Games of Grief Read online

  I pause, wincing. It’s hard to get out, because I don’t really know myself. I’ve always had a sixth sense for the law, or at least for right and wrong. And something gnawing at the back of my brain like a dog with a bone keeps telling me while there are two more criminals safely behind bars tonight, those responsible for the chaos and pandemonium at the Pyronamix music festival are still out there.

  It’s hard to unsee what I saw while I was making my arrests at the venue, to unhear what I heard. Blood, teeth, and the screams—

  I physically wrench myself out of the memory. It’s too much, even for a seasoned constable.

  “It’s, er—” I try to shake it off. “While I was undercover.”

  “Coordinating with the terrorists?”

  “Trapping them,” I correct him, insistently. I don’t like the word ‘coordinate’, it sounds too similar to ‘conspire’. “Some of the shit they were researching, it was off the wall.”

  “Anomaly shit?”

  My forehead creases as I finally push my locker shut. “I don’t know, mate. But couple it with some of the shit I saw at that festival, it’s freaking me out.”

  Maguire almost sneers at me. It reminds me why I’m not as open with him these days, his reactions aren’t often what I’m hoping for.

  “You really think there was people there eating each other?”

  “No,” I spit back, before adding, “I don’t think it—I saw it.”

  The other constable stares hard at me. It feels like he’s sizing me up for something.

  “There’s this geezer,” he says after a while. “Right intellectual, he is. Maths lecturer over at the university college, ex-NSY. Year or so ago he helped us out on this fucked up case. He believes in the paranormal, or some bollocks.” Maguire shakes his head with a snicker. “Either way, if you’re looking for a brain to pick about the supernatural, he might be your bloke.”

  It takes me by surprise, Maguire’s willingness to help. He’s always been by-the-book sort of fella—even more so than me, and that’s saying something. I wonder if he’s humoring me, or if he truly believes there might be something more sinister going down.

  Probably the first one, eh?

  “Follow that detective sense of yours, Gav,” he mumbles. He’s whipped a pencil out from behind his ear and is scribbling on the back of one of his own business cards. “Unless you wanna spend your life banging up citizens for not wearing the right designation pin within city limits.”

  My comrade folds his card in two and presses it firmly into my hand. He knows as well as I do that being a beat cop is no way to change the world. And he knows as well as I do that I won’t—no, I can’t be satisfied with less.

  Which might be why he’s so willing to help me out with this one. Even when at risk of being dragged into another one of my detective sense-driven, unsolicited stake-outs.

  Maguire’s boots are already crunching away over the squeaky-clean linoleum by the time I unfold the card. A single word is written there, which I can only presume is the surname of the man who may be able to answer some of my questions.

  MORIARTY.

  3 Watson's Flatmate

  221b Baker Street, Old London Town

  November 5, 05:32am

  I’ve barely closed the main door and thrown both bolts across when a string of rapid-fire gunshots firework their way down from the two-story flat above.

  My Properdry trainers are vaulting over the cat that’s curled up on the rug and pounding against the carpeted staircase—all before I’m aware mentally that I’ve even reacted. My reflexes are honed from over a decade in the emergency services, and all of my alarms are already at DEFCON 4.

  In today’s society, with firearms ownership so effectively restricted, the sound of gunfire is never really a positive thing.

  “Sherlock—!?”

  I burst through the front door into the living room, my eyes darting about every square inch of the place for my flatmate.

  I’m not entirely sure of what I expect to see. With Sherlock Holmes, you have to be prepared for anything. When the government bragged about blowing up a stronghold of freedom fighters back in the spring, I half expected to come home one night after a long shift and find them in my bedroom.

  What I don’t expect to see is my beautiful but bizarre flatmate—barely clothed—upside down in the enormous armchair beside the fireplace with her shoulder-blades against the seat and her legs draped over the back.

  “What is that?”

  It’s not her I’m pointing at with a shaky arm and uncertain finger. It’s the series of fresh bullet holes in the apartment wall.

  Sherlock doesn’t look at me. She draws her revolver into her lap with both hands and sighs with zero enthusism. “Patriotism.”

  “Well, if you could please refrain from practicing it here, in the lounge?” I gripe as I shut the door with a bit more force than necessary. All of my attention has been redirected toward calming the rush of adrenaline gushing through me. I feel as if I finally understand my heartattack patients, as cold-hearted as that may seem.

  … and pun not intended, either. Good grief. I can’t stop myself tonight. Someone needs to stop me, before I hurt myself. Or someone else hurts me.

  “The entire point of patriotism, Jonathan,” comes my friend’s cool, upside-down response, “is that one may practice it whenever and wherever she chooses to do so. As a matter of fact, an act of love for one’s country where such love is outlawed is the most patriotic thing one can do.”

  “You sound like a KING News advert.” I inhale, wrinkling my nose. The room has a distinct musky odor to it. “Have you been smoking? Or do you only handle firearms drunk and not high?”

  I’m halfway across the room with my parka off before I notice she hasn’t returned my affections with another of her patented, patronizing remarks.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “You know full bloody well what’s wrong,” she mutters, her bright blue eyes still stuck on the damage she’s done to our focus wall. Part of me hopes she regrets it as much as I regret agreeing to her keeping the gun in the flat in the first place. “I’m bored, Jonathan.”

  I frown with feigned sympathy. I do my best to understand her uneven mood swings, I really do.

  “Sherlock, if you’d only check your e-mails—”

  “What, go on the Net? Tonight?” Sherlock scowls. “And allow myself to be perversely bombarded with all of Pyronamix’s cleverly-crafted social media blitz campaigns?” She chuckles, but it’s a strangely humorless sound. “I don’t think so, darling. I have better things to do with my time than be shown the same six images over and over, in an attempt to force me to wish I were also there—getting squiffy on cheap vodka to some band playing whatever the bloody hell sort of noise they’re calling, what is it? Pop-hop?”

  I struggle to no avail to suppress my grin. “Easy, grandma. Tea?”

  “There isn’t enough tea in London,” she mutters, lining up another shot. To my relief, when she pulls the trigger, the chamber clicks but nothing else happens.

  “As I was saying before I was so curtly interrupted,” I continue with a softness to my tone. “If you’d only check your e-mails, you could have a brand new client waiting in there with a brand new case that’s just—so—” I hesitate, halfway through wondering where my coat is before remembering I had to leave it at the hospital to be laundered. “I’m sorry. Seven years into our friendship, and I still don’t know what it is you look for in a case.”

  Sherlock huffs out breath, her chest heaving deeply under the pressure of it. Emotional or physical, I’m uncertain. It’s moments like this that I fear for her—for her sanity as wealth as her health. The doctor in me wants to start analyzing every inch of her so it can start to impliment slow but effective treatments to save her life. The paranoid maniac in me wants to rummage through the fridge and all the rubbish bins to deduce how much she’s eaten in the past three days, then ask her to see if she’ll lie to me.

 
The best friend in me just wants to reach out and hold her, and tell her everything will be okay.

  Unfortunately, while it may be my personal favorite approach to the subject, the latter of the three is likely the one my dear friend would react the worst to.

  “It’s all about the rush, Jonathan,” she says eventually, and when she does, for a fraction of a second she almost sounds at peace. “The rush of the drug, of the addiction, of the total enchantment of body and mind and soul alike. It’s the power of sheer unbridled curiosity, of intrigue and discovery.

  “I want to be enraptured, Jonathan,” she all but moans, twisting and arcing her body in a manner I’m hard-pressed to imagine as anything but sexual. “I want to be intoxicated by the game.”

  “Well,” I say, raising my voice to continue the conversation as I head for the sideboard in one corner of the room to put the kettle on. “Who knows? Perhaps you’ll be lucky enough to have a client who can offer you all of that just waiting to be marked as unread?”

  Sherlock doesn’t respond for a short while. I take the time to prep the mugs, knowing which she can drink from and which she’ll just sort of paw at like a cat. It’s taken me a decent chunk of a decade, but I’ve almost got all of her quirks down pat.

  The kettle has just come to a boil when she calls lazily, “Dr. Watson, you brought another one home with you.”

  I jerk to attention, every muscle stiffening. While the majority of Sherlock’s tics and habits are inconvenient at best, there is one peculiar talent of hers that still sends shivers down my spine.

  “I—I did?”

  “You did,” is the interested but noticably unattached response. “Dear me, the state of it. What on earth happened to this one?”

  “Is it—is she—right behind me?” Regardless of the multitude of times that Sherlock has reassured me most spectres and spirits aren’t even able to make contact with a living human, let alone do them harm, the thought of one being in my immediate vicinity isn’t a comforting one.

  “Not quite. But she seems to have something to tell you.”

  When I cautiously turn around, Sherlock’s craned around in her chair, her lips twisted with either amusement or disgust. Or both.

  “She looks like something out of a horror movie,” she finally admits, and when she does, there’s a pang of sympathy buried beneath the nonchalance of the words. “May I?”

  I brandish one arm, as if motioning to whatever happens to be in the space between us. “Of course. This is your… thing.”

  “You know, Jonathan,” she says as she hauls herself upright in the massive armchair. “I do remember specifically asking if your tenancy would lead to a constant slew of guests streaming through my abode when you first moved in. I also remember your answer being a firm ’no’.”

  “Hey, to be fair, these guests are not guests!” I argue firmly. “And if they are, they’re certainly not guests of mine.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Well, aren’t you the psychic? Who’s to say they don’t have some sort of—of—grapevine of knowledge at the hospital, and everybody knows if they follow Dr. Watson home, they get to meet the psychic!”

  “Jonathan, please,” she snaps, sternly. “Do not shout in front of the guests.”

  “Guests!?” I do my damnedest not to jump, but my arse hits the sideboard nonetheless. “Plural?”

  Our eyes lock tight in at least four-and-a-half seconds of complete and utter silence, before the shrill ring of the telephone shatters it. I don’t notice if Sherlock jumps; I’m too busy unwedging my heart from my throat and picking my stomach up off the kitchen floor.

  “I’ve got it,” I mutter as I zip around her, my hand snatching up the receiver of the phone before the end of the third ring. I’m grateful for the distraction; I don’t very much want to be present when she interviews my ghostly hanger-on.

  “Sherlock Holmes, Paranormal Consulting Detective—” I recite as the rest of my body catches up with my hand. “Her associate Dr. Watson speaking.”

  The young voice on the other end of the line is anxious. I don’t need to have spent half my adult life witnessing the intricacies of my friend’s genius to notice the slight tremble to it.

  “Dr. Watson?” he asks nervously. “I—I’m not sure whether or not Ms. Holmes can help me, I found her number on the Net.”

  “Ms. Holmes is a mite occupied at this exact moment,” I deadpan, doing my best to ignore whatever questions she’s asking in the corner of the living room. And the fact that there’s never any audible answer. “But I’d be able to take a message for her.”

  “My friends went missing last night,” he admits, and when he does, I swear my hair stands on end. “I know something suspicious went down—and I know how crazy it sounds, but I’m convinced it’s paranormal. Supernatural. I have so many of the pieces, I’m just looking for someone who knows more about this stuff than I do to help put them all together.”

  The more he speaks, the more fully I understand the cause of his anxiety. Understand, and empathize with.

  “They—they were at that music festival. They were at Pyronamix.”

  4 Lestrade's Detective Sense

  Main Building, University College London

  November 5, 10:52am

  Professor James Moriarty is nothing close to what I pictured.

  I’m not sure what I was expecting when PC Maguire said ‘maths lecturer’. But it certainly weren’t no strapping, six-foot five-inch, commando-looking motherwanker in a black V-neck two sizes too small for him. Maybe I guessed his appearance would be a bit more brain and a lot less brawn. Or that he would dress the part, in one of them tweed suits with the suede elbow patches and a pocket protector. Either way, sitting at one side of the lecture hall filled with students, I don’t feel underwhelmed or disappointed at all—more taken aback.

  That ain’t no maths teacher I ever had in school, I can’t help thinking. But as I’m watching, and listening, it’s pretty damn clear that he knows his stuff.

  Or at least, I’m guessing he does. I don’t know beans about mathematics and algebra and trigger-notomy, but he’s talking with enough confidence to convince me whatever he’s saying is right.

  I wait until class is over and the kids have filtered out before I approach him. Judging by the way he’s watching me, he was waiting for it.

  “I can spot an officer of the law a mile off,” he says idly. It throws me off-kilter for a second or two, to be so keenly recognized, but I recover quickly and flash my NSY badge.

  “Ah, and what can I do to assist our local boys in blue this afternoon, Constable?”

  “Do you have an office we could chat in?” I ask as I tuck my badge away, knowing full well he’ll have one situated somewhere in the department.

  Which is why I’m both confused and mildly irritated when he replies, “I do not.”

  “I—er, o-okay then.” The way the professor’s eyes remain stuck to me as he moves papers around his desk is unnerving to say the least. “I’m actually here ‘cause of PC Robert Maguire, he said you know him?”

  “I know of him,” is the eerily calm answer. I’ve never heard a deep voice that can speak so soft.

  “Well, he told me you played a big part in cracking open a pretty unusual case last year,” I go on, determined not to be dissuaded by Moriarty’s cold and unfriendly demeanor. Academics are weird. I’ve always found them to be, anyway. “And that you might be able to give me a hand with something else, something just as… unusual.”

  The professor finally glances away from me, dropping his eyes to his desk, and chuckles. “Unusual,” he echoes. “Dare I say there’s a synonym you are far less comfortable speaking aloud to a stranger?”

  It’s never easy asking someone about the paranormal, especially in this country. Especially as a copper.

  “Supernatural.” The word barely squeezes itself through my gritted teeth.

  It seems to be the correct one, though. The professor waves a hand at the cha
ir in front of his vast, cluttered desk, and I sink into it without any hesitation. If he’s wanting to talk, I’m all ears.

  “I am going to presume that if Robert sent you my way,” says Moriarty, seating himself with more elegance than a man his size should be able to, “the topic at hand is a trifle more intricate than an Anomaly with abilities you cannot categorize.”

  “Well, it might—”

  “That was a statement.” The professor’s tone is as icy as his stare. “Statements do not require confirmation.”

  It’s like I’m right back at school, being chided by my teacher for daydreaming during a quiz.

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  Moriarty seems both amused and bemused at my quick obedience. It ain’t my fault. Police academy will sure as shit whip you into shape when it comes to reacting to authority figures, and when this mathematics professor speaks, he does so with flippin’ authority.

  Git. Can’t help but respect him for it, though.

  Moriarty exhales and sits back in his chair, studying me. I feel like I’m under some kind of microscope, and I try not to squirm about.

  After maybe five or six seconds of silence, I lose my nerve, open my mouth, and start going at it. Anything to get him to stop staring at me like that.

  “I was actually proper impressed when I looked you up,” I’m saying, allowing my confidence to come back into my voice. “Top cop for twenty years after excelling in the academy and graduating with honors—not to mention how much of your records were redacted.”

  The professor’s lips quirk up in a crooked half-smirk. “I see. So, you’ve read my records?”

  “I always try and do as much research on the subject at hand as possible, sir.”

  “Then I am a subject?”

  “I—no.” I shake my head. “I wanted to know more about you before I came and gabbed to you about stuff that’s…”

  My voice trails off, and his smirk broadens.

  “Supernatural,” he finishes for me, and when he does, he says it with a level of familiarty that causes my skin to prickle up into goosebumps.