...and we're at the 11th Precinct Annual Charity Match...
Hands are wrapped, gloves are laced, Sara wears a red padded headpiece – she is ready to… box!
She’s fighting a huge black guy while Vicki Po, her coach, watches. The guy gets in a couple of good punches; so does Sara, Danny cheers her on. The fight is brutal, these two are really going at it. He gets in a good solid belly punch, Sara nearly falls down, he hits her in the chin, Sara spits up a bit, almost passes out, the crowd is riled and Jake accuses Danny of costing him money. Danny tells Jake, “Just watch” as Sara proceeds to beat the crap out of this guy. They stand in the center of the ring, staring into each other’s eyes, not saying a word, not moving, then Sara leans forward and ever-so-gently taps his forehead with her forehead. He falls like a chopped down tree, knocked out cold.
It is “The Day Of…
Danny exits the precinct, calls out to Sara, he has her coffee in his hand, and asks does she know what day it is? It’s November 11: “11-11”, Danny says by the horoscope it’s A Special Day. Sara responds, “Any day above ground is a special day.” Danny agrees, and Sara continues, “Too bad Maria ran out of special days,” and she starts to get into the cruiser.
Danny begins, “I know she was your friend; I know how pissed off you are,” and Sara reminds him she knew Maria a long time, and rails that Gallo killed Maria, she just has to prove it… somehow. They get into the car, and head for downtown.
The mid-town museum is closing, and Gabriel sits outside, looking at a brochure about the display, it shows a painting of Joan of Arc, [the same painting Irons had in the private gallery he showed to Sara in Parallax]. We can see:
“canvas”
“unknown”
“Joan of Arc, charging”
“Restorations. Sometime”
“1949, 1954.”
Beside the glove is:
“Iron”
“severed from”
Ian stands before the display case, looking at the glove.
Outside, Lazar passes Sara and Danny’s cruiser with a grandmother clock; reflected in the side, it looks to be reading 11:11.
Inside the car, Danny tells Sara he heard the officer she boxed the night before, Jackson, says he wants another re-match, Sara says he’ll have to wait another year. Danny reflects $25,000 to autistic kids is a good cause. Sara asks offhand, “How much did you win, Fats?” and Danny denies placing a bet. Sara grins sideways at him. Changing the subject, she teases him about his hair, he needs a cut, she calls it a “tactical disadvantage”. But when Danny tries to turn the tables on her hair, she responds playfully, “I’m a chick. I’m supposed to be cute!”
They see Gallo coming out of a building, get out of their vehicle, and Sara confronts him as “killer”. Gallo is cocky, this could be interpreted as harassment. Danny reminds Gallo three people saw him near Maria’s, and Gallo is nasty about Maria’s life as a high priced call girl – lots of people were around her. She and Danny both keep glancing at Gallo’s companion, trying to place him, and when Danny recognizes him - Vespucci, a mob hit-man - he whacks Danny with his briefcase, knocking him down, then pulls a gun, aiming it at Danny on the pavement. Sara kicks the gun away, and starts to chase him, while Danny pulls his gun on Gallo, and Gallo “gives up” with a bored grimace.
Sara chases Vespucci down the street, knocking people down, running through the park; they pass Gabe as he sits outside the museum with a bag – he watches the hit man then Sara run past with his chin resting idly on his hand.
In the museum, Ian is in his armor, standing watch; Sara is transfixed by the glove in the display case, and the eye opens and fixes her with its gaze. As it closes again, Ian is there, and states agreement with Sara the glove is magnificent, then he steps aside, and she spies Vespucci slinking away in another room. Sara commands him to “drop it” and a firefight begins. Losing one gun, she pulls another out of her boot, and continues to chase him. One of his bullets shatters the display case, and Sara leaps over another display for cover. As she flies across the room, bullets firing around her, the glove flies before her, a finger beckoning much like the painting on the wall. The glove takes her hand, and when she raises her hand to protect herself, the bullets deflect off the glove. Glancing around wildly, unsure what happened or how, Sara glimpses Ian inside his armor. The hit man fires again, and Sara raises the glove again; the eye opens, and the bullet flies off the gauntlet. The eye swirls, pulsing like a red dwarf in the blackness of space, and Ian watches the bullet as it hits a gas pipe, while a blinding light kills Vespucci, and Sara deflects fire with the Witchblade.
The museum blows up.
Images flash, blinding reflections of Ian in his armor, Sara watching the scene, flying bullets and shards and shrapnel from the destruction around her…
… officers gathered in the bleakness of a snowy graveyard as Danny is put to rest…
… Sara’s clock runs wildly as time regains control after her ordeal with the Periculum…
… the eye flashes again, and Sara stands disconsolate in the Rialto Theatre after she beats Gallo’s boys with the blade…
… the eye flashes again, weird images of space and red pulsations…
… the images of an embryo as life begins in the womb…
… and the darkness of night, outside the museum, ambulances and cruisers and police tape cordoning off the area: Joe Siri asks Sara what happened, but she is shell-shocked. Gallo is being taken away, but he quips at Sara, “Did you get your man? Well… you got one of mine.” Sara nods, and he continues nastily, “But I got more.” Sara takes a step toward him, but Danny cautions her away.
Nearby, Ian calls Irons on his cell phone, “Mr. Irons… you won’t be disappointed.” In the dim light of his office, Irons grates at Ian he hopes not, and Ian continues, “She’s everything you said she’d be!” Irons continues to peruse a book before him, the plate reads “11-11-2000”, and a scar like a double ring on his hand is visible as he disconnects.
Jake drives Sara home, saying he knows a guy in with Gallo, maybe they can set something up, but Sara is disinterested, she’s obviously exhausted and insecure about events, she thanks Jake and asks they talk about it tomorrow. Jake asks how she’s feeling, and she says she’s tired. He smiles slightly and says Vespucci was “a mythic hit man” on both coasts. Sara muses he “ran like a bitch who had his lunch money taken from him” and Jake continues she’s alive, but all they could find of Vespucci was molars. Sara mutters, “You win some, you lose some.” Sara is staring at the bracelet she has taken off her wrist. Jake asks if she remembers anything, and Sara can’t take her eyes off the red stone. A flash reminds her of the eye opening as the gauntlet sat in the display case. She responds, “No, not a thing, Vespucci and I were into it pretty thick and then BLAM! It was all pretty hallucinogenic.” Jake continues driving, and Sara looks disturbed.
It is “The Day After…”
Clouds roil past the Empire State Building, and Sara and Danny sit outside the Rialto. Danny wants to know why they’re there, Sara tells him Jake gave her good information, but Danny is disdainful, and Sara defends Jake, he’s “a good kid”. Danny keeps it up, why did Jake come to New York from San Diego, he hasn’t got family nearby, and Sara says he gave her good information from one of Gallo’s guys. Danny teases her sotto-voce, “Forewarned… forearmed… Grasshoppa!” and Sara rolls her eyes in annoyance… and spies Nottingham in full armor a short distance away from the cruiser.
The blade flashes… the stone draws her in, Sara’s eye focuses inward, and she looks up at Gallo poised to shoot Danny in the Rialto…
… Gallo shoots Danny, his body jumps with the impact of the bullet, and Sara closes her eyes in pain, helpless… and she looks into Danny’s eyes as he lies dying on the stage…
… a rose falls and bounces lightly on a pile of roses and baby’s breath lay atop Danny’s coffin… a full complement attends Danny’s funeral in the wintry graveyard…
… Sara’s eye is drawn further into the blade…
… strobe flashes against the backdrop in the Rialto outline Sara’s shadow as she fights Gallo’s boys after Danny is killed, interspersed with the red dwarf surrounded by a ring of fire…
… Sara slashes, the gauntlet livid on her arm… an eclipse… she kills one of Gallo’s henchmen… half an image of the eclipse…
… the clock on Sara’s wall, the hands spinning madly…
… and Ian in full armor on the street, nodding once at Sara as she stares at him, before a passerby blocks her image of him… and he is gone.
Danny looks at Sara, concerned, asks if she is okay, she replies she isn’t sure. She sees the bracelet, it has morphed into a complex form as she puts in on her wrist.
… Irons is in the pool, Ian’s voice echoes Sara has the bracelet, Ian assures him, she’s everything Irons said she would be, and as Irons drops under the surface of the water, Ian continues, he won’t be disappointed…
Sara mumbles she thinks she may have gotten the bracelet from the museum, and asks Danny aloud if he ever felt like something really big just happened, and Danny finishes for her, “Only you don’t know what it was? Never. You must be crazy.” She punches him on the arm, then stops…
… Irons swims butterfly in the pool…
… Danny sees Gallo pull up to the theatre, and says “Gallo and his posse – let’s do it!” and Sara says, “Let’s not.”…
… Irons hands find the side of the pool…
… Sara turns the key in the ignition, startling Danny, and tells him, “Something feels off. Let’s get out of here, we’ve got time on our side.” Danny looks annoyed, and Sara gives him a light smile…
Continued on next page
David Chokachi as Jake McCartey
Anthony Cistaro as Kenneth Irons
Will Yun Lee as Danny Woo
Eric 'Kaos' Etebari as Ian Nottingham
Conrad Dunn as Tommy Gallo
Kathryn Winslow as Vicki Po
Kenneth Walsh as Joe Siri