Chapter 3: Out of the Louvre

Lara's reaction took everyone in the room by surprise. However, her advantage didn't last much. As soon as Karel hit the floor, he threw a ball of green fire at her, and through Lara was able to move out of its way in time, it hit her on her right arm. As everyone was watching the scene happening in the centre of the room, nobody noticed that Kurtis has managed to get of the guards that were holding him and knocked them out. Lara leant against the wall holding her injured arm in pain. Karel got up from the floor and approached Lara with other ball of fire in his hand.

"A person with your career should have known better that you should make yourself indispensable, before doing something stupid like trying to escape. You could have lived to see the birth of a new world." He said

"Then I think that I am not missing anything." Answered Lara.

Karel raised his hand preparing to hit Lara with the green fire. However, a gun shoot stopped him. He looked at his hand that it was now bleeding from the point the bullet had hit him. The wound didn't need more than ten seconds to heal, and Karel turned around to see Kurtis holding the gun of one of his guards.

He started shooting again, knowing that it will not hurt his opponent, but hoping that it may give them time to escape. Besides, he knew that it was an advantage that they need them alive, so they wouldn't try to kill him. He was right, none of the soldiers though about shooting him and the bullets managed to hold Karel for sometime. By then Lara had taken her own weapon and started to shoot some of the soldiers. However, Gunderson had started reorganising his men and she had to hide behind the door of the room next to the one they were staying. The soldiers, led by Gunderson imitated her and took refuge behind the columns.

Karel fell to the floor due to his wounds. Without hesitation, Kurtis took the map from Karel's hand and went out of the room through the door Lara was hiding behind. As soon as she saw him, she beckoned to him and began running.

"Where are we going?" asked Kurtis

"To the exit. We need to find a way of getting rid of this people."

Their advance through the museum wasn't really quickly, as they both were injured. However, Lara knew exactly where they should go. She headed for the lower floors of the museum, the place where the inauguration was being held and, most importantly the place that was the most heavily guarded.

Total silence fell over the party, as the sound of gunshots came from one of the corridors. Nobody dared to move, although the noise was clearly approaching to them. IsisDeiyan, knowing what it meant, was trying to think about something to prevent her sister's ally obtain the map and still getting out of this situation without being seen.

She approached one of the glass cabinets, the one that seemed to contain the most valuable objects in the room and waited. Then she saw a woman running into the room, closely followed by a man. IsisDeiyan leaned on the cabinet and it fell to the floor, totally by chance.

Lara heard the sound of broken glass coming from somewhere in the room, but didn't stopped to look at it. The room was full of people, so someone must have knocked something over. She could only though that her plan wasn't working. None of the guards of the museum had appeared yet and when they reached the exit, their chances of escape will reduce, if their pursuers weren't held behind.

Only when she crossed the door of the room, did she realise that it was closing behind them. They both stopped for a moment and watched through the bullet-proof glass, how all the exits of the room were closed, imprisoning Karel and his men. As they knew that it wouldn't last long, they started running again. None of them noticed a black-eyed woman watching their movements, standing next to a pile of broken glass.

Soon they reached the exit and,

Karel couldn't believe that the doors had closed right in front of them. He looked around the room and saw a broken cabinet lying on the floor. So that had been the cause of the closing of the doors. One of those mortals was the cause of his failure. If he had the time, he would let his rage kill them all. However, he needed to get out of the room. Not that it really mattered if he was caught, but the less attention he attracted to hi activities, the better.

He waited till his men managed to open a hole in one of the walls and exited the room. As he was leaving, he turned his head around and saw a woman, who took his attention. He looked into her black eyes but didn't find the fear that was in everybody else in the room. She was totally calmed and returned his gazed with a proud cold one of her own.

By the time the police arrived, they were only able to find a lot of people paralysed by fear. A police inspector started talking to the crowd in front of him, but nobody seems to listen to him. A woman approached the inspector. She has long dark hair, black eyes, but what took the inspector's attention was her expression of calm.

"Look" she said "I am not going to try to convince you that I am here by chance. You will not I am not when you read the list of guest. But it is really important that nobody knows that I have been here."

The policeman was impressed.

"I supposed that you have nothing to do with the broken cabinet that turned the security system on, do you?

She smiled "Do you see the hole in the wall? I could not let the people who do that obtain what they have come for. You can't do anything against them, but I do have a chance, if they don't know that I am after them. I know I can't expect you to trust me but I can assure you that, if they find me, they've probably try to open a hole through me like the one in the wall."

"I don't know why I believe you, but I probably have to thank you that there hasn't been a bigger disaster."

"I promised to keep you informed" she said as she went out of the room.

Karel was furious as he returned to his headquarters. He headed for his room, thinking about his next step.

"I guess something has gone wrong, hasn't it." Princess Ellein was standing in one of the corridors

"Nothing I can't control."

"Be careful. Arrogance is not a virtue, not even among your race. You might know were my key is and where is yours, but the other two are out of your reach yet."

"I'm not the only one who should be careful. You know there are a lot of people willing to see you die and you wouldn't want any more enemies because of your pride."

She gave him a cold glace, turned around and disappeared down the corridor. Well, he might not know where the keys were, but he knew who knew it. It couldn't be that difficult to follow them.

Lara stopped the car and got out of it. She couldn't think of a better place to hide. They couldn't go to a hotel and it was unlikely that someone my look for her there. Kurtis had also got out of the car and was watching the building in front of him, a block of flats.

"I would have never imagine that you have an apartment in Paris." said Kurtis

"It is not mine. I was the house of a friend." answered Lara

"And I supposed that he wouldn't mind if you break into his house in the middle of the night and tell him that half of the Parisian mafia is after you." He said sarcastically.

"He is dead. Karel killed him."

Kurtis didn't know if he should worry about what he had said or about the fact that he was going to sleep in the same place Karel had carried out his macabre rituals.

Well this is the end of another chapter. I am going to try to really start the plot and explain some things in the next chapter or so. I will also try to make the longer.

Thanks to all the people who have read (and also the ones had reviewed) my story so far.