Warlock Holmes--My Grave Ritual Read online

  CONTENTS

  Cover

  Also by G.S. Denning and Available from Titan Books

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  The Adventure of the Navel-Starer

  The Adventure of the Blue Gob-Runkle

  The Adventure of the Disgusting Stain

  The Adventure of My Grave Ritual

  The Adventure of the Copper’s Screeches

  The Adventure of the Red Heads’ League

  The Adventure of the Three Apprentices

  A Scandal in Boh-grah-grah-grah

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also Available from Titan Books

  Also by G.S. Denning and available from Titan Books

  WARLOCK HOLMES

  A Study in Brimstone

  The Hell-hound of the Baskervilles

  The Sign of Nine (April 2019)

  The Finality Problem (April 2020)

  TITAN BOOKS

  Warlock Holmes: My Grave Ritual

  Print edition ISBN: 9781783299751

  E-book edition ISBN: 9781783299768

  Published by Titan Books

  A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

  144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

  First edition: May 2018

  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.

  © 2018 G.S. Denning

  Illustrations © 2018 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.

  To the healthy expansion of Geek Culture.

  When I was a child, Geekdom was mostly white, mostly male, mostly straight, marginalized and rather lonely. Now, as our culture overtakes the mainstream* we at last begin to realize that geek is not a color. It is not a gender. It is not a preference (well… not that kind of preference) and it’s more fun for all of us when everybody gets to play.

  * Can anyone think of a sports movie that out-earned Avengers?

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE NAVEL-STARER

  DEAR READER, I BELIEVE I PROMISED YOU AN apocalypse, did I not?

  Yes, I recall it distinctly. Two volumes ago, I began this narrative to describe the events of humanity’s ruin—and don’t think I’ve forgotten. Yet the fact remains that our downfall was a long, quiet process—a carefully crafted masterpiece of betrayal by a criminal mind beyond compare: James Moriarty. This volume does not contain the final strokes he dealt to our reality, but rather the first ones following his long absence. Though it would take Holmes and me some time to realize he had returned, I shall commence this tale on the very morning he first brought adventure to our door.

  An utterly wretched morning, if I’m honest.

  In fact, it had been a pretty rotten month and a half since the Battle of Baskerville Hall. Though that adventure ended in victory, my good friend Warlock Holmes had suffered sufficient injuries to knock out eight or nine battle elephants. By mid-December, the danger to his life had passed. Yet, a new danger soon emerged.

  He was bored.

  As less than two months had passed since he’d been impaled through both legs by six-foot wooden spikes, Holmes found himself feeling… less than nimble. Being confined to bed-rest is trying for any man, but Holmes had a particular distaste for inaction. He also had a notable ability to cause trouble with only the power of his will. Recalling the permanent damage he’d wrought to the fabric of reality the last time he’d been incapacitated (see “Silver Blaze: Murder Horse”), I felt it was nothing less than my duty to mankind to ensure that Holmes remained occupied.

  But, how to fill the time? His hundreds of books were no distraction—he’d read them over and over. He gained some satisfaction honking away with his concertina and singing boisterous songs, yet this pursuit could not distract him for more than two or three hours of the day (much to the relief of the neighbors, I should think). He loved to doodle. At first I despaired of it, for he tended to scrawl all over his walls, his blanket, his books and whatever else came within reach. His drawings were simple outlines. Crowns and coins, swords and hearts decked every surface he could reach. He liked to draw the same stick-figure family over and over—two parents holding a celebrating child on their shoulders. He’d frequently do little men fighting—one with a huge armored fist, the other with an oversized instrument that might have been a cross or a large hammer. Also featured prominently in his scribblings was a machine of dubious purpose. I asked him what it was, one day.

  “Thumbscrews!” he declared, happily.

  Strangest of all was a cluster of parallel lines. I’d have thought nothing of it if this grouping appeared only once or twice, but he repeated it constantly. “What is this?” I asked.

  “Oh… hard to say, Watson. A bundle of sticks, I should think.”

  “And why have you seen fit to cover your walls with drawings of bundles of sticks? Look, you’ve drawn them all up your right arm!”

  “Because they are so very easy to do. One can have a satisfying bundle with only a few moments of the slightest effort. You should try it, Watson.”

  I didn’t. Instead, I spent my hours shuttling him sheaf after sheaf of paper and bottles of fresh ink. Better he should cover every inch of 221B in silly little doodles than he should find himself unoccupied. As the days wore on, it became ever more difficult to distract him and I think I came to view myself as nothing more than an overworked baby-minder. So deep was my self-pity that I ignored the terrible clues staring me right in the face. Gods, when I think of it now!

  Don’t you see?

  Why was Holmes constantly drawing the same nine shapes? The Crown. The Coin. The Sword. The Heart. The Family. The Gauntlet. The Hieroform. The Cruciator. The Fasces.

  Whatever was wrong with me? I suppose I was undergoing a small crisis of self—a moment of fading identity. All of my personal business—and it sometimes seemed, most of my person—had been subsumed by Warlock Holmes.

  Until that fateful morning. Until I got the letter.

  To Dr. John Watson 221B Baker Street, London, said the front of the envelope, in loopy, purposely important-looking script. The ink was deep violet, the paper so heavy that this single envelope probably cost more than an average meal. I was stunned. I hardly remembered that I could receive letters, so long had I dwelt in Warlock’s shadow. It was exactly the kind of thing that was needed to reverse my boredom, mend my mood, and make this miserable December Monday worthwhile. Or at least, that’s what I thought, until I turned it over.

  “Oh God, it’s from Percy Phelps.”

  “Eh?” said Holmes, leaning out from the doorway of his room. “Who is that?”

  “A fellow I knew at school. Ugh.” I sighed and flipped the letter back onto our table.

  “I must say, Watson, you don’t seemed pleased to renew the acquaintance.”

  “No.”

  “Why ever not?”

  “Because he’s exactly the sort of mewling little snot you’d expect to be named Percy Phelps.”

  “He can’t be all that bad,” said Holmes.

  “Oh no? Here’s a test: I’ll just open this letter and read it aloud, shall I? I don’t know what he’s got to say to me
, but I’ll bet you a pound of your favorite tobacco that you can’t make it to the end without detesting the man.”

  “What fun! Read on, Watson!”

  I tore the envelope open, withdrew the delicate slip of pink paper that lay within and read, “‘Watson! Oh, sweet, sweet Watson, do you remember me? Do you recall humble little “Tadpole” Phelps who was in the fifth form, when you were in the third? What fun we used to have—oh, the larkish larks of imperturbable youth! How you would weep, I think, to hear the misfortunes that have befallen your childhood friend!’”

  Here I paused to growl, “Friend? He was never my friend. He was my victim, on more than one occasion…”

  “Victim?” said Holmes. “But you’re not the sort of man who has many victims, are you, John?”

  “Generally speaking, I am not. But there was just something about Percy… I don’t know what it was, Holmes, but I could never stop myself from bullying him. Perhaps it was just that, no matter how badly I treated him, he kept coming back for more. Perhaps it was only the novelty of thrashing a fellow two years my senior. I don’t know. I’m not proud of my behavior. Still, if he’d delivered the letter in person, I’m not sure I could stop myself from punching his froggy little face!”

  “Watson!”

  “Well, I’m sorry, but there is the truth of it. He continues: ‘Woe, that the travails of Job should finally have been superseded! And woe again that the helpless recipient of the Almighty’s fury would be me—blameless Percy! I had thought that no help might come to me— mortal or divine—until our mutual acquaintance, Michael Stamford, mentioned that you had fallen into the habit of unwinding mysteries the like of which perplexes me now.’”

  Here, again, I paused to mumble, “Mike Stamford, I’m going to punch you too.”

  The letter continued, “‘I will not speak of what befell me. I cannot. My poor constitution could not bear it. Nine days I have been sunk in brain fever, after the event that ruined me. And though it was only by the narrowest margin that I cheated death, I knew I must write to you, sweet Watson. Won’t you come to me? Won’t you test whether your skills are sufficient to save the dearest friend you ever had?’

  “Dearest? What? How dare he?” I howled, crunching the letter in my fist. “Weedy little squid! I wish he were here so I could show him how dear he is to me! Argh! I haven’t seen him for years—haven’t even thought of him—and now, three minutes after he’s reintroduced himself, I find myself wishing I could knock him about a bit.”

  I raged about the sitting room while Holmes leaned out from his doorway, looking bemused. I was about to shout something ungenerous at him, about finding mirth in my misfortunes, when—at last—I realized the most important development of the morning. Such had been my eagerness to receive the letter, then such my disappointment with the contents, that I’d ignored the very news I’d hoped for, for more than a month.

  “Wait! Holmes! You’re… you’re standing! This is amazing!”

  “Oh… er… yep. It’s really… really good news, I suppose. Yes.”

  “How has this happened? What a sudden reversal! I must examine you.”

  “What? No! Or, I mean: there’s no need. Everything’s fine. You know what, I think I’ll just go lie down for a bit. Good night.”

  He turned to flee back to his bed, but gave the most horrific wobble. It seemed as if he would tumble out into the hall, but he yanked himself back upright in a motion that was absolutely alien to human locomotion. His eyes were full of fear, but not of falling. He wore the exact expression of a five-year-old lad who fears all his shenanigans are about to come to light. With a final, unsteady lunge, he disappeared into the confines of his room.

  But not quickly enough. I had already set my jaw and begun a headlong charge towards the hall, to see what it was my friend was hiding from me. In that half a heartbeat between Holmes jumping back onto his mattress and him managing to get the blankets back over himself, I cleared the doorway and beheld his mischief.

  His legs…

  They were grotesque. His knees were twisted backwards, like a deer, or goat. He had that curious setup, common amongst four-legged herbivores, wherein the legs jut first forward, then back, then forward again, in the manner of a limb which cannot fathom what its own function must be or lacks the decisiveness to pick a direction and stick with it. No wonder he’d been so unsteady. The transformation seemed more experimental than complete. He still did not possess actual cloven hooves. Or, I assume he didn’t. If he did, he’d managed to get his bedroom slippers on over them.

  His legs… They were grotesque!

  “Wait, Watson! Before you get angry—”

  “No. Too late.”

  “But hear me out: this is really more your doing than mine, you know.”

  “Is it, Holmes? Is it? Did I come in here, surgically reverse your legs, then go to sleep and forget I’d done it?”

  “Well… no…” The poor fellow wrung his hands together for a moment. “But you did tell me about how my legs did this after the fight at Baskerville Hall.”

  “In the presence of an immense magic, which threatened to destroy our world, I think.”

  “Yes. But why did they do it, eh? Don’t you see? Perhaps this is their natural state!”

  “Natural state?”

  “Just so. And perhaps—by returning them to their more natural position—I might ameliorate some of the damage they’ve taken.”

  “Holmes, that is preposterous.”

  “But Watson, I can walk.”

  “Except that you can’t, because I forbid it.”

  “What?”

  “As your doctor, as your friend, as a man who does not wish to be burned at the stake as an accessory to witchcraft, I absolutely forbid you to go trotting about on goat legs.”

  He looked at me as if I had struck him, but I refused to relent.

  “Put them back,” I said, nodding at his legs.

  “But, Watson, it hurts.”

  “That is to be expected, Holmes. Most fellows who have had both legs impaled report a certain level of discomfort. But it is survivable. We’ll get you through it. You’re going to walk again.”

  “I already ca—”

  “Normally. Now, put them back.”

  He gave me the grimmest of looks, then shut his eyes and began concentrating. With revolting alacrity, the bones of his legs shifted about beneath his skin. The crunching and popping noises they emanated were… well… I’m sure that only the fact that I was a medical professional kept me from vomiting. When it was finished, he stared at me with eyes rimmed with the promise of tears. Not only born of pain, but also disappointment. It was clear: Holmes was ready to sulk.

  “There. Are you satisfied? I am an invalid once more. Never to walk again, I shouldn’t wonder.”

  “Holmes…”

  “Well done, Doctor.”

  “I’m sorry, Holmes. You know I am. We shall put you back to rights, I promise, but it must be all the way back to rights. We must accept no demonic shortcuts.”

  He rolled away from me, to face the wall.

  * * *

  The second letter from Percy Phelps arrived just three hours after the first. It was written on pale green stationery of astonishing quality. Or, no, not quality. Cost. It was one of those things which one held in one’s hand wondering whether it was more monstrously hideous or monstrously expensive—a carefully crafted affront to good taste. Such was my wonder at who would create such a thing that I later tracked down the particular manufacturer. I can state with confidence that Percy’s second letter was written on a paper called “Hopes of Easter’s Grace”.

  The third one was on “Vermillion Effete” and arrived just before sunset.

  I railed at both of them, to Holmes, for as long as he would listen. Which, since he was bed-bound and had nothing else for entertainment, was quite some time. Holmes, to my dismay, was rather taken with Percy’s flowery bloviations.

  “He has the soul of a poet, Watson,”
Holmes declared.

  “No. He has the soul of that wretched little bastard in your prep school who thinks he’s a poet. The sort of fellow who spends four hours a day staring into his own navel and concocting cut-rate verses about all the universal truths he finds therein. He’s sure all the girls ignore him because they don’t understand him, when—in fact—they ignore him because they do understand him.”

  “He is suffering.”

  “Yes. On purpose. Ever since I met him.”

  * * *

  My repeated attempts to get Holmes up and walking were met with staunch resistance. This is not to belittle his ordeal. His pain was real and of no small account, I am certain. Still, he put forth very little effort in healing himself.

  That is… until he thought I was asleep. Half an hour after I’d closed my chamber door, Holmes wrenched his legs around backwards again and traipsed off to the pantry to get himself toast and soup. I had been upon the threshold of sleep, but the grinding, popping noises woke me. I poked my head out to find Holmes halfway between the pantry and his toasting racks, looking merry as a satyr dancing in a bacchanalian garden.

  And exactly the same shape.

  I yelled.

  He pouted.

  My lack of progress continued until almost noon the next day. Until Percy Phelps’s fifth letter. Until Holmes made me the devil’s deal.

  The fourth letter (Ebullient Salmon) had been waiting, when I awoke. The fifth (The Love and Joy of Man’s Orange-ish-ness) was brought up, just as I’d begun to hope that one more cup of tea might induce me to forget the annoyance of the fourth. As I stood in Holmes’s doorway, loudly protesting my correspondence-based mistreatment, he interrupted me to say, “Watson. You must help him.”

  “What? No!”

  “But why not?”

  “Because I do not care for the man. I do not care for myself when I’m near him. And besides, he’s given us no indication of what it is that’s bothered him. You don’t know him like I do, Holmes. You have to realize that if he’s dropped his biscuit and his butler’s not there to pick it up for him, that would absolutely warrant five letters.”