A/N: Yes. It's been ages. I'm sorry! Thank you to godavari for the relentless ass-kicking and Chiazmo for egging me on even though you haven't read this yet. :) Right, this is kind of sucky, because it's all actiony and stuff, but yeah. Criticisms will be noted if you review.

Revised 02/10/05

This place… Pushing worry for Lara's safety to the back of his mind, Kurtis threaded his way up a rocky incline. Instead of sky overhead, noxious-looking red clouds floated, obscuring his vision as he drifted upward to get a lie of the land. Irritated and wary, he wafted an insubstantial arm at the fog, surprised when it began to disperse, trickling into crannies in the rock ceiling. Weird…

The cloud lifted from his eyes, and he almost thudded back into his own body in shock. Below him, stretching as far as he could see, lay a magnificent city. The sketch in the books they'd found could never do justice to the landscape that existed below Cappadocia's bustling streets. Towers soared a hundred feet into the air, as if reaching for the surface. Pillars stretched higher even than this, to join with and hold up the vast cavern's roof. And down there by a building which seemed a grotesque, twisted parody of the temple above… something moved.

Lara would kill to see this, Kurtis thought, to distract himself from the dread that invaded every atom that held the Angel together. Carefully, he lowered himself back to the ground, and began to float down the path toward the movement he'd seen, every nerve taut.

Soon the buildings cut off his sight of the entrance, but he didn't care. His priority was to get the job done – then he could think about getting out. He leaned into a few doorways, but the dwellings on the outskirts of the city seemed deserted. Not a good sign. Something had to live in these houses – they wouldn't be there, otherwise. Obviously something major was going down in the city centre, something that required every single one of the Nephilim to be present.

Kurtis travelled a mile without seeing a soul, his 'bad feeling' getting steadily worse. For one thing, Karel hadn't made an attempt at takeover in a while, a signal that by now Kurtis could interpret as a particularly nasty attack to come. Voices, speaking a language he'd never heard and was at a loss to understand, halted him. Quickly, he retreated and ducked his Angelic self into a building, deciding to wait out Karel's attack before he advanced further. He'd need all his strength when he got to the root of the problem.

Barely had he made this decision, an itch filled his vessel's ghostly cranium…

Without stopping to chat, Lara waved at Bryce and accepted a crossbow and his boost up into the smoke-laden air. Confused authorities and civilians alike milled around the smouldering remains of the Nephilia Veritas – she spared them but a glance before heading in the opposite direction, racing through deserted streets to the temple André had directed her to.

Notching a bolt into the crossbow, she took a deep breath, and slipped inside. Kurtis needs all the distraction you can give him, she reminded herself, and, keeping her back to the wall, moved around the perimeter of the huge room, searching for her prey.

Finding nothing, she sighed inwardly. Now to make a target of myself. "Karel!" The word echoed around the huge hall.

A weary sigh answered her. "Ms. Croft, please, give it up. I have so much bigger fish to fry at the moment – you deserve a much slower and more painful death than the one I'd be forced to give you."

Lara suppressed indignant laughter. "So what you're basically trying to say is 'Shoo, fly, don't bother me'?" she asked, circling to pinpoint his position. Talk to me, you bastard, she urged silently. I have an arrow here with your name on it.

He spared her the trouble, swooping down from the rafters to land squarely in front of her. Already, the green fire she had so come to despise began to gather around his fingers.

Lara kicked out… and was abruptly repelled as if she'd hit a force-field like the one André had sacrificed himself to break. She cursed, breaking the fall with her backside and elbows, and Karel chuckled. "You see now that your role in this grand game is only to die?" he mocked.

"Well, as the saying goes, I'd rather die on my feet than live on my knees," Lara shot back. Come on, Kurtis. Come on. "So, if you're going to fry me, fry me."

Kurtis relaxed as the confrontational energy that was Karel flooded away. Thank god for Lara, he thought wearily. He was almost sure that one would have knocked him tail over heels back into his own body, and winced at the just-averted disaster.

A new sense of urgency filling him, he emerged from his hiding place, ignoring the tickle of Karel's presence that ebbed and flowed through the Angel's particles. He was trying to handle Lara and take control at the same time, then. It seemed personal dislike for the woman was equally important to him as releasing the congregated Nephilim, and Kurtis was thankful for that.

As quickly yet stealthily as he could, he wound his way through the endless streets, emerging into a central city square with a fountain that oozed a red, viscous liquid that was congealing at the edges. He spared the blood stream barely a glance, saving his disgust for later. More important was the increasing pressure of the Nephilim presence just a few streets away.

Kurtis continued on, feeling his nerve unravel. But it was more than his nerve he was losing – it felt as though particles of the Angel were being sucked from its core, absorbing into the evil race that dwelled here and fuelling it. His time had been short even before this had begun to happen – now it was ridiculously so. Muttering curses, he increased his pace again, throwing caution to the wind.

A guttural, continuous noise that was half chant, half moan reached his ears, and Kurtis slowed the Angel a little, not daring to stop completely. He emerged into the huge square centred by the temple he had observed from above, and finally halted. "Oh, shit."

The chanting trailed off. The siphoning of the Angel's power was amplified tenfold. Two thousand Nephilim faces turned in Kurtis' direction.

Thinking quickly, he rose a hundred feet into the air, taking him out of physical reach of the beings. He had no idea if the human qualities of the Nephilim would keep them earthbound, but it was worth a shot.

Karel was only half Nephilim. These creatures were the real thing – pale, naked and sexless, they retained their humanoid figure but sprouted the malformed limbs of the Angel. One, who seemed to be their leader, came down from its podium on the temple steps. It raised a hand, and a rush of dizziness assaulted Kurtis' senses.

It was attack now, or lose the battle. Calling up the orange fire that was the Angel's weapon, he took a mental aim at the Nephilim leader's face. As he let off his first shot, gasping with exertion, his strength failed him. The Angel didn't so much crash to the ground as lose altitude gracefully, but the result was the same. Kurtis was heading back down towards the crowd of hissing Nephilim. Being half Angel, the things were absorbing his power into themselves.

The first shot went wide; the second hit a bodyguard that dived in front of the leader. After that, the things were on him. Their bodies glowed with various hues of the fire that was a trait of the Angel, and each bolt slammed into Kurtis with the force of a fist.

This wasn't going to work.

Retreat didn't seem a better option, but he had no choice. With every blow a fraction of his control slipped. As quickly as he could, Kurtis ducked back into the side streets and began to circle the square, dodging and picking off Nephilim as they found him. His mind raced, and brought him to only one conclusion – whatever he needed to do, it was in the temple.

This really wasn't going to work.

The next chapter will see Kurtis doing what he set out to do and then the Karel battle… and then an epilogue. Two chappies, folks… Seems really weird to be able to see the end. Anyway. REVIEW! I wanna see if I can get to 400! xp