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PROLOGUE: THE ROAD OF GOLD

Jackson Crescent, off the Old Compton Rd.

April 12th 2016, 11.55 pm

Mycroft Holmes knows that he is dying.

He knows that he is dying because he can see her face.

He's sprawled in an alley off the Old Compton Road, the rain lashing his skin, his suit soaked with blood and water. The woman who shot him stands in front of him, her small, silhouetted form dark against the garish, dirty wash of the lane's only streetlight.

Somewhere to his right he can hear loud music, the raucous laughter of drunken idiots trying to fight off the weekend's demise. The music is so deafening it pulses in the night, seems to make the air itself vibrate though Mycroft will allow that that may simply be the blood-loss talking. (He has, after all, been shot three times in the chest. Blood-loss is to be expected in such dire circumstances.) He can feel his heart thundering, quickening his demise. Though he tries to calm himself, he knows it's not working, his infamous self-control apparently for naught on one of the few occasions it has actually mattered-

The woman who shot him takes a single, determined step towards him, and once again it occurs to Mycroft that he is going to die.

He really doesn't want to, that's all he can think. He doesn't want to leave the people he loves alone.

But then he doubts any of the people he's killed over the years wanted to die either, and look how much good the thought did them.

Man plans, God laughs, isn't that what they say? he muses wryly and he can't help it, his mouth twitches into something which would, at any other time, be a smile.

He tries to laugh and ends up hacking, his chest squeezed as painfully as if it were held in a vice.

"I will make it quick," the woman says then, and Mycroft can recognise professional courtesy when he hears it. He wishes that he could say as much, but his fine motor control appears to be slipping.

All he can do is hack and cough, his chest and eyes burning.

He suspects, however, that she understands.

So he concentrates, tries to calm his breathing: If he is to die, it will not be in panic and fear. He is Mycroft Holmes, and that is not how he will leave this life.

So he stiffens his spine. Composes himself. His umbrella lies, adrift and lonely, a few inches away from his right hand and though he knows it's ridiculous- he has more than enough to be getting on with- he would rather like it back. Having something to grip would make him feel better as he prepares to go softly, etc. etc. etc. He tries to reach out for it- he can't even sit up- but all the attempt does is send pain jack-knifing through him, and once again he thinks of his imminent termination.

This is not the first time he has suspected it might happen, but it is the first time he has been certain in quite some time.

It's the being able to see her face that's doing it.

But then, if it is the last thing he gets to see he can count it as the gift that it is.

He feels the touch of the woman who shot him against his brow then. She's placed her gun's muzzle directly against his forehead. She's kneeling on his gun-hand, unwilling to trust him even now. Clever woman, he thinks. I wish mine were half as good. He frowns, trying to keep his eyes open. Better he die here than attempt to live through torture, he thinks. Better to die than to live to betray who he is. His knowledge might be lost too, but that is no dire consequence…

In fact, perhaps that is the better outcome for all concerned.

He hears the trigger cocked, feels the cool metal against his skin. From somewhere very far away he hears laughter, feels the press of strings beneath his fingers as he tries to play a chord. He can see her face, can hear the lilt of her voice, can smell her perfume and he knows he's going to die… He always knew she was the last thing his mind would witness...

He thinks he's murmuring her name, a road of gold stretching out before him even as the gunshot snaps through the night like a curt word.

He twitches, his body no longer his, and then all is silence and stillness and rain.