A scene from Red Raider - vers. II

It was the last on her list. She'd already visited more cemeteries in the past two hours than most towns this size had but this hadn't put a dent in the fourteen Bryce had listed for her. As cemeteries go it wasn't the fanciest but there were several promising crypts near the back, against a large clump of trees.

Even in the bright fall California sun they gave off a dank, worn, evil odor. Something had occupied them in the recent past but unfortunately neither contained what she was looking for. Like most tombs of this sort, they were the shabby remnants of the attempts of past residents to show how important they had been to those around them.

Searching in the rubbish filled nooks and crannies of both crypts, Lara found no sign of the symbol she was searching for, an eye embedded in a pentagram. The Mark of Pentificus, while not as ancient as the Illuminati's All Seeing Eye, was the sign of a long disbanded ancient order of alchemists that rumor indicated were guarding a number of artifacts she'd been searching for on and off for several years.

While hunting for the whereabouts of the urn, Bryce had found information claiming some members of the order had been buried in Sunnydale and it now looked like she wouldn't be able to confirm it if she was going to get back to Los Angeles in time for her flight to London later that night. The remaining cemeteries would have to wait until she was in the neighborhood again. Disappointing but not the end of the world.

It had turned into an uneventful trip. A vacation jaunt compared to some and Lara was feeling a bit over dressed in her usual tomb crawling gear.

As she headed back to her bike near the entrance a flash of color and movement in another part of the cemetery caught her eye and she paused for a second to watch it. A small female figure was slowly meandering across the cemetery towards a recent grave, occasionally stopping to touch a headstone as if it were an old friend. Upon reaching her apparent destination the figure seemed to collapse on top of the grave.

There was something familiar about the way the woman had picked her way across the cemetery that peaked Lara's attention. Without drawing attention to herself, Lara carefully made her way closer, stopping in the shadows of a nearby willow tree. Now that she was close enough to see the face of the woman the feelings of familiarity suddenly made sense.

It was the redhead from the coffee shop from earlier in the afternoon. But from the way she'd moved across the cemetery it could almost have been the redheaded flower girl she'd glimpsed around Westbury the previous summer and who'd consumed so many of her stray thoughts back then.

Lara crouched down in the shadows with her back against the tree and intently studied the young woman, trying not to intrude on what was obviously a private moment. There was something magical about the scene. Leaves, blowing in an early fall breeze, gently encircled her like butterflies, seemingly shielding her from the rest of the world as she rose to her feet.

The sad stillness that radiated outward from the young woman as she stood there was like a cold gray rain falling on some forgotten civilization. Leaning down, she seemed to trace something on the gravestone in front of her. The gentleness with which she placed something small on top of the stone before walking away was evident even from Lara's vantage point.

Years of travel in dangerous places had honed Lara's senses to detecting the out of the ordinary and she was rarely taken by surprise. But as she stood, stretching from her position against the tree she suddenly sensed something dangerous near her in the shadows. She could feel the hairs on the back of her neck tingle in anticipation of sudden violence about to erupt around her.

Startled, Lara looked around for whatever was causing this feeling, slowly inching her hands towards her pistols in their quick release holsters. Standing a few feet away, just out of arms reach, like Lara out of sight of the now distant redhead, was a small blonde woman.

It was the redhead's companion from the coffee shop, staring at her like she was a bug collector's prized specimen. Lara involuntarily shivered in the coldness radiating at her from the blonde's eyes. The sense of danger in the air increased.

"I wouldn't", said the woman with a quite menace and something in her voice stopped Lara's hands moving towards her guns.

"I believe you were just leaving...", the blonde continued while gesturing towards the entrance to the cemetery.

Much to Lara's surprise she found herself obeying the woman, heading towards her bike parked a hundred feet outside of the cemetery entrance with the blonde silently following. She removed her guns and other gear she didn't need for her return trip to LA and packed it away in her saddlebags under the watchful gaze of the blonde who broke the tense silence with a brief, ominous comment as Lara mounted her bike.

"She doesn't like guns and neither do I." Gesturing towards the cemetery, she continued, "If she sees you with them near there, you won't like what happens. And I probably won't stop her."

And with that she was gone.

Note: This is a first draft and is a bit rough. It's the second of 3 scenes (Used to be 4 but I've combined the first two) in this part of the prologue to this story so it probably doesn't make sense unless you've read those scenes.