Welcome to Baker Street

55. Blindman's bluff

When the gunshot resonates inside the bank, Sherlock instinctively crouches down, gripping his Browning tightly in his hands and kneeling in a firing position. He sees the expression on the killer's face changing rapidly: a wince of pain instantly replaced his scornful grin. Kevin brings both his hands to his hip, where a dark red stain spreads across his clothes. He collapses to the ground, howling like a wounded beast.

Sherlock's brain takes a moment to register what is going on. Someone has just shot Kevin. Not just anyone, but the only person who would whisper to him the words 'Vatican Cameos' in a dangerous situation: John Watson. John is in the room right now. Given the angle of the shot and the origin of that whisper, he must be right behind his back.

His conclusions are confirmed when the guard quickly scans the room with his eyes and aims in his general direction. In a flash of lucidity, Sherlock raises his gun and shoots at the nearest light, precipitating almost the entire room into the darkness.

"Dammit! Why didn't you try to hit him instead?" John complains, trudging clumsily in the dark, just a few feet away from him.

"Because I had just one bullet: if I had missed, I'd have been a dead man. So, I chose to become more difficult a target," Sherlock calmly explains, trying to take stock of the situation.

"You mean you are completely unarmed now?" John whispers, struggling to keep his voice down. "I thought we could overcome them."

"We still can. One of them is down and the other is blind," Sherlock points out.

"So are we, Sherlock."

"Well then, Captain. It's time to dust off your army skills. You take care of that big guy while I free Giulia," he commands, slipping away in the dark.

"Copy that," John promptly replies and crawls behind a pillar while his eyes search the room, looking for the armed guard.

Sherlock slides silently next to Giulia, that is still tied to the chair. When he is just a few feet away from her, he hears her muttering something under her breath; it looks like she is reciting a sequence of numbers.

"17...34...51...68..."

He touches her arm softly to wake her from her trance, and she flinches in fear.

"It's alright, it's me," he mutters in a vaguely reassuring tone. "We need to get rid of these ropes and we are going to do it together, okay?"

He comes within her visual range and stares into her eyes. She nods, quivering visibly.

"I need your cooperation. Help me find the multi-tool knife he stole from my flat. He must have dropped it when he was shot," he says, fiddling with her bonds in the dim light.

At the far end of the room, they hear John assault and disarm the guard, then getting into a fistfight with him as they both roll on the floor, one on top of the other. Giulia and Sherlock look in his direction for a second, then their eyes meet again: he can read fear and horror in her gaze, but he is not sure how to comfort her.

He is not good at it. He can't deal with emotions; they would cloud his judgement. However, it doesn't take him his deduction skills to understand that she needs his support right now.

He averts his gaze, searching the ground for the blade, and murmurs, "Listen, I know it's hard, but I promise we will survive."

He finally spots his knife and starts cutting the ropes while she ironically replies, "Sherlock, has anyone ever told you not to make promises you can't keep?"

"If they did, I wasn't paying attention."

He crouches down next to her and is almost done loosening the grip around her wrists when he feels a cold object pressed against his temple.