21. Fragile

Lara crossed the hospital corridor at full speed. Some patients and their relatives censored her with their eyes or some derogatory comment when she passed by their side as a soul taken by the devil. She didn't care, in fact, she didn't even notice. She pounced on Father Dunstan, who was quietly sitting by the door of Kurtis's room. He was the one who had warned her. Lara cursed herself for being absent, but she'd been taken Anna have her detached tooth fixed again.

"He just woke up." The priest tried to reassure her. "They are still removing the machines and the respirator. Anyway, he's very fragile. You shouldn't..."

Lara pushed the door and entered the room without further ado. The young doctor was leaning over the man who lay on the bed and moved a flashlight over his face. Two nurses were picking up the respirator tube on the machine they were starting to remove. One of them faced her: "Please, you must wait outs..."

Lara dodged him in the blink of an eye and went to the bedside. She didn't even bother to look at the young doctor who suddenly stood up and gave her an annoyed look. She only had eyes for Kurtis. Kneeling by his side, she gripped his hand tightly. "Kurtis." She said, trying to sound calm. "It's me. I'm here."

Nothing had changed in the man who lay motionless in front of her, except that this time the chest rose and fell naturally, not mechanically, although the sound of his breathing was still wheezing and strangled. Without the respirator, his appearance was more reassuring, although his lips were dry and cracked. Kurtis opened his eyes and looked up. One of them was still bloodshot, but the blood was progressively diluting. And then he lowered them and looked at her.

A spark of recognition. And a faint, very slight smile, all he could handle with his chapped lips.

The sob stuck in Lara's throat weeks before suddenly came out, without warning, like a choppy breath. She covered her mouth with her hand. Kurtis' livid face diluted behind an aqueous veil covering her eyes.

"Gentlemen," She heard Father Dunstan's calm voice behind her, "if you don't mind, I think our brethren here need a moment alone."

Lara barely noticed the priest entering to encourage the medical team to leave. There were a couple of protests: the patient was weak, had no strength to receive visitors, it wasn't convenient for him to have her there, and less with that attitude... but they ended up in the hallway anyway and the door closed behind them, leaving them alone in the room. There was nothing like a priest's sacrosanct authority on certain occasions.

The British explorer sobbed quietly, her forehead resting on his right arm, the one that wasn't broken. She cried in rage, and she cried in relief. Even still dozed with drugs that only partially soothed the pain, Kurtis remembered perfectly the last, and in fact only once, he'd seen her cry like this - when she rescued him from his torturers.

He tried to speak, but all that came out of his throat was a hoarse grunt. He was dying of thirst. He felt lips, mouth and throat hard and burning like fire. He slightly moved the hand that Lara held on to. "Hey." He finally squawked. "M'lady."

The woman he had loved for years raised her head. He couldn't help smiling again when he saw her with swollen eyes, run-up makeup and a disastrous hair bun after crying against his arm. Although in his condition, that smile was more a crooked grimace. He noticed new cracks opening on his lips as he did so.

Lara wiped her damp face with a couple of sharp swipes and, taking his head in her hands, kissed him on the mouth, sweetly, heartily, dedicatedly.

No, Kurtis thought, a stupid, oblivious thought. Don't do that. He felt unclean. It was what he hated most about hospitals, being naked under a thin sheet, chirping with cold, filled with tubes in annoying places, unable to wash. Surely, he smelled funny, reeking of sickness, of fresh wounds. Lara, instead, smelled like heaven. And her lips, my God, her taste. The moisture of her saliva was the first liquid he tasted in weeks.

But Lara didn't seem to care. For of the way she kissed him, she'd never put her mouth on anything cleaner, more delicious than him. He'd no strength to move, so he let himself be kissed. For a moment, he was almost distracted from the pain.

Finally, she pulled away and scrutinized him, already calmer. "You've been in a coma for three weeks." She said. "You were induced to avoid the pain but fell comatose anyway. How are you feeling?"

How was he feeling? Everything hurt. His legs, by the way they screamed, should be broken; he had never broken anything before. His left arm was screaming less but immobilized in a plaster casing. What hurt the most, though...

Kurtis moved his unbroken arm and pulled faintly the sheet that covered him. Understanding his will, Lara gently withdrew it, uncovering the left side of his chest. Still swollen and blackened, a new line of thick stitches ran through it. "Your spleen burst when falling." She informed him. "They had to remove it." She moved her hand, without touching him, over his chest, between the pectoral muscles, where there was a minor suture. "A pneumothorax. When you broke your ribs one stuck in the lung. They drained a liter of blood from there."

Kurtis's bare shoulders shuddered slightly. "I've... been... worse." He closed his eyes.

Of course, Lara thought. Boaz. But she hadn't been there then. She hadn't seen him in his immense weakness back then. The dubious honour had corresponded to Meteora's monks, and later, to Selma herself. Even the tortured man Lara had held in her arms and cried in rage for years ago was still strong, splendid, worthy in his pain and able, as always, to heal quickly from his wounds.

Now she had a mortal man before her. Defeated, fragile.

No, not defeated, she corrected herself. Victorious.

She noticed Kurtis moving his lips again. Lara leaned over him. "Anna." She heard him hissing.

"She's fine." The British explorer said. "Furious, sad, guilty, but fine. Only with half a swollen face and a detached tooth being fixed by now." She stroked his face. "You can't help it, right? You had to play hero once again."

Kurtis opened his eyes and stared at her, but Lara smiled sadly. He tried to smile at her again, although she most likely got another grimace. Then he reached out and, unconsciously, stroked her hand, taking care not to unhook any tube. She didn't ask any more questions, but she kept thinking about the very little information given by Anna.

An incubus.

Finally got him.

An incubus.

That bastard.

An... incubus.

I attracted him. He came for me.

An incubus.

That bastard.

An incubus was a demon of lust. They seduced... and when they failed, they raped.

It was me he wanted. But Dad got in his way.

Finally got him.

That bastard.

"Lara." Kurtis was looking at her with a frown.

She blinked, released his hand and rubbed her temples. "I'm tired, that's all." Then she rubbed her eyes, running the mascara even more.

Finally got him.

An incubus.

Beware of the long night.

The prince of all demons.

Beware of the prince of demons.

"Lara."

That bastard.

"It's over, Lara. It's over."

I attracted him. He came for me.

"I know. Get some rest now." She said finally and leaned down to kiss him. Gently this time. Just a touch on his lips full of scabs. Like the flutter of a butterfly.

But Dad got in his way.

Already in the hall, she took just five steps, and then gripped the railing of the stairs, bending in half, as if she'd been punched. Then she breathed in and out slowly, several times, until she managed to calm down and control the trembling of her legs. "Moloch." She muttered under her breath.

She had questions. Many questions. But she couldn't formulate them. He would never answer.

Moloch. A name, a spell, a curse. Broke in like a storm, like doom itself, then vanished again, this time forever. And Anna's burning gaze. As if she knew. As if she'd always known.

Moloch killed me.

No, that had been Bathsheba. Or had Lara died on her own wounds? What had really happened? She didn't know, she didn't want to know. She couldn't figure it out. She couldn't remember it.

Just that darkness. That nausea. The horror.

"Moloch." She repeated. And then she stood up.

The Prince of All Incubi was gone, but she was still there. And so, his arch nemesis, the man she loved, and their daughter.

We're still here, hellish spawn. We're still here.

Slowly, she returned to Kurtis.

After, Lara would remember many scenes in a hazy fog. She would remember Anna, crying and laughing at the same time, holding her father's head and filling his face with kisses. She would remember Father Dunstan, sitting next to him, tracing the sign of the cross on him and muttering some prayers in Latin, while Kurtis looked at him sidelong with a wry expression, but said nothing. She would remember her mother, Lady Angeline, bringing food for everyone. She would remember to be increasingly exhausted, more consumed, but refusing to move from there.

"Lara, my dear." The Irish priest's warm hand affectionately squeezed her shoulder. "You need to sleep. You must go to rest. You won't be of great help to him if you're shattered."

She didn't want to leave. She wanted to be with him, kiss his mouth, caress his hand, ask for more pain relievers. She wanted to feed him herself with the food they brought, wash him, take care of him, although they barely let her touch him. She wanted to apply balm on his chapped lips and put a damp cloth on his mouth, because he was dying of thirst and could not drink a single drop. She wanted to hold him during the painful cures, or while he was being moved for checking, his face disfigured by pure agony, although he never let out a moan. Were they blind? He never complained, but he was aching.

She wanted to be there for him, for all the times she hadn't been, for all the times she had hurt him. It wasn't a penance, it was an honest, real desire.

She didn't want to let him go. Never.

Kurtis was able to leave the ICU two weeks later, then Lara decided he'd had enough hospital for a long time. Despite the medical team's slight protests, who felt it was better not to move the patient until he was more recovered, the British explorer made the necessary arrangements so he could spend the rest of his recovery at home.

"It's not right." The doctor protested. "Too soon. He needs specific cures and care, and here he'll get them better."

"Which cures and cares exactly?" Lara forced herself to be polite. After all, that young man had saved Kurtis' life.

"Hydration, progressive reintroduction of solid food, hygiene, analgesia, muscle rehabilitation..."

"All that can be supplied at home."

"Miss Croft, you're neither a doctor nor a nurse."

"I've a medium level health education. I've taken nursing courses. With my way of life, I had to learn to take care of myself on more than one occasion."

"You won't able to move an inert body of..." The boy interrupted himself when fixing his gaze on Lara's biceps, protruding through her shirt. "Well, huh..."

"I can push long blocks weighing several times my weight." She replied, following the doctor's gaze. "I won't have problems with an inert body, as you say."

"Even if you can give him basic care, the rehabilitation program..."

"Send me a nurse home when the time comes, I'll pay well. A man, please. He's sick of nurses lifting his sheet to watch between his legs."

"They are professionals, Miss Croft." The doctor protested, offended.

"And I have eyes on my face. The old man next room doesn't get such ogling."

So it was settled. Lara took Kurtis to Croft Manor and laid him in her own bed, which was also his, although he didn't consider his absolutely nothing of what was in that mansion, from the gate to the backyard, from the basement to the loft.

As said, Lara didn't allow nurses or caregivers around him. She cancelled all her missions, dismissed all her clients and stayed to take care of him, without allowing anyone else to touch him. "You can go home." She categorically told her mother. "You don't need to stay, I'll manage."

Lady Croft stayed. She took and picked up Anna from school, accompanied her, supervised her tasks and took care of her, so that Lara barely moved from Kurtis' bedside, while slowly recovering.

The first few weeks he needed strong painkillers to sooth the pain, which was visible on his face when Lara - surprisingly careful - moved him, although he never complained. Then, over the weeks, he needed softer meds and even fell asleep when she gave him a read.

"Hey, how about you read me a piece of that block from yesterday?"

"You mean the Iliad." Lara twisted the gesture, amused.

"That one. Why use sleeping pills when the Iliad exists."

"Don't be a brute."

It wasn't that much the Iliad itself as watching and listening to Lara read. She had a beautiful voice, read like a Muse and even sang differently according to the character she recited. Sitting there, with the huge book in her lap and the braid falling over her shoulder, singing verses and even gesturing like a poet from Antiquity, he almost forgot that this woman was able to crush a man's face with a punch.

"That Achilles and Patroclus thing is what I believe?"

"Could be."

"Could be?"

"Could be." Lara smiled maliciously. "But remember, it all starts with Achilles' wrath because they've taken his Briseis away."

"So, the guy liked both."

"He also falls in love with the queen of the Amazons."

"Just like me."

"You old romantic you."

It was hard to take care of a disabled person, but Lara was used to intense physical exercise. She didn't mind anything she'd to do to take care of him, from the delicate injections to keeping his body hydrated and constantly moving it so that the skin didn't ulcerate. He let her do it. Thanks, he always said. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

"Why are you doing that?" Lady Angeline muttered, on one occasion, watching as Lara rubbed her neck, shattered of pure exhaustion. "Pay a caretaker to do the job."

"Nobody touches him but me." Lara replied, categorically, without hostility, but without sympathy.

"You don't have to punish yourself..."

"It's not punishment. It's duty. Loyalty. He saved Anna's life... and yours too, by the way. Nursing him back to health is a small price to pay." And she didn't add that besides duty and loyalty, there was love.

She still hadn't addressed the issue she wanted to talk to him about since before the incident. There was no hurry. Not while he was fragile. They had all the time in the world - or so she expected.

Kurtis woke up at hearing a familiar sound: the strumming of a pencil against paper. He opened her eyes slightly and saw her sitting there, next to him, surrounded by sketches and paper balls, some of them on his legs still in plaster. The bed was big enough for three, but was also covered in papers, almost to the waist. "Hey, kiddo." He said mockingly. "I'm not a table yet."

Anna looked up and smiled. She looked lively. "Wanna show you a drawing I'm doing, but you were asleep."

"Which one?" He said, bending his chin to his chest and looking at the exposure of sketches on the bed and on himself.

The girl took one on his stomach and brought it to his face so he could see it - he still couldn't move much. "What's that?" Kurtis joked. "Hot potato inside a bowl?"

Anna frowned. "You sure you still see through that dull eye? It's the Iris."

"Ah." Kurtis twisted his mouth. "If you say so..."

"Dad!"

"Just kidding. I recognize the..."

"Iris."

"Whatever."

"Wanna touch it, but Mom didn't let me. She says it's dangerous."

"Not bad, though. Next week you can try with the T-rex." He was still kidding, but the girl's eyes lit up.

"You think I can?"

"Well, at least it can't bite you."

"Cool!" Anna exclaimed, sitting up and starting to collect the papers scattered on the bed - and on her father. At one point, without realizing, she leaned on his right arm.

"OUCH!" Kurtis shouted.

Anna jumped back, stared at him and then frowned. "Ha-ha. Not funny."

The plastered arm was the left. "Easy to tease you."

"No joke beats that night at the library, huh?" She sat down again, and this time Kurtis winced for real, for she'd shaken the mattress. "Can I ask you something?" She said, lowering her voice, as she looked sideways at the half-open door.

"Whoa, you're getting serious."

She was now serious. Twisting the wad of papers in her hand, Anna whispered: "He meant it, right?"

Kurtis sighed. He watched her for a few moments in silence, then replied: "Yes. An incubus never bluffs." And he removed from his mind the horrible images of the Vortex, the threats that Moloch had come to fulfil in the past.

"He said some sick shit. It can't be that..."

"Every word he said, he meant it. I'm sorry you had to hear all that."

The girl nodded slightly. She seemed much older suddenly, very mature, with that unusual seriousness in her blue eyes. "Dad." She said very seriously. "You gotta stop trying to protect me all the time."

"Anna..."

"No." She interrupted. "Shut up and lemme finish." She threw the stack aside with a serious gesture. "That thing almost killed you, Dad. We won't be so lucky next time."

Kurtis smiled patiently. "I'm not so bad at this, even without powers. The incubus' a very strong demon, probably the strongest one to fight against. It was expected he almost destroyed me. But I handle very well lesser demons. In fact, I've always done it that way – never used the Gift unless I had no choice. I grow used to it."

Anna sighed and leaned toward him. "Dad, you're not listening." She repeated patiently. "You gotta stop protecting me all the time. Grandpa Konstantin abused you, and now you want to put me in a glass box..."

Suddenly, a voice from the past, painful, hurtful.

"What you want is to lock Anna in a crystal cage so she doesn't break." Lara snorted contemptuously. "And if I let you, you'd do the same with me."

Kurtis closed his eyes. His daughter kept talking. "...both you are wrong. If you keep trying to protect me, one day you will be dead and I'll be fucked. So, the first thing you'll do when you get up from there is to train me. And I want the Chirugai!"

"The Chirugai cannot be claimed without more. It's the blade that claims you." The ex-legionary looked at her again. "It's a very dangerous weapon. It hasn't submitted to every Lux Veritatis by any means. As far as I know, it's only obeyed your great-grandfather, your grandfather and myself..."

"And now it will obey me."

"You can't take that for granted. Actually, you don't even know yet if you're a Healer or a Fighter."

Anna snorted and got up, starting to pick up her papers again. "I'm great-granddaughter, granddaughter and daughter of Fighters. The Heissturm were Fighters, and so I will."

"And yet, what you did in Sri Lanka was to heal yourself, even if you didn't know."

"I see the past, the present and the future. I feel sensations when I look at or touch certain people."

Kurtis blinked. "What?"

Anna made a vague gesture. "What I mean, Dad, is that I want this thing that chose me. I want to be a Lux Veritatis."

"You don't know what you're saying."

"Yes, I do!" She crossed her arms, upset. "Can you stop treating me like a baby? For all intents and purposes, I'm already a woman! And I've decided I won't be afraid. I promised Grandma Marie. I will fight the demons, whether they come to me, as if I'm going for them myself..."

"Anna..."

"... and I don't care what you think. I was born for this, I know."

"No." Kurtis ran his tongue over his lips. "You were born because we loved you. You don't have to do anything you don't want."

"Well, this I want, Dad. I want it, a lot. I know you hated it, and I'm so sorry, you deserved better. But I am not you. I'm not Grandpa Konstantin either. Neither Marcus nor any other. I am myself, and I want to be a Lux Veritatis."

For a moment, silence thickened around him. Finally, Kurtis spoke. "You'll be what you want to be, kiddo. Of course."

A smile lit Anna's face. She looked weird with the recently fixed tooth, a white spot around the root, and a dark shadow still running down the right side of her face, where the incubus had hit her. But for him she was the most beautiful thing in the world.

When she leaned down to kiss her father on the hirsute cheek, she saw him wincing in pain. She wanted to believe it was because of his injuries, although she knew it wasn't.

Lady Croft spent three minutes standing before the door, hesitantly. In the end, she sighed inaudibly and entered the room. The window of the double bedroom was slightly ajar, and a gentle breeze stirred the curtains.

The man lay on the bed, half lying on the big cushions, naked torso - except for the huge patch that covered his side - and covered to the waist by the sheets. The old lady didn't want to wonder if he was dressed under those bedding. Her gaze fell on his right arm, the unbroken one, the one with the dropper of painkillers. It seemed that his pain was taking its time to disappear. But that wasn't what Lady Angeline looked at, but the shoulder tattoo. That strange symbol. Foreigner. Unpleasant.

He had his face turned to the other side and his breathing so slow she thought he was sedated, but then he turned his head and looked directly at her. If normally, that cold look bothered her, having an eye injected with blood gave him a terrifying look.

To her surprise, the man laughed softly. "Don't worry, I won't bite you." And laughing again he grabbed his side. "Get comfy."

There was a chair next to his headboard, in which Lara used to sit when being with him, but Lady Croft didn't approach. She stepped back and dropped elegantly on the velvety couch by the fireplace, well away from the bed. "How are you feeling?" She dared to splutter, while regretting having opened her mouth and much more having come in.

"I'll survive." He replied, not without some irony. "Recovered from the scare, Granny Croft?"

The old lady sat up in her seat, suddenly indignant. "It's Lady Croft for you."

"Huh, no." Kurtis shook his head calmly. "There's only one Lady Croft in this world for me, and it can't be you."

"You're a scoundrel."

He shrugged, amused, and for a moment there was only the dripping sound of the medicine inside the dropper. Finally, Lady Croft spoke again: "I wanted to thank you for what you did that night. For my granddaughter."

Kurtis stared at her and grabbed her side to release a laugh. "You're funny."

"What's so funny?"

"I don't know if you noticed, but your granddaughter is my daughter."

Was he making fun of her? Well, two could play that game. "You didn't seem like the kind of man who cares about a child."

He reacted with another laugh but said nothing more. He rested his head on the pillows and closed his eyes, seeming suddenly exhausted.

In the end, Lady Angeline dared to ask. "What... what was that? The... thing that came that night."

Kurtis opened one eye - the bloody one - and watched her. "An incubus." He said at last. "A demon of lust. One of the worst species loose through this land of God."

"God wouldn't allow those abominations to be loose". Lady Croft whispered, shuddering.

"Ha!" The man laughed and fell silent again.

After a few minutes, the old lady dared to speak again. "Why did that... thing come for my granddaughter?"

"It's complicated."

"Tell me."

"You wouldn't understand."

"Test me."

"No."

The old lady took a deep breath, then muttered: "If my granddaughter is going to be chased by those things..."

"Nothing's gonna happen to my daughter." The man turned his face towards her. "Not while I'm alive."

Angeline raised her eyebrows. "No offense, but right now you don't look quite good."

The man laughed again. "I've been worse. You can go back to your bridge games and tea pots. The scoundrel will deal with dirty work."

"And what is that dirty work?"

Kurtis sighed. Old lady doesn't give up, huh? "Basically, standing between hellish incubi and ladies in trouble to end up flying out a window and after, having your recovery bothered by your mother-in-law."

"I am not your mother-in-law."

"Thank goodness."

Lady Croft sighed this time. "Alright. I give up understanding what happened that night... I just want to thank you for what you did."

"Keep your gratitude in your perfumed pocket. I'd do it again. She's my daughter."

The old lady nodded slowly. "I may have misjudged you after all, Ken."

"Kurtis."

"Whatever." She got up elegantly, with a very familiar gracefulness, and walked to the door. But before she left, she turned to him. "So, apparently you cleanse the world of demons."

"Don't tell your friends during tea parties."

"I'm not attending those parties anymore." Lady Croft turned her back on him. "And since cleansing is your call, let's see if you cleanse that mouth of yours. My granddaughter swears like a soldier, and that she didn't get from my daughter. Did you really kiss your mother with that mouth?"

Kurtis smiled. "I kiss your daughter, and more that I can do with this mouth."

Lady Croft blushed to her ears. "Scoundrel." She muttered and left giving an elegant slam to the door.

In two steps, in the middle of the hall, Lady Angeline stopped and let out a sigh.

She'd done it wrong. Old idiot, she accused herself. That way she wouldn't go anywhere. Tomorrow you try again.

She saw her daughter go up the opposite stairs. The old lady hastened to get out of the way.

"Has my mother been bothering you?"

Lara picked up the jar and slowly poured the warm water over Kurtis' soapy hair. He, with his head thrown back, eyes closed, smiled slightly. He lets himself be loved, she thought. And how not. It was always better that being taken care by a stranger.

"Not much. Actually, it's been entertaining." He opened his eyes. Raindrops shone on his eyelashes. "You both are so alike."

Lara snorted and set the jar aside. Then, she gently dried his hair with a towel. For years, his hair had been dark brown, but in recent years it'd been splashed with grey hair, which, far from ageing him, had reinforced his appeal.

"Both of us, alike? Don't offend me."

"It's true. That royal-ish attitude..." He twisted his mouth in a funny grimace, "that way of walking… as if the wind rocked her... that way of looking at me as if I was a maggot..."

Lara brandished the razor and moved it before his eyes. "Mr Trent, don't provoke who's going to shave you. You can lose."

"You don't need to shave me..."

"How are you going to shave yourself with one hand? You remember that time in Romania, when you wanted to remove your back's stitches on your own?"

He laughed softly, then grabbed his side in pain. "I live in terror thinking about the moment when you'll remove my current stitches."

"I promise to be careful." She said, spreading the foam on his hirsute cheeks. "But don't take your chances."

For a moment nothing was heard but the soft sound of the razor scratching the skin. True to her words, when she intended it, Lara could be delicate. "I imagine she seek to fight for a while." She added, referring to Lady Croft. "Lately she doesn't do anything else. I don't know why I just didn't cast her out of the manor."

Kurtis had closed his eyes again. "She came to thank me."

"Seriously?"

"In her own way. As you do, whether you try to thank or to apologize."

The pressure of the razor intensified in his throat. "Mr Trent, don't provoke me."

He opened one eye - the one that was healthy - but she was smiling amused. "I'm afraid I've been a bit rude to her."

"She'll survive." Suddenly, he jumped again and grabbed his side. "Are you in pain?" She checked the dropper. "Gonna increase the dose."

"I don't want to be... always dozed."

Ignoring his comment, Lara reached out and moved the valve regulating the dose of the painkiller. Then, she continued shaving him delicately. "You're right, anyway."

"Hmmm-hmm?" Kurtis was starting to fall asleep. The medication had its effect.

"We're alike. She and me. We're the same." She sighed and put the razor aside. "Dysfunctional in social relations."

"You do... better... than you think." His gaze began to cloud. Then he noticed a hot towel on his face. Lara ran it gently through his jaw, removing the foam.

"No, I don't. I've behaved in a horrible way lately." Suddenly, she lowered her voice, or maybe he was losing consciousness, for he heard her as if she were far away. "Have you forgiven me, Kurtis? What I told you... was too cruel. It wasn't true. I didn't mean it. I was furious... I should never have said that. I should never have laughed."

The wounded man's breath became slower, more relaxed. Lara thought he was already unconscious, but suddenly, the man's healthy hand grabbed hers and squeezed it tightly. A slight smile came back to his lips. Then he froze.