Andrew Lane - Red Leech

Somewhere in the darkness, an animal screamed. The sound startled him. It sounded too much like a person screaming. It didn’t sound like a coyote. More like a big cat of some kind.

The horse was picking its way along the bottom of a gully between two steep slopes now. Sherlock thought they were close to the bottom of the hills, nearly ready to make their way across the open grasslands towards the town. The sides of the gully were just black shapes, with only the stars shining in the sky above marking where their jagged edges cut the night sky.

One of the jagged edges moved.

Sherlock jerked awake. Part of what he’d thought was the top of the gully had suddenly shifted sideways and pulled back.

Something was up there. Something was tracking him.

Nerves stretched and quivering, Sherlock looked around. Nothing. Just darkness, thrown into sharp relief by the starlight filtering down from above.

A pebble skittered down the steep slope, bouncing off the floor of the gully.

Sherlock’s horse was looking around now. It knew there was something else out there. Its ears were pricked up, and Sherlock could feel its muscles quivering beneath his legs.

The gully began to broaden out ahead of them, leading on to a flat section of rock with a sheer drop at the far side stretching down to the grasslands. Light from the low moon cut across from one side like a spotlight. Sherlock recognized where they were: despite the appearance of a sheer drop straight ahead, there was a path off to one side that sloped down to the grasslands. He and the horse had come up it earlier.

Another pebble fell, bouncing from rock to rock. Sherlock’s horse edged to one side, and speeded up. It wanted to be out on the plains as badly as he did.

Something above Sherlock’s head screamed, and leaped down on them from the blackness.

The horse leaped sideways in shock, saving both of them. Whatever it was that had jumped towards them fell past and hit the ground off-balance in a flash of slashing claws, stumbling to one side but immediately springing back up to its feet. Sherlock had a momentary, confused impression of eyes reflecting moonlight and pointed fangs wet with saliva, gleaming in a slavering mouth.

He ripped the knife from his belt and held it out. It wasn’t much consolation, but it was all he had.

A voice from up ahead said something guttural in a language Sherlock didn’t recognize, and the animal retreated towards it, hissing in frustration at Sherlock and the horse.

He recognized it now. It was one of Duke Balthas-sar’s cougars. That meant the other one was probably out there somewhere. And that meant Duke Balthassar was out there too.

His horse was paralysed with shock: eyes wide and lips pulled back over exposed teeth. It wasn’t going anywhere; not with the cougars around. Sherlock slipped from the saddle, heart pounding in his chest. He was tired, he was hungry and he was thirsty. He didn’t want this. Not now. Not here.

But he didn’t think he had a choice.

He walked forward, into the moonlight at the mouth of the rocky gully.

Duke Balthassar stood a few feet to one side. He was still wearing his white suit, white hat and white porcelain mask, but he had a revolver strapped to his thigh. Behind his right ear Sherlock could see the red leech gleaming wetly in the moonlight, the only spot of colour in the entire scene. It seemed to pulse slightly as Sherlock watched.

The cougar which had leaped for Sherlock and his horse was by Balthassar’s side, tail flicking restlessly. Sherlock noticed how it kept casting glances up at the red leech. It seemed nervous, frightened even. The other cougar wasn’t in sight.

“Sherlock Scott Holmes,” Balthassar said, his voice barely perceptible over the sound of the wind. “I fear we are fated to keep meeting, like Shakespeare’s star-crossed lovers.”

“What are you doing here?” Sherlock asked simply.

“I was looking for you,” Balthassar replied. “When I found my dear reptiles still hungry and my observation gallery flooded, I could only assume you and your plucky friends had escaped. You knew too much: I had to track you down and deal with you. My cougars picked up your scent just outside the town and we followed you here, to the hills.” He paused, head cocked to one side. “I must admit, I had expected you to go into the town, but instead you came out here. Why?”

Sherlock thought for a moment. Balthassar must have confused two different trails: the one that Sherlock, Matty and Virginia had left as they went towards Perseverance and the one Sherlock and his horse had left as they went away from the town. That meant Balthassar didn’t know that his plans had been exposed yet. Should Sherlock tell him?

If Balthassar knew that it was too late, that his army had already been discovered, then he would have no reason for killing Sherlock. In theory, at least.

“The Union Army already know about the invasion of Canada,” Sherlock told him. “There’s no point in going ahead now. Just call it off, Balthassar. You can save a lot of lives.”

Silence, as Balthassar considered what Sherlock had said. It wasn’t possible to tell what he was thinking behind the white mask.

“How long have they known for?” he asked eventually.

“Long enough that there’s no chance your army will ever get to the border.”

“In that case, what are you doing out here?” Balthassar asked.

“The Unionists were preparing to drop explosives on your men. I couldn’t let that happen. I had to stop it.”

“I presume that was due to some form of misguided nobility, rather than agreement with the Confederate way of life?”

“I just don’t want to see any more people die,” Sherlock replied wearily.

Balthassar shook his head. “Do you expect me to be grateful?” he asked, and suddenly there was a grating tone of anger in his voice.

Sherlock felt tiredness weighing him down like a lead weight on his shoulders. “I don’t expect anything,” he said. “I’m not doing this for you, or for anyone else. I’m doing it for me. For what I believe.”

“Then you’ve wasted your time,” Balthassar snapped. “The invasion goes ahead, despite everything you have told me.”

“Then your people will be rounded up, and if they choose to fight then there will be a battle.”

“And people will die anyway,” Balthassar snarled. “So you have failed.”

“I can’t control the world,” Sherlock pointed out. “Just the bits I can reach. At least I’ve done what I can to stop a massacre. The rest is up to you, and Amyus Crowe, and the Government.”

“Your problem,” Balthassar pointed out, porcelain face impassive and glowing in the moonlight, but voice bitter, “is that you let your emotions get in the way of logic. If I had any advice to offer you, it would be for you to suppress your emotions. Keep them in check. They can only lead you astray. They can only hurt you.”

Sherlock’s mind flashed with memories of his mother, and his sister, and the memories were coloured with emotions, and those emotions hurt. But then there were memories of Virginia too, and those memories didn’t hurt. They made him happy.

“I appreciate the advice,” he said, “but I think I’ll hang on to my emotions, if you don’t mind. I like them, for better or for worse.”

“I would say you’ll live to regret it,” Balthassar said, “but you won’t.” He snapped his fingers. The cougar at his side advanced towards Sherlock, teeth exposed and eyes narrowed.

Sherlock brought his hand around in front of him. The blade of the knife caught the moonlight in a liquid gleam.

The cougar didn’t even hesitate. It just kept on coming.