Lara shook her head and closed her eyes. This was not a sight she expected to see deep in an out of the way tomb. A leather clad blonde and two women who would have looked at home in the Imperial City if they weren't also dressed in leather. They were still there when she reopened her eyes, their presence projecting into the chamber like a raw, perfume laden wind. She shook off the weariness in her shoulders and legs but stayed where she was.

"Who are you?" she asked. She'd met the blonde before, somewhere. But she couldn't quite recall where or even her name.

Ignoring her question, the blonde sighed and said something that Lara didn't catch to one of her companions who immediately started walking towards Lara with an almost hypnotic stride.

"We really don't have time for this." She paused and tilted her head as if listening to some distant conversation. "We'll have company in a minute. If you're injured or are too tired to walk Yumiko can help you."

The young woman now standing in front of her inclined her head slightly and smiled at her at the mention of her name.

"No. I can walk." Lara slipped her knife back into its sheath and picked up the flare she'd dropped during the fight.

"Good." And the blonde and the third woman, whom Lara now noticed was brandishing a small crossbow, slipped back into the tunnel, heading towards the surface. Lara followed, with the one called Yumiko bringing up the rear.

As she silently followed, Lara surreptitiously studied the two women quickly moving up the passageway in front of her and the third following behind her. She still couldn't place the blonde but there was something enticingly familiar about the way they all moved. In the few short minutes she'd been with them she could tell that even though all three of them looked like they should be dancing the night away in some nightclub, they were very dangerous women, moving like natural predators in the dim light.

Lara couldn't quite shake the feeling that she'd fallen in with something a lot more threatening than the vampires she'd fought earlier. If she had to she would fight them but she wasn't sure she could win.

Her thoughts came to a screeching halt when the blonde stopped suddenly.

"We have company." she said. The other two nodded and Lara glanced around not seeing anything.

"We'll do this in pairs." Pointing at Lara the blonde continued. "Xia, stay with her and keep an eye behind us. Yumiko and I will take care of whatever is in front of us. Any questions?"

Lara was grateful for the dim light. As exhausting as her running fight with the earlier vampires had been she wasn't thrilled with being assigned a babysitter and she was sure her face showed it.

"Weapons? I'm all out of flares and ammunition and my knife wasn't doing a whole lot of good against them earlier." she asked.

"We'll take care of the difficult ones. Just stick with Xia until we can get out."

Xia handed her a sharp piece of wood and smiled. "Stab them in the heart," she told Lara with a low, musical voice.

Lara examined the piece of wood. It was smooth and sharp and felt comfortable in her hand, like a well balanced knife.

Continuing down the passage, they came to a door with a faint red light coming out of it. From its appearance Lara assumed they'd arrived at the tomb's anteroom. If she was correct the exit was less than one hundred meters away. The blonde paused for a moment and became infinitely still. She held up a single finger and motioned to the door.

Lara could sense a calmness radiating from the woman as she nodded to the others before entering the room and stepping quickly to her left out of Lara's sight. There was a dull thumping sound and a brief shower of dust in the dim light. The others then slipped into the room behind her.

The anteroom wasn't very large. The room was bathed in a red glow from several torches along the left wall. Looking around, Lara quickly counted nine vampires facing them.

As soon as the vampires spotted the women the room erupted in violence. Almost too quickly for Lara to follow, the three women were engaging the vampires in battle. The vampires seemed to be focusing on the two women in front but they were clearly outmatched.

There wasn't much time to watch the others as Lara quickly found herself once more fighting for her life. There wasn't much room to maneuver as she ducked the punches from the vampire attacking her. She hadn't completely recovered from her earlier fight and knew she couldn't keep this up for long. The vampires she'd fought before must have been young or weak she thought. She couldn't seem to get past this one's defences and she knew it was only moments before it had her.

Lara put everything she had into one last desperate attempt to stop it. Following a flurry of punching and kicking she dropped down and rolled to one side as she kicked upward, knocking the vampire off of its feet. Before it could react she drove the stake into its heart.

Sitting back on her heels and shaking from the burst of adrenalin, Lara looked around in an attempt to assess the situation. The other women were just finishing subduing the remaining vampires. And just like that, when it looked like they had survived the onslaught two things happened.

The large creature blocking the tomb exit lumbered over to the blonde just as she drove her stake into a large vampire, swinging a very large axe at her head from behind with no visible warning. Somehow, in a fantastic maneuver Lara knew must have really hurt, the blonde was able to duck under the swing, dive between the creature's legs and kick up at it, knocking it over onto her.

As it fell, a dozen more vampires charged into the anteroom, engaging Lara and the other two women before they had a chance to rescue the blonde from the creature. The three women found themselves effectively surrounded, leaving her to fight the large creature by herself.

Lara was too busy trying to stay alive to have much time to wonder about the fate of the blonde. If she had been alone she knew it would have been long over. She was aware of the other two desperately fighting by her side, protecting her from the more aggressive vampires. Lara's entire world became a deadly dance where she was one of the minor players. So it was a complete shock to see the blonde framed in the cloud of dust that had been the vampire Lara was fighting.

The remaining vampires seemed to suddenly lose any desire to stay and fight with the appearance of the blonde and faded back into the tunnels. Looking around, Lara saw the creature that had been fighting the blonde slumped, headless, in a far corner.

"That was enough exercise for now." The blonde shrugged her shoulders and stretched as she spoke. "Let's get out of here."

All four women scrambled through the rubble filled entrance out into the morning sun.

• The two slayers with Buffy - Chinese girl = Xia, Japanese girl = Yumiko]