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Bella looks up Tony Stark. (There's no reason not to.)

...Okay. He looks familiar. And his death those several months ago was really very suspicious, and she doesn't think anyone has been doing her morgue trick in New York City. And his more reclusive identical twin's body was never found at all. (If there was an identical twin, and not just Tony Stark theatrically pretending to be two people with mirrors or holograms or Photoshop and cooperative witnesses giving insistent interviews and then suddenly being dead and no longer able to pretend. There was, after all no sign of a twin before a sudden debut when he - they - was or were fifteen, and... "Sherlock Holmes", really? There's not even a hint of a twin in Tony's birth announcement, which she checks because that's the obvious thing to check.)

Come to think of it, Mr. Does Not Stick To Flypaper never introduced himself.

She supposes that his cute laser trick didn't work that well, if he got got. (But she saw it burn him. It's a clever weapon, should take almost no skill to wield a continuous beam - what kind of onslaught could have gotten around that?)

Nothing about her routine changes in response to this information.

Until several days later when she's crossing another neighborhood (seventeen to go) and - he just keeps popping up, doesn't he?

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

eversomuchfun

"I believe they prefer to rely on crust," he says. "But it seems likely that they have a few other things on their side. Regrettably, I don't know what. I could find out, but it might take a trip to England to ransack their crusty headquarters."

From:

cross_and_bow

"Speaking of controlling superpowered teenagers, do you have an idea of what they'd be likely to want me to do?" (Scratch. Bury. Stuff. Paint, paint.) "Besides train in various forms of combat and kill evil entities. ...How do they find evil entities? If they're just ordinary humans..."

From:

eversomuchfun

"Magic, research, guesswork, luck," he says. "In increasing order of frequency."

From:

cross_and_bow

"Do you know any magic? I haven't made much headway with what the library has to offer, and it's slightly harder to tell the difference between fiction and the real stuff than it is with the demonological texts and the histories. Apparently witches care more about making their spells interesting pleasure reading than demonologists and historians; once I read halfway through a thing before I noticed it was published by Puffin."

From:

eversomuchfun

"I haven't made much of a study of it," he says. "Mainly out of arrogance. That could change, I suppose. Not the arrogance, the other part. No force on this Earth is going to change my arrogance."

From:

cross_and_bow

"I would really rather have magic than what I got. It seems more... versatile," says Bella. "Not that I don't appreciate the fact that I haven't fallen down the stairs all month. Having both would be cool too."

From:

eversomuchfun

"Shall we see what we make of it, then? If you ever let me within arm's reach," he jokes.

From:

cross_and_bow

"If, sure."

(It's seeming so likely. But turning into a vampire does not diminish anyone's acting skills, and he's already this smart and competent when he is literally six or seven years old. Bella's not revising the probationary period.)

From:

eversomuchfun

He grins.

From:

cross_and_bow

Bella finishes crossing the neighborhood and circles back to her car. "You know where I'm headed," she says, hopping in the pickup's cab.

From:

eversomuchfun

"I do, at that."

He beats her there by about thirty seconds.

From:

cross_and_bow

"Showoff," she says without heat as she parks and goes in for a book. She comes out with one of the texts on magic, sits on the porch chair, and holds very, very still, apart from page turning - which, as the lights go off after about a minute, isn't enough to trip the motion sensor.

From:

eversomuchfun

He laughs, takes a bow, and disappears somewhere before she trips the sensor the first time.

And remains disappeared thereafter.

From:

cross_and_bow

Bella plays bait, and reads by booklight.

Someone takes the bait.

Someone creeps up the driveway.

Bella pretends not to notice.

From:

eversomuchfun

Sherlock pretends not to exist.

From:

cross_and_bow

Someone gets a porchlight to the face as soon as he's four feet away from it, and while he's bawling, he also gets a bolt to the heart. He dusts.

Very silly of him not to have noticed the weapon under the wicker chair.

From:

eversomuchfun

The neighbour's hedge snickers.

From:

cross_and_bow

"I'm not likely to get two in one night," Bella tells the neighbor's hedge. "I'm going to turn in. See you around."

From:

eversomuchfun

"Goodnight," the hedge says amicably.

From:

cross_and_bow

Bella spends the following afternoon reading. She hasn't worked her way through the collection - even the definitely nonfictional collection - yet. (But she does take the books out instead of sitting on the Hell Orifice with them.)

Charlie is expected home late on this day, and she doesn't want to be out after sundown without the ability to summon the cavalry, so sunset sees her still indoors.

From:

eversomuchfun

Naturally, it sees Sherlock indoors also. But not for long. He heads for Bella's house as soon as stepping outside will not cause him to catch fire.

From:

cross_and_bow

The Bronze is on the way.

There is a bit of a kerfluffle there.

It involves no fewer than four species of demon, although not particularly numerous contingents of any, and they are all of the sort that humans may rationalize into believing conspecifics.

And it involves some cops.

From:

eversomuchfun

"Oh, fuck me," Sherlock sighs.

He assesses the situation. Yes, that's Bella's father. Yes, that's one of Bella's father's subordinates about to be disemboweled.

Bella would probably not be pleased.

Sherlock enters the fight.

No one involved is expecting him, which means that he can dance across the field of engagement and kill six demons before anyone notices he is there. He makes another pass before anyone starts shooting at him; he makes a third without getting hit. One cluster of demons decides that discretion is the better part of not having your neck broken by the whirlwind of death; they flee. Sherlock stands still for a moment, his coat dripping four colours of blood, baring human teeth at the remainder.

From:

cross_and_bow

"Stand down!" orders one of Charlie's subordinates. Another is checking for pulses. Charlie himself is radioing for backup, but he's got his sidearm trained on Sherlock.