Chapter 57: The Wankery of Furyans

Riddick can summon dragons, Jack thought wearily. Of course Riddick can summon dragons. Super strength, super speed, able to fool mercs by growing a beard, can see in the dark, and he can summon dragons. No wonder everyone wants him as their pet killer.

"Bert gave you that whistle?" Ariadne asked.

"Yeah." Riddick put the whistle to his lips. Ariadne stopped him. "Wait-"

He put the whistle down. "What? Got a better idea?"

Jack looked over her shoulder at her mother, who looked away. "My husband . . . can be problematic. I worry he could complicate things."

"Think he'd kidnap Jack and fly away," Riddick said flatly. "To keep her from dyin' a hero."

Ariadne's response was just as flat. "Yes."

Jack twisted around in the saddle as much as she could, causing shooting pain in her back and thighs. "Did dad - did dad keep you from dying a hero? That's why your plan to stop the Necromongers didn't work?" Her voice cracked.

Ariadne gave her a quick, fierce hug. "Oh, Jack. I wasn't going to tell you."

"Won't get a chance. She ain't leavin' my sight again."

Well, that's not creepy at all, Jack thought. "I need off this horse." Jack tried to dismount and almost fell. Her mother leapt lightly to the ground and lifted her arms. Jack slid into them ungracefully, hobbled over to a fallen log and sat down heavily. "Ow."

Riddick also dismounted easily, sat down beside her and pulled her close. "What do you wanna do, kid?"

You're asking that now? Her eyes prickled. She forced herself to relax into him, very aware of her mother's eyes on them. "I want to change out of this monstrous party dress, take a whole lot of painkillers, take a long, hot bath, and sleep for a week." She took a deep shuddering breath. "But I want to save Helios more. Why are you so goddamn rested?"

He shrugged elaborately. "Didn't have to dig myself out of the underworld in a fancy party dress. Also took a nap when a nightgaunt wrapped wings around me. Keep watch if you want one."

Jack took another deep shuddering breath. "Tempting. But I think we need a plan to get back to the tree." She looked up at her mother. "I'm not sure I can get back on that horse."

"Let me see," her mother said. "Spread your legs." Jack did. Her mother hissed. "You're bruised and raw. I'm so sorry. I should have realized you weren't used to this. I've got some ointment that should help." She went to rummage in her saddlebags.

"Thank you. So, dad and his dragon." Ariadne stiffened. "I think we should call them. You left him because he kept you from doing the right thing. I don't think he'll make the same mistake with me."

"Jack. He'll convince himself he's doing it for your own good."

"I have Riddick." Riddick grunted. It might have been an affirmation.

"He has a dragon."

Riddick's arm tightened around her. She had a sudden visceral memory of him yanking her into the firefighting foam on the Kublai Khan as bullets ripped over their heads. She blinked back tears. "What are our other options? How long to get there without him? Assuming I can get back on the horse, which I'm not sure I can."

"I don't know. This chasm could go on for miles and miles. Or it could vanish in an instant." Ariadne handed her a leather pouch full of a herbal smelling ointment. Jack took it and stuck a finger in. Felt a welcome numbness. She started smearing it where it hurt. Heard herself whimper.

"Let me," Riddick rumbled and knelt in front of her. She blushed scarlet, remembering him kneeling between her legs the first morning on Colchis. Remembering him kneeling in front of her and taking her arm in his hands thirteen years ago. His hands were between her thighs, loving and gentle. Her mother looked away. "Will the dragon fly four?"

"Susan? I suspect so," Ariadne replied, slowly.

The relief from pain was almost itself a blow. Jack felt herself slip forward in exhaustion. Riddick steadied her, jerked a head at Zoe. "Can we borrow your bedroll? Think Jack needs to lay down a minute."

"Sure." Zoe unstrapped it from her horse, brought it over, and spread it on the ground next to the log. "Need a blanket?"

Riddick somehow laid her down on the bedroll and got her head in his lap. "Probably. Relax, kid. You need this."

"Okay," Jack mumbled. "Just for a minute. As long as you call the dragon." Within an instant she was dead asleep.


"She's slept with her head in your lap before," Ariadne says. It ain't a question.

Shrug. "Yeah. Could use that blanket."

Zoe pulls one from behind her saddle and hands it to Ariadne. Ariadne tucks it around Jack tenderly. "You'll protect my daughter from her father? And from everything else?"

From everything else. Close my eyes. Force myself to breathe even. Pretty sure she don't know enough to ask me the right question.

Will burn all their pretty cities down before that's the right question.

Except the Necros already did. Feel a stabbing pain.

From everything else. Guess I can promise that. Open my eyes. Take off the goggles. "From everything else. From her father. From nameless eldritch horrors. From the nasty death they'll give her if I don't take on this fucking suicide mission."

Jack's ma looks hard at my eyes, long enough to make me shifty. Then she looks up at Zoe. Zoe nods. "I believe you. But it occurs to me that you and Bert's interests might be aligned. Keeping her out of harm's way, even if it means billions of innocents die."

"Smart. Been wanting to drag her away from all this ever since I heard they were takin' her to Colchis in chains." Ariadne's closes her eyes and looks nauseous. Guess she didn't know that. "Trouble is, she'll hate me. So, yeah, will take a shot at the king, for her. How about I call Bert and we four play happy families?"

Ariadne sits down next to me and leans back into the log. She don't answer directly. "My first husband died fighting Necromongers."

Zoe crouches down in front of her. "Mum. Usir died a goddamn hero. Saved so many."

"He did." She looks at me. "You're an interesting mix of the men I married."

That stings enough to make me grunt. "Not like Bert."

"You want what he wanted. To protect the people he loved and leave everyone else to the devil." She looks up at the sky. The sun, or whatever the fuck it is, is setting.

She's got a point. Chew on the side of my cheek. "You don't think I'm good enough for your daughter." Didn't mean to say that.

"I don't know you, Riddick," she says gently. "I know Audrey loves you. It makes sense to me she'd fall in love with a Furyan. I know she tried to conceal the fact you don't want this mission. Among other things."

Grunt. "Maybe that I spent a lot of time in the penal system."

She shrugs. "Weakly telepathic human-variants tend to get in trouble when they are alone. Furyans especially."

The hairs on the back of my neck rise. "What?"

Zoe takes it up. "You talk to Shirah?" Nod. Don't trust myself to speak. Other people know Shirah? She's not just my personal nagging demon? Holy fuck. "You can do that because Furyans were engineered to be weakly telepathic. Helps us read people and coordinate with our units. There's a part of us that's always reaching out to find the threat and find the friend. When it's just threats all the time, we go a little stabby."

Stare down at Jack. Thoughts swirling. "And Colchis?"

"Also weakly telepathic. Byproduct of genetically engineering brains that could directly interface with tech."

"You sayin' she scratches some itch for me just because of genetic engineering?" Feel kinda offended by that.

Zoe shrugs. "Whatdya mean 'just?'"

Look down at Jack, her head in my lap like it's not the lap of an unhinged sociopathic killer who's obsessed with her. She looks so freaking innocent it makes my cock twitch and my eyes sting. "Genetic engineering is why she could talk to the AI on Colchis?"

Ariadne startles. "She did? We stripped all the interfaces before we left and powered it down. How did she wake it up?"

Shrug. "She figured something out." Scowl. "Gave her seizures, but she got shit working."

"Holy Ma'at."

"Doc-in-the-Box says she'll be okay as long as she doesn't over do it."

"Well, this trip certainly wouldn't qualify," Zoe says archly. Then we all get distracted 'cause Pentecost stumbles into the clearing, moss in his hair and horror in his face.

"Thank Sekhmet I found you," he says. Jerks his head at me and Jack. "Your girl okay?"

"I think so," her mother says. "Just exhausted and banged up. Something grabbed her during the fight. She got away too."

Feel weirdly better seeing him. Okay, maybe that's not weird. Maybe we're psychically connected. Okay, that's fucking weird. "Howdya get away?"

"Nightgaunt stopped to tickle me." He shudders. "Gave me time to kill it, praise Enki."

Roll my eyes at him. "Usir's Radne and Dion's dad?"

Pentecost nods. His eyes mist slightly. Maybe they knew each other. "Yeah, mate."

"Why is Jack afraid of Dion?"

Everybody looks at each other. After a long time, Ariadne says, slowly. "Dion . . . took his father's death hard. It left him profoundly insecure and angry at all the people who ignored the Necromonger threat. A lot of that got focused on Jack. He loved her because she was his sister and he hated her because she was half Mercer. When she was a little girl he'd alternately dote on her and bully her."

My voice is flat. "You let him hurt her. Crack her ribs. Break her nose. Maybe worse." Pentecost makes a funny noise.

She exhales. "One of the many problems with trying to save the universe from Necromongers. I wasn't there to protect her."

That sits between us for a long time. Finally, Pentecost breaks the silence. "Also my nephew could be a little wanker."

Look at him. Try not to sound angry. "Bert says Dion sent military retrieval squads after her?"

Ariadne shrugs like it's no big thing. "Not just her. Necromongers collected human variants, especially Furyans. You're lucky they didn't send a squad after you. But yes, as he rose through the ranks he made sure she stayed high on the target list."

The words target list hit me almost as hard as shipments of kids from Mercer. Fucking hate this. "What's he gonna do if she shows up asking for help takin' them down?"

"Hopefully, you find Radne at the same time or - better -first. She's staunchly committed to taking down the Necromongers. He adores his sister. He'll do what she tells him."

"And if he finds us first?"

She sighs at me. "I don't know." Stare at her. "Worst case, he might force her to go through conversion."

"Don't know what that means."

She touches a scar on her neck. "They hang you by the neck from a torture rack for days and days. The Great Old Ones eat your pain and plant themselves inside you. Meaning even if you do kill Zhylaw, the deal with the Old Ones will endure. And I am not sure Jack would survive, particularly if she had a seizure."

"Shit."

She nods. "Let's set up camp. It's going to be dark soon. Even if we do call the dragon, the rest of us won't be riding back through these woods tonight."

Look down at Jack. She's gonna be mad I let her sleep this long.

What Pentecost says finally registers. "Jack's brother's your nephew?"

"Yeah, mate," Pentacost says. "We Furyans can be real wankers sometimes."


"Pssst! Kid!"

Jack opened her eyes slowly. She was lying on her side on a thin mattress, her head in someone's lap. Riddick's lap. He was leaning back against a log, snoring softly.

"Kid!" There was urgency in the voice. The familiar voice. She tried to sit up. Riddick's heavy arm was pinning her. She managed to wriggle out from under it. It didn't seem to wake him up.

It was dark. She was in the woods in a small clearing. She could smell a fire. She sat up slowly. They seemed to be alone.

"Over here!" She got up, shivering in the cold. Riddick, or someone, had wrapped a blanket around her. She decided to take it.

Shouldn't there be more people here? she thought, hazily. There were when I went to sleep.

"Who's there?" she called softly.

"You forgot me already, kid? I'm hurt." Alex Toombs stepped out into the clearing. He grinned at her and spread his arms. "Come on."

Jack took a step back. "How did you get here?"

"Just followed the trail of breadcrumbs. Not as good as Dahl's cooking, but-" He paused and licked his lips lasciviously. "But I've had worse. Come. Walk with me in the pale moonlight."

That doesn't make sense, Jack thought. He can't be here. The catch-field wouldn't catch him. This has got to be a dream. "No, I'm good."

Toombs sighed and pulled a gun. Pointed it at Riddick, who was still snoring softly. "Come with me or I'll shoot your gallant protector."

"Guns don't work here."

His voice dropped. "You sure, darlin'? I think the rules mighta changed recently." The red light from the gun's laser site was between Riddick's eyes. "She wants to talk to you. Check you out. Have you back in a jiff."

Jack swallowed. "Who?"

"An old friend."

"I don't have any shoes."

He rolled his eyes, fished around his jacket, and tossed her a pair of jeweled flip flops. "Grabbed these for my girl but you can borrow them."

"You have a girl?"

"One in every port, darlin'. Now, come with me if you want him to live."

This really has to be a dream. No way Riddick sleeps through this. And no one would date Toombs.

But that does look like a laser site for a gun. "Okay," she said after a long time. "As long as we're only gone for a minute."

The gun disappeared. He offered her his arm. "No time at all."

She took his arm and he led her down a moonlit path.


Toombs lied. They had been walking a long time. He kept chattering on, which might be why he did not notice that Riddick was right behind him until Riddick's knife slid through his back and all the way out the front. Riddick made a satisfied grunt and yanked the knife back out.

"Goat fucking goatfucker!" Toombs swore, collapsing to his hands and knees.

Riddick just stood there, the bloody knife dangling loosely from his hands. He grinned at Jack. "Missed you."

"Jesus, Riddick," Jack said, jerking away from both of them. "I asked you not to do that."

"Oh holy fucking fuck." Toombs struggled to his knees, rubbing both the entry and the exit wounds. "Seriously? You're Riddick? Riddick stabbed me in the back?"

"Thought it'd be quick," Riddick shot back. "Didn't wanna traumatize Jack by killing you slowly. Game if you are."

"Well, fuck you sidewise." Toombs shook himself and stood. "Good thing I can't die. But you cut my fucking shirt!"

"Lemme try again." Riddick swung the knife, clearly intending to decapitate the other man. Toombs pulled his gun and shot Riddick point blank in the chest, knocking him to the ground.