Dancing With The Devil (part two)

Chapter 27: Risky

The journey to Lucas Hansel's residence was one full of a surprising amount of chatter. The two friends talked a little bit about the plan but they decided that it was best to just to let it unfold and not spend an hour and a half stressing over the plan. They instead talked, surprisingly, about Sherlock. Seb went into a little more detail of Sherlock's most recent case.

"How do you know all this stuff?"

"I read the news."

"What about John Watson's blog, do you read that?"

"Yup. When Jim became interested in Sherlock's activities we would read the blog, basically to do homework," Seb reminisced, "He found it funny but for some reason I found it quite interesting."

"Did he ever mention me?"

Seb frowned, "why would he mention you?"

"Well, I did pretend to be his friend for a week and then point a loaded gun at his boyfriends head before running off with their arch nemesis."

"He might have done, actually." Seb chuckled and took out his phone, he took a minute to look back on John Watson's blog, he read it out loud "he did, 'a young woman named Alexa Holton came to Baker Street, looking for a place to live. We set her up in the spare room. She was a lovely girl, she even came on the case with us, but we came to regret our hospitality when she showed up at the pool where Carl Powers died with Moriarty, saying that she was working for Jim Moriarty the whole time'-"

"I was working with him not for him."

Seb continued, "'She pointed a gun at Sherlock's head before running off with Moriarty, never to be seen again'"

"Well that's a lie," Astrid frowned, "anything else?"

"Your also mentioned in the Scandal in Belgravia, 'Sherlock said "Alexa Holton was there" and then ran upstairs and didn't come out of his room for days'"

"Right, so I'm famous, that'll probably have helped my dad find me."

"Oh yeah."

"We're gonna be there in ten minutes or so," She informed, "Faith just turned her mic on."

"Where are they?"

"I don't know. Faith can you here me." There was no reply, "give me some sort of signal, cough or sneeze."

After a couple of seconds there was a low cough and Astrid let out a breath and nodded to Seb who also let out a breath.

"I'll text Jim." He texted Jim saying that Faith and Dom had arrived, "Jim says he's about five minutes away."

"Texting a driving," Astrid commented, "risky."

Five minutes later Astrid heard voices in her earpiece grow louder, she could hear the distant voice of Jim, he asked to see Lucas Hansel. The lanky butler had muttered something inaudible  and the com went silent.

"Was that Jim?" She asked.

"yes." came Faith's voice, "butler's gone to get Hansel."

"Where are you?"

"On the porch, how far away are you?"

"Couple minutes."

There was nothing else said, Astrid took that as a sign that someone else had come in. A few seconds went buy until he heard her father's Danish accent.

"What's going on here?" he said. Jim responded.

"Lucas."

Their conversation went on as they arrived Astrid pulled over about a hundred yards up the road. They got out of the car and Astrid spoke into the earpiece, saying she was there. There was a small cough from Faith, confirming she'd heard.

The two agents climbed through the hedge next to where they had parked, their guns in hand. On the other side, there was a large grassy Garden, and at the opposite end was a patio with modern outdoor furniture on it. They swiftly made there way to the patio and found the ladder round the side of the house and climbed up it. When they got to the top there was a trapdoor in the middle of it. She picked open the lock as quickly as possible with a tool that she had hidden in her shoe and let them both into the house.

The top floor was just as Jim had described it, so they cautiously made their way to where Jim had said the staircase was and started to descend the steps. They got to the next floor but were stopped by a high pitched French voice.

"Stop!"