Author's Note: Sorry it's been so long… enjoy! :)

Revised 19/07/08

Kurtis looked out of the window for the umpteenth time. Where is she? Lara had been gone almost three hours, and she didn't seem the type to be easily distracted when they had so much to do. Jean-Yves paced the floor a short distance away, also appearing worried, and thinking aloud.

"This isn't like Lara. What could such a tiny place hold to delay her this long?"

Thugs, Nephilim, death… Kurtis began a mental list. Something was definitely not right – he felt it tickle at the back of his mind. "I'm gonna try to find her," he announced abruptly.

Jean frowned. "How? Lara took the only method of transport, and the town is miles away."

"Not with my body; with my mind. I can see things, travel distances as if I'm walking them, but faster. Kind of like a vision." It was hard to describe. "I'm not sure if I can do it over such a long distance, though." With Jean curiously watching, he closed his eyes and gathered the trickling warmth of his psychic power into one concentrated spot. With one smooth push, he sent it forward, and saw Jean's interested expression, his own body sitting stock-still in a chair, and then directed himself out to the road.

A car passed in a blur – Kurtis got a vague impression of a woman and a child of about ten as passengers – and then miles and miles of road. Kurtis moved as quickly as he could, aware that after about five minutes he would begin to tire and lose grip. When he came to the small marketplace and its surrounding buildings, he located the empty Jeep and cast around for Lara's presence. Any cheap-shot medium would have called it her 'aura', but to Kurtis that just sounded trite. He sensed her – a mixture of defiance, annoyance and racing thoughts – and zeroed in as fast as the power would let him.

In a fissure in the ground, Lara stood in a classic street-fighter's stance, her weapons tossed into a pile a few feet out of reach, surrounded by four gargantuan men. The sight of her imminent danger almost lost Kurtis to lose his grip and retreat to his body with fear for her, but she didn't feel in the least afraid. "Sorry, boys." He heard her clear, ironic voice as if he were stood next to her in body. "I'm taken. Anyhow, I don't go in for four at once."

One of the thugs lunged forward, and Lara dodged, putting a forceful foot into his behind to help him to the floor. "Come on, don't make me kill you–" she started, but ended with a grunt of pain as one of the others backhanded her across the mouth. Clearly pissed off, she straightened slowly, calculating possible moves and modes of escape. Her eyes flickered to her 9mm pistol more than once.

Sick with frustration and anxiety, all Kurtis could do was watch, an intangible presence in this battle against the odds. Lara launched a dazzling flurry of offensive moves, causing two of the men to stay cautiously out of reach as she defended herself against the other two. But she was tiring, Kurtis knew, and every time she tried to fight her way over to her weaponry, she was intercepted. A tinge of desperation crept from her mind into his senses, and Kurtis lost his hold on his Farsight. In one blurred second, he was back in the chair in Jean-Yves' kitchen, Lara's name spilling from his lips.

"What?" Jean was beside him in an instant. "What did you see?"

Kurtis gave him the condensed version, his mind racing. He turned his Chirugai over and over in his hands, something he always did under stress. A glint of light from it caught his eye, and he stared down at it, a flimsy plan beginning to form in his brain. "Wait…" he muttered, interrupting Jean mid-speech. "I have an idea."

Blood running freely from her lip, head pounding and fists beginning to feel faintly bruised, Lara blinked sweat out of her eyes and ducked the punch her attacker threw her way. She was furious – both with herself for being caught unawares by the fourth brute who had grabbed her from behind and tossed her weapons aside, and with these men who wasted her time and marred her appearance. In the corner of her mind buzzed the uncomfortable realisation that she couldn't keep this up forever, but she kept it carefully from the forefront of her thoughts.

I've had enough of this. "We've already established I don't know what the hell you're talking about. What's the point in this?" As expected, they only smirked and moved in again. They were after the box. Whether they were friends of the old stall-keeper or representatives of something completely different, she had no idea, but she was damned if she'd let them have it. Just before they'd searched her, she'd discreetly dropped it into the rubble around her, noting a splintered window-frame nearby so she'd remember where. However stupid they looked, though, her aggressors refused to let it go.

If she could only get to her guns… For the entire duration of the five-minute fight, that had been her goal, but so far, no luck, and she was starting to feel distinctly queasy. Between blows, blocks and dodges, Lara glanced at the rubble around her, looking for something, anything, she could use to gain an advantage. For a wreckage, the house's remains were frustratingly non-threatening. Lara couldn't see it as coincidence. She sighed. The hard way, then.

She feinted left, towards her weapons, and the wall of bad guys closed in again. Before they could touch her, she spun and sprinted in the opposite direction, past one goon who had no idea what had hit him. She hit out at his solar plexus on the way past, and he crumpled in a heap. Now for phase two. She ran to the wall she'd descended into the fissure and began scrabbling for purchase, pathetic, little-girl moves. Despite the resistance she had put up prior to this, her charade fooled them, and they slowed in their pursuit, enjoying her 'panic'. Lara dug in her feet and took a couple of steps up the rock face, and they closed in behind her, reaching for her boots at head height. She watched them, muscles tense and burning with exhaustion. If this failed, she was as good as dead.

Now. Lara pushed off the cliff-face, turning a perfect backwards somersault and ending up crouched on the floor behind them – right next to her 9mm. She scooped it up and opened fire without remorse, exacting revenge for every scratch. When three of the four were down, she turned her attention to the one she'd knocked down. He was either unconscious, or pretending to be. Lara didn't take her eyes from him as she advanced.

Suddenly, she saw it. On the back of his hand was a tattoo, in blue ink – in every way identical to Karel's unique Nephilim branding. This was obviously one of the Cabal's followers – not Nephilim, or he would have used his powers, but definitely a human acolyte. Her eyes narrowed as she remembered Von Croy's murder, and the memory caused her guard to drop, just a little.

It was enough.

He surged to his feet, deceptively swift for someone so bulky, and had wrenched her gun away from her before she knew what was happening. "Hands in the air."

Lara was about to comply when something flashed in the corner of her eye. Is that…? It was. Lara grinned and folded her arms across her chest. "I don't think so."

His eyes flashed with murderous intent, and he opened his mouth to speak. He managed to utter the first syllable before Kurtis' Chirugai whistled through the air, blades deadly sharp, to decapitate him. The blood-soaked weapon then hovered in the air in front of her face. "Thank you," she told it, on the off-chance Kurtis could hear her. It swelled with orange light for a second more, and then its blades retracted and it dropped to the ground.

Lara picked it up, retrieved the tiny box from the debris, and got out of there fast.

Sore, aching and fatigued, Lara pulled the Jeep to a halt next to the red rental car that now stood outside Jean's cottage. She got out, the artefact she'd recovered held in an iron grip, and opened the front door.

"Lara! Mon dieu!" An attractive woman a few years older than Lara hurried towards her, pulling her into a warm embrace. Lara winced as her injuries screamed, but returned the hug.

"Marianne. It's so good to see you," she replied in French.

Jean appeared in the kitchen doorway. "Come, ma chere, we need to look at those wounds." Lara found herself ushered into a kitchen chair, and Jean handed her an ice-pack for one throbbing cheek as Marianne squeezed cold water out of a cloth and began to gently dab at her split lip. The room was silent for a while, concern conveyed through gestures more effectively than words.

"Thank you," Lara said finally, and looked up at Marianne. "Forgive the shop talk, but there's something I need to show Jean." Smiling and rolling her eyes good-naturedly, the woman retreated to the lounge, presumably to check on her son. Jacques had to be around here somewhere.

She held out the box to Jean. "Do you recognise the language? I don't."

Jean examined it closely, as mystified as she. Sighing with regret, he handed it back to her as she told him her theory about a possible Cabal connection, and what had happened while she had been gone. By the end, she was losing her train of thought, her head pounding and limbs shaking.

"Kurtis?" she asked. His absence had been worrying her, especially since his Chirguai had dropped so suddenly.

"He exhausted himself, went beyond his limits," Jean explained. "He went for a lie down, and I'd suggest you do the same for a couple of hours. I'll take photographs of the box and email them to some language specialists I know – that will give you an excuse to rest," he added, knowing she was keen to be on her way to Cappadocia and yet too worn out to go.

Lara needed no further encouragement, and handed him the digital camera with its archive of photographs. "You're a true friend, Jean."

Dragging her weary body past Kurtis' room to her own, she looked around the half-open door. Kurtis appeared to be asleep, lying on the far edge of the bed with his back to her. He didn't stir even when she spoke his name. The bed looked soft and inviting to her fatigued muscles, and suddenly her own room a few feet away felt like too far to walk to gain the rest she craved. Faintly dizzy, she lay down on the free side of Kurtis' bed and closed her eyes. I'll just rest for a second, and then I'll go… It was the last conscious thought she had for a while.

Ah, but who will wake up first? And what light can Kurtis shed on the box?