I don't want any mistakes. Now move it along!"
The car sped down the drive and disappeared into the foggy night. LeStrade turned back to the group on the steps, and his anger and stress softened into lines of exhaustion.
"Not quite the night I was expecting."
"I guess not," said John, "but I guess things can only be so normal; could we maybe have a ride home?"
….
The night shot by, black and grey and cold as the car sped back to London. The bite of the handcuffs into his flesh was starting to hurt, but he didn't dare complain.
The officer spoke first. "So, you tore her throat open? Seems a bit harsh."
"Just following orders," he replied. "Killed the girl, left the message. Everything went according to plan. Nobody said I couldn't have a little fun."
"According to plan? Really? I thought they escaped earlier than expected and got you arrested. When was this part of your plan?"
"Just a hiccup," he bragged, looking out the window and trying to ignore the force of the handcuffs. "My employer knows what he's doing."
He looked back at the driver, the man with the dark hair and the dark expression. "You do know what you're doing, right?"
Jim Moriarty smiled in the rearview mirror. "Of course I do."
Up next- The Perfect Crime
In which there are plans, text message transcripts, and the beginning of the end.
….
Hello!
Ok, I know this was a long wait. A lot happened really fast and I haven't gotten a chance to write anything for a long time.
Family stuff. Don't worry about it. But there's been wedding plans and battling cancer and moving and GAAAAH stuff.
Well school has started and left me little time to do much of anything now. So I'm basically writing on the weekends like a madwoman. I've set myself deadlines for this and some other short stories I'm writing.
But I guess that it's good that this only has four chapters left.
I've given myself a limit, so I'll do my best to make these last few chapters the best they can be. Please leave comments; I'd love to hear opinions!
Unless you're my brother, who crashed my old laptop by playing slender on it (RAGEQUITDESKFLIP)
Special thanks to my friend Ryan for this chapter; he was kind enough to pull me out of my writer's block/ panic spiral and get me back into production. Also being the inspiration for the murderer.
By the way, Pond now has a fanfiction account. Look her up! She has some amazing stories to tell. Her pen name is GloriousPond.
Till next time,
Jay