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Post by Carlos Castro on Jun 16, 2008 21:16:38 GMT -5
In retrospect, it had been stupid. He'd stayed in the same hotel. And it wasn't as if Destler couldn't find him anywhere he went. No lock would be sufficient, if Erik Destler wanted in.
But it made him feel slightly better. Carlos sent a note round to the Opera that he would be absent a few days--a tickle in his throat--and while the absence on the heels of his triumph galled him even more than usual, his fear kept him holed up.
Until the knock on the door. His heart pounded, and his told it firmly to calm down. Destler wouldn't come in that way.
"Mr. Holmes!" he exclaimed, his eyes darting about the passage as he let the man in. Holmes was drawn and haggard as ever. Carlos thought that was his permanent state.
"What's happened?" Holmes demanded.
Carlos poured himself a drink, offered it belatedly to Holmes who refused, and drank it down before answering.
"He's a madman, Holmes. Mad. I found him in an alley, over a body... His hands were red. He threatened me! Damn near killed me on the spot, only he recognized me and tried to make nice." He ran a hand through his hair. "Please tell me you've learned something. What's that?"
Holmes held a great sheaf of manuscripts of various sizes. "The collected works of Erik Destler," he said. "Dating back to the mid-1700's." He sighed. "You knew this, Huggins. You knew he was what he was, or you wouldn't have come to me in the first place."
"Well it's one thing to know; it's quite another so see it. You know?"
"Not at all. You're not surprised by the dates?"
Carlos fell silent. "No."
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Post by Erik Destler on Jun 16, 2008 21:23:01 GMT -5
Indeed, it was easy for Destler to find Carlos. The fact that he'd moved rooms was not surprising, but it did hurt more than a little, and he kept himself dampened, part of the shadows of the room, part of the reflections in the mirrors and the glass of the windows and the pictures that adorned the walls.
And here was that damned nosey pit violinist! And Christopher called him--it couldn't be that Holmes. Carlos wouldn't betray him like that...or wouldn't have a few days ago. Or perhaps the entire thing had been a trap for him.
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Post by Sherlock Holmes on Jun 16, 2008 22:09:05 GMT -5
It had been absurdly easy for Holmes to find Huggins. What was the boy thinking? Now that he was here, Holmes read the complicated situation in every agitated gesture, ever eye-tick towards the imperious (and beautiful) blue point Siamese who seemed to be the stand-in for Huggins more "tender" feelings for his maestro.
Holmes very much doubted Carlos knew those still existed. But Holmes could see that Huggins' terror was not just that of a man who feared for his life, but one who feared for his own sanity. His own judgment.
"You're a fool, Huggins," Holmes said acerbically. "He's far too smart for you. And too old." Holmes' lips thinned at his own joke. "You got in over your head and you've no one to blame but yourself. But you can help me by telling me where he is."
"I've no idea," protested Carlos. "It isn't as if he gave me an address. If he's not at the cafe, I don't know."
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Post by Erik Destler on Jun 16, 2008 22:14:37 GMT -5
The composer, from his hidden place in the Shadows and the dark, sent his voice to Carlos like a barbed lash.
"Betrayer! Fool child! You think this pathetic little man can do anything against me? That you even think you need protection against me!"
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Post by Sherlock Holmes on Jun 16, 2008 22:21:20 GMT -5
Carlos stiffened, and before he spoke Holmes knew what he would say.
"He's here," Carlos gasped.
Which was, after all, what Holmes had been hoping all along.
"Show yourself, Destler," he said. "It's you I came to speak with."
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Post by Erik Destler on Jun 16, 2008 22:23:05 GMT -5
"I can hear you fine from where I am, mister Holmes. Coming into the room would only tempt me into killing you, and I have no desire for Christopher to witness that again--no matter the level of his betrayal to me."
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Post by Carlos Castro on Jun 16, 2008 22:45:33 GMT -5
At Destler's voice, Carlos' heart rose and sank in succession. Because he still felt the thrill at it, and the fear. And his words...
"Maestro," he choked out. "I didn't... I was only..." He had no excuse. And he still felt he'd had no choice. He watched as Holmes, something close to a smile on his thin lips, raised the sheaf of papers.
"I've been doing some very interesting reading," Holmes said to the air. "Newspaper clippings and the like. You've been very busy, haven't you? But that's nothing to the music. Absolutely brilliant. You're a genius, Destler, whatever else you are. How's the face, by the way?"
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Post by Erik Destler on Jun 16, 2008 22:48:34 GMT -5
"What!" he hissed "What!? Who told you!"
The composer rose to the bait and came through the shadows into the room, glaring from behind his scarf--the raw edges of his untended face visible--in Carlos' direction.
"You told him. You haven't even seen and you told him! None of this is his concern!"
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Post by Sherlock Holmes on Jun 16, 2008 23:19:32 GMT -5
The man's focus was admirable, Holmes gave him that. To think anyone could be so engrossed in the opinions of someone like Huggins. He wondered if Destler knew of the young man's past. If he'd care. Obsession was blind. And the boy could sing.
"Oh, but it is," Holmes said, his voice icy. "You made it my concern when you began killing. Mr. Huggins here is merely the conduit. He barely had to tell me anything, and it's a credit to whatever hypnotic power you have over him that he regretted it almost immediately."
Carlos blinked, torn between the righteous figure of Holmes and the ravaged face of the man who haunted his dreams.
"What happened, Destler?" Holmes prompted. "What happened that made you go from this--" He pulled out the unfinished composition, stained with tallow and blood so faded it was brown "--to this?" He gestured with the rest of the papers. "And ruined your face in the bargain?"
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Post by Erik Destler on Jun 16, 2008 23:28:29 GMT -5
"Hah! A Bargain!" He pointed a shaking finger at Holmes and stalked closer to him, turning sharply to pace, and back again, raising one fist in the air madly and lowering it again as if he were striking a table, though there wasn't one to be struck.
"A bargain is exactly the right thing, mister Holmes! A trick so thorough in its cruelty so as to render even the other party's word completely useless!"
His pointing hand drew back and pushed into his longcoat, coming out with the whip.
"Christopher called you here, it's his fault he'll have to witness this."
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Post by Carlos Castro on Jun 16, 2008 23:40:17 GMT -5
"I didn't!"
Time seemed to slow as everything happened at once. Destler reached for his whip; Holmes calmly stretched out his arm to hold the papers--indeed the collected works of Erik Destler--over the fire which burned with incongruous merriment in the grate.
And Carlos, not knowing why he did it, leaped forward towards Holmes. Perhaps he intended to warn the man, to forestall Holmes' certain death. But his mind was fixated entirely on Destler. On the destruction of the man's beautiful music, as if everything hinged on that, as if there would be no more once those moldering copies were gone.
Something inside him, tuned to Destler's uncanny music, had snapped as decisively as the string of a violin.
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Post by Erik Destler on Jun 16, 2008 23:48:31 GMT -5
At the same stretched moment, the whip was flung out as Destler lunged as well, eyes wide and fixed on the sheets as the hung over the fire. The taught tip of the leather whicked past Carlos' striking a deep gash into the flesh just under his eye and caught Holmes' wrist.
He jerked back with all his might to get the old manuscripts away from the flames--hard enough, certainly, to break bones--but one or two of the pages fluttered back into the flames and in the next moment, Destler had dropped the whip and dove to the floor to try and gather up the rest as smoke puffed out from under his jacket.
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Post by Sherlock Holmes on Jun 17, 2008 0:17:34 GMT -5
Holmes saw the young man fall back, half his face already covered in a curtain of blood as his eyes widened in horror. A split-second later, his left wrist exploded in pain and the pages scattered but for the few caught by the flames.
It could have been a trick of the eye, but he was certain that the smoke emanating from Destler's jacket was not from the fire. Not directly, that is. On instinct he dove for the sheets, ignoring the grinding pain in his wrist (but primarily using his right hand), thrusting fistfuls of paper at the fire. At the edge of his vision he saw Carlos rise, approach, trying to reach them.
Trying to reach Destler.
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Post by Erik Destler on Jun 17, 2008 0:23:51 GMT -5
Destler scrambled forward on the floor, the scarf having pulled away from his face and his features were twisted in pain that was intense enough to slow him, and when more of the paper caught, he shook and curled over on himself, letting out a howl of pain. What was left of his face smoldered, his hands blistered and began to char and his clothing started to ash.
"My music..."
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Post by Carlos Castro on Jun 17, 2008 0:35:07 GMT -5
Carlos stared. It was horrible. More horrible than he'd imagined. The face... it was hardly a face. And he knew it was the fire, but what Destler had told him before conflated in his mind with the image before him.
That string resounding within him still suddenly became audible. And Carlos knew.
He loved Destler. Erik. His Maestro. No matter what he'd seen in the alley. No one had ever had such hold on his soul and, in witnessing the man's destruction, Carlos could finally admit the answering call of his own heart. The rest didn't matter. It was the music that counted.
Carlos turned suddenly, knowing Holmes would stop him from pulling any pages out before they were burned. But he had to protect what was left--the piece he had been about to sing at the cafe that fateful evening. He raced to the desk in the bedroom, but Holmes followed. Carlos snatched up the paper--so deceptively thin and light!--and shoved it behind him, turning to face Holmes. The other man stared at him, his right hand stretched out, his left cradled against his body.
"Give that to me, Christopher," Holmes said, his voice low and intense. "It's the only way. He will be gone. He'll lose his hold on you. You must give it to me or you'll never be free again."
Carlos shook his head mutely. He wouldn't. He couldn't be the engineer of Destler's destruction.
You already are.
He ran past Holmes into the living room, where Destler doubled over. He didn't know what to do, where to put the piece. He began stuffing it into his pocket as he ran, in the absurd hope Holmes wouldn't catch him. But the man grabbed his arm, spinning him around with a force which belied his scrawny frame.
"He's a killer, Christopher," Holmes continued inexorably. "He's using you."
Carlos shook his head again. "I love him," he said. He turned to Erik. "I love you."
Holmes darted forward, too fast for the dazed Carlos, and plucked the sheet from his hand before tossing the crumpled thing onto the fire.
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