Riddick waited until he heard Johns go back to the others before addressing his little sis. "You really been here that long, Angel-girl?"

She didn't answer, and Riddick heard her starting to gasp for breath. He faced her and saw twin trails of tears coursing down her cheeks. He put an arm around her shoulders and squeezed her tightly to him. "Hey now, Angel. What's this about?"

Her voice came through choked sobs. "They're going to die...It's going to happen all over again...Another eclipse is coming...any day now and...I won't be able to save them..."

Riddick didn't bother trying to comfort her with platitudes and "Oh, it'll be alright." Truth was, he was a little frightened himself. If those thing could reduce more than a dozen vampires down to five, then they were plenty dangerous. And she was right - barring a miracle, the blood bags they just left in the ravine were as good as dead...and he had never been very religious.

As they neared the camp grounds, Angela quickly collected herself. The door to one of the larger buildings opened, and a man stepped out. He had longish dark hair and a scruffy beard, but that didn't keep Riddick from recognizing Inigo Carlos Vasquez. "Hola, viejo. ¿Cómo estás?"

Inigo's eyes widened. "Ricardo?"

"Sí, mi amigo."

Inigo came forward to grasp hands with his one-time ward and friend. "It has been a long time, Ricardo. You have a ship? This is a rescue, no?"

Inigo's eyes were so hopeful and desperate, Riddick hated to disappoint his old friend. "Sorry, amigo. We crash landed on this rock. Looks like we're all stuck here."

"I...I see," he intoned sadly. His attention perked up a bit. "'We'?"

"Eight humans survived the crash with me. Would've been nine, but those nightcrawlers got one of 'em."

"And they're not to be harmed," Angela warned him. "I want everyone to know that as far as feeding goes, we're sticking to nightcrawlers. These people didn't make it this far to become a buffet."

"Where are they?" Inigo asked.

Riddick hooked a thumb towards the ravine. "Back there."

"Then you'd better get to them. Collin went that direction earlier."

Riddick didn't recognize the name. "I'll hurry with that water."

* * * * *

Jack took a hit off of her breather. At least they got to rest a bit after that long walk.

Vampires...it was too weird to be true, but it was. No wonder she had such a bad case of hero worship for Riddick. A vampire wouldn't take shit from anyone, let alone some bastard whose only claim to you and your inheritance was "I screwed your mom once."

She forced her thoughts away from her past and refocused on Riddick. She wondered how old he was. His little sis was at least three-hundred, so he had to be older. Jack couldn't imagine being able to live that long.

Jack was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she never saw the hand reaching down to her. However, Johns did see it and the body it was attached to. It was obviously another vampire. It clung to the sheer cliff wall of the ravine, defying every law of gravity as it reached for the kid's head. Johns leveled his gun and fired, but it had seen him and skittered back up the wall before the bullet could connect with its mark.

Fry and Shazza both advanced on Johns. Shazza grabbed the gun while Fry grabbed Johns. They hadn't seen it go for the kid. "It was another vampire!" he yelled pointing to where it had climbed over the top of the ravine.

Shazza and Fry back away from him. Everyone fearfully scanned the ravine walls. Imam and his boys began chanting a prayer.

"Would you shut the fuck up!" Riddick yelled. "Gives me a headache."

"All the more reason to keep it up," Johns taunted.

"Not really, Johnsy." Riddick eyed him, and in a low voice said, "Headaches make me cranky." He smiled and set down two large jugs of water and some battered tin cups. "Help yourselves, ladies and gents."

They made their way to the water still glancing upward. "There was another vampire here," Shazza said. "It made a grab for young Jack here."

Riddick eyed Shazza angrily. "We may not be human, but we're still people, and we don't like being referred to as 'it'." He turned his attention to the cliff wall near Jack. "Collin!" he yelled at the wall. "Collin McCullough, get your ass down here now!"

Above Jack, a head popped into view, then disappeared again. A second later, a body hurled itself off the cliff and landed crouched at Riddick's feet. He was small and gaunt. Didn't look a day over twenty, but Riddick knew better than to guess age by appearance. He knew Collin here hadn't hit his first century yet. His eyes were glowing and his fangs were extended in full vamp mode. Young ones usually had a little trouble keeping a human appearance, especially when faced with easy prey.

"Collin," he warned, "you can't eat them. Angela says these people are off-limits."

Collin made a face. "I'd never eat 'em. I'm Carouche. Only blood I've ever 'ad is nightcrawlers. I was just curious 'bout that cap." He nodded in Jack's direction. "Used te 'ave a baseball cap m'self once. Me da given it te me when I was a tot. Left it be'ind when I came on this mission. Bloody fucked up 'round 'ere, ain't it? Rather 'ave me cap back than this sorry sea o' sand."

"What's 'ca-roosh'?" Jack asked as she tossed the cap over to Collin. He smiled at her and put it on.

"A lower breed of vampire. Their first blood was animal instead of human. Makes 'em weaker than the rest of us somehow, and they crave the animal's blood, not humans." Riddick took the cap from Collin, ignoring his sad look, and gave it back to Jack.

"Well, what exactly is your pedigree, Mr. Riddick?" Paris asked then wished he hadn't when Riddick focused on him. "If...If you don't mind my asking, that is."

"Angela already told you, an Enforcer. My first blood was another vampire. Makes me more powerful than most others."

"Wow," was Jack's soft reply. She frowned, "But if you're so strong, why don't you just eat Johns and get him off your back?"

Johns was about to yell at Jack, but the sound of Riddick's laughter stopped him. "Like I said, kid, he's tainted. Not even the most desperate vamp would suck his sorry hide."

"What do you mean 'tainted'?" Shazza asked. "What's so special about him that he's immune from attack?"

Riddick smiled at Johns. "You wanna tell 'em, or should I?"

All eyes were on Johns and Riddick. Johns had the decency to look extremely uncomfortable. "Tell us what?" asked Shazza.

Johns worked a muscle in his jaw. Riddick crossed his arms.

Collin snorted a laugh. "Tell ya that 'e's full o' bloody chemicals, that's whot. Been takin' 'em so long they're part of his body now, dancin' a waltz wi' 'is cell structure. Can fucking smell it from over 'ere, just waftin' on the breeze like bloody perfume."

Riddick laughed too. "I'm guessing you were brought across during the last eclipse."

Collin grinned boyishly. "Aye, sir. One o' them crawlin' nasties carved me a new navel. 'Er ladyship wouldn't let me die, so she tore off its leg and beat it te death wi' its own clawed foot. Wouldn't 'ave survived if she 'adn't brought me across." He eyed Riddick with amusement. "So me youth shows, does it? 'Em older ones is always treatin' me like a wee babe. I was man enough in me own right when I was human. Why is it now that I'm one o' ye, I get coddled and lectured like some toddlin' brat?"

"Because you are a brat, Collin," Angela answered from the top of the hill. Inigo and two other scruffy-looking vamps were with her. "You're impatient and petulant. You have no self-control, particularly with your appetite, and you have no idea what it truly is to be a vampire." She smiled and ruffled his hair affectionately. "Not that you're to blame. This is hardly the place for a fledgling to grow up."

She looked to Johns. "Mr. Johns, before we go any further, I would like to make it quite clear that your are no longer in charge of this group; I am...Any objections?"

Johns leveled his gun at her again. "You bet I do."

Riddick sighed and shook his head. "You just don't get it, do you, Johns. The rules have not only changed, they've fuckin' flown out the window. Doesn't matter what size gauge you got, it won't hurt us." Lightening quick, he snatched the gun from Johns' open hand. "If you could even actually hit one of us."

"And we've been here a while," Angela added. "This place is habitable for vampires. With our aid, it can be habitable for humans as well." She took the gun from Riddick and gave it back to Johns. "If you want our help, it will be under my leadership. If you don't like that, tough. You can go on your merry way, and if you're extremely lucky, you'll die of dehydration before the eclipse begins."

"There's going to be another eclipse?" Paris stammered. "Soon?"

"Any day now," she confirmed his fear.

Imam knelt on the ground and began pouring cups of water. "Then perhaps we should say a prayer to Allah, to guide us through these hard times." He passed the water to his boys, who in turn passed it to the others in the group before claiming a cup for themselves. When every human had water and were thirstily gulping it down, he addressed their vampiric entourage. "If it would not offend our hosts, of course."

"Not at all," she smiled warmly at the holy man. "You don't spend three centuries in a place like this and not say prayer every now and then."

Everyone drank their share of the water and rested in silence for a while. After a few minutes, Imam gathered his group, and they began their prayers again.

Inigo eyed them warily as he poured himself some water. He took a sip to cool his mouth, then splashed the rest on his face to ease the burn from the suns. He looked at the sky and corrected himself, one sun. The red stars had set, leaving the solitary blue star to illuminate the planet.

Angela closed her eyes, listening to the prayer as her body swayed to the chant's rhythm. Riddick, however, shared Inigo's discomfort. Even when human, neither man had held a particularly high opinion of any religion.

When Imam finished the prayer, the odd mix of humans and vampires trekked the last fifty or so meters to the camp. Shazza gave the buildings a good looking over as they came nearer. A lot of the buildings had been cut up. The pre-fab walls dismantled or shredded in order to shore up the walls of one large building. Its walls were a patchwork of metal sheets welded together.

The patchwork building was their destination. Even with vampiric strength, it took Inigo and one of the others to muscle aside a two-foot thick door. Once everyone was inside, they grappled it back into place with the loud echoing clang of metal on metal.

"We've been fortifying this building since the last eclipse," Angela explained. "It used to be the barracks, but we've removed most of the beds. Cleared it out to make plenty of room for ourselves, even knocked out the back wall and extended the whole thing to make it larger. The floor's six feet of concrete, so the bastards can't dig in from under us. We've added layers to the walls and poured more concrete between the layers."

"Wouldn't that make the walls too heavy?" Shazza asked. "Topple over the first time those things took a swipe at 'em?"

Another vampire, dark hair and silver-gray eyes, nodded. "Yeah, that's why we took the long drill bits from the coring room and stuck 'em down the walls before we poured the concrete, like fence posts. Plus we've been building these," he slapped his hand on a stone pillar that laid against the walls. More pillars held up the walls elsewhere and also dotted the interior, holding up the fortified ceiling. "Name's Henri, by the way. Henri Rebenque."

Shazza shivered at the hungry look he gave her. Though she couldn't tell if it was her blood or a shag that he was hungry for, maybe both. Either way, he wasn't getting it. She gave him an icy stare, then pointedly ignored him.

Henri smiled to himself. He liked a good challenge, especially with such a lovely prize at the end of the game.