{"id":972,"date":"2022-03-10T11:29:38","date_gmt":"2022-03-10T16:29:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/fanworks\/?page_id=972"},"modified":"2024-03-20T06:38:04","modified_gmt":"2024-03-20T10:38:04","slug":"falling-angels","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/fanworks\/read-online\/falling-angels\/","title":{"rendered":"Falling Angels"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Falling Angels<\/u><\/b><\/h2>\r\n\r\n

By Ardath Rekha<\/h4>\r\n\r\n

Synopsis:<\/b> In the aftermath of the events of The Chronicles of Riddick<\/i>, a presumed-dead Kyra wakes up with new life in her body and a new companion in her mind, to discover that Riddick has abdicated the Necromonger throne and disappeared. On what was formerly a mercenary vessel, Riddick and a tiny handful of fellow escapees flee Helion Prime and Riddick makes a surprising discovery about the woman he believed was Jack\u2026 and her adopted sister. And, on a distant world, a reformed teenage runaway discovers that her past is returning to haunt her with a vengeance. Now Kyra, Riddick, and Jack are on a collision course yet again, and the fate of worlds may hang in the balance.<\/p><\/span>\r\n\r\n

Category:<\/b> Fan Fiction<\/a><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Fandom:<\/b> The Chronicles of Riddick<\/i> (2004)<\/a><\/div>

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Series:<\/b> None<\/div>\r\n\r\n

Challenges:<\/b> The Live Storytelling challenge<\/a><\/div>

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Rating:<\/b> T<\/a> (so far)<\/p><\/div>\r\n\r\n

Orientations:<\/b> Gen<\/a> (so far)<\/p><\/div>

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Pairings:<\/b> None<\/a> (so far)<\/p>\r\n\r\n

Warnings:<\/b> Controversial Subject Matter<\/a> (Human Trafficking, Child Abuse, Refugee Crises, Genocide, Religious Extremism) and Harsh Language<\/a><\/p>\r\n\r\n

Number of Chapters:<\/b> 6 \r\n\r\n

Net Word Count:<\/b><\/i><\/sup><\/span><\/span>In the Read Online section, net word counts exclude cover pages, publication data pages, tables of contents, chapter titles, page links, original post date medatata, and \u2014 in the case of Lyric Wheel stories \u2014 song information and lyrics. In the case of articles, contextual notations are also omitted. Afterwords and chapter notes are treated as part of a text\u2019s overall body.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> 23,371\r\n\r\n

Total Word Count:<\/b><\/i><\/sup><\/span><\/span>In the Read Online section, total word counts include all text present in the story tabs, excluding forward\/back page links and tooltips. This count tends to be slightly different from the eBook Total Word Count reported on the title page.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span> 23,889\r\n\r\n

Story Length:<\/b> Novella<\/a><\/div>\r\n\r\n

First Posted:<\/b> September 1, 2007\r\n\r\n

Last Updated:<\/b> December 30, 2022\r\n\r\n

Status:<\/b> Incomplete<\/a><\/div>

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The characters and events of The Chronicles of Riddick<\/i><\/a> are © 2004 Universal Pictures, Radar Pictures, and One Race Films; Written and Directed by David Twohy<\/a>; Based on characters by Ken and<\/a> Jim Wheat<\/a>; Produced by Scott Kroopf<\/a> and Vin Diesel<\/a>. The characters and events of The Chronicles of Riddick: Dark Fury<\/i><\/a> are © 2004 Universal Cartoon Studios; Directed by Peter Chung<\/a>; Written by Brett Matthews<\/a>; Story by David Twohy; Produced by John Kafka<\/a> and Jae Y. Moh<\/a>. The characters and events of Pitch Black<\/i><\/a> are © 2000 USA Films, Gramercy Pictures, and Interscope Communications; Directed by David Twohy; Screenplay by Ken and Jim Wheat and David Twohy; Story by Ken and Jim Wheat; Produced by Tom Engelman<\/a>. This work of fan fiction is a transformative work for entertainment purposes only, with no claims on, nor intent to infringe upon, the rights of the parties listed above. All additional characters and situations are the creation of, and remain the property of, Ardath Rekha. eBook design and cover art by LaraRebooted<\/a>, incorporating an image created by Merlin LightPainting<\/a> and licensed through Pixabay<\/a>, the Rothenberg Decorative<\/a> font from 1001 Fonts<\/a>, and background graphics © 1998 Noel Mollon, adapted and licensed via Teri Williams Carnright from the now-retired Fantasyland Graphics site (c. 2003). Chapter 1 illustration by Ardath Rekha, drawing from a photo by 2509chris<\/a> and a graphic by SilviaP_Design<\/a>, both licensed via pixabay<\/a>, along with a screencap of Alexa Davalos<\/a>. This eBook may not be sold or advertised for sale. If you are a copyright holder of any of the referenced works, and believe that part or all of this eBook exceeds fair use practices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, please contact Ardath Rekha<\/a>.<\/small><\/p>

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  1. Black Queen<\/a><\/li>\r\n\r\n
  2. Red Rook<\/a><\/li>\r\n\r\n
  3. White Knight<\/a><\/li>\r\n\r\n
  4. Cleansing Fire<\/a><\/li>\r\n\r\n
  5. The Smallest Sentinel<\/a><\/li>\r\n\r\n
  6. The Cipher\u2019s Warning<\/a><\/li>\r\n\r\n <\/ol><\/span>\r\n
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    1.Black Queen<\/u><\/b><\/h2>\r\n\r\n

    She was made of pain.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She had no name, or at least, no awareness of name and identity. All she knew was pain. It consumed her, and defined her. After a time it began to fade and she was aware of other things. Cold hardness beneath her. Something sticky on her cheek. Voices raised in alarm.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Voices\u2026 were people. With that came the knowledge that she was a person, too.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She opened her eyes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Grotesqueries welcomed her. She was surrounded by tormented statues and writhing pillars. It was an alien world, anathemic to her and yet\u2026<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u2026Home?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    This couldn\u2019t be her home. There was no way<\/i> it could be home. And yet some part of her \u2013 a part that felt both alien and familiar \u2013 insisted that it was.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cShe wakes.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The voice was a woman\u2019s voice, dispassionate and haughty. Kyra turned her head toward it, frowning a little. Dame Vaako.<\/i> The name came to her after a moment, and then His<\/i> whisper followed in her head: \u2026Treacherous<\/nobr> bitch!<\/i> She felt heat move through her, the heat of rage. Why? The Dame hadn\u2019t spoken more than a handful of words to her since her arrival at the Basilica; had, in fact, warned her that resisting the Quasi-Dead would only get her hurt. Why this sudden hatred?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI would have thought that blow was mortal,\u201d came another voice. Fury blazed through her again.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Judas!<\/i> But she knew that his name was really Lord Vaako.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cApparently he<\/i> thought so, as well,\u201d the Dame replied.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra sat up slowly, aware that while she was being discussed, she was also being mostly ignored.<\/i> That had been the case for most of her life. She\u2019d always been an impediment, something that people tripped over and tried to figure out what to do with; nobody had ever asked her what she might want done with her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Well, except for two people. There were only two people who\u2019d ever given a damn what happened to her and one of them was\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Where was Riddick? She remembered him hovering above her, his face twisted in pain, asking her if she was on his side. Where had he gone?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Bodies were scattered around the room, ones she didn\u2019t remember from the fight. Where had they come from? What had happened? In the middle of the chaos, the old Lord Martial still lay where he\u2019d fallen, forgotten by the people who\u2019d once called him their Master.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I was one of them\u2026<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And that familiar but strange voice within her head spoke up again. Traitors, all.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cGiven that he came for her, I don\u2019t think he\u2019d have left if he\u2019d known.\u201d Lord Vaako was talking about her again.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cLeft?\u201d Her voice, when she tried to use it, was the tiniest thread of a whisper, and pain moved through her chest and back. For a moment her lungs felt like they were on fire, but then the moment passed. \u201cRiddick?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThe Riddick fled.\u201d Dame Vaako snapped. \u201cHe wasn\u2019t worthy to be our Lord and he proved it when he refused to complete the detonation.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The what?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    An image formed in her mind, a globe of glowing blue fire hovering above a gutted city, then exploding outward, its fire consuming everything in its path, devouring everything on the surface of a far larger globe. Cleansing fire to purify diseased worlds,<\/i> the voice murmured within her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cMy Lord, My Lady\u2026\u201d<\/nobr> Another armored warrior approached the dais. Kolohr,<\/i> the voice inside whispered. \u201cWe\u2019ve tracked him.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhere is he?\u201d Dame Vaako snapped. Both Kolohr and her husband frowned at her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Her rank is only through her husband,<\/i> the voice murmured.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Who are you?<\/i> She thought it, aware that this was like the voices that had sometimes plagued her on the worst nights in Crematoria; a voice that only she could hear, a voice inside her own head. But all of her voices had been female before.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You know who I am,<\/i> he replied.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    No. You\u2019re dead.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Death is just a gateway. You\u2019ve seen what\u2019s on the other side of it.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Blazing light too beautiful to look at\u2026<\/nobr> sweetness too powerful to stand. Purity washing everything away and the clash of the sword\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    No.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Suit yourself, child. But pay attention to what\u2019s happening.<\/i> The voice sounded amused.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Funny how after everything, being called a child could still piss her off. She gritted her teeth and turned her attention back to the trio standing near her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kolohr deliberately turned and replied to Lord<\/i> Vaako, as if he had spoken instead of his Dame. \u201cHe and the witch stole one of the shuttles and returned to the city.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThen we can detonate and cleanse the \u2019verse of him,\u201d Vaako replied, looking excited.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kolohr shook his head. \u201cThe controls are still non-responsive. Whatever that blast of light was, it did incredible<\/i> damage. The technicians say it will be a few hours, at the soonest.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWe\u2019ll hunt him and the witch down, then!\u201d Vaako turned and began to stride across the floor, avoiding the body of his betrayed and fallen Master as he went. Kolohr and the Dame followed\u2026<\/nobr> and so did Kyra.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I thought I was hurt.<\/i> She had no problem walking, and in fact all of the pain now seemed to be gone.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    A lot more than just that,<\/i> came the voice once more. And you\u2019re even more than that now.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    God damn<\/b> it, if you\u2019re going to fuckin\u2019 talk to me all the time could you at least say something useful?<\/b><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Certainly. Take the key from my belt as you pass. No one will see.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra grimaced\u2026<\/nobr> but what the Hell? Keys were almost always useful anyway. As she passed the body of the fallen Lord Martial she bent down, grasping the key and giving it a sharp yank. It snapped free of the belt as though she\u2019d done it thousands of times before.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Well, it\u2019s not like that\u2019s the first body I\u2019ve ever looted,<\/i> she told herself, and was answered by disembodied laughter.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Gritting her teeth again, she kept following the trio. She caught up just in time to listen in as another warrior approached them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cHe\u2019s gone to one of the residences, Lords. There was a woman there, and a child. They\u2019re going somewhere with him.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cPerfect,\u201d Dame Vaako exclaimed, resting her hand on her husband\u2019s arm. \u201cHe\u2019ll be slowed down even more. An easy<\/i> target.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cEasy?\u201d Vaako growled, and gestured at the bodies strewn around the throne room.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra noticed, though, that several of the senior warriors were gathering their weapons and heading for the shuttles.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Naturally,<\/i> Zhylaw murmured in her head, his voice purring like a lover\u2019s. They believe whoever kills him will win the ultimate prize.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Terror clutched at her. Oh god, no\u2014<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You really do love him, don\u2019t you, child? Be easy. They can\u2019t stand up to him. He\u2019ll escape, as he always does. That\u2019s what he\u2019s a master at, isn\u2019t it?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Zhylaw\u2019s voice sounded teasing. Kyra rubbed at her head, wishing that the dead man would shut up and go wherever it was dead men were supposed to go\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    That would be the Underverse.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Fuck-a-doodle-do, and here I thought you talked too much while you were alive.<\/b><\/i> She grimaced as more mocking laughter answered her. This is my<\/b> head! Get out of it!<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It\u2019s not that simple, child. In time you\u2019ll be glad I\u2019m here.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yeah, that would probably be at about the time she decided to take up lace-making or some other grotesquely bourgeois shit.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The warriors were departing. Kyra couldn\u2019t decide what to do. Should she follow them, try to impede their hunt?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Don\u2019t bother. The Dame is the one to watch, right now.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    For a moment she almost did the opposite just to give Zhylaw the finger, but it made sense. She approached the Dame, adopting the mannerisms of a Necromonger acolyte as naturally as if she\u2019d slipped on a coat.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cMy Lady?\u201d she asked, her voice deferential. \u201cWhat\u2026<\/nobr> happens now?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Dame Vaako turned to look at her, the expression on her imperious face both callous and weighing. To the Dame, Kyra was nothing and no one, except possibly a lever to be used against Riddick. Still, that was enough. False compassion appeared on the other woman\u2019s face.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cOh, my dear, now we wait and see whether or not he can escape again.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cAnd if he can\u2019t?\u201d Her throat was suddenly dry again, a dead man\u2019s words doing nothing to reassure her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cHe is not fit to rule us, and there is only one way for a new Lord Martial to take the throne. He must die.\u201d Dame Vaako was good at dissembling, but Kyra could see the hidden sparkle of vicious glee in her eyes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I did say she was a treacherous bitch, didn\u2019t I?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oh, shut up.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cDoes he have to?\u201d She wasn\u2019t sure why she asked that. Was she playing for time? Wheedling? So much was happening here. The rules of the game had changed and she had no idea what they\u2019d changed into.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s the only way. You know our creed, girl. You keep what you kill. He who kills the Lord Martial becomes<\/i> the Lord Martial.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    More or less,<\/i> Zhylaw interjected, sounding amused. A little less than more, but their illusions serve our purpose for now.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    What the Hell did that<\/i> mean? She couldn\u2019t even begin to figure it out. Fortunately, Dame Vaako appeared to misinterpret her head-shake and began piling on the false kindness.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI know, it\u2019s difficult. But in time you will forget the breeder and fully embrace your new life. Perhaps you can serve the new Lord Martial when he ascends to the throne. Now there<\/i> is a goal you can strive for.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra had to contain a shudder. Eww! I\u2019ve had enough<\/b> of horny old goats pawing me up\u2014<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Is that what I was?<\/i> Zhylaw\u2019s voice was full of laughter again. Her repressed shudder became a shiver as she remembered the touch of his hand on her shoulder. I intended to give you high standing. Not quite this<\/b> high, but it was the best of all possible outcomes.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You\u2019re probably totally incapable of saying something simple<\/b> like \u201cthe sky is blue,\u201d aren\u2019t you?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And how many worlds have you seen where that was true?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Hey!<\/i> That was cheating. Great. Not only am I arguing with myself, I\u2019m losing.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Another soft gust of Zhylaw\u2019s laughter moved through her. Relax. You\u2019ll go unmolested.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cCome, girl, we\u2019ll go to the command center and watch the Lords\u2019 progress.\u201d Dame Vaako turned and began walking towards one of the sweeping flights of stairs that led to the upper levels of the Basilica. Swallowing, Kyra followed her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I don\u2019t want to watch Riddick die.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Then we\u2019ll see to it that you watch him escape,<\/i> Zhylaw replied inside her head.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I thought you wanted<\/b> him dead.<\/i> She was pretty sure he had.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It was his life or mine. Now that I\u2019m<\/b> dead, why should I care about that anymore?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Never met a dead guy who talked as much as you do.<\/i> She almost grumbled it aloud, and scowled when he laughed at her again.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The command center was bustling with Necromonger technicians, cadaverously thin men and women whose prodigious minds made up for their lack of physical strength. Kyra knew, somehow, that many of them would eventually become Quasi-Dead, once their bodies became too frail to support them. They were working to repair scorched panels on a console in the center of the room.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhat is the Riddick?\u201d Dame Vaako suddenly asked Kyra, her voice demanding. \u201cHow did he do that trick with the flash of light?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhat flash of light?\u201d She was genuinely confused.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The Dame looked annoyed. \u201cWe led him here, so that he could complete the purification of this world. When we explained what he had to do, and what would happen, he refused.<\/i> And when my husband tried to complete it in his stead, he did this.<\/i>\u201d She waved a hand at the blackened panels.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cHow?\u201d Kyra frowned, shaking her head. Riddick hadn\u2019t even had a regular<\/i> gun with him, much less a weapon that could\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI said<\/i>,\u201d Dame Vaako snarled, \u201cthere was a flash of light. When we could see again, the controls were disabled and he and that Elemental witch were running for the shuttle bays.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI don\u2019t know how\u2014<\/nobr> wait\u2026<\/nobr> on Crematoria, there was a flash of light. I thought it was a blast from one of y\u2014<\/nobr> our\u2026<\/nobr> weapons. I thought he was dead.\u201d What was it she\u2019d really seen? How had<\/i> Riddick survived on Crematoria?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The look Dame Vaako was giving her was an even mixture of annoyance and disgust. She could practically hear the other woman\u2019s thoughts, dismissing her as useless.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Good,<\/i> Zhylaw murmured. We want her to underestimate you.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    We do?<\/i> If other voices started chiming in, she was going to start beating her head against the nearest wall.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yes, we do. Now watch and listen.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cMy Lady, Lord Vaako just sent a message that the Riddick and his companions have boarded a small spacecraft and are trying to take off.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cIntercept them!\u201d The Dame might not have had official<\/i> authority, but Kyra noticed that everyone was jumping to do her bidding as if she did.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Of course they are. She\u2019s the wife of the Purifier\u2026<\/nobr> and most of the fleet assumes he\u2019ll be my successor.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Based on the indoctrination they\u2019d shoved into Kyra\u2019s head, she knew that it was<\/i> the generally-accepted order of things. Won\u2019t he?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Great, now she was encouraging<\/i> the voice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I have already been succeeded by someone worthier.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oh! Is that<\/b> why you want to let Riddick get off-planet?<\/i> Now things were starting to make sense.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Riddick is irrelevant, aside from the fact that you care about him. He\u2019s not my successor.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u2026And now nothing<\/i> made sense.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    For a second she had a strong sense-memory of being somewhere else, a place too pure and perfect to survive seeing without being irrevocably altered. Of being embraced, held\u2026<\/nobr> and released. Of the return of pain, and how much more agonizing the pain was after that immeasurable bliss. But the pain had fled; she felt no pain at all<\/i> now. How was that possible?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You\u2019re beginning to remember. Don\u2019t fight it. The memories will come slowly, but they will come.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Fine, she\u2019d play along. Memories of what?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The Underverse.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Somehow, when he spoke that word in her head, it conjured a feeling of home and belonging unlike any she\u2019d ever experienced. Wistfulness and longing and a sense of unfathomable loss. The Underverse was the Necromonger paradise; she knew that from her indoctrination. But now it was something more as well, and something about it made her heart twist and ache, and tears start in her eyes. She hadn\u2019t felt like this since she was a little girl and her grandfather died, and all the love went out of her world. She\u2019d lost something, something so precious that its absence felt like a gaping wound.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yes, child, now you begin to understand. We stand on this side of the Threshold, exiled. No matter how many we send across to Paradise, we\u2019re trapped here until Underverse Come. Do you begin to understand what we\u2019re fighting for?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I don\u2019t understand any<\/b> of this!<\/i> she protested, feeling hurt and furious. Why can\u2019t you just tell<\/b> me?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Very well. Pay attention.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cAsshole,\u201d she muttered, realizing too late that she\u2019d done so aloud. Fortunately nobody but the voice in her head was paying attention to her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Only a Necromonger can become the Lord Martial. And only the Lord Martial knows the rite for transferring power.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Wait,<\/i> she interrupted. I thought it was whoever killed you.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    That\u2019s an aspect of the ritual, yes. The Lord Martial and his successor must give each other matching death blows, and then cross into the Underverse together. There they battle for primacy, and the winner crosses back and returns to his body, with all of the knowledge and power of the Lords Martial imbuing his soul.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    So?<\/i> Something was dancing just out of reach, tantalizing her, but she couldn\u2019t quite grasp it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You know the answer. Who exchanged mortal blows with me?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Riddick.<\/i> She was there, she saw it. So how come he said Riddick wasn\u2019t the Lord Martial?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I gave him no death wound, and he was not a Necromonger anyway. Who else<\/b> gave me a wound?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She went cold all over, from her core to her skin. Oh fuck.<\/b><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She\u2019d stabbed him in the back\u2014<\/nobr> and taken an almost identical wound, herself, a moment later when he\u2019d thrown her across the room. And then she\u2019d died<\/i>, while Riddick held her. Died, not simply passed out. She\u2019d been dead.<\/i> And now\u2026<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yes,<\/i> Zhylaw whispered inside her, and she could feel how real he was in comparison to any other voice that had ever plagued her. Now you<\/b> are the Holy Half-Dead.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She surreptitiously slipped one of her hands behind her back and sought out the spot where she\u2019d been impaled. Smooth, flawless flesh met her fingertips under the sticky rent in the fabric. The wound was gone, as if it had never existed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cBlast it!\u201d Dame Vaako shouted, and for a moment Kyra thought she\u2019d been found out. But the other woman was staring at a viewscreen and pounding a console with her fist. \u201cHe got offworld! Now we\u2019ll have to pursue him!\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oh shit.<\/i> Kyra wasn\u2019t sure whether to be relieved or not, but she was leaning towards not<\/i>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Don\u2019t worry, child. Let them chase him.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    But\u2014<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Even if they catch up to Riddick, they\u2019ll be no match for him. And any warrior who wishes the throne will insist on going. While their eyes are turned away towards him, we can consolidate our power. And you can learn more about what we\u2019re really<\/b> fighting for\u2026<\/nobr> and fighting against.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The enormity of it all struck her, and then the ludicrousness of it. If we fought\u2026<\/nobr> how did I<\/b> win?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You didn\u2019t. I defeated you. But of our two bodies, yours is the stronger\u2026<\/nobr> and if I rose again in mine, I\u2019d just get assassinated before I could regain my strength. But I could not enter your body without you, so we made a truce. Either we both lived, or the universe would die. When you remember more, you\u2019ll understand.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It was too much. She couldn\u2019t handle it, couldn\u2019t fathom it all. Either she\u2019d gone irrevocably insane, or something even worse<\/i> had happened. And now she didn\u2019t even have that nebulous paradise to look forward to; the Underverse\u2019s gates were locked against her. And Riddick was millions of miles away by now, and getting farther away with each passing second.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She was alone. There was nobody she could trust, except the terrible voice in her head\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And one other. She had another friend, a real<\/i> friend like Riddick, someone who cared about her for her own sake. Someone she hadn\u2019t seen in years.<\/i> Someone who had made sure that Riddick would know how to find her, and that he\u2019d want to rescue her from that Hellish prison.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Jack. If she could get Jack here, she\u2019d be okay.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You need to put aside your old associations with breeders, child. They\u2019ll only weaken you.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I need someone I can trust,<\/i> she snarled back at him. That\u2019s either Riddick, or her.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She could feel amusement and\u2026<\/nobr> was that respect?\u2026<\/nobr> in his tone. And it can\u2019t be Riddick. That would bring the assassins right to you. Very well. Jack it is. Don\u2019t expect us to go running off to fetch her right away, though. You need to learn a little more finesse first.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Fuck<\/b> finesse, I\u2019m sick of you telling me what I\u2014<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Now Zhylaw\u2019s tone became hard, steely. This war is larger than you know, girl. If we lose it, every creature in this \u2018verse will experience unimaginable suffering. Including your Jack, and your Riddick. For their sakes, if nothing else, you need to learn a little patience.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And then she saw it. Long ago, some well-meaning preacher had fed her some crap about how, for there to be Heaven, there also had to be Hell. She hadn\u2019t believed in either one, but now\u2026<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Eyeless, marching in eerie formation, the armies of Hell were in motion, and had been in motion for centuries. Insinuating themselves into unsuspecting worlds, infecting the populations, ravaging societies and ecosystems and spreading to the next and the next\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Rykengolls. She\u2019d almost gotten sold to them, years ago.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    That\u2019s not their real name,<\/i> Zhylaw told her, but it will do. For now. You\u2019ll learn the rest in due time. Now, in the meantime, I suggest you ingratiate yourself with that treacherous bitch. If she takes you in as a servant, you won\u2019t have to worry about any \u201cold goats\u201d trying to paw you.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    But she\u2019s dangerous\u2014<\/nobr><\/i> Kyra began to protest.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And that\u2019s why you need to keep a careful eye on her. Have you ever heard the expression \u201ckeep your friends close, and your enemies closer?\u201d<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    No. What the fuck does that<\/b> mean?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Zhylaw\u2019s voice took on a tinge of annoyance. It means that if you want Jack to be safe here, you\u2019d better make sure of Dame Vaako first. Do we understand each other?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He\u2019d played the right card; she\u2019d never let anybody<\/i> hurt Jack. Hell, she\u2019d gone to Crematoria<\/i> for Jack, hadn\u2019t she? Four years of grueling misery while she waited for Jack\u2019s message to get relayed to Riddick\u2026<\/nobr> if she could handle that, she could handle this.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    For now.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    We do. Am I ever<\/b> going to get you out of my head?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    We\u2019re one now, Kyra, until Underverse Come.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Armageddon had never sounded so tempting.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    <\/div><\/span>\r\n
    \r\n

    \u00ab Table of Contents<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>\r\n

    Chapter 2 \u00bb<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>

    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n
    \r\n
    \r\n

    \u00ab Chapter 1<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>\r\n

    Chapter 3 \u00bb<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>

    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    2.Red Rook<\/u><\/b><\/h2>\r\n\r\n

    You\u2019d think that a million people calling for help, screaming their lungs out, would keep you awake, right? But that\u2019s not what does it. Not when you\u2019re bone tired, not when you\u2019ve made your stand, made your run, gotten away as clean as you can, and it\u2019s all caught up with you. No, the screams aren\u2019t what wake you. It\u2019s the silence. It\u2019s that moment when the screaming stops.<\/i><\/blockquote><\/p>\r\n \r\n

    There was a movie I saw long ago, back when they thought they could hold me in anything less than a triple-max. Had me in a fuckin\u2019 country club with \u201cmovie nights\u201d for about a month before I walked. Didn\u2019t even need to run. They showed one of those old movies from centuries ago, when nobody really knew what space was like. Part of a whole series\u2026<\/nobr> maybe even where I got the idea of hiding out on an ice planet. Anyway. Some old guy felt a whole planet die. He talked about it, too. The screams. And then the silence. Just like this.<\/i><\/blockquote><\/p>\r\n \r\n

    That\u2019s the moment when you wish the screams would keep on going. People who can still scream still got a shot at living.<\/i><\/blockquote><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He\u2019d been dozing when it happened. The comm had been left on, cycling through all of the Helion System channels one after another, but the only thing it had picked up had been one distress call after another. He still had another half hour before the ship would be in space clear enough to heat up the ion drive when all the channels went dead at once. The silence was louder than any alarm he\u2019d ever heard.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Riddick sat up, shaking the muzzy bits of cobweb out of his skull and looking around. Had he imagined a final roar of heavy static right before the silence? Or had that been some part of his dream?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The comm was cycling through the channels faster than ever, but only soft white noise, the e.m. hum of Helion and distant stars, came through.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    What?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He glanced over at the others. Ziza was holding her father\u2019s amulet in one hand, her other arm wrapped around a puppy she\u2019d picked up while they were running. She looked confused, glancing from stricken-faced Lajjun to grim-faced Aereon to him.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cMommy?\u201d she asked, her voice quavering in a way that he didn\u2019t remember from their meeting, \u201cwhere\u2019d all the people go?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    That was when he knew. He knew<\/i> what had to have happened. Riddick turned back to the console and started pulling up recordings, looking for any video feed of the planet from the last ten minutes. So many relay stations orbited Helion Prime; some of them had to have caught it\u2026<\/nobr> <\/p>\r\n\r\n

    There.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The whole damn world<\/i> was burning. Behind him he heard Lajjun\u2019s strangled sob.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The planet\u2019s albedo had dropped massively, its surface coloring going from blue-green to black shot with red. Veins of red were spreading, radiating out from points spaced across the planet\u2019s surface at orderly distances from each other. He counted a dozen before he stopped. At his command the video rolled back, the veins drawing into themselves. He wanted to see how it had begun.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Not like I don\u2019t know what did it, or nothin\u2019\u2026<\/nobr> guess I didn\u2019t do that thing enough damage.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The planet was normal-looking again. He let the video play forward. First one blue pinprick, then another, and another and another appeared, hovering above those militarily precise points across the world\u2019s surface. He looked at the chrono notation on the video and was surprised. That had happened hours<\/i> ago.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oh yeah, wait, that thing was floating overhead when I got the holy man\u2019s wife and kid.<\/i> Somehow, at the time, he\u2019d dismissed it as just another sun. He\u2019d been on planets with three suns; why shouldn\u2019t Helion Prime have a second one? Just because it wasn\u2019t on the nav charts\u2026<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Idiot.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    So that was the Final Protocol. He sped the video forward, bringing it up to just a few minutes earlier.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The little blue pinpricks began to expand. Suddenly they dimmed, as if pulling some kind of darkness into themselves. Then shockwaves blasted out from them and, for fractions of a second, each one overloaded whatever camera was monitoring the planet. Static obscured the image and for a weird moment he thought he saw Kyra\u2019s face in it. Then the planet was back and the red snakes were spreading outward again, devouring everything they touched and leaving nothing but blackness in their wake.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Wonder who set it off?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The weaker part of him, the part he hated, twitched awake. Millions of people had just died, it told him, and that was all he had to say about it? He growled softly back at it. What did it want<\/i> him to say? The two most important ones on that rock had already bought it, and he got the next two out of there with him. Wasn\u2019t that enough? Another three survivors, blasting away from yet another dead world\u2026<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Four, if you count the spook.<\/i> He glanced over at Aereon, trying not to look wary. Something about her just felt all wrong to him, and not just because the bitch had put a massive bounty on his head. Ordinarily he\u2019d have ghosted her for it long before now, except she seemed to be half-ghost already.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cExtraordinary,\u201d she said, sounding as genteel as if she were commenting on a really good tea biscuit. The urge to slash her insubstantial throat surged back. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t have thought they could have repaired it so soon. Furyan blasts can do tremendous damage.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cNot enough,\u201d he muttered. Damn it all, so she knew<\/i> about that? She\u2019d better tell him everything she knew, or they\u2019d be down to three survivors again, really soon.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Well, three and the puppy.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cIt should have taken them days<\/i> to repair the controls,\u201d Aereon continued, her voice calmly insistent. \u201cOnly the Lord Marshal could remote-detonate the protocol without them, and you killed him.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She seemed awfully smug about that, too. He wasn\u2019t sure why that bothered him so much, but it did. Maybe because she\u2019d had that smug smile plastered all over her face while Kyra was dying in his arms\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    His attention jerked away from her at the sound of a high-pitched whimper.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Ziza was crying, hugging the puppy tightly to her. It was wriggling in an attempt to get loose. With an abrupt shake it slithered out of her grasp and dropped to the floor, running unsteadily over to him and hiding behind his legs. The girl didn\u2019t seem to notice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cZiza.\u201d Lajjun\u2019s voice was soft, but he could hear suppressed tears in it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Great. Soon he\u2019d have a chorus of crying women on his hands. Know how you feel, pup\u2026<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Maybe he\u2019d name it Jack.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cZiza,<\/i>\u201d Lajjun repeated, her voice more insistent. \u201cCome sit with me and we\u2019ll look at the album.\u201d She took a picture album out of her hastily-packed bag, one of those fancy-framed things that held and displayed millions of images, even videos. Toys for the rich.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThought you folks didn\u2019t like graven images,\u201d he observed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Her glance at him was reproving. \u201cThese are not graven. Nor are they false gods. They are records of moments in our lives. They are, perhaps, some of the only surviving records of a once-living world.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And, he realized, her once-living husband. He couldn\u2019t really fault her for that.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Ziza, sniffling, slipped off of her chair and walked over to her mother, climbing onto her lap. The puppy was apparently forgotten, except that Riddick could feel it nibbling on the back of one of his pants legs.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cHere, Ziza, remember this day? Your fifth birthday\u2026\u201d<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cIt won\u2019t be the end, you know,\u201d Aereon told him, ignoring the others. \u201cThey\u2019ll come after you.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I\u2019m so<\/b> glad I have the Mistress of the Obvious on board to tell me these things.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou think so?\u201d He already had some of the pursuing ships on his scanners. He\u2019d wait until he was ready to engage the ion drive before he pulled any moves on them. Lay in a false trail, send out one of Toombs\u2019 decoys\u2026<\/nobr> last time he\u2019d wanted them to chase him; it had been part of his plan. Hadn\u2019t worked out so well, but they\u2019d acted exactly the way he\u2019d wanted them to. This time, he\u2019d evade them for real.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThey\u2019ll be relentless,\u201d the spook went on, as though revealing things he hadn\u2019t already figured out. \u201cThey believe that they must kill you to take the throne of the Lord Marshal.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201c\u2019Cause you keep what you kill. Got it.\u201d He didn\u2019t bother looking over at her, but he could feel<\/i> her lips thinning in response. \u201cI killed him, so they figure if they kill me, they get all the magic batshit\u2014\u201d<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cMister Riddick!<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cSorry, Lajjun.\u201d He couldn\u2019t believe he\u2019d just said that. What the fuck, why was he apologizing for swearing? This was his<\/i> ship, and they\u2019d all better just get used to the way he talked unless they felt like walking to the nearest spaceport\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThey won\u2019t, of course.\u201d And Miss Conversationalist was back. For a moment he thought he was talking about the other passengers, but of course she meant the damned Necros.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She must really think this shit is important.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201c\u2019Course they won\u2019t, lady. Ain\u2019t a one of \u2019em good enough to take me down.\u201d Especially now that he was apparently a walking EMP. Handy little trick, once he learned how to control it better.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cEven if they did<\/i> kill you, those powers are gone. The chain of ascension has been broken, and there will be no more Lord Marshals. The prophecy has been fulfilled.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oh, it just figured<\/i> there was a prophecy involved. If this is going to turn into some kind of sorcery epic like that old-time movie I was thinking about, I fuckin\u2019 well want one of those cool blades they had.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cDon\u2019t sound so concerned for my well-being,\u201d he grumped. First space station he found, he was parting ways with everybody.<\/i> Going it alone. Just him, back out in the dark.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    There was a sharp tug on his pants leg.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Okay, me and the puppy\u2026<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cDo I need to be? You single-handedly destroyed the most feared armada in recent history.\u201d With that smug look on her face, it was almost as if she was taking credit for it herself. \u201cIn a matter of months they\u2019ll fall apart, squabbling over the little bits of power and resources they have left, forgetting their religion, their quest, forgetting the way to Underverse or what awaits them there. And then they\u2019ll be no more.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThat what your prophecy tells you?\u201d Damn, he hadn\u2019t meant to sound quite that<\/i> sarcastic. Losing Jack was messing with his head more than he wanted to admit.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Aereon shook her head and he half-expected a few canary feathers to float away. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t have to. That\u2019s inevitable. With no Lord Marshal to focus their power, they have no power.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cSo if the power didn\u2019t pass to me, where\u2019d it go?\u201d The things the Lord Marshal had been able to do had been pretty fucked-up.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cBack into the Underverse where it belongs, of course. And with no successor, no new Lord Marshal, there\u2019s no conduit to hold the Threshold open. That gateway has closed, and there\u2019s nothing they can do to reopen it.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Maybe that wasn\u2019t such a bad thing. Yeah, no maybe there.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cSo that was your prophecy?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She shook her head again. \u201cThe prophecy was that, when the sixth Lord Marshal fell, killed at the hands of a Furyan warrior, none of his men would rise to take his place. The rest was inference, but it was enough to send the fifth Lord Marshal\u2019s named successor on a rampage thirty years ago. He ravaged your world in his quest to avert the prophecy and, in doing so, made it inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    More hoodoo bullshit to deal with. People couldn\u2019t ever just keep it simple.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cSo. Now that I\u2019ve fulfilled your prophecy, you gonna pull that bounty off my head?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI pulled it off immediately after our first meeting, Riddick. Surely you noticed when your friend Toombs felt compelled to search for another world to turn you in on?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Guess I did.<\/i> He\u2019d used that to his advantage, after all\u2026<\/nobr> or tried to. He hadn\u2019t exactly ended up helping Kyra all that much.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cIs that Jack?\u201d Ziza\u2019s voice grabbed at his attention with that simple question.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYes, my dear, that is. You were still so small. Do you remember her at all?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Riddick found himself climbing out of the pilot\u2019s chair. Pictures of Jack, back the way he remembered her\u2026<\/nobr> this he had to see.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhen did you take this?\u201d Ziza was asking. He leaned in to look.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    That had to have been only a few months after he\u2019d taken off. Jack\u2019s hair was still short, much lighter and finer than it had become. She looked so different, exactly the way he\u2019d thought he remembered her but so unlike Kyra\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The picture shifted and, with a cold chill, he realized why.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Jack was in the new picture, smiling at the camera, arm in arm with another girl whose smile was more guarded.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWho\u2019s the other girl?\u201d He tried to keep his voice nonchalant, but saw Aereon\u2019s head turn towards him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Bitch doesn\u2019t miss a thing.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cKyra?\u201d Lajjun said, answering her own question even as she asked it. \u201cKyra Falnour. We thought it would look less suspicious to people if we didn\u2019t just foster Jack, but another girl her age as well\u2026<\/nobr> and it would give her some company. Kyra had gone through a lot of foster homes, and run away from several of them, before she came to us. We hoped the two of them would find balance in each other. Instead, they ran away together, a few months after we took this picture.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Falnour. A last name. Suddenly he had a much better place to start piecing everything together.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Another picture filled the little screen. Jack and Kyra, playing with a very tiny Ziza in a small garden pool. He\u2019d never seen either<\/i> of them look like that. Laughing, carefree, at ease, no tension, no resentment\u2026<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    They look so damned happy. Why\u2019d they run away if they were so damned happy?<\/b><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yet another picture appeared. This time it was a family shot, the Al-Walids and their foster daughters all together, dressed in their best. Jack\u2019s hair had grown out another two inches and she\u2019d trimmed it into the same kind of boyish cut she\u2019d been wearing when he first met her. Kyra had cut a few inches of her hair off. Their smiles for the camera seemed unnatural, oddly wary.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI hate that picture,\u201d Ziza muttered.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI\u2019m sorry, little one. We didn\u2019t realize that your eye infection would show, or we\u2019d have rescheduled.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Taking a better look at the picture, he could see what Ziza meant. Her eyes were red and a little puffy. He hadn\u2019t noticed, so focused on the other girls.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou look great to me, kid.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Lajjun\u2019s expression became a little disapproving, as though she expected him to ask Ziza out on a date<\/i> next.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Every time I\u2019m nice to some kid who happens to be female it\u2019s the same damn thing no matter what\u2014<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cCan\u2019t we just get rid of it?\u201d said little girl asked.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cBut Ziza, it\u2019s the last picture we have<\/i> of Jack and Kyra. And we have so few<\/i> of them.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Ziza huffed, her face settling into a grumpy pout. \u201cSo what? They didn\u2019t like us anyway or they\u2019d have stayed.<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Was this the same girl he\u2019d been talking to earlier? The sweet, friendly kid? She suddenly looked like a stranger. Her expression had become almost shrewish<\/i>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cAre your eyes hurting again?\u201d Lajjun asked, putting her hand under her daughter\u2019s chin to tilt her face up.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cA little,\u201d Ziza grudgingly allowed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cShe gets frequent eye infections,\u201d Lajjun explained to Riddick as if he\u2019d asked. \u201cSometimes, when they begin, her temper gets a bit bad.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI\u2019m not\u2014\u201d<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Okay, that was as much of this family shit as he could take for a while. \u201cTell you what. It\u2019s been a really long day and we\u2019ve got a few hours of coasting left before we can use the ion drive, if we wanna avoid detection. Why don\u2019t you guys sack out?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Both Al-Walids wore identical looks of confusion. Had they never heard that term?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou know, get some sleep. That goes for you too, Ambassador.\u201d He nodded at Aereon, who seemed to have been gleefully eavesdropping. \u201cI\u2019ll keep an eye on things.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He had a little research to do, too, and it\u2019d go faster if people weren\u2019t chattering.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThat\u2019s a good idea. Come, Ziza.\u201d Lajjun shut off the picture frame and stood up, moving toward the back of Toombs\u2019 ship. It wasn\u2019t luxurious back there, but it could be conformed for sleeping, and it looked like the woman knew how to do that on her own.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Ziza climbed down from the chair, still looking sulky, and stomped over toward the puppy. It backed up and then ducked behind the piloting console.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cCome out,\u201d she told it. \u201cCome out!<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou squeezed him kinda hard earlier.\u201d He wasn\u2019t sure why, but it suited him just fine that the puppy seemed to like him better than the kid. \u201cHe\u2019s afraid you\u2019ll do it again. Let him come to you when he\u2019s ready.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The look she gave him could have taken out another of Helion Prime\u2019s cities. He stared back calmly, keeping his expression not-unfriendly, and not letting her see any sign of the chill that had just moved through him. The handprint on his chest was suddenly stinging.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    What the fuck? I\u2019m getting freaked out by a kid!<\/i> But suddenly he didn\u2019t want her touching<\/i> the puppy\u2026<\/nobr> or him.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cZiza. Say goodnight to Riddick and come to bed.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The little girl sighed and seemed to shake it off. When she smiled at him, it was the sweet smile she\u2019d given him when they first met. \u201cGood night, Riddick.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He found himself smiling back. \u201cGood night, Ziza.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Guess that was the eye infection talking. Ain\u2019t a bad kid, just hurting. Not like I\u2019ve never been there myself.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Aereon stood and nodded at him. \u201cGood night, Riddick. We will speak more soon.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cNight.\u201d You can damn well bet your evaporated ass we will.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He waited until they were settled before turning back to the controls.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The puppy \u2013 he really needed to give it a name, but \u201cJack\u201d might still be taken \u2013 slithered out from hiding after several minutes and put its paws on his leg. He reached down and scooped it up onto his lap, taking his first really good look at it. Tiny and male, with huge paws\u2026<\/nobr> if he wasn\u2019t mistaken, it was a mastiff. Maybe he\u2019d look that up after his other research was done.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra Falnour. It\u2019s a starting point.<\/i> He started punching in queries, routing them to one of the smaller monitors just in case anyone in back woke up. This was for his eyes only.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It took him a few tries before he hit on the correct spelling, but finally he pulled her records up and got his first good look at who she really was\u2026<\/nobr> this girl who had let him think she was Jack. She\u2019d been fourteen \u2013 not twelve, fourteen \u2013 when she\u2019d run away from the Al-Walids, and there were no reports of her after their missing-persons report for more than a year. Until she was arrested on Pynchon IV for multiple homicides.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Okay, there we go. What the hell happened?<\/i> He dug deeper. Toombs\u2019 ship had full access to the merc network; there wasn\u2019t a court case he couldn\u2019t tap into.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Outstanding warrants from three years earlier popped up, for the murders of three mining partners who had allegedly \u201cadopted\u201d her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Nice euphemism for buying a slave, there\u2026<\/nobr><\/i> So that part of her story had been true. She just hadn\u2019t mentioned that it had happened long before she ever heard his name. Of course, he hadn\u2019t let her get very far in her story before he\u2019d flown into a rage over the merc angle. Jack would\u2019ve known better than to sign up with mercs, but without her experiences, he could see how a kid could end up making that dumb mistake. Funny that nobody on Helion had any idea she\u2019d done that\u2026<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Or maybe the government on Helion had just been way too enlightened to let warrants like that get served. He had to admit, the place had seemed pretty nice before the Necros hit it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Aside from the understandable paranoia, that is.<\/i> Almost made him feel guilty for ghosting so many of their guards right before the invasion. Heh, they\u2019d have died one way or another that night, no matter what.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    But if Kyra had been protected on Helion Prime, and not Pynchon IV, why had she left?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    There wasn\u2019t any explanation in the extradition hearing notes. Lots of testimony for the defense, though, from someone named \u201cAudrey Jackson-Badura.\u201d He opened her file, his heart racing.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    No priors. No convictions. But she\u2019d been a missing person case for a little over three years and then had mysteriously reappeared, with no explanation of where she\u2019d been on file. A few months after her return, her parents started adoption proceedings for none other than one Kyra Falnour, and that had eventually been picked up by the merc network.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It\u2019s gotta be her.<\/i> Criminal history was empty; Jack was either keeping it clean or keeping it low-key. He switched over to civil registrations.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And there she was. Jack. Her picture came up along with her licensing information. Her hair was a little longer, her features a little more mature, but she still had that elfin look he remembered and that Kyra had actually lacked. She was nineteen now, just like Kyra, and had licenses to operate both private and commercial vehicles on Pynchon. And\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cA paramedic,\u201d he whispered. The girl was driving an ambulance and licensed to assist first-response medical teams. And<\/i> enrolled in the planet\u2019s largest university, in its pre-med program. Jack B. Badd had gone back home, and gone legit.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    So why had the holy man told him she was in prison?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cOnly one way to find that out, isn\u2019t there?\u201d he asked the sleeping puppy in his lap. \u201cYou and me, we\u2019re going to Pynchon IV.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Just as soon as he shook off his pursuers and sent his passengers on their way. He had a lot of questions for Audrey Jackson-Badura.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \r\n\r\n

    Note:<\/b> Yes, in this chapter, I\u2019m using the \u201cLord Marshal\u201d spelling. As far as Riddick knows, it\u2019s a name, like \u201cLord Vaako\u201d or \u201cLord Toal,\u201d so he\u2019s not thinking in terms of it being a military title. The contradiction in the spellings and perspectives is deliberate. \ud83d\ude09<\/p><\/span>\r\n

    \r\n

    \u00ab Chapter 1<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>\r\n

    Chapter 3 \u00bb<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>

    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n
    \r\n
    \r\n

    \u00ab Chapter 2<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>\r\n

    Chapter 4 \u00bb<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>

    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    3.White Knight<\/u><\/b><\/h2>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYo Jackson! We\u2019re up in five!\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Audrey turned in the booth and waved at Caswell, giving him an apologetic \u201cI\u2019ll-make-this-quick\u201d smile. She was almost done. She turned back to the call, wishing for the millionth time she could afford a personal comm for things like this.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yeah, that\u2019ll be in about\u2026<\/nobr> ten years\u2026<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201c\u2026say they\u2019re reviewing the case and will let us know soon. It doesn\u2019t help that she\u2019s apparently been involved in a number of altercations within the prison itself. We can\u2019t use \u2018good behavior\u2019 as a rationalization.\u201d Menefee, the man on the other end, was a deeply earnest<\/i> junior Public Defender with the gentlest eyes she\u2019d ever seen on a man. Right now they were apologetic.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWell, what do they expect?<\/i>\u201d Audrey snapped. \u201cYou put a teenage girl in with a whole bunch of violent criminals and how else<\/i> is she supposed to survive?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI agree with you, Aud, I really do,\u201d Menefee replied. He was about the only person she let call her that, although she\u2019d never admit that it meant anything. \u201cWe\u2019re pointing that out every chance we get. I think we\u2019re making headway but we\u2019ll know when the review board gets back to me. This isn\u2019t our last tactic, either, okay? We\u2019re going to get her out.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yeah, she\u2019d been hearing that particular song for three years now. Menefee was a great guy, but her money was still on Riddick. If only he\u2019d make a move<\/i> already\u2026<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Damn you, Imam, you\u2019d better have contacted him\u2026<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI gotta go,\u201d she said into the comm. \u201cMy shift\u2019s about to start. Thanks for everything you\u2019re doing, Menefee. I mean it.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou\u2019re welcome. And don\u2019t worry. We will<\/i> get her out. I\u2019ll talk to you soon.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She said goodbye and replaced the unit in its cradle, wincing at the charge. Comm calls gouged her no matter what she did. She stepped out of the booth and walked over to her partners.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cAny news?\u201d Caswell was a good guy to work with, and he seemed to genuinely care about her Free Kyra project; he\u2019d even donated a little to it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cNothing. They\u2019re still giving us the runaround.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cBig surprise there,\u201d Teague scoffed. She sighed, reminding herself once more that he wasn\u2019t actually against<\/i> what she was doing; he was just a complete cynic who didn\u2019t believe it would ever pay off.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYeah, I guess not\u2026\u201d<\/nobr> she sighed. No way was she stopping. Something<\/i> had to turn the tide of public opinion, and she\u2019d find it. She\u2019d keep on digging, keep on finding other stories about girls and women stolen from their safe lives and sold to belt-miners as \u201ccompanions,\u201d keep linking every single one of them to the story of a girl who\u2019d fought back only to be sent to the worst prison in the \u2019verse for doing so\u2026<\/nobr> eventually people would admit where the real<\/i> crime was.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She just hoped Kyra didn\u2019t have to wait that<\/i> long.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    C\u2019mon, Riddick. Just go there and spring her already\u2026<\/nobr><\/i> Kyra knew their story well enough to pass herself off as the girl he\u2019d known, and his vision was screwed up enough that he shouldn\u2019t be able to spot the differences between them. Just get her out of there\u2026<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She climbed aboard the ambulance and started its engine, logging her team in.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The guys were in back, checking the gear and preparing for their first call. Since she\u2019d started working with them, they\u2019d never waited more than fifteen minutes before getting one. New Detroit was a huge place, insanely overcrowded, and it never took long for it to mangle somebody.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She switched on her audio recorder, playing back the morning lecture. While she waited, she\u2019d listen to her professor explain reverse-transcriptase again.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThis enzyme was first identified on Earth in the late twentieth century, with the identification of the first retroviral strains. Its properties were\u2014\u201d<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The comm emitted a harsh, rasping beep.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cUnit six, you\u2019re up. We need you in Purdy. Domestic violence call. The address is on your screen and police are en route. Will update you as more information comes in.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Hadn\u2019t even taken a full minute. Audrey banged on the door behind her. \u201cWe\u2019re up, boys!\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She shut off the lecture and switched on her siren. Damn. She hated<\/i> domestic violence calls.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Pynchon was, by many worlds\u2019 standards, extremely old-fashioned. It could almost pass for twentieth-century Earth, itself, or at least New Detroit could have. People often compared it to pre-plague New York City, minus Central Park. No trees grew on this world. Local evolution had never gotten that far before it had failed spectacularly and everything had died. The amount of petroleum those failed organisms had left behind, though, was astounding, and had led to a renaissance for automobiles on this and nearby worlds. Especially since the planet was also metal-rich. New Detroit cranked out thousands of them every year, along with the more traditional airskimmers and even light spacecraft. Audrey had seen pictures of ambulances just like hers on the streets of those ancient cities.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Purdy was migrant territory, where newcomers from other worlds settled when they couldn\u2019t afford anything else. Lately it seemed to be swarming with refugees from the Coalsack Systems. Nobody was really sure what had happened there; the few refugees who would even talk about it told stories that made no sense. They were jumpy and quick to violence; Audrey hadn\u2019t had a shift yet, since their arrival, that didn\u2019t see her driving into Purdy at least once.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She followed the onscreen directions and found herself pulling into yet another tenement parking lot. Police officers were everywhere, roping off the area and pushing crowds of onlookers back. One of them waved her through, his expression grim. She cut off the siren.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cLooks like we\u2019ve got a bad one,\u201d Caswell said, emerging from the back with his kit. \u201cAny details yet?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    There wasn\u2019t anything new on the screen. Audrey parked the ambulance in front of the building and shook her head. \u201cGuess the cops\u2019ll know.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Two of them were leading a man out of the building now. He was weeping, his hands cuffed behind his back. Another two brought out a woman. Uncuffed, she was struggling to break free from them. Both were dressed for sleeping; both were covered in blood.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou bastard!<\/i>\u201d she screamed, trying to lunge at the cuffed man. \u201cYou murdering bastard!\u201d<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Caswell and Teague climbed out of the cab, their kits in their hands.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhere do you need us?\u201d Teague asked one of the officers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou able to sedate her?\u201d The officer gestured to the screaming women. Teague nodded, opening his kit and prepping a hypospray. \u201cGuy killed both their children. They\u2019re past needing you.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou called for the cor\u2014\u201d<\/nobr> Caswell began asking and then stopped. Audrey saw the van pulling up alongside hers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Damn, they\u2019re fast. We only just barely got here ourselves.<\/i> She didn\u2019t like what that probably meant; they\u2019d already been in the area on another assignment. She picked up the ambulance\u2019s comm.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cDispatch, we\u2019re going to be inbound soon with a patient, female, mid-thirties, for the psych ward. She\u2019s going to need to be kept sedated for a while and probably put on suicide watch. Where should we take her?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cRoger that, Unit 6. One moment.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The coroners were entering the building, wheeling a gurney in. Teague and Caswell were trying to get the woman to hold still long enough for them to sedate her. She\u2019d switched languages, screaming at the cuffed man in what sounded like Chuvili.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Definitely from the Coalsack.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou need anything for him?\u201d she asked the officer, nodding at the man in cuffs.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He shook his head, his expression hard. \u201cNo, he seems to be under control. Bastard was just standing there. Right over them\u2026\u201d<\/nobr> His face paled as he spoke.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cUnit 6, there\u2019s a bed open in Mercy West. You can take her there.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cRoger that, Dispatch. We\u2019ll be inbound in five.\u201d Teague was sitting with the woman while Caswell got the stretcher. Even sedated, she couldn\u2019t stop crying.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI had to.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Audrey looked over at the cuffed man. He was thin and mousey, with the look of someone who had spent weeks jumping at shadows. Not at all what she\u2019d have pictured when she thought of a killer, and she\u2019d met entirely too many of those. He saw her looking at him, and his eyes locked with hers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI had<\/i> to,\u201d he repeated, his voice almost entreating. There were blood-spatters on his face, partly washed away by tracks of tears. \u201cIt wouldn\u2019t stop. They wouldn\u2019t\u2026<\/nobr> they wouldn\u2019t stop.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWouldn\u2019t stop what?\u201d the officer asked, his<\/i> tone both resigned and exasperated.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    There was a commotion off to the side. The first members of the press were arriving, shouting questions, pointing lights in, and generally trying to get in the way of everything from the other side of the cordon.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cTheir eyes. Oh God, their eyes. And the way they\u2019d stare at us\u2026<\/nobr> and they wouldn\u2019t stop saying it.\u201d The bloodied man began shaking. <\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Teague and Caswell were helping their patient onto the stretcher as the coroners came back out. They\u2019d only taken one gurney with them\u2026<\/nobr> and that was all they\u2019d needed. The two body bags on it were so small. So pathetically tiny. Audrey swallowed, fighting the sudden urge to cry, herself.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cSaying what?\u201d The officer sounded more intense suddenly.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cTo\u2026 to truly see\u2026\u201d<\/nobr> The man stammered. Audrey\u2019s eyes snapped back to him. He seemed almost afraid to repeat the words. \u201cYou must first\u2026\u201d<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Cold filled Audrey. No. That wasn\u2019t possible. No.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou must first be blind,\u201d the man finished.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oh holy fuck, that\u2019s not possible. There\u2019s no way\u2026<\/nobr> oh fuck.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oddly enough, the officer looked disturbed, too. \u201cWhere did you hear that?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThey kept saying<\/i> it!\u201d the man insisted. \u201cThey wouldn\u2019t stop.<\/i> And their eyes\u2026<\/nobr> their eyes were all\u2026\u201d<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Audrey almost jumped when one of her team pounded on the ambulance door, letting her know they were on board and everything was stowed. She swallowed and picked up the comm again. \u201cDispatch, this is Unit 6. We are now inbound.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The officer moved away from the side of the ambulance, clearing her some room. She began to pull out.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201c\u2026third case like this so far this month\u2026\u201d<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She glanced at the coroners as she passed them, loading the tiny bodies into the back of their<\/i> van. They had another filled body bag already in there, that one mercifully full-sized.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    This can\u2019t be happening. Not here. Not now.<\/i> She left the siren off as she drove. The patient was stable, but she<\/i> wasn\u2019t. She was rocked to her core, so this was not<\/i> the time to race through intersections.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    To truly see, you must first be blind. She hadn\u2019t heard anyone say that since New Mecca. She\u2019d hoped she\u2019d never hear it again. And that look of fear in his eyes\u2026<\/nobr> she remembered feeling just like that, years ago. Sick dread pooled in her stomach.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It stayed with her through the rest of the shift. Two fires, one multi-vehicle collision, and a violent case of food poisoning later she finally clocked out, more exhausted than usual. She wasn\u2019t even the one who had to bear the brunt of those cases; she just drove the ambulance, relayed information and supplies, and on rare<\/i> occasions helped out if her team needed a third pair of hands.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou okay, Jackson?\u201d Funny how at moments like this it was Teague, the cynic, who asked that, and not Caswell. She looked up at him and nodded, forcing a smile.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYeah, I\u2019ll be fine. It was just the kids\u2026\u201d<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    His expression was sympathetic. \u201cThose get me every time, too. Doesn\u2019t even matter that we never saw their faces, does it?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She couldn\u2019t tell him what she was really thinking, really feeling.<\/i> So she just nodded. But her mind was racing and, after what he\u2019d said, she wondered if that might have made it easier. If she\u2019d seen their faces \u2013 seen their eyes<\/i> \u2013 would she be feeling any better, or even worse?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI can\u2019t even figure out what\u2019d make a man do that to his own kids,\u201d Teague continued. \u201cWhatever happened out in the Coalsack seems to really have fucked up a lot<\/i> of people. They\u2019re killing each other<\/i> right and left. Word is Unit 2 had a case just like ours tonight, too.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThey what?<\/i> How is that possible?\u201d Two families in one night?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Teague shrugged, running his hand through his thinning, graying hair. \u201cI guess eventually you see every possible coincidence in this job. About six, seven years ago, we answered two different calls, across town from each other. Both were fatal motor accidents, and in both cases, the driver of the other<\/i> vehicle \u2013 the one not at fault \u2013 died instantly. Turned out those two drivers were husband and wife. Crazy, huh?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYeah,\u201d Audrey answered him, her lips and tongue feeling strangely numb and leaden. \u201cCrazy\u2026\u201d<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She knew that case well; it had been her mom and stepfather.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Just what I needed on top of the freak-out I already had going\u2026<\/nobr> fuck.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She needed to get back to the dorm. The comm service was free there; she could look things up without it costing her a vital organ. And right now, she suddenly needed to, desperately. Well, after she curled up on her bed and did some deep-breathing exercises.\r\n\r\nTeague patted her shoulder and climbed to his feet. \u201cSee you Friday, kid. Don\u2019t study too hard.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She waved to him in response and then got herself out of there.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Fortunately it was late enough that nobody in her hall was up, because when she got a good look at herself in the mirror she knew anyone<\/i> would have stopped and asked her what was wrong. She hadn\u2019t looked this rocky since her first D.O.A. She turned on her comm terminal and then walked into the shower, remembering to undress right before she turned on the water.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    God, I\u2019m losing it\u2026<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Wrapped in her bathrobe and feeling the tiniest bit refreshed, she plunked down in front of the terminal and typed in her search phrase.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cTo truly see you must first be blind.\u201d<\/tt><\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n

    It had never occurred to her to look that up before now. She\u2019d put that phrase out of her head, almost forgotten it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The search results popped up.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    How Self-Actualized Are You?<\/u><\/font>\r\nFree test from the Clement Institute available \u2026 founder would say, \u201cto<\/u> truly<\/u> see<\/u>, you<\/u> must<\/u> first<\/u> be<\/u> blind<\/u>.\u201d\r\ngl5.core.27.clementinstitute<\/font> - Cached<\/font> - Similar<\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

    Church of the Rykengoll<\/u><\/font>\r\nIf you\u2019re seeking spiritual guidance, we have the answers \u2026 founder would say, \u201cto<\/u> truly<\/u> see<\/u>, you<\/u> must<\/u> first<\/u> be<\/u> blind<\/u>.\u201d\r\ngl8.core.443.rykengollchurch<\/font> - Cached<\/font> - Similar<\/font><\/p><\/blockquote>\r\n\r\n

    What the fuck?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Only two results\u2026<\/nobr> and identical phrases. She grabbed a notepad and scribbled down the two names: Clement Institute<\/i> and Church of the Rykengoll<\/i>. Something about that second name made her skin crawl. Had she heard it before? Maybe\u2026<\/nobr> back on Helion?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Her hand hesitated a long moment before clicking on the link.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yes. It claimed to have established churches on a variety of worlds. Including Helion. Including the Coalsack systems. And now it was advertising its first \u201cmission\u201d in New Detroit\u2026<\/nobr> set up two weeks after the Coalsack refugees began pouring in.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    No. Not here. Christ, not here. Not on my<\/b> world\u2026<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    But it was them. She knew it. They\u2019d come.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She went back to the first page and clicked the other link. There was a connection here, and she was sure of it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Well look at that, guess who set up shop in New Detroit at the exact same time?<\/i> This Clement Institute was offering self-help courses, all of them innocuous-sounding, but it didn\u2019t take long for Audrey to spot the weirdness in the descriptions.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    They didn\u2019t like doctors. They particularly didn\u2019t like psychiatrists. It was subtle, but it ran through all of their pages; institutionalized medicine was bad, and its practitioners were charlatans. Everything, this place claimed, could be healed by the mind, something that had been hidden from the public for the last millennium by those wicked physicians.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Sons of bitches\u2026<\/nobr><\/i> She wouldn\u2019t have liked these crackpots even without<\/i> their connection to that weird church.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Funny how neither place ever named their founder.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You are totally the same place, you bastards. What the fuck are you doing on my world?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She saved the links and shut down. Her first class wasn\u2019t until after noon, but she still needed to sleep between now and then.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Maybe she\u2019d wake up to some good<\/i> news, she thought as she lay in her bed. Maybe Menefee would call and Kyra would be on her way back\u2026<\/nobr> they\u2019d finally be reunited\u2026<\/nobr> they\u2019d be safe\u2026<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra was running into her room, her hair sleep-touseled and her eyes wide, fully awake and filled with fear. \u201cHoly shit, Jack, you\u2019ve gotta get up, wake up!\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhat\u2019s wrong?\u201d She lifted her head, trying to focus.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cShe\u2019s doing it again. She\u2019s doing it again and this time she\u2019s got\u2014\u201d<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cTo truly see,\u201d a horrible, gravelly voice croaked from behind Kyra, \u201cyou must first be blind.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cOh fuck\u2026\u201d<\/nobr> Kyra swung around, her hands going up. Beyond her, Jack saw the eyes, blazing a gory, impossible red in the darkness.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The voice was unrecognizable but the shape was terrifyingly familiar. \u201cTo truly see, you must first be blind.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    There was a knife clutched in one small hand.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Jack reached out, grabbing the first weapon-like thing her hand touched.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cOh fuck, don\u2019t touch me\u2014\u201d<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Audrey found herself sitting up in her bed, her raised arm holding her bedside lamp. Her heart was hammering.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Nobody was there. No Kyra, no eldritch monster. She was in her dorm room. Alone, untouched, inviolate. Safe. She was safe.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    No, not safe,<\/i> she thought as she shakily returned the lamp to its stand. They\u2019ve come here. Nobody\u2019s safe.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Suddenly Crematoria<\/i> was sounding a lot safer than New Detroit.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cSo who do I have to kill to get sent there?\u201d Audrey muttered, and then felt her gorge rise.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Tiny body bags. A weeping father.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She lunged for her bathroom and barely got there in time.<\/p><\/span>\r\n

    \r\n

    \u00ab Chapter 2<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>\r\n

    Chapter 4 \u00bb<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>

    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n
    \r\n
    \r\n

    \u00ab Chapter 3<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>\r\n

    Chapter 5 \u00bb<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>

    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    4.Cleansing Fire<\/u><\/b><\/h2>\r\n\r\n

    If someone had asked Kyra what Purification meant even a few days earlier, she might have come up with a lot of possibilities. Sashaying into a reactor core wouldn\u2019t have been one of them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Are you sure this is going to work?<\/i> she asked uneasily as she walked her most nonchalant walk down the corridor. I\u2019m not going to glow or anything, am I?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Not visibly,<\/i> Zhylaw answered her. It wasn\u2019t the most reassuring thing he could have said.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She\u2019d slipped out of the control room at his urging, while Dame Vaako was communicating with her husband and most of the technicians were distracted. A few of them had been left with the impression that she\u2019d been called away by another ranking officer, just in case Dame Vaako asked. Hot damn,<\/i> Kyra couldn\u2019t wait to learn how to do that herself. Zhylaw had the power to twist the minds of his people to do his bidding without ever realizing they weren\u2019t acting of their own free will\u2026<\/nobr> if he wanted to. He claimed it was something he\u2019d almost never done.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra had a feeling that was going to have to change if they wanted to stay in power.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    A lenser passed, its handler barely noticing them, but she saw the way the creature reacted to her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    As you were,<\/i> she heard Zhylaw say in her head, and knew that the lenser was hearing him too. You haven\u2019t seen me.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It turned and walked on as though she wasn\u2019t there at all.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I seriously need<\/b> to learn how to do that,<\/i> she told her mentor. It was a lot easier to deal with this whole thing if she pretended that he was actually walking next to her, like one of the imaginary friends she\u2019d had when she was four.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You\u2019ll find it comes easily,<\/i> he replied, especially after your Purification is completed.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Apparently, she hadn\u2019t actually finished the process when Riddick had interrupted things. Apparently, even though she was now the Holy Half-Dead, there were still a few channels that needed to be opened within her in order for her to access the full range of powers Zhylaw had displayed. But, apparently<\/i>, she was also strong enough that instead of receiving a slow trickle of cleansing energy over a period of days, she could take a full-on flood of it all at once. So they were going right to the source.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    So. I\u2019m not going to visibly glow. But I\u2019m going to glow?<\/i> She wasn\u2019t sure why that bothered her so much.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yes, and no. You will radiate power. Only a very few others in the Armada are at the point where they\u2019ll be able to see that\u2026<\/nobr> and none of them will be inclined to speak of it. Any Necromonger who reaches that level of awareness, without passing into Underverse, understands what we\u2019re truly fighting for. They won\u2019t betray us.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Which Necromongers will those be?<\/i> She turned, bemused by just how completely invisible she seemed to be to people. Acolytes, apparently, were nothing and nobody. Soldiers and dignitaries walked past in dwindling numbers without a word or even a glance.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The lensers and the quasi-dead. And perhaps a few of the older civilians. Yes,<\/i> he continued, laughter in his voice, we have civilians. We have priests, bureaucrats, manufacturers, kitchen staff, mechanics, technicians\u2026<\/nobr> all of the things that an armada this size needs to keep going. Crasser people might call them camp followers, but they are our own. We even have foster parents for the handfuls of children we can actually salvage.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Really?<\/i> Before she\u2019d been put through the first stage of purification, she\u2019d overheard other Helionites in her line talking about how the Necromongers supposedly killed children on sight.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yes. You will understand much better soon. It\u2019s up ahead now\u2026<\/nobr> just walk in as though you belong. I will take care of the technicians.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra squared her shoulders and walked forward, acting \u2013 she hoped \u2013 confident and purposeful. She couldn\u2019t quite believe she was doing this but\u2026<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u2026She trusted him. Bits and pieces of their encounter and negotiations in the Underverse were coming back to her, a little at a time, and her trust in him increased with every fragment of memory. He would make this work.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The technicians ignored her. It was tempting to wave her hands in their faces and sing and dance in front of them, just to see if they\u2019d keep on ignoring her, but she was here on business.<\/i> Even if she could<\/i> feel Zhylaw suppressing a laugh. Was he resisting the urge to egg her on? She felt like he was. Maybe there was hope yet.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    At Zhylaw\u2019s mental command, a technician walked over to the inner reactor door and punched in a security code, returning to his post immediately after as though he\u2019d done nothing. The door slid open and Kyra slipped through, closing it behind her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Did you pay attention to the code?<\/i> By his tone, she knew that even if she hadn\u2019t, Zhylaw had. But no way was she going to get locked into a reactor without knowing how to get out!<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yeah, 7-2-6-2-8-4-8-2-7.<\/i> Remembering that was going to be a bitch.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Did you notice the letters on the keypad? In the old Earth style?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yeah, I think so. I didn\u2019t think anybody made those anymore.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Our controls are very old, especially in this part of the Basilica. Remember the word \u201cSanctitas.\u201d If you forget the numbers, just spell it out on the keypad.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cSanctitas?\u201d<\/i> She punched the numbers in on the next door\u2019s pad, noting that it really did spell out that word. He must have known it from the start.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Purity. In the old Latin, of course. Step through quickly when the door opens. We don\u2019t want the antechamber\u2019s detector to pick up too<\/b> much of a climb in radiation. Others out of my immediate reach might notice.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The door slid open and she stepped through quickly, hitting the panel on the other side to close it. How far is your range?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She was in a dark, circular room. The ceiling was vaulted, but much lower than the ceilings in any of the other rooms. And there was something in here, something that made her skin tingle in a not-unpleasant way. It seemed to come from the pillar at the center of the chamber.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I can reach across the light-years, child. But focusing on one mind out of many is far easier when its owner is in front of me. I\u2019d rather not send out a generalized command to everyone, especially since I don\u2019t want any of them wondering how I managed that while dead.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    There he went, calling her \u201cchild\u201d and making her want to smack him again. They were going to have to discuss that. No sooner had she thought that than she heard his silent laughter.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Hey! Don\u2019t be a dick or I\u2019ll have to start thinking about naked men.<\/i> Apparently that was her one way of genuinely horrifying him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    My apologies. On the central pillar, you\u2019ll find a lever. Drawing it down will unshield the core.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra took a deep breath. Moment of truth. Always heard this stuff\u2019d kill ya.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You\u2019ve returned from the dead once already. Don\u2019t be afraid.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She pulled the lever down.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It was\u2026 beautiful. That was her first reaction as the shielding around the pillar opened up. The thing inside \u2013 the core \u2013 was the most beautiful object she\u2019d ever seen. It radiated colors she had no name for. It sang. It filled the air with the scent and taste of the Underverse, stirring her nascent memories even further. She wanted to embrace it, to cradle it in her arms and be wrapped in its<\/i> embrace.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Ohhhhhhh\u2026<\/i> She wasn\u2019t sure if that was her mental voice, or Zhylaw\u2019s. Maybe it was both of them. Did it really matter? Only a few times in her life had anything come close to feeling like this and every single time, she\u2019d woken up from an intense dream gasping with illusory pleasure. This, though, was real. Nothing in her whole life had ever felt this real.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oh God, I can see everything\u2026<\/nobr><\/i> It was overwhelming. She needed to focus on something small. She stared down at her hands, watching as the last of the greens, yellows, and oranges faded away from under her skin. Everything had gone blue. Blue, indigo, violet, ultra<\/i>violet, shading into incredible colors she hadn\u2019t known existed until just now. Underlying it \u2013 back in the world of the flesh \u2013 her hands were perfectly normal-looking, but this new vision felt even more real and more important than that.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You are clean, Kyra Falnour. You have been cleansed, and now you are truly the Lord Martial.<\/i> Zhylaw sounded triumphant.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Around her the room looked as bright as if daylight were pouring in \u2013 or out<\/i>, from the core \u2013 revealing every detail of its walls and floor, and the arched ceiling above. A control panel she hadn\u2019t noticed until then was opposite the door, hidden from direct view by the pillar itself.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    What is that for?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It\u2019s a backup of the main control station. No one but the Lord Martial knows it\u2019s here.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra walked closer to the panel, curious as to what it controlled. And it works? Even with the radiation way up?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It only<\/b> works when the radiation levels are elevated. This dose would be lethal to anyone except the Lord Martial and his chosen successor. Under more ordinary circumstances, this is where we come to perform the transition of power. And this is where we can retreat to, should things go terribly wrong.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It was funny; Kyra felt like she knew this control panel intimately, every single command, every single code. Of course, Zhylaw and the others before him had. Now those memories were within her, waking up and integrating into her mind. With this set of switches, she could remotely destroy any of the ships in her Armada. It had been used only twice, on two occasions when Rykengolls had overrun ships very early in the war. And with this<\/i> lever, shaped like one of the towers\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You can complete the Final Protocol, yes.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    At Zhylaw\u2019s gentle nudge, Kyra turned her attention away from the panel and let it spread out, encompassing the Basilica. There: she could see all of the warriors \u2013 her<\/i> warriors \u2013 and the members of the court, moving calmly about their business as they prepared for the Armada to leave Helion Prime. The final soldiers were boarding, the ones who would have been left stranded by Zhylaw\u2019s earlier panicked order to evacuate. All of them had that same blue about them that she\u2019d observed in her own hands, but none of the more intense, nameless colors. The quasi-dead revealed themselves to her, scattered throughout the ship in pools of deep violet; the lensers looked indigo. And there were the new converts, slowly blue-shifting in suspension. She reached out to them on impulse, caressing them, and saw the shift speed up.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And beyond the ship\u2026<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oh my God.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yes,<\/i> Zhylaw whispered as she took in the horror below them. Now you see.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The planet had been ravaged. Not by the Necromonger invasion; she wasn\u2019t seeing the fallen masonry or scattered bodies. The biosphere had been raped.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    They hid in the sewers, in basements of half-fallen houses that had been concealing them for years. Eyeless horrors, human and otherwise, mewling in the darkness, grafting themselves to one another in hideous, maimed matings. Veins of sickly orange pulsed through them, shading toward red, then toward yellow, colors that until now she\u2019d thought of as warm but which suddenly appeared cold and sickly. They weren\u2019t merely diseased\u2026<\/nobr> they\u2019d been defiled.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Embryonic Rykengolls,<\/i> Zhylaw explained, his voice eerily calm. The blind rising up.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    None of the ones that had once been human, she suddenly realized, were even close to puberty. And they were everywhere, in every major population center on the world. Even the plants\u2026<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Is the whole world like this? Isn\u2019t there anything clean left?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    We\u2019ve taken it all. The lensers found every uninfected survivor, and every survivor whose infection was new enough to reverse, and brought them to us for cleansing and conversion. Including the flora and fauna, yes. We did it while Riddick was on his way to you, and while you and he were on your ways back to us. Few escaped our\u2014<\/nobr> there. look.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And there was one. Small. Tiny, in fact. A sewer rat, emerging from a tunnel that no lenser could have reached or seen into. Its life force was delicate, gentle, a blend of natural colors slowly decaying back to black. She somehow knew that its due time \u2013 if nothing interfered \u2013 was a year away. But just as quickly, she knew that it had scant moments left. The monsters had detected it and were closing in.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She fell to her knees as it happened, as she struggled to reach out across the miles to save it and then realized that she couldn\u2019t touch it. It wasn\u2019t one of her flock. As her gorge rose, she could almost feel Zhylaw\u2019s arms around her, steadying her. She watched as the unclean, infected monstrosities pounced, subduing the rat, tearing out its eyes, ripping open its skin and then grafting it, still alive and struggling, to them\u2026<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And she heard the chant, in a thousand animal languages and dozens of human ones. A chant she remembered. She\u2019d first heard it when she\u2019d still been a slave, and it had been ringing in her ears when she fled Helion Prime with Jack.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oh God, no, not them, no\u2026<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yes. Do you want to save the rat? As much as it can be saved now?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Such a tiny little spark of life, struggling and suffering in the grip of this horrible, seething thing<\/i> that covered the surface of that world. Struggling, suffering, dying as something poisonous seeped into it through the wounds and the grafts\u2026<\/nobr> could she save it?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yes. Yes! Tell me how.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You must complete the Final Protocol.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Grasping the control panel, Kyra pulled herself back up onto her feet. Her awareness of the greater world around her wouldn\u2019t relent. Sickness and rot was everywhere, held back from the ships and towers of the fleet. It hid from the immaculate blue light of the purification spheres that floated above the towers but it seethed close to them, just out of reach of their cleansing rays.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Spread the light,<\/i> Zhylaw urged her again. This world is too far gone for healing, but we can end its pain.<\/i> Even as he spoke to her, he was also sending out a subtle warning to the fleet that it was time to take to the sky and get behind shields. She supposed she ought to be grateful that he wasn\u2019t trying to control her<\/i> in that way.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Outside, she could feel the rat\u2019s terror giving way to despair. In its ears she could hear mangled wailing and warbling surrounding it, tortured vocal chords unified in a demented song. It was a song she knew from\u2026<\/nobr> somewhere\u2026<\/nobr> a familiar tune that she could almost recognize.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    What is it? What are they doing?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    They\u2019re profaning an ancient and sacred song, Kyra. As everything they touch is desecrated.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Now she could recognize it, and could even almost hear the words that were supposed to be beneath it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI once was lost, but now am found,Was blind, but now I\u2014\u201d<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    NO!<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra\u2019s hand slapped down on the miniature tower with panic-fueled strength, desperate to stop the terrible singing. The core blazed, pouring darkness and light into her, through her into the real towers outside. The very fabric of the real ignited and the song ended in a choked gasp. She felt small, powerful detonations in response, closer to the ships; the few Necromongers who hadn\u2019t yet made it behind the shields.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oh no, did I\u2014<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    They\u2019re crossing over into the Underverse. Do not mourn them. Rejoice. Feel what\u2019s happening.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The light poured over the diseased flesh of the world, blasting its way through the flimsy barricades of brick and stone that the monstrosities had used to conceal themselves, scouring the whole world with its power. She felt the rat again, felt its pain and despair end and for an immeasurable instant felt the Underverse embracing it \u2013 and her through it \u2013 before it was gone and she could feel it no more. Here and there, diseased flesh burned away to release a still-intact soul, formerly locked in torment and now springing free. They called her name as they slipped away, gratitude in their spectral voices.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Later, she would look at her chrono and realize that the whole thing had taken less than a minute. But for Kyra Falnour, Lord Martial of the Necromongers, the Cleansing of Helion Prime seemed to last years, centuries, millennia. The light of the spheres touched on every atom of the planet\u2019s surface and scoured deep down, miles upon miles until at last it touched the answering blaze of heat from the planet\u2019s core. Nothing, down to the least virus, went untouched. Everything either crossed the Threshold or burned away.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Afterward she lay quietly on the floor of the reactor, shivering from time to time as aftershocks of the sensory overload rolled over her and piecing together the different things she had seen. Above the hideous subterranean creatures, hiding their charges and themselves \u2013 or so they\u2019d thought \u2013 from the Necromonger patrols, had been almost-normal adult humans in various stages of their own odd transformations. She\u2019d felt them dying, some of them fighting to the bitter end to hold onto the monstrosity that had them in its grasp while others fled toward the light as though waking from a nightmare. A handful had been preparing a ship for launch, deformed creatures hidden in its cabins and cargo holds\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThere was a woman there,\u201d<\/i> the Necromonger had said, \u201cand a child. They\u2019re going somewhere with him\u2026\u201d<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cOh God,\u201d she said aloud, sitting up so quickly that the chamber swam around her for a moment. \u201cRiddick. Who did you take with you?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    But she already knew. There had been no one else left on this world that he would have felt any allegiance to.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It is ever the case, Kyra.<\/i> Zhylaw\u2019s voice was resigned and gentle. They flee before us and carry the plague to new worlds before we can stop it. They are already spreading it offworld years before we come. You had a touch of it, yourself.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I what<\/b>?<\/i> But she remembered the colors fading from her hands. They hadn\u2019t been quite the same putrid shades of the creatures themselves, but they\u2019d been similar to the hues running through some of their adult protectors.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    You were exposed, fortunately after<\/b> you had already reached puberty. You would never have become as they were, but in time you would have been prey to their blandishments. And if you and another exposed person had bred\u2014<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    That\u2019s<\/b> what you mean by breeders!<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She almost glanced over to her side, as though Zhylaw would be sitting there instead of trapped inside her head. But she could still almost see him nodding there, his expression calm and sober. It was better not to look, better not to break the illusion.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    There is no saving a child born of such a union, but we can save the others. Once, long ago, we could save all of them, but that capability has been lost.<\/i> For a moment she could feel his fury and hurt at some old treachery, trust betrayed and a costly lie exposed too late. She\u2019d have to ask him about that sometime. Now we can only follow the plague and cleanse it where we find it.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    That sounded so hopeless.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    We\u2019re catching up to them,<\/i> he told her, as though trying to reassure her. It used to be that we only found and cleansed worlds when they were already fully polluted. This time, we were able to rescue a billion souls. It will get better in time.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Why doesn\u2019t anybody know about this? I\u2019ve never heard of this before.<\/i> Immediately she wanted to take the words back, feeling his amusement at just how limited her knowledge of the universe was and how arrogant she was in her assumptions. As uncomfortable as the intimacy was, she could sense his vast reaches of knowledge and experience. He hadn\u2019t just<\/i> been a man who burned worlds down, in life.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Once, long ago, we tried. We sought more\u2026<\/nobr> diplomatic\u2026<\/nobr> solutions. Those failed. People did not want to do what was necessary. You know perfectly well the inhumane conditions people can be left in, in the name of humane treatment and non-interference. You lived in them for several years.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra shuddered. She remembered them well, and knew that he<\/i> was remembering them through her. All those times she\u2019d prayed for a hull breach or an accident in the mines, just so her Hell would end\u2026.<\/nobr> She\u2019d thought, when she got away at last, that people on the outside would be sympathetic to her ordeal and outraged that it had been allowed; some few even had<\/i> been. But she\u2019d still ended up in prison for the crime of surviving. The rat\u2019s suffering, its despair, was something she\u2019d understood on a visceral level. Once, that had been her. And only a sharpened fragment of hull plating had kept her from meeting an identical fate.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Zhylaw seemed to nod, observing her thoughts with quiet sympathy. If we had found you in that condition and you\u2019d been able to speak to us, what would you have asked?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I\u2019d have asked you to kill me,<\/i> she admitted. She\u2019d almost used that little shiv on herself, until the thought of the next girl the miners would buy resurrected her rage and gave her strength she hadn\u2019t known she still possessed. They\u2019d never had a chance to deliver her to the abominations that had bought her \u201ccontract\u201d from them. Funny how at any other time, the signature of a minor, whether real or forged, was legally invalid\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    We would have. And we did, for those who met that fate, when we wiped the belt of their influence last year.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Wish you\u2019d gotten there sooner,<\/i> she grumbled in her head. For a moment she could have sworn she felt the touch of his hand on her hair.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    So do I. But there\u2019s a limit to our reach. Diseases always spread more quickly than their cures. Still, we will<\/b> cure this.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Why do they cut out their victims\u2019 eyes?<\/i> she suddenly asked. It had been gnawing at her for a while.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The transformation destroys the eyes, no matter what. It alters the whole nervous system, but the eyes are the first to go. They made a ceremony out of it, possibly to conceal what\u2019s really<\/b> happening. But it doesn\u2019t stop them from seeing. As you already know.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She wanted to deny it. She wanted to argue that she knew nothing of the kind. But she\u2019d met them even before this day of days, and had seen the way their eyeless faces seemed to track the motion of everything around them. Her superstitious terror of them, her conviction that they could<\/i> see in spite of their obvious blindness, had probably saved her life when she fled the belt. And then she\u2019d met one again almost four years ago, not yet eyeless or deformed, right here on the world that she\u2019d just incinerated. But most of all, she\u2019d touched<\/i> them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    As she\u2019d tried to free the little rat from them and heard their terrible song, her psyche had brushed up against theirs. Only half a year ago, while crawling through the pitch-black lava tubes of Crematoria, she\u2019d accidentally put her hand in the rotting corpse of a fellow prisoner who had been killed and partially eaten by one of the hellhounds. The touch of these things on her mind brought back the illness and revulsion of that moment, the sense that she might never be clean again. It had been wiped away by the purifying fire, but it wasn\u2019t the only thing she\u2019d felt in that brief contact.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Because, eyeless as they were, she\u2019d felt them looking back at her. And she\u2019d glimpsed, just for a second, the malignant intelligence that moved them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oh God, Riddick. Don\u2019t let them take you. Don\u2019t let them touch<\/b> you\u2026<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She hoped it wasn\u2019t already too late for him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    <\/div><\/span>\r\n
    \r\n

    \u00ab Chapter 3<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>\r\n

    Chapter 5 \u00bb<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>

    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n
    \r\n
    \r\n

    \u00ab Chapter 4<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>\r\n

    Chapter 6 \u00bb<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>

    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    5.The Smallest Sentinel<\/u><\/b><\/h2>\r\n\r\n

    Of all the complications anyone had expected to deal with at the space station \u2013 mercs, Necromongers, meddling customs officers or shady space captains \u2013 nobody had thought that the biggest drama would be caused by the puppy. And really, it wasn\u2019t. He<\/i> wasn\u2019t the one howling.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cHe\u2019s mine!<\/i> It\u2019s not fair!\u201d<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Riddick winced and reminded himself that \u2013 generally speaking \u2013 he liked<\/i> kids. Ziza had a yell that he was pretty sure could jostle seismographs. He could feel Lajjun\u2019s eyes on him, and was just as sure that the odd prickle on the back of his neck meant the spook was staring at him, too.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cAin\u2019t that simple, kid,\u201d he told her. He\u2019d already told her this three times. \u201cSee that sign?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Ziza rolled her eyes. That was right; most kids her age couldn\u2019t read very well. He had no idea who\u2019d taught him how to \u2013 it had happened in a part of his life that was lost in a suspicious murk \u2013 but he\u2019d have had no trouble with any of the signs in this space station when he\u2019d been half<\/i> her age. Not that anybody had known that about him\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Focus, asshole.<\/i> \u201cIt says all animals have to go through quarantine. If we take him off my ship, that includes him. And that means you have to spend a month on the station until they clear him.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He knew damn well that Lajjun didn\u2019t have the spare cash to pay for rooms at the station \u2013 much less the boarding fee for a puppy in quarantine \u2013 even if a transport to Alpha Tauri V wasn\u2019t leaving in eight hours. He wasn\u2019t sure why they\u2019d want to go to a place like that; he was thinking longingly of getting back to his cozy little hideout circling Lambda Orionis, just as soon as he got this whole Jack situation settled.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Ziza threw a pleading look at her mother but got an impatient head-shake in answer.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWe have discussed this, Ziza,\u201d Lajjun said. Of course, by discussed<\/i> she meant that Ziza had been told \u201cno\u201d during their initial debarkation, several times during the criminally expensive lunch they\u2019d eaten together in the station commissary, and several more times while Lajjun was negotiating ticket prices for their passage on the Nebula Queen<\/i>.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cBut he\u2019s mine!\u201d<\/i> the girl insisted again. \u201cI saw him first!\u201d<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Riddick couldn\u2019t really fault her on that one; he\u2019d roomed with way too many convicts who had never progressed past that particular concept, and lots of so-called upstanding citizens didn\u2019t seem to have done so either. But it wasn\u2019t going to win the day here, even if the whole issue of money wasn\u2019t a factor.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cDoesn\u2019t matter\u2014\u201d<\/nobr> he began, and both Lajjun and Aereon shot him alarmed, quelling looks. They could tell that he was getting dangerously close to shedding his thin veneer of civility and telling her the brutal truth: that the puppy didn\u2019t like<\/i> her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThe Nebula Queen<\/i> can\u2019t accommodate dogs, Ziza.\u201d That was Aereon, helpfully talking right over the little girl\u2019s head. Hadn\u2019t she ever dealt with kids before? The last two days of travel had convinced him that she probably hadn\u2019t.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Ziza had an even lower opinion. \u201cYou\u2019re just using big words to make me feel stu\u2014\u201d<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cGood afternoon, visitors!\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Fuck!<\/i> He\u2019d been so caught up in the argument that his guard had dropped, and he hadn\u2019t even noticed the well-coiffed man with matching plastic clipboard and smile until this second. If it had been a merc instead of a crewmate on the Queen,<\/i> he\u2019d have been dead. Lajjun and Ziza both jumped, equally startled, but he managed to contain his reaction. Part of him wanted to glare at the man and chase him off for interrupting, but the rest of him was relieved. Maybe the boarding process would finally get this argument shelved.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cGood afternoon,\u201d Aereon replied in her infuriatingly serene way.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Bitch probably saw him comin\u2019 and didn\u2019t say anything.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Riddick took a good look at the man. Odds were they\u2019d never see each other again but if they did, he needed to recognize him and remember which names had been used and which lies had been told. From the looks of him, he was ship\u2019s crew. Early twenties, with gray eyes and sandy hair that gradually darkened towards its roots. His ship uniform was tight in places, stretching over a body slightly more muscular than it was designed for, but it was the kind of musculature acquired in a gym rather than from manual labor. The hands on the clipboard were uncalloused, and his bright white smile spoke of regular dental work. He probably surfed or something when he wasn\u2019t crewing his ship.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The man seemed to be used to dealing with angry and upset passengers and didn\u2019t even try to ask what was wrong. Instead, he went straight into his spiel. \u201cWelcome to the Nebula Queen,<\/i> one of the finest resettlement transports in the quadrant.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Translation: most of the passengers are free citizens, and there\u2019s probably less than a one in twenty chance that you won\u2019t wake up from cryo.<\/i> From what Riddick had been able to dig up, it was in the same class as the Hunter-Gratzner<\/i>, with the added advantage of not actually taking the ghost lanes.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Except, of course, that more and more lanes were becoming ghost lanes every year. He had a good idea of why that was, now.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI\u2019m Cyrus Manadoc, your docking pilot. If you\u2019d like to step this way and present your tickets, we can begin the boarding procedures.\u201d Manadoc gestured at an archway up ahead. The words Only Ticketed Passengers Past This Point<\/b> were emblazoned on either side of the arch in a dozen languages per side.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He\u2019d heard Carolyn Fry giving a similar speech to passengers as Johns had wheeled him on board the Hunter-Gratzner.<\/i> From her voice, he\u2019d expected her to be a whole lot bigger than she\u2019d turned out to be. Like Fry, Manadoc would probably stop admitting passengers in another hour or two and turn that job over to the navigator, so he could make his preflight checks and catch some rest before maneuvering the ship away from the station. Nothing had changed while he\u2019d been gone.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Bullshit. A whole lot\u2019s changed. Just \u2019cause they\u2019re still usin\u2019 the same rituals while they circle the drain doesn\u2019t mean anything.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Lajjun had brought out her tickets and was offering them to Manadoc, along with her and Ziza\u2019s identity papers. The pilot took them and his professional composure faltered for a moment as he read their planet of origin.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou\u2019re from Helion Prime?\u201d His eyes had widened. Riddick tensed, but the man\u2019s expression was astonished, not alarmed. \u201cWe haven\u2019t had anyone come in from there in more than a week! The last ones said the planet was under attack. What happened?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cIt took us a while to get here,\u201d Riddick said before Lajjun could answer. He still didn\u2019t trust her to keep the stories straight. \u201cWe didn\u2019t see much, and barely got off before all Hell broke loose. Somebody was attacking, that much we knew for certain. So I did some cautious flying to make sure we weren\u2019t followed.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Fortunately Manadoc was looking at him as he talked, because both Lajjun and Ziza had begun staring at him in surprise. They hadn\u2019t expected him to do his best impersonation of Paris Ogilvie, but the man\u2019s accent and mannerisms seemed to him to be the best ones for the moment. He\u2019d practiced it a few times, but only for the puppy while the others \u2013 even Aereon \u2013 slept. Probably he should have warned them.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Nah.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cSmart move,\u201d Manadoc said, and gestured at him expectantly. Baffled, Riddick raised an eyebrow at him. \u201cYour ticket?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cOh, no, I\u2019m not with them. We have different destinations now. I just wanted to see them safely aboard.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWe have another destination,\u201d Aereon added before the pilot could ask her for her<\/i> ticket.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He shot the spook a look. Wherever you\u2019re going, it won\u2019t be with me.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou\u2019re a good man,\u201d Manadoc told him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cNo he isn\u2019t! He\u2019s a thief!\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    God damn<\/b> it, Ziza\u2026<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cA thief?\u201d Manadoc looked dubious. That effete, cultured Ogilvie accent was good for something.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cHe stole my puppy!\u201d Great, she was probably going to keep whining until cryosleep kicked in. At least it wasn\u2019t his problem anymore.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI\u2019m very sorry, Mr. Toombs,\u201d Lajjun said. She, at least, hadn\u2019t forgotten the script. Her apologetic smile to the pilot was genuine. \u201cWe rescued a little dog on our way to our ship, and took it off-world with us. But since we don\u2019t have the time or money for quarantine, it must stay with Mr. Toombs now instead of coming with us. My daughter is just upset about that.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s my<\/i> puppy!\u201d Ziza glared at Riddick. \u201cYou are<\/i> a monster! A mean old monster!\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cEnough, Ziza!\u201d Lajjun looked mortified.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Ziza rubbed at her eyes. The pilot probably thought they were red from crying over losing the puppy, but Riddick hadn\u2019t seen her shed a tear all day. Her eyes had been clear when they\u2019d gotten off of the ship just a few hours earlier, and he hadn\u2019t noticed them getting redder until now.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Looks like her eye infection\u2019s back. No wonder she\u2019s feeling crabby.<\/i> It was enough to make him feel sorry for Lajjun, since she was going to have to handle Ziza\u2019s tantrums all on her own now.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Manadoc just grinned. \u201cAww, I know I\u2019ve<\/i> been called a whole lot worse than that. No hard feelings, right, Mr. Toombs?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThat isn\u2019t even his real name!\u201d Ziza shouted as he began to reply. \u201cYou want to know what he\u2019s really<\/i> called? It\u2019s\u2014\u201d<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Lajjun gasped and clapped her hand over Ziza\u2019s mouth, reducing almost all of the girl\u2019s next words to an unintelligible mumble. Almost.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201c\u2014dick\u2014\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Lajjun\u2019s expression turned into one of absolute panic. Riddick could swear he felt his veins icing over.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    There were three exits out of this area: two to his right and one behind him. The security guards were most likely to come from the one behind him, if summoned; he\u2019d have to go right, take a circuitous route around the station, and hijack someone else\u2019s ship. The odds of managing to do that were slim to none; this place was jittery with the news of Helion Prime\u2019s fall, and there were extra security officers stationed at practically every corner. And he wasn\u2019t even armed\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Manadoc laughed. \u201cI don\u2019t know about you, Mr. Toombs, but I\u2019ve still<\/i> been called a whole lot worse than that<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    I could almost thank God for that\u2026<\/nobr><\/i> He wasn\u2019t going to have to kill the man. Good. Manadoc seemed like a decent enough guy.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Lajjun was shaking as she knelt down in front of Ziza, her hand still over the little girl\u2019s mouth. Her voice was brittle with fear and anger as she spoke; obviously she knew how close her daughter had come to starting a bloodbath. \u201cZiza, how dare<\/i> you say such a thing? I don\u2019t want to hear another word out of you, do you understand? No more! I will get you another puppy when we reach our new home, but only if you are silent now. Do you understand me?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Ziza seemed to know that she\u2019d grabbed onto a powerful weapon when she\u2019d tried to say his name. For a moment, mother and daughter stared at each other, eyes locked. Then the girl slowly deflated and nodded against her mother\u2019s hand.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    That\u2019s it. I\u2019m getting off this fuckin\u2019 station before that kid can run her mouth again.<\/i> He\u2019d planned to, anyway, and had made arrangements for his ship to be refueled and re-supplied before he got back to it, but he wasn\u2019t going to waste even a second here now.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI must take my leave,\u201d he announced in Ogilvie\u2019s mincing tones, very glad that he could hide his own reactions behind the performance. \u201cI have my own departure window, and it\u2019s opening soon. I wish you two the best in your new home.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He gave them a courteous Paris-esque smile and bow, catching a speculative and admiring look from Manadoc at the same time. Shit, is that what this impersonation says I am?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He decided to run with it. No merc who\u2019d studied his record would ever believe that about him, so if any of them ever interviewed Manadoc, the trail would promptly go cold. He smiled and winked at the guy before turning away.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cSee you around the space lanes,\u201d Manadoc called after him, his voice both flirtatious and hopeful.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Yeah, I hope not.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He was relieved to see that Aereon wasn\u2019t following him and had stayed to talk to Lajjun. That\u2019d give him a head start if she had any designs on staying with him. Once he was almost to his ship, he called the control tower and asked for the earliest departure window he could get. The one they had available was so<\/i> soon that he barely got through his pre-flight checks before it opened. The departure course took him looping past the berth of the Nebula Queen.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    So long, kiddo. Go ahead and say my name now, if you really want to.<\/i> He had no intention of ever being seen by any of them again.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Course laid in, he got some of the new rations out of storage for himself and dragged out a bag of kibble for the puppy. It emerged from the back room at his whistle, looking a little bleary and tired.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cC\u2019mere, pup. We still have to figure out a name for you.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Jack was out of the question if the girl was still alive. He hadn\u2019t forgiven the Holy Man enough to name anything he liked after him, and he had no idea what the Furyan he\u2019d met on Crematoria had gone by. He wasn\u2019t sure why it was so important to give the pup a good name, or why he felt such a need to name it after someone. A cursory run-through of the names he could think of reminded him of just how few people he actually liked in the \u2019verse.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cGot any ideas? Suggest \u2019em now.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The puppy had barely eaten any of its food, but it seemed to be done. It plodded its way over to Riddick\u2019s feet and whined. Damn, the little guy sounded tired. Riddick picked it up and set it on his lap. Was it sick with something? Mastiff pups were tricky, from what he could recall. Their energy often ran out fast at this age. Maybe the little guy had been romping before he got back?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The pup whimpered and looked up at him and he felt an echo of his earlier chill. Its eyes were rimmed with red. It scrubbed at one of them with its paw.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cHow the fuck could you catch Ziza\u2019s eye infection, pup?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The look it gave him was pleading. He swiveled his chair around toward the console. Maybe there was something in the databases about eye infections, because it was going to be at least a week before they got near a vet. His hand started to reach for the controls before suddenly dropping back to the arm-rest.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oh shit.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He knew this floaty feeling. Worse yet, he knew the tingling sensation that was building in his chest. He\u2019d already experienced it twice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Turn around. Turn around.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He had to get himself pointed away from the controls, and get the puppy off of his lap. Whatever the hell it was that he\u2019d done, first back on Crematoria and then in the Battle Room of the Basilica, it was about to happen again. It would fry the controls and probably kill the puppy at the same time.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    What the fuck? No! God, not now!<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    His arms and legs wouldn\u2019t move. He couldn\u2019t turn or push the puppy off of his lap. Struggling against the rising impulse was like struggling not to breathe. He could hold it back for maybe another minute or two, but it was going to break loose.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The puppy would die. He<\/i> would die. Whatever this energy burst was, it would fry the ship\u2019s electronics and possibly even breach the hull. He had to stop it, had to turn away. But his body wouldn\u2019t move. He was paralyzed, the way he often was in his worst nightmares of roaring skies, the rhythmic march of booted feet, and a woman\u2019s screams\u2014<\/nobr><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Fuck! Don\u2019t do this, don\u2019t let it out\u2026<\/nobr><\/i> The floaty feeling had intensified when he\u2019d thought of those nightmares, and the tingle was growing. His hands spasmed against the arm-rest but he still had no control over them. On his lap, the puppy whined and lifted its red-rimmed eyes to meet his. Shit, kid, I\u2019m sor\u2014<\/nobr><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He felt something explode out from him. It was the last thing he felt for a while.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Consciousness returned slowly. He was in almost complete darkness. There was no vibration, no sense of motion. He exhaled and felt more than saw the condensation of his breath. But he could see it, he realized. It was catching the light of something.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He glanced down at the control panel.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    System check complete.No damage detected.Press OK to re-initialize all subsystems.<\/tt><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    For a moment he wanted to ask the stupid screen just where the fuck the OK<\/tt> button was, and then realized that it was one of the only three lit buttons on the console, along with ABORT<\/tt> and RECHECK<\/tt>. He pressed it and felt the engines rumble back to life. The lights flickered back on, one bank at a time, and he felt a warm breeze against his chilled skin.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The ship had come through undamaged. He would live.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Fuck, what about the puppy?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He could feel the warmth of its little body on his thighs, but he wasn\u2019t sure whether that was a sign of life or just a sign that he\u2019d been insulated from the cold in that one spot. Just how much effort it took him to look down surprised him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cAre you with me, pup?\u201d Fuck, why had he phrased it like that?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Just when he thought the answer was no, the puppy opened its eyes and looked up at him. His heart jolted, hard.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The red rims were gone.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It snuffled his hand and then licked it before jumping down to the floor and waddling over to the food bowl. This time it ate heartily, even though he could hear bits of ice crunching as it chewed.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Just what the hell did I do?<\/b><\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He tried to figure it out while he ran a few system checks of his own and replotted the course to Pynchon, but he couldn\u2019t make sense of it. When it finally occurred to him to check for that crazy handprint on his chest, it had already faded if it had even been there at all. And he still had no explanation.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    This thing fried the Necro weapons, first on Crematoria and then on their damn ship, but this time it didn\u2019t do any damage at all. It knocked soldiers off their feet but didn\u2019t hurt a puppy\u2026<\/nobr> hell, I think it may have cured the pup\u2019s eye infection. What the fuck works like that?<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Maybe Audrey Jackson-Badura would have some ideas from her medical learnings when he finally caught up with her. He\u2019d give her bonus points if she could come up with a good name for his dog.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cJust so you know,\u201d he told the little guy as it made its way back over to his feet, \u201cI ain\u2019t naming you Lazarus.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He lifted the pup back into his lap.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cOr Kenny,\u201d he added after another moment\u2019s thought.<\/p><\/span>\r\n

    \r\n

    \u00ab Chapter 4<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>\r\n

    Chapter 6 \u00bb<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>

    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\n
    \r\n
    \r\n

    \u00ab Chapter 5<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>\r\n

     <\/p><\/span><\/div>

    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n

    6.
    The Cipher\u2019s Warning<\/u><\/b><\/h2>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cHave you given any more thought to what I asked you?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    On the vid screen, Menefee \u2013 Carl<\/i>, but she found that thinking of him as a Carl was much like thinking of Riddick as a Richard \u2013 smiled at Audrey. \u201cOh, I\u2019ve done better than that. I asked him.<\/i> And he wants to talk to you.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It had come as a surprise to her when, only two days ago, he had mentioned in passing \u2013 in one of their conversations that were growing increasingly personal \u2013 that he had been assigned to defend a father who had killed his two small children. And not just a<\/i> father, but the<\/i> father who had stammered out a heart-freezing phrase to her while covered in their blood. It had also shocked her just how much she wanted to talk to the man again. \u201cReally?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYeah. But.\u201d The smile had fallen away, replaced with a more serious look that she recognized as Menefee\u2019s all-business mode. \u201cThere are a few ground rules.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Well, shit.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It must have shown on her face. \u201cNot actually his. I think he just needs to talk, tell his story. But that\u2019s the thing. I have to defend him, and I have to do it to the best of my ability. So the rules are mine<\/i>, and they\u2019re for his protection.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She wasn\u2019t sure if that was better or worse. \u201cOkay?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cFirst: you can\u2019t talk to him alone. I have to be present,\u201d he told her, his voice firm. Then it softened. A little. \u201cAnd just so you don\u2019t think I\u2019m being a dick for no reason, here\u2019s why. As long as I\u2019m in the room with him, attorney-client privilege comes into play. What he says and does can\u2019t be recorded and used as evidence at trial. So maybe you wanted a private conversation with him, but there\u2019s gonna be a third party in the room no matter what, and between me and the surveillance system, I pick me.<\/i> And so do you if you want to see him.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThat makes perfect sense.\u201d And, in truth, as much as she wanted to talk to the man, she realized that she didn\u2019t<\/i> want to be all alone with him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cGood. Second: if I tell you not to follow a line of questioning, you don\u2019t. There are some things that he could say that even attorney-client privilege won\u2019t protect, and if I know them, I\u2019m obligated to report them. I\u2019ve explained that to him. The standard plea deal in his kind of situation is an insanity defense, and God knows way too many of the people who came from the Coalsack could use it. But last year, a colleague of mine was defending this\u2026 schmuck\u2026<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Audrey suddenly wondered if Menefee was Jewish. For Pynchon, outside of refugee territory, he was somewhat exotic, and she couldn\u2019t pinpoint his ethnicity any better than she\u2019d been able to figure out Riddick\u2019s once upon a time. Funny how the rest of the Menefee clan \u2013 lawyers and prominent politicians, for the most part \u2013 seemed completely white-bread. But Carl Menefee, public defender, was an enigma among them, both in his appearance and in his choices. The family Black Sheep, maybe?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    On her screen, he shook his head, grimacing. \u201c\u2026And the jackass blew his whole case when they were talking about favorite books. He mentioned that when he was a teenager, his absolute favorite book, his comfort read,<\/i> was The Darkest Sword<\/i> by D. G. Kirk. You ever read that one?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Audrey shook her head.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s a psychological thriller. But the thing is, this bastard\u2019s wife died from long-term exposure to arsenic contamination in their house\u2019s water pipes, something that was initially ruled as an accident until her family found out that he was the beneficiary of a huge<\/i> life insurance policy that had only been taken out a year earlier, right before she started displaying early signs of low-grade arsenic poisoning. My buddy thought he was gonna have an easy time proving that the family\u2019s accusations were total bull until he brought up that book.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhy?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cBecause that\u2019s how the antihero in the book killed his enemy. Slow, low-grade arsenic poisoning. Kaz suddenly realized that the book was a bloody blueprint for that idiot\u2019s murder of his wife. And it\u2019s not true on every planet, but here on Pynchon, if a defense attorney acquires evidence that could be used to prove first-degree murder and doesn\u2019t turn it over, they can be disbarred.\u201d He grimaced and shook his head. \u201cWhich in a case like that, who gives a damn, right? That bastard deserves<\/i> life with no parole. But I\u2019ve defended a lot of victims of domestic violence who killed their abusers, and thank God<\/i> none of them have ever accidentally handed me proof that they\u2019d planned<\/i> their lethal act of self-defense ahead of time.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Audrey suddenly remembered how one of the first things he\u2019d told Kyra, when he\u2019d been appointed as her counsel, was that he didn\u2019t want her telling anyone, not even or maybe especially<\/i> not him, about any violent fantasies she\u2019d ever had about her \u201cadoptive family,\u201d as the prosecution insisted on referring to those scum-sucking miners. Damn, so that was why.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cSo you don\u2019t want me asking him anything that could\u2026 suggest he planned to kill his kids or that he was sane when he decided to do it?\u201d Easy enough. She knew, better than he did, what had driven the murders, and sanity had no part of it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    That dark, terrible night, years ago, Kyra had kicked the knife out of Ziza\u2019s small hand, something that had made the little girl howl with anger and pain and finally<\/i> wakened her parents from their oblivious slumber. Shouting and recriminations had followed in spite of the knife lying in plain sight on the floor. Audrey had always wondered what might have happened if disarming her hadn\u2019t been so easy\u2026 if one of them had been forced to turn the blade back on her. If they hadn\u2019t fled Helion soon after, might there have been another night that had ended in a terrible mirror of the Purdy incident?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It had been the last night that they\u2019d slept alone in separate rooms, no matter how many times Abu or Lajjun scolded them. Even locks on the outsides of their doors hadn\u2019t stopped Kyra from simply going out her window and, via a series of heart-stopping acrobatics that Audrey herself had never dared,<\/i> coming back in through hers. Those last nights, as New Mecca\u2019s high summer reigned, had been full of whispered conversations, increasingly urgent plans, and moments of intimacy that even now stunned her with their power\u2014<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThat\u2019s exactly it, yeah,\u201d Menefee told her, jarring her back out of her memories before they could take her anywhere dangerous. \u201cThe last thing is that when we go in, I need you to pose as my legal aid. And not to talk to anybody. If they think I\u2019m bringing in some random lookie-loo, there goes attorney-client privilege all over again. As long as they think you\u2019re part of the defense team, though, we\u2019re good. So just\u2026 act like you\u2019re some paralegal I\u2019ve drafted and don\u2019t say more than \u2018excuse me\u2019 or \u2018thank you\u2019 to anybody<\/i> when we\u2019re in surveillance zones.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cOkay.\u201d It looked, she thought with a suppressed shiver, like she was going to have to go with the plan that had occurred to her two days ago. If she could. But would she be able<\/i> to? \u201cSo how would a paralegal dress, and what would she be carrying with her if security was poking around in her stuff?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She was subtle. Her mother, gods rest her, would have said she was sneaky.<\/i> A few back-and-forths later, in the midst of having him pick out what she should wear and what kind of materials he would give her to tote with them as his Girl Friday, she\u2019d confirmed that nobody \u2013 not even, it seemed, him \u2013 would think twice if she brought an insulated cup of coffee or tea with her. And he\u2019d agreed to pick her up in the morning.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And then she was in her tiny kitchenette, brewing a tea that she could barely stand to be in the same room with.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    People swore by it. It was medicinal, they claimed, and her textbooks hadn\u2019t disagreed so far. But the smell\u2026<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It wasn\u2019t quite the same as the scent that had sometimes come in on the night breezes those final weeks in New Mecca. But it was far, far too close for her liking. The first time she\u2019d caught a whiff of it on Pynchon, in a farmer\u2019s market near her father\u2019s and stepmother\u2019s home, she\u2019d almost had a very public panic attack.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The first time she\u2019d smelled the other scent, the one so much like it but \u2026different\u2026 had been the day she and Kyra had skipped school to look for Djamila.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    They had tried<\/i> to make friends with the girls on Helion, the girls in their school, but most of them had just been too sheltered, too sure of how the worlds worked, to feel comfortable with. Their own traumas were still fresh, their experiences with the \u2019verse so contradictory to how the girls insisted it worked, that it was hard to sit still and listen to them hold forth. Maybe that kind of complacency had been part of why, even when the disappearances were beginning, everyone kept finding plausible explanations. The harder and more real world that Jack \u2013 she had still been Jack, then \u2013 and Kyra knew was one they refused to acknowledge. But Djamila had been different. She had seemed to understand, and had kept the door open for them even when other girls would have shut them out.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And then she<\/i> disappeared.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The first day, nobody thought much of it. Spring had been shading into summer and with warmer weather came both a rise in respiratory infections \u2013 Audrey had once meant to find out why that was, but she had forgotten until now \u2013 and a rise in deliberate truancy. Most of the initial excuses for why she was gone were both banal and plausible.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    But the days stretched into a week, and that week into the weekend when the concert that Djamila had planned to attend \u2013 and which dozens of girls had desperately wanted to go to but hadn\u2019t managed to buy tickets for \u2013 was held. Jack and Kyra had gone, courtesy of tickets gifted to them by Abu and Lajjun when they were still feeling generous, and Djamila\u2019s seat had been empty. If she had known she wouldn\u2019t be able to make it, Jack had insisted during the ride back to town, there were a dozen classmates she could have easily sold her ticket to, not to mention three or four close friends, any of whose eternal devotion she could have ensured, if she\u2019d given it to one of them. Kyra had nodded silently, thoughtfully, beside her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The \u201crational\u201d explanations of the other girls rang hollower and hollower, until finally she and Kyra decided to go to Djamila\u2019s house and find out the truth for themselves.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    They had been to the girl\u2019s house once, months earlier, for her birthday party. It had been a well-tended garden home in one of the more affluent parts of New Mecca, much like the Al-Walid house but on the other side of the large swathe of public gardens that dominated the city center. That day, though, it looked derelict, abandoned\u2026 like a shell that would soon collapse from hidden rot. The silence surrounding it was strange and oppressive. Jack would have forged on, determined to break in and see if it really was abandoned, if Djamila\u2019s family had simply chosen to move and not tell anybody, until Kyra\u2019s hand clamped, iron-hard, on her elbow.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cDo you smell that?\u201d the sister of her heart had asked, an uncharacteristic quaver in her voice.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And then she did<\/i> smell it\u2026 the strange, almost undefinable scent that had filled her nose and lodged in her throat. Musty, rich, hideous, a scent that evoked a primal desire to run. She had controlled it, but had let Kyra pull her away. It was coming from the house, from somewhere within<\/i> the house. And in spite of the stillness and the silence, Jack had had the terrible feeling that something, perhaps the house itself, was watching them as they backed away. It took all of her will not to break into a panicked run.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Djamila never returned.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    That summer, as the days somehow grew darker and they began to plot their own<\/i>, very different, disappearance, the nights had been full of the scents of a New Mecca summer, a mixture of redolent oasis flowers from the nearby public gardens and cooking spices from the nearby market. Even now, those scents could stir a wistful nostalgia in Audrey\u2019s heart, a burning longing for a dream of sanctuary that had died in its nascence. But sometimes, the wind would shift. And then the breezes would bring another scent, that<\/i> scent, in through Jack\u2019s open window. And beside her, on the bed, Kyra would shudder and pull in on herself, her hand stealing for the knife that she\u2019d taken to keeping squirreled in her clothes at all times\u2026<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It was also a scent that had begun to drift into the Al-Walid house from two other, more terrible directions: the cellar that Lajjun no longer let either girl into\u2026 and Ziza\u2019s room.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Its cousin wafted into Audrey\u2019s nose now and she suppressed the urge to retch. Friends of hers swore<\/i> by this tea, she reminded herself. She\u2019d never been able to stomach the idea of drinking it. She hoped she wouldn\u2019t have to drink any in the morning, and that carrying the cup or, at most, pantomiming a sip from time to time, would be enough.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    By morning, she was convinced that the tea\u2019s stench had taken over her whole small living space. She showered, trying to scrub the odor back out of her pores, and then put on the dress she hadn\u2019t worn since she\u2019d last gone job-hunting. Half an hour later, she looked as professional as she possibly could\u2026 but she was convinced that she still stank of the damned tea. She hoped she was imagining it. Where the tea was concerned, she needed the element of surprise. Reeking of it when she walked in would definitely spoil that.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Menefee \u2013 Carl,<\/i> and she really needed to think of him that way more \u2013 didn\u2019t seem to notice anything unusual\u2026 past the fact that she was wearing a dress. She had to admit that he cut quite a figure as well in his Public Defender suit. She had learned enough about telling apart the haves and have-nots, during her time on the run, that she could recognize how much more expensive it was than most of the suits his colleagues wore. It was subtle, but she bet it helped him a lot in the courtroom.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou look perfect,\u201d he told her, putting a slim leather briefcase into her free hand without a glance at the perfectly ordinary-looking thermal mug she carried in the other. \u201cExactly right for the part.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThanks! You look\u2026\u201d She considered and discarded a dozen all-too-revealing adjectives. \u201c\u2026incredibly<\/nobr> dashing, by the way.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He smiled. That smile was something that she was a little obsessed with, she realized. It reminded her of the all-too-rare moments during her acquaintance with Riddick when he<\/i> had cracked a smile or even laughed. She didn\u2019t know how anybody could stand up to him, in or out of court, when he smiled like that.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Carl drove. His vehicle was large, very new, and handled so smoothly that Audrey found herself itching to get behind the wheel. She wished<\/i> her ambulance had shocks this good, and the fifth-hand jalopy she used when she was staying with her father and stepmother was a rattletrap. If things really were evolving with Carl in the way they seemed to be, she was a little surprised. People in his social class didn\u2019t usually tend to date outside of it. She needed to stay cautious in case she was reading too much into his friendliness\u2026 and into how many of their conversations were no longer about the Free Kyra cause but more personal topics.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The New Detroit courthouse was a huge, resplendent edifice and Audrey hated it. She and her family had come here every day to fight for Kyra\u2019s freedom, only to be crushed under the heel of a justice system that seemed archaically convinced that little girls should shoulder the blame for the perversions of the \u2019verse. Now that she was back in it, she remembered that nobody was going to care about her coffee mug, much less what was inside it. Any other kind of contraband \u2013 and that wasn\u2019t really what it was, was it? \u2013 would probably have been flagged immediately, but she didn\u2019t even have to pretend to sip at it. Every third person in the building was carrying one much like hers.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The worst part was the interview room. It was the same one where she and Kyra had said their good-byes, after everything fell apart. Carl\u2019s hand rested gently on her shoulder and gave it a small squeeze. He must be remembering, too, she thought, and wondered how much he\u2019d deduced from their final, tearful embraces. Most of the tears had, of course, been hers. Kyra had never been a cryer, or even much of a hugger except with her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    They sat down on one side of the table, the side with its back to a one-way mirror that observers could stand behind. Carl turned and looked at the one of the small, silver globes in each corner of the room.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI am Carl Menefee, defense attorney for Yeshua Parvinal. This session is protected by attorney-client privilege and cannot be surveilled or observed by anyone associated with the prosecution. Observing this session or attempting to use information gleaned from it, without the knowledge or consent of my client or me, is a class three felony under the Pynchon legal code.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The little red lights by each of the camera globes winked out. Audrey heard the soft click of a door closing in the observation room behind them. A moment later, two guards led Parvinal in, seating him across from them and securing his handcuffs to the tabletop.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It really was<\/i> a defense session, too. Carl and Parvinal talked about several things before it was her turn, and she listened with interest. She hadn\u2019t been in the room during many of his sessions with Kyra, and she had often missed these parts of the sessions. She wished she\u2019d seen them, because now she understood why, although Kyra had had no faith in Pynchon\u2019s justice system, Carl Menefee had been one of the only men she\u2019d ever genuinely trusted.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cAnd now,\u201d Carl finally said, \u201cAudrey, here, wants to talk to you.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Parvinal, who had spent most of the time with his head tilted down a little, raised his head and looked at her with wan curiosity. \u201cHello, Audrey. Mr. Menefee tells me that you were the ambulance driver who took my Suri to the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Suri Parvinal had had to be sedated twice before they turned her over to the hospital attendants, as Audrey recalled. She\u2019d wondered how sane she<\/i> would be in that position, because Suri had kept being set off every time she looked down at her nightgown and saw her children\u2019s blood sprayed across it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And this was the man who had done that.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He didn\u2019t look<\/i> like a killer. But then, most killers didn\u2019t. She knew that all too well. He looked like the sort of man who might do someone\u2019s taxes once a year and just vanish into the crowd the rest of the time, timid and unremarkable. His eyes were clear, though, and full of deep sadness. He was grieving, she realized.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI wanted to ask you,\u201d Audrey said carefully, making sure to meet his eyes the whole time, \u201cabout the Church of the Rykengoll and the Clement Institute.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Across from her, Parvinal flinched, just a little, at each name. In the reflection of the window behind him, she could see Carl staring at her in confusion.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWe\u2026 weren\u2019t members of that church,\u201d Parvinal said after a brief hesitation, and she could hear distaste in his words. \u201cSuri wanted to join, but I put my foot down. It was too\u2026 it wasn\u2019t a place I wanted to go. Our kids\u2014\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    His voice broke on the word and he took a deep breath.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201c\u2026They were enrolled in one of the Institute\u2019s nursery schools.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhat did you think of it?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cSuri handled all of the childcare decisions. She said it was nice.\u201d Across from her, she watched his face twist with complex grief and fear. Grieving the loss of his children, dead at his hand but maybe lost much sooner than that. Grieving the loss of a wife who maybe hated him now. Grieving the loss of a life in which innocent children went to innocent-seeming schools and nothing rough was slouching closer beneath the fa\u00e7ade\u2026<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    But did he know what he was afraid of? \u201cDid you ever read any of their literature?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He should his head. So he didn\u2019t know. He hadn\u2019t heard that awful phrase before, not until his own children began chanting it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Would things have played out differently if he\u2019d known it was some kind of twisted company slogan connecting the Church and the Institute? Would he have excused it and gone back to bed that night? Or\u2026<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhere did the knife come from?\u201d It wasn\u2019t a question she had planned on asking. She felt Carl\u2019s arm tense up where it rested against hers. In a moment, he might cut her off, depending on where the answer seemed to be leading.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Parvinal shrugged. \u201cThe kitchen, probably.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cDon\u2019t you know?\u201d So it had<\/i> played out the way she suspected.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI didn\u2019t\u2026\u201d He covered his eyes with one hand and his shaking voice dropped to a whisper. \u201cI didn\u2019t bring it into our bedroom. They<\/i> did.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Carl\u2019s breath caught next to her. Apparently he hadn\u2019t known that until now either.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYou told the officer,\u201d he said after a moment as he flipped through his notes, \u201cthat you had to kill them because they were possessed. You never said anything about them bringing the murder weapon into your bedroom. Why not?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWho would have believed me?\u201d The man across the table aimed the most miserable glare that Audrey had ever seen at his attorney. \u201cThey were just\u2026 little kids. You don\u2019t know what was happening in the Coalsack even before\u2026 even before\u2026\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He stopped and shook his head again.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It was time.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Casually, as if it was nothing, Audrey took the top off of her insulated mug, which had been busily keeping the tea inside piping hot the whole time. Its steam was set free.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The moment the scent reached Parvinal, his response was instantaneous. Pale and wide-eyed, he leapt up out of his seat, or at least as far up as he could with his wrists shackled to the tabletop. His chair clattered against the wall behind him. \u201cWhat\u2014?!\u201d<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhat the Hell?<\/i>\u201d Carl asked, staring at her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s okay, Mr. Parvinal,\u201d she said, covering the tea again. \u201cIt\u2019s not what it smells like. I promise. But you and I both know what it smells like, don\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He gaped at her and then closed his mouth with a snap, swallowing. He nodded after a moment.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cDid you start smelling it before or after people were going missing?\u201d she asked, and heard Carl\u2019s breath hitch beside her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cAfter,\u201d Parvinal said in a shaky voice, and Carl\u2019s breath hitched again. \u201cAfter. Sometimes\u2026 sometimes I thought it was coming from inside my own house\u2026\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It probably was, Audrey reflected. \u201cWhen did your kids start having eye infections?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    A look of puzzled awe stole over Parvinal\u2019s face. \u201cTwo years ago.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cDid you have pets back in the Coalsack?\u201d This was the question she hated asking most of all. But the Al-Walid family had<\/i> owned a beautiful little Pomeranian named Habiba when \u201cUncle Abu\u201d had first brought her and Kyra home with him, until\u2014<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWe did. Yes.\u201d If anything, Parvinal\u2019s voice had become shakier.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cAnd when did they disappear?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhat\u2014?\u201d Carl began as he righted Parvinal\u2019s chair for him, and then made himself quiet down.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cAbout a month before our planet was attacked,\u201d Parvinal whispered, slumping into his chair. \u201cPlease, I don\u2019t think I can talk about this anymore.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI just have one more question, please,\u201d Audrey said, reaching out and touching his hand. He flinched. \u201cDid Suri have a lot of new friends\u2026 other mothers mostly\u2026 who replaced her old friend circles from, say, even just three years ago?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    From what she knew of his case, their children had been five and six years old. Suri Parvinal would have already had a close-knit group of friends who were also new mothers\u2026 whom she would have inexplicably discarded in favor of a different group, just as Lajjun had.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Parvinal\u2019s eyes met hers again and she could see the puzzle pieces beginning to fall into place for him. Naked horror filled his eyes. \u201cYes. Yes, she did. Did\u2026 did you see all of this in the Coalsack?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Audrey shook her head. \u201cNew Mecca.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Beside her once more, Carl gasped, and she realized that she\u2019d just given away one of the few mysteries about herself that he\u2019d never been able to solve.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Parvinal\u2019s eyes widened. \u201cIt\u2019s there too?<\/i> And we\u2026\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    His cuffs had just enough give that he could cover his face with his hands.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWe\u2026 brought\u2026 it\u2026 here\u2026<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    It was the end of the interview. Parvinal began sobbing, and his sobs became so uncontrollable that Carl had to call for a medic and have him transported back to the secure wing of the nearby hospital.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    They didn\u2019t talk as they left the building, both of them tight-lipped and pale. It wasn\u2019t until they were back in Carl\u2019s vehicle, sitting in the courthouse parking garage, that he turned to her, his eyes no longer gentle but hard. \u201cWhat\u2026 the fuck<\/i>\u2026 just happened in there?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s hard to explain,\u201d and Audrey had been up most of the night working out a rational way to<\/i> explain it, \u201cbut\u2026 Parvinal\u2019s wife and kids\u2026 they got caught up in a kind of cult.<\/i> The night he killed them\u2026 was the night he probably would have died if he hadn\u2019t turned their knife back on them.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    The rest was impossible to explain. Not without sounding completely insane.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Carl stared at her for a long moment before he leaned back in his seat. \u201cJesus fuck.<\/i> Not temporary insanity\u2026 self-defense. But he\u2019s\u2026 probably spent years questioning his sanity, hasn\u2019t he? And blaming himself, which just got even easier to do given that he killed them\u2026\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He turned to look at her again, amazed comprehension on his face. His eyes were gentle again. \u201cThat church you mentioned. The men Kyra was convicted of killing were members. And you mentioned New Mecca\u2026\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Audrey winced. She and Kyra had sworn to keep their time on Helion Prime a secret. It hadn\u2019t helped, but she\u2019d still never told anybody. Until now.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cIt was happening there, too,\u201d she told him. In for a penny\u2026 \u201cKyra and I were in a foster home together. The mom was in the cult. With her little girl. The dad\u2026 I don\u2019t know if he understood what was going on. He might have. But things were getting scary, so we bugged out. And came home.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThey must\u2019ve been really<\/i> scary, to leave a world where nobody could arrest Kyra for one like this.\u201d Carl\u2019s eyes were sympathetic. \u201cWere you on Helion the whole time you were\u2014\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He froze, gasping. For a moment, he stared out at nothing, completely still.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cCarl? Are you okay?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He shook himself and looked around. When his eyes returned to her, they lit up. \u201cWow, you\u2019re right here. Look. I don\u2019t have long. Maybe a minute or two. I can\u2019t rightly tell yet. So I need you to listen close, okay? Things are about to start moving really fast.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cCarl? What?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThis is important. Riddick\u2019s on his way to you. That\u2019s the good news. The bad news is he\u2019s got a shitton of enemies on his tail.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cRiddick\u2019s coming here?<\/i> How do you know this?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cAudie, I need you to focus,\u201d Carl said, his voice and face both earnest and stern and totally unlike him.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Audrey stared at him, dumbstruck. Audie.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cThings are going to get bad when he gets here. So you keep the people you care about close to you, and out of the center of town. Got me? No heroics. You hunker down.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhy isn\u2019t Riddick going to Crematoria?<\/i>\u201d Audrey demanded, confused desperation loosening her tongue entirely too much. \u201cI need him to go there to\u2014\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cForget Crematoria. It\u2019s history. You need to keep your family safe. Keep your friends safe. And don\u2019t be anywhere near the center of town when night comes. I\u2019m not sure how long it is now but it\u2019s soon, so not tonight, not any night. I mean it, Audie.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cHow do you know<\/i> about that?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI wish I had time to explain, but I don\u2019t think I\u2014\u201d Carl froze again, and then rocked backward in his seat. His eyes had gone wide, panicked. But his expression and mannerisms were his own again, if fearful. \u201cWhat the fuck just happened? Holy\u2026\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI don\u2019t know,\u201d she stammered.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhat do you mean you don\u2019t know? Why was I saying those things? They were to you! About you! What the hell is happening?<\/i>\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cI don\u2019t know!<\/i>\u201d she repeated. \u201cEverything\u2019s going crazy all of a sudden! I don\u2019t know why!\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She drove him home. He was too shaken to drive. In other circumstances, she would have enjoyed every second behind the wheel, but it was like driving the ambulance the rest of the night after she\u2019d taken Suri Parvinal to the hospital.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Carl Menefee lived in a condo on the twentieth floor of a building that stood on one of the far hills, well away from the city center but with a spectacular view of New Detroit that must have cost a fortune. No other public defender could afford a place like this, but a Menefee could. It was her first time inside. She had wondered if he planned to invite her, and whether it would be appropriate to accept, but there was no question now. His voice had been pleading<\/i> when he asked her to come up. He was afraid to be alone right now, and could she blame him?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She found herself at one of the floor-to-ceiling windows, taking in the view while he was in his bedroom changing. Below her the world fell away and New Detroit sprawled over the hills into the distance. When night came, she knew, it would look like a spilled jewel box glowing brightly in the darkness. She had the sudden certainty that she would be seeing that view in a few more hours, and that she would be spending the night. She wasn\u2019t sure whether she would be in his bed or on the couch, though.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He called me \u201cAudie.\u201d<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Often, in the past, he had called her \u201cAud\u201d when they talked, and he was actually the only one who had ever done it. It was his<\/i> name for her, and he was the only one, she realized, that she would allow to use it.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    And Audie\u2026 that had been Kyra\u2019s<\/i> name for her, after she\u2019d confided her real identity to her and they\u2019d begun plotting their escape route back to Pynchon. Nobody else had ever used it. She\u2019d been afraid that she\u2019d never hear it used again, but had never expected to hear it like this.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    If only she knew what it all meant. What had happened to Carl in the parking garage?<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cAud?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She turned. Carl was standing in the living room entry, still looking hesitant and unsure. He had changed out of his suave suit and was wearing slacks and a light, short-sleeved, woven shirt that she suspected was raw silk. If he hadn\u2019t looked so desperately lost, he would have looked unbelievably desirable. His comm unit was in his hand.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cYeah?\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    He swallowed. \u201cI\u2026\u201d His voice was strange, husky\u2026 tremulous. \u201cI had this idea that I would try to find out more about this cult of yours, on Helion\u2026 and I\u2026 tried to call a friend there\u2026\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Oh shit,<\/i> she thought. I never should have said anything. This could bring my whole house of cards down\u2014<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cIt\u2019s gone,\u201d he said, his expression one of baffled horror.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cWhat\u2019s gone?\u201d Audrey frowned, not comprehending.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cNew Mecca. Helion.<\/i> The whole system\u2026 it\u2019s gone.<\/i> Like the Coalsack.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    She managed to make it to his expensive leather couch before her legs could give out on her.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    \u201cIt gets worse,\u201d Carl said, sitting heavily down beside her. \u201cSomething\u2026 happened on Crematoria, too. The prison\u2026 the population\u2026 it\u2019s all destroyed. Aside from a handful of bodies, there\u2019s nobody there.\u201d<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Kyra. Kyra.<\/i><\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Had that been her ghost<\/i> talking through him? The thought startled a laugh out of her. Within seconds, that had dissolved into sobs even stronger than Parvinal\u2019s.<\/p>\r\n\r\n

    Carl\u2019s warm, strong arms came around her and he held her while she sobbed. Suddenly she didn\u2019t care whether she was sleeping on his couch or in his bed, as long as he didn\u2019t let go.<\/p><\/span>\r\n

    \r\n

    \u00ab Chapter 5<\/a><\/p><\/span><\/div>\r\n

     <\/p><\/span><\/div>

    <\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>\r\n\r\n
    Leave a review<\/a><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Return to the Title Page Leave a review","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":308,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"bgseo_title":"Read Online: \u201cFalling Angels\u201d by Ardath Rekha","bgseo_description":"In the aftermath of the events of The Chronicles of Riddick, a presumed-dead Kyra wakes up with new life in her body and a new companion in her mind, to discover that Riddick has abdicated the Necromonger throne and disappeared. On what was formerly a mercenary vessel, Riddick and a tiny handful of fellow escapees flee Helion Prime and Riddick makes a surprising discovery about the woman he believed was Jack\u2026 and her adopted sister. And, on a distant world, a reformed teenage runaway discovers that her past is returning to haunt her with a vengeance. Now Kyra, Riddick, and Jack are on a collision course yet again, and the fate of worlds may hang in the balance.","bgseo_robots_index":"index","bgseo_robots_follow":"follow","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-972","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","no-wpautop"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/fanworks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/972","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/fanworks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/fanworks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/fanworks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/fanworks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=972"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/fanworks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4922,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/fanworks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/972\/revisions\/4922"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/fanworks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ardath-rekha.com\/fanworks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}