When Sherlock
was about to fight, time slowed down for him.
His mind could see all the weak spots of his opponents in slow motion,
and the entire universe for him was suddenly choreographed in a sublime waltz
that Johann Strauss could not best. Even
the surrounding breezes slowed, and he could detect every beat of the wings of
the bees surrounding him in the woodbine undergrowth behind him.
The grasses bent slowly down in the sun at
his feet, and the bead of sweat on John’s brow reflected the sparkle of the sun’s
orb. A concerto of tension pulsated in
John’s jawline, and in the veins of his hands.
In this moment, breathing in was like drinking a draught of light, and
the surge of adrenalin seized his lower back in electric ecstasy.
The
line of freckled ginger and craggy, tan warriors facing him down were in
flannel shirts, tees and Levis. They
wore great leather work boots spattered with dust, and were sweating as well,
though obviously more from the heat than from fear, as they did not know who
they were confronting.
Sherlock
spoke slowly to disarm their attack, hands at his sides, favouring one leg in a
casual stance. “Gentlemen. To whom do I owe the visit?” he asked
quietly, staring straight into the older man who stood in front of them, a full
four inches taller than the tallest in their lineup, the shortest of whom was
five foot nine.
“Well,
that’s depending on who’s getting’ the favours, now.” said the tall mountain
quietly. “I hear you fairies are lookin’
for fairies.” The group tittered simultaneously,
and Sherlock glanced around, sizing up each one.
Sherlock’s
heightened senses suddenly felt a radiance of heat two feet from him, knowing
that John’s rage had been ignited in the otherwise perfectly still statue
beside him. He didn’t dare look in
John’s eyes. He knew they had become
black pools of potential obliteration as they stared down the lineup before
them.
“We are
sportsmen directed to a shooting range on a friend’s property not far from
here. Do you know of any fairies in the
area? They’re not game, but they might
make for good practice.” Sherlock’s smirk was showing in his
voice. He also was communicating that an
exchange of blows could very well lead to bullets, which made two of the group
balk enough to look over at their boss, who did not break his gaze.
“You
know what I’m gettin’ at, lads. You know
very well. You’re that fairy hat
detective from London with your wee pig, and the museum sent you looking for a
statue we want.”
“Statue…statue…doesn’t
ring a bell. Unless it’s Michelangelo,
of course. Fairies love Michelangelo.” Sherlock
narrowed his eyes and smiled. “And don’t
call John a pig. I don’t think he likes
it, and getting him worked up isn’t a very good idea.” He looked over at John,
who was ready to tread the ground like a bull in Seville, nostrils flaring a
direct line to the magma chamber of Mount Vesuvius. Sherlock raised his eyebrows and turned his
head slowly back to the leader.
“Nope,
not a good idea at all.” Sherlock smiled
sweetly, his hands casually clasped behind his back. “But enough with niceties.” he said. “We have not been properly introduced.”
“Hughie
Mcdonagh.” said the tall man, and narrowed his eyes at Sherlock. He pronounced his name ‘cue-ee’, which told
Sherlock a world of information about how they would fight. Among other things.
Bare knuckles, head blows, facial
blows, tendon punches on the arms and shoulders, liver shots. Tactics were planned out immediately,
guaranteeing that not one blow would land.
“My brother Bobby, brother James, cousins
Abraham, Jackie, and Johnny.” he said.
They all raised up their heads at their names. “Them’s all proper Bible names for good lads,
and not fairies like Sherlock. We’re not settled pervert scum are we
lads?” NO, came the group reply of rough voices, all laughing at once.
“Oh, gentlemen, tsk tsk. I’m the least settled man you’ll ever
know. I’ve had coffees in Paris more
times than you can count. …Which is up
to five, I’m guessing.” Sherlock snapped
his chin upward. “I don’t sense any
primary school graduates among you. Of
course, you don’t need to finish P-4 to flay a horse.”
John snorted loudly next to him,
and added, nearly shouting, “…Or cats and dogs.”
“I don’t think you’re very polite,
mister Sherlock.” said the mountain. “I
think you’re very cheeky. Kind of like a
fairy. They’re pretty cheeky too.” The group of men let out some loud guffaws
this time, crossing their arms in continued curiosity over the direction of the
banter.
“Maybe I’m cheeky because I know
what you want, and not only do I not have it, but you’re not going to get it.”
“Says who?”
“I do.” said Sherlock. “What would
you lot do with an ancient artifact? Put it on the mantel? It doesn’t exactly
match plastic wrapped chairs in
Italian leather. And caravans don’t
have mantels, do they.” He began to pace
slowly to the right, away from John, then stopped.
“You assume too much, fairy man.”
said Mcdonagh. “That artifact was stolen from my family’s caravan site over a
hundred years ago by a settled family in Fermanagh who didn’t want us by their
fields.” said Hughie. “She was ours for
fifty generations, she keeps the bean
sidhe away from our childer and gives our family the right to kingship of
the fightin’ lads.”
“Rubbish.” said Sherlock. “It’s worth fifty grand and you’re selling it
to the highest bidder. What’ll that pay
for, half a wedding?” he snorted. “That’s if the bride doesn’t have a dress
full of budgies and Christmas lights.”
“You’re getting too free for us to
keep our fists to ourselves, fairy.” said Mcdonagh, which was precisely what he
wanted, as well as the five other men.
They were looking for a fight.
“Was it the archdruid who put you
up to this?” asked Sherlock bluntly. As
soon as he asked that, the entire group erupted with laughter.
“He wanted trouble, I think.” said
Mcdonagh. “We don’t get put up to
nothin’. We do what we like, and you are in our way, boyo.”
“Not really. I’d stick to flogging electronics that fell
off the back of a lorry, if I were you.
It’s better for your health.” said Sherlock darkly.
At that moment one of the transit
van doors opened to reveal a scrawny looking woman in her forties, in a plain
retro-looking tan dress and her fiery red, obviously-coloured hair in a massive
beehive that seemed not to have changed since 1963. A freckly and sullen 7-year-old boy sat next
to her, staring straight ahead, sulking about not being out in the fight. She leaned over toward one of the men, an
overweight but beefy ginger man named Jackie, and muttered quietly.
Sherlock’s sharp hearing heard her
asking with some impatience when they would get back, as she had “spuds on”.
At that moment Jackie hauled off
and boxed her in the ear, hard, with one meaty fist. She immediately crumpled, holding the side of
her head, mouth open in agony. “Keep yer
mouth shut, woman, this is business.” he said matter-of-factly. “We’re sortin’ the pervos.”
Sherlock’s eyebrows went straight
up nearly into his hairline, and John, simmering on a slow fuse, simultaneously
exploded. He went airborne straight
toward the ginger who punched her, and Sherlock reached out lightning fast for
the back of his shirt collar. John
stopped short, twisting in his skin like an electrified lizard, face as red as
Christmas and his lips pressed white over bared teeth. He shot one glare at Sherlock, who snapped
his head in a lightning “no” motion and mouthed, “wait.”
At that moment, all the men stepped
forward in ecstatic anticipation of one-sided mayhem. Hughie, James and Bobby got to within two
feet of John and Sherlock, who was holding John back with both hands, and John
had the front of Sherlock’s good shirt twisted and wrung in his fist, raging at
Sherlock’s entreaty to hesitate. The
three men leaned in, eyes flaming, waiting for the first blow to land, knowing
that ‘settleds’ didn’t like seeing women put in their ‘place’. At all. This was their chance for a massive punch-up,
and they wanted one. The other three
cousins leaned in behind them, waiting their turns to land a blow.
Sherlock looked at John. John looked at Sherlock. Both loosened their grips and took a giant
breath.
“PROTESTANT CHOPS.” said
Sherlock. Unlike ‘Vatican Cameos’, which
was hitting the deck, this meant only one thing: a jump straight up into the
air, and a simultaneous dispatch of two enemies with airborne Glasgow
headbutts.
The choreography of West Side Story
was reborn in a scumbag symphony. And in
a crescendo of grace, John and Sherlock popped up into the air like spring-loaded
corks, and brought their foreheads down slap onto the nasal bones of Hughie and
Bobby Mcdonagh, shattering their lumpy noses instantaneously as their two great
meaty fists landed right hooks in the air.
K-SHMUCK went the sickening,
wet sound of flesh and bone. At that
second, four men launched themselves at John and Sherlock. Both John and Sherlock grabbed their two men
by the shirtfront and pulled them toward the other two. The heads of four men impacted one another
simultaneously and all four crumpled to the ground.
The entire first round was over in
literally five seconds, and John launched himself toward the Defender before
any one of the big men could stand back up for another round. He tore the door open and found his lockbox
under the seat, and as he desperately dialed in the 4-digit combination, Abraham,
a dark and curly-headed man with a craggy and weatherbeaten face, got up slowly
along with Hughie. It was too late,
however. John’s Walther was aimed
straight at all of them and he shouted.
“Keep bloody
still, or you’ll walk home without tyres and a bullet in your arse.” John was as cool as a slab of morgue steel at
this stage. He angled his head down and
was heaving great lungfuls of adrenalin-tinged air, eyebrows straight up. “You just pushed the Fifth Northumberland,
and if you make one bloody move…” he
aimed straight at Abraham, now staring down the barrel. “…you will get what the
Taliban got.” Abraham slowly moved
toward John in a challenge of will, one foot closer to John, and raised his
chin in defiance.
John answered by pulling back the
hammer, his eyes now pools of darkness.
“…don’t.” he said, very quietly.
Even the breeze had died down, holding its breath.
“Yes, John. Very effective. Manly as hell. Let’s crack on.” Sherlock was standing legs slightly askance,
his coat splayed out behind him in abandon, and missing two shirt buttons
thanks to John’s earlier grip. John kept
the 30-caliber automatic trained on the group as he circled round to stand
close to Sherlock. All the men were
starting to get up now and slowly back toward their vans.
“Not you.” Sherlock pointed to
Hughie Mcdonagh, along with John’s gun which shadowed Sherlock’s arm. “You stand right there. The rest of you, get in your vehicles, and
drive away. All of you. Now.
Leave Hughie’s car and he will follow you.”
The group followed Sherlock’s
orders fast and peeled out of the gravel lay-by where the Defender was
parked. The sunshine returned, and the
slow trills of Classic FM returned noticeably to the day’s events, now a Bach
choral ensemble from one of the Brandenburgs.
John and Sherlock were still on
high alert, gun trained on Hughie, but Sherlock had relaxed. They began to back Hughie toward his new BMW,
still with its paper tag in the rear window.
Sherlock walked toward him steadily, and Hughie backed up slowly until
his back hit the back door of his car, pressing himself against the car while
Sherlock leaned slowly into his face.
Sherlock pressed his right leg
straight into Hughie’s denim crotch.
John cleared his throat, and averted his eyes with a sigh of
exasperation, gun still trained on Mcdonagh.
This would do nothing to dispel rumours, he thought.
Sherlock’s tall form leaned in hard
on Mcdonagh’s beefy frame, both eye to eye, Sherlock staring him down with one
hand leaning on the car behind Mcdonagh’s head.
Sherlock leaned in to speak four
inches from Mcdonagh’s ear. “We’re
finished here, fairy man.” he said.
“Will we see you again?”
“You don’t play nice or fair,
Holmes. We will get our justice at some
stage, you know that.”
“It’s not justice, you’re scum, it
won’t be today, and it won’t be for Dafydd Pryce, Hughie. Now be a good boy and run your whippets a
nice, long, long way away from me.” He stared straight into Hughie’s eyes. “…And
John. Alright?”
Hughie didn’t answer. He merely
stared at Sherlock.
Sherlock casually backed off from
pinning Mcdonagh to the BMW with his knee.
“Get out.” he seethed,
quietly. Mcdonagh quickly slid into the
car as smooth as satin, peeled off out of the gravel, and was gone.
John dropped his gun and uncocked
the hammer.
“Interesting.” he said, and
quietly stashed it in the small of his back, covering it with his own tee and
flannel shirt. “Shall we get to our
destination, then?” he asked.
“Might as well now, they won’t be
coming to look for us again out of stupidity.
It’s our best window to examine the site.” said Sherlock. “Shall we?” he wheeled round and stalked
toward the drivers side of the landrover.
“Coming,”
said John, and jumped into the side.
Then they were gone.
It took them precisely two minutes
of coming down from the adrenalin high to begin the cackling natter of
post-brawl man bonding. Although in
Sherlock’s case, it was decidedly more focused on the overtly disgusting faults
of criminal muscle.
“Phwoarr!” said Sherlock. “Did you smell that lot?” He wrinkled his
nose and grinned. “It was like a room
full of French cheese covered with twenty canisters of Axe.” John erupted with laughter.
“I thought it was more like the world’s
most rancid chip van in the East End.
The one with the mice in with the chips.
…And twenty cans of Axe.” John
leaned forward to pull the pistol out from his jeans, pulled back the chamber
to take out the round, pocketed it and put the safety back on. “They use the Daily Mail to serve the fish
and chips, so that you can even read shite while eating it.”
Sherlock laughed out loud, sharing
their distaste for a despised Tory tabloid.
He was far more relaxed after a fight than before. He felt alive, powerful, and calm, and John
felt his calm as well, both buzzing with a decidedly strange sort of afterglow
that the rest of the world easily ascribed to other human joys. Most of the world couldn’t understand what it
meant to stand your ground, or how pleasurable it was when followed
through.
But most of the world wasn’t John
Watson and Sherlock Holmes, a two-man army who accomplished more than an actual army in dismantling
the liberties that scumbags seize from the gentle. Few people wasted the time and embraced the
mayhem necessary to do just that, and to be honest, nobody ever sets out
wanting it. It simply becomes an
acquired taste after years of tiresome bullying. Sherlock’s was at the hands of hatred, John’s
at the hands of Taliban, and both wouldn’t put up with it for a second while
simultaneously satisfying their deep seated and ghoulish curiosity.
It was a recipe for the world’s
deepest bond of friendship between two diametrically opposed individuals so
different, that the collision of matter and antimatter couldn’t possibly obliterate
a conspiracy with greater gusto.
As their chuckling died down, the
sycamores became deep and gnarled, mixed in with oak, white pine, and yew, all
becoming mossy and enveloped in a magical green light. The whole forest smelled like deep moss and
fresh turned dirt, and the reservoir to their right became a river, then a
trickle, and fell in among rocks to a picturesque waterfall. They drew to the left at the Y in the road
and 300 yards down, Pritchard’s cabin came into view, with an odd round hillock
behind the cabin, covered with hawthorn bursting with blooms.
They pulled the Defender up the
drive and behind the cabin to hide it from the main roadway. They were screened by a barn and a berm of hedgerows
at least two centuries old, but Sherlock couldn’t be too careful. He reached into the duffel and pulled out a
blanket of camo netting, and after liberating the sample kit and canteens in a
backpack with John properly holstering his pistol under a light jacket, they
both tucked the camo net under the front bumper and pulled it over the Landrover
in one swoop.
“You think we need branches as
well?” asked John.
“Not really.” said Sherlock. “Just luck, if Pryce’s friends come looking
again.” He cheerily whistled as he checked
his pockets for the usual bits and bobs.
All in order.
“Right. Now which direction?” asked John, looking
around him at the quiet back courtyard of Pritchard’s cabin, which he noticed
now was built of long dark vertical cedar panels and sported a quite new tin
roof. All around it was landscaped with
fuchsias, and the crimson and lavender buds hung on the bushes in heavy
bundles.
Sherlock dug
deeply into his duster pocket and pulled out a dog-eared set of Google prints
along with his email from Pritchard. “I
have an elevation map of the forest area and the relative position of the
cabin.” said Sherlock. “The email gives
me a general idea of the direction of activity, and the front door is…let’s see…directly
west. That’s where he found the spear and
heard the shouting.”
John noticed
something different. “You’ve not got
your iphone. That’s like living without a
limb for you.” he said, somewhat perplexed.
“Mycroft is
sending locator signals because he’s a tit.
Also, you’re here, so there’s no point.”
“Molly might
worry, or your parents.” said John, a bit bemusedly.
“Molly takes very
good care of herself, and my parents can ring Mycroft if they need me that
desperately.” said Sherlock, looking up from the printed email. “There’s nothing like wasting government
resources to locate me, making him resort to comforting their sensibilities the
old-fashioned way.”
“What way is
that?”
“Lying to them.” Muttered Sherlock.
John chuckled. Sherlock continued to plot their path around
the property, planning a spiral route that would cover the maximum amount of
territory. The sun was high in the sky
now, and it was decidedly warm. John
pulled the military cap out of his jacket pocket and put it on along with a
military spec set of Ray-Bans.
“Oh. Almost forgot.” John pulled off the pack and unzipped it,
reaching in. “For keeping the sun out of
your eyes.” He pulled out the despised deerstalker, and frisbeed it toward
Sherlock’s head, both fronts spinning like a perfect googly cricket ball. Against all laws of probability, it landed
whap-smack right on top of Sherlock’s curly mop, askance and with one front
obscuring half his face.
This was too much. John erupted and danced in his military boots
with laughter, clapping his hands.
Sherlock stood stock still and allowed him his moment. He didn’t dignify an answer, and not even
touching the hat, looked back down at his Google notes and compass to continue
studying them, deadpan.
John found this
even more hilarious. He cackled for a
full three minutes, punctuated by Sherlock’s occasional, “Not funny, John.”, which
was utterly betrayed by a chinny grin.
