Holmes hung his head. Moriarty had engineered this whole affair!
“I warrant you thought you’d seen the last of me? At the Reichenbach?” Moriarty shook his head. “I always had a plan. An escape route.”
“The box,” said Holmes, grimacing. It had taken him so long to solve and yet apparently Moriarty had completed it plummeting to his death.
“Oh no, not the Configuration. I didn’t have time for that.” Holmes let out a breath; at least that small victory hadn’t been taken away from him. “There are other means, other routes to this place. Did you know, for example, that the Vatican guards a secret code in a theological work that enables the user to travel here? That the Marquis de Sade was reported to have been in possession of a particular and singular origami exercise that would do the same; he traded it for paper to write his famous The 120 Days of Sodom... The key can be anything, Holmes: a word puzzle, a piece of music, brush strokes on a canvas, a simple knot puzzle on a piece of string. But no, I needed something that would expiate my journey, and that something was the solving of a mathematical equation – my speciality, if you’ll recall. The mouthing of the solution, something I’d been holding back for a good while, allowed me passage. Allowed me to survive our encounter... after a fashion.
“But those who willingly come here do not have an easy time of it, my friend. You have had a taste of their ‘delights’, have you not? I wasn’t welcomed with open arms. I suffered – oh, how I suffered! Time works differently here, you see. Minutes are like hours; hours like days. Days like an eternity. And for what seemed like forever I belonged to those you have already met. I was ripped apart and pieced back together again more times than I care to remember. They made my nerve endings sing to their tune.
“Eventually, my potential was finally discovered. Their god saw what I had the capacity to be, if I were allowed my freedom. It is not dissimilar to a criminal organisation, Holmes. Ambition and planning is key, and ideas of course. They positively thrive on ideas in Hell. So, I was plucked from my lowly position and promoted, ‘invited’ to join their ranks – my memory wiped, or so they thought – and it was here I proved my worth. They had never seen such quality work, such imagination.”
“Your work on these poor unfortunates,” spat Holmes.
Moriarty shook his head. “Once again, you misunderstand, Holmes. No – these are not my victims. There is very little of those left to speak of. Soon you will see first hand for yourself what I am capable of in that respect. In any event, when the position of fabled Engineer became vacant, I was the obvious choice as replacement. I made sure I was the obvious choice.”
“And doubtless ensured there was a vacancy in the first place,” Holmes muttered.
Moriarty cocked his head. “It is a powerful position and allows me a little more... leeway. A little more privacy.”
“But you are still not the one in charge, and – knowing you as I do – that must rankle.”
“I serve their god, Holmes – for now. It suits my purposes to do so. But, just as it has its favourites, its trusted seconds, so too do I.” Even more figures stepped out of the darkness to take their place at his side. One of them looked like he belonged in a different age – white-faced and wearing a wig, he carried himself as if he might have been royalty once but his glory days had long since passed. The others he vaguely recognised as associates of the Professor’s. One in particular Holmes knew immediately, in spite of the fact he now had what appeared to be a small spyglass embedded in his left eye-socket.
“Moran?” whispered Holmes, recognising the final member of Moriarty’s gang to be rounded up upon his return to London. Holmes had heard rumours that the man had died in custody, but now he knew exactly what had happened to the former sniper. As if on cue, the telescopic site in Moran’s skull zoomed out and then in again, powered by miniature motors.
“Indeed,” said Moriarty. “The loyalty of my men has never been in question, and still isn’t. They are helping me to achieve my full potential, just as they did before. They would die for me. Actually, they all have.” He laughed. “As for these others you spoke of, they are my burgeoning army of lost souls.”
“Lost souls?”
“Lost, tortured... Those who slipped through society’s cracks without being noticed. You have spent so long searching for a handful of missing people, Holmes – but do you have any idea how many just disappear each day without a trace all over the world? People who have no loved ones, people nobody cares about? I know. And I have given them purpose, here at my table.”
“You’re even more insane than when we last met. Hell does not become you, Professor!”
“Oh, but it does! I’ve waited a long time for this, Sherlock. To face you again, but on my terms.”
Holmes set his jaw firm in defiance. “Do your worst!” he told Moriarty.
More hooks shot out of the darkness, embedding themselves in his face – stretching the skin, pulling it taut, and causing him to clench his teeth. “Oh, I will,” Moriarty replied, floating in closer, spittle flying from his mouth.
“Don’t you worry about that, Holmes. I will.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
True Pain
WHAT MARY SHOWED me was my friend’s ongoing torment.
Holmes, held fast by a multitude of hooks and chains, being carved up by a member of the Order of the Gash (or, as Mary termed them, Cenobites). A creature with thick, pulsating tentacles feeding into its back, wearing a long-coat and hat, giving the superficial appearance of a gentleman.
Watching this display were a crowd of monstrosities, all disfigured in various ways, but with cogs, mechanical workings and steam powering them.
“Imitations: pseudo Cenobites,” explained Mary. “They’re foot soldiers, his creations.”
“Who?”
“You’ll see,” Mary assured me, and not long after that I did.
The monster turned to one side, and my mouth fell open when I recognised it as none other than Professor James Moriarty. He had somehow survived the Falls and found his way here. He had been manipulating Holmes all along, guiding him – luring him to this place. I recognised some of the other creatures as Moriarty’s colleagues: Colonel, Moran, who I’d last seen taking pot-shots at a facsimile of Holmes in Baker Street; and that had to be the aristocrat, the one I’d returned here by shooting him myself back at the Institute.
“The messenger,” I whispered. “So that’s what Malahide meant when he said I hadn’t killed the skinless man.”
“Malahide has been in league with the Professor for a long time,” Mary said. “Trafficking souls. Funnelling bodies to him, so he could build up his followers. And he is not the only one.”
“Lord have mercy.”
“There is only one lord here, John. And it is not a lord of mercy, I can assure you of that.”
“We have to get Holmes out of there. Before –”
“You would be slaughtered before you could remove even one of those hooks.” She looked down sadly. “This is something he must bear. Something that he has to undergo.”
“No! There has to be a way.”
She squeezed my hand. “Just wait, John. Please wait.”
I did as she asked, though it did not sit comfortably at all. My friend was a mess of raw meat and blood, sliced up so much I could barely recognise him. Flames were used to inflict agony and also to cauterise the wounds, leaving him blackened and crusted. He did not scream once, though we had not seen the half of it yet.
“I know how much all this hurts, especially now. You were always so keenly aware of everything, Sherlock – but never as much as you are at this moment. We have ways of heightening the senses, of using them to our full advantage. Are you enjoying yourself yet?”
Holmes said nothing, just took everything Moriarty could throw at him and more. The Professor grinned through it all; ‘A Devil’, as Mrs Hudson had once described him. Unfettered, unbound.
“Mary, I don’t know how much more of this I can stand,”
I said, and felt guilty immediately. My only torture was to observe.
“Give me your pain!” Moriarty demanded, but still Holmes refused.
“There is a reason for everything,” Mary said, putting an arm around my shaking shoulders. “Trust me, my love. Trust me.”
I did. In spite of the fact I was still unsure as to whether she was even here or not, I trusted her. I would have trusted her to the ends of the Earth – were we there.
It was only after all this, only after Moriarty had finished with Holmes physically, that the real torture began.
“Very well, you have forced me to take these measures – just remember that.” Moriarty floated away from Holmes, turning his back on him. I saw my friend raise his head as best he could, for he was still secured by hooks and chains. “Enola,” said the Professor. I saw Holmes twitch at this, but it was soon followed by a succession of other names. “Alcorn, Cunningham, Green, Storey, McColl, Lyons, Willett, Taylor, Dawes, Angus, Porter...”
I gasped as I finally understood what was happening.
“Hilton,” Moriarty went on, “Brunton, Roylott...” He was listing all of Holmes’ failures. The deaths at his hand, or by his failure to act; the mysteries he had never been able to solve. The people he had let down. Moriarty eventually ended with, “Phillimore, Cotton, Spencer, Monroe, Thorndyke and Kline.” One of those names at least solved something as far as I was concerned; to be included in that company must have meant that the disappearance of Mr James Phillimore, who vanished after stepping back into his house to retrieve his umbrella – never to be seen again – was due to the Order of the Gash. And the mention of those others only served to remind me of what I’d seen of their plights, reiterating that the traumas in this realm were not solely reserved for the body, but also the mind. That was what Moriarty was doing now, plucking at a different set of nerves, reminding my companion of all his shortcomings.
He finished with the greatest taunt of all. “Watson.”
“What... what is he talking about?” I asked Mary, but she would not answer.
“You failed to keep him safe. Failed in your duty to your best friend, just as you did with your sister.” I wasn’t even aware Holmes had a sister, but that was a matter for another time. For now I was allowed to see what Holmes saw, a vision of me lying in that corridor after the Hound had thrown me, battered and bloodied, still unconscious. Then hooks and chains appearing out of nowhere, digging into me and dragging my body off into the shadows. A lie, for that is not what happened, but how was Holmes to know otherwise?
It was only now, upon seeing this, that he screamed: long and loud. “Nooo!! Damn you, no!”
Moriarty grinned, for he was already damned. “There. Now isn’t that better?”
“Mary, I’m going to him,” I told her, regardless of the fact I didn’t even know where he was being held.
“Wait John. You must wait.”
“For what?” I yelled, tears in my eyes.
Then I saw the quartet of original Cenobites that had appeared when he first opened the box were suddenly back.
It was Glass who spoke first, pointing to the Professor’s prisoner. “What is this?”
Moriarty eyed the interloper with obvious disdain. “What does it look like?”
“His soul is ours. He summoned us.”
“Yet he found his way here. That makes him mine.”
They were arguing about him like he was a piece of fruit at a market stall to be bartered over. “Holmes,” I said softly. “Holmes, I’m so sorry.”
“You dare to –” Glass began, but was swiftly interrupted.
“Oh, I dare, favourite son. I am the Engineer!”
Glass’ lip curled. “You were never fit to claim that title.” It was clear there was history between these two. “You were never really more than my plaything.”
“Not everyone saw it that way. Surely you are not arguing with our master’s decree?”
Glass fell silent. He nodded at Madame, a silent command, and she set off towards Holmes. I wasn’t sure he’d be better off in their hands, but at least it would get my friend away from Moriarty... for now.
“Leave him!” roared the Professor. “I will only warn you once. You and your mollisher over there!”
Glass bared his teeth, furious. His other two aides were slowly flanking him.
“Ah, excellent,” said Moriarty. “A fight. Something else I have been looking forward to, for a long, long time.”
“If you thought your suffering and pain were excruciating before, I assure you that was as nothing compared to what awaits you now... Engineer.”
“Pain?” said Moriarty. “Pain? You know nothing of true pain, maggot. Let me show you pain!”
Hooks and chains flew in every direction. Moriarty’s pseudo Cenobites launched themselves at Fist, who cleaved one of their number in two, and lifted another over his head – bringing the underling down over his knee. Plague turned and grabbed the aristocrat by the throat; in mere seconds the man was shrivelling, turning first to bones, then to dust.
Madame’s whip lashed out, incapacitating three of Moriarty’s monstrosities, before reaching Holmes with an aim to finally freeing him. The Hound, meanwhile, had pounced on Glass, jaws clamping onto his arm. With a heave, he threw the animal off; then, as it came at him again, he directed several lengths of hooked chains at the beast, into its mouth and down its throat. Glass ground his teeth and, with a silent command, the chains were wrenched back, hooks ravaging the Hound and turning it inside out. The whole disgusting lump flopped to the floor and was done.
Moriarty grimaced at the loss of his pet.
“I’m waiting,” said Glass, gesturing to his Cenobites who were dispatching the Professor’s minions. Madame used her whip to slice through the chains that held Sherlock, and caught him before he could fall. “Waiting for you to show me this so-called pain of yours.”
“If you insist,” said Moriarty, holding his hands out wide and throwing back his head. Something was building inside him. When it came it spewed forth from his mouth, his eyes, from lesions in the palms of his hands. Night black energy leaped from pseudo Cenobite to pseudo Cenobite, waking them and strengthening them. It also reanimated the Hound – now nothing more than jellied meat – and brought the aristocrat’s dust back together into the form of a man. The tendrils of dark power took hold of Glass, gripping him just as the chains and hooks had done with Holmes. The Hell Priest struggled, lashing out with his glass blade.
But it was over. Glass was pulled in every direction, bursting open, ripped to shreds – utterly destroyed.
His companions gaped at the place where he had been standing only moments before, as the blackness retreated back inside Moriarty. More of his followers were emerging from out of the shadows now, to face the leaderless trio of Cenobites. They were clumsy and undisciplined, but there was strength in numbers as I knew all too well.
Plague took charge, telling Madame and Fist to flee. “I will hold them as best I can.” He did not buy them much time – spreading boils here, rashes and scales there – before one of the mechanised men came up behind him and brought together the long blades that were his arms, decapitating Plague. His head rolled away, his body toppling sideways, landing with a thud – turning to putrid liquid as, without his consciousness to keep them at bay, the diseases that raddled him did their worst.
It had been enough of a distraction, however, for his comrades to make their escape – with Holmes in tow. I saw Moriarty realise this and scream, “After them!” But that was the last I saw of what happened there, the scene fading around me.
“No... Holmes, we need to go to –”
Mary cut me off. “Our paths will cross soon enough. They will come to us, John. And he will need you by his side more than he’s ever needed you before.”
I had no choice but to believe her, she had been right about everything so far. “That... energy Moriarty was using. It was black light, wasn’t it?”
Mary nodded. ??
?That is what you call it, yes. He has been siphoning it off, a little at a time, until...”
“And that thing didn’t even notice?” I pointed over the vista in the direction of their god. “What is it, anyway?”
“It is not for me to say,” Mary replied sadly. “But I can tell you how powerful the Engineer is becoming. John, if he succeeds with his plans... The Cenobites only cross over into our world when they are called, but Moriarty... well...”
“He has never been one for following rules.”
“If he breaks down the barrier between this reality and ours –”
“Then it will be Hell on Earth. What can we do?”
Mary paused before answering. “It is being done, John. We just have to wait a little longer.”
“This connection, the reason you’re here. If it’s not Holmes, then it must be –”
Mary nodded. “When Sherlock... In his will, Moriarty left instructions that you should be punished, my love, as Holmes’ closest associate. The Colonel was the only one of his men still at large, and so he took it upon himself to carry out those final wishes. He was going to kill you, John, by poisoning – you might recall the day, when we were about to take tea at Simpson’s and you had to rush off to see one of your patients. It was that tea which was poisoned, my love; a slow-acting, practically undetectable poison.”
“I remember,” I said with a sigh. “You were already in a coma when I reached you at the hospital. We never even got to say goodbye.”