Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals (24 page)

Chapter 33

K
ennard Montez was tackled by an Immortal as he fired at Ares. The bullet seared into Ares’s left shoulder. Kennard flew into the room a split second later, an Immortal on his back.

Ares stood. He did not gasp or wince. He took a large silk square from his pocket, folded it, and unbuttoned his shirt. He pressed the wadded cloth against the wound, and bound it in place with the tie that he had removed from around his collar.

Kennard and the Immortal battled furiously, first on the floor and then across the width of the room. They upended chairs and turned over tables in their urgency to do each other bodily harm.

Ares buttoned his shirt and shrugged his jacket back into place. Then, he walked deliberately across the room, sidestepping the furniture and the brawling men, and exited in the same direction that Lara had left.

Kennard was backed against a window, the Immortal’s fists flying into his gut. Trying to avoid going down on his knees, Kennard reached out for something to steady himself. His right hand found the cord that was holding back the curtain, and he gripped it and pulled.

With renewed purpose, Kennard threw a hard left uppercut, connecting with the Immortal’s jaw. Then, he swung the cord around the Immortal’s neck. He caught the cord’s other end deftly in his left hand and pulled on both ends.

The Immortal tried to swing another punch, but the hard yank on his neck and punching into air compromised his balance. Kennard turned the Immortal. He twisted the ends of the cord around his hands and pushed his knee into the Immortal’s back as the man went down on his knees.

The Immortal began to claw at his neck, but it was useless. The pressure on his throat was too much, and he was quickly gasping for breath. Kennard kept tightening his grip as the Immortal’s strength began to fail him, and eventually he was unconscious.

Kennard Montez had no more time to waste. It would take several more seconds for the Immortal to die of strangulation, so he let go of the cord. The Immortal slumped to the floor. Kennard reached down, gripping the man’s head between his hands, and in one swift move, he broke his neck.

Then, Kennard retrieved his gun and went after Ares.

Lara crossed the roof of the stair turret and climbed the steep slope of the Hall roof, grateful for the rubber tread of her sturdy boots. She crouched at the top and looked out across the college. Someone was walking the ridgeline of the roof that adjoined the Hall, to her left, using it like a tightrope. It was a woman dressed all in black. She had to be an Immortal.

Lara knew she’d been seen. She crab-crawled back down the roof. Lara took a firm hold of the lip of the roof with both hands. She swung her body down so that the drop was as small as possible, and then let herself fall. The connecting building between the Hall and Mob Quad was low and narrow, and Lara fell hard onto its roof, her legs crumpling beneath her. The fall made her wince with the pain in her ribs as the gun in her belt jammed up against them.

“Keep moving, Lara,” she told herself.

A shot pinged off the roof close to Lara, and she rolled onto her back, pulling her weapon. She fired back. She was trying to cover herself, to give herself time to get up and onto the next roof. She refused to be a sitting duck.

Adrenaline pumping, Lara climbed the wall onto the roof of the building behind the chapel, overlooking Mob Quad. She scaled the gable end of the building that butted up to it and sat on the ridge, looking across the alley at Fellow’s Quad. Lara could see the windows of the Upper Bursary. She turned to look back at the Hall roof to see the Immortal woman leaping off the building.

Lara couldn’t believe it. The two roofs had to be four metres apart. The Immortal would never make the jump. If she did make it, Lara was in big trouble.

Lara knew she should move, but she was mesmerised. The Immortal seemed to be in slow motion, cycling her legs and throwing her arms forwards to add to her momentum.

Then, she was on the roof and climbing towards Lara.

Lara scrambled to her hands and knees, and tried to climb over the ridge to vault onto the other side of the roof and escape. The hem of her jeans got caught in the ancient roof tiles. She pulled at it. Nothing. She tugged hard, kicking at the roof. She felt a tile dislodge under her boot, but her jeans were still pinned. She pulled once more. Still nothing. She took a breath and lowered her foot, trying to free it that way.

Before she could pull again, Lara felt a hand close around her ankle. She kicked, but the hand held firm. She felt a body climbing up beside her, and the hand was released.

Lara kicked out. Her jeans came free of the tiles, and she tried, once more to pull herself over the ridge of the roof. This time, a hand grabbed the back pocket of her jeans. She felt the Immortal’s body weight pulling down on her waist, and she hooked her elbows tightly over the ridge to keep her balance. Lara felt another sharp twinge in her left elbow, and she kicked out again with the pain.

Lara heard a rip, and suddenly the weight dragging on her waist and the back of her jeans was gone. With an immense effort, she pulled herself up, using her good right elbow and throwing her right leg over the ridge. She was surprised when the Immortal did not pursue her.

Lara moved to her left, to the nearest dormer window, and, sitting on its apex, she glanced back over the ridgeline. She saw the Immortal, her hand raised. In it was the Queen Mary tin that had been in Lara’s back pocket.

Lara was about to climb back over the ridge and risk attacking the Immortal to get Menelaou’s fleece back when she heard the woman say, “Catch.” She watched in horror as the Immortal pulled back her arm and then released the tin, sending it spinning through the air.

Lara craned her head to follow the tin’s trajectory straight into the hands of another Immortal standing in the alley below.

As the Immortal woman flipped over the roof, continuing her pursuit, Lara pulled the gun out of her waistband, raised it, and shot. Watching the fate of the Queen Mary tin had left her too little time to escape, and now Lara had a grudge. The body of the Immortal jerked once with the impact of the bullet hitting her squarely in the torso, and then slumped over the apex of the roof.

Ares had no qualms moving around the college. He walked deliberately, with confidence. He knew what he was doing and where he was going, and no one questioned it. He left the Hall, passed through the gate in New Front Quad, and walked around the chapel. He had eyes and ears everywhere, and was being fed information about Lara Croft’s whereabouts from the Hall roof and from his Immortal in the alley adjacent to Fellow’s Quad. She was heading for Mob Quad. So was Ares.

Kennard crossed the minstrel’s gallery and looked out over the scene below. The police were in full force. He knew that several of Trinity were down, but with Ares and Lara still at large, he had his work cut out.

Kennard Montez turned and ran back along the minstrel’s gallery and through the rooms and corridors on the upper floor on the west side of Fellows’ Quad. He looked out of the Upper Bursary’s window to catch a glimpse of Lara disappearing over the roofline. He was too late to take a shot, but at least he knew where she was, and he knew she had the Golden Fleece statue. There was no sign of Ares.

Kennard took the risk of leaving through Fellow’s Quad. He took the stairs closest to Watergate and exited onto the footpath that ran alongside the playing field. It was a short jog from there to Mob Quad.

The last time he had seen her, Lara was on the roof towards the north end of the quad, so Kennard ran around to enter by the chapel. A policeman was stationed at the chapel door.

Lara stood on the apex of the dormer window, her head and shoulders above the roofline. She looked out over the supine body of the dead Immortal at the view of the college beyond. The police were crawling all over Fellow’s Quad, and two ambulances had pulled into Front Quad to deal with the wounded.

Lara heard a shout, and ducked as a shot was fired from the roof of the Hall. They were still after her. Another shot shattered the tiles on the far side of the roof she was clinging to.

Lara slithered down the dormer and onto another small section of roof that was hexagon-shaped. Several roofs met, all different heights with different pitches. She manoeuvred her way across them. Then, she was climbing again, another gable end. She felt exposed, wondering where the next shot would come from.

Lara was on a section of pitched roof with more ancient peg tiles, facing south across Mob Quad. One of the large, ornate dormer windows opposite began to open. Lara turned to sit against the tiles, digging the heels of her boots into the roof to steady herself. She pulled the gun.

“Lara Croft!”

The voice rang out across the quad.

She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

She couldn’t believe that Ares was still alive.

Lara was sure that it was his voice calling out her name. She fired her gun at the window where she thought the voice was coming from. Glass shattered, ancient glass in leaded windows.

How is Ares alive?
Lara wondered.
Kennard shot him. I was in the
room.

Lara remembered that she hadn’t seen Ares shot, that she had grabbed the golden statue and run when Kennard had raised his gun and entered the Upper Bursary. She also remembered that Ares had been sitting in a chair. He had been aiming a gun at her, but he hadn’t known that Kennard was behind the door. He couldn’t have escaped the shooting. It wasn’t possible.

Lara turned and dropped her legs down the roof until her feet hit the gutter. She tested it with her weight. Then, she inched along it until she came to the first window. It was shut. She couldn’t get in.

A gun fired, and a roof tile shattered close to Lara’s head. Shards of baked orange clay hit her in the face, grazing her cheek and forehead. Ares had fired and missed. It meant she had time. The Derringer was a single-shot weapon. He had to reload.

Lara sidestepped her way to the next window more confidently. It was also closed.

“Don’t shoot!”

It was Ares’s voice again.

Lara turned her head and then twisted her body. She could see the barrel of a gun at a window to her left. It was another of the large, ornate dormer windows in the roof adjacent to Ares’s position.

“I’ll kill her myself,” said Ares.

To Lara’s horror, the window opened further, and first a leg and then an arm emerged. The figure was lean, and black clad, as all the Immortals were. It was a man. He had removed his jacket to squeeze out of the window. Lara knew that he was emerging from one of the upper windows in the beautiful old library in that part of the quad.

As she watched, the Immortal stepped onto the gutter line. It took his weight, and he began to walk along it in her direction. His moves were elegant and effortless compared to hers. He was faster.

There was another shot, and the windowpane immediately to her left shattered, the glass tinkling noisily into the room beyond.

Lara gritted her teeth. She took two sideways steps past the window and began to climb the pitch of the roof.

All she had to do was get over it before Ares could reload and before she was met by the Immortal.

“The Immortal isn’t allowed to kill me. He won’t defy Ares,” she told herself. “Don’t let that stop you killing him, Lara, if you have to.”

Lara threw her right leg over the ridge of the roof and let the rest of her body follow. When her head was below the roofline, she allowed herself to breathe and glance around. The chapel roof was in front of her with the tower to her left. She didn’t feel confident about the jump across to the roof. Watching the girl make the four-metre leap across the alley had spooked her. But it didn’t matter, because Lara was ready to confront the Immortal. He was the only thing that stood between her and Ares.

She knew that the old man would hound her to the ends of the Earth if she didn’t confront him now. He wanted the ram statuette as much as she did, and she wanted it more than anything else in the world… for Sam.

The only sensible route off the roof was sideways. There was a gap to the next building, but it wasn’t wide, and Lara couldn’t be seen. She steadied herself on the roof, finding a grip with her boots among the tiles. Then, she reached out to the parapet wall that ran along to the chapel tower. At a stretch, with a burst of confidence, Lara launched herself at the wall, grasped it firmly, and hauled herself up and over it.

She landed on the narrow walkway that led between the west wing of Mob Quad, where the Immortal had climbed out of the window, and the chapel tower. Her first thought was to run for the tower. She changed her mind and walked to the far end of the walkway. Lara knew that the Immortal would not expect her to run towards him.

She looked over the wall and down onto the roof that she had last seen him walking along. He was nowhere to be seen. Somehow he had eluded her.

Immediately to Lara’s right was a tiny turret with a wooden door. She didn’t know what it was for, or dare to think that it might be unlocked. She tried the door, and it opened into a room the size of a cupboard. Lara stepped inside, leaving the door ajar.

She listened. The only access to her was across the roof or along the chapel roof walkway, which was made of wooden planks. Even the softest of shoes and the lightest of feet would make sounds when they approached her position.

Chapter 34

“
You can’t go in there, sir,” the policeman told Kennard. “There’s been an incident.”

“I know, officer,” said Kennard. “My girlfriend texted me. She asked me to meet her here. She’s very upset. I got here as quickly as I could.”

“American, are we, sir?” asked the policeman.

“I’m a student here,” said Kennard, “on a scholarship.”

“Name, sir?” said the policeman.

“Kennard Montez,” said Kennard. “Kennard McKenzie Montez. My mother’s Scottish.”

The policeman checked his list.

“Of course, she’s not actually from Scotland,” said Kennard, leaning a little closer to the policeman. He was used to using his charm to get what he wanted and needed. “Between you and me, officer, my mother’s a terrible snob. I suspect the English find her rather funny when she visits. Of course, she’s my mother, and I love her.”

“As you should,” said the policeman. “Your tutor’s name, sir?”

“Professor Babbington,” said Kennard.