The Man of Bronze (24 page)

Personally, I prefer to deal with mazes by not playing the game. I head straight toward the middle, bashing through any walls that get in my way. (The guards at Hampton Court still have me under a restraining order.) But the full-speed-ahead approach isn’t an option in a building with stone-block walls. I’d have to use a more controlled algorithm: something methodical and thorough.

Drat. That didn’t sound like much fun. “Hey, foot!” I shouted. “You want to be found, yeah? So why not give me some help?”

I waited. Nothing obvious happened. And yet . . .

I turned off my torch. Dimly, the left-hand corridor was lit with a ghostly bronze glow.

“Ta,” I said, and started in the highlighted direction. It was only a few minutes later I realized I’d made the same mistake as dozens of shamans down through the ages: I’d invoked bronze energy for my own convenience without worrying about possible side effects.

Oops.

The bronze glow led me through the expected maze of twisty little passages. Nothing attacked. No eldritch horrors lurked in the shadows. I didn’t even have to avoid scythes swinging out from the walls or spiked pits opening beneath my feet. It was enough to make a girl feel neglected. But I pushed on regardless, until a furious racket broke out up ahead.

Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.
Unmistakably, the sound of gunshots. In the middle of this Stone Age temple, persons unknown were engaging in an anachronistic firefight.

Had Lancaster Urdmann got here ahead of me? We’d seen no signs of his presence. The temple’s stone door had been shut; the giant crocodile on guard duty had seemed sleepy and undisturbed. I’d noticed no tracks, no boat, no sentries. And the gunfire ahead of me wasn’t the
trrrrrrr
of Uzis but rapid single-round shots. Probably pistols: autoloaders, not SMGs. Such weapons weren’t Urdmann’s style—he preferred the sloppy overkill of full-auto blast ups. So who was shooting whom? And why?

The gunfight lasted at most ten seconds. During that time I raced forward, trusting that the shots would cover any sounds I made. As I came to a corner, a bullet nearly parted my hair—it spanged off the wall in front of me and went zinging down the corridor, bouncing three more times before exhausting its momentum. I threw myself back, expecting more shots . . . but none came. That last bullet had been an accidental ricochet, not aimed at me.

Then silence. The firing stopped. I waited, my back against the wall, holding my breath as I listened. The bronze glow around the corner seemed very bright. The sound quality around the corner seemed different too—not the cramped atmosphere of narrow passageways, but something more open. I suspected I’d reached the center of the maze: the room where the foot was kept. Someone with a gun was in there. I heard the familiar spring-loaded sound of an ammunition clip being ejected and a new clip getting shoved in to replace the old one.

Carefully, I peeked around the corner. The first thing I saw was a corpse—a bony brown-skinned man with an elaborate headdress, his face demolished by bullets and his legs shot off at the knees.
Zombie priest,
I thought: one of the Polynesians who’d locked himself into this temple. He’d died of thirst or starvation, then had come back undead, thanks to the power of bronze.

As I watched, a figure appeared and nudged the priest with a booted foot, making sure the corpse was truly dead. I recognized the boot. I also recognized the bare leg, the hip holsters, and the stylish-but-functional leather shorts. I even recognized the pistols and ponytail. The only thing I didn’t recognize was the glowing bronze sheen that covered her: like a layer of copper paint coating the woman’s skin, clothes, and even her guns.

A bronze rendition of me. Metallic Lara.
Hurrah,
I thought.
I’ve got an evil twin.

Well, why not a Lara look-alike? The bronze body parts seemed to like making new versions of nearby life-forms. Now that I thought about it, I
had
invoked the foot’s power for help navigating the labyrinth. Perhaps that was considered an invitation for the foot to duplicate me. Or perhaps the foot had just decided to cause some mischief. Whatever the reason, I was now facing a bronze version of myself, complete with my favorite pistols: my beautiful voice-activated VADS. They could blow me to bits in the blink of an eye . . . and my bronze-coated double was likely just as good a shot as I was.

She was also likely bulletproof. Most bronze mutants were. If I tried to shoot her and my bullets bounced off, I’d lose the one advantage I had: the factor of surprise. My doppelgänger didn’t know I was here . . . so I’d get one chance, one split second, to catch her off guard.

Too bad. I wished I could start with a peaceful approach. After all, she was
me
. Sort of. She might be willing to talk rather than shoot; she might be a rational human being. Well, a rational
something,
anyway. But so far, every bronze mutant I’d met had been 100 percent homicidal. The mammoth, the eel things, the spiders, the undead—all had attacked on sight. This Lara was likely the same.

So I couldn’t risk making nice with my double. I had to put her down. Quickly. If I allowed her time to react, she’d start shooting. That would be bad. Whatever type of ammo she fired at me, I knew I wouldn’t like it: silver bullets, incendiaries, explosive rounds, plain old lead . . .

Suddenly, I smiled. My lovely VADS pistols were keyed to the sound of my own voice.

I holstered my guns. Then I whipped around the corner and charged my evil twin. As I did, I shouted, “Blanks!”

Time flows oddly during a fight. Sometimes it runs impossibly fast; sometimes it crawls in slow motion. Often it seems to do both simultaneously—a sluggish blur of flashing moments.

Flash 1: My first view of the scene. A room the size of a modest study. The bullet-ridden bodies of three priest zombies sprawled on the floor. In the center of the room stood a stone altar holding the bronze foot.

Flash 2: Lara Croft the second. “Dark” Lara. She raised her guns as I raced toward her. I don’t think she realized what I’d just yelled. I dearly hoped the VADS voice sensors were quicker on the uptake.

Flash 3: The pistols went off—all sound and no fury. My armorer once called me a fool for wasting space on blanks in my ammo clips. That shows why
he’s
just an armorer, and
I’m
the famous tomb raider.

Flash 4: Dark Lara called for normal lead bullets at the same time I yelled “Blanks!” again. The VADS hadn’t been designed to handle two versions of my voice simultaneously shouting contradictory orders. I didn’t know what it would do . . . but that didn’t matter, because by then, I’d reached my target. She hadn’t had time to fire.

Flash 5: My duplicate tried to dodge. I’d assumed that’s what she would do. Her head ducked to one side, but the ponytail trailed out behind, making a convenient target. I grabbed it.

Flash 6: I swung with all my might . . . holding on to the ponytail like a handle, flinging Dark Lara toward the altar. If she’d been human, I might have snapped her neck. As it was, I simply hurled her bodily into the bronze foot, releasing her ponytail at the point of maximum momentum.

Flash 7: Bronze woman met bronze toes at high speed. When they connected, something made a sharp hissing sound . . . like a high-pressure steam pipe gushing its contents. The noise didn’t come from the foot, which was flying through the air, knocked off the altar by its collision with Dark Lara. The foot struck the wall with a metallic clang and clattered to the floor. But the hissing continued, fierce as an angry cat.

Flash 8: My twin turned around. When I’d sent her speeding across the room, she’d struck the altar and hit the foot with her chest. Now I could see her torso was missing: an empty black void that was leaking away with that piercing, furious hiss. As I watched, the void expanded—creeping upward and downward, consuming my double’s body. It was like seeing a cinema reel that’s gotten stuck in its projector, where the heat of the light melts the celluloid film. The image on the screen starts to disintegrate at the point of greatest brightness; the melting spreads slowly but increasing in speed; then with a rush, the entire picture eats itself, leaving only bright emptiness.

The same thing was happening to my bronze double. I wasn’t surprised—the Sargasso eel priest had shrunk as soon as I’d struck him with the bronze leg. Then again, I’d been forced to batter him repeatedly to whittle him down to size. Dark Lara began to dissolve from a single crashing contact. Perhaps she’d been created so recently, she was still unstable. Or perhaps the difference was that the eel priest had originally been a flesh-and-blood human being, while my evil twin seemed to be nothing but a bronze creation, conjured out of thin air.

The priest had once been real. Dark Lara wasn’t. Easy come, easy go. The black void spread up her throat to her face, moving faster with every heartbeat. At the end, it bubbled outward in a rush, going, going, gone. Nothing was left of the bronze woman—not a hair, not a scrap of cloth. Just the echo of the hiss, reverberating down the stone corridors.

Then, even that faded away.

I picked up the foot. It had struck the wall so hard, the pinky toe had broken off. Hmm. But then, Father Emil had mentioned the toes could be severed from the whole. Whoever chopped up Bronze simply hadn’t bothered, as if doing a thorough job was too much work. I retrieved the toe from the floor and set it back in place on the foot. The body parts instantly rejoined: a perfect mend, with no sign they’d ever been separated.

“Wish I could do that,” I muttered. Foot in hand, I started back toward the temple’s exit.

I didn’t get lost on my way to the door, nor did I run afoul of any perils I missed on the way in. But when I got to the entrance, I had a sense of foreboding—enough that I stopped a few steps short of the doorway rather than going outside. From the shadows, I peeked around the corner of the doorframe. Nothing looked amiss: just heat haze and water and marsh plants, plus the ring of
moai
heads still turned in the directions I’d left them. The afternoon was quiet . . . in that almost-
too
-quiet way.

Of course, it was supposed to be quiet. If Urdmann and company hadn’t showed up yet, Teresa, Lord H., and Ilya would be hunkered down unseen among the reeds. If our enemies had arrived, my friends would be working on a suitable ambush . . . in which case I just had to wait till the shooting started, then join the fun.

I waited. Watched. Listened. Insects chirped, buzzed, hummed. Birds tweeted, twittered, cheeped. Occasionally, something went plop in the swamp—a frog jumping into the river or a fish breaking the surface to gobble a passing bug. Nothing appeared out of place.

Then a gas grenade dropped to the ground in front of me.

I had a split second to decide: out or in. If I ran out the door of the temple, I’d lose my sheltered position; I might get some cover from the
moai
s, but I’d still be exposed to gunfire from a lot of directions. If I headed back into the temple, I’d be safe from getting shot, at least temporarily . . . but I’d also be bottled up. Not good. The gas grenade proved that Urdmann had brought chemical weapons—tear gas, nerve gas, mustard gas, who knew?—and I had no defense against such things. If I fled into the temple, Urdmann could lob a few gas canisters through the doorway, wait for the vapors to spread through the poorly ventilated passages, then come in for me once I was incapacitated. The temple offered nowhere to hide, no safe air pockets for me to breathe. So I really had no choice, did I?

I dived in a somersault over the grenade. When I landed I thrust out my right foot, kicking the not-yet-triggered grenade through the temple doorway. Better for the gas to be mostly contained inside the temple than to have it fill the air around me . . . especially if the grenade contained some fast-acting lethal toxin like sarin or tabun. I somersaulted again in between two
moai,
just as the grenade went off. A sickly yellow smoke coughed out of the temple door, but most of the payload stayed within. Good.

But I shouldn’t congratulate myself too soon. Another grenade landed several paces away from me. This time I saw where it had come from—the roof of the temple. Urdmann and his thugs must have climbed up there, then just waited for me to come out. I had no idea what had happened to my friends; probably gassed, just like I would be if I didn’t get away from the second grenade. My only hope now was to run for the river and vanish into muddy water. With luck, I could make it to cover under the swamp reeds. Then while Urdmann searched for me—and he
would
search for me, if only to get the bronze foot—I could pick off his men one by one.

First, though, I had to escape the gas. I took a deep breath; I wouldn’t be able to do that once the second grenade went off. Then, with my pistols set for explosive rounds, I rolled to my feet and sprinted toward the water. I fired back at the temple as I ran. No one was visible back there—Urdmann’s thugs must have been lying flat on the roof—but my shots would force them to keep their heads down. My tactics seemed to work, because no one up there tried to shoot me . . .

Two steps from the river, something stung me in the neck. I had time to turn my head . . . time to see the man with the rifle, hidden in a camouflaged shooting blind among the bulrushes . . . time to raise my pistol and fire at him . . . then my muscles went limp. The last thing I remember is plunging facedown into the water.

13

LOCATION UNKNOWN: A MANSION

I woke in a four-poster bed—a voluminous thing with profusely carved woodwork and far too many flounces in its canopy. The room was dark, lit with a faint ruby light. Floral perfume pervaded the air. I breathed the subtle scent for several seconds before nausea swept over me. Fortunately, a nightstand with a porcelain washbasin stood beside the bed. I emptied my stomach into it, though I didn’t have much to retch up. A long time must have passed since my last meal.

The side of my neck still stung. I probably had a bruise. Tranquilizer darts sound ever so harmless, but in practice, they’re usually brutal. Think of a hypodermic needle slammed into your flesh with enough force to bury it up to the hilt. Remember that the syringe is filled with some chemical so virulent it knocks you out in seconds. No wonder I felt sick.

But I wasn’t dead. Urdmann apparently wanted me alive. Why? The obvious sordid reason suggested itself. Have I mentioned that my clothes were missing? All I had on was a filmy white shift I’d never seen before. And when a woman wakes up wearing unfamiliar lingerie in a bed that looks like it was designed for Marie Antoinette, it’s hard not to suspect the worst.

I didn’t think anything had happened yet—I felt sick but not used. Besides, Urdmann was the sort who’d want me awake: aware of what was going on. The only surprise was that I hadn’t been tied or handcuffed to the bed. If I’d been captured to serve as a pleasure slave, leaving me free was asking for trouble. Even an egotistical brute like Urdmann had to realize I’d fight to avoid becoming his harem girl.

First things first: look for weapons. I found a towel on the washstand and wiped off my mouth as I scanned the room. In the same way the name Marie Antoinette had popped into my mind as soon as I saw the bed, the rest of the room brought to mind French royal decor before the revolution—ruffles everywhere, too much silk brocade, and scrollwork carvings on every square inch of wood. Perhaps the poor of Paris hadn’t revolted for liberty, equality, and fraternity but in pursuit of uncluttered design and less crewelwork.

The only source of illumination in the room was a low-watt bulb with a pale red lampshade. The rest of the place brooded in darkness. Two large windows—both made impassable by strong iron bars—showed a black night sky and a greener-than-green lawn lit by security spotlights. As I watched, guards with Uzis strolled past on a sidewalk at the far end of the grass. The guards wore short sleeves and the sidewalk was overhung with palm trees, suggesting a warm, even hot, climate. My room, however, was pleasantly cool. It didn’t take me long to spot an air-conditioning vent in the shadows along the far wall. While I was looking around, I also checked for security cameras watching me. I didn’t see any . . . but cameras can be so tiny these days, I wouldn’t know for sure unless I checked every inch of the walls and ceiling. It didn’t seem worth the trouble. Better to concentrate on more productive activities.

By now, my queasy stomach had settled. I was still far from my best—I felt hungry, shaky, dizzy—but I’d collected myself enough to stand. The world stopped spinning after a few seconds. When I thought I could walk without falling over, I went to the nearest of the three doors that exited from the room. It opened onto a self-contained bathroom with sink, loo, and a claw-footed tub. I decided not to look a gift horse in the mouth; I used the facilities quickly, splashing cold water on my face until my head cleared. There was a mirror over the sink . . . and yes, the tranq dart in my neck
had
left a bruise. Otherwise, I was none the worse for wear.

Back in the bedroom, I tried the next door. It led to a walk-in closet that looked like it had been stocked by a movie studio’s costume department. Gowns of all descriptions hung from the racks: not just Marie Antoinette–style hoopskirts and petticoats but Elizabethan stomachers, Roman stolas, and Greek chitons; Chinese cheongsams and Japanese kimonos; Indian saris and Turkish kaftans; even an assortment of strapless black cocktail dresses, some vintage, some contemporary. Add to that scanty undergarments; impractical stockings; two dozen pairs of shoes—all either high heels or flimsy slippers; a powdered wig bigger than a Christmas turkey; and enough bracelets, anklets, necklaces, belts, etc. to accessorize a goth senior prom.

My own clothes were nowhere in evidence. Neither were any other garments with an ounce of durability or freedom of movement. I have nothing against fancy finery in the right time and place—but the right time and place is race week at Royal Ascot. I seriously considered remaining in the sheer-nothing nightie rather than hampering myself with frills-and-froufrou frocks; but that might be a mistake. One should never underestimate the value of pockets . . . or a belt where one can hang a knife sheath . . . or dark clothing when one is trying to hide in shadows.

Besides, escaping this place was a high priority—right after feeding Lancaster Urdmann his own entrails and rescuing my friends if they were also being held prisoner. I’d definitely need clothes once I got away. The tabloids write enough rubbish about me already. Can you imagine what they’d say if I was caught trying to hitchhike back to civilization in nothing but knickers?
LUSTY LARA IN LECHEROUS LINGERIE! PERVERTED PEERESS SHOWS EVERYTHING BUT SHAME!

As quickly as I could, I assembled an outfit I could live with: the best-made of the black cocktail dresses, ripped off above the knee so I could run in it; another black dress torn lengthwise down the middle and tied around my neck . . . for use as a cloak if I needed to hide my pale face and shoulders in the dark; the three least glittery belts, one around my waist and two across my chest like bandoliers, strapped tightly enough that I could tuck small objects under them for safekeeping; and a pair of black slippers, not on my feet, but under my belt. I was perfectly comfortable going barefoot, but the slippers, turned toes downward, could serve as belt pouches.

The final element of my ensemble was the sturdiest necklace on the rack: a silver chain as thick as my little finger. I tugged it a few times to make sure it was strong. With luck, it would stay in one piece if I needed to garrote someone with it. In the same spirit of improvisation, I removed a pillowcase from one of the bed pillows and tossed some heavy gold bracelets inside. I knotted the pillowcase down near the bottom to hold the bracelets in a single hefty lump. When I swung the result, it didn’t feel quite as deadly as a medieval flail but it would certainly be an effective blunt instrument when whipped full force at someone’s skull. It was strong enough to be used several times before the fabric broke—hurrah for 800-count bed linens.

I considered making other weapons. With my pillowcase bludgeon I could break the bathroom mirror, making shards of glass to use as daggers. I’m not superstitious about mirrors. When you’ve been hexed by Atlantean sorcerers and ancient Babylonian wizards, inanimate sheets of silvered glass lose their power to intimidate. But smashing the mirror would make noise; so far I’d avoided that. Any guards outside my door—and I assumed there
must
be guards outside my door—might not know I was awake. My ideal scenario entailed eliminating the sentries without raising an alarm, grabbing any weapons they carried, then playing things by ear. If I couldn’t accomplish that with the armaments I already had, extending my arsenal was a waste of time.

Still . . . I went to the bed and grabbed a pillow in case I needed to muffle an enemy’s cries before I induced more permanent silence.
Good enough,
I said to myself.
Time to go.

I examined the final door—the one leading out of the room. Soft light shone around the frame . . . enough that I could check between the door and its jamb to see what was holding me in. I saw no extra bolts or padlocks on the outside, not even a simple hook and eye. The only thing keeping the door shut was its normal latch.

Slowly, very slowly, I tried the doorknob. It turned all the way. Unlocked. A shiver went through me as I wondered what that meant. Why on earth would Urdmann leave me free to roam? Was he
that
confident? Or was he planning some awful surprise I couldn’t see coming?

Only one way to find out.

Left hand on the doorknob. Pillow under my left arm. Pillowcase flail in my right hand. Garroting necklace hung on my belt. I whipped open the door and hurled myself outside, expecting to find guards to pummel.

No one. An empty corridor: ornate in the style of a two-star hotel that’s trying too hard to earn another star. Rose-shaded lamps hung on the walls but far enough apart to leave long stretches of shadow in between. Either Urdmann liked dim mood lighting or he was tightfisted with his electricity bills.

More doors like mine lined the corridor. I looked through the keyhole of the closest. Lord Horatio lay unmoving in a bed identical to the one where I’d awakened. However, his door was locked. I considered kicking it in, but decided against it. Like me, Lord H. must have been drugged into unconsciousness; he’d be difficult to wake until the drug wore off. Even if he were fully conscious, how much experience did he have sneaking around silently? And with him in tow I couldn’t clamber over rooftops or play many of my other favorite games.

No, I decided, I wouldn’t try to revive his lordship yet. I’d scout our surroundings first. Learn what Urdmann was up to. Maybe get my hands on
real
weapons. Then I’d come back for my friend.

Quickly, I checked other nearby rooms. Teresa and Ilya were on the opposite side of the hall from Lord H. and me. They both seemed deeply unconscious too. I’d leave them alone for the moment. At least they weren’t in some torture chamber, with Urdmann holding a gun to their heads. “Do what I command, dear Lara, or your friends will suffer.”

But why not? Why no duress and ultimatums? I hated when villains like Urdmann acted uncharacteristically. What was going on?

At the end of the corridor, a grand spiral staircase led downward: heavy marble stairs, with cupped wear patterns where many feet had trod. The stairway might have been centuries old . . . which suggested the house was old too. I filed that away in my mind and proceeded downward.

A door was open at the bottom of the stairs. I peeked inside. A man stood in a pool of light, painting at an easel. All I could see was the man’s back, but I knew he wasn’t Urdmann. The painter’s body was hidden under an artist’s smock, but I could tell he weighed five stone too little to be Lancaster Urdmann, O.B.E.

The canvas he was working on faced my way: a portrait of a sleeping woman, nude. There was no model posing for the painter to paint. Instead, he kept glancing at a side table which apparently held a photo as reference. So far, the painted image only showed the roughed-out contours of the woman’s body—her face was a blank pinkish oval, waiting for features to be added. But I could guess who the subject was. Someone had snapped pictures of me while I was unconscious, and now this arrogant prat thought he could turn me into some grande odalisque for the next Salon.

Judging by the rest of the room, I wasn’t the first woman to receive this treatment. The walls were covered with other paintings—literally covered, with nary a square inch of open wall. Dozens of canvases, large and small, abutted each other like some mathematical tiling problem . . . and every one of those pictures portrayed a female nude.

The artist showed no prejudice in his subjects: the paintings depicted women of many ethnicities—light skin, dark skin—long hair, short, of all physical builds and coloration. Most looked to be under forty years old . . . but not all. The older women were painted just as lavishly as the younger—maybe even with fond generosity. But I wasn’t in a mood to think
What a nice chap this artist is, so receptive to all feminine beauty!
My thoughts were more along the lines of,
You rancid exploitative pig, I’ll have your guts for garters. And not
nice
garters!

The only question was whether to cudgel him immediately into unconsciousness or take some less drastic approach. If I could overpower him without knocking him out, I might force him to spill useful information: where we were, what Urdmann was up to. On the other hand, I didn’t know if I could really fight the painter to a standstill when my best weapon was a pillowcase. This man might be smaller than the porcine Urdmann, but I doubted he’d be an easy mark. The painter was six feet tall, and his gloved hand was rock steady as it held the paintbrush. That took muscle control. Besides, the man’s loose smock could easily conceal weapons—a knife or pistol slung at the hip. What really decided me, though, was the cad’s sheer cheek, thinking he had the right to paint me in the buff. If he’d been painting a landscape or flowers in a vase, I might have hesitated to bash in his skull. As it was . . .

I stole silently across the floor. The painter didn’t hear me coming. He didn’t hear me wind up with pillowcase, or swing it as hard as I could at the back of his head. I daresay he heard the
crack!
as the business end connected with his cranium . . . but I wasted no time waiting to see how he reacted. An instant after he staggered from the blow, I had my necklace garrote around his throat, twisting it tight with my right hand. My left held the pillow over his face. Whatever sounds he made were lost in the pillow’s embrace.

The man never really struggled. I assumed he’d been knocked unconscious by my first attack. I held the smother choke anyway, counting to a hundred before letting him go. When I did, he slumped to the floor . . . just as I expected he would.

What I didn’t expect was the look of the pillow I’d held over the man’s face. As I pulled it away, I saw its white surface had been smeared with tan-colored smudges. Makeup . . . the fellow was wearing a layer of foundation that had rubbed off on the pillow.

I gazed down at the man: my first good look at him. Where the pillow had come into contact, his cheeks and forehead had been wiped clean of makeup. Beneath the cosmetic tan surface, his skin—his
real
skin—was shiny metallic silver . . . as bright and polished as the silver serving trays in Croft Manor.