The Emotional Children

XLIX

It was the kind of darkness found in underground caves when all the lights are blown out. It was so black he couldn't see his hand in front of his face. Sherlock let the heavy metal door close behind him. The darkness covered him like ink, and he closed his eyes.

The door's loud clang reverberated and echoed off the lonely walls, and Sherlock deduced the room was mostly empty. And enormous.

"I've come. Shall we do this now? I don't have all day," he spoke into the dark. He took a few steps into the blackness. His hands remained at his sides.

"Knew you'd come," Moriarty answered back, his voice making the hair on Sherlock's neck stand aright. He could still see nothing.

"There was never a doubt in your mind. I always come," the detective snapped back.

"True," was the sing-song reply.

Then he heard the sound of a light switch being flicked on, and the center of the enormous room was illuminated by a single spotlight. And then he saw it: a lowly wooden table, upon which sat an ivory chess board. A regulation clock and two spare queens—one white, one black—sat at the board's long edge. There was also a pistol lying on its side beside the black queen. Sherlock inhaled before looking up to meet Moriarty's gaze. He had slithered out of a dark corner and emerged into the light, his slow claps resounding through the emptiness.

"Of course," Sherlock huffed, straightening the collar of his coat.

"Man to man," Moriarty barely whispered, his mouth snaking into a malicious smirk. The mirth with which he had often approached his villainy was long gone, discarded like a cloak full of holes. The monster was laid bare. What he saw now was James Moriarty as he always had been: the devious trickster full of cunning, wit, and a terrifying mind.

Moriarty had not come to play games. He had come to end them.

"Sit down, would you, Sherlock?" he asked, his voice a husky, deep tone.

"An hour between us?"

"An hour to decide," Moriarty replied, setting the game clock, which read 01:00:00 on both sides. Then he gingerly touched the gun. "Winner gets this. Loser . . . loser gets what's coming to him." The criminal's gaze was fierce. His right eyebrow curled cruelly, and his mouth opened in a slight smile, exposing his devilish white teeth.

Sherlock did not break his gaze.

"The phone?" he cut in, his eyes sharpening.

"Right here," Moriarty almost laughed, patting a pocket in his thin jacket. "You get it if you get this," he hissed, once more touching his fingertips to the pistol.

"Who says I won't take it from you now?" Sherlock retorted.

"You won't, because you have to prove you're smarter than I am first. You're not the type to start a brawl. You're predictable. And predictable's got an hour to prove his salt."

Sherlock swallowed. He let his eyes linger on the board. Sixty-four squares. Infinite possibilities. Chess wasn't a game. It was a puzzle. If you were clever enough, it was a puzzle you could work to your advantage.

"So let's begin. I'll play black," the detective declared, rolling up his sleeves and settling in his chair. Moriarty laughed as he took his side on the end of the board with the white pieces.

"Ohh, boy," he chuckled. "Feeling confident, are you? Just remember, Sherlock. If I land checkmate . . . off you pop."

"White has the first move," Sherlock snapped, his gaze unflinching.

Moriarty's eyes never left Sherlock's as he reached out to play the first move of the game.

D4.