A/N: It's short! I know! So that's why I'm posting the next chapter today too :3 Thank you so much for your kind reviews! I'm glad people are enjoying it.
When the next body shows up, Lestrade delivers the news in person, along with the detail that something's changed. There's a note this time. Oh joy. As touching as the sentiment may be, John isn't in any mood to appreciate it, seeing as though the D.I. comes knocking on their door at six in the bloody morning.
Sherlock, on the other hand, couldn't be happier. Wings or not, Sherlock practically flies to the crime scene, though really they just take an overpriced cab ride to the park where the body was found by an early-morning jogger. Why they couldn't have just ridden in the police car with Lestrade escapes John, but in any case he slips out of the cab before Sherlock can dash off and leave him to pay the fare. Again.
The world surrounding the scene is appropriately somber, draped in wispy blankets of mist and set under an iron-gray sky. The pale body laying prone on the path might have almost fit in if it wasn't for the streak of crimson staining the ground beneath it.
"Early thirties. Gay, but single. Small dog. Judging by the look of his shoes…real estate agent?" Sherlock rattles off as they approach the corpse, glancing at Lestrade for confirmation he really doesn't need.
Lestrade nods. "Leonard Ollenburg. Real estate agent, reported missing by his sister two days a-"
"Oh."
Sherlock descends upon the scene, prowling around the body like a hungry predator, so it's a moment before John can see what has to viciously caught his attention.
The third victim appears much the same as the others, aside from a few key differences. For starters, the man is nude from the waist up, sporting twin gouges between his shoulder blades where wings should be. Where the second victim's had been sloppy stumps, this amputation appears to have been done with near-surgical precision and - John notes with an unpleasant jolt - very clearly done perimortem. That, however, is nothing next to the message scrawled in neat, red lines into the skin below them.
HELLO, SEXY.
Oh, indeed.
In the meantime, Sherlock crouches next to the victim's head and gently sticks blue latex glove-covered fingers into his slightly ajar mouth. A moment later he straightens, cradling his treasure in the palm of his hand. "I need an evidence bag over here!" He calls vaguely in the direction of a clump of techs.
"What'd you find?" Lestrade asks with a frown. He leans forward as if to take a closer look, but Sherlock beats him to it, presenting his upturned palm before John and the D.I. with a flourish.
"A message," he practically purrs, that light of mad excitement sparking in his eyes again. In his palm lay a burnished gold band, the simple gem inlaid on one side gleaming wetly in the early morning sun. A woman's ring.
"That's…The second victim, Elaine Ritters, that's her ring, isn't it?" John says slowly, knowing he's partway there, but not quite seeing the whole picture. With anyone else this fact might have bothered him, but he's learned to accept that two steps behind Sherlock is often still miles ahead of everyone else. "If that's a message, what's he trying to tell us?"
"No us. Me," Sherlock muses, turning the ring over in his hand and waving off Lestrade's halfhearted protest about fingerprints. If the killer left behind any fingerprints, they would only be left there by design, of that he is sure. "This isn't about the police - I'm not sure it ever was. The victims, the wings, the ring - messages. I told you, it's a game to him. A puzzle. And I'm the one he wants to play with."
"You? Why you?"
"Because he's bored! And worse than that, he's clever. Far cleverer than the police - what use would evading them be? Dull. Me though? He thinks I'm interesting. That's what this is all about," he says as he gestures toward the bloody letters carved into the man's back. "Lestrade tried to keep me from the last crime scene - due to a misguided effort at sensitivity, no doubt - and he didn't like that, so he made it obvious. That message is for the police. A warning, should they try to keep me off the case - not that they'd succeed, but a warning all the same. And this one," he once more brandishes the ring. "is for me."
"A woman's wedding ring," Lestrade interjects, as if to remind him that he's still there. "So what's he doing? Proposing?"
Sherlock shakes his head and finally relinquishes possession of the ring to a nearby tech who has been dutifully standing by with the requested evidence bag, evidently either shy or still too intimidated by the sharp-tongued consulting detective to speak up. "It's not the ring, it's what it symbolizes. It's a connection - a promise. If he has his way, this is just the beginning."
John can't be sure because with that Sherlock is striding away with a flash of dark curls and long coat, but for a moment he swears he can see him smiling.