Chapter 4: Le Serpent Rouge

After five minutes of jogging through the gloomy backstreets, Lara was back at Cours la Seine, the desolate avenue where Rennes' pawnshop was situated. This time she entered the street from an abrupt stairway opposite the nightclub. Janice was still standing farther down the street to Lara's right.

Across the road, a sleek motorbike was parked next to the opening of the Rue de Clef, a narrow alley between a decrepit office building and Le Serpent Rouge. Lara recalled seeing the exact same bike parked outside Pierre's café.

She soon had another déja vu moment when the man from Café Metro's corner came running out of the alley and jumped on his bike. The tires screeched against the asphalt as he made a fierce 180 degree turn. For a few seconds, he just sat there, twisting the throttle.

Lara could now get a better look at the stranger. He seemed about 36 years old, somewhat pale and of normal height and weight. His stringy brown hair fell into his blue eyes, below which two dark bags indicated very unhealthy sleeping habits. A slight goatee bedecked his chin. He wore greenish trousers and a dark blue t-shirt over a long-sleeved white shirt. A 9mm pistol rested in the brown leather holster strapped around his shoulder.

The bike's low growl turned into a deafening roar as he whizzed down Cours la Seine, leaving only some warm puffs of smoke and an annoyed, coughing Lara Croft behind.

Lara walked across the street and down the alley the guy had come from. A rusty fence blocked the opposite opening. Beyond it, a beautiful river cut through the polluted town, its surface perfectly reflecting the factory buildings on the other side.

Lara hadn't come to admire the view, though. There was a door in the right wall with a sign reading 'STAGE ENTRANCE'. She unlocked it, tossed the key over the fence and waited for the unmistakeable 'plop' of a certain metallic object plunging through the water surface. Then, she entered the backstage of Le Serpent Rouge, closing the door noiselessly behind her.

The trespasser found herself in the corner of a drab, cold corridor beneath the actual club. Far ahead, a steep stairway led upwards to the dance floor. The hallway to her left led to a cramped office, where a guy wearing sunglasses and a typical guard's uniform stood with his back to Lara. "Crap, Pierre was right. The place really is staked out. Better be careful."

A key and a pistol lay on the desk in front of the guard. Lara decided to use stealth to take him out. She snuck across the hallway and flicked a light switch on the wall. The guard's office was immediately enveloped in darkness. "Zut," he mumbled, turned around and switched his flashlight on to illuminate the hallway ahead. "Salut à tous?"

Lara quickly slipped into a dusty room opposite the corner where she had first entered the hallway. In the shadowy corner between two narrow doorways, Lara had a good view of the corridor outside as she gave the wall a long, intimate hug, waiting for the guard to pass by.

However, when the guard reached the door to Lara's left, he shone the flashlight's beam into the room as if suspecting her presence there. Lara carefully slid down to the floor and picked up an empty beer can. Just as the guard was about to step into the room, she flung the can through the doorway to her right. It clattered on the floor farther down the corridor.

"Il y a quelqu'un?" he said and walked past Lara's hiding place towards the area the mysterious rattling had come from. Lara left the corner room and crept up behind him.

The moment the flashlight's beam fell on the empty can, Lara gripped the guard's shoulders and threw him down on the floor. Her left fist connected with his neck twice and sent the man drifting down a short river of pain before being washed ashore in dreamland. Lara snatched a M-V9 semi-automatic from his black shoulder holster. Unfortunately, the gun lacked ammo.

Lara tucked the 9mm into her pocket and walked back through the corridor to the guard's office. She beamed at finding an advanced .50 caliber Desert Ranger on the desk, loaded with 9 bullets. A ring with four keys attached lay next to the pistol. The tag read 'Scène clé'.

"Stage key. Sounds like I could need it," Lara muttered, slipping the key into her pocket. Armed with the Desert Ranger, she jogged back down the hallway, past the unconscious guard and up the dingy stairway. At the top, she reached a metallic door with 'Piste de danse' written on the plate. Lara produced the key ring and unlocked the door with the first key she tried. She slid the door ajar and peeked through the narrow gap between the door and frame.

Another guard stood leaned against a huge speaker at the back of the main room. Lara pulled out her Desert Ranger, taking perfect aim at the unsuspecting guard's torso. And for the first time since the events in Egypt several years ago, Lara Croft fired a handgun.

The bullet whizzed across the dance floor and into the guard's stomach. Blood squirted out and the dull, grey floor attained a rose-red colour as the man collapsed, either dead or unconscious.

Naturally, another guard noticed. The man sprinted towards the stage door, aiming his M-V9 at the intruder's head. Lara slammed the door shut and listened as the bullets glanced off from the metal surface on the other side.

"Shit" the guard breathed, realizing he had run out of ammo. Fifteen quiet seconds passed while Lara stood motionless in the corner next to the door. Suddenly, the door slid aside and the guard burst into the hallway, holding up a half-full bottle of cognac to assault the intruder.

Lara immediately pressed the Desert Ranger's muzzle against the side of his neck and took the improvised weapon from his hand. She briefly examined the bottle to find the vintage.

"Hmm, an 1851. Now there's something you don't see every day." Lara took a few gulps and then promptly smashed the bottle into the guard's head. The unconscious man tumbled down the stairs and landed in a bruised heap on the basement floor.

The main room was an immense, dimly lit hall with a long bar situated to Lara's immediate right as she entered from backstage. Far off to her right, a steel staircase led up to the higher levels of the club. Huge speakers and boxes were scattered haphazardly in the middle. A DJ booth loomed over the dance floor to Lara's left.

The whole place had a filthy, desolate look that made it nigh impossible to imagine how this could ever have been one of the hottest, most crowded and popular clubs in Paris. The stale air was filled with a silence only broken by muffled clanks from some faraway machinery. Cockroaches and cobwebs riddled the shadowy corners, that had once been brightly illuminated by disco lights.

"Yeuck. No one cleans up here, obviously," Lara mused as she climbed up to the DJ booth, where old techno and house singles rested on the turntables. She flicked a large switch on the wall.

The dusty records spun into life and fast beats pumped out of the speakers. Accompanying the deafening music, the lighting rigs far above started sweeping through the air, beams of flickering light shooting out from the lamps to envelop the dance floor in a colourful, surreal glare. Lara couldn't supress an astonished smile at seeing the long lost glory of Le Serpent Rouge revived.

She wasn't the only one here to witness this revival, though. Two guards came running out with M-V9s to take care of the trespasser. Lara vaulted out of the DJ booth and fired the Desert Ranger twice as she fell to the dance floor. The first shot plunged into the right thigh of one of the guards. He fell screaming to the ground while the second bullet whistled into one of the speakers.

Crackling sparks, wires and electromagnets exploded out from the black box, but the music kept pumping through the room. Beams of bluish strobe light shrouded Lara's movements, making it hard for the remaining guard to take aim at his target.

Lara gracefully let her feet connect with the man's head. A yellow light beam made the guard look like he was spitting lemonade in lieu of blood as he collapsed to the cold floor. Lara jogged up the staircase to the second floor and started climbing upwards to reach the lighting rigs at the top of the hall.

It only took a couple of minutes to get to the top floor, three storeys above the dancing stage. The electronic soundscape pounded at Lara's ears as she reached into a cabinet above the broken disco light, which flickered pathetically in its death throes. Her hand emerged from the cabinet with a trinket box.

Resisting the temptation to take a peek at the mysterious contents, Lara slipped Pierre's box into her pocket and climbed down a short ladder to a drawbridge below. A booth for controlling the lighting was located on the other side of the bridge. Lara had used it earlier to move the broken light closer. Now, another guard emerged from the booth, handgun drawn and taking aim.

Lara quickly aimed her own pistol, but her frantic trigger-squeezing was merely rewarded with a quiet click from the unloaded gun. "Goddammit," Lara said, flinging the now useless Desert Ranger at the guard. The latter smirked arrogantly when the empty handgun went flying right past his head.

However, that little distraction was all Lara needed for her real attack. She effortlessly hopped up, her left foot taking off from the bridge railing to whirl her body 360 degrees around above the guard. In the blink of an eye, her right foot had kicked the man's chest and sent him tumbling over the railing.

Lara returned to the bridge floor in time to lean out and watch the guy fall through the colourfully illuminated, music-pervaded air before landing on the dance floor. "Well, can't say that was a dull way to die." Lara crossed the drawbridge, walked through the lighting booth and left the club through a metal door opposite the control panel.

---

"Did you …? Everything go ok?" Pierre said the moment Lara entered the room from the windy midday street outside. Café Metro looked the same as when she had last visited, although the customer in the corner was now gone, leaving only his newspaper and the empty glass behind.

"It's quiet in here," Lara said, walking up to the bar. "Your voice really carries."

"Don't mess me about," Pierre hissed.

"You were right about the place being staked out. There were gunmen all over the place. No sign of the Monstrum, though." Lara sat down on the cleanest-looking barstool and produced the trinket box from her pocket.

"You got it!" Pierre grinned from ear to ear.

"Now, a little matter of Bouchard's whereabouts …?"

"Bouchard. Yes … er…"

Lara loomed in over the counter, staring right into Pierre's shifty, twitching eyes. "You aren't going to disappoint me, are you? You don't want to see my dangerous side …"

"No, it's just that someone else was asking for him. Just after you left."

"Asking for Bouchard?" Lara said, interest more than a little piqued.

"Yes. The customer who was sat in the corner, reading his paper. I couldn't tell him anything, naturally," Pierre lied. "But he may have overheard us."

Lara furrowed her brows and recalled the guy she had seen leaving the Cours la Seine on his bike. "What the hell is he up to?" she inwardly pondered, then adressed Pierre: "You know, you talk real loud. It's hard not to notice it."

"Stop wasting my time. Hand it over," Pierre commanded, referring to the much coveted box Lara was holding right in front of him.

"Information first, Pierre," Lara snapped. "Bouchard's whereabouts?"

"No chance. Gimme the box first."

Lara tilted her head and gave the bartender a put-on sad, wounded look. "Pierre, what happened to our friendship? You didn't ask if I got hurt at the club …"

"Cut it out! You need my help. Bouchard is a hard man to find. And he's been under a lot of pressure lately. Make the wrong approach and you're dead."

"I can be very careful. And so should you - especially if you want this." Lara shook the trinket box and something rattled inside.

"That's mine! Hand it over!"

"I don't think this friendship is working out - is it, Pierre?"

"You can't back out now. You'll never find him without my help."

"D'you know, I'm tempted to try anyway. It'd be your style to set me up for a double cross," Lara said, replacing the box in her pocket. "How hard can it be to track down someone with his reputation?"

"Real hard, without the right contacts. And not everyone is as polite as me."

"Or as loud, hopefully."

"But they might be more dangerous. The Monstrum isn't the only killer on the streets."

"You would do well to remember that, Pierre."

The barman shook his head. "Take it easy. Are we going to deal?"

"Only if you behave …"

"Allright. Bouchard is lying low, and I know someone who can show you where."

"You can trust them, this person you know?" Lara inquired.

"Just about. Name of Francine," Pierre said. "She's my ex."

"Reassuring."

"This is her adress, and the code for the gate." Pierre handed Lara a coffee-stained card with the adress and code scribbled on it.

"And she can point me to Bouchard? You're sure?"

"Oh, absolutely. She knows a discrete route to the back of the premises."

"Discrete?" Lara frowned. "Translation: Dangerous."

"Nothing in Paris is safe," Pierre replied. "But this route will get you where you want to go. Please. It's arranged; she's expecting you."

"I hope this arrangement works out, Pierre. I'd hate for you to become a personal problem that I have to come back and tidy up," Lara said as she started towards the exit.

"Hey, what about my …"

Interrupting Pierre's query, Lara tossed the trinket box over her shoulder and left the café. The box sailed through the air and past Pierre's clumsy hands as he failed to catch it. "Merde! I hate that bitch," he grumbled under his breath and stooped down to retrieve the box from the filthy floor.

---

In the pawnshop on Cours la Seine, Daniel Rennes was still standing behind the counter, leafing absent-mindedly through old porno magazines. He glanced at his watch and saw that an hour had passed since the annoying brunette's visit. The valuable ring she had pawned now rested on his bony little finger.

Daniel Rennes had always been an intelligent man. He didn't have morals, but he did have a sharp, brilliant mind. He had started his dangerous lifestyle at the age of 14. The kid had made millions of Euros by blackmailing a well-respected politician, who just happened to rape 10-year-olds in his spare time.

During his teenage years, Rennes developed a close friendship with underworld czar Louis Bouchard. The latter bought Rennes this pawnbroker shop as a front for provision of illegal documentation and currency. In his early twenties, Rennes became insanely paranoid about conspiracy theories and rigged the place with booby traps. The man was now a master forger, printer and archivist, often needed by Bouchard and other big shots of the Parisian underground.

Rennes looked up from the magazine, hearing the familiar sound of the front door opening. Steps sounded from the hall as someone walked quickly towards the shop. The brown-haired biker from Café Metro appeared in the doorway.

"Ah, mr. Trent. Got something to trade again?" Rennes said. He only knew the man's name – Kurtis Trent – and didn't need or want to know any more. Trent had first entered the shop about a week ago and had since then showed up every other day, pawning various valuable jewellery, probably snatched from passers-by in the more crowded districts a few miles from here.

Trent nodded and walked up to the pawnbroker. "Yeah, I thought I'd fetch a good price for this," he said and dropped a distinguished necklace on the porno magazine lying on the counter.

"Here," Rennes mumbled and paid the man 195 Euros.

"Thanks. By the way, you wouldn't happen to have any spare hardware parts? I'm thinking about constructing a pistol of my own."

"No, this is just a pawnshop," the owner lied. Trent seemed a little too suspicious for the ever paranoid Rennes to trust.

"You're sure you don't sell any firepower?"

Rennes shook his head.

"Okay, I'll find some other dealer ..." Trent left the shop and Rennes heard him speed off on the bike outside. The pawnbroker stashed the necklace away in a cardboard box for jewelry and then resumed contemplating the magazine.

Fifteen minutes later, Rennes heard the door open once more, indicating he would have three customers in one day. That had to be a record.

Rennes' gaze snapped up to the doorway to find a pale Caucasian man, about 60 years old, standing in the doorway. The stranger wore an old-fashioned grey suit that could have been taken right out of a museum on the aristocracy of the 18th century. His hair was tied back in a grey knot and his wrinkled face had a sickly, yet menacing look to it. Crescent-shaped, rimless glasses rested over his dark eyes. A metallic, dark brown glove covered his right hand.

"Can I help you?" Rennes said, eyes narrowing.

The grey-haired man started walking across the room. "Yes," he said with a dull tone. The glove started giving off a ghostly, light blue glow. "Yes, you will be of help to me."