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FIC: If You Can't Move Heaven, Raise Hell [9/?]
Title: If You Can't Move Heaven, Raise Hell
Author: Alex
Fandom: Sherlock [BBC]
Rating: Varies
Pairing: Sherlock/John; Sherlock/Ian Adler; John Watson/Ian Adler; Jim Moriarty/Sebastian Moran
Disclaimer: A.C. Doyle, Moffat, Gatiss.
Summary: All John Watson wants is a peaceful fortnight's holiday in Cornwall. Fate has other plans, to wit:
1. An abbey in the Italian Alps
2. Murder
3. Mayhem
4. Criminals he has known and would rather forget
5. Bondage
6. Sex
7. Sherlock
Not necessarily in that order.
Warnings: Violence, explicit sex, dubious consent.
Notes: I don't genderswap as a rule, but I saw this marvelous gif of Tom Hiddleston and Sherlock and couldn't resist. The rest is shameless self-indulgence.
Plot happily magpied from everywhere, with especial apologies to Umberto Eco.
Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kimberlite for the sharp-eyed beta.
This fic is a gift for sithdragn, with affection.
Can also be read on AO3
*
John watched Sherlock grasp Ian’s arm to steer him out of the refectory and bit back an impatient sigh. He didn’t trust Ian Adler one little bit, and as the thought formed, Ian looked John’s way and offered him a grin that seemed to promise mayhem. John scowled openly – he didn’t give a toss what Ian thought of him, though it was pretty clear that Sherlock was impressed by him for some reason. Maybe there was a tall, skinny, clever, curly-haired blokes’ mutual admiration society John didn’t know about.
Sod it. John turned away and sidled close to the bins of dirty plates, cups, and utensils. Deftly, he plucked a knife from one of the bins and wiped it clean with a napkin, then slid it inside his jacket and tossed the napkin on a bin. Nobody noticed him; he was a slight, dark figure in a murmuring, swirling sea of black-and-white clad monks. He wasn’t as handy with a knife as he was with a gun; not handy with a knife at all, as it happened. He wished he had his Sig. He didn’t think Brother Marcelo would attack him, but there was no point in taking chances, was there? As he proceeded from the kitchen, Brother Edward and Brother Peter, strolling together, hailed him. “Dr. Watson.”
“Oh, hello. And please – it’s just John.” He shook hands with them, gratefully noting that neither man engaged in the traditional masculine game of crush-the-finger-bones as they shook. He liked them both – Brother Peter was a bit of a hippie, but all right for all that, and Brother Edward was a solid sort of guy. Both of them were friendly and approachable. “I’m going to go to the evening service, if that’s all right.”
“Certainly it’s all right,” Brother Peter said with a decisive nod. “Where’s your friend?”
“Ah, he’s doing some research at the moment,” John hedged.
“Probably better for us not to know,” Brother Edward said. “Have you ever been to Compline before, John?”
“No, I’m afraid I haven’t.”
“It’s our last service of the day for the entire monastery, and because we’re lucky enough to have a lovely choir, it’s sung. It’s also the precursor to the Great Silence, so you’ll forgive us if we don’t speak afterward.”
John smiled tentatively. “The Great Silence?”
“That’s right,” Brother Peter said. “The whole community observes silence until Prime – morning services the following day. That’s supposed to include guests, but we don’t enforce it very harshly. At all, to be honest.”
“So if I wanted to talk to someone – one of the other monks – afterward, he wouldn’t speak to me?”
“We’ve been instructed to aid you inasmuch as it’s possible in consideration of all that’s happened,” Brother Edward said. “But some of the older monks might not take too kindly to breaking silence at night. If you need to speak to someone, use your judgment, or just ask Father Simon. I’m sure he can arrange something for you. However, most of the monks retire just after Compline, so you’ll have to move quickly.”
The evening was cool, with a diffuse silver moon-haze fighting through the thick cover of clouds. They had drawn close to the library, and John saw Brother Marcelo open the main door and step inside. “The service starts at what time?” John asked.
“Nine,” Brother Edward replied. “Do come, it’s quite nice.”
John checked his watch. He had about forty-five minutes to kill before the service, and that time might be well-spent poking about the library. He nodded a farewell to the two monks and slipped inside. At once he saw that the library was all but deserted: two monks occupied the long tables, and Brother Marcelo was behind the large desk, gathering papers together with a decided air of day’s-end cleanup. The door banged shut, and all three monks glanced up and saw John. So much for stealthy observation. Good job.
“Hello.” John raised a hand, and the two monks nodded and went back to their reading. Brother Marcelo continued his sorting without any acknowledgment. John watched the young man’s hands – were they trembling? No…no, but he moved a bit more quickly than before, and there was a tightness in his full-lipped mouth that hadn’t been there before. Clearly there wasn’t going to be a solicitous inquiry about John’s literary needs, so he went to the desk. “Hi. Brother Marcelo, right?”
Brother Marcelo stared at him. He was quite handsome, and very young indeed, John saw now. Easy for someone like Ian Adler (sneaky bastard) to woo and then manipulate. Or the other way round. “Si,” he said, and swallowed audibly.
“Is it okay if I just look around a bit?”
Brother Marcelo frowned. Was he trying to work out what John was saying? “We close soon.” His English was heavily accented but perfectly comprehensible.
Sherlock was right about him understanding more than he let on. “I won’t be long. What time do you close?”
“Half past eight.” Apparently Brother Marcelo had given up his pretence of not speaking English. He’d had Brother Edward fooled, anyway.
John glanced at his watch. Eight-fifteen. Super. “Well, I’ll just have a wander about, then. Thanks.” Casting a brief yearning glance at the archway that held the staircase to the upper floors, he strolled into another room, this one looking like any ordinary library with shelves of books, and let out a short breath of impatience. Not enough time to do any serious searching, and no way to keep an eye on Brother Marcelo without being totally obvious about it. Shit. Well, I’ll have a poke around here, see if I find anything interesting.
The first room of books led into another, then another, then a narrow, windowless corridor that seemed to traverse the width of the building. He tried the door at the end of the corridor and found another book-filled chamber, commonplace in every way. John kept walking, his footsteps nearly silent on the worn stone flooring. He encountered another corridor, this time running lengthwise and lit by a single yellowish bulb. As he started forward, an interior door swung open with a noisy squeal of rusting hinges. John darted back into the book-lined room and peered through the crack in the doorjamb. Brother Marcelo emerged from behind the door and closed it carefully, but the hinges shrieked again, and he winced. As John watched, he glanced up and down the corridor, then started walking away.
If John’s bump of location was correct, Brother Marcelo was headed back to the front desk. John waited until Brother Marcelo had opened and closed another door behind him, this time without stealth, and then walked quickly to the door and eased it open, hoping it wouldn’t make noise. The hinges groaned, but not noisily, and John searched for a light switch close to hand.
Nothing. He pulled his torch from his pocket and aimed the beam through the door, seeing a narrow flight of stairs. He took a breath and descended the staircase, a narrow stone affair worn in the centre from centuries of sandaled feet. At the bottom he played the beam around the chamber and saw a few modern folding tables laden with boxes of books. Nothing terribly interesting. There was a door set in the interior wall, though; John went to it immediately and tried the handle. It opened onto blackness. John shone his light inside and let out a small, appreciative murmur as it illuminated what looked like a very long stone-walled tunnel. Interesting. Glancing at his watch with the aid of his torch, he realised there wouldn’t be time to investigate it fully, but he intended to come back. Possibly the reason for Brother Marcelo’s clear disquietude lay at the tunnel’s opposite end.
Swiftly, he ascended the stairs and trotted back through the corridors and rooms of books, glad that they were empty. Easier to avoid prying questions if nobody noticed his snooping. He strolled back into the main room just as Brother Marcelo pulled on a bell beside the desk. Closing time, then. Offering the young monk a smile that went unreturned, John left the library and breathed in the clear night air.
The church was lit by several candles that cast a dim glow in the cavernous space, haunting and quite lovely. John walked quietly up the main aisle, seeing several monks seated already, and more murmuring quietly in what must have been the space for the choir. Not wanting to upset an established order, John chose a pew well apart from them and sat, looking around the church and inhaling the fragrances of stone, old wood, wax, and incense. Slowly, the monks filed in and found seats, clustering together in the first few pews. John saw Brother Edward and Brother Peter come in together; they waved at him casually and smiled, then found their seats.
After a moment, a single voice echoed through the church, and the rest of the choir – about a dozen monks in all – took up the response. John listened, awed at the beauty of the chant. The voices resounded through the church, sweet and serene and slightly mournful, and John suddenly missed Sherlock, who would have appreciated the centuries-old music.
The service lasted about twenty minutes, and John didn’t so much as shift on the uncomfortable wooden pew, so entranced was he by the singing. Easy to see how one could be lulled into a sort of meditative state. He closed his eyes and listened, feeling the weight of time and tradition and the strange echoes that always seemed to linger round a holy place. It would be a shame if the monks were forced to abandon the abbey. They seemed like basically good people, most of them, anyway – in a short time John had come to admire their simple way of life and what seemed an essential lack of materialism. The celibacy bit was something else, but if what Sherlock had said about Brother Marcelo was true, apparently not all of them practised celibacy anyway. John couldn’t quite find it in his heart to blame Brother Marcelo for that, even if he had ended up on the wrong end of blackmail.
After Father Trevor ascended the few short steps to the bare altar to give what seemed like a blessing, the choir sang one last song and the service ended. The monks filed out, looking a bit ghostly in the dimness, and John rose and followed, but lingered near the door. He watched Brother Marcelo, who stayed behind with another monk to extinguish the candles and tidy up.
“Dr. Watson.” John turned and saw Simon Trevor. “Thank you for coming to our service. What did you think of it?” He pitched his voice low enough so that it wouldn’t carry through the church.
“Very lovely,” John said.
“I see Sherlock isn’t with you.”
“He’s doing what you requested.”
Clear relief spread across Simon’s narrow features. “Ah. Good. Very good.”
“I wonder if it would be okay if I stayed for a bit?” John tilted his head toward the altar, where Brother Marcelo and the other monk were cleaning.
Simon frowned. “I don’t –“ He focused on Brother Marcelo, then sighed heavily. “I suppose you think it necessary?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Please be respectful.” Simon nodded and left the church.
John stared after him, shaking his head in annoyance. Did Simon think he was planning to have a pee on the altar? Maybe Sherlock hadn’t been able to resist mentioning altar boys after all. He positioned himself behind a column and watched the two young monks snuff out candle after candle, until the church was dark except for the altar, illuminated only by a single candle in a red glass and hanging from an ornate sort of sconce. The two monks headed down the main aisle, and John silently shifted so they wouldn’t see him. If they were going to lock him in, he’d have a problem.
Halfway down the aisle, Brother Marcelo put his hand on the other monk’s arm and said something in voluble Italian. The other monk nodded, fished a ring of keys from a pocket, and handed it over to Brother Marcelo, saying something in reply and clapping him on the shoulder. As John watched, the other monk slipped out the door, closing it quietly. John bit his lip and waited.
Brother Marcelo stood in silence for a moment, staring anxiously at the door as if he expected the other monk to come charging through it again. Slowly, he exhaled, then turned and walked back up the aisle to the altar. What’s this, then? John wondered, slipping round the stone column to get a better look. Brother Marcelo moved purposefully to the apse where the altar stood, genuflected and crossed himself, and moved toward the altar, prostrating himself and spreading his hands on the bare stone.
Slowly, without so much as a scrape or a creak, the massive altar moved inward, toward the rear wall. Breathless, John watched Brother Marcelo rise to his feet, take a candle from the altar, and light it. He stepped into the gaping compartment beneath, descended a staircase, and disappeared.
“Shit,” John whispered, and stepped into the aisle, advancing slowly so that Brother Marcelo wouldn’t hear him, but poised to run in case the altar swung shut again. Nothing happened; the altar stayed where it was, so presumably Brother Marcelo needed to leave it open. John’s heart hammered with excitement as he reached the altar and gazed down into the dark hole. He heard distant footsteps, and Brother Marcelo’s voice.
“Ian?”
John glanced over his shoulder, then carefully began to walk down the staircase. The steps were gritty stone, narrow and short. John clung to the wall as he moved into the darkness, afraid to turn his torch on. He felt something sticky against his face – cobweb, probably – and brushed it away. The passage was infrequently used, then. If Ian Adler had planned a meeting with Brother Marcelo – oh God, he hoped it wasn’t for some kinky sex thing. He wouldn’t be able to watch.
Not for the whole thing, anyhow.
“Ian! Dove sei?”
He couldn’t see Brother Marcelo’s candlelight, and the voice was somewhat distant, echoing through the passageway, but John froze nevertheless. He waited until he heard footfalls again, then kept moving. If Ian had arranged to meet the young monk, and if Sherlock hadn’t detained him, then he’d have to come from another direction, some other means of ingress. John thought about the passageway he’d seen in the library. Was the entire abbey connected underground? And if the codex was still in the abbey, as Sherlock had surmised, maybe it was in a below-ground chamber where few monks ventured. Wouldn’t it be a turn-up if he found the codex before Sherlock did?
John smiled at that. Then his smile faded as he thought of Sherlock questioning Ian. He’d never known Sherlock to succumb to any sort of flirtation; then again, he’d never heard Sherlock speak about anyone but Ian with admiration in his voice. Oh, Sherlock had tossed a couple of compliments John’s way, but they’d been offhand and brusque. Sherlock wouldn’t dazzle anyone with flattery or poetry. Bastard.
“Ian!” Brother Marcelo’s voice rang out again as John’s foot hit the welcome solidity of the floor. He groped forward, his hands extended, and stilled as he heard another voice, a harsh, rusty bass.
That’s not Ian.
Brother Marcelo spoke softly, and in Italian, but John heard the emotion in his voice – he was frightened. The owner of the other voice said something sharp, and Brother Marcelo responded, his answer rapid-fire and nearly shrill. The bass voice rumbled again. This time Brother Marcelo’s reply was a whisper, and then a short cry.
“No!” There was a metallic clatter, a thump, and another sharp cry, cut off abruptly.
That didn’t sound good, whatever it was. “Oh, shit,” John whispered, and ran forward, switching on his torch with one hand and groping for the kitchen knife in the other. He picked up speed in the unfamiliar dark, seeing low, thick stone columnar and niches in the wall.
Bones? Did I just see bones, for God’s sake?
No time. He heard the sounds of a struggle just ahead, and frantically played the beam over the walls. Where the hell –
There they were – Brother Marcelo, the white of his habit stark against the shadows, and holding him in what seemed a death-grip –
Oh, SHIT.
“Golem!” John shouted. Not again, Christ almighty! “Let him go!”
Oscar Dzundza gave him a smile – or a snarl, it was hard to tell – and continued to smother the life out of the young monk now struggling feebly in his arms.
John hesitated only an instant. Oh, fucking hell. He plunged forward, keeping his torch trained on Dzundza’s eyes to blind him. Then he swung out and up, cracking the torch against Dzundza’s nose with an extremely satisfying crunch. Dzundza let out a roar and stumbled, Brother Marcelo trapped against him. He swung, catching John in the temple and knocking him sideways.
John crashed against something hard, but righted himself quickly. Brother Marcelo made a pathetic mewling noise, and gestured weakly toward John. John shone the torch into Dzundza’s eyes again and brought his leg round in a savage kick against the long muscle of the Golem’s thigh. Dzundza let out a roar of pain.
“Let him go, you bastard.”
Dzundza flung Brother Marcelo aside like a rag-doll and charged at John like a maddened bull.
Shit. John braced himself and swung the torch again, cracking it against Dzundza’s chin, and then in one motion pulled the kitchen knife, sweeping it up in a clean arc and slicing the palm of the hand closest to him. Dzundza let out another roar and stumbled toward John, half-falling and catching the edge of John’s jacket. They tumbled to the stone floor in an untidy heap.
John struggled to extricate himself from the weight of the Golem’s body, and gasped as a hand clamped down over his mouth and nose. The sudden lack of air terrified and enraged him, but he kept his head. He’d managed to hold on to both the knife and the torch, thank God. Swiftly, he calculated, then sank the blade into flesh, between two costae spuriae, the eighth and ninth ribs. Dzundza shrieked, and his hand slipped away from John’s face, giving John just enough time to take a quick, much-needed breath and crack the torch against Dzundza’s skull. Dzundza let out a grunt and fell heavily against John.
“Oh, Christ,” John wheezed, and with a great effort rolled Dzundza’s limp form off his body. He got to his feet with a groan and saw Brother Marcelo standing a short distance away, staring at him open-mouthed. Thanks a lot, you were a big help. He sighed. “Are you okay?”
Brother Marcelo nodded silently.
“We’ve got to call the police. Come on.” John headed back toward the stairway, not waiting to see if the young monk would follow, then stopped. “Wait. We should tie him up. Give me your belt.” He gestured impatiently at Brother Marcelo, who stripped off his cloth rope belt and handed it to John. John went back to Dzundza’s limp body and bound his wrists and ankles with Brother Marcelo’s belt and his own. He drew the knife from the Golem’s ribs with more care than the bastard deserved and wiped the blade on Dzundza’s back. It wasn’t a very long blade and likely hadn’t pierced his spleen – but if it had, there were worse things that happened in the world. Being smothered to death, for instance.
The job finished, John trotted up the staircase and faced Brother Marcelo. “Show me how you opened that.” The young monk wetted his lips and stood pat. John let out an exasperated sigh. “Show me.”
Hesitantly, Brother Marcelo went to the front of the altar, knelt, and pressed two fingers inside the hollows of elaborately carved rosettes. “Like this. But in order to close it, you must be under.” He pointed down to the crypt.
“So it stays open until you close it down there. All right, let’s see it.” They went back down the stairs and Brother Marcelo pulled a lever protruding from the wall. The altar moved slowly, but smoothly, covering the narrow aperture and plunging them into darkness. John turned on his torch. “You’ve got to do some fast stepping to get out again.”
“Unless you go another way. Come.” Brother Marcelo pulled on John’s sleeve and urged him back down the tunnel. This time John shone his light this way and that and saw that they were in a crypt. There were stone tombs fetched up against the walls, tombs in the floors, and the skeleton that John thought he’d seen was indeed just that, except it was intricately carved of stone, and grotesquely perched atop a sarcophagus, its delicate hands folded over its rib cage. It was marvellous, really, in a creepy sort of way, and John admired it for a few seconds before Brother Marcelo gathered up his candle, lit it, and then gestured impatiently at him.
They went further down, past Dzundza’s still-prone body and turned left into a darker and narrower passage. “We’ve got to call the police,” John reminded the monk.
“No signal down here. Later.”
John pulled his phone out of his pocket and squinted at it. Brother Marcelo was right. “Well, bugger.” He stuffed the phone back in his pocket, noting with some distaste that he had blood on his hand. His head was starting to hurt, and he suspected he’d banged it against the ground in the struggle with Dzundza. On top of the lungful of smoke he’d inhaled (though admittedly not much thanks to Sherlock’s quick thinking, and his scarf) this place was getting to be a bit of a health hazard. John aimed the torch at the walls. More tombs; he wondered if every monk that had lived and died here was buried beneath the abbey. “How far do these tunnels extend?”
“All.” Brother Marcelo waved a hand. “All of the abbey.”
“Is it all tombs?”
“No. Only –“ The young monk groped for the word. “Only beneath the church.”
I’m turned around, then. Where the hell are we? John followed Brother Marcelo through the darkness for several long minutes, the silence broken only by their footsteps. Here, he saw, the floors and walls were no longer smooth stone, but irregularly shaped and uneven, like an old-fashioned rock wall. How long, how much work was it to hew out these passages? And why?
Presently they came to another flight of stairs, much steeper and narrower than the stairs at the crypt opening. They seemed to float up into nothing, but there was a door that Brother Marcelo opened with a key that he located with suspicious swiftness. Then another dark passage, though they must have been aboveground by now, and another set of stairs. Finally they emerged through a trapdoor into a tiny room with stone walls. It smelled smoky and there was a weird tangy odour in the air as well, strangely familiar. John let out a soft cry. “This is the closet where Sherlock and I got locked in! We’re in the library!”
Brother Marcelo said nothing, but glanced at John over his shoulder. He opened the door and ushered John out, closing the door behind them. He moved another lever on the inside of the outer door (John and Sherlock hadn’t noticed that the first time – at least John hadn’t) and they made their way down the staircase to the main room of the now-darkened library.
John exhaled, a deep sigh of relief that started in his toes and pushed most of the evening’s tension out of his body. “All right, then. That was different.”
“You saved my life.”
John faced the monk and let his mouth twist upward. “Damned right, and I think you owe me some answers. First, you call the police.”
“Father Simon should be the one to do so.”
“Your English is quite good. Why the pretence?”
Brother Marcelo shrugged.
“Dzundza killed Brother Adelmo, didn’t he?”
At this Brother Marcelo’s face fell, and his full lower lip trembled. “I begged him no. To spare him. He would not. Adelmo knew much.”
“Too much?”
“Si. Ian told us that we would be rich if we helped him, that we might go anywhere, but Adelmo – he would not leave San Stefano. He was angry. I told Ian. And then…and then Signor Dzundza –" Brother Marcelo began to weep. “He waited for Adelmo one night in the baths. I could not stop him. But I think Adelmo knew. He suspected. That is why he left la carta - the, the paper.”
“You knew what it said?” John asked.
“Ian. He tells me, this afternoon before supper.”
“And now you’re implicated,” John remarked. “Looks bad for you.” He felt some pity for the young man, who’d quite clearly got in over his head, but the way things had happened, it looked as though Adelmo and Marcelo had been more than friends, at least Marcelo had seemed to intimate that, and what sort of heartless bastard stood by and did nothing when his lover was murdered in cold blood by an assassin? And what sort of heartless bastard engaged in kinky sex with a snake like Ian Adler mere days, maybe hours after his lover’s murder? The pity he’d felt started to dwindle. “So is it Ian who’s threatening you? Is that why you went down there tonight - to be blackmailed by him?”
“I did not wish for any of this to happen.” Brother Marcelo began to weep again.
“Oh, belt up for Christ’s sake,” John sighed. “The only way you can clear your name is to cooperate with us, and with the police. That man, Dzundza, is a dangerous assassin, as you found out. He won’t get far with his wound and being tied up, but we’ve got to move fast. You go to Father Simon and tell him what’s happened, and then stay in his office, and Sherlock and I will meet you there. Do you hear me? Do not go back to your room or try to look for Ian. He might not be a murderer, but he’s dangerous too.”
Brother Marcelo blinked tearfully, then nodded. He unlocked the library door, and they parted ways.
John hurried toward his room, eager to tell Sherlock what had happened. Opening his door, he shrugged out of his coat, hoping that he hadn’t got blood on it, and started at the sound of loud banging. “Sherlock?”
The banging continued. John hesitated as he put his hand on the doorknob of the connecting bath. Oh God. Hang on a minute. What if…oh God…unlikely as it was…what if Sherlock was engaged with Ian Adler in an act of…no, ridiculous. Sherlock wouldn’t.
Would he?
The banging went on, and John heard a soft, muffled cry.
Oh, Christ.
Had they heard him come in? Surely they had; the hinges were noisy. Maybe they didn’t care. The thought of Ian caressing Sherlock, both of them…naked, maybe, touching each other, or from the noises, fucking vigorously enough to slam the headboard against the wall…Jesus. Jesus Christ.
Hot blood filled John’s face and chest, and his hand shook with rage as he pulled away from the door to Sherlock’s room. Fuck you. Ruin it for you both, was his incoherent thought. They couldn’t be discreet, go to Ian’s room? Fuck them both.
They don’t need your help there.
John bit his lower lip hard enough to hurt and glanced in the mirror. Another muffled cry arose, sounding…pained? Desperately horny? Or something else?
With a painful rush of impulse, John threw open the door to Sherlock’s room. “Sherlock? What are you –” In a split second he saw that Sherlock was alone, that he was tied to the bed and gagged, and that he was the one who’d been doing all the banging. “Jesus Christ!” John ran to the bed and pulled the knife, and began to saw at the rope that secured one of Sherlock’s wrists to the heavy iron-slatted headboard. “What happened? Oh, my God –" As he hacked at the rope, he saw that the plaster wall behind the headboard had been badly scuffed and dented. “How long have you – Jesus. There.” The rope came free, and Sherlock, his eyes blazing with anger, struggled to unfasten the contraption strapped to his face.
“Hang on, hang on a second. Your circulation’s impaired, and you’ll never get it by yourself. Hold still and let me do it.”
Sherlock let out an indignant snort, but stilled his frantic and useless clawing and turned his face away from John to give him a better angle. John leant close and unbuckled the gag, then pulled it away, gaping at the thick phallus, remarkably anatomically correct and coated with saliva, that emerged from Sherlock’s mouth with a rather obscene slurp and pop.
“Nice,” John said drily, dropping the thing on the floor. He looked at Sherlock, who didn’t seem as if he’d been harmed. “Are you okay?” Guiltily, he felt his earlier anger draining away.
“Fine,” Sherlock replied through clenched teeth. “Untie me, please.”
“How long have you been like this?”
“I’m not certain. He drugged me.”
John, concentrating on freeing Sherlock’s other hand, halted with a scowl. “He drugged you? With what?”
“Atracurium besilate. Nothing drastic.”
“I take it this is Ian Adler’s work? I don’t recall you packing any leather and rubber contraptions at the flat. Or declaring them, at least.”
“Of course they’re Ian’s. Hurry up, John.” Sherlock glanced at him, then at the blade, which still bore a faint smear of blood. “What happened to you?”
“Had a little tussle with the Golem while you were in here playing bondage games. Did you get the phone?”
“No.” Sherlock slumped against the bed, then let out a hiss of pain as his other hand was freed. “That stings.” He massaged his hand. “No, but Ian’s working with Moriarty, John. I’m certain of it. That explains the connection to Dzundza as well. It’s all connected. We’ll get to the bottom of this in no time.” He sat up and sighed in relief as John cut his feet loose, and drew his knees up to rub his sore ankles.
“Want some help with that?” John sat on the bed and grasped one of Sherlock’s ankles. Gently he began to rub, careful not to chafe the woollen sock against the tender flesh.
“Thank you.” Sherlock closed his eyes and lay back, then opened them and fixed his gaze on John. “He tried to kill you.”
“Well –“
“Don’t lie to me, I can see it. You have bruises on your face.” Sherlock indicated his mouth and nose. “Same place every time. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes. Brother Marcelo got it worse than I did. He’s okay too. We left Dzundza tied up in the crypt. Brother Marcelo’s going to get Father Trevor to ring the police.”
“Crypt?” Sherlock’s eyebrows had climbed toward his hairline.
“Yeah, under the altar. It’s amazing, the whole abbey is a warren of tunnels, Sherlock.” John wanted to show the passageways to Sherlock who, no matter how stoutly he’d deny it, had a kid’s enthusiasm for the secret, the hidden-away.
“Well,” Sherlock said with a shrug, “I probably could have told you that.”
“Oh, bollocks.”
“I knew that closet where we were trapped had a hidden door, John. It’s not much of a stretch to conclude that it’s not just the library that has that sort of exit or entrance.”
John set Sherlock’s foot on the bed. “Are you going to give me lip, or do you want to hear what happened? Or are you still smarting because you didn’t get the mobile from Adler?”
“Shut up.” Sherlock sat up and re-tied the laces of his shoes, then folded his arms tightly and stared off into space for a moment. “Oh, all right. Tell me.”
John related what had happened, pleased to see Sherlock nodding here and there in evident approval. “So I got a few answers out of him, but he knows more than he’s telling. Maybe a visit from the police will scare him into revealing a bit more. Ian, too.”
Sherlock sniffed. “Maybe. Of course the police here couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery.”
“Just…stay low-key when they show up, all right? How are your hands?” Unable to stop himself and telling himself he wasn’t completely relieved that Sherlock had been alone, John touched the back of one of Sherlock’s hands. “They hurt?”
“A bit sore.”
“Do you want me to….” John coughed, sensing heat creeping up his neck and into his face.
“Please.” Sherlock graciously extended a hand, as if conferring a favour.
John rubbed briskly, trying not to linger over any single area. “They’re a bit cold, but I doubt the circulation was compromised. We’ll get some ointment on those rope burns.”
“Thank you.”
John found himself rubbing more slowly as warmth returned to Sherlock’s hand. He grasped Sherlock’s other hand and began to massage it, caressing it between his own. “Best to get both sides. Bring the veins down if they’ve popped.” He kept his head lowered, afraid that Sherlock was watching him with that inscrutable gaze he sometimes affected. Impossible to tell what he was thinking at times. This was all business.
Right.
Suddenly Sherlock squeezed one of his hands. “I –"
“Yeah?” John looked up quickly.
Sherlock offered him a tight-lipped smile. “I think that’ll do.”
“Right. Well, maybe we should head up to Father Trevor’s office, if you’re feeling up to it.”
“Yes.” Sherlock rose to his feet. “I’m rather eager to hear what Oscar Dzundza has to say about all this.”
“I don’t think he speaks English,” John said, staying seated until his burgeoning hard-on had a chance to subside a bit. “I heard him talking to Brother Marcelo. Sounded like German.”
One tweed-clad shoulder lifted nonchalantly. “That’s fine.”
“Hey, Sherlock?”
Sherlock turned, wrapping his scarf round his neck. “Yes?”
“You sure you’re okay. Ian didn’t try to…hurt you or anything.”
“Of course not.” Sherlock turned toward the wall. “Just a little power struggle, that’s all. It amused him.” A hint of anger or resentment darkened Sherlock’s voice. “Shall we?”
John followed Sherlock out. He was still relieved, but there was an odd little ember of emotion in his chest that he couldn’t quite identify and couldn’t, despite his attempts, extinguish.
*
Father Trevor’s office was dark, and the door was locked. John cupped his hands against the window on the side of the building and strained to see in. “Maybe Brother Marcelo went to Simon’s room. He wouldn’t be here so late anyhow.”
“Or maybe he went to find Ian Adler after all.”
“Yeah, but I told him –"
“Well, clearly Brother Marcelo has a mind of his own.” Sherlock whirled away and began the short trek back to their rooms. “He’s too heavily implicated, so probably contacting the police was the last thing on his mind. Not that they’d help. You should have done it yourself, John.”
“Yeah, well – maybe you wouldn’t have minded being tied up for another hour or so,” John snapped. Perhaps he shouldn’t have trusted Brother Marcelo, but Jesus –
Sherlock hurried down the corridor and began to bang on a door. “Ian! Open up!” When there was no answer, he hammered again. “Ian!”
John folded his arms. “Maybe he’s tying Brother Marcelo up in the library and putting it on Youtube or something. Seems like he likes that.” Abruptly, he remembered the strange marks on Sherlock’s wrist, the one he’d seen that morning in the bathroom. But that was before…what the hell was going on?
“Ian!” Sherlock laid his hand on the doorknob and twisted. He pushed the door open violently, then stood perfectly still.
John looked at Sherlock’s gloved hand and wrist resting on the doorjamb. That mark was made the night before. Sherlock said he caught it in the door. He’s not that bloody clumsy. Sherlock had been out and about. With whom? And doing what, for fuck’s sake?
A sick anger twisted his insides.
“John.” Sherlock’s voice was subdued.
“What?” John couldn’t keep the bitterness from escaping.
“Look.”
*
To be continued.....
Author: Alex
Fandom: Sherlock [BBC]
Rating: Varies
Pairing: Sherlock/John; Sherlock/Ian Adler; John Watson/Ian Adler; Jim Moriarty/Sebastian Moran
Disclaimer: A.C. Doyle, Moffat, Gatiss.
Summary: All John Watson wants is a peaceful fortnight's holiday in Cornwall. Fate has other plans, to wit:
1. An abbey in the Italian Alps
2. Murder
3. Mayhem
4. Criminals he has known and would rather forget
5. Bondage
6. Sex
7. Sherlock
Not necessarily in that order.
Warnings: Violence, explicit sex, dubious consent.
Notes: I don't genderswap as a rule, but I saw this marvelous gif of Tom Hiddleston and Sherlock and couldn't resist. The rest is shameless self-indulgence.
Plot happily magpied from everywhere, with especial apologies to Umberto Eco.
Thanks to
kimberlite for the sharp-eyed beta.This fic is a gift for sithdragn, with affection.
Can also be read on AO3
*
John watched Sherlock grasp Ian’s arm to steer him out of the refectory and bit back an impatient sigh. He didn’t trust Ian Adler one little bit, and as the thought formed, Ian looked John’s way and offered him a grin that seemed to promise mayhem. John scowled openly – he didn’t give a toss what Ian thought of him, though it was pretty clear that Sherlock was impressed by him for some reason. Maybe there was a tall, skinny, clever, curly-haired blokes’ mutual admiration society John didn’t know about.
Sod it. John turned away and sidled close to the bins of dirty plates, cups, and utensils. Deftly, he plucked a knife from one of the bins and wiped it clean with a napkin, then slid it inside his jacket and tossed the napkin on a bin. Nobody noticed him; he was a slight, dark figure in a murmuring, swirling sea of black-and-white clad monks. He wasn’t as handy with a knife as he was with a gun; not handy with a knife at all, as it happened. He wished he had his Sig. He didn’t think Brother Marcelo would attack him, but there was no point in taking chances, was there? As he proceeded from the kitchen, Brother Edward and Brother Peter, strolling together, hailed him. “Dr. Watson.”
“Oh, hello. And please – it’s just John.” He shook hands with them, gratefully noting that neither man engaged in the traditional masculine game of crush-the-finger-bones as they shook. He liked them both – Brother Peter was a bit of a hippie, but all right for all that, and Brother Edward was a solid sort of guy. Both of them were friendly and approachable. “I’m going to go to the evening service, if that’s all right.”
“Certainly it’s all right,” Brother Peter said with a decisive nod. “Where’s your friend?”
“Ah, he’s doing some research at the moment,” John hedged.
“Probably better for us not to know,” Brother Edward said. “Have you ever been to Compline before, John?”
“No, I’m afraid I haven’t.”
“It’s our last service of the day for the entire monastery, and because we’re lucky enough to have a lovely choir, it’s sung. It’s also the precursor to the Great Silence, so you’ll forgive us if we don’t speak afterward.”
John smiled tentatively. “The Great Silence?”
“That’s right,” Brother Peter said. “The whole community observes silence until Prime – morning services the following day. That’s supposed to include guests, but we don’t enforce it very harshly. At all, to be honest.”
“So if I wanted to talk to someone – one of the other monks – afterward, he wouldn’t speak to me?”
“We’ve been instructed to aid you inasmuch as it’s possible in consideration of all that’s happened,” Brother Edward said. “But some of the older monks might not take too kindly to breaking silence at night. If you need to speak to someone, use your judgment, or just ask Father Simon. I’m sure he can arrange something for you. However, most of the monks retire just after Compline, so you’ll have to move quickly.”
The evening was cool, with a diffuse silver moon-haze fighting through the thick cover of clouds. They had drawn close to the library, and John saw Brother Marcelo open the main door and step inside. “The service starts at what time?” John asked.
“Nine,” Brother Edward replied. “Do come, it’s quite nice.”
John checked his watch. He had about forty-five minutes to kill before the service, and that time might be well-spent poking about the library. He nodded a farewell to the two monks and slipped inside. At once he saw that the library was all but deserted: two monks occupied the long tables, and Brother Marcelo was behind the large desk, gathering papers together with a decided air of day’s-end cleanup. The door banged shut, and all three monks glanced up and saw John. So much for stealthy observation. Good job.
“Hello.” John raised a hand, and the two monks nodded and went back to their reading. Brother Marcelo continued his sorting without any acknowledgment. John watched the young man’s hands – were they trembling? No…no, but he moved a bit more quickly than before, and there was a tightness in his full-lipped mouth that hadn’t been there before. Clearly there wasn’t going to be a solicitous inquiry about John’s literary needs, so he went to the desk. “Hi. Brother Marcelo, right?”
Brother Marcelo stared at him. He was quite handsome, and very young indeed, John saw now. Easy for someone like Ian Adler (sneaky bastard) to woo and then manipulate. Or the other way round. “Si,” he said, and swallowed audibly.
“Is it okay if I just look around a bit?”
Brother Marcelo frowned. Was he trying to work out what John was saying? “We close soon.” His English was heavily accented but perfectly comprehensible.
Sherlock was right about him understanding more than he let on. “I won’t be long. What time do you close?”
“Half past eight.” Apparently Brother Marcelo had given up his pretence of not speaking English. He’d had Brother Edward fooled, anyway.
John glanced at his watch. Eight-fifteen. Super. “Well, I’ll just have a wander about, then. Thanks.” Casting a brief yearning glance at the archway that held the staircase to the upper floors, he strolled into another room, this one looking like any ordinary library with shelves of books, and let out a short breath of impatience. Not enough time to do any serious searching, and no way to keep an eye on Brother Marcelo without being totally obvious about it. Shit. Well, I’ll have a poke around here, see if I find anything interesting.
The first room of books led into another, then another, then a narrow, windowless corridor that seemed to traverse the width of the building. He tried the door at the end of the corridor and found another book-filled chamber, commonplace in every way. John kept walking, his footsteps nearly silent on the worn stone flooring. He encountered another corridor, this time running lengthwise and lit by a single yellowish bulb. As he started forward, an interior door swung open with a noisy squeal of rusting hinges. John darted back into the book-lined room and peered through the crack in the doorjamb. Brother Marcelo emerged from behind the door and closed it carefully, but the hinges shrieked again, and he winced. As John watched, he glanced up and down the corridor, then started walking away.
If John’s bump of location was correct, Brother Marcelo was headed back to the front desk. John waited until Brother Marcelo had opened and closed another door behind him, this time without stealth, and then walked quickly to the door and eased it open, hoping it wouldn’t make noise. The hinges groaned, but not noisily, and John searched for a light switch close to hand.
Nothing. He pulled his torch from his pocket and aimed the beam through the door, seeing a narrow flight of stairs. He took a breath and descended the staircase, a narrow stone affair worn in the centre from centuries of sandaled feet. At the bottom he played the beam around the chamber and saw a few modern folding tables laden with boxes of books. Nothing terribly interesting. There was a door set in the interior wall, though; John went to it immediately and tried the handle. It opened onto blackness. John shone his light inside and let out a small, appreciative murmur as it illuminated what looked like a very long stone-walled tunnel. Interesting. Glancing at his watch with the aid of his torch, he realised there wouldn’t be time to investigate it fully, but he intended to come back. Possibly the reason for Brother Marcelo’s clear disquietude lay at the tunnel’s opposite end.
Swiftly, he ascended the stairs and trotted back through the corridors and rooms of books, glad that they were empty. Easier to avoid prying questions if nobody noticed his snooping. He strolled back into the main room just as Brother Marcelo pulled on a bell beside the desk. Closing time, then. Offering the young monk a smile that went unreturned, John left the library and breathed in the clear night air.
The church was lit by several candles that cast a dim glow in the cavernous space, haunting and quite lovely. John walked quietly up the main aisle, seeing several monks seated already, and more murmuring quietly in what must have been the space for the choir. Not wanting to upset an established order, John chose a pew well apart from them and sat, looking around the church and inhaling the fragrances of stone, old wood, wax, and incense. Slowly, the monks filed in and found seats, clustering together in the first few pews. John saw Brother Edward and Brother Peter come in together; they waved at him casually and smiled, then found their seats.
After a moment, a single voice echoed through the church, and the rest of the choir – about a dozen monks in all – took up the response. John listened, awed at the beauty of the chant. The voices resounded through the church, sweet and serene and slightly mournful, and John suddenly missed Sherlock, who would have appreciated the centuries-old music.
The service lasted about twenty minutes, and John didn’t so much as shift on the uncomfortable wooden pew, so entranced was he by the singing. Easy to see how one could be lulled into a sort of meditative state. He closed his eyes and listened, feeling the weight of time and tradition and the strange echoes that always seemed to linger round a holy place. It would be a shame if the monks were forced to abandon the abbey. They seemed like basically good people, most of them, anyway – in a short time John had come to admire their simple way of life and what seemed an essential lack of materialism. The celibacy bit was something else, but if what Sherlock had said about Brother Marcelo was true, apparently not all of them practised celibacy anyway. John couldn’t quite find it in his heart to blame Brother Marcelo for that, even if he had ended up on the wrong end of blackmail.
After Father Trevor ascended the few short steps to the bare altar to give what seemed like a blessing, the choir sang one last song and the service ended. The monks filed out, looking a bit ghostly in the dimness, and John rose and followed, but lingered near the door. He watched Brother Marcelo, who stayed behind with another monk to extinguish the candles and tidy up.
“Dr. Watson.” John turned and saw Simon Trevor. “Thank you for coming to our service. What did you think of it?” He pitched his voice low enough so that it wouldn’t carry through the church.
“Very lovely,” John said.
“I see Sherlock isn’t with you.”
“He’s doing what you requested.”
Clear relief spread across Simon’s narrow features. “Ah. Good. Very good.”
“I wonder if it would be okay if I stayed for a bit?” John tilted his head toward the altar, where Brother Marcelo and the other monk were cleaning.
Simon frowned. “I don’t –“ He focused on Brother Marcelo, then sighed heavily. “I suppose you think it necessary?”
“Yes.”
“Very well. Please be respectful.” Simon nodded and left the church.
John stared after him, shaking his head in annoyance. Did Simon think he was planning to have a pee on the altar? Maybe Sherlock hadn’t been able to resist mentioning altar boys after all. He positioned himself behind a column and watched the two young monks snuff out candle after candle, until the church was dark except for the altar, illuminated only by a single candle in a red glass and hanging from an ornate sort of sconce. The two monks headed down the main aisle, and John silently shifted so they wouldn’t see him. If they were going to lock him in, he’d have a problem.
Halfway down the aisle, Brother Marcelo put his hand on the other monk’s arm and said something in voluble Italian. The other monk nodded, fished a ring of keys from a pocket, and handed it over to Brother Marcelo, saying something in reply and clapping him on the shoulder. As John watched, the other monk slipped out the door, closing it quietly. John bit his lip and waited.
Brother Marcelo stood in silence for a moment, staring anxiously at the door as if he expected the other monk to come charging through it again. Slowly, he exhaled, then turned and walked back up the aisle to the altar. What’s this, then? John wondered, slipping round the stone column to get a better look. Brother Marcelo moved purposefully to the apse where the altar stood, genuflected and crossed himself, and moved toward the altar, prostrating himself and spreading his hands on the bare stone.
Slowly, without so much as a scrape or a creak, the massive altar moved inward, toward the rear wall. Breathless, John watched Brother Marcelo rise to his feet, take a candle from the altar, and light it. He stepped into the gaping compartment beneath, descended a staircase, and disappeared.
“Shit,” John whispered, and stepped into the aisle, advancing slowly so that Brother Marcelo wouldn’t hear him, but poised to run in case the altar swung shut again. Nothing happened; the altar stayed where it was, so presumably Brother Marcelo needed to leave it open. John’s heart hammered with excitement as he reached the altar and gazed down into the dark hole. He heard distant footsteps, and Brother Marcelo’s voice.
“Ian?”
John glanced over his shoulder, then carefully began to walk down the staircase. The steps were gritty stone, narrow and short. John clung to the wall as he moved into the darkness, afraid to turn his torch on. He felt something sticky against his face – cobweb, probably – and brushed it away. The passage was infrequently used, then. If Ian Adler had planned a meeting with Brother Marcelo – oh God, he hoped it wasn’t for some kinky sex thing. He wouldn’t be able to watch.
Not for the whole thing, anyhow.
“Ian! Dove sei?”
He couldn’t see Brother Marcelo’s candlelight, and the voice was somewhat distant, echoing through the passageway, but John froze nevertheless. He waited until he heard footfalls again, then kept moving. If Ian had arranged to meet the young monk, and if Sherlock hadn’t detained him, then he’d have to come from another direction, some other means of ingress. John thought about the passageway he’d seen in the library. Was the entire abbey connected underground? And if the codex was still in the abbey, as Sherlock had surmised, maybe it was in a below-ground chamber where few monks ventured. Wouldn’t it be a turn-up if he found the codex before Sherlock did?
John smiled at that. Then his smile faded as he thought of Sherlock questioning Ian. He’d never known Sherlock to succumb to any sort of flirtation; then again, he’d never heard Sherlock speak about anyone but Ian with admiration in his voice. Oh, Sherlock had tossed a couple of compliments John’s way, but they’d been offhand and brusque. Sherlock wouldn’t dazzle anyone with flattery or poetry. Bastard.
“Ian!” Brother Marcelo’s voice rang out again as John’s foot hit the welcome solidity of the floor. He groped forward, his hands extended, and stilled as he heard another voice, a harsh, rusty bass.
That’s not Ian.
Brother Marcelo spoke softly, and in Italian, but John heard the emotion in his voice – he was frightened. The owner of the other voice said something sharp, and Brother Marcelo responded, his answer rapid-fire and nearly shrill. The bass voice rumbled again. This time Brother Marcelo’s reply was a whisper, and then a short cry.
“No!” There was a metallic clatter, a thump, and another sharp cry, cut off abruptly.
That didn’t sound good, whatever it was. “Oh, shit,” John whispered, and ran forward, switching on his torch with one hand and groping for the kitchen knife in the other. He picked up speed in the unfamiliar dark, seeing low, thick stone columnar and niches in the wall.
Bones? Did I just see bones, for God’s sake?
No time. He heard the sounds of a struggle just ahead, and frantically played the beam over the walls. Where the hell –
There they were – Brother Marcelo, the white of his habit stark against the shadows, and holding him in what seemed a death-grip –
Oh, SHIT.
“Golem!” John shouted. Not again, Christ almighty! “Let him go!”
Oscar Dzundza gave him a smile – or a snarl, it was hard to tell – and continued to smother the life out of the young monk now struggling feebly in his arms.
John hesitated only an instant. Oh, fucking hell. He plunged forward, keeping his torch trained on Dzundza’s eyes to blind him. Then he swung out and up, cracking the torch against Dzundza’s nose with an extremely satisfying crunch. Dzundza let out a roar and stumbled, Brother Marcelo trapped against him. He swung, catching John in the temple and knocking him sideways.
John crashed against something hard, but righted himself quickly. Brother Marcelo made a pathetic mewling noise, and gestured weakly toward John. John shone the torch into Dzundza’s eyes again and brought his leg round in a savage kick against the long muscle of the Golem’s thigh. Dzundza let out a roar of pain.
“Let him go, you bastard.”
Dzundza flung Brother Marcelo aside like a rag-doll and charged at John like a maddened bull.
Shit. John braced himself and swung the torch again, cracking it against Dzundza’s chin, and then in one motion pulled the kitchen knife, sweeping it up in a clean arc and slicing the palm of the hand closest to him. Dzundza let out another roar and stumbled toward John, half-falling and catching the edge of John’s jacket. They tumbled to the stone floor in an untidy heap.
John struggled to extricate himself from the weight of the Golem’s body, and gasped as a hand clamped down over his mouth and nose. The sudden lack of air terrified and enraged him, but he kept his head. He’d managed to hold on to both the knife and the torch, thank God. Swiftly, he calculated, then sank the blade into flesh, between two costae spuriae, the eighth and ninth ribs. Dzundza shrieked, and his hand slipped away from John’s face, giving John just enough time to take a quick, much-needed breath and crack the torch against Dzundza’s skull. Dzundza let out a grunt and fell heavily against John.
“Oh, Christ,” John wheezed, and with a great effort rolled Dzundza’s limp form off his body. He got to his feet with a groan and saw Brother Marcelo standing a short distance away, staring at him open-mouthed. Thanks a lot, you were a big help. He sighed. “Are you okay?”
Brother Marcelo nodded silently.
“We’ve got to call the police. Come on.” John headed back toward the stairway, not waiting to see if the young monk would follow, then stopped. “Wait. We should tie him up. Give me your belt.” He gestured impatiently at Brother Marcelo, who stripped off his cloth rope belt and handed it to John. John went back to Dzundza’s limp body and bound his wrists and ankles with Brother Marcelo’s belt and his own. He drew the knife from the Golem’s ribs with more care than the bastard deserved and wiped the blade on Dzundza’s back. It wasn’t a very long blade and likely hadn’t pierced his spleen – but if it had, there were worse things that happened in the world. Being smothered to death, for instance.
The job finished, John trotted up the staircase and faced Brother Marcelo. “Show me how you opened that.” The young monk wetted his lips and stood pat. John let out an exasperated sigh. “Show me.”
Hesitantly, Brother Marcelo went to the front of the altar, knelt, and pressed two fingers inside the hollows of elaborately carved rosettes. “Like this. But in order to close it, you must be under.” He pointed down to the crypt.
“So it stays open until you close it down there. All right, let’s see it.” They went back down the stairs and Brother Marcelo pulled a lever protruding from the wall. The altar moved slowly, but smoothly, covering the narrow aperture and plunging them into darkness. John turned on his torch. “You’ve got to do some fast stepping to get out again.”
“Unless you go another way. Come.” Brother Marcelo pulled on John’s sleeve and urged him back down the tunnel. This time John shone his light this way and that and saw that they were in a crypt. There were stone tombs fetched up against the walls, tombs in the floors, and the skeleton that John thought he’d seen was indeed just that, except it was intricately carved of stone, and grotesquely perched atop a sarcophagus, its delicate hands folded over its rib cage. It was marvellous, really, in a creepy sort of way, and John admired it for a few seconds before Brother Marcelo gathered up his candle, lit it, and then gestured impatiently at him.
They went further down, past Dzundza’s still-prone body and turned left into a darker and narrower passage. “We’ve got to call the police,” John reminded the monk.
“No signal down here. Later.”
John pulled his phone out of his pocket and squinted at it. Brother Marcelo was right. “Well, bugger.” He stuffed the phone back in his pocket, noting with some distaste that he had blood on his hand. His head was starting to hurt, and he suspected he’d banged it against the ground in the struggle with Dzundza. On top of the lungful of smoke he’d inhaled (though admittedly not much thanks to Sherlock’s quick thinking, and his scarf) this place was getting to be a bit of a health hazard. John aimed the torch at the walls. More tombs; he wondered if every monk that had lived and died here was buried beneath the abbey. “How far do these tunnels extend?”
“All.” Brother Marcelo waved a hand. “All of the abbey.”
“Is it all tombs?”
“No. Only –“ The young monk groped for the word. “Only beneath the church.”
I’m turned around, then. Where the hell are we? John followed Brother Marcelo through the darkness for several long minutes, the silence broken only by their footsteps. Here, he saw, the floors and walls were no longer smooth stone, but irregularly shaped and uneven, like an old-fashioned rock wall. How long, how much work was it to hew out these passages? And why?
Presently they came to another flight of stairs, much steeper and narrower than the stairs at the crypt opening. They seemed to float up into nothing, but there was a door that Brother Marcelo opened with a key that he located with suspicious swiftness. Then another dark passage, though they must have been aboveground by now, and another set of stairs. Finally they emerged through a trapdoor into a tiny room with stone walls. It smelled smoky and there was a weird tangy odour in the air as well, strangely familiar. John let out a soft cry. “This is the closet where Sherlock and I got locked in! We’re in the library!”
Brother Marcelo said nothing, but glanced at John over his shoulder. He opened the door and ushered John out, closing the door behind them. He moved another lever on the inside of the outer door (John and Sherlock hadn’t noticed that the first time – at least John hadn’t) and they made their way down the staircase to the main room of the now-darkened library.
John exhaled, a deep sigh of relief that started in his toes and pushed most of the evening’s tension out of his body. “All right, then. That was different.”
“You saved my life.”
John faced the monk and let his mouth twist upward. “Damned right, and I think you owe me some answers. First, you call the police.”
“Father Simon should be the one to do so.”
“Your English is quite good. Why the pretence?”
Brother Marcelo shrugged.
“Dzundza killed Brother Adelmo, didn’t he?”
At this Brother Marcelo’s face fell, and his full lower lip trembled. “I begged him no. To spare him. He would not. Adelmo knew much.”
“Too much?”
“Si. Ian told us that we would be rich if we helped him, that we might go anywhere, but Adelmo – he would not leave San Stefano. He was angry. I told Ian. And then…and then Signor Dzundza –" Brother Marcelo began to weep. “He waited for Adelmo one night in the baths. I could not stop him. But I think Adelmo knew. He suspected. That is why he left la carta - the, the paper.”
“You knew what it said?” John asked.
“Ian. He tells me, this afternoon before supper.”
“And now you’re implicated,” John remarked. “Looks bad for you.” He felt some pity for the young man, who’d quite clearly got in over his head, but the way things had happened, it looked as though Adelmo and Marcelo had been more than friends, at least Marcelo had seemed to intimate that, and what sort of heartless bastard stood by and did nothing when his lover was murdered in cold blood by an assassin? And what sort of heartless bastard engaged in kinky sex with a snake like Ian Adler mere days, maybe hours after his lover’s murder? The pity he’d felt started to dwindle. “So is it Ian who’s threatening you? Is that why you went down there tonight - to be blackmailed by him?”
“I did not wish for any of this to happen.” Brother Marcelo began to weep again.
“Oh, belt up for Christ’s sake,” John sighed. “The only way you can clear your name is to cooperate with us, and with the police. That man, Dzundza, is a dangerous assassin, as you found out. He won’t get far with his wound and being tied up, but we’ve got to move fast. You go to Father Simon and tell him what’s happened, and then stay in his office, and Sherlock and I will meet you there. Do you hear me? Do not go back to your room or try to look for Ian. He might not be a murderer, but he’s dangerous too.”
Brother Marcelo blinked tearfully, then nodded. He unlocked the library door, and they parted ways.
John hurried toward his room, eager to tell Sherlock what had happened. Opening his door, he shrugged out of his coat, hoping that he hadn’t got blood on it, and started at the sound of loud banging. “Sherlock?”
The banging continued. John hesitated as he put his hand on the doorknob of the connecting bath. Oh God. Hang on a minute. What if…oh God…unlikely as it was…what if Sherlock was engaged with Ian Adler in an act of…no, ridiculous. Sherlock wouldn’t.
Would he?
The banging went on, and John heard a soft, muffled cry.
Oh, Christ.
Had they heard him come in? Surely they had; the hinges were noisy. Maybe they didn’t care. The thought of Ian caressing Sherlock, both of them…naked, maybe, touching each other, or from the noises, fucking vigorously enough to slam the headboard against the wall…Jesus. Jesus Christ.
Hot blood filled John’s face and chest, and his hand shook with rage as he pulled away from the door to Sherlock’s room. Fuck you. Ruin it for you both, was his incoherent thought. They couldn’t be discreet, go to Ian’s room? Fuck them both.
They don’t need your help there.
John bit his lower lip hard enough to hurt and glanced in the mirror. Another muffled cry arose, sounding…pained? Desperately horny? Or something else?
With a painful rush of impulse, John threw open the door to Sherlock’s room. “Sherlock? What are you –” In a split second he saw that Sherlock was alone, that he was tied to the bed and gagged, and that he was the one who’d been doing all the banging. “Jesus Christ!” John ran to the bed and pulled the knife, and began to saw at the rope that secured one of Sherlock’s wrists to the heavy iron-slatted headboard. “What happened? Oh, my God –" As he hacked at the rope, he saw that the plaster wall behind the headboard had been badly scuffed and dented. “How long have you – Jesus. There.” The rope came free, and Sherlock, his eyes blazing with anger, struggled to unfasten the contraption strapped to his face.
“Hang on, hang on a second. Your circulation’s impaired, and you’ll never get it by yourself. Hold still and let me do it.”
Sherlock let out an indignant snort, but stilled his frantic and useless clawing and turned his face away from John to give him a better angle. John leant close and unbuckled the gag, then pulled it away, gaping at the thick phallus, remarkably anatomically correct and coated with saliva, that emerged from Sherlock’s mouth with a rather obscene slurp and pop.
“Nice,” John said drily, dropping the thing on the floor. He looked at Sherlock, who didn’t seem as if he’d been harmed. “Are you okay?” Guiltily, he felt his earlier anger draining away.
“Fine,” Sherlock replied through clenched teeth. “Untie me, please.”
“How long have you been like this?”
“I’m not certain. He drugged me.”
John, concentrating on freeing Sherlock’s other hand, halted with a scowl. “He drugged you? With what?”
“Atracurium besilate. Nothing drastic.”
“I take it this is Ian Adler’s work? I don’t recall you packing any leather and rubber contraptions at the flat. Or declaring them, at least.”
“Of course they’re Ian’s. Hurry up, John.” Sherlock glanced at him, then at the blade, which still bore a faint smear of blood. “What happened to you?”
“Had a little tussle with the Golem while you were in here playing bondage games. Did you get the phone?”
“No.” Sherlock slumped against the bed, then let out a hiss of pain as his other hand was freed. “That stings.” He massaged his hand. “No, but Ian’s working with Moriarty, John. I’m certain of it. That explains the connection to Dzundza as well. It’s all connected. We’ll get to the bottom of this in no time.” He sat up and sighed in relief as John cut his feet loose, and drew his knees up to rub his sore ankles.
“Want some help with that?” John sat on the bed and grasped one of Sherlock’s ankles. Gently he began to rub, careful not to chafe the woollen sock against the tender flesh.
“Thank you.” Sherlock closed his eyes and lay back, then opened them and fixed his gaze on John. “He tried to kill you.”
“Well –“
“Don’t lie to me, I can see it. You have bruises on your face.” Sherlock indicated his mouth and nose. “Same place every time. Are you sure you’re all right?”
“Yes. Brother Marcelo got it worse than I did. He’s okay too. We left Dzundza tied up in the crypt. Brother Marcelo’s going to get Father Trevor to ring the police.”
“Crypt?” Sherlock’s eyebrows had climbed toward his hairline.
“Yeah, under the altar. It’s amazing, the whole abbey is a warren of tunnels, Sherlock.” John wanted to show the passageways to Sherlock who, no matter how stoutly he’d deny it, had a kid’s enthusiasm for the secret, the hidden-away.
“Well,” Sherlock said with a shrug, “I probably could have told you that.”
“Oh, bollocks.”
“I knew that closet where we were trapped had a hidden door, John. It’s not much of a stretch to conclude that it’s not just the library that has that sort of exit or entrance.”
John set Sherlock’s foot on the bed. “Are you going to give me lip, or do you want to hear what happened? Or are you still smarting because you didn’t get the mobile from Adler?”
“Shut up.” Sherlock sat up and re-tied the laces of his shoes, then folded his arms tightly and stared off into space for a moment. “Oh, all right. Tell me.”
John related what had happened, pleased to see Sherlock nodding here and there in evident approval. “So I got a few answers out of him, but he knows more than he’s telling. Maybe a visit from the police will scare him into revealing a bit more. Ian, too.”
Sherlock sniffed. “Maybe. Of course the police here couldn’t organise a piss-up in a brewery.”
“Just…stay low-key when they show up, all right? How are your hands?” Unable to stop himself and telling himself he wasn’t completely relieved that Sherlock had been alone, John touched the back of one of Sherlock’s hands. “They hurt?”
“A bit sore.”
“Do you want me to….” John coughed, sensing heat creeping up his neck and into his face.
“Please.” Sherlock graciously extended a hand, as if conferring a favour.
John rubbed briskly, trying not to linger over any single area. “They’re a bit cold, but I doubt the circulation was compromised. We’ll get some ointment on those rope burns.”
“Thank you.”
John found himself rubbing more slowly as warmth returned to Sherlock’s hand. He grasped Sherlock’s other hand and began to massage it, caressing it between his own. “Best to get both sides. Bring the veins down if they’ve popped.” He kept his head lowered, afraid that Sherlock was watching him with that inscrutable gaze he sometimes affected. Impossible to tell what he was thinking at times. This was all business.
Right.
Suddenly Sherlock squeezed one of his hands. “I –"
“Yeah?” John looked up quickly.
Sherlock offered him a tight-lipped smile. “I think that’ll do.”
“Right. Well, maybe we should head up to Father Trevor’s office, if you’re feeling up to it.”
“Yes.” Sherlock rose to his feet. “I’m rather eager to hear what Oscar Dzundza has to say about all this.”
“I don’t think he speaks English,” John said, staying seated until his burgeoning hard-on had a chance to subside a bit. “I heard him talking to Brother Marcelo. Sounded like German.”
One tweed-clad shoulder lifted nonchalantly. “That’s fine.”
“Hey, Sherlock?”
Sherlock turned, wrapping his scarf round his neck. “Yes?”
“You sure you’re okay. Ian didn’t try to…hurt you or anything.”
“Of course not.” Sherlock turned toward the wall. “Just a little power struggle, that’s all. It amused him.” A hint of anger or resentment darkened Sherlock’s voice. “Shall we?”
John followed Sherlock out. He was still relieved, but there was an odd little ember of emotion in his chest that he couldn’t quite identify and couldn’t, despite his attempts, extinguish.
*
Father Trevor’s office was dark, and the door was locked. John cupped his hands against the window on the side of the building and strained to see in. “Maybe Brother Marcelo went to Simon’s room. He wouldn’t be here so late anyhow.”
“Or maybe he went to find Ian Adler after all.”
“Yeah, but I told him –"
“Well, clearly Brother Marcelo has a mind of his own.” Sherlock whirled away and began the short trek back to their rooms. “He’s too heavily implicated, so probably contacting the police was the last thing on his mind. Not that they’d help. You should have done it yourself, John.”
“Yeah, well – maybe you wouldn’t have minded being tied up for another hour or so,” John snapped. Perhaps he shouldn’t have trusted Brother Marcelo, but Jesus –
Sherlock hurried down the corridor and began to bang on a door. “Ian! Open up!” When there was no answer, he hammered again. “Ian!”
John folded his arms. “Maybe he’s tying Brother Marcelo up in the library and putting it on Youtube or something. Seems like he likes that.” Abruptly, he remembered the strange marks on Sherlock’s wrist, the one he’d seen that morning in the bathroom. But that was before…what the hell was going on?
“Ian!” Sherlock laid his hand on the doorknob and twisted. He pushed the door open violently, then stood perfectly still.
John looked at Sherlock’s gloved hand and wrist resting on the doorjamb. That mark was made the night before. Sherlock said he caught it in the door. He’s not that bloody clumsy. Sherlock had been out and about. With whom? And doing what, for fuck’s sake?
A sick anger twisted his insides.
“John.” Sherlock’s voice was subdued.
“What?” John couldn’t keep the bitterness from escaping.
“Look.”
*
To be continued.....
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Sherlock is a very lucky consulting detective to have someone like John to take care of him. He may not be showing it now, but he was pretty distressed last time we saw him.
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Sherlock would never willingly display distress, I think. He's way too proud. Which makes it even more tempting to subject him to ordeals that render him vulnerable. *rubs hands*
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Ooh, you evil cliffhanger woman you! *g*
Lovely chapter and I also liked John being competent and clever. I agree with you about Martin's Watson. It always pissed me off in the old Sherlock Holmes movies that Watson was so often portrayed as a bumbling fool. The man was a doctor and a soldier, for goodness sake and wasn't written as an idiot in the stories.
I am so happy that you are continuing with this! :)
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Completely agree about the old movies, particularly the Rathbone ones. Watson was such a nincompoop you wondered why Holmes put up with him at all. Even though I loved those films, that really bothered me.
Thank you again! I'm glad you enjoyed. :)
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Beautiful work, though, and terrific John stuff especially!!
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