"Your move now." 

It's about chess, that's for sure. That's why there was a white pawn in the victim's hand. They know Sherlock won't refuse. The game has already begun. The first pawn was moved. But who controls the movements of all the figures?

This time it was a man. A young man. Short and skinny with redhead hair. Someone slit his throat, tied his hands, and hung his legs on the hospital building. His clothes, like the first victim's, were all painted with paint, only in this case black.

'This is diabolical.' Lestrade said when they brought the body down to earth. 'What is the purpose of this?'

'Fun.' Replied Sherlock. 'A game.' He walked over to his body and began to rummage through his pockets, searching for another chess piece and a note.

'Every game has its ending-' Amber read, looking over his shoulder. '-but ours is just beginning. Two pieces have already left the board. What's next?' She looked at Sherlock. 'What is next? What are you planning to do?'

'You can come closer to the King at the end of the game usually.' Said the detective slowly, thinking intensely.

'But we can't sacrifice so many people! We need to predict what their next move is.'

He looked at her.

'Yes. And I think I know how.'

They hurried back to Baker Street and Sherlock arranged chess pieces on the map of London instead of the chessboard.

'Here.' Sherlock pointed his finger at the right places on the map. 'Here is where we found the first pawn. And here was the second one.'

Amber carefully looked at the map analyzing it.

'So the meridians and equators mark the chessboard, the victims are the pawns, our out-of-his-mind opponent is the black king, and we are, or rather you are... the other king?'

'Apparently... Only that the king, despite the title, has a rather small room for maneuver in chess.' He bit his lip, wandering around the map. 'But first, let's focus, we need to find out where the last confrontation might take place.'

They began to analyze in detail further moves and determine all the possibilities.

'We have as many as seven different variants.' Said Amber, falling into the armchair after hours of analyzing the scenarios. 'We will not get to where it will happen, as long as we have so few moves.'

'I'll let Lestrade know where to expect another victim. I don't think they will be able to prevent anything, but there's no way we can predict the end of the game without more paws.'

Next, there was an elderly woman above the entrance to the opera house and an obese man at the bank building. Four pawns have left the chessboard. The number of possible combinations was shrinking.

Sherlock was now scanning the map, imaging a chessboard on top of the spray out of London, quickly going over all of the possible combinations left.

'Here.' Amber pointed with a trembling finger at the square on the map. 'On the roof of this building.'

But then she realized what building it was.

'Well, that's how it has to be apparently. ' He whispered, more to himself. 'History will come full circle.'

He turned and walked to the window.

'But... You didn't die then.'

'Then we'll see what happens this time.' He started putting on his coat.

Amber looked at the map again and at the two silhouettes of wooden kings standing side by side on the roof of St. Bartholomew's hospital. 

***

Sherlock opened his eyes and blinked a few times. The first thing he saw was the dark blue of the sky, covered almost entirely by dense clouds. He raised his elbows, confused. His body was weak, and his head hurt. In front of him, there stood a tall figure, but Sherlock had trouble looking up to see who it was.

'Oh, you woke up, great! Put him up to the vertical position!'

Two strong hands grabbed him by his arm and helped him up. He tried to stand on his own feet, but his body was still too weak. He looked around, trying to assess the situation. 

They were on the roof of the hospital. The same hospital he jumped from, or actually pretended to jump, posing as suicide, a couple of years back. Apart from the bodyguard and a man in white clothes in front of him, no one was there. Where's Amber? And how did he get here?

'Don't worry, Sherlock, the game will be over soon.'

The man turned around. He had a pale, slender face and there was something uneasy about his blue eyes. His long fingers were wrapped around the cane on which he supported himself, and a smile did not disappear from his face. All his clothes were white, including an old-fashioned cylinder on his head. He looked really eccentric.

'I didn't have enough time to enjoy our little game, and here you already predicted my last move.' He leaned toward Sherlock. 'I guess you'll meet the other King sooner then.'

Sherlock did not respond, still trying to analyze the situation. His mind was still clouded by whatever it was they drugged him with. But he slowly began to remember everything. How they put them to sleep in the taxi when they were driving towards the hospital. And Amber's terrified face as she was also losing consciousness. Where is she now?

'You probably figured out by now that you're the King and I'm the other one. I'm the white one, because let's be honest-' He looked Sherlock straight in the eyes. '-you wouldn't look good in white.'

Sherlock looked back at him, raising his eyebrows. He's had enough of this game and enough of this chatter. The man smiled and began to walk around him.

'You're probably wondering why I'm telling you this since that's what always seems to lose all the geniuses of crime. They let you know their plan, making it easier to interfere with its implementation. I say all this to prove to you how hopeless you are. You can say this is a checkmate situation.'

He laughed a fake laugh, groping the detective with his eyes.

'I still have my tower with me. You are lonely. And a lonely king has no chances. But sometimes there's a Queen next to the King, isn't there?'

As he said it Amber came out from behind the wall. Her legs were slightly wobbly, but she had a stone face. Her short hair and coat were moving rapidly, attacked by the wind.

'There she is, our irreplicable Amber!' A man called out like he was a magician performing a magic trick.

'Funny how in chess the King does not have so much power. That's what he's given other figures. But the Queen.' He approached Amber. 'The Queen can do a lot. We're about to see if you've chosen your assistant, Sherlock Holmes. Amber, could you?'

She gave him a disdainful look and began to slowly unbutton her coat.

There was thunder somewhere over them. A storm was coming.

Amber threw away her coat and stood in front of the man, feeling the wind blowing through the thin fabric of her black shirt.

Sherlock wanted to shout, but his voice failed him. He threw himself at the laughing madman, but he was stopped by the man, still holding him strongly.

On Amber's body were numerous cables, mounted on a black vest. Any attempt to take it off would cause an explosion of a bomb, located on the girl's chest, right next to her fast-pounding heart.