Chapter Eleven:
Closer
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(Date of writing not stated for this diary entry)
Time has marched on. I will not mention all of the cases that I assisted John and Sherlock on. There was a murder in London that Sherlock investigated – one that John will never publish. It concerned the death of a German named Schneider, a collector of rare, antiquated books. Sherlock was called to the scene of the death, the man's house, during a bright September day – when I was still liable to feel strained at times by the relentless sunlight. But later that evening he arranged for me and John to visit the morgue where the corpse was. He wanted our opinions on the killing.
"I must warn you, Mrs Watson…," Sherlock told me sternly, before the attendant pulled up the sheet. "The body…is not in one piece."
I draw in my breath to steady my nerves. "Very well. Proceed," I told the attendant.
The sheet covering the remains was lifted. At Sherlock's instruction, the attendant then left the room. He would return when we had finished our examination.
"Good lord!" John exclaimed, flinching at the agony etched into the victim's dead face. He shuddered, and force his revulsion back down.
Our joint inspection confirmed our fears. The head of Herr Schneider had been torn from his neck. Even so, carefully examining the tissue at the edge of the damage, I could spy the puncture marks.
"There was a lack of blood at the murder scene, was there not?" I asked our detective ally.
"The study was splattered with blood – but not enough, in my opinion," Sherlock responded. "And the killer also upturned the room, breaking the furniture and throwing the books around. This happened during last night. The death was not heard, given that Schneider's house stood apart from his neighbours, and that he lived alone. The only witness report is that a man, walking his dog along the lane, not long before the possible time of death, saw a veiled woman at the door, being admitted. The dog whined – and then tore off, dragging its owner along with the lead.
"A dog scared of a woman… Then it was a vampire?"
I nodded in reply to John's whispered question, even as I used Sherlock's magnifying glass to study the bruises on the torn body. "Yes. I can see where his assailant seized him. And this man was apparently aged in his mid-thirties?"
"I recognise him…" John muttered. "Heinrich Schneider. He was registered to my practice. I only saw him, to help treat a twisted ankle from his running, a few years ago. He was a fit, strong man – so his killer…"
"…was even stronger," Sherlock concluded, nodding. "Go ahead, Doctor Watson, and examine the body as you see fit. After all, that is why you are here."
With a nod, John opened up his medical bag, put on a pair of disposable medical gloves, and got to work with the tools made available to him.
When he was finished examining Schieder, John gave his opinions as to what had transpired during the man's fateful evening. Schieder had been attacked and pinned down by a physically-strong and fierce individual. There were tears and cuts to the man's clothes, as well as crushing bruises to his lower ribs. Then he had been bitten in the side of his neck, and half-drained of his blood. Schieder had died from blood loss. But it had been a mercy to him for him to have died, before his head had been incredibly torn away from his torso.
"Why kill in this way, other than to hide the bite marks?" I whispered as I continued to be transfixed by the depravity before me. If I had still been mortal, I would have been sick – and it was testimony to both Sherlock and John that they were resilient.
"A statement of power, perhaps," Sherlock speculated. "She knew this murder would find me being called upon."
There was no need to ask which 'she' Mr Holmes was thinking of.
"What have you deduced in this case so far, Holmes?" John pressed him.
"Firstly, I am satisfied that this woman is indeed the likely killer – not that the local police will accept the fact. It could be that she hypnotised Schneider into admitting her, even at that late hour, as there was nothing written in the victim's book of appointments or his diary for last night. Also, the police had helped me to track down a list of Scheider's collection of books within the house. The man was meticulous in his records and transactions, which was most fortunate." Sherlock regarded us as he interlocked his black-gloved hands together. "There was only one book not accounted for amongst the wreckage of the study. A Necrononicum."
"A what…?" John breathed.
"A book of the dead, Watson. A book that apparently contained black magic rituals. Or so I have learnt from an expert on such matters, at the British museum. Now, although we can all think of someone who may well be responsible for this ghastly murder, the real issue that eludes me is the motive. Why did a vampire half-drain Heinrich Schneider, before killing him in such a barbaric way in order to hide the fact it was a vampire who was responsible, purely because the murderer wanted a certain, rare, dangerous book? What is their ultimate purpose?" Sherlock's tone was grave, and I saw the worry in his eyes.
I went to my coffin the following dawn, with my mind still troubled. Not just by the shocking brutality of Herr Scheider's death – but also by the implications of the theft of that book…
And yet, we would not find the answers that year. Both Sherlock Holmes and the police were unable to resolve the case. And we were unable to prove it was the work of a woman who had otherwise thankfully vanished from our lives.
Mycroft Holmes - and a secret service that acted on behalf of the government -were on the lookout, ready to act should reports of suspected vampire attacks upon people come to light. But try as they did, Isadora Klein and her minions – vampire or mortal – evaded detection. The ongoing situation made Sherlock fume and worry as to how our enemies were eluding us.
"They must be hiding somewhere in another city," I suggested to him one day whilst he was pacing in the sitting room, one evening. "Or keeping themselves very isolated, with a steady supply of blood to hand. Or…" I shuddered.
"Or what, Mary?" Sherlock asked me.
"Or they are hibernating – waiting for a better time to rise again and strike at us. With their human helpers unable to leave their service," I whispered.
I personally learnt of another issue that eluded Sherlock that year. My maid, Kaitlyn, tried to get the detective to look into the disappearance of her younger cousin, Mia, who had been aged eighteen when she suddenly fled the family house at Foxton Locks, on the Grand Union Canal, after being attacked by her drunken father one night. That had been a couple of years ago – and the police had not turned up any sign of her, despite acting on the description provided by her distraught parents.
Sherlock looked into the issue by consulting with the Scotland Yard inspectors – but came back empty to Kaitlyn. The facts were that Mia had left home of her own accord, with a bag of her own clothes. No actual crime had been detected. And nobody resembling her had been recorded. Kaitlyn herself had not seen her cousin for about four-five years, as a result of them living far apart.
I felt sorry for Kaitlyn – but we could not do anymore for her. We were busy enough as it was with the work continuing to pour in for the great detective, now that he was officially back from the dead.
By the time of November 1894, I was able to be present in the muted daylight for a while, whilst at Yoxley Old Place in 'The Golden Pince-Nez'. Inspector Stanley Hopkins was surprised at John and Sherlock bringing a lady along with them – but Sherlock again presented me as his apprentice/assistant.
Fortunately (for me), the killing of Willoughby Smith had involved a spilling of blood. Not only had the killer been stumbling afterwards without her pince-nez, making her half-blind (as per the evidence Hopkins had gathered), she had also been scratched by her dying victim when he knocked her glasses off from her face.
Despite the passage of time by the time we arrived at Yoxley Old Place, it had been just possible enough for me to pick up the scent of blood in the air from the murder scene and identify which of the two cocoanut-matted corridors the killer had taken. By the time of our first meeting with Professor Coram, I knew that the killer had entered the invalid Professor's bedroom. And I could tell, by carefully watching Sherlock and his behaviour, that he was aware that the killer was potentially still in the house. Though I admit that I could not work out why he was scattering the ashes onto the floor from his rapid cigar smoking…
This time, our hidden opponent had been more difficult for me to detect – as a result of Professor Coram's cigars. But before long, Sherlock had solved the case – thanks to the information that Hopkins and I had passed onto him. All poor John could do was to observe, take notes, and write up the case.
Having lived with him for a few years now, I know that there are times where John's modesty prevents him from speaking up enough, when he and Sherlock are working on a case. And I remember, when I was mortal, I was once engaged in conversation with one of Kate Whitney's associates, who thought that my husband was not very bright. This was at a birthday party hosted by Kate.
My lip quivered at the time. But I steeled myself to reply to this smug, pompous lady.
"My husband is a trained doctor, and he is a competent one. Besides having seen action overseas during hostilities. He would not be the man he is today, if he was lacking in his wits."
"Of course, Mrs Watson. But you miss my point!" said she, with a simper. "At times, he seems slow at grasping Mr Holmes insights…"
"Oh, I do not think I am missing your point at all." I glared at her. "The truth is that my husband's main problem is that he is sometimes too intimidated by Sherlock Holmes's mercurial nature – though not so much as in recent years. And when confronted by a strange situation outside of his experience, when asked to come up with his own explanation by Mr Holmes, John's typical response is to say: 'I cannot imagine'. He really is not a man with a vast imagination. " I paused, and then added to this offensive lady. "Your husband is in the garden with the other men, at present, is he not? The thin one, with the blond hair? He is a banker, going by the business I have heard him discuss."
"Yes – that is him."
I stepped closer to the woman "You need to look after him better," I whispered to her.
"Wh-what?"
"I observed that his tie was badly crooked – and that his sleeve cuff had ink marks. His left cuff. He is left-handed. He also smokes too much. It is beginning to affect his breathing."
The woman's face turned pale, as she squeaked – confirming my observations. She quickly excused herself from the room and hurried off to check out the state of her husband.
Kate giggled at our exchange. The woman was an associate of her – not a friend.
It felt good to prove to myself that I was learning even when I was still mortal, having lived within the orbit of the Great Detective. Good to prove that, as a woman, I could train and develop my wits. Despite having less influence and experience in wider life, compared to a man.
There were other cases I was involved in with John and Sherlock – with John making sure, at my insistence, that I was not mentioned in the official version of the notes. Over time, my resistance to sunlight increased – though the brightness of day still caused me fatigue, especially during hotter weather. But more than that, my vampiric powers were slowly growing stronger. When I hunted at night with Mina, I discovered that I could instinctively draw the shadows around me to dim a streetlight. I was taken aback to hear from Mina that she and Jonathan had never learnt that trick. So I told her how that it just came to me.
In the following week, as they practiced their willpower, Mina – then Jonathan managed to manipulate shadows as well. First in the safehouse, then whilst hunting mortals.
"But I am younger than both of you in the ways of the blood!" I gasped when I realised how hard the trick had been for them. "How did I…?"
"Exactly. You are proving yourself to be no mere fledgling as a vampire, dear Mary," Jonathan told me with a sombre expression. "And you need to use your power wisely. And whilst we, by our very nature, walk in darkness…"
"…do not let the darkness overwhelm you," Mina completed her husband's thought. "And I have not forgotten your dream of Count Dolingen speaking to you, taunting you."
"His blood is in me…" I realised.
"I wonder what abilities he had when he was undead?" Jonathan mused. "Sir Reginald was indeed lucky to kill the fiend when Dolingen's back was turned to him."
"I heard it whispered amongst the red robes that Count Dolingen had the rare ability to reform himself into a plague of rats," I told my friends.
Mina squirmed at the thought of such creatures. "None of our family can do that! Dolingen must have been powerful, indeed! I am glad that he is dead!" she voiced aloud.
I was still having the occasional daymare of Count Dolingen – once every month now. Whenever it was full moon, I had discovered. I wanted him to finally leave me in peace…
But that was not quite the way it turned out to be.
*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*
November 1902
Alas, John never did get round to correcting that unfortunate dating of the Wisteria Lodge case…
And later on, for some reason unknown to me, he copied several paragraphs from his account of 'The Resident Patient' into 'The Cardboard Box'! The part where John's mind wanders while he is sat in the main room at 221B, and Sherlock watches him and deduces John's thoughts.
I have continued with my made-up persona of Miss Catherine Summers, with my blonde locks dyed a Strawberry blonde on a regular basis. Interestingly, despite being undead, my hair still slowly grows – and so I get Kaitlyn to cut it for me, once in a while, so that it is usually neck length. That way, no foe of mine – mortal or vampire - can distract me in a fight by pulling on my hair.
I have now been living – if 'living' is the right word – with John, Martha, Kaitlyn, and Sherlock at 221B Baker Street for eight years now, with the old century giving way to a new one during that span of time. I still observed the twice weekly stay at the Harker safehouse – and I also accompanied John and Sherlock on some of their longer trips away from London whilst on a case. The ever-faithful Kaitlyn attending to my needs – ranging from seeing to my clothes to capturing squirrels for me to feed upon…
Not something I wish to elaborate on, you must understand.
And, of course, I continued to feed Kaitlyn my vampire blood on a weekly basis. As my Follower, she was now something of a drug addict – and my blood was what she needed, every now and then. This was the price for me saving her life – the Harkers had solemnly informed me. Just as Irene Adler would suffer terrible withdrawal symptoms if she could not drink Jonathan Harker's blood every now and then – Kaitlyn was dependant on me. But she never hated me. She was a loyal servant – and a good friend to me. But she and Sherlock never exactly got on – the only disunity in our party of four whenever we were on a case.
And as my mental abilities of observation and deduction increased under Sherlock's tutorage, my vampiric powers of shapeshifting and manipulating shadows gradually grew stronger too. I often acted as a spy for John and Sherlock – usually as a cat.
Naturally, the boys wanted me present with them when an old associate of John's presented a case for them, that involved a woman drinking her baby's blood…
It did not take very long for me to convince Mrs Fergusson's maid that I should speak to her mistress, given that she would be more inclined to speak first with a female associate of Sherlock Holmes. Getting the Peruvian lady to tell me the truth just required a light dose of my vampiric glamour.
Upon meeting Mrs Fergusson, my senses told me that she was mortal – and not a creature such as myself. It is difficult to describe exactly. A vampire has a somewhat different feel to their presence. A different energy, or aura. Not that I could see auras.
Both John and I picked up on the attitude of Mr Fergusson's elder boy towards the baby. That of jealousy. Resentment. And, armed with this knowledge, Sherlock soon solved the case.
I managed to leave the house without giving into my instinct to sink my fangs into young Jack Fergusson, to teach him a lesson about the consequences of needless cruelty to others. Especially towards a defenceless baby! I had to tell myself that the boy would not learn the lesson very well if I actually managed to kill him…
Thank god for John, who grabbed my hand and escorted me out of the house when he saw me quivering with anger and licking my lips...
When I read John's account of that tale, I raised my eyebrows at my husband when I next spoke to him in our bedroom at Baker Street.
"You portray Sherlock as quite the embedded sceptic of vampires," I pointed out. "That conversation never took place, did it?"
"And if I portrayed him as believing in your kind, what would the public say if their great detective was hunting for vampires?" John huffed as he sat at his desk chair. "Yes, some of them would be on their guard more against the likes of Klein, which would no bad thing. But the more superstitious folk… If they began to think that any stranger they encountered in the night was a vampire. Well, there were enough women killed during the witch trials throughout Europe. How many of them were actually just innocent ladies, tortured into confessions?"
"You may have a point," I conceded. "But you will not tell the public about Klein's true nature?"
John gave me a long look. "I do not want the public to know the truth about you, Mary. I have written the account, to get it out of my system. But the wider world must not learn of that account – until perhaps some time in the future. When we are no longer a part of Baker Street…"
I put my finger against John's lips. "Let's not speak of that sad day," I cautioned him, before I kissed his temple.
A few months after that, there was the 'Adventure Of The Missing Quarter' where I suggested that I would be able to sniff a trail whilst in the form of a dog during a dull February day in the late 1890s…
Yes reader. I was actually the draghound Pompey. John made up a story about him and Sherlock acquiring a dog for loan when we were in Cambridgeshire, searching for that missing rugby player.
I do not wish to go into the details about how I avoided getting my clothes muddied, save that I had to disrobe down to my underwear before shifting my form...
Any muck that I acquire on my paws, as a cat or dog, transfers to my hands when I change back. And so the same would happen to my clothes. I have learnt this the hard way, from first-hand experience.
But instead of writing more about the cases I assisted 'my boys' with, I must write of the series of events that eventually led to the parting of the ways…
*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*o*
Entry dated December 1902.
Sherlock, John, and I had just finished our involvement in the 'Adventure Of The Illustrious Client'. Adding to the information that Sir James Damery had provided us three (Sir James had been reluctant to disclose his business before me, until Sherlock had insisted that I – as his apprentice - could handle it), our investigations (plus my subsequent spying upon him in animal forms) revealed that a decade earlier, Baron Adelbert Gruner had changed his habits after becoming a client of an exclusive gentlemen's club in London…
In short, from starting his dark history as a charmer of young women and leaving them destitute or dead, Gruner had now become an even more dangerous predator. Now, as a vampire he toyed with his female food and manipulated them into becoming cruel and heartless harlots. If they resisted him too much, he would finally drain them dry. Otherwise, if they bowed down to his will, he would turn the unfortunate ladies into his vampire thralls – before passing most of them over to his sire, Isadora Klein. To put them to work in Cherry Tree House.
As to any vampirised women who actually managed to escape Gruner's clutches after their rebirth, and flee back to their families… One case I was able to track down did not end well. Having been forced into dependency upon him by Gruner, the poor girl had been unable to control her hunger after returning home – and she had consequently killed her mother during an argument. In remorse, the vampiress had then urged her father to shoot her dead with an improvised wooden bullet. Then, stricken with grief, the father – an ex-army officer – had killed himself, leaving only a signed document besides his body. I managed to beguile the family solicitor into reading a letter of confession that the solicitor had half-convinced himself was a statement written by a man gone mad over his daughter being ruined by an 'Austrian cad'.
I also came to realise that I knew of another case. Back when I had been a red robe in Cherry Tree House, my fellow prostitute Opal had hinted to me that she had been corrupted by a German nobleman, before being turned by him into a vampire and then abandoned. Unable to fight back against her sire with her broken will, she had been forced to become one of Isadora Klein's girls.
Opal had never named her sire in conversation to me, but I had seen the fear in her eyes when she hesitantly spoke of him, when I pressed her on how she had become a red robe.
Opal had got the nationality wrong. But it was now clear to me that she was one of Baron Gruner's protégé.
In the end, with Sherlock being beaten up by Gruner's mortal lackeys, it had taken John diverting Baron Gruner, whilst Sherlock and I managed to locate the Baron's 'lust book', listing all of his victims.
And with that valuable item in our possession, I stopped Gruner attacking us by throwing liquid in his face. Not the capsule of acid that John wrote in his account – but holy water.
I would have preferred to have ended Gruner's vampiric life there and then, enraged as I was by that monster – but instead Gruner's staff came to his aid. And so, John, Sherlock, and I had to escape – along with the journal we had successfully found. Once that had been passed to Violet de Merville, the fawning young lady was finally persuaded to end her engagement to Baron Gruner. We found out that she did indeed cut off all ties to him, altogether. Hopefully, she never discovered the truth of her fiancé's vampiric nature.
As far as I was concerned, it was a form of justice for Opal and Gruner's other victims – all the men and women he had had killed. As well as the women he had broken, and then forced into vampirehood and prostitution.
Gruner soon went underground – before Mycroft Holmes could arrange for a special unit of armed policemen to seize him and his staff. Just as with Isadora Klein – the trail went cold, even for Sherlock Holmes. We had to be content with the shadows of our undead enemies being held at bay.
This disturbed me. Yes, Klein was leaving us all alone, after the failure of Rachel Howells and John Clay to kill my husband. But Klein and her remaining vampires were immortal, after all. Like me. They could wait for Sherlock and John to get older, to gradually lose their mortal strength and agility, leaving me alone – with the Harkers and my slowly-aging Follower, Kaitlyn.
But like any other vampire, I was like a broken watch. Time had stood still for my body. I had died at the age of thirty-two – and I would remain that age in the eyes of John, Martha, Kaitlyn, and Sherlock. Until they died – or until true death found me. Then the lost years would catch up with my body. If I survived as a vampire for around a century or more – my youth-preserved body would turn into ashes when I died, just as my hated sire, Count Dolingen, had crumbled into ashes upon my mortally-wounded body.
I shuddered at the dreadful memory. The beginning of my first death. The moment when…
I still haven't told John.
Martha had recently brought up that conversation again, asking me if I had informed John. So, remembering Martha's wise words to me when I told her my secret, I finally resolved to address that which was still eating away inside of me…
The next opportunity was one evening in early November when John finished his initial account of what he referred to as 'The Adventure Of The Illustrious Client'. With him sat at his writing desk, I came up from behind him and kissed his neck, making him groan with delight at the memory of me biting him there – as was my habit sometimes, when we were intimate with each other…
He turned round in his seat and lovingly bushed his hand through my dyed locks. When I no longer had to disguise myself, I wanted to return to being a blonde-haired angel for John again. And for myself.
"May I see your latest work, dear?" I asked him.
"Certainly, Mary." He handed me his notes, and I read through them.
"So… In this altered version of events, I'm now the associate of Sherlock's informer, Shinwell Johnson? Instead of being Catherine Summers, I am this flame-haired Kitty Winter?" I raised an eyebrow at John, teasing him.
He had the grace to look somewhat shameful. "Easier for me to remember, that way. Sorry dear. Your alias just…gave me the idea. Had to justify why a woman was aiding Holmes to find…that filthy book."
"So long as the Scotland Yard Inspectors don't cotton onto the truth about me being your still-alive wife," I giggled. I handed him his notes back, before my expression turned serious.
"John… There is something I need to tell you. About when I died…"
He read the look in my eyes, in my trembling hands. He sniffed my breath.
"You've recently drank some pigs blood," he observed. "To steady your nerves, Mary?"
I nodded.
John put his pen and journal away, then got up and wrapped his arm around me as he guided me to sit on his bed. He sat beside me. Momentarily, my distracted mind noted that John generally used to wear brown suits. But over the years since I had been living as a vampire, he had changed the colour scheme of his clothes to match his greying hair.
"Go on. Take your time," he urged.
"I wasn't certain of it at the time, John. It was only a suspicion," I began. "That morning. Of the day th-that I died… I felt queasy. I was sick in the bathroom basin. I was embarrassed – and I got Kaitlyn got help me clear it up. You had already left the house by then…"
"Oh? I was not aware. Kaitlyn did not tell me anything. And you seemed perfectly fine later, Mary. I recall that excellent chicken dinner…," John trailed off as his face turned pale. A look of horror seized him. "Do you mean…?"
"When I died, I felt the connection – and the br-breaking of that c-c-connection, John," I started to sob, struggling to meet John's gaze as I stuttered. Watery blood began to seep out of my eyes. "I was in the early stages, when Count Dolingen murdered me. He didn't kill just me – he killed our baby too!"
"Oh Mary..!" John held me tight as I buried my head into the gap between his chest and face. We must have stayed like that for several minutes, as I finally wailed aloud the grief that I had been hiding from him. That I had lost a part of me – before losing a part of my own humanity.
"Wh-who else knows?" he managed to breath.
"M-Martha. And K-Kaitlyn. N-no one else," I blurted. "I never told Isadora Klein. I considered telling her, in the early days. B-but some instinct pre-prevented me… And now we know that Dolingen and Klein were business partners. So I was wise not to tell her that the Count destroyed my motherhood, even as he stole my life! And now… As you know, as a vampiress, I ca-cannot conceive. I no longer have my m-monthlies…"
"If that monster was still alive… I could kill him," John fumed, as he lifted my chin so that our eyes met. I had never seen him so angry before. "Never mind my Hypocritic oath! Dolingen wouldn't count…"
"…because he was undead, anyway," I finished John's sentence.
"Yes," he admitted, as he fought back his rawer emotions.
"Wh-what if I ever lost control, John? If I became a raging monster who couldn't be saved. Would you k-kill me?"
He looked pained. It took him a long moment to speak. "Would you want me to, dear?"
I nodded. "If I became a scourge of the innocent..."
"Then, yes, if that is what you want of me, Mary…, I would end your suffering. Though I hope that dark day – or dark night – never comes to pass," John pressed his fingertips against his temples, anguished at the thought of potentially having to kill me.
"And I hope that I never have to break your heart. But thank you," I whispered to him in relief. I drew my face close to his and kissed his check, my gloved hands now stroking his face. He stared back at me, unshed tears in his eyes.
The dam broke between us.
As one, our lips came together. He wiped away my red tears as we kissed repeatedly. Hungrily. Our despair turned into passion fuelled by anger at what Dolingen had done that had separated and divided us. And even as we fell onto the bed together and fumbled to undress each other, a part of my mind was still conscience of the remaining barrier between John and myself that Dolingen had caused. John was still mortal, still slowly aging, still slowly withering with the passing of the years – whilst I was now bound to drink human blood, in order to maintain my immortality, my agelessness, my perfect health.
I was an addict. To me, and my kind, the most precious fluid in the world is not fresh water. It is fresh human blood. A monotonous diet, varied by the subtle differences in taste from person to person, containing hints of their mortal diet. And despite the eight years that had already passed, I would never tire of the wonderful taste of the nectar that was my main source of nourishment.
Which was fortunate, given that I had to drink it regularly, in order to survive…
And once again, as John and I pulled off our clothes, and commenced our passionate dance of love and lust, my canines tingled – despite my recent drink of pigs' blood. I wanted to bite John and drink deeply of him. At the very least, to claw him and lick his wounds like a cat, to snarl, and make him know that he was mine, and that I would fight to the death to hold onto him and defend him – just as I had fought in the yard of our former home, that night…
And so, as John gradually thrusted in and out of me and filled my needs as a woman, I turned my predatory instincts into those of an animal wanting to protect her mate. My bites were light, and I carefully licked the wounds I had made on John's neck and also at the claw marks I had left on his chest. My vampire saliva would heal them quickly.
John was sweating and panting by the time our lovemaking came to an end. By contrast, of course, I was unable to sweat. And I felt that I was glowing with energy as my husband's blood seeped into my stomach. I purred, and cuddled John, enjoying his mortal warmth, wanting to bask in it, as I kissed him.
Over the past eight years, since my turning, I had progressed from being afraid to couple with my beloved husband, after wanting to bite his neck on our first session of lovemaking – to now becoming a confident seductress who knew where exactly to lightly bite John and sample a safe amount of his blood, whilst making him feel wonderful even as he made me feel warm, loved, and gloriously alive.
Despite what had happened to me, we had managed to become even closer than we had been whilst I had been…mortal.
But he was taking longer to recover this time.
My eyes snapped open, and I felt his face. "John! Oh, dear god! Have I taken too mu-?" I breathed.
He managed to smile as his hand clasped mine. "Just give me enough time to recover, Mary… Agghh!"
"What is it?"
"My leg. My war wound… It's playing up again. And I am beginning to feel the onset of arthritis of late, as you already know."
"Handsome as you still are, in these last eight years you've got older, my dear…," I hummed sadly.
"I know. Don't blame yourself for that, Mary. It's just the passage of time," John told me. "As you know, I'm now retired from the surgery, so that I could devote more time to both you and Holmes. But I am not as young and fit as I used to be."
I gulped and steeled myself for the next, difficult conversation. I shifted on the bed, and pressed my now-gloveless hand over his. "John… I don't want to see you grow too old," I informed him. "I don't want to see you wither away."
His eyes met my resolute ones. "You…want us to…go our separate ways?"
I shook my head. "No! I want… I would like you to j-join me, John. To become one with me. And with Mina and Jonathan. To be-become my undead husband," I stuttered. "I want you to be my vampire fledgling. So that we will be remain ageless together. To be happy together… For as long as we can be."
John looked at me, his mouth slightly parted. I heard him take a deep breath. Heard his racing heartbeat.
I turned away and bowed my head as I swung my legs over the side of the bed, fearing that I had disgusted him with my unholy proposal. After all, he was a doctor – I had been stupid to think that he would willingly become a predator who would join me in the delights of the blood-hunt…
"I am sorry. I shouldn't have said that…," I muttered, in self-disgust.
John raised himself up, and he pulled me back down onto the bed, startling me. I yelped – and he chuckled.
"I managed to take down a vampire?" John teased me. "You're supposed to be the predator, not the prey!"
"That's not the same as a real fight!" I pouted. "You tickled my ribs!"
John suddenly turned serious. "You realise that if I accepted your offer, Holmes will be furious at us both?" he pointed out.
I nodded. "I wish he would learn to make more friends. And learn to accept the company of the right lady," I remarked tartly.
"I still wonder if he feels anything for her, that we could call…love," John mused aloud. "He is such a cold machine at times."
I did not need to ask who John was referring to.
"What made him so scornful of love? I know he has learnt of many cases where married couples have turned to murder – usually the man killing his wife. And sometimes the woman turns to poisoning her husband, but…"
"I do not know," John admitted. "I have learnt not to pry into Holmes's young life with his parents. He clamps up whenever I have brought up the subject in the past – and Mycroft is no help either."
"I still think something happened between their parents," I mused. "I should ask him sometime." I turned to rest my hand on John's chest, feeling his now-steady heartbeat.
"About your offer, Mary…," he broke the silence that had fallen.
"Yes?" My own slow heartrate missed a beat. Maybe two.
"What would happen if I refused?"
"Oh, John! Then I will continue to be your wife. I will love and support you until your dying day."
"What would happen if I accepted?"
I smiled. "Then I will love and support you… Always. Until true death does us part. I will teach you all I know about shapeshifting, glamouring mortals, as well as the art of the blood hunt. The bond between us will be stronger than ever before."
John nervously licked his lips. His Adam's Apple made a cute bobbing motion.
"I… I need to think about it. If there's no cure… I mean, if there's no way to reverse the process…"
"Not that I or the Harkers – or their blood-family - know of."
"Then tell me everything that I need to know, Mary."
"Even the ways…that vampires can be killed, that you may not have already thought of?" I hesitated. "The Harkers told me not t-…"
"Yes. Everything, please Mary." John's expression was resolute. "Even the darkest urges that you have experienced. I'm sorry if I'm urging you to break your word to your friends and kin – but there needs to be complete trust between us on this. If I am to become like you, the secrets of you and the Harkers will become my guarded secrets too."
I weighed up his words, and then nodded.
So I told him everything.
And whilst I speculated to John that maybe – just maybe – an ordinary lead bullet to a vampire's brain could be fatal, I heard music start up in the next room. Sherlock had evidently finished his scientific experiments for the night – as I could no longer hear his Bunsen burners, and the scents of his chemicals were now dissipating via the window that I had earlier heard him open. Now, his violin was playing a slow, slightly melancholic-sounding melody.
Suddenly, there was a knock on the door between the siting room and the landing. I stopped talking. Attuning and focusing my senses, I could hear the voice of Billy the Page. Then the tearing open of what sounded like paper.
A telegram, I realised. But at this hour…?
John took in the look on my face. "What is it, Mary?" he whispered.
"Sherlock's heartbeat… It's just turned rapid. Something bad has happened!" I grabbed hold of the blanket and wrapped it over the two of us, as my ears picked up the sounds of the great detective striding towards us. "He'll open that door without knocking!" I hissed to my startled husband.
And so it proved to be. Sherlock flung open the door, and started to walk in – only to abruptly halt in his tracks upon seeing us hiding our nakedness behind the blanket. He opened his mouth, presumably to apologise for his lack of knocking – but he seemed unable to speak. Then I spied his distraught expression and glistening eyes.
"Holmes! What is it?" John pressed him.
Sherlock took a few, hesitant steps forward – reaching John's side of the bed. My husband prised the crumpled telegram out of his friend's shaking, half-curled fist, and read parts of it aloud.
"From Mycroft… 'Information received from Sussex constabulary nearest to Hurlstone Manor. Milk delivery man not met by the kitchen staff this morning… House chimneys not smoking. No sign of break in… Milkman raised alarm with local farmhands. Forced their way in… Found manor staff all dead. Sir Reginald Musgrave in coma, now being treated in nearest hospital'…"
I sucked in my breath. "There was no police guard…"
"…any longer. With there being no sign of Musgrave being in danger, the police withdrew his protection some years ago," Sherlock concluded my thought. His hands shook as he clenched the frame at the base of the bed. "This is Klein's work! It has to be… Musgrave accidentally killed her business partner – but she was content to wait for him to drop his guard. But now that we have struck against her associate Baron Gruner…"
"…she has finally retaliated against your friend," I summarised. "And send us a grim message. Isadora Klein is out for our blood!"