“Let me at least walk you to the lodge,” he said. “Perhaps I could find you a taxi or an escort to wherever you’re going.”
“Thanks,” said Lara. The longer she could stay with someone in authority, the better. She still felt that Kennard was a threat.
Lara and Matt walked through the lodge and out onto Merton Street. Police cars lined the street, which was cordoned off. Lara turned right, and Matt remained at her side. Lara looked at him.
“I’ll just walk you to the cordon,” he said, smiling. “No taxis here.”
“This really is above and beyond the call of duty,” said Lara.
“You’ve been my best customer today,” said Matt. “No screaming or crying, no vomiting on me, and you didn’t bite.”
“People bite you?” asked Lara.
“You’d be surprised,” said Matt.
Lara smiled.
“Oh!” she said.
“Are you all right, Lara?” asked Matt.
“Yes,” said Lara. “I’m really very all right. In fact, I think that all my worries are over, at least for a little while. Look.”
Lara pointed at the police tape crossing Merton Street twenty metres ahead of them, and at the people standing behind it.
“Someone you know?” asked Matt.
“That’s my friend Willow,” said Lara, “and Elliot, Imran and Ben. I wonder what they’re doing here.”
“I could make a fairly shrewd guess,” said Matt. “I’ll walk you over. Make sure they look after you. In fact, I’ll tell them myself.”
Lara raised her hand, and suddenly Willow spotted her and bounced up and down, and hugged Elliot standing next to her. Moments later, she was hugging Lara across the police tape.
“I was so frightened,” said Willow. “I was terrified something awful had happened to you. Look at your head!”
“I’m fine, Willow,” said Lara.
“She’s not fine,” said Matt. “She’s had a concussion, and she needs watching. Can you do that for me? If she lapses into unconsciousness, if she becomes disorientated or vomits, take her straight to the hospital, OK?”
Willow’s face became very serious and slightly pale.
“Of course,” she said. “Of course I will.”
“We’ll look after her,” said Imran, “around the clock if we have to.”
“We’ll see if the guest room’s free in halls,” said Ben.
“She can stay with me,” said Willow.
“Your room’s too small,” said Ben. “She needs looking after.”
“I’ll sleep on the floor,” said Willow.
Lara laughed.
“Stay with me in the guest room, Willow, and we’ll live in the lap of luxury.”
“It looks like you’re in good hands,” said Matt.
“I am,” said Lara.
“I’ll say good-bye then,” said Matt. “And good luck.”
“Good-bye,” said Lara. “And thank you. Thank you very much.”
“You’re very welcome, Lara, and remember: vomiting, disorientation, vision impairment, lapses into unconsciousness, get to a hospital.”
“I will,” said Lara, “but apart from a few bruises, I’m really fine.”
“Make sure you are,” said Matt, and with a last smile, he turned and jogged back along Merton Street.
Elliot took Lara’s rucksack, and Imran put his jacket around her shoulders, and the five of them walked back to St. Edmund Hall. The guest room was quickly arranged, and Lara and Willow were soon settling in.
“You look wretched,” said Willow.
“I could really use a shower,” said Lara.
“And a change of clothes,” said Willow. “Your jeans are torn, and you’re filthy. I don’t know where you got that Merton sweatshirt from, but it’s about four sizes too big for you.”
“I’m all out of clean clothes,” said Lara.
“No problem,” said Willow, “I’ll pop back to my room and find you something, and a shower cap. You can’t get your dressing wet. Don’t faint while I’m gone.”
“I won’t,” said Lara.
“Promise?” said Willow.
“Promise,” said Lara.
When Willow had gone, Lara pulled the sweatshirt off, very carefully, over her head. She remembered her jeans tearing when the Immortal on the roof had pulled the Queen Mary tin out of her back pocket. She tried looking over her shoulder at the damage, but quickly stopped when the action made her head throb. Instead she put her hand deep into the pocket to check the damage.
The pocket was torn off, about halfway down where it was sewn to the seat of her jeans. She could feel the torn stitches and ragged denim between her index finger and thumb. She could also feel something warm and hard against her middle finger. She turned her hand and took hold of the small, hard object. It felt like a small, smooth pebble. She pulled it out, rolled it onto the palm of her hand and looked at it.
“How extraordinary!” said Lara.
She remembered the Queen Mary tin in Kennard’s hand, and the hole in it from the bullet that had smacked into it when she had fled across Fellows’ Quad. Somehow, the nugget of gold must have fallen through the hole into her pocket and had been there all along.
“My lucky charm,” she said, rolling the nugget of gold around in her palm with the index finger of her other hand. “Sam’s little lucky charm.”
Lara plucked a tissue from a box on the bedside table, wrapped the nugget, and pulled the Book out of her rucksack. She stowed the little parcel in the flyleaf pocket of the back cover where it would be safe.
As she unfastened her jeans, something fell to the floor. Carefully, gently, Lara bent down and picked up the little Derringer that Ares had aimed at her.
Thank heavens the police didn’t search me! she thought. How on Earth would I have explained having this in my possession?
There was a knock at the door, and the handle turned. Willow was back.
Lara shoved the Derringer in her rucksack and dropped it on the floor.
Kennard Montez was sent by Trinity to tie up loose ends. I wonder if he’ll come back for the Derringer. Damn it!
“You weren’t supposed to get in the shower until I got back,” said Willow.
“Which is why I’m waiting for you,” said Lara.
“You got undressed,” said Willow.
“Well, my clothes were revolting,” said Lara.
“Yes, they were,” said Willow, smiling and handing Lara a towel. “There’s even a hole in your T-shirt.”
Lara tugged at the back of the T-shirt and put her finger through a small hole. She checked the sweatshirt, but there was no hole in the back of it.
How on Earth did I get a hole in my T-shirt before I got hold of the sweatshirt, Lara wondered. She had a memory flash of gunfire in Babbington’s office. It couldn’t be! That couldn’t be a bullet hole!
“Thanks for the towel,” said Lara, dismissing the idea.
“And you’ll need this, too,” said Willow, pulling a shower cap with yellow ducks all over it out of the bag she was carrying.
Lara spent a long time under the hot shower. She thought she’d been shot by the Immortals in Babbington’s office, and she’d survived. She thought she’d taken another hit in the backside when she’d run across Fellow’s Quad, heading towards the Senior Common Room in her search for Ares. Then, she was convinced that Kennard had shot her, and she’d ended up sitting next to a chunk of rubble from the shattered masonry where he’d missed her.
Was it just the anxiety disorder? she wondered. Was it the panic that made me feel pain? Was it action that made the pain go away?
Lara didn’t believe it. There was something else. The world was full of things that were stranger than anyone could explain. She’d seen things on Yamatai that she couldn’t explain.
She couldn’t explain what had happened to Sam. Sometimes it didn’t matter what could be proven; it only mattered what a person believed in. Ares had believed he was immortal. He wasn’t. Kennard had made sure of that.
But I had the fleece, thought Lara. When Ares was shot, I had the fleece. Every time something happened, I had the ram statuette or I had the Queen Mary tin with Menelaou’s piece of the fleece in it. Two pieces of a puzzle, and still a mystery.
Lara stepped out of the shower and wrapped herself in the towel.
“Or maybe you’re imagining things, Lara. Maybe you’re just very lucky,” she said.
“Did you say something, Lara?” Willow called out. “Are you OK in there?”
“I’m fine,” said Lara, opening the bathroom door and stepping out. “Just fine.”
Chapter 41
After a few quiet days with Willow and her friends in Oxford, and with no signs of Kennard Montez on the horizon, Lara decided it was best to get back to London. She had used Willow’s phone to check in on Sam, and she was told that she would be able to visit her friend.
Willow hugged Lara on the station platform, and they said their good-byes.
“Promise you’ll come back soon,” said Willow.
“I will,” said Lara. “I owe you another tea at the Randolph.”
The journey was blissfully uneventful. Lara did her usual checks at every station, but the carriage seemed to be full of happy families. No one was dressed in tight black, and there weren’t even any students to be suspicious of. A large school party joined the train at Slough, filling almost the entire carriage, and they didn’t get off until Paddington station. So Lara was able to relax for most of the journey.
At Paddington, she opted for a taxi home. She decided the head wound justified the luxury.
Lara dropped off her bag, and found a little jewelry box for the gold nugget that she’d found in her pocket after the incident at Merton College. It was only a few days ago, but it felt like another lifetime to Lara. She’d gone over and over it in her mind. It all still seemed so impossible. There had been so many near misses. She should have died so many times. So many bullets had somehow manage to miss her. There was no logical explanation that she could think of. Perhaps the anxiety had exaggerated in her mind the danger that she had been in. But she didn’t believe that.
She had thought back through all the things she had done that day without fear, and she knew that she had not been in a state of panic when she had accomplished those feats.
“Don’t deny it, Lara,” she said. “You went on a quest for the Golden Fleece. You wouldn’t have done it if you didn’t believe that some things are still a mystery.”
Lara took the gold nugget out of the flyleaf of the Book and unwrapped it. She held it in her palm for a few moments and then placed it in the jewelry box. She closed the box, put it in her jacket pocket, and left the flat.
“How are you, Sam?” asked Lara, hugging her friend.
“I’ve missed you,” said Sam.
“I’ve missed you, too,” said Lara. “They wouldn’t let me visit for a little while.”
“I know,” said Sam, “but I’m better now.”
Lara remembered the pale, forlorn girl that she had left a couple of weeks before, and she realised that Sam looked much better.
“You look better,” she said.
“Something started to happen,” said Sam. “Two or three days ago, I don’t remember exactly, but I woke up and I couldn’t hear her anymore. I still remember, and I think it will take time to get rid of those terrible memories, Lara. I think I’ll need help with that. But I don’t hear her anymore, Lara.”
“That’s wonderful, Sam,” said Lara. “That’s truly wonderful.”
Three days, thought Lara. That was the day after Merton… Could it be possible?
“Who could you hear, Sam?” asked Lara. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.”
“Her,” said Sam. “Himiko… It was all about Yamatai, Lara.”
“Yes,” said Lara. “It was all about Yamatai.”
“Was it three days ago, Sam, or could it have been four days ago?” asked Lara. If it was four days ago, maybe just having the fleece and the ram statue in my hands was enough to heal Sam… Maybe Ares was the last connection to Yamatai, and his death finally broke Himiko’s spell.
“I don’t know,” said Sam. She thought for a moment. “It might have been four days. Does it matter, Lara? Is it important? I’m getting better.”
“It doesn’t matter at all,” said Lara. “The only thing that matters is that you get better.” Maybe, one day, I’ll work all this out, but, right now I have to be here for Sam.
“Tell me what you’ve been doing, Lara,” said Sam. “I’ve been stuck in here, and I want to know what you’ve been doing.”
“Not much,” said Lara, “When I knew they wouldn’t let me visit, I went on a dig. As a matter of fact, I brought you back a souvenir, a lucky charm.”
“What did you bring me?” asked Sam, her face lighting up.
“A piece of Colchis gold,” said Lara. “What do you know about Jason and the Argonauts?”
Dan Abnett, Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals
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