James blinked as he found himself on a paved street in the middle of a strange urban sprawl that appeared to be besieged by a chaotic mélange of monsters and fiends. It was a far cry from his last coherent memory to be sure. Squaring his shoulders, he made a mental note to speak with his tailor when he had a moment, his coat was too small and his hat was a tad too large.

It was unacceptable in his opinion for a man of his means to be reduced to fighting the forces of hell in poorly fitting clothes.

With a swing of his walking stick, the once and future man slapped down a small monster that had crept too close before setting off with an imperious gait, amidst the chaos his presence was like a beacon of calm as even the most ravening of beasts tended to shy away from him, parting before him like the waters of the red sea before Moses.

Glancing around, James was amazed at what was before him; electric lights, paved roads, horseless carriages of all shapes and sizes.

If not for the plethora of hell beasts, he would have wondered if someone had gotten things mixed up and sent him upstairs after his passing.

Of course some would say that, as a man of science, he should have put away the silly superstitions of monotheism. But his time in Africa, in service to the crown and around the world afterwards had more than made a believer in the supernatural long before the supernatural had come knocking on his door.

For a brief moment, the flash of white hot rage rekindled in his chest at the memory of what the undead had done to his family before he forced the feeling away through long practice.

He was better than that. His vengeance would be a thing of legend.

Shifting slightly as a youth in the attire of one of the more fanciful privateers of ages past swaggered out of the alley, James ignored the slight tug of his suit jacket as he drew the revolver from its holster and without a thought, fired a single round into the pirate's chest. The point four five five 'manstopper' did exactly as it was designed to, dropping the jabbering jackdaw to the ground.

Ignoring the blood and death through long habit, James took a brief moment of calm to replace the spent cartridge in the cylinder before returning to his walk. Someone or something had pulled him forth to this place and time and he had a mind to find out precisely who and why.

And if he didn't like the answer, there would be hell to pay before he was done.

After that he had an appointment to keep with the devil.

"Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Slayer. Richman, poorman, deadman's feast. Doctor, Professor, Madman, Beast…" Drucilla rambled the twisted tune from the Yardbirds she had heard some years earlier as she rocked back and forth in the darkness. In all her years she had never had a vision that was wrong, everything she had seen had come true.

All them save one, her predicted death at the hand of her father.

For a time she had been too scared to face him, dragging her undead family across Europe to escape his wrath after they had tortured her mother and sister to death. She had been all but sure that his death so many years had invalidated what she had forseen.

But now, now he was back and little Dru would pay a most terrible price for breaking up his family.

Glancing down at the doll that she had carried for so many years Drucilla thought back to the day, over a hundred years earlier when she had gotten it as a birthday gift, the smile on her father's face was all she had needed as he walked in, home from the war at last.

He had announced that day that he had been accepted to Cambridge University as a professor, it was one of the happiest days in little Drucilla Moriarty's life.

I do not own BtVS or Sherlock Holmes.