Chapter 24
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Sidney decided the only thing worse than trudging through a cold, misty, dark London—was trudging through a cold, misty, dark London with a limp.
No. It was trudging through a cold, misty, dark London with a limp, after a man who was in a rush and was very, very certain he was a genius.
Sidney was starting to really not care whether or not she lived through the end of this story. Just as long as it ended. Hopefully it’d be a quick death. Just lights out, right?
The End. Exit stage right. If she got a fade-to-black sex scene she certainly was going to get a fade-to-black death scene. That was only fair.
Sherlock pressed his back to the wall of one of the construction outbuildings in the train yard as he peered around the corner before waving at her to follow him. She had a gun and he didn’t, but she was also slower than him. It balanced out.
The train yard was guarded. And by people that didn’t look like they had any right being there.
Sherlock lifted a finger to his lips, motioning for her to be silent.
Two men walked by, not seeing them hiding in the darkness.
“Dunno why we’ve got prisoners,” one of them said to the other. “Seems stupid.”
“We don’t get paid to ask questions. So shut up,” replied his buddy.
Fuck, that was cliche. Sidney tried not to laugh. They were probably told to walk by and literally say that. Or was she the one who made them say that? Was she that bad of a writer? It’s not my fault, I didn’t ask to be in this stupid mess!
But whoever was to blame for the bad dialogue, it didn’t matter. It didn’t deter Sherlock. In fact, it did anything but.
“He truly has gone too far.” Sherlock whispered to her. Glancing down at his pocket watch, he clicked it shut before storming off into the train yard. “We have to hurry.” There was a bit of a manic glint in his eyes.
And that was when Sidney realized that Sherlock…was enjoying this. This was what he lived for. This was his real love in life, wasn’t it? The only thing that mattered to him.
“I’m so going to die,” she murmured.
Sherlock was already off and running along one of the buildings toward the main intersection of tracks. Stepping out, Sidney never got to warn him about the figure that moved to intercept him.
Something heavy struck her in the back of the head. And everything blissfully went dark.
Sasha finished tidying up her hair curls as Moriarty laced her dress back up for her. He was a gentleman, evil as he was. Someone down below in the train yard lifted a lit torch and waved it. “Ah.” Her stomach twisted in a knot. “It’s time.”
Moriarty checked his pocket watch. “Why always on the fifteens, Holmes?”
“Pardon?”
“The strangest thing.” He clicked it shut and tucked the gold and brass object back into his vest pocket.
“Every time this man appears in my life to bother me, it is always at fifteen past the hour. I haven’t the foggiest idea why.
” Moriarty rested his arm around her. It felt like the simple, casual embrace of lovers. He honestly sounded curious.
“I’m not going to try to diagnose Sherlock Holmes.” She had a few options for both men to choose from, but she opted to keep them to herself. It wasn’t exactly important, given what was about to happen. She watched as lamps were lit throughout the yard, allowing them to see what was happening.
Two figures were being dragged by others. One smaller than the other. The smaller one seemed unconscious. Doctor Watson—Sidney. The taller one, Sherlock, was kicking weakly at the men on either side of him, but there was no use.
She hoped Sidney lived. That Sherlock chose to kill the innocent people. If only because those people weren’t real, and wouldn’t remember the pain of dying.
But now, she was fairly convinced she had beaten Vile at his own game and was going to go home either way. Watson never died in the stories. And Sherlock Holmes never chose to let innocent people die. Either way? She’d won. On the first try.
She smiled.
“You are so certain of yourself, it’s adorable.
” The voice that laughed close to her ear didn’t belong to Moriarty.
“My devious little harlot is quite attractive when she’s being prideful.
And what was all this prim and proper morality nonsense you fed me not only three chapters ago?
Or are you just hot for evil professors, is that it? ”
Sasha jumped away from him, trying to put as much distance as she could between her and Vile.
He had shed the appearance of Moriarty entirely. It was the Vile she’d seen in the library. It seemed he wanted to have this conversation face-to-face. “I have you beat. Admit it.”
Vile laughed. The sound was like ice water down her spine. “You really think you’ve won? Oh, my dear, sweet, charming little thing. We haven’t reached that point in the story yet.”
“I prefer you as Moriarty.” She turned away from him to face out the window, not wanting to lose sight of what was happening to her sister. Not that she thought it was smart to take her eye off Vile. But she wanted to hide the fact that her cheeks had gone warm. “Go away.”
“I don’t think you do.” He was behind her, just like the professor had been, but this time he was pressing up against her. “I think you simply understand him.”
“I’m not a harlot.”
When he gently stroked aside a few strands of her hair away from her neck to kiss her jawline, he hummed. “You think I mean that as a bad thing? Lover, do you know how many loose women live within me as their villainous selves?”
She shivered despite herself.
He chuckled. Whether at his topic of conversation or at the fact she was breaking out into goosebumps, she didn’t know.
She didn’t want to know. “Despite the cliche of the gothic villain dragging away the vestal virgin, I despise inexperience. And there is nothing more boring than someone who denies their desires. Well. Denies them for real. I do love the thrill of the hunt.” Teeth scraped her throat. And they didn’t feel human.
She gripped the railing so hard her knuckles went white. “Stop it.”
“You say that, but I can tell you don’t mean it. And that’s precisely what I mean. You want me to take. You want me to hunt you down in the dark of the night, pin you to the dirt, and—”
“Stop—” She was shaking. “Please.”
“This is what I meant when I said you would need to sign a waiver.” He chuckled and kissed her temple. “But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
“You’re going to lose. Then we’ll go home.
We’ll never cross that bridge.” She wouldn’t even bother denying that what he said sent a thrill through her.
Okay. She had a problem. A real problem.
But she couldn’t let it get Sidney hurt.
And so far, nothing she’d done had been at the expense of her sister.
“We’ll see. But either way, you really come out on top, don’t you?” He paused. Then laughed once. “Well. Bottom. But you like it there.”
“Shut up.”
“Think about it. Either you’re right and you get set free…or you’re wrong, and my game continues—and you get to continue to live out your darkest, most sinful fantasies at my side.” He sank his fingers into her thighs, squeezing them as he pressed his hips into her.
“At your side while you try to kill my sister two more times.” Damn him. Damn him to hell. If that was even possible. She tried to shove him away but he refused to go, simply ignoring her attempt to rebuff him.
“I didn’t have to do anything this time. You did a perfectly good job of it on your own.” He nuzzled into her hair, letting out a shuddering breath. “You do smell delightful…”
Where Moriarty had been stoic but fierce, Vile was strangely…raw, almost? Like someone eating their favorite pastry after decades of having never seen food. His touch was rougher—needier.
“If I didn’t come up with a plan, whatever you came up with was going to be worse.” She tried not to think about how good he felt behind her.
Or think about what was slowly wrapping around her ankle.
“Oh, really?” Vile leaned his head in close to hers and whispered to her. “I’m not sure Sidney will feel that way when she wakes up. Train wrecks are a terrible way to die. And you gave her a front row seat.”
Groaning, Sidney lifted her head. She felt like she’d been drinking for way too long, without all the fun bits. Just skipped straight to the headache and the hangover.
The world was swimming around her. Concussion? Probably. She’d only had one, back when she did competition figure skating. Going head-first into the boards around the rink was a great way to see birds and get out of a day of school.
Something had hit her. And judging by the two cartoonishly-cliche low-brow Victorian London goons staring up at her, that something had been a someone. Both of them were wearing ratty wool clothes, scally caps, and had more soot on them than should be allowed outside of a production of Annie.
At least she couldn’t smell them from where she was.
Which was, apparently, now that she was awake enough to notice, tied to the front of a fucking train.
“I am going to kick your ass for this, Sasha—” She yanked on the ropes that bound her wrists to the front grill of the train. Whatever the name of the pointy bit was. She was strapped there like a shitty figurehead on a boat. Which meant that whatever the train hit, she would hit first.
“If you start yellin’, I’ve been given permission to break your other knee.” One of the two men grinned at her, showing off his rather spectacular lack of teeth.
“Yeah. Well. No one would hear me anyway.” She sighed. No, there was no point shouting. That’d be the easy thing to do, and Moriarty and Irene-fucking-Adler would have thought about that. There was a reason all this was taking place in a big construction yard in the middle of the night. “Where’s—”
“Let me go!” Someone shouted from about fifty feet away. “You utter oaf!”
Sidney’s shoulders slumped. “Never mind.” There went any hope that Sherlock had escaped while she’d been unconscious.
The two goons guarding her laughed.
No, there was Sherlock Holmes, with prisoner chains on.
The kind that hobbled a person but still allowed them to move and do menial things like operate doors under supervision.
He was standing on a platform in front of a large metal lever and a post with two wooden flags.
One was down. The other was up, and on it was a large, painted number one.
A man in a suit, who looked far more put together than anybody else Sidney’d seen that night taped together, was standing next to Sherlock holding a gun pointing at the detective.
He was talking too quietly for Sidney to hear every word, especially over the low rumble of the steam engine at her back.
They were firing up the train. And hot, by the sounds of it.
Their dad had a train set when they were little.
It was one of the few things he really loved to do, and Sidney had been obsessed with sitting there with him, letting him tell her all about the different kinds of engines and the way they ran.
Most of the knowledge had faded over the years. Not much use in her marketing life for random bits of train engineering facts. But she knew that the hotter the engine burned, the more steam. The more steam, the more speed, the more speed…
The more crushing force. Not like it’d take much to turn her into a fly on the windshield. In fact, the hotter they got it, the faster her death, and the more merciful. She never wanted to know what it felt like to be Judge Doom in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.
A few words she did catch, however. Something about the innocent bystanders being drugged?
“You’re mad! This is mad! What kind of nonsense is that bastard trying to prove? Let them all go, it’s me he’s after!” Sherlock shouted at the other man. When he lurched toward him to try to grab for the gun, another, burlier man knocked Sherlock’s knees out.
The train lurched.
She saw someone run from the engine. Likely whoever had pulled the brake. No one else was going to go down on this wreckage but her. Her, or the innocent—but non-existent—civilians on the other track.
Either she died.
Or they did.
She knew what side she was on. “Sherlock! Sherlock, please—do something! Save me!”
The train began to move.
And all Sidney could do now was pray.
Please, Virtue—don’t let me die.