Chapter 15: Conferences and Conundrums
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"I hope, for your sake, that I did not hear you correctly." Irons said coldly, his pale blue eyes a perfect match for the winter in his tone.
"Your hearing is without fault. The tape is not in Sara Pezzini's apartment." Nottingham kept his head down. He was walking a fine line of truth here, but he knew perfectly well how badly he lied. The only time he managed to ever get anything by Irons was when he scrupulously told the truth, even if the omissions were large enough to hide elephants behind.
"Then where is it?" Irons asked with deceptive gentleness. When he spoke in those soft tones, Ian knew he was far angrier than yelling could ever express.
"I am not certain of its exact whereabouts." He wasn't. McCarty could have done anything with it by this point. It could be in his apartment still, but Ian doubted it. More likely, it had been taken to an F.B.I. lab to be examined, copied, and cross-referenced.
"It would be prudent for you to learn." Irons practically purred as he watched his penitent servant closely. Nottingham practically vibrated with guilt.
Was it because Ian thought, quite rightly, that he had not left the videotape in the best possible location? Or was it that he had not given Sara the tape at all, and was trying to keep from doing so? Kenneth had noticed his reticence when the order had been given.
Yet Nottingham had hesitated before this, and in the end he had always obeyed. Maybe he needed a little reminder of whom he served? Had he been too lenient with Ian, given him delusions of autonomy? Kenneth narrowed his eyes as he contemplated the most efficient way to bring his wayward charge to heel.
"I will begin with a thorough check of the hospital. Perhaps Sara overlooked it while packing. She didn't take any of the flowers with her after all. I will also check the visitor roster, see if anyone was in her room after we left that could have picked the tape up." Nottingham knew that the only thing that would divert the oncoming punishment he could see in Kenneth's eyes was to make it inconvenient to Irons' plans to have him out of commission.
"There is another possibility," Kenneth paused just long enough to see if Nottingham would give that little shift he always did when he had been disobedient. So often Irons had known nothing of any transgression, yet the slightest pause in the right place could give him volumes of information. Ian stayed perfectly still, to Kenneth's surprised pleasure. "Perhaps our fair Sara has seen the tape, and has given it to someone she trusts for safekeeping."
"That is a possibility, yes," Ian had not thought of that one. He was torn between admiration for the brilliant mind in front of him, who saw so many possibilities and angles, and the euphoria of not being caught in his not-quite-a-lie.
"If that proves to be the case, it would be best if this individual were to appear to have surprised a burglar in his or her own home. Make a suitable mess, take only the tape, and find a way to leave one of those gauche shell casings at the scene." Irons curled his lip at the sheer stupidity of leaving a calling card behind, especially to hallmark your presence at the site of something illegal.
"May I take one of Dante's?" Ian asked carefully.
"One with his finger prints would be ideal for my plans, would it not?" Irons leaned back, fingers coming together in a steeple. After his earlier concerns regarding Nottingham's commitment to his latest endeavors, it was reassuring to see Ian bending his thoughts toward how to efficiently accomplish those self-same plans.
"Yes, it would. I can also check in on Robert while I am at the hospital." Ian still felt badly about the older man being shot. He was not the first noncombatant to be hurt on his watch, but he was the first one who had also been a friend. It was hard to think of friends as collateral damage.
"How is Robert?" Kenneth asked, his tone politely curious, and nothing more. He had checked in on his chauffer the first time he had gone to visit Sara, purely as an employer seeing to the welfare of an employee. It wouldn't do to get too familiar with the help.
"He is conscious for longer periods, according to his physician. I will learn what he can remember of the night he was attacked. The flagrant disregard for subtlety, combined with such ineptitude has me concerned. It does not fit the profile of any of our enemies." Ian dangled the bait carefully, wondering if he could lure Irons into making the connection that Nottingham wished him to.
"Brute force and poor intelligence may not describe any of our enemies, but it does match with an ally who has outlived his usefulness." Irons pointed out.
"Do you think he is smart enough to know that?" Ian asked, arching a brow.
"Cunning and intelligence are two different things, and they rarely occur together. I think he may be clever enough to sense the change in the wind, but not smart enough to travel with it. His clumsy attempt to eliminate me matters not, as I will be sacrificing him to the F.B.I. as soon as it is expedient to do so." Irons tossed his hand negligently, and Ian knew he was dismissed.
With his head down, Nottingham backed away his customary three steps before turning and leaving the office. He needed to arrange the security detail for the next week in accordance with the schedule Irons had given him during the first part of their meeting, but that would not take long. Ian could get that done over the phone with his secretary, stop at a certain cyber café to transfer his personal assets, and be done at the hospital in time to take Sara to lunch.
The double glass doors opened to a bright, if blustery, February morning. There wasn't a cloud in the sky. He should have been happy. He had gotten out of the meeting in one piece, without blame for the missing tape or any hint of suspicion regarding his time spent with the lovely detective. But he wasn't.
Nottingham closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the wind tugging on the shorter tendrils of hair that had escaped their ponytail confinement. The air was cold and clean, but it could not wash away the guilt he was feeling. Not only had he twisted the truth completely out of form with the man he considered to be his father, he had set in motion a chain of events that could ultimately force Ian to kill one of Sara's friends.
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"So then she said, 'the Witchblade is blood of my blood and it is now yours as well,' which is kind of freaky." Sara had been talking too much to drink her coffee, content just to cradle it in her hands and breathe the aroma.
"Well, if what you're saying is true, the Witchblade was formed from the branch of the Tree of Knowledge, which was struck from the Tree by an angry God as he was smiting the serpent who had led the first humans into temptation, and I find that extremely freaky. What the Hell kind of tree makes a shape changing metal?" Bowman shook his head, perturbed.
"Mythology doesn't follow any rules. If it did, it would be science." Sara gave him a wry grimace; the supernatural had never had anything to do with her stock in trade until the Witchblade had found its way to her wrist. Pez still found it a difficult to believe in half the shit she was seeing, even when it reached out and bit her.
"I know, I know, but still…I always thought the Witchblade was forged of meteoric metal. It would make more sense than anything else. Are you sure Ceto wasn't lying to you? Beings that go around claiming to be deities are notorious for lying, or at least not telling the whole truth." Gabriel leaned back from his laptop and spun it toward Sara, the screen holding the image of an ancient mosaic of a snake headed woman.
"I'm pretty sure Medusa and Ceto both were telling the truth. I did have another source of confirmation you know." Sara lifted her wrist out of habit, even though there was nothing there now. It got her point across, even bare.
"As many artifacts as I've handled in my time, I never thought the Christian religion had their theology together. I mean really, their creation myth is a hodgepodge of pagan and Judaic beliefs, with some brutal editing and translation issues making it an even bigger hash down through the years." Gabe sprung out of his chair and began pacing, excited and disturbed at the same time.
His career choice had inured him to the spiritual aspects of the artifacts he handled every day. It was still exciting to find and handle sacred artifacts, to be sure, but you could only see so many before the awe factor dissipated. Seeing how people reacted to those same objects had put a major crimp their holiness for Gabriel. How can something that is supposed to bring you closer to your deity inspire such greed and obsession?
"Hey there, Catholic remember?" Sara objected to Gabe's negative assessment.
"Oh please. When was the last time you were in a church, other than to investigate a crime?" Gabriel rolled his eyes.
"Just because I don't go every single Sunday, doesn't mean I don't believe in God." Pezzini deflected the question, because she didn't have any idea.
"It's nicto." Gabe said; lips twitching as he fought back a grin.
"Nicto?" Sara furrowed her brow in confusion.
"Sorry, you just reminded me of this guy named Ash there for a minute. He was supposed to say the sacred words before he picked up this very powerful Sumerian text or he would unleash an army of the dead, but he couldn't remember the last word, which was nicto." Bowman put a hand over his mouth to hide his smile.
"I take it this army of the dead rose up to reclaim the book?" Sara knew Gabriel was laughing at her; she just didn't get the joke.
"Yes they did. When the wise men asked Ash if he had said the words, he said that maybe he hadn't said every single syllable, but basically he said the words." Dark eyes twinkled merrily at her over Gabe's hand. He couldn't believe she hadn't gotten the reference yet. Maybe he'd buy her a copy of 'Army of Darkness' for her birthday.
"Ok, I see the connection, but I don't understand why you think it's so funny." Sara detested being laughed at. "Nor do I see what it has to do with Ceto. Can we get back on track here?"
"Sorry, sleep deprivation coupled with too little caffeine does not aid in coherent thought processes," Bowman put his free hand out toward her in a warding gesture.
"Then walk your erudite ass into the kitchen and get more coffee." Pez jerked a thumb in the general direction of the coffee pot.
"Spend a lot of time thinking about my butt detective?" Gabriel bobbed dark brows at her suggestively.
"You wish." Sara laughed at his back. While Gabe was off getting his refill, Pezzini started to read about the Gorgons and their mother, Ceto.
"So what else did the old snake have to say?" coffee achieved, Gabriel settled back into his chair.
"After the whole blood of my blood bit, which I wasn't exactly buying in to, Ceto explains that the Witchblade has moved through my body, changing it on a molecular level. Since her blood is part of the Witchblade, I now share some of her DNA." Sara shrugged. She was uncomfortably aware that the ancient being, somehow calling it a god seemed blasphemous, was right.
"Is that your word choice or hers?" Gabe asked; slouched back in his chair and nibbling on the edge of his thumb.
"Hers, believe it or not."
"Damn." Gabriel dropped the hand, letting it slap on the arm of the chair.
After several moments of silence, Sara prompted, "What?"
"It would have made our lives easier if Ceto had been living in the past. If she wasn't up on modern technology, we might have been able to spring something on her she hadn't anticipated.
"If you had any ideas on how to keep her out of my head, I'm still willing to try them. Ceto told me that now that I'm not taking the pain medication there's nothing blocking her from my subconscious. I could see her every time I go to sleep." Pez took a fortifying gulp of coffee. It was getting a little cold, but the taste was still comforting.
"When did you stop taking your medication?" Gabe asked.
"I palmed the sleeping pills my last two nights at the hospital. They gave me more to take 'as needed', but I haven't felt that bad yet, so the medication must be pretty much out of my system by now." Sara looked into eyes that had darkened with concern.
"Then maybe you should take a pill today, which will give me time to get something set up. I've got a few things back at the shop that are for protection from spirit possession, and some that are for dreams. I'll bring them all over this afternoon, and we'll see what works, if any. I'm not sure if they will perform as advertised, and I hate to take chances with my friends, so lets both be thinking about an alternative to try if they don't." Gabe was back to biting his thumb, which Sara had come to associate with deep thinking on his part.
"We had better hope that one of the artifacts would work. Ceto said that without the Witchblade's protections, I am open to anything with the knowledge to use me." The last part left a bad taste in Sara's mouth. She hated to be used, hated to not be in control. The idea of some entity taking her over was abhorrent.
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