Disclaimer: you know the drill - I own nothing. Nothing, do you hear me? Not Lara, not Kurtis, nothing.
A/N: Sorry it took so long on this one - WRITER'S BLOCK:\. It's gone now, though. I've actually already started on Ch. 12. (P.S. I 3 reviews ;) )
Chapter 11
The Emerald Key
Kurtis tumbled through the darkness and hit the floor rolling. He stood up slowly, casting an uneasy glance around. He raised his hands directly in front of his face but could see nothing. What the fuck? Am I blind? he questioned, searching the non-existent horizon for any outlines - objects, columns, people...
"Lara?" he asked into the darkness, only to find the it so dense that his own voice didn't reach his ears.
He outstretched his arms to prevent walking into anything and stepped forward. He took another step, and another, and another. I'm dead, he told himself. Leap of faith, ha. Leap of death is more likely. Kurtis walked on for what felt like hours, finally collapsing in a heap on the still invisible floor. It was smooth and cold, like marble. He traced his fingers over what felt like metal in a smooth, curved line. Curious, he stood once more and kept walking. It took only a few more steps before he stumbled down a small ledge and with a blinding flash and a roaring noise above, countless torches lit up simultaneously.
"Holy shit," he muttered, finally able to hear himself, as well as his footsteps echoing off of the floor.
He turned around and could see the outlines of the walls that had slammed shut just behind him. As soon as he caught sight of it, his mind started racing. Where was Lara? Kurtis looked around all of the pillars, ignoring the glint cast by the jewels set into all of the frescoes on the walls, and the eerie shadows that danced across the marble.
"Lara! Lara, where are you?" Kurtis called.
"Over here," Lara replied softly, walking towards a series of perfectly preserved frescoes.
Kurtis moved forward to wrap his arms around her, but she pulled away. He gave her a quizzical look as she moved towards the next section of the wall. She traced her fingers over the illustrations with a melancholy look.
"This is why you asked me to help, isn't it?" she stated, turning back to look at him.
He raised an eyebrow at her before looking at the painting more closely.
"You know, it would be nice to have a clue what you were talking about every once in a while."
"That's me! That woman in the fresco! She's in all of them!" she seethed.
"Yeah, but she looks nothing like you. Oh, and need I mention that she's got wings?" Kurtis replied, pointing at the angel.
"And you've never heard the word 'metaphor' before, hm?" Lara shot back, one eyebrow cocked at him.
In two equally swift movements, Kurtis was staring down the barrels of two locked and loaded .45's and Lara found herself with the muzzle of his Boron X pointed right between her eyes.
"Please start making sense before one of us takes a bullet to the brain," Kurtis said through gritted teeth.
Lara glared at him, trigger fingers tempted to begin applying pressure. "You first. This isn't coincidence anymore - you and I both know it. What the hell is going on here?"
"You're going to shoot me if I don't come up with a good enough answer? So go ahead, shoot. I don't have one, ok! You think you're in the dark? I asked for your help because you're the only person I know that can do this sort of stuff. Chances are, I'd have died in a few different places back there if it weren't for you. Now, are you going to tell me why your metaphorical self in a bunch of paintings is so disturbing to you?" he said, inflecting as much emotion into his voice as was possible.
They both lowered their guns and brought them down to their sides and stepped over to the wall. "You're going to have to tell me what they say - I can't decipher the symbols." Lara told him, looking at the first.
The fresco depicted an angel falling from the sky into snowcapped mountains. "It says, 'An angel will fall and with her she will bring hope'."
After that began a series of portraits of the same angel - riding a horse, shooting a bow and arrow, wielding a sword.
"'Hope through strength. Hope through power.'" Kurtis read. "What's this?" Kurtis asked pointing at a picture of the figure kneeling before an ornate gold chest.
"Ark of the Covenant." she stated flatly.
He looked at her and gave her an amused look. "Are you sure?"
"Very," she replied, looking at the next paintings. "Atlantis and the Scion. The Dagger of Xi'an. The Iris. The Eye of Horus. The Triangle of Light. Pandora. The Amulet of Power..."
She paused and traced her fingers over the Amulet before glancing at Kurtis.
"You ok?" he asked.
"You know, if it weren't for this, I'd never have gone to Paris." Lara told him. "I'm sorry, this is just strange. I've had some extremely odd stuff happen in my life, but I'd never have guessed that any of it had been preordained."
Lara moved to the last painting in line. There was a man in Lux Veritatis armor standing over the body of the angel.
"God," Kurtis breathed, his eyes racing back and forth making sure he'd read it right. "This can't happen. You're getting on the first flight back to England. Let's go."
"What does it say?" she asked as he turned to pick up their belongings.
"It doesn't matter, we're going." he returned, shrugging on his pack.
Lara turned around and glared at him. "Tell me what it says. I'm a big girl, I think I can handle it."
"It says, 'And in the final battle, she will fall at the hands of he who slays demons, and peace will shield the earth'." the Demon Hunter said, his eyes meeting hers. "I can't."
She reached out and placed her hand on the side of his face. "This is what you've fought for your whole life. For peace. For the Nephilim to be erased forever. You can't let me stand in your way. If I have to do to set things right, so be it."
"That's where your wrong. I haven't spent my whole life doing this. I ran away. I changed my name. I didn't want to be a Trencavel, I didn't want to be a Lux Veritatis. I didn't want to be me." he told her, adding softly, "I can't lose you, Lara." as he took her hand in his.
Lara broke their contact and walked resolutely back towards the wall. "What's this?" she asked, examining another illustration of the same angel, but without wings. There were strange markings and patterns behind her instead of a location, and she wielded a large staff of some sort.
"It doesn't say what it is and those markings aren't like anything I've ever seen before," Kurtis said, joining her at the fresco.
"I'm not going home. I'm not going to run away from this. Seeing this... I know this is my destiny. I could have stopped all of that from happening, but didn't. I never had to go searching for any of those artifacts, but I did. If I die, I die, but at least it will have been for a greater good." Lara stated resolutely, her voice free of emotion as she spoke. "We can save the world, Kurtis. I think that's far more important than a solitary life."
He nodded in accord. "It can't be that simple. We came here looking for a key, remember?"
"And Akasma's notes said something about the jewels in the walls," Lara added.
She began to examine them in silence before turning around and looking at the floor. The gold inlay in the marble formed a pattern. Where had she seen the pattern before? She followed the design until she found it - The All-Seeing Eye. Lara gasped in surprise - did the Lux Veritatis have anything to do with the Illuminati? Kurtis joined her and slid off the ring that he wore. Lara took it and examined the design - it was the same pattern intertwined with the Illuminati designs.
"This depicts a planetary alignment," he said. "That's the only thing I knew ahead of time. My father told me about it when he gave me the ring. I knew that it was coming up. That's when Karel is going to raise them. It's the only time it can happen in this millennium. It's two days from now."
"He's a few years late - the alignment already happened. This eye, this is the All-Seeing Eye. It's a symbol of the Illuminati. You probably recognize it from the back of your one dollar bill." Lara said, still eyeing the design.
"I know about the Illuminati. My grandfather and my father were both members." he said, watching her. "That's why I was so interested in working with you, Lara. I wanted to know if you were anything like him. I wanted to know if there was even the slightest chance that you might be Lux Veritatis yourself. I've met your father. I was very young, but I still remember him. I knew that he and my father shouldn't have anything to do with the Order. Karel had been trying to get his feet wet with them for years and my family had been watching him in case he tried to take over or to influence them into helping to raise his brethren. He'd been telling them to ignore the alignment you're talking about and focus on this one. Lucky for all of humanity, they were too obsessed with the Triangle of Light and controlling time to pay too much attention to him."
"Why didn't you tell me this before?" she asked.
Kurtis shrugged slightly. "I guess I just didn't want to screw this up off the bat. I wanted to make sure you trusted me before I told you so that you wouldn't think I was making it up."
Lara said nothing, instead pulled the medallion out of her neckline and slid it over her head. She walked forward to the center of the Eye, and saw it immediately. There was a perfect reverse outline of the medallion. She placed it in the niche and pressed down. Instantly, a bright green light shot out from somewhere on the opposite end of the room. The light caught on the jewels and shone all around.
"Where's the source?" Kurtis asked.
"I'm not sure," Lara replied. "But I've suddenly got a very bad feeling about this."
Her instincts proved correct - as soon as she'd spoken a sword came spinning towards her head. Lara ducked and rolled out of the way, drawing her pistols as she did so, firing into the chest of the undead warrior. She looked around as he fell and saw dozens more headed straight towards them.
"Do something!" Lara cried.
"What?" Kurtis shot back. "What am I supposed to do!"
"I'm not sure, but they are your ancestors, are they not?" she yelled over the firing of both of their weapons.
Kurtis stopped firing and sent the Chirugai whirling. If that wasn't enough, One of the nights halted as he raised his sword, seeing the torn sleeve of Kurtis's t-shirt. Underneath a bloodstained bandage stopped directly below a simple black tattoo - the symbol of the Lux Veritatis.
"Trencavel," Kurtis said. "Meus nomen est Trencavel."
The knights all knelt with the creaking of their armor, bowing their heads on the hilts of their swords.
"Deus existo te, meus filius," God be with you, my son, the Knight nearest Kurtis spoke, his voice choked, dusty, and the most unnatural sound that either of them had ever heard.
He stood with the creaking and clacking of armor and bones and removed his chest plate- a heavy metal piece embossed with the same symbol from Kurtis's arm. Below it there was a crest that he recognized instantly as the Trencavel family crest. The warrior stared intently at Kurtis with eyeless sockets as the flesh and blood Lux Veritatis put on the plate and helmet. As he finished, the knight held out his sheathed sword and bowed his head. Kurtis took the offered weapon and strapped it on.
"Konstantin ero superbus. Deus ero vobis in vicis , meus filius," Konstantin will be proud. God will be with you in time, my son, he repeated, placing a skeletal hand on Kurtis' shoulder. "Ut mos nos." As will we.
"Nos peto," Kurtis began, realizing he could not think of a Latin word for key. "Nos peto le cléf!" We seek the key!
Lara gave him a quizzical look. "French?"
"Yeah, Trencavel is a French name." Kurtis replied, awaiting the knight's answer.
"Peto radix," Seek the source, he told them.
He fixed Kurtis with one last look and then he and the rest of the long dead warriors melded back into the recesses from whence they'd come. Where is it coming from? Kurtis asked himself, looking around to see several bright points around the room. He ran to one and noticed that it was merely reflecting the original beam. Lara watched on as Kurtis went from fresco to fresco, following the angles that the light was reflecting from until he found what he was looking for.
"Bernard Ato VI," Kurtis said softly, examining the man's glowing green eye. "He was the first Lux Veritatis member from our family. There were four founding families - The Trencavels, Limouxs, De Combels, and the Guilhelms."
Lara looked at the portrait in astonishment - had she ever doubted Kurtis' lineage, the likeness between the man in the portrait and the man before her would have erased it completely. Kurtis summoned his Chirugai and used one of the five blades to remove the stone from the eye. He turned it over in his hand, examining it's smooth, still faintly glowing surface.
Kurtis removed the sword from it's sheath at his side and examined the hilt. There was a faint outline, which, upon further investigation, was beveled at a slight angle. He lifted the Key and set it against the line - a perfect match.
"Is it supposed to do something?" Kurtis asked, trying to connect the key to the sword.
"Perhaps it has to be in the lock first?" she suggested. "But where is that?"
Lara pulled out her mobile phone and hit the speed-dial. There were two rings before an explosion shook the room and the shots rang out.
