BLACKWING

*****

Reporter: We're standing in front of the corporate offices of Robinson Developers, where a group of demonstrators has gathered to protest plans to build the world's largest shopping mall on a tract of land just north of Toronto. The rightful ownership of this land has become the focus of a bitter and escalating debate, with emotions running high on both sides. (Talks to one of the protesters) And where do you stand on this issue?
Vachon (Concerned Citizen): The Mississauga Indian's claim to this land is valid.
Reporter: But that hasn't been proven yet.
Vachon: It will be. And when it is you'll see that they have every right to be fully fledged partners in this mega-mall. Its not like they are trying to stop the project. I think the big problem in all of this is Robinson and his greed. Well, believe me there's a lot of people out there who won't want to patronize this mall until the land claim has been settled.

Nick: A friend found him about an hour ago. His name's Gary Blackwing. He's involved in the Mississauga tribal land claim. The Robinson Mega-mall case. He was their main advocate.
Natalie: Nick? I'm thinking this is a clue. Throat's slit, knife missing from matched set. It's made of obsidian. Volcanic glass. It's very sharp and very very brittle. If one like this was used on him, it might have left shards in the wound.
(Nick tries to pick up the knife, but can't)
Natalie: What?
Nick: Uh.... Nothing, I think it was just a static charge. What is it, a Raven?
Tracy: Yeah. A power animal, the medicine man. It told me the trickster bird, was a very powerful icon in native culture. He stole the sun from his uncle and gave it to the world. Sixth grade. Girl guide. Merit badge in Native American Culture.

Nick: Mr. Nevins, I'd like to ask what brought you here at this time of night?
Jess Nevins: There's a hearing tomorrow. I drove down from the reserve to stay over with Gary. I was late coming in.
Nick: There's been a lot of press about your tribe's land claim.
Jess: They want to build the world's biggest shopping mall on our land, Detective. Lots of job there. Lots of revenue. The Dakotas have casinos. The Seminoles do bingo. We got zilch. Turquoise and trinkets. We just want to participate. Our fair share, no more than that. Our people need this.
Nick: Mr. Blackwing, did he have a lot of enemies?
Jess: You saw him. Would you say that was the work of a friend?
Tracy: Was Mr. Blackwing a medicine man, Mr. Nevins? Jess: Gary Blackwing did walk the spirit plane, but he was very much of this earth in business, and in the interests of his people.
Tracy: Why do you think he was murdered with a ritual Raven knife?
Jess: Probably because it was sharp and it was handy. Robinson wants to put up a multi-media mega-mall on land that wasn't his. Gary had the original surveyor's letter to prove it.
Nick: Where is the letter now?
Jess: He didn't say. He didn't trust anybody. Only said he'd bring it. You don't need to walk among the spirits to find his killer, ma'am. He's right here on this earth.

Marian Blackwing: I want to see my grandfather!
Jess: Marian! Marian, I was going call you.
Marian: Jess, where is he? What are they doing here?
Nick: I'm Detective Knight. This is Detective Vetter.... Your grandfather's been murdered.
Marian: I knew that.

Tracy: I'm so sorry. Come have a seat.
Marian: I saw my Grandfather die.
Jess: What did you see? You're here, Marian, and no one called you.
Marian: Somebody cut is throat. I saw it on the spirit walk, Jess.

Jess: Her grandfather was keeper of the old ways among my people. He used to say that Marian had his gift, too. She only had to embrace it, and it would blossom within her.
Marian: I never felt anything.
Tracy: But tonight?
Marian: I dreamed we were in this place I've never been before. It was like a forest. It was like a real place, but then again, not real.
Jess: The spirit walk.
Marian: There was this young native man there. He was dressed real traditional-like. I don't know how, but he was my grandfather.... Somehow, I just knew.
Jess: That was Gary. In the spirit walk, we are young forever. Good deal, huh? What did he tell you?
Marian: Nothing. He never spoke. He tried to give me something.
Jess: A warrior's lance?
Marian: Yeah.
Jess: The symbol of his power.
Marian: And then, somebody cut his throat.

Reese: This is a new one on me.
Natalie: Well, it's not unheard of in close relatives, Captain. Some sort of powerful psychic link.
Reese: It's not what you'd call admissible, Doctor, is it?
Natalie: No.
Reese: No.

Tracy: Well, maybe you saw something that could give us a clue as to who it was?
Marian: There was nobody there. It was just him and me.
Tracy: Is there some kind of ceremony she could do? To go back to the spirit walk? Maybe you could talk to your grandfather, ask him what happened?
Jess: I think we should go now.
Tracy: Thank you.

Jess: Even now, you see with Gary Blackwing's eyes. Aren't you? What do you see?
Marian: Darkness. He's surrounded by it. There's this light that I sense that's trying to break free of the darkness, but it can't.
Jess: That's part of the power. You can take the darkness away. You can heal.

Jess: She's sees you with her grandfather's vision, Detective. She says a great darkness incases you, it strangles your spirit. You're not married are you, Detective?
Nick: No.
Jess: Couldn't be that then. Whatever it is, she can heal it. I'm certain of it. Goodnight, Detective.

Tracy: I think Marian's got a little crush on you, Nick.

Marian: You're here. Why? What's happening to me, to us?
Nick: I was hoping you'd know. Maybe we could help each other?
Marian: I want to help you. I mean, I feel like I can, but I'm not sure how. They say that a medicine man looks for heat to learn where the trouble lies. My grandfather could do it with a single touch. But you, you're so cold.
Nick: I know where my trouble lies.

Nick: The sun....
Marian: Shh, it can't harm you. It's all right. This was my grandfathers gift. The power to heal. Let it heal you....

Nick: I just feel better, okay? I'd like to see you.
Natalie: With what I charge for house calls you'd be better off to wait til dark.
Nick: I think it worked. I don't really know what she did to me.
Natalie: Well, if I were you, I'd still stay out of the sun.
Nick: You don't believe me.
Natalie: Let's just say that I am really skeptical about this whole thing, Nick. I have studied you every which way from Sunday and if there is anything that I do know is that your condition is not a meta-physical disorder.
Nick: I wish you could feel what it feels like. It's like I've been freed, like the past has been erased.
Natalie: That easy, huh?
(Nick sticks his hand into the sunlight...and it burns)
Natalie: Nick, you okay?
Nick: Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine. Look Nat, all I'm saying is, I don't know what, but something's changed. Something's definitely changed.

Buckwater: Look, the settlement money is guaranteed.
Jess: Screw the settlement. That's our land. We're entitled. Gary Blackwing speaks to his granddaughter. She'll find the letter.
Buckwater: He speaks to her. Don't tell me, from beyond the grave. From the spirit plane.
Jess: Be careful how you mock what you don't believe, Little Cloud. Even now, Blackwing watches and hears.
Judge: Well, Mr. Buckwater, you've had sufficient time to take your case to the press, apparently, but not prepare for this hearing?
Buckwater: Your Honor, our proof rests in an original surveyor's letter showing Mississauga titles on land not covered in the treaties.
Jess: But your honor, that letter was in the possession of Gary Blackwing--tribal elder and a friend who was killed tragically last night. I don't doubt that he was murdered because of his stand against this injustice.
Judge: As tragic as Mr. Blackwing's death is, I have no patience for unsupported allegations, sir. Plaintiff is ordered to produce evidence to substantiate your claim by 9 a.m. Friday, or litigation will be summarily dismissed. One week, gentlemen. No more.
Marian: Your Honor, may I be recognized?
Judge: You are not a signed party to this dispute, Miss Blackwing.
Marian: But Gary Blackwing was. Your Honor, I speak for my grandfather now. His cause is my cause, and I wish to take his place in this dispute.
Judge: Very well.

Nick: I don't feel guilty, that's what it is. For the first time in my life, I don't feel guilty.
Natalie: Really. So...how much does it cost to get your soul dry-cleaned these days, maybe I'll send mine out too. I'm sorry, I just think your the victim of the placebo effect.
Nick: So I just feel better because I want to feel better, is that what your saying?
Natalie: Exactly.
Nick: What about the visions?
Natalie: I don't know. Maybe by-products of sleep deprivation. Vivid daydreaming. Basically, you need to get more sleep.
Nick: You have a scientific explanation for everything, don't you, even if you don't believe it?
Natalie: I don't mean to burst your morning-after bubble, but you still don't tan, you boil. And you had three pints of donated plasma this morning for breakfast. You are still a vampire.
Nick: But I don't feel like one. Maybe that's progress enough.

Marian: It's one of mine.
Tracy: Oh, come on in. Just don't touch anything. I'm going over my work to see if I missed anything.
Marian: I never even showed him my art. I thought he'd be disappointed.
Tracy: Why? It's really good.
Marian: It was more of his attitude towards me. The fact that I left the Rez and his way of life.
Tracy: Well, he sure parked it where everyone could see it.
Marian: He must've got it from a dealer. Look, Detective, I've been thinking about what you were saying, about using this power that I seem to have inherited. I think I need to try...try to finish what my grandfather started, even though I'm not even sure where to, just yet.
Tracy: Well...once we get clearance, we can start going through his things.
Marian: We're never going to get through this in a week.

Marian: You know if he expected me to finish this stuff, he should have left a clue where to start.
Tracy: How old were you when you left the Reserve?
Marian: Seventeen. I started working, and putting myself through art school. I never looked back. It was hard, but it was the right thing to do. Look at it this way, I'm probably the only woman in town with a master's degree in fine arts--and can skin a deer.
Tracy: You know, my whole family's cops. When I was a little kid, I kind of thought everyone was a cop. So when I went to college, I tried pre-med, pre-law, computers. Anything but another Officer Vetter. But you know what? I am a good cop. Sometimes I think we're just meant to do what we're meant to do.
Marian: Yeah. I think I know what you mean.

Tracy: Hello, anyone there? (She turns around and there's Vachon) Geez, why do you do that?
Vachon: Because I can. Do like what I've done with the place?
Tracy: Let's talk 'Mr. Concerned Citizen.'
Vachon: Saw me on television.
Tracy: This was a side of you I was not aware of.
Vachon: Let's just say I have a personal stake in the proceedings.
Tracy: I thought you didn't get involved.
Vachon: I know the Mississauga claim is one hundred percent valid.
Tracy: You've seen the proof?
Vachon: The surveyor's letter. You forget--I've been around. It was more than two hundred years ago. The Queen Anne's Campaign.
Tracy: The French Indian Wars?
Vachon: And more, on and off for seventy five years. You know me, I love a good fight. At least that's how I used to be. Sometimes, fighting for a losing cause, no matter how right it is, can frustrate you, wear you down.
Tracy: So who's side were you on?
Vachon: Whoever was losing. I fought with the Iroquois against the French. The Ojibwas against the English. We were running in small bands, hit and run stuff. Harassing their scouts.
Tracy: Harassing?
Vachon: Yeah. Harassing.... Interrupting supply lines, so to speak.

Vachon: I was there when the Mississauga tribe negotiated a land settlement treaty with the government of upper Canada.

Vachon: We were on our way to bring the treaty back to the tribes, and we were double crossed. Ambushed.

Vachon: The pact was stolen, and all real proof of the tribe's territorial rights disappeared. I searched for years after. Never found it. Then somehow, it turned up. Gary Blackwing found it. Anyway, it's not my fight anymore. Never really was.
Tracy: Well, in that case, you might want to light one of those candles for Gary Blackwing. He was murdered last night.

Marian: I helped you. Help us now.

Reese: Don't get comfortable, Nick.
Nick: You've got something?
Reese: Warm body. 26th precinct picked it up. Go over and take a look at it, will you. It's uh, Robinson's lawyer, Timothy Wade. Eye for an eye, looks like.

Tracy: I can see it now: Land claims battle comes to Toronto.
Natalie: Lawyers get murdered all the time. It doesn't mean it has anything to do with the land dispute.
Tracy: Unless someone didn't like what happened to Gary Blackwing--which is not an unreasonable assumption.

Reese: It's just an interview, Mr. Buckwater.
Buckwater: Don't you realize what this will do to our case? We don't stand a chance in court if the public turns against us.
Reese: Public opinion will have no bearing on the judge's decision, and you know that. And nobody's under arrest. Now, look, the sooner we get your statement, the sooner we all go home.

Jess: Always the same isn't. A crime is committed. Round up the usual suspects. That lawyer didn't have any white enemies?
Tracy: We won't keep you long.
Jess: It's good that Marian has someone to share her spirit with. She's too much of a loner. I always tell her that.
Tracy: Yeah, Nick's the same. He's a secretive guy. Keeps to himself a lot.
Jess: Not anymore.

Nick: I can't quite put my finger on it, but I feel good. There's something to it.
Marian: I helped you. Now help us now. We can't let the press make a big deal out of this.
Nick: Listen, I know what you were talking about the other night. I had a dream with Timothy Wade in it. I think I dreamed his death.
Marian: You've been on the spirit walk again.
Nick: This was real. I just couldn't see who killed him.
Marian: You know, I still see my grandfather dying. He used to say that life turned into dreams, and dreams, into life.
Nick: That's what I'm most afraid of.

Tracy: Please tell me you have nothing to do with this.
Vachon: It's not my fight anymore. I told you.
Tracy: And you'll stay out of it?
Vachon: Absolutely.
Tracy: How am I supposed to trust you? How am I supposed to know that anything you tell me is true?
Vachon: Find the letter, you'll see. When you find the letter.

Reese: Knight. In here a sec. Nick: Have you seen Tracy?
Reese: In the morgue, I think. What's going on with you and Marian Blackwing?
Nick: It's not what you think.
Reese: You don't want to know what I think, but I'll tell you anyway. Marian Blackwing is a suspect.
Nick: We're running everyone's alibi. I just don't think she's capable of such brutality.
Reese: Nevertheless, I want someone on her.
Nick: Well, let me handle her, all right?
Reese: Well, you keep your head on, okay?
Nick: Yeah.

Natalie: Nearly took his head right off.
Tracy: Just like Gary Blackwing.
Natalie: Well, not quite. Gary Blackwing's throat wound was much shallower, a more tentative cut. Fatal enough. Wade here nearly got decapitated. Different killer. Stronger maybe.
Tracy: Or same guy, more confident in his technique, now that he's had some practice.
Natalie: Well, one thing is certain. You were right about the ceremonial knife. I found microscopic flakes of obsidian in both victims. The lab will tell us if they're from the same blade.
Natalie: One knife or two, whoever it was sure knew how to use 'em.

Nightcrawler: It's Indian legend time. A Native American fairy story for children of all ages. Legend has it that when the world was young and unfinished, the great spirit father made the mistake of leaving his paints where his children could get them. Raven begged Eagle to paint him as beautiful and grand as the great spirit had made Eagle himself. And so he did, or so he tried. But when Raven looked at his reflection in the water, he didn't like what he saw. Raven became angry, he and Eagle fought, and the great spirit father's paints were spilled over Raven and made him all black: black eyes, black wings, black breast. Raven ran into the river and flapped his wings against the current, but the color was indelible, the water wouldn't wash it away. 'This is your punishment,' said the great father, 'for interfering with my work. Black you are, and black you will stay, you will never come clean.' Not much of a legend at that, is it, children? But I rather like the moral.

Tracy: The crime scene's in the 44th's jurisdiction. They won't let me near it.
Reese: And you've lost your partner.
Tracy: Dispatch keeps trying, but-
Reese: Does Knight know about Roger Bland's murder?
Tracy: I don't know.
Reese: Has anyone called Andrew Robinson, to let him know that maybe he'll want to watch his back?
Tracy: No luck yet. Apparently he's overseas on business.
Reese: Dr. Lambert's the M.E. on call. Talk to her about Bland. Hell, she might know where Knight is, too.

Tracy: We have been trying to get a hold of Nick for over an hour. The last thing we heard, he was over at Marian Blackwing's place.
Natalie: And?
Tracy: We checked. There's no one there.
Natalie: Well, if he uh, calls here, I'll let you know.
Tracy: So?
Natalie: So, Roger Bland was stabbed to death.
Tracy: With the ceremonial raven knife?
Natalie: Well, can't tell for sure, but I did get the lab results back, and they are ninety nine percent sure that Gary Blackwing and Timothy Wade were both killed with a weapon made of obsidian. Problem is that although obsidian has a distinct chemical signature we can't tell if--
Tracy: It is the missing knife from Gary Blackwing's matching set. Or-
Natalie: One of a dozen or so fashioned out of a huge block of the stuff.
Tracy: Thanks.

Jess: I guess were both troubled.
Nick: Where's Marian?
Jess: Don't know. I came here a little while ago. Can you tell me why I feel as if she's in trouble?
Nick: I'm sorry, no. I need to find her.
Jess: She cured you didn't she?
Nick: I don't know.
Jess: She took away your darkness?
Nick: Strange things have been happening to me since. Visions.
Jess: The spirit plane. You've been there.
Nick: I saw the murders.
Jess: Did You see Gary Blackwing?
Nick: No, but I saw Marian.
Jess: You two have forged a powerful bond. If she has opened your heart and soul to the spirit plane, then you share her gift. The power of the elders are within you now. You can use them. And you needn't look for her anywhere else, you can find her there anytime you wish. Open yourself to the spirits again. They will guide you to her, and if you see Gary Blackwing, tell him I miss him and love him like a brother...but he still owes me money.

Nick: I showed up.
Natalie: Are you all right? Everybody's looking for you. There's been another killing.
Nick: I know. I think I did it.

Assistant: I don't know, Detective. I don't think that Mr. Bland is going to like this.
Tracy: Hard to argue with a warrant. And besides, I don't think Mr. Bland is in much of a position to argue.
Assistant: Okay.

Nick: It's the perfect irony, isn't it? She took away the guilt. She took away the very thing that kept the vampire in check, and now I kill without remorse.
Natalie: There has to be some other explanation.
Nick: I'm telling you I was there. It was real as talking to you.
Natalie: The spirit plane?
Nick: Or something, I don't know. But I was there when Wade was murdered too. I saw blood on my hands.
Natalie: You saw the murders?
Nick: I saw the knife.
Natalie: What else?
Nick: Their faces.
Natalie: Are you holding the knife?
Nick: I know this is ridiculous.
Natalie: It's not ridiculous, Nick, not if you're right. Are you holding the knife?
Nick: I don't know. I'm looking through my eyes...but not my eyes. Not mine. Marian. She took the killer out of me and into herself.

Marian: What you doing, Mr. Buckwater?
Buckwater: Geez, Marian, you scared me. Um, without that surveyor's letter, we're screwed. I didn't think it would hurt to look.
Marian: I know where it is.
Buckwater: You knew the whole time?
Marian: No. My grandfather tried to tell me, but I wasn't listening. I couldn't see.
Buckwater: It's, um, here?
Marian: Yes. His gift to me. And my gift to him. Even when I didn't know it, it was in me. How could you be- (Buckwater stabs her)

Marian: Blackwing's dying wish was for vengeance.
Nick: It wasn't Blackwing, Marian, it was me.
Marian: What have you made me do?
Nick: It was what you took from me. It was the darkness that made you kill. It wasn't your fault.
Marian: Then, it will die with me.
Nick: No.

Jess: The letter.
Tracy: This should prove Gary Blackwing's case. At least he got his wish.
Jess: How?
Nick: Blackwing showed me where to find it. On the spirit plane. Marian was there, too. I'm sorry.
Jess: It's not your fault, Detective. This was fate. Tragedy is always close to my people. It's almost a birthright. Tell me, Nick, Marian did help you, didn't she?
Nick: Oh there was something, I'm sure of it.
Jess: But you took it back, all of it. Marian didn't have time to learn all the ways of the elders. She didn't know that a wise healer takes the pain not into themselves, but they transfer it. They put into an animal sometimes or a mountain or a stream that carries it to the ocean. She didn't have time to learn. There was no one to teach her when Gary Blackwing died. My heart is too heavy tonight.