“Can I help you?” he called out to the anonymous shadow. 

“Well, well, well.  Ain’t you just the coolest thang since toilet paper,” a warm baritone voice drawled.  A few shuffling steps later, and the door closed, cutting the glare, and a tall, gray-haired man came into focus.  “Quite a place, Gabe.”

“Joe? Joe Dawson?  What the hell? Wow, man, it’s great to see you.”  He came from around the front display case and threw his arms around the burly man, careful not to jeopardize his balance on a cane and prosthetic lower legs.  A hard lump formed in Gabe’s throat when he saw how much his Watcher Academy teacher had aged.  The beard was now liberally speckled with gray, his friendly face was noticeably more creased, and an unruly shock of thick hair hanging over one eye had gone almost completely silver.

“Hey, it’s not that bad, kid,” Joe smiled, reading Gabe’s expression.  “We all get old eventually.  Well, most of us do, anyway,” he chuckled.  “And it’s better than the alternative.”

Gabe turned to pull out his most comfortable chair for his guest, and couldn’t help the silly grin that he knew was plastered on his face. “Oh, man, I never thought I’d see any of you guys again, especially you.  Are you still in the Watchers?  I’d heard some really nasty shit was going down in Europe, which is one of the reasons I left.”

“Come off it, Gabe.  You left because you never could follow anybody’s rules but your own.” Joe smiled affectionately at him and lowered himself carefully into the chair. 

Gabe leaned up against his desk, folded his arms and shrugged sheepishly.   “Yeah, well, the Watchers certainly had a lot of those. Rules, I mean. But what have you been up to, Joe?” he asked, leaning over and punching him lightly on the shoulder.  “Must be nice to get to watch one of the good guys.”  A look of chagrin crossed Joe’s face, his eyes closing a little as if in pain.  “Oh,” Gabe corrected himself.  “Sorry, man.  Did somebody take him out?”

“No, not that plenty haven’t tried,” Joe sighed.  “It’s a long story.  A lot’s happened since you left, Gabe.  Things have changed.  Some for the better,” Joe shrugged.  “Some for the worse.  The fools made me Director of the Northwest Territories, so you know things have gone to hell,” he smiled. 

“Oh, my God!  What were they thinking!” Gabe responded in mock horror, then laughed at Joe’s snaggle-toothed grin.  “Hey, sounds like those tight-assed bureaucrats finally started thinking with something besides their butts.  About time somebody with some common sense was put in charge.”

Joe chuckled, then took a long look around the store.  “Looks like you’re doing pretty well with your little enterprise.”  He drew out the last word in an exaggerated southern drawl.

“I do all right,” Gabe answered softly.  “But you didn’t come here just so I could congratulate you on your promotion, or to admire my stuff.”  Actually, he could guess why the Watchers had suddenly contacted him after over six years of official silence.  Sara’s ‘casual’ search for a weapon suitable for beheading was a little too coincidental for comfort.

“Sara Pezzini,” Joe said the name softly, looking up at Gabe with a twisted smile.

“She’s an Immortal?” Gabe gasped, opening his eyes wide in wonder.

Joe threw his head back and laughed out loud, pointing at Gabe’s face.  “Oh, man, you should patent that ‘startled innocent’ look.”

For a moment Gabe tried to maintain the façade of ignorance, but finally a slow grin tugged the edges of his mouth wider, and he shrugged again.  “Ya think?  I could make it another sales line:  ‘Expressions for All Occasions!’”

Joe chuckled, then sighed.  “I’ve missed you, kid.  Things have gotten pretty grim in the Watchers these last few years.”

“I left behind a lot of good friends, Joe.  And I wasn’t the one who declared all contact off limits.”

Joe nodded, then straightened in his chair and leaned both hands on his cane, obviously ready to get down to whatever had brought him there.  “Gabe, Sara Pezzini came to you this morning, and left with a long, wrapped bundle.  I need to know what it was.”

Gabe pushed away from the desk, went behind it and sat down to give himself time to think a little.  His loyalty was no longer with the Watchers, it was with Sara Pezzini, both as a friend and as the Wielder of the Witchblade.  “I’m not a Watcher any more, Joe.  And Sara’s a friend, someone very special.”

Joe smiled.  “Once a Watcher, always a Watcher, kid.  You can’t stay away from them.  We both know that.”  His gestured encompassed the various items scattered all around the shop.  “Should I even try to guess how many Immortal artifacts you have here?  We know you still have contacts funneling some of the stuff to you for a little extra cash on the side.  We’ve been looking the other way, unless it’s something we think is really important to the archives.”

“Are you threatening me, Joe?”

Joe shook his head and leaned back.  “No.”  He waited a moment, studying Gabe carefully.  “You know what Sara really is, don’t you?”  Gabe found he couldn’t hold Joe’s piercing stare, and ended up looking at his lap.   “Thought so.  The Watchers have known about the Witchblade for a long, long time, but in all that time the Blade and the Wielder have rarely ever gotten directly involved with Immortals.” Joe shook his head again with a sigh.  “Now, suddenly Pezzini is going around seeking Immortals out, and today it looked like she just might have gotten herself a sword.  It’s bad news, Gabriel.  If the Witchblade starts to interfere in Immortal fights, it could be really bad news.  For her, for the Game…who knows what impact that might have?”

“I don’t give a damn about the Game anymore, Joe,” Gabe said, still staring at his lap.  “I care about Sara.  She’s…she’s very special.  She really cares about people.  If she says she needs a sword, then I trust her.”  He looked up to meet Joe’s hard gaze.  “And I think you should, too.”

"It's not a matter of trust.  She's running smack up against some of the most powerful Immortals on the planet.  We need to know why she suddenly wants a sword when she has the Witchblade to defend her."

"But it is a matter of trust, of trusting Sara to do the right thing for the right reasons," Gabe insisted.

"Then you did give her a sword."

Gabe crossed his arms, and maintained his silence.

“Damn,” Joe sighed and shook his head, then pulled a cell phone out of his pocket, dialing a number from memory.  "MacLeod," Joe said.  Gabe jerked up straight.  A Watcher calling an Immortal?  "I'm pretty sure Sara has gotten herself a sword….Yeah, I know ….Well, she knows how to use the Witchblade, but whether or not she can actually wield a real sword is something I guess we may find out…. Hell, Mac, don't you think I know that?…. If she tries to fight Singh, I can't even imagine what might happen.  Yeah, yeah, I know, stay out of it.  You know me, Mac.  I never interfere."  Joe chuckled, sighed again and closed the phone.  When his eyes rose to meet Gabriel's, he shrugged.  "Things have changed a little since you left."

"No shit," Gabriel agreed softly.

The address MacLeod had given her was in a warehouse district on the other side of the river.  The late afternoon traffic would normally have been a problem, but on her motorbike she cut easily through traffic jams, took short cuts through alleys, and even maneuvered between cars practically parked on the bridge.  She loved the power and speed of her bike, the musical rumble of the engine, the sense of absolute control under her hands and between her legs. 

It was a guilty pleasure, but only a dim reflection of the kind of charge she also got from the Witchblade.  Using the Blade always gave her an almost sexual rush, frequently followed by a stomach lurching, knee-shaking fear of what might have happened if she hadn’t been quick enough, strong enough, and protected by a supernatural weapon.

Sara slowed down as she turned onto the street MacLeod had identified and pulled to a stop, surveying the landscape.  A few battered vans and delivery trucks were parked along the heavily potholed road, but the area seemed fairly deserted, with most of the warehouses boarded up and abandoned.  Sara moved forward again slowly, conscious of the conspicuously loud rumble of her motorcycle.  She pulled into the empty delivery bay of a closed autoparts warehouse and cut the engine.

She searched the sides of the buildings for an address number, then moved across the street and further down, finally seeing the almost illegible name of “East India Imports” in faded and peeling paint on the bricks of a building at the end of the block.  That had to belong to Singh, she decided, and edged closer to the shadows.  She was carrying the sword she had gotten from Gabriel, but it felt awkward and heavy, especially in comparison to the weightless Witchblade.  She had a tendency to forget its length and managed to knock it into the building with a loud clank, and once even hit a trash can, the sound echoing noisily in the empty street.   She gritted her teeth in frustration at her own clumsiness and moved more slowly, holding the blade with both hands.

There was a metal door at the top of the steps up to the loading dock, and Sara could see it had been left slightly ajar.  It was too much of an open invitation, so she crept around the side of the building to see if there was a less obvious way in.  A small window about six feet off the floor of the alley was open an inch or two, and finally the sword actually came in handy.  She reached up with its tip, and pushed, and the window creaked open another few inches.  What to do with the damned sword?  Sara frowned in thought, then delicately slid the blade between her belt and her jeans, watching to make sure the sharp edges sliced neither the leather or the denim.  She almost laughed out loud, feeling for a moment like one of the Three Musketeers. 

With a shake of her head she shook off the slightly giddy, silly feeling and reached up, hooked her hands around the windowsill, and pulled.  She managed to get halfway in, but the damned sword hilt caught. She spent several gasping, painful minutes squiggling through the small space before she took a header to the floor with a thump and a clatter.  “Damn,” she whispered to herself. Imagine having to carry a sword around, all the time, forever.  What a gigantic pain in the ass. 

She found herself in an ancient bathroom that stank of urine, mold and worse.  A stained, seatless toilet stood in a doorless stall, and a tiny sink with the faucet missing was against the opposite wall.  She pushed herself to her feet, carefully avoiding contact with any of the fixtures.  It wasn’t just for sanitary reasons.  The room was lined with ancient, dirt-streaked tiles and every sound resonated loudly.

The door opened with a muted creak, and she peered up and down a deserted, shadow-filled, trash-strewn hallway.  At the end of the corridor were double swinging doors.  She looked through the grimy plastic window of one of the doors into an enormous factory or warehouse, now virtually empty but for a few wooden crates scattered around.  She started to turn away, but movement caught the corner of her eye and she paused, waiting.  There it was again.  It was Singh, all the way at the other end of the room, sitting atop a crate, his hand carefully rubbing the long curve of his scimitar – sharpening or cleaning the blade.

She backed away, examining the hallway once again.  If Jake were anywhere in this building, it was more likely that he would be at this end, far away from his captor, if Singh had rigged an explosive device he expected to have to detonate.

She moved to the wall, stepping carefully to avoid broken glass and other trash.  Beyond the bathroom where she entered was another corridor, probably offices.  She turned, peeking around the doorframe into the first office.  Empty.  The room had a big window throwing the bright afternoon sunlight across the floor.  If Singh wanted to keep a captive, it was unlikely he would put him someplace with a big window, so she moved to the other side of the hall, checking each room carefully until she got to the end.  One room left, and the door was locked.

She knelt, inspecting the mechanism.  It was a standard office lock, nothing special, so she placed her hand over the knob and closed her eyes.  She had gradually gained confidence that when she concentrated, she could actually call on the power of the bracelet on her wrist, and she felt it move and twist and stretch.  When she looked down, her right hand was now covered with the metallic gleam of a silver gauntlet, and a short blade protruded over the back of her hand.  With a quick jab and a twist, the lock gave way, and she opened the door.

“Mmmm!” a muffled cry stopped her with the door halfway open.  The room was in deep shadow, with the only light filtering dimly through the slats of a ventilation fan built high on the opposite wall.

She could make out the outlines of a metal desk, and beyond that was Jake, his eyes wide with alarm. He was shaking his head violently, making distinctly negative noises even though a wide piece of duct tape covered his mouth.  He was bound to a chair, taped at wrists, elbows, knees and ankles.  His face and hair and shirt were soaked with sweat and Sara could smell his fear all the way across the room.

“It’s okay, Jake,” Sara said softly.  “I’ll get you out of this.”  She stepped forward, but Jake yelped behind his gag, and she froze.  “Okay,” she whispered, putting her hands up.  She let her eyes adjust to the darkness, following Jake’s focus to his lap.

It was a bomb, with enough C4 to vaporize her partner and anyone within a 20-foot radius.  A small red light was slowly blinking on and off, but when Sara started to step towards Jake, he again shook his head violently, then nodded vigorously towards the floor. 

Sara looked, but initially saw nothing suspicious.  She took a deep breath, let her mind touch the Witchblade once again, and felt her senses expand.  She could hear Jake’s thundering heartbeat, hear the soft scrape of the fan as the slight breeze stirred the blades, and saw…thin, virtually invisible nylon lines.  Tripwires, strung across the room every which way.  The desk to the chair, the chair to the wall, where she could now see small taped patches, some high, some low, holding the trip wires in random patterns.  There was no way she was going to reach Jake without setting off the bomb.

She took a long breath.  “Okay, Jake, I see them.  Does Singh have the remote control to the bomb?”  Jake nodded.  “Was his plan to force MacLeod to fight him to get it?”  Jake nodded again.  Sara swallowed hard.  “Then the person who kills Singh gets the controller, and can deactivate the bomb?”  Jake closed his eyes and jerked his head up and down, but then tried to say something.  “It’s okay, Jake.  I can take care of this.”

Jake voiced a protest, his eyes hard and angry, violently shaking his head, but Sara just smiled.  “Be back in a minute,” she assured him, and backed carefully away from the door.

Mac was out of breath and his shoulders were aching by the time they got to the rooftop helipad.  Climbing three flights of stairs with a one hundred and seventy pound man on his back was not something he wanted to do any time again soon.  Methos squirmed and protested until Mac happily dumped his burden into the back seat of the small helicopter parked in the middle of a landing pad.

“Put me…oof!” Methos’ eyes were still glazed and unfocused, dilated far too widely to be natural.  He blinked and squinted in the sunlight, but he seemed to have regained some of his verbal skills as he launched into a tirade about probes and someone named Harvey.  It sounded like he was speaking Afrikaans, which was not a language Mac knew particularly well.  Whatever it was about, it certainly didn’t sound like he wished Harvey well.  It would have been comical – hell, it was comical – except for the circumstances of his friend’s confusion, and the fact that Mac was in a hurry to get to Singh.

“It will take me a minute to get the helicopter ready,” Ian informed him as he handed him Methos’ clothes, and went around to the pilot’s side.

Mac sorted through the clothes and made a brief attempt to help Methos dress, but got his hands slapped away for his efforts, accompanied by more cursing, this time in Russian, and Mac briefly wondered who or what the hell “Immo” was. 

Then Mac’s phone rang again.  He stopped for a moment and closed his eyes, consciously releasing the painful knot of tension between his shoulders.  The helicopter’s rotary blades slowly began to circle, so he stepped a little further away as he put the cell phone to his ear.  He answered with a sigh, knowing it was unlikely to be good news. 

It wasn’t.

When he hung up from Joe Dawson’s call, Methos was still sitting naked in the seat, puzzling over a pair of blue boxer shorts, trying to decipher which way was up, so Mac stuffed the rest of the clothes in the back seat, held on to the broadsword for safety’s sake, and climbed into the co-pilot’s seat just before the helicopter lifted off the ground with a stomach-lurching swoop.

Ian said something as they gained altitude, but Mac couldn’t hear over the roar of the blades swirling overhead.  Ian handed him a headset with a microphone, and Mac slipped them on, relieved when they dampened the mind-numbing noise.  Ian glanced over at him, looking unexpectedly amused, so Mac cocked a questioning eyebrow at him.

“Who the hell is Methos?” Ian asked with a small smile, his voice sounding tinny over the headset.

Mac felt his face heat.  Methos would kill him for blurting out his name, but he really hadn’t had much choice in the matter.  Mac shrugged.  “When you live a long time, you have to take on different identities, different names.”

“So his name is really Methos?” Ian asked.  “Sounds Greek, or maybe just …old.”

“I got a call from a friend who’s been tracking Sara’s movements,” Mac informed Ian, in a deliberate change of subject.

“You were having her followed?” Ian asked sharply.

“Not exactly,” Mac replied, and when Ian shot him another questioning look, he just shrugged.  “It’s complicated.  But Sara got herself a sword this afternoon, and I’m afraid she might try to fight Singh with it.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Ian replied, taking the chopper high over the ribbons of highway that wound in and around the Long Island area.  “She has the Witchblade to protect her, and usually carries a gun, so why would she need a sword?”

Mac sighed, rubbing his temples.  Now he had a headache, and nobody had even tried to operate on him.  “I learned that the Witchblade might not work against one of us, and I told Sara to discourage her from trying to fight Singh.  Without the use of the Witchblade she wouldn’t have a chance against an experienced swordsman.”

“And what great fount of wisdom purports to know what the Witchblade will or will not do?” Ian asked.

With a jerk of his thumb, Mac indicated the passenger in the back seat, who had now managed to don his boxer shorts, but seemed to be having great difficulty getting his legs into his jeans.

Ian looked back at Methos, then looked at Mac with a raised eyebrow.  “Sara can usually take care of herself,” he finally observed.

“I sure as hell hope so,” Mac sighed.

They were silent for a few moments as the dark blue waters of the river came into view.  It was a relatively clear day, and the graceful spans of the Brooklyn Bridge made the wide panoramic view of the city look like a picture post card, but Mac was more interested in watching Methos’ fumblings with his clothes.  As he listened to Ian clear their flight path with local flight control, he reached back and found a shirt, turning it right side out and holding it so Methos could put it on, but Methos just snatched it out of his hand with a frown, pulling the shirt over his head and reappearing with his already-mussed hair in even more disarray, his mouth moving the whole time.  Mac couldn’t hear a word of what was being said, but he could guess, and it made him smile.

“You love him, don’t you?” A voice suddenly spoke into his ear.

Mac froze in the midst of pulling a sock from inside one of Methos’ shoes, suddenly confused.  Had Ian actually spoken those words to him, or was it just a random thought rolling around in his own brain?  “I’m sorry, did you say something?” he asked.

He heard a chuckle, and looked up.  Ian was watching out the front, tilting the helicopter down, taking them lower as they approached the river.  “Nothing,” Ian replied.  “I didn’t say anything.”

Mac looked back to Methos, who was watching him, his eyes a little more focused, his head cocked, and while Mac couldn’t hear a word he said, he could have sworn his lips formed the words, “Do you have some kind of fetish for my clothes, MacLeod?” before the sock and shoe were pulled out of his hands.

Mac gave up on his attempts to help, turned around in his seat and concentrated on finding one particular warehouse out of a sea of anonymous rooftops in Brooklyn.  Ian had gotten the GPS coordinates of the address, but they stayed high above that area of the city, not wanting to make their presence obvious.  “There!” Mac pointed to an empty parking lot a couple of blocks away.  “Put down there.”

“I’ll get my license pulled for this, you know,” Ian murmured as he circled around, guiding the chopper so they didn’t fly directly over Singh’s building.

“Somehow, I think your friend Irons will manage to smooth any problems with the local bureaucrats,” Mac snapped back.  He saw Ian’s lips tighten, and regretted his words.  Obviously, Ian had made his choice when he had refused to obey his mentor’s order to kill them.  It couldn’t have been easy. Mac reached out and gripped Ian’s shoulder in silent apology.  Ian gave him a tense smile, but then turned his attention back to the tricky business of avoiding power and telephone lines, and getting them safely on the ground.

They had barely touched down, and Ian had turned off the engine, when Mac pulled off his headphones, unbuckled and was halfway out the door.  “Wait a minute!” Ian shouted over the roar of the still-whirling blades.  “What about him?” He pointed to Methos, who had finally managed to get pants, shirt and socks on, and was bent over like a pretzel in the small back seat space, struggling to tie his shoes.

Mac yelled over the quickly diminishing whup-whup-whup of the rotors.  “You stay here with him.  He’s in no shape to do anything.”

“But….”

“No, Ian!  I won’t have a repeat of what happened in Central Park.  There are already too many people involved in this mess.  This is my fight, my business. You’ll only get in my way.” Mac checked to make sure his katana was safely secured in his coat and then he was off at a run.

Sara’s mind was unnaturally calm and clear as she strode towards the double doors leading to the factory floor.  She knew exactly what she had to do, and failure was not an option.  She would not let another partner die, and she wanted – no, she needed – to deal with Singh herself.  There was no way she was going to take him by surprise, but she knew his vulnerabilities, and he would be sure to underestimate her.  A lot of people did, to their peril. 

The weight of Rebecca’s sword in her hand felt solid and the hilt had warmed from the heat of her grip.  The Blade stirred, but did not transform, almost as though it were hesitant, uncertain what to do.  But that was okay.  Sara had no uncertainties.  No uncertainties at all.

She slammed through the doors, opening them wide.  Singh stood, turned and stepped towards her, the scimitar catching the light that filtered through the high windows.  “Singh!” she shouted, then listened as her voice echoed around the huge room and faded to silence.  “You’ve been a bad boy.”  She took several steps forward, and reached around to her back to grasp her gun.  She wasn’t that great a shot left-handed, but she probably didn’t need to be if she got close enough, and this was one ‘civilian’ she wouldn’t hesitate to shoot.  “You’ve put my partner in a rather awkward position.”  She had reached the center of the factory floor, and she stopped, planting her feet wide, holding the sword in sight.  “Just give me the detonator, and I’ll take my partner and leave.”

“Your partner?” Singh asked genially, strolling towards her with an amused smile.  “Another member of New York’s finest.  How quaint.  So you came to the rescue of both MacLeod and Detective McCarty.  Quite the bold heroine, aren’t you?”  He stopped, looking her up and down.  “And beautiful as well.  I like that in a woman.”  He raised his long curved blade, letting his eyes trace its finely honed edge.  “But I told MacLeod there was to be no interference.  And now, look at what he’s done.”  Singh made a little ‘tsk, tsk’ sound as he shook his head.  “Sending a woman to fight for him.  A mortal woman at that.  Pathetic.”

“MacLeod didn’t send me to fight for him, and I’m sure you know that,” Sara announced.  “But you kidnapped my partner, and I don’t take kindly to such things.  Just hand over the detonator, and I’ll leave you and MacLeod to it.”

“Or what?” Singh smiled.  “You’ll fight me?  With that?” He pointed to the sword she was holding. 

“No,” Sara said softly.  “With this.”  She raised the gun and fired, but Singh was fast.  Inhumanly fast, swirling and diving behind some old crates in the blink of an eye.  But she was pretty sure she'd hit his shoulder, at least, and even an Immortal was no match for a 9 millimeter, at least in the short term.  She moved to the other side of the crates and edged along them, sword in one hand, gun in the other.  She listened carefully, stretching her perceptions and expecting to be able to sense Singh’s location, but the Witchblade was unnervingly unresponsive.  It seemed Duncan had been right.  She would have to do this the old fashioned way.

If she were Singh, she would try to outflank her attacker, countering their move to come from the rear, or from…she ducked, and the scimitar whipped inches over her head as Singh leapt from atop the crates.  Instinctively, she dropped the sword and threw her arm up as Singh’s blade made another pass towards her, this time in an arc that would have separated her head from her torso. That this guy was a real, true-to-life swordsman who had trained for several lifetimes in how to cut people’s heads off was all too obvious.  Perhaps her confidence had been slightly misplaced.

The Witchblade finally came to life, flowing over her hand.  The silver gauntlet absorbed the blow, but refused to form into any kind of offensive weapon.  She rolled to her feet, her arm moving with a life of its own to meet and deflect the flurry of strikes from the scimitar.  The expression on Singh’s dark face was more puzzled than concerned, then frustrated as he was unable to land a serious blow.

But the sheer force of the pounding Sara was absorbing was taking its toll.  There was only one way to end this.  She ducked under Singh’s next thrust, and spun away, bringing the gun up and firing off three quick shots.  The first caught him in the side, throwing him back a step, the next was in the right shoulder, where she could see bloodstains from her first shot, and the final one missed, hitting the crates behind him as Singh went down hard, his blade clanking noisily against the concrete.

Sara bent over and leaned against her thighs, breathing hard.  Shooting anyone always made her feel ill. The knowledge that the bullets wouldn’t permanently damage or kill this particular victim didn’t seem to make a difference to her churning stomach.  Singh was still alive, though, groaning, clasping a bloody hand to his wounded shoulder.  “Give me the detonator!” Sara demanded, pointing the gun at him.  “That’s all I want, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“Interfering bitch!” Singh growled.  “You want the detonator?”  He reached into his pocket with his left hand and brought out a small black device.  “Here!”

She knew with absolute certainty that Singh was going to press the button.  She swirled, her booted foot finding Singh’s hand and the detonator flew across the room, hit the floor and bounced, and bounced again, landing near the door.  She froze in fear, waiting to see if the bomb had been triggered.

But with a growl, Singh launched himself off the floor, slapping away her gun and bringing the scimitar down in an arc intended to cleave her in two.  Her wrist came up, the Witchblade catching the blow, but the sheer power of it drove her to her knees, and the second one drove her to the floor.

The scimitar was raised again, Singh’s dark eyes wild with killing rage, but he stopped, his focus suddenly shifting to the far end of the room.

“Rahvi Singh!” a familiar voice bellowed, the sound booming against the hard concrete floor and steel pillars.  “Leave her alone!”

Sara didn’t take the time to look.  She rolled towards the only viable weapon in sight.  The sword Gabriel had given her was lying on the concrete only a yard away.  Her hand clasped around the hilt, then she was on her feet, and swinging.

“NO!” MacLeod cried out. 

Singh had turned towards her, his face slack with astonishment, an expression that became permanent as the blade passed through his neck and the head toppled away from the body.

“Oh, God,” Sara whispered to herself, dropping the weapon with a clatter.  What had she done?  The Witchblade suddenly seemed ice cold on her arm, a leaden, heavy weight.  She looked at it, then looked up at Duncan, who was staring at her from the other end of the room, a curved sword in his hand, his coat billowing like wings in the rising wind.  Rising wind?

Movement caught her eye.  She didn’t want to look, but couldn’t help herself as a wavering, moving cloud of mist emerged from Singh’s headless body.  It crept closer to her, closer. Sara stepped back, looking up at Duncan.  “What…?” she asked, but Duncan just shook his head sadly, and stepped back.

The creeping fog paused, wavered, then turned, then moved with slow deliberation directly towards Duncan.  He grimaced and backpedaled, but the mist thinned out into a long finger and was upon him at the same moment an enormous shaft of light erupted inside the room, arcing from pillar to pillar and coalescing exactly where Duncan had stopped, frozen in place by the ephemeral ghost of whatever spirit had inhabited Rahvi Singh.

It was the most remarkable thing Sara had ever seen.  Duncan clenched the curved sword he was holding in both hands, holding it before him like a talisman as energy played over and around it, and around him, absorbing power the way a plant absorbs light, like desert sand takes in water, his dark coat billowing around him, his eyes glowing with unworldly energy.  She was fascinated and moved closer, feeling the hairs on her flesh rise, smelling the sharp tang of ozone like an exciting perfume.  She came closer still.

Duncan squeezed his eyes shut and spread his arms, and still the room resounded with flashes of light and a sense of enormous power.  Now she was close enough to see the sweat trickling down his face, the engorged veins of his neck and temples.  Then there was sudden, shocking silence in the room, and Duncan staggered.  She reached up, holding his shoulder to steady him.  He was breathing heavily and groaned deep in his throat, as though in pain.

Except that she could smell it on him, the pheromones, the arousal.  She reached up to his neck where she could feel the heat rising off his body.  His eyes opened and even though he still looked dazed, he seemed to be aware of her touch, and leaned into it, his mouth slightly open.  He licked his lips, his pink tongue darting out over a soft mouth, then back in again.

Now both her hands were on his neck and she pulled his face down, kissing him, and felt the reassuring warmth of the Witchblade stir on her arm.

“Where the hell is he going?  For that matter where the hell are we?” Pierson groused as he finally stumbled out of the helicopter while sticking his arms into his coat.

“Brooklyn,” Ian answered.

Pierson looked around with a grimace.  “I might’ve known.  Where’s my sword?”

Ian pointed to the front passenger seat and Pierson reached in and retrieved the big blade, casually slipping it into his coat as though everyone carried broadswords in the linings of their garments.

Pierson swayed a little, rubbing his temple, and Ian stepped closer, just in case the man fell or fainted, but he had no desire at all to get particularly close to someone who less than an hour before seemed eager to slit his throat.

“All right, then, let’s go.”  Pierson began walking off in the direction MacLeod had taken, but Ian slipped around in front of him.

“I don’t think so.”

Pierson stopped and cocked his head.  “You don’t think so?”

“Duncan wanted you to stay here.”

Pierson threw back his head and laughed.  “Oh, did he?  And you, of course, always do whatever Duncan tells you?”

Irritating man.  Ian couldn't see the attraction.  “I think he knows what he’s talking about, and that you are in no shape to get involved in any kind of fight.”

“A fight.  You mean he’s going after Singh, don’t you?  Well, you don’t have to worry.  I have no intention of getting in between MacLeod and whatever asshole is foolish enough to take him on.  I’ll just be there to pick up the pieces afterwards.”  Pierson shrugged a little sheepishly.  “It’s a bad habit I’ve gotten into the past few years.  I’m looking into a twelve-step program.”

Ian smiled, closed his eyes and shook his head.

“What?”

“I should’ve known.”

“Known what!?” 

“The way he watches you, the way you look after him.  He was hovering over you like a lion protecting its cub.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Nottingham.  By any stretch of the imagination, I’m nobody’s cub, certainly not Duncan MacLeod’s.  Can we go now?”

Ian examined Pierson, or “Methos” closely.  His eyes were clear, although getting increasingly narrow with irritation. Whatever drugs Pierson had been given or tortures he had undergone, he seemed to have shaken them off.  Ian recalled Duncan's comment about just how dangerous a man "Adam Pierson" was.  He had thought it an exaggeration at the time.  It now seemed like an understatement. 

They began with an easy jog in the general direction MacLeod had followed, both of them scanning the street for evidence of the particular building he might have entered, when, with a percussive blast of air and noise, the windows blew out of the warehouse at the end of the street, bringing both of them to a momentary halt.

“Sara!” Ian cried out in dismay.  Pierson glanced at him, both of them ducking as the explosions inside the warehouse resounded again and again.  “Duncan said McCarty had been rigged with a bomb," Ian shouted over the noise.  "Sara was going to try to get him out while Duncan dealt with Singh!”

The rumble of more explosions ricocheted along the street as both men headed once more towards the warehouse.  “That’s not a bomb,” Pierson yelled as they ran.

Not a bomb?  The man must not be as clear-headed as Ian had thought, but he had no breath to argue as they both dashed towards the building.  They charged through a door off of the dock flung open by the blast, and down a dim, littered hallway.  They found a set of double doors to the factory floor, and came to a sudden halt.

Of all the things Ian feared or expected, this was not among them.  The room was filled with smoke and debris, and a stack of wooden crates was smoldering across the room, but what was shocking was that Duncan and Sara were locked in a tight embrace, which bothered Ian on several levels. What was most disturbing was that Sara was clutching Duncan tightly, one hand on his shoulder, the other at his neck, and as they moved closer, Ian thought he saw…he stopped, his mind momentarily blank.

The Witchblade was alive, not a bracelet anymore, but neither was it a gauntlet.  It was a silver vine, and another, and another, growing as Ian watched, its tendrils lifting in the air, then moving over Duncan's flesh with almost sexual tenderness, except that where tendril met flesh, it burrowed, pressed and entered, leaving small trickles of blood behind.  Duncan's eyes had glazed over even as Sara continued kissing him, and pressing herself against him with a passion that should have been reserved for a far more private moment.

Pierson angrily muttered something incomprehensible under his breath, walked up to the pair, took a long breath, and placed his hand on the Witchblade.  The reaction was instantaneous.  The tendrils froze, then contracted slightly, but Pierson cried out, jerking his hand back with a curse and clutching it to his chest, doubled over. Ian caught an ugly whiff of burned flesh.

Sara and Duncan didn’t react, but Ian was torn between going to Pierson and keeping an eye on the pair.  The moving tendrils seemed to gather momentum and force, no longer gentle as they forced their way again and again into Duncan's skin, entwining around his neck, into the base of his throat, behind his ears and at the nape of his neck.

Sara was breathing quickly, her face flushed, her lips swollen, her eyes half shut exactly as if she were in the throes of intense passion.  But the two were no longer kissing.  Both seemed to be in a trance as more and more of the gleaming, snake-like appendages writhed and hovered over Duncan's torso.  With a barely audible snap, Duncan's head jerked up a few inches, and even as his eyes gained some small glimmer of alarmed awareness, his face drained of color and he blinked with a look of surprise.  Duncan stopped breathing, and his body went completely limp, held up now only by Sara and the Witchblade’s strength.  The Witchblade had snapped his spine.

"Sara, don’t do this!" Ian yelled, moving forward at the same time Pierson tried to reach out again, using his uninjured hand, but this time the Witchblade didn't wait.  A long, slithering tendril whipped out, hitting Pierson in the chest with enough force to throw him back several feet.

"What the hell is happening?" Ian cried out.

"The Witchblade…wants…Mac's Quickening," Pierson gasped, struggling to his feet, still clutching his injured hand.

"His what?"

"His power.  He's got…it's…damn it, I don't have time to explain.  She's killing him!"  Pierson drew his sword out of his coat with his undamaged hand.

The words were chillingly easy to believe, even though Ian had almost become used to the notion that Duncan was practically invulnerable.  Duncan’s face had gone from ashen to chalk white, his lips were turning blue and his eyes had rolled up, leaving only sightless white slits that seemed far more disturbing than they should for someone used to violence and death.  "Sara!" Ian shouted, stepping close.  "You’ve got to stop this!"  He may not have known what “this” was, but he knew it was wrong.  Very, very wrong.

Pierson tried to approach once more, but the Witchblade's tendrils arched out towards him, and he halted.  "You got to control it, Sara!" he called sharply.  "What the Witchblade is doing is against everything you believe in, and what it was intended for.  It isn't meant to be this way!"

"Sara," Ian whispered, close enough now to touch her, but he was afraid if he did, the Witchblade would become aware of him and attack him as it had Pierson.  "You are the Wielder.  You have to know how to make it stop.”  He paused and thought he saw a flicker of… something… cross Sara's face, still flushed and glazed with passion. 

"Sara Pezzini!" a new voice called.

Ian turned.  It was Lazar, Sara’s mysterious shadow, a man whose existence he had known of as long as he could remember, but he had never been completely certain to whom the man's loyalties ran.  He only knew that Lazar knew more about the Witchblade than anyone else alive, and that Irons had always treated him with unusual deference. 

Sara's head finally moved, slowly turning towards Lazar. Now Ian noticed a burly man with a cane standing in the shadows beyond.  What the hell?  Lazar stepped in their direction, his hands tucked into an old peacoat, his dirty blond hair hanging in unruly hanks around a face so wreathed with lines and wrinkles, it looked like a badly folded map.

“Sara, it is time,” he proclaimed.  “For thousands of years, the Wielder has been a tool of the Witchblade.  Oh, they could exert minor control over its actions, but in the broad sweep of history, none has ever truly owned it, made it a tool for their own ends.  Those who tried were destroyed.  You are the first who has the strength, the will to….”  His words died and his eyes widened as bright light began to move along the many moving tendrils dancing in and around Duncan.  The small blue sparks of energy crackled, drawn slowly, inexorably, along the silvery veins leading from Duncan’s flesh to the Blade, now a writhing, living entity covering Sara’s forearm and hand, the red stone at its center like the swirling, glowing eye of a storm.

“Sara,” Lazar cried, moving closer.  “Do you want your will to rule the Witchblade?  Or its will to become yours?  You must decide, now!”

Sara’s big, almost transparently gray eyes slowly closed then opened, and her head turned back to the crackling energy moving from Duncan’s flesh to her own.  She focused for a moment on the sparks now touching her skin, moving ever closer to the Blade as more and more tendrils wrapped themselves around Duncan’s neck. The Blade now pierced his skin in a dozen places, leaving spider web trails of blood tracing patterns down his face, and neck.

She swallowed, took a short, hitching breath, and looked up at Ian.  “Help…me,” she whispered.

He didn’t hesitate for an instant, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.  “I’m here, Sara,” he assured her softly, his lips close to her ear.  “My strength is yours, but this is up to you, to the power of your will and your heart.”  They were made of the same stuff, he and Sara.  Something in the blood, something in the determination to be the best, to stretch themselves to the limit of their abilities.  Warmth passed between them like shared breath, and he could almost feel the burn, the passion of the Witchblade in his own body.

He felt her take a deep breath, and watched as, with a groan of effort, she pulled her left hand away from its death grip on Duncan’s shoulder.  The fingers of her other hand flexed and stretched as she let go of Duncan’s neck at last, but the Witchblade was dug deep into the Immortal’s flesh.  Ian reached out, took Sara’s elbow and pulled.  She cried out, her head leaning back against Ian’s shoulder.  “It hurts!” she gasped.  “It’s…. No!” he heard her say, almost under her breath.  “No!” she whispered again.  “You… will… not… do this.”  Her body grew warm, warmer and he could feel a tremor run the entire length of her rigid frame.  Sweat dripped down her temples and she clenched her teeth until he heard them creak.

He had always known there was a genetic link between them, and through that link, a sympathetic vibration to the Witchblade.  Ever since Sara had first put on the Blade, he had always had an instinctive feel for when she was in real danger, even of her general location.  It was part of what had made him the idea guardian for her safety.  But could that link be used now?

The strange electric phenomenon reached Sara’s wrist, enveloped it, and as she struggled, the red stone at the center stopped its roiling and became a bright red eye in a storm of flashing blue light.  Ian could feel it now, the sense of unbridled power, of desire, almost lust that infused the Blade and made itself felt in Sara’s body, and now in his own. 

“Stop!” Sara heard Pierson shout, and out of the corner of her eye, she saw him raise his sword.  “Stop it right now,” he growled, “or I’ll cut the damn thing off your arm.”  Somehow, Sara knew he could, and would, do it.

“Wait!” Ian gasped.  She could feel his arms around her, the strength of his body as she leaned against him.  “She can do this,” he insisted.

But could she?  The sheer sense of presence of the Witchblade had never felt so all-consuming.  For a few moments, it had felt like the all the infinite possibilities of life were within reach, to protect all those she loved, to destroy all those who would threaten them, to be able to decide who would live and who would die, to have ultimate power over….

Sara took a long, deep breath.  This wasn’t what she wanted.  And however appealing it was, it wasn’t worth another’s life.  Ian’s arms tightened around her and it was almost as though some of the strength of his body and his will flowed into her, or perhaps it was simply the knowledge she was not fighting this battle alone that allowed her to turn her eye and her mind to the Witchblade, meeting its hot, red stare.  “I am the Wielder,” she said.  It came out as a hoarse whisper, so she tried again.  “I am the Wielder, and this is not what I wish!  Stop this.  Now.”  Her voice was more certain now, gaining strength with every word.

The trembling electric blue energy paused in its slow crawl over her hand.  It felt so strange, cold and hot at the same time, like busy insects brushing against her skin, feathers of soft wings and sharp pricks of tiny stingers.  The eye of the Witchblade roiled, almost as though it blinked, but then the energy moved closer once more.

“I said, no!” Sara announced, and with Ian’s help, put all her strength into pulling her hand away from Duncan’s neck, stretching the silver tendrils embedded deep into his flesh.  “You will not take that which is not yours!”

Yet still the Witchblade clung to Duncan like a desperate lover, refusing to relinquish its prize.

Lazar moved even closer, so she could feel the warmth of his body next to hers as he whispered.  “The way to control the Witchblade is to accept it, Sara.  Accept it into your flesh, into your mind and into your heart as part of who you are.  It is not a separate entity, it is you.”

She trembled convulsively, unwilling to go that far.  To become…what?  That was the most frightening aspect of everything that had happened since she had first discovered the Witchblade on her arm.  She had been changing, seeing more of the ramifications of her own actions, seeing more clearly into the hearts and minds of others, her world expanding and growing past her capacity to understand it or even take it all in.  But she wasn’t ready, she wasn’t smart enough, good enough, strong enough to be all that the Witchblade demanded.

“Sara,” Ian whispered.  “You can do this.”

“One of us will,” Pierson snarled, still holding the huge broadsword over her forearm, ready to take it off at the elbow.  In doing so, he would probably sever Ian’s arm as well, but Ian didn’t budge.  “And at the count of five.  One.”  He raised the sword a little higher, his face a grim, determined mask.

“Don’t!” Ian cried.

“It’s all right,” Sara gasped.  “If I can’t do this, then he has to.”  In the end, it didn’t really matter whether or not she had either the right or the strength to deal with what came after.  It simply had to be done.  She flexed her right hand, forming it into a fist. 

“Two.”

She threw open her mind and her heart to what the Witchblade truly was, letting images and emotions wash over her like a tidal wave, realizing for the first time that she had been resisting all this from the first moment she had realized the Blade was more than a pretty bracelet.

“Three.”

With that wash of emotion came an even greater surge of pure greed and lust, and she saw the strange electric light dancing on her hand for what it truly was.  Power.  The kind of power that would catapult the Witchblade past the singularity that it was to an almost infinite, all-encompassing being that it wanted to be.  That it wanted to be.  Sara almost gasped with the shock.  The Witchblade had its own wants, and whatever agenda had originally driven its existence had been overwhelmed with pure, unadulterated desire to become its own being, to become not just the Blade but the Wielder, as well.

“Four.”

“No,” she whispered.  “You are mine to use, mine to govern.  Mine.”  She turned her fist and brought it slowly towards her body, her bicep trembling under the strain.  Pierson raised his broadsword a little higher, and she felt Ian cling to her even harder.  “Mine!” she shouted, and she pulled, stretching the ever-thinning tendrils.  “And I will not allow this!”

“Five.”

Sara’s perceptions suddenly expanded, and although it all must have happened in the blink of an eye, she watched as the broadsword descended in a silver arc that seemed to cut through the air in slow motion and all those writhing tendrils reluctantly withdrew from Duncan’s flesh.  She was able to feel the heart of the Witchblade, its vermilion center throbbing on her wrist as it finally found a different rhythm, one that matched her own thundering heartbeat.

Then time resumed its normal pace and Ian was yanking her back, a hair’s breadth from that deadly blade, which passed through empty air and clanked against the concrete below.  But it wasn’t just the tip of the blade that fell, it was the entire sword, as Pierson dropped it, and caught Duncan’s collapsing body.
 
 

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