And With Him Disaster

by eggshellseas

Summary:

John Watson is being stalked by a vampire

The knocking on the bedroom door did not bode well for the oncoming day. Judging by the little light coming in through the window, it was no later than five in the morning. Mary did not stir, but his time on active duty had left John a light sleeper, which was only compounded by his frequent dreams of blood and gunpowder. Plus, in any case, since starting his practice he had become inured to inconveniently timed emergencies.

All this to say that John found himself easily awake at the slightest provocation, though that did not keep the sensation of being jolted from slumber and the chill of the floorboards under his bare feet from being anything but unpleasant. John could hardly keep the irritation off his face as he pulled on a dressing gown and went to open the door.

Missy, the maid, was standing in the hall, already dressed for the day’s chores. “Constable Clark is downstairs,” she said in a hushed, urgent tone. John knew, then, that there was no chance of him going back to bed that morning.

He descended the staircase in his slippers to find Clark standing just inside the front door. He had removed his helmet and was fiddling restlessly with it.

“Morning, Doctor,” Clark greeted him. “Inspector Lestrade would like to see you as soon as possible.” John nodded and invited Clark to have a cup of tea while he dressed. It had been several years since he’d set up his private practice – all thanks to Mary, who had been his tending angel after his return from Afghanistan a damaged and broken man. He did his best for her, although he sometimes felt like civility was an ill-fitting suit that he wore which constrained, but did not abate the turmoil within. But these were only intermittent thoughts.

She’d encouraged him to publish some studies that had been well received, and so his career was germinated. His reputation had grown to the point where the Yard had contacted him for consultation on a case some time ago. The success of that case had led to a rather regular relationship between John and the police. If he was being perfectly honest, John would admit he found it a bit of a thrill to be embroiled in the Yard’s business, even as he acted like he was being discommoded.

“Tell Mrs Watson where I’ve gone,” he said to Missy when he was ready, waving off her requests for him to have a quick bite to eat, and then left with the constable.

“Any idea what this is about, Clarky?” he asked when they were on their way.

Clark seemed hesitant to speak on the subject, although he did allow, “A very peculiar murder, Sir. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Well,” John said dryly, “I suppose this promises to be interesting then.”

The carriage delivered them to a street near the market in Spitalfields. The sky had grown grey and overcast as dawn encroached, but it was too early for the market to be bustling. Lestrade was there waiting with his fingers linked behind his back, rocking his weight onto his heels, brow furrowed.

“Inspector,” John said, nodding.

“Doctor,” he received in return.

The victim’s body was still on the ground where, John presumed, the police had discovered it. It was covered with tarp, though John doubted there were very many innocents that needed to be protected from the sight of a dead man in this neighbourhood. Lestrade bent and peeled the sheet away. “Tell me there’s a rational explanation for this,” he said gruffly.

John could not think of one off the top of his head. He squatted down to examine the corpse. It was a man – about forty years of age and of rough, perhaps Mediterranean appearance. There were two wounds in his neck – twin punctures a few centimetres apart. John understood very easily Lestrade’s suspicion, and with no small amount of tension measured the distance and found it to be approximately the length between a grown man’s canines. He could not tell for certain with the man still clothed, but he did not seem to have suffered any other obvious or fatal injuries. The man’s skin was ashen, as if his blood had been let.

“Some sort of macabre prank,” John said. “It must be.” Inwardly, he did not feel the confidence with which he imbued his voice. It was possible, perhaps, that some kind of apparatus could be designed to mimic the deadly kiss of the chimerical vampire – something would have been required to collect the blood, for the body was not lying in a crimson pool – unless it had been moved, but surely Lestrade was capable enough to at least discern that much – it was all very curious. It was not a question easily answered; it would require much more thought and work, and the matter stayed on his mind the rest of the day, niggling at him insistently and refusing to make sense.

The added stress had him seeking a distraction and the night found him installed in the depths of a disreputable tavern, betting on dice. John enjoyed moderate luck at best; the fever that gripped him when he gambled kept him from remaining level-headed, from approaching the games with cunning or strategy. His chances were further undermined by the distraction he was suffering due to being the unfortunate subject of some stranger’s intense and unwavering gaze. The man appeared startlingly out of place – not by virtue of his dishevelled hair or shabby clothing, which fit quite nicely the milieu, but the stark contrast of the pale, marble perfection of his skin.

The first time John had caught the man looking at him, he had naturally dismissed it, but each time his eyes would dart nervously back to the strange man, John found him still staring, quite unabashedly. The scoundrel did not even avert his gaze when Watson looked at him, did not even seem to blink - just continued to look back with a calm, unconcerned expression. The increasing agitation left John so discomfited that he lost his entire purse.

His anger was such that he burned to confront his harrier, but when he pushed himself up from the table, the man had disappeared.

John left the tavern somewhat uneasy. As he headed out into the streets, he could not shake the feeling that someone was on his tail. He tightened his fingers around his cane reflexively, for he was ready to defend himself against an intended robber. Though anyone who had observed him in that den would have known John had been cleaned out, he still could not keep himself from suspecting the strange man – the odd manner in which he’d studied him impressed deeply on his mind. John was not a man given to superstition, but the prickling of the hairs on the back of his neck was difficult to ignore. He quickened his gait as much as his limp would allow, never pausing once until he reached a main thoroughfare and was able to procure a hansom.

Mary was most vexed with him when he arrived home and she had to unlock to drawer that held his chequebook in order for him to pay the driver.

Despite being rather fatigued, John slept badly that night. The perplexing murder, as well as his strange experience at the game-house combined to leave him with a sense of foreboding. He tossed and turned, kept starting to imagined noises, and was almost relieved when Missy fetched him out of bed early again.

Lestrade had come to call on him personally that morning. “There’s been another one,” he said as soon as John had dressed and come downstairs, eschewing even their normal, perfunctory nods to etiquette as he brusquely ushered John into the waiting carriage.

As Lestrade was not much of a conversationalist, John found his thoughts wandering during the ride. These killings intrigued him. He was a doctor, but he wasn’t a bleeding heart. He felt a kind of horror at the idea of murder, but the strange method, as well as the theoretical mind of such a deviant interested him. For the most part, he was quite good at remaining impersonal when it came to these police cases where he was called upon as an auxiliary. Afghanistan had both taught him of and desensitised him to the horrors humans enacted upon one another.

Once at the police morgue, however, detachment became impossible, for John felt an immediate spark of recognition for the body laid out on the table. With dread settling heavy as a stone in the pit of his belly, he identified the victim as the man who had been running the dice game the night before. John swallowed any outward reaction, then opened his bag. It did not mean anything to him, he told himself – he had been in a squalid establishment, the kind that attracted crime – just unhappy coincidence.

The two wounds were exactly the same distance apart as the first corpse’s. The killer was establishing a signature, then. “It must be some kind of handheld device,” John surmised aloud to Lestrade, “with small, parallel blades.” John paused and then examined the man’s face and skin. He looked like he’d been bleached by the sun, such was his pallor. It would take a fairly long time to bleed to death from those small holes - that was where John was stuck. The physical evidence did not quite add up – how had his blood been removed so effectively? John did not like this business one bit.

There was an odd bulge in the breast of the man’s jacket, John noticed as he contemplated the dead man’s body. He could not quell an investigative sense of curiosity and gave in to the impulse to slide his hand beneath the lapel where he found an inner pocket stuffed with an envelope. Withdrawing it with the intent of handing it over to Lestrade, he froze. In very neat penmanship was written, “For the good doctor,” across the front of it.

John’s hands shook violently and a blind panic took hold of him. He stuffed the envelope into his own pocket, feeling sweat break out across his brow. Lestrade, thankfully, had stepped away momentarily to talk to one of his men. By the time he turned back, John had managed to regain his composure, though he could not slow the beat of his racing heart, could not dispel his feelings of fear, of needing to get away. He barely heard Lestrade inviting him to observe the post-mortem later that day, able only to think of the contraband in his pocket.

Lestrade stopped him before he left with a hand on his elbow. John thought for one wild moment that Lestrade had somehow found him out, but the inspector only wanted to ask – grave, but almost embarrassed, “Do you think a man is doing this, Doctor?”

Rationality would not let John think of the alternative – that some sort of ghoulish creature was haunting the city. “A fiend,” he said, “to be sure, but a man nonetheless.” Lestrade nodded shortly and let him go.

John was tempted to open the envelope as soon as he had stepped out onto the street, but he felt too exposed, still too vulnerable. The thing seemed to be aflame, burning through his clothes to scald his skin. It was impossible – unbelievable – surely a harbinger of some evil.

Only when he was safely back at home and locked in his office did he dare to extract the envelope from his pocket. His mind furnished him with images of Lestrade bursting in and arresting him, of the envelope leaving an indelible stain of guilt upon his hand like the cursed key in Bluebeard. There was nothing to do but open it; procrastination would change neither his bad luck nor the contents.

There was no note inside, but instead the exact amount of money John had lost the night before. John jolted and dropped his parcel on the floor – such specificity, such personalization. He was being watched, that much was clear. His thoughts flashed instantly to the man who had been staring at him in the tavern. He should go to Lestrade, he told himself – this was entering dangerous depths. Something held him back, though. There was too much here that he didn’t understand, and he didn’t completely trust Lestrade to suss out the truth.

He sat there for a very long time with his face in his hands, trying to decide upon his next move. Eventually, Mary came to coax him to bed. He allowed himself to be persuaded, but did not give in to her entreaties to tell her what was wrong.

John’s eyes flew open without warning – a sudden dissolution of the veil of sleep. It took him a moment to realize he was still in his own bedroom, for the surroundings seemed to have taken on an unfamiliar, unearthly quality. He tried to grope for his wife’s hand, but a strange kind of paralysis overtook him and he was utterly unable to move.

A figure emerged from the shadows in the corner. It was the man from the tavern – skin that looked as if it was made from moonlight, dark hair, sharp eyes staring down at him. The stranger came to stand at the side of the bed. John wanted to warn him off, but the same paralysis struck his vocal chords. All he could do was mutely meet the man’s gaze.

The moment stretched to excruciating length. It was hard to tell in the dark, but the man’s eyes seemed to be a metallic hue – too grey and too gleaming to look normal. Finally, the man put a hand to John’s face, covering his eyes. His touch was cold to the point of pain. Unconsciousness retook him.

John woke the next morning, a dulling around his senses as if he hadn’t slept. Though he knew it was mad, he inspected the room for signs of an intruder, but found nothing out of the ordinary. The strange dream must have been a manifestation of his suspicions and his guilty conscience. He tried to imagine what Mary would advise him to do if he were to unburden himself to her. It was his certainty that she would tell him to go to Lestrade that kept him from seeking her counsel; he was still not quite ready to do that. There loomed in his future something immense. Perhaps it was simply cowardice, but he felt it needed to take more shape – this emerging shadow, before he could decide his course of action.

He went about his day distracted, so much so that his patients began to comment that perhaps the doctor himself was feeling a bit ill. Three days without a proper night’s rest was beginning to weigh on him, as well as the fact that John could not stop wondering how he had attracted the killer’s attention. He wondered if he was perhaps the next victim in line, if the others had been stalked like this. Somehow he doubted it. He knew the man was dangerous, of course, and that he himself might be in danger, but the very danger of it thrilled him. It was something he’d never be able to explain to Mary. He’d been horrified by the brutality of war, but the uncertainty of survival, the never-ending tension – it had both broken and exhilarated him. It made him feel alive, gave him the sense of the strongest bonds of brotherhood with the men in his regiment. He had no desire to revisit the horrors of Maiwand, but life now was nevertheless dull compared to the crimson red of the military.

Still, that was no excuse for foolhardiness, and as natural as his curiosity might be, it would be unforgivable if he put Mary or anyone in his household in danger, he reminded himself sternly. He was afraid, though, that going to Lestrade might agitate the mystery man, who was clearly keeping a close eye on John’s actions.

As his constitution would not let him simply remain passive, he went to a boxing match that night – as much out of morbid curiosity to see if another strange instance would befall him as the compulsion to gamble.

His shadow did not disappoint. When John went to place his bet, he found his billfold gone. He might have dismissed it as the work of a particularly skilled pickpocket, except that there was a scrap of paper left in its place, upon which was written, “As you cannot seem to be trusted with your pennies, I have taken them into my safe keeping.” John could hardly conceive of the adroitness necessary to slip the note there without him having noticed at all.

The discovery of it made heat flare in John’s face at being mocked like this, treated like an irresponsible schoolboy. It was bad enough that Mary had to watch his accounts, but the sheer presumption of this stranger galled him. John searched the crowd, looking for the grey-eyed man, who he was becoming increasingly convinced was behind all this. “Show yourself,” he whispered quietly, as if that would make him materialize. He felt a touch to his back – a quick stroke from the centre of his spine down to just above his trousers – and whirled around only to find no one there – a phantasm produced by building paranoia, probably.

There was nothing for John to do but walk home, feeling frustrated. There he found his billfold on the floor just inside the front door, its contents perfectly intact. There was no note; the gesture spoke loudly enough, John supposed. He did not know how to feel. Perhaps he was losing his grip on sanity that this did not arouse more of a reaction in him. It was as if something was in his head, tamping down his emotions – the unshakable weariness that weighed on him, perhaps, or the utter incomprehensibility of these acts.

He felt incapable of anything more than tucking the billfold in his jacket and dragging himself upstairs.

Mary was in her nightgown, still awake, waiting for him. Her brow furrowed in worry at the sight of him, but something in his face must have begged off an inquisition, for she only kissed his brow and then his cheek, staring into his eyes for a long moment before she let him go get ready for bed.

As soon as John’s head touched the pillow he fell into the arms of Morpheus.

He opened his eyes. He was in the study. He did not know how he had come to be there – he had to be dreaming. A man – the man that was haunting him – stood before him with open arms. John had barely processed the man’s identity before he found himself captured in a powerful embrace, held so tightly that his breath was hindered.

“I couldn’t wait any longer,” the man murmured. The words made no sense to John, but they made something twist nervously in his belly. The man was dangerous, even in his dream; there was great power coiled in his lanky frame, his compact muscles. Instead of frightening him, though, it sent heat coursing through his veins. He put his hands to the man’s face and kissed him. Then, suddenly, in the blink of an eye he was stripped bare and on his back on a bed of discarded clothing. The man was over him, touching him – assured and proprietary. His hands were cool but John felt so enflamed that it didn’t matter. Wanton and whorish, he spread his legs to accommodate him, thighs squeezing his hips. It burned when he was entered, but he was lucid enough to remind himself that it was only a dream, that the hurt was only because he imagined it, because he secretly wanted it. Each slow thrust of the cock inside of him made him gasp and clutch at the man above him.

The man bent his head as if to kiss him, but then tipped to the side and pressed his lips to John’s neck – licked and sucked and scraped his teeth over the same spot over and over. John turned his head and dropped his shoulder and arched into it mindlessly, causing a fierce groan of satisfaction to rumble out of his ravisher’s throat.

He was utterly unprepared for his climax. It took him by surprise, made him feel as if his body was being ripped apart by the force of it. Everything went white for a moment, and then he was plunged into complete darkness.

John woke up quite reluctantly – kept squeezing his eyes shut and burying his face in the bedding to try and stave off the day. The dream was still vivid in his mind. John hadn’t thought about these things since the military. He’d put it all behind him and devoted himself to Mary – not even his unconscious had betrayed him in such a fashion in a long time.

He was afraid he might’ve stained the sheets, but there was no evidence of sin to be found – except, strangely, for a dull ache in his lower half. His cheeks heated at the thought of possibly digitally penetrating himself in his sleep – he had heard of such phenomena among hysterical women, but never anything like this. He tried to tell himself he had only slept in an awkward position, but his ability to rationalise the increasingly bizarre facts of his life was weakening.

Pushing away the lingering thoughts of his dream, John went down to join Mary at the breakfast table. He caught sight of himself in a mirror along the stairs, and was genuinely taken aback by the shadows beneath his eyes. After seeing his reflection, he couldn’t wonder at the concern in his wife’s face as he sat down across from her.

“John,” she said, reaching to take his hand, “my love, I’m worried about you.”

An empty reassurance sprang instantly to his lips, but before he could give it voice, Mary continued, sounding anguished, “I have not wanted to pry, but – are you ill? Please, tell me what’s the matter, and perhaps...I only wish to help.”

Squeezing her fingers tightly as emotion crested in his chest, John raised his eyes and met her gaze. Mary was beautiful; she had always been patient and caring and John had shut himself to her completely these past few days. He could not continue to do this to her – she was an amazing woman who deserved much better. He had to fix this.

There was to be no more evasion. John was resolved to go to Lestrade and confess all he knew, even though he could still make little sense of it. He could not let this matter continue to cast a shadow over his home life. He rose from his chair and went to Mary’s side and kissed her deeply as he had not allowed himself since the morning he’d learned of the first murder. She embraced him and he believed that her strength could support him through anything. He kissed her again and then told her, truthfully, that the matter was nearly at a close – he only had a final errand to run and then he would tell her the entire story over supper. Her answering smile was radiant with hope.

However, just as John was buttoning his coat, there came a ring on the doorbell. He went to answer it and the police inspector himself was revealed on the doorstep, accompanied by one of his men.

“Another murder?” John asked.

“Not quite,” Lestrade said coldly. “May I come in?”

“Of course,” John said, stepping back to wave the policemen in. Mary appeared beside him. Though her expression was slightly confused, she welcomed the men graciously and offered to make them tea.

Lestrade tipped his head towards her and said, “Thank you, ma’am, but I must speak to your husband alone. It is a matter of some delicacy.”

Fear formed a lump in John’s throat, but Mary looked at him gently, clearly thinking she now understood the cause of John’s recent aggravation to have been some top secret case.

“Please, follow me,” John said, and led his visitors to his office. He had no idea what to expect. Lestrade told his companion to wait outside the door and then motioned for John to sit – the characteristic temerity of the police inspector – giving John permission to sit at his own desk – almost made him laugh, but he bit it back.

“The second victim,” Lestrade started, “his name was George Markham.” He stared at John, looking for a reaction, but John did not give him the satisfaction. “He worked at the Crown and Dolphin, where, much to my surprise, I learned you were on the night of his murder.” Lestrade looked exceedingly pleased with his discovery. “Any comment, Doctor?”

John looked down at his hands clenched tightly in his lap. There was no time now to berate himself for waiting too long to tell the truth. “I didn’t recognize the corpse,” he said smoothly. “As for my presence there – well, you understand that I am not exactly proud of my vice.”

Lestrade’s eyes narrowed, but he nodded shortly. “I’d advise you to be more careful about the establishments you frequent – at least for the time being.” He rose. “Good day.”

John showed the men out, but he felt no relief. Lestrade did not trust him, and perhaps he shouldn’t. He could’ve given the police a physical description of the suspect at any point, but he had held back, for reasons he couldn’t even fully discern. He thought again of Mary, and knew he could not waste any more time. It would be necessary to conduct some detective work of his own.

He decided the best approach would be to retrace Lestrade’s steps. Mary was in the dining room, preparing a shopping list for Missy. John kissed her goodbye and promised not to be late coming home, then took a carriage to the tavern where he’d seen the strange man – the murderer, he reminded himself – it was best the think of him as such.

The proprietor, a Mr Evans, was not particularly forthcoming, answering almost all of John’s questions with, “I already talked to the peelers.” John persisted, though, and Evans warmed a tiny fraction once he was convinced John truly wasn’t with the police, but even though he’d been there that fateful night, he had precious little information to share. He remembered the man John described, but only because the man had not ordered any drinks or placed any bets, which had made Evans think the man was an undercover policeman.

He returned home, trying to puzzle out what the next step would be – he could think of nothing other than going door to door he had so little to go on.

A meal of the finest calibre awaited him. Mary took his hands in hers and kissed him. His earlier intentions of honesty withered in the face of her uncertain smile, the wordless plea to hear that everything was alright. “The case?” she finally said boldly when John remained silent.

“Closed,” he said, forcing a jovial note into his voice. Mary made an exultant noise and bid John pour them each a glass of wine to celebrate. She was used to the confidential nature of John’s work, and so had no reason to question him further, which made John feel all the more wretched.

John drank most of the bottle that Mary had chosen, chasing oblivion. Mary herself had a few glasses. Her cheeks were rosy and her lips stained dark.

Once Missy had cleared the table, Mary caught his eye and gave him a conspiratorial smirk. They both rose and Mary caught his arm. “Take me to bed, Dr Watson,” she murmured.

“It would be my honour, Mrs Watson,” he answered. He climbed the stairs on unsteady legs, one arm stretched back to keep a hold on Mary’s hand.

He collapsed onto the bed, struggling to rid himself of some of his clothes while Mary put out the lights. With each passing second, his eyelids felt heavier. The wine warmed his stomach, but he felt no stirring in his groin, even when Mary, clad only in her underclothes, joined him on the mattress. He pressed his lips to hers and put his hands on her slender waist. He felt himself growing lethargic – his mind hazy and his movements sluggish. Staying awake was becoming an impossible feat; he could not even find the energy to apologise before he passed out.

There was an uproar in the house a little after four in the morning – hysterical crying from outside accompanied by an insistent ringing of the bell that woke everyone. John, instantly alert, raced downstairs, forgetting that he was hardly decent and bellowing for everyone to stay back. He threw open the door and found a young woman cowering on the ground, bleeding from the neck.

John’s medical training took over, and he ushered her quickly inside. He pressed his hand against the wound - wounds, he noted in the back of his mind – two holes, to be precise – but he would need something better to stop the bleeding. He half-dragged the sobbing girl into the kitchen and grabbed a dish towel and pressed it to her neck.

This was a message; John was sure of it. His efforts that day must not have gone unnoticed, he thought wryly.

The girl was hysterical, babbling; “He – the monster – he,” she kept repeating between fresh bouts of tears.

“It’s alright,” he told her, grasping her wrist tightly with his free hand. He lifted the towel to check the wounds. He had no way of knowing how much blood she had lost. Even if the blood would coagulate and he could clean and bandage her neck, it might be too late.

Suddenly, he heard Mary’s shocked voice behind him saying, “My God.” He heard her turn and run out, only to return a moment later with his medical bag. She had assisted him often enough to become quite a competent nurse and quickly readied a bottle of surgical spirit and a piece of clean cotton.

Still applying pressure, John helped the girl to sit in a chair. She was looking dazed and faint and she was quiet except for her laboured breathing. By the time the bleeding stopped and John had tended to the wounds, she was shivering. Mary helped him guide the girl to the settee in the drawing room. Rest was the only way she was going to recover from the blood loss.

He expected her to pass quickly into unconsciousness, but her eyes were wild and dilated and she gripped the sleeve of John’s nightshirt tightly. Whatever she had been through, it had left her hysterical - that much was obvious.

“He said,” she began in a hoarse voice. “He said to tell you-” She paused and glanced fearfully at Mary.

“Will you go make her some tea, please darling?” John said quietly. Mary hesitated, but then nodded quickly and returned to the kitchen.

John pulled a chair over to sit beside the settee and waited for the unfortunate victim to continue. He felt both dread at the fact that he was being further mired in this mess and rage at the girl’s assailant, who had fast become the bane of John’s existence.

Stuttering and gulping between words she told him, “He wants to see you – immediately. He said he’s watching. He wants to you go to Regent Circus or tomorrow night it will be your missus that gets it.”

“What happened?” John asked. “Who is he?”

The girl raised a shaky hand to touch her bandages. There were tears in her eyes. “He’s not human,” she whispered. “It was a monster. It was horrible. His teeth.” John found that his hands had clenched into fists. “He bit me. I didn’t feel anything at first – just all hazy like,” she continued, “and then it started to burn, and then it was agony and I was sure I was in hell.”

“You’re lying,” he hissed unkindly – “you’ve been through a traumatic experience; you don’t know what happened. Or else you’re so frightened that you’re lying for him.”

Her face went blank. “He’s waiting,” she said. “He’ll do to your wife what he did to me only he’ll kill her.”

John stood abruptly and paced to the other side of the room. There was no time to go to Lestrade, especially not when he was being so closely monitored. There was nothing to do but follow his instructions. He went to Mary and asked her to keep an eye on the patient, told her that he had to leave and that it was of the utmost importance.

“John,” she said gravely, looking into his eyes, “I don’t know who you’re becoming lately, but if you say you need to go then I trust you.”

It had left him with a sour taste of guilt in his mouth.

He walked the short distance to Regent Circus, trembling with apprehension. It was about five in the morning now, and still quite dark. The square was mostly deserted. His man was easily spotted – standing beneath a streetlamp on the east side of the square by Oxford Street. Even before John had reached him he knew it was him - the man he’d seen in the gambling den – the one with the unwavering stare – the phantom that had been plaguing him, finally in the flesh. He stood still as John approached, his stance quite casual.

“You,” John whispered when he was near enough to see the man’s eyes. His anger bubbled over as he thought of the injured young woman back at his home. His every instinct was to attack the man for all the frustration he had caused him, but he knew very well by now that whoever this man was he was deadly.

The killer’s mouth curved into a slight grin. “Me,” he agreed genially. He pushed himself away from the lamppost and came to stand in front of John, his step so smooth and silent that he seemed to float. John could not stop himself from taking an instinctive step back. “Sherlock Holmes,” the man said, offering his hand. Sharing his name couldn’t be a good sign, John thought – either it was false or Holmes meant to do away with him.

Regardless, John shook his hand like a gentleman. “You already know who I am, of course,” he said.

Though his voice was rife with sarcasm, it did not diminish Holmes’ amiable demeanour in the least. “Yes, of course,” he smiled.

The unabashed candour rankled him and John clenched his jaw in a show of bravado. “I suppose I shall witness firsthand, now, the method of your murders,” he snapped.

Holmes chuckled and cocked his head. He was still standing quite close. “I assure you it’s exactly what it appears to be – ‘the simplest answer’, you know.”

“You take me for an idiot,” John scoffed. Holmes moved then, wrapping an arm around John’s waist and pushing them into an alleyway with such speed that the breath was knocked from John’s lungs. Holmes pressed him back against a brick wall, his hands on either side of John’s head, caging him in, and then bared his teeth in a ghoulish grimace. His canines were slightly oversized and sharply pointed. John’s disbelief overrode any sense of self-preservation and he involuntarily reached to touch the left fang. Holmes stayed very still and allowed him to inspect it. They had to be fakes, but the edge of tooth and gum felt quite natural. He tapped his nail against the enamel. “How did you…?” John breathed. The simplest answer was too fantastic – there had to be another explanation.

“I like your scepticism, bull-headed as it may be,” Holmes said in a low tone. He spoke as if he knew John intimately; it was rude and maddening when all John really knew was that this man was a killer.

Rather than respond with something antagonistic, John ignored the remark. “Did you file them?” he asked instead.

In lieu of answering, Holmes turned slightly so that his fang punctured the tip of John’s index finger. Immediately, Holmes’ lips closed around the digit and he sucked at the tiny wound. John gasped. He thought his legs might give out beneath him, but Holmes once again put an arm around his waist and held him snugly. John was sure there was no more blood coming from the scrape, but Holmes continued the assault. He kept rubbing his tongue along the underside of John’s finger. The sensation of it was unbearably arousing, so much so that it terrified him. He was rubbing himself against the murderer’s hip like a mindless beast, and it had taken so very little to unravel him.

When Holmes finally let him go, John slumped against the wall. “What are you?” he said shakily. Holmes stared at him evenly. At this proximity, it was hard to deny that there was something preternatural about Holmes – his alabaster skin, his fierce gaze.

“I’m quite partial to the word nosferatu,” Holmes said. John could have sworn his heart skipped a beat. He shook his head in wild, automatic refutation of the claim. Then, again faster than should have been possible, Holmes snatched his cane out of his hand and withdrew the hidden blade. John did not even have time to wonder how Holmes knew it was there before Holmes stepped back, lifted the hem of his shirt, gripped the handle and plunged the blade into his own abdomen.

“My God!” John exclaimed, moving instantly to try and attend to him. Holmes was a madman – an utter lunatic – he showed no sign of pain, made no noise, only blinked and watched, completely alert, as John touched where steel met flesh.

“Watch closely,” Holmes ordered softly, and then withdrew the blade. The sound made John’s lip twitch in disgust, for it made him think of the carnage he had seen abroad. It was immediately apparent that there was not nearly as much blood as there should be for such an injury. Then, before John’s very own eyes, Holmes’ flesh closed – within seconds there was only a slight blemish where he had stabbed himself.

John felt the blood drain from his face, a creeping sense of horror like ice in his veins. Holmes very calmly pulled out a handkerchief and cleaned the blade before slipping it back in its sheath. Having his hands so close to his body after that display made John flinch instinctively away, stumbling in a reckless attempt to escape only to have Holmes grab him by the biceps and pull him into his arms.

“I’m dreaming,” John muttered desperately as Holmes cupped his face.

“No,” Holmes said simply, and then kissed him. John expected pain – the slice of razor-sharp teeth, but the kiss was soft. Holmes was being careful with him – a thought that was somehow terrifying. John was too stunned to struggle, but his mind whirled as he tried to make sense of the insanity he’d been presented with. The man – the thing that was embracing him was not human, but a monster and a murderer. He felt bile rise in his throat and then tried to shove Holmes away, panicked.

Holmes let him go, and John knew instinctively the only thing that had allowed him free of Holmes’ hold was the killer’s indulgence. Holmes caught his eye, looking a bit baffled by his behaviour. His eyes were mesmerizing and John felt transfixed like a python’s prey helplessly awaiting the mortal strike. John swallowed – a fearful noise – and then immediately cursed himself inwardly for the way it made the creature’s eyes fix on his throat.

“I’ve taken a liking to you, Dr Watson,” Holmes said, his gaze still directed toward John’s jugular vein.

“Stay away from me,” John managed to retort, as feeble a gesture as it might have been.

The monster’s face fell into an affected moue, his hands coming to his breast as if he’d suffered a great insult.

“Stay away from-” John felt himself unwilling to say Mary’s name, though he knew very well Holmes was already aware of her existence – “my family,” he finished instead.

Holmes expression turned into something dangerously angry. He grabbed John by the elbow and hauled him close enough that their noses almost brushed. “Patience is one of my virtues, Watson; I’ve learned it over the years, but I still suggest you not be so trying.”

“What do you want?” John sputtered desperately.

Holmes sneered. “To help pass the considerable amount of time I have on my hands,” he said sardonically. His free hand touched John’s neck. In contrast to his demeanour, he stroked John’s skin very gently. Holmes’ predatory gaze again left him feeling paralyzed. He believed, truly, for a moment, that his life was over.

Just then, bells chimed the half-hour. Holmes’ eyes narrowed, and he laughed bitterly. “I’m afraid it’s getting too late for me,” he murmured, lips against John’s ear. He gave him a final, smacking kiss, and then disappeared with the promise of “until tomorrow night.”

Mary nodded at him curtly when he arrived home. The girl was asleep. John relieved his wife of her watch post and Mary went to bed without a word. He could not blame her for her cold treatment; John knew very well he deserved that and more for his conduct.

He checked the girl’s pulse and temperature. She remained deeply asleep, but seemed to be alright. John settled back into the chair to wait. In the strange, grey light of the early morning he finally allowed himself to think the word ‘vampire.’ It was preposterous. He was familiar with some of the myths surrounding revenants, but he was fully unequipped to deal with something so outside the realm of the everyday, but there it was – Holmes was a vampire – a monster of legends and nightmares – and he was not going to leave him alone, of that much John was certain. The outrageousness of the truth was such that John could barely comprehend it. Instead of fear, he was left with a dark kind of humour borne of disbelief.

When his patient finally awoke, Missy served tea and crumpets and then John walked her home. He remained in silent thought until, at her doorway, she timidly asked, “Did you see him?”

“Yes,” John said grimly. He volunteered no further details.

She reached back to the nape of her neck and unclasped a necklace – a delicate chain with a small gold crucifix. She pressed it into John’s hand and shook her head when he tried to protest. “In thanks,” she said, “and it may prove useful.”

He slipped the cross into his pocket and then walked to a bookseller he knew to carry odd, antique volumes. The vendor provided him with a few books on folklore and the occult. John did not know whether or not they could help him, but he knew of no other way to approach his situation except scientifically.

Lestrade and Clark were in his house when he returned. He walked in just in time to hear the inspector ask Mary where her husband had been between five and seven in the morning. His entrance saved her having to answer, though she gave him a nervous, implicating look.

“What’s the meaning of this?” he demanded.

Lestrade turned to face him, his manner icy and professional. “I believe you know a man named Henry Ward who lives on Kingly Street?” He did indeed. Mr Ward had been one of his very first patients, a friend of Mary’s father. “He was killed very early this morning by an intruder.” Lestrade looked at Mary and then back at John. “I don’t think I have to tell you how,” he said with finality.

“I don’t,” John said weakly, “I don’t know anything about that.”

“Be that as it might, I think it would be wise of you not to leave your house for the time being.”

John nodded, unable to bring himself to look at Mary’s reaction.

“Clarky here is going to stay and make sure you cooperate,” Lestrade told him. There was pity in Clark’s eyes which was difficult to bear. Lestrade made his exit, then, leaving John with a distraught and confused Mary and apologetic Clark. It was too much.

“I’ll be in my study,” John said hollowly. Clark nodded his assent.

He might as well have killed Mr Ward, he thought to himself. There was no question in his mind that Holmes had gone there immediately after leaving him and done the foul deed for this very end. He paged through his purchases. It all seemed rather silly – garlic and crosses and stakes. Trying to make sense of the stories only made him feel like he was drowning. The day ticked by slowly, leaving John to wallow in his thoughts. He buried his head in his hands and thought wildly of killing himself, but the idea of suicide offended him and there was still a part of him that thought this might all be a dream he could eventually escape.

Missy brought him supper on a tray. His wife, John assumed, could not face him. He ate a few bites, but the food tasted like ash in his mouth.

He had just gotten up to pick a medical textbook off the shelf, thinking a study of anatomy might calm him when there was a sudden draft and the room was plunged into coldness. He turned to see Holmes there, closing and latching the window behind him. His presence was neither desired nor a surprise.

“I thought you had to be invited in,” John said drearily.

Holmes slowly took stock of the room before answering, examining the objects on John’s desk and then the contents of his bookshelves. “I was,” he stated in his neutral, matter-of-fact way of speaking, “By that girl – the maid – Missy, is it? I paid a visit last week, took a look around.” He paused and cocked his head. “She won’t remember, though.”

“You killed Henry Ward,” John spit, detesting Holmes’ pretensions at civility.

A disparaging “Mais oui,” was his response.

“Why?” he sputtered.

Holmes tipped his head slightly to the side, considering. “I think you know I could easily kill you, but I want you to understand the power I have over your life is much more than that.” Holmes stared at him intently, seemingly searching for something. He sighed after a moment, finding John lacking. “You are not following; let me be less subtle: there are many ways to control you, to hurt you – your wife, for instance.”

“Rest assured that if any harm befell her I would devote myself completely to the pursuit of your destruction,” John interrupted hotly.

The monster chuckled. “I have no doubt you would make a diverting, though not necessarily worthy adversary.” He came to lean against the side of the desk next to John’s chair. John was careful not to look him in the eyes for he didn’t appreciate the effect it had on him. “All this,” Holmes continued softly – his cold fingers touched the underside of John’s chin, tipping his face up – “to show you how powerless you are, and that it will be in your best interests to do as I ask.”

The dizzying effect was upon him and it was only with the greatest effort that John was able to say, “And what, pray tell, are you asking?”

“Tonight?” Holmes smirked, “just a taste – an apéritif, if you will.”

John’s consent must have been assumed – a foregone conclusion after Holmes’ speechifying, since Holmes did not wait for him to speak, only took hold of John’s arm and very deliberately removed the cufflink and then rolled John’s sleeve up to above his elbow. John didn’t struggle, didn’t resist, didn’t cry out for help, only watched in a dull haze as Holmes, with agonizing slowness, lifted his arm higher and dipped his head and then sank his teeth into the visible vein at the inside of John’s elbow. The penetration made an odd, intimate sound. The pain was sharp for a moment, and then went numb, and all John could feel was the strange pull of his blood and Holmes suckling at his skin around the two incisions. There was something quite perverse, but erotic about it. He found that his heart was pounding, heat pooling in his groin as Holmes tasted him.

Even more notable was that Holmes’ composure was utterly shredded. He pulled back for a moment - his eyes were wild as a feral animal’s and his lips were red with John’s blood – only to groan and clutch John’s arm tighter, lapping at the punctures. His blunt front teeth scraped over the tender skin. When John unintentionally flexed the muscles in his arm he felt sore and bruised.

Finally, Holmes tore himself away. The separation broke whatever spell he had woven, and John’s arousal dissipated, leaving only some weakness and nausea. He took several quick steps away from John – bent over and with his back to him. “Tie it off,” Holmes gasped. “I want – the smell – I can’t,” and John heard the unspoken ‘control myself.’

Trembling, John took out his handkerchief and clumsily knotted it around the crook of his elbow. A few spots of blood immediately seeped through the cloth. Mary had embroidered it for him. There was probably no salvaging it, unfortunately.

The room was quiet save for John’s unsteady breath. He could hear the hum of Mary and Clark talking out in the parlour, though he couldn’t make out any words, and the sound of carriage wheels on the street, but Holmes was absolutely still and silent.

Finally, he turned. He looked suddenly human – a softening of his stony features and a flush to his cheeks. He took a step toward John and stretched out his arm as if to touch him, but froze with his fingers not quite grazing the centre of his chest. “I will make this go away,” he said hoarsely. Holmes blinked and licked his lips, the gesture somehow startlingly vulnerable. “I will clear your name, but-” The ultimatum, even unspoken, infuriated John.

“What?” he snarled. “I’ll need to be a convenient meal, a slave to your unnatural lust?”

Holmes did touch him then – slid his hand up John’s neck to cup his cheek. The cold of his touch was still shocking enough that John recoiled. Holmes merely moved with him, keeping the contact between them. “You are no common meal, Watson,” he said. The use of his surname rang oddly in John’s ears, though Holmes said it as if it was quite natural. It was not something he heard often since his time in the military without the prefix of ‘doctor.’ “But, yes, I will ask your…” He paused with a devilish smirk on his face, as if savouring the word on his tongue before he finally finished, “compliance.” The word made John shiver with dark, half-formed thoughts.

“Besides, I don’t really wish to see you go to the gallows,” he continued with an appalling indulgence with which John was unwillingly becoming quite familiar.

“That might be the better fate,” John brashly rejoined.

The words had no visible effect on Holmes, testament to the hollow futility of John’s attempts at rebellion. He was pushed back against the desk with Holmes sinuously pressing their bodies together. Holmes laughed suddenly, and then reached into John’s pocket, pulling the crucifix out by its chain. John had forgotten it was there, though it hardly seemed to matter, for all Holmes did was make a disdainful face and toss it onto the floor before embracing him once more.

For the first time, John realised that Holmes wasn’t breathing – there was no movement in his chest of inhaling and exhaling – just a solid, inanimate weight against him, keeping him where Holmes wanted. To make certain, he shifted in the snare of Holmes’ arms and touched his wrist. It confirmed to him that Holmes had no pulse. It stirred in him his sense of scientific curiosity. Holmes must have seen the wonder in his face for his lip quirked.

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,” Holmes whispered as he brushed his lips across John’s cheek. “Your fate is already sealed,” he continued, his tone growing more urgent. “You must accept it. You are living a half-life, Watson, sleepwalking through the mundane while you yearn for more excitement. I am your destiny. I –”

He stopped abruptly and cocked his head toward the door like a dog hearing something beyond human ears. “Soon,” he hissed – a dark vow, and then left as suddenly as he’d appeared with only the slightly ajar window and John’s sore arm left as evidence of his visit. John untied the handkerchief to clean the wounds to find that the marks had disappeared, though his skin itched where it had been punctured, an inescapable reminder.

Bare seconds later, Mary rapped softly on the door, calling his name. He bid her enter, remembering then that the door had been unlocked for the entire duration of Holmes’ visit. The thought was troubling – not so much for fear of discovery, as Holmes had proven his senses to be supernatural, but the idea of so little separating such a monster from his wife and the rest of his home. It reminded John with sickening finality that there was nothing he would be able to do to protect Mary from a vindictive and malicious Holmes. Holmes was right – his fate was sealed. He had nowhere to turn, no one who could help him, and he would never be able to tell Mary the truth.

Mary came into the room, leaving the door open behind her. John could not see him, but he assumed Constable Clark was lurking nearby. Her face looked as if she’d been crying earlier, but there was a strength and resolve to her expression as he gazed at him. “More than anything I wish I didn’t feel I had to ask this,” she said, “But are you innocent, John?”

The question pained him, but he could hardly blame her. He had no idea of how to answer when the truth was he has not at all innocent. Though he himself hadn’t murdered anyone, he knew who – and what – the killer was, and, even worse than that –Holmes’ choice of victims was being influenced by his perverted fascination with John. Even if indirectly, there was blood on his hands.

“I know things were bad after the war,” Mary said gently, “but I - I thought you were better now.” She’d been at his side through his rehabilitation, but she had no idea what it was like – thank God – how still sometimes being in a crowd would cause him to panic, how sometimes he would think of the men he hadn’t been able to save and his leg would hurt so intensely that he would pray for death to put him out of his misery.

Perhaps he was mad; perhaps Holmes was a fabrication of his own feverish brain, and he was as guilty as Lestrade’s suspicious glare suggested. There were more things in heaven and earth, but John knew his own mind. Though the war had left its indelible mark upon his being, he was better. He was unlucky, but he wasn’t insane.

He looked at Mary. He had no comfort to offer her, for whatever happened – whether or not his name was cleared, he had no hope of a happy ending. She looked angry at his lack of self-defence. “I don’t believe you’re capable of having done this,” she said determinedly. “Now come out into the parlour.”

Presently, another policeman arrived to relieve Clark. The newcomer was a dour, taciturn fellow. John was grateful for the silence, and fell asleep on the sofa with his guards – the policeman and Mary –both seated in chairs a few feet away with their eyes self-consciously averted away from him and staring into the fireplace.

In the morning, Mary shook him awake with a jubilant smile and pressed a copy of the Illustrated News into his hands. “I knew I should never have doubted you,” she murmured, and then kissed him. John blinked a few times and finally managed to focus on the headline on the front page: “Madman’s reign of terror ended.”

By the time Lestrade came to give him the good news a half-hour later – that John was innocent – John had already read the story through at least a dozen times. A dockworker had been apprehended by the inspector and his men during the night. Sadly, they were too late to save the killer’s fourth victim. The lunatic had raved and lashed out at the police violently, but was overpowered and now in prison. Each time he reread the words, he searched in vain for some kind of clue to Holmes’ involvement. It was too neat an end to such a messy case.

“Just a precaution, you understand,” was Lestrade’s apology for placing him under house arrest. John dully reassured him he felt no ill will, and then Lestrade went on his way.

Mary’s relief lightened the mood in the house considerably, but there was still a palpable tension between them that John feared would never again fully dissipate. It was exacerbated further when Mary suggested they go to the Royale that night for dinner – they had spent many an evening there during their courtship – but John rejected the idea, citing the need to make up for lost time in regards to his patients and his paper work. In truth, he feared what might happen once the sun fell, for the night was still the vampire’s domain, and he had no doubt Holmes would appear to him.

His suspicions were shortly confirmed when, at midday, a street urchin came to the door to deliver a letter to John, lingering until John gave him a few pence to leave. In the envelope was a sheet of paper blank but for an address – 221B Baker Street, and the order, “Tonight at sundown.”

He made his excuses to Mary – a bedridden patient that needed tending to, and took a hansom cab to Baker Street. His nerves were making him somewhat queasy, and he tried to distract himself with idle musing. It was strange to think of a monster such as Holmes having something so common as a flat – and only twenty minutes walking distance from John’s home. He didn’t know what he expected – a cave, a gothic castle. He wondered, too, what it meant that Holmes had trusted him with the location of his abode. Then again, John had no idea what he could do with the information – torch the building? Inform Lestrade there was an immortal creature that fed from human blood on the premises? No, Holmes must have rightfully concluded he had nothing to fear from him.

He was received by a kindly landlady by the name of Mrs Hudson. She seemed to have no idea of the true nature of her tenant, only grumbled good-naturedly about Holmes’ eccentricities – how he never had any visitors, took his meals alone in his room, and was out at all hours of the night.

She delivered him to Holmes’ bedroom door, who flung it open just as she was going to knock, making her gasp sharply. “Thank you, Nanny,” Holmes said, putting a presumptuous hand on John’s lower back and urging him through the threshold. Mrs Hudson nodded primly and then returned to the lower floor, leaving John alone with Holmes in the vampire’s sanctum.

The room was startlingly messy – full of beakers and other equipment, oddities that looked like they came from a variety of exotic locales, stacks of books – all evidence of a fertile mind trying to escape the abysm of boredom. Holmes stood still, looking at him as if waiting for him to speak. Though John knew it was best to keep his temper, he was too irritated at the loss of his free-will. “If you’re expecting thanks,” he said shortly, “for framing me for murder and then letting another innocent man pay for your crimes.”

Holmes turned his back on him disinterestedly and went to sit in his armchair, and picked up a book. “That man was hardly innocent,” he told him matter-of-factly. “He’d abducted and tortured two small girls to death only a week prior.” John shuddered involuntarily. Holmes looked up at him for just a brief second, and then turned his gaze back down to his book.

John had no idea what was expected of him after that. It seemed laughably ludicrous that Holmes had called him here solely for companionable silence, but Holmes continued to ignore him. After standing awkwardly in front of the door for another moment, John gave in and stepped farther into the room. He made his away around to get a closer look at Holmes’ strange collection of belongings. There was a table to the right with heaps of paper strewn across it – all of the sheets covered in detailed sketches and scribbled notes that drew John’s attention. The ink drawings were renderings of the human body – studies of physiology and anatomy. John had only seen such meticulous drawings in medical volumes. He picked one up that illustrated a grown man’s chest cavity to read the writing on it, easily recognizing Holmes’ handwriting. He made out “Age: 102, subject starved for one week, stayed conscious through procedure, only half a litre of blood, expressed pain,” before he had to set it down, feeling ill. He turned to see if Holmes was watching him, but Holmes, perhaps disingenuously, was still seemingly immersed in his reading.

Trembling slightly, he picked up another sheet that had a series of drawings of a man whose age was marked as 57, though he looked no older than 25 in the first portrait. Next to each picture was marked with the word ‘week’ and then a successive number. With each drawing the man looked more and more emaciated. Under ‘Week 8’ was written “Subject had taken to howling and screaming so insistently that it became necessary to remove his vocal chords.” Under ‘Week 36’ it said “Subject unable to move, but still alert.”

He could feel his heart rate increase. He was sure that Holmes could hear it as well. John had to admit that even though Holmes’ experiments disgusted him, he was fascinated by the medical questions posed by the existence of Holmes and others like him. He continued to shift through Holmes’ studies, unsure of what he was looking for, but with vague desires to examine Holmes himself, to study of what biological functions the vampire was still capable. Suddenly, there was a voice was in his ear and John nearly choked in shock at finding that Holmes had noiselessly come up behind him.

“If you are hoping to find how to kill me, I’ll make it easy for you-” He slipped his arms around John’s waist, moulding his chest to John’s back, and then kissed the nape of John’s neck right below his hairline. “-the only sure method is beheading.” Holmes was stroking John’s sides beneath his jacket, hands curling over his ribs to hold him closer. He was being manipulated somehow, John was sure of it, for Holmes’ physical proximity was affecting him strangely – making his skin too hot beneath his clothes and his breath go shaky. It made him think of unspeakable things – desires he had repressed.

“Let me go,” John said. His voice came out unsteady and breathless. Holmes took a step back, but held on to John’s hips for another moment before releasing him. John reluctantly turned to face him. There was no hiding that he was hard in his wool trousers. Holmes growled and pressed against him again, pushing John so that the edge of the table dug into his back. Though Holmes was not aroused, the want in his face was undeniable, focused solely on him. He rubbed his thigh against John’s groin, one hand coming up to cradle the back of John’s head, to urge him to tilt his head to the side. With his other hand he pulled at John’s starched collar, baring skin. “Watson,” Holmes murmured, “My Watson,” and then John felt the barest prick of Holmes’ teeth against his neck.

“Holmes” he whimpered – there was fright in his tone, and a plea – he didn’t quite know what for, but he wasn’t ready, he couldn’t.

He was shoved back so that he had to catch himself on his elbows on the tabletop. Holmes was on the other side of the room in the blink of an eye. “Get out,” Holmes snapped at him, and then, gentling, “I have to eat,” as if it was an apology. “But you’ll come again tomorrow.” There was no questioning intonation to the statement.

John walked back, feeling as though he more than deserved the ache that started in his leg. He felt wretched thinking of the lies he would have to tell Mary, of the deceit he would have to enact the next night. This was worse than an affair, surely, for it was far more dangerous.

A note from Mary awaited him at home. She had gone to visit with her parents. For a second John feared Holmes had done something – orchestrated this somehow and forged his wife’s handwriting, or forced her to write it, but he had no one to blame but himself. He felt a sharp pang in his chest at that, but could not be surprised.

The house was solemn and quiet the next day. John had barely slept. He had no desire to see patients, to eat, to do anything at all. He hadn’t thought about gambling in days. Holmes had so successfully disrupted and disassembled his life that John could concentrate on nothing, could only wait restlessly for the day to pass. He could think of nothing but Holmes’ darkly thrilling touch. It had been years since John had allowed himself to indulge his more perverse tastes. He had known, of course, and been tempted by the possibility of visiting certain establishments in London’s less reputable areas, but a combination of his marriage vows and shame had kept him from sin.

Somehow Holmes had filled his mind with the carnal, had him transgressing all of the restrictions he’d given himself. It was as if in taking control of his life, Holmes had destroyed the dam that held back John’s forbidden fantasies of the male physique – a hard, heavy cock in his hand or mouth, a broad, flat chest against his own, thick body hair and firm muscles. Even with the deluge of images, however, there was one he held at bay; his dream the other night had made it come, unbidden, but he doggedly refused to let himself go so far as to imagine the unspeakable crime of being sodomised. Still, his daydreams quickened his blood so much so that he had to touch himself, bring himself off quick and furtive even though he was quite alone.

His act of onanism did not slake his desire, and still his thoughts were inappropriately preoccupied. The shivers of anticipation he got when he headed back to Baker Street that night only made things worse.

Holmes answered the door himself. He looked different; there was colour in his cheeks and a red flush to his lips and his movements were looser.

“I take it you’ve eaten already?” John said. It was proof of Holmes’ corrupting influence, he thought, that he could have any sense of humour about Holmes’ appetites.

Holmes was silent, but his slight smirk was answer enough. He coaxed John further inside, taking his coat and then leading him to the parlour – a pleasant, well-furnished room with a warm fire crackling in the fireplace – quite unlike Holmes’ chamber upstairs. Holmes told him to sit down, and John absently obeyed.

“Mrs Hudson is out tonight,” was the only warning he received before Holmes had pinned on his back on the sofa, held down with the vampire’s inexorable strength. His hat went toppling to the floor. John could feel that Holmes’ cock was hard this time, pressed tightly to his thigh as Holmes leaned in close. “I want you,” he said.

The bald statement made John inhale sharply, and he pushed at Holmes’ chest, though he knew it would accomplish nothing. “No,” he said out of reflex – a blind, meaningless denial. “No, I can’t.”

Holmes threaded his fingers through John’s hair and pulled his head back with a rough jerk. “Must I repeat my threats over and over? It makes me feel so uncouth.” John gaped at him. He wanted – of course he wanted – Holmes was inhumanly beautiful and relentless in a way that called to some wicked part of John’s soul – awakened its yearning to submit to the inevitable. Holmes smiled at him with far less guile than John would have expected, and then unfastened John’s trousers.

Though Holmes had ostensibly freed John from the burden of consent, it did little to alleviate his feelings of guilt. A week ago he would’ve fought for his honour, now he only watched as Holmes tugged his trousers and underclothes down to his knees and he was exposed to the monster’s touch. Holmes brushed his fingers lightly over John’s scar before curling them around his cock.

His hands were far rougher than Mary’s, than even John dared to be when he touched himself. Holmes pushed his foreskin back and played his thumb around the head where John was unbearably sensitive, then rubbed the loose band of skin back and forth against the frenulum, which made John quake with arousal. He could stifle his cries, keep himself quiet, but he could not stop the shameless way his body moved – automatically thrusting up in search of more contact.

There was something familiar about being beneath Holmes like this – the dream. He wondered – should have realised before – it must have been a product, not of his unconscious mind, but Holmes’ power of suggestion. He wanted to laugh, but it died in his throat when Holmes moved down his body. There was no breath to tease his sensitive flesh, but the sight of Holmes’ mouth so close to his erection was still overwhelming. He’d never dared to ask Mary to do this, had thought it too dirty, too damned for their marital bed.

Holmes startled him by kissing his scar and then lingering over his thigh for a moment. John dug his fingers into the sofa’s upholstery, for he did not wish to demonstrate to Holmes the profound effect he was having on him. He itched to grab Holmes’ hair and drag those sinful lips to his member, wanted to beg shamelessly for the unholy ecstasy; he was not strong enough to resist, not when it felt like his body was coming to life under Holmes’ hands, awakening to its needs. Holmes, mercifully, did not make him wait, but abruptly licked along the length of him and then took him in his mouth. It was, perhaps, slightly cooler than the inside of a human’s mouth would be, but the exquisite pleasure of it was hardly dampened. The final scraps of his control were torn away and he was left panting like a madman, straining desperately against the grip Holmes had on his hips as he tried to thrust deeper into the silky wetness of his throat.

Too soon, Holmes pulled away. “No, please,” John gasped, no longer minding his pride.

“I wonder if you know how tempting you are – so choked by your Empire’s morality that you look all the more debauched like this,” Holmes murmured, looking amused and stroking along John’s flank . John closed his eyes, tried to steady his breathing, and went limply along when Holmes urged him on to his side.

The sofa was only just wide enough to allow Holmes to press against the back of it and hold John from tumbling off the edge. His cheek rested against John’s lower back and he curved one arm under and around John’s waist to grip his cock loosely. The new position bewildered John, but he had little time to wonder before Holmes’ free hand settled on his arse, thumb digging into the cleft to part his buttocks. Ingrained modesty had him trying to shy away from the profane touch, but Holmes’ strength left no quarter. He tightened his hand on John’s cock and began to stroke just as his head dipped and his unholy tongue found his most private of places.

John blasphemed. Arching away from Holmes’ mouth only resulted in him thrusting into the circle of Holmes’ fist, sending pleasure sparking throughout his nerves. There was a pleasure in Holmes’ defilement of his person, too, once his initial panic had passed. There was a thrill to the depravity of it. It made him feel like a heathen in one of Burton’s accounts of far off lands where sensuality was allowed sovereignty and men and women rutted like beasts for no other purpose than the enjoyment of it. It stimulated an ache deep inside of him. Desires too long denied were now being gratified and it only fuelled them into becoming voracious.

Holmes pulled away, though he continued to rub John’s cock. John was left feeling uncomfortably wet and open where Holmes’ tongue had abandoned him. Fangs dragged over the curve of his left buttock and Holmes licked up the blood. The slight pain only made John shiver, so stunned stupid had Holmes left him. Fingers touched at his entrance and John wanted them in, but Holmes moved again, shifting up until he was nuzzling the back of John’s neck and John could feel Holmes’ arousal against his arse.

“May I?” Holmes asked, his voice low and rough.

It was John’s most shameful secret that he desired to be buggered, and of course Holmes had been able to glean that, had seen right to his core and now sought to strip him of his inhibitions, his sense of duty and decorum as a subject of Her Majesty the Queen by making him admit it aloud. John coughed out a mirthless laugh – as if there was any question as to his answer. “Yes,” he said, harsh and bitten off.

Holmes made no verbal response, but John heard the sound of a vial being uncorked and liquid being spilled. He twisted just enough to see Holmes pushing his braces off his shoulders and undoing his trousers. His engorged cork was flushed red – strange next to the pale ivory of the rest of his skin. He slicked his hand up and down his shaft three times, coating it with oil. John had to look away from the sight, and buried his face in the crook of his arm. He was more on his stomach now than his side, with Holmes half on top of him.

Against Holmes’ order to relax, John tensed with anticipation as Holmes pushed his thighs farther apart and entered him slowly. It had been a long time and John’s muscles were ill-accustomed to the stretch. But where he might have assumed a frantic, violent coupling, Holmes was gentle and steady, murmuring soothing words against his ear in a foreign tongue. John was embarrassed to hear his unsteady breath, loud over the rustle of the clothing they hadn’t bothered to remove.

The slowness was terrible; it broke John in a completely new way. The pleasure was all-encompassing, inescapable. Each time Holmes withdrew he groaned with want of being impaled again, and every time his wish was granted the world got a little hazier. He was reduced to pleading with Holmes for completion, liberated from all sense of propriety. There was a pressure building in his body as he reached his peak. Holmes stroked his cock and whispered, “Yes, Watson – God, yes, come.” He did, pulsing and shuddering and throwing his head back against Holmes’ shoulder – baring his throat and feeling absurdly disappointed when Holmes did not bite him – as if he had not quite reached the true height of his climax.

Drained of energy, he lay still as Holmes finished. His thrusts became harder, quicker, less controlled. With a long groan, he spilled inside of John’s body.

Once the act was done and the fervour past, John was left feeling befouled and somewhat frustrated. When he had breath enough he shifted agitatedly under Holmes and snapped, “You’ve gotten your spoils. Now are we finished?” Holmes let him up, then, and sat back against the opposite arm of the sofa, not bothering to cover his exposed genitals. John stumbled to his feet and tried to put his clothes in order, chafing under Holmes’ sharp, impassive gaze. He felt as though he’d been made a fool of.

“Finished?” Holmes repeated incredulously. He sat still, but followed John’s movements closely with his eyes. John went to stand by the window and stared out at the dark street; he had no illusions of being able to make it to the door without Holmes stopping him. A trace of anger threaded its way into Holmes’ voice. “You have no idea how long I’ve been watching you, do you? Of course not – you’re just as obtuse as all the rest. You never would have noticed – not if I hadn’t forced you to see me.”

John bridled at Holmes’ insults and reeled to glare at him. “Yes, well, how exasperating it must be for you to be so unparalleled in your brilliance – to, to lack any intellectual equals.”

There was a slight sneer on Holmes’ face. “I wager you haven’t even deduced my aims in regards to my attentions towards you,” he said contemptuously.

“You – you wanted that,” John spluttered, gesturing vaguely towards the sofa.

Holmes’ ire seemed to dissolve instantaneously, though his mien was still slightly mocking. “Would you believe me capable of loneliness?” he asked deprecatingly.

“No,” John answered crossly. He had an inkling of where Holmes was going with this train of conversation, and fear began to overtake satiation.

“Immortality has convinced me of the worth of having a…companion.” Holmes said with a kind of detached confidence that brooked no argument.

Still, John protested. “I have no wish to be like you – a monster – a killer,” John said, his lip curling in disgust at the thought.

“You won’t mind once the change has occurred,” Holmes said almost kindly. “That is the nature of the transformation.” John felt faint. His hands started shaking. Holmes stood and put an arm around him. John flinched away, as if he’d been struck, but Holmes paid his revulsion no heed and pulled him close again and led him to the door.

“I will give you a day to finish anything you feel needs attending to, and then I will come for you,” Holmes said gravely. John said nothing. Holmes picked up John’s coat and then draped it over his shoulders and bent to kiss him. His lips brushed John’s cheek when John turned his face away. Holmes took hold of his wrist in subtle warning, but did not try to kiss him again.

John was so unaware of his surroundings that he was surprised when he found himself back at his home, having walked there solely by memory.

With Mary gone it was hard to hold on to any hope that he might escape the fate Holmes intended for him. He could run, but he had no doubt Holmes would easily track him down. He did not fear Holmes killing him, but he did fear what would happen after that. He was repulsed by the idea of living like Holmes did, of drinking blood. He had spent so much of his life trying to help people, to heal them. Still, he could not deny that Holmes fascinated him, and to be singled out by such a creature – he wasn’t sure what he felt, but he was strongly drawn to Holmes – that much he could admit.

John walked slowly through his house and looked at all the belongings Mary and he had amassed. He felt little attachment to them; Holmes was right in that respect – he had long felt a prickling dissatisfaction with domestic life.

But to diverge from the fact of what Holmes wanted him to become was only to equivocate. John could not passively succumb to this as he had to everything else Holmes had done. He would not let Holmes damn him to hell without a fight.

Reinvigorated, John went and got his sabre from his study. He hadn’t touched it in years except to make sure it was properly maintained. Perhaps Holmes would become so wrathful as to kill him without turning him into a demon. Perhaps he might actually be able to kill Holmes – to put a stop to his murderous existence.

He thought of writing Mary a letter in case he did not emerge from this encounter alive, but he could think of no words to offer her. Instead, he sat at his desk and stared into space, waiting until midday. Holmes had never said so, but John suspected he must sleep during the day. He knew he was being rash, but Holmes had left him little choice, and this was possibly the only opportunity to confront Holmes on a slightly evened playing field. He put the sabre on his waist and hid it beneath his coat, and then returned to Baker Street.

Finding the door unlocked, he entered cautiously. If Holmes was awake, he did not make his presence known. He climbed the staircase to Holmes’ sitting room. The door was ajar. John stepped inside and waited for his eyes to adjust, for the curtains were drawn and the room was dim. He crept across the room, terrified with each step that the floorboards might creak and give him away. He passed the table where the findings from Holmes’ experiments rested. There was a door to the right that he had not noticed during his other visit. He slowly opened it to reveal a windowless room with a bed where Holmes was indeed asleep.

John’s heart was pounding. It seemed unbelievable that the thud of it had not wakened the vampire. Holmes truly looked like a corpse – utterly still and deathly pale. Looking down at him from the bedside, John wavered for a moment, but then slid the sabre from its scabbard. The sound it made seemed deafening, but Holmes did not stir. John lifted the blade, taking aim. He would have to be strong, he told himself; it would likely take at least two slashes.

Just as his arm began to fall, Holmes’ eyes flew open and he made a terrifying sound – like a lion’s roar, and then swung his arm and smacked the sabre out of John’s hand. Immediately, Holmes leapt out of bed and he grabbed John by the throat and picked him up with his unnatural strength. “I have treated you with exceeding mercy and kindness,” Holmes shouted, shaking him. His handsome veneer was peeled away as his face contorted with fury, and he tossed John through the door and onto the floor of the sitting room like he was nothing more than a ragdoll.

He tried to get up, but slumped back on the floor, dazed. Holmes stalked over to him and crouched down. He grabbed John’s shirt and dragged him up so their eyes met. “Is this your answer?” Holmes growled.

“Kill me,” John gasped, struggling weakly, “kill me, but don’t – I won’t.”

Holmes looked at him thoughtfully, and then released his grip. “I’d hoped this was going to go differently, but I suppose I should have anticipated the difficulty in accepting the transition.” He straddled John’s hips and pressed his hand to his sternum. “I know where your in-laws live,” Holmes said, slipping into infuriating calmness. “I’m giving you a choice, whether or not you like your options is irrelevant – make her a widow or I will make you a widower.”

John stared up at him, stunned and hurt. Holmes stared back with an even expression and stroked John’s cheek. “Yes,” he finally said. It was all he could do, all he had left in him. Holmes was not smiling, but there was delight and triumph in his eyes.

“Yes,” Holmes hissed in agreement. He ripped John’s collar from his throat, and fit his hand possessively around it, not tight enough to cut off John’s breath, but with enough pressure to constrict it slightly. Holmes kissed him and it was harsh and stinging; there was nothing gentle in him this time. “Watson,” he whispered, just once, and then he was cradling the back of John’s head and embracing him tightly and his teeth were at John’s neck, sinking into a vein.

He thought back to what the girl had said; it burned, but it was ecstasy, not agony – a fire that stemmed from where Holmes’ fangs penetrated his flesh and then spread throughout his body. “Holmes,” he thought deliriously, “Master.” Holmes pressed his wrist to John’s mouth; he was bleeding. He could barely hear Holmes telling him to take it over the roaring in his ears, but the instruction was unneeded, for the smell of it was so intoxicating that John immediately fixed his mouth over the wound. The taste was like nothing he’d ever known, an ambrosia so heady he could imagine gladly suffering eternal torment in exchange for another mouthful. The world was going dark as all of John’s senses were stripped away, narrowed solely to the liquid on his tongue.

Too quickly, his mortal life ended, and then he knew no more.