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The Boeing's powerful engines sighed, turned, roared into life, their reverberation transmitting through the fuselage. As the plane moved downthe runway, gathering speed, Lara adjusted her seat and sat back, lowering her gaze to the book in her hands.
The plane's momentum became a hurtling rush, the long low buildings and smaller aircraft streaking past in a blur. A seasoned traveller, Lara barely glanced up as the nose lifted, concrete and grass dropping away beneath them. Outwardly she was calm, her face unreadable, but her tension and impatience sang out to Joachim, who turned his head to watch her.
His companion's eyes were a clear, restless sepia in the sunlight that filtered through the small windows with the distinct mellow tone of late afternoon, warm and flattering - not that she had need of that. Her skin was luminous, her mouth a perfect, stubborn Cupid's bow.
She was unlike that other one before her, who alone of all the Children of Israel had awakened his desire, stealing his heart with a single glance of her eyes, and who, desiring him in return, had left her people and her father's household to go with him into the land between the two great rivers. Her face was distant in time, but, until recently, near in his memories, a yearning that the slow passage of centuries had done nothing to diminish; her wide wondering eyes, the dusky pink of her mouth, the touch of her cool hand on his burning skin, her dark hair tumbling onto his chest, her soft sighs as they came together in the stillness of the desert night, then the sweet plaintive sound of her voice as she begged him to let her stay with him forever, to grant her endless life in his embrace. And the consequence: the vivid crimson of her life's blood as it spilled out over his hands to redden the burning sands of Shin'ar.
Disastrous. Although she had been sweet where Lara was strong, trusting where she was wary, gentle and not a fierce fighter; yes, unalike. But their eyes were the same living brown. A faint smile curved his mouth.
Those eyes were concentrating on the pages of Vasiley's diary, overlain with the translation he had written for her. It was all there, laid out before her, the history of the Seal of Solomon, and - her hands clenched around the battered leather - its last known location in the tomb of their very first Grand Master. Buried deep, of course. What else did you expect? she asked herself, her mouth twisting resentfully.
She put the diary aside and dozed for the rest of the short flight, aware of Karel's watchful presence beside her.
As the plane taxied to a halt, she looked out appraisingly at the twinkling lights of Paris. There was the usual sorting of hand luggage, a flurry of farewells from the smiling stewardesses, and then it was out of the plane's brightly lit warmth and into the relentless cold and damp. Lara stepped onto the tarmac with a heavy sigh.
"Joachim, I'm so sick of this place," she said.
"We don't have to stay here forever, Lara," he said, turning to her with a slight smile.
She shrugged dispiritedly.
Paris, City of Light. As they came through the arrival gate, she was almost blinded by it; a sudden array of dazzling camera flashes and a raucous chorus of shouted questions. Lara's face darkened; she despised the press, a pack of ravening wolves eager to tear at the flesh of the latest scandal. The last one who had managed to bypass her security system and sneak into the grounds of Croft Manor had ended up sprinting back down the drive with bullets sending up sprays of gravel around his fleeing feet.
Karel walked through them as though they didn't exist. Lara had no such luxury.
"Get out of my way," she snapped as yet another paparazzo jumped in front of her with a camera.
The man ignored her and kept taking pictures, until Karel stepped in front of him and put his hand over the camera. His fingers tightened minutely on the lens rim, and it started to buckle under the pressure.
The journalist stared in outraged astonishment. Examining his camera indignantly, he started to protest, but a quick glance into Karel's eyes made him close his mouth and back off, shaking his head rapidly.
x x x
He was right; she did like his home, and its surroundings. The seventh arrondissment in its cultured cosmopolitan flair could not have been a sharper contrast to the ghetto she had roamed previously; wide tree-lined boulevards instead of narrow littered streets, swirls of animated, multilingual passers by instead of lurking ladies of the night, and in place of seedy nightclubs, vibrant cafes and bistros, their life and colour spilling out onto the pavements in the deepening dusk.
And so she found herself back among the rooftops of Paris, but this time on the penthouse level of an elegant fin-de-siecle stone building,and without a gendarme in sight.
Shrugging her backpack from her shoulders, she stepped forward onto pale wood and looked around her with keen interest. She had half expected a period style and an accumulation of treasures to rival, no, dwarf, her own, but the apartment, all light and open spaces, was almost entirely devoid of possessions. He did not trouble to surround himself with material mementos; they meant little to him, and besides, he remembered everything. Every age, every face.
But despite the minimalism, his living space was far more than functional. Sleek flowing lines, muted colours in masterful arrangement, the light falling through the glassed roof, all contributing to the spare, tranquil beauty of some eastern temple. Engraved stone tablets, set here and there into shallow alcoves, were the apartment's only pretension to decoration, but it was, in itself, a work of art.
Above her, a mezzanine housed a low, wide bed and steps leading up to a roof terrace.
From the windows that spanned the far wall she could see the placid curve of the Seine with the illuminated, glass-topped boats, the bateaux Parisien, going serenely to and fro, and the imperious rise of the Eiffel Tower above the roads and rooftops in the near distance. As high up as they were, the building set back from the road, the city's many voices were muffled, drifting upwards in a dreamy blend of sounds. The place was a haven, somewhere you could watch the world while remaining detached from it.
Her own face, briefly at peace, stared back at her from the immaculate glass.
Lara shifted position for what felt like the hundredth time, kicking back the purple covers to let the air cool her skin.
She had never been in court before, despite a string of legally dubious activities. You couldn't be charged if you weren't caught, and if she had frequently failed at staying within the boundaries of the law, she had excelled at not being there to be apprehended afterwards. For someone who valued her privacy as much as she did, a trial and the attendant publicity were an unwelcome ordeal. Unlike most obstacles in her path, a judge and jury could not be dispatched with firepower, nor even wit and cunning - at least not her own. She would have to depend on Karel.
He was nowhere to be seen. With his usual courtesy, he had made sure that she had everything she wanted. Earlier, he had invited her to walk through the city with him, and when she had snapped at him and told him that preparing for tomorrow was more important, he had gone back to his study and closed the door, and she had lain awake in his bed, seething with tension and wanting, wondering if he would join her. She would have welcomed him.
The thought stirred her restive imagination, and as she waited in vain for drowsiness to overtake her she found her mind filled with the kinds of images that banished any likelihood of sleep. The darkness seemed to close in around her like a whirlpool, and her hands slid restlessly over the heated contours of her own body.
After half an hour she flung aside the covers and rose, cheeks flushed, pupils wide and dark, to descend into the sunken living area, welcoming the drift of cool air against her bare arms and legs. The roof that sloped down from the mezzanine was composed almost entirely of parallel slanted skylights through which she could see the night sky.
She made her way around the perimeter, treading lightly, passing in and out of the moonbeams that streamed through to pool on the wood floor; her face now in shadow, now bathed in pure silvery light as she passed the shallow alcoves, glancing at each engraving in turn. They told her a story in pictures, a very old story, perhaps the oldest of all.
Perfect innocence, then the first awakening of desire...and rebellion, expulsion and despair. She recognised the fallen angel Semjaza, standing erect with wings spread wide and hands stretching up to as if to seize the heavens; and in the next tablet his son Amiel, lord of his people - whom she knew only by his expression - tall and strong and proud. Looking at his likeness, she could hardly believe the blazing fire in those eyes had been put out forever.
Other images followed, other fallen ones and their demigod children, Anak and Rapha and Avera, battles, veneration, betrayals, and finally the retreat to Anatolia, where they slept in peace for millennia until the coming of the Lux Veritatis.
When she came to the last alcove, she paused and stepped in for a closer look, laying a hand on the smooth stone tablet.
Like the others, it was carved in relief and painted over with subtle flares of colour. The stone may have been cold, but the being in the forefront of the engraving was fiery, sinisterly beautiful, with reddish skin and a fierce, finely-drawn face, half-turned, broodingly, to the girl embracing him from behind. He had no clothes on whatsoever, but she was dressed soberly, with a long loose head covering that threw her face into partial shadow and could not quite obscure her look of longing sorrow.
He had tall, pointed crimson wings like flames, and the same swirling markings...the same swirling skin markings as his son, Jehoiakim.
"Sariel," she said aloud, and turned slowly to meet Karel's stare. The unrelenting black of his eyes revealed little, or nothing.
She sighed, her head dropping a little. "Didn't mean it," she muttered, sounding sulky and childish to herself.
He came closer, raised a hand to touch her cheek. "I know," he said with a calm certainty that made her lift her face and scowl at him.
She turned back to the engraving. "What was he like?"
He was silent for so long that she turned a frowning face to him. "Did you even know him?"
"Barely," he said. "One night, one day..." He had been magnificent and degenerate, beautiful and frightening, godlike, his eyes ablaze and his voice like hissing flame.
She moved her hand, brushing fingertips over the woman's face. "Your mother…"
She didn't expect a response to that, so it came as no surprise when she didn't get one. But before turning away, he reached out a hand to the carving as well, drawing a forefinger over Dinah's sorrowing face.
She sat on the couch, turning sideways to the long windows to contemplate the vista, and he came over to sit next to her, unexpectedly close. Her back was turned to him, her hands drawn into tight fists.
"Tomorrow. Are we ready?"
"We're ready, Lara."
"I prefer to fight my own battles, you know," she said with a quick fierceness, eyes blazing.
He was unmoved by her aggression. "I know that, as well." He reached forward and took her hand, sliding his fingers through hers. She tensed for the quickest of moments, then leaned back against him.
His hands closed over the bare flesh of her upper arms. And just like that, a thrill of arousal leapt through her like electric current.
She slid closer to him, turning half round to raise a hand to his lips. His eyes closed for a moment as he tasted the tang of her flesh; then she felt his mouth curving into a sly smile beneath her fingertips.
And then his fingers were trailing enticingly over her arms, the exposed skin of her neck, the ridge of her collarbone, sliding over her warm skin, leaving a trail of tingling pleasure in their wake, touching her in all the right ways, all the right places, until she gave in, her breath sighing from between parted lips, her eyes shuttering closed in response. The loss of vision only served to enhance her other senses, the scent of him and his touch flooding her brain…and she couldn't take any more. She twisted around and upwards, her hands on his shoulders, her mouth seeking his, and he…he drew back, barely maintaining the distance, leaving her breathless and longing for more.
Bewildered, frustrated, she stared into his face from mere inches away. "Joachim-"
"Not yet, Lara." This time, his fingers on her lips, silencing her. His eyes repeated: Not yet…and said nothing more than that. Staring into the unbroken black, she knew that she couldn't determine his thoughts if he did not want them to be determined. She knew also that the reverse was untrue. He had been around a lot longer than she.
Distantly, through the haze of lust, it occurred to her that she was, once again, dancing to his tune, that the agenda was his entirely; and beyond the fleeting chagrin, the brief impulse to smack him in the face, the worst part of it all was: she didn't care.
It didn't use to be that way. It had all begun, of course, the moment that pyramid collapsed on top of her with a roar; no, before that. I make my own luck, she had once proudly declared to a friend, in another life. And, as if some higher power had overheard and taken her hubris as a challenge, since that time it seemed that Lara Croft's course had been directed by everything, everyone, except Lara Croft. Circumstance, sleight of hand, twist of fate. Shamans, mentors, alchemists, enemy and friend alike - and Nephilim. Control and self-determination, they were mere dancing illusions, to be ruthlessly dispelled by the Perhaps they always had been, and she just didn't know it until now.
With a faint, dismal groan, she pressed her forehead against his shoulder.
He stroked her hair consolingly, narrowed eyes showing a hint of satisfaction. Eventually, with a dragging reluctance that dismayed her, she left him, and went back to the bed, footsteps resentful and heavy.
He sat alone, pensive, eyes dark and still. His blood had begun to heat from within, but he had learned patience, and learned it well. Try to snatch the thing you most desire, and it is likely to slip out from under your fingers. Wait until the time is right and it will come to you of its own accord. Sometimes, it will throw itself at your feet and beg to be taken. He had waited a thousand years; he could wait a little longer.
He stayed where he was, listening to the uneven sound of her breathing. Finally, it became deep and regular, and she slept.
Hee hee hee! Your comments, please?As usual, I owe a big thank you to all those who leave reviews. It makes my day.
I should also thank Akkon for (unknowingly) contributing artistic inspiration for this chapter. If you want to see her wonderful Nephilic drawings, check them out over at the Sanitarium (KTEB HQ).
A few people have enquired about my other TR fics. The truth is my head's so full of this one right now that I couldn't write anything else if I tried (and I have), but I haven't forgotten them. They'll be continued eventually.