Chapter 49: My Little Cthulhu (or Fry Didn't Leave Me Any Ice Cream)
Jack's dead asleep. I'm not tired. Wanna kill something for her. Or fuck her a few more times. Neither seem like something she'd welcome.
Turn off the light. Poor kid's so exhausted she don't even twitch as I roll her bed into the corner. Push the cot up next to it. Gather up all our clothes but my pants shove them into the refresher. Start running through some stretches and katas; all stuff I can do quiet. Gotta keep up my good looks, after all.
After I work up a sweat something makes me stop dead. Either Jack's having a really good dream or Toombs is coming back with certain buttons pushed. Have a feeling it's not the first option. Sigh. Pull on my pants, put the contacts back in, and turn the lights on low. Think about adding the ice giant pelt. Before I sort out my feelings on that, Toombs' starts banging on the door. Get it open and catch his fist.
"Shhh," I say, "little girl's sleepin'."
"Tired her out, did you?" he says with a drunken grin. I roll my eyes and start to go into the hall to talk to him. He stops me with a hand on my bare chest. Kinda shocks me he'd touch my skin. "Wanna see." Glare at him, but let him in. "God it's dark in here," he grumbles.
"Didn't wanna keep her up," I say, soft. "She had a hard day." Because of you, asshole.
He looks down on her cherishing. Hate that. "Okay," he says. "Here." He hands me the controller. "I fixed it."
Using up a fair amount of my self control, I pocket the controller and push him towards the door. "Thanks."
He drags his feet. His grin is lascivious. "Read the manual. That was a safety feature for folks who just want a playdate. Supposed to fill the hole with epoxy if it's for real."
"You read the manual?"
He rolls his eyes. "Yes, goatfucker, I can read." Stare at him. "Okay I skimmed the manual." Feel my lips twitch. He likes that. "Anyway, brought it back." He grins big. "In case you decide to have more fun with sleeping beauty over there."
Got him to the door. Consider, seriously, whether I could kill him and dump his body down the pit without getting caught. So very, very tempting. Could say I had no idea what happened to the poor man. He'd probably get too mancky for forensics before anyone found him. But Jack groans again and moves like she's waking up hot and bothered. I ain't leaving her alone and awake for the time it'd take to dump the body. "Goodnight, Alexander," I say, pushing him gently.
"Hold up," he says. "Got you a present. One you won't have to leave behind."
The hair on the back of my neck starts to rise. "Nah. I didn't get you anything."
He pushes a memory chip into my hand. "Rough cut of the video. Eve got some great shots of her-well, you'll just have to watch and find out!" He ducks out the door, slamming it shut behind him. I almost go after him. Manage, barely, not to. Lock the door behind him.
She's sitting up, rubbing her eyes. "What was that?"
"Toombs being an asshole," I say, closing the distance between us. "He's gone. Go back to sleep."
"Gotta use the little engineer's room," she murmurs. "And I'm thirsty." She pulls out of the bed. She's naked. Seems bewildered by that. "Where are my clothes?"
"In the refresher," I say. "Want me to get them?"
She smiles at me. "Nah. Would like them nice and clean for tomorrow." She pads quietly to the bathroom. Seems oblivious to the smells she's putting out. Follow her. "Would you not watch me pee?" she says, blushing.
"Okay," I make a big show of turning around. She chuckles.
When she's washing her hands, I come up behind her and nuzzle her. She looks at the two of us in the mirror. "You did punch this mirror this morning," she says, touching some of the splashes of smart glass that didn't make it back into the frame. I shrug. "Why?"
She probably should know that Johns was in that mirror telling me to kill her. Don't wanna be the one to tell her. Sigh. "Didn't like what I saw."
"I heard it. That's when I really thought you were going to kill me. Sounded like you were wrestling with your angels."
"My devil that time," I say. Try to pull her away. She grips the sink like she's not done. I relent and put my arms around her naked body. "Just . . . overwhelmed me."
She pours herself a glass of water. "What overwhelmed you?"
"Felt . . . tender." Start to caress her. She's still watching us in the mirror. "Don't feel that way a lot."
"Like I'm your weak spot?"
There's something in her voice I do not like. Make my hands as loving as I can. "Yeah." She finishes off the glass, finally lets me pull her away from the sink, out of the bathroom, towards the bed.
"And you don't like having a weak spot."
Sigh. It rumbles deep enough it makes her shiver. Thought that was what she was thinking. "Like having you."
"Was that a double entendre?"
"Maybe." Contemplate sweeping her up in my arms. But we're making progress towards the bed. I forebear. "You've been my weak spot almost since we met. Haven't killed you yet."
"The night is young." She yawns and sits down on the bed. "I'm guessing." I kneel in front of her and caress her face.
"You should go back to sleep," I say, huskily. "Hell of a day."
"Yeah. You think about the options I gave you?"
"No."
She rolls her eyes. "Riddick . . ."
Keep caressing her face. "Not making any decisions until I know more about the weapon and the plan." She leans into my hand. "Longer you're awake," I say, trying hard to keep my voice low and gentle. "The more I want to fuck you again."
She smiles and strokes my face. My dick comes painfully to attention. "Never in my wildest dreams did I think that would be a driving force for you."
"You had wild dreams about me?" I rumble. Start running my hands lovingly over her naked body.
"Yeah," she says, softly. "I really did." She leans forward and kisses my lips, gently. "You're superhumanly beautiful, you loved me, I've spent more time in bed with you than anyone else, and it was really hard not to think about you all the time. Even though I knew you kept me in your bed as a pet, not as someone you wanted to fuck."
Hear myself groan. "Ja-ack. I'm trying real hard to be good. But don't do that if you don't want me on you."
She smiles. There's something sad in her eyes that makes me want to punch someone. But then she kisses me again and wraps her legs around me and my dick aches enough I stop thinking.
Fighting something that's not human. It's got tentacles and teeth and I can't get any leverage against it. It's making this chittering noise I fucking hate.
The moon is high. There are stars in the sky. We're wrestling in the dark. Can't remember when this fight started. Can't imagine when this fight ends.
We're rolling over sand and shells. A wave hits us. I try to hold this thing under. We're both sucked far away from land.
Fry floats past on an inflated swan. Still got her fucking thermos of everlasting mojitos. "Having fun with My Little Cthulhu yet?" she asks me.
"Fuck you," I say. "What the fuck is going on?"
"Haven't you figured it out yet?" She splashes me. "I thought I told you last night. This is your fault. You told the girl you loved to be a good person and left her somewhere where she got to be well socialized. If you'd just kept her with you she would've embraced her inner psychopath by now. Instead she wants to save puppies. And she will hate you if you don't help."
One of the tentacles wraps itself around my neck. When I grab it with both hands, we go under for a long minute. Hate it. Manage to cut it off, surface, sputtering. "Fuck you. They slaved her out. Even put a fucking slave collar around her neck."
"That's just the physical manifestation of the fact she's gonna sacrifice herself to save other people," Fry says with a grin. "If you're done with My Little Cthulhu there, come on up, I wanna show you the big one."
She's holding out her hand. There are still tentacles lashing around me. This thing can clearly breathe underwater. Grab her hand and she pulls me onto the swan behind her. "Good boy," she says. "Giddy up!"
The swan unfurls itself like it's a dragon. Powerful wings beat the water as it rises. I see Jack standing on the shore, woeful. "We gotta go back for her," I say, urgently.
"You mean the girl you left behind?" Fry asks me. "We'll meet her there. Both of them. They'll probably beat us. Hold on." The fucking bird accellerates upwards. I consider jumping but the water is fucking far away.
Fry lands us at a huge public building that looks like a fucking temple. Gets off the swan, holds out her hand to me with the same smile I gave her once at the foot of a ramp. Makes me edgy. "Gonna give you a sneak peak at the eldritch horrors you'll be facing soon so you can start getting your head around them. Think I owe it to our little sister, since she really is taking one for the team here." Since she's offering, I take her hand. "I'll get you ice cream afterwards," she promises. Something in me twists hard.
I let her lead me in through marble columns and truly horrifying wall art to a big marble room. There's a man on a throne in a black and silver uniform. I think he's a cruel man. Behind him is the monster I was just fighting, all teeth and tentacles and much bigger than I realized. The tentacles caress him lovingly. The cruel man looks at me kindly. "My son," he says. "We are part of a grand tradition. First I kill you, and I rule. Then you kill me, and you rule. Some day, many years hence, a rising prince will kill you. The royal road continues through us."
"Fuck you," I say. "You've never killed me."
He chuckles like I'm funny. "There's a way we can both get what we want, my son."
"What the fuck do you have that I want?" I ask.
"Power," he says. "Freedom. Loyalty. Her." He gestures, and Jack's sitting at his feet. Her eyes are glassy and her hands are tied behind her back. He strokes her hair and caresses her neck. She looks at me and there is something awful in her face. Like she remembered I left her behind.
"She's. Not. Yours," I grind out.
"She is," he says. "Everything is. And everything could be yours. Including her. If you honor the deal our forefathers made and follow the royal road. Otherwise, this is my kindest offer." One hand is in her hair. The other stabs her fast on the side of the neck. She slumps at his feet. I launch myself at him, shiv out, and he's gone and I am in his place, with her bleeding out at my feet. The tentacles are fucking caressing me like they love me. I drop to the ground and get my hand over the cut but it's too deep, she's dying under my hands, in my arms, my hands are red with her blood, and my heart is breaking.
Wake up with my heart pounding and my nose buried in Jack's hair. She's breathing steadily. She's naked and alive. Naked, alive, not bleeding, and dead asleep. Wanna wake her up and fuck her, just to be sure. Shouldn't.
Raise my head and look around. Fry didn't leave me any ice cream. Screw that bitch.
Grip Jack tight and close my eyes.
Jack woke up too warm for the first time since she left New Mecca. She was pinned against a warm body in a warm, dark room. They'd sweated under the covers. Unpleasant. For a moment it made no sense. She laid there, letting the experience wash over her.
Abu.
Riddick.
Toombs.
Colchis.
She shook her head. Just need Creepy Cousin Ernest and Dion riding in on flying monsters and I'll have the complete set of childhood traumas.
Probably shouldn't tempt fate.
Riddick's in love with me. She felt a little warmer.
That's . . . crazy.
He said he'd never felt like this before. Has he ever been in love before?
Now she just felt hot. Probably not. In the orphanage? During the Wailing Wars? In Butcher Bay? Shit. I'm in bed with 120 kilos of first-love intoxication, bad relationship models, and real ease with deadly force. Fumbling around the way Yunas and I fumbled around at fourteen.
If this really is his first time, he might have serious abandonment issues. Especially if he is a sociopath.
And I have to pee. She tried to squirm out from under his arm. It was like trying to break out of a locked cryo-tube.
The good news is that he'll probably ease up on the new love - first love - obsession in due time. The bad news is that we might not live that long.
He'd shoved the beds into a corner and taken the outside spot, effectively pinning her between him and the wall. He really doesn't want me to get away.
She tried one more time to squirm out from under his arm. Finally gave up. "Riddick?" she said, softly.
"Yeah?" he said. The asshole hadn't been asleep at all. Just let her squirm against him ineffectually.
"I gotta pee," she murmured. He sighed but pulled out of bed. "You don't have to get up."
"It's okay," he said. "Not sleeping. Bad dreams."
She padded across the room. "Bad dreams?"
"Don't die," he replied flatly, following close. She stopped and looked at him. He was angry. His face softened when he saw her looking at him. He reached out and cupped the back of her head in his hands and drew her close. Pressed his forehead into hers. "Don't die. I won't be nice about it. Ever hear of Cthulhu?"
"Cthulhu? Sure," she said, not knowing how to respond to the rest of it. He let her go but followed her into the bathroom. "What's with watching me pee?"
He chuckled and turned around. "Sorry," he said, unrepentant. "Forgot you're squeamish about that. What's a Cthulhu?"
"It's a story. A monster. A big scary monster in a story. Like, not a monster you can fight." She tried to pull together what she knew. "Huge. Bigger than an interplanetary cargo-hauler. Kind of a god. A god with tentacles. Lots of tentacles. Eldritch. He sleeps in the ocean. Waiting for the stars to be right. So he can wake up and eat everyone's sanity. Maybe just eat everyone. Some people worship him. Want him to come back. They're weird." She shivered. "Jesus. I just had a nightmare where my brother Dion said something about eldritch horrors coming for me when the stars were right."
Riddick turned slowly. "What's eldritch?"
Despite the fact she was still peeing she answered. "Inhuman. Sometimes it's cool, like elves. Cool elves. Sometimes it's creepy, like tentacles and chittering and eating people. Why are you asking me this?"
"Keep dreaming I'm in the ocean fighting something with tentacles. Fry's usually there. She calls it My Little Cthulhu. And Aereon thinks I have eldritch powers. Why she thinks I can fight Zhylaw. Weird coincidence."
She swallowed hard, went to wash her hands. Glad there was a tiny bit of light. "Yeah. Coincidence."
He used the toilet himself, standing unashamed. She started to go back to bed. "Wait up," he says. She froze. "Almost done." He wasn't.
"What?" she said.
He shot her a grim look and finished at last. "Just not ready to let you go." He pulled her back towards the bed without washing his hands. "Also dreamed some tentacle-lovin' asshole on a throne smiled at me, offered me everything I ever wanted, and stabbed you in the throat. You bled out over my fingers. Broke my fucking heart. Don't die."
"Not my plan," she said, lightly, even though her guts were clenching.
He sat down on the bed. Pulled her close, wrapped his legs around her. Like he had in his little room in Abu's house. "You've never had a strong survival instinct. And I get the sense that self preservation is not high on your list of priorities right now."
She looked down at him. "You think it should be? As we're facing the possible extinction of my civilization?"
He nuzzled her, roughly. "Yeah. Fuck civilization. You die because of this," he said, serious as a heart attack. "I will rain fire down on Helios for making you think it matters more than you. It doesn't. Even if I'm dead. I will find a way." His hands were stroking up her sides. Despite the unhinged threat, her treacherous body was responding to him.
She looked away. Then she looked back. "So help me. Have my back. Be my strong right hand. That way we can both get what we want."
His hands tightened almost to bruising. She hissed in pain. He let go abruptly. "Sorry. That tentacle-lovin' asshole said something like that right before he killed you." He buried his face in her chest and he was actually shaking. She wrapped her arms around him as best she could and hugged him tight. When he didn't relent after many long seconds she started stroking his shoulders and back.
"I love you," she said. She stilled her hands. "But I love Helios too."
He groaned again. "They staked you out. Put a fucking slave collar around your neck. They were gonna do worse; implant the collar in your head. I fucking hate it."
"No," she said. "That wasn't the world. That was three people. And Abu's complicit, but he hates it too. It wasn't his idea. He has faith in you, you know. That you're going to do the right thing because you love me." His grip tightened. "It was Aereon who thought the best way to get you to do the right thing is to threaten me. She's not Helios. She's just . . . calculating. And Toombs is just an asshole. He's the one who actually decided to close the damn thing on my neck."
Riddick groaned. It gripped at her heart. Someone started knocking on the door.
Riddick grabbed a knife from someplace she had no idea there was a knife and cracked the door open. "Morning," Nara said. Jack sighed and went to find her clothes.
"Dahl's making breakfast," Nara said. "Jack there?"
"Yeah," Riddick replied. "But we're both naked."
Nara sounded embarrassed. "Ah. Oh. Okay. Uh. Get dressed and come to the mess when you can. Lots to do today."
Riddick closed the door with a click and was across the room almost immediately, backing her against a wall. "Guess we're on the clock."
"Guess so," she responded. His hands were on her, loving, intrusive.
"Still got a lot to talk about."
"Yeah."
"Can I fuck you first?"
"Yeah."
"No," Toombs said. "You're not going."