Lara Croft
The Louvre
05:35
Instantly, Lara's mind became clearer. The mystery had deepened, but she knew what the next step must be. There, where her friend had died, she would find the answers. Gingerly, she removed the painting from the scanner. Every brushstroke was as fresh as the day it had been applied, showing a chorus of red-robed angels descending upon a pastoral scene with the golden light of God in heaven at their backs, as though He was urging them down onto the world below.
Lara ran her finger lightly across the painted surface, knowing that some other image lurked beneath the veneer of oils. Something substantially less devout in its subject matter, no doubt. With a shiver, she realized she could even feel the uneven bumps where the Sanglyph fragment was buried, hidden by its micrometer-thin coating of paint.
Lara imagined her fingers tingling at the contact, as though she was holding a cable carrying lethal current, with nothing but a pair of rubber gloves for protection. She slipped the thing back into her backpack, suppressing a shudder. Whatever the Sanglyph was to be used for, her instincts told her it couldn't be for anything good.
Kurtis Trent
The Louvre
05:45
Kurtis raced up the stairs only to meet his first problem. Three mercs were walking the galleries as Gundersen stood a few feet away checking his phone.
He hid behind a pillar and attacked the first merc that came his way.
"Check it out."
Send your boys.
They both went to opposite sides of the pillar, surrounding Kurtis. But with one swing, Kurtis blasted one to the wall and kicked the other in the stomach, slamming him in the throat.
"Kurtis Trent, we meet again," Gunderson said, just standing there smiling.
"Working with the enemy I see." Kurtis pointed his gun at Gunderson.
"Now, now. I'm just doing my job," Gunderson said. "My boss wants your kind dead. He wants to awaken the dead Nephilim race."
"So that they can destroy the world."
"Not my problem, I've been promised immortality."
Kurtis laughed as Gunderson turned red.
"You honestly think, fool, that Eckhardt will give you immortality," Kurtis said, still holding his gun.
Two mercs came out from the other galleries, pointing their rifles at Kurtis.
Kurtis smiled as he stepped into a hallway that went down to another set of galleries. He could see in the corner of his eye a big square stone with ancient writing one.
He made his Chirugai fly in the air as fast as the merc started to shoot, the steel slitting their necks.
Kurtis ducked into the hallway as his Chirugali cut the rope of the stone and flew back to his outstretched hand. The stone fell with a rumble, blocking the entrance of the hallway.
"Go around and find, kill him," Gunderson said, his voice echoing through the rubble.
I need to find Miss Croft and fast.
Lara Croft
The Louvre
05:55
"Ennemi repéré!"
Lara ducked at the sight of the first guard. Deafened by the shriek of breaking glass, she hit the deck as the fragments fell like hail.
Lara glared through a tangle of table legs and fired at the first set of kneecaps that came into view. The semi-automatic in her hands barked with barely any recoil, but not loudly enough to cover the screams. Using the brief window of opportunity, she broke cover, planting bullets with conservative care until the two mercenaries lay unmoving.
Blood, blackened in the moonlight, bubbled from their wounds.
They died quickly.
Her time in the Louvre had just run out.
Turning away, Lara dashed back down the moonlit hallway and flew down the metal stairs, back to the third gallery. The poison gas was thicker here, muffling everything in a sickly green haze. Lara coughed as a tickle in her throat grew too insistent to ignore. The sound attracted the attention of two more mercenaries creeping through the foyer. They didn't pause to identify the source. They just turned and opened fire, yelling into their microphones.
"We found her!"
Lara couldn't dodge bullets, but she could close the distance on people who didn't aim appropriately at their targets. Bullets whistled past Lara's hair as she responded with short bursts from her own gun, downing one and swinging the rifle's heavy stock to clobber the other. His face mask cracked as he went down on his knees, clawing at his mouth.
Onward, Lara ran past promotional posters and restroom signs. Hallways and rare artworks went past in a blur. She couldn't help but be uncomfortably aware that she was leaving a trail of conspicuous evidence that the invaders couldn't ignore.
The glass ceiling disintegrated.
Fist-sized holes appeared in the floor of the exhibition hall, following her as she dashed for cover. Lara sighted the soldiers just as their abseil lines reached the ground. A stray bullet pinged against a cabinet, raining glass onto her head. A superb Islamic blue bowl teetered past its display, and then smashed onto the floor with a shower of ceramic dust.
12th century Syria.
Lara glared at the soldiers.
You bastards.
Lara plucked extra rounds from the bodies and fled, leaving them dangling in mid-air. She shoved the rounds into her gun. Whoever these mercenaries were, they had absolutely no appreciation for culture.
Another thought nagged at the back of her mind. Whoever was behind this invasion wielded more than a little temporal power. Mercenaries infiltrating the Louvre, especially ones as well-equipped and trained as these guys, wouldn't come cheap.
Lara slipped away in the opposite direction, down a stairwell into Galerie two, more squads of soldiers forcing her to seek cover in the shadows. Although the gas seemed to be dissipating, the Louvre's corridors seemed to go on forever.
Where's the exit?
The air was definitely cleaner down here.
With a sigh, Lara slipped off her mask, letting it hang within easy reach. She paused at the entrance to the second gallery.
It seemed to buck the trend from the others Lara had visited, being low-ceilinged and lit only by long display cases that divided its length. Some impressive examples of Egyptian and Greek vases obscured her view across the room.
Lara slowed down, listening for danger. It whistled, a golden blur bearing the sound of Damascus steel being whet, Lara spun and almost tripped on her heels.
She whipped her gun out. Her eyes widened. A discus, its golden glow fading. Lara tensed. It missed her by inches. It changed direction as it flew.
She snapped a fresh round into her purloined machine gun, scanning the room. Nothing else seemed to be poised to attack her. Lara slunk back the way she came.
Cold pressed against her back.
Of course. How could I have been so careless?
In the chaos of finding the painting and avoiding hired guns, she'd completely forgotten about her stalker.
He must have been waiting for me all this time.
Lara almost asked if she was allowed to walk over and bang her head against the wall, but she couldn't imagine him taking such a request in good humor.
She didn't even notice he was there. Whoever he was, he was good. He was also far, far too close for comfort. When the hero (or heroine) was threatened with a gun in the movies, they always seemed to have a clever trick to escape their assailant. The editor and director would work their magic, and in a few well-cut camera shots you'd see the hero pull free, knee their attacker in the groin, and generally end up holding the gun, jumping on a horse, and riding off into the sunset.
Yeah, right. That stuff only works in the movies. As any sane person would tell her, when a man was holding a gun's muzzle against your carotid artery, the only sensible thing to do was to freeze. Any threatening move on her part wouldn't leave her any chance to blink, let alone gain the advantage. Even though Lara knew it was the logical and prudent thing to do, she wasn't in the least bit calm.
The man's free hand clenched her shoulder, drawing her to him.
Sour sweat, cheap tobacco, and the faintest trace of diesel fumes from his motorbike.
And he was good-looking, too.
His hand slid lower, past her elbow and down to her wrist. More gentle than taking a gift from a lover's hands, he eased the dangling gun from her grasp and let it clatter to the floor. Her pulse rose, beating in a furious lump that couldn't be swallowed. It threatened to boil over as that same hand slid across the plain of her stomach, down to her thigh. His questing hand found her pistol, still in its holster, and pulled it free.
Disarming me. Clever.
A slight pull on her shoulder straps, the sound of her backpack being opened, and she knew by its sagging that he'd taken it.
Any thoughts about his looks, or his skills, evaporated in the white heat of her outrage.
He'd stolen her painting!
Enough was enough.
If there ever was a time for movies to imitate real life, this was it.
In the microsecond it took for the man to slip the loot into his pocket, Lara attacked. It was a simple judo throw, brutal and no-nonsense.
Her leg wrapped around his, wrenching back to knock him off balance.
It should have worked.
I'm not sure how it didn't.
Panting, and miraculously free of bullet holes, Lara beheld his face. Somehow he'd reversed her throw and now stood facing her, tilting her chin up with the pistol so that their eyes met.
The metal pressed deeper against her neck.
Don't try that again.
But his expression took her off guard. The man wasn't angry or surprised. He was amused, the corner of his lip lifted in an engaging half-smile. He was still wearing the same clothes as she'd seen him in earlier, with his dark hair raking out of place. His eyes were the color of Egyptian Lapis.
Give her walking corpses and whirling-bladed death traps. Give her howling blizzards and muddy assault courses. Give her thirst and heat and chafed skin. Give her anything, Lara would have said, except for someone who could beat her and make her look a fool.
This man, this thief, had done just that. With style. It's humiliating. It's also damn sexy.
Many people, most of them male, had tried to challenge her over the years, intellectually, physically, or philosophically. Anyone could if they didn't mind venturing into bottomless chasms or the stomachs of wild beasts. None of them had ever succeeded.
With a jolt, Lara realized she was contemplating the attractiveness of a man who might have been part of the group that killed her friend. He tilted his head as Lara forced herself to relax, just as Putai had taught her
But he looks like a hotter William.
\Despite his threatening attitude, there was no trace of the corruption she'd sensed in the man leaving Rennes' pawnshop. The blue-eyed gaze holding onto hers had witnessed violence but carried none of the Monstrum's malice.
He's not the killer.
That didn't mean Lara was willing to trust him, though.
He backed away, putting distance between them, his weapon trained on her breast.
Lara felt empty, deflated, and not simply from being unarmed. Something vital and alive was withdrawing, leaving her cold. To her shock, the discus-thing began to thrum and glowed with radiance once more.
Lara could only watch, mesmerized, as it detached itself from the wall and swirled around her, sparkling like a deadly, priceless jewel, or a dog circling a stranger, unsure whether Lara was a friend or foe. It flicked away and soared across the room, straight to the man's outstretched hand as though returning to its beloved master. It fitted his fist like a glove. The blades retracted, transforming it into a simple golden disk. The man's eyes mirrored its gleam as he winked, turned, and ran for it.
Lara only hesitated for a second, but a second was an age too long. The hypnotic power that had held her snapped like a rubber band and she was running. Running for all her worth. She couldn't let him escape with the painting.
It was only when the pounding of her feet was overruled by a louder, sharper noise that she realized what was happening.
Someone was shooting at her, and she'd left her guns behind.
Lara flew past the glass display cases, the air dotted with splinters. In a suicidal instant, she glanced back long enough to register the gunman.
It was a mercenary, almost hidden behind the flash of his submachine gun. Beside him loomed a Goliath in uniform, his chiseled head shaved to the quick and eyes fixed on her retreating back.
Her heart shriveled.
Nothing that was adamant in its cruelty belonged in a human's body.
In seconds she had left them behind.
The gunshots ceased, but she did not pause for breath. Lara's still-damp boots skidded on polished tiles as she entered a columned hallway, the fleeting shadow of her quarry disappearing around a corner. To her horror, the hallway's exit was blocked by a security gate. The thief clearly registered its presence, too, as he darted sideways behind the protective cover of the columns.
There's no way out!
Lara almost yelled, but barely had the thought formed in her head when a terrific bang made her eardrums rattle. Incredulously, she watched the thief lower his hand and dash for the place where a locked door had once stood, but which now lay ruined matchwood. A blur of gleaming radiance flitted in his wake
Telekinesis. A human with telekinetic ability.
The very idea made her jaw drop. Or it would have, had she not been sprinting full-pelt in pursuit. He weaved out of her grasp, the discus sweeping backward in an arc that almost decapitated her.
A resonant note, like the peal of a giant church bell, made her teeth clang as the discus sliced through the chains holding up a giant Tibetan gong. Lara ducked and rolled, using her forward momentum to regain her feet. She froze, paralyzed by the visceral weapon that was suddenly leveled at her throat. Her gaze traveled up the stranger's arm, to that knowing smile.
Me, impressed at being best for the second time in one night? Not.
With the inevitability of an avalanche, the gong began to roll, a vast wheel turning slowly to block off the exit.
The exit!
The stranger nodded with mock courtesy, withdrew the discus, and
backed out through the open doorway.
He was fast, but she was desperate.
Lara just managed to squeeze through the gap as the bronze gong closed the gap,
almost crushing her.
The mercenary who tried to follow in her wake wasn't so lucky. Bones snapped as the man grunted in pain. His Kevlar-clad body hung like a limp doll, crushed by the weight of metal. A resounding dong made her jump, as though someone had just thumped the instrument in frustration. The memory of the giant's implacable gaze reminded her not to hang around to find out.
Feet pounding, Lara rounded a corner, bruising her shoulder against the wall as
her footing slipped. She caught sight of her quarry once again. He wasn't running, but sitting on a railing as though he had all the time in the world. He even waved when he saw her, flashing her a jaunty salute with that infernal discus.
Lara almost grinned back, catching herself just in time. His playfulness was infectious.
He let go of the railing and toppled backward, dropping four stories to the ground.
Who is this guy?
Lara took the stairs four at a time. Through the gaps in the balustrades, she
could see him calmly stand, brush himself off, and turn to watch her progress. She was still two stories up when he bolted.
Desperation clenched her guts, and she all but flew down the last staircase, leaping the final railing in her haste to reach the ground. The floor was so highly polished that she slipped and fell, losing precious seconds.
Almost crying with relief, Lara made it to the end of the corridor and burst into a rain-soaked alleyway, into the embrace of the cold night air. The alleyway seemed deserted, apart from a verminous rustle from a nearby dumpster. A chill ran through her that had nothing to do with the Parisian night, and everything to do with the stranger's body spread-eagled on the concrete.
He lay on his front, his sleeve darkening where it rested in a puddle. Thunder grumbled overhead, and seconds later the rain started, heavy, invasive drops that drowned out the murmur of distant traffic on the Rue de Rivoli.
Lara had emerged into some form of service entrance, a drop-off point for deliveries, perhaps.
It wouldn't take long for the mercenaries to figure out where she'd gone.
Lara bit her lip and inched closer. The man was disturbingly still. If it was a bluff to get her attention, he was a damn fine actor.
The painting!
Reaching with tentative fingers, she crouched over his prone body. There was a painting-shaped lump protruding from a baggy trouser pocket.
If she could just-
The rapid footsteps caught her off guard as something heavy impacted the base of her skull, her head lolling in nausea.
Dammit…