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

“What difference does that make?” the sheriff spluttered.

And then he seemed to realise the distinction. Arachnids such as those assaulting them could easily climb through bars.

“She’s in more danger than ever,” Sherlock Holmes explained. “You have to get her out of there. Get her out of the city, and of Arizona state.”

“I don’t understand!” Moore yelled. “What’s going on here?”

“It’s the work of Krane.”

“But how’s he doing this?”

Holmes pursed his lips. “I don’t think you’d believe me if I told you.”

Moore took a moment to absorb that, and then yielded.

“Okay, okay! I’ll drive her over the state line myself. But what the hell are you going to do?”

“The only thing that can be done,” Holmes told him in a low and steady voice. “I am going to confront Krane directly.”

He must have been asleep far longer than he’d realised. It was already well into the afternoon. Fortunately, he still had his car keys on him, since he did not much fancy going back inside that room.

He’d already recovered his gun from the bag in the Isuzu’s trunk – it was now tucked into his waistband. Holmes powered back along the freeway, careless of speed limits.

Another age of jolting and the rows of conical tents came back in sight. He did not even slow down when he saw them. He just powered the Trooper into the encampment, stopping it in front of Krane’s abode.

There seemed to be no one around. The desert was completely still. The sun, beating in through his windshield, almost blinded him. But then he opened up his door, and heard Krane shouting to him.

“Hey there, pilgrim!”

Holmes squinted in that direction. He could make out the silhouette of the man about a hundred yards off to the west. But there appeared to be other shapes around him. Were they crouching people? Holmes moved in to get a better look.

And stopped abruptly, his hand going to his gun. His jaw dropped open at the horrifying sight that was revealed.

Krane was standing calmly in the middle of the desert, a pair of saguaros rearing up behind him. He had his arms folded across his chest, a look of casual haughtiness on his gaunt face.

But between him and the giant cacti, a pack of some dozen coyotes was moving around. They stopped as he approached, and stared at him in lethal unison. Holmes felt his gut clenching up.

And then his whole body almost convulsed with astonishment. To either side of Eli Krane was sitting a huge mountain lion. The massive beasts were as still as statues, and yet Holmes knew that they were real. This seemed wholly impossible, and his mind struggled to take it in.

When he saw the detective’s confoundment, Krane responded with another nasty grin. He reached down with his right hand, scratched the head of one of the enormous cats. There was a purring rumble from its belly.

Holmes’ hand went to the butt of his gun.

“What’re you going to do with that peashooter, pilgrim?” Krane yelled out. “You might take down one or two of my furry cousins here, but not all of them by any means.”

“I could shoot you !”

Krane shook his head. “And you’d be torn to bits a second later. Besides, I’m not armed.” He held his hands up. “And I don’t believe that Sherlock Holmes would shoot an unarmed man. It’s not his style.”

“You are armed with magic!”

He had taken down another sorcerer for that reason, not too long ago.

“That’s true enough,” Krane conceded, looking slightly wistful.

Then he decided to explain.

“My last spell in prison, I spent three years sharing a cell with a Maricopa Indian. Yep, an elderly medicine man. He taught me how to parlay with the Old Gods, see. And them big fellers, they have come to truly love me. They regard me almost as a favourite son, and give me all the power I could ever want. I am the king of this whole desert.”

The man stretched his right arm out and swept it in a broad circle with his fingertips splayed.

“Birds and beasts, they answer to my call and do my bidding. Insects and arachnia … when I speak, they listen good. The plants themselves bend their ears to hear my words, and the very winds and clouds await my next command.”

This sounded like the kind of talk you might hear from some megalomaniacal lunatic. But Holmes was afraid there might be actual foundation to it. He had already seen sufficient that he could not bring himself to disbelieve.

He took another step. The right-hand lion, the one that Krane had petted, started getting to its feet, a growl emerging from its throat. But Krane restrained it.

Raised a quizzical eyebrow. “What exactly do you want here, Mr Holmes?”

“You already know that! Leave the girl alone!”

“Sorry, pilgrim, no can do. Mercy, you see, is a form of weakness to the Old Gods’ way of thinking.” His hand pointed at the skies. “And if I show weakness, just a little bit, I promise you that they won’t like it. Deal’s already done, son. Amy is as good as dead.”

Such fury sprung up in Sherlock Holmes’ breast that he forgot the danger he was in completely.

“Sheriff Moore will protect her! I will protect her!”

But Krane only looked bored.

“Oh, you’ll try. But you can’t possibly succeed, since I control the very elements of nature.”

He chuckled.

“Death’s already bearing down on Amy. She is moving fast, but can’t outrun it. I’d get going if I were you, Mr Holmes. Your destiny awaits you … and I promise you, it ain’t a pleasant one.”

What exactly were the limits of his immortality? Holmes wondered as he powered the Isuzu back the way he’d come. If those rattlesnakes in his room had delivered numerous bites, his body would have swollen, he’d have been in agony, but he’d most likely have survived. But if some large wild animals like the ones he’d left behind tore him to pieces …?

He felt muddled again. He was not entirely sure.

If he was actually dismembered, how could continued existence be even possible?

He called the sheriff’s department in Phoenix and found out which route Harlan Moore had taken out of town. The man was apparently headed north-east, trying to make it into Colorado. Although, from what Holmes had just seen and heard, he wasn’t quite sure what good that might do.

He cleared his head and began thinking straighter, trying to imagine what form Krane’s assault might take. And when he got a proper picture of it, why, a tentative smile alighted on the great detective’s lips.

He might be making a trip to that shopping centre nearby his motel after all.

Evening was already starting to lend extra shadow to the landscape. Holmes had been on the interstate for a good couple of hours now. But he had never encountered roads like these. This one was completely straight from his position to the far horizon, and he was heading forwards at full speed. Except that every time he reached some tiny landmark in the distance, there was more road, exactly the same, stretching out ahead of him through the now barren desert.

He’d seen some other traffic when he had passed by a town. But there were no towns left, and he was completely alone out here.

The solitude ground at him. And the light continued to vanish, so that, in another half an hour, all that he could really make out was the stretch of asphalt illuminated by his own headlamps.

Another storm was trying to gather overhead, so that the stars and moon were blotted out. There was no actual lightning as yet, but Holmes could feel strong electricity on the air around him. And when he tried to contact Harlan on his cell phone, all he got was crackling, the result of the atmospherics.