Tomb Raider: The Ten Thousand Immortals by Dan Abnett, Nik Vincent Page A

joined the traffic in Rue Arsène Houssaye, following Hydarnes’s directions.
    Lydia landed on Chateaubriand moments after Lara’s departure.
    “The subject?” she asked Xerxes.
    “Moped,” he said between gasps of pain. Lydia left Xerxes where he was. He was useless to her now. She also ignored the streets. She was faster through and over the buildings. Her parkour skills meant she could cut across city blocks as the crow flies, covering greater distances on foot. The traffic in Paris was notoriously slow. She could still track the subject. She didn’t have to stop to scan territory looking for Croft; she only had to follow the directions Hydarnes gave her.
    The moped turned right into Avenue de Friedland. It was the commercial district, and the street was wide and busy with traffic moving in both directions.
    Lara didn’t want to put her saviour in unnecessary danger, so when he had to stop at a pedestrian crossing, she hopped off the back of the bike.
    “Thanks,” she said. “You saved my life.”
    “You crazy English,” he said. “It was fun. Something to tell my friends.” He grinned.
    Lara grinned back.
    “Run!” he said, revving his engine.
    Lara took him at his word and ran, casting a last smile over her shoulder. He was right; it was exhilarating.
    Lara jogged up the street until she found a café and ducked into it. She didn’t like being in the open for too long. She couldn’t be sure that she wasn’t still being followed. She needed to get her bearings. She also needed to find Menelaou as soon as possible. She needed to head for the Left Bank.
    Lara sat at a table in the back of the café so she couldn’t be seen from the street. She sat with her back to the wall, and quickly glanced around the room. There was no one suspicious. She opened her rucksack to check that everything was still there. She felt in the bottom of the bag to make sure the Book hadn’t been found. The rucksack still had its hard base. It hadn’t been disturbed. The Book was under it, sewn into the lining.
    As she pulled her hand out of the bag, the back of it brushed against something. Lara reached back in and felt around. There was definitely something there. She pushed her belongings to one side and turned the bag partly inside out so that she could examine what she had found. She wasn’t entirely sure, but she thought it was some kind of tracking device or bug. It was certainly good tech, put there by Ares or most likely one of his people.
    “Great,” she said. “Well, two can play at that game.”
    Lara rose from the table as the waiter approached her. She waved and shrugged at him as she went back out onto the street. She looked around, very cautious, sure that Ares’s people couldn’t be far away.
    Lara got lucky and quickly hailed a cab. She got in and said, “Gare du Nord, s’il vous plaît.”
    If they think I’m going home, she thought. Maybe they’ll leave me alone.
    In the back seat of the cab, Lara dumped the stuff out of her rucksack, ripped the stitching in the lining, and took out the Book. She tore a piece of paper from one of the blank pages at the back of the Book and put everything back in the bag. Then, she unclipped the device from where it had been attached to the inside of the rucksack and folded it carefully in the paper, securing it with a hairband. She scribbled the word “Ares” on the small package. Remembering the photographs from Earpiece’s jacket, she pushed them into the flyleaf of the Book’s jacket. She could look at them later. She needed to be alert right now.
    She kept a close eye on the traffic around her. There was no sign of the BMW.
    “Monsieur,” she said to the driver, “do you speak English?”
    “Of course,” said the cabbie.
    “Someone is following me. If I see his car, can you change routes?”
    “Ah,” said the driver, “a bad boyfriend, n’est-ce pas?”
    “Something like that,” said Lara.
    “You will run away, and I will help you,” said the