:o Hello again, sorry this chapter took me so long, I had a crazy few days. Plus I think it's my longest chapter yet. Anyway I hope it's worth the wait, there's lots of talk but it should answer the questions from the last chapter.

* * *

Chapter 12: Facing Off

The gun didn't waver a fraction of an inch. The eyes fixed on me from behind it held no trace of warmth.

"Take off your holsters and your backpack and throw them on the bed."

I stared at him stupidly. Was this some kind of a joke? His voice suggested otherwise. I noticed that the side of his forehead was badly bruised.

"What happened to you?" I asked, my voice shaking slightly. He was scaring me.

He laughed coldly, but didn't answer my question. Instead he gestured threateningly with the Boran X. "Take off your holsters and your backpack. Now."

I didn't have much choice but to comply. I unbuckled my holster belt and slid the bag from my shoulders, then tossed the bundle onto the bed a few feet away from me. I put my hands in the air, empty palms facing towards him. I looked sideways at the spinning Chirugai, and to my relief it edged an inch further away from my head.

"Now will you please tell me what this is all about?"

Keeping the gun trained on me, he moved over to the bed and tipped out the contents of my backpack. He picked up my passport and flicked it open one-handed. After glancing over this and my other possessions, he seemed to relax ever so slightly. When he returned his attention to me, I spoke again.

"Kurtis, don't you know who I am?"

He gave me an unconvincing, humourless smile. "No, I'm afraid I don't. Not for sure. That's why I need you to prove it to me."

"What do you mean?"

"Prove that it's you," he replied. He stood silently for a few long moments, deliberating over his next question. "What was the last thing you said to me before I left England?"

I swallowed. I hadn't really wanted to bring that fight up again. "I said I wouldn't sleep with you if you if you were the last man alive. And then you threw me in my pool," I added matter-of-factly.

"And then what?"

"And then – then I went to bed, and got up the next morning to find a letter from you saying that you'd buggered off with the medallion." Given the circumstances, it probably wasn't wise to snap at him, but I really wasn't enjoying being interrogated. He stared at me a minute longer and then lowered his gun. I heard him breathe out a long sigh. The Chirugai swept back towards him and closed around his raised hand. He let it drop onto the bed beside him.

"Okay." He rubbed the side of his face, the side with the nasty bruises. With the threat gone, he looked very tired and troubled. I put my hands down at my sides, but stayed where I was in case he decided to get trigger-happy again. This certainly wasn't the reunion I'd had in mind.

"So? Are you going to explain what just happened?"

He replaced his gun in the holster close to his ribs, and turned away towards the back of the room. I saw the flash of a match striking as he lit a small oil lantern that stood on a chest of drawers. He faced me again in the gentle light, and ran his hands through his hair.

"I thought you were Karel."

My mouth fell open. "Karel?" He nodded wearily. "But I – what do you mean? What happened?"

"I had a run-in with him today. At the dig site outside town. He did a bit of a number on me." He pointed to the vivid bruises on his head in case I had somehow missed them.

"Christ. I knew that bastard wouldn't be dead," I muttered. "Tell me what happened."

Kurtis pointed to the wooden chair by the table in the middle of the room. "Take a seat." I obliged. He sat down on the edge of the bed.

"I went down there this morning, before the sun came up. They have a camp set up there, and they've opened up a new section of the underground city."

I nodded. "I saw it, I was there just this afternoon. But how did you get in? There were armed men everywhere."

"They probably have more guards there now, because they know I got past them. But it was still dark when I got there, and I… created a distraction."

"How?"

"By killing a bunch of them."

I grinned despite myself. "Subtle to a fault, aren't you?" He smiled briefly.

"I had the medallion with me. I was trying to find the chamber where Nikolajev found it, see if I could figure out what it had been for, or find some of the paintings he talked about in his notes. It seemed a good place to start." The mention of Nikolajev prompted me to interrupt him.

"I saw him at the camp. Nikolajev. Nordqvist told me he was dead, but he was right there. Do you think he's working with Karel?"

"Lara, he probably is dead. I doubt it was really Nikolajev you saw."

I thought about this, and frowned. "Yes, you're probably right. Which means Nordqvist was most likely working for Karel. Carry on. When did you see Karel?"

"I was getting in to the secret chamber in the east church. There are statues around the altar, and you have to position them in a certain way to get the door to open. Anyway, I was in the process of doing just that, and –"

"And what?"

"Then you appeared."

After taking in what he had just said, I shuddered. I'd seen Karel change into other people – including Kurtis – before my eyes, and that had been bad enough. The thought of him walking around looking like me was even more unsettling.

"I know you'd told me that Karel could shape shift," Kurtis went on, "but I didn't realise quite how – convincing it was. Of course I assumed it was you, so I told you what I'd been doing. You asked to see the medallion, so I handed it to you, and then you smiled and proceeded to kick the living shit out of me." He winced at the memory. "Then a couple of soldier boys appeared, and you sort of – flickered. Like Karel couldn't keep up the pretence for too long. I think maybe he's still weak. Relatively speaking, of course," he added, putting a hand to his ribs. I guessed they were bruised too. "Anyway, that's when I realised what was going on."

I raised my eyebrows. "Are you trying to say you actually thought it was me until that point?"

"Hey, don't act so surprised. You were really pissed after I threw you in that pool. I thought you were just getting even." He smiled, trying to make light of it, but I could see that he was quite badly shaken by the experience.

"But why –" I paused for a moment, trying to steady my voice a little. "Why didn't he kill you?"

"I'm getting to that. He started changing, from you into what I guess he really looks like. Nephilim. Ugly freaking symbols on his skin. He told his goons to take me down into one of the deeper levels, lock me up. They asked the same as you; why not just kill him? Karel said – I can't remember exactly what he said, I was half conscious and kind of sore. But something along the lines of wanting me for something later. Not something good, I'm guessing. I think he mentioned me being Lux Veritatis."

"So how did you get away?"

"Karel told one of them to take my Chirugai. He must have thought I was out cold. His mistake. I waited till they were dragging me down the stairs in the dark, and took the Chirugai right out of the guy's hand. Some of his fingers came with it. I finished those two off pretty quick, and Karel was down in front so by the time he knew what was going on I was too far away for him to stop me. Luckily I hadn't broken any bones so I got out of the city okay, and used my gun on everyone who got in the way once I reached the camp. So," he shrugged, "that's it."

"So the medallion's gone then?" I asked.

"Yeah, I'm afraid so. But I did some drawings, there, in front of you." I leaned forward to look at the papers on the desk. "I took a couple of rubbings from it, so at least we still have all the symbols and the markings from both sides. I haven't had much luck with the symbols yet, but I think they are linked to the writing used by the Lux Veritatis."

I looked through the pages of notes and drawings. He'd been working hard. "God, Kurtis, I'm sorry," I said.

He looked at me, puzzled. "Sorry for what?"

I sat back in the chair and looked at the floor. "For being… For letting an argument get in the way. We should have been doing this together."

"Don't sweat it," he replied. "But that reminds me, how did you find me?"

I recounted my conversation with the waiter in the restaurant, and how I had trawled the hotels and inns looking for him until I'd spotted the motorbike.

"God, am I really that predictable?" he asked despairingly. "I shoulda hired a different one."

I laughed, and carried on to tell him about the woman in the inn.

He was suddenly angry. "Fuck! That stupid –" he stood up, fists at his sides, and I thought he was going to storm out there and then. Fortunately he composed himself. "I gave her a lot of money to keep quiet. I told her not to tell anybody, no matter what."

"Kurtis, don't be so hard on her. She thought I was going to shoot her. The poor woman was terrified. And Karel would have done a lot worse if he'd thought you were here."

"I guess." He sank back onto the bed, propping himself up on one elbow. "So how about you? What did you see at the camp?"

"Not much. There were too many people around. I saw Nikolajev – or Karel – coming out of the dig site. Lots of guards. I don't know how we're going to get back in there."

Kurtis nodded. "It'll be tough. But a lot easier if we go together." He stood up again, and paced over to the desk. "I could do with a beer. You want one?"

"No, I had one with dinner, and I still have to drive back."

"Where are you staying?"

"In Nevsehir. I hope the headlights on my car work," I said, looking towards the window. "I bet it's almost dark by now."

"Well, why don't you stay here tonight? I can show you the work I've been doing, and we can have an early start tomorrow. Once we decide what to do next, that is."

"Oh, Kurtis, I couldn't. Plus –" I looked around me. "There's no room."

"Hey, I don't mind sleeping on the floor. It'll be fine." I glanced at the cold tiles dubiously. "Unless of course you're embarrassed to share a room with a guy. Don't worry, I promise I won't peek at anything I'm not supposed to," he added dryly.

I smiled. "Oh, I'm not embarrassed. You have seen me running around my house in not much more than my knickers, after all."

Kurtis smiled, then started to laugh.

"What?" I asked. He was shaking with laughter. "What is it?"

"I'm sorry. It's just – knickers. It's such a great word." He laughed again. His smile was so gorgeous, it made me smile too. I couldn't help laughing with him. It was a sweet relief to see some of his tension evaporate.

"So," he said, once he had calmed down. "What do you say?"

I looked back at his blue eyes, still shining with amusement. It would probably be unbearably distracting to share such a small, crampt room with him, but I had to admit it made sense. I agreed.

"But I'll sleep on the floor," I finished.

"No, no, I like the floor," he replied. "Don't look at me like that, I do. If you learn one thing in the Foreign Legion, it's to like sleeping on floors. Take the bed. Please."

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, fine. If it keeps you quiet."

"Good. Now, do you want that beer?"

"I'd love one. But please don't traumatise that poor woman behind the bar," I added as he left.

He returned a few minutes later with a few bottles of beer, which we drank as we looked over the various notes and files in the lamplight. Kurtis sat on the bed, smoking a cigarette, while I sat at the laptop and reviewed the files he'd copied from my computer. I looked up to find him staring at me intently.

"What is it?" I asked uncomfortably.

"It's just… Karel. God, it's like he really was you. The voice, and everything."

"Scary, isn't it?" I paused. "At the Strahov, after he killed Eckhardt, he transformed into you. He said he'd been helping me out all along. He almost convinced me that you'd never existed."

Kurtis smiled faintly as he exhaled a slow stream of smoke. "No such luck." I looked away awkwardly.

"Anyway, I just had an idea," he went on. "Since we both know what a damned convincing impersonator Karel can be, we need a way of being sure we're really talking to each other when we think we are. Right?"

I nodded. "Any suggestions?"

"We should have a password. Or better, a password each. Then if we're separated for any length of time we can check back with each other and know it's safe."

"Good idea," I said. "So what's my password going to be? Nothing obscene, I hope."

He got up and took a pencil and scrap of paper from the desk.

"Is it really necessary to write it down? I doubt Karel is eavesdropping at this very moment."

He shrugged. "Call me paranoid." After thinking for a minute he wrote something down and scrunched up the paper. "Your turn," he said.

I tore the corner from a page of notes and poised a pen over its surface. I smiled and scribbled the word 'knickers', then folded the paper and tossed it at Kurtis. He stood up and passed his to me. I unfolded it and felt a smile spread across my lips. My password was 'mermaid.'

"Nice," I said. He was looking at his paper, laughing.

"Well, I certainly won't forget it," he said, and dropped the paper into an ashtray. He set light to both scraps of paper and watched them blacken and disappear.

"So, are we safe now?" I teased. "Because I could do with getting some sleep."

He groaned. "Yeah, me too. I've had a pretty weird – and painful - day."

I was about to argue with him once again that he should take the bed, but he pre-empted me.

"I'm still sleeping on the floor," he said firmly.

"All right. But at least take the blankets from the bed. I won't need them, I'll sleep in my clothes." I bundled up the blankets and passed them to Kurtis, then perched on the edge of the bed and started to unlace my boots. I glanced over to see Kurtis straighten up from arranging the blankets on the floor. He grabbed hold of the fabric of his shirt and pulled it off over his head in a single movement. He was facing away from me, so I could see the snaking designs of the tattoo on his back. The skin was marked further by dark patches of bruise here and there, and I felt my heart lurch with guilt, knowing he had only faced Karel alone because I had driven him out of my home. My eyes lingered on his skin, and I felt an overwhelming urge to walk over and slide my hands around him, lay kisses on his back and shoulders, turn him around and finish undressing him. I knew he wouldn't stop me. He turned round to drape his shirt on the back of the chair, and I quickly lowered my head, feeling stupid, hoping he hadn't caught me looking. I concentrated very hard on my boots again as I pulled them off and set them neatly by the bed. I had never thought of myself as a coward before, but I did now.

Kurtis walked past me to blow out the lamp. "Goodnight," he said as darkness fell.

I lay down and curled up on my side. "Goodnight," I replied, closing my eyes. Maybe tomorrow I would be able to decide what to do with all these turbulent feelings.

* * *

:o Hehe sorry I couldn't resist getting him topless at the end there… Anyway please let me know what you think. Next chapter… er… I don't know yet! But I'll get to work on it asap.