Chapter 13: Monstrum crime scene

The square was buried under a layer of pristine snow, about one and a half feet thick. Icicles hung from the elaborately carved stone-fountain in the middle. All the cars' hoods were covered under snow, save for one red vehicle parked at an alley opposite Vasiley's abode. The engine was running, warm smoke emanating from the exhaust pipe.

A short, middle-aged guy stood next to the car. He wore a light brown coat over a white shirt with black tie. His face was adorned by a slight moustache, glasses and a hat which looked like it had been taken straight out of an old Humphrey Bogart film. Lara approached the film noir-detective and asked: "What do you know about that building over there?"

"Eh … what?" The detective's voice was, unlike Bogart's, pervaded by a Czech accent.

"The one you're watching?" Lara said, referring to Vasiley's huge, neo-Gothic house. "With police tape all round it."

"The Vasiley place? It's a murder scene. I'm a reporter."

"So what happened in there?"

"Another Monstrum killing," the reporter stated what Lara already knew. "You're not from around here …"

"No. I need information – which I'd be willing to pay for." Lara produced 30 Euro and tucked the bills into the journalist's coat pocket. "I gather Vasiley was some kind of art dealer?" she continued.

"More than that," the reporter said. "He was involved with the Mafia."

"Mafia? What makes you think so?"

"Lady, I know so. I've been investigating Vasiley's activities for some time."

"Tell me why he was murdered then," Lara inquired. She doubted Vasiley had ever had anything to do with Czech Mafia, but truth could sometimes be deduced from even the most ridicolously false information.

"Vasiley found something they wanted and got smudged, because he tried to hang onto it," the reporter said, his tone filled with pity. "They set the Monstrum on him."

"How could you possibly know that?" Lara asked.

"Because of the way he was spread out all over the place. Messy!" the reporter eloquently commented.

"You say he found something," Lara said, not interested in the gory details of the murder itself. "Do you know what it was? A painting perhaps?"

The reporter shook his head. "I don't know about that, but he was definitely silenced. The mafia tidied away all the evidence. Took it to the Strahov."

"Now you're going to tell me what the Strahov is, aren't you?"

"Ne. Your credit just ran out."

Lara stuffed 15 more Euro into the reporter's pocket. "Keep talking till the money runs out."

"It's not that," the reporter explained. "This is dangerous stuff I'm telling you. I shouldn't be shooting off my mouth …"

"You're a big boy. You can handle it," Lara said in her most reassuring tone. "Tell me your name."

"Luddick. My name's Luddick."

"Okay, Luddick. What else?"

"The Strahov is the Mafia centre of operations in Prague," Luddick said. "There's been a lot of activity there recently."

"What kind of activity?"

"Blacked out cars have been arriving all week. And there was a lorry convoy shipping in crates from Turkey. Something big is going on."

Lara raised an eyebrow. "You're well informed."

"I'm a professional! It's my business! I've got dossiers on all the main players. It'll cost you …"

"OK, I'm in." Lara handed the reporter her last 25 Euro.

Luddick reached into his car, opened the glove compartment and produced a few crumpled, typewritten papers with snapshots attached.

"You call these dossiers? Yeuch!" Lara spat, regretting that she'd wasted so much cash on this scant info. She ran her eyes over the photos and noticed one of Bouchard, standing in a bland, dark room. "Do you know who that is?" she asked, pointing to the Frenchman.

Luddick shook his head. "Ne. He arrived yesterday."

"That's Bouchard," Lara said. "He's a Parisian gang boss. I ran into him over a … personal matter."

"Really?" Luddick said, interest piqued. "Is he Paris Mafia then?"

"No idea. Who's that?" Lara pointed at a photo of Eckhardt.

"That's Eckhardt. He's the Mafia top guy, from what I can find out, but I know less about him than the others. They're all gathered in the Strahov at the moment."

"Is that it?" Lara said, dissatisfaction in her voice. "Is that all you've got?"

"For what you're paying, you've got plenty," Luddick grumbled.

"I need to get in there, Luddick, and you're going to tell me how."

"Not without cash. The Strahov is heavily guarded. Security gates, cameras, ident scanners … But I could get an access code. I have contacts. It'll take me half an hour."

"OK. While you're on your errand, I'm going to start with Vasiley's." Lara glanced at the gloomy house at the opposite side of the square.

"Be careful in there," Luddick said. "And don't keep me waiting. It's not healthy to hang about on the streets. Especially in weather like this …"

"Stay warm." Lara crossed the square and walked down a narrow alley behind Vasiley's abode. She found a trapdoor in the middle of the snow-covered ground at the end. A sturdy-looking lock secured the trapdoor. Fortunately, a claw hammer lay on a nearby trash can. Lara picked up the tool and used it to rip the lock off. She quickly pulled the trapdoor open and dropped into the tunnel below.

The sewers reeked of sludge, rats and other unpleasantness, but at least the air was slightly warmer than the icy streets above. Lara followed the tunnel and proceeded along a sewage-filled trench. A hole had been blown in the wall farther down, grey rubble still scattered on the floor. This was undoubtedly where the Monstrum had forced its entry to the Vasiley building. Lara followed in the killer's footsteps and walked through the hole, into a dusty cellar. Two exits led out – a red, locked door in the far right corner and an open doorway in the left wall. Lara crossed the basement, stepped through the left doorway and up a short flight of stairs.

A fragrance of antique wood and 15th century canvas pervaded Vasiley's home. Lara walked stealthily through a corridor with prints of Van Gogh and Picasso hanging on the walls. Her footsteps were nigh noiseless on the polished wooden floor. The second door on her right opened into the late art dealer's study. Lara's eyes widened at the sight of a familiar Frenchman standing with his back to her at the desk.

"Bouchard! What are you doing here?" Lara thought and quietly pulled out her Rigg 09. She crept up behind the man and pressed the muzzle against his temple. Bouchard gasped and shot her an astonished look.

"Your luck just ran out," Lara grumbled. She drew the pistol back, then smacked it into Bouchard's face. He instantly collapsed on the floor.

Lara searched through his pockets and soon found two silvery bracelets connected by a steel chain. "Handcuffs!" Lara glanced at the unconscious man. "Expecting trouble, were we?"

She grabbed Bouchard by the armpits and dragged him across the parquet floor. A Victorian chair was located in the corner. Lara roughly lifted Bouchard and placed him in the chair, using the handcuffs to tie his right hand to a radiator.

Waiting for Bouchard to wake up, she looked at the papers on Vasiley's mahogany desk. According to one of the documents on the 'Periapt shards', they were said to be three 'weapons of light' – crystalline shards shaped like spearheads. No one was sure how they worked, but they were the only thing that could harm or weaken Eckhardt. The Lux Veritatis used all three shards to keep Eckhardt locked away in a hellish pit for 500 years. In 1945, something happened that released the Black Alchemist from the pit. The Cabal had a hand in.

Behind Lara, Bouchard regained consciousness and struggled to get up from the Victorian chair. When he saw the handcuffs on his right wrist, he groaned audibly and leaned back in the antique furniture. "Oh fuck …"

Lara pivoted and walked up to the Frenchman. "I said I'd take care of you later," she frowned. "Now, I want some answers, Bouchard. Why did you want me dead in Paris?"

"You were just a side issue," Bouchard said. "A loose end that needed tidying up."

Lara narrowed her eyes to angry slits. "Who ordered it?"

"A madman called Eckhardt. He was putting pressure on all my operations, threatened my family, killing my men … You saw one of them at the church."

Lara still remembered the miserable, mutilated guy slowly dying in the hideout cell. "Arnaud."

Bouchard nodded.

"That Eckhardt's a real psycho, huh?"

"The worst," Bouchard said. "Eckhardt is the Monstrum."

"And what, exactly, were you doing for him?"

"I had to take delivery of a painting that was in the Louvre and bring it to the Strahov, here in Prague."

"My painting!" Lara's grip tightened on her pistol. "It wasn't easy to get that out of the Louvre."

"Seems everyone's a loser," Bouchard stated.

"So why Prague?"

"Eckhardt is protected by a group based in Prague called the Cabal. They're almost as dangerous as Eckhardt, and at least as insane."

"The Cabal?" Lara said, recalling what Luddick had told her. "Not the Mafia?"

Bouchard shook his head. "They're far more sinister than the Mafia. No one even knows how old they really are, but I have seen records suggesting that they were active during the Second World War."

"Interesting," Lara commented. "I was told the Mafia ran Prague."

"The Cabal uses the Mafia as a front, to distract attention from their real activities. But they're far more dangerous and powerful."

Lara raised an eyebrow. "Dangerous enough to use the Mafia as a front!"

"Anyone too inquisitive about Cabal business simply disappears," Bouchard said.

"Like my friend Von Croy … What was his involvement in all this?"

"He was hired to locate one of the five Obscura paintings that was in the Louvre," Bouchard explained. "But he found out too much. He contacted Vasiley here in Prague, and they exchanged information."

"So, they were working together?" Lara said.

"Trading information, nothing more. Vasiley worked alone. He also kept the fifth engraving back."

Lara nodded. "I know that. But why are the engravings important?"

"Each engraving contains an encoded map of a particular painting's location," Bouchard said.

Lara put two and two together. "So one of those engravings told Von Croy where the Louvre painting was …"

"Yes, but your friend got careless. The faxes were intercepted by the Cabal. And then, Eckhardt didn't need Von Croy. He was another loose end, to be tidied up like Vasiley."

"Killed, not tidied up!" Lara yelled, exasperated. "Why does Eckhardt desecrate the bodies like that?"

"It's to disguise something he does to them." Bouchard's voice was lowered to a fearful whisper. "He takes things from the bodies. Things he needs to revive the Cubiculum Nephili."

Lara remembered the info from Von Croy's notebook. "The Cubiculum Nephili - the Sleeper. Last of the extinct Nephilim race."

"You've heard of the Sleeper!" Bouchard said, surprised. "Eckhardt is insane. He thinks he can use the Sleeper to breed the extinct Nephilim back into existence."

"There's no faulting his ambition, is there?" Lara mused. "So, this fifth engraving that Vasiley kept back is the key to the last Obscura painting. I'm going to take a look around."

"It'll be well hidden," Bouchard said. "Vasiley was very cautious."

"Not cautious enough."

"The map in the last engraving shows a location called the 'Vault of Trophies'. The Vault was one of the last Lux Veritatis secret strongholds, and Eckhardt's been desperate to get into it."

Lara frowned suspiciously. "How do you know all this stuff, Bouchard?"

"Information is survival," Bouchard stated. "I survive."

"So do you know where the Vault is located?"

Bouchard shrugged. "Only that it's beneath the Strahov somewhere."

"And the painting is definitely there?"

"Eckhard thinks so. It's one of the reasons the Cabal built their stronghold there."

"I'm going to take a look around," Lara said and started walking towards the door to the apartment's main room.

"Are you going to leave me like this!" Bouchard protested, still handcuffed to the radiator.

Lara halted and looked over her shoulder. "Yes, take a break. You've been running around a lot. I'll be back with the fifth engraving." She stepped into Vasiley's library and main gallery, closing the door behind her.

Alone in the study, Bouchard muttered to himself with a completely different voice, one which Lara had never heard: "Well, that was amusing."

His right hand suddenly changed shape. It shrunk into a fluid, undiscernible lump of skin and flesh, effortlessly slipping out of the handcuff's metal bracelet. The hand then grew back to its normal size in the blink of an eye.

Bouchard stood from the chair and walked through the short hallway, down to the cellar. He stepped out on the street, grinning wryly.

"Very amusing indeed."

-

A/N: Hurray for Nephilim shapeshifting …