Johnny Blue-Eyes

Chapter 22: Invisible vampires and ginger-haired boys

He wasn't even sure how he got back home, but next he knew he was flying up the stairs to 221B Baker Street. His coat was half-off and his scarf was missing, but he didn't care. Trembling and panting, he dashed into the kitchen and snatched up a long knife off the counter. He spun around the kitchen in terror, with the knife held out like a sword, but there was no one there. The flat was empty and undisturbed. The vampire wasn't there. No one was there.

He stood still and listened, but there were no footsteps on the stairs. Everything was quiet. The only sound was his own labored breathing. No vampire. Of course there was no vampire. There had never been a vampire, he told himself sternly, but his body wasn't listening. His heart still insisted on pounding violently in his chest and his lungs refused to fill with air.

Sherlock clutched the knife to his chest and sank down against the cabinets. His shoulders were jerking uncontrollably and his eyes were burning, but that was nothing compared to the fire inside his head. Everything was hazy and confused, like trying to see through thick smoke. Somehow the vampire had escaped from his mind palace and was following him around the city. But that was impossible, right? Except for that first time, after Molly had shoved the bear in his face, but that was a flashback, not a hallucination. It had retreated into his head as soon as he realized what was happening. But this time, it had stayed. He knew the vampire only existed in his mind, but that didn't stop it from feeling real. The terror he felt certainly was real.

Even now, safe in his kitchen, Sherlock could still see the fangs, could even feel them grazing his neck. He hunched his shoulders and gripped the knife harder. Clammy hands stroke his shoulder and down his arm. Teeth close on his neck-No stop it no no STOP!

When he pulled his left hand away from the knife to flip up his coat collar (as if that could ward off the teeth), it was red with blood. For a terrifying second he thought his neck was bleeding from a vampire bite, but then he realized that the blood was coming from his hand. He had cut himself on the knife without even being aware of it.

You're damaged, whispered Donovan's voice in his ear. Damaged damaged damaged. . .

Sherlock threw the knife away and it landed with a clatter on the lino. Then he wrapped his right hand tightly around his left, pressed his knuckles hard against his lips and tried desperately to control the trembling. He was going to cry, there was no way around it. He could feel the tears prickling at the backs of his eyeballs. At least it was happening here, now, when he was alone, instead of in front of John or Molly, or—God forbid—Sally Donovan.

Sherlock allowed his body ten minutes to pull its shit together. Ten minutes of crying like a god-damned child on the floor of the kitchen, while applying pressure to his hand. Ten minutes turned into thirty, then almost an hour before he was finally under control, before his hands stopped shaking (or at least were shaking less) and he could finally force himself to take even breaths.

Once his body was obeying him again, he pulled out his phone awkwardly to text Lestrade where to look for Popovic and Sprott. He should have done it earlier: Sprott was likely dead now (no great loss), but at least the police would have the evidence.

Before he could send the text, he noticed that he had a message from Tracey Sorrell's assistant at the Crown Prosecutors' Office. His scattered mind took a few extra seconds to connect the dots. Sorrell must be contacting him about the Lindt case, and the only way Sorrell would have gotten his name was through Sally Donovan. Sally Donovan who knew he didn't want to testify. Sally Donovan who thought he was a damaged freak. Sally Donovan had sold him out to the only person who detested him more than she herself did.

Sherlock sat for a moment and stared at the message notification. He didn't even have to listen to the message. He already knew what it must say. He should just delete it and move on. But for some reason he didn't.

Shaking his head, he ignored the notification and sent off the text to Lestrade. When that task was done, he hauled out the first aid kit and bandaged the slice across his palm, clumsily with only one hand. John could have done a much better job, but John wasn't there, and Sherlock wasn't exactly in the mood to call him. What was he to say? 'I freaked out and cut my hand on a knife while battling an invisible vampire?' No, that wouldn't exactly go over well. He would have to handle it himself.

Once the bandage had been applied, he stood in his bedroom staring at the loose board where he kept his stash. Just a small hit of heroin, and it would all go away. It would feel so good to just shut everything off for a little while and rest.

Shaking his head firmly, he backed out of his bedroom and shut the door behind him. The drugs may give him some temporary relief, but he needed a real solution. These distracting thoughts were interfering with his work. He needed to process this so that he could control it, and processing would start with re-entering his mind palace, no matter how terrifying it had become. He had to face it.

He lay back on the sofa and tried to tuck his fingertips under his chin, but it hurt to stretch his left hand out straight, so he allowed it to curl. Taking a deep breath, he closed his eyes and forced himself to visualize his mind palace.

The front door was still hanging from its hinges, and a gray layer of smoke hung in the air. Damaged. The mind palace itself did not appear to be charred, however, but it was still dark inside the front hallway. Sherlock attempted to summon up a torch, but again ended up with a candle.

Sheltering the flame with his other hand, he pushed the half-open door out of the way with his elbow and headed down the hall. Along the way he passed several doors that were intact, so not everything was destroyed. There was a bit of smoke damage along the tops of the walls, but it didn't look too serious.

As he approached the turn in the hallway that led to THE room, the smoke damage became more pronounced. Sherlock paused just before the turn. He could hear the sounds of violin music coming from up ahead. The pitch was slightly off, like the instrument had been poorly tuned; the violinist was obviously untrained but showed raw talent. He recognized the second movement from Mozart's Concerto #5.

Taking a deep breath and letting it out through his nose, Sherlock held up the candle and rounded the corner. The door to THE room, which gaped open, was charred and blackened from smoke. Remembering what happened last time he had entered the room, Sherlock shielded the candle with his hand and took a step toward the burnt door. He could feel the temperature increase the closer he got. As he approached, the door appeared to grow in size again until the top of his head only came up as far as the doorhandle.

Taking a deep breath, he slipped around the door and stepped into the room. Instantly his shirt started sticking to his back from sweat in the heat. He held his breath against the smoke.

When he held up the candle, trying to see through the haze, the candlelight revealed a child, the slim boy with short ginger hair that he had seen before, sitting in a wooden chair with his back to him. The boy held a violin in his hands and was scraping the bow over the strings. As Sherlock watched, the boy turned toward him, and suddenly Sherlock recognized him: this was the boy he had seen several times entering Mr Lindt's building while he was on the way out.

The boy held eye contact for a few seconds, then sadly turned away and went back to playing. Sherlock's eyes slid past the boy, scanning around the room for the vampire, and his gaze lit on the bear, now shrunk back down to his regular size, sitting on top of an old-fashioned telly in a cabinet. The bear leered down at him malevolently with its oversized eye.

Sherlock had had enough. He darted back out of the room, slamming the door behind him, and ran down the hallway to find Redbeard. Usually petting Redbeard was enough to chase the demons away, but this time he couldn't get the ginger-haired boy out of his mind. That boy had suffered because he had kept the secret. That boy was paying for his sins. How many other boys were paying as well? How many more would suffer if he continued to refuse to answer Tracey Sorrell's phone calls?

Molly was doing a preliminary exam on one Owen Sprott (only 31 and nearing liver failure judging by his yellowed eyeballs, although that's not what killed him, according to her initial observations. The huge gash to the throat and massive blood loss appeared to have trumped the cirrhosis) when Sherlock entered the morgue. Oh yes, Tuesday again.

Molly glanced up at him, just enough to make eye contact and give him a once-over, a habit left over from when he was playing dead, when he would randomly show up at her flat with various injuries for her to treat. No obvious broken bones or stab wounds this time, thankfully. He inclined his head in a small nod and held up the sample jar.

"Just set it on the counter," she said, expecting he would immediately turn around and leave, which is what he had done for the past few weeks. "I'll take care of it later." She returned her attention to examining the insides of Sprott's elbows, which were dotted with track marks. A drug dealer who was sampling the merchandise, apparently.

Sherlock didn't leave. Instead he set the jar down and crossed the room toward her. "Ah, just the person I wanted to see."

Of course she was the person he wanted to see. Most people didn't go to the morgue for social hour (well, Sherlock was probably the exception to that rule). The question was why did he want to see her? He had been avoiding her for weeks - well, maybe not. He claimed everything was fine and that he was just busy. "Everything all right, Sherlock?

"Yes, of course," he responded, quickly enough that she shot him another glance to see if he was lying. He was smiling, but it looked faker than usual. His hands were clasped tightly behind his back, and the smudges under his eyes she had noticed a few weeks ago hadn't gone away: in fact, they had darkened and deepened. He didn't look all right, which worried her. The last time he hadn't looked all right, he had asked her to help him jump off a building.

"Then what do you need?"

"You're working on him. The person I wanted to see."

Molly looked down at the body on the slab. Oh. The corpse was the person Sherlock had wanted to see, not her. Typical.

"I haven't started the autopsy yet. He was only brought in last night. You can have a look later."

"I won't bother you at all," he said, moving in next to her elbow to examine Sprott's fingernails. "You're looking radiant today, by the way. Nice. . ." (he turned his head enough to glance at what she was wearing under her lab coat) ". . . jumper."

Molly's mouth twisted. Had he always been so obvious? She wasn't sure how she had ever fallen for his blatant manipulation. On the other hand, it was nice to hear the odd compliment out of him, even though she knew what game he was playing. "Just don't touch him, please. What exactly are you looking for?"

"Cause of death, for one thing."

"On initial observation, transection of the carotid artery."

"Of course. Messy but quiet. Won't disturb the neighbors." Sherlock circled the table and looked over the neck area with morbid interest. "Any other cuts? Post-mortem, perhaps?"

"I noticed some marks on the right bicep, looks like they were inflicted immediately post-mortem." Molly folded back the sheet so Sherlock could inspect them.

"You'll take photos of these?"

"Yes, of course."

When Sherlock pulled his magnifier out of his pocket and leaned in to inspect one of the cuts, Molly noticed for the first time that he had a bandage on his left hand, which up until this point had been behind his back. The bandage was crooked and sloppily taped closed.

"What happened to your hand?"

"Hmm? Oh, that? Nothing. It's fine. It was an accident."

"Did John do that bandage?"

"No. Now look at this." He handed her the magnifier and pointed to one of the cuts, so she dutifully took a look. "Definitely a very sharp blade, but not the same one he used to slit the throat."

"That was my initial thought too. I'll take some depth measurements when I do the autopsy." Molly turned the magnifier over in her hand, noticing the corner was chipped and the cover had a scratch on it. "What happened to your magnifier?" she asked, handing it back to him.

He leaned over the cuts again, his nose inches from the dead flesh of Owen Sprott's arm. "Sorry?"

"Your pocket magnifier. It's got a chip in it."

Sherlock suddenly froze. Still bent over, he stared at the magnifier for a long moment, not even breathing.

"Sherlock? What's wrong?"

He blinked and straightened up, clicked the magnifier shut and shoved it into his pocket. "I—I dropped it. It still works."

"Oh. Ok." That seemed odd—those magnifiers were tough; it would take a bit more than a simple drop to chip it. Maybe if he had thrown it against the wall. . . Molly studied him with a frown. His posture was defensive, but she couldn't figure out why. Also, there were spots of what looked like fresh blood on the bandage on his hand. "You're bleeding."

He followed her gaze to the bandage. "It's nothing. I just need to tighten the bandage."

"Would you like me to fix it?"

"No, thank you. I can manage."

"How did you hurt your hand?"

"I told you, it was an accident."

"Seems you've been having quite a lot of those lately."

"No more than usual," he shot back.

"You gave yourself a black eye at my flat—"

"That was your fault," he put in quickly, but she ignored him.

"John said you had a split lip and your feet were cut up. And now you've dropped your magnifier and cut your hand. That seems a little more than usual to me. It makes me think something's wrong." She expected he would give her the brush-off and leave, but instead he stood staring at the far wall.

"Sherlock? Is everything all right?"

The only response was a hard swallow and a series of blinks aimed at the wall. What was going on?

"I haven't seen much of you lately, not since you. . . took off out of my flat. You haven't really seemed yourself lately. Can you tell me what's up?"

Sherlock's bandaged left hand came up in front of his mouth, knuckles resting lightly against his lips. She had seen that move from him before, when he didn't want to tell her something. He was trying to keep the words in, Molly realized. There was something he didn't want to tell her, but what was it about? Something about the flashback he had had at her flat? Maybe something painful that had happened while he was dead, or maybe - in his childhood? But what?

I just want to know you're all right. I'm worried about you."

There was a long pause. Molly stayed silent, determined to wait him out, and finally her patience was rewarded. "If I—" he broke off, cleared his throat and started again. "If I knew something, something that could prevent someone else getting hurt, and I never told anyone, would it be my fault?"

This seemed to be a rather abrupt change of topic, but she knew it must be related somehow, in a way that only made sense in Sherlock's mind. "I suppose it depends," she said finally.

"Depends on what?"

Molly took a shot in the dark. "Well, it depends if you were in a position to do anything about it. If you were a child. . ."

He shook his head. "But I'm not a child anymore, am I?"

"Is there something you can do about it now?"

He didn't answer that. His knuckles tapped his lips. "Molly, do you think I'm damaged?" he asked finally, eyes flitting to hers and then away again. His tone was light. What did that question mean? Damaged how?

"I think—I think we're all damaged, Sherlock. What matters is what we do with it."

He continued to stare at the far wall, his cheek twitching slightly. What did he mean by damaged? John had told her that he seemed fine. Whatever he had seen in her flat appeared to be gone and he was all right. She had suspected something else was up, but John wouldn't say anything more.

"Have you—have you seen any more vampires, Sherlock?"

There was a fleeting jerk of his shoulders. Still that silent staring at the wall. Oh, she had nailed it.

"Sherlock? Have you?"

His eyes cut to the side. "Only a couple of times," he muttered under his breath.

"A couple of times?"

He took a noisy breath and brought his shoulders up. "It's not important, Molly. Everything is under control."

"Have you talked to John about this?"

"Yes, yes, he knows everything. I've told you you needn't worry. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to compare some photos. Must fly." He scooted past her and out of the morgue before she had time to protest.

She was naturally concerned that he was still seeing vampires (how many times? What were they doing?), but if Sherlock was telling the truth that John knew about it, then it was probably all right. John was an expert at taking care of Sherlock when no one else could.

Hmm, if Sherlock was telling the truth. . . She made a mental note to call John in the next few days to check, because Sherlock Holmes' definition of "truth" was often different to hers.

A/N: I've been reliably informed (thanks, Dusk Odair and anonymous guest reviewer) that I was incorrect in my understanding of the current British use of "knocked up" (back in chapter 6). Apparently you can't believe everything you find on the Googles - who knew? You may, if you like, imagine Molly snickering when Sherlock says it. :-)