26th January, 1865

Having gotten over the happenings of the night, Watson had felt drowsy enough to fall asleep on Holmes's bed. The mist in the room had thickened yet again, and a silhoutte fell on the sleeping doctor, before dissipating again. A soft, yet familiar tune lulled him to a much needed rest after not having slept for the past three days. The tired man's sleep was peaceful and the soft tune could be heard throughout the night and stopped sometime before dawn.

It was a new day. The clouds hadn't dissipated yet and the sun's rays were dim. It was dreary enough to match what was going to take place.

Ding! Dong!

Watson scrambled out of bed at the sudden sound of the doorbell. His hair was tousled and his entire countenance showed that he hadn't had his fair share of sleep. Mrs. Hudson brought the visitor's card upstairs.

It was Inspector Lestrade.

He nodded at her and she disappeared down the stairs to bring him up. He wondered what had brought Lestrade this early to this place. Perhaps he had found a new clue, a new lead. He looked hopefully at the man when he came up, only to be disappointed by his despondent shake of head.

"Doctor, we require your help," the little sallow, rat-faced, dark-eyed fellow began, "We have a case similar to what Mr. Holmes had chanced upon in Sussex."

Watson stood up, all traces of sleep leaving his face.

"Where?" He asked, putting on his hat. He had fallen asleep in his formal attire, so he did not require to change.

"Lauriston Gardens," The man informed, "107 Lauriston Gardens."

He nodded at Lestrade, prompting him to go first.

When Lestrde was gone, he called Mrs. Hudson and informed her that he would be gone.

"Come back safely, Doctor," she said as she watched him leave.

Watson gave her a smile and closed the door after him, looking at the foggy London streets.

Unknown to him, dark figures observed him from the shadows, deducing him.

Watson hurried into a cab, unaware of any suspicious activity around him. The mist was thickening around him gradually and once or twice he felt a tinge of bloodlust but it vanished the moment he tried to pay any attention to it. He wrapped his coat and scarf around himself tighter, trying to ignore it. The feeling seemed to intensify. He shook himself, telling himself that he was imagining things and that the cab had suddenly become hot for some reason and the sweat dripping down his forehead wasn't a product of fear.

Fear is wisdom in the face of danger.

He shook himself, again. There was no danger here, he was just being silly. The mist thickened in front of him. He could see thin tendrils of black if he focused hard enough. He was totally paralyzed in his seat, eyes wide and fearful. This was unlike anything he had encountered before.

"Dr. Watson, we have reached. Would you like me to wait for you?"

He was startled out of his thoughts by the cab-driver's voice. The mist had become thinner. Wiping the sweat off his brow, he said, "No, thanks."

"Then that would be 45 cents."

He paid the price and exited the cab, mist and a sick feeling of blood enveloping him, which was to be expected from a site of murder. The snow crunched under his boots as he beheld the building in front of it, immediately recognizing it to be the one from his first case with Holmes. Nostalgia hit him like a train and he blinked away the sudden moisture building in his eyes. He made his way inside, where the officers were there to receive him and showed him the body.

He nearly fainted at how awful it looked. Its eyes were lifeless, and its body looked visibly deformed, ridiculously pale, a few bones looked broken even from a distance and the mouth was open in silent terror as it watched the murderer before death. Its skin was warped and torn in some places, but there was barely any blood present. Watson thrust his hands into his pockets to keep them warm and hide how they trembled at the gruesome site before him. It hadn't been touched, preserved for his arrival.

He went towards it and knelt down beside it, taking into note its shriveled form which made him certain that the body had been drained of all blood. There wasn't any visible wounds on the body that he could see, as his eyes ran a superficial scan over its exposed parts. There was no blood pooling around it, no such traces of it, in fact. His gaze landed on the exposed neck, where there were two minuscule puncture marks on it, too superficial to count as grave. The cloth at the neck was slightly torn, as if someone or something had grabbed her to inflict the marks.

A thin line of blood was visible on the injury, and he tried concentrating harder on that spot, causing the rest of the room to go slightly blurred. He thought that he saw small marks, which he perceived to be teeth marks and involuntary shuddered, chasing the thought away. Rigor mortis had set in and he estimated the time of death to have been around ten hours ago, sometime around midnight. That wasn't that helpful as he imagined what could have caused her death.

He assumed it to be a machine of some sort, something that sucked all the blood away from the body. That would explain the evidence of struggling as well, if she had been forced into this procedure. He looked around for any signs of such a machine, but realized that the police had messed up the scene thoroughly enough to leave no such signs of it. He licked his dry lips and got up, a funny feeling in his stomach which he recognized as dread and nervousness.

Lestrade was leaning on the wall and looking at him with ill-disguised hope. He wasn't worthy of that look. His abilities of perception was no where near one-hundredth of his flatemate's. Their intimate acquaintance had certainly taught Watson a lot of things, but he was no detective. He went up to the officer and said,

s"I am afraid that I see no clues. The weapon of murder hasn't been found or identified, and it isn't anything that has ever been seen before."

"Except in Sussex," Lestrade mumbled.

"Except in Sussex," Watson agreed, "The nature of this case is so convoluted that it feels near impossible to tell one thread apart from each other. Have you unearthed any reasons for the victim to be targeted thus?"

Lestrade seemed to deflate, even as he shook his head wearily. The man had his sympathies, Watson mused in his head. The stress was completely on him, for he was on his own without the aid of the world's only unofficial consulting detective.

"Her name is Mellisa Decruise. Her records show her to be aged twenty five. She worked as a journalist, lived alone, on the 110 in fact, pretty close by. She was punctual in her work. Pretty well liked by her coworkers from what we have surmised. Her untimely demise has come as a shock to those who knew her."

"She worked as a journalist, you say? She could have potentially alienated someone via her writing causing them to exact revenge in such a fashion," Watson said the first and most obvious thing that came to his mind.

Lestrade gave him a wry smile.

"That's the thing doctor, she was new in her field, three months fresh and had written no offending or incriminating columns that would lead to this."

"Family? Jealous relatives?"

"None who can be suspected. She doesn't have any relatives, them being dead. Her parents died a month ago, so in terms of speaking, she has no family. Her coworkers have taken the responsibility to arrange her funeral."

Watson went silent. Nothing was making sense to him. The girl was isolated and any question he asked seemed to turn up a dead end. Lestrade continued, his voice slightly softer,

"The police are at their wit's end. The absence of Mr. Holmes is keenly felt."

"Indeed," Watson said, suddenly feeling exhausted, "I'll try my best. Good day to you, Inspector."

Lestrade nodded and stood up straighter, "I have faith in your words. Good day to you too, doctor."

Watson turned and went down the path, ignoring the slight indignation he felt at Lestrade's words.

The man had faith in his words. However his tone belied his lack of faith in his abilities.

A thin line of mist seemed to find its way deliberately inside the house, but he paid it no heed. He had better things to do other than concentrate on mist.

"By the way, Doctor, how are things there?"

He turned back at Lestrade's enquiry. The man really looked tired. Crime had snapped up in the city and it was showing on his face.

"Well, his violin was stolen," he answered, as if talking of the weather.

The man's eyes widened and then he slumped against the wall, abandoning all pretense of trying to act awake.

"Now, crime has even reached the consulting detective's place. Next thing I know, police officers are being kidnapped."

Watson gave a bitter laugh and turned on his heel and entered the cab. The mist was still unreasonably thick, but he didn't explicitly notice it.