CONTENTS
Cover
By G. S. Denning and available from Titan Books
Title Page
Leave us a Review
Copyright
Dedication
The Man with the Twisted… Everything
The Adventure of the Lying Detective
The Boggart Valley Mystery
The Engineer’s Dumb
The Adventure of the F***ing Men
The Adventure of the Margarine Stone
The Adventure of the True Garrideb
The Adventure of that Stockbroker Jerk
The Finality Problem
Acknowledgements
About the Author
By G. S. Denning and available from Titan Books
WARLOCK HOLMES
A Study in Brimstone
The Hell-hound of the Baskervilles
My Grave Ritual
The Sign of Nine
The Finality Problem
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Warlock Holmes: The Finality Problem
Print edition ISBN: 9781785659386
E-book edition ISBN: 9781785659393
Published by Titan Books
A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
First edition: May 2020
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Names, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
© 2020 G. S. Denning
Illustrations © 2020 Sean Patella-Buckley
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
This book is dedicated to all the fans who have come so far with Warlock and Me. Now, you must endure my great hiatus. Don’t worry; I’ll try not to make it too great.
THE MAN WITH THE TWISTED…
EVERYTHING
WELCOME BACK, READER. TO THOSE WHO HAVE FOLLOWED my adventures so far, you must feel you know me well by now. I hope you may think of me as a friend. That is how I think of you.
Or no…
Let me say: perhaps I do.
If you are one of the human survivors of the apocalypse (which, as I write this, is probably no more than a week away), then yes, I think of you as a friend. More than that. You are the spark of a light I thought might be extinguished, and I would do anything to help you, if I could.
But, it is also possible you are a demon. You’ve picked this book up out of the wreckage and you’re wondering what all the squiggly little markings on the papers are, as you idly pull the pages out one by one and eat them, in order to while away the time before your return to your job at the Murder Mines of Blaglon-Dral (formerly known as Oregon). If such is the case, allow me to express my fervent desire that you gag on the paper.
Right now. This page. Choke on it, you bastard!
And yet, let us assume the best (probably a foolish assumption post-demon-apocalypse, now that I think on it). We shall presume you are human and wish to hear my story.
So… where to begin?
Ah! Bayswater Road! That is where my life began anew in a flurry of reinvention which I had no hope of stopping. I was in love with my new wife, Mary, you see. I didn’t want to be; she was perfectly awful. She bore much the same opinion of me, I am sure. But what could we do about it? Warlock Holmes had bound our souls together, and so we found ourselves stuck. There was no rest for either of us—no contentment or repose—unless we were in the other’s company. No matter how tired I became, I could not sleep without her in my arms. Being with Mary was like scratching an itch. You don’t like the itch. You wish it would go away. But it does not. It stings and burns and vexes you. So, you scratch at it. And instantly, there is this sense of satisfaction and well-being. Comfort. It feels so good to scratch the damned thing. But then, the moment you stop, the itch returns.
Even the pleasures of the flesh—which had been strange to me until that point and which, if I am honest, I had always wanted to try—were tinged with preternatural need. It was as if Mary and I had only one soul now, and it was painful to that soul to live in two bodies. For us, the act of love was tinged with desperation. The ancient Greeks speak of couples as separate parts of one creature, smote in twain, whose severed halves are trying to physically push themselves back together into one flesh. It’s a somewhat romantic notion, until you actually feel it—until you experience the horror of trying to force yourself to meld with your severed half before the trauma of separation causes you to wither and die.
When I think of it now, I burn with embarrassment. And also anger at my friend, Warlock Holmes.
Given the rather… impromptu… nature of our courtship, Mary and I mutually felt there would be no benefit in delaying our nuptials. We were wed just three days after our first kiss—that horrifying, unexpected kiss that changed everything. The church was practically empty. Mary’s employers were there—Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Forrester—tearfully happy to be rid of Mary’s company. Warlock was there, too. He lurked in the back corner, trying to keep from weeping. He seemed proud of himself, in a way—happy he’d avoided my death and set me on a path that looked something like the life I’d always wanted.
