Two chapters in two days. You lucky people. ;-) Thankyou for your wonderful compliment, Lady Lara Croft. And Godavari, please, put the pokey stick away. ;-)

Tangled Alliances

"Cheers, mate," Barry said, accepting the tea off Bryce. He put his screwdriver down and took a mouthful.

"Going alright?" Bryce enquired, stepping around to squint up at Barry's work where he was in the middle of installing new security for Lara's treasure room.

"Yeah, yeah, not bad. I'm just putting in the electromagnetic lock for the door. My partner 'll be here soon to install the pressure pads underneath the display cases."

"Pressure pads?"

"Yeah, some pressure pads were ordered in. Didn't you know?" Barry swallowed another mouthful of refreshing tea and sighed contentedly.

"I'm not the owner," Bryce explained, picking up an electronic keypad waiting to be installed and examining the wires on the back. "Nice."

"Yeah, the latest, that is. By the time anybody cracks that, the alarm'll have gone off, the police will have been alerted, and the burglar will be in handcuffs." He took another long dreg of tea. "Pressure pads are armed when the door's locked. Anything steps on 'em to get to the display cases, all the cameras immediately zero in on it and the alarm's raised at the police station, if it hasn't been already, which it will have because there's no way to break in undetected."

"Cool. Take long, will it?" Bryce put the keypad back down and leant against the doorframe.

"Should be finished by about five. I'm getting all the most important wiring in, my partner's coming in a bit to get the pressure pads installed, and at about three I'm expecting the rest of my boys to finish off all the easy wiring. They're apprentices and newly qualified electricians, y'see, I don't like to let them loose on the bones of the beast, if you know what I mean."

"Good idea." Bryce nodded. "Well, I'll leave you to it then. Shout if you need anything." He smiled and left, and Barry got back to the wiring, cursing under his breath as he gave himself a small electric shock.

The door opened and Kurtis stepped in, closing it behind him. "Evening, sweetcakes."

Lara looked up from the desk and smiled sarcastically. "Kurtis," she said sweetly, "do you take lessons in being chauvinistic?"

"Only for you darlin'." He sat down on the bed in the small quarters that Lara had been given and pulled one of a number of pieces of paper scattered across the covers towards him. He glanced over it and then dropped it back with the others, all part of the file Lara had been given about the Periapt Shards.

"I'm working, Kurtis. Preparing. What do you want?" Lara spun her office chair around from where she'd been facing the wall to settle her eyes on him.

"We need to talk." He straightened up and sighed as he spoke, giving the impression that the conversation was necessary, but unwanted.

"About?" Lara sighed too, tired of the original Kurtis that had seemed to disappear once they began working together in Prague but had obviously reappeared when she'd nearly drowned. The memory made her shudder for more reasons than one, but she stayed outwardly blasé and stretched out her legs, crossing her ankles and folding her arms, regarding him with her head cocked to the side whilst she waited for an answer.

"Do you need to call Bryce or something?" Kurtis looked up, sighing again as he fingered a sheet of paper, bothered.

"No, they'll only worry. They think I'm researching in the university libraries in Manchester, they won't be expecting to hear from me yet." There was silence broken only by the rustling of paper being fiddled with, so she said, "Though of course you must have known that, since you knew where to find me."

"No, I got someone to trace your credit card, all I had was your booking at the Palace Hotel, I didn't know why you were coming." He sounded uneasy, and kept his gaze down towards the bed.

After a moment he said, looking up from under his hair, "I may not have been entirely truthful with you." The look on his face suggested he was worried as to how Lara was going to take that.

Raising her eyebrows, she returned, "I fail to see how you could have lied when you've barely told me anything."

Kurtis sighed dramatically and flopped back onto the bed, rubbing his eyes with one hand. He certainly didn't seem too happy away from prying eyes. "I'm screwing over The Company."

"I'm sorry? The what?" Lara raised her eyebrows again, seeking explanation.

"The Company." Kurtis' arms fell out to his sides, vaguely gesturing to their surroundings. "The people we're working for. And I'm not so sure I can pull it off any more." Suddenly remembering something, he raised his head and looked at her. "Have they brought you your luggage from the hotel yet?"

Lara's legs lifted and bent, her booted feet slamming noisily back down, flat on the floor. "Will you start from the beginning, please?"

Kurtis' hands covered his face again and a muffled groan escaped from underneath them. They hovered above his head, waving slightly, as he began to speak.

"The Company. These people. Very big, very clandestine, very upper levels of government."

"They're government?" That took Lara by surprise.

"International government. All the major nations have people in The Company, and use The Company's services. They're sort of an independent body that deals with all the security issues that politics doesn't allow anybody else to deal with, and most people don't even hear of."

"Well, someone could have told me. I thought that they were a crime syndicate or something. Not that it matters, I was planning on stealing the shard anyway."

"They're international security, of course they're not going to tell you anything! Anyway, that's what this is all about."

"Security, or thievery?" Lara's tone was light, conversational. As far as she was concerned, details and motives were now inconsequential, and she'd given up bothering about Kurtis hours ago.

"Both. Y'see, there's this little cult."

"Cult?" Yes, that sounded original.

"There's this cult," Kurtis continued, still sprawled on the bed, "that's actually pretty big. And they want the shard because their leader's a nutcase and thinks he's God, and doesn't want anybody coming along with the shard and using it to kill him."

"He thinks he's God." Oh, this just got better and better. Lara couldn't wait to hear more.

"So The Company wants the shard so that they can kill him with it, because, let's face it, shooting him isn't going to persuade his followers to go home and hang their ritualistic robes up, is it?"

"Ok," Lara nodded, taking this in. "And where does your little two-time come into things?"

"The original protectors of the shard are gone and I'm the last of the Lux Veritatis, and that's only because I walked out on them when I was a teenager. The least I can do is get the shard myself and make sure it goes somewhere safe away from cult leaders and corrupt governments. Which, by the way, explains why this all-powerful intelligence agency needed me to find you. This shard operation of theirs isn't exactly above board, they didn't want your file turning up on their computers. Besides, I recommended you in the first place. They wanted someone capable. That's why you had to give the right impression in the alley. Sorry about pulling your hair, by the way."

"I did wonder why they needed you. Why are they keeping this quiet?"

"Truthfully, I dunno. Though you may have noticed Mr Cheney has a bit of a god complex himself, he probably wants to keep the shard back afterwards and use it to bargain with other cults and get them in his pocket, or something."

"Rather arrogant of him, don't you think?"

"Being answerable to only twelve people out of six point five billion 'll do that to ya."

Lara sighed, trying to get everything straight in her mind. "In essence – you want me to help you steal the shard so you can redeem yourself."

"Yes," Kurtis said firmly, sitting up and nodding his head once.

"And we do that...how?"

"I think we need a plan."

"Fine," Lara drawled, standing up wearily and moving to the bed where she flopped down next to Kurtis' feet. Picking up a copy of an ancient map of the underground caverns of London, she said, "We'd better think of something. Though why I'm helping you, I don't know."

Kurtis grinned.

Barry and his team stood back and admired their handiwork. They'd finished a couple of hours later than planned, but they'd done a good job. As part of the service, all of their client's artefacts had been placed back on display, and now all that remained was for someone in the house to check it over before paying them.

"Now – are you sure that that's all of it?" said Barry, eyeing one empty display case.

"Yep," said someone. "That must be a spare case."

"There's a display label on it though."

"Maybe it's something she's expecting."

"Yeah, that must be it," Barry agreed. "Sir!" he called over his shoulder to attract either Bryce or Hillary's attention.

Hillary appeared from down the hall, carrying a silver tray laden with polishes and clothes to clean the room down now that work was over. "Finished, gentlemen?" he smiled, approaching quickly.

There was a scream and a metallic crash.

Bryce jumped, the miniature screwdriver in his hand slipping out of the screw head he was carefully tightening and scraping down the side of the delicate aluminium casing that was soon to be his latest robot friend, gouging the paintwork.

"Bugger!"

He slammed the tool down on the table and stood, his chair flying back and crashing to the ground. As if he wasn't frustrated enough from doing such detailed painstaking work, Hillary had to go and freak out over a mantelpiece that had escaped its daily dusting.

"What is it?" Bryce shouted angrily, storming off to find out what had upset Hillary.

There was no reply, so Bryce wandered out into the main hallway in search of clues to lead him to the butler. Walking out into the open foyer, he saw the crowd of workmen standing nervously to one side with Hillary in the treasure room doorway, frozen, the remains of his cleaning tray scattered at his feet.

"Hillary? What's up?" Bryce stepped around him and peered at his face, finding his eyes wide in shock and his mouth open in mild hyperventilation. "What? What is it?" Confused, he followed Hillary's gaze, and jumped back in terror at what he saw. "OH MY GOD!"

"Where is it? Where is it?" Bryce flew around the room desperately seeking the missing object. Hillary just stood, staring hopelessly at the open glass cabinet where once the Dagger of Xian had sat.

"That's everything, Sir," Barry stuttered, looking decidedly nervous. "Wasn't anything left for that case."

"Has to be here somewhere, got to be." A flurry of packing polystyrene cascaded around Bryce as he desperately threw handfuls of it over his shoulders, delving into the packing cases in the corner of the room.

A look of realisation crossed Hillary's face, shadowed by an expression of utter horror. "The auction house."

The polystyrene storm abated as Bryce gradually slowed his movements, sprinkles of packing balls becoming less and less frequent as Hillary's words sunk into his brain until eventually they ceased altogether. Silently, slowly, Bryce straightened up.

"No."

"Yes." Hillary nodded reluctantly.

"No."

"Yes."

Bryce very slowly turned. "We have to get to the auction house."

"We do."

The horrified stillness was suddenly broken as both men dashed for the door, racing through the house to the garage in a maelstrom of footsteps, shouts and flailing arms.