Fic: Crossroads - Lestrade (2/7) (Sherlock BBC)

[keep_counting]

Title: Crossroads 2/7 - Lestrade
Characters/Pairings: Lestrade, Donovan, Moriarty
Rating: PG13
Warnings: AU, selling of souls, a bit blood, dead people
Genre: Crossover/Drama/AU
Word-count: 1,074
Disclaimer: I don't own anything in relation to this.
A/N: Crossover with Supernatural, though it is not necessary to have watched the show: I am merely using the mythology to fill a plot-bunny made by fueschgast and me: the wonderful banner is also made by her!
Summary: 'He had been scratched,' Donovan says. 'When we found him in his cell. Deep wounds up his legs and torso, like a... a bear or a big dog.'

Part One // Part Two // Part Three // Part Four // Part Five // ...

Lestrade

James Moriarty isn’t a man at all. He’s a spider. A spider at the centre of a web

~

Greg Lestrade is about ready to pull out his own hair in frustration.

“Heart attack?” he finally manages to get out between clenched teeth, Donovan looking about ready to bolt any second now. “You’re telling me our suspect just all of the sudden died of a heart attack?”

Donovan hesitates. “Not… exactly sir.”

“Then what was it?”

“We think… it might have been… we think he might have been attacked prior to being placed in the holding cell.”

Lestrade frowns. “There weren’t any marks on him when we talked.”

“He had been scratched,” Donovan continues. “When we found him in the cell. Deep wounds up his legs and torso, like a… a bear or a big dog.”

His eyebrows slowly lift. “Are you telling me that a dog somehow got into Scotland Yard and tore up our suspect, after which he died of a heart attack, right before we were pulling him in for questioning??”

To her credit, Sally Donovan doesn’t flinch.

“Yes.”

“So….”

“So?”

“What the hell was he on?”

“Nothing,” she says, eyes flickering down to the report again. “We could find no traces of anything in his blood: the guards said that before they found him dead, they’d heard him screaming for help, but there was nothing there when they arrived. Said he muttered about ‘dogs’ and… and he said, ‘no, please, not now.’”

“Well, what about security footage?”

“All of them went out between 8.30 and 8.39, exactly when the victim died. Shows him alive and shivering in a corner one minute, then nine minutes later, dead on the floor.”

Lestrade is gaping at her. “So… so someone snuck in…”

“With a dog.”

“…. With a dog…. And….”

“And scrambled all our security.”

“…. And scrambled all of our security, guards, cameras….”

“And killed our suspect.”

“… and killed our suspect….”

“By letting the dog loose on him.”

“…. By letting the…”

“But the fright of it gave him a heart-attack instead.”

“…. A heart-attack….”

Lestrade could hear the clock on his desk ticking away, as if in mockery of him as he stared at the other officer.

“This is really, really bad.”

~

“This is the third one,” Lestrade mutters, staring down at the body in the alley.

“Huh?” Donovan mutters, turning around to stare at him.

“It’s the third one in the last six years to die like this, in London city,” he explains. “And it’s the ninth to do so in London over-all. And don’t even get me started on the rest of the world, especially America.”

She frowns at him. “What do you mean, ‘die in this way’? This was an accident, right?”

He looks down at the young man: he couldn’t be more than twenty-five years old, twenty-eight at the most. “No, I don’t think it was. Didn’t you hear the statements? He was yelling about being chased by dogs, but no-one could see anything. And here he is, all shredded up.”

“Oh,” Donovan mumbles, sighing. “You think this is connected to the Foxton-case, don’t you?”

“Not necessarily,” he lies.

“It’s been nearly seven years: you need to get over it,” she firmly says, and Greg knows she’s right, but looking down at that corpse, that corpse who for all logical reason shouldn’t be here.

Oh, Greg.

He whirls around and stares, but there’s nothing, only a slight fog and a police-car with the doors open, the moon casting a shine down on crumbling buildings and the gleaming stairs of the fire-escape.

Except that there’s a man sitting there.

If you walk past the ruin, through the forest and over that damn field with the yellow flowers in the summer and the cold, white snow in the winter, then you will be at a crossroad. If you know the proper rituals, the proper artefacts, then you put them in that little box that you hopefully brought along, with a picture of yourself, and you bury it right in the middle of the road.

The man is simply sitting on the fire-escape, legs dangling over the edge, one knee pulled up to his chest, arms resting casually over it.

You can summon a demon. And he or she will give you anything your heart may desire.

He’s grinning so wildly that his teeth shine white through the darkness.

Lestrade feels cold. Logically, he knows that he has felt cold lots of times before. He has lived in England all of his life, he grew up in London, where the fog is thick and the rain is persistent. He has been chilled to the bone, his skin has cracked under the frost, he has shivered and tensed and jumped on the spot.

He’s never felt this kind of cold. Like something had reached up and gripped his very insides, frost leaking off fingertips made of frozen water, turning everything in there to ice. This man could see right through him.

He was still grinning, as if the expression was etched permanently on his face, like the mask from V for Vendetta or something else obscure like that. As if he’d thought it would endear him to people, like he would seem more normal this way.

He looked positively murderous, and Lestrade was 80% sure that they’d found their guy. Their murderer. Their lunatic.

Now, if only he could move.

Of course, he couldn’t. He was frozen to the spot. It felt like that anyway. Like he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. Like his breath would come out in a white guff of air, like any minute now someone would throw a rock and he would break. He was made out of ice after all.

The man’s eyes burned, he noticed now. Like there was actually fire in them, and it was such a contrast to his fine suit and pretty face and that smile wouldn’t go away.

How many victims? How many people had mysteriously died, not close enough to be linked – even though they all so clearly were? Muttering about dogs, being found torn to shreds, mouth open and eyes staring in horror.

There had been many times when Lestrade had wished he could see the last thing the victims had seen: it would certainly make his job a lot easier.

Now he is eternally grateful that he can’t.

“Boss?” Donovan’s voice cuts through.

Lestrade blinks and the man is gone.