Ghost

I hope you all had a great Christmas, and that you have a safe and happy new year.

18. The darker side of Riddick.

People often try to figure out why Riddick and me kill. Some think we kill for pleasure. That we get off on bringing pain. I guess that can be true in some circumstances. Others think that we kill because we can - and I guess that’s true too. But the simple truth of the matter is, we kill to keep our own ass alive. You get between us and freedom, and you won’t live to see daylight again.

There’s been people killed ‘cause they gave me the shits. Mercs. Guards. Kiddie rapists, who have thought they were protected in slam, only to learn the guards hated them as much as the rest of us did. I’ve killed for payment and I’ve killed for trade. But never have I wanted to kill a person for the sheer joy of it as much as I want to kill Aereon. Unless you count Johns of course, and it all came down to the same reason.

Aereon calls it calculating an outcome. I call it being one calculating bitch. A seer - someone who can see the future and changes parts of it to suit their own agenda. Whether she used a crystal ball or some other method, she saw me and changed circumstances to suit her own needs. Changed them, by using guilt, greed and plain old black mail.

She’s sitting there telling me that she knew I wouldn’t surface for her unless provoked. So she provoked me by putting a high payday on my head. She also told me that she knew I wouldn’t fight unless given a true reason. And the reason she came up with? Jack. She used my girl, to bring me to this very moment. She used my girl…. She’s gonna die for that.

Aereon dangled Jack under Aaban Khan’s nose like a carrot. And like all child molesters, he wanted her. Needed to possess and own her. She calculated that if Jack was in the clutches of filth, I'd come running. It was the only thing she calculated right. She used Imam to seal the deal. Used his love for Jack against him, and used guilt to convince him to try and save her from death - from me.

Told him that Jack was going to end up becoming me. That she would kill and murder, and that there would be nothing he could do about it. That she would die because of me. Maybe die under me and that I would drink her blood like wine. And when his guilt and fear were at its height, she introduced him to Aaban Khan. A man, she said, powerful enough to protect the kid. Bitch signed the death warrant for Jack’s innocence.
Kain was right - Jack was sold like a piece of meat. And the ink on the contract was dry before Imam knew what he had done. And once done, it could not be undone. Jack belonged to a man who would rape her and fill her with child until she was dead. Aereon had forced her into running, and had then presented Crematoria to Aaban Khan as a prison worthy of a girl who kept company such as Kain's.

But it wasn’t Jack she wanted me for. It wasn’t even the Necros at first. I sat there as she told me that the Furyan people had always been a mix of both fire and earth - an abnormality that had occurred over time on my planet. That having an animal inside the man was normal in my people. That the man was grounded in earth and the fury - the animal - was the fire that burned inside us. Bring the two together and you get me.

Seven years ago, she had wanted me for a fifteen year old girl. An experiment. According to Aereon, this child called Mai possessed the power to manipulate both air and water. Aereon had wanted a Furyan to join with this girl. The last known Furyan - me. She wanted me to fuck this Mai and give her a child who held all four elements - the start of a superior race. Mai; a child who possessed both unnatural beauty and a gentle nature. A gentle nature - I'd have torn her apart the first time I fucked her - wonder what Aereon would think if she knew that?

A race that was elemental like her. Like the Furyans. And as she started talking about this great race she was trying to create, all I could think about was the anger on Kain’s face when he'd said the name Mai. The pain. The flashes that showed me blue eyes. Just like his. The green blood. Just like his. The pale skin. Just like his. The scream that had echoed - pain and anger and gut wrenching grief. And I knew that was his too.
“Tell me about Kain,” I muttered, and Aereon looked up in surprise.
“He’s Lotharian, Riddick.”
“That don’t tell me shit, Aereon, and you know it,” I spat, and she recoiled.
“He…” Aereon faltered and looked down at her hands. “Mai and Kaniece were twins. They shared the same elemental abilities. As young children they were separated. He was sent to his father to be taught. Mai was sent to me to be prepared. That lasted all of a week, before they both vanished. We found them asleep on a beach, and when we tried separating them again, neither of them would let the other go.
“They were eventually sent to live with their father. Kaniece settled down and began to learn. And what he learned, he taught his sister in privacy. Out of all the children who had been born from this experiment, Mai was the only girl. And the longer Kaniece and Mai were together, the more she turned against me. Stopped believing in the role of the priestess she was meant to become.
“He was always so stubborn. Just like his father. And when I told him to stop filling her head with dreams, he lashed out. Told me that he wasn’t going to let his sister be whored out to some stranger. I don’t even know when he overheard that she was meant to be given to a Furyan, but when he threw that in my face in front of his father, that was it.” Aereon laughed bitterly. “He was fifteen years old at the time, and his abilities were far greater than any we had seen before.”
She floated towards the window slowly, and shook her head as she stared outside.
“Kaniece was lost to us when Mai died. And when she died, it started a war unlike any, we had been able to foresee. Elemental against elemental.”
“Kain’s people won,” I said slowly, and she nodded and sniffed.
“It was too late - the blood had been shed, Mai was dead and Kaniece was missing. I didn’t see him again until the day I saw him and Jack together here on New Mecca. And I knew - I had a way of stopping not only the Necromongers, but a way of bringing you back to us. I just never thought that Kaniece would run with Jack. We watched them. Knew where they were at all times. And he never left her...
“When you didn’t show up to help Jack, I went to see Kaniece in Crematoria. I came face to face with what I had created. I had the guards subdue him for my own protection. They had him chained to the wall with cuffs that gave him little room to move. I could still see that stubborn pride. He refused to leave Jack behind when I offered him a way out. And he promised me that the next time he saw me, he would kill me with his bare hands. Not only for his sister, but for what I had done to him and Jack.
“He could never understand that everything I had ever done had been to help our people, Riddick. He couldn’t see past the pain of his sister dying, and it warped him. I asked him if he saw Jack as a replacement for Mai - he ripped the chains out of the wall, and it took fifteen blows from the guards’ shock sticks to bring him down. To bring him to his knees... and still he fought.
“He wasn’t one for… having sex his sister, so how was Jack a replacement? - that’s what he said. I told him I‘d like to see how he was going to kill me, considering he was stuck in a pit of fire and ash; the exact opposite of what he is, and what he is able to manipulate. He told me he'd find a way - that, he'd be the one who killed me. In that moment, I saw that the boy was dead, and all that remained in the man was fury.”
She turned, only to cry out in pain when I slammed her against the wall by the throat. She gasped painfully as I smiled down at her. In her superior arrogance, she hadn’t heard me approaching her. Hadn’t realized she was becoming solid. And now it was my turn to talk.

“You made a mistake, Aereon,” I said quietly and watched as she lifted shocked eyes to mine. “Jack belongs to me. Not some man who wanted to fuck her as a kid. She belongs to me. She always did. And you used her - made her shed blood and innocence. You told me the best way to fight evil was with a different kind of evil. You forgot that. I didn’t.

“I went to Crematoria thinkin' I’d find the little girl I left behind. I found a woman who had been raped. Who has killed people to survive. You used Jack... Used her against me. You could have helped her at any time - you didn't. You manipulated her into this life instead. And for what? In the hopes I'd create a kid with some little girl I’d never laid eyes on? Did you ever consider that maybe I don‘t fuck little girls?”

Aereon managed a smile and spoke quietly.

“Yet you want Jack.”

I snorted slightly.

“Jack’s not a child.”

“And if Mai had lived, she wouldn't be a child either. She was older than Jack - but you don’t… fuck little girls, do you?" she hissed, and I bit back laughter at her attempt to shock me. "Oh no. You hide away on a planet made of ice and snow, so that you don‘t give into temptation and become what you hate most - a child molester. Because if you’d stayed, Riddick, that is what you’d be.

"I know you. I've studied you for far too long to not know your more basic wants and needs. You paid for your basic needs and kept your own company. But a little girl changed that, and you let her in. I saw the logs for the ship that picked you up in the ghost lanes, Riddick. I saw that you stayed by Jack's side in the medi bay.

"And even then, when she was an innocent child, you were still drawn to her. Possessive of her - you stayed by her side and reveled in the fact she was untainted. Breathed her in and bound yourself to her. And the entire time you were with Jack, you never looked at another woman. Never fed your basic needs.

“You would have taken Jack as your own - taken her and drowned yourself in the blood of her youth. You’re a monster, Riddick - and she’ll see that and try to kill you before long. And when she’s dead in your bed, you’ll have no one to blame but yourself,” she said with a sneer, and the rage was so hot, so sudden, that I was strangling her before I could stop myself.

I jerked away from her, and she slumped to the floor in a whisper of fabric. I stared down at her as she slowly became mist like and gasped in painful breaths as she stared up at me.

"Use Jack against me again, Aereon, and I swear... I'll end you. I'll kill everyone you love. Everyone you know. And when you're at your lowest, then I'm gonna kill you. You don't know me... you just think you do."

She sat up, her robes floating as she wheezed painfully.

"You're just like Kaniece - stubborn and foolish," she muttered, and I stared down at her silently as she closed her eyes.

Is that how she saw it? That Kain and I were one and the same? That he was like me? I backed away from her slowly as she slumped back down to the floor, and shook my head. He was cocky and arrogant... 'And driven by guilt' a little voice whispered in my head, and I stopped still. Guilt had driven me to isolation and nightmares, and had led to Jack walking the path she did. If what Aereon said was right... what path would Jack follow Kain down?

'A path that leads to death. Aereon poisoned a boy. That boy is now a man. That man loves Jack... and she loves him. Purge the poison... save the man... save the girl...'

The voice was a whisper of ice in my mind. And with that whisper came an image of Jack. Jack bleeding. Jack dying. Jack dying at my feet, and the universe mourning her when I destroyed it. No fucking way. I'd held her broken body and watched her die in my dreams - that wasn't gonna become a reality.

It only took a quick press of buttons to connect me to Toal, who told me in a quiet murmur that he had followed Kain, Jack and Link with Vaako, to an old warehouse. And ten minutes later, I slipped into the shadows just behind Jack and watched what Aereon had called a science experiment fight like nothing I had seen before. Vaako had shed his armour and was going hand to hand with Kain. Hand to hand and he was getting his ass kicked.

Kain used a combination of marshal arts and down right dirty street fighting. I was reminded of the fact that he had pulled my goggles away and had blinded me on Crematoria, and managed a small smile. Oh yeah - he fought dirty alright. But that said, I could still see the formal training he had endured from such a young age.

And as they fought, I was left wondering how I had missed the fact that his movements flowed like the water he could manipulate. And when he kicked away from the wall and twisted back over Vaako’s head, he flowed like water, twisting mid fall to not only knock Vaako down but to send him sprawling.

As Kain stalked across the room towards Vaako, I slipped my arms around Jack’s waist and tugged her backwards into the shadows with me. She only tensed for a moment, and I chuckled softly as I bent my head to nuzzle her shoulder. She twisted slightly to look up at me, and when I chuckled again, she snorted softly.

“Riddick.”

“Hmm… woke up to a man this morning’, didn’t you? How’d it feel to have him question how I treat you, Jack?” I whispered, and she blinked and shook her head slightly.

“Pissed me off,” she muttered, and I nuzzled her throat again.

“Me too. He thinks I’m gonna hurt ya - do you think that, Jack?” I asked and she shook her head slowly as she turned back to watch the fight going on in front of us.

Jack didn’t even blink at the sight of Kain dropping to his knees and driving both fists into Vaako’s stomach, which launched him clear across the room. She didn’t - but I did. And when I grasped her chin in my hand and made her look at me, she smiled slightly.

“You knew.”

I said it flatly and she laughed softly in return.

“Be a little more specific, Riddick” she said as she looked back towards the fight. She only winced a little when I nipped her ear lobe for her smart mouth, but she did tense when I kissed the slight sting, reminding me that she was yet to trust us for that.

“That Kain’s an elemental,” I muttered, and she glanced up at me slowly.

“I know everythin’ about Kain, Riddick. There are no secrets between us.”

I glanced up when I heard the crash, and saw that Vaako had just been slammed through a stack of crates. Kain stayed where he was, and waited until Vaako rolled out of the shattered wood and held his hands up in defeat. Vaako was breathing heavily, but when I looked towards Kain, he was examining his hands with a frown on his face. His knuckles were torn open, and blood dripped to the floor as he lowered his hands.

“You fight well,” Vaako muttered as he climbed to his feet, and Kain narrowed his eyes.

“I know. And now that you know, it might remind you not to call me ‘boy’ the next time I’m feelin' pissy.”

“You held nothing back,” Vaako said as he straightened up.

Bruises were blooming across his face like shadows, while his nose and mouth bled freely. His left shoulder was dislocated, and when Kain simply reached out and took his hand, the sound of bone snapping back into place was gun shot loud. Vaako didn’t wince, but I felt Jack tense up in my arms and wondered when she had heard bone shift like that. Kain dropped Vaako’s hand and smiled slightly.

“Yeah… I did. If I wanted you dead, there are hundreds of ways I could kill you without breakin’ a sweat.”

“The most painless being?” Vaako asked as he narrowed his eyes and Kain laughed softly.

“I could make you drown in your own blood while you slept, Vaako, and you wouldn’t even know it was happenin’ until it was too late.”

It was said so flatly, that Vaako’s jaw dropped. It was then that Kain and Link started laughing, while Vaako’s mouth opened and closed a few times. I could feel Jack’s body shaking with silent laughter against my own, and shook my head as Vaako flushed slightly. When I glanced at Toal his face was blank, but I saw his lips twitch as Vaako started spluttering.

'Purge the poison...'

I heard the same voice echo in my head, and looked down at Jack for a moment; savoured how it felt to have her leaning into me so comfortably. And then I looked up at Kain. Saw that his laughter was playful, yet it didn’t reach those cool blue eyes. And as I stared at him, I saw what I could only call his mirror image. Saw them as two separate people. One laughed, while the other looked down at his hands, and I felt the guilt he carried like a physical blow.

“Who's Mai?” I asked as I stepped away from Jack, and Kain’s head whipped around at my question.

The difference in him was as sharp as a knife. His body coiled with sudden tension, and his eyes became glacial as we stared at each other.

“None of your business,” he said a moment later, and I ignored the danger I heard in those words.

“Really?” I asked, and stepped closer to him. “Seems she is my business, considering Aereon says she was made for me… Kaniece.”

Kain straightened up slowly, and when his hands clenched into fists, I smiled slightly.

“Well? What’s she like?” I asked, and Kain’s mouth tightened in barely restrained temper. “Aereon said she was made for fuckin’…” I said quietly as I drew closer to him, and that’s all it took for him to lash out. But unlike his fight with Vaako, this time he really didn’t hold back.

I heard Jack cry out, and as I circled around behind Kain, I saw that Toal was holding Link to the wall by the throat and that Vaako had simply picked Jack up by the waist and was holding her back from launching herself at us. That’s all the time I had to look, as Kain drew first blood when his fist collided with my nose and damn near broke it.

It was one thing to watch him fight with Vaako. It had made me wonder if these Necros were as tough as they looked. But to try to gain the upper hand under the fury of Kain’s onslaught? Completely different. He slid from one style to another. Used a combination of feet, fists and at one point when he tried to knee me in the nuts, I saw fucking stars.

I stayed on my feet for close to five minutes before he used the same move on me that he had Vaako. One minute he was on his feet, the next he was ducking a punch I aimed at him and sliding in a circle towards me on his knees. I saw it coming and he still landed both fists against my stomach.

I felt it - felt the full pulse of his power leave his hands and launch me not in the air but through the wall. Wood splintered around me as I landed on my back, and I saw him come through the opening my body had left behind. Saw him leap into the air with his fist clenched, and rolled out of the way just in time.

The force of his fist hitting the ground left a crater behind, and I had time to wonder what type of damage, he would have left behind if he had connected with my body, before he was coming at me again. And as he did, I saw his face. Saw his eyes. And I knew how close to losing it, he really was. It was only a matter of finding out which buttons to press.

“You didn’t answered my question,” I grunted as I made him stumble back in a half circle when I landed a particularly nasty punch to his sternum, but he only snarled and came back stronger than ever.

I could see his fury giving way to grief, and I pushed even harder as he reached for me. I almost lost the contents of my stomach when he kneed me in the gut, and I saw stars when he yanked me closer, and then drove his fist against my jaw.

“Don’t talk about her,” he hissed in my ear as his knee connected with my gut again, and I laughed through the pain I was feeling more than I let on.

“I didn’t plan on talkin’ to her, Kain - I plan on fuckin’ her,” I hissed back. “Aereon says she’s mine. If I can’t have Jack . . .” and his howl of anger echoed as he continued to drive me backwards.

We started to move over the sand, and I had time enough to realize we were heading for the water I had flown over when I had first returned, before he used his power against me again and launched me backwards. I landed on my back in said water and felt my whole body jar with the force of it, and then Kain was straddling my hips and his fist was connecting with my face again.

I bucked him off and over my head as I had once done to Carolyn in the rain, and I heard him grunt as he landed. And by the time I was back on my feet again, Kain was launching himself at me. I caught him and landed on my back with his full weight on top of me, and finally managed to daze him when I head butted him.

I staggered back a step as he stumbled to his own feet, and when he swung at me this time, I could see that he'd finally lost his cool edge. It was grief that was driving him now, and I dodged the fist he sent my way and landed a blow to his jaw. It wasn’t as hard as it could have been, but it still sent him sprawling.

“So who was she to you, Kain? Why do you call yourself that when your real name is Kaniece?” I asked, and he landed several solid punches against my stomach, chest and jaw before I knocked him back down.

“In the bible Kain killed his brother - is that why you chose the name?” I spat, and he blanched.

“You don’t fuckin’ know me!” he roared, and when he swung at me again, I grabbed his fist and yanked him under my arm and towards me.

He fought like a demon when I locked him in my arms with his own arms locked across his chest and around the side of his shoulders. He fought the entire time that I forced him to his knees in the water. And when he finally went to his knees and his head hung forwards, I looked out over the water as his chest heaved heavily.

“Who is she, Kain?” I muttered, and he shook his head as he shuddered.

“You don’t know me,” he whispered, and I crouched down slowly behind him, keeping him trapped within my arms as I did so.

“Don’t I?” I muttered, and pulled him closer to me. And when his head finally came back to lean against my shoulder, I rested my chin on his shoulder.

“Nothin’ fuckin’ worse than bein’ manipulated, Kain. Other than havin’ someone you love used against you in that manipulation.”

“What the fuck do you care?” he spat, and when he tried to wrench away from me, I tightened my arms around him.

“I don’t. I just don’t want you fuckin' up Jack.”

He turned his head to look up at me, and I shrugged slightly at the sight of his eyes. Haunted - that was the only way to describe the look on his face - he was haunted.

“Seems I came back all sorts of special after the Quasi Dead were through with me. I can see inside people now - see what drives ‘em. What weighs down on 'em. I look at you and see blue eyes. Pale skin. And blood. Guilt and grief twistin’ you up inside - makes me wonder why.”

“Stay out of my fuckin’ head, Riddick,” he warned, and I grinned down at him.

“You can tell me, Kain, or I can peel the layers of your brain back one by one and find out that way,” I siad softly, and he wrenched upwards and away from me so suddenly, that I lost my grip on him.

The blows he landed were a downward swung left right combination, and as I reeled from it, I realized the little bastard was ambidextrous. Ambidextrous and an elemental - dangerous combination.

“What the fuck do you care?” he cried, and snapped my chin backwards with a left upper cut that had blood filling my mouth. “I’m just the little toe rag who's in your way wit’ Jack, right?" A right cross blow, that sent the blood in my mouth flying. "Not part of the equation, but let’s use him to gain an upper hand anyway…”

“Nah, you’re just the kid who got to Jack first,” I spat, and saw stars when he kneed me in the jaw in anger.

When he swung at me again, I saw he was blinded by grief and tears, and pushed the final button.

“So did you change your name coz Aereon killed your sister? Or did you fail in protectin’ her, just like you did Jack?” I mocked, and he staggered backwards as if I had landed a heavy fist on him.

Staggered backwards a half a dozen steps and fell to his knees in the water as his chest heaved. His eyes were wide as he stared up at me. Wide with shock, grief and tears before they slammed shut and he lowered his head. But his chest was still heaving, and I was left with a memory of what had come out of me on the runway on Crematoria.

And as I stared at him, I heard the first choked sound leave him. Saw him fight it, even as another sound left his mouth. And when I crouched down beside him and dropped my hand onto his shoulder, he cried out. The scream in my head echoed with the sound torn from his throat, and I saw it pulse across the water like a shock wave.

Pain, grief, hatred and anger, and it sucked the water away from us like the tide going out to sea in fast forward. And what goes out must come in, and I saw it rise in a wave that would crush us when it hit. I stared at that wave - at how fast it was moving back towards us, and turned back to face Kain. His eyes were blank, his mind empty as he stared at the incoming water. And when he finally turned his head to look up at me, his voice was hoarse when he spoke.

“I hate you.”

I nodded as I stared at the wall of water, and felt his hand fist in my shirt front. I looked back at him as he raised his hand, and then the water hit us. I’d seen films of surfing from old earth. Had seen the men on slender boards surfing within a tunnel of water. And as the water crashed over us, that was what it looked like - like we were in the heart of a wave.

It moved over our heads, around our bodies, but never touched us as it roared. It echoed the sound of his grief, and I slowly raised my hand and felt the water rush across my fingers as it moved over us in one large pulsing wave. I saw the small fish in the water darting back and forth, and when I glanced at Kain, I saw his eyes were closed, and that he was beginning to rock on his knees.

I took a deep breath as his hand fell, and the water crashed down over us. I grabbed at his arm when he crashed into me, and we rolled over several time in the violence of the rushing water. And when I surfaced a moment later, he was limp in my grasp. I rolled him over and saw that he was paler than snow, and that he was breathing shallowly.

By the time I had dragged him into the shallows, the water was calm again. I collapsed in the shallows as the moon rose, and hauled him between my legs so that he was lying in a loose embrace. And when I saw the glow of his eyes when they finally opened, I raised an eyebrow as he blinked owlishly up at me.

“Now that is what you call a temper tantrum of epic proportion,” I muttered, and he coughed slightly as he turned his head within the crook of my arm and stared back over the water.

“I hate you,” he repeated a moment later, and I nodded as he turned his face back towards me.

"Hate me all you want - but stop hatin’ yourself," I muttered, and he blinked once. “You’ll fuck up Jack if you keep goin' like this.” His eyes slid shut again, and he was finally still.

And as I sat there with him out cold in my arms, I was left wondering why I had taken on the role of shrink, to a kid I could quiet cheerfully kill half the time. And when I touched his head, touched his mind, I saw that it was finally empty and silent, and pulled him closer. Let him find some much needed shelter against me, and was left wondering what my real answer to his question was - why the fuck did I care?