A/N: Just pretend it was Bryce, not Zip, in Chronicles, okay? I just couldn't not include him… Oh, and I'm bumping the rating up from now on… no, not for THAT! Murder scenes should probably go under 'R', right…?

Revised 01/10/05

"You've reached Bryce's answering machine. If I don't pick up when you start talking, I'm either on a really hard level of Search And Destroy, or I'm having sex. Which is the least likely possibility of the two. So, um, start your message now." Lara snorted in good-natured amusement at the awkward recording and waited for the tinny beep.

"Bryce, it's Lara. Five seconds to pick up, or I go elsewhere. Five… four… thr–"

"Lara?" Bryce's Cockney inflection rang with incredulity. "How long's it been? Two years?"

Lara sighed, shifting uncomfortably with guilt. "Probably closer to three. I'm sorry."

"You did the Louvre without me! All those times I told you, 'Lara, we have to do the Louvre one day', and you didn't even call me!" He was hurt, she could tell, and remorse swept through her.

"How many times do I need to apologise to you today?" she snapped, covering it with annoyance. "I was wanted by the police at the time!" Softening her tone, she added with deadpan irony, "Anyway, it wasn't that hard. I just watched Entrapment a couple of times before I went in, and I was fine."

"Yeah, well, I expect a full blow-by-blow next time I see you," Bryce conceded grumpily. "But I suppose this isn't a social call."

"Actually, we need your help. How soon can you get out here?"

"That depends on how much of my equipment you want. Where do you want to get into?"

"It's called the Building of Saint Massima," Lara explained. "I'd never heard of it before now."

"Bugger! It's only the highest security building in the whole of Cappadocia!" he confirmed excitedly. "You take me to the best places, you know…"

"Thank me later. For now, get over here with as much as you think you need. Take as much as you need from my expenses account to do it, but remember I said 'need', not 'want'. No driving up in a Ferrari."

"Right. And you'll be where you are now?" Lara imagined him checking the plethora of screens clustered in a semi-circle around him, tracing the phone connection, entering his first searches onto the Internet for the data he'd require, and smiled. She'd missed him, as she missed all of her friends. If I get out of this Nephilim fiasco alive, I'm throwing a party for them all, she vowed silently.

Aloud, she replied, "Yes. Oh, and don't acknowledge that you know me unless I come up to you wearing a bandage tied around my right wrist. I have an evil twin." Quickly, she filled him in. "So we're hiding out while we wait for you," she finished.

"Who's this 'we'?" Bryce asked curiously. Lara told him, and the Londoner exploded into laughter. "Lara's got a boyfriend, Lara's got a boyfriend!" he teased exuberantly. "It'll do you good to get laid."

"Don't be juvenile, Bryce," Lara rebuked, hating the warmth that spread into her cheeks, glancing at Kurtis from the corner of her eye. The American raised an eyebrow and returned to studying the map of the area. He can't have that good hearing… can he? Lara decided not to worry about it, clarifying a few details from a highly entertained Bryce about their location and his time of arrival before hanging up.

"He'll be here by around seven tomorrow night, but it'll be a couple of days after that before we can get in," she informed Kurtis.

He sighed. "Okay. But I'm going crazy cooped up in here."

Lara nodded her empathy. Despite the fact that she'd been out and about not an hour earlier, she hated to be confined and was already feeling claustrophobic. Suddenly, an idea came to her. "It can't hurt to go and see that contact of your cousin's. Could you call and get the address again? What with being kidnapped, I don't have it."

Kurtis shot her a grin. "What was it you were saying about me losing it?"

Ten minutes later, Kurtis wearing a ridiculous wide-brimmed hat – under vigorous protest – for camouflage, and Lara still in her traditional gear, they made their way separately down Turkish streets towards the address they had been given. When Kurtis joined her in the narrow doorway of their destination, Lara tapped lightly to alert the people within to their presence. With an ominous creak, the door swung inward at her touch.

"This can't be good," Lara observed, unease colouring her tone. Kurtis' hand was already at his concealed weapon, and with a nod he signalled her to enter. "Amara? Amara Khayam?" Lara called softly, scanning the empty hall. From the doorway of the sitting room, Kurtis cursed in a tone that conveyed all she needed to know. Drawing her weapon in case a threat remained, she joined him and gazed sadly at the scene of destruction in front of them.

A young woman, surely not older than twenty-five, lay on the blood-soaked carpet, her entrails displayed around her like macabre artwork. Beside her prone form, a three year old girl sat, propped up against the sofa with her unseeing eyes trained on the ravaged woman. Mother and daughter were still and contemplative in death.

Shaking her head, Lara crouched by the bodies, her jaw tightening as she indicated the by-now familiar design of Karel's tattoo carved into flesh. "Three guesses."

"I don't suppose she has any written information." Lara glanced up, about to remark upon his callousness, but bit back the comment at the subtle compassion and sorrow in his expression.

"I'll check. You watch for Karel and company… he'll have the place staked out."

"How could he know?" Kurtis asked her as she headed for the kitchen.

Lara had no answer for that, and shrugged her shoulders without looking back. Conducting a speedy but methodical search, she located several books on the local area and its ancient history, and changed into a traditional outfit of a different design to foil possible spies. For Kurtis, she found a man's outfit tucked into a trunk full of mementoes – obviously the owner of these clothes had passed away some time ago. Lara felt a twinge of guilt taking the strangely western shirt and slacks, but if she had to desecrate a person's sentimental treasures – again – in order to save the world, then so be it.

Beneath the shirt lay a thin, paper-bound book, the language within handwritten in the symbols that were by now familiar to her. "Lux Veritatis," the tomb raider muttered incredulously, pocketing the booklet and heading for the stairs. "Kurtis?" she called. He appeared at the foot of the staircase, and she threw down the clothing she'd found. "Put these on, and then come up here. I think we'll have to take the complicated way out, just to be safe."

'The complicated way' turned out to be exiting through the bedroom window, inching their way across narrow ledges for three houses, and dropping to the alleyway at the end of the block. Unseen, they dissolved back into the throng of tourists and blissful anonymity.

More?