First came the wind, carrying changes on its feathered wings. It raced from the southeast, bringing the scents of the sea, damp soil, and chilly rain. And with the wind, there came a loud bang on the front door. Sherlock jerked in his bed with a pouncing heart, gripping his pillow, and listened to the raindrops rapping at his window. I must've dreamed it, he thought.

  But the banging repeated.

  A gasp escaped Holmes’ lips as he sat up abruptly, staring into the pitch-blackness of his child’s room. A visitor? At this hour? He pushed the blanket off and stood up, groped for his velvet gown and quickly pulled it over his shoulders.

  The clatter shook the door once again.

  But the sound was getting weaker, quieter with each subsequent knock. Not bothering to fasten his gown belt over his nightdress, Sherlock paused only to light a candle in a silver holder. As he rushed downstairs, the floorboards beneath his feet rattled with deafening thunderclaps. Lightning flashed outside the windows, illuminating the main hall. What if it was just the storm? A trick of the weather. This thought faded as swiftly as it had arisen.

  Someone was outside.

  Sherlock opened the front door to the fierce wind, the cold spray of rain, and the tall figure of the man stepping out of the darkness. With the next flash and the gust of air, the candle went out, casting a fleeting light on the stranger.

  Almond skin and a sculpted face, with a wildness in the arched eyebrows, painted a picture of a native islander. The man was proportionately large, standing about six feet five inches tall, with a strong, well-developed physique. His face, half-covered by long, wavy hair damp from the rain, loomed menacingly over Sherlock. Involuntarily, Holmes stepped back, ready to either fight or flee, when the stranger began to fall onto him. He grabbed Holmes by the shoulder but then leaned over him, pressing down with all his weight as he slowly slid down.

  The man was losing consciousness.

  The candle slipped from Sherlock's hand. He barely noticed it, as his first instinct was to keep the man standing. He wrapped his arms around the man's torso and dragged him inside the house. Gosh, he was heavy! And cold. Sherlock managed to lower him carefully onto the floor. Another clap of thunder, another flash of lightning illuminated the hall in a grotesque blue light. In this frantic highlight, Sherlock noticed dark stains on his nightdress.

  Blood.

  Holmes turned to the stranger and quickly examined his body. In the dark hall, it was almost impossible to see anything. The long, battered leather trench coat was soaked with rain, and the wool vest was soaked with blood. Sherlock realised that the man was on the very brink of dying. If he wanted to save his life (whoever this stranger was), he needed to act fast.

  “All right, let’s go to the kitchen, shall we?” Sherlock said, exasperated, trying to lift the man back to his feet, even though he was in no state to respond or follow his instructions.

  “Sherry...” the stranger mumbled and slid back to the floor.

  Sherlock held his head so it wouldn’t hit the parquet.

  “No kitchen, then. Dear God, you're going to bleed to death on my carpet!” Mycroft would turn livid if he knew. He shipped it from India and was quite convinced it served the Rajas before them. Never mind, Sherlock never liked that vertigo pattern.

  He sprang to his feet and rushed to the kitchen to get the first aid kit, the towels and ropes he could use as tourniquets. His fingers shook as he lit another candle. The first match snapped in two, the second sprang out of his hand. “Damn it!”

  That word.

  One word the dying man said kept Sherlock's heart in a cold grip. He called him Sherry. Like only his mother did.

  How did he know?

  “I must have imagined it. This place is full of ghosts from the past.” Sherlock took the kit, the towels and the candle to the hallway.

  He put the candle on the floor and leaned over the man to examine his wounds. The air in the hall shook with another clap of thunder, and the aggressive rustle of downpour drummed on the windows and rooftop.

  The man is gonna die. The man is gonna die, Sherlock!

  Holmes left the idea of unbuttoning the vest and cut it with scissors. The same happened to the shirt. The wet fabric was almost glued to the skin when Sherlock pulled it off the man's shoulders. His keen eyes spotted the pagan amulets on a stranger’s neck and several tattoos on his body. He noted to examine them later and focused on the wounds.

  Shallow but severe knife cuts lined his chest and stomach, and minor ones cut his forearm, presumably taken in a fight as the man, unarmed, was trying to defend himself. Sherlock bandaged the wounds to stop the bleeding as best he could, yet it didn’t seem to be enough.

  “This is bad, sir. I'm not a doctor, but I can say you’ve lost a lot of blood staggering to my house in that weather.” He glanced at his boots, the state of his trousers, stained with dirt, even in the dim candlelight, having the colour of the Antigua soil and sand from the shore. “From this far. Instead of asking for help nearby. Why?”

  Naturally, the stranger didn't reply. The skin under his tan got paler than any refined Londoner's face. The candle played a golden dance on his long hair. Blood stains, dirt, and beads of rain were his written reply to all the pending questions. A silent enigma, a tough case. Yes. And it's dying. Get up and call the doctor already!

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  Sherlock dashed across the hall to the table with a telephone, praying the storm didn't cut the line. This modern extravagant convenience Mycroft insisted on setting up, though regarded sceptically by Sherlock, now could save a life. His fingers, wet and sticky with blood, slid by the sleek black receiver. Involuntarily, he glanced down at his nightgown while dialling the operator. He looked like he’d just killed a monster as big as a bull.

  “Hallo, I apologise for the late call, but this is an emergency. Could you connect me with... Dr Armstrong?” Sherlock read the name and the address of the local medic from the phone book, turning it to the light of the candle. He might agree on electric lights in the house just as well (if he finds out how to pay for it, of course).

  Through the rustle on the line, he heard the croaky voice, wasting no time on formalities. Sherlock described the situation, left his address, and agreed to pay for the cab. “Keep him warm and don’t move,” the doctor instructed, yawning into the receiver, and hung up.

  Sherlock returned to the stranger, found a blanket to cover him, brought a pillow from the sofa, and sat beside him. As he pushed the pillow under his head, the man’s eyelids quivered. He must have imagined it, but he called for Sherry once again.

  Probably, he wants a drink. A glass of sherry.

  “I'll bring you water,” Sherlock suggested, though he doubted the man was in a state of drinking anything. While standing up, a hand suddenly caught him by the wrist. Sherlock was stoned to the spot, watching the stranger’s palm holding him, surprised by his extraordinary vitality and will. “You better don’t move, sir,” he whispered and sat back beside him. Holmes put his hand on the man’s chest, hesitated momentarily, and then pulled down the blanket to cast another look at the amulets. None of them seemed familiar. One looked like a fishhook. A sailor? Another was shaped into a sharp arrowhead. A hunter? And the last was a round spiral on the leather lace with carved wooden beads. Unusual symbols for Terra Santa.

  “You're not from here, are you?” Sherlock whispered, still holding a spiral amulet in his palm. “But what brought you here?” Holmes raised his eyes at the stranger's face and noticed an old scar on the left eyebrow.

  A sailor who gets himself into dangerous fights. A mercenary? A bandit? Not local, that's for sure. Sherlock glanced at the long chestnut hair, scattered in the utter chaos around his head. Some strands were almost golden, burnt in the sun. A peculiar texture for such dark skin. Holmes suggested a mixed ethnicity, probably from the South Islands. Sherlock picked up the stranger's trench coat and checked the pockets. Empty. No answers, only questions.

  The candlelight shivered into a dance in all directions.

  Please, let the cab run smoothly.

  He sat beside the unconscious man, listening to the rain drumming in the windows and doors with thousands of hands knocking to let them in. No living soul wandered these streets where nature ruled the devilish ball. But inside the old walls, the world lay low. The time crawled like a snake, slowly, carefully, waiting for the right moment to launch and bite.

  The snake.

  Only this morning, Sherlock came across an article in the local anthropology journal about the island people of the Southwest, precisely the Mauka islands, who worshipped the god of the Feathered Snake that circled in the night skies, obviously symbolising galaxies. Instinctively, he reached for the amulets on the man’s neck, tracing his fingers by the spiral one made of a large seashell. It could have been a symbol of a...

  He stopped, noticing the man’s eyes half open, watching him in silent regard. The candlelight reflected gold off their greenish depth, like a firefly in the night grass.

  “You'll be fine, the help is on the way,” Sherlock said in a voice as if from a tomb, echoing from the walls, so hollow it sounded. His fingers were still on the amulet, unable to move under the lock of that still gaze, filled with words the man had no strength to say.

  Sherlock searched the corners of his Mind Palace for any suitable thing to do in this situation, but the power of that gaze held him in awkward silence until the clamour of the driving cab, horseshoe knocks, and cries of the driver broke the spell.

  Sherlock rose and rushed to open the door.

  A middle-aged, sturdy, ginger-haired man in a wet Macintosh and a hat dripping with rainwater walked into the hallway, head first.

  “Charming weather, isn’t it?” He grumbled instead of a hello into his barely visible red moustache and took his hat off. As there was no furniture in the hall yet, he shoved his bag into Sherlock’s hands as if it were a stack of wood to warm this wretched empty place, and ripped his Macintosh off his shoulders. “Oh, my, the wounds look indeed as bad as you said, sir,” he added, gazing down at his nightgown.

  “It's not my blood, Doctor. The patient is over there.” Sherlock pushed the bag back into the doctor’s hands.

  “Ah, yes. Not fully awakened yet, am I?” He chuckled and came over to the lying man. A whistle escaped his lips as he lifted the blanket. Sherlock watched the doctor’s face carefully, waiting for the verdict. The shadows curdled in the wrinkles on the Doctor’s forehead as he examined the bandages. His fingers trembled, touching the stranger’s neck to take a pulse. He glanced at his watch briefly, counting the heartbeat, then took his hands away and rubbed them as if afraid to catch a blood stain. “He’s unconscious, lost a lot of blood... I'm afraid...”

  “His eyes react to the sound of my voice and light,” Sherlock noted, expecting the doctor to check it, but Armstrong stood up and turned his back to the dying man, still scrubbing his palms. His cheeks were pale, with a flush tinting his cheekbones.

  “I’m afraid I can do nothing here. You did a good job patching him up, but this man needs a transfusion and a lot of stitching. I need to take him to the hospital immediately.”

  Sherlock frowned at the twitching moustache on the doctor’s left cheek and folded his arms. He could do the stitching on a kitchen table with only alcohol for anaesthesia. The usual practice in these circumstances. But there was no time for arguing. “All right.” He agreed.

  “Help me walk this buff guy outside,” Doctor continued, and the left moustache twitched again with a spasm of his upper lip.

  As they led him to the cab, the doctor asked casually, but with a quivering string in his voice. “Is he... a friend of yours?"

  Sherlock knew immediately: Dr Armstrong recognised the guy but didn’t want to admit it.

  What should he answer that? No? Then how would he explain this man's appearance at his doorstep? Hardly anyone’s gonna believe a story of a stranger, deadly injured, walking all the way from Antigua to Grand Palacio, directly to Silverwood Manor, to fall on Sherlock Holmes.

  Totally by accident.

  Sherlock Holmes could hardly believe such a fantasy himself! Yet here he was. In a nightdress all stained with sa tranger’s blood. But what if he lies? He doesn't even know the name of this man. Considering that Dr Armstrong knows the guy, his lie will be exposed immediately. Sherlock glanced at the doctor. Armstrong waited, wasting precious time on this answer.

  He knows the stranger, and it's important for him if I know him too.

  “He just appeared at my doorstep.” Sherlock chose the truth. “But I do care what will become of him. I’ll visit him in the hospital first thing in the morning.”

  Armstrong nodded. His lips twisted in a smiling grimace that could mean anything but agreement. “Very well. Good night, Mr Holmes.”

  His fingers trembled when he took the pulse.

  The cab left for the hospital, leaving Holmes wandering on the porch in the raging storm. He stood there until the chill became too unbearable. All shivering, wrapped in a thin velvet gown, he returned to the house and glanced at the scattered blanket, bloodied towels, and pillows on the floor. The stain on the Raja’s carpet grew cherry red.

  Right. I need to do something about it.