Disclaimer: I own everything and everyone and everywhere in this story. Just kidding. Put down those pens and legal documents lawyers, I didn't mean it!

----

Sara looked between the two guys. Ian still had his gun clearly visible, which was clearly still bothered Gabriel. Sara, however, didn't see the point. The boy seemed harmless, and if anything he was helpful. After the Mexican standoff between Ian and Gabriel, Sara immediately informed him of her situation.

"So you don't remember anything?" Gabriel asked unbelievingly.

"Nothing."

"What did you come here for?" Ian asked, clearly impatient with Gabriel.

"I have some new info that you won't believe. I told Sara a quick summery on the phone late last night and we were going to meet at the precinct this morning. When I called to cancel, l Jake told me you were here and since I was only about a block away, I figured it would only take me a second to give you the folders blah blah blah..."

"Information on what?" Sara asked curiously.

"The Witch...uh oh," mumbled Gabriel, realizing that Sara didn't yet know what he was talking about.

"You have information on witches?" Sara asked incredulously. "Do I work on the X-Files cases of the NYPD or something."

"You'd be surprised," Ian said under his breath.

At the same time, Gabriel said "Or something," just as quietly as Ian.

Looking to Ian for permission, Gabriel saw him reluctantly nod.

"I meant to say Witchblade Sara," Gabriel said slowly.

"Witchblade..." Sara repeated to herself. "When I say it, it sounds familiar. Witchblade..." Suddenly Sara looked down at her bracelet, which she had just noticed. "I didn't realize I was wearing this thing. This is it, isn't it?" She asked abruptly. "This is the Witchblade." Then, when it started to glow and whirl in the bright red center stone, she looked confused, but not scared or nervous.

"What is it trying to tell you?" Ian asked softly.

"I don't know."

"Don't be afraid of it Sara," Gabriel instructed her.

"I'm not," she said honestly. "I mean, it sounds impossible, but it's like this bracelet is somehow a part of me. Like it's a friend or companion." Realizing what she had just said, she quickly tried to cover up for her mistake of thinking aloud. "But that's impossible. It's just my imagination. Maybe it's my memory coming back." After a long pause, Sara asked, "Is this bracelet important to me?"

Ian fielded this one. "You already know the answer to that Sara. Also, it's not your imagination when you say it's a part of you. Because of your job and life, your mind is based on logic, skepticism, and it turned you into a sort of cynic. You didn't trust what you couldn't understand. Now, without memories, you have innocence again, so you you're not as hardened against the unknown. You have the ability to fully trust and understand without questioning. That is a great gift because you need to trust the Witchblade. Sometimes the hardships you have endured in your life can interfere with that need."

"What is it saying to you?" Ian asked her again.

Closing her eyes and trying to relax, Sara suddenly saw what the Witchblade was trying to show her. As soon as her eyes had blocked out the last of external light, her mind was transported back through time. But unlike previous flashes, Sara was not getting a glimpse of the far past, she was getting an image of the near past. And unlike other visions where she could see past lives she had lived, the current view was that of herself, Sara Pezzini. She was in her apartment at night, and outside it was raining. And completely normal, Sara watched her past self quietly make a sandwich and sit down in front of a large stack of papers labeled with 'NYPD' at the top. But before Sara's pen could ever mark the first blank line of her reports, the phone rang. The current Sara couldn't hear what was being said on the other line, but from the look on the Sara of the time, it was exciting news. The past Sara told whoever it was on the other line that, "That's great. Are you sure he's there? Ok. Make sure he doesn't leave. Bye" Wondering why a bracelet had wanted her to see that, Sara slipped back into the time to which she belonged.

"What did you see?"

"I think I saw last night. I was going to do some paperwork, but someone called. I don't know who it was, but I was pleased with the person. Something about making sure some guy didn't leave the place where he was."

Ian was the only one in the room who understood what that meant. Cortese, the arms and drugs dealer, was at that club last night. Sara went and most likely that's where her drink would have been drugged. But why was the blade trying to show her that? Was it really important? Maybe it wasn't trying to tell her about Cortese, maybe it was trying to tell her about...Ian searched for a way to complete that thought, but found none. He didn't understand the Witchblade's motives right now, but he could live with that.

"What's in the folders Gabriel?" asked Sara, calling him by name for the first time that day.

"Some stuff on a previous weilder. I'm not sure, but she might have been the first on to wear the Witchblade. Or if she's not she has to be getting close because she lived in a time further back than any other known wielder. Her name was Amara. Unfortuneatly, I couldn't find a ton of stuff on her, but I did find out that she was a storyteller who was also one of the ancient ancestors of the Inca. And there was a particular story that the Inca's have forever associated her, and that's what caught my eye."

"What was the story?" Ian asked,

"It's a creation story of what I think is the Witchblade. I think this woman Amara somehow created it or was created for her or something. The story has changed over the years though because nobody ever wrote the original one down. It was simply passed on through word of mouth. As a result all versions are significantly different, but there are common themes in all of them. The only problem is that she was a storyteller, and some parts, which are present in almost all accounts of the story, are impossible to believe. That means that she might have just made up a story based on what she could only guess.

"Why would she bother to make it up?"

"Several wielders in ancient times, all over the world, were thought to be witches or demons or sorcerers. People of their times could explain the powers of the Witchblade in anyway but magic. In the group of Inca's she lived in, the powers of the Witchblade could have done two things. 1. They could have made her an outcast. People would think she was in league with "evil forces" and she had to make up a story to prove that the Witchblade was truely good. 2. The Inca's would think her blessed, and revere her. She would be treated as a goddess. But for that to happen she would have to create a story that proves she really was blessed and chosen as special among all other women.

"But under either of those circumstances, " Ian pointed out, "she could have told the truth and it would have worked because the Witchblade both blesses the chosens, and is the symbol of goodness."

----

"Where were you the night of Mr. Cross' murder?" Jake asked to Riko Besign

"I was with Mr. Cortese!" the suspect insisted.

Jake sighed. Cortese only had two business partners, Evenmere and Cross. Both had been murdered within the last week. Jake had worked with Sara on Evenmere, but the investigation lead nowhere. Now that Cross was murdered, everyone still suspected Cortese, but there was no way to prove it was him. So this was Jake's latest strategy: find one of Cortese's minions and make the minion believe he is the suspect. It might distract Cortese and make him sloppy. Granted it was a long shot, but with Cortese, it was his only shot. Jake just wished Sara was here to help him. The minion, Riko Besign, was proving to be no help.

"But since Mr. Cortese refuses to come in for questioning, we have only your word for it."

Riko make no move to reply.

"Fine," Jake said impatiently. "You can spend the night in lockup and tomorrow we'll talk again."

At this Riko finally started to look very unhappy. Technically, Jake keeping him in jail wouldn't be totally legal without basis that he was actually a suspect, and so he couldn't go through with it. But Jake needed a way to make Riko talk, and bluffing was the newest option. Besides, it was working.

"All right, I'll tell you."

Jake rocked back and forth in his chair, very pleased. Maybe this was going somewhere after all.

"I did not kill him, but I know who did. And it was not Mr. Cortese," he said, reading Jake's mind.

"Then who was it?" Jake asked, now very confused.

"A tall man with silver hair. He looked like he was very rich, and drove up in a limo that night. He, Mr. Cortese, and Mr. Cross all talked awhile, but eventually it sounded like they were yelling. Mr. Cortese had given me orders to stay out of the room, and I didn't want to get him mad, so I went around the back of the house and peeked through the window. I saw the silver-haired man grab a gun of Cortese's desk and boom, he killed Mr. Cross! Then I heard him talk with Cortese again because the window was partially open. Silver haired man said that Mr. Cortese must do what he wanted or he would turn him into the police with all the evidence that would make it look like Cortese had murdered Cross. Cortese agreed to the extortionist, but he never killed Mr. Cross.

Jake took all this in slowly. Was this guy actually telling the truth? It was unlikely, but if he could identify the silver haired man, then maybe this case could make some serious headway. "Mr. Besign, I would like you to look through our databases for this man that you say really did kill Cross. And if you are telling the truth, you can be protected." Jake knew that was a lie though. Once Cortese or the silver haired man (if there was one) found out, there was no way simple police could protect him.

Like Sara, Jake knew that Cortese was not just an average drug dealer. He was an arms dealer too. And he had powerful friends. Sadly, once Riko left he would probably be killed within a week, police or not. But that didn't matter as much to Jake when he thought about his own life, and Sara's. Jake knew that Cortese was an international arms dealer from a few CIA hacks into databases. But to his knowledge, Sara didn't know about Cortese's other dealings. And that meant that once Cortese knew that his minion had been talking, he would go after an unprepared Sara. But what Jake did not know, was that Cortese already knew that Sara had found out about him dealing weapons. And that Cortese had already dealt. or at least had tried to deal with the problem.


----

About an hour later Jake came back to Riko. He had looked through hundreds of mugs of guys with silver or gray hair with a clerk. And the end result was nothing. In all likeliness, the guy was probably making it up. "Mr. Besign," he said sternly, "I don't give a lot of credit to your story, in fact I don't even believe you. It's only out of formality and tying up loose ends that I'm making sure. I by some miracle you are telling the truth, I suggest-"

"That man!" Cortese said suddenly. "That's the man!"

"Who?"

But rather then point to the computer screen, Riko pointed to a newspaper on top of a stack of papers. Picking up it up, he pointed to the man on the front cover. "I'm telling the truth, and this is the man!"

"Are you sure?"

Riko nodded.

"You can go for now Mr. Besign. I'm going to check up on your story. If I find out your lying to me-"

"I am not."

"Then go."

As Riko walked out of the station, Jake reluctantly got up to go investigate the man who Riko claimed had been black-mailing Cortese, and who had murdered Cross. Looking at the headline of the paper, the ink read, "Local Collector Gives $1,000,000 in Art to Museum." Then below it was the picture of the new exhibit created out of the donated art. In the picture was Elise Monroe, the director of the museum, and beside her was the man whom Riko had pointed to, Kenneth Irons.