Sherlock Holmes: Deathly Relics

Contents Cover Available now from Titan Books The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Series Title Page Leave us a Review Copyright Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve About the Author 
 AVAILABLE NOW FROM TITAN BOOKS THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES SERIES:
 THE GRIMSWELL CURSE
 Sam Siciliano
 THE DEVIL’S PROMISE
 David Stuart Davies
 THE ALBINO’S TREASURE
 Stuart Douglas
 THE WHITE WORM
 Sam Siciliano
 THE RIPPER LEGACY
 David Stuart Davies
 MURDER AT SORROW’S CROWN
 Steven Savile & Robert Greenberger
 THE COUNTERFEIT DETECTIVE
 Stuart Douglas
 THE MOONSTONE’S CURSE
 Sam Siciliano
 THE HAUNTING OF TORRE ABBEY
 Carole Buggé
 THE IMPROBABLE PRISONER
 Stuart Douglas
 THE DEVIL AND THE FOUR
 Sam Siciliano
 THE INSTRUMENT OF DEATH
 David Stuart Davies
 THE MARTIAN MENACE
 Eric Brown
 THE VENERABLE TIGER
 Sam Siciliano
 THE CRUSADER’S CURSE
 Stuart Douglas
 THE GREAT WAR
 Simon Guerrier
 REVENGE FROM THE GRAVE
 David Stuart Davies
 
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 THE FURTHER ADVENTURES OF SHERLOCK HOLMES:
 DEATHLY RELICS
 Print edition ISBN: 9781803361840
 E-book edition ISBN: 9781803361857
 Published by Titan Books
 A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd
 144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP
 www.titanbooks.com
 First edition: January 2023
 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
 This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.
 © Sam Siciliano 2023. All Rights Reserved.
 No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
 A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.
 To L. Frank Baum, Walter R. Brooks, Robert Heinlein, Edgar Rice Burroughs and the other authors who provided me with a refuge from all the trials and tribulations of my youth.
 
 The story in this novel takes place before that of The Devil and the Four.
 Chapter One
 
 Sherlock Holmes took off his top hat, and the brilliant April sun shone down upon his long sloping forehead, his prominent nose and slicked-back black hair, glossy with pomade. He wore a fine black frock coat, a guide book forming a bulge in its side pocket, and held a silver-headed stick in his hand. The shrunken pupils of his gray-blue eyes looked thoughtfully down upon the skeletal circular ruin of the Roman Colosseum.
 Formed of travertine, crumbling brick and concrete, the Colosseum was all reddish-brown and gray, mixed with the greens of moss, grasses and other plants. A sand-covered wooden floor had once formed the circular arena where the spectacles and combats took place, but it was long gone, revealing fragments of pillars and theatrical mechanisms in uneven rows. Gone too were the rows of seats, although two stories of stone with gaping black arches still formed great circles above. The highest level had partly broken off, and only about half still stood, a semicircle set against the bright blue sky, the rectangles of its vacant windows revealing that same blue sky. In the very center of the Colosseum, a glaring anachronism had been erected, a tall black cross which commemorated the Christians martyred there.
 A cool breeze touched our faces; the temperature must have been in the mid-sixties. Holmes eased out his breath in a long sigh. “One cannot help but contemplate mortality and the swift passage of time in Rome. Everywhere there are reminders of the brevity of life and of empires, and none is more representative than this vast ruin.”
 “Yes,” I said, “but it is not so much a monument to glory as to barbarism. Perhaps there has been a rough sort of progress, after all, in two thousand years. At least we no longer gather in great crowds to watch animals and people be ruthlessly slaughtered.”
 Holmes’s narrow lips curved upward, his ironic smile rather gentle. “Bravo, Henry! You have found a silver lining to this particular cloud. Still, the weight of history is heavy here in Rome. Every street has some reminder—if not an actual Roman structure, then a newer edifice built with materials scavenged from the past.”
 Scattered about the two curving circular floors of the Colosseum, I could see the tourists, men in dark suits or frock coats, all wearing hats, and women in red, green, blue, or purple, their colors vivid against the dreary ruins. Some were kneeling at the stations of the cross set up around the perimeter of the arena. “It makes you wonder what London will be like in a millennium or two,” I said. “And that in turn makes you recall London wasn’t much of a place when this grand monstrosity was constructed.”
 Holmes nodded. “Yes. But regardless of what remains of London in the future, you and I will be long forgotten.”
 I smiled. “Your fame as a detective is likely to outlast your lifetime.”
 “Perhaps. But two thousand years?” A bark of laughter slipped from his lips. “I think not. A few decades at best.”
 “I don’t know. Watson’s writings have given you a certain literary notoriety.”
 “‘Literary’ is the key word there, as in ‘fictional.’ Regardless, the only fictional, or semi-historical characters who have lived on for more than two millennia are those from the epics: Aeneas, Odysseus, Achilles. I would hardly compare the