{Hello everyone! I remember when I used to hold off putting up the next chapter in hope of more reviews, and now it's all I can do to finish writing the next chapter, no less get it typed up and posted! Any~who I hope everyone is enjoying the story and PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE review!}

Chapter 5: Parallels

            "Sara." I was in a dark place. I tried to look around to decipher where the voice was coming from. "Sara." It was a low and scratchy taunting whisper, the voice of the murderer. I put my arms out in front of me as I searched through the darkness trying to find where I was. "Sara, it wasn't your turn to die the other day. There are ones that must come before you, but don't worry, your turn will be soon enough."

            "Why do you want me?!" I screamed into the darkness.

            "It's not you I want Sara." Suddenly, the man was behind me and grabbed my wrist so tight that the bracelet dug into my skin. "It's THIS I want!"

            "Help!" I screamed out, trying to free myself of his grasp. "Jake!"

            "Don't you remember what happens when you get your little boy involved?" The man's voice screeched out and he motioned off to the side where there was just enough light to make out Jake's body lying limp and covered in blood.

            "Your turn is soon Sara."

            "Nooooooooooo!" I bolted up in bed; beads of sweat covered my body as I panted for air.

            "Sara!" My scream had awakened Jake and he too bolted up next to me. "What's wrong? Did you have a bad dream?" He softly ran his hand through my long brown hair in an effort to calm me.

            I shook my head in disagreement. "Another vision. He spoke to me specifically. Told me that it was almost my turn, and that you would die too."

            "Sara. We're not going to let that happen." He continued to stroke my hair.

            "I know, it's just -the visions, they're so real. You know?"    

            "Yeah, I do." He nodded and put his arms around me in a tight embrace. "I won't let anything happen to you." He ended the hug and lay back down patting my pillow beside him. "Let's go back to sleep, it's early."

            Despite his requests, there was no way that I was going back to sleep. Jake, on the other hand had drifted off before I had even rolled out of bed. I was thankful that he had not been close enough to share the vision. No need for both of us to lose sleep over my nightmares.

            I took a long, hot, relaxing shower in hopes of "washing away" the images. Eventually I made my way into the kitchen to whip up something for breakfast.

            I stood over the stove frying a pan of bacon watching the grease spatter all over the range top. I heard the shower start up, Jake must have finally decided to get up, it was almost 10am.

            "Hey Sara." The voice coming from behind me caught me off guard just enough to make me jump. I quickly turned around to find my deceased partner Danny standing there smiling at me.

            "Jesus Danny! Do you TRY to startle me?"

            He just continued to smile at me before changing the subject. "So you're sleeping with your partners now, huh? Why didn't you start that habit when I was still yours?" His smile never left his face.

            "Ha. Ha." I replied not wanting to go there.

            He continued to laugh to himself as he wandered over to "lean" against the back of the couch on the other side of the kitchen counter. I took the pan off the heat and leaned over the counter to talk with him.

            "So what brings you here? Or was it just to tease me?" I asked none too amused.

            "I only come to bring you wisdom." He replied. I rolled my eyes. "The dead women you are investigating, they have more in common than you think." He finally said.

            "To each other?" I asked, while mentally sorting through what it could be.

            "To all of you, Sara. Check the morgue."

            "Hey." Jake wandered into the living room/ kitchen area rubbing a towel over his wet hair. "You talking to yourself?"

            "Well.." I gestured over towards Danny preparing to explain to him that while he can't see him, my dead partner was in fact there and that the Witchblade allowed me to communicate with him.

            Jake glanced over in his direction, his eyes peeking out from under the towel.

            "Boo." Danny said jokingly and very unenthusiastically before vanishing.

            "Holy Shit!" Jake stuttered in astonishment as he stumbled backwards falling on his ass. "What the hell?"

            "You saw him?" I asked somewhat surprised, although you'd think I wouldn't be.

            "Yeah I saw him! I saw your dead partner standing in my living room."

            "You're the first one besides me to see him." I said nonchalantly.

            "So, the Witchblade lets you…?" He trailed off looking for the right words.

            "I see dead people." I said in my best-whispered voice. The movie reference made me laugh to myself, but I kept a straight face because Jake didn't seem amused. "Just Danny though, he's sorta my guardian angel of the Witchblade. He just shows up every now and then to offer advice."

            Jake stood up off the floor and picked up his towel. "So what was his advice?" He asked.

            "He told me that we should go to the morgue."

*          *            *            *            *            *

            Shortly after, Jake and I found ourselves sitting outside the entrance to the basement room of the precinct building waiting for Vicki to arrive.

            I took a sip of my coffee that had replaced my breakfast and looked up to see Vicki in her casual clothes walking towards us down the long sparsely lit hallway. I had always thought that she was a pretty woman, with her dark complexion and long black hair, but she looked even nicer in jeans and a sweater than her usual green scrubs.

            "Morning." I said handing her the third Styrofoam cup we had brought along. "Sorry to drag you down here on a Saturday."

            "It's fine." She said, accepting the coffee with a smile while unlocking the door. "Let's just make it quick, okay."

            We followed her into the dark room. I really hated this place; it quite literally stank of death. The harsh fluorescent lights popped on one at a time, illuminating the cold basement room. It had a green and white tiled floor and most of the furnishings were made of stainless steel. I noted how everything in there was designed to be easy to clean and sanitize. Judging by the lingering lemon-fresh scent in the air, the cleaning crew had been by recently.

            "I hate this place." I heard Jake mutter to himself. He's not the only one, I thought.

            "So which one do you want to see?" Vicki asked as she walked over to the neatly labeled steel drawers that each housed a body.

            "All three of them please." I responded.

            "What are you looking for?" She asked looking towards me and then over to Jake who was lingering in the back of the room near the door.

            "Hopefully, I'll know soon." I said smiling. Vicki rolled her eyes and shook her head as she began to unlock doors and slide out the trays that held each body. I watched and tried not to breath through my nose as I choked back a gag.

            "All three women were cut up pretty badly, the first two were in there twenties and the last was thirty-three. In all three cases death was due to blood loss from the multiple wounds." She read me the basic details of each case in a very professional manner. "Do you have any more questions? Because I was going to wander over to my office and do some paperwork." She handed me the files she had been reading from.

            "No, these should be fine." I said waving the files. "Thanks Vicki, it shouldn't be too long."

            She nodded and walked out of the room. I turned to Jake who seemed uninterested.

            "McCartey. You alright?" I asked.

            "Sorry." He said as he pushed himself off the wall and moved over next to me. "Guess I'm still not use to coming down here."

            "Trust me, you never get used to it." I said.

            "So what are we looking for?" He asked me as he put on a latex glove and pulled back the sheet covering the first girl. "Jesus."

            Her body was a bluish pale, cold and dry. The body had been cut so many times and the skin had dried and cracked apart. It was like a horrific jigsaw puzzle that didn't seem to quite fit together.

            "We're trying to find something they all have in common besides being cut up." I answered.

            "There's not a whole lot left to see here Sara, this one even has an entire chunk of flesh missing." Jake said before looking up and away from the body, picking an imaginary point across the room to change his focus to.

            I glanced down to the girl I was examining. She too had a small section of skin that was completely missing. It was about a two by three inch section and judging by the surrounding cuts, it didn't seem accidental.

            I looked over at the girl Jake was trying to avoid looking at, while still pointing out the area to me. We checked the third body and sure enough, on the small of her back there was a hole roughly the size of the others.

            "Nice work detective." I said patting Jake on the back.

            "But what does it mean? What was removed? A tattoo maybe?" He guessed.

            "Or a mark." I said, rubbing mine through my shirt.

            "You think they are connected to the Witchblade somehow?" He asked.

            "I'll bet on it. Come on," I said while pushing the drawers closed. "Let's get out of here, there's someone I think can answer some questions for us."

*          *            *            *            *            *

We had knocked on the door of Talismaniacs a few times before letting ourselves in. We could hear music blaring rather loudly through the door and we had really only knocked to be polite, not expecting anyone to hear us. As we entered the shop I was able to identify the song as Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf, I had always thought that Gabriel had great taste in music.

            "Hello!" I yelled out over the music.

            Behind me Jake had shut the door and began to casually browse the shelves of antique artifacts.

            Gabriel had turned off the stereo and wandered into the room to greet me. He was dressed in a long-sleeve navy blue button up shirt that hung over his dark brown corduroy pants. His taste in clothes was almost as eclectic as his taste in music. As always, his shaggy dark hair hung down over his brown eyes. He was a cute kid, although he'd kill me if he ever heard me use that term. While he was younger than me, it wasn't by very much.

            "Hey Pez, what's up?" He asked.

            "Hey Gabriel, you remember my partner Jake." I gave a brief introduction. Jake looked up from a shelf across the room and offered a smile as a greeting before returning his attention to a cursed canopic jar.

"We're on a case that I believe is somehow connected to the Witchblade. I was hoping you could help me find some information." I explained.

            As I spoke, Gabriel glanced over at Jake suspiciously.

            "Don't worry, he's knows everything there is to know about this thing." I said lifting my wrist.

            "Sure thing. So what's the story?" He asked curiously.

            I gave him a detailed description of the murders and explained that all three bodies had had a piece of skin removed, which I believed had a specific marking on it.

            "Do you happen to know what kind of mark?" He asked, looking for a little more information.

            I pulled at the collar of my shirt, so as to expose mine.

            "Wow." He said, while examining it. "I've read that the wielder supposedly wore the 'Mark of the Blade' but that's not what I had been expecting." He walked into the back of the store; which became his living area and sat down to pull something up on his computer. It was a drawing of the two circles from what looked like an ancient text that had been scanned into the computer. "So you think the girls that were murdered had this mark and it was removed?"

            "Yeah, have you heard anything about why someone would want to remove them?" I asked.

            "I've read that, supposedly people who come in contact with the Blade can be left with a scar, and that sometimes it becomes a 'mark of death'. But I'll keep looking and see what I can find for you."

            I looked over to see if Jake had heard the mention of death, by the serious look on his face, he had.

            "Thanks Gabriel." I smiled.

            "Hey no problem chief, I'll call you when I find something."

            "Great, I'll talk to you later."

             We walked out into the cold afternoon weather. I was quiet as we climbed into the car.

            "So the 'Mark of Death', huh?" Jake said light-heartedly.

            "It's only a myth Jake." I responded in a more serious tone.

            "I know. You didn't think something as simple as a 'death mark' was going to scare me away, did you?" He said smiling.

            "It should." I said. My tone was darker as I focused my sight to the dashboard. "Death follows this thing around. Just last night you were almost killed by this Blade. You should get far away from me, while you can." It hurt for me to say the words, but if anything happened to him because of me, I don't know what I would do.

            "I won't stay away Sara." His voice was positive and serious. I looked over at him and caught his gaze. "I'm in love with you."

            "Wha..?" I barely made a sound.

            "I'm in love with you." He repeated.

            A small smile spread across my face as Jake leaned across the center console of the car to bring his lips to mine. As he moved towards me, he paused, just for a second; probably making sure I wasn't about to slap him or something. But I merely closed my eyes and waited. His soft lips finally met mine while his arms wrapped around me, pulling my body closer to his.

{Well, I guess that's a good place to end this chapter, sorry I keep leaving these at the lovey-dovey parts, oh well. Just a reminder~ If you read this PLEASE review, even if it's only a couple of words. It's nice to know who's reading your stuff. Well, Happy Thanksgiving to all those that celebrate!}