It Started With Stealing | Sherlock Holmes

76 - Blame & Anger

Amber, with me. And bring a gun." Cleo commanded the next morning when one of her girls had told her the news about Rita's sustained injuries.

The Forty Elephants leader and her right hand woman steamed down to the London docks, heading straight for Moriarty's current residence: his houseboat, Capers. Cleo's free fist hammered on the door before she charged in, gun raised with Amber tailing behind, her gun readied too.

"Moriarty!" Cleo shouted, "We need to talk!"

From the room at the end of the houseboat, peeked out the head of a very amused Jim, "Well, isn't this a nice unexpected visit?"

Both women raised their guns, training the barrels on him. Fury was in the leader's eyes as she stared him down; Amber was barely phased having doubted Rita previously, but she would follow her boss into battle all the same. Jim raised his hands, a faux, over-the-top look of shock upon his face.

He raised his hands, still peeking out from behind the door, "Ladies, ladies - "

"Get out of there." She commanded sharply.

"Yes ma'am!" Jim grinned as he stepped out, merely wearing a pair shorts.

"You think this is funny?" Cleo roared, her tone shaking with ferocity, "What the bloody hell did you think you were doing?!"

"Now, I can understand you're upset - "

"Upset? Do you know how long it has taken me to build up my network? And then you just swooped in, taking out one of my key girls."

"In all fairness, I didn't take her out. She's still alive to my knowledge." Jim shrugged, "And it was just one - "

"You idiot! She was the only doctor we had!"

"Cleo," He laughed, "There are more doctors in the - "

By the time he got to 'the' she had stepped forwards, shoving the barrel of the gun against his head.

She hissed at him, "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't shoot you right now, damn it."

Jim laughed maniacally at this action. How pointless, how stupid, how emotional of her. If he wasn't laughing so hard, he would have rolled his eyes. She thought him scared of dying - how wrong she was. His chuckling died down and all that was left was a scarily calm grin.

"Cleo, Cleo, Cleo," He drew out her name, "Why shouldn't you kill me? For a number of reasons." He paused as though mentally gathering them all, "Reason one - how's Jacob?"

Ms Black's head tilted as he said that name, recognition of her fear quaked through her. He couldn't -

"And reason two - how's Christopher? Oh, that's right. You don't get to know. Only I do. Reason three - "

His eyes took to looking just behind the right-hand woman. Amber turned like lighting to see an equally shirtless Seb holding two handguns, one pointed at herself and the other at Cleo. Amber trained her gun on Seb, still not wasting her breath on either of the men. When Cleo saw this, she glared back at Jim.

"Any bullets fly from you two, my man puts a bullet in your right-hand's head and then yours too. And, Amber is it? He can take a few before he goes down, trust me. So you see, I also have the power to kill you right now." Jim sniffed, "Feeling powerless yet, Queen Cleo?"

"You bastard - "

"Ah. Probably not best to insult the man who has another man pointing guns at you both. Now," Jim's hand slinked up, taking hold of Cleo's weaponised hand and though she resisted, thinking of her family that had been mentioned, she gave up, and slowly he brought her arm down, "That's better. Tell Amber to lower her weapon."