Tony Richards - The Astonishing Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the Twenty-First Century

And he swore he had seen something up in the high heavens. That shape the darkened clouds had tried to form … it had suddenly been moving, like a living creature. He was certain of it.

But it was like no entity that he had ever seen. There’d been too many swaying tentacles. Too many darkly glimmering eyes.

He tried to tell himself that it was just a trick being played by the blackness and the lightning. But the images inside his head, they would not go away.

He remembered Krane’s talk of the ‘Old Gods’. And was it one of those that had been summoned here tonight? Did Krane derive his power from such a being? And did that explain the way in which his former followers had died?

As his thoughts began to finally clear, a fresh sense of urgency swept over the detective. A cold shudder ran down his spine. Amy Hamilton was on the verge of being an apostate too. She clearly wished to leave this place. And if her treacherous thoughts had been noticed by some supernatural thing, then she was in more serious danger than he could ever have imagined.

He raised the glasses to his face again, and scanned the encampment desperately. Now that the ceremony – he supposed that it should be called that – was over, the drugged young people had become more languorous. They were mostly slumped across the ground, and some of the men and women were entangled.

Then he spotted her at last. She was over to the right-hand side of Krane’s tent. And the man himself had wandered across to her. He was swaying drunkenly, and had a flask clutched in one hand. But his other arm was wrapped around the terrified young woman. He was pawing at her in the most licentious fashion. And she was trying to get away, but he was far too strong.

All of Holmes’ previous shock and worry was forgotten. A furious rage filled the detective’s chest. Unhand her, you blaggard , were the words he thought. And yet he was too far away to give them voice.

He was considering climbing back inside his car, driving it into the camp and confronting the scoundrel – whatever perils that might entail – when Amy finally broke loose of Krane’s grip. She turned and ran, scurrying away between the wigwams. And her assailant looked in a mind to pursue her, but then another of his followers, a tall blonde in a fringed bikini, wandered over to him and put her arms round his neck. She proved herself to be more open to his lecherous intentions. Krane forgot about the small, skinny brunette.

Relief swept through Holmes. He settled down, his heart still thumping. But there was not the slightest doubt left by this stage … Amy must be rescued from this place, and as soon as was humanly possible.

“Excuse me, sir, but are you seriously crazy?” Sheriff Moore asked when he learned where Holmes had been the previous night.

They were standing outside the motel. Holmes had explained what he had done, but only part of what he’d witnessed. Bolts of lightning? Spirits in the sky? He had little doubt that if he told Moore that the man would try to have him institutionalised.

“The desert’s certainly an interesting place at night.”

“A what?”

“But as you can see, I came to no harm.”

Moore planted both his huge fists on his hips and his mouth twisted. “More by luck than any judgement, if you ask me.”

Which was beside the point. The main thing was, they needed to save Amy.

“You saw how anxious she was to leave,” Holmes pointed out.

“She seemed a little nervous, sure. But then she told us she was happy in the commune. Those were her own words.”

Holmes almost exploded. “She was under duress!”

“Which you’d have to prove in a court of law,” the sheriff answered calmly. “And could you?”

Holmes could see how, from a legal point of view, the man was absolutely right. This was a nation where due process was taken very seriously indeed. And so if he was to get Amy to safety, he would have to give the sheriff grounds for ‘probable cause’ at the very least.

He turned it over slowly in his mind, saw what the solution had to be. Holmes was not the kind of man who took pleasure in being dishonest, but there were greater matters of importance here than his sense of personal integrity.

He cleared his throat, then told his colleague, “I saw her being restrained, last night.”

Harlan Moore’s dark lenses seemed to bore into his gaze. But Holmes had been expecting that, and did not even flinch.

“Halfway through the dancing, I watched as the girl tried to run away. Krane noticed it, and sent several of his young men after her. They pinned her down like wild animals. Then they each took hold of an arm and a leg and carried her back to the encampment. She was screaming and wailing the whole way.”

It was nothing like what he’d seen happen, but the great detective kept his expression blank.

“You prepared to swear that in front of a judge?” the sheriff asked.

“I am.”

Harlan Moore stared at the ground between his massive feet for several seconds, then his head came up. The policeman was shrewd enough to realise what was going on here, and the knowledge showed on his wide face. He simultaneously looked concerned and sympathetic.

“And, Mr Holmes, are you aware what the penalty for perjury is in Arizona State?”

Holmes stared back at him unblinkingly.

“Severe, I’m sure. But the alternative consequences? They could be considerably worse.”

Moore studied him a few seconds longer, and then broke out into a huge, satisfied smile.

“Okay, then,” he agreed. “Let’s go get her.”

Twelve patrol cars – most of them with two men in them – showed up in the end. Holmes was impressed by how much manpower the police department could throw at a single problem. They rolled into the commune in an elongated row, their beacons flashing. And when Moore’s people got out, half of them were holding riot guns.

Eli Krane, of course, was furious.

“You can’t do this! She’s here willingly! This is kidnap, and harassment, and a Fascist interference with our natural rights!”

Moore treated the man like a yapping little dog, ignoring him except to wave a warrant underneath his nose.

“You can explain all that to Judge Pendergast – tomorrow morning.”

Krane was threatening to bring his lawyers down on them again when they rolled away. His yelling, gesticulating figure diminished in their rear window.

“Unless he has a cell phone hidden somewhere – and I cannot count that out – that’ll involve a drive into town in that old Jeep of his,” the sheriff growled.

“It gives us time,” Holmes nodded.

He had one arm around the slim young woman, who was sat between them, shivering beneath a blanket. And she only found the strength to speak once that they had reached the freeway.

“There was witchcraft,” she blurted, her voice extremely small and shaky. “He called up monsters. Awful things. And I was terrified.”

Moore glanced across at her, then stared back at the road, his forehead creasing.

“Called up?”

“I told you there was dancing, and some form of ceremony,” Holmes tried to intervene.

“No!” Amy broke across him desperately. “There was more than that! He called the Old Gods to him, almost nightly, and they gave him power!”

Moore threw Holmes a look of perfect disbelief. And then the big man shrugged, seeming to attribute what she’d said to too much sun, too much peyote, and perhaps hysteria at the circumstances she was in.

“You settle down there, miss,” he reassured her. “People see all kinds of stuff out in the desert.”

All that Amy did was try to pull the blanket right over her head.