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He was just supposed to hand in some papers. Nothing else. If William knew the consequences of this particular action and how would they impact his grand plan, he would have walked away in an instant and never returned to this university.
Unfortunately, no matter how smart or ancient he was, he was still unable to view the painstakingly interwoven strings of fate.
The moment he opened the door to professor Treadway’s room, the ever-so-familiar smell of the brimstone assaulted his nostrils. The air burned his throat, and every inhale was painful. The suffocating atmosphere of the room threatened to provoke the memories best left forgotten, so William brushed the sudden influx of unwanted feelings aside to focus on the body in front of him.
It was mutilated by a hellhound. It was evident, from the size of the bites to the paw prints scorched into the hardwood floor.
Unfortunately, this meant the Yard would be stunted.
Hard to look for a person who had summoned a demonic dog to do their bidding, when you didn't know demonic dogs existed in the first place.
They would probably investigate for a while before leaving the case file to gather dust. He didn’t blame them, for the circumstances of this case were extraordinary. It was unreasonable to expect that mortals would recognize a hellhound, even if the said hellhound was not subtle at all.
William had not planned to undertake any projects, currently having his hands full with stopping the rapidly approaching apocalypse. But maybe this little mystery would alleviate the pressure that wrapped around his brittle bones.
Still, he had to call the Yard.
The heavy autumn rain was knocking on the window pane.
The janitor behind him screamed.
As expected, the Yard was puzzled.
Security cameras placed in the hallway showed no sign of entry, and the window couldn’t be shut from the outside.
Rigor mortis had already kicked in when William had called them, and his alibi was air-tight. Over a hundred students could confirm that he had spent the afternoon teaching Green's theorem.
After a few hours of questioning, he and the janitor were let go, and the Yard was none the wiser.
Summoning the hound was not an easy feat. It required a specific set of conditions to be fulfilled. The ritual circle needed to be perfectly drawn in a broad dark space, using the fresh blood, and it couldn’t be too far away from the victim.
There was only one place on the campus that met all of the criteria.
The old observatory. The real crime scene. It had been abandoned when the university decided to build a new state-of-the-art one, and it didn’t even have cameras.
Breaking in was laughably easy. The campus night guard didn't bother with the buildings soon due for demolition.
And after all, he had made sure to make copies of all the keys the first week he had started working at the university. You could never know when they would come in handy. The guard hadn't even noticed when he had borrowed them, too caught up in their conversation.
William was built to be pleasant to humans. They were naturally drawn to him, to his looks and honey-dripping voice. He couldn't control it. His own behavior was programmed into him, etched into his very being.
With his gloved hand, careful not to leave a single trace of his midnight visit, he pressed the knob.
On the ground floor, there was nothing but a couple of desks, covered with a thick layer of dust and, a few long-forgotten astronomy textbooks. They had even moved the old computers, perhaps to the landfill.
The spiral staircase led him to the equatorial room.
There wasn't even a speck of the dust on the baluster and the stairs looked like they were recently swept. He was right. This was the place.
As soon as he stepped into the famed equatorial room, the dark energy engulfed him, threatening to set his organs on fire.
It was reasonable to assume the culprit had drawn the ritual circle along the curved walls.
The blood appeared to be scrubbed off the floor, but the few wax drops remained here and there, outside of the supposed circle.
The culprit must have burned themselves on the ritual candle, for the pattern was too frantic to be a result of a simple accident. The candle tray probably got too hot.
The culprit had known about the observatory, had a motive to kill the old head of the department, and now also brandished a brand new burn scar on his left hand.
Simple as that, William had all he needed.
But just as he snuck outside, hidden by the shadows of the moonless night, a person wearing a night guard uniform carefully picked the lock on the observatory's main door.
The only distinguishing feature of the mysterious person that William could see from his hiding spot in the bushes was the ponytail.
The game just got more interesting.
The mysterious ponytail person made another appearance soon enough. At William’s eight am lecture no less, right in the sixth row of the lecture hall. It was the perfect position to observe, but not close enough to catch the attention.
Well, it would be a perfect position, if not for two problems.
The first one was the fact that William had memorized the faces of all the students he taught.
The second problem, an equally important one, was the fact that the ponytail man was too flashy not to catch the attention of absolutely everyone in the lecture hall.
Judging by human standards, William was aware that the mysterious man could be considered beautiful, even if a little rough around the edges.
His raven black hair was a mess, hopelessly gathered in a ponytail, in a poor attempt to seem presentable. The aristocratic sharpness of his face was prominent, particularly in his angular jaw, and the ratty leather jacket did a little to drown it all out. A skull ring was tossed into the mix, either as a cheeky reference to the occult or as a simple rebellious fashion statement.
But the most striking feature were the man’s eyes. Dark blue and clear, like the light itself reflected in them. No creature of darkness could have such eyes.
Those eyes were focused on him, probably looking for a burn scar on the left hand, which he would not find.
He would probably approach William at the end of the lecture and try to shake his hand, to check if he was by any chance wearing a thick layer of concealer.
For the first time since Albert had found him and Louis, William James Moriarty felt excited.
Still, it would have to wait for he had a lecture to teach.
Seconds ticked away, like the sand in an hourglass.
One hour and twenty-two minutes until the unstoppable force would meet an immovable object.
William had been looking forward to seeing what kind of excuse the man would use to see his hands. What he didn’t expect was that the mysterious man would simply grab his left hand while William was busy talking to a student about the assigned homework.
At least he waited till the lecture was over.
Needless to say, both he and the student were left aghast at that uncouth display of rudeness.
In all his predictions of how this meeting would go down, William didn’t think of this.
Just as quickly as he had grabbed William’s hand, the man let it go.
“Excuse me? What do you think you are doing?"
“Absolutely nothing,” the man grinned before promptly exiting the lecture hall as if nothing had happened.
The man’s hand had been warm and he had calluses on his fingertips. A violin player. Overconfident. Not a single talisman insight. The heavy stench of the cheap cigarettes had wrapped around his being. There was also a hint of something else. A faint smell of marijuana had crept onto his clothes. Probably a frequent smoker. Could also be taking something else. He spoke with a heavy Cockney accent, but his posture gave him away. A little too rigorous, as expected of an Oxbridge man.
But all those revelations paled away because that brief contact had allowed William to see right into the man's soul.
It shone bright, like thousands of stars.
It was clear that William was next on the killer’s list.
His favorite ballpoint pen was missing from his office, stolen for the purpose of familiarizing the hound with his scent.
It was almost pitiful, killing your colleagues so you can advance your career faster. He would deal with the man after he incapacitated the hellhound, so the wretched man couldn’t summon it anymore.
He had his blade prepared, taped on the underside of the desk. To think that he would tape the holy weapon with something as ordinary as duct tape. It was almost laughable.
But under no circumstances could he risk the mysterious man barging in his room and actually seeing it. He hoped that the miserable remnants of his grace would be enough to banish the hound back to hell. In case they were not, there was always his trusty blade. Effective against all creatures that could possibly crawl out of hell.
Bloodied from all times that he had used it, from all the wars he had fought.
The only thing in the entirety of the planes of existence that could kill an angel.
The weapon that would be his demise.
But all in due time.
The hellhound was scheduled in about twenty minutes.
He relaxed in his chair and started to prepare for tomorrow’s lecture.
The moment the enormous hound started to materialize out of his floor, William tried to tap into his grace. There wasn't much of it left, for the fall had taken its toll. Still, he focused all of his energy on the hound.
It wasn't working and the hound's eyes were starting to fill with bloodlust.
His hand reached out for his blade.
Now or never.
Suddenly, before he even managed to grab his weapon, the mysterious man busted the door down. With a swipe of his hand and a few carefully chosen words upon his lips, he had trapped the hound in a circle.
“Come with me quickly,” he extended his hand towards William.
William took it.
They were sitting in a musty old pub, pints of the watered-down beer in front of them.
“You don’t have to worry, the Yard busted Baskerville in the middle of the ritual. They had followed him after I had pinpointed the burn on his hand. He did manage to get away and somehow start it, but we were able to cancel it.”
It was interesting, how they went for the same thing just a roundabout way. William had wanted to get rid of them both; hound and that bastard Baskerville while this mysterious man, who had cheerfully informed him that his name was Sherlock Holmes, wanted to apprehend the man.
“I didn’t know the Yard dabbled in such things,” he took a sip of his beer.
“Just a few investigations here and there. A couple of officers under the oath of secrecy. We can’t have people running around, saying they saw a demon, after all.”
Sherlock's mood did turn sour at that. Possible problems with authority.
“And if you don’t mind me asking, how did a man like you got tangled into all of this?”
It was clear that for all the connections this man had with the Yard, he was not one of them. Nobody from the Yard would be so foolish to investigate a crime scene alone in the middle of the night.
He grinned at that.
“Because I’m good at it! People are like supernatural this, occult that. But it is nothing more than science with a different set of rules. Just another mystery to solve, but with different parameters. I even managed to identify the ritual because I used the whole Luminol process to find the traces of blood.”
Sherlock Holmes could prove to be useful to the grand plan.
“You should be careful Mr. Holmes, for he who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster," rolled easily off William’s tongue.
"I’m sorry to disappoint you Liam, but I’m not a man of culture,” he took a gulp of the beer. There was a hint of a blush on his face, was it from beer, William didn’t know.
“Oh, and you do realize it’s a quote?”
“I needed it for a case once,” he mumbled his way around.
“You go to such lengths to hide your true nature, it is almost funny.”
Sherlock made it easy. Angels were built to be kind and agreeable. Even after all this time on earth, William had to fight his nature.
Only with Albert, he could be his true self. Occasionally with Sebastian and Fred. But it took years to master.
Sherlock made it so easy.
“Brave words from someone who is not even human,” Sherlock tossed his head back in laughter.
From the moment William fell from heaven, in a stupid act of the rebellion against the grand scheme of things, all his time had been spent planning on how to halt the apocalypse.
He had fallen because he didn’t agree with the upcoming judgment day and the war with hell. An angel who didn’t follow the orders given, it was unheard of, all across eternity.
For the first time since his feet had touched the mortal soil, he was having fun.
“Oh, please do tell how you concluded that.”
The smile still danced on Sherlock’s lips.
“You were remarkably calm for a person who just had a run-in with a hellhound of all things. That means you had known what was coming and you were prepared. You didn’t go to stop the ritual, instead, you were confident that you could kill the hound by yourself. There aren’t many things that can kill a hellhound, and none of them are at your everyday disposal. Much less available to humans. You also had to recognize that the hellhound killed Treadway in the first place and identify the ritual. I have no doubt that you visited that observatory before me, and you managed to deduce what happened without any help, Luminol or otherwise. And, of course, you didn’t react with pure terror when I told you that the stuff nightmares are made of is real.”
Circumstantial evidence at best. Still, an impressive train of thought.
“Then prove it if you can, Mr. Holmes.”
Sherlock grinned wolfishly.
“Don’t worry, I intend to.”
William wasn’t stupid. He was aware that he was attracted to this man and his golden soul.
And that's why he should nip this in the bud. Save this soul of getting caught up in the web of darkness he had so carefully woven.
Of incurring the wrath of both heaven and hell upon himself.
He never forgave himself for Louis's fall. No matter how much Louis tried to convince him it had been his own decision, William knew he was the root of all problems
He would not drag another soul onto his dark and muddy path.
But something was telling him that Sherlock Holmes was not a man to give up easily.
"Let us see you try," he winked.
The game was afoot.