Chapter 7: The Witch Hunt Begins~
Sally Donovan's heart feels like it's about to shatter.
She is in Brixton. Why did it always have to be Brixton?
"Stay on the line...with me..."Sherlock Holmes said into the receiver of her mobile phone.
It was irony at its most bitter form.
That the man that she had driven to his death, was now the only one who could spare her, and her working partner, from a like and certain end.
"Sherlock-I-I don't think, I can do this..."
Greg had been bitterly wizened by Sherlock's death. He had GPS locators put on his close fellow officer's phones, and made a pact with them to forgive and to trust one another in the future. No more innocent men were going to the gallows of their doubts, not a single soul followed Sherlock off the Edge.
Right now, Phillip Anderson was dangerously close to that Edge.
He ,Clearfield, and Smith had all been doing a final forensic sweep of a private butchery in Brixton, where Sherlock's last murder case had actually spawned from, to see if they had missed any of the details of the case,(such as a potential for more victims) as Sherlock had actually not been allowed to visit the crime scene, only places the suspects frequented. A sensational murder such as this was, Sherlock couldn't be allowed on-scene, in case there were reporters, because he was legally dead, and they wanted to keep him that way ,in the eyes of London. Clearfield and Smith hadn't reported to the Yard this morning, just as Sally had said, because they were supposed to be off duty. Anderson had called them in to get a look at something very odd, and because they were his friends, they had agreed, on the condition that he would buy dinner after.
They made it to dinner. That's where Anderson's phone lead Sally. But it was left just sitting on a pub's counter within the general area of Brixton, so the trail had gone cold, and she called the only man she knew who could find a phantom trail. A man she had hated,once... But was slowly growing to respect, and admire... And after tonight, she might even call him a friend.
For now Sally Donovan was standing at the doorstep of the place the "bloodhound" had traced them, and their assumed kidnapper to.
It was clearly a drug den, hidden in plain sight, cars whizzing by, people too busy to see that she was out of her mind with terror.
Because of what she could see through the windows.
The house was full of a never-ending maze of poisonous vipers, hanging in chain link nets, that served as cages.
She was clutching her mouth to keep from screaming, to keep from vomiting. She couldn't dare to think about Anderson and his friends. They were in the basement; Sherlock was certain of it.
Into her fear spoke the voice of a dying man. A man that had every right to be as terrified as she, if not more, being that he was promised suffering that had made the first King in Terror shy away from its initiator.
"Don't be stupid...No one thinks they can. No one is ready when the time comes..."
She hiccups, and tries to steady her breath,listening to him, too far away, slipping away again, where Mycroft has moved the others to still unclear, had been ever since she set off on this doomed mission.
" But the question you have to ask yourself...when your hour comes..." Sherlock began.
And suddenly he is speaking from experience. An experience that she, regrettably, is to blame for.
"Is...are you willing? Not if you can, but if you will. The strength ,you see, is in the choice. All you need is a motivator vicious enough.
If...you love...your friends. If...you want to save them, from this. See to it, that they are all safe...then you will. And if you choose to do it ,then you will have no choice left but to be strong enough...
Love, oddly enough, will make you...able to do...all things.
So choose, Sally..."
She held her breath. And suddenly, soft tears began to fall.
" What happened to you...It- it was my fault...that...And I'm sorry..."
"Whether you are or not, doesn't matter. The past can't be undone...
But...this is your chance...to be a better person, than you were then...
Take my word as gospel. You have the choice to do this..."
She squeaked a sob.
Sherlock's breath rattled, and she wondered if maybe he had blacked out again.
"Sh-sherlock? Hello-are-are you there?"
"I'm here..."
"I-I- OK!, but, but you have to help me!"
Sherlock sighed ,wearily.
"Is it the old Penworth House?"
"How would I know? We're not all clever as you, you know!"
"Just-describe it to me."
"Old white house...I don't know."
"Details, woman! And stop sniveling. CONCENTRATE!"
"Old white house...gutters...painted a dull mauve sort of color. Used to be flower pots, a walk trail to the back yard."
"Good girl. It's the old Penworth place. See the walk-trail?"
"Yeah- Yeah I see...I..."
"Follow it, Sally. It will lead you to an old cellar door. You can get to the basement that way."
"How do I get in if the door has the same kind of old iron work over it as the front one? I can't break that kind of door in, -mm not strong enough."
"Really?, how easy! There's a spare key, always is. Rusted out old box, under the back step light. Hasn't been used in over a decade...I...I know where it is, because the local junkies use the house for long cold nights...I'm not proud of my drug addiciton...but addict I was, and I know the streets as well as I know my name..."
He's talking out of his head now, and Sally is afraid that he will slip away again.
"Sherlock! Really, you can't go to sleep on me, got it?! Please, I'm done for if you do!"
Sherlock's breath rattles..."Not...not going...anywhere."
Sally feels tears sting her eyes, convicted at last.
By rights, he should leave her to die. It's what she would have done, DID do to him.
But in the end Sherlock Holmes is more than just a great man. In the end, at last, they all could see, that he was a good one.
She followed the path, her rattling breath, and infrequent little horrified gasps being the only thing keeping Sherlock awake.
"You at the door yet?"
"Uhuh, but...it smells funny down here!"
"It used to be a meth lab, back when I was a kid. When I got clean, I helped them bust it up. Never wanted to be there anyway." Sherlock said the last part nonchalantly, trying to distract her ,momentarily. Trying to distract himself.
"What do you mean?" she asked, the story working its distracting purpose on her terror long enough for her to find the key, "You were an addict ,right?"
" I was forcibly addicted to drugs. By a rouge group that branched off of Al Qaeda. They were known as "Asphyxia". Don't believe what you hear people say about junkies and all that. A lot of them didn't want it...I really didn't. I don't now. But some things can't be stopped, least, not by yourself..."
Like the racing of her pulse?
Sherlock could never stay off subject for long, even with a purpose.
"Did you find the key?"
"Got it, yeah, right here!"
"Good. Now, open the door."
"Obviously!" she quipped.
Only it wasn't hateful between them, like before. This time she said it as a joke, and he laughed softly.
"In yet?"
"The key's old and bent, hang on to your pants, chief!"
Sherlock gave a long,"ahh" sound that audio captioned the way he rolled his eyes at her.
Seated beside him somewhere, Sally didn't know where, she heard John say to Greg,
"They are getting along alright? Unbelievable!"
"Could be a sign of better days to come, eh?" Greg laughed.
"I'M IN!"
"Finally! Now, look to your left."
"Why?"
"Because there's no where else in the basement ,or the house for that matter, better to keep hostages."
It turned out he was right.
There was a 6 meter pit that opened right in the middle of the floor.
"Welcome, Sergeant Donovan, to the hole I crawled out of. This is where Greg found me, if you ever wondered."
Greg's eyes fogged over tears, remembering that night.
Into the darkness of the grave-sized pit in the Penworth's basement, that renovator's dug but never filled, he shone his electric torch.
"Easy...kid...I just need to ask you some questions...Oh, and arrest you, by the way, if you're in possession of any illegal substances..."
"You from the Yard?" asked a deep voice. The young man that sat up though,didn't seem to belong to it. He looked like a scarecrow's ghost. His stunningly tragic appearance, caught Greg's breath.
"Yeah, I am. Relatively new actually, so go easy on me, okay?"
"My name is Sherlock Holmes...Is it familiar to you?"
"No, should it be?"
"Figures not. I am ,...I was...Gregson's consultant. Before he retired, and...regretably, so did I."
"YOU! You're THE consultant? Nobody ever shut up about you-they called you the Magician and stuff! Always made jabs at me about how I'd get stuck working with you, and that you'd show me up, because you're the best detective that ever breathed, never mind that you aren't police...How in blazes did you end up in this pit?"
Sherlock smiled, and held up his wrists. Greg felt a knot in his stomach. The kid was wearing a hospital bracelet, had track lines in his arms. As drawn up and jaundiced as his skin was, it could not hide the fact that he could be no older than 23 .
"Take me in, Inspector; I'll go without a fuss. It was me actually that sent in the tip to bust this place. It's more or less my prison. I didn't come willingly, and if you have to ask how I ended up on the sauce, I have Afghanistan to thank for that. Or really, Al Qaeda."
"Oh my God...Yeah, yeah somebody did tell me, ...think it was Conners actually...that you were probably gone for good, that you were actually enlisted with like military police or something,and were at the Yard while you were on leave...Said you had deployed, for the second or third time. Somebody else,...think it was Winslow...told me you were KIA."
"If by KIA you mean that I was taken hostage in an Al Qaeda sponsored cartel, and force-hooked to this crap, then yeah, you heard right. Very well, Inspector, I'll make a deal with you. You do me the good favor of arresting me and getting me out of this Pit, and I'll be YOUR consultant, as per this evening. What do you say?"
"Sounds like an idea, 'cept you'll need rehab first."
"Agreed."
Irony would flow in abundance tonight, when the place of Sherlock's redemption, had in like turn become the place of Anderson, Clearfield, and Smith's as well.
" I FOUND THEM! SHERLOCK, THEY'RE OK!"
"Good. Now ,put Anderson on the line."
Anderson sat up, "Sally?! Oh thank God, untie me, my hands have gone numb!"
She cut him loose, with a nearby saw from the abandoned renovation project.
Anderson was so relieved to have been found, that he almost missed what Sally had said;
"Wait, Sherlock? Sherlock Holmes, saved me?"
Sally pressed the phone against his ear.
"Hello, Anderson. I've got a job for you."
Anderson's blood went cold, not having personally spoken to Sherlock since his resurrection.
In that moment the Witch Hunt had begun.