Author's Note: I forgot to post Chapter 13 here when I posted it over on AO3, so make sure to read that first. It's becoming quite a pain using this site for several reasons, the newest being spam PMs. After I finish uploading this fic, I will no longer use this site since it's no longer beneficial for me. I *used* to at least have readers and reviewers over here but now all I get are botted messages :-/
The Watcher's Stone
Chapter 14: Nightmare
"You shouldn't have left her," Morgau's voice said flatly over the phone.
His blood ran cold.
"Don't touch her."
"I won't, but I don't know what Karel has planned for her. Thanks for letting me know you didn't have the Stone."
"Don't–!"
The phone clicked; the call ended.
For a moment, Kurtis was frozen still. His grip on the phone tightened until he heard the plastic creak. Then he abruptly revved his bike and took off again, a trail of dust following behind.
Her aching fingers desperately gripped the stone ledge. She was too tired to hold on any more, and with a quiet, foreboding sadness she felt the last scraps of strength leave her hands.
Lara was dreaming; she had had this dream countless times since her entombment. Replaying in her mind her failure, Werner's betrayal, her last moments as her old self, the relief that she had at least not doomed the rest of the world with herself. The hand that thrusted down would not reach her.
Except this time it did. Werner's hand it was not – it was younger by decades, strong, tanned, with a golden ring on the ring finger. Lara dangled in the grasp, shock parting her mouth. She recognized that ring. She was pulled upwards in a single, smooth motion, and when her feet were back on the ground, Kurtis stood before her.
Without a word he draped his arm around her back and ushered her out of the pyramid the rest of the way, out into the bright Egyptian sunlight. The exit collapsed then, covering her tomb.
Lara was floating. Her body was numb. Voices, distorted, alien, sounded all around her.
She focused. She could make them out if she concentrated.
"Why did you bring her here?"
A male voice… Sophisticated. Evil. Disgust roiled in her belly on instinct. She recognized the voice, though the name escaped her.
"They split up. I lost Kurtis. This will bring him here though."
A female. The girl, the crazy one. The one who drugged her.
"Where is he?"
"He was in Libya. But he'll come. He's on his way already. I did as you asked. When can I be healed?"
"I'll heal you once the Great Work is complete."
"That wasn't part of the deal."
"The deal was that you kill the Lux Veritatis and Lara Croft. You did neither."
"Can't you kill him yourself if you're so strong? I brought you the Watcher's Stone. That's more important to you, isn't it?"
Dismissive, "I have other things to do now."
A pause. Hesitation. Low, unsure, "What will you do with Croft?"
Not low, not unsure, "The same thing I am going to do to you."
A crash followed by a cry of pain. The sound of a body hitting the floor. Then the male voice.
"Take her away. Lock her up on the second level. I will deal with her shortly. No– leave that with me. She's not worthy of wielding the Culcrys. No more distractions; it is time to take back control."
Mustering her strength, Lara opened her eyes. Karel stood at her bedside. Beyond him two men were carrying a limp Morgau out of the room.
She spoke up. "What was that about… 'only trying to survive'? Dropping the pretense now, are we?"
Karel gazed down at her disaffected. He did not appear surprised that she was conscious.
"If you had accepted my offer to join me, things would play out far nicer for you than they will now. I would have only enslaved you along with the rest of humanity; now you will also bear my children."
Her lips didn't want to move. It was hard to speak. "How will you manage that? Don't you Nephilim…shoot blanks? Your clones not good enough?"
Karel's smile was slow and did not reach his eyes. "They aren't clones. My brothers and sisters trapped will be finally reborn. Thanks to you they are already on their way. In no time they'll be full grown, and our bastard offspring will provide fine eating for them; much sustenance is required to satiate a Nephil."
Bile rose in Lara's throat but she swallowed it. Disgusting, sick. She couldn't let him see her fear.
"You didn't think I actually wanted your inferior blood, did you?" he taunted. "That you were special enough for me to need you for anything?"
Karel placed a gloved hand on her sweaty forehead and she recoiled weakly, too drugged to do much else in resistance. Before her eyes his visage morphed into the familiar and welcome one of Kurtis. Her blood ran cold and she stilled.
His voice pitched lower to that rough and smoky tone she found so attractive: Kurtis' voice. "Don't worry, I'll make sure you enjoy it." Karel-as-Kurtis leaned down, his lips brushing her ear. "Your mind will loathe every moment but your body will betray you. You will wish for it to be painful. You will long for death but I will not grant it. You will war with your own psyche, clinging to the only scrap of that Lux Veritatis mongrel left, but knowing it is only I. You will resist me at first, of course. But quickly you will realize it is easier to pretend I am the man you desire."
He leaned back to make eye contact with Lara, his blue eyes penetrating her, freezing her with revulsion. "And when you can no longer lie to yourself, you will beg me to die. Knowing it is I who has defiled your sumptuous body and brought you such pleasure and pain." Karel-as-Kurtis stroked a finger down her cheek, dragging it across her bottom lip. "You could endure anything except for the disloyalty of your own self."
Bending over her face, his lips ghosted just above Lara's. "And that, my sweet Lara, is exactly what will happen to you."
Lara shut her eyes, angered, fearful he might dare kiss her like this, as Kurtis. But after a moment, he straightened back up and removed his hand, and when Lara opened her eyes he had changed back to his normal human form.
"Even if I get carried away, you're incredibly strong for a human, Lara; I have faith in your ability to withstand torture that would break a lesser being."
He turned his head slightly back, addressing the man behind him. "Keep her properly sedated, Rouzic. We wouldn't want any escape attempts. She's sly, this one."
Then Karel promptly left. Lara blinked. The hideous man with a scar down one side of his face – Rouzic – came into view. Luther Rouzic? She remembered that name. He was in the Cabal dossiers. Rouzic lifted a syringe and a short stream of fluid squirted from the tip. He smiled cruelly before sticking it into Lara's arm. Her vision blurred and stomach churned and she closed her eyes to shut the stimuli out.
If someone had asked, Kurtis wouldn't have been able to describe the trip back to Egypt. The remaining hours passed by in a blur, with him only stopping once to relieve himself and chug a bottle of water. He couldn't even remember the last time he ate, sleep seemed a distant memory, and he was aware his body ached all over, but the entire time his mind was preoccupied with Lara.
When he finally became aware of his body again, he'd driven all the way through the desert, through the fertile Nile valley, and back to Jean Yves' house. When he knocked on the door, no one was there.
He wasn't going to wait around. Kurtis broke a front window, cleared the glass shards, and hopped through. He found an opened bottle of red wine and plopped down at the kitchen table. Pulling the cork out, he chugged the fermented drink until the micro cuts in his fist no longer bothered him so much and his vision swayed.
Lara, he thought mournfully. She'd been taken!
He'd failed her like he failed his father.
He couldn't protect her any more than he could protect Ana. And if she died, like how Ana died, well… It would be all his fault.
Kurtis' eyes watered, a single tear slid down his cheek. Forcefully he pressed the heels of his palms against his eyesockets. No tears, no tears! He took a deep breath to calm himself. Lara was not Ana. Lara wouldn't blame him for this; she was responsible for herself, her own actions and their consequences. She wanted to split up.
That fact didn't make his guilt lessen. It didn't change the fact that every moment she was in the hands of Karel, her life was in danger.
Removing his palms, he looked down at the wet spots on them. At what point had Lara gone from a beautiful stranger, the woman who may be the key to helping him finally get Eckhardt – to the woman he loved and cherished and wanted to have a family with? It had happened all so fast, but then, that was how it happened with Ana, too. Kurtis was the kind of guy who fell hard and fast.
He had to get her back. He absolutely couldn't waste any more time licking his wounds and feeling sorry for himself. He had let her down twice already: getting taken by Eckhardt and then being stabbed by Boaz. Lara deserved better than to have her life rest on a weak coward and a reckless fool.
But what could he do? Karel had the Stone now, and the Djed pillar. Rushing into an enemy complex crawling with soldiers and Nephilim when they were expecting him to do just that would only get them both killed. He was the last Lux Veritatis not under Karel's control; he would definitely want to deal with him. Karel would keep Lara alive to bait him there.
He couldn't fail Lara this time, he couldn't. There would be no second chances if he screwed this up. And once he had her in his arms again he wasn't going to let her go. He wouldn't make that mistake twice.
Her crown felt split open root to tip, her brains exposed. Every bone broken, every tendon snapped, organs squashed. This must be what it felt like to still be alive after falling off a skyscraper. To be immortal and unkillable. Who would want such a thing?
She cracked her eyes open. A beautiful hooded woman gazed down at her kindly. "Rest," she whispered in Bedouin Arabic. Lara obeyed.
When she opened them again it was dark. She could smell cooking, fire, spices, the desert sand, camels. She heard the laughter of children, a woman singing, the sound of life. Supper being prepared. Her body was still so weak, so useless, but she had enough presence of mind to realize she was not dying. Not all of her bones were broken. Nothing inside hurt except for an overall exhaustion and mild dehydration.
But who were these people and why were they helping her? Why did they not let her perish in the desert? For what purpose did they rescue her?
"Rest," the voice of the kind woman repeated in her mind, and Lara hadn't the strength to resist her heavy eyelids and the gentle voice of the kind stranger.
"Mon Dieu!" Jean exclaimed.
Footsteps sounded behind Kurtis, but he didn't bother to turn.
"O-oh, Mr. Kurtis, you startled me… Where is Lara?"
His eyes stung again. He closed them, letting out a breath. "They have her."
Silence. Then, "Oh no." Jean came into view, taking the seat opposite Kurtis at the kitchen table. "Tell me how I can help."
Kurtis refrained from giving a snort of derision. "I don't know that you can. Can you stop an army of Nephilim?"
"What may seem impossible at first glance, may have a solution right in front of our eyes. Did Lara retrieve the Djed pillar?"
"Yes, but she had it when she was captured, along with the Watcher's Stone."
"That is not good."
"No shit. I'm gonna break into the base, but I need to wait until nightfall. I'm dead on my feet."
"You may sleep here, of course. Please, make yourself at home. There's food in the refrigerator. I see you've already helped yourself to the wine," he said without malice. "When Lara was trying to stop Seth, she hardly slept for days. I wonder if she would have been more successful in her endeavors had she a full night's rest. Of course, she was on a time restraint. Though I suppose, so are you to a lesser extent."
Kurtis grimaced and thought to say something about Jean's nervous rambling, when something occurred to him. "Seth? Like the Egyptian deity?"
"Did she not tell you about it?"
"She was vague on the details. What happened?"
Jean took the wine bottle, poured the remainder into a glass, and took a sip.
"She unleashed Seth from his tomb. A god cannot be killed by a mortal, so she aimed to call Horus down from his constellation and inhabit his armor, the hope being that Horus would banish Seth once more. However I am unsure of what exactly happened, as Lara never told me. Seth was trapped again, but this time beneath the Great Pyramid. Tours to the inside of Khufu's Pyramid have been closed to the public ever since." He took another sip of the wine, contemplating.
"How is he trapped? If he's a god, why can't he leave?"
"The Amulet of Horus. It has locked shut the shaft down to the Temple of Horus, where the summoning ceremony took place. Its magic binds Seth to that room, so though he may be normally capable of moving throughout space and time, he cannot leave that room while the Amulet is in place."
"That amulet must be really powerful."
"Only against Seth."
Oh. Kurtis sniffed, expression blank. He didn't want to trap Karel anyway. He wanted to kill him. Him and Azazel. They weren't gods – they could be killed. The hundreds of dead Nephilim throughout the centuries were proof of that.
There was a solution somewhere, he knew it. He could sense it right there, just waiting for the veil to be pulled back. But he couldn't think like this.
He thanked Jean for his hospitality and retired to the couch, pulling a blanket over himself and closing his eyes.
"Egypt, Werner. You left me. There was no pity then," Lara sneered, stepping away from where he sat on his apartment couch in Paris.
Werner stood with the help of his cane. "I didn't leave you! I searched everywhere for you!"
"2 weeks after! You weren't searching for me, you were looking for my corpse!" She stalked forward, backing the old man up to the wall. "What motivated you, Von Croy? Just had to be the one to rob my tomb, is that it?"
"No, that's not true!" His face turned ugly and he jabbed a finger accusingly. "Don't pretend you wouldn't have done the same in my shoes! You left me for dead once."
Lara shook her head. "I was a child."
"You weren't innocent. You knew what you were doing. I would have been your greatest rival, had you not ensured I had become crippled."
She scowled. "Your own arrogance caused your accident! Don't you pin that on me."
"And yet you harbor bitterness towards me for something you once did yourself."
"If I hadn't snatched the Amulet of Horus, you would have taken it. The events set in motion would have come to pass no matter which one of us reached it first."
"But it was you. You had to be first." His lips stretched into a cruel smile, and then he was the one pressing forward as Lara backed away. "I taught you well, child. You learned to emulate my triumphs as well as my folly."
Lara shook her head. It wasn't true. She was her own person, she chose her own path, she made her own luck! She was nothing like Von Croy.
His dead eyes watched her. His skin was now absent of all color. Blood stained his shirt. "It is time to let it go, my dear. In this, you cannot beat me. I am gone, but you are still here."
She didn't want to accept it. "I should have fought harder."
"You did all you were able. You were not ready to do more."
She looked him in the eyes. "I wish you were alive," she said with sincerity. "Everything has felt so wrong since you've gone."
"If events did not transpire as they did, you would have never met them. They have changed you into a better version of yourself, as I once did. And had I not died, you would have never met him. There is no use wishing for the past to change. It is impossible."
Lara shook her head again. Tears formed and smudged her eyeliner.
The scene was familiar to him. The smell of rich pine and citrus was tinged with another scent familiar but unwelcome to him, the thick coppery stench of blood.
Gun at the ready, Kurtis crept through the apartment entryway. The apartment was not large, but few were in this part of New York City. A few steps past the kitchen and he was in her bedroom, the only bedroom, and her sheets were strewn about and her bedside lamp knocked over, casting a long shadow on the wall. Her typewriter had its paper ripped out and torn, the cumulation of weeks of research and evidence destroyed. The telephone she had called him from was unplugged from the wall and across the room on the floor. The curtains were thrown open, a window left up to let in the night breeze. Car horns blared in the distance. The noise of the city faded to nothing in his ears when his eyes landed on the pair of feet sticking out from the other side of the bed.
They were Ana's feet. They were her size, covered in the same shade of pantyhose she was wearing last time he saw her. If only he had let the lead go cold just that once, had walked Ana home and stayed with her like he knew she wanted but was too proud to request. She wanted to prove she could hack it in his world, the world of ghosts and vampires and weird body snatchers and freakish mystics. She had believed everything her eyes told her, yet there was still so much about Kurtis and his world she couldn't even begin to understand.
He should have pushed her away. This was no place for a pretty, young journalist. She was putting her career and her life on the line. But Kurtis… he was a sucker for those eyes.
But now…
He rounded the corner of the bed, and the breath he had been holding came out in a choked rush. He sank to his knees, his eyes shutting. Trying to stop what he saw. This was his fault. His very presence drew them to him, and they sniffed her out as a weakness to exploit.
Her clothes were torn and blood splattered them. Kurtis gently placed a hand on her shoulder and turned her stiff body. Blood streaked through her blonde curls, painting it the same orangish color as her cardigan. Her face was frozen in an expression of shock and fear, her mouth partially open. How had she died? Alone and afraid.
"Kurtis? Please, when you get this, come over. Maybe I'm going crazy but I think something followed me home from the crime scene." Click. Message end.
"Oh God, Kurtis, where are you? It's here, in my apartment, I- I– I can't leave, it won't let me. I don't know how to explain it but– Oh, no. Oh no no no no no! No! Leave me alone!"
All the while he had no idea what was happening to his girlfriend.
He opened his eyes and brushed a sticky strand of hair from her forehead. The blond hair turned to brunette before his eyes. The round blue eyes were now almond shaped and chestnut brown, the thin lips now full. Only the deathly pallid skin remained the same, everything else morphing Ana to Lara before his eyes.
The sound of the bedroom door clicking closed jolted Kurtis awake. He opened his eyes and sat up on the couch, his breath coming in shaky and his forehead beaded with sweat. He knew it had only been a dream, yet he couldn't shake it.
It was dark in the house, and quiet except for the sound of crickets chirping outside. Raising his arms above his head he stretched and yawned. He had somehow been able to ignore the stress and pressing need to get to Lara long enough to fall asleep, but after that nightmare it was an impossibility. He could no longer wait. He didn't yet know how, but he would find a way to Lara. He wouldn't let that nightmare become reality.
He stood from the couch and crept over to Jean's desk. He had spotted it earlier: an archaeological dig pass. Pocketing the pass, he exited the house quietly and left on his bike, driving towards the direction of Giza.
Lara couldn't breathe. She couldn't feel a thing. Her mind could not control a single muscle in her body and yet she was aware of herself. How she wished she could remain unconscious for this part, to simply pass away without a fight. Her stubbornness wouldn't let her. She was not granted the peace of ignorance nor the tranquility of sleep.
Rough hands gripped her arms then. They hurt. This was not right – she did not remember this in the desert.
Without opening her eyes she knew who it was. Joachim Karel pulled her arm back until it snapped – the pain nauseated her. He shredded her clothes to ribbons with his nails, leaving her exposed and helpless. She watched from above as her vulnerable body laid bare to the elements– the scorching desert sun, the chaffing wind and the coarse sand. The wind blew sand over her body, burying her. Her mouth felt dry, so dry. Her lips cracked and turned pale. Then the sun was blocked out, an enormous pair of wings covered it, shrouding the entire desert.
Lara opened her eyes. An angel floated above. Behind it the silhouettes of dozens of angels flew across the sky, terrible horned giants. Not angels at all.
Nephilim. Karel's white skin etched with runes descended upon her and Lara opened her mouth to scream.
Lara awakened with a jolt and her heart hammering in her chest. Sweat beaded at her brow and her eyes flickered all around her, her breathing erratic.
She was still in the room in the Cabal base. Her arms were still strapped to the gurney, unbroken. It had just been a nightmare; memories blurring with fears. But she also somehow knew that last part could very well become reality if she failed to escape this place. Briefly she wondered what became of Kurtis – did he know where she was? Did he manage to get Ascalon, was he even still alive?
Yes, he was alive. She remembered a little: Morgau Vasiley talking to him on the phone. He would be coming for her, she knew it. She didn't know how she knew it but she did. Women's intuition, maybe. For a single second she allowed herself the weakness to wish he would rescue her like a dashing knight, picking her up and cradling her in his strong arms, like in her dream. Then she banished the thought away; she couldn't lay idle strapped to this bed waiting for such a fantasy.
Alright, what could she do? She lifted her head, expecting the drugs to make it too difficult as they had last time, and was surprised she could muster the strength to do so.
That's good, she thought, and gazed down the length of her body. She was in her underwear. Only her underwear, not even a bra. That explained her strange dreams where she was naked. It wasn't her psyche trying to represent fear of the Nephilim – she was just actually naked and her subconscious mind knew it.
She shuddered. Who had undressed her? Her arms were still tied to the handles of the gurney but not tightly. In fact she noticed as she moved them that with a little more maneuvering she should be able to slip her hands through. Whoever had undressed her would have needed to unshackle her arms, and it appeared they placed too much trust in the drugs to do the work of keeping her to the bed. When they had retied her, they only used a slip knot.
Lara wiggled her arms, working the straps down to her wrists. Bending her right wrist down, she grasped with her fingers until she found the tail end and started tugging at it.
Her hand cramped from the awkward position and a sudden surge of nausea forced her to lean over the side of the bed and vomit. Hardly anything came up. She was horribly dehydrated and had a pounding headache courtesy of the sedatives. Her muscles clenched uncontrollably, and all she wanted to do was nap, but she couldn't give up now. Catching her breath, she bent her wrist again and caught the small tail of the slip knot and continued to tug.
A few more pulls and it became looser, and then the hole was large enough to get her hand free. Reaching over she easily released her other arm, rolled off the bed to land on her feet–
And fell flat on her face.
Lara groaned. She still hardly had any control over her body. Cautiously she raised herself to her hands and knees, then feet, legs trembling like a newborn fawn learning to walk. Once her legs were fully extended she took a moment to look around the room.
What she had thought was a gurney was really just a converted sleeping cot stacked on two wooden crates so that it was waist-high. Against the wall was a set of lockers. The room was bare and empty besides that – clearly the facility was not set up with holding captives in mind – but they did have syringes and sedatives on hand. What was Rouzic's specialty again? With her mind fuzzy, she couldn't recall.
Tentatively she walked over to the locker and opened it, hoping to find her missing clothes. Alas, the only item of clothing was some Agency merc's blue jacket. She gave it a whiff – smelled clean enough – and slipped it on. When she zipped it however, it was a bit small in the chest so she left it only halfway zipped. It would have to do until she located her own clothes.
In addition to the jacket she found several vials of various substances. A couple were empty: probably sedatives given to her. A few had a toxic greenish hue to them, one of which was half used. A couple more were a deep rich shade of blue. They reminded her of the Sh'mulahl elixir the Bantiwa made. But surely it couldn't be such.
She closed the locker and went to the door. Her legs felt stronger already, more stable, and she had only been awake less than thirty minutes. She would be able to escape.
But if she woke a little earlier than excepted, that meant someone would likely be coming to check on her soon to administer sedatives. She needed to get away even if she was not in any shape to fight.
Nearing the door, she tested the handle, pleased when it went down freely and the door opened. Taking a deep breath, she peeked her head out and glanced down the hallway. Empty. Her bare feet were silent as she slipped out and let the door shut behind her. Somewhere in this facility were her guns and the Djed pillar.
There was hope yet.