Unable to defeat the addiction-withdrawal syndrome of Moriarty's youth potion,
Holmes is running out of the drug, and faces madness and a horrible death.
Unwilling to concede victory to the Professor, he leaves England
in search of the one person who might still best Holmes' archenemy -

"THE Woman."

 

---

 
Image Credit: Title picture Victorian Woman ~Sephrena.

The model(s) in this image is in / and are no way connected with this story nor supports nor conveys the issues and situations brought up within the story. The model(s) use is solely used for the representation of looks of the main character(s) of this particular story. ~Sephrena.

Free Antique Divider licensed for use from www.designsbyannmargaret.com ~Sephrena.

Legalities: Archiving and reposting of this story *unchanged* is permitted provided that: 1) You must have contacted the author, Tigger, and have asked permission first and received said permission to host this particular work. 2) No fee be charged, either directly or indirectly (this includes so-called "adult checks") or any form of barter or monetary transfers in order to access viewing this work *and* (3) PROVIDED that this disclaimer, all author notes, legalities and attribution to the original author are contained unchanged within the work. 4) The author of this work, Tigger, must be provided free account access at all times the work is hosted in order to modify or remove this work at his sole discretion.

The characters, situations, and places within this work are fictional. Any resemblance between actual people (living or dead), places, or situations is entirely coincidental.

The title picture is the work of its respective photographer. This work, everything other than the title picture, is the copyrighted material of the respective author. ~Tigger.

Caveate Emptor! This story is a work of fiction, intended for mature individuals who enjoy stories with transgender and erotic themes and who are legally permitted to read such stories under the laws of their location. If this does not describe you, then this story is not for you and you should check elsewhere.

In addition, this story drastically departs from what is commonly referred as "The Canon" among Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts. Should this offend you, please read no further. ~Tigger.

Characterizations: This story is based on situations and characterizations found in the Sherlock Holmes stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. However, the Irene Adler character is also based on the characterization presented in the Irene Adler novels by Carole Nelson Douglas.~Tigger.

Artwork: Original Artwork graciously donated by Brandy Dewinter.

Acknowledgements: A story of this magnitude (over 1 megabyte of text, 56 chapters in three parts) is not solely the effort of one person. My sincere thanks to:

Brandy Dewinter - Simply stated, without her help, support, guidance and every so often a well intentioned nag, this story would not have happened. I think that about 85% of the words are mine, and the rest are hers, but all of them (mine in particular) are better for her eagle-eye for detail, grammar, theme and plot.

DanielSan - who kept me (almost) honest insofar as my characterization of the main characters and who caught more than a few glaring typos and manglings of the English language (American or English).

Paul1954 - who read my words to ensure that, in my attempt to make my characters sound English-Victorian, I did not make too much a hash of it. I am sure that it was often a painful experience. ~Tigger.
 

---

 
 
Part III: Dum Vivimus Vivamus
 
 
Chapter 13. First Strike
 
"Fool! Idiot!" Moriarty's words might have been said without raising his voice, but they were no less frightening to the object of his ire. Carver had worked with the great Professor James Moriarty from the old days, and therefore knew the man was at his most deadly when his voice was at its softest.

And just then, the old smuggler was having to strain very hard to hear Moriarty.

"If I did not have a task for which you are the most immediately available and suitable person, you would be on your way to hell right now!" Moriarty said, his face bland and his words only slightly more audible. "This female is NOT Holmes. I met with Holmes when he was well into Stage Two, and he could not have changed so much as to be this . . . girl. Now, we have made an overt move which will necessitate a response by the local authorities to find her."

"Wouldna they have done that even if the girl was . . who you was lookin' for. .. . sir?"

Moriarty shrugged that away. "Perhaps, but now the action that may have them coming to my doorstep was all to no purpose."

He turned away from Carver, making a mental note that Carver would die immediately upon his return from the Amazon, and that he would die painfully for this inconvenience. Then he sighed. He had been given this hand and he must needs play it out to his least detriment. Looking out of his study window, he saw the light burning in the lab structure. *Buchner and Haber,* he mused, preparing the selected chimpanzee for the post-regression experiments.*

Suddenly, Moriarty went ramrod straight. "What an opportunity!" he crowed. "Perhaps I can, in my brilliance, turn this problem into a great success." He spun on his heel and faced the shaken seaman. "Carver, fetch Doctors Haber an Buchner. I have a little experiment I wish them to run. After I finish with them, I will deal with you."

"Yes Sir," Carver said as he left the room as quickly as he could.
 

 
"But, Professor Moriarty, the treatment is largely unproven," Doctor Buchner argued, "Our only subject died before we could ascertain that the transition would complete, or was even the correct transition at all. We could have simply been changing the animals physical characteristics without changing its gender. And the fever was vicious - to try something so dangerous and not fully tested like that potion on a helpless child, sir. Surely there is another solution."

Moriarty simply stared at the chemistry teacher, and slowly shook his head. "For all intents and purposes, Doctor, she is already dead. From the moment my man took her in Brienz, her continued life became a liability and a danger to me. If the manner of her death so distresses you, rest assured that I can and will devise a far more painful, far more harrowing end for her should you delay ANY further in following my orders. Are my orders and requirements sufficiently clear, gentlemen? Do I need worry that you will in any way FAIL to do as I have directed?"

"No sir," both men finally replied.

"Your wishes are perfectly clear, Professor Moriarty," Buchner replied, completely cowed, "We shall. . . we will do as you have directed."

"Excellent. A part of this experiment is to see if you can control the fever long enough for you to fully study her transition. If she survives, I will arrange a painless death for her, or hopefully, for him."

"You want us to try and break the fever, Professor?"

"Precisely. Now go and prepare the potion. I will have the girl brought to you in the laboratory," The two men slowly turned to leave, but were called back to Moriarty one last time. "I shall be watching you as you prepare her and the treatment, gentlemen. Do not try anything that might invalidate this experiment. You would do well to recall that I have members of my organization watching your immediate family. Displease me, and their deaths will make that young woman's seem joyous in contrast. Now go."

Moriarty stood in his study for several minutes, allowing himself to savor the anticipation of a possible end to his great work. To defeat death would be his greatest achievement, greater even than his final victory over Mr. Sherlock Holmes. It was hard, he mused, to decide which would give him greater satisfaction and pleasure.

With that thought still ringing in his head, Moriarty left his study and dressed for his walk to the laboratory.
 

 
Sherla's brave trot lasted only until she was actually around the corner and out of sight of Irene and Hans-Peter. There were two reasons for this decision - one necessary and one annoying.

There was a bright half moon shining that night, and while Sherla herself was more than adequately camouflaged in her white outfit against the white snow, her shadow was not. The moon, low on the horizon cast long, dark shadows that danced and played on the white screen of the snow-covered landscape. Fortunately, a light wind blew as well, making the trees and branches move so that their shadows also flickered in the night. All the same, Sherla took to the snowier parts of the open ground, keeping low so that the snow hid both her and her shadow as she made her approach to the target.

Her other reason, the very annoying one, was that she found she could not maintain such a pace - not through the heavy snow and the light air. Sherlock had always been an exceptionally fit man, one who had never suffered from a lack of endurance or strength, even during his many forays into more mountainous climes. Sherla, although she had worked very hard on her level of fitness, was not yet up to Sherlock's old standard, and she had soon become winded. Slowing her pace might have been the correct and tactically necessary decision to make under the moonlight conditions, but that it was physically necessary as well galled her mightily. *Soon,* she thought, *and I will handle such trials with ease once more.*

It took her about forty five minutes to reach a small berm approximately one hundred and fifty yards from the large building that fit the description Hans-Peter had given her of the main house. Silently, she drew her seaman's glass from her harness and scanned the area. She took several minutes, locating the guards and searching for the best approach route. She needed to be within twenty yards for the blowgun to be effective, ten would be better.

For a moment, she thought about the special hypodermic dart she'd brought - the one she intended for Moriarty. It contained a mixture that included a sizable dose of pure caffeine. The stimulant would be welcome now, her body cold and fatigued. *No, the stimulation would not be worth the other effects,* she reminded herself, and rested just a few more moments before beginning the arduous effort of crawling through the snow toward the compound. Her estimate of an hour would, she was afraid, turn out to be rather overly optimistic.
 

 
"It's been an hour," Hans-Peter said as he held up his pocket watch for Irene's inspection. "She said it would be an hour."

*Do you think that I do not know that?* Irene's mind railed at the boy. However, she managed to control that when she replied, "That was only an estimate made in the absence of real knowledge of her objective. We've heard no gun shots and seen no sign of unrest over there. She is fine." *I hope.*

"Don't you think we should climb that hill, and maybe take a look? Maybe she needs some help."

"And not be here when she needs us AND the sleigh? No, Hans- Peter, we must serve by standing and waiting, difficult thought that most assuredly is. Sherla will succeed unless we make a mistake because she will not make any."

"But she is so young!?!?"

"There is young, my dear boy, and then there is young."

"Which is she, then?"

"Whichever one she needs to be. Now be quiet, so that we can listen."
 

 
 
Date: March 19, 1911

Excerpt from the Experimental Journal of Professor Moriarty

New Experiment.

Description: Doctors Haber and Buchner have injected the captured girl with their experimental treatment. They are now watching her, waiting for the onset of transition symptoms. Background: This potion is the result of Dr. Buchner's work with the transitioned African monkey. The mammal was fully regressed from a mature male to a pre-estrus female, and then treated with Buchner's invention. Results of earlier test: The subject, in very short time compared to a regression subject, exhibited characteristics similar, but in reverse of, the original potion's transitional Phase 1. Certain secondary characteristics started to become masculine in nature. Unfortunately, at that point, the creature became fevered - running a very high temperature and suffering from convulsions. While the convulsions died soon enough, the fever did not. Haber and Buchner were not quick enough to take remedial action and, unfortunately, the patient died. Post mortem examination indicated that the creature was, in fact, still fully female from a reproductive standpoint. No transitional or vestigial male organs were found during the dissection, as there had been vestigial female organs in the male during the male-to-female transitional phase one. There were also anomalies in the large muscle tissue - some type of, as yet, unexplained swelling. Perhaps the muscles would have become larger and stronger - in other words, more masculine, but that is unproven. The muscles of the small African monkey are too small for more complete testing. Purpose of the current test: That is one of the primary reasons that I have decided to experiment upon this female that Carver, in his gross stupidity, captured. Her muscles will lend themselves to such post-mortem examination and we will be able to see if her muscle tissue and muscle groups are redistributing themselves into a more masculine physiology. Buchner and Haber are also ready for the onset of fever this time and will, if I may permit myself a small jest, work feverishly to combat the fever from its very onset. If they can keep the captive alive throughout the entire transition, however that ends up, then much can be learned both before and after she is killed. Speculation: I wonder if the girl will still be alive when I rise from my bed tomorrow morning? I wonder if she will still be a girl, or whether she will now be the boy she pretended to be? How very exciting to think that I could be young and vigorous in mere days if this experiment works out. Very exciting, indeed.

End Journal Entry.
 
 

 
Finally, Sherla reached her objective - a large mound of cleared- away snow at the side of the main house. Forty five minutes behind the schedule she'd given Irene and Hans-Peter. Sherla hoped that Irene would be able to keep the young, and therefore likely-to-be-audacious Swiss lad under control. The last thing she needed right now was an overly enthusiastic, but in all likelihood, fatal cavalry charge.

For it would indeed be fatal until Sherla could neutralize Moriarty's guards. While tracks indicated that few, if any of the guards were making rounds through the areas with the still- very-deep snow (which was why Sherla had chosen to use them for her approach) the guards were rather vigilant. *A tribute to their fear of Moriarty, no doubt,* Sherla thought grimly.

Unfortunately for them, however, the guards had evidently concluded that their only threat axis was down the main, cleared road, and that no one was likely to sneak up on them through the three to five foot deep snow drifts.

*No one except a person trying to save their loved one's life. Silently, she drew out the dartgun and a half dozen of the deadly darts from her belt. She laid these down on a small shelf she had hand-carved out of her snow-bank fortress. Carefully, she blew on the long tube to ensure that it was clear of snow or other obstructions. She gave herself a few more moments to ensure that she had her full wind back, and then positioned herself for the attack.

She selected one of the poison-tipped darts, loaded the gun and crawled up onto the top of the mound, laying herself flat upon it and becoming one with the snow.

She watched, oh so very carefully, she watched, careful to keep her lungs always at least half full of air as she held the loaded gun to her lips. Then, both guards in the front of the house turned away from her and she launched sharp death at the furthest guard. The drug acted instantly and he was falling before he'd had a chance to rub at the stinging sensation in his neck. His partner moved towards him, saw his wide open eyes and rose back up to shout an alarm. Sherla's second dart had him going down before he'd managed to finish drawing in air to yell.

Loading her gun once more and placing the three leftover darts back in her pouch with the others, Sherla moved out of her hiding place to the corner of the house. She peaked around the corner and saw the third guard just coming round the back of the house from his rounds back there. Instants later, he was down and dying.

Sherla's reconnaissance from the hill top had indicated there was only one more guard - a big man who seemed to be stationed in front of the other large building in the compound. Stealthily, she slipped behind the house and made her way toward the other house, keeping to the small bushes and evergreens of the house's formal garden for cover. She wasn't ten yards from the entry door when the large guard reappeared from inside the building. He stamped and shook his hands in a futile effort to keep warm. *If you didn't go inside and get used to the warmth, you would become more able to deal with the cold,* Sherla silently advised him, and then she recognized him. *The English sailor. You are the bastard who took my Katrina!*

Hot rage blazed in Sherla's gut, but only for a moment. She would be no good to her lover dead, and only controlled warriors came back to fight another day. Very slowly and very quietly, she unloaded and sheathed her dart gun before drawing her knife. Then she watched.

*It be too bloody cold out here for a man,* Carver thought morosely, *just cause I snaffled the wrong little lightskirt, the Professor sticks me with the midwatch out here, so's I can't even move about to keep meself warm. Well, Jerry has missed his round. Must be he's found a warm place to stay, too, so I'll just slip meself back inside for a bit - leastwise until the time for 'is next round.*

Sherla watched the man disappear into the building. Moving quickly, she used existing snow prints and danced to the door. She hid herself in the shadows and waited. Several minutes later, the kidnapper stepped back outside. He walked out into the yard and looked for signs of the head of the night guard, hoping he'd show up soon so that Carver could slip back inside. "Bloody foolish business if you asks me," he fumed when it had been two minutes and there was still no sign of good old Jerry. "What fool'd come way out here this time of night, I'd like to ."

Carver never ended his statement because he suddenly found himself face down in the snow with a blade tickling his throat. "Don't say a word or make a sound," Sherla hissed, once again grateful for the Oriental wrestling skills that had so often saved Sherlock's life.

"Who. . who are you."

The knife bit his neck and he could feel liquid heat trickling down his neck. "I told you 'not a word'. I am here for the person you kidnapped today. If you want to live another ten seconds, you will tell me, very quietly and very persuasively, where to find her."

Carver tried to move, tried to shake off the small weight on his back, but the knife cut again, this time closer to the arteries he himself had slit on other folks that had needed killing. Whoever this little one was, he knew how to use that knife. "She's. . .she's inside. The professor 'as them scientifical fellows using her in one of them expe. . exper. . " he tried to remember the unfamiliar word, but failed.

"Experiments? Is that what you are trying to say?" A chill ran icy fingers of stark fear up and down Sherla's back. *Oh, God, Katrinaaaaaaa!* her mind screamed in rage mixed with hate and fear.

"Yes sir. He wanted to see what the new stuff'd do, seein's how it killed one of the monks and seein's how he was goin' ta have me kill her anyways."

The weight left his back. "Turn over, curse you!" the voice hissed. Carver spun, his arms reaching for what he was sure was a small person. He had to attack quickly if he hoped to survive.

Something pricked at his neck. It burned for just a moment, and then he felt his entire body go lifeless and limp. He looked up and saw the face of his attacker. "Who. . .are. . you." he managed to get out . He did not live long enough to hear an answer, even had one been offered.

Without a word, Sherla turned and walked towards the door that led to her beloved, the dart she'd stabbed him with still in her hand. She had wanted to rail at him for having dared to kidnap Katrina, for having DARED to put his HANDS upon her, for having DARED to FRIGHTEN her. Sherla had wanted to watch him die slowly, knowing who she was and why she'd done it, but that was an indulgence for which she did not have time. She had to find and save her lover, and then, she had to make certain that Moriarty would come to her for their final confrontation.
 

 
"Well, at least we gotten her past the convulsions still alive, Edward," Haber said, "And the snow seems to be keeping the fever in check."

"At least for now. Damn Moriarty. I wish we dared give her the original potion to counter this one, but he'd make us and our families pay for it."

"I know, and besides, we don't even know if that," and he pointed to a five hundred milliliter bottle filled with a clear liquid, "is a counter for what he made us inject into her. That would mean we had succeeded in finding his antidote and we simply cannot be sure that we have."

"Ja ja, I know," Buchner sighed. "At least she is holding up better than poor little Adolf did when we tried it on her."

"We let the fever get a hold on the monkey, my friend. It has not gotten away from us with her, yet."

"Excuse me, gentlemen, but I would appreciate it if you would both step back from that girl and put your hands in the air." a firm voice said.

"Who are you?!?": the first speaker demanded, at the same time the second speaker blurted out, "Fraulein Watson?? What are you doing here?"

"Rescuing her, and now, I suppose, the two of you. Good evening, Professor Buchner. Can she be moved?"

"We need to keep her cool, to fight the fever, " the first man replied, "but I should think that will not be a problem in the outside cold."

"All right. You said that bottle was the original youth potion?" Sherla asked. At Haber's nod, she continued. "This is what we shall do. First, you will tell me where the rest of Moriarty's henchmen sleep. The guards outside are all dead or dying. While I deal with the rest, you two will prepare to leave. Bundle up and have a litter or something to carry Katrina upon. I have a sleigh, but we will have to get away from the fire I will set as a diversion for them to pick us up."

"What about Moriarty's other herbs? His journals? They are all here in this lab as well. What about Moriarty?

"I will deal with Moriarty. You may trust me on this. As for his foul journals and herbs, are there any in here that might help her?" Sherla asked pointing to where Katrina lay, wrapped in snow.

"We don't know, but it is not likely," Buchner said. "If anything will, that bottle of original potion might have some benefit after she is over the worst of the fever - if this IS a female to male transition. Other than that, we can only nurse her through the fever and hope for the best. We really don't know what this drug will do to her."

Deflated, Sherla allowed herself a single tear before forcing her mind back to the task at hand. "Then bring the bottle with you when we leave. As for the rest, I think I am uniquely qualified to state that they can all burn in hell and the world will be a safer and better place for doing of it. We will burn them with the rest of this place. Now, tell me where the other men are housed."

A scant ten minutes later, Sherla was back. The half dozen remaining gang members would never awaken, thanks to the darts now sprouting from each criminal's neck. "Ready?" she asked. At their nod, she ordered them to take Katrina outside. Sherla found several jars of volatile chemicals and shattered them, saturating rags and wood with the flammable material.

At the door, she tossed a lit match into the small stream of chemical she has poured to act as a fuse to the main bundle of saturated rags and wood.

She was barely away with the explosion hit, shattering windows and turning the interior of the large laboratory building into a small scale vision of the depths of hell.

Unable to resist, Sherla turned back to view the results of her handiwork one last time. The old dried timbers of the chalet's outbuilding quickly became fully involved. It would be only a few minutes before the entire structure burned down to the frozen earth. *And so, once again, I have destroyed everything Moriarty values in the world, leaving him less than nothing. Just as I destroyed his London criminal organization over twenty years ago. Now, we have but to meet once more, and for the final time. I suspect the little gift I left for him on the door to his guards' barracks will ensure his presence. If not, I will merely seek him out, but the end will be the same.*

Satisfied, she ran to the two men struggling with the litter. "Let us take our leave now, gentlemen. Head down the main path to the gate. I will cover your backs in case I missed anyone. Our sleigh should be here momentarily.

"HERE IT COMES!" Buchner shouted, nearly hysterical relief ringing in his voice while in the background, another voice called for guards who were beyond hearing the summons.
 
 
Chapter 14. The Calm
 
Neither Sherla nor Irene remembered much of that wild ride across the midnight-dark mountain trail towards Meringen. They had all piled into the sleigh as soon as Hans-Peter had brought it to an incredibly fast stop near the front gate of Moriarty's lair. The sound of a firearm being discharged had hurried them on their way without any consideration of comfort. However, they stopped to reseat everyone about a kilometer past the bend in the trail where they had waited in growing fear for Sherla's signal. Irene and Sherla had crowded into the front seat with Hans-Peter, so that the two physicians could see to the Katrina.

For Sherla, covering the four kilometers to Meringen seemed to take hours, when it had actually taken barely more than half an hour. Once inside the village, Sherla had directed Hans-Peter to the Englischer Hof. The innkeeper, Peter Steiler the Younger, was still awake and helped them convey the sick young woman to a bed where the doctors and the Mother could see to her needs.

Afterwards, although she was desperate to be with Katrina, it was Irene, as the apparent mother, who was expected to remain with Katrina as the doctors worked to save her young life. Thus, it was Sherla who was left to deal with the very curious Herr Steiler-the-Younger. "You are every bit as efficient and hospitable as my Uncle John said your father was," Sherla opened, trying to belay any questions she did not wish to answer. "He and his friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes stayed here some twenty years ago. You have kept it JUST as they described it." She tried to flirt, but was evidently too distracted to do a sufficiently proper job of it.

"What is wrong with the young Fraulein, if I might ask," Steiler asked, not wanting to face his gossip-loving wife in the morning without the entire story.

*Tis fortunate that we had not already arrived here with Katrina in her Karl guise when this happened. That would be just one more thing to have to explain when a lack of explanation is to everyone's advantage.* "She became ill while we were visiting a friend, and wandered off in her fever. By the time we found her, it was closer to bring her here than to return to our host. The doctors, who were kind enough to help with the search, thought it best we get her inside and into bed as quickly as possible."

"Will you require anything?" he asked, his hotelier's instincts overcoming his wife's interest in gossip. "Some hot tea perhaps, or some hot broth?"

"If it would not be too much trouble, that would be very nice. We missed the evening meal and have been out in the cold for ever so long." *And it will keep you busy while I go do what I must. After I tell Irene and the doctors what I have just told you.* "Now if you will excuse me, I want to go check on my sister, please."
 

 
"The doctors are hopeful she will survive." Irene told her as she sponged her adopted daughter's face with cool water. "The snow stopped the fever which is evidently what killed the monkey. They will stay with her and make sure she stays cool, but they believe she will awaken in the morning."

The doctors had gone off with Herr Steiler for something hot to eat and promised to be back very quickly. "As Katrina or as Karl? They said Moriarty thought that was the antidote to the gender changing side effect." Sherla had perched herself on the bed as close to her lover as she could manage.

"Will that make a difference to you, my dear?" Irene asked gently.

"I would like to say no, but it will be different. Inside she is still Katrina, and it is Katrina I love." Unable to keep from touching her love, Sherla gently held Katrina's limp hand in hers. "I just hope she . . .he will still love me."

"Stand by him or her, dear, and I think it will all work itself out." Irene told her as she withdrew the thermometer from Katrina's mouth. "Hmmmm. . . a touch below 38 degrees. The doctors said that any reading less than forty degrees is good news."

"But when will she wake up?" Sherla demanded.

"The doctors were very encouraged when she woke up a few moments before you came in. They indicated that was a very positive sign."

"But then she went back into the coma. Aren't all comas dangerous?"

"They think this is more natural sleep than anything."

"She doesn't look any more masculine to you, does she?"

Irene considered that and shook her head. "Not in her face, certainly, and she does not seem to be changing size. You did shrink a great deal when you changed, did you not?"

Sherla nodded. "Almost a foot." Just then, the doctors came back.

"If you will give us some room, ladies, we will examine the patient again. You just checked her temperature, Frau Adler? Ah yes, that is good. VERY good."

Sherla and Irene moved away from the bed. "What now?" Irene asked.

"I don't know," Sherla sighed. "I took steps to force a final confrontation with Moriarty, but I can't leave - not when. . not when I. ." suddenly, the strong will crumbled and Sherla found herself sobbing on Irene's shoulders, the older woman's arms strong and firm about her. "What am I going to do if she dies? What if I never again can tell her how much I love her??!?"

Before Irene could answer, a new voice, slurred. "What is happening? Who. . . who is crying?"

Irene and Sherla spun to see Doctor Buchner helping Katrina sit up in the bed. "KaTRINA!? You're awake!!"

"What has happened to me?" the girl asked.

"Katrina, what happened to your voice?" Sherla asked, then berated herself for a fool. It was obvious what had happened. Katrina's voice had changed from a clear, light soprano to a husky alto that seemed to belong in a bigger woman than the near-child laying in the bed.

"What? Oh, it does sound funny. Oh, dear, what has he done to me?"

"It doesn't matter, my love," Sherla said, bending low over the sick girl to place a soft kiss on her forehead. "As long as you will live, we can overcome any problem." Then she dropped her voice very low and whispered, "God, but I love you, Katrina. Please, don't ever, EVER leave me."

"Actually," Buchner interjected, "there shouldn't be any further problems. Once we beat the fever, I really never expected more than a bit of muscle development. We pointed to that change in Adolf, our little African monkey, as something that might be a precursor to a female to male transition. Professor Moriarty, on examining the monkey after its death, concluded that the observed changes fit nicely into a reverse of the transitional phases he had identified in the male to female transitions.

"So, in your opinion, Katrina is likely to remain female?" Irene asked.

"Even the voice change is somewhat of a surprise," Haber replied. "In all honesty, Frau Adler, the treatment we were forced to use on the Fraulein was not really a very promising line of inquiry, but of course we could not tell Moriarty that. We would have been killed. Or worse. In any event, now that it is clear she will survive the fever, I think you have little to worry about."
 

 
Irene watched anxiously as Sherla began to work. Still weak from her fevered ordeal, Katrina had soon fallen asleep, whereupon Sherla had slipped from the room, her face again set in grim determination.

She had found her other daughter-of-the-heart in the smallest of the bedrooms. Sherla had placed the now familiar carrying case upon the bed and begun extracting an all-black version of the white quilted ski clothing she still wore.

"What are you doing?" Irene asked sharply.

"I have to go back out there, Irene. My activities tonight have hurt Moriarty, perhaps mortally in the final analysis, but he is still alive. Like an injured beast, he is now even more dangerous. I have to finish this once and for all."

"You think to go back to the chalet?" Irene's voice betrayed her worry and concern.

"No," Sherla's voice was cold as she finished donning her new set of clothing and reached for her weapons harness. "I am going up to Reichenbach Falls."

"And you believe you will find him there? Why would he go there?"

"Because I left him a graven invitation - mano e femma - to the end."

"And you believe he will just go up there? Why wouldn't he simply flee back to South America where he was safe before? Where he could acquire more of those accursed herbs?"

"To what end? According to the doctors, I destroyed his records as well as his ready supplies. He could go back, but he'd be back where he began. Worse, actually, because thanks to the doctors, he would be following a dead end with that potion they used on Katrina. Eventually, he would either have to decide to die, or he would be forced to accept changing into a woman in order to gain the years he'd need to face me one more time. That is something someone with his 'natural-inferiority-of-women' mind set simply would never be able to accept doing to himself. Besides, he knows that I know where he got those herbs, and he knows that I will pursue him to the gates of Hell itself this time."

"He could come for you first."

"So he could, and that is why I told him where to find me. When you think about this metaphorically, this is what happened twenty years ago all over again. History repeats itself in that I have once again completely destroyed his power base. I expect he will react the same this time as he did then, particularly since I taunted him about that fact."

"Fraulein Watson?" a older, male voice called from the door.

Sherla turned her attention to him and replied, "Yes, Doctor Buchner?"

He held out a small metallic cylinder, perhaps a centimeter in diameter and three centimeters long. "Here is what you asked for."

"You were able to do it, then?" she asked, accepting the offering and putting into her pouch.

"Yes, but we do not know how effective it will be or how sterile it is."

"I see," Sherla replied. "In truth, it will only matter that he believes it will be effective. Thank you again, Doctor, I will be back in a few hours. Please take care of her."

Irene moved to block the door. "I am going with you."

"No, you are not. He might use you against me. This is between Moriarty and me, and will end that way as it always should have done." With a kiss for Irene, Sherla slipped from the house, and made her way to a trail she well remembered from an adventure of twenty years past. An adventure John Watson had written as the epitaph of Mr. Sherlock Holmes.
 

 
Moriarty stood quietly staring at the dying embers of what had been, mere hours before, his laboratory. Now it, like his plans, had been reduced to so much ash.

His life's work - destroyed again. Someone was going to pay. Moriarty would make the person or persons responsible for this outrage pay the full measure for this if it took the remaining years of his life.

After his enraged attempt to shoot at the fleeing sleigh, Moriarty had made a futile search for his underlings. He had found his two house guards in front of the house dead - killed by what he recognized as a blowgun dart. *Very likely based on venomous skin excretions of the South American poison arrow frog.* he'd mused, for he had recognized the now-frozen death mask both corpses wore. Then, in his mad flight to his blazing lab, he had tripped over Carver's body and found that he had been dispatched by the same silently lethal weapon.

The lab was lost. Everything was lost. He had foolishly kept all of his records in that building as well, thinking his security more than adequate. Now, all he had left was the possibility of revenge. And for that, he would need to uncover the identity of whoever had done this to him.

Like the scientist he was, Moriarty began by searching for data - Holmes would have called it clues or evidence - but James Moriarty thought of it as data. On the far side of the house, he found the trail of whoever had breached his security. *Must have all but swum his way in from that small hill in the distance,* he thought, *keeping his head just high enough to breath, but letting the snow hide his body. Not very many tracks of my men making security walks over here as well. Whoever this is, picked the perfect vector for his attack and took good advantage of my stupid minions shoddy efforts.*

He followed the tracks and saw the attack in his mind. First the front guards and then Carver. *He didn't kill Carver with the dartgun,* he noted, seeing the impressions that indicated that Carver had rolled over in the snow after being taken down initially. *He was stabbed with that dart. Why? Ah, of course, Carver was the one he questioned after killing the first two. Most effective and well planned.*

He circled the soot blackened snow and found another set of tracks. These were not as careful or as stealthy as the ones his intruder had made on his initial approach, and they were matched by a second set of the same prints returning to the laboratory. Moriarty was certain where they led and what had happened, but he was too thorough, too good a scientist to make such an assumption.

The tracks led to the makeshift barracks that had housed his men. Inside, he found them all dead, each killed by one of the poisoned darts. *My foe is very skilled with that lethal little toy. I wonder who he is? Is it someone I met in South America for that is the only place I have ever encountered such weapons? Perhaps a relative or friend of one of the guides I killed during my sojourn with the women's tribe on the Amazon? That would mean he'd found them, too and learned what I had done there. It would also mean he has somehow followed my trail all the way here. Truly a remarkable man, in that event. Only one other in my experience might have had such skill and dogged determination.*

Moriarty turned to leave that scene of death when a flash of steel in the moonlight caught his eye. There was a knife stuck into the back of the door, and from it hung a piece of paper. Striding to the door, Moriarty pulled the blade free of the door, careful not to damage the paper. When he read it, his face went white and then bright red with rage, and the paper crumpled in his fist.

Storming outside, his anger burned white hot as he walked back to the dancing flames that greedily consumed his hopes and plans and future. Even a man of Moriarty's great powers required a few moments to control and subdue the fury that washed over him. When he had, however, he very carefully smoothed out the crushed ball of paper and began to reread the message.

Greetings Professor, Now it is YOUR turn to find clever little notes such as the ones you left for me not more than two months ago in London. Once again, old enemy, I have stopped you as I did twenty years ago when I destroyed your spider webs of crime in London and in Paris. Only this time, I have destroyed your hope of regaining your youth and vigor. As I have regained mine. Oh yes, Professor, I AM HOLMES! You are through, Moriarty. All your men are dead; all your vile herbs and potions are destroyed. There is no place on earth you can run or hide where I will not find you. Thanks to your own efforts, I have the advantage of the years of new youth, and I shall use them until I find you or until you simply die of old age. For you, it is all over. Finished. Destroyed. However, Dear Professor, I am a generous woman. You have given me such a wondrous gift that I feel compelled to return the favor. Rather than watch as you die in ignominy, I offer you one, final chance at me - and me at you. There has been a certain inevitability in this return to the site of our last great battle. I can almost believe that your Destiny has brought us back here to finish what we started those many years ago. I would say that things are even still rather fair, for while you are now a very old man, I am naught but a woman. Yes, Moriarty, fully a woman as you no doubt planned, but as you can also see from the carnage I have wrought among your men, I am also a rather capable woman. Come to the Falls, Moriarty, the Reichenbach Falls. Let us finish this thing there once and for all. This time, it shall be just you and me for I have no John Watson and you have no Sebastian Moran. I shall await your pleasure at three a.m this morning, old enemy. Come prepared to die." Sherla Holmes

 
"That bitch DARES to taunt me? After what she has done to ME?!!?!?"

The hissing orange roar of the inferno that was once his lab cast a scorching light upon the face of the enraged Moriarty. For once, his physical shell mirrored the dark core within. Veins throbbed at the surface of his temples, visibly echoing the manic thumping of his outraged heart. His heavy brows cast deep shadows upon the sockets of his eyes, from which his orbs seemed to burn with their own internal flame. His jowls were snarled in a lipless grimace of fury, and it seemed as though he had ripped out the throat of the world for his teeth were bloodied by the hue of the flames.

"HOLMES!" he screamed to the sky. "HOLMES!! I don't know how it could be you but it simply does not matter! AGAIN you meddle where you do not belong! It is YOU who are DEAD, Holmes, do you hear me? DEAD! It is YOU who cannot run! YOU who cannot hide! There is no place in the universe that is safe from my wrath! I would storm the very gates of Hell itself if only I can bring you down with me! Oh, I shall be there to answer your fooling challenge, Holmes, and this time, I . . SHALL . . . DESTROY . . . YOU! HOOOOLLLLLMMEEEEESSS!!!!"

His thunderous cry echoed off the surrounding peaks, the curious interaction of the mountains' slopes bringing his fury to the fleeing band below. Irene shuddered at the malice implicit in those cries upon the wind as she urgently caressed Katrina's burning forehead with a palm full of snow. Then her glance fell upon Sherla's face and she nearly gasped at the echo to Moriarty's hatred and fury that she saw there.

Moriarty continued to fume as he stalked back to his own quarters, his mind alive with the vision of the humiliations he would visit upon his transformed foe before he finally granted her death. However, by the time he'd reached his rooms and began to dress, his mind was once again in control, and he was once again the cold, rational genius who had calmly waited while Holmes had written what should have been his last words to that fool Watson.

He needed a plan of his own because it was patently clear that his adversary had one. The attack on his base had been superbly planned and executed. Whoever was working with Holmes, for there HAD to be someone working with that bitch - no mere woman could have caused such damage or wreaked such destruction - was a worthy opponent. He would have to be prepared. It was too bad that Holmes had such an ally and he did not, but that could not be helped.

*Ally! Moran! That is it!* Moriarty exulted, jumping to his feet. "NOW, I have you, Holmes, and whoever your ally is, I have him as well. I hope the Devil has a particularly warm welcome planned for you this night, for you have surely earned your eternity of torment."

With that, the Professor selected his weapons, and left the room. He would need a horse for it was already moving towards one in the morning. He needed to be in place well before that foolishly honorable Holmes arrived for their epic final battle.

"Too bad there is no one to write of this adventure of yours, Holmes, for I would very much enjoy seeing your ignominious demise as well publicized as were your so-vaunted and over- aggrandized meddling in the affairs of your betters. Perhaps, in my declining years, I shall have to write my own memoirs if only to showcase tonight, my greatest and sweetest triumph."
 
 
Chapter 15. The Falls
 
Checking his pocket watch by the crisp opalescent light of the waxing moon, Professor James Moriarty smiled. He was fifteen minutes early for their little duel. In an earlier age, this might have been called a "dawn appointment", a formalized clash over that foolish concept of a bygone era, honor. The Professor was not hampered by that societal artificiality, which was why he was here instead of at the location that bitch had suggested in her taunting message.

Moriarty surveyed the scene of his upcoming triumph over his hated foe from the vantage of his lofty perch. The serene face of the moon washed the landscape in a stark, monochrome blue-white light, lending a harsh and shadowy beauty to the rocky heights. A hundred yards below, the spume of the falls glowed as it billowed out of the chasm, and its frozen incrustations on the surrounding granite glittered in amorphous flows and fragile crystalline spikes. The beauty was wasted on Moriarty, but he was well pleased: the light was sufficient to render that arrogant fool Holmes an easy target as she approached the appointed rendezvous.

And the richest jest of all was that SHE had been the one to suggest his plan, however unintentionally. The last time the antagonists had faced each other above the Reichenbach Falls, Moriarty had not been alone - Sebastian Moran had also come to destroy Holmes. For Moriarty, it had been just retribution, but it had also been part of a greater plan. With Holmes dead, he would have time to recreate his organization without the only man with the wit and brain to oppose him. For Moran the purpose had been far simpler - base revenge on the man who had destroyed Moran's easy lifestyle. Moriarty had sent his lackey to the higher ground where he might be able to use his shooting skills to advantage when Moriarty faced Holmes.

Unfortunately, Holmes had kept beneath the ledges initially, and then had closed on the Professor too quickly even for the great Moran to get off a shot. Holmes' proficiency with that accursed fighting form had done Moriarty in, sending him headlong into the basin of the great falls. But fate had been with Moriarty, for he had survived, and thus, he had read Watson's account of the so-called "Final Problem." Therefore, instead of being down on the trail where Holmes would soon arrive, Moriarty now stood where once Moran had rained boulders down upon the detective. Now HE had the advantage of the high ground. No puerile combat skills would save Holmes this time.

He set about collecting a supply of rocks that he would use to rain death down upon his greatest enemy. Fortunately, the snow had mostly blown away from this little clearing so finding his missiles was not difficult though the moving of them to the cliff edge was. He was again breathing heavily by the time he had a sufficient number of rocks to hand. Checking his watch, he was surprised to find that it was after the appointed hour and he had not seen anyone coming up the trail. Moriarty pulled out his seaman's glass and searched the trail, but saw no sign of movement, let alone any sign of a human.

Suddenly, a loud snapping noise came from the heavy brush behind him. Moriarty spun, but was too late as a sharp stinging sensation burned into the side of his neck. Reaching up with one hand, he found the cause - a small, very sharp dart of the type used by South American natives in the blowguns. Numbly, he simply stared at it, knowing he had finally lost, waiting for the weakness, the paralysis and the oblivion to take him.

Only none of that happened. If anything, he felt . . .more alive. . more alert. The weariness from his recent exertions seemed to leave him. How could that be? "How can this be?" he repeated aloud.

"Oh, that wasn't tree frog venom, James." A soft, unfamiliar voice sounded out of the night, seemingly carried on the winds. Moriarty drew his revolver, and tried to localize the source. "It is merely a little concoction of cocaine and caffeine, old enemy, to stir your blood and stimulate your physical resources. Physical weakness will not be an excuse when I finally defeat you tonight."

Enraged again, Moriarty aimed and fired off two shots at where he thought the sound originated. Soft, feminine laughter followed. "Missed me, James. Better get control of yourself. That caffeine might make you just a little edgy. You won't stand a chance against me if you cannot control yourself, now will you?"

Gun raised, Moriarty moved slowly toward the brush that circled about the small clearing. "Where are you, Holmes? Come out and face me like a man!"

Again the soft laughter. Moriarty tried to localize the sound but the cocaine was already confusing his senses. "But I am not a man, am I, James? And all thanks to you."

"No, damn you, you are a slut," Moriarty roared into the wind, "You are an insatiably needy, sexually driven slut, and that is precisely how I wanted you, bitch."

"Now, isn't that strange," Moriarty thought her had located the voice. He spun and again fired. "Missed again, James. That leaves you only three bullets. Better take care to make them count."

Sherla kept moving, slipping from point to point, only speaking for short moments from each spot. "Now, if I were so insatiable, why am I not out in that clearing, tearing your trousers off you and raping you? Perhaps, because I am not that needy?"

"You HAVE to be. There was not enough of the potion to finish your transition," Moriarty snarled.

"You forgot the chemist, James. Oh, you remembered to kill him, but you forgot to take the remainder of your potion with you." Sherla made a tsking sound. "Sloppy, my dear Professor. . VERY sloppy, but then, you always were when you did not have a large organization between you and the real world."

The insult made Moriarty's drug-sharpened temper snap again. Furiously, he searched and for an instant, thought he saw a shadow. Again he aimed his pistol into the brush and fired.

Although his ears rang from the explosive report of his gun, Moriarty thought he heard something fall to the ground, and then, for several moments, there was silence. Fearing a trap, Moriarty held his gun at the ready, and strained his ears, but all he could hear was the deep, faraway roar of the Falls.

Relaxing, he lowered the gun, and began to move in the direction he'd fired. The bitch might still be alive. *I almost hope that she is,* he thought with a relieved smile, *So that I can look into her eyes as I put these last two bullets between them.*

He'd just reached the brush line when something struck him in the back. Turning, he saw a dark shadow, standing near his pile of rocks. "Well shot, Professor, but you missed again," the shadow taunted as it heaved something at him.

Moriarty tried to dodge, but the rock still glanced off his shoulder, and disrupted his aim just as he fired off his last two bullets.

Tossing the now useless weapon aside, Moriarty ran towards the place the shadow had disappeared back into the dark bushes.

He heard the soft hiss of air before he felt the sting again, this time in his shoulder. *Perhaps the poison was rubbed off by my greatcoat,* he thought as he reached up to pluck away the dart, only it wasn't a native-styled dart - it was made of metal.

Moriarty pulled it free and used the moon to illuminate the object. It was some type of hypodermic syringe.. . . and it was now empty.

"It's not a poison, Moriarty." The voice said again. He turned and saw the shadow step from the bushes again. One hand reached up to pull away a dark stocking hat to reveal feminine features and long black tresses that seemed to shine in the moonlight. The other hand held a revolved trained on him. "In truth, I think, for you it will be infinitely worse. That syringe contained the same dose of your rejuvenation potion that I took every night after I awoke from the first distilled and concentrated dosage. I filled the syringe from a large bottle that I saved from your laboratory before I torched it. As I recall, you told me that a single dose was enough to bring on the addiction, but trusting you as I do, I had Buchner and Haber confirm that for me."

"How. . you are nothing but a slip of a girl. . .surely you cannot be. . ."

"Holmes?" she asked, "Oh, but I can assure you, old enemy, that I am. I am Holmes, but thanks to you, I am a great deal more. And why am I more? Because of the people who came to my aid, the people who embraced me and my cause, the people who LOVED me."

Moriarty could almost feel the drug coursing through his body - the slow languor as it swept through his veins. "That is not. . .logical. How can you - a mere emotion-ridden, sexually-confused female even dare to claim that you are in any way superior to the great detective, Sherlock Holmes?"

"I doubt you could ever understand, old man. I am a middle-aged housekeeper, who saw to the comforts and needs of a cantankerous curmudgeon for no other reason than that her Mother had liked the man when he was younger. I am a former royal mistress and dressmaker who believed an outlandish story and gave help where it was desperately needed. I am an operatic singer and actress with a flair for investigation, who took in a waif and taught her the joys, the strengths and the beauty of womanhood. I am a young housemaid, who fell in love and in so doing, taught a hidebound fool how to love in return. But most of all, James, I am, most definitely, Holmes, with my full intellectual powers undiminished, and in fact, enhanced by an openness and vivacious joy of life that the old man I once was could never have understood and would never have had the sense to appreciate.

His head was starting to spin now, and Moriarty eased himself down to the ground, still staring at his opponent. "That's poppycock. You should be sex-crazed -unable to control yourself."

"Oh, I was, but that young woman who taught me to love and the opera singer got me through the worst of that. I am rather easily aroused, but I find that my mind is even more alert, more effective after a good, sweaty session of lovemaking with my lover."

Moriarty fought to remain conscious. There had to be a way out of this. If Holmes saved some of the original potion, then surely he must have saved some of the antidote Buchner and Haber had been working on. Surely, he would not wish to remain a woman. *Must stay awake. . keep her talking. . find my chance.* "Why not simply kill me?"

"I was going to do that very thing," Sherla answered, her tone very matter-of-fact. "But then, you took my lover, and you used her in one of your foul experiments, so I decided that killing by my hand was too good for you. You had to truly suffer. Do you feel it, yet, Moriarty? That delicious weightlessness just before sleep claims you? When you wake up, you will be like I was that morning you came for me. You'll have, what, oh about twenty-four hours before the withdrawal hits you. Oh, you'll still be male -for the most part - but soon you will be consumed by the base needs of your own body. Your great intellect imprisoned within an insatiable animal demand for sexual stimulation, even as that stimulation becomes impossible. Tell me, James, do you think you will injure your own manhood, rip it off in your frantic compulsion as Buchner told me several of your laboratory animals did? Small loss, I should think, and it will become even smaller as the potion does its work.

Moriarty growled, but made no move. Sherla wondered if he could move. "However, as I said, I am a fair woman. You can have more of the potion if you like. I'm afraid I don't think you would make a very pretty girl, Moriarty, but then, I am rather surprised by how I turned out. If not, that are some places of the world where all that is needed is the right plumbing and a woman can still make a living. You'd know about those places, wouldn't you, James, for you sent enough innocent young women to them in your time? Would you like to make your living on your back? Would you like some more of this potion so you could? I have enough, you know. I saved it just for you."

Sherla disappeared into the brush and returned with her canvas bag. Reaching into it, she withdrew the bottle and her hypodermic case. "The potion and the filled syringe will be beside you on the ground when you awaken. If you sleep like I did that first time, you should have about an hour in which to make your decision," Sherla's smile became dark and mirthless, "Then the burning will start - the need for something I could not understand, but that I am sure you are fully cognizant. Make sure you use the needle quickly, James, for it won't be long before your hands are busy with other tasks, however fruitless."

"You overcame the effects, Holmes," Moriarty hissed, "I could, too. Have you thought of that?"

Sherla concentrated on filling the needle's reservoir before turning back to Moriarty. "I told you," she said almost gently, "That I made it because of people who helped me, because of people who cared for me. I think, James, that I could put you down in any city in the world, and you would not find anyone who would help you. For all my arrogance and pridefulness, I still helped people while you hurt them. I would not be here without them for I would have taken the route you intended. I don't think you can make it alone, but I am willing to give you that chance." She shot a small spray of the fluid from the needle to clear any air bubbles and let Moriarty see it. "Your decision, Moriarty. Just one last piece of information, however."

He felt the drug begin to dull his senses, felt the slow slip into unconsciousness during which his masculinity, his intelligence, would be forever stripped from him. "What?" he managed to get out.

"The drug you used on my lover? It is a dead end. It did not work - she is just as beautifully feminine as she was before you captured her. . . just as you will be for the rest of your now greatly extended life."

Sherla moved over near her foe, intent on putting the needle near his hand, but he stopped her with his other hand, his grip surprisingly strong. He looked up at his long-time enemy, and saw her gilt in moonlight. She was beautiful, he realized, and she was at peace. She'd truly won, at last.

The twin realizations snapped his reason. Somehow, he snatched away the syringe before tossing Sherla aside. "Moriarty as a woman? Never!" With a great effort, Moriarty hurled the hypodermic out into the falls, and then threw himself at the edge of the precipice. Sherla simply watched as he hit the ground, rolled once, and disappeared over the edge.

Sherla rose to her feet and walked to the cliff-edge. Down below her she saw him, his body facing upward over a rock, arms and legs splayed outward. Leaving her equipment behind, Sherla hurried back down the steep and rocky path she had used to the clearing. Moments later, she arrived at the Falls scenic overlook.

She half expected Moriarty to be gone when she got there, to have disappeared into the cold mist as he had so many other times, but he hadn't. She found him laying across the rock, just as she had seen him from the heights. His neck and back were broken; his heart forever stilled. It was the second time Holmes had met Moriarty in this dark place of forbidding beauty, and the second time he had defeated his arch foe.

Moriarty was dead.

Sherla pulled him from the crag on which he had landed, sliding his body to the rocky ledge that formed the trail. Bracing herself against the higher cliff, she nudged the lifeless form of her old adversary with her boot until it fell over the sheer stony edge. As she watched it tumble into the raging waters of Reichenbach Falls, she said, "Good-bye, old enemy, and good riddance. May your soul burn in the hell you would have created here on earth."

The distant splash of the body, though the sound was lost within the roar of the falls, put a final end to the conflict that had consumed two lifetimes, and defined the beginning of a third. For the first time Sherla became aware of the cold spray that had penetrated through her thin skiing clothes. She began to shiver uncontrollably, teeth chattering and fingers almost losing their grip on the blowgun she still clutched.

*I will join that man in an icy death if I do not get warm soon,* she realized, and turned to get her coat from where she had used it as a decoy up in the clearing. The climb back up to the level of their final confrontation took all her reserves of strength, far more than she had to spare while fighting the energy-draining chill of her sodden clothes.

When Irene found her, Sherla was staggering almost blindly down the trail to Meringen, shaking with cold and too numb to notice for a moment that she had been grasped in a fiercely-desperate embrace.

"My God, Sherla, are you all right?"

"I am f . . f .. f ine, Tante Irene, though I c. .c .can't seem to stop shivering."

"Come, let me help you to the sleigh. We have dry blankets there."

"Thank g . g. .goodness. I am so tired. So c. c. .cold."

"Hans-Peter," Irene shouted, "Come help me with her. She is frozen to the bone!"

"No. . no, I am fine. b. .be all right. .once. .once I. ..c. can get. .warm," Sherla stuttered, her dark eyes wide as she looked into Irene's own amber ones.

"Then he's dead?" she whispered. Sherla nodded. Irene continued. "Are you able to make it to the sleigh and ride down to a warm bed and the family that loves you?"

"Yes, th. .that sounds. . heavenly."

Hans-Peter reached them at a dead run and took Sherla's free arm. The trio started to make their way toward where Irene had left the sleigh, but Sherla's strength gave out after but a few steps.. At Irene's nod, Hans-Peter swept Sherla's small, shivering body into his arms, and soon thereafter, they had her packed in blankets for the trip back to Englischer Hof.

The comfort of the thick coverings roused Sherla enough to ask, "How is Katrina?"

"She is fine. Woke up pert and sassy just before I left to look for you. It was all we could do to prevent her from going after you in her shift."

"You shouldn't have left her, Tante Irene," Sherla said, her voice slurred by fatigue, and further distorted by her still-chattering teeth.

"What?!? You think you mean less to me than she does? You are BOTH my daughters in my heart." Irene allowed that to sink in for a few moments before she relented with a smile.

Sherla forced her tired mind to absorb that thought, and she tried to find some words to show her gratitude. In the end, words were not enough and she struggled up from her blankets for a moment to lean toward THE Woman, now tranformed forever from rival to something far, far more dear. She kissed Irene softly, heedless of the worry that showed on the woman's face at the touch of her so-cold lips.

"I love you, Irene Adler, and that is something I have only felt for two other women in either of my lives."

Irene smiled gently and kissed Sherla back. "I love you, too, dear. Now, rest while we get you back to the hotel."
 
 
Chapter 16. Game Over
 
Within minutes, Sherla was again asleep. She slept deeply the entire ride. As they approached the Englischer Hof, Irene tried to rouse her, with only limited success. *Poor dear has expended her last bit of stamina this day.*

So, Sherla was still only half awake when a petite, dark-haired whirlwind pounced the moment Hans-Peter's sleigh slid to a stop in front of the hotel. "I have been worried out of my HEAD over you! Are you all right? What happened up there? Are you all right? Here, let me help you out of the sleigh Are you all RIGHT? Why did you take so long? Are you all RIGHT? Why aren't you answering me?"

"Katrina?" Sherla asked very carefully.

"WHAT?!" the exasperated girl nearly bellowed.

"Ummm. . .do you realize you are holding me nearly over your head off the ground?"

"I'm what?" Katrina squealed, as she realized she was doing precisely what Sherla had accused her of doing. Very carefully, she eased her lover down to the ground and then pulled her into her arms for a hug.

"I did say that it was the changes in the muscle tissue that helped us convince Moriarty that we were on the trail of the antidote he sought," Doctor Buchner said as he came upon the small group. "I would say that Fraulein Katrina has experienced much the same effect."

"So it. . . did," Sherla said as she tried to find the ground with both feet. "Uh, Katrina?"

"Yes, Sherla?"

"I feel . . . very. . .strange. . " and the world went black.
 

 
When Sherla regained consciousness, she had been stripped of her black ski clothing and long underwear, and had been bundled into a warm flannel nightgown. She was tucked into a soft bed with thick quilts. "What. . . what happened?" She managed to ask.

"YOU FAINTED!" an obviously upset Katrina accused. "Practically fell into a snow bank if I hadn't caught you. What is the matter? Are you ill? The doctors said you aren't running a fever but why did you faint?"

"If you let her get a word in edgewise, Katrina," Irene's amused voice interrupted, "I think you will find out that she is simply exhausted and needs rest, warm food and more rest. She has been exerting herself most dreadfully ever since we discovered you were abducted."

"Well, she is going to rest now, aren't you, Sherla?" Katrina demanded. "You're going to lay there in bed and let us watch over and take care of you."

Something deep inside Sherla started to resist - let someone else responsibility for her safety? And then, the resistance crumbled. This was Katrina, the woman she had pledged herself to and Irene, one of the two women who had shown her what maternal caring and love was supposed to be. She loved them both, and just as importantly, she trusted them both. . . . with her love and with her life. "Thank you," she whispered as her eyes drifted closed again, "I am so very tired."

"We will BOTH be here, dear," Irene said softly. Then she doused the bed lamp. "Sleep well."
 

 
The sun had gone down again when Sherla next awoke to find Irene seated by her bed, watching over her. "I sent Katrina to bed. She is still tired as well, for all her new found strength." Irene then sent for the soup that Frau Steiler had made for the invalids. Sherla had initially be upset when Irene had insisted on feeding her, but that had passed into resignation when the still-empty spoon shook in her hands.

After her meal, Irene had asked her about the fight. Sherla had told her the entire story, including her offer to relent on her plan to kill Moriarty out of hand.

"I offered him the rest of the drug, enough that he could have survived and completed the transition." Sherla told Irene as they walked up to the clearing.

"But he refused to take it, didn't he?" Irene asked, and then smiled knowingly when Sherla shook her head "I wouldn't have thought he'd accept that, given what you've told me about him, but still neither would we have wanted Moriarty loose in the world, young and full of energy. Female or otherwise."

"I wasn't worried about that, Irene. His ego would never have accepted the idea of becoming a woman, and in any event, he would not have found the help that made it possible for me to grow into a new, fulfilling life," Sherla said as she took pressed Irene's hand to her cheek. "He threw the syringe at the falls, then followed after it. I have always intended his death, but this is somehow easier. I gave him the same chance he gave me and while he is still dead, my conscience is clear."

"Good, dear. It is time we put this behind us. This has been a very difficult time for you, these last two months. I think it is past time that we all go home to Paris," Irene said. "But for now, I want you to try and sleep some more. You took far more out of yourself than you realize, I think.

"I think you are in the right of that. You go to bed, too, for I shall be all right now. Good night, Irene."

A mischievous gleam lit Irene Adler's lovely amber eyes, as she recalled another time, and another Holmes. "Good evening to you," she said, her voice dropping an octave into her male tones, "Miss Sherla Holmes."
 

 
 

---

 
End of Part 3 - A Study in Satin
 
 

 
 
Epilogue and Afterward - Mens Sano in Corpore Cito!
 
 
Epilogue
 
Irene looked at her onetime maid in annoyance. "Katrina, stop fidgeting. What has gotten into you this morning?"

She should have paid more attention to the smug look on Sherla's face, a look that became even more pronounced as Katrina explained.

"I'm sorry, Tante Irene, but Sherla tied my corset inexcusably tight this morning, and my body just doesn't reshape itself as it used to do." For several weeks since their return from Switzerland, Katrina's body had continued to change. While her stature and figure seemed unaffected, her muscle mass had steadily increased before leveling out at about one and one half times her original weight. Doctor Buchner had examined her on several occasions and had said that her muscle tissue had become much denser than the norm, particularly for women.

"Would you prefer to return to trousers, my strong friend," herla offered, her eyes twinkling.

"No, but tomorrow I will insist that you tighten my corset first, ma petite," Katrina threatened gleefully, "Remember my new-found strength, and what it will most certainly do to you if you get carried away again."

"Enough, girls. We have more important business to attend to. Herr Buchner has sent a letter asking what became of the rest of Moriarty's foul potion. What shall we tell him?"

"Tell him that it was disposed of, of course," Sherla said without hesitation. "Though he is an honorable scientist, I do not think that brew should form the basis for any further experimentation."

"But he already knows of it, Sherla," Irene argued, "He and Dr. Haber both."

"I think that without the potion or the herbs to experiment with, Professor Buchner will not be a problem. He has a scientist's ability to focus on the problem at hand, and he will be all too ready to return to his interrupted research. Dr. Haber, on the other hand . . . "

"I didn't like him at all," Katrina interjected, a shiver of remembered fear accenting her words.

Sherla nodded, and said, "We may need to find a way to watch our Herr Haber, in the times to come. He has had entirely too much involvement with the Kaiser and his minions. It would not do to have the Prussian war machine possess chemicals like those Moriarty desired."

"And how will we stop him, if he tries?" asked Irene.

"'We', Tante Irene?" Sherla said, the twinkle in her eye more pronounced than ever.

"Yes, WE!" both of the other women retorted loudly. "I have not had so much fun in years," Irene went on, "and don't for a moment that Mademoiselle Muscles is going to let you wander off on another dangerous case without her. I shall have to convince Godfrey to participate, for he will become quite the wet blanket otherwise, but I think we make an admirable team."

"Yes, Ma'amselle Cherie, do not even CONSIDER going off without me!" Katrina said fiercely.

"Very well, very well," Sherla laughed, her hands going up in a sign of surrender. "I agree with all your arguments and promise to comply with all your limitations. Now, all we need is a case or two."

"Well, now that you mention it, I may have something worthy of our mettle," Irene said, reaching into her reticule and withdrawing a small brown bag that she passed to Sherla.

Her curiosity aroused, Sherla emptied the bag onto the tea table and found that it held one white ladies glove of a type women would wear out and about on their day's errands.

"That is the only clue the police have on the abduction of a small child. Evidently, the mother went into a dressmaker's shop for 'only a moment' and came out later to find the child gone from the bench and that glove there."

"No other clues?" Sherla snorted derisively, "more likely they found not the ones that were there. I suppose we can assume that the scene was not protected?" Irene nodded. "And that there were no witnesses in that moment?"

"Well, that is a more interesting question since that 'moment' involved a dress fitting which as you now know, dear, takes somewhat more than a moment."

"I see," Sherla said as she reached for Irene's magnifying glass. She examined it carefully, for several moments before looking up. "Katrina, if you are going to shadow me on my cases, it is time for you to begin learning my methods. Please examine this glove and tell me everything about it and the wearer that you can."

Suddenly nervous, Katrina approached the table and knelt. She spent longer than she might have otherwise, but la petite had looked at it so closely, she assumed that there had to be something there to see.

Finally, she looked up. "I am not sure, Sherla. It is a left glove. From what I can see of it, I think it might belong to an older woman, perhaps of somewhat reduced means. She is slender, I think. Other than that, I cannot be sure if she is even the right person to look for."

"Explain your reasoning," Sherla said.

"The left glove part is obvious. It is also a small glove, one that might fit you or I which is why I thought her slender, and yet, see this bulge on the third finger at the main joint? That might be swelling such as from arthritis which is how I infer her to be an older woman. Her circumstance I infer because the gloves are rather dirty - see the smudges on the finger tips? And the index finer has a hole in it - right at the tip where the finger nail would be as if the nail poked through it.

"Well argued," Sherla said with as smile, "Almost completely wrong, but well argued. You do have potential, my love. Our lady is slender, however she is likely young and well off. The swelling is actually from a large ring, which since it is worn on the left third finger, we must conclude is due to a betrothal or other such gaudy bauble. Likely a large square cut stone, too large to be a diamond I should think, but perhaps a ruby or more likely yet, a sapphire. Twenty plus carets I should think. As to the condition of the finger tips, our lady is left handed, thus accounting for the fairly fresh dirt stains on the glove. The tear in the index finger is due to her own, very well filed nail. If you had used the glass, you would have seen that these fibers are sharply cut and not yet frayed, indicating that the tear is very recent. And, she is blond, another fact you could have ascertained," Sherla said as she lifted a long, fine filament from the cuff of the glove, "had you but used the glass. Odd, Irene, that the police missed this clue."

"True enough, my dear, but they did. What do you suggest they do next?"

"I should check the boys immediate family - aunts, female cousins and so forth, and see if any of them wear a ring such as I have described. And I would try to discover if the mother had any reason to wish to have her son removed from her home - perhaps an abusive father. It is entirely too fortuitous that the boy was out there so long, and that he went so quietly with someone in front of a Parisian store in the middle of the day."

"Brava, my dear," Irene cheered.

"You made that up," Katrina said with a lovely little pout on her lips. "No one can tell all that from a glove."

"We shall see, my sweet," Sherla said with a wink, "we shall see."
 
 
Afterward
 
Those who read this record should know that it is based on two diaries found wrapped together with a gold ribbon in a box of my Grand Aunt Katrina's belongings. I am busily searching the rest of her possessions for any more volumes of the diaries apparently kept by herself and Miss Sherla. Unfortunately, I have not run across any further such memoirs, but the attic at the old New Orleans Manor house to which she and Miss Holmes (who I always knew as my 'Auntie Shirley') moved to after the First World War is vast, and I have hopes of locating more such prime source reference material.

The reader may wonder how it is possible, even given the current medical impossibility of the male to female transition, that such events took place. I mean, Sherlock Holmes had documented adventures well into the Great War, and many believe he lived in seclusion subsequent to that following his final retirement from investigation. The answer is we will likely never know. Perhaps, the English government came up with an imposter, much as they did during World War II with Winston Churchill. Having the Great Detective working for British Intelligence, rooting out the Kaiser's spies must have been a great morale booster for the folks on the home-front, particularly when the bomber Zeppelins began attacking England later in the war.

Dr. Fritz Haber eluded Miss Holmes' attempts to derail his military research and became the Father of Gas Warfare. He invented most of the chemicals and delivery systems used by the Germans in their attempt to chemically clear the infamous "No- Man's-Land" that was the trenches of France during World War I.

Oh, before I forget, there were a few other items in the box that contained the diaries. First was a pair of matched magnifying glasses - beautifully crafted with gold frames and rosewood handles - and as clear as . . well, glass. I also found a very heavy box - approximately eight inches long by four inches wide by four inches deep - with a hinged top and a very sturdy hand strap. I believe they called this type of purse-things 'reticules'. Strange design, too, for the inside bottom only went down two of the four inches of the reticule's depth. I suspect, if I cared to cut it open, I would find lead shot.

And finally, there was a sealed bottle - amber in color and about two hundred and fifty milliliters inside. It had no label on it, but it did smell faintly of something floral or herbal. It is still mostly full. If it is what I think it is, that is enough for four, five, maybe even six transitions. If it is still viable after all these years.

And I have no better idea what to do with it than Aunt Shirley. . err. . Sherla and Katrina did. Could turn out to be very dangerous stuff in the wrong hands. There is more than likely someone, somewhere who would find Moriarty's idea of a weapon of mass feminization as a very strategically beneficial concept. Particularly those who still do the "winners and spoils" thing. The thought of a weapon like that in the hands of a Hitler is terrifying. The Battle of the Bulge might have had more than one connotation in modern history. On the other hand, it seemed to turn out well for my Aunt Shirley.

Then again, it might not be Moriarty's potion at all. I wonder how I might test it?

Tigger DeMilne
June 1, 2000.

 

 

 
End of A Study in Satin

---