Chapter 16
Sam
We thought that things would be simple after we figured out what kind of places Orion would haunt. Boy where we wrong. Holmes and Watson went throughout London, starting with the workhouses. There were dozens of workhouses in London, and as the days went by we became more and more frustrated at how they couldn't find even a clue to Orion's location. About the only thing that went right was that Danny and I healed as time went by, according to Watson we were healing much better than most people. Finally, ten days passed, and our clothes were all finally ready. One purple dress and one red dress for me like Mary's, both long sleeved with no frills, and buckled black leather high heeled shoes that fit just right, and luckily were only two inch heels so I could walk on them just fine, and finally a black sporting hat with a small bonnet on it and a not too wide brim. Those were my 'female' clothes for the daytime.
For my 'male clothes' I had a brown suit with a red vest and matching brown leather Oxford shoes and bowler hat. I was going to wear these at night when out hunting for Orion. Danny had similar clothes as me, only he had one black suit with a black vest, grey suit with matching vest, and a brown suit like me, with black Oxfords and bowler hat. It was around the afternoon that we got dressed in our new clothes, me in my suit and Danny in his black suit. "So, how do I look?" Danny asked. "Wow, you look…great, the look really suits you," I honestly told Danny, he looked real sharp in a real suit. "What do you think?" I asked him. Danny looked me over before he finally said, "Like a kid playing in his Dad's clothes. Sorry Sam, but you're too pretty to look like a man." I gave him a small punch in the arm as we went down to the living room. Holmes was waiting with a briefcase full of makeup he used in his disguises.
"Alright now, Samantha, we need to make you look more masculine to prevent you from raising suspicion. I doubt that anyone will believe that a woman dressed as a man is really hunting a murderous ghost. Luckily your arm is healed at least, so you won't raise anymore suspicion," Holmes said. "Yeah, but it's still sore," I reluctantly admitted as I sat down. "You have a very active body, but still very slim. We can make you look like an older gentleman perhaps? Or maybe I can place a few prostheses on your jaw, to make it more squared and masculine, or we could try to give you a beard. Which would you prefer?" Holmes asked me.
"Well, which would be easier to wash off?" I asked. "Disguising you as an older gentleman would perhaps be best if that's your concern, however I believe that giving you a beard or other facial hair would work best for the disguise," Holmes told me. "It won't itch will it?" I asked him, seeing that he was right on this one. "For a few minutes, but after a half hour it you'll barely notice it, I promise," Holmes assured me. "Alright, give me a beard," I told him and Holmes got to work. First he worked on my eyebrows, making them look thicker and closer to my eyes. He then moved on to my lips, though he didn't have to do much there, I never really had very full lips. He then added some makeup to my neck to make it look like I had an Adam's apple, "They may never see it, but that's no reason to be careless," he explained.
Once all this was done, he finally moved on to my face, applying some sort of paint or dye with a brush to my cheeks, upper lip, chin, and my under jaw. "This will apply an under layer to the hair to make it look more like a beard and less like someone wearing a fake beard. It will also act as an adhesive for the hair. Now stand still while I apply the hair," Holmes told me. I kept my chin up as he applied black hairs to my face. After about ten minutes in all he was done and he had me look into a mirror to see what I looked like. "Whoa," I said as I patted at the beard. "I look like my Grandpa," I said, he had a large bushy beard like I had now. Between that, my suit, and my eyebrows, you never would have guessed I was a nineteen year old woman, I looked more like a short middle aged man. I went to my bag and grabbed the Fenton Ghost Peeler and put it in my overcoat. "Alright, now we're ready," I said. Watson kissed Mary goodbye and Danny, Sherlock Holmes, Doctor Watson, and I resumed the hunt for Orion.
Watson
Now that our party was doubled, we agreed to separate into two pairs to double our chances of finding Orion. Holmes decided to go with Samantha while I was paired with Daniel as we went our separate ways, Holmes and Samantha looking in the Northern areas of London while Daniel and I searched the Southern areas. "Tell me Daniel, how effective is your Ghost Sensing power?" I inquired as we neared a Hospital. "I can sense ghosts that are up to 100ft away from me, usually it happens before I even see the ghost, but it's not perfect. When it gets cold, like now, it's hard to tell the difference between my Ghost Sense and my regular breath," Daniel answered. Then he looked around, "Not a lot of snow out for February." "Yes, this has been a rather dry month," I admitted as we neared the Hospital.
We finally entered the Hospital and we were stopped by a doctor, a rather thin yet short man with an enormous flaxen beard. "Can I help you gentlemen?" he asked. "We are here to inspect your Hospital," Daniel bluffed, sounding very officious. "I beg your pardon?" the doctor asked. I then stepped in, "Her Majesty wishes to ensure that her subjects are being well cared for, she has heard rumors of rat infestations and has had inspectors such as us look into the situation." The doctor looked flabbergasted at this and we marched ahead of him. The bearded doctor led us to through the Hospital, and we searched every room, even the basement and the cellar to ensure a thorough search. But we found no sign of Orion there. "Damn it," Daniel cursed under his breath when our search at last proved futile and we left. We walked back to my home, hoping for a sign, and again none appeared.
We returned to my house to see Samantha and Holmes had already returned, only for Samantha to loudly yell, "He got away!" "What!?" Daniel cried out. "We found him in one of the workhouses, the last one we looked into," Samantha explained. "We stopped him from grabbing a little girl; he looked like a big owl at the time. But the second he saw Holmes he flew off. We chased after him for at least two hours, but he turned invisible and got away," she informed us. "DAMN IT!" Daniel yelled and punched a nearby wall in frustration. "But we did find one thing," Samantha told us and Holmes then pulled out a long black staff from behind his back. It looked like it was made of metal, and had a clock face on the head of the staff. "You found Clockwork's staff!" Daniel cried out, "This is great, we can use this."
Author's Note: The reason Sam has to go out in disguise is because back in the Victorian days it raised suspicion if a young woman walked around alone. They're trying not to make too big a scene and mess up the Timeline.