22. Annus horribilis
Don't you dare surrender
I'm still right beside you
And I would never
Replace your perfect imperfection.
EVANESCENCE, Imperfection
All the manor's lights were on. The alarms sounded nonstop, losing their raucous echoes in the blackness of the night.
Lara jumped off the motorcycle as if driven by a spring, not realizing that her skirt got caught on the exhaust pipe and tore the bass of the precious fabric. She threw herself against the entrance doors and slammed them open, unloading all her weight on them and crossing the front yard at full speed.
The front door was open, and, in the frame, she saw her mother, who was leaning, panting, on it. Lady Croft wore a nightgown lightly splattered with blood and, oddly enough, had a dark fence around her thighs.
When she saw Lara, she pointed to the left side. "Behind!" She gasped, almost breathless. "Next to the assault course!"
The British explorer didn't even slow down the race. She sped down the lateral landscaped corridor, until she reached the manor's backyard, where the assault course was. And then she saw him, lying on the ground, in a bed of broken glass.
"Kurtis!" She shouted and pounced on him. When she saw him close, a sob rose to her throat and stuck there, unable to leave or descend again. She collapsed at his side without worrying about the crystals.
The man she'd loved for years lay crashed like a broken doll, crooked legs, left arm at an impossible angle. He'd many cuts due to the windowpanes through which he'd been fired, but they seemed superficial. A thread of blood slipped through the corner of his lip.
She looked up. Several meters above, the curtains of the broken window fluttered in the night sky. As if he'd voluntarily thrown himself - if it weren't because the wooden sheets were bursting out and the shattered glass. Looking at the huge climbing column behind her, she realized he'd bounced off the track before crashing to the ground.
"Kurtis!" She yelled again and patted his face. She daren't to move his neck. "Kurtis!"
Lara had repeated his name several times. She slapped him several times. In the end, the man's eyelids vibrated and opened slightly.
Lara felt as if her heart was twisting. The veins in his left eye had burst, so it was submerged in blood. The contrast with the blue iris was shocking at least.
"Kurtis!" She shouted once more and leaned over him. "What happened?" And in doing so she leaned slightly on his torso. Almost instantly he contracted in pain.
Lara pulled away while he murmured: "M'lady..." His voice was wheezing. Lara felt his chest and noticed the left side of his abdomen hard and swollen. It can't be. Grabbing the collar of his shirt, she tore it, opening it and baring his torso.
Yes, it could be. The inflamed area began to darken. For a moment she was suspended, horrified. Then she noticed her mother standing a few meters away, covering her mouth with both hands.
"Stop staring like a jerk and do something!" Lara shrieked furiously. "Call an ambulance!"
Lady Croft nodded stunned and disappeared quickly.
She daren't move him. What else could have been broken, or burst? She realized this was new. It was wrong. He'd never fallen before. He...
She noticed him move his bloody lips slightly. Lara bent and brought her ear to his mouth. "Finally...got...him." The voice came out weak and wheezing. Each breath should cost him excruciating pain. "That… bastard."
"Who?"
But he didn't say more. His breathing became more wheezing, more hissing, and suddenly a spring of dark blood gushed out from the corner of his lip.
"Kurtis!" Lara yelled, and forgetting all precautions, took his head in her hands. "Don't do this to me, damn it! Look at me!"
She thought she saw a slight smile on his bloody mouth. Then his eyes rolled back to blank, and he remained motionless.
In the distance she could hear the sirens of the ambulance.
Don't.
You can't die, not now, not this way.
Don't die on me.
Don't do this to me.
One, two, three, four, five, half a turn.
One, two, three, four, five, half a turn.
One, two, three, four, five, half a turn.
In front of the hospital's ICU door, Lara patrolled like a soul in pain. She still wore the same clothes - same skirt, torn at the bottom, stained with garden grass, fresh and damp from the night dew. She'd cut herself when kneeling between crystals and her leg was bleeding, but she didn't realize. Strands of unruly hair began to come loose from the bun. The mascara in her eyes had run.
She didn't care at all. She kept striding, only she'd no room to move forward. She was trapped.
One, two, three, four, five, half a turn.
One, two, three, four, five, half a turn.
"He will command His angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone."
One, two, three, four, five, half a turn.
Kurtis smiling blatantly, waving the Chirugai in hand, provoking her.
Kurtis dropping backwards, over the railing.
Kurtis falling through three floors and landing on his feet. Without a scratch.
One, two, three, four, five, half a turn.
Kurtis falling into the void in Meteora. Hundreds of meters from the top of Ayios Stefanos at the bottom of the valley. Dragging the last Nephilim with him.
Karel shattered into parts. Kurtis didn't.
"He will command His angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone."
He no longer had the help of angels. He was fragile. He was like the others. The Light had abandoned him.
One, two, three, four, five, half a turn.
One, two, three, four, five, half a turn.
No, he'd renounced the Light. To be able to return. Another chance.
One, two, three, four, five, half a turn.
Lara jumped when she came face to face with her mother, who was almost as tall as she was. Then Lady Croft reached out and grabbed her arm. Lara looked down and stared at the wrinkled but still firm hand of her mother, soft, warm, with that perennial smell of peppermint that she well remembered, and as always, covered in jewellery and rings. She hadn't touched her for many years. Not since Lord Croft disowned her.
"Enough." Lady Croft muttered between her teeth. It wasn't a suggestion, but an order. "You're scaring the girl."
Lara looked up. Sitting a few steps away from her, in the waiting chairs, was Anna staring at the floor. She'd been treated immediately: a fractured cheekbone, the monstrously swollen eye, closed, a loose tooth. Nothing compared to what Kurtis had taken, but still...
The British explorer snapped off the old lady's arm and approached her daughter. Anna looked up, her healthy eye tired, her mouth clenched, her eyes empty. "Is he going to die?" She asked with a strangled voice.
She was like her. She couldn't help talking. Eject what she thought by mouth. "I don't know," Lara replied, pulling a lock of her forehead. Why lie to her? She didn't know, she couldn't tell. She wouldn't live with false expectations. And of course, She didn't mention the lung pierced by the broken rib, the ruptured spleen, the blood he'd lost, even needing transfusions, or how he'd had to be resuscitated twice because his heart had stopped.
Anna kept staring at her. Those eyes. "If he dies," she said slowly, "if he dies, I swear I'm gonna hunt and tear apart all the demons left in this world." She ran her tongue through the hole between her teeth. "And if he doesn't die, I will anyway. So be the last thing I do."
Lara ran her finger through the corner of her eye, noticing the eyeliner running, sticky. She didn't remember crying at all. "When I met him, he never hurt himself when falling." She said simply. "He could fall from great heights and land without a scratch. I was so jealous of him." She smiled at the memory. "It's been... unpleasant to see him this way."
Anna nodded. She trembled slightly. Lara sat next to her and put her arm around her. Now it was Lady Croft who stood by the door of the ICU, but still and elegant, like a Greek statue.
"Now tell me." Lara whispered in her daughter's ears. "What happened?"
The girl hesitated.
"Anna Croft. Don't even think about lying to me."
For a moment, the blue eyes examined her in silence. It was a strange glance. Powerful, old, ancient as the world. They had a strange light. It almost seemed the ultimatum was being given to her.
"A demon." The choppy gasp uttering those words didn't came out from the girl's lips. Lara turned, dumbfounded, toward her mother, who stared at her wide-eyed and held a scented handkerchief - where in the hell would she have taken it out? - against her mouth. "A demon." The old woman gasped again. "An abject, horrible, disgusting being, out of Hell itself."
"Grandma." Anna muttered.
"What's the matter, Anna?" Lara turned to her daughter. "I was barely older than you when I first faced one of those beings. Disarmed, with nothing more than a slingshot and a huge Bestiary."
"Not this one, Mom. It was a... it was an incubus." And she cast a stern look at Lady Croft, who watched her in horror. Don't utter his name. Don't even think about uttering his name... Grandma.
Lara had stiffened. "The hell was doing an incubus in my house." She muttered, more rhetorically than anything else, but, to her surprise, Anna replied.
"It was me." And then her eyes filled with tears, tears of fury, tears of rage. "I attracted him. He came for me." She released a heavy sigh and dropped her head. "It was me he wanted. But Dad got in his way."
When she finally was allowed to see him, it was through a glass. Then she realized that among all the horrors she'd come to witness during her life, this was the worst of all. She didn't know how to handle anger, helplessness. She didn't know how to be inactive. But there was absolutely nothing she could do for him.
The man she loved - for she loved him, loved him with all her might - was comatose and intubated in a hospital bed, connected and surrounded by a pile of machines that kept his fragile constant steady. Broken and splinted arms and legs didn't worry her. The fractures healed; she knew that more than anyone. Nor did worry her seeing him pale as a dead man, rather cerulean. What tormented her was the fresh surgical cut at his side, where they had removed the busted organ. The torso was swollen and blackened. And God, that horrible tube sinking down by the side of his lips sealed with adhesive tape. And his wheezing, mechanical breathing.
Beside her, Anna, silent and rigid as a statue, looked at her father, the palms of her hands resting on the glass. Her teeth were clenched, her jaws tight.
"What about the spine?" Lara turned to the young doctor who kindly accompanied them while checking some notes in the history.
"Sorry?"
"His spine." Lara said, trying to sound calm. "I want to know if he will walk again."
The doctor looked sideways at the girl and then looked at Lara hesitantly. Then, Anna, without looking away from her father, spoke: "I am not a baby and I hate being lied. Speak clearly."
Then, the doctor smiled politely. "We haven't appreciated specific spinal injuries, which is a good thing considering the spectacular fall. But I wouldn't want to risk a diagnose. Until his condition evolves, we won't be able to check if there's really been any spinal damage. What's more, he probably must tell us himself."
A horrible image floated to Lara's mind. She jerked it away.
"Then he'll recover." Anna muttered.
Although it wasn't a question, the doctor replied: "If there are no complications, of course. Right now, it's hard to make predictions. He's stable within gravity. We'll have him monitored." And then the young man looked down. "Miss Croft, you need to be taken care in the emergency room."
Lara followed the boy's gaze and saw her bare legs, full of cuts, dirt and blades of grass. "It's nothing."
"I see nailed crystals. Go get them removed."
"When will he wake up?" Anna asked, nodding in the direction of Kurtis, as if she hadn't heard the doctor.
"He's heavily sedated by the severity of the injuries. But don't worry, right now the mechanical breathing is for his own safety – because of the pneumothorax. If there are no complications..."
"Yes, we understand." Lara ran her hand over her face. "Let him sleep. I don't want him in pain."
When they returned to the manor the day after the attack, and even though her legs were still shaking in sheer terror, the first thing Lady Angeline did was to go up to the library. She turned on the light, though it wasn't necessary, and watched the busted window out, the jambs bent, the glass broken. Then, patiently, she knelt on the floor and began groping with her hands, trying not to cut herself with the broken glass and porcelain fragments.
It was easy to locate, since it was in the middle of a spit of blood that was beginning to curdle. Lady Angeline pinched the broken tooth with two fingers and carefully put it in a pill bottle in her pocket.
An unexpected noise made her jump. Then there was a flurry of objects and glass breaking, interspersed with screams of rage. Altered, the old lady got up and ran to the other end of the hall, where the scandal came from.
Anna was tearing her room apart.
Lady Angeline stood in the doorframe to watch, horrified, her granddaughter kick the table, dump it with all the objects on top - a shower of papers and drawings and pencils that spread in all directions - and then , prey to an uncontrollable rage, grab one of the legs of the table and twist it, with all her might, until it broke. Wielding it as if it was a club, she began to discharge brutal blows against the furniture, bursting the lamps, the windows, flipping and throwing books from the shelves and blowing stuffed animals, personal belongings and other items that could be found in a teenage girl's room - all while yelling with all her might.
Paralyzed with fright and horror, Lady Angeline saw her daughter out of the corner of her eye, who entered through the other door and stared at how the girl was destroying the entire room, as serenely and indifferently as if she was watching her play chess.
Finally, Anna ran out of energy. She looked up, saw her mother and grandmother, and dropped the table leg.
"Are you done?" Lara asked, without anger, without reproach. "Do you need to break something else? Because if you need it, by God you break it."
The girl watched her for a moment, grotesque with her only healthy eye looking at her and her face swollen, and suddenly she collapsed on the floor and burst into tears. Lara went toward her, knelt beside her and hugged her, as she rocked her slowly. Anna sank her face into her neck and continued to cry with all her might, grabbing her by the white blouse, now dirty and bloody.
Lady Angeline, livid and still immobile in the doorframe, didn't know what to do. She watched the dantesque scene for a few moments and then slowly turned around and went down to the kitchen. She put a kettle to boil and prepared a soothing infusion. It couldn't do wrong.
While letting the infusion stand, she observed some movement on the other side of the hedge. Changing position, she looked at the hall and saw through the door, in the distance, at the entrance gate, a series of police cars.
Just what we needed, she thought discouraged. But first things first. She took the tray, climbed the stairs quietly while ignoring the insistent buzz of the caller, and returned to where her daughter and granddaughter were, still hugging on the floor, surrounded by pure chaos. There was no table left on which to leave the tray, so Lady Croft left it next to them. Lara cast a questioning look at her mother. "Valerian and passionflower." She commented. "For the nerves."
The British explorer kept staring at her for a moment, as if instead of her mother she was a curious insect. Then, she took the cup and tested the infusion. "Thank you." She murmured. Then she handed the cup to Anna, who at first made a face and turned her face away, but when Lara started drinking the cup, she reached out and took the other. "Thanks Grandma." She said.
The caller kept ringing.
"Who?" Lara murmured.
"The police." Lady Angeline sighed.
Lara wrinkled her nose. Just what we needed. "I hate the police. Tell them to leave."
"They'll come back."
"Well, but at another time. Check them out."
And that was what the old lady did, not being able to do anything else.
She later realized she'd missed preparing a cup for herself.
"It's my fault." She sobbed. "He came for me. That thing came for me. As Dad predicted."
Lara stroked her hair. It was easier to focus on that simple, mechanical, comforting task, than delving into what was already obvious. And the obvious was immensely painful in those circumstances.
We can't fight each other while she's vulnerable.
My place is here.
My daughter. My legacy.
He was always right.
"Anna." Lara said suddenly. "It's been a terrible season, but we must stop lamenting and try to fix things." She separated from the girl and began to dry her teary cheek. "For starters, stop repeating that is your fault."
"I attracted him."
"Could you avoid attracting him? Did you do something conscious, intentional, to attract him?"
"N-no. Nooo. Of course not!"
"Then there's no reason to feel guilty. You couldn't help it, ergo it's not your fault. We're only guilty of what we intentionally provoke, you understand? Besides, your father already warned you that this could happen."
He warned me too, Lara herself thought, discouraged. He warned me and I chose to dwell in my own rage. God, that was guilt.
"Mom, I..." Anna ran her tongue through the hollow of her teeth. "Dad shouldn't have done that. That thing was too strong, too strong for him. And he just wanted me."
"You're suggesting that your father should've just watched how that being tore you apart? Then your grandmother? Even if he'd run away, the demon would've reached him anyway. And then me, too. Is that a good equation? Four dead instead of one?"
Her daughter's hard stare pierced her. "Dad's not dead."
"No." Lara ran her hand over her face. Not yet. "I hope he doesn't. But that's how things are, Anna. What would you have done in his place? Staring at it? Run? Or would you have fought to defend him?
The girl looked down and began to open and close her fists. "I couldn't even help him..."
"Not yet. But someday, you will."
"What... if he dies?"
I'll never forgive myself, Lara thought, but she didn't say it. "Let me tell you something about your father." She said, instead. "He's always been like that. An overprotective fool. Since I know him, he's done these things, putting the safety of others before his own. Maybe it was a matter of his training, or it's just his nature, as I believe. When we were two strangers, he already behaved this way. The first time we had a confrontation, in the Louvre museum, in Paris; he stole my Painting, but then he made sure that I could follow him and escape from that place full of mercenaries. He paid it with a good blow to the head. Then, when they released that mutated monster against us, he preferred to help me escape and give me the Shards that could destroy our enemy, so he could stay to die." Lara sighed. "He almost died. Then he did it a thousand times more. He delivered himself to the Cabal for me. He was tortured in a heinous manner for months, but they failed to break him, because his conscience was at peace. I rescued him, but then, he descended to the Vortex on his own free will. After he knew you existed, he only had one more reason to fight. He died for us. He sacrificed his powers to bring us back. And not only for us, but for others, for Zip, for Selma, for your grandmother who already rests in peace. He's always done it and always will. We can't change him, and for him it's indifferent to have powers or not. If he sacrificed himself for a stranger he had just met in Paris, how could he not do it for his own daughter?"
Anna listened to her in silence. Then she looked to the side, toward the shattered room.
"Do you understand?" Lara insisted. "There was no way to change what happened yesterday. Maybe, if I had been there..." She hesitated, but then made a furious gesture with her hand. "But I wasn't. It cannot be changed. What has happened had to happen."
Thank goodness he was there, she thought, but she didn't say it. What could have happened if Kurtis hadn't been there for Anna? Lara didn't even want to think about it.
"Mom." Anna said suddenly. "I'm sorry I destroyed my room."
Lara made a tired gesture. What were a few objects compared to Kurtis? "If you want to break something else," she said with a smile, "I have some leftover junk in the loft."
The beep of the machine displaying his vital signs made her nervous. His breath, wheezing and strangled by crushed ribs, made her nervous. The mechanical noise of the respirator that helped him survive made her nervous. It was constant, cyclical, never stopped, but all those sounds were life. The silence was horror.
Lara leaned forward and tried to stroke Kurtis's hand, but it was so full of pipes that there was no way. She barely touched him with the fingertips. At least, that arm wasn't broken.
It had been almost a week, and there seemed to be no progress. Stable within severity, it was still the diagnosis. He didn't get worse; he didn't get better. He didn't awake.
"There's no visible brain damage, since fortunately the skull received no trauma." The young doctor had said. "But as long as he doesn't awake, we cannot confirm it."
And he didn't wake up. An empty carcass, with a very basic life level.
The police had been at her manor again, they had questioned Anna, they had questioned his mother, but every day, Lara tried to be with him as much as possible, now that they allowed her to go to the other side of the glass. If he died, she didn't want him to die alone. If he woke up, she wanted him to see her first.
You can't die. Not now. We had to talk. We had to fix this mistake, this madness.
If that was a punishment, it was being too cruel. Too painful.
She leaned over him and brushed his mouth with her lips. She could hardly do it with that tube stuck in his throat and the tape that kept his mouth shut. "You were right." She murmured, addressing him, although she knew he couldn't hear her. "You've always been right. I need you to come back." She leaned down to whisper in her ear. "Come back, Kurtis. Please. All I said wasn't true. I want you by my side. I've always wanted you by my side."
The beep kept ringing, relentless. Nothing else could be heard except that mechanical, artificial respiration.
"Ah, Miss Croft. We can finally talk." The elegant woman in a suit held out a hand. Lara, tired and in a bad mood, scrutinized her and the rest of the officers and policemen who moved up and down the manor, without shaking hands with the inspector. In the end, she dropped it, shrugging. "I'm Inspector Weller. We received a report for a serious incident here, and after observing the evidence and talking to your mother and daughter, I'd have some questions for you, if you don't mind."
God, how she hated the police. "Lately we're going through a rough annus horribilis." Lara said, irritated. "We've suffered several hardships, lost a family member and now my daughter's father is in coma at the hospital. Excuse me, but this isn't a good time."
The inspector smiled kindly. "Sure, we can make it easier." And then she snapped her fingers. "C'mon, boys, clear the area and wait for me outside. Miss Croft and I are going to talk in private."
It was clear that it wouldn't be easy to get rid of that woman. Lara was too exhausted to fight, but she wasn't going to make it easy for her either. So, she just crossed her arms and waited for the inspector to take the first step, without offering her a seat or a cup of tea.
Weller understood immediately. She smiled intelligently, implying that she'd caught the mood, and without further she looked down at a folder and leafed through some papers. "Tell me, Miss Croft, had Mr. Trent beaten your daughter before?"
Lara froze. She looked dumbfounded at the inspector for a few moments, while thinking quickly. Then she replied: "Kurtis has never beaten his daughter."
The inspector rubbed her nose suspiciously. "Your daughter has a terrible bruise on the right side of the face, the result of a brutal blow. Her eye considerably swollen, and has lost a tooth..."
"I've already seen my daughter's face, thank you." Lara cut.
"Then, I ask you again, had her father hit beaten on any previous occasion?"
"He has not beaten Anna."
"That's not what she says, Miss Croft."
Lara fell silent again. What?
With a well-studied acting, the inspector sighed and leafed through the papers again. "According to your daughter, Mr. Trent and you had a fight months ago and he attacked you."
The British explorer paled suddenly. Then she looked around, located a chair and went to sit on it, because suddenly she was feeling a tremendous laziness of legs, something totally atypical in her. How does she know? She thought, feeling that reverential fear again, how does she know?
Had Selma slipped of her tongue? She was the only one to whom Lara had confessed what happened, and only after losing her temper in an argument with the Turkish archaeologist. Had Selma been able to...? But no, it didn't make sense. Selma loved Anna. She would never tell her something so intimate, so painful.
The inspector had sat in front of her and waited quietly, although looking suspiciously. Lara needed to calm down. "I don't know how my daughter has been able to find out that." She admitted. To be convincing, she had to let go some particles of truth. "I've never told her about it."
"That Mr. Trent assaulted you?"
"Kurtis didn't assault me." Lara replied, trying to keep calm. "We had a fight. I offended him. He pushed me."
"In my view, Miss Croft, that's an aggression."
"I didn't suffer any injury. It was a couple fight. There are thousands of those."
"Does your daughter know you were fighting?"
"Yes."
"And that Mr. Trent had suicidal tendencies?"
"What?!"
At Lara's shout, the inspector raised her palms in peace. Then she clarified: "You see, I'm trying to reconstruct what happened up there in your library. Your daughter's statements have been confusing, but I attribute it to posttraumatic stress. I attribute the same to your mother, Lady Croft, who seems to be even more confused, hasn't said much and merely corroborated your daughter's version. From what I've been able to extract, that night Mr. Trent tried to kill himself and, when your daughter tried to stop him, he beat her." For a few moments, Lara remained silent, staring at the inspector, while thinking at full speed. Then, she simply became passive, until Weller, tired, said: "Nothing to say about it?"
When Lara spoke again, she seemed suddenly calm. "I'm honestly shocked." Which she didn't seem at all. "I had no idea that Kurtis was suicidal. Much less that he would be able to beat our daughter. I wasn't at home, but I know he wouldn't beat her. He adores her."
"Under normal circumstances, maybe. But you've admitted he pushed you after a fight. He might be out of his mind, then beat the girl. In any case, why do you think he would do that? What reasons would he have for wanting to end things? What's after that fight of yours?"
Lara straightened in her chair. "That's personal, and if you don't mind, I don't feel like sharing it with an unknown agent."
The inspector stretched her arm toward the upper floor. She'd an expensive pen between her fingers. "Excuse me, Miss Croft, but your daughter has been brutally assaulted and it's my responsibility to clarify that, before the social services do it."
"I know what I'm facing. But I have nothing more to say. When Kurtis comes out of the coma, you can interrogate him." Forgive me, Lara thought silently, suddenly feeling dirty.
But indeed, that answer had disarmed Weller. Defeated, she dropped her arm. Then she got up. "You know something, Miss Croft?" She said, while collecting her folders and papers. "I don't fully believe your daughter's version. Everything matches, the evidences are there, but something fails to me. I think your girl is extremely smart, and she's protecting her father. But that blow to the face... is not something that a disturbed man does in self-defence or to take someone out of his way. It's been a brutal blow, with premeditation, with all the viciousness and strength. To my knowledge, such a strength fits with Mr. Trent's athletic constitution, and, I must say, with the troublesome and worrisome rumours that have come to me about his past..."
This time, it was Lara who smiled coldly. "Rumours? You won't go far this way, inspector. It takes evidence for it. Come back when you have it."
If Weller accused the reply, she didn't let it show. She finished storing her things and closed her briefcase. "Oh, just one more thing." She said before leaving. "As far as I know, when someone's going to throw himself out the window, he opens it first. Mr. Trent threw himself on it while closed. Why making it so difficult, exposing himself to a barrier that can stop his fall? The way that window opened isn't normal. Not to mention that there wasn't enough height to kill himself. Maybe he wasn't thinking clearly, which is normal, of course; but if he wanted to die, it's from the roof where he should've jumped. From the spot he jumped, not only very painful but also, maybe irreversible injuries could've been caused. Isn't that right, Miss Croft?"
"You always treat people who have suffered a tragedy like this?" Lara spat. "I feel sorry for the other victims you'd had to attend to."
The inspector left without replying.
When she went up to Anna's room, with the manor cleared and without a single police agent in the middle, she found her daughter and her grandmother sweeping broken glass and collecting damage.
"What have you done?" Lara asked the girl. "Why did you say that to the police?"
Anna leaned against the handle of the broom, biting her lower lip. Surprisingly, it was Lady Croft who intervened. "Don't punish the girl. She couldn't say otherwise."
Lara glared at her. "Interestingly, I think it's you who'll be happy with this. I'm surprised it's not your making."
"Mom, leave Grandma alone." Anna growled. "She didn't say anything. It's been my idea."
Lara crossed her arms and changed the weight to the other leg. "You know what you've done? You accused your father of abuse and suicide. Now they won't leave us alone. They will come for him, Anna."
The girl ran her hand over her face, exhausted. "I didn't know what else to say, Mom. With the evidence there was..." She swept her arm. "I couldn't tell them the truth, nor did I want to. It's madness..."
"You could not have said anything."
Anna shook her head. "No. They were going to take me to a shelter. As I have cooperated so far, they have left me alone."
"How do you know?"
"I know."
Lara turned to her mother. "Can you leave us alone for a moment?" She asked, although it sounded more like an order. Lady Croft dropped the broom and left in silence. Then Lara advanced to her daughter, stepping on the broken glass. "Who told you that your father pushed me?"
Anna looked down. "No one, Mom."
"Was it Selma?"
"No way. Leave poor Aunt Selma alone."
"Then how do you know?"
"I saw it, Mom."
"How? When?"
"When I touched you, in Istanbul." The girl looked up. "You were full of pain, of rage. I touched you and I saw it."
Oh my God. "Did you see the fight?"
"Fragments. It wasn't clear. But I saw that."
"Jesus, Anna." Lara hid her face in her hands. "Since when have you been doing that?"
A few seconds of silence. "Since Sri Lanka."
Lara turned, walked to the bed and dropped herself on it. "What else did you see?"
"I see what I want. I find what I am looking for." She hesitated. "More or less."
"Please, tell me you weren't looking when your father and I..."
Anna twisted her mouth in horror. "Geez, Mom, of course not! Gross!"
Thanks goodness, Lara thought, relieved. That would have been horrible. "You shouldn't have seen that, Anna. It was private. It was personal." She looked at her, hurt. "It was something of ours, like what would make you feel gross. You don't have the right to do it."
"I couldn't help it. I touched you and felt you. Even now I could do it, if I wanted."
Kurtis had never told her about that. He'd always admitted he wasn't able to read minds. But touching people and feeling their emotions? Touch them in a certain way, to achieve something specific?
And then, a sudden thought, like a lightning, left her aghast.
The Louvre. Those big, warm hands, touching her in such an intimate way, caressing her... she always thought he'd crossed the line. But what if it wasn't what it looked like? What if, actually, he'd been...?
"Tell me, Miss Seer." She asked then. "Is it true that he wanted... wanted...?"
"Kill himself?" Anna finished. "Geez, no. I invented that part." Lara couldn't help a sigh of relief. "But he was sad, very sad. He was afraid you might take me away so he couldn't see me anymore."
"A monster." Lara murmured. "Y'all think I'm a monster."
"Not me, Mom. I know you would never do that."
"So why didn't you tell him?" Lara said.
Anna looked at her in silence. That glance had changed in her. Suddenly, it was the gaze of an adult woman. "That, Mom, it's up to you."
When she got back to the ICU's cold room, she found a black dressed figure leaning over Kurtis. He wasn't a doctor, but a priest. Annoyed, Lara closed the door and said dryly: "Would you mind leaving now, please? I didn't request a prie..." The man turned around and smiled sweetly. Lara bit her lip, embarrassed. "Father." She said. "Forgive me, I hadn't recognized you."
Abraham Patrick Dunstan left on the table a little bottle he'd been carrying and opened his arms. Lara hugged him tightly. "I'm sorry, my dear, I haven't had time to warn you." He said in his calm and confident voice. "I found out yesterday what had happened. I've come as soon as I could."
"Who told you?" Lara said, backing away, but not letting go of his arms.
"Your mother, of course. It seems that poor Angeline has been calling me repeatedly for several days, but when I'm in Ireland I don't like a phone nearby." He laughed slightly. "How are you, dear?"
Lara had looked away at the bottle on the bedside table and, seeing Kurtis, realized that the priest had drawn a cross of oil on his forehead and the back of both hands. "Father," she said, "he's not dead yet."
The Irish priest smiled patiently. "Of course not, my dear. We don't do this to the dead. We do it to the living. But," He patted her cheek gently, like when she was a child, "I understand it wasn't my best presentation. Forgive me." Then he took out a handkerchief and began cleaning the oil from the comatose's face.
"Anyway, Kurtis is not even a Christian." Lara shrugged. "I doubt he's baptized."
"That's why I baptized him right now, before the oils."
Lara was perplexed. "You did what?"
Father Dunstan had the virtue of never being offended or altered. "My dear, I'm a priest. He serves humankind by freeing them from demons and I serve by caring for their souls. And his, by the way, is a very valuable soul. I just fulfilled my duty."
Lara sat in the chair and watched as the priest picked up his belongings and then sat next to her. Kurtis was still, comatose, breathing mechanically.
"Now tell me, my dear." Dunstan put his hand on hers and squeezed it tightly. "What happened? How long has he been like this?"
"Two weeks." Lara mused. "Probably more. Didn't my mother tell you?"
"Poor Angeline was terrified. She told me a demon attacked him. Good Lord. It started too soon, right?"
Lara looked at him. "Then you know he was coming for Anna."
"Who would he come for, if not? What kind of devil was it?"
"An incubus."
And then the Irish priest, usually pale, paled even more and instinctively crossed himself. "Sweet Jesus." Then he looked at the lying man. "And of course, he faced the incubus alone." Lara said nothing. Wasn't necessary, though. "He beat him, right?"
"None of us would be here if he hadn't defeated him."
"Sure, sure." The priest murmured, more to himself than to Lara. "On his own! Without his powers! And he defeated him anyway! What an extraordinary man!" And he didn't say what he thought next. I can't believe he's still alive.
The silence thickened around them, only broken by the hateful beep of the machine and mechanical breathing. "When will he wake up?"
"I don't know, Father. Doctors don't know, either."
"Then there's only one thing left to do." Quietly, and without asking Lara to join him, Father Dunstan took a rosary from his pocket and began to pray.
After a week, Kurtis awakened.