Peppermint

Prologue - Call Sherrinford

Firdaus Sayid zipped her hoodie tight against the chill wind blowing down the street, only to unzip it again when she stepped into the warm, well-lit pizzeria where Ahmad Pirzada was already waiting for her. "Welcome to Joey's," she muttered to herself as she read the establishment's name on a neon sign, now bedecked in tinsel-y silver and gold garlands for maximum tacky holiday festivity. "You already ordered?"

He nodded, pulling his sleeve down to hide the creeping ink on his wrist. "Margherita. Not the drink, of course-"

"Yeah, I know what you mean." She consulted her phone, half-expecting to see another text. No such luck - just the grinning face of someone's photo-manip fan art of Tom Hiddleston in character as Sherrinford Holmes.

"Lucky you," Ahmad said, nodding at her screen. "We're now in a dimension where they actually put him on the show."

Firdaus grinned. "Blud."

"And your Mycroft impression is always spot on, even though you're kinda ruining it by eating pie instead of cake tonight."

She shook her head. "No, no, no, no, no. Dean defines pie, and pie is sweet, no matter what the Italians might try to tell us."

"Hey, be careful..." Ahmad chanced a glance over to a table closer to the counter, where three teenage boys - who could have been brothers, with their similar shades of light-brown skin and wavy to curly brown hair, but the two of them knew different - sat and talked over their slices and glasses of what looked like blood orange San Pellegrino. "You know at least one of those guys is Italian, right?"

"Yeah, and we're kinda on their turf right now, so..."

Her phone buzzed, finally showing a text from Josh. "Can't make it tonight. I'm sorry, but Dad's pretending to care about my birthday."

"Even though it's not?"

"Even though."

She could almost see Josh silently raging at his father, fighting the urge to destroy furniture in whatever hotel room they'd taken up residence in. "Should we stay here and keep an eye on the boys?"

"Yeah, and if anything happens, I trust you can help defend them."

Firdaus felt the collapsible baton in her hoodie pocket, and out of the corner of her eye, she watched Ahmad do the same. "Wish you were here, Josh."

"I wish too. Think of me having to eat another goddamn Christmas fruitcake while you feast on pizza."

"I almost wanna just walk outta here and give his dad the grief he needs," Ahmad muttered.

"I do too," said Firdaus as she pocketed her phone, "but we're not ready to take on someone like Graziadei. Not just the two of us."

Ahmad wrinkled his nose. "I dunno what God you believe in, but I know God, and that man ain't him."

"For all our sakes, I hope not."