:o Hi guys! Thanks for all the reviews, they make me feel warm and fuzzy :)
Paen – Hope you're still enjoying it. D'OH! Completely forgot about the whole Sleeper thing being found in Turkey. Let's just ignore that for the time being… *sweeps story under carpet* … might tweak chap 3 at some point so it looks like I knew all along. Btw, I'm dying for more of the AoD parody, what's keeping you?!
Duchezz – Thankyou! Maybe I'll write in Lara smashing some stuff up just for you.
Loki – Stock up on sugar, there's plenty more to come :p
Chapter 5: Under AttackI'd realised the first time our paths had crossed that Kurtis would be able to bring out mixed emotions in me, and tonight was the best example of that yet. I couldn't remember ever feeling so frustrated or confused before, even with all that had happened over the past weeks. In Paris, in Prague, my objectives were always clear and my single-mindedness helped me to cope with the flux of feelings that I experienced over Werner's death, being hunted by the police, and Kurtis trying to mess up my plans. In the Louvre, Kurtis made my blood boil for taking the Obscura painting, but his closeness made my heart skip like a lovestruck schoolgirl's at the same time. But even then I had a focus, so the confusion didn't get the better of me. Now I was, quite frankly, a mess. I lay in bed for what seemed like an eternity, unable to relax in mind or body, then when I got up and looked at the clock I discovered I'd only been in bed for half an hour. I tried to read to tire myself out or at least to distract my mind, but it was futile. I was still so angry with Kurtis I wanted to scream, but catching him off guard with his shirt undone had brought out the silly schoolgirl again, and she wouldn't go away. Plus I could feel his presence down the hallway like an ache. I wished he'd stayed in the hotel, hadn't even come to the damned banquet, let me deal with things myself. His remarks had been mean, and that hurt but also shocked me – I hadn't expected him to behave that way.
After a while the rage wore off a little and I started to just feel rather ashamed about caring so much what Kurtis thought or said. I also, thankfully, started to feel sleepy, and after staring out of the window for a while I returned to bed and eventually drifted into sleep.
Oblivion would have been nice, but my subconscious had other plans. In my dreams I wandered between Paris, Prague, the archaeology banquet, and the hallway downstairs where we had argued. In the hallway I was slapping Kurtis hard across the face trying to get a reaction other than that cool, distant stare; in the Strahov I had his blood on my hands and was sobbing because he was dead; at the hospital in Prague I was searching for him but couldn't find his room, all the beds were empty. In the Louvre I was running from him in my ball gown; at the banquet I was trying to give a speech but realised suddenly that I was in my underwear and he was staring at me, staring from across the room and smiling, and I forgot what I was saying; in his bedroom he was pushing me back against the wall and kissing me hard, hands in my hair, and I felt like I could die from the pleasure.
I was shocked awake by a hand on my shoulder, and was about to exclaim when a hand pressed over my mouth. Kurtis was crouching by my bedside in the dark. I felt an instant of panic, but he must have read my fear because he shook his head and whispered, "I heard someone moving downstairs." He held a finger to his lips to tell me to keep quiet, then moved his hand from my mouth. My heart was beating fast, and it took a moment for his statement to sink in. I was thinking back to our argument, wondering how I should react to this intrusion. He stood up and I saw that he had his gun ready.
"Are you sure?" I whispered through the dark room. "This is an old house; it makes lots of strange noises at night."
Kurtis shook his head. "There's definitely someone down there. Get up."
I climbed out of bed silently, stopping to grab my pistols from a dresser drawer and check that they had full ammo clips. At that moment I heard a noise too, a low creak that was too slow to have been one of the cats or an aged floorboard shifting. Someone was trying to move around downstairs as quietly as possible. We glanced at each other and moved towards the door noiselessly, guns ready. We paused there, close together, his breathing barely audible. I could feel that familiar electricity moving between us with our proximity, enhanced by the fact that neither of us was wearing much. He had clearly got out of bed in a rush – he had pulled on a pair of army fatigues (I was glad to see his trusty Chirugai hanging from the belt) but was bare chested and barefoot. I had been sleeping in only my underwear and a black vest, and my bare legs and arms were tingling, partly from the adrenalin of the situation, but also in response to the magnetism of his flesh. I took a deep breath.
I gestured to him to wait inside the door for a few moments after I left. He nodded, and I eased the door open a crack. There was no one to be seen on the hall outside, so I slipped out through the door, keeping close to the walls. I progressed along the landing keeping one gun trained ahead of me and one on the stairs that curved up from below. Nothing moved; nothing seemed disturbed in the hallway downstairs. Why hadn't the alarms gone off? There were sensors on every door and window in the house, and elaborate circuitry that prevented tampering. And that was assuming someone could even make it as far as the house – the gates were worthy of Fort Knox and there were cameras positioned on every external wall. I have a lot of things worth stealing hidden away in this house, so security has always been a primary concern.
After a few more minutes of sneaking around, I started to wonder if maybe we were just imagining things. Another possibility made my heart skip a beat – what if Kurtis had pretended to hear an intruder so that he could get into my bedroom? Then again, he had seemed genuinely alert and ready to fight. And after the things we had said to each other earlier, I doubted that he would have chosen to get up close and personal unless it was absolutely necessary. I mentally cursed him again for making my thoughts go round in circles no matter what he did.
When I had checked the rooms all along the landing, I started to descend the stairs, both guns pointing ahead. The tiles of the main hall were cold under my feet, and the goosebumps reappeared on my arms and legs. I checked the drawing room first, then moved on towards the study. As I drew closer I noticed two things – a reddish glow visible under the closed door, and a faint crackling noise from within. Just as I realised I could smell smoke, and before I could get to the door, I heard Kurtis shout my name. The hall was suddenly full of a fiery light and I dived across the floor, rolling behind a display case in time to see Kurtis' Chirugai streaming through the air above me. At the same time gunfire roared suddenly and deafeningly around the hall, adding more of a blaze to the walls. I saw Kurtis on the stairs, Chirugai landing back on his outstretched hand, drawing his gun and firing into the shadows. Gunfire erupted again, and the display case above me exploded, spraying glass down onto me. Pistols ready again, I ran out and opened fire towards the same target as Kurtis. After a minute he stopped firing and walked forwards slowly through the smoky air, holding up a hand to tell me to lower my guns. I heard him kick something soft, then a rattle as a machine gun slid along the floor away from him. Reassured, I ran to grab the fire extinguisher from beneath the stairs and hauled it to the study. God only knew what damage had already been done in there, and I had to prevent any more.
Luckily, the blaze had still been fairly small when I kicked through the door, and was limited to a stack of books and papers piled haphazardly into the waste paper bin. I put it out quickly before the books on the shelves or any of the furniture could catch fire, and then surveyed the damage. My heart sank. All the texts I had been using for research, and the files I had been assembling on the Nephilim and the Cabal had been gathered up and torched. There had been maps and drawings that had been difficult to get hold of, and I had had to call in favours from friends in various parts of the world to get my hands on them. I seemed very unlikely that I would be able to do that all over again. I scanned around for my laptop, thinking that at least that had some of the most important information on it, including digital photographs I had taken of some documents that I wasn't able to remove from museums and private collections. I went over to the desk and noticed that the computer was switched on but the hard drive was missing. Judging from the smell of melted plastic it had been ejected and tossed onto the fire. I stared at the wreckage for a minute longer, resisting the urge to pound my fists into the wall, and left the room.
Kurtis was crouched over the body, pulling the man up by the front of his jacket and staring into his face. He was dressed in black, and his clothing showed the bulk of body armour. He had taken a lot of bullets. A discarded balaclava lay on the floor beside him. Kurtis looked up as I approached.
"Recognise him?" he asked. I looked at the bloodied, vacant face and shook my head. Kurtis shook the body in frustration and let it drop backwards onto the floor. He stood up beside me. "Bastard didn't have a thing on him, either, besides the hardware of course. Nothing to tell us who he was. Hadn't even taken anything."
"No," I replied. "His mission was strictly search and destroy." I sighed and looked around at the destruction of my home.
"I'm guessing from the gear and the gun that he was military trained," Kurtis continued. "Plus the fact that he managed to get into this fortress."
"He was smart, too. Made sure all the information I had on the Nephilim was up in smoke before he came after us, just in case we fought back."
Kurtis looked as horrified as I felt. "All of it?" I nodded. "Do you still have the files on your computer?"
"No," I replied, feeling suddenly empty and very tired. "It's all gone." He looked as though he were about to say something. My leg was throbbing with pain, I noticed vaguely.
"Hey, you're bleeding" Kurtis said, concern taking over from frustration about our lost research. He moved towards me and knelt to inspect my right leg, which I noticed was dark with blood from the knee down to the ankle. "Come on, I need to take a proper look at this and get you patched up. Where d'you keep your bandages?"
"In my bathroom," I replied, distractedly. My leg was about the last thing I was concerned about at that moment. I had to figure out what had happened here, who was responsible. But Kurtis wasn't taking no for an answer.
"Come on then. Upstairs. Now," he insisted. I shrugged, and let him lead me away. "I suppose this lot can wait."
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Next chapter will be up very soon as it's pretty much done. Doctors and nurses, anyone? Tee hee :)