Slouching Toward Bethlehem
A continuation of Lara Croft Tomb Raider: The Angel of Darkness.

Disclaimer:
I do not own any recognisable characters that appear in this piece of fiction. Lara Croft, Kurtis Trent and others are property of Eidos and Crystal Dynamics. The only thing I own is some OCs and the plot. This story was written for pleasure only. I am making no profit from this story.

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» Chapter Nine: Cubiculum Nephili II »

"Lara?" Kurtis asked, voice hushed as he lowered his Boran X, "What the hell are you doing here?"

"Never mind me," Lara answered, holstering her own weapon, "What are you doing here?"

Kurtis leaned back against a stack, its shelves currently holding a collection of Biblical texts.

"Leading authority on the Nephilim?" He turned towards her, raising his eyebrows. "He's gotta know what Karel is up to."

Lara took that in and then frowned. Kurtis was leaning heavily against the stack, holding his side.

"Let me see," she murmured, moving forwards and meeting his gaze. He made no move to stop her as she slowly lifted his shirt, inspecting his bandaged torso. When she was happy with what she saw she let go of the fabric of his shirt, letting it fall back over his stomach.

"Your face is all over the news," she told him, breaking the silence.

"Tell me about it," he replied, "I've been chased all over the damn hospital by Karel and his men, and now I'm wanted by the police. Talk about a bad day." He closed his eyes and ran a hand through his already quite ruffled hair. Suddenly Lara noticed just how tired Kurtis looked.

"How did you get in?" she ventured, deciding not to voice her concern over his condition, "I take it you didn't just stroll in the front door."

Kurtis laughed.

"Nah, there's a service entrance in the warehouse," He rubbed the back of his neck with his free hand. "I sorta kinda broke in through the back."

Lara smiled.

"So much for subtlety."

Kurtis returned her smile, walking over and sitting down on the edge of the desk, by now piled high with books about the Nephilim.

"You never did answer my question," Kurtis said, "What are you doing here?"

"I came for the literature," Lara replied, folding her arms and putting on a scandalised look. Kurtis hiked an eyebrow at her. "Fine," she relented, "I came to beat some information out of the librarian."

"That sounds more like you Croft," he answered, twirling his Boran X about his fingers and sitting up from his position on the desk top, "Let's go kick some librarian ass."

"Wait a minute," Lara told him, striding over to the desk. She began to fill her backpack with as many books as possible. "There might be something in these books that can help us."

Kurtis simply stood still as she did the clasp on her backpack, swinging the thing over her shoulders.

"OK, let's go talk to the bastard."

"You mean that bastard?" Kurtis asked, indicating behind her with a nod of his head.

Lara spun around and came face-to-face with Luther Rouzic. He held a pistol in his hands, and it was aimed straight at them.

"Don't move," Rouzic ordered, as Lara went for the concealed weapon at her ankle. "Put it on the floor."

Lara exchanged glances with Kurtis, before slipping her gun from its holster and placing it on the ground before her.

"You too," Rouzic said, indicating the Boran X still in Kurtis' hand, "Drop it!"

Kurtis raised an eyebrow.

"You wish."

Rouzic simply re-aimed his pistol at Lara.

"Either drop your weapon or her death will be on your conscience."

Without hesitating Kurtis dropped his Boran X. It landed on the carpeted flooring with a dull thud. Rouzic moved forward, his weapon aimed on the pair the whole time as he retrieved their weapons from the floor. He slipped the newly-acquired guns into the inside pocket of his jacket.

"I'm sure Master Karel will be very happy to know of your whereabouts Mr. Trent," Rouzic stated calmly, his tone holding a noticeable trace of malice.

Lara and Kurtis managed to snatch a glance at each other.

He doesn't know about the Chirguai!

"What has Karel offered you to help him out?" Lara asked, drawing Rouzic's attention away from Kurtis, "A million pound fortune? Eternal life? A pet Nephilim?" She made a clawing motion down the side of her face. "You've got a bit of a scratch... Don't play nice do they?"

Rouzic's eyes blazed with anger, and it looked as though he would have shot Lara there and then, if not for the Chirguai which suddenly flew at his head. He barely managed to avoid the bladed disc in time, and the distraction was enough for Kurtis to rear back and smash his fist into Rouzic's face. The librarian reeled back from the blow, and Lara took the opportunity to kick the weapon out of his hand. She then spun around and delivered a hard roundhouse kick to his chest.

The kick knocked Rouzic off his feet, and he fell to the ground a few metres away with a thud. Lara quickly moved over to his unmoving form, placing a booted foot on top of his neck. She then proceeded to retrieve their weapons from within Rouzic's jacket, removing her foot when her gun was once again in her hands.

Kurtis took his Boran X from Lara, replacing his Chirguai at his waist and aiming the gun straight towards the librarian at his feet.

"What is Karel up to?" he demanded, "What the fuck does he want with me?"

Rouzic simply smirked.

"I have no idea," he answered, "I am but a humble librarian."

Kurtis did not seem to find this funny, and released the safety on his Boran X.

"What is Karel up to?" he repeated, "What do you know?" When Rouzic continued to remain silent, Kurtis unclasped the Chirguai from his belt and let the bladed disc hover at his shoulder. "I wonder what your face would look like with a couple more scratches down the left-hand side? Might just create some kind of symmetry."

Rouzic looked hard into the Lux Veritatis' eyes and realised he was deadly serious.

"There's some files," he said finally, redirecting his gaze towards Lara, "On my computer. Karel was looking at them the last time he was here."

Lara took that in. "What is in these files?" she asked.

"I don't know," was the reply, "I wasn't allowed to look at the actual files, but I'm pretty sure they have something to do with the Lux Veritatis."

Kurtis was silent for a moment.

"Fine. Get up," he ordered, "Show us these files."

Rouzic got slowly to his feet, and Kurtis led the way to the librarian's desk as Lara walked at the rear, Vector-R35 pressed up to the back of Rouzic's head. She forced the man into the leather swivel chair in front of his desk, keeping her gun at his head.

"Open the files," she told him.

Rouzic gave her a wary look. She pressed her weapon a bit harder into his head.

"Do not mess with me Luther," she hissed.

The librarian redirected his attention to the computer screen before him, fingers flying furiously across the keyboard. After a few more seconds of typing a dialog box flashed up on the screen.

"I need a password to get in," he said, turning his head slightly to look at Lara.

"Let me guess, you don't know the password."

He shook his head.

"Jesus," Kurtis breathed, "Just hack into the system or something."

"That might take a bit longer," Rouzic told him.

"How much longer?" Lara replied.

"About ten minutes."

Lara rubbed her temples in frustration. She was sure the damn librarian was doing this on purpose.

"Alright," she said finally, "You've got ten minutes to get in. Any longer and-" She waved her gun threateningly.

Rouzic nodded.

Lara and Kurtis went and sat on a nearby desk whilst the librarian attempted to hack into the system. They were near enough so that he could not slip away unnoticed, and Lara continued to watch him out of the corner of her eye as she spilled the contents of her backpack onto the desk.

"Take off your shirt," she told Kurtis, and, although puzzled by the request, he did so, pulling the fabric over his head and revealing his bandaged stomach.

"I'm gonna have to rewrap the wound," she offered as an explanation, "You've been holding your side this entire time. Don't think I haven't noticed."

Kurtis sighed.

"Fine, I'm in pain. You don't need to go on about it."

Lara simply smiled at him as she unwound the linen from his stomach. A few of his stitches had come undone and there was a small amount of bleeding, but no cause for significant alarm.

"I've met a lot of men in my time," she said, washing away the blood with some water and spare bandage from her medkit, "You're all the same... Never want to admit when you're weak."

"I am not weak!" Kurtis replied, and then proceeded to cry out as Lara prodded his tender stomach.

She smirked at him.

"Bitch," he muttered, watching as she wound a fresh layer of bandages around his torso. He snatched a glance over his shoulder to make sure Rouzic had not sneaked off. He was still sitting at his desk, typing away.

"What are you gonna do with our little friend over there?" Kurtis asked.

Lara finished wrapping his stomach, knotting the linen at the side so it would hold in place.

"I don't know," she answered, beginning to pack everything back into her backpack, "I've already been wanted for murder once this month. Not too ecstatic about going there again."

Kurtis pulled on his shirt and opened his mouth to say something but a loud 'Aha!' from behind interrupted him. Lara scooped up her backpack and they both hurried over to see Rouzic's progress.

"I'm in," he proclaimed, pressing a key and bringing up a folder full of documents.

Lara began to scan the screen before her, looking for anything of relevance. Suddenly something caught her eye.

"Open that one," she told him, pointing at a folder marked 'Cubiculum Nephili II'.

Rouzic clicked on the icon, bringing up a page full of unintelligible rune-like text.

"Bugger," Lara said, "Can you translate this?"

Rouzic squinted his eyes and looked at the screen.

"Yes," he affirmed, "Although only half of the original text is here."

"What does it say?" Kurtis asked impatiently.

"It says..." Rouzic scanned the screen, "The blood of the Order will bring forth their race, given as a sacrifice in the very heart of their realm. And they will spill over the Earth, pillaging and burning and destroying, and the sons of Men will cower before them and be afraid. So it is written and so it shall be."

TBC...

Sorry for not updating yesterday like I said I would, I was really really ill. I think it was because of too much christmas food and too many late nights...Updates for this story might take a bit longer soon. I'm going to have write a lot of filler between the next few chapters, since I had not completed some of this story. I have the most important chapters down though, so hopefully it won't take too long. Oh, and just so you know, this story is going to have a sequel! I have a few ideas floating around in my head, but obviously the next story is going to take a lot longer to write since I am starting from scratch...