John
When we reached the fourth door we found Lestrade. It was worse than I thought it would be. He was suspended in mid-air with his hands encased in dried cement in the ceiling and his feet the same on the floor. He was sagging limply forwards; his facial features and the colour of his shirt were indiscernible beneath a thick coating of blood. I could tell if he was breathing or not from this distance which meant that if he was breathing he was only just managing to do so. This was some sort of sick modern crucifixion. I pushed the pistol at Sherlock which he used to cover the corridor from the doorway.
I slipped across the blood-slick concrete floor to where Lestrade was hanging. I could see at a glance that his nose and one of his wrists was broken; his nose from a punch and his wrist from the strain of being stuck into cement and supporting the rest of his body. The blood was from a series of innumerable abrasions and lacerations inflicted by a fist with a ring on every finger and a blow to the head with something like a bat. Something like the thing that had murdered my sister; Sherlock had probably already noticed this and besides, there were more pressing matters to thing about at that moment. I had to separate the professional and personal aspects of my personality. The blow only seemed to be glancing; enough to knock Lestrade unconscious but hopefully not kill him. It was the suffocation of being stretched out like someone had steamrollered his ribcage that had done that. I put my fingers to his bloody neck to feel for a pulse. There was no answering rhythm from beneath the skin.
"He's dead." I sat backwards into the blood and entwined my hair into both my fists to stop my hands from shaking. I looked down at the sea of dark blood which I was sitting in and felt ill; it filled my eyes and my ears and my nose.
"Yes…" Sherlock said, firing a warning shot out of the door and pulling me to my feet by the back of my leather jacket, "All very unfortunate." He breathed into my neck whilst waving his gun around out of the doorway, "I know how to use this!" He yelled, "but he's not Lestrade." He continued.
"What?"
"He's the German man who told me about the Moonblood Cult. I think he runs a brothel, sorry, ran a brothel."
"Right… I suppose I was only really looking at the injuries. Did you notice-?"
"The head wound? Inflicted by similar or same weapon as murdered Harry? Of course I did."
"Right. Good. So, where is the angry mob coming to kill us for trespassing?"
"Obviously not here yet as we haven't found Lestrade. I told you they were only planning on springing their cunning little attack on us when we've found Lestrade."
Sherlock
The body would have to be disposed of later. I decided that John and I would have to visit the dead man's brothel to see if anyone there knew anything else about the Moonblood Cult. Later. Right now John and I seemed to have swapped places. John was stalking along the walkway, kicking doors in and checking inside each room as I walked backwards behind him, covering us with the Browning. I was beginning to think I may have made a mistake because John and I had almost gone in a full circle around the upper story of the warehouse without finding Lestrade. I could see faint brown stains of real blood, three to four years old, clinging to the hinges of the doors and stuck in the crevices of the metal floor.
John burst through the penultimate door and called my name. I stepped into the room backwards and stayed in the doorway, pointing out of the doorway with the pistol. I craned my neck round and saw John bending over the prone body of Lestrade in one corner. Sherlock Holmes doesn't make mistakes.
"Is he okay?" I asked, turning my attention back to the metal bars separating the walkway from the drop of fifteen metres and certain death to the rest of the bright white warehouse I could see out of the doorway.
"He will be." John said, "He's been beaten up pretty badly but I can't see any serious injuries. I think he's in shock."
Just then a bullet whistled past so close to my cheek I felt my flesh burn. I should have seen that coming. At that moment I abandoned the idea of facing our attackers, squeezed the trigger of the pistol in the general direction of nowhere in particular out of the door and slammed it shut with my shoulder. I stood with my back to the door and thought for three seconds before I realised that John was trying to attract my attention.
"What is it?" I asked, irritated.
"I've been shot."
I felt a shooting pain in my stomach that wasn't physical; I think it may have been concern, "I'm sorry?"
He cleared his throat, "I'm alright but, um, I've been shot."
"What? Where?"
"It's taken a chunk out of my arm. I don't think it's hit anything particularly important."
"Okay." I didn't want to move from the door in case member of the Moonblood Cult tried to knock it in.
"Apply pressure. Elevate it." Lestrade mumbled, hoisting himself into a sitting position so he and John were sitting leaning against the wall opposite me.
"I know, I know." John said, "Are you alright?"
"Yes." Lestrade replied, "Are you?"
"Yes."
Neither of them looked it. John's shirtsleeve was already turning crimson and dark blood was seeping through his shaking fingers as he clutched his arm over the bullet wound. His face was grey and glistened with a sheen of sweat. He was leaning on Lestrade's blood spattered shoulder. One of Lestrade's eyes was swollen shut with blood while his other was surrounded by a puffy purple bruise. Blood from his nose was partially dried in his stubble and splashed liberally over the collar and shoulders of his pale blue shirt. He winced every time he breathed. I diagnosed broken or at least bruised ribs. He'd received a severe kicking in the face and the chest.
The door I was leaning on shook in its frame as someone threw themselves at the other side of it. I hadn't had anywhere near adequate time to formulate a proper plan but I deduced that the Moonblood Cult, who now all seemed to be using themselves as battering rams simultaneously, would not be expecting us to attack, because it was frankly a stupid idea.
"Lestrade," I started.
He peered up at me through one puffy slit of eye.
"Are you armed?" I asked.
He nodded, "Sort of," He elaborated, gingerly searching the inside of his suit jacket until he found and produced a stout black truncheon, "I keep it for situations just like this." He wheezed.
"I'm not armed." John protested.
"Yes you are." I threw his pistol back at him.
"Well, now you're not!" Lestrade pointed out with the help of his keen detective abilities.
"I know how to use my fists." I told him.
I was glad we were going to run out of the door to take on our attackers just so I could be released from the jagged stabs of pain jarring my spine from the shaking door.