"The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."
― H.P. Lovecraft

9. Genocide

Lara lowered her soggy map and stared over the edge at the estate laid out before her. The chateau was a great deal larger than she had expected, not that she should have had any reason to be surprised considering Karel's apparent wealth. Everything about the design seemed perfectly in keeping with Karel's taste - gaudy and with no substance, roman columns a harsh contrast to boarded and broken windows. Despite the luxury, something about the place felt cold, wrong, entirely out of place. And yet the history of the property had checked out: built in the 16th century and passed down from nobility to state until, finally, Karel's ownership. It also was in keeping with the description Lara's contact had provided of no staff for the past 40 years, it seemed, as grass had sprung up all along the unpaved road leading to the entrance, the grounds a mess of weeds and plants left to wither. Despite the condition, however, Lara realized there was no sign of graffiti or looting. It was as if Karel had somehow managed to hide the place from public knowledge, or perhaps even from view.

She tucked the map away and lowered the kickstand on the bike that she had yet again opted to borrow from Kurtis. The overcast sky made it seem colder than usual, though Lara attributed that to her growing discomfort as she neared the house. The crunch of her boots on the dirt road underfoot seemed unbearably loud in the silence. The area was devoid of even normal sounds of wildlife from the forest ringing the estate.

Everything about the place felt dead.

Lara reached the entrance and tried the door, and found it, unsurprisingly, locked. Being that all appearances pointed to it being abandoned, Lara didn't hesitate to fire a single round at the lock. Again, unbearably loud. Again, no movement from the woods, not even a startled bird taking flight.

She stepped inside, the door creaking as it opened for the first time in what must have been decades. The scent of age and decay hit her at once. The foyer was bare of most decoration, save for a marble floor with an inlaid crest. She couldn't recognize the family it belonged to, and the elements had done their work over the years, leaving it faded and scratched so badly that she could hardly even make out the shapes.

She crossed the foyer, passing by cracked mirrors where her reflection showed distorted and pale - from cold or nerves, Lara wasn't sure. She zipped her jacket higher as if to block out the cold, but she knew in truth it wasn't the weather affecting her.

The first few rooms were far worse off than the entrance had been. Furniture was thrown about, bullet holes marring the walls and floor. Lara passed them without pause, picking up her pace as a staircase caught her eye. At the end of the hallway it opened up into a large hall, shot up the same as the rooms she had already passed, and the roof had partially collapsed, letting the elements invade at will. It may have been beautiful were there sun, but there were only grey clouds overhead, leaving the hall dark and shadowed. Lara shivered, standing immobile in the entrance. She could feel her heart beating faster, though nothing had really changed, and yet something felt different. Felt unnatural and wrong, as the outside had.

Pain exploded behind her eyes, a pressure that made Lara cry out and drop to one knee. She pressed her palms to her eyes, waiting for it to pass. After a few seconds, she lowered her hands, her breath unsteady, and stood with the aid of one hand on the wall. Her scarred hand, she realized only as it too started to ache, albeit less so than her head.

Something moved on the stairs. Her pistol was out in an instant, but there was nothing to aim at. Lara kept it drawn all the same.

And then she saw them. Shapes, shadows, she wasn't sure what to call them, figures that were moving. Ghosts? she thought, then at once dismissed the notion. It was no doubt a combination of shared memories and, now, shared space.

The figures disappeared before Lara could comprehend what she was seeing, leaving the hall empty and silent once more. She had a familiar feeling, the rush of discovery, and quickly made her way toward the stairs. She kept one gun drawn, despite it being rather useless against visions.

The second floor was in worse shape than the first. The floors were falling away in some places, and Lara was careful to step around these spots, slow so as to not disturb what floor was still intact. All decoration in the hall had been burned away and the walls left scorched, as if a flood of fire had gone through and then been immediately smothered before it overtook the house. The hall ended in a sharp turn to the right, and the floor there was sturdier. Lara let out a small breath of relief as both feet were again on solid ground.

Instead of burns, though, she now found the walls gouged deep, gigantic marks trailing down the length of it. No doubt courtesy of the owner, though what could have prompted Karel to destroy his own home she couldn't guess. Lara had assumed there had been an attack of some sort, but who would be foolish enough to attack a Nephilim on his own territory?

She reached another staircase, this one smaller and plainer with no windows, likely used in the past for servants to move between floors. Lara flicked on a torch and shined the light down the center of the flights. It went far deeper than two floors, extending into a cellar that swallowed up the light.

She felt ill at the thought of going anywhere near the cellar, regardless of her history with dark underground spaces, but some part of her felt drawn there. She kept her torch in hand for the descent, free hand on the banister. Her scar ached once more as it touched the cool marble and she was thankful that, this time at least, no pain surged through her head.

Instead of figures, however, she saw marks on the wall. She paused on a landing, keeping one hand on the banister at all times in case the contact was what allowed her to see the memories. Lara squinted and held the torch to shine directly on the wall.

It was blood. Lara knew it hadn't been there a moment ago, and looked quite fresh besides. The sheer amount made her stomach turn, as did the streams of it dripping down onto the floor. She didn't want to speculate whom it belonged to.

She pressed onward, the phantom smears of blood coursing down every wall along the staircase doing nothing for her nausea as she neared the cellar entrance. The stairs stopped short at a door of iron bars inset with a large lock, but Lara didn't have to waste a bullet this time - someone, something, had bent the bars apart, and she was able to step through the door unhindered. She took a deep breath at the edge of the darkness, waited for her heart to stop pounding, and continued down.

If the chateau above was well-preserved in the 16th century style, the cellar was quite the opposite. The abrupt change in design made Lara wonder if she was even in the same house. It was a mess of old and new, metal doors between each stone arch that supported the roof. Fluorescent light fixtures hung overhead, but with no switch in sight she was forced to rely on the light of her torch. Each door was closed, a small barred window at eye level allowing her to see inside. Most were empty or used as storage. She continued down the passage, shining her light at each cell door, seeing more of the same.

And then the torch died.

Lara's breath caught in her throat. With no windows to the outside she was left in complete darkness, the lack of light suffocating her alongside the sickening knowledge that she was at least two storeys underground. She reached for the wall, fingers scrambling for anything solid as panic rose in her chest.

Finally she found it - the reassuring touch of a cell door. She wrapped one hand around the bars in the tiny window and pressed her forehead to the cool metal, forcing herself to take deep breaths and calm her racing heart. She focused on her other senses, closing her eyes to blackness. The air still smelled of decay, musty and now mixed with the coppery scent of rust.

Or, at least, she assumed rust.

It started gradual, a hint of movement behind her. Lara opened her eyes and turned, knowing of course that she'd see nothing without any light. And yet there it was, subtle, a shimmer in the space before her. She let her hand drop from the door to take a step toward the shimmer. It disappeared before she could.

Remembering how the events upstairs had played out, she returned her grip to the door, keeping her eyes now on what she assumed was the center of the room. The shimmer returned, and then became a whisp, and from nowhere the hall erupted with sudden movement. The flurry of activity that appeared almost overwhelmed her. Lara pressed her back to the wall, knuckles white as she gripped the door, watching as the cellar filled with people, filled with light from torches no longer there. The intruders had a mix of guns and more primitive weaponry, and were throwing open doors. Other figures stumbled out of the rooms, most wearing scraps of clothing or none at all, some with mere scars and others with disfigurements that left them requiring the aid of those able to, just barely, move from their place on the floor. Her eyes drifted over each of them, an identical tattoo on every bared shoulder. One figure passed particularly close by, and she could see with startling clarity that it wasn't a tattoo at all, but a brand.

Lara found that despite the darkness she wandered through in her own reality, she was able to see clearly down the hall so long as the vision remained. She let go of her grip on the door, but kept one hand outstretched to trail along the wall. She followed the figures on their route down the hall, trying to recognize or at the least commit to memory the faces going by. Most were a blur, as if they were so insignificant to the owner of the memory that they'd not been remembered at all.

She came to the final doorway, this one open in both memory and reality. Lara paused, swallowing, gathering herself. Something- a feeling, an instinct, a fear -told her she'd found something important, and it would be in this room.

Turning the corner, she saw only two people, a man and a woman. The man knelt at the woman's side, struggling to wrench open the shackles that kept her lashed to the wall. The woman looked catatonic, her eyes empty, her body emaciated. She wore only scraps of clothing with most skin bare, skin that showed bloody trails of scars long since healed. They covered every inch of her, no concern spared – face, arms, legs, chest, back, as if she'd be lashed simply for the sake of it. For fun.

Lara was so engrossed in the scene before her it took her a moment to realize that both faces, unlike those around her outside the cell, had features clear as day, features that Karel had remembered. But she had no time to ponder the significance of this. The man finally resorted to the gun in his hand, shielding the small form of the woman against him as he fired two shots, one at each shackle. The chains came away from the wall, her arms dropped, and she slumped into his lap, unmoving.

The man was speaking, but Lara could hear none of the words. It seemed Karel hadn't been present for this particularly memory- the house was so saturated in his presence, perhaps that was enough for the visions to reach her.

The man pulled his coat off and wrapped it around the woman's shoulders. She was so malnourished it wrapped around her like a blanket, covering her neck to ankle. She looked almost childlike, eyes closed, head now resting against her rescuer's shoulder. He lifted her with ease, cradling her, his own face grim with a shadow of anger in his eyes. He moved back out the door, Lara jumping as they passed directly through her, and she turned to follow.

A rush of noise washed over her as she re-entered the hall, a cacophony of shouts and shots fired where before there had been only silence. It meant only one thing: he was coming.

The figures she'd been pursuing had disappeared into the fray. She scanned the crowd of men and women and saw neither of them. All faces became clear to her in one abrupt moment, and she could finally see both the fear and loathing in each of their eyes.

She could see him descending the stairs in slow, deliberate steps, already well into his Nephilic form. As she'd suspected, his hand trailed the wall, nails gouging the stone with such ease he could have been dragging his fingers through sand. His face appeared last, eyes black as ever, features contorted with rage. She saw the blood trailing down his arms and torso, still fresh and glistening. None of it was his own.

Silence returned in the hall, a hush of frozen fear from all those around her. They shook themselves from it quickly, ducking into what cover they could just as a wave of flame hit the hall with enough power and speed to send cracks through the masonry. Lara nearly took cover before remembering her place in reality and let out a breath as it passed without harm.

But the carnage it left in its wake was horrifying. Those who hadn't made it into the open cells were destroyed where they stood, human figures turning into no more than smears on the wall. The screaming started then, the gunfire resumed.

Karel regarded it all with an air of irritation, as if it were beneath him to even acknowledge those left, not even flinching as bullets thudded into his chest. Instead he turned and ripped a panel from the wall. It came away in a shower of sparks and plunged the hall back into darkness, this time both real and imagined.

And then he spoke, the hiss of his voice so quiet she strained to hear it over the noise around her, and yet every word was clear.

"She is gone. You chaff are none of my concern."

Though she could no longer see anything around her regardless of it being real or a memory, Lara heard the gasps, heard Karel's retreat back up the stairs and the door above slamming shut. Voices and panic resumed, those that remained tripping over themselves in the dark and crying out to each other.

And then it faded. She heard the heavy sound of bodies slumping to the floor, heard gasps and sobs that grew weaker with each breath. Karel had cut off the air supply.

Lara's torch bloomed to life again, startling and very nearly blinding her. She stumbled, hand flying to cover her eyes. After a moment her vision adjusted and she glanced around. The memory was done.

She turned back to the cell the man and woman had emerged from and shone her light on it. The mount for the shackles still remained bolted to the wall, now a great deal more rusted than before. Beyond that, the room was bare, save the bloodied walls. No occult symbols had been wasted on the prior occupant. The blood was splattered, remnants of what could only have been torture.

Grimacing, Lara turned and left the cell, quickening her pace as she made her way to the stairs. She'd had quite enough of Karel's holding pens. The faces of the man and woman were still in her mind, her empty stare and his expression of sheer rage. What had Karel needed with her, and what had she done to merit torture rather than a swift merciful death?

Lara took the steps two at a time, trading her torch for the reassuring weight of her gun as she reached the natural light above. Despite the gloom that remained, Lara couldn't help her small smile; it was almost cheerful above compared to below.

She took the nearest hall, passing by rows of broken windows that showed a grey sky outside. She gave only cursory glances to the rooms she went by, going the direction of the foyer. If there was one thing she knew about men like Karel, and especially men like Karel who chose to live in homes like this, it was that they were the very definition of pompous narcissm; Karel was perhaps a worse offender in this, as he believed he was above even the human race itself, let alone his 'fellow man'. And pompous men all lived the same. If there was something to be found, it would be in the study.

She found the study to the right of the foyer, the door still hanging open. She was surprised at how easily it swung open, and unlike most of the rest of the house, this room was remarkably well preserved. Only a fine layer of dust indicated it hadn't seen use in decades. If she didn't know better, Lara would have assumed Karel had been here even as recently as a few weeks prior.

Lara pulled books from the shelves, paintings from the walls, hoping behind one of them she'd find something. This was only made harder by the fact that she had no idea what precisely it was that she was looking for. A gut feeling wasn't much to go on, nor were vague dreams and memories. But something had taken place here, an event that was of immense importance to Karel, and there was a reason he had kept the place all these years rather than just destroying it and moving on.

In the back of the fireplace she found that reason - an etching, so faint Lara had barely spotted it. A grapevine cross, no larger than her palm and carved crudely into the heat-singed stone. She ran her fingertips over the grooves, wondering why it felt so familiar to her. The brick was loose and she eased her fingertips into the small gaps around it and pulled. A few short tugs and it fell from the wall

She reached into the small space and felt paper and nothing else. It was aged and quite fragile, and she pulled it out into her palm with care. Bringing it to the nearby desk, she unfolded it and placed a weight at each corner.

Strange. A cliché just didn't seem Karel's style, that had been better left to Eckhardt's particular brand of villainy, and yet there it was in hand - the proverbial map to the buried treasure. It was a faint world map, clearly dating to the late 1800s, if not earlier. Various points on the map were marked with a single dot of ink. She stared at each of them in turn, puzzling over what she knew about each one. The cities marked were so random – London, Paris, New York - she couldn't think of anything to connect them. It would clearly require time and access to her library, neither of which she had on hand.

She was so wrapped up in her study of the map that Lara didn't notice the new presence in the room until he was close enough she could feel his warm breath on her ear. She spun, hand reaching for her gun, a shiver of horror running down her spine as she saw his face. Her hand went still.

"You're trespassing, Lara."

Karel leaned forward, arms on either side of her and effectively trapping her against the table. His stance was relaxed but grounded all the same. He was smiling, or perhaps smirking, she wasn't sure how to read his expression, and she felt a breath catch in her throat as she looked over his face. Smooth, taut burns painted a trail down his jawline, disappearing beneath his shirt collar. The wound was still raw and had the wet shine of healing flesh. His head was tilted ever so slightly, calmly regarding her and ignoring her gaze as she traced the path of the burn and stared in open shock at his single bloodied eye, the sclera more red than white.

She swallowed, finding her voice once more. "You look like hell, Karel."

"Hello to you as well, Ms. Croft. You don't seem surprised to see me." He was an alarming level of calm, no spite or anger in his tone. He let his arms drop and took a step back, finally giving her room to breathe.

Lara considered for a moment bolting for the door before he could react, then realized how foolish the notion was. Karel was stronger, faster, and had the unique perspective of always seeming to know what was going on in her head. She'd be dead before she took a step. "Something tells me that if an explosion was all it took to kill a Nephilim, the Lux Veritatis would have done it a long time ago. I'd say you have quite a bit of explaining to do, but I would honestly rather just put a bullet between your eyes."

"I've always admired how candid you are, Lara." He smiled again. "But for all the good that would do you, I wouldn't recommend taking the chance, or wasting the ammunition."

"Interesting home you have here. I especially enjoyed my tour of the cellar. The foliage and bloodstains are a nice touch."

Karel laughed despite Lara's humorless expression. "I must admit I both love and loathe this particular estate. I don't visit it very often, but when I do it always tends to be…eventful."

Lara took a slight step away from Karel as he spoke, testing how much distance he would allow between them. He stood impassive, making no move to stop her, and she realized how futile the situation was. The whole affair was a joke to him, a game not worth playing. She leaned back against the desk with arms crossed, still keenly aware of the map spread out behind her. "Something happened here. It's more a battlefield than a home."

"Battlefield? Hm. An apt description. Unfortunately the holding cells have been empty for quite some time." Another smug expression crossed his face. "I haven't needed them."

"No, I suppose with all of your enemies wiped out you wouldn't have any need of them."

"Most of my enemies," he corrected. "But I'll soon rectify that."

"How did you know I would come here?"

"Did I?"

"A home untouched for decades and we both appear on the same day at the same time. I don't believe in coincidence, Karel, and if I didn't even know what I was looking for, you hardly could have known I'd come this way."

"But perhaps I knew what you were looking for." He walked toward the window as he spoke, gently tugging his gloves off to fall to the floor and laying his jacket with far more care over the back of a nearby chair. "Perhaps I even wanted you to find it."

"I have no idea what you're talking about." She slid her palm over the butt of her pistol while his back was turned, trying gentle and silent as she could to release it from the holster. Before she got far with it Karel made a light gesture toward her, as if swatting a persistent insect away, and Lara found herself thrown to the ground, slamming painfully into the side of the desk at a speed so great it made her world go black for a moment.

Eyes closed, trying desperately to regain her bearings, she let out a feeble, "No," as Karel stepped over her and lifted the map. He held it up to the light, scanning it, then set it down on the desk once more. Kneeling, he gripped Lara by the lapel of her jacket and lifted her bodily to her feet, pushing her back against the desk so she couldn't struggle.

"What is the connection?"

She was silent, still trying to blink away the pain of what was no doubt a concussion. Karel gripped her jacket tighter.

"I have known where this useless map was for many years. I found it decades before you were even born, and visited each marked location not long after. And do you know what I found at each city, Lara?"

"What?"

He let her go, still standing close. "Nothing. I found much of the Lux Veritatis simply by following this map, which proved a source of amusement for several years, but it was the only connection these cities had. I could find nothing to tie them together."

She looked up at him, wincing, the light still sending stabbing pain into her brain. "And you wanted me to do your homework. Give you the answers. It's a shame you killed off the one group of people who could have given you exactly what you were looking for."

Again he shoved her into the desk, lips curling in a growl. He looked ethereal, angelic, hellish, she wasn't sure which, and she supposed it didn't matter; at his core, Karel was all of them at once, not meant for this world nor any other. Yet again, to her own revulsion, she found herself pitying him. A creature hellbent on destroying her world and everything it in deserved no such pity.

As if reading her thoughts, Karel's face went dark. A hand slipped to her throat, fingers tightening. She coughed, immediately fighting to get away, the pain in her head steadily increasing. At the last moment, before she could finally lose consciousness, he released his grip, wheeling his arm back for a blow to her head.

Telegraphing his movements from the moment he let her go, Lara slipped away before his hit could connect, dashing under his arm while pulling both guns from her belt and ignoring the migraine that made every step that much harder. She turned and opened fire rather than wait for whatever reaction was coming.

Two rounds took him in the shoulder, shoving him roughly into the desk from the force. She put another round in his opposite leg, knocking it from beneath him. Though he clutched at the edge of the desk with one hand and the other pressed to his wounded shoulder, Karel's change of form had already begun, his skin steadily bleeding color to ashy grey. Before he could complete his transformation Lara put one gun to the back of his head, muzzle pushed firmly against the base of his skull, and pulled the trigger.

Karel went down, immobile and silent, his face blank and lifeless. The shot had been clean, exiting above his eyes, and blood cut a path from the wound down his already mangled face, quickly spreading across the floorboards beneath them.

She didn't wait to find out if the shot had truly killed him. Lara grabbed the map from the desk and quickly tucked it into the inside pocket of her jacket, then turned and ran. Her boots left red prints all the way to the entrance door and she stumbled out into the now pouring rain. She half expected an army to be waiting outside for her, but found only Kurtis's motorbike still propped where she had left it. She ran for it, fumbling with the keys in her pocket, and threw a leg over the same moment she started the engine. She swung the bike around and gripped the throttle, the rear tire spitting gravel as it gained traction.

As she coasted back toward the road, she chanced a look back over her shoulder at the estate. It was as quiet as she'd left it, the door still hanging open. She faced the road once more, willing her shaking hands to calm as she started her long drive back to Paris.

Apologies for the wait on this chapter. I sat on it for quite a few months, not quite happy with portions, then decided six months between updates was quite long enough. Despite the long wait times, we're a little over halfway done now, and I'm determined to finish, however long that takes. One note: the use of 'torch' in this chapter is the UK context ('flashlight' to North Americans), as it was from Lara's perspective. - A