Chapter Two – Breach of Faith

"A man cannot touch the petal of the nearest flower without influencing the course of the furthest star. Everything is connected. Every action has many effects."

Kenneth Irons

How long he had been unconscious by the hearth he had no idea. The consuming blaze was now just red embers only dimly lighting the Great Room. He was alone. The room had taken on its familiar chill. Even the wolfhounds had abandoned him. The storm was only a distant rumble and a light rain pattered quietly against the windows. It took him a moment to recall what had transpired. Sitting up in his favorite chair, physically drained and consumed by a barrage of images that he could only partially recall, his thoughts turned to Sara Pezzini.

"So, fair Sara. It has abandoned you after all. Perhaps you are not what you seem." His voice was but a whisper in the dark.

Her fear at almost loosing her life was palpable enough, even if he had experienced it vicariously. It had exhilarated him beyond words. Sara's shame and disgrace, at having been abandoned by the very weapon she would now crave, infused him with rapture at her expense. His intimacy with the blade was only a moment in time, but it had a lasting impact on his life…and had left an indelible mark on his very soul.

His powerful connection to the wielder and the blade, that he had experienced earlier, was strangely severed. The only residual affect was his link to Sara's pain…her withdrawal from the Gauntlet. This was more born from his own encounter and memories than from any actual bond to her now. The gentle coaxing of the rain beckoned him to another fleeting moment in his ever-lengthening history. Closing his eyes once more, he drifted back to another time.

The Okovango swamps in Botswana had been the culmination of his many years in pursuit and obsession with the Witchblade. His blood lust for power had grown to such depths that only the ancient weapon could satisfy his thirst for it. She had made the mistake to accompany him to the swamp…under estimating their love for one another when up against the intoxication of power as the weapon held for him. His beloved Elizabeth Bronte refused him the blade. He thought he had meant more to her than that. Yet she had refused him. This betrayal demanded immediate and swift action on his part. Before his conscience sought another avenue, he had arranged for a mysterious embankment slide to consume and smother her.

Finding the weapon firmly affixed to her wrist from her own Periculum, he had the Gauntlet removed by cutting off her hand…the very hand that he had caressed on many occasions. He now held the power in his own grasp. Leaving servants to retrieve her cold flesh, he sought a solitary moment to wear the blade himself.

As he slipped the ancient amulet to his wrist, his chest swelled with pride as he had accomplished his life's mission. His sense of well being was short…for the Gauntlet exploded in its own retaliation. His brief yet excruciating moments with the powerful weapon that was meant only to be worn by women, had indelibly imprinted his mind and body with visions of epic proportions. As a result, his normal aging process had been slowed down and he was forever connected to the blade and its wielders with only the scar on his hand as a visible sign of his offense. He had considered himself lucky that the weapon had not taken his life that day. Yet, in a way, it had. For he would be obsessed with the Gauntlet and all that would and could wear it.

There had been a ringing in his ears…an incessant sound. The annoyance had brought him back to the present, which may have been a mercy. It took him a while to recognize the ring of his personal cell phone that he had attached to his belt. Only a few people knew his number…and he doubted his beloved Ian would be calling to give him his regards. He had expected Dante to report on the success of his assignment.

"Speak to me." He demanded. There was a moment of silence on the other end. In that brief moment, Irons knew that Dante had failed.

"Mr. Irons? This is…" Dante was interrupted by Irons' impatience.

"Bruno…I can hear the failure in your voice. What happened?" Irons clenched his jaw but kept his voice neutral, not wanting to give away just how angered he was by the incompetence of this man. Irons had learned long ago not to telegraph his thoughts until he was good and ready.

"Sorry to call at such a late hour, but I thought you would want to know." Dante was delaying the inevitable. The Captain's apprehension was clear in his voice. Irons closed his eyes in an effort to hold back his rage. He had grown weary of this man.

"Get on with it, man. Report." His voice was venomous.

"They had her down and surrounded…were going in for the kill. They reported being attacked with automatic gunfire. Six of the eight were killed. They couldn't tell me how many there were…only it felt like she had an army behind her." The Police Captain reported.

Even Dante himself had not believed the story. Where would Sara get an army to defend her? He only knew of her army of one. Dante suspected Nottingham had been the army for he knew his tactics and skill could resemble a legion of men.

Irons had come to the same conclusion, for he had trained this army of one.

"After your men have investigated the scene, I want a full report of what they find. You have displeased me, Bruno. I am not accustomed to such failure." With that, Irons ended the call, leaving Dante with a bad feeling. He had not heard the last of it, the Captain suspected.

Dante's report was inconsistent with what Irons himself knew. Sara's army had been a fighting force of one, Irons' own Ian Nottingham. This troubled him. Deep within his soul, where the Witchblade had marked him for life, he knew Sara and the blade had parted company. This was a certainty. He could not ask the good Captain to search for the Gauntlet without raising more questions. Perhaps Dante's follow up report on the crime scene would shed some light on what might have happened to the blade if Sara was not in possession of it. At that moment, he missed his home grown assassin. Young Nottingham would have served him with his usual loyalty and discretion.

A delicious thought popped into his devious mind. A slow smirk spread across his face. If Nottingham is indeed with Sara, then he will bear witness to Sara's abandonment. He will know the blade has left her. Irons had seen to it that Nottingham's training to serve the wielder was so strong that this should prove to be a conflict for him. If Sara is not the true wielder, then Nottingham may be forced to come home to his master for there would be no reason to further protect Sara Pezzini, the pretender. He was reminded of a quote he had taught to young Ian… 'Take the cause from a man and you take away the cause for a man.' Even if Nottingham tries to help her, he will soon see how pathetic she will become without the blade. It is like a drug that once administered in regular doses becomes unbearable if taken away suddenly. Even though Irons' own experience with the blade had been brief, he knew the magnitude of Sara's misery must be amplified ten fold. Sara had already bonded with the symbiotic weapon through the Periculum, a right the ancient weapon had not chosen to bestow upon him. Her pain must be catastrophic! He smiled at the thought.

Once Ian sees how repugnant she is without the weapon, he will no longer want to serve her, Irons thought. Surely he would see she no longer had a right to the ancient weapon…that it should now belong to his master. Perhaps there was a chance his assassin would return home of his own volition, realizing Sara was a mere Pretender. Nottingham's rigorous and methodical training would compel him to return to his master and await Irons' appointment of a new wielder, one more pliant and controllable, completely subjugated to his will.

Irons wanted to speak to his young protégé about this, but knew he would remain underground until such time as he thought it was safe to emerge. Perhaps keeping Nottingham isolated and alone, at present, was not a bad idea. As a young boy, Ian had been raised by Irons to believe that isolation meant safety. Irons was reminded of the many games of chess he and his faithful servant had played together. As Nottingham had grown older, he became less predictable and had learned well from his master as evidenced by his unexpected departure from the Estate and Irons' control. What would Nottingham do in this instance?

Irons arose and made his way in the dark from the Great Room to the bedroom he had selected to sleep for the night. It was his 'habit' to change rooms nightly. He smiled as he saw the irony of his use of the word habit when speaking of change. There was nothing about him that was habitual… perhaps with the notable exception of his obsession with the Witchblade. As he crept slowly up the stairs, a shred of doubt slithered into his mind like a slow moving snake in the underbrush. What would Ian's reaction be to Sara's abandonment by the blade? What if he had underestimated Nottingham's feelings for Sara as a woman? He had assumed his inexperienced minion would not understand such feelings, having no sexual prowess in the least. It has been drilled into young Nottingham's head that virginity shielded a warrior with invulnerability. This had been one of the reasons Irons had kept him devoid of such emotions and tactile experiences as Ian had grown up under his tutelage.

Irons had himself witnessed Sara kissing Nottingham, but it had been her that made the advances, not him. Nottingham had showed poor judgment to allow Sara to touch him the way she had, but he was an innocent and infatuated child in the ways of love. He may have felt powerless to stop her, feeling an obligation to serve his Lady Sara. This public display had angered Irons…and provoked him to call for Ian's suicide in the first place. Still…Could Nottingham love her?

"Love? …Out of the question." Irons muttered aloud, scoffing under his breath. He dismissed the idea as having no merit.

He made a mental note to contact Dante in the morning to call off the contract on the life of the good detective and hear about the crime scene. He would instead order her be watched by Dante's men to see if Ian would contact her again. Being as thoroughly trained as Nottingham had been, he would spot the surveillance easily, no matter how good Dante thought his men to be. Ian would keep away from her one way or the other. On the off chance that his prodigal son could get careless, then Irons would find out where he was hiding and ensnare him. Once he had Nottingham back under his control, he had no doubt he could convince his purveyor of justice to yield to his will and willingly return to his service. The surveillance would also help him know if Sara ever finds her long lost bracelet.

It was a good plan.

If he had been feeling particularly charitable, he may have made the call to Dante now, but he wanted the Police Captain to loose sleep over their last phone call. He smiled contemptuously in the dark as he removed his clothing and prepared for bed by the dim light of the moon as it shown through his bedroom window. Normally, he wore silken pajamas to bed, but tonight he felt a primal need to be unfettered by convention, slipping his naked body under the silken sheets. He was reminded just how much he enjoyed the feel of silk next to his bare skin. He relished the dark even more…the anonymity of it. In the dark, he could almost see and feel his thoughts adrift in his mind…images flashed before him with such clarity.

Where was the Witchblade if not with Sara? Where indeed? The scar on his hand began a slow burn.

*****

Nottingham had been restless from the moment he had left Sara on Gabriel's doorstep. It could have been attributable to the fact he had abandoned Sara by leaving her on Gabe's step, but that did not seem right somehow. Something else had seemed wrong…but he could not place it. Walking past a stack of the morning edition of the New York Times bundled on the street, he noticed a headline about the shootings in the alley. It was not the first time he had been responsible for making a headline…and it would not be the last either. He had walked the streets of New York City all night, replaying the incident with Sara over and over in his troubled mind. Now, as the sun was beginning to rise, he found himself by the docks. The salty smell of the ocean and decaying fish carcasses invaded his senses.

One question kept returning to him. Why had she not used the Gauntlet? Why?

Leaning on a wooden railing looking onto a pier, deep in his own introspection, he absentmindedly witnessed the dawn of a new day as the sun rose one more time on a world Ian no longer felt a part. His long black coat and leather gloves barely kept him warm as a cool breeze wafted through his long, dark hair, chilling the cheeks of his face to the numbness he felt inside. As the dark blue and orange slowly streaked across the sky like the tendrils of the blade during the Periculum, Ian began to understand…He knew what had happened. The thought hit him as surely as if it had been carried atop a bullet, tearing through his chest.

Sara had not used the blade because she could not. Replaying his last moments with Sara…on Gabriel's doorstep…he held her hands. He was so distracted by having to leave her to someone else that he had not noticed. She was not wearing the Gauntlet on her wrist. The only way this could have happened, after the Periculum, was that the Witchblade had abandoned its' wielder.

Could this be true? No! This he would not believe.

Sara was the true wielder. There were many things in this world that he did not understand, but he had lived a lifetime…or perhaps many lifetimes…in preparation for the coming of Sara Pezzini. The blade had selected her just as surely as he had chosen to serve her with his life. He knew and believed in her. There was no room for doubt.

He turned and ran towards the alley where his beloved had made her final stand. He would find the blade and return it to his Lady Sara…if it was the last thing he would do on this earth.