Chapter Text
I wasn't fond of Verner Vogel. His mannerisms were off-putting enough to give me a feeling of subtle unease whenever he crossed my mind. As expected, his peculiar invitation to Manchios' Manor made the ever-present pit in my stomach double its size once again. I was so troubled that even Sherlock's odd costume gave me goosebumps. Only his visible curiosity in the mysterious event stopped me from begging him not to go – I knew his interest had been awakened, and it was against his nature not to follow that trail.
A shady invitation and a mask - two things that promised a mystery of the fun kind. It wasn't something I could offer him at the moment because, despite the many unanswered questions regarding my transformation, none of it seemed entertaining to him anymore. Uncertain how to proceed, he handled the problem of my metamorphosis with kid gloves, turning to other matters whenever they arose.
Of course, I decided to escort him all the way to the event, even though I hadn't received an invitation myself. It was a rather cool evening in September – the first such evening since we'd come to the island. Still, it didn't rain, and I was not to miss an opportunity for a stroll when the weather played along. I'd also never seen Cordona in the fall before, and I was eager to witness its new attire, which slowly transitioned from green to different shades of yellow and red.
The sun had not yet set when we approached the luxurious mansion. To my surprise, my expectations of receiving curious and judgmental looks from all passersby because of Sherry's odd garments weren't met - the citizens of Cordona barely spared him a glance. I concluded it had something to do with the other masked men, who were all seemingly on their way to Manchios', too.
For all its strangeness, this appeared to be a well-known event, not a rare and mysterious occurrence among the Cordonian natives. There was no bewilderment in the air, except for my own. The knowledge didn't entirely soothe my mind, but it was reassuring to know it wasn't some twisted trap explicitly set for Sherlock by the evil mastermind Verner Vogel.
We reached the manor just before the church clock struck 8 p.m., and I had to admit to myself that the place didn't look as uninviting as I had expected and feared. The stone path leading up to the entrance was illuminated by lanterns. There was a champagne reception for all the masked guests, and the front yard looked well-kept and pretty with its lush bushes and ripe pomegranate trees. It didn't seem like a sketchy place where many crimes happened and where Sherlock would have to fear for his life. That was enough for the moment.
The guests were all dressed identically, but despite their eerie appearance, there was happy chatter coming from every corner of the garden, making the event seem less dangerous all of a sudden. My worries were temporarily dispersed, allowing me to breathe freely again.
"What a bunch," I murmured, watching them greet one another and trying to figure out what this was all about. The air was charged with excitement for reasons I couldn't yet understand, but I wasn't immune to the good mood they emitted, and not knowing the reason for it didn't stand in my way of starting to feel pretty cheerful myself. It stung that I had gotten no invitation after all.
In the meantime, Sherlock's eyes scanned the guests with what I can only describe as unrestrained scepticism, silent, annoyed hums leaving his mouth to drive the point home - he didn't want to be there. "I hope I'm not wasting my time," he finally said, exhaling loudly.
"Let me guess, they don't look creepy enough for your taste. They're too jolly to hide a great murder mystery. "
"Very sharp," he scoffed, already turning away from me and heading towards the entrance. "I will put this behind me and find out what he wants before I waste even more of my evening." He did not wait for a response. I understood that he was in a hurry, but I didn't know what to do with myself. As the only person violating the dress code, I stood out too much, and the looks I got didn't make me feel like my presence was valued.
"Hey, wait-"
"I will hurry, Jon," he said without turning around, waved his hand in the air, and disappeared behind the large entrance.
And then I was left there. Standing in the garden, trying to stay out of the way of passing guests. Alone, inexperienced, and out of place. That got tedious after some time because Sherlock didn't return as fast as he'd hinted he would. One after another, the guests began following his example and disappearing inside, and before long, I remained the only person in the large garden, aside from the doorkeeper, who gave me an occasional glance. It took a couple more minutes until I found the courage to approach the man and try to find out what kind of party it was. He dismissed me with a few polite, but cold remarks that let me know I had no business being there if I had no invitation. My heart sank once again, but I saw no other way than to leave, if I didn't want to be dragged out by the guards.
It was self-explanatory that I kept watching the exit from across the street, waiting for Sherlock to finally leave the accursed mansion. However, at 8:30, he'd still not come back from whatever was happening in there. The feeling of unease began to spread in my heart when the first crickets started chirping after sunset. The time passed, but there was no sign of him, and I began to suspect foul play once again.
Yet the streets of Cordona were busy. As I mentioned before, it was a cool but pleasant evening, and the Cordonians enjoyed the good weather while it lasted. The street lamps illuminated my surroundings, and I heard energetic chatter coming from all directions. For a short while, I couldn't pay attention to anything else but the unrest in my heart. However, eventually my thoughts started to wander.
I wish I could say they wandered to happier places. In reality, they found themselves back in Stonewood Manor, back in a garden that seemed long forgotten. The terrible memories that lay only a few feet under the very bed we shared every night threatened to steal the air from my lungs. These memories were the reason why we'd come to Cordona, after all. Because he wanted to remember. Everything else was a welcome distraction, but I could still hear the clock ticking.
He wasn't ready for the whole truth - not yet.
08:45
Sherry was gone for three-quarters of an hour by the time the restlessness had become too big a factor, and I decided to get back to my feet to shake away the haunting thoughts. Compared to what awaited us in the foreseeable future, the shady event seemed much less relevant, but I had lost my patience. I shook my head and decided that the best way to pass the time was to approach someone and try to find out more about what was happening behind the tall walls of Manchios' Manor. My main goal was to intervene should I dislike what I heard, but at the back of my head, I also liked to imagine Sherlock's astonished face when I smugly announced that I'd found out what kind of event was taking place without actually entering the building. If he kept me waiting, I'd make sure to rub it in that I'd solved the mystery before him.
Or had I? It wasn't like he was going to tell me anything related to a possible case before he thought it was something worth telling.
Still, despite the amusing pictures in my head of beating him to the mystery this one (and only) time, I felt shaky as I walked towards a group of smoking young men.
"Evening, gentlemen," I spoke in the most accent-free English I could muster and thanked God that I'd picked a nicer attire for the evening. Grand Saray isn't a place where fine gentlemen enjoy being addressed by people in less expensive clothing.
To my relief, they greeted me in return and didn't seem to mind my unusual hairdo. I smiled at them.
"I saw many masked gentlemen enter this mansion," I began, trying to sound as nonchalant as possible and not like someone whose dearest person had entered the building and not left for longer than he was able to stomach. "Would you happen to know what sort of event is taking place, by any chance? I've been wondering for almost an hour. One can say I'm new in Cordona."
Talking to strangers was still a challenge, even after three whole months. While trying to appear pleasant and merely curious, my heart pounded in my chest, and I felt sweat form at the root of my neck. The feeling that I didn't belong had by then become a constant in my life.
But despite how this interaction made me feel on the inside, the three men didn't notice a thing. They exchanged a few curious looks, chuckled uncomfortably, and finally, one of them (a blond, tall man not much older than I) replied in a husky tone. "They're indulging in… indecent behaviour. That's why the masks - cowards, the lot of them."
"...I don't understand."
"They go in there to have sex with strangers."
"I've heard they even sacrifice animals and drink their blood," one of his friends, a smaller redhead with glasses, chimed in.
"I wouldn't be surprised," the blond man replied and pulled on his cigarette, seemingly lost in thought - the idea seemed to intrigue him.
"I see... Thank you. Have a nice evening." I replied, trying my best not to show how much this piece of information had disturbed me, but on the inside, I felt as though I was falling into a black void. I walked away quickly, but no longer saw where I was going. Lamps and pavement and fences and buildings - all melted into a dark grey mass that wanted to swallow me. There was a new feeling in me - one I couldn't describe or name, but the intensity I could only compare to what I had felt as I had walked into the storm.
But above all, I felt fear. Sherlock had been inside this cesspool of debauchery for almost an hour, and I didn't trust Vogel.
I had to find a way in.
Circling around the manor and hiding behind bushes in an attempt to avoid the gaze of the doorman, I found a small passage that led to the back of the house. The windows on that side of the vast building were dark, giving me a dangerous sense of security because, to me, it meant that no one was behind them. It was foolish, but at that moment, I believed I could sneak inside without getting caught. I still tried to move as soundlessly as possible before I finally found what I had been looking for - a low window hidden behind a rose bush. No sounds or movement came from behind, so without overthinking too much, I took a large stone from the ground and smashed the thin glass.
My heart hammered in my chest, and my instincts screamed at me to turn back, but I ignored them - for his sake, I couldn't afford to pay them attention. I tried my best not to scratch myself on the thorns and the glass shards as I put them aside before going in with my feet first. And just like this, once having made sure that I'd not get stuck in the small frame on my way down, I jumped into the darkness.
To my great relief, I landed on the stone floor without injuring myself. It took me a moment to get accustomed to the darker surroundings - then, I found myself in what appeared to be a wine cellar with a staircase at the opposite end.
It took me a minute or two until I had gathered my courage to start moving around the place I had just invaded, but still, every sound made me jump and break into cold sweat. I heard a pair of distant voices engaging in what seemed like a very fiery discussion, but I was still too far away to make out their words. My steps were slow and careful – without the required attire, I would stand out too much, so I figured it was best to get to my friend before bing noticed by everyone else.
Eventually, I reached the old, dusty staircase that led to the ground floor and saw that its door was wide open upstairs. But it wasn't only the ground floor and the sunlight I was walking towards – the two voices were becoming clearer with each passing minute. Was there no way around the quarrelling couple? I still couldn't make out their words, but they were now close enough to tell that neither of them was Sherlock or the blond oddball who'd made him come to this place. After taking a deep breath and praying to whoever would listen not to be caught, I finally left the dark cellar.
It looked like a dressing room, and although the voices were very audible there, the two were nowhere to be seen. I recall being so tense that even the buzzing of a fly would have been enough to send me into panic. Still, despite my troubled state of mind, a specific something on my left couldn't escape my attention. On a hanger next to what looked like a makeup table, there was a long black robe paired with a white mask. And I couldn't help grinning from ear to ear at the sight.
I believed that day was my lucky day. Of course, while ignoring that this whole affair could have been avoided altogether, I welcomed this unexpected blessing in disguise. Or should I say my blessed new disguise?
I could tell them that I was a guest and had gotten lost in the mansion – there was a 50/50 chance they'd believe me, which was still 50% more than before. So after putting on the abandoned visitors' attire (I left the mask out for now, but still took it with me), I stepped out of the dressing room, finding myself in a strange corridor illuminated by very sparse and warm light.
As I paced, moving closer and closer to the voices of the two men, I couldn't help the growing uneasiness in my chest. Perhaps I wouldn't have found the floor cushions lying in every corner disturbing, had I not been reminded of the words of the gentleman I had met outside. I wouldn't have found his words disturbing either, had Sherlock not entered this place all alone and not left it for almost an hour. This new, nagging feeling lay low in the core of my stomach, making me sick and making it harder to focus on anything else. It almost made me too careless, but I managed to shift my attention back to my surroundings on time, before walking right into the two fighting men.
Just before reaching the adjoining room and entering what sounded like a battlefield, I stopped and peeked around the corner. And what an odd sight my eyes saw! The two I'd heard since I'd entered this bizarre mansion were a couple I'd not anticipated to see - an elderly man in a robe who was yelling and gesturing, and a man around my age or younger, who was as naked as the day he'd been born. The latter's appearance and the words exchanged between them didn't end my doubts – in fact, they made the blood in me run cold, for they painted a clear picture of the nature of this event and confirmed my worst fears.
And what was worse, the old creep seemed to harass the young man and impose his desires on him in a way that made my stomach turn. Although the two seemed too distracted by their heated dispute to notice me should I be careful enough not to make sounds, I missed my chance to sneak past them. Something about the increasingly aggressive nature of their conversation prevented me from moving - I was frozen in my spot.
A theatrical piece involving a sex scene before the gathered audience was one of the topics they fought about, but the discussion always seemed to return to what seemed to bother the elderly man more than anything else – the young man called Fabio did not want him nor love him. That seemed to aggravate him increasingly, and as a reaction to being harassed so shamelessly, Fabio's words grew progressively sharper as well. But before I could decide how to handle this unwelcome situation, given that their problems weren't my business and I was only here for Sherlock, the decision was made for me.
After a particularly hurtful remark by Fabio, followed by him turning his back on the old man to pick up what looked like a golden shawl, the latter grabbed a full wine bottle by its neck and raised it above the clueless young man's head, ready to strike.
And despite not wanting to be caught by either of them, I couldn't stand still and let fate decide. Without thinking twice about what I was getting into, I jumped from my hideout around the corner and yelled at Fabio to watch out!
The following events unfolded too quickly.
Fabio raised his head, eyes following the sound of my voice, but he didn't seem to have understood what I had just said.
The old creep, on the other hand, was caught red-handed trying to inflict severe damage to the back of Fabio's head. He stumbled back in shock, trying to hide his makeshift weapon behind his robe, and before he could gather himself again, he tripped and fell backwards against the wooden tea table. A thud followed, then silence.
The severity of the situation wasn't immediately apparent to me. I may or may not have made an amused remark at the time as I took a step towards the two, not thinking much about the old creep's well-being. Sure, he had just tried to possibly murder the other, but his overreaction and the dramatic fall that followed were indeed somewhat funny to me. It was the young man, Fabio, who seemed panicked all of a sudden as he rushed to kneel beside the old man.
"He is dead!" The words came out raspy and full of despair, making me freeze in my spot once again.
"You can't be serious."
"His neck is broken," Fabio hissed before jumping back to his feet. He was pulling his hair and shaking his head in disbelief. At the time, I didn't understand his reaction, given how much he seemed to detest the deceased.
There was that - I'd just startled an elderly man so much that he'd died. Too petrified by the sudden turn of events, I could just stare at the two of them. I should have felt guilty, perhaps, but all I could feel at that moment was confusion.
In the meantime, Fabio had started pacing around, his breathing - uneven and shallow, and he kept muttering things under his breath that I couldn't catch.
"They'll pin it on me," he said suddenly, voice scratchy and shaking. "I am just as dead as he is. May he be damned, I knew he would be the death of me!" The despair turned into anger, and he glared at the dead body as if his words could get the man to awaken again and fix his mistake.
"It was an accident, and for what it's worth, he was just about to smack you pretty hard," I said and then added, "You should sit down."
But he didn't respond.
"We need to go to the police," I continued. "I saw everything - I will be your witness, and my friend - he is the greatest detective on the island." Sherry... it was he who needed my attention the most, but how was I supposed to simply leave after this? I couldn't abandon a crime scene even if no crime had happened. Also, the young man seemed to be too shaken to be left alone, and I wasn't a monster who lacked compassion.
Fabio gave a hollow laugh, covering his face with both hands. "You think that matters? Do you not know who he is?"
Of course, I didn't know who the dead pervert was. I didn't associate with people like him who harassed boys who were young enough to be their grandsons. "Not really, no..."
He turned fast, his eyes catching the light and looking entirely wild all of a sudden. "Kurt Manchios - the owner of this place, and one of the wealthiest men on this island. And I'm a nobody. People like me don't get trials. We get hanged!"
I knew what he meant, even if I wished he didn't have a point. Cordona's injustice was great, and we had witnessed it over and over again. And the knowledge that this pervert was likely an acquaintance of Vogel's made me feel like throwing up right there and then. To know these people had invited Sherlock there – it was maddening!
Fabio's voice cracked again and tore me away from my thoughts. "You think this hasn't happened before? I've seen men like him get away with worse and laugh about it afterwards. The police work for people like him. He dies - I'm the one they will blame, if only because I was present."
"I'll testify. I'll tell them exactly what I saw and Sherlock, he-"
"This mask belongs to him, too." He pointed at he mask I was still holding in my hand, his hand shaking. "Not having a mask on your own means you were not invited at all. You broke in, didn't you? I know people like you…" I wanted to protest, but a silent, desperate laugh shook his entire body, rendering my arguments pointless. "They'll say we were in it together. That you were here to rob him. That I lured him. That it was all planned."
"But that's not true!"
"And they'll say you're lying," he spat. "That I paid you off or fucked you into lying for me."
The words hit hard. Of course, I knew that Sherlock could fix this, but I couldn't convince Fabio to listen. And I couldn't just leave. Oh, how much I wanted to go!
Fabio picked up his shawl and wrapped it around his waist, covering himself a little. Then, he started pacing again like an agitated lion in a cage that was too small. "I should've run. I should've run the second he fell. Why didn't I?"
"Because you would have seemed suspicious."
He stopped in front of me. "People like me are always suspicious. But if I run now, I'd have a head start."
I didn't know what to say to that. I understood him, but it was going to backfire fast. It wasn't the right approach of the situation! He was about to do irreversible damage to his own credibility.
"My friend is a detective, he will not let an innocent man go down for murder that never happened! Listen to me,-" I stepped closed to him, closer to the dead body which gave me chills, and then, I leaned in, trying to talk some sense into him, "-you have to do it the right way! Let's go to the police and tell them everything! It will be alright!"
But before he could consider the said, there was a noise.
Not from the room. From the large gate at the opposite end.
Footsteps. A metallic creak of a door hinge.
I turned toward the noise, holding my breath.
There was the unmistakable jingle of keys.
And out of nowhere, Fabio grabbed my arm. "You are coming with me."
I tried to shake him off, but before I realised what was happening, I was facing the sharp blade of a knife pointing in my direction.
"No." His voice was determined now – he had made up his mind. "I will not die for this! You are coming with me!"
"Please, don't- "
His hand didn't move toward me, but I could see the threat in his eyes. Not out of anger -it was fear that made him act this stupid. He'd do anything not to face the police.
I opened my mouth again, but he didn't flinch. And I didn't want to die there.
I nodded.
And without another word, I followed him back through the corridor.