CHAPTER 68: THE FINAL CURTAIN
Sherlock straightens up, passes a hand through his messy hair, and adjusts his shirt cuffs with slow, methodical movements. He is preparing for battle, yet knows he will always be unprepared.
A shiver shakes his shoulders, but he's not cold. He has no trouble anymore admitting to himself that he is scared. Terrified, in fact. He knows the game is drawing to a close, and the thought isn't the slightest bit reassuring.
He glances at Giulia, swathed in his tuxedo jacket. He is glad she is wearing it: as if it were armour and could shield and protect her the way he feels he is failing to.
He leaves the room without a word, leading the exhausted trio ahead into a new nightmare.
John limps and groans, struggling to keep pace with him in the corridor. Giulia walks next to him and shoots him a preoccupied look: the makeshift bandage that he botched from the gown of her dress is soaked in blood and the flesh around the cut is swollen. Anyone in his condition would be howling or whining, but he grits his teeth and keeps going as if it were nothing more than a rock in his shoe.
"How's your leg?"
"It's seen better days. I don't need my medical degree to know that the prolonged standing on it isn't doing it any good."
"Do you need help?" She offers her arm for him to lean on.
"I'm fine. I'll survive." He dismisses her concern and keeps trudging forward on his own, leaving her behind, her arm still stretched out. Then he adds over his shoulder sarcastically, "If Moriarty doesn't kill me first."
With three rapid strides, she is next to him.
"John, I wanted to apologise for what I said before."
He raises his gaze to her: there's no grudge in his eyes, and when he speaks, there's no trace of resentment.
"It's okay. It wasn't a great time for anyone. And the two of us, we were—"
"Slightly panicking?" she suggests.
"More like spiralling out of control, going berserk," he admits, and she tears a smile. Even the brave soldier had freaked out.
"I'm serious, though. I'm genuinely sorry."
"It's alright, Giulia. I forgive you. It's water under the bridge."
She lifts her glossy eyes to him. "Are we good, then?"
He nods stiffly, military style. He's not good at this. He doesn't know how to react when things get real and someone else brings down their defences, showing all their vulnerabilities. It makes him uncomfortable because he never learned to do the same. He cares more than he lets anyone see (even, especially, Sherlock). But it's so damn scary to show it to others, so he soldiers up and puts on a stoic face.
Yet Giulia has got to know him well over the months. She knows she can show him her vulnerabilities: he will understand. She knows she can show him how much she cares: he cares, too.
She stares into his light blue eyes when she says, "Good, because I couldn't go into the next round without you by my side."
He smiles, slides an arm around her shoulders engulfed in Sherlock's jacket, and squeezes gently, whispering in her ear, "I'm not going anywhere."
They walk down the hallway: John leaning against her for physical support, Giulia holding onto him for emotional support.
Then he comments, "It's not like I have any alternative with this leg and the armed guards around, anyway."
She elbows him in the ribs.
"Ouch."
"It was a nice moment, you prick," she scolds him, but can't suppress a smirk.
"I know. I had to defuse the tension somehow," he murmurs as they join Sherlock in front of a closed door at the end of the corridor.
Their eyes are drawn to a marble figurine on the floor. It represents a woman in a long-sleeved tunic with a high belt; a wreath of vines and grapes is crowning her head, and she is holding a club in one hand and a grotesque mask in the other.
Sherlock doesn't need to study her to know exactly who she is. After all, there's only one Muse left. He names her, "Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy."
He raises his eyes to the CCTV camera on top of the door.
"Jim, I think I've had enough now."
Moriarty's voice booms through the sound system. "Oh, dear Sherlock, but the game isn't over yet. And you should know that the next round will also be—"
"The last one," he completes the sentence, stealing another look at the Greek figurine. The Muse of Tragedy: it doesn't bode well.
"The ninth Muse: the finish line," Jim confirms.
"Yes, yes, it's all very clever. But I'm tired."
"That's odd. I never pegged you as a quitter."
Sherlock stares at the camera again. "I'm not quitting. But after playing eight rounds, I want something in return."
"You're not exactly in the position to bargain. But I'm curious. Let's hear it: what do you want?"
"Let John and Giulia go. I'll keep playing your game until the very end. But they don't need to be here. Let them go, and I'll do anything you want. You can kill me if that's your purpose, but they shouldn't be going through all of this. This is something between you and me. It always has been."
John and Giulia exchange a perplexed look. What is he doing?
They hear Jim click his tongue.
"Tsk. You're a disappointment, Sherlock. You're not as clever as people think. Yet again, people understand nothing. Everyone thinks you're a selfish, heartless man, but look at you now: willing to sacrifice yourself to spare them this torture. But you still don't get it, do you? Never mind, you'll understand soon enough."
Giulia grabs Sherlock's arm and yanks him out of the CCTV visual range, pushing him to a corner of the corridor. His back flattens against the wall as she hisses, keeping her voice down, "Sherlock, what's this about? We've been playing together all this time, and I think I speak for both of us when I say: we intend to stay by your side for as long as necessary."
Sherlock shakes his head, making his messy curls bounce in the dim light.
"You've seen what just happened in that room with Mycroft: I broke down. I am broken," his voice shakes. He clears his throat before going on, but when he speaks again, the faltering note is still there in his words. "What if it happens again? What if my mind fails me right at the last round?"
"My point exactly. We can only help you if we're there with you." She stands her ground, drawing closer. He can feel her breath on his skin now. He closes his eyes: that's the last barrier he can erect between them.
"No. I can't risk putting either of you in any more danger."
"It's not like John and I don't know the risks of this game. But we are ready to be with you until the end."
He snaps his eyes open and fixes them on hers.
"But I'm not ready. I don't want you there for the final round, which will surely be devastating. I can't do it. I'm not ready to see you hurt, no more than you two have already been hurt so far, both physically and emotionally. I'm prepared to face anything at this point. I'm even ready to lose this game. But I'm not ready to lose you, either of you. Please, understand."
Their eyes lock for a long instant, inches from one another. Then Giulia just steps back without further comments, and Sherlock walks up to the CCTV camera once more.
"Here's my humble request, Jim: let them go, and I'll do whatever you want me to do in the last round."
There's a long pause while everyone holds their breath. Then Jim talks again from the speakers.
"Very well, your request is sensible, but I want to push it further and change the rules of the final level. I'll come up with a new little riddle: the last move for you to win the game. If you guess right, your friends will be free to go, but you'll be mine. No more riddles, no more games. Just you and me in a showdown."
"You mean, you and a full squad of armed guards versus Sherlock, alone and unarmed. How is it fair?" John protests.
"I never said it was fair, Doctor Watson. But I'd have to rethink what I had in mind for the last round—since both you and Giulia were very much part of the cast, so I believe I'm being pretty generous. I would give you your freedom back. How magnanimous of me!"
"And what if we choose wrong?" Holmes asks.
"Always the pessimist, huh, Sherlock? Then you'll keep playing just like I had planned, till the end."
Sherlock speaks without hesitation, "Deal."
"Excellent. Now, let me think. I need to come up with a clever little something. I'm usually quite good at improvising. Two secs."
An eerie silence falls in the corridor as they wait. Giulia walks up to Sherlock once more and places a hand on his forearm.
"Sherlock, you don't even know what you've just agreed to."
He turns to look straight into her eyes.
"Does it make a difference? Throughout this game, I've never had the advantage of knowing anything. I've been playing blindfolded this whole time. I would take whatever bargain Jim offered me, and he knew that."
John chimes in. "Yeah, but what guarantees do we have that the riddle he's giving us with is even solvable? After all, why should he give you the chance to win one more time?"
"Because it's also one last occasion for me to lose. I haven't been winning at all at this game." He sees their outraged faces and hastens to specify, "Sure, we've saved some lives, but that's not winning. It's just not losing. Has it ever occurred to you that he designed this whole game precisely for the three of us?"
John rolls his eyes. "Isn't it obvious?"
"No, I don't mean to let us play, but to allow us to get the right answers at each turn. All the challenges, all the rounds, all the clues have been created for us specifically. Moriarty could've come up with impossible riddles that we could never crack and he could have killed every single hostage, but that was never the point. John, can you see it now? He took into account your medical expertise and military experience, Giulia's extensive general knowledge and love for the classics, and my unparalleled deduction skills, and devised every round so that we could potentially solve them all."
"Everything needed to be figure-outable," Giulia realises. "There's no real shame in making a mistake about something you don't know. You truly fail only when you get wrong something that you could've got right. Or rather, should have."
Sherlock nods. "So to answer your question, John, as much as I will never trust Moriarty, I'm 100% sure this new riddle will be solvable. Victory must be within reach for the defeat to be total. And that's what he wants: to defeat me completely. In the end, as absurd as it may seem, he will play fair, at least with this riddle."
John takes a deep breath and fixes his eyes on the ground when he says, fumbling over the words, "You didn't have to bargain with Moriarty for us. I would always stay, y'know. What I mean is... She's better than me with words, but… yeah, well, what she said, it applies to me, too."
When John raises his gaze, their eyes meet for an instant, and Sherlock gives him the tiniest nod of gratitude and respect. He knows John would never abandon him: faithful unto death. And that's exactly the problem.
He averts his gaze and exhales. "All I need is one more chance to save you all."
Giulia looks at him. "And who's gonna save you?"
He looks back at her and parts his lips, but before he can reply, Jim's voice trills from the speakers.
"Got it! I fear it might be too easy, but I'll take the risk. After all, there are a few things you still don't get about this game. Let's see if I can checkmate you with one last move. Please open the door in front of you."
They do as told and find themselves in a small antechamber with four doors. Whatever they were expecting for the last riddle, it certainly wasn't this.
"And this is supposed to be the last grandiose move for us to win this mad game? A bit anticlimactic for my taste," John says, grimacing.
A screen powers on and Jim's irritated face appears on the monitor.
"It's not the challenge that makes this moment important, Doctor Watson: it's the stakes."
"It's quite obvious, isn't it? We need to choose the right door," Giulia says.
"Correct. Before Sherlock wastes time and brain energy to reconstruct the blueprint of the building, I can tell you that all doors lead to the same room: that's not the point. If you choose the right door and try the handle, it won't open. My guards will come to get Doctor Watson and Giulia and escort them out of the theatre, while the famous detective Mr Holmes will be the only one to continue with the last round."
"But the wrong doors aren't locked: if we try them, they'll open onto the final room," Sherlock realises.
"Brilliant: the rules are clear. Go on, then. Make your choice."
"It's a 25% chance. How does he expect us to make a blind choice?" John groans.
"It's not a blind choice," Sherlock retorts, moving closer to examine the doors. Each door is marked with a different triangle. On the first, there's a simple triangle pointing down, on the second a triangle pointing up, then again a triangle pointing up with a horizontal line crossing through the centre, and finally, on the fourth door, yet another triangle pointing down with a horizontal line through it.
"Those are the alchemical symbols for the four elements: Fire, Water, Air, Earth," he lists, pointing at the marks.
Jim nods from the screen. "I've been leaving clues around for quite some time now. But I guess I can give you a final one: it is the sign of your past and the reason we all are here today. It all built up to this moment. And you should have seen it coming, Sherlock, 'cause I made you a promise." He smiles ominously before the screen turns off.
"What did he mean about it being connected to your past? Is it something to do with your childhood or a previous case?" John asks.
"No, it's not just about Sherlock: it's our past. You heard what he said: 'the reason we are all here today'. It's for all three of us," Giulia intervenes.
Sherlock's eyes widen. He hadn't thought about it. But she's right.
"Since our shared past is mostly defined by the cases we've solved together, I'd say we need to figure out what is the element that all four cases had in common."
"Four cases?" John frowns. "I could've sworn there were more."
"We're not counting the nun's and the tenor's murders: those were the first two rounds of this game. So, we need to take into consideration our very first case—the one with the twin MI6 agents and the terrorist cell, the second case when Giulia was accused of the murder of Michael Chadley, the third case with that rogue ex-CIA agent who planned to blow up the Parliament, and finally the fourth case with the country-side mystery that almost cost my life. Did I leave out anything?"
Giulia takes a moment to go through all the adventures they've lived together. It seems impossible they have been through all of that in just some months. Yet every single moment is seared into her brain: unforgettable, invaluable memories.
"I think you got them all," she confirms. "Now, let's throw in some ideas: the lunatic killer who took a shot at you in the countryside was a plumber, wasn't he? So maybe water?"
"Seems plausible," John approves. "What about the case that almost got Giulia a life sentence? We got one of the key clues—the victim's mistress—at his burial. So maybe Earth? But even I can see how far-fetched it is."
"Those are interesting ideas," Sherlock says in the least convinced tone possible, "but we need just one element for all of them. We can't just take wild shots and see what sticks. We need more information. As always, Moriarty's words must hide some clues."
John frowns. "Maybe not this time. He is improvising. He came up with it in under five minutes."
"I'm sure he could devise a presidential assassination plot in under seven. Don't underestimate him."
Sherlock shuts his eyes and goes over Jim's words once more. He must have plotted something exquisite for that last riddle, a labyrinthine brainteaser.
"If you say so. What was the clue in his words, then?"
"You heard him: he said the sign of our past. What if he was referring to the Zodiac signs?"
John blinks at him, puzzled. "I'm not following you. Why are we talking about astrology now?"
Giulia grasps Sherlock's hint and quickly gets on board with his reasoning. "The four classical elements of Earth Water Air and Fire are also used in Western astrology in relation to the astrological charts. Each of the twelve signs of the Zodiac has been assigned to an element so that four consecutive signs would belong to four different elements, always in the same order: never the same element twice in a row. Let's try to connect the cases to a zodiac sign and see what happens. Starting with the first case, the one with the twin sisters. That's easy enough: Gemini."
"Good. What's the element for Gemini?" John asks.
"Air," Sherlock promptly replies, earning a surprised look from Watson, who sarcastically comments, "Interesting. You couldn't care less about the solar system, but seem quite fond of horoscopes."
Holmes glares at him. "I'm simply well-versed in the history and classification of the classical elements. They were heavily used in alchemy, too."
"Sure. But I'm confident that if I asked what the other air signs in the Zodiac are, you would say…"
"Libra and Aquarius," comes his swift response.
John sniggers. "I didn't take you for a star chart fanatic."
"That's ludicrous. The stars don't determine our lives or hold our fortune. It's all up to us: choices and mistakes."
They have been writing their destiny for the whole night. No sentimental fate involved, just blind reason and cold logic. That's how he can save them one more time: with a clever, neat, well-thought answer. No need to inconvenience the stars.
Their puerile banter takes some tension out of the room for a second, then Giulia takes them back down to earth from the celestial spheres.
"Moving on. He said Libra, right? Its symbol is the scale, and I'd say it fits the second case when I was falsely accused of murder and Sherlock had to bring the scales of justice back into balance, so to speak."
John, who's warming up to the Zodiac signs idea, says, "Makes sense. Shame we're settling on air, though: I quite liked your previous intuition about the killer of the fourth case being a plumber, but I guess that would stand for Water."
"Not necessarily. Sherlock mentioned Aquarius too, among the Air signs. It fits."
Sherlock folds his hands in his pensive pose. "I think we're onto a good lead. Also, the Air element in connection with the Zodiac signs represents the intellect and ability to communicate: I think it's a good enough description for our improbable trio." He notices John's childish smirk and concedes with an eye roll, "Fine, sometimes I do read the horoscope together with Mrs Hudson to keep her company. Are you happy now?"
Giulia chews on her lip, prey of a disquieting doubt.
"Sherlock, we have a problem. There are 12 zodiac signs and 4 classical elements, meaning there are only three Air signs. But as we said, we solved four cases together. Moriarty wouldn't be so negligent as to leave one out."
Sherlock gazes upon vacancy. No, he wouldn't. Jim Moriarty is so meticulous and extravagant that... An idea materialises in his brain, too crazy and improbable, which is why he dives right into it. Because Moriarty is just as crazy: He would think about something outlandish yet logical.
"You're right. The numbers are not adding up. Unless... the thirteenth sign: Ophiuchus," he murmurs, a distant look in his eyes.
John cocks a brow at that comment. "Oddly enough, that name rings a bell. Though I thought the Zodiac signs were only twelve."
"Indeed. Yet, the Ophiuchus is one of the constellations crossing the ecliptic plane." He turns towards his friend and grudgingly specifies, "Before you ask, yes, I only read about the obliquity of the ecliptic to sound clever with Mycroft. And yes, I did learn by heart an entire paper from the Royal Astronomic Society just to have a conversation with my brother. And finally No, I did not understand it, but I still retained the information."
John shows his hands in an innocent gesture. "I didn't say anything."
"You were about to. Anyway, the Ophiuchus has sometimes been considered the 'thirteenth' sign of the Zodiac."
"But how does it tie in with our remaining case together?" Giulia questions.
"Ophiuchus means 'serpent-bearer' since the constellation represents the healer Asclepius holding a snake. According to the legend, he had killed the snake, but then a second snake placed some healing herbs on it, making it revive. It could be a reference to the third case we had together: Kevin Rummer, the rogue agent who was believed dead by the CIA but survived and came back from the dead to accomplish his revenge. It makes sense."
"Maybe," John concedes halfheartedly. "It's just…" He clears his throat, a conflicted expression on his face. "The thirteenth unofficial sign of the Zodiac… that's a bit of a stretch."
Sherlock whips around to face him, wide-eyed and desperate. "You think I don't know, John? You think I haven't noticed how thin is the ice we're treading on? My mind is blank. I'm trying to force my brain to go through all the options, open every single door in my mind palace, and come up with any solution, but I don't seem able to think straight. I'm drowning, and my deepest fear is that I'm dragging you down to the bottom with me."
He pants, incapable of focusing on anything in the room, until Giulia walks up to him and places her hands on his shoulders, forcing him to meet her gaze.
"Sherlock, look at me. We're all terrified, but we're all in this together. You and that brilliant mind of yours have kept us alive until this point. We trust you. I trust you."
John tries again, this time in a less defensive tone. "I'm not against the idea of linking the Ophiuchus to our third case together; it's a good fit. But we all know it's not about the Zodiac signs, but the elements. We need Air."
In every sense, he mentally comments. He echoes Sherlock's fears: he feels like drowning.
"So, how can we link the Ophiuchus to Air if it doesn't even properly belong to the Zodiac?"
"With the stars," Giulia replies. "Regardless of whether the Ophiuchus makes it to the Zodiac list or not, it is a constellation in the sky, and to be considered the thirteenth sign, it's safe to assume it must be wedged between two other constellations, AKA official Zodiac signs. If we figure out which ones and what elements they belong to, we could refine our speculations."
Sherlock takes a deep breath. "It's a sound strategy. But don't look at me for input on that: I've already made my position clear on astronomy."
"Naturally. You only care for astrology, don't you?" Watson mocks him.
"John, what about you?" Giulia chimes in.
"I don't even know my own star sign."
"No, I meant, what about your knowledge of the night sky?"
"I think that stargazing makes for a nice date idea, if that's what you're asking."
Not the time for his undying sarcasm.
"I was thinking more about your time in the Army, perhaps some kind of direction/orienteering training using the stars," she insists.
He cocks his head. "This is the twenty-first century: we have compasses and technology. And I wasn't in the Navy: we didn't need the stars to navigate the high seas." As he finishes his sentence, though, some long-lost images of shimmering night skies he'd squashed at the back of his memory flash behind his eyes.
Giulia sighs. "You're right, sorry. Don't know what I was thinking."
"But," John adds, a faraway look in his eyes, "when I was in Afghanistan, I was stationed in a village in the middle of nothing, with minimal light pollution. I've never seen brighter night skies."
Sherlock and Giulia arch their brows at that revelation, but don't utter a sound not to break the spell. They patiently wait for him to retrace the brittle thread of memories of a distant time that—they know well—he has always tried to forget.
"It was impressive, and I liked it: it made it easier to look out for dangers," he says disenchanted, showing his ever-present practical sense. Then he frowns as the recollection unfolds. "But one of my fellow soldiers was a real stars enthusiast. We were often assigned to mount the night guard together, and since the nights were long and boring, he started telling me all about the stars and the constellations. We must have made quite the unlikely duo: me, grounded and vigilant, half-listening to his reveries, and him, lost in the ether, chasing after flimsy images of constellations that I could never visualise. He would never shut up." And a corner of his lips imperceptibly curves up in the tiniest smile at that memory.
Giulia steps closer, smiling softly at his unexpected opening up about his past.
"You never mentioned you had a friend in the army. Did you keep in touch after you came back home?"
He fixes his eyes on her, and in his anguished gaze and mournful silence, she can read the darkest answer: his friend never made it back home.
"Oh, I'm so sorry. You don't have to say anything. You don't have to reminisce if it's too painful."
John bites down on his lower lip as his eyes get misty. "But I need to, actually, if we want to have a chance here. I never imagined I would even skim through those memories again. And it's all bloody ironic now because I've always thought all of that was nonsense and useless, but maybe… maybe in the end, he was right. Not that I would have ever told him, anyway."
He sighs and closes his eyes, surrendering to the waves of memories.
"He would point here and there, naming those invisible mythological figures and tracing their profiles. That's why when Sherlock mentioned the Ophiuchus, it rang a bell: cause my colleag…" the voice dies in his throat. "My friend," he forces that grievous word out of his teeth, "must have mentioned it at some point. I don't even know why I remember it; I thought I had erased everything from that time. I thought I wasn't even listening to his ravings, but I still remember him and his stars." He has to take a break because now his voice is shaking.
He tightens his arms to his sides, clenching his fists as he musters the strength to pursue the traces of a conversation like many others: originally, an ordinary memory that was later tarnished by grief.
"One night, he talked about the Ophiuchus, I'm sure. All I remember is that he said the constellation of Ophiuchus was roughly between the signs of Scorpio and Sagittarius."
He exhales as if he could blow out all the sorrow that is constricting his chest. "There: do with this information what you may. In this torturing game, we can't even let the ghosts sleep."
Giulia shoots him a preoccupied glance.
Sherlock clears his throat. "This is good. Scorpio is a Water sign, while Sagittarius is a Fire sign. As Giulia mentioned, in the canonical zodiac ranking, the four elements follow the same order, with no consecutive repetitions, so we can exclude Water and Fire as the elements for the Ophiuchus. So theoretically, it could be considered an Air sign, I guess," he murmurs, uncertain.
"I don't think there's a lot of theory about it," Giulia says with a tight-lipped smile. "Since it's not even an official sign, I suppose we can make of it anything we want. We need Air: let's go with Air."
They lock eyes for a long instant. Then Sherlock looks at John, who gives him a curt nod. He's done his part. He is on board with whatever they decide to say.
Jim's face pops over the screen. "Is this your final answer, then?"
Sherlock stands up straight and walks to the door marked by an upward triangle with a horizontal line crossing over the centre: the alchemical symbol for Air.
"Yes. Air," he says and places a hand over the handle, praying it won't open. That's the only chance he has to save the two people he loves most in the world.
He stays frozen for a second, while everyone is waiting with bated breath. Then he slowly pushes the handle and a horrifying click of defeat echoes in the room.
Everything stays silent for a second. Then Jim's voice echoes through the speakers.
"Uh-oh. Wrong answer."