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TRANSCRIPT:
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Act I

Open with Ian giving a report to Irons on Sara cut with scenes of Sara in her apartment. Irons is looking at a screen showing a painting of a maiden being led by a young man with a lyre.

Ian's voice: Sara has not left her loft in 4 days. She has not bathed. She has not called anyone. She has not eaten anything. Last night while she slept, I filled her kitchen with all her favorite foods. Whether she accepts the nourishment is anyone's guess.

 

Cut to Sara's apartment. She wanders aimlessly. On the floor debris still remains from Conchobar's abduction. Also on the floor is a Special Tribute issue of The Voice with Conchobar's picture on the cover, with "Musical Martyr" as the headline. On her TV is a news report with the reporter stating that the police still have no suspects in the slaying of 3 Northern Irish counter-terrorists and a local rock-poet. Sara takes her shirt off and throws it over the television screen.

 

 

Cut to Irons and Ian.

Irons: Your appraisal?

Ian: I am concerned for her.

 

 

Cut to Sara. She unzips her jeans, but then wanders around again, remembering times she has shared with Conchobar. She picks up his guitar and holds it for a moment. She puts it back and drifts listlessly again until she hears her answering machine pick up.

Machine (Sara's voice): Pezzini. Go.

 

 

Cut to Jake in their office in the precinct.

Jake: Sara, pick up. C'mon … I know you're there. Pez, it's your partner.

 

 

Cut to Sara looking at the machine.

 

 

Cut to Ian and Irons.

Irons: What is your analysis?

Ian: Deep depression … desperate grief … a broken heart. She may try and end her life.

 

 

Cut to Sara.

Jake (over the machine): All right. I'm not saying I can't handle things without you. I'm just saying, you know, sometimes work is the best antidote for the kind of loss you're going through. Take it out on the bad guys, you know.

 

 

Cut to Jake.

Jake: Pez, it all comes down to this. Conchobar's the one who died, not you.

 

 

Cut to Sara looking at her machine.

Sara (softly): Are you sure?

The machine beeps at the end of the message. Sara peels her pants off, drops them on the floor, and crawls back into her bed. She pulls the sheet over her head.

 

 

Cut to Irons and Ian. Irons holds up his pocket watch. It says 11:09. He puts it back in his pocket.

Irons: What is your recommendation?

Ian: I should watch her closely. The great test may be at hand.

Irons raises his right hand near Ian's face. Ian raises his right hand as if to intercept. Irons lowers his hand.

Irons: You are a good and faithful servant, Ian. But … you know not your master.

Ian leaves.

 

 

Cut to Sara under the sheet. She dreams of Conchobar. She tosses and turns. When she dreams of his death, she wakes in a sweat and sits up. Sara tries to rise but finds she cannot. Throwing back the sheet with her left hand, she sees tendrils around her right hand attaching her to the bed. Seeing movement under the sheet lower down, she throws it even further back off of her. There is a similar tendril wrapped around her right leg nearly to her knee attaching her right leg to the bed.

 

 

Cut to Jake in their office. He's on the phone. Someone walks in and hands him a file. There are other files piled on his desk.

Jake (to phone): Yeah. All that's in the report. Hang on a sec.

Jake switches lines on the phone.

Jake (to phone): McCartey. (looks at watch and grimaces) Yeah, I know. Hey, I'll try and get up there later today, man. I'm crazed right now. Yeah, later.

He switches phone lines again.

Jake (to phone): McCartey. Yeah, yeah. Hey, man. I'm in the vortex. Let me hit you on the hip.

He switches phone lines again.

Jake (to phone): I'm back. (He listens to a dial tone.) Hello? Damn.

More files are dropped on his desk. Looking up, Jake sees it is Captain Dante who deposited these last files.

Dante: It's a pretty long ride from the Bonzai Pipeline to all this, huh, surfer boy?

Jake: Yeah, it's this damn Irish Massacre. I can't get caught up on the paper.

Dante: Oh, it's a tough case … especially without a partner.

Jake: Ah, I got Lubin and Hellstrom working with me till Sara gets back.

Dante: How is … uh … Miss Pezzini?

Jake: Good … better.

Dante: Good.

Jake: She'll be back soon … maybe even today.

Dante: Wow. Great. So, is she … uh … sick, injured … what?

Jake: Food poisoning … we think.

Dante: So I guess all that Irish food doesn't really agree with her, huh?

Jake: Excuse me?

Dante: That room full of … uh … dead micks down on the Hudson. (Shakes his head) It looked like a slaughterhouse.

Jake: I don't know what to tell you, Captain.

Dante: Well, you can tell me if you have any knowledge or evidence that Sara Pezzini was at or near that murder scene.

Jake: No, sir. None at all.

Dante smiles, gives a little laugh, and points at Jake.

Dante: You know what you are, Jake? You're a window.

Dante sits down in a chair.

Dante: And I wanna know all about it.

 

 

Cut to Sara. The tendrils on her right arm go nearly to her shoulder now. There is also a thick tendril going under and between her breasts to over her left shoulder. The tendril on her right leg is almost to her hip. She struggles, but can't break free.

The phone rings. Sara can't quite reach it, though she keeps trying to.

Machine (Sara's voice): Pezzini. Go.

Gabriel (over phone): Pezzini, it's Gabriel.

Sara (shouting to phone): Gabriel! {Like that would do any good}

Gabriel (over phone): I know you've got to be really bummed about losing Conchobar. I know you guys were tight. I don't know, I just wanted to do something to make you feel better. So … uh … I dug up some new information about that bracelet of yours. Think you want to know. Call me.

Sara: No, no … don't hang up!

 

 

Cut to Jake and Dante.

Dante: Now, I don't know where your loyalties lie, McCartey, but those dead clancys weren't thugs or crooks. They were cops. Counter-terrorists working for the Belfast P.D.

Jake: They may also have been thugs or crooks.

Dante: Not my problem. And the one dead man among them who wasn't one of us … Sara Pezzini's boyfriend - Conchobar.

Jake: I wouldn't call him a "boyfriend."

Dante: That's 'cause you got a schoolboy crush on the woman! C'mon! Wake up, will ya? They were shtupping.

Jake: How do you know that, Captain? She tell you? He tell you?

Dante: You're right. Informed speculation.

Jake: Yeah.

Dante: But I do know this. On or about judgment day, Miss Pezzini was in here online researching the brother of her dead squeeze. A brother who happens to be an I.R.A. terrorist.

Jake: I already know that, sir. I also know Pezzini is fully and reliably alibied for for the time of the murders.

Dante: By?

Jake: Kenneth Irons. You ever heard of him?

Dante: Yeah. Businessman guy. Owns the world, right?

Jake: That's the guy. Sara was questioning him for background on another one of our cases when the Irish Massacre went down.

Dante (smile): You and I are going out for a drink tonight.

Jake: I'm on duty.

Dante (laugh): Meet me after your shift, huh?

Dante moves to stand behind Jake and squeezes his shoulders.

Dante: Come thirsty.

Dante leaves the office and leaves Jake thinking.

 

 

Cut to Sara. She looks to her bedside table. Still can't reach the phone. Her alarm clock has stopped at 11:11. There's a kitchen towel there with a small glass plate with a partially eaten apple and a paring knife. Sara stretches toward the knife handle, gradually working the towel toward her. As she touches the knife handle, it falls out of reach to the floor. In her frustration, she jerks the towel with the plate off the table.

Danny appears. He is wearing a Chinese style silk tunic and his hair is pulled back.

Sara: Nice outfit.

Danny: You, too.

Sara: This thing has gone crazy, Danny. You gotta help me.

Danny: That's why I'm here.

Danny sits on the bed next to Sara.

Sara: Why is it doing this to me?

Danny: Why do you think?

Sara: What do … I don't know. Maybe … um … maybe the Witchblade is punishing me for abandoning it.

Danny: You didn't abandon it.

Sara (whisper): I gave it to someone.

Flash of Sara tossing the Witchblade to Fiona. {See Maelstrom}

Danny: But you had to. Maybe you shouldn't have taken it back.

Flash of Ian putting the Witchblade on an unconscious Sara.

Sara: I … I didn't. I … uh … I, I woke up and … and it was … it was back on my arm. Danny, I'm really scared.

 

 

Cut to Ian escorting Jake to Irons' office. As Ian leaves Jake with Irons, the two men look at each other for an extended moment. Irons is looking at a global map projected on one of the screens in his office.

Jake (holding up badge): Mr. Irons …

Irons: Seven major storm systems roam the globe as we speak. Seven.

Jake: Detective McCartey, NYPD Homicide.

Irons: It's a record. A fluke or a miracle. What do you think it means?

Jake: I'm partners with Sara …

Irons: I know exactly who you are.

Jake: Well, in that case …

Irons: Don't worry. I've already corroborated your lie.

Jake: Excuse me?

Irons: Your captain called me.

Jake: Sir, if you'll just give me …

Irons: It's all taken care of, Detective. Sara Pezzini was here that day taking my deposition in the Dominique Boucher case. All day.

Jake: Why did you back up my story?

Irons: I have the utmost respect for Sara.

Irons takes Jake's shoulder and begins guiding him to the door.

Irons: And if her partner needed to account reliably for her whereabouts on a given date and time, I'm sure there was a very good reason.

Irons ushers Jake outside the sliding door with a smile.

Jake: There was.

Irons: Well, don't thank me, Detective. When I need a favor in return, I won't hesitate to ask. If you'll excuse me?

The door slides shut between them, Jake still looking at Irons.

 

 

Cut to Sara and Danny. Sara keeps struggling against the Witchblade's bindings. She's breathing hard.

Danny: I know this is going to sound lame, but you have to relax. You're not going to help by fighting against it. Easy for me to say, huh? Just think of your breath. There's no effort involved. Just make a place for it and the air will flow into you.

Sara visibly tries to relax. She takes slow, deep breaths.

Danny: Let your heart find its own rhythm. There's nothing to be afraid of.

Danny picks up Sara's left hand. He kisses the back of her hand repeatedly while stroking her arm. Sara raises her head, stunned.

Sara: Oh, my God.

Danny's eyes open wide and he shifts them back and forth. He raises his head from her hand.

Danny: What?!

Sara: My hand. You're … you're holding my hand.

Danny: Does that bother you?

Sara: Yeah, it bothers me. I haven't been able to even touch you since … you know.

Danny: Since I died?

Sara nods.

Danny: We can touch each other now, Sara, because you're dying, too.

 

Fade.

 

End Act I

 

 

Act II

Open with a standing Ken Irons holding his right wrist with his left hand and looking up through the skylight at the storm brewing. Ian walks in the door.

Irons (strained voice): The periculum. It has begun.

Irons, in obvious pain, collapses to his chair.

Ian: Then Sara's a true wielder after all.

Irons: I believe the trial entails some testing.

Irons stretches out his right hand, now held in a clawed manner, on his desk. The intertwined circles scar on the back of his right hand is reddened. His head rests on his right shoulder.

Ian: Do we want Sara to succeed or do we want Sara to fail?

Irons: Pezzini's failure would end her life. I don't know if I have 30 years to wait for another wielder.

Ian: In that case, to Sara's success.

Ian comes closer to Irons, watching his hand writhe on the desktop.

Irons (in pain): Yet, throughout her initiation, she has been intractable, headstrong, stubborn. If fully empowered by the periculum, she might become impossible to manipulate.

Ian: You controlled Elizabeth Bronte.

Irons: I killed Elizabeth Bronte.

Ian: Why aren't you enjoying this moment, sir? You've waited 30 years for it.

Irons: Go to her. She needs you … I don't. Go on.

Irons waves him off with his left hand and grimaces with pain.

Irons: It's what you want anyway.

Ian backs away, triggering the door mechanism as he does. As the door closes, we see Irons still grimacing in pain.

 

 

Cut to Sara on her bed. She wakes to find Witchblade tendrils on all her limbs as well as the section on her chest. The tendrils force her into a fetal position.

 

 

Cut to Ken Irons. He falls to the floor of his office, also assuming a fetal position.

 

 

Back to Sara. She sees scenes of a medieval battle.

 

 

Cut to a group of bodies dressed in mail and plate armor. Sara lies sleeping with the dead. She's wearing a white gown with a long diaphanous white scarf over her head and about her shoulders. She has the Witchblade bracelet on her wrist. Someone off camera touches her arm lightly with a sword. Sara awakens. She looks around and sees who's standing over her - herself as Joan of Arc.

Joan: Fear not.

Sara: Who are you?

Sara stands up.

Joan: I am the one who walks beside you.

Sara: You're Joan of Arc, but you have my face.

Joan: Your heart as well, and your soul.

Sara: Where am I? What's happening to me?

Joan: This is the periculum - the test of your worthiness to wear la lame de sorciere, the Witchblade. A trial by fire. Life or death. Are you ready?

Sara: Do I have a choice?

Joan: No. Let us begin.

Joan plunges her sword into a log at their feet.

Joan: Sara Pezzini, you were chosen by the Witchblade. To wear it … to wield it … to serve it. Of all the women of your time, you.

Sara: I understand that. I do not understand why.

Joan: A wielder's genesis is complex. She always arises when then dark forces reach a certain critical mass. The reverse is also true.

Sara: Whenever she arises, the dark forces reach a critical mass? So, you're saying this thing is evil?

Joan: The blade arises to balance the darkness, but neither is it good, as you understand good. It is governed by a different pair of opposites.

Sara: What opposites?

Joan: You must answer questions now, Sara, not ask them. The Witchblade has been initiating you. It has deemed you worthy of our examination. So answer well and truly. For on your answers hangs your fate.

Sara: What happens if I flunk?

Joan: Then this dream has no awakening.

Sara registers the gravity of that last statement as Joan pulls her sword out of the log.

Joan: In my time, my nation was under the lash of a foreign army. Other of our sisters chose revolution, enslavement, genocide.

Sara: They chose? I didn't choose any of this.

Joan: Of course you did. So I ask you, what is your crisis, Sara? What is your battlefield?

Sara: The whole damn world. Kids murder each other at school, pregnant mothers shoot smack, the water is poisoned, the air is poisoned …

Joan: Symptoms. Name the disease … the root, the cause.

Sara: You don't understand. The whole human race has gone insane.

Joan: Well named.

Sara: What? I ... I can't do anything about that.

Joan: Insane, from the Latin "unclean." You are the cleansing, Sara. You will make them pure.

Sara: The Witchblade abandoned you. You were burned at the stake.

Flash of Joan's fiery demise.

Sara: How do I know it's not going to abandon me? How do I know it hasn't already?

Joan swings her sword in a backhand cut at Sara, only to have it blocked by the Witchblade gauntlet now on Sara's arm.

Joan: You are not abandoned.

 

 

Cut to a bar. Jake walks up to a table where Dante is already sitting.

Jake: Captain.

Dante: Hey, hey, hey. Sit down. Thanks for coming. I bought you a beer. You like beer, don't you?

Jake: Oh, yeah.

Dante: Did you get some of that paperwork off your desk?

Jake: Yeah, I'm making some headway.

Dante: Good, good, good. Hey, I gotta hand it to ya. I really thought I had her this time.

Jake: Why do you want her so bad?

Dante: Well, Pezzini and me, we go way back. I mean, actually her dad and I go way back. Didn't have the talent to do the job and rise, so he stuck his nose up everybody's ass all the time.

Jake: That's not Sara's fault.

Dante: Yeah, she's got the gene, though. I can smell it.

Jake: Whatever.

Dante (laugh): Yeah. Yeah, whatever. He shot my partner.

Jake: What?

Dante: Yeah, yeah. Jim Pezzini got hooked on a hooker who happened to be a favorite of a guy I was riding with.

Jake: Get out.

Dante: Yeah, it was one of those ... uh ... lover's quarrels, you know? Romantic triangles. And on a vice raid, Jim Pezzini put one right between Ralph's eyes. Yeah, the Review Board whitewashed it as ... uh ... an accident.

Jake: OK. But persecuting Sara doesn't ...

Dante: You know what? I really admire your ... uh ... loyalty, McCartey. I really do. Even if it is misplaced. I'm just saying, she ain't right, that one.

Jake: I can take care of myself.

Dante: I know you can. So could Danny Woo.

 

 

Cut to Ken Irons. He's still huddled on his office floor.

 

 

Cut to Sara. Another thick tendril is crossing her chest, wrapping itself around her arms.

 

Cut to Irons. His pocket watch has stopped at 11:11. His body is straightening out, his arms going wide. His back arches.

 

 

Cut to Sara. The Witchblade forces her body into a "T" or cross shape. A tendril flows from one side of her head to the other, just at the hairline.

Someone knocks on Sara's door. Before Sara can say anything, another tendril covers her mouth, muffling her cries.

Shift to see Gabriel knocking on Sara's door.

Gabriel: Hey, Sara. It's me, Gabriel. Open up.

Sara tries to respond, but it's swallowed by the Witchblade.

Gabriel (knocking again): Hey! You alive in there? Open the door.

Gabriel looks around the hallway outside her door.

Gabriel: Well, like I said, I found out some more about the blade. Something about this gnarly test of worthiness it forces on its users. It ain't pretty, especially if you fail.

All Sara can do is look at the door.

Gabriel: Hello? (knocks again) Well, look, if you ... ah ... wanna talk, or get a cup of coffee, or something, just ... um ... gimme a call, OK?

Sara tries to scream at him, but she can't be heard. Gabriel leaves.

 

 

Cut to Sara-in-a-white-dress walking at night in woods. She walks to a campfire.

Woman's voice: Hold fast.

Sara turns to see a woman holding a sword.

Sara: Cathain.

Cathain: You know my name.

Sara, tears in her eyes, nods.

Cathain: Why are you crying?

Sara: Because death follows me.

Cathain: No, Sara, you are the one who follows death. It was your life's work before you even encountered the lann. Remember?

Sara: But anyone who ever gets close to me dies.

Cathain: You think of death as evil, and evil as death. That is a falsehood.

Sara: You could have fooled me.

Cathain: What are you willing to sacrifice to achieve your destiny, Sara?

Sara: What destiny? OK. Something about returning sanity to the race, but ...

Cathain: Would you be willing to give up your life to achieve this goal?

Sara: Sure.

Cathain nods.

Sara: Conchobar. We both loved him.

Cathain nods in assent.

Sara: Can I get him back?

Cathain: Yes.

Sara seems to be moving farther back. From her viewpoint, it must look like Cathain is the one moving, because ...

Sara: No, wait. You can't leave now. I have to know ...

 

 

Cut to outside Sara's window. Ian Nottingham sits there, looking in on her lying helpless on her bed. He looks worried and is absentmindedly stroking a lock of his hair. He rises and puts his fingers under the sash, as if to raise the window. In a lightning flash, we see a reflection of Danny in the window. Evidently, Ian does too, because he whirls from the window attempting to strike the man in the reflection, only there's no one there.

Ian (eyes shifting around): So, I'm not the only one looking out for her. Watch her well.

Ian leaves. Danny stares after him for a moment then moves to take his place at the window.

 

Fade.

 

End Act II

 

 

 

 

Act III

Open with Jake and Dante at the bar.

Dante: Why are you here, Jake?

Jake: 'Cause you told me to meet you.

Dante: No, no, no. I mean ... why are you here? Why are you a cop?

Jake: Seriously?

Dante: Yeah.

Jake: I'm a neat freak. I want to make my little corner of this whole insane world a little more orderly.

Dante: I've heard worse reasons.

Jake: What about you?

Dante: Nothing else ever seemed worth doing. This is a ... a sacred trust, a brotherhood.

Jake: I agree.

Dante: OK. If you agree that this is a brotherhood, why are you protecting Pezzini?

Jake: Because ... she's one of us.

Dante: You think so?

Jake: I know so.

Dante: I had ... uh ... Orlinsky run an errand for me the other day. I cut a deal with a local pimp to turn over one of his girls. A runaway, her parents were looking for her. Pezzini saw Jerry picking up the girl before work. She took pictures and she threatened to use them, like it was some kind of payoff. And not just with I.A. , but with his wife. Is that being "one of us?"

Jake: Why are you telling me all this?

Dante: 'Cause you and I are the same guy. We're the ones who hold this whole mess together. Underpaid, underappreciated.

Jake: You got that right.

Dante: Right? Listen. There's a lot of good cops in this unit. Family men. Huh? Risking their lives every day. And for what? Huh? A couple thousand dollars a year? You can't send your kid to community college on the money that we make.

Jake: You got a solution for that?

Dante takes a deep breath and looks at Jake.

 

 

Cut to Sara's. Her wall clock is frozen at 11:11. The Witchblade tendrils pull her arms across her chest in the classic "mummy" pose.

 

 

Cut to Ken Irons. His hands move to lace his fingers together on his chest. Ian runs up to and through the sliding door, stopping just inside the opened door.

Irons (whisper slowly): Why aren't you with her?

Ian starts walking slowly around the edge of the room.

Ian: There's nothing I can do for her.

Irons (whisper slowly): You can protect her from others with malintent.

Ian (distraught): She's already got a guardian angel.

Irons (whisper slowly): You never used to second-guess my judgments. You were the perfect scalpel. Sharp, precise, directable.

Ian (fury in voice and gaze): I am nothing but what you made me! Now I have the capacity to evolve. It's only because you gave it to me.

Irons (whisper slowly): Hollow words, Ian.

 

 

Cut to Jake and Dante.

Dante: You ever hear of the Praetorian Guard?

Jake: Roman soldiers, right? Elite fighters?

Dante: The hand-picked bodyguards of the Caesars. But eventually they became so powerful that they could overthrow the Caesars if they felt it was right. Now, could you imagine belonging to a unit like that?

Jake: Big responsibility.

Dante: We already shoulder that responsibility, whether you know it or not. What I'm suggesting is .. we embrace it.

Jake gives a little laugh and rubs his face.

Jake: Maybe I've had one too many. Could you be a little more specific?

Dante: This is a one-time-only invitation to join a group of policemen who understand the gravity of their job and who reap the harvest fairly. Just to make this insane world a little more orderly.

Jake: You mean you're vigilan....

Jake pauses as their waitress walks up with more beers.

Dante (to waitress): Thanks.

They wait for the waitress to leave.

Dante: No. Sara Pezzini's a vigilante. She's a solo act. These men are a team. Men of conscience. These are officers entrusted by society to protect society.

Dante looks over his shoulder quickly then drops a bullet on the table. Jake picks it up.

Dante: And we protect each other.

Jake: .45 Magnum. I use a 9 mil.

Jake reaches to hand the bullet back to Dante.

Dante: Look closer.

Jake sees the bull engraved on the bullet.

Jake: A bull.

Dante: It's our totem, our talisman. We call ourselves the White Bulls.

Jake: Why a bull?

Dante: You know what the bull symbolizes?

Jake: Power, masculinity ... manure?

They both laugh.

Jake: So how's it work?

Dante: When someone is obviously guilty and the system can't be trusted to administer justice, we use one of these bullets. Now, if you ever find a casing like this at a murder scene, just walk away. And if there's fruit to harvest, we take it. We watch each others' backs.

Jake (softly): Damn.

Dante (nods): Yeah.

 

 

Cut to Sara-in-white in a room fingering a World War II German uniform. She sees a man sleeping in a bed. A woman walks in behind her.

Woman: Hello, Sara.

Sara turns to see herself in a dark dress.

Sara: I know you. You're Elizabeth Bronte.

Elizabeth winks at her. Sara turns back to the sleeping man.

Elizabeth: Oh, he can't hear us.

Sara: You were the last woman before me to wear the Witchblade. The last real one. You're my grandmother, aren't you?

Elizabeth: We are related, but not in the way that you think. We're the same person.

Sara: You mean, I'm you reincarnated?

Elizabeth: Hmm. The idea of reincarnation comes from a natural sense that there is more to this world than we can taste or touch. Unfortunately, it misses the main point.

Sara: Which is ... ?

Elizabeth: Time. You think of time as if it were a straight line, like a road or a train track, with the past at one end and the future at the other. The metaphor is seductive, but it's highly misleading. The world was flat till we discovered it was round. You must break your old paradigm of time, Sara. Both past and future are contained in the eternal present.

Elizabeth puts on a fashionable hat. Then she reaches for a coat.

Sara: Yeah, yeah. I saw The Terminator. It made my head hurt.

Elizabeth: Better example than you realize. Think of a reel of motion picture film. Each frame is a lifetime, but all of them exist at once. If you run it through the projector of human consciousness ...

Sara: You create continuity.

Elizabeth: No, my dear, the illusion of continuity. But if you think of the reel wound just so, some of the frames touch other frames. From one frame through another, any frame can be reached, but all of them exist at once.

Sara: Wait. Lately time has been slipping for me. Sometimes forward, sometimes back.

Flash of Sara frozen in mid-air in the Rialto, on the motorcycle facing Mobius, and when Boucher tried to use the Witchblade to behead her. {See the Movie, Parallax, and Conundrum.}

Sara: Is this why?

Elizabeth: Yes. It's a gift of the Witchblade I never learned to control. Perhaps you can.

Sara: Some gift.

As they talk, the room background fades and is replaced by various scenes from World War II.

Sara: So, time is just a matter of perception?

Elizabeth: I am not from your past, Sara, nor you from my future. Both of our lifetimes exist right now.

Sara: So, I'm not your reincarnation ... I'm you.

Elizabeth: As I am you. And we are each of the other wielders. Remember this and use it.

The background changes back to the room.

Sara: Are we alive or dead?

Elizabeth: Oh, Sara, we have died a thousand times and are born a thousand and one. If I were to answer your question right now and tell you, "Yes, you are dead," how would you feel?

Sara: Released ... from the load I walk around with all the time.

Elizabeth: The load of what?

Sara: Fear. It's fear.

Elizabeth: What else would you feel?

Sara: Disappointed. Because there's so much I still want to do. I haven't finished yet.

Sara (epiphany): I haven't finished yet.

Elizabeth: Today, Sara Pezzini, you have become a true warrior. Walk forward in your truth. Trust the Witchblade ... and when it guides you, follow.

 

Fade.

 

 

End Act III

 

 

 

 

 

Act IV

Open with Jake and Dante in the nearly deserted bar. There's the bartender, one woman walking by, a long-haired older man {Hi, Bob} putting chairs on the tables and them at their table.

Jake: The White Bulls. Pretty damn hard-core. Risking everything for your ideals. Not a lot of people would do that.

Dante: Not just ideals, Jake. What we risk everything for is people.

Jake: That's very noble.

Dante: Nah, not really. Considering the first people we take care of is each other.

Jake: So you ... what? Skim the first count at a robbery? Cop some drugs? A little protection here, a little graft there?

Dante: Jake, what do you think happens to stolen money that we recover? Say, you know, drug money ... After a trial?

Jake: Never thought about it.

Dante: It gets destroyed. Incinerated. Now why shouldn't it keep my dad out of a home or send your kid to NYU? Huh? Now, you wanna call that stealing? I don't.

Jake: What do you call it?

Dante: Justice. Balancing the scales.

Dante picks up their bill.

Dante: Now as I said to you, this invitation is offered to you one time and one time only.

Jake: And what if I say, "No?"

Dante: Well, we'll both forget this conversation ever took place.

Jake: That sounds like a threat.

Dante: We never threaten. We have a code and we never break it.

Jake: How was I chosen?

Dante: Very carefully. We never invite anyone to join who doesn't accept.

Dante puts money on top of the bill in the waitress' little tray. Jake pulls some money from his wallet.

Dante: No, no, no. It's on me.

Jake drops his money on top of Dante's anyway.

 

 

Cut to Sara and Elizabeth.

Elizabeth: It's time for me to go.

Sara: Well, did I fail? The periculum?

Elizabeth: What do you think?

Sara: I don't know. I don't feel worthy. I haven't given any brilliant answers.

Elizabeth: There are no brilliant answers to the riddles of the periculum, only true ones. You said, "I don't know." That was the true answer.

Elizabeth turns to leaves.

Sara: No, wait, please. Who created the Witchblade? Where did it come from?

Elizabeth: It is a branch ripped from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

Elizabeth walks out.

 

 

Cut to Jake and Dante leaving the bar.

Jake: Hell of a day.

Dante: Yeah, a life changer.

Jake: How long do I have ... to decide whether to come to your party?

Dante: Well, the samurai say a decision should be made in seven heartbeats. We're going to give you a little longer, but not much.

Jake: If I agree, then what?

Dante: Well, every good thing has its price. There would be an initiation of sorts. A way for you to outwardly display the change that has taken place inside you. Kind of a baptism.

Jake: By fire?

Dante: We'll discuss it when you ... uh .. when you accept. But I'll tell you one thing. Your price of admission will ... uh ... concern Sara Pezzini.

Dante walks off.

 

 

Cut to Sara lying in her bed, the Witchblade tendrils encasing her. The tendrils start to withdraw, all going back into that little bracelet. {No one said physics had to apply here.}

Sunlight and shadow chase each other across the room. The hands on Sara's wall clock spin around the dial and stop at the time of 11:26 (or maybe 11:27).

Sara awakens with a gasp, almost as if she hasn't been breathing. She looks around for a second and then scrambles from the bed. She fingers the Witchblade and turns her hand over to look at her inner wrist. Her eyes open wide. It looks like there are prongs curving from either side of the bracelet embedded in her wrist.

A short while later, Sara stoops to pick up the broken mirror from her floor.

Danny: You made it.

For some reason, Danny doesn't really look pleased. Sara smiles and stands. She reaches out her arms to Danny.

Danny (not looking at Sara): We can't touch any more, Sara.

Danny: You can see into my world, but you don't live here.

Sara: What do you mean?

Danny: You're no longer dying.

Sara: You're right, Danny, because I'm not afraid to. Not any more.

She reaches her hands toward Danny's face, then pulls them back to her own. Danny looks down.

 

 

Cut to Ken Irons' office. There is a DNA strand revolving on the screens around the room. He is sitting at his desk when Ian walks in. Ian is back to being his "normal" subservient self.

Ian: It's over. She's alive. I assume that means she passed the periculum.

Irons: Correct. Sara and the Witchblade are now one. How do you feel about that?

Ian: Proud of her. And honored to live in such ... an interesting time.

Irons: That makes our job more difficult. We can no longer take the Witchblade away from fair Sara, should it come to that. We would have to take her.

Ian: Is that even possible?

Irons gives this some consideration.

Irons: Something tells me you will be the very first to know.

Irons turns his chair away from Ian.

Irons: Leave now. I'm busy.

Ian departs.

 

 

Cut to Sara's apartment. She's dressed and has just finished checking her gun. A buzzer sounds, letting her know someone's at the door.

Sara (into intercom): Yeah?

Jake (over intercom): Sara!

Sara: Come on up.

She buzzes the lock open. Jake comes up the stairs and stops when he gets a good look at her. She's in much better shape than the last time he saw her.

Sara: Hey.

Jake just stares.

Sara: Something wrong?

Jake: No, nothing. I mean, you look great.

Sara motions him forward for a hug.

Sara: I'm OK.

They part.

Jake: It's just ... with everything you've been through, I expected you to be ... wasted.

Sara: I guess you could say I've ... uh ... come to terms with a few things.

Jake: Like what?

Sara: I don't know. My purpose.

Sara goes to a clothes rack to get a jacket. Jake notices some items Sara has out on her kitchen table.

Jake: What's all this?

Sara: Ah, just some stuff that belonged to my parents. I was in the mood to look at it, see if they had any stories to tell.

Jake picks up a bullet there, one that has a bull engraved on it.

Jake (low): I'm guessing they do.

 

 

Fade.

 

{May I just say here that I think Yancy Butler did an excellent job of imbuing 4 different women with 4 very distinct personalities. Brava!}

 

End Act IV

END OF EPISODE

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