Tomb Raider: The Legacy

Chapter 17: Rats

One thing, however, was to know he was there, and another, to know where he was. He might be lying between the bodies to go unnoticed by anyone. That's why Kurtis wasted no time trying to find him. He looked for Barbara instead.

He found her behind a column, pale, dirty, but unharmed. She'd been too far from the blast to get hurt. They exchanged a brief look and she nodded. Then, Kurtis circled the column and looked around.

How did such a big man surprise him? Later, Kurtis would acquit himself saying that he was hurt - though superficially -, and tired, and scared, and as much as he tried to keep his head and mind cold, he didn't quite achieve it. When Schäffer appeared behind him, emerged from nowhere, or from a pile of corpses perhaps, or from under the damn eggnog with prawns, he suddenly had a wire around his throat and that merciless monster was squeezing, squeezing, squeezing.

The natural reaction when you are strangled is to try to breathe. To fight, squirm, grab the choker's hands, maybe try to get hold of the wire, stick your fingers in search of some air. All of that was useless, as Kurtis well knew. One's hardly released from the wire, much less from the strangulation. In a few minutes, he would be dead. Instead, what Kurtis did was to throw his hand back, grab his opponent's testicles and squeeze them with all his strength, while discharging a tremendous heel against the choker's shin.

That did work, as he'd had occasion to check in the past. Schäffer - because there was no doubt that it was him - let out a scream and loosened the deadly grip. When turning on himself, the wire opened a painful groove in Kurtis' throat, but it was a minimal price to pay for breaking his rival's guard and throwing him back with a brutal punch in the jaw.

Even Kurtis failed to bring down the beefy German, and that being half the size of what Marten Gunderson had been. But now he could breathe - a painful gush of air, like a wave of fire that broke through his lungs among stings - and continued to discharge two, three, four punches in his stomach. He heard him howl in pain and then, gasp breathlessly, but failed to knock him down. Fucking monster.

Schäffer bent forward and charged, knocking Kurtis down with a head blow in the chest. The floor rose to receive him from behind. Then, he had his rival on him, and this time, he got the blows in the groin. "You liked grabbing my balls, huh, Trent?" The German spat a bloody phlegm on him. "Let me kick yours for a while. Should've cut them and served them for dinner when I had the chance." He aimed a punch at Kurtis' face, but he blocked him. For a moment, they struggled, the German trying to let go, Kurtis folding his arm back. A little more... a little more...

Suddenly, there was a dry, hollow blow. Schäffer's eyes, the only thing visible through the balaclava that covered his face, turned in his sockets... and collapsed heavily on him, leaving him breathless.

Behind him, still brandishing what appeared to be the broken leg of a table, a panting Barbara stared, surprised, at the unconscious mercenary. Then her expression turned fierce. "C'mon, move!" She handed an arm to Kurtis and helped him out from under the inert body. He made a gesture of pain. "Let's go! You'll lick your balls later." And gripping the communicator tightly, the woman shouted. "Hey, you! The hacker! Bring that damn van, now!"

(...)

A part of Zip was grateful to have someone else in charge again, even if it was that damn woman. As soon as he realized being of little use in front of the monitors, he rushed towards the van, a vehicle stocked with first aid materials and supplies stocked the day before. Before Barbara could yell her next order, he'd already parked in front of the entrance to the huge party tent.

No one noticed him. Fire trucks and ambulances had arrived, and the place was immense chaos. No one watched him move the van toward the back of what had been the buffet area. No one saw him, and another stout, rather badly wounded man, carrying a third bulge in the back of the van, followed by a woman in a broken party dress and shattered shoes, which she kicked off, then followed them.