"When angels can no longer fly, they fall to their deaths..."
Four months after their first confrontation in the swimming hall, bored Sherlock Holmes is recontacted by none other than Jim Moriarty and forced into offering his consultations on a rath...
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Wednesday 25/08/2010,02:19 a.m.
Numerous factors could lead to a shift in opinions, but one that was often harped on was the prevalence of danger and fear; what was often forgotten was hope's role as one of the biggest motivators. Finally having those pent-up emotions channelled along a more productive path, an anonymous member of The Black Circle had been willing to help in finding the entrance and spoken her mind, explaining the cultists' ways to the tireless homeless people in hopes of putting an end to it all.
The members of the Homeless Network involved in Sherlock's mission alluded briefly to the main points of her account and confessed to him that it had been hard to ask around without raising suspicion. One of them went as far as to say that she was almost killed by an alcoholic prone to aggression at a bar. If not for a police officer strolling in to investigate the ruckus, she would have been a heap of battered meat and broken bones after the treatment.
According to the Homeless Network, the entrance to the cult was alleged to be right under a certain shop that was a treasure trove of men's clothes, a generic piece of more modern architecture built from a marriage of granite and glass - the brothel was also located in the same building. Whoever owned the place, must have been an acquaintance of Brown. It occurred to Sherlock that Mike Brown was looking well after his legacy - so well in fact that he wouldn't have been surprised if he had investors other than Moriarty to support him. This hypothesis of his postulated that the brothels in which they invested were comparable to a venture capital firm, and by supporting the brothels, they also supported the Black Circle, whether or not they were aware of it.
One major take-home message was that ill will and greediness could spread like cancer among the richest men. Fluctuating stock prices and a desire for fixed profit could lead almost anyone to fund projects that should've been left unfunded, and any potential perpetrators were to be caught by tracking any unusual cash flow. But for Mike Brown, the real covert area of interest appeared to be the cult instead of those dirty whorehouses.
The nocturnal world was a black-and-white picture of what took place in the shrill cries of the daytime, and the boisterous breeze had become even keener, its bite paling his skin. Like in a choreographed blizzard, abandoned trash scurried along the charcoal, two-dimensional alleyway melting into the monochrome. The edged silhouettes of the nearby buildings and their waving old roof tiles against the sky had grown less pronounced after a canopy of dark clouds erased the precious silver rays of the moon. But Sherlock Holmes was on the verge of entering a realm of primal darkness and a kingdom of cruelty, incomparable to the sugary black marble overhead.
When Sherlock was ready both mentally and physically, he paid his helpers a hefty sum as a generous thank you for their trouble and said goodbye.
His legs were sore from all the walking and running done in the past few days, still more accustomed to the previous weeks' immobility. The call of the unknown and the pull of an adventure was always stronger than the walls of 221B Baker Street penetrated by bullet holes from John's SIG Sauer P226, Sherlock's favourite toy.
