“Wait… My bone? Did… Did I just strip some bone out of my arm?”
“Very impressive. I don’t know if you realize it, but there is nothing in this world so magically reactive as rigid biological materials.”
I had, on a few occasions, seen the facility—the practically joyful abandon—of wood when exposed to magical force. I’d seen it twist and shriek and liquefy at the merest gesture from Holmes. I had less experience with the effect of magic on bone, always excepting the agonizing moment when Hugo Baskerville had attempted to bend all of mine into exciting new shapes. Still, this equation made a certain level of sense—at least as far as Holmes’s bizarre world went. After all, what is wood but plant-bone?
Holmes deposited the little thing back in my palm and said, “This could be a formidable weapon, one day. I wonder how large it might grow.”
“Not too large, I hope, or there shall be no bone left in my arm. I don’t want it. How do I get rid of it?”
“You simply tell it to go,” said Holmes. “Use the word for ‘go away’. Say, ‘Ves, Ossifer.’”
“‘Ves’? What language is that?”
“The universal one, Watson. The purest. Trust me, you could sit in that bed making random noises all night long, but you would never find a better sound for ‘go away’ than ‘ves’.”
Experimentally, I uttered, “Ves, Ossifer.”
Immediately, the burning pain returned to my arm and hand. It lasted only a moment and, as it subsided, I saw the tiny weapon had gone.
“Well done again,” cried Holmes. “Now, if you ever wish for it, you know how to get it. Nurture it well, for it may grow to be deadly indeed.”
“How would I nurture a blade made of hatred and bone?” I wondered.
Holmes shrugged. “Hate things? Drink milk?”
I sat quietly, considering. If the whole experience had not been so painful, I would have thought it only a dream. What did it mean that a thoroughly unmagical fellow like myself could summon such a thing? In short, how much of magic was perfectly natural, but not understood? Where was the boundary of what was—or should be—normal? The silence of my contemplation was interrupted only by:
“…Um…
“…Hello?
“…Can I have the other pillow, too?”
* * *
One of the dangers of adventuring in a realm of magic and monsters is that you tend to sleep late. By the time I awoke, Holmes had already completed a morning’s worth of misguided work. I stepped out my bedroom door only to find him coming out of his own, across from me. To my horror, he wore his garish “disguise” jacket, his ridiculous uneven-legged trousers and had once again knocked out three of his teeth. He sported a foot-and-a-half-wide false moustache.
“Holmes… Oh, no…”
“Watson! I have a plan!”
“A terrible, terrible plan.”
“Disguised as a common Irish working man—”
“You aren’t.”
“—I shall infiltrate the household of Irene Adler—”
“You won’t.”
“—and recover His Majesty’s photograph. Who knows, I shall perhaps even learn the fate of the Moriarty Rune.”
“This plan is doomed to failure, Holmes! Please, think for a moment. Do you remember how poorly this worked last time? And that was only against Milverton. Granted, he knew you better than Adler does, but let me remind you that our current foe is a master of disguise.”
“As am I, Watson. As. Am. I.”
“No, Holmes, you are not. I’m sorry, my friend, but you are simply nowhere near her level.”
He bristled at the insult, yet controlled himself and harrumphed, “If so, that only proves my point. A master of disguise would be on the lookout for excellent disguises, but perhaps a more casual effort might slip below her notice.”
I squeezed the bridge of my nose, intent on stopping off the frustration-nosebleed I knew must be coming. “By that argument, Holmes, if I wished to defeat the fastest racehorse in London, what I’d need would be a really slow horse?”
“I don’t know. Possibly. I’ll tell you what, Watson, why don’t you attempt it and tell me how it goes? I myself have other plans for the day.”
“Holmes, no! I forbid it!”
“Ha! Escape gas!”
He thrust his hand down towards the floor—just as he had that fateful day he’d tried to infiltrate Milverton’s— and the air gave a sudden boom and filled with black and purple smoke. Yet, that had been a year and a half ago. Not only did I have a better familiarity with my friend’s habits, but also the floor plan of 221B. Thus, by the time he reached the door to begin his ill-advised infiltration attempt, he found me blocking it.
“I said I forbid it!”
“Hmph. Well played, Watson. You have thought of everything, it seems. Oh, except perhaps: Watson-take-a-nap gas!”
This time, I didn’t even hear the boom. I awoke some time later to the sound of someone kicking the inside of my wardrobe door.
“…Um…
“…Hello?
“…I’m hungry! Does anybody have some fish?”
* * *
Holmes was so late in returning that I had ample time to go to the market, buy a bucket of fish, return and unceremoniously dump them all over Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein, Grand Duke of Cassel-Felstein, and hereditary king of Bohemia (fake). His only complaint was that someone had already eaten the good bits. By this, he meant that they had been cleaned and gutted. He also wanted an impressive quantity of water. Yet, once this was delivered, his complaints started afresh. He didn’t like our water. It was yucky and unregal—not fit for the distinguished palate of a king. On a hunch, I took the fish bucket, filled it with water, dumped in all the salt we had to hand and delivered it to His Majesty. He gulped it down joyously. I offered to partially untie him and escort him to the lavatory, but he said this was unnecessary, as he excreted all unneeded materials through his skin—in the manner of all Germans. Indeed, this seemed to be the case. My wardrobe was beginning to smell like some sort of seafood processing plant.
As Holmes had yet to return, I spent the afternoon seeing to the long-term needs of our royal guest. I bought a huge bag of salt to make more “drinking water”, then went back to the docks and purchased His Majesty’s next meal. The foreman seemed surprised that a well-dressed gentleman such as myself was in the market for two buckets of fish offal, but his price was quite reasonable.
Von Ormstein was so pleased by the increased level of service that he seemed to lose all desire to ever leave my wardrobe. And why would he? He had all the lavatory facilities he required, one human pawn bringing him cuisine fit for a king, a second one out addressing the problems he’d made for himself in his youth and—to top it all off—he’d got both pillows. His Majesty’s joy loosened his tongue somewhat and I began to learn more about his unique heritage.
As it turned out, I owed him an apology. Wilhelm Gottsreich Sigismond von Ormstein actually did have some claim to Bohemia. Not that he’d ever been there. He’d spent most of his days in a submerged castle named Boh-grah-grah-grah, seven miles off the western coast of Jutland. It seems, at the height of the Hapsburg family’s hey-let’s-marry-into-every-royal-house-of-Europe-and-then-only-agree-to-wed-other-royals-who-are-at-least-half-Hapsburg-until-we-are-hideously-inbred-and-in-charge-of-everything phase, the heads of Hapsburg had run out of royal houses in which to insinuate themselves. At least, they’d run out of royal houses on land. Yet, in a distinct upturn in land–sea diplomacy, they had encountered a grotesque race of underwater monster-men.
A few marriages were arranged between the mer-folk and some of the more creatively inbred monster children who lurked in the darker corners of every Hapsburg castle. What a relief it must have been, eh? How much easier it must have become for every Hapsburg mother and father to tie weights to the ankles of their little one and chuck them over the side of a boat, if there was a chance that this was an act of matrimony, rather than
simple infanticide. Traditionally, it seems, these weights were made of gold and referred to as “dowry”.
At last, after the full history of European royalty had been made clear to me, Holmes stumbled in through our front door.
“Dare I ask?” I dared to ask.
“Ah, yes! An unqualified success!” Holmes declared.
“By which you mean you have brought Adler to justice, reclaimed His Majesty’s photo and recovered the Moriarty Rune?”
“Ah… no.”
“Well at least tell me you didn’t wind up accidentally engaged this time.”
“Ha! I am not engaged and—more to the point— neither is Irene Adler!”
“Er… how is that ‘to the point’?”
“Because she was when I encountered her this afternoon.”
“What?” Strange the wave of jealousy that swept through me when I heard it.
“Hmmm. Yes. To some American named Godfrey Norton,” said Holmes. “A lawyer, from what I understand, and very popular with the ladies in that I’m-young-rich-and-handsome-and-we-both-know-I’ll-have-your-clothes-off-you-in-less-than-an-hour sort of way.”
“But you say she is no longer engaged? You spent the day crossing her match?”
“I would never! She may be an enemy of mine, but who am I to meddle in affaires de cœur?”
“So then, you…”
“Served as witness at her wedding.”
I reeled back and collapsed into one of our chairs. “How did this…? What possible chain of events…?”
“Oh, it’s all very simple, Watson,” said Holmes, flinging himself into the opposite chair. “I went round to Serpentine Avenue and asked which house was Briony Lodge. Once I knew, I mucked about the neighborhood, until I found a place workmen might… you know… work. I fell in with a handful of local grooms and began trading manual labor for stories and gossip.”
“A grand improvement on your previous attempt, actually,” I admitted. “Allow me to congratulate you, Holmes.”
“Thank you, Watson. The local workmen were happy to speak of Miss Adler. Ha! It might have been hard to get them to speak of anything else—she has quite turned the heads of all the men thereabouts. Apparently, she is a famous adventuress—whatever that means.”
“It means she seduces men in order to get what she wants from them.”
“Well that would explain it,” said Holmes. “Amongst the grooms there seemed to be an abject fascination with her, combined with an abiding sadness none of them had anything she wants. To top her list of distinctions, she is a vaunted contralto. She trained at the Imperial Opera of Warsaw and seems to be equally at home singing Tancredi at La Scala or bawdy little numbers at London music halls. Wherever she goes, she is universally admired.”
“I can well believe it,” I said, “and yet we know her true nature is much different.”
“Hmm,” said Holmes, gravely. “A worthy adversary is one thing. One who can routinely best you and still have enough spare time to pursue a career in the top tier of European opera… well…”
I wilted slightly. “That is daunting.”
“Ye gods, she’s wonderful, Watson! I’m so afraid of her!”
“But this is good news! She has a public persona. She shan’t be able to hide from us again. But, back to the story, Holmes.”
“Indeed. I had fooled the local grooms entirely—”
“Oh, had you now?”
“Yes. All of them. Entirely. Well… there was this one fellow…”
“Ah.”
“And he kept wondering why I always steered the conversation back to Miss Adler. And why, if I was an Irish working man, I sounded more Scottish, or at times, Italian. And then, when my moustache fell off, he pointed it out to everybody.”
“How rude.”
“I thought so. Of course, nobody else cared. By then we were all smoking pipes and laughing and drinking cups of half and half—which is something grooms do, apparently—and nobody was doing much work and a grand time was had by all. We all shouted at the man that if he didn’t want to join in, perhaps he’d better go see to a horse, or something. So he left.”
“To report you to Miss Adler, do you think?”
“Now that you mention it, that would make a certain degree of sense…”
“Of course it would.”
“…for in half an hour or so, he came back. And he said, ‘Oi, anybody who’s been wasting our entire day because he’s here to spy on Miss Adler might want to know: she’s escapin’ right now, on a secret errand of great import!’
“Well, sure enough, as I peeped from the stable door, I saw Miss Adler not twenty yards from me, wearing a wedding dress and hailing a cab. She climbed in and I despaired that I had no way of following her for I had no cab of my own ready and no idea of her destination. Fortunately for me, she told her driver in a loud, clear voice, ‘Church of St. Monica on the Edgware Road, please.’”
“Rather a suspiciously good turn of fortune that a woman on a secret errand announces it loud enough for half the street to hear, don’t you think?” I asked.
But he waved away my concerns and said, “Well, I’ve always been lucky, you know. When the next cab came along, I jumped in to follow her. The only thing I didn’t have was a convincing method of infiltrating the church once we got there. I decided that—posing as a common Irish working priest—I would offer my services. ‘Allo, allo!’ I would say. ‘I talk with God all the time and I know all about him and what he wants. You chaps are doing it all wrong. So come on and hire me and I’ll fix your church up right.’”
I think my mouth was actually hanging open. “But you clearly didn’t carry the plan out because nobody wound up burning you at the stake.”
“Well, I was in trouble you see, because I thought they’d probably ask which god. And for the life of me, I couldn’t remember its name. Luckily, I didn’t need to, because who should be waiting for me as my cab pulled up?”
“Irene Adler.”
“Irene Adler! And she said thank God I’d come, because she was getting married and needed at least one witness, or the wedding was not legal.”
“Not quite true,” I noted. “In fact, two witnesses are required.”
“What? No. She said only one!”
“A fact which throws even more doubt over this already very shady situation, I would think.”
Holmes threw his hands to his hips and pouted. “Well, it’s your word against hers, I suppose. But she seemed quite convinced. Now, do you want me to finish my story or not?”
“I do.”
“Miss Adler asked me if I knew anything about marriage ceremonies and the laws surrounding them. And I said no. And she said that was all right—in fact, that was probably for the best—and all I needed to do was follow along and promise whatever the priest asked me to promise. And that it would be really helpful to her if I did, and didn’t I want to help her? And do you know what, Watson, I rather did, because she was so very nice to me. So, in no time whatsoever, I found myself witnessing the exchange of trinkets.”
“Er… rings, you mean?”
“No, no. She had this little silver pendant of a heart, on a chain. Well, that’s not quite right. You know that shape that looks nothing like a heart but we all agree to call it that, even though it looks more like someone’s bottom? It looked like that. But on the back, it wasn’t silver, it was black iron and looked like a proper heart, with all the gristly little tubes coming out of it and everything.”
“Interesting,” I said.
“Yes and just incredibly magical. Gads, I could feel magic just dripping off the thing. And the groom had one, too. Nothing like as pleasant, though. His was this little device with a bunch of screws and spikes on it that pretty much screamed, ‘Hey, put your finger in here and let me tighten this and twist that and in no time at all I’ll have ruined your life and you’ll do exactly as I say.’”
“So instead of a ring, Godfrey Norton was presenting his new wife with an instrumen
t of torture?”
“Yes. The Cruciator: that’s what they called it. And the priest seemed very impressed that two of the nine somethings-or-other were being brought together. And now, neither bride nor groom could claim the right to be the owner of their own trinket, but they would be held in common—the Heart and the Cruciator—the perfect union of love and pain. And I was supposed to promise to use all of my magical force to make such a transference of ownership true—that so long as bride and groom should live, neither one would have more sway over the trinkets than the other, but would hold them in equal measure and that such bonds would be in effect from the moment of the wedding kiss.”
“A promise you refused, I certainly hope!”
“Well, I did feel some reluctance,” Holmes agreed. “I raised my finger and coughed a bit, until the priest called on me. And I asked if the standard English marriage ritual had quite so much talk of contractual magic in it.”
“It doesn’t!”
“Ah, but you are a doctor, Watson, not a priest. And he assured me that it did. And everybody was waving so much magic about, I began to think that maybe weddings are a time when one need not be so shy about magic— just as they are a time when even the bride and groom’s stodgy old grandparents are not too shy about anybody’s plans to make babies. It seemed strange that I’d never heard anything about it before. Then again, I don’t go to many weddings. And everybody was looking at me as if I was a perfect monster if I refused to help Miss Adler on her special day. So I promised to do that, and a number of other things.”
“Such as?”
“Well, I can’t remember them all, but… Oh, I recall that if ever anybody tries to take ownership of the tokens of their marriage, I am to strike them down with all the forces at my command.”
“Holmes!”
“What?”
“What if I should ever find it necessary to try to divest Mrs. Irene Norton, née Adler, of her dangerous magical artifact?”
“Well then, I would have to… oh… oh. Please don’t ever decide that, Watson, or I would have to…”
“Murder me?”
Warlock Holmes--My Grave Ritual Page 28