Chapter 7: Killer

At first, she'd laughed at the pain. She'd had more painful cramps. She'd had to gnaw on wounds to extract bullets, place dislocated bones and twist disjointed joints. That was nothing. She smiled.

Marie had also smiled. Be careful, she warned. You all do the same. Soon you won't be laughing anymore.

And she was right, as always, for that was her specialty. As the hours passed, the pain became more constant. Longer. More intense. She stopped smiling and frowned. Well, she'd deal with it. It wasn't that hard.

Hours later it became unbearable and she began to curse under her breath, being tempted to let go of all the blasphemous swearing and vile words she had always heard from soldiers and never uttered, because she was, above all, very polite.

No. She wasn't going to swear like a vulgar villager - and above all, she was not going to scream.

In the end, the only thing she was aware of was that horrible pain turning her into a useless piece of trash. She hated that feeling of helplessness, of not knowing what to do. She hated it with all her might.

Even Marie's voice, which calmed and guided her, dissolved into the whirlwind of pulsating pain in which her body had become, but she did feel him incorporate her, encircling her with his arms and leaning her against his chest. She grabbed him with such strength as to crush his arms, but he didn't even wince.

It's ok, he told her. Breathe. I'm here.

He might have looked like a soulless brute, but he was clever and read fast. When he finished, he dropped the last folio on the table, leaned back on the couch, rubbed his eyes, and let out a long sigh of weariness.

Selma didn't dare say anything. It had been enough to read the expression on his face when he returned to her apartment hours later. She didn't know what to think.

For a moment silence fell between them. There was only the ticking of her father's wall clock, a distant memory in the past. Seeing Kurtis' face, Selma had got Zip out, taking Anna with him for a walk before the girl could realize what was happening to her father. And Marie, who was so adept at intruding as she was at getting out of the way, had managed to be taken to a nearby but comfortable hotel by taxi, of course.

So it was just her and him. After all, the Navajo woman already knew what she should know.

In the end, she couldn't stand it any longer. "So?" The archaeologist murmured, half cowering in the armchair next to him.

Kurtis sighed and pressed the bridge of his nose with two fingers. "Selma, Selma, Selma…" He murmured softly. "Have you lost your mind?"

The Turk released the air she kept in her lungs and dropped back. "It's just a harmless thesis about my work in Cappadocia during the last seventeen years..." She stopped when the man stared at her with his penetrating blue eyes, and for a moment, a slight grimace animated the corner of his lips. Instinctively he began to feel the back pocket of his pants, looking for cigarettes. "A harmless thesis..." He took out a cigarette, put it in his mouth and after taking the lighter, lit it with a click. "So why are you asking me permission to publish it?"

He leaned back on the couch and slowly expelled a volute of smoke. Selma was not enthusiastic about having smokers around her, but she couldn't find it appropriate to say anything about it. "Well, ehr..." Selma blushed slightly. "After all, it's about your story. Your ancestors. Your world…"

"And you tell me now?"

She sighed. "I didn't want to... disturb..."

"… my happiness?" Now, a big, bitter grin crossed his face. "Ah yes, I've been so happy, without Eckhardt, Karel, Nephili, hybrids, Gifts or mystical Orders. But here we are, stirring up all this shit again."

He was angry. Of course he was - and Lara had worsened it. Selma clenched her teeth and decided to resist. "I'm sorry Kurtis, but it's my life's work. As you can see," she patted the pile of pages, "I've not mentioned you, or Anna... not even Lara. As far as I'm concerned, the Heissturm bloodline ended with Konstantin."

"How nice of you." Kurtis took another drag on the fag. Selma didn't know if he was being sarcastic or not. It was difficult to know in his case.

"I've also camouflaged all the supernatural as myths and legends. To protect you, and also to protect me."

He slowly let out the smoke between the corners of his lips and laughed quietly. "Oh, Selma, you're so naive." He leaned toward her. "Yeah, scientific community will respect you and academics will praise your ability to tell nice tales. But out there," He held out the arm holding the cigarette towards the door, "there's a lot of nerds ready to swallow any shit you let them - and a prestigious and renowned university professor giving that inch only makes it better."

Selma's eyebrows rose. "Since when do we care what nerds think? Internet is full of garbage, also on these topics. I'm not bringing anything new. Which of them is a threat to us?"

"Not them." Kurtis took the fag back to his mouth. "But those who track, investigate and use them as an information channel to reach us, yes."

"I thought all our enemies were dead."

Kurtis arched an eyebrow. A shudder ran down Selma's back. "Kurtis..."

"I've been tracking that bastard of Schäffer for years. Still not been able to catch him..."

"Oh, Kurtis ..."

"And as far as I know, Bathsheba might be alive. I never saw her corpse."

Selma had paled, if that was possible in her. "I don't think she survived... to..."

"We did, why not her? But let's leave it. I'm more concerned about Schäffer. He knows too much and he's very dangerous."

The Turk began to twist her hands nervously. "But... but if he wanted to hurt us... he'd have already tried, right?"

He smiled bitterly. "Not a fan of talking about this, but I've no choice." He looked into her eyes. "Y'know how many people I had to kill to hide the information you want to publish?"

"Oh, Kurtis!"

"I don't waste time figuring out their reasons. Being alive has cost me dearly. Lara's life, my daughter's life, has cost me dearly. So does yours, Selma. I'm not willing to gamble with them again." He let out a dry laugh. "Some of those I had to… terminate, were only indirectly involved - and others had nothing to do with it. They had just asked the wrong questions, had been in wrong places, at the wrong time. I have blood on my hands because of this, Selma." He hit the pile of pages with his finger. "And now you want to publish it."

She had bowed her head, contrite. "I... I didn't know."

"Well, now you know."

For a moment there was nothing heard in the room except for Selma's agitated breathing. Kurtis finished his cigarette and crushed it in the ashtray.

"Does Lara know?" She ventured at last.

"What?"

"That you... that you..."

"That I'm a killer?"

"Oh, Kurtis..."

"Of course she does. She always knew." He sighed. "Anna doesn't, of course, and right now I prefer things to stay like this. She's too young."

"She won't know from me." She promised, looking devastated. "But, Kurtis... I can't destroy this thesis... it cost me years of my life..." She stopped at the sight of Kurtis's bitter smile, and then they paraded before her, like a vision, the drawers filled with the bones of the Lux Veritatis she had extracted from Tenebra. "Sorry, I'm being selfish."

"Gotta say you're pretty brave too, considering what I've just told you."

Selma inhaled sharply and straightened. "You won't hurt me, Kurtis Trent."

"Of course not. I owe you my life."

"It was Minos Axiotis who saved you."

"Not just him." Kurtis leaned back to the thesis bundle. "So you're gonna pick up all the copies you have and bring them here."

She sighed. "I can't allow you to destroy the work of my life."

"It must be purged. You have to remove all references to the Nephili, the Cabal, Eckhardt – and above all, the Lux Veritatis."

"I can't. How will I present my thesis on Tenebra under these conditions? How to explain the bodies of the Nephili that I found? And your... your...", her voice hesitated, "... your people? How to explain what happened to them?"

"Anything before putting my daughter's life at risk again."

Suddenly, a light went on in Selma's mind. "Again? Did you say again?"

Kurtis didn't answer.

"Oh, my God..." She covered her mouth. "What...?"

"Nothing – not yet. There are always threats." He made a gesture with his hand. "But Lara and I've taken care of them. As usual."

"I thought... I thought..."

"There are two types of people, Selma: those who live their lives in peace and those who do the dirty work for others to live in peace. I belong to that last type of person."

"Even so, everything has gone pretty well so far, right?"

Kurtis didn't answer. Instead, he lit another cigarette. Selma rose discreetly and opened a window. She would let him smoke - she sensed he needed it – but no need to turn her apartment into a smokehouse. "What happened in Sri Lanka, Kurtis?" She said, looking out at the street without turning.

"Didn't Lara tell you?"

"Short version. She and Anna got stuck in that... hell. And you took them out of there." She turned to him. "But Lara is not acting very grateful right now, is she? Or did I miss something?"

Silence. Kurtis took another drag on the cigar.

"May I ask…"

"You may not."

She tilted her head. "I'm sorry." She murmured. And suddenly she said, "Anna didn't fall from a tree, right? That scar…"

Kurtis chuckled softly. "Did she tell you that?" She was so alike him in that. He hadn't been good at lying, never.

"Oh my God…"

"She's OK now."

"Lucky they had you."

Kurtis laughed again, but sounded bitter. "So... deal? Concerning your thesis."

Selma inhaled strongly. "It may not be that simple. Jean Yves..."

"... wants to enter Loanna's tomb. I know." Kurtis shook his head. "He'll never make it."

"Not unless someone makes way for him."

Kurtis didn't need half as much time as Lara to figure out what she meant. He stared at Selma again, expressionless.

Selma knew that lack of expression.

"The guardians of Al-Fayoum said they're waiting for Anna Heissturm. I'm sorry, Kurtis."

The man leaned forward and rested his forehead on the palm of his hand, as if suffering from a terrible headache. "Well, someone who's sorry." This time, the sarcastic dye could not be hidden. "Thank you, so nice of you."

"I understand this is not good news." She moved away from the window and this time she sat beside him on the sofa. "How…?"

Kurtis silenced her with a wave of his hand. The news had obviously disturbed him. "Well, now you know." He mumbled. "I won't make Anna the center of attention for mortals, now she's one for demons already... much less deliver her to Jean Yves to be used as a key to his personal ambition."

"Jean loves her, Kurtis, and you know it. He wouldn't "use" her as..."

"Oh, really?" Kurtis let out a snort and crushed the cigarette in the ashtray.

"He would never endanger her!"

"She won't be endangered." Kurtis laughed bitterly. "Those guardians are Lux Veritatis. They have kept Loanna's tomb for centuries. Now Anna's one of them. They will protect her until they're torn apart." He rose abruptly from the couch, grabbed his leather jacket together with Selma's thesis, and strode toward the door as he put it on abruptly.

"Kurtis." Selma said as soon as he opened the door. "I'm so sorry about all of this..."

He turned to her and lifted the file of papers. "Tomorrow I want the rest of the copies on your desk, Selma Al-Jazeera, including backups or files on Zip's computer. And if you care about Anna's life at all, don't hide anything from me."

"Kurtis..."

"I'm not asking, Selma." And the turned to go down the steps of the entrance. "Don't make it more difficult."

Again, the archaeologist's voice stopped him. "It'll get easier." She moved closer to him, who remained motionless. Selma never knew why he stopped. Maybe because he, more than anyone else, needed to be comforted. She put her hand on his arm affectionately. "All this will get easier, Kurtis. You'll see. Have patience."

He let out a sigh and gently get rid of her arm. "I've been patient enough," he whispered bitterly, and headed for his bike.

Not even then Selma could be quiet. It was heartbreaking to see him like this. "She will return, Kurtis!" She shouted. "She's a damn big head with the pride of a Janissary. But she will come back. She always comes back."

He didn't turn anymore, so she couldn't read the expression on his face. He simply started the engine and got lost in a trail of smoke.

There he was, waiting for her in the chapel, in front of the altar. Lying on the floor, his arms extended as if crucified and his cheek pressed against the hard, cold stone floor. Father Abraham Patrick Dunstan stood motionless and silent, barely mumbling a prayer. He heard the lady enter and her heels softly banging against the floor, then the soft creak of the wooden bench as she sat on it.

Concluding the prayer, he sat up, crossing himself, and reached for the bench to rise. The woman's hands held him as he rose heavily.

"Thank you, Angeline, my dear." He was getting old.

"Thank you for coming, Father." Lady Croft muttered, and moved respectfully to allow the priest to sit down next to her.

"So?" He said, smiling with that warm and reassuring smile of his. "We've not talked in years, my dear. Truth be told, your request has surprised me."

Lady Croft sighed and finally decided to get into the matter. "Sorry for bothering you, Father, but... actually, at this point, I've no one to turn to. I don't know what to think… but this is not a religious issue..."

"Tell me then, my dear, what is it?" He encouraged her calmly. As a priest, he was used to people coming to him for advice, not always related with religious matters. If only they knew he didn't know as much as they thought...

"I fear for my granddaughter, Patrick." Lady Angeline decided to abandon the title of father and call him by his first name, as in the old days, before they distanced from each other.

"For Anna?" The priest smiled. "What happens to our little Anna? I've never seen such a happy and carefree child."

Lady Croft shook her head vehemently. "No, she's not. Something horrible is happening to her. At first I sensed it, but now... now…"

Noticing her distress, the priest rested his hand on the old woman's clasped, strained hands, which writhed in her lap. "Tell me, dear."

Lady Angeline breathed in. "You know, when she was born, Lara allowed me to return to this place - to take care of her all these years, when no one else was available. There are things I will never approve of how she's being raised..."

"That's none of your business, dear Angeline. Be careful, your arrogance in the past took your daughter away from you. Don't make the same mistake with your granddaughter."

A spark of anger, of aristocratic pride, stirred the old woman's eyes. "You think I don't know, Patrick? I spend the days watching how they drag her from one place to another. God, they're raising her like a wild colt. And don't make me talk about that man! Because of him, Anna swears like a sailor..."

The priest laughed softly. "True, her language leaves room for improvement."

"But this time things went too far. Since she's come back from Sri Lanka... she's... she's acting weird, Patrick. She's changed. She's not her."

"I haven't seen her yet, but I heard rumours about certain student altercations in school." The priest laughed again. "In the end, just kid stuff."

"Kid stuff, that beating she took! Anyway, I don't want to talk about it. Patrick, I'm scared. Anna's not the same. She's lying to me... pretending when she's with me. She tricks me, she's hiding something from me. She had never done that. She had always been so frank, so honest - and that scar..."

Father Dunstan frowned. "What scar?"

"She came back from Sri Lanka with a terrible gash on her forehead. She told me she fell from a tree. She's lying, Patrick! My granddaughter never falls from a tree."

"Of course not." He smiled. "She's like her mother... like a monkey."

"I'm so scared for her! Something horrible happened to her in that place... and she doesn't talk about it! My daughter has not even shown up here..."

"Don't take offense, Angeline, but Lara's not avoiding her daughter. She's avoiding you."

"You think I don't know? I've already given up on Lara! But Anna..." Her eyes filled with tears. "I'm very worried about her!" The other day something horrible happened, Patrick. That... that man and his mother, the Indian..."

"You're talking about Mr. Trent and Mrs. Cornel."

"Whatever. They arrived to take the girl to Turkey, without warning!"

"They will be surely taking her to Professor Al-Jazeera. No need to worry, my dear. The girl is really beloved there."

"Let me finish!" She was getting more nervous. "The girl went down to greet that woman... and she was fine... and suddenly she paled as if she was a corpse. You should have seen her, Patrick! She looked like she'd seen a ghost! And then she screamed... Dear Lord, she screamed as if she had seen the Devil itself. I swear I'll never forget that cry. Not until the trumpets of the Last Judgment Day erase it from my ears..."

"Well, well." The priest smiled and patted her hand.

"...and then she ran away, running as if escaping hell! Then that woman looked at her son, at that man, and yelled a word."

"A single word?"

"Yes!"

"Which was…?"

"Farsee." Lady Angeline took a deep breath. "She said farsee, Patrick. And that man...ran after her."

Father Dunstan suddenly went mute and paralyzed. At the altered look on his face, Angeline began to tremble. "Oh, merciful God..."

"Angeline..."

"... you know what it is, don't you?" She gripped her head with her hands. "Of course you do! Everyone knows it here but me!"

"Angeline, please calm down."

"I don't want to calm down! Those two people, that woman and that man, know what happened to my granddaughter. They knew it from the first! Everybody here has taken me for a fool. For a useless old woman who doesn't know anything…"

"Not so, Angeline. It has nothing to do with you."

But she was not listening. "That woman didn't want to say a thing... she even made fun of me! With her middle-class arrogance. And when my granddaughter came back... Patrick, she was faking. She pretended not to know what had happened. But there, everyone knew - the three of them. Apparently, you know it too. The only one who doesn't know is me." She stopped and took another deep breath.

"I don't know exactly, Angeline, and of course it was a surprise what you told me. But if that's what I think, then..." He was thoughtful. Then he shook his head and laughed lightly. "So this is where the events are leading us to. Wow, wow... interesting."

The old lady stared at him in shock. "Interesting?" She shook her head. "Please, Patrick, tell me what on earth is going on. I'm really anguished for my granddaughter. I couldn't even help her being taken away..."

Father Dunstan smiled fondly. "Darling, no need to worry at all for your granddaughter. Anna will never be safer in this world than with her father."

Lady Croft snorted. "Why does everyone keep telling me the same? It's been fourteen years, but I still don't know a thing about that ma..."

"His name is Kurtis Trent."

"… whatever. That man makes a terrible impression on me. He knows what's going on. He did not even bother pretending! When he stabbed me with those eyes... so cold and blue... a shiver ran down my spine." She stiffened when hearing the priest laugh softly again. "I'm not joking, Patrick! There's something sinister about that man. Something... dark. He terrifies me."

"It's not darkness what you see, Angeline." The priest smiled sweetly. "Just a different kind of light. Believe me, that man is a guardian of the Good, a servant of the Light. If your daughter and granddaughter are alive, it's thanks to him. If this world is a better place, safer for the right people, it's thanks to him - and those who came before him."

Lady Angeline looked at him sideways and shook her head. "What are you talking about, Patrick?"

"The war between Good and Evil." The priest patted her hand again. "Remember what I used to be, Angeline? What did I do?"

The old lady stared at him for a moment, then nodded. "You were an exorcist."

"Exactly! I purged the world of demons, freed the poor souls from the chains of Evil." He sighed. "Actually, I was little more than an amateur. I finally met a true warrior of God."

"Patrick, I think you're delirious."

"Do you remember all those years I spent in Haiti, Angeline? Learning about witchcraft, voodoo and santería? Struggling against the evil spirits, learning their ways?"

Angeline crossed herself, horrified.

"Everything I learnt in my years of experience, all the souls I fought, my tireless combats against the Devil... are nothing beside what that man has done, Angeline. He's an extraordinary being. You can't imagine how much."

"Are you telling me he's an exorcist too?"

"He calls it differently." The priest laughed again. "But yes, basically he's spent his whole life exorcising the Evil of this world."

The old lady shook her head. "This is delusional, Patrick. Let's stop this unsavoury stuff. What does this have to do with my granddaughter? Is she possessed?"

"No. But if what you've told me is true, then she... she...could be like him."

"You're frightening me, Patrick."

"Well, it's a serious matter, but as long as he's with her, nothing will happen to her. That man would die for Anna, and for Lara as well." And he didn't say that, actually, he'd already done it once.

"It's impossible for me to be so wrong. That man is a dark soul."

"Only in the densest darkness you can see the most powerful light."

"Now you come up with poetry. Just what I needed." Lady Croft got up. "I was hoping to find advice and guidance on you, Patrick, but I only hear ravings."

"You cannot receive advice and guidance for your inability to listen beyond your hearing boundaries, Angeline."

"Stop tricking me and tell me the truth, Patrick!"

The priest didn't even wince. "You're not ready for the truth, my dear. I'm ignorant of whether you'll ever be. But don't be afraid: Anna is and will be fine. As long as he stays by her side and, knowing him," he smiled again, "he will."

Tossing Zip and Anna on the streets of Istanbul had definitely been one of Selma's worst decisions to date - but her concern with the present situation hadn't allowed her to think wisely.

For starters, it wasn't Zip who had taken Anna out for a walk, but the other way around. The crowded, bustling city was the perfect place for the girl to get lost while dragging an African-American nerd whose experience in the world was reduced to anything connected through the Internet. Not all the years he'd been in Istanbul with Selma had gotten him used to anything else.

The archaeologist lived buried in her books and as much moved to the university or to her excavations in Cappadocia, and he lived buried in his computers and the activities – half-legal or directly illegal - linked to them.

But Anna was young, vital and above all, she loved large, crowded cities almost as much as the wide, silent ruins of temples. Together with her mother she'd come to visit the major cities of the world and had learned that she should keep her eyes open, her mouth shut and stay by her side. Challenging these orders had brought her rather distress, when in Beijing she'd ended up in an opium den or when in the Marrakesh riad a band of glue-sniffers had turned all her pockets inside out. Lara hadn't even needed to scold her - she kept stuck to her for the rest of the trip.

Of course, that was just with Lara. Zip was another matter, and in addition, Istanbul, like Cairo, was affectionately familiar to her, despite its immensity. That familiarity led her to unconcern and then to carelessness.

So there she was, sitting at street level in the Beşiktaş district, not too far from Selma's flat, but near the harbour where passengers took the ferry across the Bosphorus. Not far from the hotel where Lara had taken refuge all that time.

Anna enjoyed sitting in a discreet place like a cat to watch the travellers pass through the port area - tourists of all nations, all kinds of people in a maremagnum of noisy crowds who smelled in every way possible and spoke all the thinkable languages. She watched them pass, fast and sure for those who knew the city well or were sure about where they went, and hesitant and suffocated for those who had no idea where they were or were simply stunned by the crowd. She liked to imagine where they came from, where they went, what their lives would be like, what their dreams would be like.

When younger, she'd even dared to ask them personally more than once.

Right then, however, she tried to place well the annoying gadget Zip had put in her ear. He wanted to test the range of the device, for which he'd moved quite a few streets away from her. After a couple of attempts, she finally heard the hacker's voice: "Earth to Little Monster. Earth to Little Monster."

"Little Monster's about to throw this in the first sewer she finds." The girl grunted, and finished putting a lock of brown hair over her ear to camouflage the device.

"Why you always complain about my stuff? Like your momma…"

"It's annoying." Anna shook her head uncomfortably. "And y'know that Mom hates to be told what to do. She likes to work alone."

"Well, Momma Croft wouldn't have managed to sneak the Iris from old Von Croy without me, so..."

"Booooriiing. You told me that tale a thousand times."

"Okay, whatcha want me to tell ya?"

"What you gonna be when you grow up? If you ever grow up, that is."

He heard Zip puff on the other side of the communicator, but, as usual, he followed her game. "I'm gonna be a cyborg."

"You, a cyborg?"

"Yes. I'm saving to have my brain cryogenized, so, when the cyborg era happens, it can be transplanted to a metal framed hunk."

Anna burst into laughter. "So many useful brains in the world, and they will take yours…"

"Alrighty, little spawn, now you fucked up. When I catch you I'll..."

Not that she didn't want to hear what he would surely not do to her – but suddenly, she stopped hearing anything around her.

Anna winced and stared at the crowd. There was only thick silence. She watched people's mouths move, gesture quickly, but she could not hear them. The whole city had fallen silent.

"Zip?" She shrieked in alarm, more than she should -but then she calmed down. It's okay, you idiot. Nothing happened. It's the Gift. Just the Gift. She wasn't sure, though.

Suddenly, a buzzing sound began to ring in her ears. She pulled Zip's device from her ear, but nothing changed. It was increasing. It increased.

And suddenly, a sound of aspiration, and again, silence.

Then she heard it. A dark voice, adult, cruel. Metallic.

Well, well. Look at that.

She looked around and stared at the mass of passers-by around her, but none of them seemed to look at her. They were all too absorbed in their affairs.

The little Croft bitch. What are you doing there alone?

Someone was watching her - but she couldn't locate him. She kept on scrutinizing the mass of people around her.

You lost, little one? Looking for your mommy? A dry laugh.

She tried hard to hide the fear she suddenly felt. Focus. Identify that voice. But it was impossible. He wasn't familiar to her. A hard, dry voice. A particular accent... she tried to figure it out...

How nice if I just crush her now. Who would notice?

Trembling like a leaf, she adjusted the device again in her ear and mumbled: "Zip? Something's wrong. I can't hear you. You gotta come."

Whatever. The voice seemed to speak to himself. Just a brat. Focus on the target.

And suddenly, the sound of the world returned to her.

The sudden roar of the street and the crowd, once they returned, made her jump. She sprang to her feet and began to rush through the crowd, pushing at each other despite the protesting.

"Anna?" Zip's voice was heard again through the communicator. "What's wrong? Where are you?"

"Gotta get outta here! There's a…!" A what? She asked herself. "Let's go to my mother's hotel!"

"Dunno where it is…"

"But I do! I tell you where I am and you follow me. Move!"

Zip snorted and began to retrace his steps. "Fuck," he grunted to himself. "Still a brat, and she's bossy like Momma..."

"So you didn't see anyone suspicious." Lara said calmly. It was a statement, not a question.

"I didn't!" Anna twisted the communicator between her hands before Zip's anguished look. "I studied very well everyone, as you told me..."

"If it's a pro, you'll never see him – his life and money depend on it." The explorer gazed at the hacker and murmured, "What's wrong with you?"

They were sitting at the hotel reception, talking in a discreet and carefree way, camouflaged between the comings and goings of customers. Lara had not wanted them to come into the room, in fact, she had ordered the staff to be have it cleaned. She didn't want her daughter to see the place in a mess. After that, she would have no authority to quarrel with her every time she left her room like a lion's lair, as she used to.

"Me... can you give it back, kiddo?" Anna tossed the communicator, which Zip caught in the air with a startle. "Hey watch out, it's expensive!"

"We must warn Dad about this."

"Shit, no, please." Zip buried his face in his hands. "Kurt's gonna kill me."

"Why?" Lara smiled slightly.

"I was babysitting her when this shit happ…"

"I'm not a baby!" Anna exploded, extremely offended. "You don't even know how to find yourself in this city!"

"It's huge! Too many streets!"

"Dude, you used to live in New York…"

"Ha! New York was like the backyard of my flat! This is Babel 2.0!"

Lara had stopped listening to them for a while. She was mentally reviewing the few sentences her daughter had heard say to that hired gun - but it could be anyone. The list of her enemies was endless... like Kurtis' one.

She's just a brat. Focus on the target.

Well, one thing was true. He was not after Anna. At least, not at the moment.

Anna stayed that night with Lara, in the hotel room, now clean and tidy. The girl raised an eyebrow - an expression that fit her own - as soon as she told her. "Really?" Anna looked around. "Isn't Dad coming?"

"No." Lara tried to hide her discomfort when finding that, indeed, her daughter assumed they would be together. "Would you mind telling him you're here? I'll be back."

She got into the bathroom while Anna was on the phone. Leaning against the wall, she heard her tell him, in her singing, unconcerned voice, what had happened. "Yes, yes, I'm fine... no, it was nothing. It was cool! I'll explain to you later... well, a little scary at first, so weird...! No, I'm telling you I'm fine! Oh, you're always like that, Dad... yes, I'm with Mom... yes, I've told her too... no, I don't need my stuff... I said I'm fine! No, my head doesn't hurt. No, I haven't had a nosebleed. Dad, you act like you're with the CIA."

Lara's gaze dropped to the sink and then she saw it - the flask of sleeping pills, now half full. With a flinch, she pulled away from the wall and grabbed it. How the hell had she left it there? She was about to throw it away when, suddenly, she hesitated. Surely, she would need them again...

Shaking her head vigorously, she turned, emptied the flask into the toilet, and flushed it.

No more pills.

Once again, she admired her daughter's surprising ability to overcome whatever strange or stressful things happened to her. While performing the nightly ritual they used to do since she was very young - which consisted of undoing their hair and combing each other before going to sleep while they told each other everything happened that day - at least, what could be said between mother and daughter - Anna went on chatting like a parrot, as if absolutely nothing had happened.

Sitting on the bed, Lara let her slowly undo her braid and brush her long hair. She knew she loved doing it. She'd been doing it since childhood, since her hands had been able to hold a brush, although at first she'd done nothing but torture her by pulling and twisting hair locks.

Over the years, she'd become skilled and careful. Lara almost fell asleep, as usual, as she felt Anna's hands go through her hair, undoing and brushing carefully. The girl was amazed at her mother's hair, which was never cut, and which she almost always wore braided, except for special events, when she combed it in some more artistic way. Otherwise, Lara didn't care too much about her hair, but that gesture so intimate, so close, did. She'd only allowed two people in all her life to touch her hair in such an intimate way. One was Anna, of course.

The other was Kurtis.

"... and then she told me, I'm afraid to go into the manor. Mom, she's afraid of the manor!" Her daughter was laughing while combing her. "I teased her about the T-Rex head, but no way."

"You know you can't enter the trophy room if I'm not at home."

"But I wouldn't touch anything. I just wanted to show her the T-Rex."

"Well, if she's afraid of the house, she won't like the T-Rex either."

"Oh, but she's so cute when she screams in panic..."

"You're so mean."

Lara could be described as cold by anyone who observed the mother-daughter relationship from the outside. Only those who knew her well knew that she was uncomfortable with outward expressions of affection. Truth be told, she loved Anna, of course, but in her own way, like a lioness cares about her cub. She'd learned to love her. Not like Kurtis, who'd loved her since he had known of her existence, since she was just a possibility.

She could never be like that, but Lara loved her - and the girl knew it.

"Earth to Mom." Anna's voice echoed in her left ear. "Earth to Mom."

Lara winced. "What? How?"

"I was wondering why you didn't tell me."

"What?"

"That I am a Lux Veritatis, dammit!"

The explorer rubbed her eyes. She was tired again. "It belonged to him to tell you." She looked around. "We should sleep. Long day ahead of us, tomorrow. We'll go to Cappadocia, to Tenebra."

Anna patted excitedly. "Finally!" She threw the brush randomly and curled up in the bed. "Selma says that we can later go to Göreme to see the fairy chimneys. I love fairy chimneys! Though what a cheesy name..."

She was still chattering half an hour later, in the dark, but Lara didn't mind. In a way, it was like a lullaby that filled the empty silence of the night. A silence that had become unbearable in the last three months.

"Mom…"

"Mmm?"

"Did you know about Grandma Marie?"

"No, I didn't. You heard of it before I did."

"Ah."

Silence. Thirty minutes later…

"Mom."

"Yes?"

"You and Dad had a fight, didn't you?"

Lara sighed deeply. "You should sleep, or tomorrow you won't be able to see your fairy chimneys."

"Don't be mean to him. He's very sad. And scared."

Silence.

"It's because of me?"

"No."

"Because I'm fine. I'm not even afraid of that guy..."

"Anna."

"Okay, okay, I'm asleep."

At midnight, Anna began to spin on the bed and kick, moaning, as if she were fighting an invisible enemy. Lara had not yet managed to sleep.

She reached out and held her, then let out a gasp of surprise. The girl burned like she was on fire - but it was not a worrying heat. Lara knew it. She had felt it when she held her in her arms in that Sri Lankan hospital. She had felt it too in Kurtis's skin, in Kurtis's body, when she had had him over and over again, before he sacrificed the Gift in exchange for their lives.

Anna moaned again, like in a nightmare. Lara wrapped her arms around her and pulled her close, hugging her from behind. She calmed down immediately. What had worked with the father, worked with the daughter.

Lara grew used to that unusual warmth. After a while, she barely noticed. Anna did not move anymore.

I'm sorry, she thought silently. For being away. For having been so cold.

She thought about that hired gun again. And what Kurtis had said. We can't fight each other while she's vulnerable.

He was right. He always managed to be right.

Lara thought she wouldn't fall asleep, but Anna's calm breathing and warm body cooed her. She went into deep rest, without dreams nor nightmares.

Not far from there in the Ortaköy neighborhood, in front of the beautiful mosque on the Bosphorus shore, the man whom Anna had detected with her clairvoyance finished a cup of Turkish coffee, left some coins on the restaurant table and got up. Caressing the straps of the huge sports bag, he carried it over his shoulder without further ceremony.

His target was near. This time, once for all, he would terminate that fucking slut. It was the only thing left to do in the world. Then he could be at peace.

The image of the Croft child crossed his mind for an instant. Then he pushed her away. No. His goal was quite different. He'd been chasing her for years. It was about time. Such a coincidence it was to end in Istanbul, the same place where everything, one way or another, had begun.

"Game over, bitch." He muttered under his breath, as he mentally evoked the beautiful face in the file, hidden deep inside the bag. "This time you won't get away."