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Trapped. Fire escape rusted through, piles of garbage blocking the rest of the alley – either she started digging like a mole or –
The alleyway darkened even more.
Joan whipped around, facing what was coming. Fear raced through her and shouted from every pore.
The man had the terrifyingly expressionless stare of the hired killer – those glass eyes were more horrifying than the silencer-clad muzzle of the gun that rose up.
That was when the legion fell upon him.
The silent, implacable hit man flailed, shouting in pain and fear and swinging both arms in vain at his attackers. Yelling, he tore out of the alley pursued by his assailants – and went straight into a steel-eyed Sherlock’s baton, and the NYPD’s handcuffs.
The bodyguards regrouped and the humming swarm flew back to Joan, sitting on a crate and shaking in the aftermath. One of the larger soldiers hovered in front of her eyes. “Hey, Miz J, yaw right?”
Joan nodded, taking deep breaths to expel the adrenaline that had summoned her namesakes and protectors. “I will be. Thank you all. You saved me.”
“Hey, no problem.” The drone circled Joan’s head and hovered again. “No fuckin’ scumbag messes wit’ our Joanie, amiright girls?”
The swarm of Euglassia watsonia workers responded in true New York fashion. “Yeah.” “Yeah yeah.” “Da.” “Tryna work here, dumbass!” “¡Es verdad!” “Gedoutta here!” “Fuck off, man!” “Well, duh.”
Joan smiled at them, profane and prosaic and fiercely loyal. “I really will be all right, girls. Thank you again. And I’m sorry about the ones who died stinging him.”
“Eh, so we die,” another bee said. “So what?”
“Opa!” Another worker buzzed past. “Better to live your 48 days like each one’s your last!”
Joan couldn’t argue with that. “Well, we’ve got him caught now. You can go home.”
“You sure, Miz Watson?” another worker asked, hovering to join the drone. “That fear-smell you put out was loud, and that momzer had a fuckin’ big stinger on him. It’s a shonda, a drone havin’ a stinger!”
“Humans,” another worker said disgustedly. “No offense, Miz J.”
“None taken.” Joan sometimes had the same feeling about her own species. “And I should have said girls and drones. You do know you don’t have to join the others doing this?”
“Eh, I feel more like myself gettin’ pollen with the girls, y’know?” said the drone. “The thought of just hangin’ around the hive gettin’ fat and waiting to pork the queen don’t do it for me.”
“And we got this fehgeleh tagging along,” the worker added. “Oy, what a swarm we make.” She flew off to join her sisters regrouping for a return to the hives atop the brownstone.
“We’re a new species,” the drone responded archly after his cellmate. “I say fuck the programming.”
Joan suppressed her laughter. “For one thing,” she said, “I know for a fact that all other bees don’t actually understand human speech.”
Another worker hovered for a moment at that. “Get outta here! I thought you was just smarter’n the others!”
“Ah, we gotta scram, His Nibs is comin’,” the drone said, and darted away. The last of the bees vanished just as Sherlock tore into the alley, terror in his eyes fading into relief at seeing her sound and whole before him.
“He didn’t get me,” Joan said immediately. “Scared the hell out of me, but I didn’t get a scratch. He never got off a shot before he was driven out.”
He was already on his knees in that filthy, noisome alley, assessing her seated figure with his eyes. “As I ascertained from the unfired state of his gun. I’m infinitely grateful that he did not pull the trigger, Watson, even as I am unable to determine why he did not. He had time, motive and means. I was certain I had come too late.” The tremor in the hands he rested on the crate belied his level voice.
There really was no reason to keep this a secret from Sherlock much longer – he was, after all, responsible for this new species being bred in the first place, and he was bound to find out eventually.
But Joan thought of what Sherlock would do with a swarm of tiny myrmidons who understood his commands. Not yet. She had no desire to be a member of House Euglassia.
“He may have had an episode. Maybe the flies spooked him,” she said. “He seems to have an insect phobia of some kind.”
He was still for a moment. “He was shouting about ‘those damn bugs’ when he came out. Perhaps you’re right. In any case, he is in custody and Detective Bell will need our assistance in interrogating him. Do you feel able?”
"I’m good,” Joan said. They helped each other regain their footing, and the three of them left the alley. Three: Sherlock Holmes; Joan Watson; and the Euglassia watsonia queen humming in Joan’s hair by her left ear, who was saying, “He’ll never figure it out, Joanie. With all due respect, he’s a man. Fuckin’ drones, am I right?”