Sorry to those waiting for a Dark Bank update, but I'd already decided on the beginning of this chapter when I posted the last, and I had to get it written. I promise I'll get back to Dark Bank ASAP.

Hey Hey HeyThanks for all your reviews everyone! Yes, I do realise what effect the combination of Kurtis and showers has on the majority of you - why did you think I put it in there! LOL, I just love seeing you all swoon. Hee Hee. I'm so relieved that the gymnastics from last chapter wasn't taken as too drawn out. Hopefully the events in this chapter won't ruin your perceptions of the characters - one person said they were glad Kurtis wasn't coming across as a prat and I'm really hoping he won't do after this! Remember, their motivations are deeper than they may at first appear - that's what the story is all about.

Soundtrack: Crash 'n' Burn by The Ga Ga s - Balladic Rock

Distance

By the time Lara had stalked to the end of the corridor, still seething at Kurtis' intrusion, he had still not joined her.

"Well?" she demanded, spinning to see what the delay was, "are you coming or not?"

Kurtis was still stood in the doorway to the gallery, fingering the keycard he had used to deactivate the security system, a thoughtful look on his face. "You know what?" He reached out and swiped the card, a low buzz starting up as the invisible lasers were reactivated. "Maybe I'll take a rain check." He grinned and held the card out in the vicinity of the nearest laser.

"No!" Lara cried, but he had already let go and the card fell, breaking the beam. A frighteningly loud siren started suddenly, jerking Lara's heart rate up threefold. Kurtis laughed, quite amicably as though he had only played a harmless joke, and then, giving an infuriatingly arrogant salute with a cocky grin, darted off into the shadows, leaving Lara to face the music.

"Son of a bitch!" Lara cried after him, moving as if to give chase but then halting, desperately trying to decide what to do. She turned left and then right, eyes looking everywhere for a line of escape. Letting out a small cry of angry frustration she made her decision and ran, no longer needing to heed the lasers as she hurtled back into the gallery, threw herself onto the top of the end display case and quickly replaced the idol. Praying that no-one would notice the access hole she had cut into the glass, she moved for the nearest window, smashed the lowest pane and leapt out into the dark bushes below, alarms still ringing behind her.

She crouched for a moment, heart racing as she heard the thudding footsteps of the security team approaching. Thinking quickly, she looked around for a large stone and found one nestling in the soil of the border. Snatching it up, not caring about the dirt sticking under her newly manicured nails, she dropped it through the broken window and then ran. Hopefully the security guards, finding nothing missing and seeing a stone on the floor by the window, would put the broken glass down to vandalism that had set off the alarms, giving them no excuse to look further and see the neat hole in the display case or to suspect that Lara may have been involved. If they did, however, she was about to make a very big mistake indeed.

In case an escape route was needed, she had previously undone the lock of the ladies' toilet window and left it open slightly – she never thought she'd be using it to get back inside. She slid the sash window slightly open and clambered through, moving quickly to the doorway and then stumbling out, feigning confusion and loss of balance.

"Oh! Oh My! What's going on?" she cried, one arm held outwards as if blind. "What's happening?"

"Lady Croft?" A member of security stepped forwards, one of two holding back the other members of the dinner party who were desperately trying to see what was occurring in the gallery further down the corridor.

"My contact lens came out," Lara explained, distressed. "I was looking for it for ages on the toilet floor and then this alarm went off…what's happening?"

"It's alright, Ma'am, it's nothing for you to worry about. Please, go back with the other guests to your dinner."

"I can't see," Lara complained uselessly as she and the other guests were eventually coerced into returning to the conference room where their meal was, "I've only got one lens in, my vision is all funny." She stumbled, steadied by the guard.

"I'm afraid your lens will have to wait, Ma'am. Please, return to the dinner." He bundled her off with the other guests, Lara still worrying over her pretend lost contact lens.

Once back in the hall, she allowed someone to help her to her seat and then turned away, miming removing her other lens and then producing the laser-revealing glasses from underneath her dress, putting them on. Somebody asked her if she was ok and she smiled, nodding, laughing that it was a good job that she'd brought her spectacles with her and assuring everyone that her lost lens was no worry, they were only the daily wear type anyway.

Giving one last fake smile of thanks for the concern of the other guests, Lara's fingers dug into the tablecloth, scrunching it up in her hands before she picked up her fork and jabbed it violently into an asparagus spear.

It wasn't until after the dinner, however, that Lara realised just how angry Kurtis was going to get her that evening. She and the other guests were ushered into the gallery for the premiere of the new exhibition and, amid gasps and disbelieving chatter from the other guests all crowded with her around the Buluc-Chabtan idol display, she stood there, chest heaving and fists clenched in barely concealed rage, her eyes fixed on the empty space where once the idol had sat.

That bastard Trent had stolen her artefact.

It was late night and dark, a rainstorm brewing overhead in dark grey clouds contrasting against the bluer sky lit by the light pollution of San Francisco. Heels clopping harshly against the pavement, Lara walked back to her hotel from the charity dinner, her excessively fast pace driven by the same anger that had prevented her from taking a taxi. It was quiet, only the occasional car driving past over the hill, the odd person wandering nearby along adjacent streets.

Tense fingers waggling, jaw set tight, Lara glared out across the city as she descended one of the famous and numerous hills. He had stolen it from right under her nose. If she'd had any sense, she'd have punched his fucking lights out the moment she saw him.

She crossed a perpendicular street, noting a figure standing on the corner but not paying them any attention, just passing them by and stalking onwards.

She hadn't left them more than a few feet behind when they spoke.

"You never asked me how I was."

Lara stopped, inhaling and exhaling deeply in an effort to retain control. She turned on her heels, glaring at Kurtis where he still stood on the corner, smoking casually. "What?" she eventually managed to say, curtly, not even showing any surprise that the figure had turned out to be him.

"I'm assuming you found the copious amounts of blood I left behind at the Strahov?"

"Yes. And?"

"You never asked me how I was."

Lara paused for a moment and then laughed. "Kurtis. How are you?" she asked sarcastically.

"Been better." He paused, hesitating whether or not to continue before deciding to do so. "Did you look for me? After you found the blood?"

"I kept an eye out for you on my way out, if that's what you mean."

Kurtis laughed bitterly, turning to look out over the view of San Francisco and shaking his head. He sniffed, took another drag from his cigarette, and then let the smoke out with a short, almost amused breath. Lara stood, waiting, as he shifted around on his feet and fidgeted before taking one last drag and throwing his cigarette to the floor, where it smouldered in glowing orange.

He reached into the bag on his waist and drew out a crumpled scrap of paper and a pen. He scribbled on it and then drew something else out of the bag, securing the folded paper to it. "Here," he said, tossing the bundle to Lara, who caught it instinctively. She didn't look at it, just held it as she continued to stare at Kurtis, slightly confused. "If you still have my chirugai," he said, "I'd appreciate it if you could mail it back to me."

He turned and walked away down the street, hands shoved into his pockets, his foot taking a poorly aimed kick at a crushed plastic drinks bottle lying on the sidewalk.

Lara watched him walk a moment and then turned to the bundle in her hands. The idol of Buluc-Chabtan. Surprisingly, its return gave her no joy. She looked back up to Kurtis' retreating figure, looking thoroughly fed up in its stance.

The paper he'd written on was folded into a thin wedge and tucked between the idol's arm and its body. She took it out, finding nothing more than a postal address for Norfolk, Virginia.

She hadn't wanted to talk to him, hadn't felt in the least bit inclined to ask what this 'chirugai' thing was. The only thing she could think he meant was the bladed disc he'd had, that she'd picked up in the Strahov not far from the congealing pool of blood that had, for a moment, sent her heart sinking as it had confirmed her suspicions. The disc, though, had vibrated when she'd picked it up, dragged her off into the darkness, giving her a brief soaring hope that had slowly faded as she'd got further and further towards the exit and seen nothing more than bloodstains that could have just as easily been one of their enemy's as it could have been his. As her hope had faded so had the disc's orange glow, and by the time she'd reached the snow covered streets of Prague once more it was nothing more than a lump of metal in her hands.

Her expression hardened with the memory. Kurtis was nothing more than a distant figure under the streetlights now. She shoved the paper and the idol into her bag, stomped down angrily on the dying embers of the cigarette, extinguishing them completely, and walked on.

There was no-one to greet her as she walked through the door on her return to England. Not even the mansion itself seemed to say anything. Or maybe it did and Lara just wasn't interested in listening.

She'd fired Winston upon her miraculous return after getting buried alive in Egypt. She hadn't been going to. She'd just…done it. She'd got out of the car after managing to hitch a lift home, having re-entered the country illegally as a stow-away because she simply hadn't felt like going to the authorities, and seen her memorial statue. To that day she didn't understand the reaction it had caused in her, but she'd simply marched into the house, paid no heed to his surprise and joy at seeing her alive again, and had told him, in short shrift, that his services were no longer needed and she expected him gone by lunchtime the next day.

Now shutting the door behind her, Lara immediately set about taking care of affairs. Long gone were the times when she'd return from a trip and just sit down with a cup of tea and some chocolate. With an attitude that if it wasn't bedtime then she wasn't tired, she went straight into the kitchen and put her dirty laundry on to wash whilst making herself a drink and moving around the house replacing items she had packed. That done, she went through the backlog of post and then, after paying a couple of bills, decided to finally turn her attention to the idol she'd put in her study.

She looked it over, examining it with her hands and eyes. She picked up a literature list of useful books she'd researched beforehand and went about retrieving them from the library shelves and stacking them on a table. She marked the ones she'd need to get from the library in London and then, without the fascination that she'd used to possess for artefacts, picked up the idol and locked it in her safe.

It was only then that she started on the job that she'd been avoiding. The one that, on the outside, wasn't affecting her at all but on the inside was awakening nervous butterflies in her stomach.

Moving to a cupboard in the panelling of the hallway, she opened the door only identifiable by the gilt handle and pulled out a shoebox. She put it on the floor, kneeling beside it, and removed the lid. Inside was Kurtis' bladed disc – his chirugai, he'd called it. When she'd first brought it back with her to England she'd considered doing some research on it, on the Order that he'd implied he belonged to, wondering if maybe the psychic abilities apparently needed for its use were made possible by the weapon or if they were a genetic legacy of the Lux Veritatis.

In the end, though, she'd just found her gaze flicking from the disc to her screensaver and back again, her fingers tapping impatiently on the keyboard without actually making any keystrokes, her breaths heavy sighs as she found herself unable to concentrate long enough to even start any work. She'd given one half-hearted attempt to control the weapon by staring at it, and then packed it in a shoebox with some newspaper and put it in the cupboard.

Now, she picked it up and ran her fingers over it, feeling the slots along the edge into which the blades retracted, noting once again the complete lack of controls on it anywhere, not even anything to manually extend the blades.

If he wanted it, she thought, suddenly angry, then he could have it. It was no use to her.

She packed the box out with more newspaper on her kitchen table, sealed the lid down with parcel tape, wrapped it in brown paper, used a marker to write the Virginia address in large capital letters, and then picked it up, grabbed her car keys and the list of books she wanted from the library, and left to stop off at the post office.

Working as a mercenary was all very well as long as you had a consumer base, but though the authorities hadn't managed to make any hard links between him and the Monstrum case, the underworld had been talking and their topic of conversation was that the previously discreet Demon Hunter had gone and gotten himself involved in some pretty messy stuff. Kurtis had called his old contacts upon returning to America and put word out that he was available for work again and so far he'd heard tell that there had been four jobs given to other people that once-upon-a-time Kurtis would have been considered perfect for. Maybe it was a sign that it was time to start afresh and stop clinging on to the past.

He slammed his apartment door behind him, threw his jacket onto the hook behind the door and dropped a handful of job application forms on to the table. His previous work experience was a bit limited but he could probably find work as a store clerk or something. Working at Starbucks might even be quite nice. Nice easy-going coffee shop, a bit of banter with the customers, regular hours. He wondered what plans Lucy had that evening and if she'd want to go to dinner with him.

Someone knocked on the door and he went to answer it.

"Mr Trent?" It was a courier in uniform, carrying a clipboard.

"Yeah, that's me."

"Got a parcel for ya. Sign here, please."

He signed, the courier produced a square brown paper parcel from behind the wall, and, wishing him a nice day, left.

Kurtis couldn't quite figure out what it was to begin with, so put it down on the table and tore the paper off, removing the tape from the lid of the box underneath and opening it.

His chirugai. No note, no return address, just newspaper packing and his chirugai.

His eyes went to the application forms and back to the weapon. Overcome, he fell back against the wall and sank to the floor. He had never felt so alone.