Stone Cold (17 page)

The man swung a foot at Sherlock’s stomach. Sherlock rolled over, and the foot caught him in the back. Pain flared up and down his body, but through the haze of agony Sherlock knew that it
was better than if the foot had hit its target. That would have disabled him for hours.

The shaven-headed man reached out to the fireplace and took a poker from a rack. It seemed to glow in the firelight. The man raised the poker above his head, intending to bring it down on to
Sherlock’s skull.

Sherlock scuttled backwards on elbows and knees, but the man followed him, preparing to strike.

From the shadows, Matty launched himself at the suited man, grabbing his upraised elbow and hanging on for dear life. The man fell backwards, with Matty’s weight dragging him down. Matty
tried to let go and fall away, but he was too late: the man’s weight landed right on top of him. Sherlock heard the breath rush out of his friend’s lungs with an audible
whoosh
!

To add injury to injury, the man jabbed backwards with his elbow, catching Matty in the stomach. As the man rolled away and climbed to his feet, Matty curled up into a ball, moaning.

The man looked from Sherlock to Matty and back again, trying to work out which of them to deal with first. Matty was out of the fight for the time being, so he advanced on Sherlock, still
holding the poker.

Sherlock looked around desperately. He needed a weapon too!

The man swung the poker at Sherlock. Sherlock ducked, then converted the duck into a sideways dive that took him to the floor. He rolled, ending up near the fire. There weren’t any more
pokers in the rack, but there was a large pair of tongs for picking up lumps of coal. He grabbed them and briefly checked on Matty. ‘Are you okay?’

‘I will be,’ the boy moaned. ‘Just give me a minute. Or ten.’

Sherlock straightened up and turned just as the man rushed at him, his face was contorted into a diabolical scowl. ‘I’m goin’ to cripple you, you little –’

Before he finished the sentence, he swung the poker again. Sherlock blocked it with the tongs. A high metallic note rang through the room. The shock of the impact numbed Sherlock’s arm
right up to the shoulder. He stepped back, aware that the open door to the next room was just behind him. When the man rushed at him again, swinging the poker like a club this time, Sherlock took
two steps back, grabbed the door handle and pulled the door half shut.

The man ran straight into the edge of the door. He bounced backwards, crying out in pain. He wiped a sleeve across his eye, smearing the blood across his face, and advanced into the next room,
following Sherlock.

‘Don’t you
ever
stop?’ Sherlock whispered, half to himself.

‘Not ever,’ the man replied. ‘You can kill me, and I’ll still keep on coming. My job is to protect this place from little thieves like you.’

Sherlock was about to say that he wasn’t a thief, and neither was Matty, but he doubted the man would believe him. He was like some kind of unstoppable clockwork machine!

He suddenly lashed out at Sherlock with the poker. Sherlock blocked with the tongs again, then poked the tongs directly at the man’s eyes. The man leaned backwards. Taken by surprise,
Sherlock followed, suddenly overbalancing. The man abruptly changed his grip on the poker, holding it halfway up and jabbing the handle into Sherlock’s ribs. It felt for a moment like he had
broken one of them. Sherlock brought his left arm down to protect his side while he jabbed the tongs at the man’s throat. He caught him just below the Adam’s apple, and the man doubled
up, choking. Sherlock hit him hard on the head with the tongs and he fell to his knees, gasping in pain.

Sherlock backed into the centre of the room, taking deep breaths while he could and looking around to see if there were any other weapons he could use. This room was lined with glass tanks too,
but in the few seconds he had to make an analysis Sherlock saw that these tanks had snakes in: some the colour of sand and some brightly banded in red and yellow; some the size of Sherlock’s
little finger and one, in a triple-sized tank, as thick as Sherlock’s arm. Attention attracted by the sudden movement, they followed Sherlock with eager eyes.

Sherlock realized that the man had climbed back to his feet again. Blood was streaming down his scalp but it still wasn’t stopping him. In fact, it appeared to have made him even
angrier.

‘There ain’t going to be enough of you left to fill a bucket when I’ve finished with you,’ he growled. He swished the poker through the air in front of him. Sherlock
could feel the breeze of its passage riffling his hair.

Behind him, Matty was still curled up on the floor.

The man charged, still waving the poker.

Sherlock took hold of his tongs with both hands and swiped sideways. The poker flew out of the man’s hand and struck one of the tanks. The glass shattered.

The man grabbed hold of the other end of the tongs. For a moment the two of them stood there, each fighting for control, but the man was too strong. He tore the tongs from Sherlock’s grasp
and threw them away.

Directly into another tank. More glass shattered.

The man grabbed Sherlock by the throat and lifted. Sherlock suddenly couldn’t breathe. His feet weren’t touching the floor. A red mist came down over his vision, making everything
foggy and distant. The man was saying something, his breath hot on Sherlock’s face, but the words were muffled by the thudding of blood in Sherlock’s ears. He tried to see over the
man’s shoulder in case Matty had got to his feet and was coming to help, but the boy was still curled into a ball.

This looked like the end. There was nothing Sherlock could do. Not all the puzzle solving in the world was going to help him survive being strangled.

Something moved by his shoulder. He could hardly see now – his vision was restricted to a narrow tunnel surrounded by blackness – but there was definitely something there, waving
slowly to and fro.

The man saw it as well. His face went pale. Before he could do anything more than ease his grip slightly, the thing lashed out, fastening itself on his cheek.

It was a snake: striped in vivid red, yellow and black. Sherlock grabbed at its body, which was whipping back and forth. He tried to pull it away, but its fangs were fastened in the man’s
flesh. The man himself was screaming now, face contorted in agony and terror.

Matty suddenly appeared at Sherlock’s shoulder. He was hunched and pale, obviously still in pain, but at least he was moving. ‘Let’s get out,’ he said urgently.

‘Take hold of this thing!’ Sherlock nodded towards the snake.

‘Are you
mad
?’

‘It’s going to kill him!’

Matty scowled. ‘So what? You were tryin’ to kill ’im! ’E was tryin’ to kill you! We need to escape!’

Sherlock could feel his lips tighten in stubborn anger. ‘It doesn’t matter. He’s a human being, and he’s in trouble because of us. Take hold of this thing now!’

Matty stared at Sherlock for a second, then at the window. Reluctantly he reached past Sherlock and grabbed the writhing reptile. ‘I didn’t sign up for this kind of thing,’ he
muttered.

Once Matty had a firm grip, Sherlock let go and moved past him, towards the bitten man. His eyes were closed and he was whimpering now. ‘We’re trying to help,’ Sherlock said.
‘Brace yourself.’ He grabbed at the snake’s jaws, careful to use the looser skin around the thing’s mouth as protection against the teeth. It was dry and warm to the touch.
Exerting pressure, he pulled the snake’s mouth further open. The fangs in the top and bottom jaws slid out of the man’s cheek, leaving four bloody holes behind.

Matty slid his hands up so that he was holding the snake just behind its head, preventing it from whipping around and biting him too. His arms flailed as the snake tried desperately to get out
of his grip.

The man fell to his knees, still whimpering. Sherlock stared at the holes in his cheek. There would be poison in the wound now, and he hadn’t got a clue what to do about it. Should he try
to get hold of a doctor? Just how long did this snake’s venom take to have an effect? Was it just disabling, or actually deadly?

‘Sherlock . . .’

‘Not now – trying to think!’

He had no idea what to do next. No idea at all.

‘Sherlock,’ Matty repeated, voice very quiet and controlled, ‘look over there!’

Sherlock turned and looked to where Matty was staring in horror. There, on the carpet, was another snake. It was larger than the one Matty was holding, and brown. It must have come out of the
second shattered tank. As Sherlock watched, its head broadened out into a kind of hood that made it look more threatening. A sudden rattle made Sherlock look at its tail, which was raised above the
carpet and shaking back and forth. There were little bony plates there that made the rattling noise when they vibrated – a warning perhaps? Not that either Sherlock or Matty needed a warning.
They were scared enough already.

Sherlock froze. His gaze flickered around the room, searching for something he could use against the creature, but finding nothing. The tongs were in the shattered glass tank near the bitten
man’s head, while the poker was on the other side of the room, lying on the carpet amid shards of glass.

The snake opened its mouth wide, displaying the red flesh inside. Another warning.

The only thing that Sherlock could think of to do was to grab it when it struck. It was a risky option, and he didn’t like it, but he wasn’t sure he had a choice.

The snake’s head drew back. It was going to launch itself at him. Sherlock braced himself.

Something moved in the doorway of the room they had come out of a few minutes earlier. The snake didn’t react, but Sherlock glanced sideways.

The doorway was filled by a huge figure. It was the man Sherlock had seen earlier, taking the parcel from the post box, and earlier than that, in a carriage entering the grounds of the house. He
had taken off his bulky leather coat and hat, but he was still wearing the close-fitting jigsaw mask. In fact, Sherlock now saw that it was a hood that went entirely over his head. Bright blue eyes
shone through the eyeholes. He held a gun in his hand, a hand so large that it made the weapon look like a toy. His eyes moved, taking in the scene. They ended up looking at Sherlock.

He raised the gun and fired.

Sherlock just stood there, frozen in place. He tried to work out where the bullet had hit. He couldn’t feel any impact or pain – he must be in shock, he thought. Any second now the
agony would start, and blood would begin to pulse from the wound.

After a few seconds in which nothing happened, apart from the smoke from the gun’s barrel drifting through the room, Sherlock realized that there was no pain, no blood, and no wound. He
looked down at himself to check, and saw nothing. Had the newcomer missed? Would he fire again?

He looked up again, but the man was looking over Sherlock’s shoulder. Sherlock followed his gaze, to where the brown snake lay in two halves on the carpet, torn apart by the bullet from
the gun.

The newcomer’s gaze moved from the snake to Sherlock and then from Sherlock to Matty. ‘I could shoot you both,’ he said, voice muffled by the leather face mask, ‘or you
could help me save George’s life, and then explain yourselves. You have five seconds to decide.’ His voice sounded like rocks grinding together, it was so deep and hoarse.

‘We help,’ Sherlock said quickly, ‘and then we explain.’

‘Good choice.’ The man lowered the gun and slipped it into the waistband of his trousers. ‘You – smaller boy – give me that cobra.’ He turned and quickly shut
the snake in a box. ‘You – bigger boy – get me that device and the knife from the mantelpiece.’

Sherlock followed where the man was pointing and saw an object the size of his fist on the mantelpiece. He scooped it up. It was a ball made out of a strange rubbery substance, connected to a
metal valve and a nozzle which flared out to a conical opening, again made of that same rubbery substance. He handed it across to the man, who had moved to where the other man – George
– was kneeling, moaning and holding his arms across his chest, and bent to kneel beside him.

‘What’s your name, boy?’ the newcomer asked as he took the device.

‘Sherlock. Sherlock Holmes.’ He did think about lying, but decided that honesty was the best policy at the moment.

‘And your little friend?’

‘I ain’t so little!’ Matty muttered.

The newcomer squished the rubber ball in his hand, squeezing the air out with a
hiss
.

He looked up at Sherlock. ‘My name is Ferny Weston. I own this house. The man with the snake bite is George Squier. He acts as my manservant, cook and general handyman around the house.
He’s the only person I trust, and I don’t intend losing him.’ He handed the rubber and metal device to Sherlock. ‘Keep that ball squeezed, for all that your life is
worth,’ he said, and took the knife from Sherlock’s other hand. He turned to the bitten man, and before Sherlock could say anything he had put the knife against the skin of
George’s cheek and made two quick slashes in the shape of an X where the snake’s teeth had pierced him.

‘What are you doing?’ Sherlock cried.

‘Getting the poison out,’ Weston said. He grabbed the device from Sherlock’s grasp and placed the rubber funnel against the skin where he’d cut the X. He let the ball go,
and it expanded slowly, the rubber seal making a sucking sound against the blood on George’s skin. ‘His blood will be pushing out from the wound, taking the poison with it, not going
in, but we need to stop the poison diffusing through the tissue. The quicker we suck the poison out, the more chance we have of saving his life.’ He squeezed the rubber ball hard, expelling
the air. Sherlock heard something sticky gurgling inside. Again he placed it against the wound and sucked.

As the man worked, Sherlock couldn’t help but notice the pattern of scars around his wrist and his fingers. He could see how anybody in the local area who saw him might have got the idea
that he had been constructed from odd body parts. In fact, apart from the sheer implausibility of the idea, Sherlock wasn’t entirely convinced that it wasn’t true.