Deliver Us from Evil Series

Deliver Us from Evil is a Sherlockian fanfic series-in-progress by Aleine Skyfire, a.k.a. Gwendolyn Frame. Once the first fic, Mortality, is completely uploaded to FF.N, Skyfire will redraft the manuscript and submit it for publication.

Deliver Us from Evil is a projected five-book series based on the events of Sherlock Holmes short stories "The Adventure of the Dying Detective," "The Final Problem," and "The Adventure of the Empty House". Essentially, the series revolves around the peak Sherlock Holmes's conflict with Professor Moriarty and his criminal empire. The novels with their working titles and taglines are as follows (and will be updated as needed):

• Mortality: Scotland Yard and Dr. John Watson struggle to prevent the goal of London’s greatest crime lord: the destruction of Sherlock Holmes.
• The Road to Reichenbach: Caught in a terrible war, Sherlock Holmes finds that the choices he makes will have far-reaching consequences.
• To Take Up the Pen: With Holmes gone and his reputation maligned, Dr. Watson sets out to honor his memory in The Strand Magazine.
• Those Dark Hours: As Holmes and Watson approach a final confrontation, they must wonder when the cost will become too high.
• Dawn's First Light: When Holmes and Watson reunite, they set out to defeat their one great enemy left: Colonel John Moriarty.

The FF.N summary for Mortality is: In November 1890, a murder investigation sparks off a chain of events that will end at a Swiss waterfall. Scotland Yard and Watson struggle to stop Moriarty's most devastating plan: the destruction of Sherlock Holmes. First in a series.

There are also a series of non-linear one-shots, an advent calendar challenge set with related stories, and a set of 100 sentences that form an expiremental continuity for the series. Mortality itself is based off of a story arc in the author's self-published ebook At the Mercy of the Mind.

Despite the author's grand plans, the series appears to have been abandoned in 2013, three chapters into The Road to Reichenbach.

Tropes used in Deliver Us from Evil Series include:

Mortality

• Adult Fear: Touched upon twice by Lestrade in regards to the Irregulars - considering that he's friends with at least one, has another among his constables, and has a nephew in their ranks, he has every right to feel a parental horror at the boys putting themselves in danger.
• Affably Evil: Wheatley. No, not that Wheatley.
• Ascended Extra: Patterson is actually the biggest, going from one mention in "The Final Problem" to full supporting character status here. Wiggins's rise is just as spectacular, from two brief scenes in the first two Sherlock Holmes novels to one of the starring supporting characters of Mortality. Lestrade also goes from recurring character to star (one of the leading points-of-view in the novel). Mary Watson and Mrs. Hudson go from recurring extras to supporting characters. Moriarty also gets more "screentime"... heck, we'll just say that there are a LOT of canonical characters that get far more development in this story than they did in the Canon.
• Awesome McCoolname: David Jonathan Wiggins. Geoffrey Michael Lestrade (Geoffrey courtesy of the author's favorite Fanfic writer, aragonite a.k.a. Marcia Wilson.
• Badass Boast: Watson delivers a pretty scary one to an insignificant little criminal.

Watson: “If your master’s actions destroy him whom I regard as — as the best and wisest man I have ever known… make no mistake that I shall hunt down, to a man, everyone who played a part in his destruction.”

• Berserk Button: Holmes is this to Watson. Unfortunately for Holmes's enemies.
• Big Bad: Professor Moriarty.
• Bilingual Bonus: A bit of French on Holmes's part.
• Brutal Honesty: Patterson is rather good at this...

Patterson: “They’ve found a body.”
Watson: (Heroic BSOD)
Gregson: (Narrative Profanity Filter) ...“now what in bloody blazes d’you mean ‘they’ve’ found a body?!”

• Calling the Old Man Out: Wiggins does this to Holmes. No fewer than three times.
• The Cavalry: Arrives Just in Time. This is not a bad thing.
• The Chessmaster: Moriarty and Mycroft (possibly Patterson, as well).
• Christmas Miracle
• The Clan: Contrary to the popular and strictly canonical image of Sherlock Holmes as a basically friendless man aside from Watson, Mortality shows that the man has acquired quite the honorary clan. There is Geoffrey and Annie Lestrade and their children, the Baker Street Irregulars as sons (50 of them at this point in time), John and Mary Watson, Mrs. Hudson, and, of course, Mycroft.
• Clothing Damage: When Lestrade gets his first glimpse of Holmes during the rescue, the narration calls him "half-clothed". The clothes are mentioned again a paragraph later: The ragged shirt that must have once been white was filthy, blackened, and blood-soaked all over, hanging in tatters on Holmes's truly emaciated frame.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Holmes is tortured literally within an inch of his life. Moriarty and Moran each have their own reasons for ordering his torture, but the men doing it make it very clear that it's pretty much all fun for them.
• Continuity Nod: And how!
  • Patterson, the inspector on the Moriarty case in "The Final Problem."
  • Culverton Smith and the events of DYIN taking place two years after Watson's first marriage.
  • Gregson and Lestrade are at it once again, and Hopkins is not yet an inspector.
  • The Baker Street Irregulars, and Wiggins's age in particular (most fics that include him keep him a preteen/teen boy, regardless of the year).
  • Holmes's source of information in Moriarty's gang, Fred Porlock.
  • Colonel Hayter, and Moran's Tankerville Club.
  • Also, it's made clear that the only Sherlock Holmes stories that have been published are A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four, the only two that had been published by November 1890 in real life.
• Curb Stomp Battle: Played with. Holmes is defeated through a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, but he does manage to kill two men, first.
• Dark Is Not Evil: Holmes, Lestrade, and Patterson are frequently described as simply dark.
• Darker and Edgier: Than the original canon, which was, apparently, half the point of the book in the first place.
• Darkest Hour: Chapter 18. Just... chapter 18.
• Dead Fic
• Deadly Doctor: Played with. The Serial Killer has all the knowledge of a Ph.D. without actually having acquired his doctorate.
  • Played straight with Watson.
• Deadpan Snarker: Watson and Lestrade - plus, the Yarders tend towards this whenever there are three or more in a room.
• Death Seeker: Holmes, more than once throughout the book.
• Definitely Just a Cold: Holmes goes back and forth on the seriousness of his illness when speaking with different people.
• Diabolical Mastermind/Evil Genius: Moriarty.
• Disney Death
• The Dragon: Colonel Moran.
• Dude in Distress: Holmes, just in case you didn't get that.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: Watson, Lestrade, and Wiggins seriously have to work for their Happy Ending, and Holmes doesn't exactly have an easy time of it, either.
• Eerie Pale-Skinned Brunette: Holmes and Patterson, and it's played to unsettle the other characters (though it's insinuated that Holmes is also Raven Hair, Ivory Skin, i.e. Tall, Dark and Handsome).
• Establishing Character Moment: A few pretty concise ones.
  • Patterson's is probably the best example, introducing him as cynical, sarcastic, cold, and something of an in-universe Expy to Sherlock Holmes. In other words, a true Knight in Sour Armor.
  • The same scene also introduces and establishes Lestrade and Gregson - the former as an Older and Wiser, generally world-weary Team Dad, and the latter as a smart, snarky, Jerk with a Heart of Gold.
  • Wiggins's first scene neatly establishes him as a concerned Hypercompetent Sidekick.
  • Mary's first scene sets and cements her sibling-esque relationship with Sherlock.
• Eye Tropes: The author does love the characters' eyes.
  • Blue Eyes: Wiggins, Mary (Innocent Blue Eyes),Gregson, Patterson (Icy Blue Eyes), and Moran.
  • Brown Eyes: Geoffrey and Annie Lestrade.
  • Gray Eyes: The Holmes brothers and Moriarty (notably, they are the only major characters to have this eye color).
  • Hazel Eyes: Watson. In the second half of the book, the author finally employs a full range of color for Watson's eyes.
• Fandom Nod: Several, including Geoffrey Lestrade, John Hamish Watson (Dorothy Sayers), and Moriarty's The Man Behind the Man involvement with the Red-headed League.
  • Plus, Mycroft is said to be based in part on Mark Gatiss in his performance of the man for Sherlock.)
  • Speaking of Sherlock, a reference is once made to the popular "not my division" line.
  • Holmes, Watson, Lestrade, Moriarty, and Moran are also largely inspired by the Granada series.
• A Father to His Men: Holmes is portrayed as being this to his Irregulars, the original "Twelve Apostles" especially.
• Five-Man Band:
  • The Leader: Sherlock, Type I. Watson, Types I and II later on.
  • The Lancer: Wiggins, Type II. Yes, really.
  • The Big Guy: Mycroft. Not quite your traditional "Big Guy".
  • The Smart Guy/The Medic: Watson. Lestrade, barring the medic part, when Watson gets bumped up to The Leader.
  • The Chick: Mary.
  • Sixth Ranger: First Lestrade, then Patterson.
• Foil: Patterson to Holmes, rather as a deconstruction of the popular image of Sherlock Holmes, in-universe but also in real life.

Word of God: "I think that by Patterson living the image Holmes attempts to project, it makes Holmes that much more human."

• Foreshadowing: Mary and Watson each seeing Holmes for the last time before his kidnapping.
• Freudian Trio: Lestrade, Gregson, and Patterson as The Kirk, The McCoy, and The Spock, respectively, though one scene makes it clear that Lestrade and Gregson switch roles at times as needed.
• Friend on the Force: Holmes has far more than he realizes...
• Friendly Rival: Obviously, dynamics have changed between Gregson and Lestrade sine A Study in Scarlet...
• Genre Savvy: Wiggins, Lestrade, and Patterson.
• Go Into the Light: Holmes wants this very much, but he realizes that he can't just yet.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Sometimes used, sometimes not.
• Grim Reaper: Makes a silent, spectral appearance to Watson, once.
• Hero of Another Story: Patterson. He's spent most of his career investigating Moriarty.
• Heroic BSOD: Both Watson and Lestrade suffer this in different scenes when they think that Holmes is dead.
• Heroic RROD: Wiggins appears to be constantly concerned that this will happen to Holmes. It finally does when he's Locked in the Dungeon, and he relapses into a fever.
• Heroic Vow:

Watson: "Porlock, there is no use in arguing the point. I shall search for Holmes. Whether you help me or not is your choice, but you shan't stop me — you have my word on that."

• Horror Doesn't Settle for Simple Tuesday: Played with twice (justified - it's late in the year).
  • Culverton Smith purposefully sends Holmes his deadly gift on GuyFawkesNight.
  • Holmes's captivity comes close to invoking a Twisted Christmas, simply because he's held in captivity for that long. Strays towards Fridge Horror when you realize that Moran might have actually re-initiated Holmes's torture on Christmas Day, simply because Holmes would have been too weak beforehand to safely interrogate.
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Wiggins to Holmes.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: Played with - nobody actually says this of themselves in any variation, but a certain Friendly Rival does make this remark about Lestrade:

Gregson: “Good god, the man needs a drink.”

• Improbable Aiming Skills: Played with. Lestrade and Wiggins shoot at a man across the street, but the narrative says that "at this distance, accuracy was a joke." Then Wiggins, up close, shoots the gun out of the man's hand, they struggle for Wiggins's revolver, and the man ends up with a bullet in his head. Wiggins lampshades that bit by saying that it was a lucky shot. "The forehead? Cor."
• In Harm's Way: Wiggins is constantly concerned about Holmes putting himself here constantly - turns out that he is Properly Paranoid.
• Inspector Lestrade: Played straight, but in a positive context.
• Insufferable Genius: Averted with Holmes but played straight with Patterson.
• Jack the Ripper: Mentioned a few times (usually as "Saucy Jack) as having been investigated by Holmes.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: We don't see Gregson very much in the book, but when we do...
• Last-Name Basis: The narrative calls Holmes, Watson, Wiggins, and Lestrade by their surnames until featuring a scene with a family member who naturally calls them by their given names. Subverted a few times with Holmes and Watson, who sometimes slip into "Sherlock" and "John" in each other's point-of-view.
• Light Is Not Good: Twice, light is referenced rather symbolically when Moriarty makes an appearance.
• Loads and Loads of Characters: A few Baker Street Irregulars and several Scotland Yarders feature quite prominently, aside from Sherlock, Watson, Mary, Mrs. Hudson, and Mycroft. See Ascended Extra above.
• Locked in the Dungeon: Played straight for Nightmare Fuel.
• Love Hurts
• Madness Mantra: Strays into Tear Jerker territory... I have no one. I am alone. I am no one. I am alone.
• The Man Behind the Man: Holmes surmises that Culverton Smith was working for Moriarty.
• Manly Tears: Watson and both Holmes brothers go through this.
• Narrative Profanity Filter: Shows up more often early on in the story and has steadily shown up less over time.
• Never Say "Die": Watson really can't do it.
• Nightmare Face: Upon his rescue, Holmes's face is said to be very damaged. He's not alone, however - his corpse double had been shot through the forehead after being tortured but apparently kept alive.
• Not Afraid to Die: More than once, Holmes prays that he will not die, but he seems to have Watson more in mind than he does his own life. He's not actually afraid of death itself, and, at least twice, he is willing to die.
• Only Sane Man: Lestrade, whether to the "team" or to his fellow Yarders.
• Police Are Useless: Played with. Lestrade, Gregson, and Patterson are all portrayed as competent (in Patterson's case, hyper-competent) detectives, but it's through the efforts of Watson and the Irregulars that Holmes's location is discovered. Patterson actually hires Wiggins privately to throw off Moriarty.
• The Power of Friendship
• The Power of Love
• Reasonable Authority Figure: Mycroft, Lestrade, and Patterson all play this.
• Rescue Arc: Forms most of the book's Act II.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right: Watson and Wiggins.
• Secretly Dying: Holmes, early on in the book, no less... and not telling Watson proves to be a BIG mistake.
• Serial Killer: Officially called a "multiple murderer" and unofficially labeled as a Complete Monster by Holmes himself.
• Sherlock Scan: Shown in Holmes's thoughts in the first chapter.
• Shout-Out: The most blatant Shout-Out is this: in one scene, Mycroft and Sherlock call each other "Robin" and "Little John," respectively.
  • Also, the line "This is Sherlock Holmes," along with the present tense of the scene, is inspired by Matthew Stover's Star Wars novels.
  • In-universe, the Twelve Apostles.
  • The inclusion of Tottenham Court Road as a location was a nod to My Fair Lady.
  • The criminal Wheatley is named after actor Alan Wheatley, the author's favorite Sheriff of Nottingham, from The Adventures of Robin Hood.
  • "How Fragile the Heart" is an adaptation of a line from "Dante's Prayer," a Loreena McKennitt song.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: With a story so heavily based on the powers of friendship and love, loyalty, villains who don't advertize their evil, and doing what's right versus obeying the law, we see this scale an awful lot. Patterson is living proof that Good Is Not Nice, but Moran is something of a Villain with Good Publicity. Watson does some possibly surprisingly dark things, but he does them for Holmes. As far as the heroes' philosophies are concerned, Patterson comes out firmly as The Cynic, and Wiggins, despite his past as a street Arab, is probably the biggest Idealist.
• Tall, Dark and Snarky: Patterson. Surprisingly, Holmes himself doesn't snark enough in this story to warrant the title.
• Team Dad: Lestrade, who even considers himself something of a father figure to Sherlock.
• Team Mom: Mrs. Hudson, who definitely regards Sherlock as the son she never had.
• There Are No Coincidences: Whether via Word of God or something in-universe, the author really loves this trope.
• Title Drop: For the series - Holmes says the Lord's Prayer while Locked in the Dungeon.
• Torture Always Works: Played with. Just barely averted with Holmes Locked in the Dungeon. But even after Holmes is rescued by The Cavalry, he's pretty far gone.
• True Companions: The Holmes brothers, the Watsons, Wiggins, and the Lestrades.
• Victorian London
• Villainous Breakdown: Averted with Moriarty, although both times he is angered in the story, he is well and truly furious.
• The Watson: Averted with the Trope Namer himself - played straighter with Lestrade.
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: Watson, actually, with Peter Wiggins.
  • Also Holmes regarding Davy Wiggins and the Irregulars in general, though Watson plays the trope straighter.
• What the Hell, Hero?/Calling the Old Man Out: Gregson and Lestrade dish this out pretty hard to Patterson when they believe Holmes to be dead.
• Whip It Good
• Wicked Cultured: Both Moran and Moriarty.
• Wise Beyond Their Years: Davy and Peter Wiggins are both shown as this, the elder being only 22 and the younger being 20 - though they have a mother and a home, they worked as beggars and pickpockets before being hired by Holmes.
• With a Friend and a Stranger: Watson and Wiggins make their plans with Fred Porlock, a man neither has previously trusted.

One-Shots

• A Father to His Men: Holmes to the Irregulars, Wiggins especially.
• Aloof Big Brother: Inverted in "Together" - Mycroft steps down from his pedestal long enough to help Sherlock over to his armchair.
• Christmas Miracle: "Together".
• Cold-Blooded Torture: Again, for Holmes. "Deliver Us from Evil: In One Hundred Sentences" provided a fair amount of material for Mortality.
• Disney Death
• Disney Villain Death
• Eye Tropes: Are a huge source of Author Appeal. See this trope in the Mortality folder.
• Fix Fic: "Unraveling the Truth," which was written to work out some of the plot-holes in "The Final Problem" and "The Adventure of the Empty House."
• Insufferable Genius: Patterson. So much so, in fact, that Sherlock Holmes actually decides to cut back on his own arrogance whilst around Watson and Lestrade in the future!
• Killed Off for Real: Mary and baby Arthur in "Those Dark Hours."
• Like Brother and Sister: Holmes and Mary, who are on a First-Name Basis.
• Man Child: Mrs. Hudson thinks of Holmes in the early days as being this (part of this story, "The Warrior A Child" is recycled for Mortality).
• Sherlock Scan: In "Alliance," Holmes performs one on Patterson without revealing his results to said Inspector.
• Shout-Out:
  • Edgar Allan Poe and Emily Dickinson in "Long Time Falling".
  • Mycroft gives Mary a copy of Idylls of the King in "Together".
• Take That: In-universe, Patterson delivers a subtle one to Holmes... that Lestrade still catches.
  • A meta example is the Fix Fic "Unraveling the Truth," in which Lestrade calls Watson out on several elements in the canonical version of "The Final Problem."
• Title Drop: Holmes prays the Lord's Prayer... in the short titled "Deliver Us from Evil".
• True Meaning of Christmas: Touched upon briefly in "Bereft"...

Behold, good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

• Twisted Christmas: Well, the criminals try this, anyway, in "Together"... Didn't quite work, and that Christmas ended up being a nostalgic memory in years to come.
• Younger Than They Look: In "The Warrior a Child," Holmes appears "grey and drawn and aged beyond his years" in Mrs. Hudson's nightmare. This is a complete inversion of the author's usual portrayal of Sherlock Holmes, generally as boyish and older than he looks.

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"Our Father… Who art in Heaven… hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy… will be done, in Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us… this day our daily bread, and forgive us our debts… as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but… deli — oh, dear God, deliver us from evil! For Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory forever. Amen."