“The Supernatural Adventure of Sherlock Holmes”
MOCKING CASTLE
Copyright 2024, John Pirillo 

What has gone before:

Holmes and Watson get a new case and it's a rich one, because it involves
multiple paranormal events happening on a daily basis....at a remote village overlooked by an ancient castle:  Mocking Castle.

Havng traveled there, they enter Mocking Inn, where they are attacked by angry ghosts!

Now for the next chapters of  “The Supernatural Adventure of Sherlock Holmes,"
MOCKING CASTLE.

Baker Street, LondonBack When
Past MidBells
It was on a dark and stormy night, Watson struggled to keep his umbrella from inverting as he was pummeled by huge swatches of freezing rain. His footsteps were noted by the sound of the splashes they made in puddles of water that clung to the sidewalk he stepped onto.
“Drat it all, why now?” Watson demanded of no one but himself, though some might think him talking to an invisible partner….as many drunks do, when their brains and minds are soddened and weakened by abusive uses of alcohol.
But Watson did not drink in that manner. Nor at all for the most part. As part of an entertaining evening, he might perchance have some small drink, but only small. He knew what the brains of dead drunks looked like and had no desire for his brain to be destroyed in that way.
He rather liked himself quite the way he was, thank you.
No, tonight Watson is upset, not just because he is freezing wet and losing his battle with keeping his umbrella safe, but because he had noted that Holmes was
up late once more.
He sighed inwardly.
Never a good sign.
It usually meant that a case was brewing and when this late at night the good man was up, it usually meant more than just a new case…but something that usually put Watson’s soul on edge.
The supernatural was never what he had hoped to resolve the greater portion of his life with Holmes, but had turned out to become the staple of their business in this alternate Earth.
Even Conan, who had transitioned from another parallel world, had noted quite honestly that this world tested the best of men’s souls, let alone a good man.
Watson finally reached the porch of 221B and began ascending the steps. Slowly, because they were slick with rain and some tiny flecks of ice. He had also seen what a split skull could do to a man’s brain, and that vision urged him to even greater caution than that which he had about drinking.
 Once he reached the front door of 221B, he sighed with relief.
No smiling face to greet him.
Ms. Hudson was off to Paris to visit with her cousin.
He smiled. Prayed her journey was a peaceful one and not
a dreadful one like this night was for him.
He unlocked the front door, managed to compress his umbrella into a miserable lumpy shape, then began the ascent to his and Holmes’s flat.
Outside, the storm raged even stronger, and louder and rattled the front door below with a powerful  gust of wind, rain, and sleet.

 
Sitting RoomWatson entered the sitting room quietly, pausing to deposit his ruined umbrella, hat and  coat upon the rack by the entrance.
He sighed inwardly.
Holmes didn’t even notice him at first. He was storming back and forth in front of the windows over Baker Street, his face pinched in deep thought, his pipe clenched tightly in his right hand, as if it kept him grounded some how in his haunting of the night and whatever visions were troubling his good soul at that moment.
“Holmes.”
Holmes continued pacing back and forth like a caged tiger, the heat of its desperation so strong you didn’t dare to taunt or tease it for fear of your life.
But in this case, Holmes was not the tiger animal, but the fiercely dedicated detective who once he found himself on a case, or about to launch into one, becamse fiercely focused on planning of every kind.
The man’s mind was truly astounding to
Watson.
“Holmes,” he greeted yet again.
 “The patient Watson had left at the hospital had paid more attention to him than Holmes right now, and the man was still half delirious from the drugs given him.
“Holmes!” Watson repeaed, loudly this time.
Holmes froze a moment, as if his thoughts had caged him and kept him from responding further than he turned to face Watson, and his fierce look of concentration became a warm smile that brightened the room.
“Oh my dear Watson,  I was just thinking of you.”
‘’I seriously doubt that, Holmes.”
"Watson," he sighed with relief. You don’t know how long I’ve been awake, waiting for you to return.”
He came forward to Watson and grabbed his shoulders in a warm grip. 
“The game is afoot! The Case of the Mocking Castle has presented itself before us."
Holmes let go of Watson, then as if back into a trance, he began pacing the floor once more, eyes ablaze with excitement as he gestured towards an old parchment covered in cryptic symbols and arcane runes that sat upon the sitting room table, open for any to see.
Watson examined it immediately, then turned to Holmes, who continued to pace with excitement now, not
just concentration.
Holmes finally stopped. He joined Watson at the table. He touched the parchment with the tip of his pipe to emphasize his next words.
“Our case has all the makings of a very dangerous assignment.”
“And you find it..uh-hem…interesting?”
“Most assuredly!”
“Why?”
“Because not only is the castle apparently haunted, but so is the entire village beneath it.”
"The Case of the Mocking Castle?" I repeated, my curiosity piqued by this mysterious phrase. "What manner of case is it that would so captivate your attention on a night like tonight?"
Holmes paused for a moment, his eyes narrowing as he contemplated how best to explain our mission. "It is said that Mocking Castle is haunted," he began, lowering his voice to an eerie whisper. "The locals claim it's cursed and inhabited by malevolent spirits."
"And…?” I inquired, my curiosity growing with each word.
Holmes leaned towards me, a glint of mischief in his
eyes. "We have been hired to investigate the strange
occurrences plaguing the castle and its inhabitants," he explained. "The owners seek our expertise in unraveling this perplexing enigma."
"And what manner of paranormal events are we dealing with?" I asked, my imagination already conjuring images of ghostly apparitions and spectral visitations.

 
Mocking InnHolmes and Watson steeled themselves as the onslaught of phantoms rushed them.
But there was no fear in their eyes.
A third man stepped into the inn, a warm grin on his youthful face.
Harry Houdini, famed escape artist, and wizard of the first rank.
He held up his right hand and it glowed a bright blue.
“Be gone!” He shouted as the phantoms almost reached them.
The phantoms became wrapped in blue light, which turned pure white.
The ghosts screamed in horror at first as if the light were burning them, but it wasn’t. It was transmuting their souls and preparing them.
“Be gone!” Harry whispered this time. “Into the Light!”
The beings vanished as if they had never existed.
Where they had stopped were now bundles of pure white roses. Twelve of them, as there had been twelve phantoms.
 

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