Bloodlust

The door to Kenneth Irons private study burst open. Sara stood there for a moment, green eyes blazing with fury. Behind her, the servant who had answered the door, continued to bleat the same protests over and over. She continued to ignore the girl and took in the scene before her. Irons was sitting in his throne, Nottingham kneeling at his feet like the dog he was.

"Good morning detective. To what do we owe the honor of your company?" Irons smiled at the brunette, projecting his pleasure at seeing her up and about, and waved a dismissal to the hovering servant.

For a long moment Sara just stared at him, wondering how he dared to sit there and act like he had done nothing wrong. When she finally spoke there was a raspy edge to her voice, throat tight with grief and pain. "Oh, I think you know."

"I am not in the habit of asking questions to which I already know the answer." Kenneth said condescendingly.

"Joe and Marie were killed last night." Sara watched with narrowed eyes, waiting to see how Irons would respond to the unspoken accusation that she was here because he was responsible for their deaths.

"The Siris are deceased? I offer my sincerest condolences." Kenneth's voice fairly dripped with false sympathy. "You must be overwrought. Please, have a seat. I find brandy best for this kind of shock. Ian, if you would be so good as to fetch the detective a snifter?"

"Move and I'll drop you Nottingham." Pezzini snapped a countermand to Irons' order.

Ian had started to rise and hesitated. Even though Sara was behind him, he could tell she was serious, he recognised that tone. He settled back into his previous position, knowing that it wasn't just the deaths, but that she felt he had betrayed her.

"Sara, really," Kenneth soothed, "There's no cause for you to take such a tone. Ian was just being helpful."

"If Nottingham really wanted to be helpful, he'd cuff himself." Sara hooked her thumb through the first of two pair she had tucked in her waistband and tossed the steel handcuffs to land by the kneeling man's booted heels.

"Why would Ian do that?" Irons cocked his head slightly to take in Nottingham's unmoving form and still keep Detective Pezzini in his sight.

"Because he is under arrest for the murder of Joseph Siri, his wife Marie, and Bruno Dante, that's why." Pez ground out.

"Come now Sara, the captain of your department, the retired captain of your department and his wife are dead and you think that Nottingham killed them? What possible gain could there be for him in such an act?" Kenneth objected in that urbane tone that never failed to irritate Pezzini, even on a good day, which this definitely was not.

"For him? None, I would imagine. But Ian is a good and faithful servant, isn't he?" Sara threw Irons old description of Nottingham back in the blonde's face. "I'm sure he was just doing what you told him to do."

"I?" Kenneth was the very picture of wounded innocence.

"Spare me the act. We both know that you gave the order and Nottingham carried it out." Pez growled.

"Is that what you truly think of me? I am hurt. I thought we had come farther in our relationship than this." Irons sighed regretfully.

"Oh we have. We've come so far that I know just what happened, and you both are going to rot in jail for the rest of your unnatural lives." Sara smiled at the thought, a cold, hateful smile.

Kenneth met her smile with a thoughtful frown. "You seem so convinced. Pray indulge me, and tell me how you came to the realization that I was responsible. What evidence do you have that has brought you to my door?"

"I…" Sara trailed off. She had seen a vision. There was no evidence, at least not yet. Certainly nothing that would hold up in court. If she brought them in now, they would walk, and ol' Kenny would probably file a wrongful detainment suit.

"Yes?" Kenneth arched a brow. "Could it be that you have no proof? Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty, detective? I believe I shall lodge a complaint with your superiors over this harassment."

Pez stared at Irons, still reclined in his leather chair as if he had done nothing wrong and had nothing to worry about. He even had the gall to smile, no smirk; it was definitely a smirk, at her. So Irons thought he'd had gotten away with it, did he? Sara pushed her jacket aside, hand settling on the grips of her pistol.

"What are you going to do, shoot me?" Kenneth held his arms out, emphasising his supposed helplessness.

"The thought had crossed my mind." Sara threatened.

"Captain Dante always said you were a vigilante. I had not believed him, until now." Irons ignored the continued threat of her hand on her gun.

"Dante didn't know shit about me."

"Of course not, he was only your captain. He didn't read your file, interact daily with you, or even work in the same precinct." Kenneth mocked.

"Shut up." Sara snarled. The Witchblade responded to the spike of fury by warming on her wrist. "I've had enough of you manipulating me, of you taking away the people that matter. You know, I used to think it was me, that I was cursed somehow. But it wasn't, was it? You were always there, pulling the strings."

"I have no idea what you are talking about."

Pez snorted in derision. "You encouraged Dante to have my father killed so that I would be alone. Then, when I found support in my partner, you set up the phoney sale at the Rialto so that he would die right in front of me. You made sure I had an obvious target in Gallo, because it made me blind to the fact that you were the common thread through all the shit that was happening to me."

"I will excuse these wild flights of fantasy, but only because you have had a terrible upset. You are distraught, delusional." Irons barely managed to keep the shock he was feeling out of his voice.

Sara wasn't supposed to figure him out; she was supposed to come to him as a supplicant. To ask for his help in achieving her vengeance against those she had been led to believe had wronged her. How had she learned…? Kenneth's eye was caught by a faint red glow on Pezzini's wrist. The Gauntlet had found its way back to her.

This could work out very badly for him, as he no longer had his own connection to the Witchblade. Now that he was not the Gauntlet's temporal keeper, it had no reason to protect Kenneth. If the sentient weapon could use Irons' past actions as a goad to drive the Wielder into bloodlust, it would.

"No more. You've taken away everything that was ever important to me, my family, my friends," Sara paused, eyes tellingly darting to where Nottingham continued to kneel, "my love. I should have done this a long time ago, you meddling son-of-a-bitch."

Metal rasped against leather as the Glock cleared the holster. With near-supernatural speed, Sara lined the sights of her gun on the center of Kenneth's forehead, just above his eyes. The Witchblade was now glowing brightly enough to lay a red hue over the weapon and give her eyes a matching cast.

The click of the Glock's safety being thumbed off was all the warning Kenneth Irons had that Detective Pezzini had gone over the edge. The Witchblade had driven its Wielder into bloodlust. There would be no appeal to reason that she would hear, no end save death. Time seemed to slow, showing him the depression of her finger on the trigger, the glow of chemical ignition deep inside the barrel, letting him see death coming for him at last.

Nottingham eased his hand back, feeling for the handcuffs Sara had tossed at his feet. Sara was taking a deep steadying breath. He looked over his shoulder, watching her while his hand slid across the nap of the Persian rug. He could see that she serious. Sara was going to shoot Kenneth, and that he could not allow.

It was his duty to protect the older man. Besides, she would regret it later, when her thinking was not clouded by the Witchblade. His lady was a lot of things, but to kill someone unarmed and offering no direct violence to her person would haunt her, however much she had thought it necessary at the time.

His fingers brushed over metal just as Sara began the exhale that would accompany the squeezing of the trigger. Handcuffs in his grasp, Nottingham pushed up from his position on the floor, hand arcing behind. The cuffs smacked against the barrel, ruining her aim. The bullet whined past Kenneth's ear to bury itself in the mahogany bookcase to his left.

The restraints had done what Ian intended, so he let them go. He needed both hands free, one to keep the weapon pointing away from anyone, and the other to take it apart. The barrel on the service .9mm was designed for easy cleaning, and if you knew what you were doing, you could take it right off the base of the weapon in a fight, leaving your opponent holding nothing but the grips.

Nottingham knew what he was doing. The barrel came free in his hand, and he tossed it behind him. Sara glared at him over their hands, together over the remnants of her Glock in a parody of intimacy. "Sara, please, listen to me. It's not what you think."

"I don't want to hear any excuses from you. I trusted you. I thought we had something special." Sara let go of the useless hilts as the Witchblade flowed down her wrist, encasing her hand in silver metal. She punched him in his lying mouth, sending Nottingham across the room. "More fool me, huh?"

"No, you were right to trust me. I need you to trust me again," Ian pleaded, ignoring the pain of his lacerated lip. "Please, Sara."

Sara stared down into pleading brown eyes and wavered. She wanted to believe him, he sounded so sincere, and the way he was gazing at her… but she knew better. Fury gripped her anew. He was a liar, and worse. Nottingham had probably been lying to her all along, pretending to love her. Asshole.

Pezzini stalked toward him, the Witchblade responding to her thoughts with the rasp of metal on metal. The blade that shot out of the gauntlet flashed as she drew her arm back, ready to skewer Nottingham where he waited, crouched where he had landed.

Ian watched her come, seeing the telltale red gleam in the Wielder's eyes. He dodged away from the blow, moving back toward the center of the room. The Witchblade had her firmly in its control. The Gauntlet, by virtue of its nature, did not acknowledge anything but good or evil. Without the Wielder maintaining balance, the Witchblade brought justice without mercy, vengeance untempered by reason.

If even one of them had been at full strength, Nottingham would have despaired. Yet thankfully, both Wielder and weapon were recovering from near-destruction. There was a good chance he could wait out the tempest. Ian danced away from Sara as she thrust again. He moved around the room, using every trick he knew to wear her out.

The long weeks of complete bedrest soon began to show. Sara was sweating and stumbling, her breath coming in harsh pants. The blade retracted, leaving only the metal gauntlet. Nottingham knew both were at the end of their endurance and he circled, watching for his opening.

Pez gritted her teeth and lunged at Nottingham again. Trying to hit him was like punching smoke. He just faded out of the way somehow. Her legs felt like lead. It was becoming too much of an effort to chase him, the coward. Why wouldn't he just stand still and take it like a man? It wasn't like he didn't have it coming.

The Witchblade retreated completely, leaving her arm cold. It was the only thing that was. Sara was overheated, like she'd been overdoing in the gym. Blood was pounding in her ears, and it was hard to think over the roaring. The only thing she knew was that she was in a battle with Nottingham and losing.

She didn't have much more fight in her, and knew she had to take him out quick. She rushed him; arm swinging upward in what would have been a glorious haymaker, had she connected. Inertia from her desperate lunge brought her down to one knee. Her hand touched the floor, helping her catch her balance. Her forearm pressed against her boot, and the bulge underneath it that was her back-up revolver.

Why chase the lying little weasel around the room when she could shoot him? Sara couldn't imagine why the thought hadn't occurred to her before. She slid her hand into the top of her boot and pulled out the snub-nosed Smith.

Ian twisted as she fired; one hand open and moving. He felt the vibration of the bullet in his hand as the projectile played out its inertia, continuing the spin until he was facing Sara. She was staring at him in shock, eyes wide and those lovely lips he feared he would never again kiss parted.

She spluttered for a moment before finding her voice, "How the Hell did you do that?"

The explanation was far to involved and esoteric for her to really want to hear, so Ian gave her a secretive little smile and opened his palm. The spent bullet fell from his gloved hand. There wasn't even a scorch mark on the palm.

"I did not kill Joseph Siri, nor did I kill his wife. You must believe me," Nottingham stared into her eyes, willing her to have faith in him, to trust.

Sara took her hand away from the trigger, the gun clearly wasn't going to do her a bit of good, and held the now-spent Witchblade up. "I saw you on the rooftop of a building with a sniper rifle, so don't give me that shit."

"Then you did not see me kill the Siris." Ian said with quiet conviction.

"Then who did, the Easter Bunny?" Sara raised a disbelieving brow. Her reply lost some of its impact, delivered as it was with still panting breath.

"It was one of the agents who were supposed to be protecting them." Nottingham knew she wasn't going to just accept his word, and indeed, the first thing out of her mouth was…

"You got any proof?"

"Actually, I was watching the building when it happened. Unfortunately, I was too far away to intervene." It was true, he had been. The fact that he wouldn't have, even if he had been, was something he didn't need to bring up. He had learned from Irons how to tell the version of the truth that would paint him in the best light.

"You just happened to see it all with your own little eyes. How convenient. I don't suppose you have anything to back your story up." Pezzini's voice was sceptical.

"If you will permit me?" Nottingham asked and raised his hand toward his inner jacket pocket, but not reaching in. It would look far too much like he was going for a weapon.

"Just move real slowly," Sara narrowed her eyes and brought her hand back to the trigger. She probably couldn't hit him, but it would make him move, keep him from shooting back at her if he was lying and going for a gun of his own.

Nottingham brought out a small digital recording device. It still had the ear bud plugged in to the side, which dangled on the black wire connector as he held it out to her.