A/N: Sorry, guys! I thought it had only been a few days since I last
updated this. Next chapter and the chapter after that are already written,
so hopefully I'll remember to put them up soon. :D Thanks for your reviews.
Disclaimer: Tomb Raider does not belong to me. Eidos Interactive and Crystal Dynamics own all characters and aspects of Tomb Raider.
Chapter Eight
________________________________________________________________________
Amazon
South America, August 14th, 2003
He appeared without warning, a tall slender figure cloaked in the black of night. Shadows lay heavy and dormant across pallid features, sheathing the pulsing ebony veins looping otherwise unmarred flesh. The jungle stilled around him, the dissonant shrill of far-off animal cries abruptly dying away.
His lips twitched in the barest of smiles.
The lake shimmered before him in placid wait, abandoned but for the two packs heaped atop its shore, similar in appearance, resting side by side aloft glistening mire. So alike, and so close to one another, much like their owners. he thought, and smiled again.
Joachim Karel strode to the water's edge, and snapped both palms forward, toward gleaming liquid.
* * *
The ground trembled minutely beneath them, a brief shudder which undulated simultaneously throughout Lara and Kurtis.
He looked instantly wary, and shot an arm out as though to protect her from whatever cataclysm which might next transpire. "What the hell was that?"
"I don't know. You didn't have something bad for dinner, did you? Something that didn't quite agree with your stomach?" Lara replied lightly.
"Very funny." he said, smirking. "It wasn't me."
"All right. Just checking."
They stood rigid for a moment, cautiously eyeing their surroundings through thick-lashed eyes, Kurtis' hand automatically straying to her shoulder. She tensed slightly beneath its weight, and his gaze shifted momentarily to her beautiful profile. "An earthquake, maybe?" Lara suggested quietly, sensing his stare.
"May-" Another tremor paused him mid-sentence, this one more volatile in nature, its sudden ferocity hurling Lara sideways, into Kurtis' arms. He gripped her tightly against him, and they rode out the quake together, her small body jerking in his hasty embrace with the motion of the ancient building.
All movement ceased after one breathless moment, but his grip did not slacken. She found herself trapped against the hardness of his chest, their faces disturbingly close, the soft touch of his bangs against her forehead shivering her slight frame. He stood only a couple inches taller than she, but somehow she felt immensely secure in such close proximity to him.
Then, with unexpected viciousness, their world exploded around them, pitching even Kurtis off balance this time, his shoulder contacting heavily with the wall beside him. The impact expelled a grunt from between parted lips.
Lara clutched him stiffly, fear unlike any she'd ever experienced before seizing hold of her body now, an image of another temple, not all that dissimilar to the one in which she now stood, lingering before widened dark orbs. Parting rock, collapsing earth, asphyxiating dust swirling all around her, surging unbidden through gasping lips. Her brief stint in the Temple of Horus had nearly ended her life, in one of the most horrible ways she could conceive of to die: buried panting and crushed beneath immovable tons of stone and dirt.
"What the hell's going on?" Kurtis murmured, his voice rumbling close beside her ear.
"The whole bloody thing's coming down around our damn ears. We have to get the hell out of here. Now."
He glanced down at her, surprised by this sudden urgency in her normally calm and in-control voice. His toned and powerful arms tightened further, almost as though he sensed the terror and panic surging just below her taut body.
*Can he feel my heart beating faster? Does he know this situation doesn't exactly thrill me?* Lara thought, and slipped from his comforting embrace, unwilling to allow her weakness to be laid bare before him.
"Come on." Kurtis said, and this time did grab her hand, their fingers twining easily, hands melding perfectly, almost as though they had been sculpted for one another.
*I don't need you to take care of me.* she thought, her independence disallowing her to accept his gentle guidance. She pulled free, and for a moment mourned the loss of his warmth.
He hardly paused, even as the abrupt separation of their bodies thrust a pang of disappointment all throughout him. His steps carried him briskly down the passage, his powerful body moving with a strange grace and assuredness.
The temple convulsed once more, and from above a section of rock plunged downward, its violent passage trembling the very stone beneath bare feet. Ancient dust plumed upward, its weight settling heavily across athletic bodies.
A ragged cough tore his throat, and beside him he heard Lara's own wheezing as surging dust slipped between parted lips. He blinked aside clinging moisture, its presence prompted by swirling dirt. "Looks like we're going to have to take another exit."
Rock exploded around them, both walls to either side bursting like overripe fruit. The thunderous roar of this cacophony drowned out his warning shout, Kurtis' raised voice falling on deaf ears.
She voiced a startled cry, a moment before the torrent of destruction rose to claim her.
* * *
The lake lunged upward in response to his upturned hands, geysering into the sky's immense expanse, a magnificent eruption of froth speckling ebony heavens. Its mighty bulk cleared the deep pit in which it had once rested, dissipating into oblivion as it rained down amongst trees bowed in deference to the powerful force.
He aimed a single palm at the barely-visible tunnel Lara and Kurtis had swam only an hour before, and now the rock crumbled and flaked beneath his tremendous power, peeling aside to reveal the temple's ancient interior.
* * *
"Lara!" His lips lay parted on the syllable of her name, the acrid tang of dust settling thick within the warmth of his mouth. He felt its stifling mass caress the curve of his throat, his breath flowing labored and ragged now.
"Shit!" he rasped, kicking aside a pile of rubble. "Shit, shit, shit!" His heart thundered rapidly, more insistently, images of her lithe beautiful body trapped gasping beneath an immense avalanche dancing before him. He dropped to a crouch, and began to dig now, with frantic, desperate motions, tossing aside large stones as easily as an angry child might hurl her doll.
Kurtis stretched out a hand as he worked, its surface slick and glistening beneath perspiration. A massive heap of rocks formed by the wall's remnants leapt upward in response, the debris pattering harmlessly down over his broad shoulders.
He stood, and spun immediately, twisting at the waist to examine his surroundings through dirt-crusted orbs. Another coughing fit racked him, trembling his body with surprising ferocity.
"Lara!"
Silence hung thick and weighty all around him.
Both eyes slipped shut, long dark lashes concealing the brilliant fire of his dazzling gaze. He brushed the power within him, and it stirred, thrusting outward into his surroundings.
The world snapped into focus around him, glazed in carmine illumination, its effulgence penetrating stone and dust to see what his own keen eyes could not. He maneuvered the far-see spell with the ease and skill of much practice, probing beneath piles of wreckage, scanning thoroughly for any sign of Lara.
Stone shifted to his right; he snapped from the spell's grip with a gasp, and wrenched both eyes open.
A slender hand plunged upright, the tanned and slick flesh tainted by clinging dust.
* * *
Crushing weight settled all along her body. She fought its violent touch, writhing beneath the massive rocks threatening to crush fragile bone, the scene so eerily familiar to her last moments in the Temple of Horus that she felt panic blossom within her.
She scrabbled with numb and bleeding fingers at her tomb, and now a single thin shaft of illumination pierced swirling blackness as her hand freed itself. Warm fingers seized her own, their pressure comforting and familiar, the rough callused pad of his palm pressing tightly to her own.
"Kurtis." Lara breathed, and dust assaulted convulsing lungs.
*I can't breathe!* she thought wildly, eyes growing wide against ashen flesh.
He worked swiftly above her, hurling aside the crumbled wall sheathing her slender figure. She felt the release of pressure as he cleared the rubble, and the fresh, sweet perfume of clean air wafted now to her flaring nostrils.
His face blurred into incongruous lines above her, partly eclipsed by heavy lashes. She blinked, trying to bring him into focus, and felt her stomach shift with a violence that drove her eyes shut once more.
* * *
He freed her entire body with one final heave, muscles bunching with the effort, a low grunt rumbling deep in his throat. She tensed with the removal of the final boulder, then her body settled into slack acquiescence, head drifting limply to one side.
Kurtis touched gentle fingers to the gash parting silken flesh, its meandering length painting one soft cheekbone in crimson liquid. She lay still and cold beneath him, unresponsive.
His heart thumped briefly in terror.
"Lara." he said, and brushed tenacious particles of dust from full lips.
"Five more minutes, mum." she whispered, and cracked an eye at him.
He smirked in relief as she propped herself upright on one elbow. "Oh...shit. And to think I thought I hurt before, when that damn blade nicked my arm."
"Anything broken?"
"Other than my legs, arms, and back? No." She shifted both legs tentatively, testing them, and her face clenched in a spasm of pain. "I feel like a bloody Sumo wrestler just steamrolled me, then decided to sit his fat ass down on top of me just for laughs."
Kurtis slipped an arm around her waist. She leaned gratefully into him for a moment, using his support to rise slowly to her feet.
"We need to get out of here." she said quietly, still resting her body lightly against his own.
"We need the 4th Shard. We can't leave without it."
"There's no point in finding the Shard just in time to be buried under thousands of tons of rock and dirt. It's not going to do anyone any good. Particularly us."
"Fine. Then you-"
A sudden reverberating crack ceased his next words, the ominous sound echoing all around them. He cradled her head instinctively in his arms, pulling it down to rest against his chest, the move rendered without thought in an effort to protect her from falling debris. Her muttered "What the hell?" fell muffled and unheard against his front.
The temple exploded.
Kurtis felt the unexpected eruption deep in his bones, its violence penetrating their huddled figures. It appeared as though some great hand had stretched forth from the heavens and simply peeled back the layers of dirt and stone surrounding them, its unseen fingers crushing ancient rock, flinging aside clinging remnants of the Lux Veritatis landmark.
All around Lara and Kurtis, walls folded and crumpled, thrusting strangulating dust into the now-visible darkened sky overhead.
"What the fuck?" Kurtis murmured, lips parting slightly in shock as both intense eyes settled on the land before them, devoid of the liquid which had effectively concealed the decimated temple for centuries. The lake, all traces of its existence, in fact, had vanished into thin air.
He traded a stunned look with Lara.
"I'm glad to have finally caught up to you two. I think we have a lot to talk about." a voice called from nearby.
Lara froze. *Oh shit. Not Karel.*
Sizzling electricity rent the air, its heat searing exposed flesh. Lara tore herself from Kurtis and leapt nimbly to safety, hitting the ground in a roll and coming up on both feet.
Her companion had not fared so well.
The bolt of energy struck him full in the chest, staggering Kurtis backward over rough and treacherous terrain. He collapsed to one knee, breath slipping ragged and heavy through parted lips.
She wrenched her dive knife free of its sheath.
Karel smiled, her defensive movement hardly unnoticed by his keen eyes. "You can go to him, Lara. I won't hurt either of you."
"Oh really?" she said, sarcasm thickly present in her tone. "And I suppose whatever the hell that was you just hit him with was your way of saying 'Hello, and welcome, with my warmest regards.'"
"I could have killed him."
"Well, how kind of you. You're truly a saint." she snapped, warily eyeing their nemesis as she scrambled over the ruins lying dormant and silent over what had once been the lake's bed. She peered upward to Karel's impassive face, his thin figure standing still and harmless at the pit's edge.
Kurtis stirred, and rose slowly, painfully, one hand curling protectively over his abdomen. Lara reached him a moment later, and stretched out her free hand to gently touch his shoulder, positioning herself in front of him as Karel watched from above. "You all right?" she asked, pitching her voice low.
He waved her aside. "I'm doing just great."
"I want you alive." Karel called. "It would be very unfortunate if I had to kill either of you."
"Isn't he a sweetheart." Lara remarked sardonically. "I really feel a lot better knowing he has out best interests in mind."
"I asked you to join me once, Lara Croft, in my quest for a new order. I extend the same offer to you again, and to your friend Mr. Trent as well. You can save yourselves, offer yourselves freely to the marvels of science."
Kurtis straightened.
Lara gripped her weapon in perspiration-glazed fingers.
The sound wafted faintly to her keen ears as she stood tensed in combat stance, its presence a distinctly familiar one that she found herself unable to place. She glanced briefly to Kurtis, wondering if he'd noticed this same oddity in the strained silence.
He stared upward, unblinking, unwavering cerulean gaze focused on Karel's wan features.
The Chirugai thrust deep, its blades parting pale flesh, shredding muscle and sinew as it settled to a final rest in the back of Karel's neck. The Nephilim's eyes bulged, and the body spasmed violently as a shining blade plunged through his windpipe, its carmine-painted tip passing clean through to the other side. Karel spasmed once more, then drooped limply, the abrupt motion prompting his twitching figure over the pit's brink.
He landed mere feet away, and rolled lifelessly over, crimson liquid twining exposed veins and bone, dark orbs blankly contemplating Kurtis' emotionless face. His lips lie knotted in a final scream of protest, glistening beneath a thick layer of gore.
Kurtis thrust out a hand, and the Chirugai hummed to life once more, drawing free of ruined bone and flesh. It descended willingly to his waiting fingers, its grisly blades retracting into chill steel.
Karel shifted, and opened a palm to the sole surviving Lux Veritatis initiate.
Kurtis expelled a strangled gasp, both hands surging automatically to his throat, the Chirugai slipping free of his powerful grasp. His body jerked upward, as though plucked from the air by an invisible giant's hand, and now the immense, unseen force pinned him writhing to a nearby dirt embankment.
Lara spun, knife plunging downward for the bastard's head in a deadly swing which might have cleaved Karel's head clean off his shoulders had the blow landed. He caught her wrist in an inhumanly strong grip, and his fingers tightened minutely, drawing a pained gasp from her.
The knife tumbled un-used from a slender hand.
She threw an elbow into his face, pressing forward, following the attack with a spinning kick that knocked him off-balance. He stumbled, and recovered impossibly fast, smiling coldly through blood-dampened lips. "I'm killing him, Lara. Your friend is dying. I'm crushing his windpipe, slowly, painfully."
She snapped a side-kick into the flesh of his stomach, driving hard with the knife-edge of her foot, and he fell back again.
"Let him go, Karel." Lara demanded coldly, both hands curving to hard fists. "I guarantee you don't want to piss me off to badly, even if you're not completely human. And killing Kurtis would piss me off very badly."
Karel smiled once more, and raised a hand.
Kurtis twisted viciously in response, handsome face contorting in agony, his body thrashing and flailing frantically, seeking reprieve from his tormentor.
Her gaze surged unbidden to him, and everything in her screamed for her to go to him, to save him, cease his pain. But there was no way for her to do such a thing on her own, Kurtis' only savior the very man who sought to destroy them.
"Karel! Stop it!" Lara yelled, stunned at the shrillness of her own voice. Her thundering heartbeat magnified, its throbbing beat fluttering wildly in terror. She felt its pulsation against her ribcage, the slick of bile rising to glaze the interior of her throat. "Karel! Stop, dammit! Didn't you just say you wanted us alive?"
As he turned to eye her, Lara dropped to a crouch, and retrieved her knife from its resting place. Karel plunged out a hand to stop her, and she struck fiercely, violently, driving the gleaming blade into his eyeball. Gore dripped freely, flowing thick over the knife's handle, the blade's glistening tip penetrating the iris. Viscous fluid squirted outward in a thin ribbon, its warmth trailing Lara's hand as she pulled away, leaving the knife embedded in him.
The Chirugai, maneuvered one final time by Kurtis' dying brain, struck Karel's squirming body, ramming through the sternum to pierce his beating heart. Thin lips parted in a scream of unearthly origin, its eerie tone shuddering Lara's entire body. She stumbled backward, breathing hard.
Karel dropped slackly to the earth, his bodily fluids spreading as a crimson oil slick beneath him. He bucked once in protest, the spasm passing all throughout him, then stilled, too damaged to retaliate.
Kurtis slipped limply downward, his body no longer bolstered by Karel's strange powers. His knees struck first, pitching the rest of him forward, his lifeless figure plunging to settle prone and unmoving against blood-stained earth.
Disclaimer: Tomb Raider does not belong to me. Eidos Interactive and Crystal Dynamics own all characters and aspects of Tomb Raider.
Chapter Eight
________________________________________________________________________
Amazon
South America, August 14th, 2003
He appeared without warning, a tall slender figure cloaked in the black of night. Shadows lay heavy and dormant across pallid features, sheathing the pulsing ebony veins looping otherwise unmarred flesh. The jungle stilled around him, the dissonant shrill of far-off animal cries abruptly dying away.
His lips twitched in the barest of smiles.
The lake shimmered before him in placid wait, abandoned but for the two packs heaped atop its shore, similar in appearance, resting side by side aloft glistening mire. So alike, and so close to one another, much like their owners. he thought, and smiled again.
Joachim Karel strode to the water's edge, and snapped both palms forward, toward gleaming liquid.
* * *
The ground trembled minutely beneath them, a brief shudder which undulated simultaneously throughout Lara and Kurtis.
He looked instantly wary, and shot an arm out as though to protect her from whatever cataclysm which might next transpire. "What the hell was that?"
"I don't know. You didn't have something bad for dinner, did you? Something that didn't quite agree with your stomach?" Lara replied lightly.
"Very funny." he said, smirking. "It wasn't me."
"All right. Just checking."
They stood rigid for a moment, cautiously eyeing their surroundings through thick-lashed eyes, Kurtis' hand automatically straying to her shoulder. She tensed slightly beneath its weight, and his gaze shifted momentarily to her beautiful profile. "An earthquake, maybe?" Lara suggested quietly, sensing his stare.
"May-" Another tremor paused him mid-sentence, this one more volatile in nature, its sudden ferocity hurling Lara sideways, into Kurtis' arms. He gripped her tightly against him, and they rode out the quake together, her small body jerking in his hasty embrace with the motion of the ancient building.
All movement ceased after one breathless moment, but his grip did not slacken. She found herself trapped against the hardness of his chest, their faces disturbingly close, the soft touch of his bangs against her forehead shivering her slight frame. He stood only a couple inches taller than she, but somehow she felt immensely secure in such close proximity to him.
Then, with unexpected viciousness, their world exploded around them, pitching even Kurtis off balance this time, his shoulder contacting heavily with the wall beside him. The impact expelled a grunt from between parted lips.
Lara clutched him stiffly, fear unlike any she'd ever experienced before seizing hold of her body now, an image of another temple, not all that dissimilar to the one in which she now stood, lingering before widened dark orbs. Parting rock, collapsing earth, asphyxiating dust swirling all around her, surging unbidden through gasping lips. Her brief stint in the Temple of Horus had nearly ended her life, in one of the most horrible ways she could conceive of to die: buried panting and crushed beneath immovable tons of stone and dirt.
"What the hell's going on?" Kurtis murmured, his voice rumbling close beside her ear.
"The whole bloody thing's coming down around our damn ears. We have to get the hell out of here. Now."
He glanced down at her, surprised by this sudden urgency in her normally calm and in-control voice. His toned and powerful arms tightened further, almost as though he sensed the terror and panic surging just below her taut body.
*Can he feel my heart beating faster? Does he know this situation doesn't exactly thrill me?* Lara thought, and slipped from his comforting embrace, unwilling to allow her weakness to be laid bare before him.
"Come on." Kurtis said, and this time did grab her hand, their fingers twining easily, hands melding perfectly, almost as though they had been sculpted for one another.
*I don't need you to take care of me.* she thought, her independence disallowing her to accept his gentle guidance. She pulled free, and for a moment mourned the loss of his warmth.
He hardly paused, even as the abrupt separation of their bodies thrust a pang of disappointment all throughout him. His steps carried him briskly down the passage, his powerful body moving with a strange grace and assuredness.
The temple convulsed once more, and from above a section of rock plunged downward, its violent passage trembling the very stone beneath bare feet. Ancient dust plumed upward, its weight settling heavily across athletic bodies.
A ragged cough tore his throat, and beside him he heard Lara's own wheezing as surging dust slipped between parted lips. He blinked aside clinging moisture, its presence prompted by swirling dirt. "Looks like we're going to have to take another exit."
Rock exploded around them, both walls to either side bursting like overripe fruit. The thunderous roar of this cacophony drowned out his warning shout, Kurtis' raised voice falling on deaf ears.
She voiced a startled cry, a moment before the torrent of destruction rose to claim her.
* * *
The lake lunged upward in response to his upturned hands, geysering into the sky's immense expanse, a magnificent eruption of froth speckling ebony heavens. Its mighty bulk cleared the deep pit in which it had once rested, dissipating into oblivion as it rained down amongst trees bowed in deference to the powerful force.
He aimed a single palm at the barely-visible tunnel Lara and Kurtis had swam only an hour before, and now the rock crumbled and flaked beneath his tremendous power, peeling aside to reveal the temple's ancient interior.
* * *
"Lara!" His lips lay parted on the syllable of her name, the acrid tang of dust settling thick within the warmth of his mouth. He felt its stifling mass caress the curve of his throat, his breath flowing labored and ragged now.
"Shit!" he rasped, kicking aside a pile of rubble. "Shit, shit, shit!" His heart thundered rapidly, more insistently, images of her lithe beautiful body trapped gasping beneath an immense avalanche dancing before him. He dropped to a crouch, and began to dig now, with frantic, desperate motions, tossing aside large stones as easily as an angry child might hurl her doll.
Kurtis stretched out a hand as he worked, its surface slick and glistening beneath perspiration. A massive heap of rocks formed by the wall's remnants leapt upward in response, the debris pattering harmlessly down over his broad shoulders.
He stood, and spun immediately, twisting at the waist to examine his surroundings through dirt-crusted orbs. Another coughing fit racked him, trembling his body with surprising ferocity.
"Lara!"
Silence hung thick and weighty all around him.
Both eyes slipped shut, long dark lashes concealing the brilliant fire of his dazzling gaze. He brushed the power within him, and it stirred, thrusting outward into his surroundings.
The world snapped into focus around him, glazed in carmine illumination, its effulgence penetrating stone and dust to see what his own keen eyes could not. He maneuvered the far-see spell with the ease and skill of much practice, probing beneath piles of wreckage, scanning thoroughly for any sign of Lara.
Stone shifted to his right; he snapped from the spell's grip with a gasp, and wrenched both eyes open.
A slender hand plunged upright, the tanned and slick flesh tainted by clinging dust.
* * *
Crushing weight settled all along her body. She fought its violent touch, writhing beneath the massive rocks threatening to crush fragile bone, the scene so eerily familiar to her last moments in the Temple of Horus that she felt panic blossom within her.
She scrabbled with numb and bleeding fingers at her tomb, and now a single thin shaft of illumination pierced swirling blackness as her hand freed itself. Warm fingers seized her own, their pressure comforting and familiar, the rough callused pad of his palm pressing tightly to her own.
"Kurtis." Lara breathed, and dust assaulted convulsing lungs.
*I can't breathe!* she thought wildly, eyes growing wide against ashen flesh.
He worked swiftly above her, hurling aside the crumbled wall sheathing her slender figure. She felt the release of pressure as he cleared the rubble, and the fresh, sweet perfume of clean air wafted now to her flaring nostrils.
His face blurred into incongruous lines above her, partly eclipsed by heavy lashes. She blinked, trying to bring him into focus, and felt her stomach shift with a violence that drove her eyes shut once more.
* * *
He freed her entire body with one final heave, muscles bunching with the effort, a low grunt rumbling deep in his throat. She tensed with the removal of the final boulder, then her body settled into slack acquiescence, head drifting limply to one side.
Kurtis touched gentle fingers to the gash parting silken flesh, its meandering length painting one soft cheekbone in crimson liquid. She lay still and cold beneath him, unresponsive.
His heart thumped briefly in terror.
"Lara." he said, and brushed tenacious particles of dust from full lips.
"Five more minutes, mum." she whispered, and cracked an eye at him.
He smirked in relief as she propped herself upright on one elbow. "Oh...shit. And to think I thought I hurt before, when that damn blade nicked my arm."
"Anything broken?"
"Other than my legs, arms, and back? No." She shifted both legs tentatively, testing them, and her face clenched in a spasm of pain. "I feel like a bloody Sumo wrestler just steamrolled me, then decided to sit his fat ass down on top of me just for laughs."
Kurtis slipped an arm around her waist. She leaned gratefully into him for a moment, using his support to rise slowly to her feet.
"We need to get out of here." she said quietly, still resting her body lightly against his own.
"We need the 4th Shard. We can't leave without it."
"There's no point in finding the Shard just in time to be buried under thousands of tons of rock and dirt. It's not going to do anyone any good. Particularly us."
"Fine. Then you-"
A sudden reverberating crack ceased his next words, the ominous sound echoing all around them. He cradled her head instinctively in his arms, pulling it down to rest against his chest, the move rendered without thought in an effort to protect her from falling debris. Her muttered "What the hell?" fell muffled and unheard against his front.
The temple exploded.
Kurtis felt the unexpected eruption deep in his bones, its violence penetrating their huddled figures. It appeared as though some great hand had stretched forth from the heavens and simply peeled back the layers of dirt and stone surrounding them, its unseen fingers crushing ancient rock, flinging aside clinging remnants of the Lux Veritatis landmark.
All around Lara and Kurtis, walls folded and crumpled, thrusting strangulating dust into the now-visible darkened sky overhead.
"What the fuck?" Kurtis murmured, lips parting slightly in shock as both intense eyes settled on the land before them, devoid of the liquid which had effectively concealed the decimated temple for centuries. The lake, all traces of its existence, in fact, had vanished into thin air.
He traded a stunned look with Lara.
"I'm glad to have finally caught up to you two. I think we have a lot to talk about." a voice called from nearby.
Lara froze. *Oh shit. Not Karel.*
Sizzling electricity rent the air, its heat searing exposed flesh. Lara tore herself from Kurtis and leapt nimbly to safety, hitting the ground in a roll and coming up on both feet.
Her companion had not fared so well.
The bolt of energy struck him full in the chest, staggering Kurtis backward over rough and treacherous terrain. He collapsed to one knee, breath slipping ragged and heavy through parted lips.
She wrenched her dive knife free of its sheath.
Karel smiled, her defensive movement hardly unnoticed by his keen eyes. "You can go to him, Lara. I won't hurt either of you."
"Oh really?" she said, sarcasm thickly present in her tone. "And I suppose whatever the hell that was you just hit him with was your way of saying 'Hello, and welcome, with my warmest regards.'"
"I could have killed him."
"Well, how kind of you. You're truly a saint." she snapped, warily eyeing their nemesis as she scrambled over the ruins lying dormant and silent over what had once been the lake's bed. She peered upward to Karel's impassive face, his thin figure standing still and harmless at the pit's edge.
Kurtis stirred, and rose slowly, painfully, one hand curling protectively over his abdomen. Lara reached him a moment later, and stretched out her free hand to gently touch his shoulder, positioning herself in front of him as Karel watched from above. "You all right?" she asked, pitching her voice low.
He waved her aside. "I'm doing just great."
"I want you alive." Karel called. "It would be very unfortunate if I had to kill either of you."
"Isn't he a sweetheart." Lara remarked sardonically. "I really feel a lot better knowing he has out best interests in mind."
"I asked you to join me once, Lara Croft, in my quest for a new order. I extend the same offer to you again, and to your friend Mr. Trent as well. You can save yourselves, offer yourselves freely to the marvels of science."
Kurtis straightened.
Lara gripped her weapon in perspiration-glazed fingers.
The sound wafted faintly to her keen ears as she stood tensed in combat stance, its presence a distinctly familiar one that she found herself unable to place. She glanced briefly to Kurtis, wondering if he'd noticed this same oddity in the strained silence.
He stared upward, unblinking, unwavering cerulean gaze focused on Karel's wan features.
The Chirugai thrust deep, its blades parting pale flesh, shredding muscle and sinew as it settled to a final rest in the back of Karel's neck. The Nephilim's eyes bulged, and the body spasmed violently as a shining blade plunged through his windpipe, its carmine-painted tip passing clean through to the other side. Karel spasmed once more, then drooped limply, the abrupt motion prompting his twitching figure over the pit's brink.
He landed mere feet away, and rolled lifelessly over, crimson liquid twining exposed veins and bone, dark orbs blankly contemplating Kurtis' emotionless face. His lips lie knotted in a final scream of protest, glistening beneath a thick layer of gore.
Kurtis thrust out a hand, and the Chirugai hummed to life once more, drawing free of ruined bone and flesh. It descended willingly to his waiting fingers, its grisly blades retracting into chill steel.
Karel shifted, and opened a palm to the sole surviving Lux Veritatis initiate.
Kurtis expelled a strangled gasp, both hands surging automatically to his throat, the Chirugai slipping free of his powerful grasp. His body jerked upward, as though plucked from the air by an invisible giant's hand, and now the immense, unseen force pinned him writhing to a nearby dirt embankment.
Lara spun, knife plunging downward for the bastard's head in a deadly swing which might have cleaved Karel's head clean off his shoulders had the blow landed. He caught her wrist in an inhumanly strong grip, and his fingers tightened minutely, drawing a pained gasp from her.
The knife tumbled un-used from a slender hand.
She threw an elbow into his face, pressing forward, following the attack with a spinning kick that knocked him off-balance. He stumbled, and recovered impossibly fast, smiling coldly through blood-dampened lips. "I'm killing him, Lara. Your friend is dying. I'm crushing his windpipe, slowly, painfully."
She snapped a side-kick into the flesh of his stomach, driving hard with the knife-edge of her foot, and he fell back again.
"Let him go, Karel." Lara demanded coldly, both hands curving to hard fists. "I guarantee you don't want to piss me off to badly, even if you're not completely human. And killing Kurtis would piss me off very badly."
Karel smiled once more, and raised a hand.
Kurtis twisted viciously in response, handsome face contorting in agony, his body thrashing and flailing frantically, seeking reprieve from his tormentor.
Her gaze surged unbidden to him, and everything in her screamed for her to go to him, to save him, cease his pain. But there was no way for her to do such a thing on her own, Kurtis' only savior the very man who sought to destroy them.
"Karel! Stop it!" Lara yelled, stunned at the shrillness of her own voice. Her thundering heartbeat magnified, its throbbing beat fluttering wildly in terror. She felt its pulsation against her ribcage, the slick of bile rising to glaze the interior of her throat. "Karel! Stop, dammit! Didn't you just say you wanted us alive?"
As he turned to eye her, Lara dropped to a crouch, and retrieved her knife from its resting place. Karel plunged out a hand to stop her, and she struck fiercely, violently, driving the gleaming blade into his eyeball. Gore dripped freely, flowing thick over the knife's handle, the blade's glistening tip penetrating the iris. Viscous fluid squirted outward in a thin ribbon, its warmth trailing Lara's hand as she pulled away, leaving the knife embedded in him.
The Chirugai, maneuvered one final time by Kurtis' dying brain, struck Karel's squirming body, ramming through the sternum to pierce his beating heart. Thin lips parted in a scream of unearthly origin, its eerie tone shuddering Lara's entire body. She stumbled backward, breathing hard.
Karel dropped slackly to the earth, his bodily fluids spreading as a crimson oil slick beneath him. He bucked once in protest, the spasm passing all throughout him, then stilled, too damaged to retaliate.
Kurtis slipped limply downward, his body no longer bolstered by Karel's strange powers. His knees struck first, pitching the rest of him forward, his lifeless figure plunging to settle prone and unmoving against blood-stained earth.