A Thousand Shades Of Black

Chapter one – The Necromongers

The Necromongers stared back at him in puzzlement as he tried to explain. The Basilica – the Necromonger mother ship – hummed softly as they traveled the black depths of space, headed for the final reward of all Necromongers, the Threshold, beyond which lay their promised land, the Underverse.

Riddick ran his eyes over the commanders of his army and grimaced internally. For people who said they wanted nothing more than to die and go to the Underverse, they were mighty opposed to actually doing it. They also could not seem to grasp that Riddick had no desire to become an emotionless drone like the rest of them.

“Look, I was pissed off. That was why I was able to kill him.” he growled, trying to explain once more how he was able to overcome the previous Lord Marshall. He looked at Aereon where she was drifting in and out of existence, fluttering through the forest of black pillars. Her sparkling, saffron-colored robes flowed behind her with a curiously liquid quality.

“They cannot feel things the same way anymore, Riddick,” her voice was carefully pitched so that only he could hear it. He sighed in response. Despite the lines that were etched into her features, she seemed curiously ageless as she floated through the room. White hair and sharp blue eyes, an expression of lively curiosity – it was an interesting mix. Interesting and frustrating. She would never just come out and say anything. Of course, neither would he.

“Any way to fix that?” he muttered and looked around at his “army”.

“We respect strength and despise weakness.” Lord Vaako had a slightly lost look as he spoke, as though he still could not understand what had happened to his people all those weeks ago. He was a tall, broad-shouldered man with dark hair shaved on the sides and nearly black eyes. He was as pasty pale as all the other Necromongers but he gave more of an impression of life than they did. That was especially true now when they were all too stunned by the rapid change in itinerary to do much more than walk about dazedly.

“I do not know precisely what has been done to them so I cannot tell you how to ‘fix’ it,” Aereon replied as Riddick paced towards Vaako.

“Feeling things doesn’t make you weak, Vaako,” Riddick grumbled. He was not the best person to explain emotions to a bunch of Necromongers. “Letting your feelings control you is what makes you weak.” Vaako’s eyes flickered as though something had penetrated. “You ride the beast, you don’t let it ride you.” Aereon raised an eyebrow at his analogy and he shrugged helplessly at her. How did the universe’s most efficient killer explain caring and affection to heartless, half-dead warriors? How do you explain loyalty when you have only felt it a few times yourself? How do you explain decency when you had only met a few decent people?

Vaako let his gaze rest on his wife. She had been angry and silent since Riddick’s defeat of their leader. Watching her, he could see now that all her talk of protecting the faith had been a cover for her ruthless ambition. He’d been a fool not to see it before. He’d let the beast ride him indeed. Standing there like a statue, she was still so beautiful to him, especially draped in her disdain. With her dark skin, dark eyes, elegantly sculpted face and body, she was perfect – except for her treacherous heart.

“I think I see what you are saying, Lord Marshall,” he spoke without taking his eyes off of Lady Vaako and her face was suddenly filled with contempt towards him. Vaako had a moment of pale regret but then released it. He almost wished that the Purification had left him with the ability to feel sorrow or grief. It would have made it easier to hate his wife.

He returned his attention to the man who had changed everything for his people. There was no fear in Riddick, Vaako mused. No weakness, yet he had wept for the girl, Kyra. Riddick was strong, powerful – everything that his kind most respected but he had cared for the young woman, grieved and sought vengeance for her. What did it all mean? It was so opposed to all that he had been taught. Riddick was watching him as though every thought in Vaako’s head was crystal clear to him and perhaps it was. Those silver eyes seemed to see everything.

“It takes strength to risk pain, Vaako,” Riddick growled in his ear and Vaako felt a moment’s real sadness for the loss of his humanity. He had no pain to risk anymore.

Riddick leaned back against the headboard of the steel gray bed that had been given him. It sat on a dais in a room nearly as grand as the throne room of the Necropolis. Gray hangings, black sheets, it was all the same style. He was growing bored of it. He wondered what Carolyn Fry would think of him now if she could see him. Would she laugh? He rather thought that she might.

A second face imposed itself over Carolyn’s: Alia Sturm, standing in the doorway of the cockpit on that horrible little ship. Her eyes amused and cool, her arms folded over her chest. He saw her again as clearly as he had then. Would Alia laugh at him for this strange situation he was in? No, she would watch him with grave eyes, silent and deadly. He wished suddenly that she was here and he wished he knew why he couldn’t stop thinking about her.

“Once we get to the Threshold, what will you do with them?” Aereon’s voice drifted from the corner of the room and then she shifted into solidity, rousing him from his thoughts. It bugged him when she did that, just materializing out of thin air. One day she would show up while he was in the head and get a real eye-full. He looked forward to that day with a certain grim amusement.

He still didn’t trust her. She had her own agenda, he could see it behind her eyes, and in the way she was always watching to see what you’d do next. However, she was the only person on this ship full of lunatics that he could have a decent conversation with.

“Not a clue,” he lied to her with a straight face and she shook her head, smiling. She didn’t believe him for a moment but she didn’t press him either. He had some questions for her though. “You said the Furyans were killed. Do you mean all of them?”

“No, some escaped in ships, some hid, some were ’converted.’” The Elemental drifted closer to the bed, watching him as though he was a prize pupil and she was his teacher. He thought about scaring her but decided it wasn’t worth the effort at that moment. He still needed information from her.

“I met a woman about three years ago. She was just like me.” He turned Alia Sturm’s image around in his head: the strange language she’d been singing in, the deadliness, the cold-eyed stare, the way he’d felt at home in her company. He wondered.

“There are still members of your race strewn across the galaxy,” Aereon acknowledged. “No one knows where the Diaspora might have scattered your people, Riddick.” She shrugged, sending refracting light dancing around the room.

“Vaako has been telling me that I have to get them all to the Underverse but none of them seem all that eager to go.” There was a note of disgust in his voice as he changed the subject despite his best efforts to sound impersonal. “Then there’s his wife. She keeps hinting that I could kill him and have her.” He had thought seriously about taking Lady Vaako, but she smelled like danger, that one.

“Lady Vaako knows no loyalty.” She made it sound like an idle comment but it was an answer to the question he had left unspoken. Lady Vaako could become Lady Riddick but she would be on to the next sucker fast as an asp. “Their faith says that the journey to the Underverse is all that matters,” she answered the first part of his question last.

“I kind of like Vaako.” He voiced a thought that disturbed him more than he wanted to admit. The Commander had an almost endearing earnestness and was good in a fight. In a weird way he reminded Riddick of Jack – the same mixture of innocence and bitterness, pain and hope. But Jack, or Kyra, or whoever she was, was dead now and he had failed Fry in the end after all. “I don’t have a clue about this Underverse.”

“Vaako has some understanding of what he lacks, though his wife is nothing but ambition and greed distilled into its purest form.” Riddick nodded, watching as Aereon paced, portions of her going transparent as she moved. “The Underverse is a mystery to my kind as well.”

“Several of the women have propositioned me.” He felt his lips twisting again. He wanted to keep his feelings out of this but the Necromonger women were too cold and calculating. Being touched by one was like having icy slugs run up and down your flesh. Lady Vaako was another story but that was playing with a whole different bag of explosives.

“Necromongers give their women no real power, they rule through their husbands.” Aereon turned in a patch of sunlight and her dress sent more rainbow shimmers across the room. She looked completely out of place here in the shadows and darkness. “The last Lord Marshall had no wife either, so you are free.” She cocked her head at him, amusement on her face. “Can you blame them for wanting the most powerful man in their society? They have nothing else now but power to tempt them.” This last was said with the amusement fading to a quiet sorrow.

“They don’t want me – Riddick – they want the Lord Marshall.” There was the bitterness again. There had been only three women in all of his life that had liked and trusted him. Two were dead. He wanted someone who wanted him for himself. He didn’t know why the question was suddenly so important; he’d been alone for a long time now, but he was getting tired of fending off advances from cold-eyed women with avarice in their hearts and ice-water in their veins. He craved warmth.

“Any woman you choose will have to fend off all the others. The Necromonger women will try to kill whomever you decide upon so they can have you for themselves,” Aereon warned him gravely. Riddick nodded in response. He’d seen this society in action. He wanted something more than he had right now but he also didn’t want to get some girl killed just because he was horny either.

“I’d rather not have some backstabbing Necromonger bitch,” he replied. The thought of taking any of them to bed was repugnant. Aereon gave him a knowing smile and it made him want to throttle her. “You ever hear of a Void Walker?” he asked sharply, getting to his real point finally. Aereon turned and gave him a hard stare.

“So, you do know what you are going to do with them.” Riddick just smiled at her, letting the beast out to play for a moment. She eyed him gravely and nodded. She knew he’d tell her in his own time and he knew that she had been calculating odds on him from the start. “You are far less predictable than I am comfortable with,” she admitted a small truth to him.

“You are far more calculating than I am comfortable with,” he retorted, mimicking her tone, it was also a truth and he gave it with a grimace. “Void Walker, ever hear of it?” He returned to the main topic with some impatience. There was a mystery here and possibly a solution to some of his problems.

“They are people who have trained themselves to walk between worlds.” Aereon sounded unsure as she spoke, though, or maybe a little afraid. “It is a discipline of the Furyans, said to be lost after the Diaspora.” He nodded. That gave him a little more to go on.

“Would one of them know how to deal with this Underverse?” It was the most important question right now. He had to get rid of this ghost army safely, he couldn’t leave them wandering around like large destructive children.

“They could travel there and to many other places as well.” That made him think but he wasn’t sure what it meant. How many universes were there anyway? A question for another time, he decided.

“Got to get me one then, don’t I?” He flashed her the grin again: all dark and feral and meant to intimidate. He tried to exude confidence, despite being unsure as to whether Alia would help him, and she smiled slightly, making him wonder what she saw in his face. How transparent was he to her?

She gave him a fencer’s salute and faded to air, drifting away out of the room, leaving him with plenty of questions and only a few answers.
He slid off of the bed and went to the ornate twisted metal desk. It sat squarely in the patch of sunshine that shafted down from the sole window. On it was the Lord Marshall’s computer from which he ruled the Necromongers and, by extension, a large chunk of the galaxy, albeit a rather dead and lifeless chunk.

Riddick slouched in the hard metal chair with a feral grin. It shouldn’t be too hard to track her down. Just follow the trail of bodies.

Alia heard about it just before she was due on a job. She picked up the news fax from the curbside dispenser and read it over with a grim smile. She thought of him often, probably more often than she ought to. She’d had moments in the last three years where she had cursed herself for not taking what was offered when she had the chance. Then there were other times when she was glad, knowing that her present solitude would have been made far worse by the memory of something else lost.

The headline was all about Riddick’s defeat of the Necromonger army, the death of their Lord Marshall. Half the article was a deep sigh of relief and the other half was filled with fear over what the infamous criminal would do now.

Buried at the bottom of the article were two pieces of information that made her breath come fast and hard. First, the news that he was Furyan but the bit that hit her hardest was about the seventeen-year-old girl who had sacrificed her life to save him. Ah, Riddick, she thought sadly; was that the Jack you spoke of?

So, he was Furyan. So much was explained by that simple fact. She had known that there was a connection between them. She had felt that something in him had called out to her. Now she knew. He was Alpha. Now she was especially glad she hadn’t given in to her desires. Wasn’t she?

She dropped the fax into the nearest bin and moved on. She had no more time for regrets and longings; there was someone she had to kill tonight.

She leaned against the back wall of the pub and let her eyes sweep the place. It was filthy, filled with smoke and inhabited by the dregs of humanity – a perfect place for an assassination. Still no sign of her target but she was patient. Her client had hired her for ten thousand credits, though she would have done it for half that amount. The bastard had it coming.

She ran a finger over the hilt of her favorite knife and savored the sensuous feeling of the wrapped leather handle. It was a nearly foot-long blade with a full tang and a guard made in the pattern of swirling water. Her father had bought it for her mother as a mating gift. It was perfectly balanced and incredibly sharp. She loved the heavy feel of it in her hand. Retrieving it from the pawnbroker the blasted Mercs had sold it too had been a top priority once she had parted from Riddick. Damn, she needed to stop thinking about him.

The door of the pub opened and her quarry sauntered in. He had her other target, a little girl, on the end of a chain and was jerking her along behind him. He was tall and lean with the sort of wiry build that spoke of a deadly speed. She stayed invisible in the shadows, just a dark patch against the wall, fully focused on the job ahead.

His name was Tyler. Not that she cared, but it was always useful to study your prey ahead of time. His hair was a muddy brown, styled and neatly trimmed. He had a pencil-thin mustache and the air of a dandy.

She knew better though. She had studied his file and she knew what he was. She hated slavers almost more than she hated Necromongers. She would enjoy this kill.

He stalked across the floor with his three bodyguards moving like lumbering beasts through the crowd. He had chosen them for size and intimidation rather than for speed or efficiency and Alia knew that she could take them easily.

She slipped up behind them and was only five steps away, dagger drawn, when his first bodyguard spotted her. She stepped around the fat man’s clumsy charge and, sweeping her arm backwards, jabbed the blade in between the third and forth vertebrae all the way through his neck, killing him instantly. The blade pulled free without hesitation. It was very good steel.

The second bodyguard leaped for her. A pivot, a leg swipe and he was on his stomach flailing. A quick jab through the center of his back pierced his heart and ended him. Alia felt the point of her long knife thunk against the concrete floor and winced. She hoped the knife’s tip wouldn’t be nicked.

She rose from the kill and stepped nearer to her target. The third guard lunged for her. She brushed aside his attack with one arm and then brought the blade up into his throat with the other. He fell over with a heavy thud gurgling and suffocating on his own blood.

She took another step closer to the man who had gone from cocksure to pale in a few short instants. Tyler yanked the chain hard, pulling the girl along like he was cracking a whip. He had intended for the child to careen into Alia but the woman leapt upward and forward in one smooth motion and landed on Tyler’s chest, bearing him to the ground. A single swift strike with her blade and he was dead, blood pooling on the filthy floor. Killing all four had taken her less than a minute.

Alia rose from the pile of bodies and approached the child. Dark-skinned and exotic looking, the girl would have fetched a lot on the open market. As young as she was and as pretty as she was, Alia knew that her fate would have been dire indeed. The little girl cowered back from her and Alia drew her pulse gun.

The patrons of the seedy little pub watched in frozen horror as she moved with deadly precision towards the child. No one moved to help the girl, though, they were too frightened of the dark-eyed woman. One shot past the girl’s throat and the chain fell away. The child’s eyes rolled back in her head and then she collapsed, the relief after her terror proving too much for her.

Alia reached down and hefted the dead weight of the little girl onto her shoulder. She stepped backwards and once more blended into the shadows.

Riddick grinned from under his hood, slipping the gun back into his belt. He hadn’t thought that she would need any help against those four but he had been ready just in case. Watching her had been the most enjoyable thing he’d seen in some time.

He rose and headed out the door, slipping into the darkness himself, following the scent of cinnamon and apples.

She scented him as she moved through the alley and smiled in the darkness. He was making no real effort to hide so she knew he wanted to speak to her. As soon as she dropped the child off back at her parents’ house and picked up her money, then she would stop and talk to him. She sped up, grabbed hold of a drainpipe and leapt upwards. She took off over the rooftops, the girl slung over one shoulder, running at top speed. It was only a few miles, she could lope along that far easily. The child was light.

Riddick stretched up and hoisted himself to the roof behind her. He paused and watched her as she ran, the easy gait that sent her leaping across from rooftop to rooftop. It really was like watching a female version of him.

He drew in an eager breath and plunged after her, enjoying the nighttime run, the way the moon hid amongst the clouds, leaving the world pitch black. He assumed that she had night goggles because she didn’t have a shine job, yet seemed to have no trouble with the darkness.
He followed her to an elegant house on the outskirts of town. She dropped to the ground and straightened with the child over her shoulder. A woman, slender and dark, rushed from the house.

“Riga!” the woman gasped out.

“She’s alive, just fainted.” Ah, the sound of that voice – all husky and low, a little breathless from exertion. It sent a not unpleasant shiver through him.

“Thank you, oh thank you,” tThe woman replied, taking the child from Alia and hugging her tightly. Must be the mother, he thought idly, more focused on Alia then the little drama being played out.

“Mama?” a thin reedy voice questioned in a disbelieving tone and then he heard sobs and tears. So, he’d been right, not that it had been hard to figure out.

“If you pay me, I can be gone quickly before anyone comes by to investigate.” Alia sounded almost gentle as she spoke and the woman looked up at her hurriedly. Riddick grinned in the shadows, he could see the woman’s mind jerking back to the shadowy woman before her.

“Of course, I’m sorry.” The woman’s face as she turned it upward was pretty but the marks of bruises and cuts were still apparent. Riddick assumed that the dead men in the bar had done all that. She fumbled in her robes and pulled out a small purse. “Ten thousand, just as promised.” She handed the money to Alia and Riddick snorted. That was a very small amount of money to pay for four hits. The child stared at her savior and smiled softly.

“Thank you,” she whispered, but Riddick heard her all the same.

“My pleasure, really,” Alia replied with a sardonic smile. She stepped back into the darkness and Riddick watched her approach him with that smile still lingering on her face. He liked it. It wasn’t the predator smile and it was welcoming.

“Hello, Alia,” he greeted her and her complete lack of surprise made him smile as well.

“Hello, Riddick.” She stepped closer to him and he saw that her hands were open and empty. “Long time no see.” She peered at him in the darkness. “Nice haircut,” she added with a flick of the eyes to his shaved head.

“Thanks,” he chuckled. “I saw what you did in the pub.” He paused for effect. “Nice.” She walked past him, heading towards another part of town with am amused look on her face as she glanced at him. He could feel the magnetic pull of her from even this far away and he took a deep controlling breath.

“Thank you.” That voice could set his pulse to pounding and he turned and followed her, matching strides. “I hear you’ve been busy,” she added with a raised eyebrow.

“You know how I hate being bored.” He set himself to scanning the area, learning it just in case anyone did come to investigate. He wasn’t surprised that she had heard of his recent adventures; the end of the Necromonger army was big news. He was a little daunted at the prospect of being a hero. Still, no one had rescinded his bounty either. He was still a wanted man.

“I do at that.” She paused and gave him one of those little bows. “I owe you again for that one, Riddick.” He looked at her sharply.

“What for?”

“I am Furyan as well,” she answered briefly and he felt a satisfaction that his instinct had been correct. So the debt was for avenging their world and people; he could deal with that.

“How did you survive?” He was curious about her in particular, but also about other Furyans survivors in general.

“My mother was pregnant with me so she fled with my brother.” He nodded. It must have been a desperate flight, pregnant with a child in tow.

“You never said you had a brother.” He turned to look at her, watching her face in the shadows, admiring the soft light of her.

“He was taken by them soon after she escaped the planet. My mother birthed me and went into hiding.” She shrugged. “She was killed years ago.” Alia moved on again, her long legs swinging easily. She was good at concealing her emotions but he could still see that there was pain there and far more to the story than her casual delivery made it sound. Still, he hadn’t come here to get her life story.

She had said nothing about her younger sister and he didn’t ask. He had a bad feeling that he knew what the answer would be. Studying her, he could see the grief in her eyes, the new leanness of her body. She had suffered in the last three years, he knew. She reminded him of someone. In fact, she looked somewhat like the only other Furyan he had ever met.

“Did your brother have dark eyes too?” he asked, curious, and she glanced sideways at him.

“I don’t know. He was taken before I was born. Mother never spoke of him either.” He nodded his understanding and they continued on. It was a mystery without much chance of a solution then. It hardly mattered anyway, since he had died in the fiery dawn of Crematoria.

“So you didn’t like the Lord Marshall much?” Irony lay heavy in his tone.

“No, not much,” she responded with a chuckle. It was a rich throaty sound that reminded him how much he was attracted to her. “I had been planning on killing him myself but you saved me the effort.” Her voice was light but he could hear the hatred underneath it all. He wondered if she would be up for this after all. It was a lot to ask after all, especially of another Furyan.

“I killed the Lord Marshall.” He took a deep breath. “So they made me Lord Marshall.” She spun on her heel and stared at him in shock, mouth dropping open. “Now I am in real deep shit because they expect me to lead them.”

“Tell them to slit their own throats,” she hissed, hatred of the people who had destroyed her world – her race – sharp and bitter in her voice and he nodded.

“I’d thought of that.” He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall of a building. “Then the words of a Furyan who’d been turned into one of them came back to me.” She was watching him intently. “We were all something else once,” he quoted and watched as her face went pale in the darkness.

She stood there for a long time staring blindly at him, and then finally her eyes focused on his face.

“What do you want, Riddick?” Her voice had no anger it anymore and he relaxed.

“I need to know about the Underverse and the Void,” he answered her and she studied him again for another long moment. “You said that you owed me, Alia,” he reminded her gently. She looked at him with a touch of sadness.

“I would help you whether or not I owed you, Riddick.” She leaned in close to him, breathing in his scent. “You are Furyan.” She turned and strode off again. He followed quickly, catching up with her. Her next words were almost lost in the shadows around them. “All we have is each other, after all.”