Two Hundred and Twenty-One Baker Streets (6 page)

“Pawns.” He sat up, moving faster than I could even think of moving. “Tell me something, John. Do you remember Valerie Solanas? Did she strike you as a pawn? Someone who would do something, unasked, for someone else?”

I thought about her. “Not really. She seemed more... more like someone who was used to playing her own game, changing the rules of the game she found herself in.”

“Exactly, John. She’s a queen, able to make any moves, playing her own game, but she is without the luxury of her own board. Acting as a pawn. Driving towards the opponent’s back row, to regain her crown.”

He got up and walked to the window.

“But she’s not in control, is she?”

“That’s exactly it, John. She’s not in control of her life, and she’s trying to work out who the king is.”

“Or the player of the game.”

“Or the player of the game. She’s the most resentful pawn ever committed to the game, and that makes her dangerous. She’s a puzzle, isn’t she? Where’s that manifesto of hers? I’m of a mind to read it. Ms. Solanas, you are a bit of a puzzle, aren’t you?”

He padded back from the window, casting a long, lean shadow across the floor, rifling through the pockets of my pants looking for those ragged sheets with purple writing on them.

O
VER THE NEXT
two days, I’d packed my few belongings for my new home at Avenue B, and Sherlock had turned up the next night with an array of tough youths carrying boxes and crates of notebooks and chemical apparatus, a coffee table made from a cable spool, and a few chairs that looked like they’d spent some time on the street.

It was starting to look more like a home than anywhere I’d been since before the War.

Sherlock was still talking about Valerie. We’d run into her once more on the street, and talked to her about her
Manifesto
. Sherlock wanted to know more.

“Go on, John. Find out what you can about Valerie from your contacts at the Factory. Keep an eye out for her, and talk to her if you have to, but if you can follow her without her noticing, that would be helpful.”

I didn’t know why we were so interested—why
he
was so interested, that is. I would have been happy to have whiled the weekend away with day-old cakes and bread. I had some deliveries that could be made to the Factory, though, so I went ahead, not knowing what to expect. Everyone had the same reaction. Nothing outstanding, for the Factory. Billy and Paul were there, ready to get their prescriptions, only too happy to share catty gossip.

“Valerie? Who?”

“You know. The street dyke. Twitchy.”

“Oh, yeah. Creepy. Did you see her screen test?”

“Eyes like dark holes, staring into your soul.”

“Not attractive, really. Could be, if she put on makeup or something. Could be better, anyway. Better than street chic. Eau de Hudson, like she usually wears.”

“There was something about her, though. Something interesting. She was clever, when she wasn’t too twitchy. Maybe if she’d been fed.”

“Some days she’d be so angry, railing about men and scum. Other days, she’d be real personalable. Friendly. She used to come in with Irene, sometimes, but we haven’t seen them together in months. She just keeps coming in shouting at Andy about her script. He gets so many scripts from people. What’s he supposed to do?”

“And money. She’s always asking everyone for money.”

“Speaking of, Doc. What have you got for us? We loved those black beauties last time. Got us right through the flow in summertime, here and on the fourth floor. I’ve done enough stairs, though, so you can go up to the fourth yourself.”

“There’s another floor?” My entire room in the Chelsea wasn’t a tenth of this space. Fourteen-, maybe sixteen-foot-high ceilings of bare wood. You could dance in here. There was nothing but a couple of hard chairs and a simple table.

“Yep. There’s an old bed up there, too. Just the one. My husband and I lived up here while we were fighting with Stuy Town, before that Mr. Lorch let us move in to his place.”

I remembered them. The
Post
had written a scathing editorial about letting ‘that spade family’ move in and ‘corrupt’ the all- white enclave.

Sherlock looked at me, rubbing his fingers against his thumb. I reached into my pocket and gave him the ten-dollar bill he had given me a few hours before outside the Chelsea. I was overdue there, and I wasn’t going to pay them another dime. I was going to live here.

“Mrs. Hendrix, we’re happy to take the floors, effective today. Right now, if that’s all right?”

She turned from the top of the stairs. “That’s no problem. Y’all do what you need to do. I’ve gotta get keys cut, but y’all stay here if you need and they’ll be ready as soon as we can get them out. Breakfast rush about to start. First of June, now. See you on the first of July, if not before.” The bills disappeared underneath her apron.

Sherlock looked at me. “This floor alone is worth it, isn’t it? Shall we look upstairs?”

The next floor was the same, if a little cleaner. There was a bed, made up, with a dust cover on it, and a small rough wooden dresser.

“We’re allowed to do what we like. Put up walls if we want, or not. And Mrs. Hendrix wanted to keep the furniture up here, said that it was too much trouble to bring it down. And free breakfast. Anything left over from the day before. I think your trim waistline may expand, if you’re fed enough.”

I yawned.

“Poor John Watson. I’ve tired you out with my manic walk the length of Manhattan Island. We should lie down.” He pulled back the dust sheet.

“This is the one thing. The blue beauties will make you yawn, tired and exhausted, but you’ll have trouble sleeping.”

“I’m sure we’ll find something to do.” He pulled me to him, to those lips and that lovely long face I’d been dreaming of all night.

A
SINGLE RAY
of actual sunshine wandered across the floor, motes of dust sprung up from our bodies twinkling in their slow journey to the floor. “Look at the dust, Sherlock. Floating there, swirling. Lighter than air. It’s like magic.”

“Not at all. They’re very light, but not lighter than air, or they’d float up and we’d have far less sweeping. They’re just light enough that the lift from swirling air molecules, from tiny temperature changes can slow their descent. The sunlight is heating the air as it streams through the window. That’s your magic, John. Motes of dust are simply pawns in the sun’s game.”

“Take the joy out of everything, don’t you?”

“Not everything, John.” He smiled at me, then, the first time I saw his secret smile; the one he only shared with me, and only when we were alone. That smile told me that this, that we, were special, but that it wasn’t to leave the confines of the private lair we would build for ourselves, there above Alphabet City.

“Pawns.” He sat up, moving faster than I could even think of moving. “Tell me something, John. Do you remember Valerie Solanas? Did she strike you as a pawn? Someone who would do something, unasked, for someone else?”

I thought about her. “Not really. She seemed more... more like someone who was used to playing her own game, changing the rules of the game she found herself in.”

“Exactly, John. She’s a queen, able to make any moves, playing her own game, but she is without the luxury of her own board. Acting as a pawn. Driving towards the opponent’s back row, to regain her crown.”

He got up and walked to the window.

“But she’s not in control, is she?”

“That’s exactly it, John. She’s not in control of her life, and she’s trying to work out who the king is.”

“Or the player of the game.”

“Or the player of the game. She’s the most resentful pawn ever committed to the game, and that makes her dangerous. She’s a puzzle, isn’t she? Where’s that manifesto of hers? I’m of a mind to read it. Ms. Solanas, you are a bit of a puzzle, aren’t you?”

He padded back from the window, casting a long, lean shadow across the floor, rifling through the pockets of my pants looking for those ragged sheets with purple writing on them.

O
VER THE NEXT
two days, I’d packed my few belongings for my new home at Avenue B, and Sherlock had turned up the next night with an array of tough youths carrying boxes and crates of notebooks and chemical apparatus, a coffee table made from a cable spool, and a few chairs that looked like they’d spent some time on the street.

It was starting to look more like a home than anywhere I’d been since before the War.

Sherlock was still talking about Valerie. We’d run into her once more on the street, and talked to her about her
Manifesto
. Sherlock wanted to know more.

“Go on, John. Find out what you can about Valerie from your contacts at the Factory. Keep an eye out for her, and talk to her if you have to, but if you can follow her without her noticing, that would be helpful.”

I didn’t know why we were so interested—why
he
was so interested, that is. I would have been happy to have whiled the weekend away with day-old cakes and bread. I had some deliveries that could be made to the Factory, though, so I went ahead, not knowing what to expect. Everyone had the same reaction. Nothing outstanding, for the Factory. Billy and Paul were there, ready to get their prescriptions, only too happy to share catty gossip.

“Valerie? Who?”

“You know. The street dyke. Twitchy.”

“Oh, yeah. Creepy. Did you see her screen test?”

“Eyes like dark holes, staring into your soul.”

“Not attractive, really. Could be, if she put on makeup or something. Could be better, anyway. Better than street chic. Eau de Hudson, like she usually wears.”

“There was something about her, though. Something interesting. She was clever, when she wasn’t too twitchy. Maybe if she’d been fed.”

“Some days she’d be so angry, railing about men and scum. Other days, she’d be real personalable. Friendly. She used to come in with Irene, sometimes, but we haven’t seen them together in months. She just keeps coming in shouting at Andy about her script. He gets so many scripts from people. What’s he supposed to do?”

“And money. She’s always asking everyone for money.”

“Speaking of, Doc. What have you got for us? We loved those black beauties last time. Got us right through the flow in summertime, here and on the fourth floor. I’ve done enough stairs, though, so you can go up to the fourth yourself.”

“There’s another floor?” My entire room in the Chelsea wasn’t a tenth of this space. Fourteen-, maybe sixteen-foot-high ceilings of bare wood. You could dance in here. There was nothing but a couple of hard chairs and a simple table.

“Yep. There’s an old bed up there, too. Just the one. My husband and I lived up here while we were fighting with Stuy Town, before that Mr. Lorch let us move in to his place.”

I remembered them. The
Post
had written a scathing editori

A friend and fellow editor, Jenni’s a new talent in the short fiction world, with a number of anthology credits to her name. I was hugely pleased to be able to get her on board. ‘Parallels’ takes the anthology’s concept to its bleeding limit, not only wholly reinventing Holmes and Watson—as teenaged girls, no less—but giving us an alternate Holmes story
itself full of alternate Holmes stories.
It’s almost frighteningly meta, and is a perfect finish to the anthology. Enjoy.

S
UDDENLY
,
IT ALL
made sense to John Watson. Sherlock’s true nature: the clues had all been there.

His pale skin, his piercing grey eyes, the way he mesmerised John and others around him. Sherlock always had preferred the dark.

John thought of the many times they ’d stayed awake all night, talking, smoking, following leads, chasing criminals through the gaslit streets of London. Had he ever seen Sherlock during daylight? He didn’t think so.

As John watched Sherlock hold the unconscious Moriarty in his arms, teeth sunk into the master criminal’s neck, crouching with his long black coat spread out behind him like the wings of some enormous bat, he faced the horrifying realisation: Sherlock Holmes was a vampire.

And John—trapped in the sewers with no way out, with dawn still hours away—John would be his next victim.

“I
T
’
S GOOD
.” C
HARLOTTE
’
S
words broke Jane out of her reverie. Watching over her friend’s shoulder as the girl read her work, Jane had been lulled into a trance by the familiar paragraphs and the soft hum of the computers in the I.T. teaching room. It took a moment for her to process her friend’s words.

“It’s awful. I’m sorry you had to read it!”

Charlotte smiled. “These people don’t seem to think so.” She pointed to the feedback section at the bottom of the webpage. “Logically, awful writing probably wouldn’t get you nine hundred hits in one week.”

Jane shrugged.

“To put it in perspective, that’s nearly three times the number of people who go to this school. Reading your fanfiction. Believe
them
, if you don’t believe me.”

“There’s no accounting for taste,” Jane mumbled, but she was pleased by the praise. Charlotte did not give compliments lightly.

“Your public loves you! Listen.” Charlotte began to read the feedback out loud, putting on different voices for each comment, and Jane cringed, looking around to check they were alone in the computer room.

A trio of Year Fours gathered around a PC terminal playing the latest first-person shooter, but showed no signs of having noticed Charlotte’s pantomime of fannish glee:

MrsWatson: Vamplock is my favourite flavour of Sherlock. Can’t believe we have to wait another week to find out if Sherlock killed those girls! Or did Moriarty do it?

Tea And Johnlock: Oh noes! I can’t believe it ended here! Moar plz.

BakerStreetRegular: My new sexuality is Vampire Hunter Moriarty.

221Baby: I wish I could write fanfic like this! I wish the writers on the show could write like this. Plainjane, I love you.

Charlotte grabbed the smaller girl in an overdramatic hug at ‘plainjane, I love you,’ lanky limbs and long black hair flying everywhere, and Jane screeched in surprise.