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What's up party people! So I'm going to go out on a limb right here and say that anyone who'd been following this story had probably forgotten about it. What - with me slipping back to page 2 - and several months passing with nary a whisper. That and the fact there's a full freighter load of Tomb Raider stories to read here on FFNET to keep you occupied. A LOT has happened for me recently. Enough said. Usually I would have edited this a little more before posting, but it's been an age since I last updated, so I just went ahead and posted. I'll fix glitches... eventually :)

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*14*

Nightdevil

Part I

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The Deep Amazon

The shadows of the deep forest licked at the thin, yellowed torchbeam like black fingers reaching up from the depths of the underworld. There was a crescent moon above the treetops, but only the barest slivers of moonlight filtered down to the forest floor to mix with the gloom. The thick moist air could be cut with a knife, and every creature of the night, large or small, filled the darkness with sinister sound.

Omar Kennikra found himself on edge. A superstitious man at the best of times, he disliked being thrust uselessly out into the night shadows to guard a vacant section of remote rainforest. What was the point, he asked himself for the hundredth time since the sun had disappeared some hours before? His rusting automatic rifle, he knew, would be no match for the spirits that walked the deep forest at night. He could only hope his hasty prayers would protect him.

The rainforest was never silent at night, never, and yet again Omar whipped around at a sudden noise in the sodden undergrowth and shoved his old rifle barrel into the shadows. Slowly, he aimed his equally battered torch in the same direction - and found nothing but damp earth and rotting leaf decay amid a tangle of ferns. He sighed, it had been the same every few minutes for the last hour, and he could feel himself tensioning like a wound spring with each occurrence. Flicking off the torch resignedly, he shivered as a tingle rose up his spine.

A branch crackled on forest floor off to his left and Omar spun to face the noise with a startled whimper. Those freaks weren't paying him enough for this…

Nothing. The dim light of his old torch showed nothing. He stepped cautiously toward where he thought the noise had come from, forgetting in his half-terror to step silently. Then, it was as if his worst nightmare had come true…

Suddenly there was a terrible screaming, it rose up from the depths of the shadows and assailed him full in the face, a tormented and pitiless wail. A haunted spirit had found him, and yelled vengeance for his trespass. A white, dead face flashed across his vision within an eyeblink, but was gone just as fast. Disoriented, Omar yelled his own strangled cry.

"Get back spirit! I have done nothing to you!" He furiously turned in all directions, panicked, trying vainly to search the deep dark shadows with the thin torchbeam. He saw nothing. His heart beat wildly inside him, filling his ears with its low-down thump.

Silence. The forest always went silent to let the spirits pass… He tried desperately to calm his ragged breaths.

Omar, his composure ready to shatter, his hands shaking, slowly scanned the thickets around him, not wanting anything to do with the entity for which he searched. The spirit world was not meant to mix with the living.

What happened next would haunt his dreams for the rest of his life. Suddenly the spirit was beside him, wailing it's revulsive death cry, it's ghostly-white face and penetrating gaze spearing through him like cold, frosty anger. It must have blinked into existence from the spiritworld as he passed, angered in the extreme at his trespass. Omar yelled in pure terror at the sight of the thing. He flailed wildly in the darkness, trying to beat the thing away with his useless mortal arms – all he found was air.

Then he was running. He tripped in a hollow and went sprawling and sliding, his old gun flying into the dark as he landed heavily. Hot adrenalin fuelled him on. He screamed and yelled into the night with sheer terror at the thing that chased him, seeking his life as a debt of trespass into a realm in which he didn't belong. The last thing he could remember was looking back through the darkness, and seeing the long strands of black death cascade from the thing's corpselike head.

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Watch officer Brennan Lonnegan peered out through the steamed windows of watch command, a small glass-windowed hut at the edge of Cortez' airfield filled with all manner of radios, security camera monitors, and a plethora of weapons and other tools of the security trade. Running off in both directions either side of the hut was a six-meter high chainlink fence capped with razor wire; William Cortez left nothing to chance when it came to protecting his assets, even amid the deserted Amazon rainforest. Powerful overhead spotlights gave a stark blue-crystal glow to the empty no-mans-land between the edge of the airfield and the thick steaming jungle, some fifty meters away. To Brennan's knowledge, nobody had ever even dared peep through the bushes at the airfield, much less attempt a siege against the army of sadistic underpaid thugs that patrolled its borders. He sighed for the hundredth time that night, only briefly glancing out at the always-empty space between the hut and the thick wall of rainforest outside.

Resigned to yet another quiet night, Lonnegan was amid pouring himself his third coffee for the evening when he heard a faint yelling pierce through the night air. Instantly setting the cup down, he swivelled and again peered out through the lightly fogged windows to the expanse outside, his weathered features setting into concern as he did so. He saw nothing, but the screaming was still there, and he recognised instantly the pure terror in the voice that yelled. He knew that some of the men were superstitious about spirits in the night and such, but never before had that caused a problem, especially when their paychecks had been boosted a modest amount.

The crashing and tearing sounds of foliage soon became apparent as - whoever it was – bolted through the jungle toward the hut with little thought for stealth. Lonnegan spoke briefly through an intercom, and was joined moments later by two massive hulking men armed to the teeth with automatic weapons.

"Some fool is coming," he said to the two men simply. "You know what to do." The newcomers nodded silently, their blonde, closely cropped flattop haircuts moving crisply in unison. They moved outside without a word and aimed their weapons at the ready. Lonnegan, nonplussed, took up his own weapon and waited beside them.

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Lara kept pace with the fleeing guard she'd – quite easily in the end – been able to tip over the edge of superstition into full-blooded and terrorized flight. The first guard she'd happened across had been far too cool and collected for such a tactic to work, but the second, the man she now followed, had had a much more amenable imagination. Nothing like a little superstition, she thought, to get people's adrenalin working in her own favour. Lara had little need to disguise her own movements; such was the racket the fleeing guard made as he crashed through all manner of thickets and other leafy understorey plants. She was almost certain the man must have attracted some sort of attention by now, and was grimly aware of the odds stacked against her, and knew she'd have to play the few cards she had exactly right in order to survive. It was either that, or a death without mercy.

Powerful lights appeared through the thick rainforest tangle, and Lara immediately slowed her gait to a quick stalk, letting the crazed guard crash onward toward them alone. They must have reached some of the airfields outer buildings, Lara surmised, perhaps a security post of some kind, which almost certainly meant additional guards loaded to the teeth with weapons. Her plan, she grimaced, was fluid at best, and constantly changed as events unfolded, but she was now committed and all thoughts of turning back ruthlessly evaporated.

Yelling erupted from somewhere beneath the lights, new voices that were angry and heated, easily travelling the heavy night air to where Lara was. They argued with vile passion as she made further stealthy progress toward them, trying to discern what was being said with each step, until she came across an abrupt end to the forest. Lara dropped prone hoping she hadn't been spotted, and laid still, listening.

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Lonnegan spat his disgust at the man standing before him. "I don't give a God's-Bejeezus-Damn what you saw!" he yelled. "You don't desert your fucking post!"

Omar's eyes were wide with superstitious fear, his body trembling on the glass-edge of meltdown. "You fool!" he threw back, his voice near breaking point. "No man can stand against the spirits of the dead! We have angered them!"

Lonnegan sighed and shook his head as if dispensing tired discipline to a small child, it was clear there would be no reasoning with this crazed man. He glanced sideways to one of the flattop guards. "Just kill him," he said to the man, throwing his hands upward in an empty uncaring gesture. It wouldn't be hard to replace this stupid idiot in any case; there was a lengthy list of dirt-poor locals begging to be paid the pittance Cortez offered.

Recognition flailed Omar's face into contorted panic. "What – "

But no time existed to voice any further protest. The hulking guard Lonnegan had spoken to whipped his rifle butt across Omar's jawline, sending him sprawling backward. His momentary disorientation caused him to sway and overbalance drunkenly, saving him from a short burst of automatic fire meant to kill. Lonnegan laughed at the display, finding dark humour in the sport they had found. But as the second thug unleashed a similar burst of fire at the hapless man, things unnervingly went awry.

One second Lonnegan was laughing, the next, he was frowning at the blood appearing across the face of the blonde guard to his right. He suddenly peered uncomprehendingly as the huge man went down like a massive piece of felled lumber, his lifeless eyes staring upward into heavens. Usually composed, Lonnegan was at an instant confused loss.

What the hell!

He stared dumbly as the second guard went down in a similar fashion, even as the man fired his weapon at the screaming idiot who rolled across the ground in frenzied panic. The crazed man's gun had been taken from him the moment he'd arrived so – what the hell!

Only when something fizzed by him another instant later did sanity – and recognition return. His right calf suddenly burned white hot as he dropped prone and emptied an entire clip into the shadowed forest. Someone was out there shooting at him, but only god knew from where. In the next instant the overhead spotlights disintegrated amid a hail of return fire, plunging the whole area into a dark moonlit gloom.

Lonnegan cursed his overconfident bravado at only having bought a single clip outside the command hut with him. He immediately scrambled across the ground to the door of the hut, even as his subconscious mind noted an odd fluid movement at the corner of his vision. Things had moved too fast, and he knew with a grim bitterness that he'd been outplayed – so far. His right leg didn't allow him to stand, so he crashed noisily through the door crawling on his three good limbs, leaving behind a blood trail as he went, and made for the wall that held the gun rack.

Something ungodly appeared in the doorway, but he lashed out with his one good leg and sent his office swivel chair crashing toward the thing – whatever it was. He desperately reached for another weapon from the gun rack, but his luck had run out, and he whipped his hands away from the weapons as the rack came alive with sparks, and the room filled with gunfire.

A deathly voice then spoke through the ringing in his ears. "Don't move and don't piss me off... There's a good chap."

Lonnegan, accepting momentary defeat, looked to face the tall attacker who filled the doorframe, expecting to see a soldier, or mercenary for hire armed to the teeth. But what he saw defied belief. From the floor, he looked up into the malachite-green eyes of probably the most striking woman he had ever seen. He frowned perplexed as he noted her tattered clothing that left her midriff mostly bare, and her shorts looked as though they had been through a garbage processing works. Adding strangeness to mystery, she had covered herself entirely in a whitish slush, perhaps clay of some sort, even running it over her face and through her very long hair. She was athletic, and her eyes bored into him like laser cutters. He blinked several times at the unnerving sight of her, and the Steyr assault rifle she had trained on his chest. He found himself speechless.

What the hell!

The woman stalked toward him, easily hefting the office chair with a single arm, leaving the other to expertly hold the Steyr with barely a single waiver. Lonnegan might have lashed out or hurled abuse in the least, but he'd seen enough professional killers in his lifetime to know that this was a woman who deserved respect. With panther quickness, the striking woman planted the office chair over his abdomen, and then sat down on it with her combat-booted feet either side of his chest and the Steyr barrel digging into it. One glitch of her finger and he knew he was dead. He looked up into her ghostly white face, framed now by her long tresses of death-black and clay-white hair that cascaded down close enough for him to touch.

"Hello," she said with a British accent, a smile, and a truckload of warning. "I find myself in need of a little information."

"Fuck you bitch!" Lonnegan spat with all the hate he could muster. "I'll tell you exactly jack sh –"

The Steyr cracked twice and Lonnegan waited for death, however all he felt was a volcanic pain erupt in his left arm. Immediately he knew he'd been shot there, and he yelled both with the sudden pain, and the indignation of being controlled by a woman.

"Jesus Chist you sadistic BITCH!"

"Cut the crap soldier boy," she snapped, silencing him. "I don't have time for your petty games! Cortez has two hostages, a man and a blonde woman. Where are they?"

Lonnegan boiled over with helpless, white-hot rage, but chilled rapidly as the half-dressed woman casually reached over and took an additional Steyr from the rack close by, and levelled it inches from his nose.

"Must I ask you again?" she prompted with a suggestive voice of glacial cut glass. "Sometimes I get the jitters when I hold guns like this."

Disgusted with himself, Brennan Lonnegan stared into the business end of the assault rifle, and suddenly it came to him that he simply wasn't paid enough for this crap.

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Seheira looked through the bars into the gloom of the cavern. It was night outside, she guessed, by the fact that they'd only been left with one brute soldier standing outside their cell guarding them, and the fact that all other activity in the cavern had gone quiet. They had been prisoners for two days, as best she could tell, and thankfully Cortez had not visited them again since their first arrival. Forde, looking as though he'd fallen off a cliff – and then gone back for round two, slept soundly on the stone floor beside her. He had endured Cortez' sick torture without giving away a squeak, infuriating the macabre man behind his strange but beautiful puppet host. Eventually, it appeared that Cortez had lost his 'connection' with his host, as Sunset had suddenly gone limp and slumped to the floor. Lucky for Forde, she thought, just another few minutes and things could have been very different.

Sleep simply would not come, and Seheira lay on the floor next to Forde staring up into space. She couldn't help but worry about what their captors had in store for them next, nothing good she mused silently. The way Cortez had leered at her with sick delight had left her in no doubt that what he had in store for her didn't ever bear thinking about. It would be horrible, painful, and a fate worse than death. She only hoped that death would find her quickly if things ended up going that way.

Suddenly the lights blinked into life, throwing back the shadows and illuminating the cavern into stark brilliance. Footsteps began to echo from the stairwell directly opposite them, it appeared her and Forde's all too brief time of respite was over. Fully awake in any case, Seheira sat up and gave Forde a gentle shove.

Forde's bone weary voice replied, "Huh? What is it?"

"It's the breakfast committee," Seheira replied.

Forde's eyes bolted open. "Oh joy," he bemoaned. "Do you think we'll get champagne with our morning meal?'

"I doubt it. Just another serve of bruises and sadistic barbarism if previous experience is anything to go by."

Forde grinned. "I knew we should have chosen the place next door."

"Ahhhhhh," Seheira sighed, "you mean the place that actually isn't a prison run by a psychopathic maniac and an army of bloodthirsty goons?"

" That's the place," Forde admitted, wincing as he sat up also. "Though "I'm sorely tempted to blow this place altoghether, the beds here are terrible."

Seheira smiled. "You make me laugh Forde…" But their moment ended when the hulking form of Elissa strode through the doorway followed by several bandits who appeared peeved to the nines. Within moments the frightening woman was standing outside their cell barking orders.

"Get the prisoners out of there, they have work to do!"

The bandits swiftly obeyed, and without a word the cell door was unlocked and Sheheira and Forde were roughly shoved out of the cell to stand before Elissa. She smirked at them both with nothing short of cruel menace. "I hope the both of you slept well," she said, almost overjoyed with the fact there was no way on earth they could have.

Seheira merely nodded, not wanting to spark the unpredictable woman into a rage. Forde shrugged and said, "It wasn't bad actually."

Elissa nodded. "Oh good," she replied, her smirk widening, before turning to the bandit standing immediately beside her. "Give them a morning working over will you Samood," she said to him almost conversationally, "it seems our guests have gotten a little too comfortable." The man nodded with a sudden menacing grin, this was one job he would enjoy very much.

"What!" Seheira blurted. "What do you mean 'working over'?"

Forde was grim faced as Samood placed his automatic rifle on the floor and took off his shirt. "She's wants soldier boy here to rough us up a little." He immediately looked at her. "Get behind me," he said.

Elissa chuckled. "My my, aren't you quite the gentleman Mr Forde? But unfortunately for you, Samood is well versed in hand-to-hand combat. There's no need to worry though, you'll just be getting a few extra bruises and pains. Like I said, there's work for you Ms Sahain to do afterward."

"Wouldn't we work better uninjured?" Seheira voiced as she slowly backpedalled.

"Perhaps," Elissa replied. "But sometimes a little pain and suffering has quite the opposite effect. Trust me, I'm not new at this." She then paid them no further attention as Samood slowly paced forward with fists raised.

He came on with methodical manner, his eyes flicking between his two victims with rapid intensity. He quickly lunged, and laughed with delight as Forde flinched backward. Forde knew there was no way he could hold the man off for long, and with Elissa watching there was no way either he or Seheira would escape without at least a few decent hits.

Elissa's words proved prophetic, as Forde, exhausted, never saw Samood's first punch arrive seemingly from thin air. Two hits had slammed him before pure instinct barely swept the third aside. Samood didn't stop there however, and suddenly Forde's legs had been swept out from underneath him, making him to fall to the floor in a pummelled heap. Samood cackled like a madman, and turned his attention to Seheira.

Again he slowly stepped toward her with fists raised, and was mildly surprised when she met his gaze with defiance. She was a beautiful woman he thought, it would be a shame to spoil her face, but then, the idea had a certain appeal to him.

Seheira watched him come as if outside herself, she flipped her long hair over her shoulder wishing she had something to tie it with. The room was a jumble of ancient artefacts piled high in the centre, with other odds and ends strewn around randomly. She was aware of Forde yelling, and the corner of her vision revealed him being held by two other bandits, and Elissa looking on with pure evil lust in her eyes.

Samood rushed her with sudden speed, but Seheira darted sideward and sprinted across the room with a speed that clearly surprised the bandit. Arriving near the artefact pile Seheira scooped up a wooden shaft that she had spied moments earlier. The moment she hat the artefact in her hands she found Samood within spitting distance, and swung the shaft with every ounce of strength she possessed. Samood uttered a sudden "UFF!" and slid suddenly to the floor beneath the shaft's swinging arc, making Seheira connect with nothing more than thin ether. The bandit was like a whirlwind, and was on his feet again within seconds, grinning at her with pure delight. But his was the mistake, because Seheira had simply followed though on her swing roundhouse fashion, and had gained even more speed and force as the shaft came around again. Too late Samood realised what she done, and hot fury shot through him like a bullet as his eyes saw the shaft end arrive within his vision once more, before his world went black.

All in the room could hear a sickening crunch as Samood dropped to the floor like a sack of limp fish; he'd been knocked cold, and would have a nasty gash for weeks to come. Seheira's heart pumped loudly, seeming to roar in her mind. She stood rooted to the spot, part of her mind still catching up with events. She immediately looked toward Elissa with fear, knowing there would be sure retribution.

Nobody in the cavern spoke as Elissa stood with brooding silence. Forde looked at her with mouth agape, not quite believing Seheira could have packed such a punch. Moments slipped away in stalemate, before Elissa spoke with the cruellest voice Seheira had ever heard. "That really wasn't a very good idea Ms Sahain."

The huge woman stepped toward her.

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