The Hounds Of Baskerville (Sherlock Holmes X OC)

FOUR- Losing It...?

"Hi," Henry said as Anita and the boys arrived at his place.

"Hi," John and Anita replied.

"Come in, come in." Sherlock walked in, wiped his feet on the doormat, and headed down the hallway with Anita close behind. John followed, but at a slower pace, stopping to look into a large high ceilinged sitting room before following Henry.

"This is, uh...are you, um...rich?" John asked Henry.

"Yeah," said Henry.

"Right," John stated as Sherlock threw him a dark look. Henry led the trio to his kitchen and offered the three of them a drink. Sherlock put two sugar into his mug and stirred them in as he sat on a stool at the center island. Anita was next to him, her head in her hand. She had declined on a drink, not exactly feeling like coffee at the moment. John sat next to her as Henry stood on the other side.

"It's- it's a couple of words. It's what I keep seeing. Liberty," he said. John reached into his pocket and pulled out his notebook.

"Liberty," John repeated.

"Liberty and In. it's just that," Henry said as he picked up a bottle of milk.

"Are you finished?" Henry asked John, who hummed in response. Henry turned around to put the milk in the fridge as John turned to Anita and Sherlock.

"Mean anything to you two?"

"Liberty in death- isn't that the expression? The only true freedom," Sherlock said, softly, as John nodded in agreement. Henry turned back to them.

"What now, then?" he questioned.

"Sherlock's got a plan," John informed him, Anita nodding beside him.

"Yes," Sherlock said.

"Right," Henry commented.

"We take you back out onto the moor and see if anything attacks you," Sherlock explained, nonchalantly.

"What?!" John and Anita asked.

"That should bring things to a head," Sherlock continued.

"At night? You want me to go out there at night?" Henry asked, clearly nervous.

"That's your plan? Brilliant!" John said then laughed. Anita sighed, Sherlock did have a point. They needed sound evidence of the 'hound' and this was the only way they could get it.

"Got any better ideas?" Anita asked John.

"That's not a plan," John insisted.

"Listen, if there is a monster out there, John, there's only one thing to do: find out where it lives," Sherlock said as he looked over at Henry and smiled widely at him.

That night, Anita, Henry, Sherlock, and John made their way to Dewer's Hollow. All four of them had flashlights to light up the uneven ground below their feet. Anita and the three men reached the woods and it became even darker once they entered the forest. Anita and John were walking behind Henry and Sherlock when John suddenly turned to his right and started to walk cautiously.

"John?" Anita called to him in a whisper. She huffed before following after him.

"I heard something," John whispered to her once she fell in line with him. As the pair walked towards where John heard the sound, he shined his light into the bushes. An owl shrieked overhead, but they saw nothing.

Anita shook her head when a bright light repeatedly blinked on and off at the top of a hillside a fair distance away.

"John," Anita said, turning around to see him shining his light in the direction of Sherlock and Henry had been, but they were long gone. Anita huffed as John turned towards her and she pointed out the blinking light. John pulled out his notebook and started to write down the letter, thinking it was Morse code.