Passing a car in the snow, Ian is accosted by a mugger, demanding his wallet and cash. He says calmly, “Risky line of work you’re in,” and the young man demands does Ian want him to kill him? “Kind of.” The man says he will unless Ian cooperates, and Ian replies, “I’m going to give you more than you asked me for, I’m going to give you your life,” and proceeds to beat the hell out of him before sending him running. Absently, Ian tosses away the muggers gun before continuing on his way.
In a warehouse, a security guard makes his rounds; he hears a rat, and a shadow. Ignoring it, he continues on his way, but notices a box with straw coming out of it, opened. The noises continue behind him, something seems to move, he draws his gun, demanding to know who is there, and he is pierced by a spear in the gut.
Irons stares into the flames of a candle.
Ian fingers the spear.
Irons sits before the fire as the spear is pulled from the man’s belly. He smiles and twists the scar on his hand.
Gabe sits before his computer, looking at Joan of Arc on the internet.
Sara lies on her couch looking at the bracelet.
Ian enters the study through carved doors with the spear wrapped in a leather (or silk?). He lays it across fitted sconces in two pillars of stone. Irons watches silently, then thanks him – he was growing impatient. Ian stares at him then leaves. Irons sits back in his chair, rapturous as he looks at the spear.
Sara sees Danny, asks how he’s feeling, and Danny says, “Like I just emerged from the most psychotic nightmare I ever had.” Sara smiles, as he continues, “What the hell happened?” Sara says she was hoping Danny could tell her. “I just have a few little questions,” he says, “like who jumped me, why’d they jump me, how you found me, how you got me out of there,” and Sara quips, she got a mysterious phone call saying where he was and she went and got him. Danny asks if there’s something Sara isn’t telling him, and she hedges, maybe there’s something Danny should tell her? Jake interrupts, it’s Orlinsky at the docks calling for her. Sara tells Orlinsky they’ll be there.
Orlinsky tells them they have nothing unusual, just a male Caucasian with a 4-inch gash in his gut, that whatever was used pinned him to the packing crate. Then it was pulled out and taken away. Sara asks why she was called, Orlinsky says because she has a reputation for the weird – besides, he missed seeing her “mug”. Sara asks what the weapon is? Orlinsky says they don’t have it, but look at the wound, it couldn’t have been too sharp, now it’s “duller than Hillary Clinton’s libido.” Danny comments he’s making the same old jokes. Sara fingers the hole in the crate, and the blade flashes, clouds swirling and then Christ on the cross. As Danny looks elsewhere, Sara hears a voice telling her please come. Her face is spooked, and Danny watches, concerned.
Irons carries his spear around his study, fingering the blade. As he moves in the flickering candlelight, he gets a crazed gleam in his eyes, “takes aim” in a defensive posture: and images flash: Sara’s face in the blade, the hill at Calgary, Nazi soldiers, Irons’ face, a drawing of a Roman army on the march, pictures of Egyptians on the battlefield, a man being killed, a drawing of an ancient soldier being speared, guns, a battlefield littered with bodies, Irons face, covered in blood, a medire view drawing of Constantine, Crusaders on the march, soldiers carrying a victim to be burned at the stake, another Roman era battle, Napoleon’s army on the battlefield, ancient shields, and Sara’s face in the blade yet again. Irons continues staring inward: Charlemagne’s battle lost after he dropped the lance, an image of Christ with a halo, pierced with arrows, looking to Heaven, Irons face, Vorschlag industries, Irons face, Sara’s face, Hitler giving a speech to a cheering crowd, bombs dropping, falling to the earth, Iron’s face covered with blood, tanks, missiles, the silhouette of soldiers on the march, and Calgary, Christ being dropped from the cross, Sara’s face, Irons’ face covered with blood, Christ on the cross, Sara’s face, Irons’ face covered with blood, and he breathes, overwhelmed as he holds the spear aloft, screaming triumphantly in the flicker of the firelight.
Danny comes into the office with coffee, Sara sees Irons dressed as a motorcycle cop in outside the window of her office, points to him to Danny, and sees him dressed in armor. Someone passes in front of her image, and he’s back to being a motorcycle cop. Sara excuses herself quickly as Danny stares after her, asking where she’s going.
Irons exits his office building, speaking German to his entourage before heading for his limousine. Sara stops him, tells him Ian has been stalking her. He denies knowledge of this. She tells him Ian tried to kill her; Irons doesn’t know why, Ian is gentle. Sara says to get the Witchblade on her wrist for Irons. Irons feigns innocence, Sara persists, Ian attacked her with a sword, Irons is nonplussed, Sara asks where Ian is, Irons denies knowledge, Sara bluntly asks if the blade belongs to him, and Irons pushes back, “Stop playing games detective, even if I said it did, you wouldn’t return it to me.” Leaning in close he continues, “You know what it is, and you know what it can do. If that bracelet did belong to me, you can be assured that it would not be on your lovely little malnourished arm, and you can be further assured that your arm would be a great distance from your body.” He gets into his car, Sara calling after him, where was he last night? Bored, he asks, “Temporally or metaphysically?” At midnight, she persists. “In a reverie,” he replies, and she is annoyed, what does that mean? He smiles at her enigmatically, “You should know, Detective, you were a part of it.” Sara is aghast. He finishes, “Sooner or later, you’ll get the point.” And he shuts the car door on her.
In his study, Irons enters through the curtains carrying the spear wrapped in its sheath: two men are speaking intensely before the firelight, and others surround the table. Irons loudly announces, “Gentlemen, I’ve invited you here today to deliver a message of great importance.” He lays the spear flat on the table and continues while making a circuit, “I’ll be brief. Vorschlag Industries suffers from a cancer within. A pox, if you will which means to undermine our autonomy in the biotechnology industry. A disease which means to destroy us.” One board member protests, there was a 200% profit, and Irons disagrees, success is not a measure of health. He carries on, in the days of Caesar, traitors were offered the chance to commit suicide and were given clemency for their families. But the republic still perished. When Rommel attempted to kill Hitler, he was allowed to choose his own poison, but his family was spared. He taps the two men who spoke earlier, Paul’s family was burned in their home, Sidney’s family was drowned in their car. As his board stares in shock, he unwraps the spear, declaring he “will not be destroyed by the heretics of his vision”, and he kills them both with the spear.
In a park-like setting, clouds swirl overhead and an officer runs away to vomit. Sara and Danny pass him on the way to the scene, calling out to the duty officer, Turnbull, to tell them what’s up. He says 'they were stabbed between the fourth and fifth ribs' [same as Christ was said to have been]. Danny asks if they were clean wounds? But Turnbull says no, they were quite messy. The wounds don't have the neat edges of knife cuts, but blurred, dull ones... He hands Sara their IDs and comments it must have been a bad day at the office. Sara says to Danny they both worked for Irons. Danny takes the IDs and Sara stares at the silent blade – but the ground shakes and the trees sway for her.
Vicky hums “Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen” as she looks at enlarged internal pictures of the wounds made by the weapon. Sara and Danny ask if it’s the same weapon, Sara teasing her when she ignores them. Vicky is acerbic in her response, and as they watch, she puts something into a beaker, beaming at the results she sees.
Vicky leads them to the body of Sidney, taking a cigarette from behind her ear, and dares them to say anything to her about it, the formaldehyde will kill her before the nicotine will. She begins: three guys, same weapon, hundreds of pounds of force to kill them. First she thought the wood from the exit wounds was from the packing crate, but the wood is cedar, a variety of cedar grown only in Lebanon and Syria, which has been extinct for over a thousand years. Then she carbon dated the metal fibers – it’s an alloy of copper, forged sometime between 10 and 70 A.D. Danny says it’s time to go see Irons.
They enter his house with guns drawn, but find no one. Danny is creeped out by the house, and Sara again hears voices and sounds, she ‘sees’ herself stabbed, and falls to the floor. Danny helps her up, she says she just slipped, but finds blood on her hand from her gut where the “spear” pierced her. Danny freaks out, what is going on with her? She says she is OK, and Danny says he can’t trust her if she won’t tell him.
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