Kurtis Trent

Under the Louvre

04:32

Kurtis stood at the door, watching Lara examine the coffin of one of the fallen brothers. He wished he could come down to help her. Something felt very wrong.

It was then that a blast of light struck Lara, throwing her to the ground a few feet away from the coffin. A vague, shaped like a man, silhouette blurred past, hovering just out of reach. Coldness emanated from it like a doorway to Antarctica.

"Brother Obscura!"

"Kurtis Heisstrum, why have you not stopped the trespasser?"

He can see me?

Kurtis answered. "She is not an enemy, brother."

"I'll be the judge of that, Heisstrum."

Brother Obscura dived at her, but Lara avoided his touch by a whisker, banging against a pillar in her haste. Brother Obscura circled to the far side of the chamber as she came to lay scant inches from the smoldering trench.

John, please!

Kurtis tried but failed as his eye caught something twinkling. It was the plaque of the statue in front of him, its form suddenly alive with a blue halo, Lara's eyes drawn toward it

The painting.

"Your father would be disappointed."

Brother Obscura turned to Lara.

Kurtis had to do something fast.

Brother Obscura swooped down, arms outstretched toward Lara. She whipped out a gun, blasting him in the chest and freezing him in place.

Kurtis dove between Lara and John. She grabbed the painting just in time for him to unfreeze.

She ran out the door with the painting as Brother Obscura screamed with anger.

"You better be right about her."

"She might be our answer to destroying the Cabal once and for all."

Brother Obscura went over to his coffin "How sure are you?"

"She wants justice and she's just proven she'll do anything to get what she wants."

"Then, Brother Heisstrum, you better make sure of that."

Brother Obscura vanished into thin air, leaving Kurtis to return to his body.

I need to get that painting from her.


Lara Croft

Escaping the Hall of seasons

04:30

Lara survived Brother Obscura's vengeful spirit and made it past a troop of undead guardians. She was alive and had the painting and now the freaking tomb was flooding.

"Oh, come on." Lara growled, splashing in ankle-deep water.

The hallway was already awash with rippling reflections, a single torch buzzing fretfully.

Without a moment's hesitation, Lara slipped the painting into the relative safety of her backpack. Just in time. Having barely enough warning to take a breath, a wall of black water burst through the far door. It roared as it bore down on her with freezing violence, lifting her off her feet and sweeping her along the tide.

Instinctively, Lara flailed against the current, only to be battered and tossed about like a cork in a river. Her ears rang. But she had enough presence of mind to tuck her arms around her head.

If I get knocked out now, it'd be game over.

Light scorched the back of her eyelids.

Lara blinked through the chaos, the bridge lanterns winking as they shook under the pressure. She was back in the entrance chasm. With the lanterns to guide her, she kicked upwards, her lungs aching harder with every stroke, bubbles swimming past her like silvery fish.

Those final twelve seconds might as well have been a decade. But just as her ears began popping, Lara breached the surface. She trembled in the cold darkness, tasting bile as she fought to control her stomach. Still, she laughed. . For a long time, she let herself float as the water crept up the sides of the cavern.

"Maybe one day, the Louvre archaeologists would find their way down here and go diving for the buried treasure," Laramumbled,, gasping to catch her breath. "Never realizing that the main prize had already been taken. Maybe they'd be lucky enough to find the drowned remains of the guardians."

However, a part of her doubted that even this amount of water would faze the undead's devotion to duty. She wondered if, by removing the painting, she had unwittingly removed the one thing perpetuating their existence, and that the vitality that had animated their faithful bones was already being washed away.

The ink-dark water stabilized near the top of the cavern.

Lara pulled herself up until her feet touched the stone. She recognized the oak beams that had forestalled her fall. After only a short climb, she was back at the dig site, peering through the cogwheel entrance like an owl emerging from its aerie at dusk.

The harsh glare of the electric lights stung her eyes for a moment. Her ever-reliable and mercifully waterproof watch said it was a little past five in the morning. She'd been in the tomb for five hours. The guards' unconscious bodies were gone, but no alarms blared, and no one was waiting for her with handcuffs and an escort. Her awareness sank deeper, her movements slowing to a deliberate, watchful gait.

Apart from the soft whir of the air conditioning, the place was silent and deserted.

The painting in her backpack sagged. She waited a long time, listening for danger before she eased open the basement doors. In one fluid motion, she cocked her guns, prepared to load either the shock rounds or the tranquilizer darts.

Trouble was around here. And she was not about to defend her life with nothing but a guilty conscience.

Lara met her first problem at the top of the stairs, confirming her worst fears. The roving light from his rifle-mounted torch was her only warning he was there at all, and she quickly flattened herself against the wall before he spotted her.

The man was dressed in the kind of apparel you'd only see in the top echelons of military-grade outfitters, complete with infra-red goggles, webbing belts, and a respirator. He sported no badges, no identifying features. Even official SWAT teams would at least have had their names sewn to their lapels.

Lara groaned inwardly.

Why did it have to be mercenaries?

Men like him were the bane of her archaeological career. Men who sold their services, whether amateur or professional cared for nothing beyond their necks and the next shipment of cash. It was bad enough when she encountered them from time to time in the field where they were normally found in the employ of an upstart rival. A reputation like hers tended to attract bodyguards, hired guns, and outright thugs into her coworkers' employment.

Lara couldn't imagine why anyone would be so paranoid.

I'm an okay girl when you get to know me.

On the other hand, mercenaries belonged in the Louvre as much as a Cape buffalo with jock itch belonged in a nursery playgroup. Such things just couldn't be allowed.

Lara pounced as soon as his back was turned. He reacted with trained reflexes, whipping around to bring his weapon to bear. She didn't let him complete the move. Snarling, she jabbed with her fingers. His Kevlar vest was no protection against a strike to the throat. He collapsed, gasping, his windpipe crushed.

Lara dragged him into a darkened corner and held the pressure until his spasms ceased.

Any qualms she might have had about using deadly force were quashed by the specs of his weapons. Not least the short-barrelled semi-automatic rifle dangling from his shoulder strap. He wasn't some budget muscle-for-hire, but a trained soldier. The notion did not add to her sense of well-being.

With great care, she took the complaints of her muscles, the hundred-and-one little aches, and pains that had been bothering her, and locked them into a secure compartment within her mind.

Such things would be dealt with later. Right now, she had bigger problems to worry about.

Only then did she smell the faint whiff of gas. That first, almost-imperceptible breath almost made her pass out. Numbly, She unbuckled the dead man's respirator and clamped it to her mouth. Through the blurriness of its visor, she watched the room turn steadily green as the gas cloud expanded. It reminded her of pond scum or diseased flesh.

She was running out of time.

Like a ghost, Lara slipped back into the galleries, avoiding two more guards in the forest of pillars and shadows. She felt like a ghost, too. Insubstantial but sustained by willpower stronger than mere physical flesh. Several Louvre security officers lay where they had fallen, limbs thrust out awkwardly. She couldn't tell if any were still breathing. Her security pass still worked, thank the gods. Making doubly sure she was alone, Lara slid into the office marked 'X-Ray and Spectral Imaging'.

Silver moonlight shone through the skylights, bathing the room with the shadows of wraiths. Even with the protection of her respirator, her eyes watered at the smell of acetone.

Laracrept past priceless oil paintings, denuded of their frames, and neat trays of restoration equipment, through a sliding door of toughened, radiation-proof glass and into an adjoining room. The X-ray machine was only a little bigger than a photocopier, designed for examining paintings rather than patients. Fortunately, its controls were intuitive and relatively simple. her four-year retraining as a radiographer could be put on hold.

Casting a glance over her shoulder, Lara slipped her precious find into the scanner and pushed a few likely-looking buttons.

The images began processing on the screen. Her hands trembled. She could hardly tear her eyes away.

"This device… I've seen it before?" Lara gasped. "In Werner's notebook and Carvier's office."

She leafed through the pages of her dead friend's journal, finally finding what she was looking for. There it was. Disbelieving, she held the journal against the screen, comparing Werner's sketches to the flickering digital image.

"The machine can't identify the material, except that it's a metallic compound. The painting also contains two pictures, one on top of the other. Brother Obscura did paint over the original image, just as Carvier's notes said!"

Lara swallowed, taking note of the device's deceptive simplicity. The implications were enormous, too much for her over-burdened brain to process all at once. The myths, and all of the research her friend had died for, were true. She was holding a piece of the Sanglyph.

"This is what those mercenaries are after. They're hunting the paintings, hunting for the Sanglyph. Werner suspected but was too scared to step in and go after it himself."

Four more engravings, four more paintings, and four more pieces of the Sanglyph.

"Vasiley faxed all but one of the Engravings to Von Croy. They'll provide the locations to the other paintings. Locations those mercenaries will kill to possess."

Well, it's obvious, I've got to find them before anyone else does.

I've got to get back to Werner's apartment and find them.

Now.