The Angry Flame

By Divamercury

I don't own any of these characters and I'm not making any money off of this story. Please don't sue me!

Chapter 7

"What the hell?" I muttered, confused. I scrambled out of my chair and ran to the window, peering out cautiously. A garbage can had been blown over by the unusually strong wind that night. I shook my head.

God, Sara, jumping at noises now? Chill out,' I thought to myself. When I sat back down at the desk, a name sprang out at me from the report I had just turned to. Kenneth Irons.

"Well, speaking of the Devil," I said to myself, grinning at my humor, and read the report in depth. I was very curious as to why Irons would be connected to Oakland.

The answer came to me a few paragraphs later. Evidently Oakland had been employed by Irons three weeks prior to his death to handle one of Irons's frequent little legal snags, but lost the case. According to his record, Oakland could hardly be called a very skilled lawyer, having barely passed the bar exam, and Irons was the type that hired no one but the best to work for him. Take Ian Nottingham for example, the best of the best when it came to being an assassin. Why would he want Oakland, a terrible attorney, to handle that case, no matter how trivial? It seemed like it was time to pay a visit to everyone's favorite billionaireafter a few hours of sleep.

"You can wait until morning, Irons," I said to the report. I took a quick shower, slipped into some pajamas, and was out like a light as soon as my head touched the pillow.

The next morning I woke up when a particularly irritating ray of sunlight focused itself in the exact place that would blind me when I became half-conscious. Cursing under my breath, I performed my usual morning routine, snagging a bagel (again) after grabbing my gear and headed out the door, locking it behind me as always.

Checking in with Jake at the precinct, I didn't stay long, taking just enough time to drop off the reports and details on the Oakland case and to snag a cup of espresso, coffee of the day. After those tasks I left and then took off on my bike. My destination: Vorschlag Industries, brainchild (I thinkha ha) of Kenneth Irons, one of the ones on the top of my "least favorite people in the world" list. He was ranked up there with Dante, and you know there's no love lost between my captain and myself. We have the perfect example of a hate-hate relationship.

I reached the enormous building in fifteen minutes and entered unchallenged. The receptionist looked up from filing her nails and announced, "Mr. Irons is expecting you, Detective," then returned to her extremely exhausting task.

"I'm overwhelmed by your enthusiasm," I said, shaking my head. I doubt the receptionist even heard me. I proceeded back to Irons's penthouse/office. It was hard to distinguish exactly what it was. The fire was roaring in the fireplace, as usual (I think he must have been chronically cold, because that fire was roaring even in summer), and he was sitting in his chair staring at it.

"Well, I certainly would have thought that being a CEO of an important company would require you to actually do something during the day, not just sit there staring into a fireplace all day, but I guess I was wrong," I remarked. His response was to turn around and turn his icy-blue gaze on me, his typical sneer in place across his lips. He didn't dignify me with an answer.

"Well, you're looking particularly cynical today, Irons," I said, trying to get a response.

Again, silence.

"Well, as much fun as I'm having just standing here staring at you, Irons, you know what? I actually have a reason for being here, believe it or not."

"Pray tell," he replied blandly.

"Right. I wouldn't dare waste any more of your precious fire-staring time," I said, ignoring his venomous look. "Okay, business. You've no doubt heard about the murder of Max Oakland?"

"It came up on the news," he said simply. Obviously I'd have to be more specific to get more information than that.

"Well, I was reading through the reports about Oakland's past and I was quite surprised when I found your name attached to one of them. Why exactly was that?"

"I was informed by an associate that he was a decent lawyer and three weeks ago I hired him to take care of a minor lawsuit. Unfortunately my advisor was grievously mistaken in his evaluation of Oakland's talents and we lost the case, costing me a pretty penny. We parted on less-than-friendly terms and I haven't spoken to him since."

"Do you have any idea why he might have been murdered?" I inquired.

"Not in the slightest. Maybe you should try one of his other dissatisfied clients; I'm sure they would have a much greater motive to kill him than I would, as you seem to be implying, Sara."

"I'm not implying anything," I lied. Irons could have had anyone commit the crime; I'd seen him resort to unusual methods to achieve his ends.

"Of course not," he said, lying as much as I had been.

Realizing that that was about all that I could get out of him, I said, "Well, thank you for your time, Mr. Irons," swallowing my pride and addressing him formally. He merely rubbed the scar on his hand, identical to the one on my chest. It was in the form of two perfect interlocked circles (picture a Venn diagram) and had been caused by the Witchblade. Irons had tried to wear it once, but as he was a man and a pretender, it left him and he had been obsessed with it ever since. To tell the honest-to-God truth, I didn't blame the Witchblade at all for getting off his hand.

"Anytime, Sara," he said, turning back to his fire.

Man, he's weird,' I couldn't help thinking as I left. On my way out of the office I collided with none other than Ian Nottingham.