~ Prologue ~

There, plastered on the TV screen, was her name and picture again. Lara Croft had gotten used to seeing her wanted ads in the papers and on the news, but this one looked different. The little Czech she could speak and read didn't help her much, but one name stood out among the rest: Pieter van Eckhardt.

Eckhardt. So the Prague police finally got around to looking through what remained of the Strahov. The news report seemed to link his name with the Monstrum killings. Tuning the radio until she found a station in English, she listened until her suspicions were confirmed: The Prague police were currently looking for a missing man by the name of Eckhardt in relation to the slew of grisly deaths all across Europe. Lara went to the telephone in her dingy hotel room and dialed a number well-memorized.

"Winston, it's me. Get me the number to my lawyer, please."

What she really wanted to do was find Kurtis. But at this point she had no reason to even believe he was alive. All she had to go on was a hunch; she couldn't even find a body. All she had left was his strange bladed-disc weapon that came 'alive' when she picked it up down in the bowels of the Strahov. However, the weapon hadn't moved since then, seemingly gone dead along with its owner. Lara felt an unusual wash of sadness over this thought; she hardly knew the man so his death should have had no effect on her, but at the same time it was a shame he died without knowing his father had been avenged.

Under the care of her lawyer and with his guidance, Lara spoke to the Prague police and told them her versions of the events. She justified running from the police on the grounds that she feared for her life; it was no secret that at the time the Parisian police were very jumpy and trigger-happy. After a lot of back-and-forth, and a rather large chunk of change being deducted from her bank account, Lara found her wanted status on Interpol removed. Once someone more sinister and with a greater amount of evidence against them showed up, it was easy to convince them of her innocence.

As soon as she was officially cleared as a suspect and released to leave the country a month had passed and the trail to Kurtis had gone cold.

The manor in Surrey was as cold and silent as ever, both comforting in its familiarity but also strangely melancholic, for today she couldn't get a man off her mind.

Lara had devoted her new-found freedom and spare time to retraining herself. Some time had passed between when she was entombed in Egypt and when she began running from the police, and that time off from raiding tombs had not been kind to her. She was really not in top form. Though she had no plans to restart that lifestyle, there was no telling when she'd need to be quick on her feet again. Therefore there was no reason not to continue her training regime.

She was slowly going mental. She refused to partake in the lifestyle that almost killed her and left her severely scarred, but then she didn't really feel like she was alive. Practicing was a fine substitute when she knew it was in preparation of an upcoming adventure, but practicing for practice's sake was boring. There was only so many ways she could rearrange the obstacle course, so many times she could beat the punching bag with fists and feet until it fell off its chain. At some point she was going to have to find a hobby that didn't involve adrenaline, but today was not that day.

Already she had run the assault course in her backyard twice, her finishing time well-below her best time. I just need more time, she told herself, but the truth was it terrified her. There was no telling how many times she came this close to nearly dying again. It was pure luck she survived Paris and Prague with her guts intact (literally, when taking Eckhardt into account), and the thought left her gasping for air with sweaty palms, unrelated to the exercise she just underwent.

With her name officially no longer tied to the Monstrum case, her phone rang at all hours of the day. Friends, reporters, and acquaintances alike all wanted to hear from her. It reminded her too much of when she returned from Egypt, when the press wanted the scoop on how she survived, so she ignored the majority of the calls. She might have been let off the hook, but her name was still tarnished. The killings would follow her everywhere. She wondered if she could ever find a semblance of peace again. In the blink of an eye, her entire life had become all about the two worst things to ever happen to her. And they were both courtesy of Werner.

She took the calls that were from her friends, if she could still call them that. Father Bram Dunstan wanted to let her know she could talk to him whenever she wanted and that he was praying for her. Jean-Yves told her he would serve as a character witness if she needed one, to declare with certainty she would never kill Von Croy (a lie, they both knew, but she shrugged it off as a vision through rose-colored lenses). Charles Kane wondered if she'd like to catch a drink with him, but she knew once she stumbled down that rabbit hole she'd be tempted to stay there, drowning her sorrow and self-pity in an endless stream of alcohol. Even Zip contacted her, though she wished she had screened that message; he was entirely too clownish for anything he said to actually cheer her up.

The one person she would have welcomed a call from, didn't call. Every time the phone rang, she wondered if it could be him.

In fact, all the messages did was further widen the gap in her mind that separated her from everyone else in society. Lara had always been somewhat of a loner, different from others. But before the events that transpired in Egypt she at least had connections, people she'd called 'friends'. Now even they seemed like strangers, set-apart from her by an invisible wall of glass – she could see them but they couldn't touch her.

So it was with this all on her mind that she recalled that man, the stranger that looked into her eyes and seemed to know her...

He pressed the down arrow on the button pad with his leather gloved finger, and with a jolt and grinding of the mechanism, the elevator began its descent.

"Master," the deep accented voice began, "The construction on the lower level has finished. The workers are ready to begin digging."

A cultured baritone voice answered. "Good. And what of the woman?"

"The woman is in England. She's not left her residence for weeks."

"And the man?" The elevator stopped.

"Location is unknown... Master, are you sure -"

The man with the gloved hands raised one, pausing the other. "Have faith in me. He's alive, and he won't stay away for long." The doors slowly opened, and the one speaking exited into the open arena, turned and spoke again. "Keep watching Ms. Croft, I will be requiring her soon. If a sudden case of wanderlust overcomes her, capture her and bring her to me immediately. As for the Lux Veritatis: Should you encounter him, kill him on sight."

"Yes, Master." The elevator doors shut, and burly man traveled back up, going over the preparations in his head.