Chapter Text
I was going out that evening, but one look at Sherlock’s clients and I checked my watch, ignored the time and sat down in my normal seat. Sherlock glanced at me sideways and raised an eyebrow. I cleared my throat.
I’d been making a point lately of making my own life without Sherlock. The last couple cases had forced us together for weeks on end and I was feeling something like cabin fever. It was to the point that even Lestrade had commented on how we were like an old married couple who could finish each others sentences. To be honest that had only happened a handful of times. Could happen to anyone…
Or maybe not. The truth was we really had been spending too much time together and the problem wasn’t that it bothered me, the problem was that it didn’t.
But we weren’t talking about us – or me, that is. We were talking about the clients who were making me late to the pub that night.
There were four of them – one pretty young woman dressed all in black, one young man in a black suit, and two others in street clothes. Those last two hugged a large camera and a bag full of the odds and ends of a film crew. All four of them, from head to toe, was covered in dirt and all four of them sat there like they were terrified of something out there in the night.
“Well?” Sherlock said when no one said anything. The four jumped in their seats.
“Sherlock….” I said, then turned back to our clients. “You all look like you could do with a cup of tea? Yes?”
They nodded. “Yes.” Sherlock commented as I rose. “Grave robbing does work up the thirst, doesn’t it?”
“It wasn’t grave robbing!” Cried the girl.
“Then what was it?” Sherlock said.
Glancing at the others, the girl began, “My name is Sophia St. Roberts, Sam Lark is next to me and next to him are Larry Hutchins and Tom Foley. We’re Ghost H(a)unters – ever hear of us?”
“No.”
“Yes.” I said. “You have a show –right? Go to all the most haunted spots in Europe?”
The girl almost smiled. “That’s right. We get on pretty well and even have a fan base now-a good one. We might break into the Americas or Asia soon…” Her voice trailed off. “So you must understand that we’re used to any creepy, spooky haunt you can dredge out-old hospitals, murder houses, the tower – we don’t get scared. Ever.” She paused. “Tonight, we got scared….Real scared.”
“Go on.” Sherlock said when she seemed to lose her focus.
“Right. Tonight was different.” She looked at me and the Sherlock. “We were trying to come up with something different – not the same old spots all the other shows have done and Sam here likes to read so he said we should base a couple shows on some popular novel. We all love vampires – who doesn’t? They sparkle, they start rock bands; how bad can they be?” She laughed bitterly and the other three shivered.
“You started with Dracula.” I said and the girl nodded.
“Yes. Everyone knows the story, we could get footage from old movies – we thought it’d be awesome. We don’t have the budget to go to Transylvania, so…”
“So you stayed closer to home.” Sherlock provided. “Staring in Essex, to be precise.”
The girl’s eyes widened. “How did you…” She laughed and shook her head and some of the fear seemed to ebb out of her. “Amazing. You really are just how they say, Mr. Holmes. Yes. We went to Essex two days ago-Dracula supposedly hid his boxes of earth there, you know, in “Carfax Abbey” – that’s Purfleet village in the “real world”…Whatever that is.”
“Did you find something?”
“Yes. We found something. A local brought us to a church with a strange, foreign coffin that he said belonged to Dracula. When he opened it for the cameras, there was no body, only earth. It was great! We were sure the old man must have just filled it himself for the tourists, but it made a great shot for the show. And then, when we left, as a souvenir, Sam here reached in and bagged a handful of dirt. Nothing happened-not then. It was only when we got back to London and tonight were filming at the spot where Lucy Westerna – Dracula’s first British bride-was buried. As we were finishing, Sam pulled out the dirt he’d taken at Purfleet and let it fall on the cemetery ground –you know, a tribute.”
“And that’s when something happened?”
The girl nodded and started to shake. “Yes. Something happened. Something terrible-and impossible.”
Sherlock stood. “Show me.” He said.
The girl nodded and gently reached over to the young man in the black suit who had been sitting so silently at her side. She pushed back his collar and he let his head fall back. Both Sherlock and I leaned in for a closer look.
“Jesus Christ.” I said of the puncture marks on the young man’s throat.
At my side, Sherlock grinned.