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alt_pantheon

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"You are truly my greatest soldier, friend."

"I only hope to live in your image, dark prince."

After the circle had finished Jim sat back contentedly.

"You’ve all done well, my children. Take your reward."

With a flick of his hand the centre of the circle was piled high with food and drink, not to mention a healthy number of captive souls. The demons fell on it like rabid dogs, glutting themselves and gossiping. The only one who didn’t rush in was Ashmedai. He moved sedately, radiating such darkness the others instinctually moved aside to let him through.

"He’s magnificent." Sherlock said quietly.

"He was an angel once. The others were human with human weakness, but Ashmedai is the perfect servant. He is loyal and selfless. He followed the Lord blindly and now he does the same for me."

"I thought you hated ignorance."

"He is not ignorant but he can’t help his nature."

"Did he really get a million souls?"

"Ashmedai is old and powerful. He can turn a nun into a raving nymphomaniac with a whisper."

"Sherlock, blasphemy!" Jim sung, "How about we mingle a little?"

Jim took his hand and led him to the middle of the circle, the pair helping themselves to food and wine as Jim struck up a conversation with a dark haired man and Napoleon. Sherlock caught the other demons watching him blatantly, staring at Jim’s hand in his. When he reached for more wine they moved away as they had for Jim and Ashmedai, though he noted a jealous spark in more than one pair of eyes. Jim tapped his hand and let go.

"I need a moment with Bonaparte, Sherly. Don’t wander off."

He walked to his throne with the Frenchman, leaving Sherlock suddenly alone in the swirl of dark feathers and gluttony. He looked around for someone worth talking to and found most of the demons had pulled away.

"They are afraid to be seen with you."

He looked over his shoulder at the ancient demon as Ashmedai refilled his cup.

"Because they do not want Lucifer to think they are trying to steal you."

"He brought me here to meet them."

"It will not stop him becoming jealous if you seemed drawn to another of our kind. The Master’s favourites are for him alone."

"Favourites," Sherlock stuck out his lip, "Then there are others?"

"Were others. Some he tires of quickly, some are still graced with his affection if they prove to be good demons, but they never last more than a century."

Sherlock couldn’t comprehend a day when his life wouldn’t be full of Jim. They’d been welded together for years, even before he knew Moriarty’s name. But part of him knew it was inevitable an eternally bored creature would find new toys to play with; Sherlock couldn’t entertain him forever.

"What do they do when they lose his favour?"

"They become us. They cultivate the souls that interest them. Some-" he pointed to a young arrogant looking man with blonde curls, "Lose interest in Lucifer as soon as his mysteries are explained. Some never cease trying to win their way back into his bed."

This time he pointed to a woman with the most desperate eyes Sherlock had ever seen. She looked more wretched than half the souls upstairs, her hair a wild tangle. She was sipping from a cup but her gaze was fixed unceasingly on Jim across the circle, her empty hand clenching and unclenching at her side.

"What about me?" Ashmedai smiled wryly.

"Were you a favourite?"

The former angel took a long time to answer, eyes on Jim when he did. "We were brothers."

He walked away before Sherlock could reply. Someone tapped his shoulder and Sherlock looked down into a very short demon’s smiling face.

"Bonjour! I am Count Henri Marie Raymond de Toulouse-Lautrec-Monfa."

"Sherlock Holmes."

"Always good to see new brethren!"

"Come, let me introduce you to some of the others."

"I thought I was a sort of pariah?"

"Oh so long as you’re in a group it’s fine. Just don’t let anyone get you alone – especially Serena," he whispered, looking at the desperate woman, "She’ll try to scratch your eyes out."

By the time Jim was done with his private counsels Sherlock was well-immersed in a group of demons, actually enjoying himself. He’d never met a more varied company, all ages, all races, all social classes and lives ranging from antiquity to the present. Everyone had new things to say, even if their ability to talk was being seriously hampered by the flowing amphorae. Jim squeezed his way in behind Sherlock, arms wrapping around his waist.

"Having fun, honey?"

"Yes, actually."

"Good! Shall we take a little break?"

Jim led him away by the hand, smirking as they retreated to a shaded glen away from the firelight and drunken shouts. The feast was steadily devolving into a full bacchanalia. The demons were very drunk, pawing at each other or the souls, cackling, forcing the condemned to jump through the flames for fun. Jim’s eyes were bright with pride.

"Look at all my children, Sherlock. Look at all the wonder I’ve taken from Him."

He mouthed at Sherlock’s neck, hands sweeping lower to the brunette’s groin. Sherlock responded with a moan and thrust forward, wings shaking as Jim licked a stripe up his neck.

As the Devil lowered him to the grass and took him in the garden that used to be Eden, surrounded by the screams of demons who used to be good, Sherlock began to think about finding his own favourite.

He decided to start with London. It was the place Sherlock knew best and he had a fair idea where the most creative sinners would be found. On one of his excursions he headed for the Mayfair exit and walked out into the familiar grey rain with a smile. He could tell that even if he lived another five hundred years, London would always be home. The Garden just wasn’t the same as those concrete and brick streets with their gloomy souls.

It was the first time he’d gone back without Jim, and it was different. He could see the blackness in people as he passed, could smell the emotion on the Tube. He spent hours just drifting, taking in his city with new senses. He was walking by the river when Sherlock came to Vauxhall and stopped. A part of him, a part that felt guilty for even thinking it, wanted to go in and see Mycroft - just to check how he was doing. Jim would probably see it as weak human sentiment, but Sherlock was only very newly dead and he still had people on Earth that had mattered once. He turned his steps towards the government office, head down like a bad child.

His brother was at his desk as usual, completely bogged down in paperwork. It had to be by choice – Mycroft had always been too efficient for work to pile up. He must have been using it to ignore Sherlock’s loss. The demon hovered by his brother and listened.

Got to get this to Max by 4...tell Anthea to bring the car by 6. No, this won’t work, he’s going to be in Crete then-

He listened harder.

Myfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfaultmyfault-

The guilt was still there, just buried so deep even Mycroft couldn’t hear it. Sherlock felt a pang of regret. He’d helped cause that. But it was at least partly true, and if his brother was able to carry on as normal he couldn’t feel too bad.

Energised from his brief visit, Sherlock thought he might as well stop by and see everyone else one last time. He went to Scotland Yard next. Greg wasn’t at his old desk; he’d been demoted and he looked thoroughly bored, his thoughts tired but not about Sherlock. Anderson and Donovan were both there too and he took a second to touch their shoulders and pour a little more venom in. Maybe he’d stop by their offices more often; if he kept it up he’d be able to drive them mad with self-loathing and doubt within six months.

Mrs Hudson was zoned out in her armchair with a cup of cold tea, her herbal soother wiping her mind of anything interesting. He left her be, not particularly challenged by corrupting the old woman. He went upstairs instead, John’s angel looking up as he entered the room.

"Oh. It’s you again."

"I’m not here to interfere."

The ex-soldier looked a little better. He still had a sorrowful empty stare, but he was dressed and he looked healthy, like he’d been eating and sleeping. Sherlock nodded. That was enough for him.

He approached the hospital with trepidation. He scuffed his shoe against the place his head had shattered. You couldn’t tell anymore with the concrete washed clean, but Sherlock knew. Feeling a bit melancholy he headed for the morgue. But instead of Molly there was a young man who looked like some kind of raver, his ears full of metal. Sherlock frowned and checked the shift roster. Her name had been erased.

He’d never been to Molly’s flat but her address was in the hospital’s system. He took a cab there, the driver quite unaware he had an extra passenger. Sherlock walked through the locked front door and up the stairs. He repeated the trick on her door and walked into the untidy lounge room. He walked from room to room, brows raising higher at the mess on every surface. Molly would never have lived like this when he knew her.

She was wrapped in her blankets, staring blankly at the wall with tears dried on her face. He hovered by the bed for a moment before sitting on the edge, tuning his thoughts to hers.

I must have fucked it up. Sherlock was so clever, he knew exactly what to do. It must have been my fault. I made a mistake and it killed him. I should have told someone, John, Greg, anyone what he was going to do. I didn’t count enough, not in the end.

Her sad quiet blame hurt him more than Mycroft’s raging despair or John’s slack grief. This had not been Molly at all. She’d done everything he’d ever asked and now he could see it destroying her. He searched her mind for the reason she wasn’t at the hospital and saw hands shaking as they held the scalpel; heard the screams as she collapsed again. She’d had a nervous breakdown. Even as a demon he knew she didn’t deserve that. She was a soul who belonged upstairs - Sherlock was just keeping the balance. At least that’s what he told himself as he leaned down and touched her shoulder.

"Molly? Molly, you’ve got to pray. You’ve got to ask God to send you an angel."

Why would I do that? People like me don’t get angels. I should pray for a devil to take me away instead. I should be punished.

"No. No, ask for an angel. Ask, Molly!"

Oh please, yes, I want it! I want someone to help me, to say this wasn’t my fault. I want someone to make me forget.

"Say it! Ask Him."

Please, please God, help me, please.

A light bloomed in the corner of the room, a spiral of wind and warmth that made Sherlock lean in like a flower chasing the sun. He could see why Jim would miss Heaven; if Paradise felt like that he would never have left voluntarily. The angel frowned to see him sitting there.

"Apologies. I thought she was unclaimed."

"She is. She needs you."

God’s servant looked stunned before immediately switching to suspicious. "What is your game, demon?"

"She’s not meant to be ours. You need to make sure it stays that way."

The angel looked Molly over and read the same things Sherlock had, the goodness, the fear. He nodded.

"I will stay with her."

Sherlock lingered long enough to see the angel embrace Molly and notice the shudder that went through her before he walked away, confident he’d never see her again.

Sherlock wanted a favourite with the same sort of qualities Jim had seen in him: intellect, creativity, a weak or absent sense of morality and enough personality to be interesting. Good looks wouldn’t hurt either, if Sherlock was going to be spending the next few centuries with this person and quite likely taking them to bed when Jim moved on to his new distraction. He decided to try the various labs at the Marylebone medical clinics, thinking he might find someone whose interest in bodies went a bit further than it should.

Harley Street and its surrounds were rife with scents of grief, fear and sickness. It was intoxicating. The labs were generally hidden away, either in expensively refurbished basements or airy second storey loft spaces. Sherlock wandered into the first clinic, making his way upstairs. There were two lab techs, a middle-aged ginger man and a woman of about thirty. He peered into them as they worked quietly. Nothing – he was lazy and she was an adulterer, but other than that they were good people. He didn’t even bother to see if they could be tempted, just headed back downstairs.

He didn’t need people he could corrupt. Anyone could be corrupted with the right motivation – he needed someone with the natural urge to be bad, someone who would be an asset as a demon, who would take to it readily. But every lab was full of do-gooders, people who wanted to help the sick, even just people in it for the money but not the right people for him. He went through the entire district but there wasn’t anyone he’d class as evil except one or two of the patients, and they were all dull and frightened. This required more thought. Where could he find brilliant scientists with no attachment to their subjects?

Sherlock looked up at the Clinical Trials Unit with an absurdly wicked grin. Already he could see half the people streaming in and out had dark patches on their souls, their sins mainly focused on greed and violence. There were still the doctors out to save the world too, but they weren’t the majority. This was the place for those who liked to test reactions and experiment within the bounds of the law. If he was lucky, he might find someone who’d step outside them.

Sherlock let himself in behind a group of drug company execs and made his way straight up to the labs. He wandered from room to room, smile growing with each new soul. There were technicians ruthlessly injecting rats with cancerous cells, doctors taking blood from themselves to put into trials, even a woman dissecting a chimp’s brain while he was still alive. She intrigued him for a moment before he read her thoughts and found her to be clever but very, very humourless.

He walked back into the hall and immediately stopped. There was a black aura spilling into the corridor under a closed door about ten feet away. The blind had been pulled down over the window but light flickered around the edges, white and scattered like a strobe. Sherlock stepped into the lab and gasped.

A young man who couldn’t have been more than twenty-three was standing in the middle of a room completely lined with black felt curtains. The equipment and benches had been pushed to the edges of the space, and he stood alone in the middle directly under a projector that was running on all four walls at one, throwing up flashing scenes of faces. All kinds of faces, all kinds of people, all of them horribly disfigured. Sherlock stared in wonder at the pictures that changed so rapidly you couldn’t focus on any one for more than a second. A stereo in the corner was playing nothing but static, the white noise enough to drown out everything but the hum of the projector.

He walked over to get a better look at the man’s face. He was gorgeous, dark chestnut hair in messy waves around his face, thin lips under a cute button nose. His eyes were very green and very wide as he stared at the walls with an avid, slightly manic grin. Sherlock could see the darkness that filled him from his core to the tips of his fingers. It was brutal, enough to give him a chill of what might have been desire. He reached out a hand and placed it on the man’s shoulder.

Body showing standard fear responses at the sight of injuries, but brain quite disconnected. Psychopathic tendencies, lack of empathy for others – or are the pictures too detached? Strangers. Yet even children do not evoke a shocked or saddened response.

The projector clicked off and he blinked rapidly, rubbing his eyes as he went to turn the lights back on.

The photos didn’t have the same physical attraction as the real thing, but they were intriguing. The mere suggestion of blood is enough and yet there’s a need to study more, to look longer instead of away.

Sherlock stuck his tongue against his canine. Oh yes, he’d do nicely. He could feel the obsession coursing through the man’s brain, could tell this is not what he was supposed to be doing with his lab time from the weak underlying wary thoughts. He was studying himself, but he didn’t seem upset or disgusted. He was a pure sort of scientist, removed but enthusiastic. One push and he might run out and slaughter half of London. Sherlock wanted to delve into his mind and find the source of these urges but he decided to hold off. It might be more fun getting the man to tell the story himself. He smiled to himself and drifted back into the hallway. The sign on the door said Dr Charles Haywood.

"Well Charlie, I’ll be seeing you again."

Jim was in his throne room when Sherlock came in, talking to a demon who had two souls by the scruff of their necks. When he saw the ex-detective he grinned and patted his knee.

"Come say hello, Sherly."

He obediently climbed into Jim’s lap, the other demon drawing back as the two men kissed. Jim sniffed deeply as they broke apart.

"Where have you been? You smell delicious."

"Harley Street."

"Ah, yes. That would do it. Diego, take them to the fourth level." He waved a hand dismissively.

The other demon dragged his catches away and Sherlock uncurled against Jim a little more.

"I was looking for someone special."

"I am not a fool, Lucifer. You and I have an affinity now, but once I’ve learned everything you have to teach me and I’m not always around you will find someone new to occupy yourself with. You’ll get bored."

"Oh Sherly, you’re one of the best finds I’ve had in years! If you’re as good at chasing souls as you were at chasing criminals, I’m sure your antics will keep me entertained for at least a dozen decades."

"Familiarity breeds tedium. Eventually you will be sick to death of me."

Jim shrugged. "I can’t stop eternity being so bloody long."