Blood & Steel: Chapter 2 – Repercussions of Those Nightmares
A/N: I decided that it's time for Sara to come into the picture, as well as Gabriel. This is being written from my heart, and in my heart it's a Gabriel and Saoirse piece. I just love the character of Gabriel, and I decided that he didn't need to get screwed over anymore.
A/N 2: I've edited this story again, and an reposting it. I thought I needed to make the characters grow a little more.
DISCLAIMER: See the first two parts if you REALLY wanna know.
- "Be still, my son
Youre home
Oh when did you become so cold?
The blade will keep on descending
All you need is to feel my love"
- - "The Poet and the Pendulum" by Nightwish
Sara shot up in bed, her heart pounding. She ran a hand through her hair, trying to remember where she was. She glanced around, and sighed in relief. She was in her apartment, in her own bed, not feeling the flames licking on her feet, and not watching a young girl die on the end of the Witchblade's sword, to the perverted amusement of a black-haired woman.
'Just another dream,' she thought. She smiled to herself, and unwillingly, her eyes drifted to the fire escape, and the figure that might be perched out there. It was empty tonight, and she was glad. She had no intention of showing just how much that dream had shaken her.
Her phone rang, and she picked it up, silently cursing whoever was on the other end, even though she was already awake.
"Pezzini."
"Pez, it's Jake. You know I wouldn't wake you up-," her surfer boy partner said.
"Yeah, it must be urgent. Who died?" Sara interrupted.
"I'll let you know when you get here. Hotel Mon Diego, on 12th Street. Thirteen floor." Jake said.
"I thought hotels didn't have a thirteenth floor."
"This one does, although that may be changing soon." He hung up, and Sara glared at the clock. 2 am.
'Four hours of sleep.' She glanced down at the Witchblade, which flickered briefly. 'And none of it restful.'
She climbed out of bed, pulling her hair back into a ponytail.
She arrived on her Buell, her eyes momentarily blinded by the flashing lights of the black and whites. She took her helmet off, and flashed her badge at the officer standing watch over the entrance to the hotel.
She had a chance in the elevator to think about the dream that had brought her out of the first sound sleep she'd had in a couple of months. The young woman in the dream had seemed so…innocent. So untouched by the world around her. If Sara closed her eyes (which she really didn't want to do at the moment. She might find herself asleep against the wall of the elevator), she could hear a young man's voice crying out a name, or what sounded like a name. They had been in a hall, a giant place that reminded her of Irons's room at his mansion, a room that was always cold despite the fire that seemed to be continuously roaring in the fireplace. And Sara had not been welcome in that place, she also remembered that much.
Jake was waiting for her outside the elevator when the door opened.
Unfortunately, he was wide-awake and perky. She'd have to remember to tell him to knock off the midnight coffee binges.
She glared at him, and stopped in front of him, crossing her arms over her chest, her helmet dangling from one hand. "Okay, so tell me who died."
Jake opened the door, saying, "The night's entertainment, from all appearances."
A young woman, an exotic dancer from the looks of her clothing, a pair of skin tight Lycra shorts in bright green and a tiny electric blue shirt, was lying on what remained of a glass-topped coffee table. Well, her body was on the table. Her black hair covered head was a couple of feet away, her blue eyes glazed over in terror. She took in the scene, and once again marveled at the savageness of humanity.
"So, want me to tell you the current COD?" Jake asked. Sara glanced at him.
"The table or decapitation?"
"Right now, neither."
That raised her eyebrows. "Okay, I'll bite. What do you think killed her, rookie?"
Jake nodded to a purse, so bright green that Sara had to wonder how she'd missed it, that was sitting on an end table. In front of it was a large vial, a mirror, and a razorblade. "From just what I've seen, she and her customer had a little pick-me-up before she performed for him."
"How do you know it's a male?" Sara asked. He pulled out a notebook, flipping it open.
"The room's under the name Arnostos," Jake stumbled slightly over the name, "Catoro. Lady at the front desk said that the person who signed for the room was male."
Sara's mind was flying, absorbing all the information, when she saw an odd-looking tattoo on the girl's left wrist.
"Hey, Franks." The CSI photographer came over. "Can you get that for me?" She pointed at the tattoo.
"Sure, Detective." He snapped off a couple shots, then moved on.
"What kind of tattoo is that?" Jake asked, kneeling next to the body.
"Not sure. I don't think I've ever seen one like this before," she replied, snapping on gloves to lift the wrist for a closer look. "It's on the inside of the wrist. This must've hurt like hell."
The tattoo wasn't intricate, but it was pretty. It had what looked like a bird, done in blue, flying towards the wrist, surrounded by what looked like armor rivets.
'She must've bled for days,' Sara thought, laying a hand around the wrist, covering the tattoo.
'"Who are you?" a female voice, most likely the victims', demanded, clawing at hands clutched around her throat.
"I am that which should not be, Watcher," a male voice, almost hissing, replied. "Tell me about the Ancient."
"What Ancient?" she asked
"Niamh. The Ancient."
"She's a myth! Just like Methos! She doesn't exist!" The woman's voice was too terrified for her to lie.
"She does! I have seen her! Where is she?" he demanded, wrapping his hands more firmly around her throat.
"Niamh doesn't exist!"
There the vision ended.
Sara blinked a couple of times, to clear her vision, and saw Jake looked at her strangely.
"You okay?" he asked.
"Yeah, I'm fine." She rose from her crouch, unwilling to show just how much the vision had thrown her. "Look, if you've got everything here, I'm gonna split, ok?"
"Sure, Pez."
Somehow, she made her way to the elevator, and pressed down. The car was, thankfully, empty.
"You've gotta be losing it this time, Pez," she said aloud, pressing her back against the mirrored wall of the elevator.
"You're not losing it, Sara," Danny's voice said. Sara jumped, and glared at the ghost of her deceased partner.
"Damn it, Danny! I hate it when you do that!" she exclaimed.
He smiled. "Gotta keep your on your toes, partner," he said.
"Yeah? Well, next time, do it when I've had more than four hours of sleep, ok?" She glanced at the mirror behind Danny, disconcerted when she didn't see his reflection. She sighed, and closed her eyes, saying, "So what terrible news are you here to deliver this time, oh Wise Asian Master?"
"Someone's coming." It was such a blunt statement, so to the point, that it actually threw Sara.
"What?" She cracked an eye, glaring at him.
"Someone's coming. Someone's who connected with this new case, in more ways than either you or she wants to admit." Danny said.
That sounded more like the normal fair of clues.
"So she's connected to my case. So?"
"She also has a long history with your bracelet. The two are closely intertwined, so close that they almost share the same history." Sara stared at him.
"What?"
The lights on the elevator panel that showed the floor were getting closer to the first floor.
"Another thing, Pez. She'll be able to see me, even when you can't. If you think you have incriminating ghosts hanging around you, you better get rid of them." Danny said.
"She can see ghosts? Like the whole Sixth Sense thing?"
"Yeah."
The elevator doors binged open, and Danny disappeared.
Sara shook her head, her helmet banging against her thigh, and made her way out of the hotel.
'I've really got to get more sleep!' she thought.
She didn't see the lithe form, encased all in black, that was hiding in the shadows around the hotel, or the way his eyes followed her. She most definitely didn't see or hear him open his cell phone, and dial a number.
"She's left the hotel, Mr. Irons," Ian Nottingham said.
"Follow her, Ian."
He clicked the phone off, and, depositing it in his coat, took to the rooftops, the Protector protecting the Wielder once again.
The 11th precinct was more crowded than she'd thought it be. But, then, it'd been about a century since she'd actually been into any police station at all.
Saoirse had never thought that she'd be in New York again, but here she was.
She'd been on the red eye from Paris all night, listening to the hum of the engines, and thinking about things that she hadn't given mind space to in a very long time. Thinking about Arnostos, how much she'd loved him – and how, without realizing it, she'd betrayed the love that they'd made and shared. All because of a charming blonde-haired aristocratic wannabe who'd ultimately betrayed her.
And now she was here to see what information they had, and help if she could. After all, Darius may be an amateur, but last she'd known, he wasn't stupid.
She walked up to the front desk, giving the desk clerk her best smile. He didn't smile back, but his mood did seem to lift. "Hello…" she leaned over the desk slightly, glancing at his badge in the process, "Sergeant Clarkson." She smiled at him again, a little wider this time. "I need to see Detective Sara Pezzini, about one of her cases."
He just looked at her, and said, "What name?"
"Saoirse Ramirez," she replied, keeping her face friendly, although she let her smile leave.
He picked up a phone, dialed a phone number, and waited. Saoirse turned away, taking in the environment of the station. Her satchel, draped over her shoulder and filled with all the necessities that she needed for traveling, banged against her leg as she wiggled it, having found out some three thousand years earlier that a simple physical action kept her from bouncing off the walls with nervous energy. The atmosphere of the police station amazed her, as it always did when she entered a place of justice, bribery, and smoke.
The scuffed floor bore testament to the amount of traffic the station has seen in its life so far. The air was almost heavy with the smell of cigarette smoke, curses, and sweat. It was a world apart from hers, and one that she was entering hesitantly, although willingly, if only to stop something that she herself had brought about.
She heard the desk sergeant curse, and slam down the phone. She turned back to him, asking, "Problem?"
"Our phone system has been on the fritz all freakin' day! I just lost Detective Pezzini. I'll try her on her cell phone." He sighed, and looked at her. "You might just want to have a seat. This may take a while."
"I don't have much of a choice, do I?" Saoirse settled on to the nearest bench, and pulled some of her translating work out of her satchel. There was no danger of anyone spying what she was doing. She was currently one of three people on the face of the earth who could read the ancient tome, and all of them were employed by the society of Watchers.
She quickly became so immersed in the translations of her own history that she didn't notice when someone stopped and leaned over her, trying to decipher her work.
"Ancient Syrian?" The male voice jarred her violently out of her work. Saoirse jumped a little, making the book slide to the floor, along with three pages of notes, written in her native tongue.
She looked up, and was caught in the intelligent brown eyes looking down at her. Her breath stopped, as did her heart. She swallowed, wet her lips, and replied, softly, "No, actually. I think it's twelfth century Hindi." More like ninth, but he didn't need to know that. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and slowly reopened them, taking in more than just his eyes this time.
His face wasn't what would be termed handsome in the conventional meaning of the words. His smile was engaging without being irritating, genuine because it reached all the way to his eyes. He was tall, something she figured out from the way he was bending over her. And he meant her no harm. He was simply curious.
'Like Arnostos…,' her mind injected. She pushed the thought away, and concentrated on the man in front of her. Who's appearance actually bore a startling resemblance to Arnostos.
"Twelfth century Hindi? How do you learn that?" he asked.
"Determination, mostly." Saoirse gave a slight laugh, and decided that it was time she introduced herself. "I'm Saoirse Ramirez."
"Gabriel Bowman, antiques dealer. I run he replied.
"I'm a translator for a small college in Paris." It was her stock answer, vague but not too vague. She bent down to gather up her notes and the book.
"Really?" Gabriel bent down, picking up the book before she could reach it. He examined it, taking in the cracker leather and extravagant detailing on the cover, to the handwritten and hand drawn pages. "Wow," he whispered. He looked at her, his eyes wide. "This is – It's –,"
"It's the original book. It's almost seven hundred years old." Saoirse said. She reached for the tome, and Gabriel glanced down at her wrist.
"Cool tattoo," he said. She jerked back, and realized that she'd used the arm that bore the Watcher tattoo.
"Uh…thanks."
"Gabriel!" He looked over her shoulder, and Saoirse turned at the sound of a female's raised voice.
Cathain…Cleopatra…All the Wielders flashed in front of her eyes. Overshadowing all of them was the face of this Wielder. Saoirse blinked rapidly, and her vision cleared.
"Hey, Chief!" Gabriel raised a hand to wave, and Saoirse took the opportunity to grab the Hindi tome. She shoved it into her satchel, along with her notes. She took a deep breath, and smiled in what she hoped was an open manner at the approaching detectives.
"Detective Pezzini?"
The female detective turned to her, and Saoirse could still the reflection of the Wielders in her green eyes.
"Yes?"
"I'm Saoirse Ramirez. I am – or, rather, was – a friend of Sebastiana Florenti. I was informed that you're currently investigating her murder." She dug into her satchel, and pulled out a business card that simply had her name, her occupation, and her phone number on it. "I was wondering if you had information that you could give me."
"Uh, yeah. I'm afraid that we can't release any information right -," Sara started.
"Detective Pezzini, has anyone else claiming to be her family come forward?" Sara wasn't able to answer that. "I was the only family Sebastiana had. I need to know what happened." Saoirse replied. Not exactly a lie. The Watchers, even those who didn't have any Immortals to watch, considered themselves a family. They lived lives that defied reality, knew about events that no one else would. They were a power, and society, unto themselves. "Please."
Sara sighed, and glanced at Jake. He shrugged, letting her know that this was her call. She looked back at Saoirse, and, for just a minute, didn't see the young woman standing in front of her. The vision slammed into her.
The woman was about the same size, but her hair was dark brown, and longer, almost down to her waist. Her eyes still sparked with power, power that didn't come from any magical object, like hers' did from the Witchblade. She crouched, as she'd seen the warriors do many times, but she held her blade with no skill. Underneath the power in her eyes, fear was tangible.
"Kill her, whelp! Kill her or be killed!"
Sara had never heard that voice before, but, in that instant, she never, ever, wanted to hear it again.
"Mother, I can't!" the young woman cried.
"Do it, silly girl!"
"Mother, please! Don't make me do this!" Her eyes carried such fear, all the while sparking with this unknown power, that Sara's heart ached for her.
The girl took a deep breath, and lunged at Sara, swinging her sword in a wide arc that, if there'd be any intent behind it, would've taken her head off.
Without Sara realizing it, the Witchblade transformed into it's sword form. It was cueing her to drive the sword into the girl's stomach, even as it deflected the sloppily swung blow. More blows were exchanged, and she was able to hold her ground easily against this girl, almost a woman, who's swings were growing desperate.
'For your future, for the sake of this girl who was raised to wield me and who cannot, end this now!' The voice of the Witchblade echoed in her mind.
'So be it.' Sara thought back. She pulled her arm back to deliver the killing blow…'
She blinked rapidly twice, trying desperately to clear her mind. Saoirse was watching her, almost carefully, as if she knew what was going on in her mind. Gabriel was just waiting, as much as he'd gotten used to these visions. And Jake…well, Jake looked kinda freaked out.
She was close. He could feel her moving around, almost like she was a part of him.
Blond lashes closed over blue eyes, his eyes rolling back in his head, as if in ecstasy.
He could almost taste her blood on his lips. He wet his fingers in the blood of his latest kill, and painted it onto his lips. It was sweet, but not as sweet as he knew her blood would be.
He smeared her blood over the tattoo on her wrist, not willing to look at the mark of a society of those who didn't have the guts to live for themselves, and instead lived through the Immortals they recorded.
"You're next, Niamh. I can feel you. You're here. I wonder…" his voice trailed off, as if in thought, "did you bring the elder one with you? You know, your best friend. The one who made you into the skilled liar you are today. I hope you did. That would be quite a prize – two of the eldest Immortals with one blow." His growing laugh was maniacal.
In the 11th precinct, Saoirse felt a cold chill race down her spine, as if someone was walking over her grave. And she feared that, all too soon, that would be true.
As, always, r&r is well appreciated!