Echoes And Angels

A Witchblade fanfiction by Talismaniactress

(many thanks to my kind and talented beta-reader Kassiel, and to Trider for title inspiration)

Chapter Three: Jewelled Secrets

"Gabriel! GABRIEL!" Sara bellowed, pounding on the door of the Talismaniac. "Why does he insist on listening to music at top volume?" she moaned to herself. Whatever song Gabriel was playing, Sara could feel the vibration of the bass right through the floor. "GABRIEL!" she tried again, thumping the door as hard as she could. Her arm was swinging toward it for another blow when it opened, and Sara, thrown off-balance, toppled forward.

"Whoa, Sara… I didn't know you cared."

Sara glanced up to see Gabriel grinning wickedly at her. "You little—"she began, and hauled herself out of his arms.

"What, you'd have preferred I let you fall on your face?" he said with a smirk.

"Just you watch it, Bowman," she snapped. She tried to glare at him, but to her disgust it turned into a grin.

Gabriel grinned back. "So what can I do for you?" he asked as he headed across the room for the stereo remote to turn the music off.

"Uh, right." Sara fumbled in her pocket for the ring. "Look, I know modern objects aren't really your specialty, but you were the only person I could think of to ask. We found this ring at a crime scene—" she dug deeper in her pocket, still searching for the ring— "and it didn't look like the usual Weisfield's fare. I thought you might be able to tell me who could have sold it." Her fingers finally found the ring, and she held up.

To her surprise, Gabriel just stared at it. "Where… where did you find that?" he choked out.

Sara frowned. "It was on some girl's corpse in Central Park."

Gabriel closed his eyes. "Was she about eighteen? Blonde hair? Oddly dressed?"

"It isn't quite that simple, Gabriel—"

"Was she?"

Sara was startled by the intensity in his voice. "She might have been."

"What do you mean, might?"

"Well, I wasn't exactly paying attention to her clothes, Gabriel."

"Were you paying attention to anything?" he muttered bitterly.

"Hey!" she snapped, indignant. "What's with you?"

Gabriel sighed, and Sara was shocked to see a tear slide down his cheek. "I'm sorry," he said, and she knew he meant it. "You didn't deserve that. I just… The girl who owned that ring was in here this morning to get it."

"You sold this?" Sara asked incredulously.

He shook his head. "Not exactly. She had it hidden in a statue that someone stole from her. She came in this morning looking for it, she said she'd been trying to track it down for two or three years now. Anyway, I found the statue for her, and she just took the ring and told me I could keep the statue, said she didn't care about it." He opened his mouth to tell Sara about the girl's strange disappearance, about the doors and windows that had still been locked when he checked them – and then he stopped. "Then she left," he said instead. "I shouldn't have let her go alone," he added self-deprecatingly.

"Hey, now Gabriel, this is NOT your fault!" Sara said sternly. "Don't even gimme that crap!"

"Sorry," he said again, rubbing his eyes as though they itched.

Sara sighed. "D'you happen to remember what her name was?"

Gabriel blinked, and then shook his head. "Now that you mention it… she never told me."

Privately, Sara was a bit surprised by that, but she kept it to herself. "Well, thanks kid. I'll let you know if we turn up anything on her killer." She headed for the door.

"Thanks," Gabriel said, and then added, "Sara?"

She turned. "Yeah?"

"What are you gonna do with the ring?"

Sara raised an eyebrow. "It's evidence, Gabriel."

"Right." He paused. "What about when you guys are done with it?"

"Well, I'm assuming it'll go to her family," she replied, looking at him quizzically. He was positively squirming, she thought.

"Of course," he said quickly. "Right. See you later."

"Sure thing, kid."