Lara woke up with her head splitting, she tried to lift it but it felt heavy and groggy. As she slowly opened her eyes she realised she was in her cavernous bedroom, wrapped up snugly in her quilts. It took a few minutes for her head to clear and for her to remember how she'd ended up back at home.
Winston, her elderly butler, came into her bedroom carrying a try with a glass of water and some medication on top. He smiled at her as he walked in.
"You're awake" he said in his gentle voice, "How are you feeling?"
"Strange…" Lara sighed, "and a little disappointed in myself"
"Disappointed?" Winston asked, handing her some headache tablets and the glass of water. Lara uttered the words "thank you" and then took the pills with a large gulp of the water.
"I couldn't get the javelin back" she replied eventually, lying back down and shielding her eyes from the light with her forearm
"I'm sure this isn't the end of it though?" Winston asked
"Not at all" Lara said defiantly, "I'm going to get that javelin back if it's the last thing I do"
"That's the spirit," Winston agreed as he picked up some of Lara's bedclothes from the floor
"How's Arthur?" Lara asked
Winston stopped suddenly, with the bundle of bedclothes in his folded arms and lowered his head.
"I'm sorry Lara…" he said, "By the time anyone got to his office he was already dead…"
"They killed him?" Lara said, sitting up suddenly despite the aching of her head, "Why?"
"His office had been ransacked" Winston explained, "I think they were looking for something that he refused to give to them"
"The book…" Lara uttered to herself, "Winston, did you find a small leather-bound book that I'd tucked inside my tights?"
"Yes, m'lady" he said, "I assumed it was important so I put it in the safe"
"Could you get it for me, please?" she asked politely
"Of course m'lady" he bowed, "would you like me to inform Alistair and Zip?"
"Yes, I'll need to talk with them about this" Lara nodded slowly, "Thank you Winston"
Her Butler left the room and Lara slowly climbed out of bed and made her way through the seating area in her large room to the walk-in wardrobe where she kept all of her clothes and equipment. She slipped into her comfortable clothing, a sports bra and a pair of baggy jogging trousers and made her way into the seating area again, resting on one of the cushy white sofa's as she tied her long brown hair into a ponytail.
After a minute or two, Winston arrived again with the book in his hands, wrapped in a purple satin sheet. Zip, Lara's streetwise African-American technology expert, and Alistair, an old friend of Lara's and an amazing scholar, both entered the room after Winston.
"Hey Lara" Zip said, "How you feeling?"
"I've been better" Lara sighed, "Alistair, can you tell me what happened at the museum?"
"Of course" Alistair said, taking a seat, "Well, after I'd finished scouring the buffet table I tried to find you in the main hall, but I couldn't, so I assumed Arthur had taken you to see the exhibit. I went to the exhibit hall and saw you were unconscious and something had been taken. So I made sure you were okay, called for help, and then I went to Arthur's office…" his voice trailed off, Lara knew what came next
"We have to find out who it was that took the spear" Lara said, unfolding the satin sheet and taking out the old cracked-leather book. She opened it up and revelled silently in the noise of the crisp old pages creaking sharply as they moved. She flicked through quickly, the first few dozen pages were all very old notes on Norse Mythology that Arthur had made, Lara would have Alistair go through them later.
Suddenly she saw something in the book and paused,
"What's up?" Zip asked, "You look like you've seen a ghost"
"I think I have…" Lara said, turning the book around, she showed Alistair and Zip a logo that had been drawn very sketchily on the page. It was of a dragon eating it's own tail.
"That looks Chinese…" Zip said
"No, it's definitely Norse" Alistair said, leaning in, "The shape of it is too serpentine to be a dragon…"
"It's the symbol of the Clan of Fenrir" Lara explained, then she held out the drawing "See? It's head is the head of a wolf, although with Arthur's drawing you can't see very well" she pointed to the badly-drawn wolf head in the notebook, "the Clan of Fenrir are little-known because as far as scholars are aware they're extinct, apparently they arose after the supposed Ragnarök from Norse Mythology… Although I'm not entirely sure why they worshipped Fenrir, I do know that they hated Odin and Thor"
"Curious…" Alistair pondered, "Do you think they could have been the one's who attacked you?"
"Possibly" Lara said, flicking through a few pages, "But I certainly know where I'm going to start my search…"
"Where?" Zip asked
"Iceland" Lara said, turning the book around again to show them a set of directions, "In the tomb where the spearhead of Gungnir was found…"