Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Was Not Read online

  “He was reckless,” said Holmes, “prepared to kill me in hand-to hand combat. I appreciate why now. And the third incarnation; the Colonel?”

  “When you defeated my counterpart at the falls, I decided to avoid the temptation you would present me of revenge. I know my own mind, you see. The desire to settle the score would be a huge burden on me—I would be driven to act rashly, and think superficially, it would be difficult to concentrate on the development of my new sphere of influence—logistics—while you were in this world. So I vacated it for the place of my self-sacrificing doppelganger, and enjoyed the fruits of his labour for some time. His illness had prevented him advancing his criminal empire to the degree I had and as a result he was a Napoleon of Crime in theory only. You will be intrigued to hear your own counterpart had no interest in him, had not even been attracted to his few, profitable, isolated criminal ventures. But I could not leave you completely unwatched, so I travelled on the Pascal to a universe where I had made not a career decision to be an Army coach, but to be an actual military leader itself.

  “That was from whence faux brother, Colonel James Moriarty, issued, and he was most supportive of the enterprise. In return I provided him some designs for army rifles that will likely deliver him a more obvious form of power, one that I will be keen to see how he has progressed should I visit him in five or six years—he may have annexed all of his Europe by then; such promise.”

  I decided to make another attempt at pushing away the absurdity of this subject matter that Holmes and his old enemy were discussing so calmly; I hoped I might be able to squash flat this outrageous raving, even though my friend was acknowledging it.

  I barked “This is a ridiculous, elaborate hoax! Like that American Buffalo Bill, this is nothing but a cleverly arranged dramatic contrivance! I’m sure H. G. Wells and his ilk might write wonderful romances on the topic, but one cannot live in a world of one’s imaginings.”

  Holmes was silent. I hoped he was preparing to challenge our adversary’s madness after having lulled Moriarty into false confidence. I clasped Holmes’s shoulder in a gesture of solidarity, with the intent we move against Moriarty. Then Moriarty held up his right hand in warning and using his other hand made a languid gesture at the carriages that surrounded us.

  “Ah, Doctor, not only can one do just that, but this building we stand in and the methodology that brought you here was designed to do better. Not only can one journey to an adjacent reality, one can bring its inhabitants here, and if one gives the matter sufficient thought, one can invite inhabitants to visit that have the greatest desire to replace the original inhabitant: permanently. Haven’t you ever wondered what would happen if you made the ‘other’ moral choice? And what if you did so in a world where the choices had been different for many, many people? With enough intriguing variances the nature of being human might even be different.”

  “The answer, my friend,” he continued, “is in understanding universae, or what the American philosopher William James has termed the multiverse. But, again, for proof, don’t ask me. I’d prefer you ask them.”

  Moriarty pointed at the dark, steam-clouded expanse behind us. As if by some pre-ordained signal the doors of the other eleven carriages in the roundhouse opened and from each one emerged people, in every case just two people. Soundlessly, in a way that was redolent of a dream—and, indeed, in many ways whatever one thinks happened that day, dream may be the right term—the couples came and stood surrounding us, on the exterior of the circle of light, all of them shrouded in darkness and steam.

  I peered and I at last understood—even as I refused to accept. Holmes and I were surrounded by eleven pairs of men, and each one was a dark mirror of Holmes and myself; they were Shadows of us. Their aspect may have differed from pair to pair, but there was a common thread, a malevolent, hateful gaze at Holmes and myself that was disturbing. But as I studied these figures, as the dark and the vapour that swirled around that chamber allowed me periodically to see more details of them, the more I began to feel not just loathing, but horror.

  “There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophies,” said Moriarty. He laughed.

  I had my revolver out, but the shadows remained outside the arena of gaslight Moriarty had arranged; I began to think there was some force that ensured that. If so, it was a blessed mercy, the only thing that stopped me from dashing in retreat from the Roundhouse. Instead I surveyed what I could of the Shadows:

  Here was a Holmes and Watson who looked exactly as Holmes and I, save they seemed more ‘brutish’; a nose flattened, teeth missing, small facial scar, and when I observed an obviously prison-made tattoo on my reflection’s wrist the pattern was complete.

  Another pair of shadows seemed less threatening at first glimpse, they even seemed somewhat frail and undernourished, until a curtain of steam in the room parted briefly and I noticed their eye sockets were black and oozing, the hands were rotting, and what looked like worms writhed in their hair.

  Another pair were dressed in bizarre, torn clothing, their faces mutilated like some sort of primitive savages’, with silver and gold rings and chains piercing their faces in the nostrils, cheeks and ears. Bizarre slogans and symbols were daubed in paint across their very clothing; the overall effect was of mad, self-vandalism.

  Another two had skin covered in shiny black and silver scales that glinted in the darkness, their eyes were distended and round, as a fish’s.

  Two others at first glance seemed just like myself and my friend, yet when a ray of light pierced the atmosphere outside the gas-lit circle I saw their skin was etiolated, bleached white; the Holmes-shadow grinning in his dark purple frockcoat had hair that seemed acid-green, whilst his Watson, who glared at me evilly through a monocle, possessed a nose like a broken beak, and his hands that clutched an umbrella had suffered some deformity that had fused the fingers together.

  I began to yell, before I even knew I was going to. “Impossible! A childish stunt. Do not think that we will cower, man, do not think we will! I faced worse odds in Afghanistan!” My head was pounding.

  The Station Master raised his own voice to the Shadows. “You heard the man; he does not believe. You have received your invitations and accepted. The offer is valid. If any want the place of these two, now is the time to take it! I leave the outcome to you, all of you to determine!” yelled the Station Master. And a murmuring ripped through the shadows. Some voices muttered, so much like the sounds of my own and Holmes’s; so, so terrifying because of that.

  I turned to my friend. “A trick, a league of actors trained and prepared to frighten us, to get our guards down, before a genuine attack,” I said.

  Holmes looked at me. He was silent.

  The figures waited, I could feel they wanted—that they hungered—for some event, as a crowd before a sports contest may be hushed but you can still feel their animal desire to witness a conflict, to see a party vanquished.

  The Station Master withdrew, the steam parted for him and he disappeared into the doorway in the wall whence he had come originally. Strange light seemed to play from that open door as he slipped in, but my eyes could not penetrate, and my attention was on the threat around me.

  Two figures emerged from the steam-shroud, and into the arena, only two. The first to become distinct was so like Holmes at initial inspection that I turned to where my friend stood beside me expecting to see him gone; but no, he was still next me, his face grim, angered. I looked back and saw why. The creature was like Holmes in build, height, even similar in clothing, sporting an Inverness cape—although this cloak was jet-black. But the face became quickly distorted—cruel lines stretched the eyes and mouth in a grimace, the eyebrows swept up wildly, the jaw was open and grimacing and sported enormous, snake-like canine fangs, and the eyes changed to become not cold gray but red; an almost phosphorescently glowing red. A stench issued from the thing; the vampire vers
ion of my friend.

  Worse still was the mockery of me that accompanied the vampire.

  Our wardrobes could might have come from similar sources but for the fact this shadow’s suit adorned a figure much, much larger than mine. For it was near seven feet tall, and massively proportioned, it looked like some sort of walking corpse, with a hideous disfigured face; a face, I realised from hideous scars that adorned it, that was a patchwork of many faces, many swatches of human tissue. The head was lank-haired and the eyes watery, like a drowned man, the brow somehow exaggerated and distended as if bone and skin had been reinforced with more bone and skin, two odd metal plugs or posts adorned each temple, embedded in the flesh. The thing looked as if it had been strung together from disparate human anatomical parts like a mortuary jigsaw, the gray skin at the wrists and hands stretched over huge bundles of muscle and tendon, hands the size of hams clenched and unclenched. This, the hideous Monster companion of the Vampire Holmes, looked at me with heavy-lidded, pure hatred and I knew it would rend me if given the chance.

  As the two nightmare distortions moved towards us in the light-circle the others outside receded into the steam, as if they had never been there. I knew that silent communion had been made somehow. If Holmes and I fell here, that would be an end to things, if we could survive, the others would make no attempt on us, but the reason for this chilled my mind; these two invaders were thought to be unlikely to be stopped. Our deaths were viewed as assured, not just possible.

  The Monster lumbered towards me, quite slow, and I retreated as quickly as I could, trying to find my revolver. The thing made some strange, gurgling noises as I managed to get away from it and I thought to head to the doorway the Station Master had made his exit from. But as I darted that way I heard a creak and looked behind me, and that gesture saved my life. The Monster had hefted enormous broken-off sleepers from a pile of rubble at one side of the Roundhouse, one in each massive paw, and held them above its head! It threw them at me and I narrowly escaped them as they smashed against the wall and rebounded off in dozens of fragments—and I quickly noted the door remained un-breached. I turned and the monster was coming for me, another piece of sleeper held in its paw like a club.

  Again it was slow, yet implacable; I knew if it got hold of me my life would be forfeit. I turned and braced myself and carefully took aim with my service revolver. I fired. Three times, aiming right for its head. The creature fell back into the steam clouds.

  I glanced at Holmes, and his battle. The Vampire stood before him. The red-eyed face was animalistic; actual drool spilled over the open lips and out. But Holmes was surprisingly calm in the face of this nightmare; he actually lunged at the dark creature and grabbed its arm, and slammed his hip at the beast, a baritsu move I had seen him use once before in a street brawl when he was attacked by the John Clay gang. The Vampire was flipped up and over Holmes’s body and I expected to see it fly crashing into the ground, but in mid air the thing tucked its feet under itself gracefully and performed an acrobatic roll that saw it land unhurt.

  As it rose to its feet it smiled: it was clearly also a master of the fighting art.

  Holmes however, had not waited for it to land. He had run for the wooden railing at the back of the carriage we had entered by and once there he kicked it with his foot, smashing it. I wondered why he might favour a piece of such kindling as a weapon, but I soon understood. Holmes extracted a broken railing and its broken cross-bar; he snapped off the ends, and suddenly was holding forth a make-shift cross or crucifix. He thrust it at the dark version of himself and muttered some word of blessing. His adversary whirled away in a rage, shielding its face from the sight of the Holy object.

  Holmes had his shadow at a disadvantage, he kept thrusting the cruciform at it, causing the thing to snarl and turn away, as if it were being lashed, but it would swiftly turn and try and attack him from another angle—its speed was amazing—and Holmes only narrowly was managing to keep turning and being able to brandish that cross in between himself and the Vampire. I could see that the creature was not without a strategy, Holmes was being backed ever so gradually into a corner where he would have nowhere to turn or flee if the vampire got the advantage. I could have fired my pistol but the risk with the two of them darting around was that I might hit my friend.

  Then Holmes threw the cross at his foe! The Vampire flinched back and raised its cape to protect its face. Astonishingly, when the cross hit the Vampire the cape burst into flame and smoke and the creature howled in fear. But the moment was brief, for the cross then fell to the ground and when the fanged one raised its head now it showed a look of red-eyed triumph. Holmes had run across the chamber. The Vampire literally hissed with glee and when it leapt a distance no man could make, straight at my friend—who was stooped over—it was clear the vampire would be upon him.

  But Holmes had a fragment of sleeper the monster had smashed apart, and he simply turned, reminding me of nothing less than a Spanish bull-fighter, and the Vampire was suddenly skewered right through the shoulder on the end of the broken shaft by its own leap at Holmes! The creature uttered a string of curses at Holmes, and almost fell to its knees; my friend had the beast at his advantage.

  But before I could see how this would play out I heard a roar from the darkness and I looked up: The Monster that was my shadow was back, apparently unharmed. A few welts on its forehead were the only sign I had fired at it; clearly all I had done was temporarily daze it.

  I did not have my revolver ready—I had returned it to my pocket and the thing was almost upon me—so I swung at the Monster with my walking stick, which had the advantage of being a solid oak staff with a lead-filled head. The blow struck the thing soundly in the face. There was an audible thud, but the gray face was unmarked, it was like hitting stone; if a bullet hadn’t killed it a blow like mine was a desperate move. I hit the thing again and again, and it moved somewhat slowly but I soon realised with horror it was amused, it watched me with evil mirth, not caring what I was doing. Then, suddenly, a black-nailed hand flicked out and knocked me to the ground, and, before I could rise, the thing picked up my stick and squeezed and snapped it into two like a pencil, ostentatiously letting it drop in two pieces to the ground. I saw then that I was a rat being played with by a cat.

  So I withdrew my revolver, and fired at the thing’s heart since the bony ridged face was too well armoured. The shirt the Monster wore exploded, but a gaping hole revealed more of the grey skin—and the skin was undamaged. I fired again, and nothing happened: this embalmed giant had a hide like some prehistoric beast.

  It lunged and grabbed me. Agony fired through my ribcage as the thing crushed me in a sick embrace. I could barely breathe and I smashed my pistol at the thing’s face, to no effect. It locked eyes with me and began to laugh, a horrible, nightmare sound issued between huge, uneven, broken teeth.

  I do not know to this day what made me act the way I did then, perhaps wild desperation, perhaps divine insight. Where the idea came from I really cannot fathom. I raised my pistol and stuck it hard up against the side of the monster’s head—right against one of the small metal posts that extruded from the side of the thing’s temple—and I weakly squeezed the trigger on the final round I had in the revolver.

  The sound of the bullet discharging was like a cannon in my ears—I was completely disoriented—and it took me a moment or two to appreciate I was no longer in the grip of the thing, but standing in front of it. The beast was standing, bellowing like a wounded bear. My shot had blasted the metal cap off, and taken a small chunk of the dead, leathery grey flesh, but no blood flowed. A gaping wound left a strand of wire exposed—and this began to issue furious, hot sparks. The Monster raised its hand to this and then screamed. Its hand seemed stuck at the side of its own neck, but did nothing to diminish the furious sparks which soon had its coat-sleeve burning.

  The Monster jerked around like a macabre, gargantuan puppet being wildly tugged abo
ut by invisible strings. The air smelt of a lightning storm, and the sparks flew intermittently from the hole in one side of the neck and the still intact post on the other side. The horrible face writhed in grotesque transformation—agony, ecstasy, I could not tell, the contortions and twistings were hard to interpret in a face so misshapen.

  The huge creature flailed about, then fell to its knees, then flopped sideways onto the ground. An arm spasmed out a few times, clutching at empty air. I looked at the features; the pitted and scarred face, and most of all, the dead eyes. I saw no reflection of myself—and wondered if one hid behind those eyes—and I said a silent prayer of thanks.

  My prayer was premature. Something hit me and knocked me to one side—almost to my feet, and then the fanged Holmes-shadow had its hands about my throat and the immediate pressure was frightening.

  I used all the strength I had to try and stop the Vampire’s fingers from tightening, I had slipped my own fingers under its to try and save myself but I could feel the pressure increasing. I felt the bones of one of my fingers crack—but terror of death stopped me screaming and kept me struggling—futilely, I knew.

  Then Holmes slammed the broken-off shaft of my stick into the fanged demon’s back. It released its hands from my throat slowly and stepped back. It stared at the front of its body and the shaft protruding from its shirtfront. Black blood was oozing out of its chest around the stake—it fumbled with one taloned hand at the stick and I had a presentiment it would pull it loose and the black fluid would become a fountain, but it dropped its hands to its sides. It stared at Holmes and its features softened—for one terrible second they looked exactly like those of my friend, then a paroxysm of pain distorted the Vampire’s face.

  It resumed its inhuman cast and the creature fell to the ground, on top of the remains of its Monster companion.

  “You once told me my taste in sensational criminal literature and natural history was unparalleled, Watson. I’m thankful it is. I would refer you to the case of vampires in the writings of Augustin Calmet; hysterical village criminal matters where the remedy is always the destruction by stake through the heart…”