A Family Affair
Disclaimer: I don't own the Witchblade characters. I'm just playing around. Enjoy!
Author's note: I was torn about whether to post a rating change for this chapter owing to a little, ahem, anatomical descriptiveness, but then I decided not to. My apologies in advance to anyone who is offended by mentions of woodies (and I don't mean wood-paneled station wagons :) ).
Chapter 26.
When he reached the double-parked SUV, Ian Nottingham glanced up at Sara Pezzini's window and saw her silhouetted there, looking down at him. He unlocked the driver-side door and slid behind the wheel, only then allowing himself to wilt from exhaustion, but just for a moment before starting the car and driving away. The emotional roller coaster he had just gotten off had left him with a bone-deep weariness not to mention an unsettling swelling in his pants.
After leaving Alonzo Brown's apartment, Ian had timed it so that he would return to his vehicle and Sara with precisely a minute to spare in the agreed-upon hour. He had taken to the rooftops once again, following a circuitous route back to the vicinity of the SUV, on the off-chance that he was being followed. When it came into view, he had pulled out his trusty scope and spied Sara sitting in the passenger seat, talking on her cell phone. This had proven to be more than enough of a distraction to enable him to approach the vehicle unseen, although it had been a near thing once when something had suddenly caused her to look out the window. From where he'd been standing in a shadowy alleyway right across from the car, Ian had seen her alertly scan the dark street. Luckily, her sharp eyes had skimmed right over him, failing to detect his presence there. He was only a few feet from the SUV when he heard her scream "WHAT?" into the phone at a decibel level that had probably caused the person at the other end of the line to wince in pain. Ian had felt a keen sense of satisfaction at succeeding in taking her unawares. But it had swiftly faded when he noticed the way she flinched when she finally became aware of his presence. The hasty manner in which she ended her conversation with Gabriel Bowman before unlocking the car door for him had set off warning bells.
Sara's agitation had practically hit Ian over the head once he got behind the wheel, and he had eyed her heightened color askance. Seeking to ease the tension clogging the intimate confines of the vehicle, Ian had teasingly observed that she had failed to say goodbye before hanging up, earning a harsh rebuke from the Wielder for his trouble. She had accused him of eavesdropping on her conversation, and her hostility and reluctance to look at him had led Ian to the distressing conclusion that the tidbit Mr. Bowman had just shared with her had in all likelihood been about him, or, more specifically, his superhuman abilities. Belatedly, he realized that his abrupt reappearance had not helped matters at all.
Ian was convinced that if Sara found out just how radically his genetic enhancements set him apart from normal human beings, she would once again look at him like he was some kind of freak. Fearful of glimpsing revulsion in her beautiful eyes, he had hesitantly asked her if he had done something to upset her. But then she had done an about-face, apologizing for snapping at him and even going so far as to admit that Mr. Bowman's revelation had unsettled her. Ian had even managed to bring a smile to her pale, tired face by comically responding to her apology around the thermometer in his mouth.
And then she had rocked his world by first touching her own lips and then inexplicably caressing his with her fingertip. All the blood that had previously been flowing to his brain had been instantly redirected to pool hotly in his loins, and Ian had been unable to hold back a groan at his body's emphatic response to her touch. The 20 seconds or so her finger rested on his lower lip only made him grow harder, and desire for her thrummed through his entire body. It had taken every ounce of his considerable self-control not to snatch the thermometer from his mouth, grab Sara in a rough embrace, and kiss her as every fiber of his being screamed at him to do. The beeping of the blasted thermometer broke the spell, but Ian had been devoutly thankful that his loose wool trousers and long overcoat hid his erection from her.
As if nothing had happened, Sara read the latest temperature reading, once again pointing out that he needed the antidote to the poison sooner rather than later. Barely conscious of what he was saying, Ian had babbled something about his fever having not yet reached the threshold he'd reluctantly agreed would automatically precipitate his return to Kenneth Irons' estate. Somehow, he had managed to cajole her into allowing him to go check out the abandoned ice factory that Alonzo Brown claimed was Angel Medina's new drug den. But he'd been crushingly disappointed when Sara had requested that he take her home first. It had become painfully apparent that she was eager to part ways with him.
During the drive back to her loft, Ian had been hyper-aware of the woman next to him as well as the prominent bulge in his pants. After escorting the Wielder to her door and performing a security sweep of the apartment, he had worked up the courage to ask her if, as he suspected, the upsetting information that Gabriel Bowman had shared with her had been about him. Despair filled him when she had promptly confirmed that it had been, and with a heavy heart, Ian had turned to leave. But, miraculously, Sara had stopped him, explaining that touching his lips had been a solicitous rather than a provocative gesture. And although this was not what he wanted to hear, Ian had nonetheless felt his spirits lift upon realizing that she didn't find him repulsive as he had feared.
Shifting uncomfortably in the driver's seat, Ian fervently hoped his arousal would subside by the time he reached the location where Mr. Brown had said Angel Medina's drug den could be found. However, whenever he let himself remember the feel of Sara's fingertip stroking his lips, desire would surge through his feverish body anew, and he would begin throbbing in concert with his pounding heartbeat. Suddenly parched, he reached for the bottle of water Sara had so thoughtfully purchased for him, then noticed that she had drunk some of hers. He picked up her half-empty bottle, opened it, and lightly ran his tongue around the rim, imagining he could taste her, which only served to enflame him further. Desperate for a distraction, Ian turned on the car radio with the vague intention of listening to the latest weather report, and was startled to hear rock music blare from it. He started to turn the dial, but a new, much less raucous song started, and the lyrics caught his attention.
~ Wanna tell you 'bout the girl I love, my, she looks so fine.
And she's the only one that I been dreaming of, maybe someday she will be all mine.
I wanna tell her that I love her so, I thrill with her every touch.
I need to tell her she's the only one I really love.
I got a woman wanna ball all day,
I got a woman she won't be true, no,
I got a woman stay drunk all the time,
I said I got a little woman and she won't be true! ~
Ian was struck by the mixture of raw anguish and need in the singer's voice. The words the man half-sang, half-screamed resonated with him, seeming to describe his feelings for Sara almost perfectly. He listened to the entire song, hoping the disc jockey would name both the artist and the title. When it ended, the DJ obligingly said "That was Led Zeppelin and 'Hey Hey What Can I Do.'" Ian immediately resolved to go out and buy the CD that featured this song. Normally, he never listened to this type of music, having found that its requisite loudness offended his acute hearing and that the harmonics of the guitars typically featured prominently often gave him a blistering headache after even minimal exposure. But this particular group's sound appealed to him for some reason. Plus, he realized that Sara had been listening to this radio station, and he wanted to see her reaction when Led Zeppelin came out of the car's speakers.
Abruptly, he became aware of the fact that he was thinking in terms of Sara riding along with him again sometime in the future. Now that her motorcycle had been garaged for the winter, she would be forced to rely on mass transit to get to and from her job. Ian hated the very thought of her riding the subway without his protection. He decided that he would offer to drive her to and from work each day. Since his master was apparently intent on having her every move monitored for the foreseeable future, Ian figured he might as well put his vehicle at Sara's disposal, thereby ensuring that her commute was safe and that he was doing his job efficiently. Of course, Kenneth Irons would never approve of this arrangement, which made it all the more appealing to Ian.
By the time he parked the SUV several blocks from the building that he was intent on investigating, Ian was relieved to discover that his erection had subsided, leaving behind a deep-seated, dull ache in his loins and a dissatisfied restlessness, which was exacerbated by his soaring fever. He suddenly felt the urge to inflict a tremendous amount of violence on Angel and Joaquin Medina or whoever happened to be handy, recognizing this for what it was: the need to relieve his frustration through physical activity. It took an effort for him to remember that he was only here to discover if Alonzo Brown was telling the truth about this place being Angel's new base of operations, and that even if he discovered the Medina brothers here he could not move to neutralize them until after they had picked up the new shipment of narcotics. Even then, he ruefully acknowledged, he would probably be relegated to watching from a distance as Sara, the DEA, and the 11th Precinct's narcotics squad took down the murderous drug lord and his brother. He did not doubt for an instant that the Wielder would be in the thick of the action, especially if she were instrumental in providing the whereabouts of the brothers and the drugs if it turned out that they had in fact managed to lose their tail.
Once again, he took to the rooftops, carefully examining the streets below for any sign of a surveillance unit but finding none. Nor did he detect any evidence of one in the abandoned warehouse directly across the street from the former ice factory, although he did spot a bundled up man who might have been a lookout standing in the shadows of what had been the warehouse's loading dock. Mindful of the woman no doubt waiting impatiently for his call, Ian only spent 20 minutes watching the boarded up entrance of the factory before leaving his vantage point, circling around to the back of the decrepit structure, and finding a way inside via a gaping second-story window.
He heard voices and detected the faint hum of a small generator -- gasoline- powered from the smell of the exhaust -- almost as soon as he entered the cavernous building, and he followed the sounds to what had been the factory's basement. After he silently descended the two flights in near total darkness, he saw the glow of lights, and paused for a moment to let his eyes adjust before slipping down the to the basement level.
Four men sat around a table playing cards in one of the bunker-like rooms where the blocks of ice the factory had once produced had been stored prior to being delivered. As they had been designed to do, the thick concrete walls concentrated the cold, quickly leaching away heat. The meager warmth given off by two small space heaters did little to dispel the pervasive chill, and the men's breath frosted as they spoke. Two of the men appeared to be Caucasian, one was Latino, and one was African-American. On another smaller table next to them were packets of money and a small pile of drugs in tiny plastic bags. One of the white men pushed back from the table.
"I'm gonna go take a leak and have a smoke," he said, rising. "I'll be back in a few."
The three other men nodded at him, continuing their card game.
Ian slipped deeper into the shadows beneath the stairwell, and the man obliviously passed within a few feet of him and headed up the stairs. Noiselessly, Nottingham followed him.
The man took out a flashlight and made his way to the second floor, crossing to the boarded up windows that faced the street. He pushed aside a loose board, glancing out at the empty street, and then cautiously trained his flashlight on the stairwell, apparently to make sure he hadn't been followed. He never saw or heard the black-clad man who had emerged from the stairwell seconds behind him and immediately blended into the shadows not far from where he stood at the window.
Keeping his eyes on the stairwell, the man took out a pack of cigarettes, but along with a cigarette, which he lit but did not smoke, he withdrew a tiny walky-talky unit. He pressed the send button.
"This is Detective Tommy Fuller, do you read?" he said in a low voice. "Fuck!" he softly cursed in frustration when, after several attempts, he still received no response.
"Perhaps you would care to use my cell phone, Detective," Ian said softly, stepping out of the shadows.
The man jumped violently, pulling a gun from his waistband and training it on Nottingham.
"Jesus H. Christ! You nearly gave me a fuckin' heart attack. Who the fuck are you?" he hissed.
"Someone who wants the same thing you do: to bring down Angel and Joaquin Medina," Ian told him, never taking his eyes off the other man's face.
"Are you on the job?" the sandy-haired man asked, eyeing Ian's black-on- black garb suspiciously.
"Not exactly. How long have you been out of touch with your surveillance unit?"
"Who the hell are you?" he demanded again. His gun did not waver from where it was pointed at Ian's heart.
"We do not have a lot of time before your friends downstairs start to get suspicious, Detective Fuller. Suffice it to say that you can trust me. I am working closely with someone in the 11th Precinct. Now, I suggest you use my cell phone to contact your C.O. before somebody comes looking for you."
The younger man stared at him in indecision for several long moments and then shook his head. "I can't use a cell phone. Those guys downstairs have one of those scanners that can pick up nearby cell phone conversations. They're constantly monitoring it and would know right away if I tried to use one. That's why we were forced to use these fucking walky-talkies. They've been watching me like a hawk ever since we moved here two nights ago. The only time they let me out of their sight is when I go to the bathroom. Angel has had somebody watching my every move ever since I witnessed him kill one of his dealers. We somehow gave my surveillance unit the slip after we ditched the old place. Before I got cut off, I did manage to let them know we were on the move and that I thought Angel would be making a pickup within the next 24 to 48 hours. But I'm pretty sure my squad and the DEA don't know about this place yet. This walky-talky only has a distance of about a mile, and I must be out of range. Every couple of hours, I try reaching them, but no luck so far."
"Do you know where Angel and his brother are right now?"
"No. I haven't seen either of them since last night, when Angel came to pick up yesterday's take. And I don't expect him or Joaquin to show up tonight, because I'm pretty sure they've already gone to get the new shipment, which I gathered was delayed by bad weather, meaning it's probably coming by land or maybe by air."
"Yesterday, the DEA received a tip that a Dominican-flagged freighter due into port at midnight tonight was smuggling a large shipment of narcotics," Ian informed the undercover detective. "Your precinct's narcotics squad and the DEA have set up a drug bust operation on the docks in the hopes of catching the Medina brothers. However, based on what you have just told me, I think they have been misinformed. Do you have any idea where Angel and Joaquin have really gone to make the pickup?"
"Not a clue. Angel is beyond paranoid when it comes to that. And he won't come back here if he suspects something isn't right. He's already got a lookout sitting on this place, and we're supposed to stay here all night, even if the last of the product runs out, which it almost has," he told Ian, tossing the cigarette on the floor and grounding it out beneath his sneaker. "We've been bedding down in sleeping bags at night, but I don't think I've slept a wink in nearly 48 hours it's so fucking cold down there. Plus, I don't mind telling you I'm scared as hell Angel or his psychopath of a brother is gonna kill me. I don't think either of them really trusts me."
"I will get word to your C.O. about your location, Detective, so that you can reestablish contact with your surveillance unit," Ian promised him. "But I will also make certain they know not to approach the building until they get confirmation that Angel and his brother have returned with the shipment. Just hold on until then."
"If something happens to me, will you do something for me, man?" the young undercover detective asked anxiously. Putting his gun back in his waistband, he extracted a wedding band from his jeans pocket. "Here," he carefully placed it in Ian's gloved hand, "make sure my wife, Janine Fuller, gets this, will ya?"
Nottingham took it from him. "Nothing is going to happen to you, Detective Fuller, but I will gladly hold on to this for you until the Medina brothers are in custody and you can break cover."
"Okay, but just in case, promise me you'll make sure she gets it."
"I promise. Your surveillance unit should be back within range shortly. I suggest you try to contact them again in two hours, if possible."
"Thanks . . . ?"
"Ian."
"Thanks, Ian."
"You're welcome, Detective." Ian's sharp ears picked up the sound of footsteps coming from the basement. "We are about to have company," he warned the other man.
A full minute later, Tommy Fuller heard the footsteps, too, and glanced toward the stairwell. When he looked back, the tall, black-clad man had vanished as if he'd never been there.
"Hey, Tommy! Did you get lost?" one of his companions called, starting up the stairs to the second floor.
"No," the young detective said, hurrying to meet the other man. "Turns out I had to take a shit."
****
As soon as Nottingham drove off, Sara Pezzini took her cell phone out of her coat pocket and placed it on her coffee table. Then she made herself a mug of peppermint tea in a vain effort to calm her nerves, and dialed Gabriel Bowman's number on her land line.
"Talismaniac. We're fast coming up on the witching hour, so this better be good."
"Uh, sorry to call so late, Gabriel," Sara said, pacing restlessly.
"Hey, Chief, that's okay. I'm not even in my PJs yet. In fact, I don't even own PJs."
"Um, thanks for sharing. Hey, I apologize for hanging up on you earlier. Nottingham came back, and, well, that last little tidbit you shared with me kind of, well, it seriously freaked me out."
"Yeah, I sort of gathered that from your reaction. I tried to warn you."
"Yeah, well, I don't think anything but a sedative -- the kind you take down elephants with -- could have prepared me for that bombshell. We have a little bit more time to talk now. That is, if you're up to it," she added quickly, feeling a little guilty about how late she was calling him, although she knew he was a night owl. He certainly sounded wide awake.
"I'm up for it, but you sound wiped, Chief."
"Yeah, it's been a rather trying few days."
Sara gave her friend the condensed version of what had transpired since Joey Siri, Jr. had shown up with a gun in that alley next to the 11th Precinct three days ago.
"Whoa! That's deep," Gabriel murmured, when she had brought him up to date on the sordid tale. "But the Medina Bros. are no match for Team Pezzini and Nottingham!"
"You think so?" Sara said, smiling with pleasure for some reason.
"No contest, Chief. They have no idea what they're up against."
"What exactly are they up against, Gabriel?" Sara inquired. "I mean, yeah, me and Nottingham are working together on this one, but where do we go from here?"
"Well, I told you what Witchblade lore suggests is possible if --"
"It's not gonna happen, Gabriel," Sara interrupted him flatly. "For one thing, he's Irons' hired killer and I'm a homicide detective. How would it look if I hooked up with a suspected murderer? Plus, his boss has some kind of weird control over him that I don't even want to begin to try and figure out."
"Well, Nottingham has only ever been a suspect in those murders, right? He's never been convicted of any of them."
"Yeah, only because his filthy rich boss man keeps getting him off the hook. Besides, that's splitting hairs and you know it, Gabriel. No, I just can't get past the fact that the guy's a professional assassin. He said it himself. It would never work."
"Oh, so you already hashed out the pros and cons of a relationship, hunh?"
"No! It's just that when we left my godparents' house after dinner, we had this discussion -- "
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back up a minute! You took Nottingham to your godparents' house for dinner?"
"Well, yeah."
"If you don't mind me asking, what the hell possessed you to do that?"
"That's just it!" Sara sighed in frustration, flopping onto her sofa. "I don't understand why I've been acting the way I have been around him. I think it's because of the Witchblade, and the fact that it recognizes him as my Protector. I don't know how else to explain it. I just feel -- and I know this is going to sound really, really crazy -- protective of him."
"Well, actually, it kind of makes sense," Gabriel surprised her by saying.
"How so? I mean, the man is a walking lethal weapon, for cryin' out loud! Why should I feel I have to protect him? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?"
"Well, he is very sick right now. That could have something to do with it. Besides, I have a feeling that the Witchblade is looking out for its own best interests."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, it knows that the odds of you, its chosen Wielder, surviving to a ripe old age vastly improve if you have a Protector looking out for you. It recognizes Nottingham as your Protector, so it's nudging you to try and help him out so that he can do what he was born to do: Protect you."
"Huh. That does make a twisted kind of sense. So, Gabriel, you said that you'd found evidence that past Wielders and their Protectors had," she cleared her throat self-consciously, "uh, hooked up. Can you give me any examples?"
"Marc Antony and Cleopatra, for one," he said instantly.
"Kind of an obscure coupling there, buddy," Sara said wryly. "Got any others?"
"Looks like she wasn't the only Queen of Denial. Get it? Denial? The Nile?" Gabriel chuckled at his own cleverness, then noticed the utter silence on the other end of the phone line.
"What are you implying, Gabriel?" Sara finally said coolly.
"Forget it. Bad joke," he muttered. "Anyway, it was also rumored that Joan of Arc took her Protector as her lover, too."
"Wow. So, not only did the poor girl hear the voice of God, or the Witchblade, or both, she also had to deal with hearing her Protector's voice in her head."
"If the rumors of this telepathic link are to be believed, I guess so."
"I'm sensing a theme here. Both of those Wielders died awfully young and badly. This telepathy bond thing didn't seem to make much of a difference as to how long they lived. Maybe it's a good thing Nottingham makes my skin crawl."
"Does he, Sara?"
"Yes, he does, Gabriel," she said firmly. 'Liar!' a little voice in her head whispered, and Sara glanced down at the Witchblade suspiciously, but the stone was dark.
"I also came across a very interesting reference to the Witchblade having the ability to heal its Wielder's Protector," Gabriel said after an awkward moment of silence.
"Hmmm. That could come in handy."
"Yeah, but it indicates that it only works if the bond between the Wielder and her Protector is very, very strong."
"We're talking about the sex thing again, aren't we?"
"I never mentioned the 'S' word, Miss It's a Good Thing He Makes My Skin Crawl," Gabriel said smugly. "That's obviously where your mind's at."
"All righty then, I think I've had about as much of Witchblade History 101 as I can take for one day, thank you very much. I'll touch base with you tomorrow, Gabriel, and let you know how everything turns out, okay?"
"Sure thing, Chief. Oh, and I'm glad you decided not to go down to the docks tonight after all."
"Yeah, well, just wish me luck keeping my nephew from getting killed, hunh?"
"You don't need luck, Sara: you've got the Witchblade and your Protector on your side." he said. "Try and get some rest, okay? Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Gabriel."
Sara hung up the phone and glanced at the clock. Nearly an hour had passed since Nottingham had left. Sipping at her now cold peppermint tea, she got up and started pacing restlessly despite her exhaustion.
'Do not call him again, Pezzini,' she kept telling herself. 'Resist the temptation. He will call any second. Just be patient.'
When her cell phone rang a moment later, Sara flew across the room. "Hello?" she said breathlessly.
"Hello, Sara."
Her stomach flip-flopped again. "Hey, Nottingham," she said, then realized she was just standing there holding the phone and smiling idiotically. "Oh, um, so, what did you find?"
"The abandoned ice factory on 7th Street between Avenues C and D is indeed Angel's new drug den. Unfortunately, neither he nor his brother were there. However, the undercover narcotics detective is there and I managed to speak with him. His name is Tommy Fuller, and he was cut off from his surveillance unit when Angel Medina moved his base of operations to the new location two nights ago. He is under close watch by Angel's men, and he needs you to inform his C.O. where he is. However, he stressed to me that the surveillance team must leave a very wide buffer zone around the ice factory, or else Angel will not return there with the new drug shipment."
"I'll call my guy in narcotics as soon as I get off the phone with you. Was Fuller able to tell you where Angel and Joaquin are?"
"No. But as I had surmised, he indicated that the drug shipment had been delayed by the bad weather heading this way. However, provided Angel does not get tipped off that the new location has been compromised, we now know where both he and his brother will be in due course. Alonzo Brown has promised to notify me if Angel calls him requesting that he perform lookout duties. I spotted a lookout when I was there, and this man will eventually need to be relieved. Apparently, Angel still trusts Mr. Brown with the job. I also have in my possession the beeper number Mr. Brown calls when he needs to warn Angel of approaching danger."
"Gee, Nottingham, seems like you've covered all the bases," Sara said, genuinely impressed.
"On the contrary, there are far too many variables over which I have no control in this particular situation. However, I am hopeful that the DEA and the narcotics squad will have better success today in apprehending the Medina brothers than they did yesterday."
"Yesterday? Oh, that's right, it's after midnight. By now, they'll have probably figured out that the operation on the docks is a failure," Sara murmured, glancing at the clock. "You did good, Nottingham. Now, go home and do whatever you have to do to get that antidote. I'll see you tomorrow, uh, later this morning."
"Lady Sara?"
"Yes?
"Will you allow me the honor of driving you to work this morning?"
"Sure. Why not? It beats riding the freakin' subway." 'And I can snag my unmentionables from his back seat while I'm at it,' Sara thought.
"I will see you at 08:30. Sleep well, my Lady."
"Thanks, you too."
"Goodbye, Sara."
Sara could hear the smile in his voice, and it warmed her low in her belly and brought an answering smile to her lips. "Goodbye, Nottingham."
More to come. Thanks for all of the feedback. It's much appreciated and I hope it keeps coming!
Disclaimer: I don't own the Witchblade characters. I'm just playing around. Enjoy!
Author's note: I was torn about whether to post a rating change for this chapter owing to a little, ahem, anatomical descriptiveness, but then I decided not to. My apologies in advance to anyone who is offended by mentions of woodies (and I don't mean wood-paneled station wagons :) ).
Chapter 26.
When he reached the double-parked SUV, Ian Nottingham glanced up at Sara Pezzini's window and saw her silhouetted there, looking down at him. He unlocked the driver-side door and slid behind the wheel, only then allowing himself to wilt from exhaustion, but just for a moment before starting the car and driving away. The emotional roller coaster he had just gotten off had left him with a bone-deep weariness not to mention an unsettling swelling in his pants.
After leaving Alonzo Brown's apartment, Ian had timed it so that he would return to his vehicle and Sara with precisely a minute to spare in the agreed-upon hour. He had taken to the rooftops once again, following a circuitous route back to the vicinity of the SUV, on the off-chance that he was being followed. When it came into view, he had pulled out his trusty scope and spied Sara sitting in the passenger seat, talking on her cell phone. This had proven to be more than enough of a distraction to enable him to approach the vehicle unseen, although it had been a near thing once when something had suddenly caused her to look out the window. From where he'd been standing in a shadowy alleyway right across from the car, Ian had seen her alertly scan the dark street. Luckily, her sharp eyes had skimmed right over him, failing to detect his presence there. He was only a few feet from the SUV when he heard her scream "WHAT?" into the phone at a decibel level that had probably caused the person at the other end of the line to wince in pain. Ian had felt a keen sense of satisfaction at succeeding in taking her unawares. But it had swiftly faded when he noticed the way she flinched when she finally became aware of his presence. The hasty manner in which she ended her conversation with Gabriel Bowman before unlocking the car door for him had set off warning bells.
Sara's agitation had practically hit Ian over the head once he got behind the wheel, and he had eyed her heightened color askance. Seeking to ease the tension clogging the intimate confines of the vehicle, Ian had teasingly observed that she had failed to say goodbye before hanging up, earning a harsh rebuke from the Wielder for his trouble. She had accused him of eavesdropping on her conversation, and her hostility and reluctance to look at him had led Ian to the distressing conclusion that the tidbit Mr. Bowman had just shared with her had in all likelihood been about him, or, more specifically, his superhuman abilities. Belatedly, he realized that his abrupt reappearance had not helped matters at all.
Ian was convinced that if Sara found out just how radically his genetic enhancements set him apart from normal human beings, she would once again look at him like he was some kind of freak. Fearful of glimpsing revulsion in her beautiful eyes, he had hesitantly asked her if he had done something to upset her. But then she had done an about-face, apologizing for snapping at him and even going so far as to admit that Mr. Bowman's revelation had unsettled her. Ian had even managed to bring a smile to her pale, tired face by comically responding to her apology around the thermometer in his mouth.
And then she had rocked his world by first touching her own lips and then inexplicably caressing his with her fingertip. All the blood that had previously been flowing to his brain had been instantly redirected to pool hotly in his loins, and Ian had been unable to hold back a groan at his body's emphatic response to her touch. The 20 seconds or so her finger rested on his lower lip only made him grow harder, and desire for her thrummed through his entire body. It had taken every ounce of his considerable self-control not to snatch the thermometer from his mouth, grab Sara in a rough embrace, and kiss her as every fiber of his being screamed at him to do. The beeping of the blasted thermometer broke the spell, but Ian had been devoutly thankful that his loose wool trousers and long overcoat hid his erection from her.
As if nothing had happened, Sara read the latest temperature reading, once again pointing out that he needed the antidote to the poison sooner rather than later. Barely conscious of what he was saying, Ian had babbled something about his fever having not yet reached the threshold he'd reluctantly agreed would automatically precipitate his return to Kenneth Irons' estate. Somehow, he had managed to cajole her into allowing him to go check out the abandoned ice factory that Alonzo Brown claimed was Angel Medina's new drug den. But he'd been crushingly disappointed when Sara had requested that he take her home first. It had become painfully apparent that she was eager to part ways with him.
During the drive back to her loft, Ian had been hyper-aware of the woman next to him as well as the prominent bulge in his pants. After escorting the Wielder to her door and performing a security sweep of the apartment, he had worked up the courage to ask her if, as he suspected, the upsetting information that Gabriel Bowman had shared with her had been about him. Despair filled him when she had promptly confirmed that it had been, and with a heavy heart, Ian had turned to leave. But, miraculously, Sara had stopped him, explaining that touching his lips had been a solicitous rather than a provocative gesture. And although this was not what he wanted to hear, Ian had nonetheless felt his spirits lift upon realizing that she didn't find him repulsive as he had feared.
Shifting uncomfortably in the driver's seat, Ian fervently hoped his arousal would subside by the time he reached the location where Mr. Brown had said Angel Medina's drug den could be found. However, whenever he let himself remember the feel of Sara's fingertip stroking his lips, desire would surge through his feverish body anew, and he would begin throbbing in concert with his pounding heartbeat. Suddenly parched, he reached for the bottle of water Sara had so thoughtfully purchased for him, then noticed that she had drunk some of hers. He picked up her half-empty bottle, opened it, and lightly ran his tongue around the rim, imagining he could taste her, which only served to enflame him further. Desperate for a distraction, Ian turned on the car radio with the vague intention of listening to the latest weather report, and was startled to hear rock music blare from it. He started to turn the dial, but a new, much less raucous song started, and the lyrics caught his attention.
~ Wanna tell you 'bout the girl I love, my, she looks so fine.
And she's the only one that I been dreaming of, maybe someday she will be all mine.
I wanna tell her that I love her so, I thrill with her every touch.
I need to tell her she's the only one I really love.
I got a woman wanna ball all day,
I got a woman she won't be true, no,
I got a woman stay drunk all the time,
I said I got a little woman and she won't be true! ~
Ian was struck by the mixture of raw anguish and need in the singer's voice. The words the man half-sang, half-screamed resonated with him, seeming to describe his feelings for Sara almost perfectly. He listened to the entire song, hoping the disc jockey would name both the artist and the title. When it ended, the DJ obligingly said "That was Led Zeppelin and 'Hey Hey What Can I Do.'" Ian immediately resolved to go out and buy the CD that featured this song. Normally, he never listened to this type of music, having found that its requisite loudness offended his acute hearing and that the harmonics of the guitars typically featured prominently often gave him a blistering headache after even minimal exposure. But this particular group's sound appealed to him for some reason. Plus, he realized that Sara had been listening to this radio station, and he wanted to see her reaction when Led Zeppelin came out of the car's speakers.
Abruptly, he became aware of the fact that he was thinking in terms of Sara riding along with him again sometime in the future. Now that her motorcycle had been garaged for the winter, she would be forced to rely on mass transit to get to and from her job. Ian hated the very thought of her riding the subway without his protection. He decided that he would offer to drive her to and from work each day. Since his master was apparently intent on having her every move monitored for the foreseeable future, Ian figured he might as well put his vehicle at Sara's disposal, thereby ensuring that her commute was safe and that he was doing his job efficiently. Of course, Kenneth Irons would never approve of this arrangement, which made it all the more appealing to Ian.
By the time he parked the SUV several blocks from the building that he was intent on investigating, Ian was relieved to discover that his erection had subsided, leaving behind a deep-seated, dull ache in his loins and a dissatisfied restlessness, which was exacerbated by his soaring fever. He suddenly felt the urge to inflict a tremendous amount of violence on Angel and Joaquin Medina or whoever happened to be handy, recognizing this for what it was: the need to relieve his frustration through physical activity. It took an effort for him to remember that he was only here to discover if Alonzo Brown was telling the truth about this place being Angel's new base of operations, and that even if he discovered the Medina brothers here he could not move to neutralize them until after they had picked up the new shipment of narcotics. Even then, he ruefully acknowledged, he would probably be relegated to watching from a distance as Sara, the DEA, and the 11th Precinct's narcotics squad took down the murderous drug lord and his brother. He did not doubt for an instant that the Wielder would be in the thick of the action, especially if she were instrumental in providing the whereabouts of the brothers and the drugs if it turned out that they had in fact managed to lose their tail.
Once again, he took to the rooftops, carefully examining the streets below for any sign of a surveillance unit but finding none. Nor did he detect any evidence of one in the abandoned warehouse directly across the street from the former ice factory, although he did spot a bundled up man who might have been a lookout standing in the shadows of what had been the warehouse's loading dock. Mindful of the woman no doubt waiting impatiently for his call, Ian only spent 20 minutes watching the boarded up entrance of the factory before leaving his vantage point, circling around to the back of the decrepit structure, and finding a way inside via a gaping second-story window.
He heard voices and detected the faint hum of a small generator -- gasoline- powered from the smell of the exhaust -- almost as soon as he entered the cavernous building, and he followed the sounds to what had been the factory's basement. After he silently descended the two flights in near total darkness, he saw the glow of lights, and paused for a moment to let his eyes adjust before slipping down the to the basement level.
Four men sat around a table playing cards in one of the bunker-like rooms where the blocks of ice the factory had once produced had been stored prior to being delivered. As they had been designed to do, the thick concrete walls concentrated the cold, quickly leaching away heat. The meager warmth given off by two small space heaters did little to dispel the pervasive chill, and the men's breath frosted as they spoke. Two of the men appeared to be Caucasian, one was Latino, and one was African-American. On another smaller table next to them were packets of money and a small pile of drugs in tiny plastic bags. One of the white men pushed back from the table.
"I'm gonna go take a leak and have a smoke," he said, rising. "I'll be back in a few."
The three other men nodded at him, continuing their card game.
Ian slipped deeper into the shadows beneath the stairwell, and the man obliviously passed within a few feet of him and headed up the stairs. Noiselessly, Nottingham followed him.
The man took out a flashlight and made his way to the second floor, crossing to the boarded up windows that faced the street. He pushed aside a loose board, glancing out at the empty street, and then cautiously trained his flashlight on the stairwell, apparently to make sure he hadn't been followed. He never saw or heard the black-clad man who had emerged from the stairwell seconds behind him and immediately blended into the shadows not far from where he stood at the window.
Keeping his eyes on the stairwell, the man took out a pack of cigarettes, but along with a cigarette, which he lit but did not smoke, he withdrew a tiny walky-talky unit. He pressed the send button.
"This is Detective Tommy Fuller, do you read?" he said in a low voice. "Fuck!" he softly cursed in frustration when, after several attempts, he still received no response.
"Perhaps you would care to use my cell phone, Detective," Ian said softly, stepping out of the shadows.
The man jumped violently, pulling a gun from his waistband and training it on Nottingham.
"Jesus H. Christ! You nearly gave me a fuckin' heart attack. Who the fuck are you?" he hissed.
"Someone who wants the same thing you do: to bring down Angel and Joaquin Medina," Ian told him, never taking his eyes off the other man's face.
"Are you on the job?" the sandy-haired man asked, eyeing Ian's black-on- black garb suspiciously.
"Not exactly. How long have you been out of touch with your surveillance unit?"
"Who the hell are you?" he demanded again. His gun did not waver from where it was pointed at Ian's heart.
"We do not have a lot of time before your friends downstairs start to get suspicious, Detective Fuller. Suffice it to say that you can trust me. I am working closely with someone in the 11th Precinct. Now, I suggest you use my cell phone to contact your C.O. before somebody comes looking for you."
The younger man stared at him in indecision for several long moments and then shook his head. "I can't use a cell phone. Those guys downstairs have one of those scanners that can pick up nearby cell phone conversations. They're constantly monitoring it and would know right away if I tried to use one. That's why we were forced to use these fucking walky-talkies. They've been watching me like a hawk ever since we moved here two nights ago. The only time they let me out of their sight is when I go to the bathroom. Angel has had somebody watching my every move ever since I witnessed him kill one of his dealers. We somehow gave my surveillance unit the slip after we ditched the old place. Before I got cut off, I did manage to let them know we were on the move and that I thought Angel would be making a pickup within the next 24 to 48 hours. But I'm pretty sure my squad and the DEA don't know about this place yet. This walky-talky only has a distance of about a mile, and I must be out of range. Every couple of hours, I try reaching them, but no luck so far."
"Do you know where Angel and his brother are right now?"
"No. I haven't seen either of them since last night, when Angel came to pick up yesterday's take. And I don't expect him or Joaquin to show up tonight, because I'm pretty sure they've already gone to get the new shipment, which I gathered was delayed by bad weather, meaning it's probably coming by land or maybe by air."
"Yesterday, the DEA received a tip that a Dominican-flagged freighter due into port at midnight tonight was smuggling a large shipment of narcotics," Ian informed the undercover detective. "Your precinct's narcotics squad and the DEA have set up a drug bust operation on the docks in the hopes of catching the Medina brothers. However, based on what you have just told me, I think they have been misinformed. Do you have any idea where Angel and Joaquin have really gone to make the pickup?"
"Not a clue. Angel is beyond paranoid when it comes to that. And he won't come back here if he suspects something isn't right. He's already got a lookout sitting on this place, and we're supposed to stay here all night, even if the last of the product runs out, which it almost has," he told Ian, tossing the cigarette on the floor and grounding it out beneath his sneaker. "We've been bedding down in sleeping bags at night, but I don't think I've slept a wink in nearly 48 hours it's so fucking cold down there. Plus, I don't mind telling you I'm scared as hell Angel or his psychopath of a brother is gonna kill me. I don't think either of them really trusts me."
"I will get word to your C.O. about your location, Detective, so that you can reestablish contact with your surveillance unit," Ian promised him. "But I will also make certain they know not to approach the building until they get confirmation that Angel and his brother have returned with the shipment. Just hold on until then."
"If something happens to me, will you do something for me, man?" the young undercover detective asked anxiously. Putting his gun back in his waistband, he extracted a wedding band from his jeans pocket. "Here," he carefully placed it in Ian's gloved hand, "make sure my wife, Janine Fuller, gets this, will ya?"
Nottingham took it from him. "Nothing is going to happen to you, Detective Fuller, but I will gladly hold on to this for you until the Medina brothers are in custody and you can break cover."
"Okay, but just in case, promise me you'll make sure she gets it."
"I promise. Your surveillance unit should be back within range shortly. I suggest you try to contact them again in two hours, if possible."
"Thanks . . . ?"
"Ian."
"Thanks, Ian."
"You're welcome, Detective." Ian's sharp ears picked up the sound of footsteps coming from the basement. "We are about to have company," he warned the other man.
A full minute later, Tommy Fuller heard the footsteps, too, and glanced toward the stairwell. When he looked back, the tall, black-clad man had vanished as if he'd never been there.
"Hey, Tommy! Did you get lost?" one of his companions called, starting up the stairs to the second floor.
"No," the young detective said, hurrying to meet the other man. "Turns out I had to take a shit."
****
As soon as Nottingham drove off, Sara Pezzini took her cell phone out of her coat pocket and placed it on her coffee table. Then she made herself a mug of peppermint tea in a vain effort to calm her nerves, and dialed Gabriel Bowman's number on her land line.
"Talismaniac. We're fast coming up on the witching hour, so this better be good."
"Uh, sorry to call so late, Gabriel," Sara said, pacing restlessly.
"Hey, Chief, that's okay. I'm not even in my PJs yet. In fact, I don't even own PJs."
"Um, thanks for sharing. Hey, I apologize for hanging up on you earlier. Nottingham came back, and, well, that last little tidbit you shared with me kind of, well, it seriously freaked me out."
"Yeah, I sort of gathered that from your reaction. I tried to warn you."
"Yeah, well, I don't think anything but a sedative -- the kind you take down elephants with -- could have prepared me for that bombshell. We have a little bit more time to talk now. That is, if you're up to it," she added quickly, feeling a little guilty about how late she was calling him, although she knew he was a night owl. He certainly sounded wide awake.
"I'm up for it, but you sound wiped, Chief."
"Yeah, it's been a rather trying few days."
Sara gave her friend the condensed version of what had transpired since Joey Siri, Jr. had shown up with a gun in that alley next to the 11th Precinct three days ago.
"Whoa! That's deep," Gabriel murmured, when she had brought him up to date on the sordid tale. "But the Medina Bros. are no match for Team Pezzini and Nottingham!"
"You think so?" Sara said, smiling with pleasure for some reason.
"No contest, Chief. They have no idea what they're up against."
"What exactly are they up against, Gabriel?" Sara inquired. "I mean, yeah, me and Nottingham are working together on this one, but where do we go from here?"
"Well, I told you what Witchblade lore suggests is possible if --"
"It's not gonna happen, Gabriel," Sara interrupted him flatly. "For one thing, he's Irons' hired killer and I'm a homicide detective. How would it look if I hooked up with a suspected murderer? Plus, his boss has some kind of weird control over him that I don't even want to begin to try and figure out."
"Well, Nottingham has only ever been a suspect in those murders, right? He's never been convicted of any of them."
"Yeah, only because his filthy rich boss man keeps getting him off the hook. Besides, that's splitting hairs and you know it, Gabriel. No, I just can't get past the fact that the guy's a professional assassin. He said it himself. It would never work."
"Oh, so you already hashed out the pros and cons of a relationship, hunh?"
"No! It's just that when we left my godparents' house after dinner, we had this discussion -- "
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Back up a minute! You took Nottingham to your godparents' house for dinner?"
"Well, yeah."
"If you don't mind me asking, what the hell possessed you to do that?"
"That's just it!" Sara sighed in frustration, flopping onto her sofa. "I don't understand why I've been acting the way I have been around him. I think it's because of the Witchblade, and the fact that it recognizes him as my Protector. I don't know how else to explain it. I just feel -- and I know this is going to sound really, really crazy -- protective of him."
"Well, actually, it kind of makes sense," Gabriel surprised her by saying.
"How so? I mean, the man is a walking lethal weapon, for cryin' out loud! Why should I feel I have to protect him? Isn't it supposed to be the other way around?"
"Well, he is very sick right now. That could have something to do with it. Besides, I have a feeling that the Witchblade is looking out for its own best interests."
"How do you mean?"
"Well, it knows that the odds of you, its chosen Wielder, surviving to a ripe old age vastly improve if you have a Protector looking out for you. It recognizes Nottingham as your Protector, so it's nudging you to try and help him out so that he can do what he was born to do: Protect you."
"Huh. That does make a twisted kind of sense. So, Gabriel, you said that you'd found evidence that past Wielders and their Protectors had," she cleared her throat self-consciously, "uh, hooked up. Can you give me any examples?"
"Marc Antony and Cleopatra, for one," he said instantly.
"Kind of an obscure coupling there, buddy," Sara said wryly. "Got any others?"
"Looks like she wasn't the only Queen of Denial. Get it? Denial? The Nile?" Gabriel chuckled at his own cleverness, then noticed the utter silence on the other end of the phone line.
"What are you implying, Gabriel?" Sara finally said coolly.
"Forget it. Bad joke," he muttered. "Anyway, it was also rumored that Joan of Arc took her Protector as her lover, too."
"Wow. So, not only did the poor girl hear the voice of God, or the Witchblade, or both, she also had to deal with hearing her Protector's voice in her head."
"If the rumors of this telepathic link are to be believed, I guess so."
"I'm sensing a theme here. Both of those Wielders died awfully young and badly. This telepathy bond thing didn't seem to make much of a difference as to how long they lived. Maybe it's a good thing Nottingham makes my skin crawl."
"Does he, Sara?"
"Yes, he does, Gabriel," she said firmly. 'Liar!' a little voice in her head whispered, and Sara glanced down at the Witchblade suspiciously, but the stone was dark.
"I also came across a very interesting reference to the Witchblade having the ability to heal its Wielder's Protector," Gabriel said after an awkward moment of silence.
"Hmmm. That could come in handy."
"Yeah, but it indicates that it only works if the bond between the Wielder and her Protector is very, very strong."
"We're talking about the sex thing again, aren't we?"
"I never mentioned the 'S' word, Miss It's a Good Thing He Makes My Skin Crawl," Gabriel said smugly. "That's obviously where your mind's at."
"All righty then, I think I've had about as much of Witchblade History 101 as I can take for one day, thank you very much. I'll touch base with you tomorrow, Gabriel, and let you know how everything turns out, okay?"
"Sure thing, Chief. Oh, and I'm glad you decided not to go down to the docks tonight after all."
"Yeah, well, just wish me luck keeping my nephew from getting killed, hunh?"
"You don't need luck, Sara: you've got the Witchblade and your Protector on your side." he said. "Try and get some rest, okay? Goodnight."
"Goodnight, Gabriel."
Sara hung up the phone and glanced at the clock. Nearly an hour had passed since Nottingham had left. Sipping at her now cold peppermint tea, she got up and started pacing restlessly despite her exhaustion.
'Do not call him again, Pezzini,' she kept telling herself. 'Resist the temptation. He will call any second. Just be patient.'
When her cell phone rang a moment later, Sara flew across the room. "Hello?" she said breathlessly.
"Hello, Sara."
Her stomach flip-flopped again. "Hey, Nottingham," she said, then realized she was just standing there holding the phone and smiling idiotically. "Oh, um, so, what did you find?"
"The abandoned ice factory on 7th Street between Avenues C and D is indeed Angel's new drug den. Unfortunately, neither he nor his brother were there. However, the undercover narcotics detective is there and I managed to speak with him. His name is Tommy Fuller, and he was cut off from his surveillance unit when Angel Medina moved his base of operations to the new location two nights ago. He is under close watch by Angel's men, and he needs you to inform his C.O. where he is. However, he stressed to me that the surveillance team must leave a very wide buffer zone around the ice factory, or else Angel will not return there with the new drug shipment."
"I'll call my guy in narcotics as soon as I get off the phone with you. Was Fuller able to tell you where Angel and Joaquin are?"
"No. But as I had surmised, he indicated that the drug shipment had been delayed by the bad weather heading this way. However, provided Angel does not get tipped off that the new location has been compromised, we now know where both he and his brother will be in due course. Alonzo Brown has promised to notify me if Angel calls him requesting that he perform lookout duties. I spotted a lookout when I was there, and this man will eventually need to be relieved. Apparently, Angel still trusts Mr. Brown with the job. I also have in my possession the beeper number Mr. Brown calls when he needs to warn Angel of approaching danger."
"Gee, Nottingham, seems like you've covered all the bases," Sara said, genuinely impressed.
"On the contrary, there are far too many variables over which I have no control in this particular situation. However, I am hopeful that the DEA and the narcotics squad will have better success today in apprehending the Medina brothers than they did yesterday."
"Yesterday? Oh, that's right, it's after midnight. By now, they'll have probably figured out that the operation on the docks is a failure," Sara murmured, glancing at the clock. "You did good, Nottingham. Now, go home and do whatever you have to do to get that antidote. I'll see you tomorrow, uh, later this morning."
"Lady Sara?"
"Yes?
"Will you allow me the honor of driving you to work this morning?"
"Sure. Why not? It beats riding the freakin' subway." 'And I can snag my unmentionables from his back seat while I'm at it,' Sara thought.
"I will see you at 08:30. Sleep well, my Lady."
"Thanks, you too."
"Goodbye, Sara."
Sara could hear the smile in his voice, and it warmed her low in her belly and brought an answering smile to her lips. "Goodbye, Nottingham."
More to come. Thanks for all of the feedback. It's much appreciated and I hope it keeps coming!