In the second installment of James Lovegrove’s tremendous Sherlock Holmes / H. P. Lovecraft mashup, Moriarty – assumed dead – has returned as the god R’luhlloig – ‘the hidden mind’:
HOLMES: Is becoming divine not enough for you? It seems you will not rest until you have sparked all-out cosmos-wide conflict.
MORIARTY: And won it. And established myself as supreme God of all.
HOLMES: For what? To make up for some fundamental inadequacy within your being? Where does it end? You would tear apart the entire universe in the hope of filling this gnawing emptiness inside? But where will that leave you? You’ll be emperor of ruins.
Somewhere in your heart, a black, shrivelled organ to be sure, there is a voice, and it is telling you that you will never be content. Even after your war is over and you have everything you could wish for it will still whisper to you that you are James Moriarty, failed academic, failed occultist, failed human, failed divinity.
MORIARTY: My name is not–
HOLMES: Failed everything. The kindest thing you can do for yourself, Moriarty, is abandon this course. Look at you: you stand their fuming. If I, a mere man can render you thus, you a god, then you must truly fear me. And if you fear me, then you cannot be a god.
James Lovegrove – Sherlock Holmes and the Miskatonic Monstrosities