Inspector Tovey gave no further warning. His Webley spoke twice, its harsh report like cannon fire in the oppressive space.
The giant didn’t go down. He flinched at least, the bullets thudding into his broad shoulder, but only growled in response; a deep, guttural noise, not of pain but of anger. With one stride he was upon Tovey, bringing back a club-like arm. I cried out an impotent warning, for the monster had already backhanded Tovey across the face. The inspector’s head snapped around with such severity that I feared that his neck had been broken like a dry twig. He was lifted from his feet and sent, despite his great bulk, sailing through the air like a paper doll caught in a gale. His weight became obvious again only when he crashed bodily into the wall, a plume of shattered plaster and dust billowing out from the impact.
Now it was down to me, the only one of our band still standing. Screaming a primal battle cry, I rushed forward, cane raised. The monster was coming right at me, but I cared nothing for the danger. I brought my stick down hard, its length smacking against his barrel chest. The regimental head of the cane, polished to within an inch of its life, was ornamental no more. It struck hard against his prominent cheekbone like a cudgel, and I fancied that I heard a painful crack. The man may have stood a good head and shoulders above me, but I was determined to bring him down, for Holmes and Tovey. Yesterday Holmes had proved that age need not equate with frailty. Now was my chance to show my mettle.
Or so I hoped.
The reality of the situation was somewhat less heroic.
Striking the brute was like trying to demolish a brick wall using a length of reed. To my dismay, the force of the blow snapped the shaft of my stick against the man’s chest, the wood splintering. I had little chance to mourn my faithful cane. Before I could react, an enormous hand was around my neck and I was being lifted from the floor. I clawed at my assailant’s thick forearm, my fingernails catching on the thick weave of his jacket. It was useless, the muscles beneath the fabric like stone.
My feet waved in the air as if I were a toddler plucked from the ground by an adoring father, and yet there was nothing paternal about this embrace. I gasped for breath, staring into the snarling face of my assailant. My vision was already blurring, but I could make out the deep-rucked scars that scored his sallow features. His heavy brow was furrowed beneath a thick curtain of greasy hair, so black that it was almost obsidian. And then there was the eye, glaring out from beneath the unruly fringe. Never had I seen an eye like it; bloodshot to such an extent that the sclera was a whirlpool of broken veins swirling around a watery yellow iris. At its centre lay the fiend’s pupil, a mere pinprick, devoid of light or reason. Inhuman. Abhorrent.
It was almost a relief when dots clustered in front of my own vision, blotting out the world. As my breath rattled in my crushed throat, I could only curse the fact that this abominable face would be the last thing I ever saw.
Then, with a shout and a dull thud of fist against flesh, I was saved, snatched back from oblivion for a short while at least. My release was not peaceful, the gruesome goliath losing interest in my murder and tossing me aside like a discarded plaything. I landed heavily on my shoulder, the pain immediately dulled as my head met the floorboards, and the world flared white all around me.
I could hear shouts, voices that seemed both near and far at the same time. There was the shuffling of feet, disturbingly close to my throbbing head although I had neither the inclination nor the ability to roll out of their way. A boot in the face was almost something to be welcomed, anything to knock me senseless and release me from the confusion of pain and disorientation my life had suddenly become.
The sounds of a desperate struggle played out above my head: crashes and grunts, curses and bellows. And then it was over, with a cry cut off too abruptly to be healthy, and the thud of something hitting the ground heavily nearby.
“Holmes?” I wheezed, as thundering footsteps receded into the distance, giving way to an awful silence.
I couldn’t move. I could barely think. It felt as though I had been lying there in the dirt my entire life, before there came the scrape of a boot, and a gentle touch on my shoulder.
Someone was speaking, repeating a name, over and over. It took me a moment to realise that the name was my own.
“Dr Watson. Dr Watson, can you hear me?”
“Inspector?” I slurred weakly.
“Thank God. Just lie there. I’ll get help. It’s going to be all right.”
All right? Why wouldn’t it be? The man was obviously a fool. I might have giggled, but I had no idea why. There was nothing to laugh about. I couldn’t even open my eyes, but Tovey had already gone, leaving me where I lay.
For a moment, I found it impossible to remember how I had got there, or where indeed there was. I think I must have drifted off, because it seemed only seconds before the inspector was calling my name again, more urgently this time.
“Dr Watson. Wake up. We need to get you out of here.”
“Wha—?”
“Can you stand? Here, I’ll help you.”
“No. I… I just need to rest.”
“Not here you don’t. Dr Watson, please.”
I wanted to tell the man to shut up, that I would get up when I was good and ready, but the words refused to form.
There were more footsteps now, all around me. I had no idea how many. I tried to open my eyes, and after what seemed an eternity they finally obeyed my command, flickering like broken blinds. Not that it helped. The world was a mess of unrecognisable shapes and blurs. There was something in front of me, but I was unable to tell what it was.
A face? Yes, that could be it, inches from my own. Familiar too, but somehow not quite right. What was wrong with it? What could it be?
I felt like laughing again, a hysterical cackle welling up from deep within my chest.
It was too ridiculous to comprehend, you see, the dreadful realisation that dawned second by second.
I was staring into the face of Sherlock Holmes, my oldest and dearest friend, and yet he had undergone a ridiculous transformation. His skin was blanched, and covered in blood that ran in rivulets from a ragged gash in his forehead. His lips were slack, his teeth stained crimson – but it was the eyes that were wrong. They should have been piercing and effervescent, windows into a vibrant soul, bursting with an intelligence that defied categorisation. Yet now they were staring straight at me, with no indication that my friend recognised me at all, that he even knew I was here.
“No,” I groaned, struggling to push myself up, only to be thwarted by a tidal wave of pain that radiated out from my shoulder. I didn’t care. This couldn’t be happening.
My friend. My friend who had cheated death so many times, was lying prone in front of me, a lifeless husk. Surely it was not to end here, on the cold hard floor of a forgotten ruin.
This could not be the place where Sherlock Holmes died.