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A Tale Of Two Cities

‘Ohhh shit,’ yelled Lara Croft, thirtysomething, big-time adventurer, archaeologist, travel guide writer and now shining example of Newtonian physics, as she plummeted two stories onto the balcony, ‘Oof!’

Plant pots scattered across the terracotta surface, spewing root-laced soil about the floor. A steaming mug of coffee was catapulted into the air, and span twice, splashing a vertical ring of brown liquid in a metre-tall circle, before crashing into the balcony and smashing into at least twelve pieces.

‘Ow!’ complained Lara, and rolled over onto her back, ‘Ow, ow, ow.’

She lay spreadeagled on the muddy mess that had been a balcony, six more stories up in the London skyline, and squinting in the bright past-midday sun.

Mad dogs and Englishwomen, thought Lara, pushing herself up on one elbow. There was no sign of the man she had been chasing. She had no idea of his identity, but she knew what he had stolen. In the middle of the British Archaeological Society’s annual luncheon, a man dressed entirely in black denim had burst through the glass doors, gunned down the two token security guards and made off with the Burial Piece of Tihahi before anyone could say ‘By Jove, that man is carrying a Beretta’. Dressed in her party best, Lara had kicked off the high-heeled shoes, tucked her long dress into her belt, and given chase. Without footwear, climbing equipment or any reassuring military hardware (not even a pistol) she had pursued him up and across half of the Docklands. Finally she had slipped on the block of flats she now lay on, gone careering and careening down the slated roof, and ended up here, on her back, squinting in the sun and trying to work out where he had gone.

She cursed.

Not even any shades. And finally when they would have been useful.

At this point, the sliding glass doors that separated the balcony from the residence where the owner of the balcony normally lived opened, and said gentleman peered out to find an attractive shoeless woman with a bedraggled but presumably extremely expensive dress picking herself up, dusting herself off and trying to work out how to straighten her hem.

‘Wha-’ said the man.

Lara finished sorting herself out, and walked past the man into the flat.

‘Hi there,’ she said, ‘Nice balcony. Could do with a little work though.’

‘Wha-’ said the man.

‘Look, I’m in a bit of a state here,’ she continued, ‘I don’t suppose you happen to have any shoes in the house do you? Size sevens, if you have them? No? Eights would do at a push.’

‘Wha-’ said the man.

‘Never mind,’ said Lara, and breezed out through the front door, leaving the man standing dumbfounded in his home.

* * *

She found herself in a grubby, council estate-décor corridor, furnished in the latest designer lab rat, with crisp packets, coke cans, bubblegum and the occasional supermarket carrier bag just for variety. She picked her barefooted way across this miasma towards the stairs, which were in the same state. Lara’s feet were really quite sore now. London wasn’t really built for rooftop chases without footwear, and she felt like she had a rather large blister developing on her left big toe.

About halfway down the stairs someone had thoughtfully left a large brown stain on the wall. She hated these places. There was nothing wondrous, or beautiful, or mysterious about a tenement building. Just humans, living their lives, without knowing any better, or at least not really. She knew she was more privileged, with her saunas and her fast cars and her international trips, but she at least knew that she had worked on her own, not the daughter of her father but a person in her own right, with value based on her own achievements, not those of another. She despised the socialites, artistes and poseurs who moved in the circles that she often found herself forced into. They were worse than the people who lived in these places, pretending to be something that they weren’t: creative, or witty, or a worthwhile use of skin.

She descended onto a landing, effortlessly rendered in a matching style, where she found to her relief a lift. Her foot really was starting to ache now, and she wasn’t sure she could make it all the way back across town to where the car (and her shoes) were parked.

She padded across to the lift, wincing slightly with each step, and hit the call button. Nothing happened. No sound, no light above to indicate the car’s presence on this or any floor. Nothing.

‘Oh, hell,’ she cursed, scratching her blistered foot against her right calf, and screwing her eyes up.

She pressed the button a few more times, before giving up in exasperation and slamming the heel of her hand into the metal frame surrounding the tantalising closed doors. Lara half expected this action to start the thing moving, but it didn’t. What it did do, annoying enough, was open. Before her, the lift shaft loomed enticingly. Only two floors down to where the lift car waited, saying ‘just climb down the cable – go on, you’ve done it hundreds of times’.

‘Not a chance,’ said Lara to herself, and turned back to the stairs.

* * *

Five floors further down, she emerged onto a deserted London street. The sun had gone behind the clouds, as it was wont to do on English autumn days, leaving the street grey and overcast. Blustery winds scattered the tumultuous rubbish, hurling it against the graffiti-covered walls and spinning it in metre-wide circles, like little Dust Devils of paper and plastic. Boy, Dust Devils, they’d been fun. Vicious little Saharan poltergeists that would shred your ankles as soon as look at you. She winced once more, a combination of real and phantom pain, and rubbed her protesting foot with her hand. She looked around at the street, and a thought occurred to her. Now that she could finally get a clear line, she pulled out her miraculously intact mobile and rapidly keyed in a number. She rested her back against the concrete entranceway as she spoke into the small black object.

‘Hi, Winston? Yes, look, I’ve run into a spot of bother. You couldn’t pick me up on…um,’ she searched the street for a name, finally locating a broken sign hanging from one screw on the corner, ‘Nelson Road? Thanks.’

She folded away the cellphone and rested her head back on the cool, but stained wall. She ran her hands through her hair, realising that it was a complete mess of tangles, and tried to straighten the fabric of her blue dress. Somewhere between here and the Solyent Arms she had managed to rip the devoré fabric from the hem up as far as the right knee. The dress was ruined. What a pain, she sighed. That would mean seeing yet another designer for yet another fitting. The cost of living well was that you had to live, well… well. Right now, with the heat and sweat from the run still coursing through and over her body, she wanted nothing more than to sink down into a nice, cool bath. With some of those La Sangrant bubbles. Yes…

Her reverie was interrupted by an uncouth yell from further down the street.

Before she knew it, she was surrounded by a group of disreputable-looking youths holding a variety of makeshift weapons. Pipes, chains, lengths of girder, even a wooden cudgel. Heaven knows where they had found that in twentieth-century London. It was a scene she had seen, and mostly participated in, a thousand times, and it was rather tiring.

‘Well don’t you all look nice,’ she said in a weary, sarcastic voice, ‘Halloween is it?’

‘Little girls shouldn’t be out in this street,’ said the largest of the thugs, in a voice that could only be described as ill conceived.

‘Little girl?’ exclaimed Lara. Now that was just downright rude, ‘I’ll have you know I am certainly not a little girl.’

‘Well we can see that,’ said the thug leader, ‘You’re a big girl alright.’

There was a general sound of snorts, snickers and guffaws. They sounded like the stooges from hell. Then they all loomed in a little closer, leaving Lara with some few feet of available space. It was enough.

‘Listen,’ she said in the forlorn hope that she could get out of this without hurting her feet any more than she had already, ‘I’m being picked up in a moment. Can’t you go and pester inappropriately dressed women in the next road?’

Another round of raucous laughter ensued.

‘Well big girl, I don’t think so.’

They started to close it, raising primitive weapons in an unskilled attack stance. The brick moved faster than any of them were capable of responding to, catching the leader across his forehead. He went down, hard, into the concrete steps, though Lara doubted that he was dead. A sore but still exquisite leg arced around, cracking bones, though not essential ones. Arms struck out, and men recoiled in pain. At one point a head, covered in dishevelled brown hair, smacked forward to meet the face of an unfortunate thug. His nose would never quite look the same. Suddenly a feminine shape in a ruined dark blue dress sprang over the confused and drastically reduced group of thugs, bounced from the lower step like a human rubber band, and slid smoothly into the passing silver Aston Martin.

Lara turned to Winston with an amused expression on her face as they sped out of the road and turned onto more heavily populated streets.

‘An Aston, Winston? And silver? Is that the best you could do? It’s a little passé.’

‘I’m sorry, ma’am, but the Bentley was receiving a thorough valet when I took your phone call, and regrettably this was the first available automobile that came to hand. One also assumes that an open-topped car facilitates, shall we say, a more straightforward vacation of such unsavoury locales as this, as you have recently so adequately demonstrated.’

‘Well I should think the luncheon is pretty much over by now, Winston, so I will be needing, in this order, some shoes, a bath, a chiropodist and then to be getting on with finding that man.’

‘Very good, ma’am,’ said the little English butler as the car roared away across London.

* * *

Lara strutted across the hall, tying her hair back into a ponytail with a black hairband. Her foot felt much better for having been seen to, and her hiking boots felt wonderful. A shining new Desert Eagle was strapped to her right leg; she had been put on to the delightful piece of ordinance by the Military Police around Area 51 in the Nevada desert. Boy, what a hole that had been. Hot, sandy, and filled with snakes, vultures and miles of razor wire. And all for a little chunk of E-115 that turned out to be more trouble than it was worth anyway. You win some, you lose some, she pondered. The trick was just to win as many as possible, and when you lose, try to stop the protagonist from destroying the world. Like you do.

She stuck an index finger from each hand into her mouth and whistled at a remarkable volume. Winston scuttled out of one of the upstairs rooms, so laden with bags that very little of his twee butler’s uniform could be seen.

‘Just bring all that down, Winston. Are my things ready for me to leave?’

‘Yes ma’am,’ came Winston’s muffled tones, ‘I’ll just load these into the Cobra. Remind me again, ma’am, where are you going?’

‘I’m following my nose, Winston,’ she said as the little man shuffled past with the luggage.

Within a few moments the bags were packed into the boot of the open-topped red car, and she was ready to go. Lara walked out onto the packed gravel of the drive, resplendent in her new outfit. Brand new red shades, a new black leather catsuit to replace the one she had severely worn the last time she was in London. Denim shorts for those occasions when one’s posterior came into contact with less comfortable surfaces. Her latest in a very long line of small brown satchels, which she tossed into the passenger seat of the car. Inside it were a few spare clips, a torch, a length of rope and a change of underwear. All the adventuring essentials, though her towel was with the rest of her things in the back. She loosed the Desert Eagle from its holster and threw it down next to the satchel, and climbed into the right hand seat. Adjusting the mirror, just because that’s the kind of thing you do when you get into a car you’ve never driven before, she blew a kiss to the faithfully waiting Winston and then accelerated out of the drive. The gates swung open before her, and she was out into the Surrey countryside, and away.

* * *

‘Mr Crowley, stop right there!’

Ogham Crowley froze in his tracks. Turning his head slowly, he found himself staring into the barrel of a rather large square-ended handgun, held with two black-clad, feminine hands, which were in turn attached to a black-clad, feminine person.

‘Ah, Ms Croft,’ Crowley turned around completely, raising his hands slightly to show that he wasn’t carrying any weapons, ‘You managed to track me down, then.’

His voice was a rich, slightly upper class West Country, but with an indeterminate, otherworldly edge to it, as if not quite all of his vocal chords were in the same physical plane. This was not far from the truth, in fact.

The vignette of dark tweed-suited Englishman and dark leather-and-denim-suited Englishwoman took place in the twilit main hall of Salisbury Cathedral. Crowley stood before the chalice and altar at the business end of the large room, whilst Lara stood approximately ten meters away. Outside was the sprawled, bullet-ridden but still barely alive body of the man who had stolen the Tihahi artefact from the luncheon. Crowley’s henchman. The pale light from the last vestiges of the sun outside filtered in through the stained glass windows, casting strange patches of weak colour across the scene. In Crowley’s hand was the burial piece itself, a small cast object of an unknown metallic alloy with a grubby golden sheen. On its front an ugly tribal head leered out, which Crowley was, though he didn’t know it, pointing directly at Lara.

In a slightly different set of circumstances, Lara would have appreciated the scene’s clear artistic merit. However, being as she was right in the middle of it, she dismissed such fripperies and continued the little interplay that always preceded moments of extreme violence in these affairs.

‘You gave me quite the runaround, Mr Crowley, but your goon,’ she indicated the doors with a toss of her head, ‘Lead me to you in the end.’

‘Yes, I heard the gunfire. Poor Samuel. Never mind.’

‘I must ask you, Ogham Crowley. Any relation?’

‘What, you mean to dear uncle Aleister? He was a fool, and he knew nothing,’ said Crowley with an emotional sneer.

‘I understand that he caused quite a bif of trouble back then, and a lot of people died. It’s a good thing I’m around today,’ smiled Lara.

‘Your presence here makes precious little difference, except maybe to add a touch of spice to the proceedings,’ said Crowley confidently.

‘Oh really? And how is that?’

‘I wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise.’

‘Indulge me,’ said Lara putting her head on one side.

‘Well,’ said Crowley, and at this point the unearthly timbre in his voice grew far stronger, ‘It wouldn’t do for you to be disappointed.’

Lara recoiled at this aural assault, and found to her shock that the ground beneath her feet was, not so much unsteady, as swaying like the sea off the Devon coast. It hurled her backwards with one undulation, and she slammed into the carpeted aisle, her Desert Eagle skittering away under one of the pews. Ahead of her, Crowley now held the artefact in both hands, above his head, cackling in a monstrous and generally uncouth fashion. The supposedly solid ground below Lara’s rather bruised back roiled like hyperactive boiling custard, and the rest of the cathedral began to ripple and swim. She became totally disoriented, and things started to claw at the corners of her consciousness.

The world went black. Well, that is to say the world went a bright image which rapidly faded from white to that sort of purplish noise that one tends to see with one’s eyes closed, and then finally to the absence of colour, commonly referred to as black.

* * *

She awoke in a world that was, well, green, or at least greener than the last. She was lying in a hall, that bore more than a passing resemblance to the one she had just left, i.e. the interior of Salisbury cathedral, but there were subtle differences. There were no stained glass windows, or in fact any windows at all, and there were no symbols of the Christian faith. There were very few pews, the altar was a most peculiar shape, and everything was just... green. Not a warm grass green or a cold mint green, but a translucent, sickly sea green reminiscent of mould. Everything appeared to have either been made of this strange substance, or been painted with a liberal coating of it. The walls, the floor, the few remaining objects, even the almost undecorated ceiling.

Lara pushed herself up on one elbow. She braced herself for the expected movements of blood either to or from her head in larger quantities than desired, resulting in dizziness and headaches, but it did not come. In fact, she felt no sign of the battering she had taken what seemed like just a few moments before. There was also no sign of Ogham Crowley. She pulled herself to her feet, but she did not feel unsteady, faint or weary, as you would expect after a particularly unpleasant car chase, an even less pleasant running gun battle across Salisbury in the late afternoon, and winding up being thrown about like a rag doll by a floor that decides it would rather be the sea. She prodded the floor with her toe. It seemed stable enough now, albeit that distasteful shade of green. She then noticed that her clothing was, instead of the natty black she had set out from Surrey in, the same green. As was her skin, and with a little investigation, her hair too. Perhaps some form of coloured lighting was responsible, though she could not see any such thing in the room.

There was no sign of her gun.

She walked back up the now diminished aisle of the cathedral. Where there had previously been some hundred pews, now there were less than a dozen, dotted around making the place look skeletal. Of the fate of the remaining wooden benches there was no sign, no markings in the dust on the floor, in fact no dust on the floor at all. The simplest access doors still lay where they had been previously, to the left about halfway down the building. She turned towards them, to find that the large, bound doors looked much the same as before. She reached out, grasped the large and green iron handle in her hand and opened the left-hand door. It swung outwards, onto a landscape that was as green as the cathedral hall had been.

A pale green moon cast a wan green light over a dreary green Salisbury. The sky around it was as pale as the moon, only a slightly different shade. The houses around her were pale, or dim, or not where they should be. Over to the east, where she had earlier, in the other Salisbury, noticed a brand new office building, somewhat out of place in the sleepy village, there was now an overgrown field. No sign of the office at all. Most striking of all, there was no ambient sound. No birds, no insects, no cars or people.

Lara stepped forward, unsure of this sickly jade world and what it held. She wandered across the green in front of the church. The whole village – well, officially it was a city, because of the cathedral – looked smaller, less industrialised, like the same place, but a hundred years earlier. Across, on the common that had previously been a car park, there was even an antique well. And also, to Lara’s distinct interest, a man sitting on the well, one leg tucked up. He even seemed to be wearing a straw hat. Intrigued, and also excited at the opportunity to maybe find out where she was, Lara approached him.

As she got closer, he reached up and took the pipe that he was smoking out of his mouth. He was dressed entirely in, of course, green, in a corduroy jacket and a tough pair of cotton trousers. His hat wasn’t straw, but the same material as his jacket. On his feet he wore a strange cross between wellington boots and shoes. The boots seemed to have laces, but they didn’t tie anything. The objects hurt the eyes to look at, so Lara directed her gaze upwards. The man looked for all the world like a character out of a Thomas Hardy novel. Blowing out a final puff of pale green smoke, he addressed her.

‘Good aaafternoon, lass.’

His voice had a very thick West Country accent, almost to the point of incomprehensibility, but when he spoke his voice didn’t just come from his mouth. It seemed to emerge simultaneously from all around Lara, bounding, echoing and rebounding around her in a confusing fashion. Mentally pushing the sensation aside, she answered.

‘The last thing I knew it was early evening.’

‘Aar,’ replied the man, ‘But it’s always aaafternoon here.’

‘And where would that be, exactly?’

The man leaned away, and gestured to either side of him with his arms, ‘This is the city of Salisbury, lass, more or less.’

‘More or less?’ inquired Lara, her head on one side. The circumstances might be unusual, but that was no reason to let standards drop.

‘Aye, more or less. This is the city of Salisbury, here and all around us, on the astral plane.’

The astral plane! That explained it; the colour, the absence of certain newer structures, the fact that there was no ambient life. Looking down at the grass beneath her feet, she found it to be less than real. There were very few individual blades, the majority of the surface was composed of some kind of springy green stuff that created the impression of grass, though without being grass itself. The brickwork of the well seemed much the same. Lara knew why this was. Objects on the astral plane were constructed merely out of the faith of someone that they meant something to. Thought was everything here. Which meant that this rather stereotypical man was either an astral ghost (being the residual afterimage of someone who had died, whose thoughts were powerful enough to project a seemingly sentient being onto the astral plane - unlike a true ghost which really was a leftover soul) or a gestalt entity formed from the collective consciousness of the community. It made little difference either way, though a gestalt entity had a slightly longer life expectancy.

Lara had made a study of such things, a few years ago, when one St Germaine Lecroux had escaped from her onto the astral plane. Before she had a chance to put her theory into practice and follow him with a hastily improvised spell, he had reappeared in the mortal world with half a dozen demon creatures he had conjured up from somewhere. At this point, all need for witchery and magic evaporated, and twenty seconds of automatic gunfire put paid to the whole shebang. It wasn’t that Lara didn’t believe in, or didn’t respect, the paranormal powers, such as they were, it was just that she had more faith in modern technology and weapons. That was the reason she had never submitted herself for psychic training. That, and the fact that she had seen the 50% end result of some of the less reliable methods, quivering psychic vegetables, a few of which, the lucky ones, were able to feed themselves. Certain members of her peer group had expressed a feeling that particular psychic abilities – psychometry, clairvoyance, telepathy, for example – would be invaluable in her line of "work". But so far she had remained the Batman of the profession, relying on her own physical prowess, coupled with the latest firepower an overpowering budget could buy and the occasional speciality piece of extreme high-tech. Still, there were times, like this one, when she wished she had just a little of that which lay beyond. Oh well, she was nothing if not a survivor. And she still had a score to settle with Mr Ogham Crowley.

‘The astral plane,’ she said to the pseudo-farmer, ‘How nice. I don’t suppose you happen to know how I got here?’

‘Aar,’ said the thing in the hat (it was difficult to think of a bundle of compressed psychic energy as a man), 'I think someone has been bridging the skein. In fact, it could have been that city type that went past just a little while ago.’

That must have been Crowley, thought Lara, On his way to god-knows-where.

‘Which way did this man go?’ she asked.

‘Aar, he went off through that copse of trees,’ said the farmer, pointing over Lara’s shoulder with his pipe.

Copse of trees? She didn’t remember one. Turning, Lara found that there was in fact a fairly large stretch of trees, only a hundred metres behind her, spreading away beyond. It was right beside the cathedral. Time, regardless of the unfamiliarity of her surroundings, to be moving.

‘Aar, you know,’ said the farmer, ‘These Quick like you don’t hang around very long for chat.’

But Lara had already gone. The farmer-entity resumed smoking its astral pipe.

* * *

‘Ho hoeth knach bo nen kworeiga.’

‘Ho hoeth knach bo nen kworeiga.’

‘Ho hoeth knach bo nen kworeiga.’

The alien words echoed throughout the chamber, rebounding from the walls and thrumming in the floor. The room was about twenty-foot square, and extended upwards some distance. The walls seemed formed of some purpley-red swirly substance, not moving itself but certainly, and especially in combination with the smoke that curled around in the air, creating the impression that it did. Mounted on the walls around the room were the traditional evil tapestries, murals and paintings that you frequently found in these places. Pictures of a variety of depraved activities, your standard fare of massacre, atrocity, bloodletting and other, nastier things mixed with a variety of obvious vampiric imagery, graves, bats, fangs, all that jazz. The whole arrangement was a very macabre affair.

Further within the room, the unappealing décor did not end. Several altar-like tables clung to the walls, adorned with the occasional bit of baroque styling or medieval carving. On two of them stood wide bowls, of the same red-purple shade, but with a slight sheen, like bronze. Inside the bowls was a thick liquid, though in the red, dim light it was impossible to tell whether it was blood or something else. Elsewhere around the tables were candles, burning with a deep red flame, and giving off the masses of smoke that coursed around the room. In the centre though, was the interesting part. The spectacle was, as you might have expected given the decorations, a very large stone coffin, or tomb, or maybe even a sarcophagus due to the carvings on the lid. The structure was the same reddish purple as the walls, and the lid showed the reposed figure of a clean-faced man, dressed in swathing robes that covered him from head to toe. Above, and leaning lightly over the end of the box-like corpse receptacle, was the figure of Ogham Crowley, still dressed in his power suit, but now in shades of red and purple. The man was producing the bizarre words, which didn’t quite match up with the sound waves they were being carried on.

‘Ho hoeth knach bo nen kworeiga.’

‘Hold that thought, Mr Crowley.’

This last came not from Ogham Crowley but from the emerging figure of Lara Croft, also artfully made out in red and purple. She had lifted the corner of a thick curtain a few metres behind the man, and poked through from there. She now held a small automatic pistol, taken from her backpack in lieu of the Desert Eagle back in the real world.

Crowley stopped, and turned his head towards the sound, one eyebrow raised in curious amusement. His face looked even more unlikely in its unnatural hue.

‘Ah, Ms Croft. You are more resourceful than I had thought. You have had prior experience, I take it, with the nuances of the astral plane.’

‘Enough to get along. Now step away from the coffin,’ she gestured with the gun.

‘Oh please,’ said the man, dripping with condescension, ‘You know as well as I do that gun is not a real gun. Simply a spiritual representation of a gun. Were you more versed in the psychic arts, perhaps you could cause it to fire some kind of bullet, but I think not.’

Crowley turned back to his work, as if to ignore her completely. Taken aback, but fully realising the truth of his words, Lara pushed her way completely under the curtain and into the room. Since she had arrived in this world, her sense of smell had apparently vanished, though it was entirely possible that nothing in this world had a smell, being that there were few free particles around. Quite where her sight and sound were coming from was somewhat unclear. Perhaps such things functioned here because people had such conviction in the fact that they always would, that they did. That appeared to be the law here, and also the source of power, because if you knew how to focus your beliefs, you could make them real. With impending combat apparently dismissed, Lara focused on her surroundings. The room looked like it would had she still been wearing her red sunglasses, though the occasional purple swirls made things a little unsettling. The arrangement definitely expressed blood, and ritual. They were beneath the astral equivalent of the Salisbury graveyard, under a fairly large and impressive, but unfortunately unmarked mausoleum.

‘Ho hoeth knach bo nen kworeiga,’ continued Crowley in the unearthly voice he had apparently adopted, and raised a container – one of the dishes that were arranged around the tables – above the tomb.

Unwilling to let him continue on whatever incantation he was attempting, Lara stepped up behind him and swung her arms in an attempt to knock the bowl away from him. Her surprise when her limbs passed right through him and the bowl was considerable, as she had had no trouble interacting with the rest of this world. Powerless to prevent, she could do nothing but step back and watch as the man gently poured the liquid down onto the tomb lid. The thick, red substance pooled in a gelatinous mass between the feet of the carved figure, though it was quite difficult to see against the similar colouring of the surface. Lara could just make out the liquid seeping across the carved figure, slowly coating it in a layer of blood, or whatever the stuff was.

Unsettled, and sure something bad was about to happen, Lara backed away towards the curtain. She watched with a curious mixture of interest and fear as the tomb lid shuddered, and then, as any fantasy enthusiast worth their salt could have told you, began to slide away across the room without audible sound, revealing what laid underneath. What moved the lid she could not see, Crowley remained in place, chanting his little chant, and holding the dish straight again. When the lid reached the critical halfway point, it wavered, and then tipped up, shooting rapidly down and crashing to the ground. The sound of stone grinding on stone, albeit somewhat red stone, echoed around the chamber. Within the tomb lay a figure, almost an exact match of the carving, though strikingly completely black. Everything else in the room, including both Lara and Crowley, was the deep red-purple, and here lay an ebon-skinned man in robes black as night. Lara noted that his skin wasn’t ebon as in very dark Afro-Caribbean, but almost utterly black. Very little of the red light was reflected from the regal, sleeping face.

The next stage was, of course, that the eyes of the reclining man flicked open. The eyes. The eyes were initially as black as the skin, dark, bottomless pools letting nothing escape, but seconds later a coating of red washed over them, as if someone had carelessly knocked over a pot of paint inside his head. Glancing away from the figure, Lara noticed that even more strangely, the colour was leaching away from the room. Red and purple were fading away to leave the walls, the murals, the candles and Lara herself a muted shade of grey, almost as of they were devoid of colour but without the purity of white or black. Crowley had not moved or spoken a word since the tomb had begun to open, but as the man inside began slowly to sit up, he uttered, in an entirely more sensible voice than before:

‘Master.’

Typical, thought Lara, same as every other bloody occultist. So convinced of their own power that they serve as totally clueless henchmen for every supernatural entity under – or not under – the sun. Only eight or nine months earlier she had been thwarting a rich playboy who could have had practically anything in the world, but instead slaved himself to the demon Ke’ke’shequavara. More money than sense. Still, he wouldn’t be doing any more inappropriate summoning in his final repose.

She turned her attention back to the fawning Ogham Crowley. He was bent in a deferential cockney half crouch, and if he had been wearing a hat, he would have doffed it and been wringing it in his hands. The creature in the tomb, presumably a vampire of one sort or another, sat slowly up. In the now pasty-white room, the thing looked ever so dramatic with, excepting the eyes, its totally black exterior. Deceptively quickly, it rose up in the tomb. There was no apparent standing action involved, it just got slowly taller and the robe slid upwards to compensate. When it stood at what seemed a natural height above them, with the last vestiges of the black robe still spread out in the tomb below, its mouth opened, and it spoke in a voice out of Jim Henson’s Creature Shop’s worst nightmares. By comparison, the unearthly tones that Crowley had spoken in just a few minutes before seemed like a camp farce. If it had lost some power of speech through the time it had spent in the tomb, it gave no sign of such.

Lara reeled as the last of the tones echoed around the sunless chamber. What the thing had said surprised her. Something along the lines of ‘Who has dared awake me from my eternal slumber’ followed by the swift demise of the unfortunate mortal were more often the case. Clearly there was some pre-arranged plot going on. Crowley seemed little better prepared than she, and struggled to retain his composure, such as it was, and to respond:

‘With the Burial Piece of Tihahi, my lord. One of my agents took it from its owners, and I brought it here.’

Lara looked around the chamber with renewed interest. There was no sign of the ugly little thing. She had assumed that Crowley had used it to break the seal between the worlds, not raise this creature from whatever rest it had been engaged in.

The sound of the black vampire pausing on a note was truly frightening. Lara absorbed this reference to Tihahi and resolved to investigate when she got home. As far as she knew, Tihahi was a small-time African leader from the late C5th BC. If this, this thing had contact with that leader then historical ‘facts’ were looking a little more questionable.

‘Her name is Lara Croft, lord. She is an adventurer, a soldier of fortune in matters of knowledge, and of little consequence.’

The vampire turned its gaze directly on Lara, and she shrank in fear and revulsion. Looking into those fiery orbs was like gazing, not so much into hell, as into a bottomless abyss that also happened to be filled with lava. Worlds beyond worlds span before her, and she felt as if all that she was, apart from her colour, which had already been taken, was being slowly drained away from her into that red morass.

What was left of Lara’s conscious mind thought, Where? The Astral Vampire Times?

The vampire’s gaze passed away from her, and Lara felt as if she had been released from under a pile of a hundred mattresses, like that pea from the story she used to like as a little girl. Like all other girls of her age and class, she had so wanted to be that beautiful princess, or any of the hundred others that were her companions. Now, instead, at the age of thirty-two, she found herself not in a magical castle made from purest diamond, but in an underground tomb, drained of its colour, somewhere on the astral equivalent of Salisbury, confronted with a powerful vampire of some sort and an occultist. Quite what she was going to do about the situation escaped her; she had no weapons of use, no useful knowledge of what she was opposing and no plan. At least for the moment they appeared to be ignoring and underestimating her, a mistake that frequently fell to her advantage.

She had encountered vampires before, of varying sorts. Some humans who dressed up in fangs and cloaks and terrorised the night for the sake of mental illness. Some spirits, shaped like bats or wizened demons, who parasitised the higher brain functions of their prey. Some true masters of the night, the undead, banished by sunlight and crosses and garlic, with no reflection. What this creature manifested before her represented was unclear as yet. Still, as Bingley had always said before he popped his clogs back in ’92 fighting those paratroopers, you live and learn.

The vampire, whatever its name might be, had turned its gaze on Crowley, and they were now conversing in some ancient alien tongue much like the one Crowley had used in the earlier ceremony. Lara, who understood, read, wrote and spoke pretty much any language under the stars (at any state of precession) could not understand a word of it. It sounded like some kind of Celtic, but no dialect that she had ever heard before.

Without offensive capabilities of any sort and facing an opponent that could freeze her to the ground with a glance, Lara decided that discretion probably was the better part of valour, or any other given virtue under these circumstances, and inched away towards the curtain. The two speaking figures, one a hunched, suited, pale white mortal, the other a towering, black-robed obsidian man, ignored her completely. She reached the now white-jade coloured fabric, and slowly lifted it and crept under, her eyes on the two conversationalists all the time. As the curtain fell back into place, Lara heard one more thing said in the reality-shattering voice of the creature before she turned and left.

* * *

She awoke, again, only to find that she was too late, again. Before her, in the graveyard of Salisbury cathedral, the mausoleum beneath which, on the astral plane, she had encountered the vampire, lay now as a pile of smoking rubble. Amongst the scattered stones tiny fires licked, spluttered and smouldered, drawing what sustenance they could from the dank night air.

Lara got to her feet, shakily, and tried her best to brush the soil and grass from her catsuit. Her boots scraped against the grubby tombstone she had been lying on, as she surveyed her surroundings. A pall of smoke from the burning ruins hung over the graveyard, obscuring the normally quite visible stars. Of Crowley and the vampire there was no sign, not even some muddy footprints leading away, but it seemed clear that they had themselves passed back into this world as she had. Behind her the walls of the cathedral were a reassuring grey, as opposed to the sickly green colour they had been back in the other place.

After leaving the vampire’s tomb, she had made her way back to the city green, where the farmer still sat on his well. The entity had proved more useful than expected, and had eventually revealed a method by which she could pass back into the real world. That method had involved the gravestone she had been lying on, and had apparently worked. During the time she had been unconscious, though, Crowley and the vampire had apparently had time to make their own escape, and were now roaming somewhere in these lands.

Near her feet lay her backpack, and she knelt down to inspect it. Her belongings, including the small automatic pistol, seemed intact, and she pulled out the small stopwatch that she had taken to carrying in lieu of a wristwatch. She had lost count of the number of times that she had snapped, broken, grazed, shattered, split and otherwise defaced her watches when she was involved in her pursuits, and checking the exact time at any moment was rarely a priority. So this, and for the last three years it had served her well.

The time was, if the watch could be believed after parting the velvet curtain twice in the same night, 3:20 am. It had been early evening, about half six, when she had first confronted Crowley in the Cathedral. A lot of time had passed without her knowing it. Still, now was not the time for regrets and self-criticism. Now was the time to get a move on. She turned out of the graveyard and headed for the stretch of tarmac where her car was parked, stopping only to retrieve her miraculously undamaged Desert Eagle from under a pew in the Cathedral hall. She noticed with some surprise that there was no sign of the denim-clad thug Samuel. Maybe they had taken him with them.

* * *

The night, or rather early morning air of the English countryside could refresh anyone, whether they had been to the astral plane, hell, or just Milton Keynes. As she shot along the A30 in her red Cobra, the wind whipping her untied and unkempt hair about, face resolute behind red sunglasses, she felt as relaxed as she had the night before, despite all the kerfuffle in between. Settled onto a pretty long stretch of country A road, she flicked on the hands-free. It rang for a few moments, before a polite, upper-class English voice answered, with absolutely no sign of the extremely late hour:

‘The Croft Residence. How may I help you?’

‘Winston, it’s me!’ she said loudly over the wind, ‘I’ve had a bit of a run-in with some kind of vampire. I’ll get researching later this morning, after I’ve caught a little sleep, but could you try and find a few names, a few experts in the field? I’ve got a feeling I’m going to need some help on this one.’

The house was to take several guests that weekend. Winston pottered about the place, getting things ready for the impending visitors. He had de-mothballed the guest wing the day before, and ordered in a larger selection of food than that which the mistress normally liked available. The garage had been cleared out to prepare for the large quantity of vehicles presumed attending, and some of the more questionable items on display in and around the house had been hidden away in areas best left unseen. It had been a long time since the house had seen guests, at least in large numbers, and though it would mean a fairly substantial amount of extra work for Winston, he was, in his butler’s heart, looking forward to it. As pleasant as Ms Croft was, Winston really didn’t get out much and the prospect of new people, perhaps of a somewhat intellectual bent, gladdened him.

* * *

The first to arrive were the men and women clad in black. They came in a pair of nondescript black cars, and entered the building unannounced. There were four of them.

The first was a small, older man with greying hair and a face that had seen many years of hardship of a psychological if not physical nature. He was dressed in a long black overcoat, and held an expression that couldn’t be described as other than very sad. The second was a woman, reasonably attractive with light blonde hair and a mournful look about her. She supported the first man, who every so often faltered and seemed about to fall. The third was a large black man, dressed in a dark suit, with a hard, emotionless expression. He helped the woman when the first started to fall. The last of these dark ones was a young man with eyes twice his age, with a large wave of dark hair, wearing a leather coat and jeans. He had his hands in his pockets and looked the least confident of them all. He had the same sad expression as the first two, but to a lesser degree.

They were, as a whole, an unfortunate group. They looked more like a group of war refugees who had recently visited a tailor’s shop than an expert group of vampire hunters. But such they were, and beneath their coats they carried handguns loaded with carbon bullets, mirrors and crosses. They made their way from their cars, which the nondescript chauffeurs moved into the garage, across the gravel-laden driveway and into the house. They passed the kowtowing Winston at the door and were greeted by Lara Croft in the main hall.

The group did not fit well with the opulence of the house. The black and white tiled flooring gleamed, recently cleaned, and as yet unmarked by too many late nights trudging around in muddy boots. The walls were clad in Tudor beam and cream paint finish, and various originals of portraits and landscapes shone down. At the base of the central walkway, between the passages through to the ballroom and the kitchens, the large and authentic Swiss grandfather clock ticked, echoing softly around the walls. The mahogany panelling along the lower walls, and the ridiculously expensive Persian carpet in the centre of the hall, cast a sumptuous red glow onto the waiting figure of Lara.

She was dressed in a modest evening dress, neither gaudy not titillating, and she greeted the guests with all the charm and modesty that her father had wished upon her. If only he had realised that life wasn’t about either accepting or rejecting something, but choosing as and when.

Ah well.

The small man in ill health introduced himself first. He managed to compose and hold himself for long enough to greet her formally.

‘Father Francis Pembrooke.’

‘Angie March,’ from the blonde woman.

‘Pearse Harman,’ from the black man, in a voice that, though hushed, boomed through the room.

‘Oh, um, Michael Colefield,’ the last man, the young one with the eyes, seemed distracted by the contents of the hall.

Lara shook each of them by the hand, and led them through into the dining room. The group were from Ingecom, or at least that was what it said on the plain sign that was bolted the outside of their drab concrete Manchester building. Within, the walls took on a clinical shade of white, home to one of the most effective sanctioned vampire hunting groups in the country. They did not have a reputation as such, you didn’t survive long in the shadows if anyone knew of you, but some of Lara’s contacts moved in circles, shall we say, less wholesome than her own, and knew who to get in touch with. Now they were here, following her through to the table where a feast lay waiting, and they were as miserable a bunch as she had ever met. She seated them at the places where their names were written, and then returned to the main hall to greet the next guests.

* * *

The second to arrive were the kids, and their mentor. Two teenage girls and one boy, and a sensible, middle-aged Englishman. The first girl was blonde, attractive and dressed in a bizarre combination of skirt and leather jacket. The second girl was dark-haired, and plainer than her companion, though her eyes burnt with an interest in all that surrounded her. She wore an appalling flowery dress that looked as tasteless as her friend’s chic. The boy looked ungainly, and out of place, and wore a red jacket that didn’t match at all with his jeans. The older, middle-aged man was dressed like a teacher, complete with corduroy trousers, tweed jacket (with leather elbow pads) and a pair of round spectacles. He looked around the hall with a fair amount of wonder and a lot of nostalgia too. Lara suspected that this man may have spent far too much time in America, and if it was in the frequent company of these three then his state was understandable.

They stepped forward as a group, and the blonde one who was obviously the dominant personality by her demeanour, made the introductions.

‘Good evening, you’re Lara Croft, I suppose? Hi. I’m Buffy Summers. These are my friends Xander Harris-’

‘Hi,’ said the nervous looking teenage boy.

‘-and Willow Rosenberg-’

The girl in the dress did not speak, but grinned and gave a little wave.

Heaven preserve up from the children of the United States of America, thought Lara, even as her face brightened and she said her own hellos.

‘-and this is Giles. He’s English too, so you should get on wonderfully together. Um, I think that’s all of us.’

‘Uh, Rupert, pleased to meet you,’ said Giles.

Lara shook Giles’ hand and they shared an I-don’t-know roll of the eyes, before she turned and led them through the house to the dining room where the first four sat in silence.

The boy leant forward and whispered loudly to the two girls, ‘This Brit woman must be loaded. Look at all this stuff!’

‘Ssh, Xander,’ said the dark-haired one, ‘We’re in England now, and people our age aren’t allowed to speak until we’re spoken to.’

The boy stopped, and stared, and said loudly, ‘Really? I had no idea they were so backward.’

‘Ssh,’ chorused the two girls.

Lara sighed inwardly, without letting it show on the outside, as they entered the dining room.

‘Wow,’ exclaimed Willow, totally ignoring her earlier advice, ‘Check out all this food guys! There’s roast beef, and those must be potatoes, and, and, what is that, Giles?’

Giles, who had by this point made it into the room, cleared his throat, and pushed his glasses up on his nose.

‘What? Where?’ he asked, then followed Willow’s pointing finger, ‘Oh that. That’s Shepherd’s pie.’

Xander was looking at an unpleasant looking dish, which seemed to consist of a pastry-topped pie with fish heads and tails coming out of it. Giles caught his expression, and did not ignore the chance to express more of his knowledge.

‘That, young Xander, is a Star Gazey pie. It’s a traditional Cornish dish, often served with…’ he stopped as he realised that all nine pairs of eyes in the room were on him, ‘Oh, ah. Sorry. Yes.’

The four of them quietly took their assigned seats opposite the Ingecom group with only a few more inappropriate comments. After exchanging several steely glares, the American teenagers decided against a confrontation and sat in silence. Giles, for his part, tried not to look out of place. Lara stepped out of the room, and with a glance over her shoulder to make sure no-one had attacked anyone else yet, left to greet the final guest.

* * *

The third man arrived alone. He strode up through the gates to the house, his long black coat wafting dramatically about him in the twilight. As he entered the perimeter lights, the various items of metal gear about his person glinted intermittently. He was a black man, large and muscular, with close cropped black hair, and despite the grey surroundings wore a pair of jet black shades. At his side was a large piece of ordinance, which Lara made out to be a customised shotgun of some kind. Behind his head rose the hilt of a katana, protruding from a sheath under the trenchcoat. His chest, beneath the coat, was covered by a dark grey bulletproof vest of some description. He came to a stop at the front door, his large boots scraping on the step, as he was confronted by Lara.

‘Blade,’ he announced, and from his inflection it was unclear whether he was describing his name, his profession, his favoured weapons, a description of his personality or what he wanted for Christmas.

Lara knew, though, and welcomed him in. He followed her silently across the floor of the hall, gaze never wavering from straight ahead despite the grandery around him. They passed through into the dining room, where four of the other guests were chatting and four were sitting in silence, glaring. Blade surveyed the room once, meeting the eyes of every other person, before silently assuming his place at the near end of the table. A hush had fallen upon the room, and Lara made her way around to her own seat at the head. She sat down, eyes darting around the guests.

‘Winston is my only member of staff,’ she said politely, ‘Perhaps you would care to help yourselves?’

* * *

Dinner, at least foodwise, concluded, the guests got down to more serious business. While Winston ponderously collected the various plates, dishes and bowls, Lara introduced the guests to each other.

‘Okay,’ she said, starting from her right, ‘Michael, Angie, Father Pembrooke and Pearse are representatives of Ingecom, the front for one of the most efficient and effective vampire hunting organisations in the country, if not the continent.’

The four black-clad miserables nodded their greeting to the others.

‘The gentleman seated at the end of the table likes to be known as Blade. He is the Daywalker-’

At this point, Giles leant over to Buffy and whispered something.

‘-that is to say, a human born with vampire blood. He is a hunter himself, though he always – up until now, that is – works alone.’

Blade made no motion except a slight nod of his head to acknowledge what had been said.

‘And these last four are Giles, Buffy Summers, Willow and Xander. Buffy is a vampire slayer, Giles is a vampire watcher, and the other two-’

‘They’re my friends,’ said Buffy.

‘We’re her peer group,’ chimed Xander and Willow.

‘And you all know me,’ continued Lara, ‘Now many of you have never met another vampire hunter before, let alone worked with one. You will probably be wondering why I have brought you all together.’

Father Francis, with a slight look of irritation, leaned forward over the table, and coughed.

‘It would be nice,’ he said.

Looking at him without a trace of unpleasantness on her face, Lara continued:

‘Nine days ago, I was transported onto the Astral Plane by a small-time Occultist named Ogham Crowley. There, beneath a mausoleum in the graveyard of Salisbury Cathedral, he awoke a vampire of some kind, with the power to manipulate the environment we were in. I was, with little further incident, dismissed from their presence, and after my escape witnessed the destruction of the tomb in the real world and my quarry’s presumed getaway. Returning here to Surrey your three groups were contacted and brought together. I have been in contact with Giles here, in the interim, and he thinks he may have made some headway on our vampiric friend. I’ll leave it to him to continue.’

Lara seated herself and watched as Giles got to his feet for his piece. Lara had few failings, but public speaking had never been one of her strong points. Far better to leave it to a natural who seemed in his element, like Giles. He began to pace around the room like the teacher he resembled as he spoke.

‘Yes, as Miss Croft said I believe I may have found reference to what this creature is. My library is quite substantial, some unkind folks would say over-large, and I have found passages in several books that make mention of an old and powerful vampire who ended up in Salisbury. The first such passage is contained within Vasilus’ Cornucopia, dating from the 7^th century BC, and reads as follows:’

He fumbled with his jacket, before producing a large sheaf of papers from a far smaller pocket. He flicked through them for a moment, then adjusted his glasses and continued:

‘Ah yes: "And also during his rein, King Chelce-", that’s King Chelce of Madrec, for those that don’t know, "-King Chelce defended his lands from the King of the neighbouring land of Opha. The King of Opha had called upon forces darker than himself, and become a creature of the night terrible to behold. His skin was as black as the night itself, and his eyes burned with the fires of the sun. But King Chelce’s powers were greater than this, and his kingdom endured." There is no more mention of the King of Opha in history, or of his country at all, but then two hundred years later there is this brief mention in one of lesser-known writings of Maphames:

‘"In later years the people of the land grew complacent, and thought themselves greater than their own gods," it has to be said that Maphames was never one for originality, "This angered the gods, and they sent a servant, a dark man known as Kin-Opha, to wreak destruction upon them. Kin-Opha’s skin was as black as the sky at night, and his eyes were as red as the poppies in the fields. He fed upon the lives of the people, and when once again they prostrated themselves before the altars of the gods, he left, never to return." Now, Maphames was, as I have said, a renowned plagiarist, and it is conceivable that he simply extracted parts of Vasilus’ work, or that of others. However, an almost identical account appears in the work of one of Maphames’ peers, the more well known Juhalo. Juhalo was known at the time as an accurate and meticulous historian, and the majority of his work is to be believed. It seems far more likely that Maphames plagiarised him, and thus his account can be assured of some merit.’

Lara felt even herself nodding off at this point, and struggled to stay awake. The three teenagers were slumped in their seats, holding ‘heard it all before’ expressions. The hunters opposite them were in various states of interest, boredom or emotionless glare. And Blade, at the head of the table, still stared directly ahead, taking in every word and making no sign of it. But Giles had not yet relented.

‘The trail here runs cold, until a grimoire, written by a deranged man during the Dark Ages, makes this mention of one of the prime forces of Hades: "And the sixth of the dark lords is Kisophar, whose skin is the colour of obsidian, and whose eyes burn with the fires of hell. His is the power to drain the life from the living, and those who survive death become as damned as he is." About as accurate a representation of your average vampire as you’ll care to find, I think you’d agree. Again there is no further mention, but for a single passage in the works of Paulo Afano, during Renaissance Spain, who tells the tale of Christopher Baal, a Faustus-like tale of a man who made a deal with the devil centuries before, who terrorised the people of the village of Jamal, before being chased to England and slain by the hero Marcus Renaldo near Sarum, now Salisbury. There is no record of what happened after, but it seems likely that his remains were interred near the Cathedral. I quote the following from the story: "Baal was a man with skin like basalt, eyes like hellfire and teeth like those of a great cat of some kind." This has a certain ring of familiarity.’

‘So, I would suppose that this Christopher Baal, be he a simple vampire or a legend of two thousand years, made refuge on the astral plane and there recovered, recently unearthed by this Ogham Crowley.’

Satisfied that he had presented his theory in full, Giles resumed his seat.

‘Are you finished?’ asked Francis, with another outburst of coughing, ‘You give us nothing but fairy tales. We know as well as you that the vampires go back as far as Ancient Greece. What do you hope to achieve by this <coff> audit trail of a monster? We find him and we kill him, and then we hold the remains securely. It’s as simple as that. Though I welcome any <coff coff> assistance in such endeavours, I do not see why this requires so many of us together. It is conceivable that this Christopher Baal, to give him a name if nothing else, will simply vanish into the remainder of undead society. Their tracks are not so easy to find if they choose to remain hidden.’

‘Father,’ said Lara wearily, ‘I have fought vampires before. However, I would not consider myself an expert, and in the circumstances in which I held my confrontation, I was ill equipped to satisfactorily deal with it. Were things a little different, and I could take on this Christopher with a full armament, I would have little doubt as to the outcome. However, finding such creatures is not my speciality, and this is where your respective groups come in. I have always believed that to go into a situation well-prepared is the best method of ensuring success, and, Father Francis, I do not like to fail.’

‘What about him?’ asked Pearse after a pause, motioning to the nearby Blade with his thumb. The black Ingecom man had remained silent so far, but his strong accented voice cut through the air like his hand, ‘He is practically one of them. Why do we want him?’

Blade’s voice, deceptively quiet despite its power, answered immediately, ‘I am not a vampire. I do not suck blood from humans. I am the Daywalker. They fear me, and I can smell them. But I work alone, and I cannot see what use you will be to me.’

‘Let’s get one thing straight,’ said Lara placing both hands firmly on the table, ‘We are working together to catch, and if necessary destroy, this vampire. You have, whether you know it or not, agreed to this convocation or you would not be here. Whether you would rather be alone or not is, I think, irrelevant. It is my belief that none of us could, alone, defeat it. That is why you are here and that it why you know you have to co-operate with each other.’

There was all the ice of an aristocratic English lady in her voice when she said, ‘Is that understood?’

The Ingecommers looked no different than before, except for a slight downturn of their eyes. Blade remained staring. He had not eaten during the meal, and he didn’t seem to have moved since sitting down an hour before. And as for the Americans-

‘Brr,’ said Buffy, ‘Spooky story, huh? Look, I don’t know about you guys, but I think I’d welcome all the help I could get. I work alone too, except for a little creative input now and then from this lot, but you guys are some serious vampire-hunting experts. I mean I’ve even heard of Mr Shades over there. So the way I see it, the more of us there are, the easier it’ll be, and the less people are gonna get hurt in the process.’

To Lara’s extreme surprise there were slight nods of approval around the table, even from Blade.

‘Good,’ continued the bubbly teenager, ‘Now that we’ve got that sorted out, can we be excused from class for a while?’

‘Why?’ inquired Lara, genuinely interested.

‘Because, Anders and Hairypalms is on of course!’

‘Anders and Hairypalms?’ exclaimed Francis, Michael, Winston and Lara all at once.

* * *

The programme turned out to be a rather unconventional chat show. The two hosts, Anders and the appropriately-named Hairypalms, with his trademark hairy palms, mixed a few celebrities (including Will Smith, who was certainly not on form) who barely got a word in edgeways with the occasional humorous video clip or prop. Quite where the appeal lay was unclear to all the adults present, but it was evident that the youngsters were enjoying it immensely, and as the programme was broadcast live across several countries, a lot of people apparently agreed.

The business of the evening apparently concluded, the various groups excused themselves and were shown their rooms by Winston. All, that was, except for Michael Colefield, who remained with Lara in the upstairs music room. During the night, with the light coming from carefully concealed lamps and the open fire in the adjoining library, the rather large room seemed quite cosy. Behind them, several bookcases provided the backdrop for a harp and a grand piano. The plush red curtains were drawn, and Winston quietly closed the door as he left for his own bed.

‘Do you play?’ asked Michael, gesturing to the harp, or possibly the piano, ‘Either?’

‘Both, actually,’ smiled Lara, ‘Though not very often. My parents made me take piano lessons when I was young. They were so boring at the time, but at least I can appreciate the benefits now. Can I get you something to drink?’

She was standing by the drinks cabinet.

‘Oh,’ said Michael, surprised at the question, ‘Er, yes, I’ll have a scotch if you’ve got one.’

‘One scotch, coming up,’ she replied, pouring the drink for him and a small sherry for herself.

‘So,’ she said, handing him his drink, sitting on the settee and patting the seat next to her, indicating for him to sit, ‘Tell me about yourself. I’m interested to know how you ended up fighting vampires for a living.’

Michael sat, and resumed the weary, miserable expression he had worn all day.

‘It was a year ago,’ he said, ‘That I first met them. My friend, Jack, disappeared for a week. I was trying to track him down, and eventually a strange group of people dressed in black contacted me, and told me that Jack had joined a secret society. Eventually, they told me about this whole vampire thing, and they gave me this gun.’

From inside the jacket he still wore, though his face looked cold despite the extra layer of clothing, he drew a large black handgun of no identifiable make.

‘It fires bullets made from carbon. Same stuff as wood, you know?’

‘Yes,’ smiled Lara, ‘I understand the principle.’

‘Anyway, they gave me this gun and then Jack came to see me. It was in a children’s playground. The same playground that we had played together in back when we were children. We talked, and he spun me a load of crap about still caring for his wife, and then tried to jump me. Reflexively, I fired, and the next thing I knew he was a smoking pile of ash on the floor and I was one of the hunters. We spent the next couple of months stopping the vampires from perfecting an artificial blood supply, which would have left them free reign to start a nuclear winter and wipe out human life, or at least cripple us badly enough to seize power. Needless to say, that didn’t happen. Life went on. Nobody knew.’

He downed his scotch in one, and then added, ‘That was also when we found out that Francis had cancer.’

‘Is he a real priest?’ asked Lara.

‘Oh yes. He became one after he first saw a vampire. The way he saw it – and still does – is that vampires are evil. They have to be; they exist only to prey on humans. If evil exists, so must God. That’s the way he sees it, anyway. I don’t buy it myself, but that doesn’t stop me working for him. You see, I owe these things a lot of hurt, and someone has to stop them. It may as well be me.’

Lara did not reply. The conversation had taken a distinctly downward turn. Quietly, she sipped at her sherry before saying:

‘I once knew a man named Michael. He was very close to me. We… parted company.’

‘It was for Jack’s wife, Kirsty,’ said Michael out of the blue, apparently completely ignoring Lara, ‘All for her. I loved her, you know, but I couldn’t tell her, about that or the vampires. Eventually she found out, both things, and died because of it. Jack swore he’d never come for her – he escaped, the journalist brought him back – but she wound up dead, all the blood sucked from her body, a few nights later. We never heard from Jack again. Since then, things have been pretty quiet. I think Francis feels that this is a chance to get back into the flow of things, to make a difference again.’

After this, they both sat in silence for several minutes, trapped in the respective worlds of their own memories. Lara slowly finished her drink.

‘Well,’ she said finally, ‘I think I’ll call it a night.’

‘Yes, I suppose,’ said Michael, getting to his feet.

‘Winston’s gone to bed. I’ll show you to your room.’

As they left, Lara flicked off the light, leaving the only illumination in the room the power light on the television and the dying embers of the fire in the library.

* * *

The adults did not sleep well that night. Blade was, as ever, haunted by his thirst, that all-consuming burning feeling that had tormented him every hour of every day since his birth. Father Pembrooke dreamt unkind dreams of demons and torture. Angie dreamt of her husband, or ex-husband, who had been taken by the vampires years before, or had gone willingly. Pearse dreamed dreams of a soldier, war and death and salvation. Michael dreamt of Kirsty, and in his dream she was a woman made of granite, hard and cold.

And Lara? Lara slept more contentedly for the first time in a week. For eight days she had been haunted by red dots on black, drilling into her skull whenever she closed her eyes. She had not told Winston, or any of the others, but being pinned under that blazing glare had scared her more than anything, ever. That was the real reason she had summoned so many hunters. She doubted she would need half of their strength, skills and expertise, but she did not want to face it again, alone. She did not understand the fear, it was irrational. She had fought and defeated madmen, gods and rulers of ancient kingdoms repeatedly without so much as a flutter of her heart.

* * *

In contrast to all this doom and gloom, the American kids were having a whale of a time. Their rooms came off the same corridor, and at the moment they were assembled in Buffy’s.

‘Check out these cupboards,’ called Willow as she disappeared from view, ‘This is practically bigger than my whole room!’

‘Do all these Brits live like this?’ asked Xander.

‘So I’ve heard,’ said Buffy, sitting bouncing gently on the bed, ‘Apparently the average room size is at least three times what it is back home. That’s what Giles said, but he had that nostalgic gleam in his eye, you know? Like when he told us the Queen still ruled the country.’

‘It beats that dumb hotel we stayed in last night, anyway.’

‘That’s for sure. The beds were lumpy, the food was greasy and the noise from the freeway outside just sucked. I think maybe that’s where the peasants over here live.’

‘Peasants?’ asked Willow, leaning out from the cupboard, her voyage of discovery apparently concluded.

‘Sure,’ said Buffy confidently, ‘That’s how society works here. I read it in a history class. The normal people live in big houses like this one, and they have lots of peasants working for them, who live in muddy huts like that hotel and drive cars.’

‘What?’ asked Willow incredulously.

‘I’m joking silly!’

‘Oh, that’s a relief. I thought we were going to have to stay in more of them. Anyway, I had a friend who was British and he wasn’t posh or a peasant.’

‘What’s on TV?’ asked Xander, attempting to change the subject to something he understood.

‘Nothing,’ replied the two girls in harmony.

‘Nothing?’

‘Yeah, nothing,’ said Buffy, ‘You know how many channels they have on here? Thirty-two.’

‘Thirty-two? Is that it?’

‘Half of them are showing soccer,’ said Willow, ‘Another quarter of them have the news on, and the last few are showing something called Dad’s Army.’

‘What’s that?’ asked Xander, who had been in his own room for a while.

‘Well it’s a show about these old British guys, and I think they’re in some kind of army, and I think maybe it’s during the war, only I’m not sure because there aren’t any guns.’

‘Oh well, sounds boring. So there’s nothing to do?’

‘No.’

Buffy yawned, and stretched, ‘Aah, uh, listen guys, I think I’ll hit the sack. See you tomorrow.’

‘Yeah, see you then,’ said the abruptly dismissed friends as Buffy upped and disappeared into the adjoining en suite.

‘WHOAH!’ came her voice, ‘Check out this bathtub!!’

* * *

Surrounded as it was by countryside, stretching in all directions, seamless except for the occasional A-road until meeting the populated onset of Guildford, the house was awoken in the morning by the piercing sound of the birds in the trees.

‘Good morning,’ said Lara, bright and cheery despite the ungodly early hour as the sleepy guests filed into the kitchen, ‘We’ve got a lovely English breakfast for you here: bacon, eggs, sausages, beans, fried bread, hash browns, tomato. Who could ask for more?’

The four Mancunians, looking dour, filed in and seated themselves around the long wicker table with the chequered tablecloth. They were followed by the schoolyard entourage. Giles looked positively radiant at the thought of an end to the breakfast cereal he had been eating since his move to America, but the three kids looked almost ill at the prospect.

‘What time is it?’ groaned Xander.

‘Six thirty,’ informed Michael quietly.

‘I actually wasn’t aware that this time existed,’ replied Xander pithily.

‘Time for breakfast,’ beamed Lara, who had, with the assistance of Winston, whipped up eight plates of Full English Breakfast, which she now deposited with a flourish before the guests.

‘Hey, this smells pretty good,’ said Willow.

‘It’s gonna play hell with my cholesterol level,’ complained Buffy.

As they began to eat, and discovering that large bottles of both Tomato and HP Sauce were available, Buffy asked, gesturing with a fork-and-sausage as she did so: ‘Hey, where’s the big dark quiet guy, Blade?’

‘He was up before me,’ said Lara, seating herself with her own plate as Winston beavered away in the background with his peculiar butler breakfast, ‘I think he might have gone for a morning run. He’s been gone an hour. I expect we’ll see him soon.’

‘Why did we have to get up so early?’

‘This is the country,’ she explained, ‘If you don’t get up early you feel absolutely terrible in the late morning and afternoon. I don’t know what it is, maybe some farming throwback.’

‘This guy Blade. Does he have a real name? I mean Blade is so, so seventies. A guy like him needs a proper name. Daywalker is pretty cool, I suppose.’

‘He does have a name,’ explained Lara solemnly, ‘But he prefers not to use it.’

‘Freaky,’ said the blonde.

‘Well,’ said Willow thoughtfully, ‘He is half-vampire. That’s got to do you some psychological damage somewhere, hasn’t it?’

‘So does he sleep upside down, like Batman?’

‘No,’ said a deep voice from behind them. It carried a presence far outweighing its volume, which bounced around the room and made it seem suddenly smaller, ‘I do not sleep upside down, and I would rather be known as Blade. The name suits me well. It is quick, and deadly.’

‘Whatever you say,’ said Buffy, turning away with an expression that was a cross between oh-my-god-he’s-so-clichéd and oh-my-god-he’s-gonna-kill-me.

Blade’s lip curled slightly, and he tensed, as if to take some violent action, but then apparently thought better of it.

‘Can I get you something to eat, Blade?’ asked Lara, looking up from her beloved baked beans, ‘Eggs? Sausages?’

‘No thank you,’ said Blade, ‘I already ate.’

The words hung in the air as, for a moment, everybody stopped munching and muttering, then the low noise of ten people eating breakfast resumed.

‘Will you join us then?’ persisted Lara.

‘No,’ said Blade, ‘I will go and prepare myself for the coming battle.’

As the black man in black left, Willow leaned over to Xander:

‘He is soooo weird.’

‘Yeah, well I’m just glad he’s on our side. Usually we’re going up against guys like him.’

Breakfast concluded itself with little further incident, excepting one:

‘MARMITE?’ exclaimed Giles in utter delight.

* * *

‘I think we should start,’ said Father Francis at the briefing later that day, ‘With what we can find out about current vampiric activities…’

‘Do you hear that rhythm?’ said Christopher Bell as he and Ogham Crowley rode along in the back of the limousine through uptown London, ‘It’s like the symphony of heaven and hell. We never had this during the Middle Ages.’

In the background, the latest offering from the Prodigy boomed away in a repetitive fashion.

‘I have to admit, lord, that your social graces are not what I had expected.’

Christopher Bell, formerly Christopher Baal, formerly Kisophar, formerly Kin-Opha, formerly the King of Opha, now possessed of an entirely healthier skin and eye shade, and wearing a snappy grey suit instead of old testament robes, turned to his smaller occult companion and said, in a voice of culture but an indeterminate accent:

‘Listen, Crowley, I have been under that graveyard for six hundred years. Now that I’m out, and my body is alive again, or as near to alive as can be I want to enjoy myself, just for a little, before things start getting murky again.’

‘Murky, lord?’

‘Yes, you know, when my plans for world domination reach fruition. The usual stuff. Now be a good chap and ask the driver to put that last track on again…’

* * *

A couple of hours later, we find Crowley and Christopher in a nightclub.

It was, to say the least, quite dark. There was no music playing, and no lights were flashing. There was the occasional whimper from some young man or woman, but otherwise very little sound. In the centre of the dance floor stood Christopher, resplendent and immaculate. Behind him a pile of bodies mounted, all apparently immobile. Before him were very few survivors, cowering in fright against the furthest wall.

‘Come here,’ beckoned Christopher with a grin, ‘Come on.’

The ex-dancer he motioned to, a girl in a terribly inappropriate dress for one of her age, walked slowly forwards, apparently powerless to resist whichever forces were pulling her that way. When she reached the grinning vampire, there was a movement, faster than the eye could make out, a glint of light reflecting off something shiny, a sensation of dramatic forward motion, and the girl’s body was hurled backwards over Christopher’s shoulder.

This process was repeated about half a dozen more times, leaving the vampire and his lackey-cum-associate the only persons standing.

‘Have you finished feeding now, lord?’ asked Crowley, walking forward from where he had been safeguarding the doors.

‘Feeding?’ asked Christopher, pulling out a handkerchief and dabbing at his lips, ‘I wasn’t feeding. I was procreating. Watch.’

It became apparent to Crowley, all of a sudden, that the pile of forty or fifty bodies was not entirely motionless. There were occasional twitches, and spasms of flesh. Abruptly an arm waved from somewhere underneath a couple of blue-shirted lads. Then the whole shambolic mess began to move, as each individual human element tried to get to its feet. There were several falls, several mass collapses and a couple of more dangerous incidents, but eventually, and spookily without a sound, the whole collection stood up, and turned to face Christopher.

‘Behold my servants,’ said Christopher with a big smile.

‘You made them all into vampires?’ asked Crowley, ‘Why? They are pond scum! Why not reward me with immortality, as you said you would.’

‘Now now, Crowley,’ said the vampire before his unmoving, unspeaking legion, ‘There are a lot of vampires out there, but none of them are quite like me. You see I made my own deal with the Devil, and when I create offspring, they are faster, smarter and stronger than they were before. As for you, when this night is over, if you still want the rewards that I can offer, then I will grant it to you. But for now you are more useful to me alive, as it were.’

He turned to survey his surroundings, rubbed his chin for a moment and then continued, ‘I think we’re about finished here. Now, we need a seat of power in this place. I asked you to find out who lead the flock here, Crowley, did you find out?’

‘Yes, lord,’ said the obsequious occultist, ‘There is a building on Baxter street where the "king" of the vampires in this city live. Some say he is the most powerful in the country, some say that it is the ruling vampire in York. But this one, Lord Rochester, is certainly in charge around here.’

‘Then that is our destination, Crowley. Let’s go.’

The two suited individuals headed for the exit, and behind them, as one mind, the mass of newly created but apparently not very hungry vampires turned and followed. Christopher stopped, turned to them, and pronounced:

‘Split up into groups of three or four. Act inconspicuously. Behave as you did in your previous lives. Follow us to the building in Baxter street. You will know what to do.’

‘That was for your benefit,’ whispered the master vampire to Crowley as they exited the building, ‘I assure you that these creatures are under my complete control.’

* * *

‘Ah, the great Lord Rochester,’ said Christopher Bell, ‘I am so glad to finally make your acquaintance.’

The formally black-skinned but now quite pale vampire from the previous millennium stood in the centre of what could only be described as a royal court. The hall was massive, with a prolific quantity of internal buttresses, columns, arched ceilings and tiered seats. The floor was covered with an intricate mosaic depicting some kind of giant coiled serpent, devouring a score of armoured warriors, of no particular nationality. Around the ornamented walls were large murals, oil paintings and tapestries, each with their own peculiar twist on some clichéd mythology or another. Here was a ship full of heroes being crushed between rocks or sucked into a whirlpool. There was a brave knight, unfortunately being eaten alive by a giant hairy spider. Below these pictorial delights were the courtiers, several dozen people, human, vampire or worse, arrayed about the edges of the of the mosaic and occasionally seated on the seats. It was apparent that the court was not in session, though whether it ever was, or was simply an idle dream for the room’s creator was unclear. The general hubbub stopped as the speaking Christopher took the floor, Crowley hovering nearer the massive double doors that had closed behind them. Neither of the two intruders looked in the slightest bit afraid of the den of vipers they had apparently entered.

The target of Christopher’s greeting was seated on, appropriately enough, a large throne, mounted on an ornate dais, and positioned in that jaunty slouched angle so beloved of bored rulers, his mature head rested on one hand. He was dressed in a sensible suit, out of keeping with his baroque surroundings, though his tie certainly left something to be desired in departments concerned with good fashion sense. He regarded Christopher with distaste, a lack of interest in his dark eyes, and he waved his hand in a lazy, imperious fashion.

‘Stranger, I neither know nor care what your business may be in my court, but I do not wish to grant you my attention at this time. You may leave.’

Christopher stopped in the exact centre of the room. He looked down at the floor, then up at the ceiling, then around the walls and finally back at Lord Rochester. He put his hands on his hips and looked up with his head on one side.

‘How long have you ruled the vampires of this city, Lord Rochester?’ he asked, his voice, though quiet, carrying throughout the chamber.

Rochester had looked down, expecting no answer, and now looked up in surprise.

‘Did you hear what I said, man? You may leave!’

‘I choose not to do so,’ replied Christopher coolly, ‘Now indulge me, your majesty, and answer my question.’

Rochester, whose reverie had been disturbed now, saw little reason not to boast of his own power, ‘For eight hundred years, the undead of this city have called me master. As such I hold a great deal of influence in this, my domain, and now I shall make my intentions clear to you. Your presence offends me. Leave my vicinity!’

‘No,’ replied Christopher.

‘No?’ said Rochester quietly, ‘No?’

At this point he moved out of his relaxed posture and leant forward on his mount.

‘You, and what you are means nothing to me, you, some stranger from these streets, walks into MY court, MY domain, and to me you say "NO"?’

‘Yes,’ said Christopher with a wry smile.

‘Brannigan!’ said Rochester with an oh-so-aristocratic sneer, ‘Remove this, this vagabond from my sight!’

From the left of the throne a man appeared, a massive white figure in a suit but lacking a tie. He wore dark glasses, and his whole demeanour screamed henchman. He slowly walked forward, down the carpeted steps of the dais, and towards the smartly dressed interloper.

Christopher removed his hands from his hips, pushed them into his trouser pockets and spoke over his shoulder to Crowley.

‘I really can’t be bothered to deal with this buffoon. Do something about it will you?’

Crowley fished in his pockets quickly, and produced a small black bead. He held the bead up, in the direction of the advancing tough, and began to chant some occult chant with his tongue. No-one in the room moved to stop him, though all eyes were watching. He slowly increased the pressure on the bead, until it suddenly crumbled, as if it were an Oxo cube.

‘Balleikanacha!’ shouted Crowley, as the black dust flowed over his fingers.

The suited thug burst into flame. It was completely unexpected, and there were various oohs and aahs in the background as the suddenly appearing fire rapidly consumed his suit, and he began screaming and flapping about. Within ten seconds, he tumbled to the floor, inches from Christopher’s motionless feet, and was reduced to a man-shaped smear of ash surrounding a blackened skeleton. Hush rippled across the room, as Christopher looked up from the body with an amused grin.

‘Would you say that I had your attention now?’ he asked, then added, ‘I think your friend got a little hot under the collar.’

Christopher gave a little laugh at his own tired pun, though it was understandable given that he had been somewhat disconnected for the last few centuries.

‘Eight hundred years?’ said Christopher quietly, ‘Eight hundred years? I have been walking these shrouded lands for three thousand. And you try to dictate things to me?’

In a vague attempt to disguise his uncertainty with a show of anger, Lord Rochester pounded his undead fist on the arm of his throne.

‘Blackguard, you may have been walking this world since the dawn of time, and it should bother me little. Go! While I still permit it.’

The sound of Christopher’s solitary, hollow laughter was marred only by the crackling and cracking of bone as he stepped forward onto what remained of the bodyguard.

‘You? Permit it? Do you know who I am, Rochester?’

‘In my realm you will address me as "your majesty"!’ fumed the irate vampire lord.

‘I am Christopher Bell, your majesty,’ said Christopher without a hint of sarcasm, ‘Though you may know me better as Baal, or as the King of Opha when the world was young.’

Rochester laughed nervously, ‘Christopher Baal? Christopher Baal was put to the stake in the early Renaissance. I personally attended the burial. You are not he.’

‘Ah, I’m glad you’ve cleared that up for me. Still, is it not said that Kin-Opha has skin as black as night?’

Christopher’s skin, in less time than one’s eyes are capable of processing, turned black, the same unearthly black that it had been on the astral plane. In fact, it seemed to the onlookers that perhaps it had always been black, but that they had somehow not noticed, or been prevented from doing so.

‘And is it not said, that his eyes burn with the fires of hell?’

He closed his eyes, and then slowly opened them. The sliding lids revealed shining red orbs, the light from which illuminated the very air before him.

‘And is it also not said, Lord Rochester, though such words have not been spoken in many centuries, that he commands legions of his own undead servants?’

There was a sound, like the unsheathing of a hundred swords. This was fairly close to the truth, as around the room and behind each of the courtiers, vampiric nightclubbers suddenly appeared, fading into view, knives in hand, though unmoving.

‘Oh dear, Lord Rochester,’ said the now obsidian speaker, ‘It would appear that you are being forcibly removed from office. I do hope that your abdication will go smoothly.’

Though the hall had suddenly been filled with Christopher’s servants, there were none near the throne. Rochester leapt to his feet.

‘This is an outrage! What is going on here?’

‘It is quite simple,’ said Christopher, who, despite his alien appearance managed to convey a bored, repetitive tone, ‘You were in control. Now I am. Do you understand? Because of your advanced age, I feel that you deserve some respect. If you leave now, I will not pursue you. You don’t even have to swear never to enter the city again. Now how good a deal is that?’

‘Impossible! This is MY city, MY subjects, MY cattle.’

‘I had hoped that you would be smarter, and more reasonable,’ said Christopher, ‘But obviously I was mistaken. It is a shame, but I am afraid you have delayed me for too long already. Goodbye, Lord Rochester.’

Before Rochester could even ask ‘what?’ in shock and disbelief (as persons are wont to do in such situations and after such proclamations) Christopher had raised his arm, and clenched his fist. Then something really rather strange happened to the body of the aged vampire king of London. It was as if his skin had decided it wanted to move in one direction, whereas his skeleton had, without prior consultation, decided to go the other way. With the most horrendous ripping sound, and shower of black, sluggish blood, the corpse of Lord Rochester, such as it was, fell to the left, and the skeleton fell to the right. Between the two halves was a narrow gap, thick with unhealthy ichor, but wide enough for Christopher to walk through to the throne. This he did, but as he turned to seat himself, he addressed the captive court.

‘I trust there will be no further complaints. No one wishes to challenge me for succession after the unfortunate demise of the previous ruler?’

There was no sound, though there was the occasional attempted shaken head.

‘Then I must say that this has been a rather successful coup. Though hardly what I would call bloodless.’

Christopher sank into the throne, before sitting up and looking side to side.

‘Now can we get something to replace this? A nice easy chair or something? And someone clean this mess out of my court!’

* * *

Picture the scene. A low, dark room. A long, dark table running down the centre. Several – well, quite a few – dark figures seated around it with dark expressions and dark thoughts on their mind. It’s a scene you may recall from the popular films Batman or The Crow. In the background stand guards, some with dark glasses and some without, but all heavily armed and rather surly. Look, I’ll cut to the chase; it’s a meeting of criminal masterminds, alright? The kind of thing that Al Capone used to do but with less lighting.

The criminal masterminds in question were, to put it in a format used once before, the scum and villainy of London and the surrounding area. They were all here. The few remaining British Mafia. The inheritants of the Kray empire. The magi-gone-bad. A representative of the things that lived in the Undertown, who had today apparently decided to leave his tentacles at home, or at least tuck them out of view. One of the inappropriately named Disciples of Light, resplendent in his cloak of darkness, took little interest in the proceedings.

And there were, of course, the vampires. Prevalent in European society, you could expect to find at least a couple at any after-hours high society get together. Here there were six of some import. The rulers of several outlying areas – Kent, Surrey, Dover – mixed with a gang lord and a society poseur.

But the last of them, and seated at the head of the table, was the new ruler of London.

Christopher Bell.

‘We are gathered here today,’ he said quietly, attracting the attention of his various peers, ‘To discuss the changes that will be made in this area. I am not here to try and enforce my will upon you. I already control those holdings over which I wish to assert myself. However, many of you may be under the misguided impression that any social or financial arrangements you had with the unfortunately departed Lord Rochester will be continued. Sadly this is not to be the case.’

There was something of an uproar around the table. The crime lords suddenly started yelling at each other for no apparent reason. The vampires started yelling at each other. The various occultists started yelling at each other. The only ones who remained quiet were Christopher, the Disciple of Light (who may not even have noticed what was going on) and Mmmmm’gurk, the representative from the Undertown. After letting the ruckus continue for a few moments, Christopher interrupted.

‘Quiet,’ he said, firmly but without shouting. Hush followed.

‘I am not saying,’ he continued, ‘That such agreements cannot be resumed with due and proper discussion, only that the status quo as each of you knew it has ceased to be. Everything, everything, must be forged anew between us. Is that clear?’

There were general nods of assent from all present excepting the two previous silent ones. Mmmmm’gurk now decided to speak, and it was not a pleasant auditory experience.

‘You thiiink yourr presssence here makesss any differenssse to uss? We have beeen here longerr than Lord Rrochessster.’

‘I am Kin-Opha,’ said Christopher menacingly, ‘When your most distant ancestor crawled its way out of a dungeon in Sparta, tentacles flapping inanely, I was there, Mmmmm’gurk. I could have crushed it then, with very little effort, but I did not, and I would not allow others with interests to do so either. You and those like you do not owe your existence to me, but you should be aware from what a tender thread those lives are hanging.’

‘You tell us all you are the King of Opha,’ stated the ruler of Kent, ‘And yet all you have shown are illusionary charms and petty death magics. How can you prove to us that you are what you say you are, and that we should deal with you at all?’

Christopher sighed inwardly. This was precisely the kind of silly power demonstration he really didn’t want to bother with. He had made one. That, he felt, if they had any modicum of sense, culture or decorum, should have been enough. But no, it would seem that these people (for want of a better term) were a whole roomful of Doubting Thomases.

‘I will not perform parlour tricks for you, Lord Garamond, like one of your courtiers,’ he said finally, ‘Do you think I have nothing better to do with my time than entertain you?’

That definitely wasn’t going to be cutting any sinapi.

‘Nevertheless, pretender, you must prove your power.’

He was right. Time for a little more oh-so-unpleasant brute force. Something messy? No, something subtler, that would cut to the heart of this shambolic mob.

‘Bach,’ said Christopher, though not in a German pronunciation, and flicked his fingers towards the vampire.

Lord Garamond, the ruler of Kent, was not seen in the world again. Where he had previously been sitting, there lingered for a moment a shadow, shaped roughly like a man, that seemed to be matching the vampire for pose. If you looked carefully enough into the shape, you could just about make out a tiny, falling figure, though in which direction it was falling you would be hard pressed to relate and also… stars. Then the shadow faded, like the afterimage from a bright light, and there was nothing.

‘What have you done with him?’ demanded Lord Searsby, ruler of Dover.

‘I have consigned him to the abyss, of course,’ replied Christopher smoothly, ‘What did it look like to you?’

‘But no-one has the capability to banish with such a simple word,’ protested the vampire, who was one among five, or possibly four, now, ‘Except…’

‘For me, yes. Are you all quite happy with my demonstration? Good, then let’s see whether we can work something out to all our benefits.’

‘Something big is happening in London,’ said Pearse, ‘Local mundane criminals are running for cover, the bigger boys haven’t been heard from in a few days.’

Buffy’s interest perked up. For the last half hour or so she had been subjected to a lecture from that fierce-looking priest on the current status of vampires in England. For some totally obscure reason, the others seemed to find it interesting. Even Xander and Willow. Giles was fascinated, but then Giles was fascinated by everything. Who cared what was happening in Arbroath, wherever that was, anyway? This stuff sounded better though.

‘We can’t tell what it is,’ said Pearse, ‘The information only just came in from our sources. They’ve been driven underground by the commotion. All we know is, someone is causing quite a stir. It could well be our mark.’

‘It’s our only lead,’ said Lara, ‘We should at least investigate it.’

Finally, thought Buffy, Some action!

‘When can we start?’ she asked aloud.

‘Well first we’d better tool up,’ replied Lara with a grin.

Buffy sighed. Time for the gratuitous armoury scene…

* * *

‘Lock and load!’ said Xander with glee.

‘Don’t touch that!’ said Lara sharply, snatching the handgun away from the grinning boy, ‘It’s-’

‘Dangerous?’ asked Xander, ‘Listen lady, we can look after ourselves your know. Well, usually.’

With a glare Lara placed the Glock 19 back down on the crate, and shooed Xander and Willow back out of the weapons closet.

‘Do you have carbon bullets for these?’ asked Pearse, looking up at the rack of assault rifles.

‘Had them made during the week,’ replied Lara, gesturing to the boxes behind him, ‘All calibres.’

Michael, who was evidently not as mature as his demeanour suggested, was eyeing up the rocket launchers. Lara noticed, and intercepted.

‘No no no,’ she said, ‘Not for urban fighting.’

She placed the slim tube back in the rack.

‘But with incendiaries…’

‘No, Michael. I will not have excess damage to the surrounding city. Especially not London.’

Father Francis approached her.

‘I have a question,’ he said slowly, ‘Why are your Ingram Mac-10s arranged in pairs?’

‘Because I sometimes use two at once, of course.’

Pearse looked around at her, ‘No-one can fire two Mac-10s at once. The recoil would tear your arms off.’

‘Well,’ said Lara hefting two of the large automatic pistols from the shelf, ‘We’ll just have to see about that, won’t we?’

* * *

As the raucous chattering ceased, leaving her ears ringing as usual, Lara lowered the pistols to her black-jeaned hips, pointed at the ground, smoke curling softly from the tips of the barrels, and surveyed the scene before her. On the floor of the ageing warehouse, a dozen black smears were all that remained of the vampires that had ambushed them.

Over to her right were Francis, Michael, Pearse and Angie, tips of guns protruding from behind a couple of crates.

Xander, Willow and Giles emerged from their hiding place. Buffy got to her platformed feet, stake still in hand. That and the two shapes below her were testament to the fate of her attackers.

And Blade leapt down seven or eight metres from his vantage point on the gantry above, shotgun still smoking, trenchcoat snapping about like a heavy cloak.

Buffy made a motion of wiping sweat from her forehead.

‘Uh, these guys are hard!’

‘They are the children of Kin-Opha,’ said Giles sagely.

‘Well that explains everything,’ said Xander, ‘You may note the absence of the "not" there but I expect you to infer it from my tone.’

‘Yes, thank you Xander,’ said Giles in his best teacherspeak, ‘We call it sarcasm in the adult world. Ahem. One of the few mentions of Kin-Opha’s abilities imply the extraordinary strength, courage and skill of his creations.’

‘That’s our Giles,’ said Buffy with a weak grin, ‘He’s a veritable walking library.’

Father Francis left his companions and made his way across the floor.

‘This isn’t really my style, you know,’ he complained, ‘We have people for this sort of activity.’

‘Well in this case that’s us,’ said Lara, trying to work some life back into her arms. Two Mac-10’s she could fire, but lift heavy weights afterwards she couldn’t, ‘You talk them to death, do you?’

‘You could say that policy is my forte,’ replied the priest smoothly, ‘So… what have we gained from this encounter?’

Just like my old Philosophy tutor, thought Lara, Please ma’am! Please ma’am! I am a more rounded person for my experiences!

But what she said was:

‘Kin-Opha knows we’re here, obviously, but did you see what the vampires were wearing?’

‘Well, young people’s fashion, I should imagine. They can’t have been older than twenty.’

‘Excuse me,’ interrupted Buffy, ‘British clothing I don’t pretend to understand, but it’s obvious that these guys were at a party recently.’

Willow spoke for the first time, ‘Not a very good party, by the looks of it, I-I mean-’

‘Yeah, she’s right,’ said Xander, ‘Their clothes were pretty torn up. Looks like they’ve seen some action in their party best.’

‘So,’ said Lara, ‘Our assailants were, presumably, created by Kin-Opha in a nightclub a few nights ago. That must have caused a bit of a ruckus somewhere. Can we find out anything? And let’s go somewhere. I hate warehouses.’

And that was that.

* * *

Willow, Buffy, Xander and Lara sat at the table in the restaurant as Giles, Blade and the Mancunians arrived. Giles waved a newspaper excitedly.

‘We found it! Forty-eight killed in gangland nightclub massacre.’

Willow broke off from her milkshake to wave three pieces of paper in the librarian’s face, ‘Surprise! We beat you, thus proving beyond all doubt that the internet is superior.’

Giles looked downcast, but they took seats around the table. Waiters to’d and fro’d and a fair dinner manifested on the table. They all ate, except for Blade. Gradually they formed a plan.

‘We have several leads,’ said Francis, ‘As far as we know the court of London’s ruling vampire is a large warehouse on Baxter street. It would be far too dangerous to launch a full-scale assault on this locale, and Lord Rochester is not our target. It may be that we can convince him to assist us against what must be a threat to his authority.’

‘I will go,’ said Blade, ‘They fear me, if they know what is good for them, even here.’

‘Better you than me,’ said Buffy, ‘What about the rest of us?’

‘We have three areas of interest. The nightclub where the attacks took place is under heavy police surveillance, but may provide us with useful information. Many of our contacts have been driven underground, and may be in the sewers. Someone should go down and try and dig them out. And the street vampires, those who are not part of accepted society, are probably on the run from Kin-Opha too. We ought to find out what they know.’

‘That’s the job for us,’ said Buffy, ‘I dread to think what you black-clad freakos would do to get information from the poor guys.’

‘But you are the Slayer,’ pointed out Pearse.

Buffy gave him a depreciating look, ‘Just because I’m the Slayer doesn’t mean I’m an unpleasant person! Service with a smile, that’s the Slayer’s motto.’

‘But you said the Slayer’s motto was-’ Willow was cut off abruptly.

‘I’ll take the sewers,’ said Lara quietly, ‘Cities are all very well, but tunnels are my profession.’

‘Very well,’ said Francis, ‘Then we will investigate the nightclub. Remember to keep in touch by phone.’

Dinner concluded, they got up to leave.

‘Good luck!’ encouraged Willow.

She was met with scowls from Blade and the Hunters and raised eyebrows of sympathy from Lara.

* * *

And so Lara found herself clinging to a narrow, broken ledge of old and stained brick, now several hundred metres below the city streets. When they had said sewers, she hadn’t realised they meant this far down. It was common knowledge in the right circles that London possessed an Undercity, constructed centuries ago by the nameless things that still lived here. It was here that the information sources had withdrawn, and Lara intended to find and question them. The Undercathedral she had just left had been apparently untouched for a great length of time, but her quarry were not known to leave footprints. She had contacted those who lived in the very substructure of London only twice before in her life. The faceless immortals, last legacy of the sadly deceased Sophia Lee, who lived beneath the Natural History Museum, were but the newest faction in the hidden society.

The green slime a foot below her boots bubbled menacingly. She had no idea what purpose it served, or what it was composed of, and she had little desire to find out. Just staying clean and out of it was her current objective. She inched slowly along the ten or so centimetres width of ledge, holding her breath. She tried to grip on to the dank walls but found no purchase, and with her backpack she had little manoeuvring room. About fifteen minutes ago she had got the first phone call from the others. Blade had found the court and was about to go in. The Hunters had gained access to the crime scene and were in the process of buying off the police officers. And Buffy and Co had yet to locate a street vampire.

Breathing out, Lara stepped onto the wider ledge ahead, and loosed her tensed muscles. Here there was far more room to move, and she made her way down the dimly lit tunnel. At irregular intervals torches burned with unending fire. It was a trick she had seen used in countless tombs. A small incantation and rune on the torch base kept it producing light and heat for centuries. Millennia in some cases. She had a couple of them at home. They were good for birthday cake tricks, if nothing else.

The tunnel made its winding, tedious way over the bubbling goo for about a kilometre, before the path and the ooze parted company. Lara found the way opening out into a much larger area. She loosened the catches on her Mac-10s and entered the hall. It stretched a good fifty metres away from her, corridors leading off from the other walls. There were no torches here, but illumination was granted from the inverse-dome skylight structure that protruded from the ceiling. She could vaguely make out slight dark shapes moving beyond the translucent white material, but had no wish to investigate further. Stepping out into the hall she felt the familiar sensation of magic use. It was often described as a prickling of the hairs on the back of the neck, but as a meticulous shaver Lara could not validate this. She felt a sort of humming about her temples and ears, just strong enough to be noticeable but not uncomfortable.

She looked around more carefully. The stained green rock walls were carved with humanoid figures, in various unenthusiastic and not too imaginative poses, like walking and looking. She paced the room slowly, checking the other corridors for nasties, and studying the figures. Finally she stopped before one entirely innocuous carving of a man, artfully made out in brown recess. Leaning close to the wall, she breathed gently on the unformed face and stepped back. With some amusement she noticed as the head shuddered slightly.

‘Besterfield! I know it’s you in there. Show yourself!’

A voice like the sound of inhaling through a metal tube emanated from the wall, ‘Leave me! The sleepers have been roused and the Dark One is here.’

‘Besterfield,’ said Lara patiently, ‘We know about Kin-Opha. That’s why I’ve come to find you. What has been going on?’

‘He united the city,’ replied the wall with a slight movement of the rock carving, ‘Slew Rochester and forged alliances with the Nameless, the Deep Ones and the Awakened.’

‘He slew Lord Rochester?’ exclaimed Lara, ‘But Blade went there to see him.’

‘The Daywalker is here?’ inquired the figure in the rock, ‘But the King of Opha rules the Vampiric court here now. Perhaps the Daywalker will survive, perhaps not.’

‘Besterfield, can you come with me? I have to find Wellings as well.’

‘Wellings is dead. Nameless are scouring the Undercity looking for us. That is why I am-’

The slightly moving outline shape was cut off with a deafening smash of glass, Lara span, guns already half out of the holsters, as four black shapes, more masses than discernible humanoids, plummeted down through the roof dome, scattering glass and glowing maggots across the chamber. They hit the ground and rose to unshapely feet as one, tentacles and claws barely visible amidst their myriad robes.

As Lara’s Mac-10s rose in tandem to point at the first figure, the one just to the left raised some kind of weapon. Lara rapidly shifted her aim, but not before a blast of dirty blue flame spat a howling projectile forth. Lara’s focus followed the tiny object as it whistled past her and into the outline of the hiding Besterfield. A blue corona swept out from the impact point like a tiny stellar explosion and encircled the carving. With an unholy scream, a human form lurched forward out of the wall and slumped to the floor. Lara’s eyes tracked back from her fallen contact to the four assassins. Even before she locked her gaze on them her guns were firing, ashen bullets cutting a line through the intruders’ robes. The first two doubled over, though there was no sign of blood, and slumped to the floor. The remaining pair split apart with surprising speed, and Lara hurled her lithe form into the air as they came at her from opposite directions. They weren’t quite as fast as velociraptors, but she was uneager to find out just what would happen if she so much as touched their bodies. They passed beneath her curled back as she descended again, chewing into them with rapid-firing rounds.

They both fell, but as she turned she saw the thing with the weapon heaving to its misshapen feet. She let fly with a hail of fire, and one must have caught on whatever served the flame-weapon as ammunition, as the creature suddenly erupted in a ball of blue balefire. Lara threw her body backwards away from the heat, but the explosion wasn’t nearly as big as it should have been.

She carefully made sure each of the Nameless was dead whilst trying to look at their mutated forms as little as possible, before returning to the side of the fallen Besterfield. But there was to be no Western death speech, the man was dead. It came as some surprise to Lara that Besterfield was apparently a normal human, albeit with a surprising ability to fly, transform into mist, and merge with walls. She closed his eyelids, and briefly searched the body, revealing nothing. It was difficult to judge what a man like Besterfield would want done with his corpse but Lara was sure she wasn’t going to carry it all the way back up to the surface.

She decided to incinerate the body, as it would quickly decompose in the filthy air otherwise. She set light to his rough clothes – they were once trousers, she supposed, many years ago – with her lighter. She had picked the miniature flamethrower up in Mozambique three years ago, and it hadn’t been exhausted yet. Whether it was anything to do with his method of death she did not know, but the body caught fire vigorously, and Lara had to shrink back from the sudden blast of searing flame that rose from the flesh. In several seconds there was nothing left but a pile of ash, looking much like the remnants of a vampire.

She turned to leave. With Besterfield and Wellings dead, that left only Chartreuse, who was in Japan, reportedly, and Aiden, who had not been seen for a decade. The Nameless she left untouched. The darkness or the bacteria would claim them. She picked her way over the wriggling, blind maggots that threw out light to every corner of the rocky hall and made her way back to the tunnel.

* * *

Blade had not made the last phone call, and Lara was waiting to meet up with the others before confessing what she had discovered. After she made her way out from the Undercity, she rendezvoused with the Ingecom Hunters outside a surprisingly wholesome shop front in Soho.

‘So you’ve had some success, then?’ she asked of them.

‘The crime scene was littered with obvious evidence,’ replied Francis, ‘It is a good thing we got there before the police could log it all correctly. What is unusual is that none of the local groups or vampires stepped in before us. Still, we can at least confirm that this black devil of ours recruited his force there. Whether he has expanded it to take over we don’t know.’

‘Well actually,’ revealed Lara, ‘Besterfield managed to pass on some information before he died. Kin-Opha has already slain Rochester and taken over the vampiric court. That gives him influence over most of the country and a fair proportion of the world. Besterfield also said he had made alliances with the Nameless and the Deep Ones.

‘Who?’ asked Pearse gruffly.

‘The Nameless have lived under London for millennia. No-one knows quite what they are, but those of us who don’t exclusively deal with vampires know to avoid them. And Deep Ones claim to be the rightful heirs to the planet. They’re a nasty bunch if ever I met one. I think it’s safe to say that our target has been recruiting.’

Pearse’s reply was cut off by a yell from further down the street. There, moving in and out of the street lights were Buffy and company. As they neared it became apparent that they had a captive.

‘Hi guys, I see you’re all cheery as ever. Here’s your street vampire. He answers to the name Meander, but not very often. We found him in a alley, feeding from dogs.’

Lara and the four hunters stared at the doubled, rag-clothed, wretched figure before them.

‘You can say "yeuchh", if you like,’ commented Xander.

‘The poor sod,’ said Michael, ‘He probably doesn’t even know what he is.’

The abrupt sound of something wet hitting the pavement started a hail of hacking and coughing from the vampire, who slowly stood up.

‘Don’t patronise me, you bastard, or I’ll tear your damn head off! The society cocks don’t like me, so I live in the gutter. It ain’t by choice!’

Everyone had taken a step back at this point due to the stench arising from the creature, except for Lara who now faced an unescorted target.

‘Well then, Meander, whatever you choose to call yourself, what can you tell us?’

‘That Rochester is dead,’ the vampire replied bluntly, ‘And that some guy with black skin has taken over the bosses.’

‘We want to meet this black-skinned man you are talking about. Can you help us?’

‘Don’t give me that shit,’ spat Meander, ‘You want to kill him, and if you don’t you’re stupid. So I’ll show you how to get in the back way, and you can leave me the hell alone.’

Lara raised her hands in a half-soothing, half-protective gesture, ‘Yes, that’s fine, where do we go?’

‘There’s an alley behind the warehouse, off Baxter street. There’s a fire escape, but it’s blocked. You have to go in through the wall under the steps. I’ll show you when we get there. Come on.’

‘Well,’ said Giles as they crossed the empty street, ‘He seems surprisingly co-operative.’

‘Very,’ replied Willow softly.

* * *

Lara wiped the sweat from her forehead with the sleeve of her catsuit and regarded the pile of bricks they had produced. She was amazed that no-one had noticed them yet. Pearse and Xander were still hefting pieces of wall out of the way. Buffy and Michael were guarding Meander, who had taken on the abrupt demeanour of someone who wanted to get the hell away.

‘Why the hell am I still here?’ he protested, ‘I’ve shown you what you wanted to see. Let me go!’

‘Listen,’ said Father Francis softly as he approached the teenage leech, ‘We’re vampire hunters. What do you think we do? Be silent, and be thankful you still have a material form.’

Meander shut up after that. Lara was glad, it meant she didn’t have to make him. Finally they cleared enough out of the wall to see the way forward, a corridor in the rear of the building.

‘We don’t know what could be in there,’ said Lara, ‘I should go alone.’

‘I’m going with you,’ said Buffy defiantly getting up from the floor, ‘I’m stronger and faster than you, for a start. We still don’t know what happened to the big guy.’

Lara sighed wearily. But she really didn’t want to face this Baal alone.

‘Fine,’ she said, ‘The rest of you stay here. We’ll get in, find out what we can, kill that thing if we can, and get out again. Okay?’

Xander stepped forward, ‘I’m going with Buffy.’

‘No,’ explained Lara, ‘You’re not.’

The woman and the girl picked their way carefully down the corridor. They had already traversed three similar passages and a couple of flights of stairs. The three doors they had encountered had been locked, and Lara had been unwilling to attract attention by firing her loosed guns. She had a silenced pistol in her backpack, but knew it would be of little use against their intended opponents.

They rounded a corner, finding themselves facing yet another litter-lined dark-panelled corridor, but their view ahead was obstructed by the enormous trenchcoated man who stood, facing the other way, before them.

Buffy made a short stabbing motion with the stake she held in her pale hand, to indicate her intention. Lara nodded once, before crouching down and pulling out a weapon to cover her. Buffy crept forward, weapon in hand, carefully stepping between the crumpled paper and rubbish. She had earlier commented that if this was how all English courts maintained themselves, it was no surprise the US had made themselves independent. At least they could introduce their own litter laws and things. Lara had simply glared at her.

She reached a position that put her within striking distance of the vampire, and tensed. This was a simple stake-from-the-rear, a move she had made many a time. Pose it right and you keep the stake. She crouched, feet silent, tightened her overpowered muscles, and struck. The sharpened wooden spike stabbed forwards, penetrating the thick cloth of the coat, and shooting deep into the heart.

And it didn’t die.

For all their faults, vampires were somewhat predictable in death. Stake them, decapitate them, burn them, they just popped into a cloud of ash. Stab – ash. Chop – ash. Burn – ash. It was one of the only things you could rely on. As this particular vampire had been quite convincingly staked, and yet had not reduced itself to a powdery stain, Buffy assumed it wasn’t dead.

She was right. In fact, it wasn’t even a vampire. He grip on the stake released in surprise, and the figure turned to face her in the corridor. Where a vampire should have had a face, was, well, something else. It was green, and scaled, and fanged, and had tiny black eyes set in its fishy head.

Buffy, never one to scream inappropriately, stumbled backwards instead, and the thing in the trenchcoat advanced on her. Lara was at her side in moments, guns holstered, and holding a small knife. Buffy looked around as the adventuress attacked the creature, ducking in and slashing at its trousered legs before hopping back to avoid a swipe from its clawed paws. Buffy hang back. There was little manoeuvring room in the corridor and she didn’t want to get in Lara’s way.

Lara struck like a serpent, one-two, at the clumsy figure, and where she struck, rivulets of green blood started to trickle down the human clothes. Suddenly she made a lunge for its face, and without a sound of pain of any sort, the thing just toppled backwards. Buffy stepped forwards to see a green gash in the centre of its forehead, bubbling gently with liquid.

‘Ew!’ she exclaimed quietly, ‘What the hell is that thing?’

‘It’s a Deep One,’ said Lara, who was rifling through the trenchcoat, ‘But I didn’t think they’d venture this far from the Thames. Ah, here we are.’

She produced a wallet.

‘They carry wallets?’ whispered Buffy, ‘What, they need them to keep their American Express in or something?’

Lara poked inside and produced a handful of tiny fish bones, which she dropped, and a folded piece of dry paper. She unfolded it.

‘It’s blank,’ commented Buffy, ‘Maybe he was going to put his shopping list on it.’

‘The fact that it is blank tells us something,’ said Lara.

‘Oh yes, and what is that?’ asked Buffy.

‘I’m not sure yet,’ replied Lara, ‘But when I figure it out, I’ll tell you.’

Lara cleaned her knife on the corner of the trenchcoat.

‘How’d you kill that thing?’ asked Buffy, ‘Brain?’

‘Yes. You aimed for the heart, which would have little effect. Their heart is about three inches lower than that. But you catch the brain and they’re dead instantly. It’s easy with a gun, but I didn’t want to create a sound.’

‘He hit the floor pretty hard.’

‘Yes, he did,’ whispered Lara, ‘But let’s hope no-one noticed.’

‘Sure,’ replied Buffy, ‘When all else fails, fall back on optimism.’

They resumed their way through the rear of the warehouse.

* * *

‘Oh no,’ said Buffy, ‘I hate this part.’

Lara couldn’t help but agree. They stood, in the timeless fashion, on a small balcony overlooking the court. They could see the motifs on the walls, the considerably expanded throng of courtiers, the large groups of guards that stood around with both modern and anachronistic weaponry, the compact but regal figure of Christopher Baal on the impromptu throne (which now seemed to consist of an easy chair with a backboard) – and Blade, who had been brought before him.

‘Well well,’ boomed Kin-Opha’s voice throughout the hall, ‘You’re back, Daywalker. Are you any more inclined to tell me things now?’

Blade knelt, staring at the floor, and occasionally dripped blood. He looked a mess. His weapons and coat had been removed, and some of his clothing torn. There were several stains behind him, the sign of vampires dying, but whether these had come from his entry or the coup earlier in the week Lara could not tell.

Blade said nothing.

‘Evidently not,’ replied Christopher, ‘Oh, this interrogation business bores me. Take him away and shut him up somewhere. And be more careful this time. He’s suffered enough for one day. No more accidental brutal beatings.’

Guards stepped up and dragged the large and still silent black man away. Lara and Buffy winced as he scraped and dragged along the floor, but never made a sound.

‘Homicidal heroes,’ complained Christopher, ‘They are so very, very tedious. What’s next?’

What was next, apparently, was a group of human criminals who wanted to debate the minor details of some racket agreement they had. This proved to be unwise as after Christopher bored of the conversation he had the leftmost man shot. The others quickly reconsidered their positions and withdrew. There was no laughter or congratulation amongst the courtiers; evidently they were too scared.

‘He has them under his thumb,’ whispered Buffy, ‘These must be most of the vampires in the south of England. What the hell are we supposed to do?’

‘Look for an opening,’ replied Lara.

She was looking again at the blank piece of paper. Something in the back of her mind was nagging at her that this was significant, but she couldn’t for the life of her tell why. Then it clicked.

‘Hey,’ whispered Buffy as Lara scuttled back the way they had come, ‘Where are you going?’

‘Stay here,’ was Lara’s response, ‘Keep watching. I’ll be back in a minute.’

* * *

Back in the dirty back corridors, Lara retrieved her mobile from her backpack and dialled a number from the memory.

‘Yes?’ came Francis’ voice tersely.

‘Put Giles on,’ said Lara, ‘And tell him to be quiet.’

A brief murmuring.

‘Y-yes? Hello?’

‘Giles. No time to chat. You’re familiar with Deep Ones?’

‘Well, I have read about them. I can’t say I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting one in the flesh, but a friend of mine-’

‘Yes, that’s very interesting. Look, we’ve found Kin-Opha, he’s ruling the court like a little Caligula. We killed a Deep One that was guarding the rear of the building, and it had a blank piece of paper. This is of some significance, I’m sure. Can you look it up for me?’

‘W-well, I’d need my books, I mean, how long?’

Lara heard the sound of heavy footfalls nearing, and her voice lowered in volume.

‘Minutes, Giles, not days. Just see what you can do. Phone a friend or something. I have to go.’

‘Uh, yes, good-’

She turned off the phone and pulled the silenced pistol out of her still open backpack. She kicked the bag back and shrank against the wall. The footsteps grew closer. She knew the first body had not yet been discovered. It lay several metres to her left, still slowly bleeding. She knelt down, and raised the gun, long barrel facing the corner from which the sounds came.

Moments after the head of the Deep One rounded the corner she fired, directly into its forehead, and it was dead probably before it had even acknowledged her existence. The body toppled in the same way as the other had, and she was on it before the dust had settled.

Rooting in the pockets, she found a wallet, very similar to the other, and just as damp. Inside it were two more small pieces of paper, dry somehow, and as blank as the first. She also found three flat pebbles, smoothly rounded and unmarked.

She stood, to return to Buffy, and realised she had turned her phone off, and Giles would have no way of contacting her. Hesitantly, she thumbed it on, and it started wailing immediately.

‘Yes?’ she answered, glad to cease the noise.

‘-answering. Oh, Ms Croft? It’s Giles. I think I may have something.’

‘I just met another Deep One, and I have another two pieces of paper. And three pebbles.’

‘That is somewhat fortuitous. The pebbles are irrelevant; the Deep Ones occasionally practice stone skimming, but the pieces of paper are primitive water runes.’

‘I knew it!’ whispered Lara excitedly, ‘How do I use them.’

‘Well,’ said Giles, ‘Generally submersion in water will allow the rune to be used, and cause the symbol to become visible.’

‘That makes a reasonable amount of sense. How do I find out what they do?’

‘Well, um, that could be a problem,’ apologised Giles, ‘You see up until recently the Deep Ones worshipped the Old Gods. When Luther abolished the Old Gods in 1983, they turned to the worship of Mencara, the new Sea King. With him came a brand new runic language. So the answer is, I don’t know.’

‘I’ll have to make a best guess,’ said Lara quickly, ‘And I’d better find some water.’

‘Ideally it would be seawater,’ said Giles, ‘But I doubt you can put a hand to that on short notice, so the cleaner the better.’

‘I’ll see what I can do. Thanks Giles. Bye.’

She had turned the phone off before Giles could reply. She had a small Thermos flask in her backpack, filled with tea. Now all she needed was a sink. There had to be one out the back here somewhere.

* * *

‘What’s been happening?’ asked Lara quietly as she crept up behind Buffy.

‘Our man Chris has been having people executed, wheeler-dealing and generally making a nuisance of himself. Oh, and he’s calling himself Christopher Bell now. He probably figured Baal was just too Middle Ages.’

Lara peered over the edge of the small balcony to see the court apparently in some sort of recess. Only about half the courtiers were present, and Kin-Opha was reading some kind of manuscript. His skin was currently pale, not unhealthily so, and certainly less disconcerting than the jet black he sometimes maintained. He was dressed in a dark grey suit, and for no apparent reason sported a purple tie.

‘Did you have any luck with your shopping list?’ inquired Buffy.

‘Your librarian found out they were runes,’ whispered Lara, ‘You have to wet them to make them work.’

‘Runes, as in spells?’ asked Buffy.

‘The static variety, yes. You can’t see them because, well, Deep Ones made them and they’re a little unorthodox.’

‘So what do they do?’

‘That’s the bad part,’ said Lara, ‘Because Giles doesn’t know, and I can’t see them. I think we’ll only know when we use them.’

‘And that would be?’

‘Is there any likelihood of a distraction?’ asked Lara.

‘Well, whenever someone dies, there’s a mild ruckus, but no-one lets up guard or anything. So my vote would be no.’

‘Now, then.’

Lara handily flipped the Thermos lid off, rolled up the first note, and carefully dipped it into the clear water. She shook it around a little with her fingers before withdrawing the now sodden paper and unfurling it.

‘I’m not seeing any abracadabra,’ commented Buffy.

Lara concentrated. Nothing had in fact happened, but on the surface of the paper a runic character was now clearly visible. A generous half-circle, like a backwards C, had a vertical bisecting line and a small comma-shaped dot above.

‘What does it mean?’ asked Buffy, ‘It sure looks like a rune.’

‘It’s Mencaran. I’m trying to think.’

Oh-kay, said Buffy’s eyebrows, but she kept quiet.

Lara thought back to the months she had spent studying the various runic scripts in Florence. She still popped in to the little library once in a while, and they always seemed to have some new reference material they really shouldn’t. A few fortnights of light work in the fair city whilst she recuperated from taking the Prince of Aramathea down a peg or two had left her with valuable skills. The runic languages, whilst all different, had inherent similarities because of the way they had to interact with reality to work their magic. So the basic form of this one should be interpretable. She tried to concentrate as the water from the paper ran down over her wrists and dripped to the floor.

That covered most of reality, thought Lara as she had at the time.

She had it!

‘Mayse!’ she shouted in the old tongue, and hurled the rune into the air, ‘Get down!’

She pressed the teenager down onto the balcony as a hundred pairs of inhuman eyes turned to look upwards. Shielding her eyes with her fingers, Lara watched as the rune twisted and curled into the air, flapping across to the approximate centre of the hall. It began to swirl and cavort, and then bizarrely started spitting out chunks of rock, which gouged holes in the embossed ceiling and many of the courtiers. Unable to watch for fear of facial damage, she burrowed her head down and tensed. A horrid roar started in combination with a sound like heavy rain.

‘Gee,’ muttered Buffy from under Lara’s arm, ‘These fish guys don’t mess around with their runes, do they?’

Abruptly, the sound ceased. Lara blinked, and peered out. The hail of stone had ceased, and most of the court had dispersed, their yelling still audible from the side corridors, though a few remained where a lucky pebble had forcibly removed a section of brain. In the centre of the court, on a now pockmarked circle, stood Kin-Opha, skin black, gazing up at them with his red eyes. Oh damn...

‘An adequate demonstration, my dears. Now, come down here.’

Apparently this was more than mere hypnotism, as Lara was amazed to find her body taking on the distinctive sensation of weightlessness and starting to drift into the air. She instinctively thrashed and kicked, but it made no difference as she and Buffy disconcertingly floated over the balcony rail and down towards the floor. They were dumped unceremoniously onto the mosaic surface by whatever had held them, and Buffy made a disgruntled squeak.

Christopher Bell confronted them summarily.

‘I honestly had no idea the Deep Ones were carrying runes of this great a power. I must take a look at that agreement we have and see if there is room for an additional clause about excessive distribution of sidearms.’

‘That’s a sidearm?’ muttered Buffy weakly.

‘Oh yes, my dear Slayer. You should see some of the rougher stuff in their arsenals. Oh, except you won’t. My congratulations on deciphering the rune, Lady Croft. Not many people speak the old tongue these days. I told you that I respected you, back in the tomb, though I fear I may have been correct about your insignificance.’

‘Thanks,’ said Lara without enthusiasm. Lady Croft? He must be being polite.

‘I must also applaud you for clearing the court. They really were becoming so tedious, but I think there might have been something of an uproar were I to go about indiscriminately slaughtering them.’

‘Why?’ exclaimed Buffy, ‘That seems to be your style!’

Christopher drew back and placed a hand to his chest, ‘Me? I am hurt, Slayer. I have been a perfect gentleman for longer than this tiny anachronistic country has existed to house them. What you may have witnessed from your perch were strictly my efforts to try and acclimatise myself to this rather unsavoury culture. Perhaps I am not being so fair-handed as I could. Ah well, such things are not very important in the end.’

Lara had unwittingly been looking at Kisophar while he spoke. As his eyes began to glow red, she realised the folly of this course of action. For the second time she felt the oppressive weight of his gaze on her mind, crushing down on her, brushing through the rudimentary psychic defences of her consciousness without acknowledging their existence. In that moment, though she retained her identity, she knew she was caught, ensnared, entirely controlled by the creature she sought to destroy.

Kin-Opha did not speak. Maybe that would break his concentration or something, though Lara doubted his flaws were that straightforward. Unbidden, though, she rose slowly to her booted feet and approached him, walking slowly but in normal fashion. She assumed that was mainly for effect as well.

‘You know,’ remarked Christopher Bell, ‘That’s the one thing I’ve always wondered.’

Right, so his flaws were definitely not that straightforward.

‘This artificial hypnotism trick is very useful, and very versatile, but I am always wondering what one – obviously that would be one as in the hypnotisee – thinks about in these matters. You, Lady Croft, are presumably devising sundry ways in which to break free from my little spell, all of which are doubtless heroic and aesthetic displays of swashbuckling and derring do.’

For the first time in several months, Lara found herself lapsing into cliches.

I wish.

‘I must say that I respect you for that, I really do,’ continued the somewhat confident vampire-come-unknowable arch villain, ‘I told you, there were more of your kind in the world when I breathed. It would seem that as the population had increased, the number of truly remarkable people has fallen dramatically. This other one-’

Lara felt the gaze lift from her and stopped walking. Before she could take any action, the eyes fell upon her again, and she was once more trapped, but behind her she heard Buffy grunt in pain.

‘-this Buffy, may have become one of these, but alas she has too few years under her belt and will regrettably have no opportunity to add to them now.’

Lara resumed her powerless-to-resist walk towards him. They were now within comfortable conversing distance, and Kin-Opha’s voice lowered accordingly. He was either a thoughtful orator or had too much of his mind on the dramatic. Lara was past caring which, and per Christopher’s suggestion she was trying and failing to devise cunning and subtle plans for worming her way out of this situation. She had wormed her way out of so many others, with opponents older, more powerful and more well-known than this. But nothing immediately sprang to mind.

‘It has been so nice having this little conversation with you, Lady Croft, but I regret that you are far too resourceful to keep locked up and I must therefore put an end to your existence. Yet another little display of my power to keep these lackeys in their place.’

In the periphery of her vision Lara noticed that the courtiers and guards were filtering back into the hall, apparently to witness her grisly demise, and that of poor Miss Summers.

‘My condolences on your death, Lady Croft, and I wish you providence in the aft-’

Kisophar’s voice stopped at the barking sound of gunfire from behind Lara. He turned to look, and as his gaze lifted Lara found herself able to do likewise. Blade was there, and appeared to be attacking the courtiers. From somewhere he had procured a rather tatty long coat – perhaps it was his own – and had taken a sword from one of the guards. Courtiers were helpfully reacting by panicking and shouting and running away. Lara’s mind was apparently working faster than Christopher’s, as she managed to turn away from him before he remembered she was free.

‘Crowley!’ shouted Kin-Opha, ‘Stop that infernal Daywalker.’

From behind the throne, and directly in front of Lara, Ogham Crowley appeared, now wearing a more traditional wizardly robe over his grey suit, complete with silver moons and stars made into the fabric. As he raised his arms to make some dastardly attack on Blade, he neglected to pay any attention to Buffy, who was at that moment coming to her senses at his feet. Crowley had barely managed to utter the first few syllables of his spell when the blonde’s leg shot upwards, and made contact with the occultist in a place he would rather it hadn’t. Crowley cried out and stumbled backwards, leaving Blade free to make merry hell with the vampires, monsters and criminals of the court.

Lara, for her part, fled up the steps for the throne as Kisophar was apparently still distracted. Before she reached Buffy’s position the impetuous young Slayer had got to her feet and charged off to join Blade in his melee. The amount of blood coming out of the proceedings was starting to make Lara feel a little queasy, but she fought the feeling down. On the floor behind the throne was a groaning Ogham Crowley. Lara crouched down to speak with him and hopefully avoid Christopher’s attentions.

‘Crowley, how are you?’ she greeted with sarcastic niceties, ‘Everything going according to plan?’

Crowley stopped groaning and stared up at her.

‘You must know by now,’ she continued, ‘He isn’t going to do you any good. You’re just Dr Faustus for the Pepsi generation. It’s the same story repeated every time, and it’s always me that has to sort out the sorry mess.’

Crowley was chuckling. Lara frowned.

‘What are you laughing at?’

‘Faustus for the Pepsi generation,’ said Crowley, ‘How terribly eloquent. You really are a travel guide write, aren’t you?’

Lara grabbed him by the chin and pulled his head upwards. He gulped.

‘How do I kill that thing, you irritable little toad?’

‘H-he’s a vampire, really, but a cross or stake will d-do you little good.’

‘You may be a childish fool,’ said Lara unpleasantly, ‘But you’re not an idiot. You would have researched something in case the awakening went awry. What?’

By way of encouragement she gave his neck a little stretch. Crowley squealed. In the background the din of people sword fighting and firing covered much of the noise so she doubted it would attract Kin-Opha’s attention.

‘Ow – ow! Fire! Fire and light are his weaknesses, but not all of both. Canton magical fire is the best, but other kinds will suffice. Now, you interfering-’

Lara had heard enough. She struck him sharply, and at just the correct pressure, on the sternum, and Crowley slumped into unconsciousness. There would be time to deal with him later. She fished in her backpack and retrieved four distinct objects. This would be a gamble but she was pretty sure she understood what was going on now. She stood up, and made ready to confront the King of Opha again.

The fight was apparently going well. Blade and Buffy were approximately back-to-back, thought they were moving too quickly for that to be entirely true. Blade held a katana in one hand and a shotgun in the other, thought neither were his. Buffy had appropriated a pair of sharp stakes, and was dusting vampires and spiking Deep Ones like there was no tomorrow. The growing piles of ash, scaly corpses and tentacled heaps were showing their progress. Lara thought she caught sight of Michael and Pearse on the fringes, holding guns, but wasn’t sure. In any case, things were proceeding acceptably. Kisophar stood watching as she did, apparently studying Blade’s sword movements with some interest.

Sliding her sunglasses on, Lara stepped out from behind the throne. This was going to be tricky. She closed her eyes and called to the vampire.

‘You ought to keep your mind on the matter in hand, Mr Bell.’

She felt, rather than saw, the vampire turn towards her, and even through closed lids knew that his gaze fell upon her. Without seeing him, though she retained control.

‘Ah, I fear I was distracted Lady Croft. Fear not, and let us watch this battle together before your allotted end must come.’

Lara began to walk slowly forward, matching as she could the gait she took when under his control. With her sunglasses on Kin-Opha could not see her eyes, and she hoped would not realise anything was amiss. Hand behind her back she approached him.

Clang, clang, foom, chink-chink, phtang, went the battle to her right, but she paid it little attention. All her efforts focused on maintaining a steady pace and hoping against hope there was nothing in her path to trip her. She felt the dark presence of the vampire from across the hall, and knew she was nearing him. Though he made no noise or smell, and radiated no heat or breath, his very existence cast a shadow across her blind awareness of what was around her. When she got within a few metres, the distance she had been last time, she stopped.

‘Ah, here we are again. Are you ready to face your fate?’ asked Christopher.

There was a soft sound to her right. Bomp-bomp, as of something hard bouncing.

‘They always told me Hell was rather nice,’ continued Kisophar, ‘In contrary to what-’

With a reasonably loud bang the grenade went off. Luck, Lara thought, was a wonderful thing when it works in your favour. She had no idea who had thrown it, or whether it had done any damage, but she was conscious of Christopher looking away suddenly.

Lara opened her eyes and dropped the Thermos flask. It bumped and rolled away, but she didn’t notice that. She drew the other two runes out from behind her back and stared briefly at the two sopping pieces of paper. What she had hoped for was inscribed upon their surfaces. As Kin-Opha turned back towards her she stared resolutely downward and cried out.

‘Shirak! Yothuk!’

Screwing the runes up rapidly and tossing them forwards, Lara hurled herself backwards at the same time and was greeted as the effect of the hard-coded spells went off. The simultaneous explosion of white light and red fire hurled her backwards and knocked her straight into unconsciousness. The world didn’t even have a chance to go black this time.

* * *

Lara awoke, it seemed, only seconds later, as sensory information began once more to flood into her brain. The sounds of fighting had stopped, but she could hear the spitting of violent fire and the popping of burning matter. The smell of meat was in the air, mixed with an arcane spicy quality that she couldn’t immediately place. She flicked her eyes open and forced her groaning stomach muscles to sit her up. Three inches after the tips of her feet, a blazing hellfire began, burning with an intensity that made her glad she still had her sunglasses on. To her right the battle had transformed into a full rout, as some courtiers burned alive and others fled for the exits. Blade was heading after them, whilst Buffy had apparently noticed Lara and was heading her way.

‘Hey!’ called the bubbly occult heroine, ‘What the hell was that?’

Lara got shakily to her feet and headed for the Slayer.

‘The other two runes. Light and fire. Quite a turn of providence.’

Buffy rushed and grabbed Lara’s shoulders.

‘You’re limping,’ she exclaimed, ‘Are you alright?’

‘The blast knocked me off my feet,’ said Lara, ‘I-I’ll be okay. I think I just pulled something.’

Then she looked around.

‘Kin-Opha was at the heart of the explosion,’ she said, ‘Is he...?’

Staring into the heart of the fire Lara thought she could make out a dark shape on the floor, burning fiercely. She raised a hand to shield her face from the spitting fragments and continued to stare.

‘Hey!’ said Buffy, ‘That thing’s spreading. We have to get out of here.’

Lara turned back, and noticed that Buffy was limping too. Supporting each other, they mad their way rapidly across the now empty court to the front gates. Blade reappeared at the edge where the courtiers had gone, pretty much saturated with blood, sword still in hand, and headed that way too. At the doors were Michael and Pearse, heaving on them. By the time Lara, Buffy and Blade had arrived, the twenty-foot wooden masses stood open, and they rushed out ahead of the fire, licking at their heels.

The court lead out into an unremarkable warehouse antechamber, but they were far too busy to worry about the décor. As the fire entered the room it began to leap from crate to crate, and whatever was in them apparently burned nicely. As the marble floor was too, though, it could have been water for all the difference it would have made.

The worry of being burned alive somewhat offset the discomfort of moving with a pulled muscle, and Buffy and Lara split apart and started running. One woman, one girl, two black men and one white man sprinted across the floor as crates started exploding around them. That probably wasn’t water.

At the main doors they found Giles, Francis, Angie, Xander and Willow, faces concerned, and headed out into deserted two-in-the-morning Baxter street.

‘Come on,’ yelled Giles pointing to the upper windows, which were flaming as well, ‘We have to get away from the warehouse.’

The small army of vampire hunters helped each other across the road in a pretty disorderly fashion, and then watched as the building gutted itself long into the morning.

The police investigation of the burned-down warehouse on Baxter street revealed nothing about the vampires or the hunters. Very little was made of the affair, and apparently the fire had burned so fiercely that no trace of the sixteenth-century marble mosaic remained. The vampires of London (and the rest of the UK) suffered greatly from the disaster, and went into something of a recession for at least the next year.

Buffy, Willow, Xander and Giles returned to America after spending a couple more nights at Lara’s mansion, and Giles stocking up on Marmite, and Galaxy chocolate for Jenny Calender. They went on to fight evil and generally continue keeping the peace in their little town.

Father Francis’ vampire hunters made it known they had been a part of the destruction of Kin-Opha, and returned to Manchester with a slightly more high-profile organisation. Six months later Father Francis finally succumbed to his cancer, and under Michael’s renewed leadership they continued to keep the night a safer place.

Blade shipped out to the Far East the day after the warehouse was destroyed, and continued on his round-the-world quest to fight the good fight. Rumours suggested that he was finally caught and killed by the demon Agasthi, but a body was never found and stories of a black-coated man who hunts those of his flesh continue.

And Lara? Lara wondered for a while whether Christopher Bell had been destroyed, but for three months he did not reappear. The adventuring didn’t let up for a moment. The adventures, you ask? Well, you’ll just have to wait and see...

FIN

Appendix 1: The Top Ten reasons why Buffy and Lara should do a crossover:

(Hey, it’s a tradition, okay?)

10) They both had terrible trouble with the occult at school (if you believe the stories)

9) They’re both rather well supported by someone named Sarah

8) They’ve both done that handstand thing

7) They both have butlers called Winston. Hang on, there’s a mista-

6) They’re both strong independent female characters (barf, hurl)

5) One is blonde, the other brunette. Not a similarity, but they look so harmonic together

4) They both have absolutely laughable love lives

3) They both have a propensity for silly martial arts manoeuvres

2) They’re both Tomb Raiders

And the number one reason why Buffy and Lara should do a crossover is:

1) Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Tomb Raider 1 have compatible theme tunes – try it

Appendix 2: Dodgy bits

If you’re planning on writing some analysis, review or critique of this work (work? Umm...), then I present here a list of the shadier and questionable points (IMHAFRO*) of the story for your critical delight. You see, Alan, I’m saving you time...

1) the villain not only completely changes halfway through the first chapter, but his character goes through some major overhauls as things progress

2) the villain has at least three and possibly five names, and is referred to by all of them on an irregular basis

3) this is a crossover with not one but three narrowly related other things. None are used particularly effectively (hence this is not "Lara and Buffy") and I don’t feel the sickening ‘crossover’ malady is made up for by the frankly minimal effect they have on the story

4) (mainly ripped off from the good Mr WKW) most of the text is superfluous to, well, everything. That pretty much sums that one up

5) it rambles. Search your feelings. You know it to be true

6) my Lara is an aristocratic occult superhero rather than a Tomb Raider. Oh well

7) this point is undergoing revision, and is currently not accessible to external users

8) it bears an uncanny number of similarities to Trial By Fire. Not in terms of plot, or characters, or writing style (which is most of it) but in the details. I’ll leave you to spot the little nigglers

9) this point is above your security clearance, citizen

10) and then I got OFF the bus. Ah…

* IMHAFRO = In My Humble And Fairly Relevant Opinion

Appendix 3: Dedication

In order of likelihood of contracting the common cold, this story is dedicated to the following people. This list is at the end rather than the beginning because it's long and boring, but the chances are if I've heard of you you're on here. If you're not, I've just forgotten. Don't sweat it.

Peter Donat (for his monastery in all of its darkness), Peter Thomas & family (for merely existing), The Fletchers (in all their glory), Sarah Crisman (for making the world a better place), Aaron Cumberledge (for knowing more about grammar than most the rest of the world put together), Alan Wong (for his bizarre coincidences), Cleo Bertrand (for helping me with conception - no, not that kind), Art Agramonte & family (including you, Scott), Lara Croft (for fairly obvious reasons), Mig (hi Mig!), The other Mig (hi Migs!), The Evil Dr Ostercy (for adding to the gene pool), The Divine Strawberry Mind (because not thanking the divine is the literary equivalent of stepping under a ladder), Emily Ashford (despite my total inability to remember her name), Gordon Freeman (for the nasty piece of work he did back there), Duncan Cormack (for his avant-garde Annie Lennox haircut), Bunty Hoven (for being a regular viewer), Tower (oh, and you Neil), The Self-Preservation Society (for their work in demolishing the EC pizza mountain), John Abney (for showing me the better side of topic posting, as it were, and hopefully for putting this on general display), Terence Ferguson (for introducing me to the world of Anime - ahem), The Devil Valois (for producing the best darn tootin' homestead there ever was), Helena Bonham Carter (for graciously providing the accent throughout), Kalyn & Garrett (for being inseparable), TMWRNJ (TMWRNJ!!), Everyone on the Forums whose name begins with K (shoot, there are a lot of you), The Tisroc (may he live forever), Johnny Boy (for having such a cool moniker), Rob & Jo (split up will ya, for Heaven's sake), Ben Fardon (thought I'd forgotten you, didn't you?), all the guys who were responsible for Tomb Raider and Buffy and everything else that is good in the world (though this list they shall never see), Kars Meyboom (for his web page), that Tales bloke (how are you, you big hairy giant?), Michael Crisman (in spite of all my complaints and his shortcomings, He’s The Man), Luis Cunha (for never being sung to by a blue whale, and other more obvious things), Anders and Hairypalms (for comic relief in times of crisis), Everyone else on the Forums, Everyone in the whole world, Everyone in the whole universe, Everyone else.

And Gwyneth Paltrow.

Goodnight out there, whatever you are.

Appendix 4: The Questionnaire

As an aid to really, really easy review and comment, here are some questions. The rest is easy.

1) Bit with the best dialogue

2) Bit with the absolute worst line of dialogue

3) Bit that made you go ‘cool’

4) Bit that made you go ‘no way that would happen, even in a silly world like Lara’s’

5) Bit that made you laugh out loud

6) Bit that frustrated you and you’d rather it hadn’t happened

7) Bit that looked like it was ripped off from someone else’s work

8) Bit you thought I had done cleverly (ten to one I hadn’t, and it was accidental)

9) Bit that surprised you

10) Bit where Lara most in-character

11) Bit were Lara... yup, least in character

12) Best bit

13) Worst bit

14) Bit with the most flagrant abuse of language or grammar

15) And finally... bit that could be easily made far, far better with a simple addition or subtraction