But there was nothing.
Nothing.
I’ve no idea how long I stood there. Well over an hour, I should think. Perhaps two. Staring down into the tumult. Waiting. Willing. Expecting that magic would work as it always had and that finality would continue to elude the two men who had always seemed so immune to it.
But eventually, my situation pressed.
I knew Moriarty had men nearby—he’d said as much. How long before they came looking for their master? It put me in a bit of a spot, if I’m honest. There was only one path back down from the falls and this—I was sure—was held against me. I could try climbing down to see what had become of Holmes, but… well… that would surely result in the predictable.
I had nowhere to go but up. My heart sank as I gazed at the sheer rock wall. One might be tempted to call it impassable. Yet, what choice had I?
I gathered up the few items that remained to me—my pistol with four shots still in, the battered box containing one of the nine most dangerous items on the face of the earth, and the few bills Holmes had scattered from his pockets. Then, with a grim sort of resolution, I took hold of the rock face and began to climb.
I looked down a few times—a foolish thing, I know—but I just couldn’t stop thinking I’d see Holmes. Even when I wasn’t looking back I constantly reminded myself not to be surprised—not to lose my grip—when he wafted up behind me and said, “Watson, what on earth are you doing?”
But he never came.
What did come was a rather disturbing train of thought. As my body fought its way up the rock, my mind began to parse everything Moriarty had said. Because, you see, Irene Adler had scoffed at the idea she could summon the guardian from one of her foci. They were bound, she’d said.
But hadn’t James Moriarty—the most artful practitioner of magic any of us had ever known—just said it was too dangerous for him to even open the box containing the Fasces?
Yet, something must have driven him to chance that confrontation with Holmes. Something must have accelerated his time frame, or that master planner would never have been so reckless. And I could not help but feel that this sudden desperation may have something to do with the item he’d come to claim.
I feared I might know the cause.
And I was right, too.
It took me some time to confirm it. I had to climb that cliff, avoid Moriarty’s men and return to civilization before I could know for certain. But why should you, dear reader, have to wait?
One of the many days I’d missed in my brief sabbatical as Hall Pycroft had been 1 July 1884. It is not a date that receives particular attention. Yet, I tell you this: it is one of the most important dates in human history. It is the date that may directly precipitate the end of human history.
1st July 1884 is the day Allan Pinkerton suffered his fatal stroke.
It is the day the Nine became masterless.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
THANKS TO MY NEW EDITOR SOPHIE ROBINSON WHO stepped in to cover Sam who had a baby after stepping in to cover Miranda who had a baby. You do know what’s going to happen, right, Sophie?
Thanks to my agent, Sam, my illustrator, Sean, my copy-editor, Hayley, and my wife, Amanda—the hardworking gang who keeps turning these things into actual books instead of just random things I mumble late at night.
Thanks to Jean-Pierre and Elisabeth for selling us the wonderful home from which future G.S. Denning books shall be emanating. Also, thanks to Cathy for helping us sneak away with Jean-Pierre and Elisabeth’s home! Tee-hee!
And thanks, as ever, to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle whose abominable work ethic has convinced me that it’s ok to take a great hiatus. I bet you mine’s not as long as yours, you lazy bastard!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GABRIEL (G.S.) DENNING HAS LEFT THE DUSTY WASTES OF Las Vegas and now lives in Puyallup, Washington with his wife, daughters, and billions upon billions of soul-sucking raindrops. It’s a good thing Mount Rainier is so pretty, or everybody in this place would have given up on life a long time ago.
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