by Clive Barker
Nothing had been left to chance, nothing ever was here.
The Engineer continued to fall. Holmes watched, puzzled – wondering why he’d suddenly stopped falling himself. He was aware of something wrapped around his waist. A rope of some kind? No, a whip, the ends moving of their own accord, tightening their grip.
Then he was rising, back towards the edge of the precipice. Holmes continued to stare down, to witness the long fall of the Professor. Until he himself reached the top, pulled up not only by a badly injured Veronique, but by others who had come to her aid: Spike, The Confessor, Carnivan... Mary and Watson, no less injured himself. They rolled him back onto the platform, just as a bright burst came from below – a jet of energy signalling the end of the Engineer, and his coup. It flared upwards, whatever black light that remained being sucked back into the shifting body of their god, hanging patiently above them all.
The pseudo Cenobites were dropping too, falling now that their strings had been cut.
“Holmes? Holmes...?” It was Watson’s voice he could hear now. “Are you all right?” He attempted a nod, but the effort was too great. So instead, his friend asked, “Is it over? Is it really all over?”
But that question Holmes refused to answer.
For he knew it was only just beginning.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
The Aftermath
ALL I COULD do was observe as Holmes battled his nemesis one last time.
The fight was evenly matched, and transpired in a similar fashion to that of the altercation at the Reichenbach, except that this time the finale saw both of them going over the edge. My heart was in my mouth when they fell, and both Mary and I made our way over to the edge, even though we knew there was nothing we could do to help.
Fortunately, Madame had crawled back across and managed to unfurl her whip over the edge, and by the time we got there, she was being helped by some of the other Cenobites. We got him safely up onto the ledge, just before the explosion erupted from below – a rush of black energy which meant that Moriarty had to be no more.
I hoped.
His minions were falling, the conflict over. We had won! Yet I couldn’t help feeling that we really hadn’t. The cost, to Holmes especially, had been so great. But I did not know the half of it back then...
I recovered from my wounds swiftly enough, for it transpired that the Cenobites were just as good at knitting people together as they were at tearing them apart. Mary didn’t leave my side the whole time I was being tended to, holding my hand, making sure I was comfortable; the same way I had when she’d fallen into her coma. My return to health gave me hope that what had been done to Holmes could be reversed. Of the man himself I saw very little during this period, but I assumed he was occupied. I did hear that Madame Veronique was to be appointed the new Engineer, though in light of her extensive injuries, she would need to be radically altered before she could take up her promotion. As much as I hated to admit it, Hell would be in very capable hands.
By the time I was fit enough to be on my feet again, the clean-up operation was underway – of the damage, of the pseudo Cenobites and other creations that Moriarty had concocted to fight his war (their long-suffering spirits now granted the peace they should have had in the first place). All the Cenobite-killing weaponry was recovered and locked away again. There really had been no rest for the wicked.
Mary gave me a tour of Hell and I relished the time we spent in each other’s company, regardless of the circumstances and location. One might have thought we were strolling through an English meadow in springtime rather than the corridors and balconies of such a foul dominion.
“Our time here is almost at an end. You will have to leave soon, John,” she said to me eventually. “And so will I.”
“Together,” I said hopefully, though my stomach was churning as I waited for her response.
“You know that is not possible. I wish that it were. I do not belong in your world; no more than you belong here.”
“But Mary, I... I can’t lose you again.”
“Oh John, I’m already lost,” she said sweetly, taking my hands in hers. “Moriarty is gone, the connection broken. I’m starting to fade.” It was true, her grip wasn’t as strong as it had been.
“No, please no. It’s been so lonely without you, my love.”
She touched my face, wiping my cheek. “No tears, remember? You will always be able to find me sweetheart – in here.” Now she placed a finger on my temple. “And in here.” Mary put her hand on my chest.
“It’s not the same, I –”
“You will not be alone for long. I promise,” she said, planting a kiss on my lips. I closed my eyes, savouring the taste of her, but when I opened them again she was gone. “Goodbye, my darling,” I heard her whisper.
“Goodbye,” I said back, a catch in my voice. “I love you.”
I assumed she had been talking about Holmes, when she said I would not be alone for long, but when I finally spotted him, issuing orders to a group of workers, and broached the subject of returning to our dimension, all he could do was look at the ground.
“I am sorry, Watson. My place is here.”
“How can you even... Holmes, you’ve done as they asked. You stopped the Professor in his tracks; you’ve done more than enough for them. Far more than they deserve.”
“Watson, please. This is difficult enough without –”
“Without what?”
He looked directly at me. “It was part of the arrangement. The deal I brokered. I said I would not only do my best to prevent Moriarty’s advancement, but also aid in the rebuilding after he was gone.”
“Why on Earth would you agree to that?” I shouted, red-faced.
“In exchange for your safe passage home. For immunity. For Hell never being able to darken your doorstep.”
I did not know what to say.
“Who knows, maybe it is all for the best. I might even be able to do some good here. Change things for the better? Make a difference?” Holmes placed a hand on my shoulder. “I am sorry, Watson. Truly I am. You have always been a loyal friend to me and I shall miss you greatly.”
“Holmes, no. Don’t do this. Mary is gone and I –”
But it was already done. Holmes did not vanish, as Mary had, but I did. I found myself transported in the blink of an eye back to our study at Baker Street, confused and more than a little disorientated, weak in the knees. When I had steadied myself, I screamed at the top of my voice, so loudly it drew the attention of Mrs Hudson – who burst in.
“Oh, Dr Watson, it’s you! I didn’t hear you come in. What in Heaven’s name is all this shouting about?”
I met her gaze. “Nothing. Nothing in Heaven’s name, I’m sad to say.”
She frowned, then asked, “Did you... did you manage to find any trace of Mr Holmes?”
I opened my mouth to answer, then shook my head. Better to leave it at that than say he simply would not be back. She had mourned for him once before, as had I. And it wasn’t as if he was dead in the traditional sense this time – just... missing in action. She asked me if I would like a bite of supper and I declined, telling her that it had been a tiring time of late and I would retire to my bed early.
Instead, I made use what was left of the whisky and brandy we had in those chambers and reluctantly fell asleep in the armchair.
WHEN I WOKE the next morning, I was even more disorientated, imagining everything to have been a hideous nightmare.
I was awake now, though, like Alice.
Indeed, I wondered if perhaps everything since Holmes’ return disguised as that bookseller had been a fiction? A vision? Perhaps he had not come back to me in the first place, perhaps we had never investigated those missing persons cases? I had not gone to France, nor had Holmes opened the puzzle box – and as for our adventures in Hell... Too fanciful to contemplate, even with my writer’s flair for romanticism, for ‘colour and life’.
However, the calendar told me that it was 1896, and wh
en Mrs Hudson knocked to see if I wanted any breakfast, she confirmed that I had been searching for Holmes since my return from Paris. It did not mean that the whole affair in ‘Hell’ or whatever you wanted to call the place had happened, but it made it that bit more possible.
As the days and weeks passed, I began to turn to the drink and gambling. I even found myself looking over to Holmes’ Morocco case every now and again, thought about opening that particular box and experimenting with the other drug he relied on a little too heavily; the only thing stopping me was my experience at the Institute. Mrs Hudson’s fussing did little to shake me out of my mood, just annoyed me to the point where I found myself shouting at her to leave me alone. Summons to Scotland Yard to help on cases went unanswered, as did those from Mycroft Holmes. Pleas from clients went unheard, my poor patients were once again neglected. And I did not dream – not of Mary, not of the war (any of them), and not of Holmes.
But I did grow increasingly obsessed with the idea that we had been cleverly manipulated by something infinitely more fiendish than the Professor. If their god was so powerful, surely it should have had some idea as to what Moriarty had been up to – what he would become when he was given the role of Engineer? If so, perhaps Hell had a different endgame in mind all along? To lure Holmes there, to use him? Perhaps there was never any hope of him changing things, of doing any kind of good with his newfound position. He had been tricked, just like so many who had opened the box before him. Moreover, it troubled me greatly that, in the end, we had both been as much servants of Hell as anyone else.
This had never been about control of London at all; there had been much greater things at stake. I had misunderstood Simon Lemarchand, the box had purely been a means to ease their passage into our world.
However, more than any of this, I simply missed Holmes. Mary had promised I would not be alone, and yet here I was. What made matters worse was that even though he had been changed physically, I felt – when I saw him after that transformation – like the real Holmes was back, not the preoccupied one I had spent time with over the last few years. Yet there was nothing I could do now. It was beyond my power to bring him back.
Or was it?
I was a loyal friend and I could not just leave him there in that place for all eternity; I had to protect him, save him, just as he had tried to do with me. I started to think about how Malahide had returned the aristocrat – and that phrase, “The blood is the key.” It would be another gamble, but maybe – just maybe – there was a way of breaking Holmes out of Hell. I returned to that now abandoned hole where he had opened the box (the object itself was long gone, of course – almost certainly recovered by the vagabond), bringing with me a vial of my own blood. This I poured over the floorboards where I had seen Holmes spill his own – the real trace of him – watching and waiting for something... anything to happen.
Nothing did, and I convinced myself then that it had all been a nightmare; that my mind had made it up to reconcile the fact that he had gone missing, just like the people we had been brought in to help. Or, if it had transpired, their god was not about to let him go so easily...
Then it happened, not quite as it had back at the Institute – and certainly more graphic. A body piecing itself together out of nothing, feeding on the blood I had supplied until it had all been mopped up. I gaped, open-mouthed, at this sickening display; as organs appeared, juices slopping over nerves until a basic outline of a man was left writhing on the floor in agony. It was Holmes, I knew it was... but there the ‘birth’ halted.
“M-more,” was all the shape could manage.
I wasn’t sure what he meant at first, but then I nodded – for I would have done anything I could just to have him back. I won’t go into the details of how I brought him all the way; there isn’t the need, and I feel I have said too much already in this account that might turn people against both Holmes and myself. Suffice to say, I managed to wrestle him from the clutches of Hell, knowing full well that there would be no retaliation because of his deal. It was on my head alone.
They weren’t the only ones who could play tricks.
(I often think also about how and why their god finally let him escape – and that perhaps Holmes had served his purpose; that there might be another Hell Priest lined up to take his place. Maybe the one I’d mistaken for Glass, who looked like the African fetishes?)
Anyway, Holmes was where he belonged.
Alas, what I got back was not the man – or even the Cenobite – that I had left behind. He was a poor imitation of his former self, haunted I suspect by the things that he had seen afterwards – or something else. I could never really get him to open up about it all. The stories from that point onwards, though most happened, are as I have said, by necessity, embellished, designed to satisfy the appetites of readers who had grown used to a certain kind of Sherlock Holmes tale. There were only a couple of adventures where I felt he was almost back to his old self, the first an investigation that forced him to finally confront the monster that resided within...
But there is no time for that now, I grow weary and will soon put my pen down. I think it has helped a little, to recall these events, to set them down – even if no-one will ever read these words. And nor should they. Most would probably call them the ramblings of a senile old fool if they did! However, I can’t help thinking back to those visions of war Mary gave me, and how true the first one turned out to be. The one where all those men died in the trenches, so much fodder for Hell, during and afterwards. More lost souls. I think about how we’re now occupied by the next one, how that mushroom cloud explosion I bore witness to might be only just around the corner.
I can only hope I am gone by then, for once was quite enough.
And I can’t help thinking of something Holmes kept repeating when I returned him to this world. About how all this had happened before, how it would do so again.
I didn’t know quite what he meant back then, and still don’t.
If I am honest, I am not even sure I want to.
EPILOGUE
THE BLOOD HAD brought him back.
Just a small amount had been enough, but it had returned the man to her. In the months since he had been ‘declared’ dead, Juliet Cotton had found herself being drawn time and again up to that attic room where Francis had disappeared. It was silly, she knew, but she felt like she was closest to him up there. No-one had been able to tell them what had really happened, and she still held out hope that one day he would be back in her life – just as she had longed for since their time together; prior to her wedding to the increasingly dull Laurence.
They had fired that wretched housekeeper, Williams, Juliet had made sure of that. The thought that she might have been with Francis at some point in the past was enough to turn her stomach, let alone having to look at her each day. However, that had just left her and Laurence in the house together, alone, and she had grown more and more disgusted by his touch, his adoring glances; the way he would trail after her like a puppy dog and keep asking if she was all right. Juliet was as far from that condition as was possible. She was becoming distant with him, and couldn’t help it. Her thoughts, more so now than at any other time during their sham of a marriage, were with Francis. His tousled hair, that lean body of his.
It was why she kept taking herself away – up to the attic room, a place she’d insisted they leave just as it was, in spite of Laurence’s arguments that they could turn it into a second office. She just wanted to be alone, with her thoughts of Francis. But, of course, Laurence had not allowed her that time to ‘grieve’. (Was that what she was doing? It certainly didn’t feel like letting go.) He would continually follow her up, and then, one day, in a rare display of bravado after she had piqued his anger he had stormed in with the intention of dragging her back downstairs with him. He could not even get that right, catching his hand on the ruined doorframe and opening up the back of it.
Laurence had turned grey immediately, clutching the wounded hand, looking away
and shambling towards her. “Is... is it deep?” he’d inquired, his voice immediately shrinking. “You... you know I cannot abide the sight of blood.”
Sighing, she had taken him downstairs to wrap the hand in cloth and call a cab, which would take them to the hospital.
That night, when they had arrived back after Laurence’s hand had been stitched up, she found herself climbing out of bed and returning again to the attic room, perhaps to finish what her husband had not let her do earlier that day; to think about Francis. What she had found in the darkness had been both repulsive and exciting. Something scuffling, which at first she took to be rats, but then she’d known – actually felt – it had been him. Or part of him at any rate.
“Do not look at me!” he’d insisted, but she couldn’t help herself. Yes, he was disgusting, only partially formed, but he was still Francis. Her Francis. When she had heard Laurence stir below, she’d left the creature but vowed to return – something she had done many times after that, but only when Laurence was at his work.
Francis had explained about the box, the tortures he’d endured, the Cenobites – and how, while their attention was fixed elsewhere, he’d been able to escape. The spilt blood had provided a means by which he might slip through and be with her once more. It was an incredible story, but one which she was willing to accept if only because it had brought Francis back.
“But I need more, Juliet. And I need you to get it for me. Then we can be together again. You’d like that, would you not?”
She’d nodded, for she would do whatever it took to make Francis whole. So she had gone out, using the charms she’d developed over time to lure her prey back to the house – one a gentleman called Patrick, in London from the Midlands on business; another a family man called Sykes who’d had second thoughts when he returned with her. Juliet had told them she was lonely, and they’d believed her – but she knew her lonely days would soon be over. Fuelled by thoughts of being in Francis’ arms again, she had fed these pitiful fools to him, looking away when he devoured them to put more flesh on his bones; telling herself that the blood they spilled would make him stronger.