Chapter 12: Interlude

Turkey, 1988

He's back in the desert.

The sun has descended below the horizon, and the valleys are riddled with the dark blue shadows of twilight. In the middle of this barren landscape, a group of male figures wearing monk's cowls stand at the entrance to an underground cave. One of the figures is far younger than the rest – a pale 16-year-old staring nervously at the opening to the cavern. He's wearing a few plates of bronze armour under his cowl.

"Mi fili," says one of the monks, Konstantin, and approaches the boy. He flashes a proud smile: "Since you were three years of age, I have trained and taught you in the battle of the Lux Veritatis. You are now ready for the most important stage of your initiation. If you fail here – physically or mentally – there will be much more at stake than a place in our order."

The boy shifts his gaze from the cavern to the monk's face. "What's in the cave, father?" he stutters.

Konstantin slowly shakes his head. "I am not allowed to tell you that. I can tell you this, however: There is one other exit from the cave, about a mile southwest of here. We will be waiting for you at that exit. If you have not emerged after three days, you will be presumed dead – either from hunger, suicide or …" He paused.

"Or what? What's in the cave?" the boy repeats.

"Your destiny," Konstantin says and hands his son a three feet long, medieval sword. "Use your strengths wisely."

The teenager takes the sword in his sweat-dripping hand and struggles not to drop the heavy weapon. Once the boy seems to have a firm grip on the sword, Konstantin hands him a lit torch to hold in his other hand.

"Well, there is no use in merely standing here and doing nothing. Otium est pulvinar diaboli." Konstantin begins walking towards the cavern, dragging the hesitant boy with him. The rest of the monks form a circle around the father and son, chanting in Latin. The boy freezes in the doorway, tears trickling down his pale face as he realizes that there's no way back.

Konstantin pushes his son into the cave. The other monks quickly roll a nearby boulder sideways to block the opening.

The boy knows he can't possibly move the boulder aside. He's trapped in the cave, utterly alone. The flame of the torch illuminates the cobweb-enveloped stalagmites. Nothing but his own ragged breathing can be heard. Nothing but darkness can be seen beyond the light of the torch. The boy starts wandering down the tunnel.

"Lux Veritatis mecum," he mumbles.

As if in reply, a hideous, sputtering voice echoes from the depths of the tunnel: "Ken-ack akee morgu. Sheeli-kar umi-nash okee-puhr chak." It then hisses five words vaguely resembling an English sentence: "Ssscreeeaam for meee, Veeeritaaaatisss maaaggooot"

"Lux Veritatis mecum," he repeats, voice shaking with fear as he tightens his grip on the hilt.

"Huuurrrrt the fleeeessshh, buuurn awaay ssssooooft skiiinnn "

Something – a living creature, neither human nor animal – starts to emerge from the darkness ahead.

-

A noisy truck sped by outside, and Kurtis Trent was abruptly torn out of his dream. His eyelids rose over his blue orbs, and he sat up on the edge of the bed. The German motel room looked just as cheap and cramped as it had when he'd fallen asleep here. It was located a few miles to the west of the Czech border, which he'd have to cross tomorrow morning.

Kurtis stood from the bed and raked a hand through his brown hair. He looked down to find that he'd fallen asleep with his clothes on – not that he had any kind of pajamas he could have donned instead.

And, as much as he didn't want to remember the traumatic experience, he had been dreaming about his Lux Veritatis initiation again. He'd spent six hours in those Turkish caves. Six hours that would never completely stop haunting his mind, like some drug with horrible side effects that just won't leave one's body.

It had turned out that the caverns "only" contained a weak Nephilim outcast, which had already been injured by other Lux Veritatis warriors. The real Nephilim were hiding in the unknown depths far beneath the tunnel Kurtis had explored. Although, to a 16-year-old initiate, a single creature was still quite menacing.

But he knew he should be grateful to Konstantin and the other monks. Those six hours had, more than any of his father's teachings, moulded a warrior and adventurer out of the teenage boy. And if he hadn't earned those skills, Eckhardt and the Cabal would undoubtedly have found and destroyed him by now.

Kurtis sighed and walked up to the window opposite the bed. His motorcycle awaited him on the parking ground outside. 'Kromann Autobahn Motel' read the building's neon sign, yellow letters against the black midnight sky. Kurtis watched the snowflakes twirling to the ground and let his mind drift to the goal he was intent on accomplishing in Prague: The complete destruction of the Black Alchemist.

The more he thought about it, the more hopeless it seemed. Breaking into the Strahov would be hard, finding the third Periapt shard and the last Obscura painting would be very hard, and finally defeating Eckhardt would be nigh impossible.

Kurtis pulled out his Boran X and gazed at the prototype gun. He had created it himself, using various 9mm spare parts bought from weapon dealers in Paris. As he contemplated the pistol, he thought about ending it all here, avoiding the far more painful death that probably awaited him in Prague. All he had to do was to pull that trigger one last time …

"No. You didn't go through those caverns just to choose the easy way out now," he reminded himself.

Holstering the Boran X, he walked back to the bed and tried to get a few hours of sleep before dawn.

-

The Municipal House is Prague's most prominent building for concerts and exhibitions of the fine arts. Situated on the site of the former Royal Court Palace, this cultural centre boasts the biggest concert hall in town - the Smetana. The hall is located in the heart of the building and is sometimes used as a ballroom.

Tonight, it was occupied by the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra and hundreds of the metropolis' most important citizens. The concert: Má Vlast (My Fatherland) by Bedrich Smetana.

Karel sat in a secluded corner in the back. Obeying the dress code, he wore a black-and-white suit to blend in perfectly with the rest of the male audience. He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, soothed by the melodies of the classical symphony. Bedrich Smetana had composed Má Vlast as a tribute to various aspects of Czech nationalism. The orchestra was currently playing The Moldau, which used violins and oboes to musically trace the course of the Vltava River.

Joachim Karel was a corporate legal mastermind. Based in Paris, he ran several law firms and associated with most of the prominent leaders of western Europe. As Eckhardt's right-hand man, he oversaw the Cabal's investments and recruitment whilst protecting their interests worldwide. He was also responsible for bringing two powerful allies into the Cabal – Marten Gunderson and Kristina Boaz.

Karel had always despised the rest of the human race. They preached such moral concepts as 'love' and 'compassion', and yet their entire society seemed to be based on fear and hatred. It wasn't their boundless malice that sickened Karel; it was the hypocrisy with which they tried to conceal it. The way they could hide anger behind an innocent smile, or sadistic joy behind a look of pity … Of course, one could say that Karel was guilty of this deceit as well, but contrary to the fools surrounding him, he served a brilliant purpose. Once his work with the Cabal had been completed, the human race would finally receive the punishment it clearly deserved.

Although, certain humans weren't utterly useless. Bedrich Smetana, for instance.

'The Moldau' ended, and the audience instantly rose from their seats, clapping. The Smetana was filled with a deafening applause that lasted for about a minute. Afterwards, the crowd walked out to a large vestibule where they could spend the 20-minute pause before the symphony continued with Sárka.

Karel was walking across the hall towards the buffet tables, when his cell phone started vibrating in his pocket. He quickly pulled out the phone and answered: "Dobrý den?"

"Karel." Eckhardt's voice sounded weary and irritated as always.

"Master Eckhardt. I sense you have bad news?" Karel said.

"Croft escaped. Bouchard failed," came the simple explanation. "I have just persuaded him to come to Prague. He will no longer prove useful to us."

"But his organs will." Karel gave a slight smile and sipped a glass of cervéne víno from the buffet.

"Yes," Eckhardt concurred. "Just like Vasiley's."

"What about Trent and Croft?" Karel asked as he took a piece of bread with caviar and sprinkled lemon juice on.

"Lara Croft is a minor distraction. Nothing more," Eckhardt said. "And as for the Lux Veritatis whelp dogging my steps – what can he achieve, acting alone like a single maggot on a corpse?"

Karel remained silent, finishing the caviar and red wine.

"Nothing," Eckhardt answered his own query. "Nothing will stop me closing on the last Obscura painting."

-

The early morning air felt mercilessly cold as Dr. Grant Muller stepped out from a backdoor of the four-star Hotel Forum Praha, where he had stayed overnight. He was carrying a large black plastic bag, containing the corpse of a 17-year-old prostitute, whom Muller had spent 15 minutes of the night with. After he'd paid her, she had quickly donned her scant clothes and started to make her way out of the room.

But the girl had halted in shock when she noticed some rather shady photos lying on the doctor's desk. Of course, a girl in her line of business didn't usually mind the semi-legal activities of her fellow humans, but the photos of the Cabal's work were downright disturbing.

And highly incriminating for Dr. Muller.

"Bože," was the prostitute's last word, before Muller had crept up behind her and plunged a letter opener through her carotid artery.

Now, he was dragging the plastic bag containing her body across the desolate road. He soon reached a black limo parked halfway up on the sidewalk. Muller dropped the blood-dripping bag in the trunk and slammed it closed. He then sat down in the backseat and gave the Czech chaffeur a quick order: "Strahov Complex. Rychlý."

The limo immediately sped off towards the centre of the capital. Muller leaned his corpulent body back in the seat, watching the snowy metropolis glide by outside. In addition to heading the Botanical Research wing of the Strahov Complex, he ran research programmes for the dubious World Pharmaceuticals Commission based in Rome. His skills in bizarre gene-manipulation often came in handy for the Cabal, although Eckhardt had seemed dissatisfied with the doctor's effort – or rather, lack of effort - during the last few months. To put it bluntly, Muller was getting lazy.

The doctor pulled out his cell phone and called his fellow Cabal member Kristina Boaz. Originally based in Argentina, Boaz was head of Corrective and Remedial Surgery at the Strahov Psychiatric Institute in Prague. She bore scars from a plane crash she had narrowly survived in 1987. According to some rumors, the plane had been sabotaged by Lux Veritatis warriors.

"Who is it?" came the Argentine woman's voice from the other end.

"It's Muller. You wouldn't happen to be in need of new material for your experiments?"

"What have you got?"

"Young female. Caucasian."

"Is it fresh?"

"Died last midnight."

"Perfect. Bring it to the lower Sanatorium labs."

-

She's sitting with Von Croy in his apartment. They're facing each other in the two armchairs next to the empty fireplace. Rain pours in through the broken window, icy drops landing in her hair. The room is still messy and drenched in blood, and Von Croy is clearly dead. His limp torso has been slashed open, and the few intestines he has left are slowly falling out. His eyes have rolled up to gaze at the inside of his skull. A stench of decay emanates from his corpse.

And yet, his mouth manages to move and form words. Lara sits hypnotized, listening to the man's rasping, earnest voice: "Humanity crouches unknowingly in the shadow of countless evils. Many forms of malevolence from the past are not dead, but wait with inhuman patience to slip into our world. And in our tainted daylight, we don't see them taking their places in our lives until it is too late."

Lara ponders why Von Croy is telling her this.

"I have been sent to inform you, Lara," he replies to her thought. "You may destroy the work of Eckhardt – the awakening of the Sleeper - but one battle is not the whole war."

"The Sleeper?" Lara asks.

"You will learn more about it later," Werner says. Blood seeps from the corners of his mouth, and a few rotten teeth fall out, landing on his blood-soaked shirt. "I cannot stay here. They are pulling me back …"

"Wait! How am I supposed to win this war you're talking about?"

"You will need an ally. The last warrior of the Lux Veritatis."

Lara frowns at the cryptic answer. "The what!"

Von Croy gives a slight smile. "Patience, child. He will come to you soon." The smile quickly disappears, replaced by a look of grave concern. "There are dangers, as yet unseen, that are aligned against both of you. A new world order is poised to emerge from the shadows. You must make your stand …"

-

Lara's eyelids fluttered up, and her bleary orbs gazed at the steering wheel of the Cleaner's jeep. She sat up on the driver's seat and looked through the windshield at a backstreet in Prague. A large clock above a pharmacy ahead revealed that it was 15:30 PM and 7.72 degrees outside.

"Another cold, dark city. Great."

Lara had spent the night speeding across France and Germany, finally entering the Czech Republic at 07:15 AM. She had used one of Bouchard's fake passports to get past the borders – her new identity was that of a Mrs. Katharina Gutenberg, German housewife. At 8 o'clock, she had reached Prague and, not bothering to find a hotel, parked on this backstreet to sleep in the vehicle.

She left the car, walked across the snow-carpeted road and entered a newsstand. A small TV on the counter was turned on to a newscast about the Vasiley murder, but Lara couldn't understand the Czech reporter. Besides, the clerk soon changed the channel to a soccer-game.

Lara searched the shelves for an English paper and found the latest edition of London Times. It had a short article about Vasiley: 'Prague, capital of the Czech Republic, was the scene of the latest Monstrum killing today. The notorious serial killer has been terrorising Paris in recent months, but police in Prague say that all the characteristics of a typical Monstrum killing are present in the case of art-dealer Mathias Vasiley's death.'

Lara skimmed down until she found the victim's address. She replaced the paper on the shelf and returned to the Cleaner's jeep. Rummaging through the glove compartment, she pulled out a map of Prague and found that Vasiley's home was only a few miles from here.

The tires cut grey marks through the snow as she drove towards the crime scene.

Prague, or Praha, was founded in the ninth century by the Premyslid dynasty. For almost 1000 years, it has been one of the great cultural centres of Europe, boasting such tourist attractions as the Charles Bridge and the Týn Church. The city is also known as "The City of a Hundred Spires", thanks to its countless church steeples and towers. However, Lara couldn't see any of those from the bleak district she was driving through.

Having reached the square before Vasiley's five-storey neo-Gothic abode, Lara stopped the car in a gateway and stepped out. The thick layer of snow crunched under her booted feet. Cold, bitter wind swept across her exposed face and arms.

"Don't you just love this weather?"

-

A/N: Glossary: Mi fili: My son. Otium est pulvinar diaboli: Idleness is the pillow of the Devil. Lux Veritatis mecum: Light of truth be with me. Rýchly: quickly.