A
Study In Satin
by Tigger
"Surely I have not changed *that* much, Mr. Holmes. Certainly not as much as you have," he said with a smirk, "I am deeply hurt. After all, we have been the very *best* of enemies." "Moriarty? Is that YOU?!?" the last word came out came out in a shrill tone that shocked Sherlock even as he heard it come from his mouth. The large man gave an exaggerated bow. "At your service." "But. . .but. . you're dead! I saw you die!" Grinning, Moriarty made a show of patting his very solid and non- ghostly body. "I don't think so. I am quite alive, Holmes, but I am rather pleased to know that you thought me dead, and that my little entrance has upset you this way." The man stepped further into the light, close enough to see and be seen clearly. Leaning toward the seated Holmes, his voice took on a sneering irony as he said, "After all, my dear 'Sherlock', it's only fair, don't you think? In our long association, I have so often thought you at last removed from this mortal coil thanks to one of my brilliant stratagems, only to have you time and again rise like Lazarus-from-the-grave to thwart me yet again. This time, however, it is I who have cheated the reaper just as this time it will be *I* who will win our final battle." "What have you done to me., Moriarty?" Holmes growled. "Not precisely what I thought I was doing, I can assure you. Even now," Moriarty mused almost to himself as he regarded his greatest enemy, "You quite surprise me. The physical effects have never been quite so radical nor so rapid during any of my experimental investigations." "I'll not be some damnable guinea pig for you!" Holmes shouted as he leaped from his chair to attack the looming man. Despite his resolve and the pent-up rage at the changes that had been inflicted upon him, the attack was ineffectual. In fact, it was worse than ineffectual. Although well on in years, Moriarty still had the advantages of size, strength and reach over the now much smaller Holmes - advantages he used to their fullest as he toyed with his arch enemy before brushing him aside. Impelled as he was by Moriarty's strength, Holmes' backside landed hard on the floor and he rolled into the adjoining room. Inordinately pleased with his ability to dominate Holmes in such a satisfyingly physical manner, the still-laughing Moriarty followed intent on continuing the game, but stopped short the moment he realized where Holmes had led him. Professional curiosity replaced sadistic intent as the man Holmes had so often called "one of the greatest scientific minds in history" began to study the laboratory of Mr. Sherlock Holmes. ~------------~ "Rather primitive, Holmes," Moriarty finally said with a superior look and a dismissive gesture of his hand. "I had expected much more of you given your continual harping on your scientific methods of investigation and deduction." Still burning with shame at his loss of physical ability and over the amused ease with which Moriarty had manhandled him, Holmes glared at the criminal mastermind, "What you see here has served my needs quite admirably as YOU should well attest given our long. . . association, Moriarty." Moriarty continued to explore, almost as if he were a visitor at a colleague's facility. "I suppose," he murmured when his eye fell on a large, amber bottle. "Hello, what is this?" he asked as he picked up the bottle. Knowing eyes flickered to Holmes as Moriarty read the label, and then took in the apparatus on the table on which he'd found the bottle. "Ah, so that answers the question as to why your change was so unexpectedly rapid, my dear Holmes," Moriarty began to guffaw - a most inelegant and ungentlemanly sound - before turning humor-filled eyes back to his long-time adversary. "Although I would have expected such an overdose to kill you, *this* is just so deliciously ironic. Fate has played many a colossal jest on me where you are concerned, Holmes, but this one goes far beyond my wildest imaginings." "Perhaps, Professor, you might let me in on your 'jest'." Holmes said in as low a voice as his new vocal cords could manage. The best he could do, however, fell well short of sounding menacing. Moriarty gave one last bark of laughter before regaining control and turning his mouth up into an odd, almost affable smile crossing his visage. "You know, Sherlock, I have recently been forced to the conclusion that Nature herself has for some reason decreed that I would not be allowed to kill you. Fate has always conspired against me whenever you involved yourself in my business, and I could seemingly do nothing about it. My plans were inevitably foiled from the moment you arrived upon the scene, though the means you used showed no particular genius - certainly nothing to match my own. After a great deal of thought, I concluded that I must find for you a fate worse than death, and so I have. I substituted your "7% solution" with another concoction of my own making." A tremor of unholy mirth erupted from Moriarty. With obvious effort, he composed himself enough to continue, "And NOW," he continued still chuckling, "I find that, had I instead done nothing at all, you would have killed yourself for me. Oh, this is simply too rich." Holmes scrambled to his feet and rounded on Moriarty. "What foul potion have you used on me, Moriarty?" "Foul? Why, Holmes, how can you be so ungrateful when I have done you such a monumental favor! Look at yourself, man. I have provided you with a veritable fountain of youth." Reflexively, Holmes' fingers flew to his now-smooth face. "Youth? The effect of your potion is not simple youth! You are even older than I, Moriarty. If you had somehow discovered such an elixir vitae, you would surely have used it on yourself and faced me as a young man at the height of your powers, or waited for me to die of natural causes." Moriarty grinned, and then became overtly pensive. "Well, there is a great deal of truth in that, although I doubt I could have long resisted the gnawing temptation to taunt you with my strong, youthful body. However, I am forced to admit that there are a few. . . side effects that I have not, as yet, been able to eliminate from that potion. Not to worry, my dear Sherlock, I do have hopes of resolving them in the near future." "Side effects? *What* side effects?" "The most obvious one will soon become quite apparent, my dear Holmes, but as I must be leaving in short order for the continent I will, sadly, not be here to savor your torment. In any case, the drug you so blithely injected into your body will, over time, systematically and completely change your most basic and essential self in ways not even you could begin to imagine. I had hoped that the changes would have come up on you more subtly, causing you what I dreamed would be a great deal of distress as you realized what was inevitably, inexorably happening to you." "Time has not improved you, Moriarty, you are still an unprincipled fiend." "Why, thank you for the compliment, Sherlock," Moriarty replied evenly. "However to continue, if I may? By concentrating the drug as you did, you made its effects immediate and I suspect quite obvious. As I mentioned, I find it rather disappointing that you have denied me that little pleasure, but perhaps seeing you like this makes it worthwhile after all. That was quite a display earlier, Holmes - one I shall dine on with relish for years to come. The greatly intellectual and coldly rational Mr. Sherlock Holmes behaving like a hopelessly emotional and scatter- witted female, shrieking, spitting and clawing - quite ineffectually, I might add - was vastly entertaining." Holmes felt the rage once again building but managed to restrain himself with pure force of will. "And the other, less obvious effects?" "Ah, my dear *Miss* Holmes, from your utter lack of reaction am I to conclude that you had perhaps already reached that conclusion yourself? Yes, I can see that you had. What a pity as I was so looking forward to your look of horror when I revealed your fate to you." Moriarty made an insincere clucking sound before continuing. "My congratulations, dear *lady*. Not that the insight will do you any good." The truth of Moriarty's claim, buttressed by Holmes own deductions from the earlier self-examination, became too much even for the vaunted self control of the world's greatest detective. Burning tears forced their way from *her* eyes as she clenched now-lengthened fingernails painfully into tender palms. In a voice that Holmes now realized was not truly strange, merely a woman's low alto, she managed to choke out, "You said there were other side effects.") Moriarty shrugged carelessly. "They will become obvious as you continue to take the drug. I will tell you that all of the effects are permanent and cumulative. The more you take, the younger and more female you will become." "Then I will simply stop taking it," Holmes retorted, giving up and dashing away at the tears now streaming down her cheeks, "It is not as if I have any great amount of the drug left." "Sherlock, Sherlock, please don't cry anymore, little girl," Moriarty chided mockingly, "but, surely you don't believe it would be so simple as that? The drug is highly and irreversibly addictive. It induces a unreasoning, undeniable need, an unquenchable thirst if you will, for ever more of the potion. The hunger spawned by opium and its various derivatives are mild by comparison. You would have been addicted right now had you taken but the normal dosage, but since you have obviously taken several days' dosage in one night, you are now utterly and irretrievably in the drug's thrall. It would be very amusing to watch you suffer through the withdrawal symptoms I have documented in my researches, but as I said, I have pressing business on the continent which will keep me from watching you directly." Moriarty turned toward the door leading to the street. "Moriarty, you said withdrawal symptoms. What kind of withdrawal symptoms?" That terrible smile darkened the old professor's features again. "Oh, those are to be your surprise, so I shan't tell you any more about them. However, I will tell you that my experimental animals often went quite mad during withdrawal particularly when I denied them relief. Only a few were fortunate enough to die quickly. And don't bother wasting your few remaining hours of sanity trying to reproduce the elixir. I concocted it of herbs I discovered during my forced sojourn in the jungles of the Amazon. You won't find their like anywhere in this hemisphere and you don't have time to obtain them from their source. So, I will bid you good day, *Miss* Holmes. We won't meet again. Do try to survive as long as you can possibly manage, won't you?. I would truly hate for your suffering to end too quickly." With that, Moriarty quietly shut the door, and disappeared into the bustle of London.
