Death in flame Chapter 1
Traffic at night time was pleasurable. No cars crawling along or pollution fumes reaching her nose- and certainly no police cars to chase her speed limit.
She accelerated on her motorcycle, speeding up normally full lanes, smiling as the devil-red Harley motorbike curved noiselessly, its engine purring at the freedom of the road.
Since there was no-one around, she removed her crimson helmet and stowed it away underneath the bike in a compartment. It wasn't as she could be arrested anyway- Ms Lady Croft held a certain fear in the hearts of those who dared to mess around with her. However, she welcomed confrontation with bad types of people. Adrenaline and satisfaction greeted success and she had never lost a fight with anyone- publicly.
Her hair was a rich satin brown and flew out behind her like a free bird, in its usual ladylike plait. Her eyes were also brown- sometimes soft and gentle but often hard and alert. She had plump lips pursed almost flirtatiously, which made her face oval and close to perfect.
She remained driving with one hand whilst the other tapped her headset.
"Alistair? Zip? Can you hear me?" she asked into it, and spun quickly around a roundabout, veering off in the direction of Abbingdon.
Her only response was static. Growing worried, she urged herself not to panic. She had been unable to contact them for the last three hours. Lara always kept in constant contact with her two friends, but now, on her way back from Bolivia, she had lost them, leaving her utterly alone. Their humour and guidance was what kept her going. To reassure herself again, she checked her pistols and made the bike go full speed (which was pretty fast, nought to a ninety in two seconds).
Swerving around the hedges that shielded her majestic mansion, which she had inherited from her deceased father, Richard Croft, Earl of Abbingdon. She may be Countess of Abbingdon but the challenging, unsuitable role in high class society left her more of an- outside person, to put it gently, as her adventures could be rather rough.
A glowing pyre met her eyes. The mansion was aflame, smoking and burning, an angry roar of flame tearing through her study, her bedroom, through Zip and Alistair's tech room-
"Wait!' she exclaimed "Zip! Alistair!"
She vaulted off her Harley, sprinted across the grass and launched through the expensive stain glass windows. Lara Croft leapt to her feet deftly, ripping the sleeve of her top to use as a cover over her mouth to stop the smoke. She looked around her quickly. She was in the hall, where her treasured archaeological finds and relics were proudly displayed, ancient and beautiful, black with the hellish fire that crackled around like an hissing snake.
But she left them to burn and cart wheeled over the unsteady floor boards towards the smoky tech room. Her slight weight made one of the weaker boards cave under her, and she felt herself falling into the deep basement.
Lara flung her grapple into the air above her, hoping for it to catch on something, anything. Just as she was about to fall into the fiery abyss, the grapple clanged on an expensive Japanese vase and caught her. It wasn't metal and it wouldn't last long before she fell so she dug her hands into the harsh metal of the grapple wire and climbed up.
In the nick of time she caught the beams and replaced the grapple into her belt. She stepped lightly on the hot floor, glad that Winston had been busy in Paris. She reached the tech room- but found it completely blocked by rafters from the fallen roof.
Determined to find her two best friends alive, unperturbed by the negative sight and possibility, Lara continued over the wood searching for a sign. The computers and laptops were smashed, and the headsets were broken.
But it didn't look like the work of the inferno.
Someone had deliberately burned the mansion.