IV. Night Side

Kat huddled against the cool glass of the window, trying to calm her stomach. Without her owner nearby, she was even more lost and confused than she was in his presence. But Riddick and the priest didn't return till late in the evening. With an eerily satisfied air about him, Riddick offered to show Jack the "sweet package" he and Imam had acquired. The girl shot Kat a look of trepidation, then left with Riddick. The priest stood quietly by, his eyes locked on Kat.

When they were gone, Kat stood and gazed expectantly at Imam. Maybe the priest would have some way of helping her... But something about this man didn't smell right.

"Mr. Riddick and I have been speaking."

Kat had guessed that, but she made no reply.

"Perhaps it would be best for you to stay with him."

Perhaps I have no other choice about it, she thought, but kept that thought to herself. She fingered her collar pointedly instead.

"I have... considered... taking you with me to New Mecca, but..." He spread his hands helplessly. "No priest would own a slave, but no slave could walk freely, even with a priest." Imam's shoulders dropped, and he sighed. "You would be quickly taken, and would very likely find yourself in the company of worse than your present... owner."

Kat blinked away the tears as fast as they appeared. He couldn't do anything for her? Then she wasn't his problem. "I already have some experience with the worse owners."

There was a long silence before Imam finally took Kat's left hand in his own. He traced the tattoo on the inside of her wrist. "Lihari Den. The best pets are manufactured there."

She snatched her hand back, staring at him.

Imam looked past her, avoiding her eyes. "Perhaps you have more in common with the man than you think."

"Perhaps," Kat snarled, "a priest wouldn't know a thing about life in a Den." Imam hesitated, and her throat suddenly went dry.

"I... was not always a man of God."

"Where is she, holy man?" Riddick said. "What did you do to her?"

Jack snorted. "What did he do to her? How about what you're doing to her? How about what--"

Riddick's fist cut her off. "Shut your mouth, kid. You don't know what you're talking about."

Imam shoved between them as Jack fell back against the wall, struggling to keep to her feet. "I apologize, Mr. Riddick, for losing your... property. And--" Behind him, Jack swayed on her feet, and Imam continued in a rush. "--as much as I would like her to stay lost, that would simply not be possible, especially not in a place such as this."

"Really," Riddick growled. "I shoulda left you all in that cave. Made my life a helluva lot easier." He turned away and strode to the door.

"Find her," the older man hissed, "before it is too late."

The door slammed for the second time that day, leaving the apartment in a throbbing silence.

Janus had always been one of Riddick's favorite bolt holes. No lights, no cops, no questions. There was at least a token police force, but its members were often no better than the criminals they supposedly protected against.

Making his way out through town wasn't too hard; he kept to the shadows, and those who saw his silhouette stayed well away. But hunting down the pet wasn't easy. Where had a simple slave learned to cover its tracks so well? The night was still, though, and the air calm, and Kat had an unusual sweet-spicy scent that he would recognize anywhere.

Her trail led to the outskirts of town.

Riddick looked back through the shantytown at the edge of the city. He wasn't afraid of the dark--exactly. It simply didn't mean anything anymore. Not since the shine job. But his instincts insisted that the night would never again hold only monsters of the human variety. After all, he'd met up with quite a few monsters on the last planet he'd visited--and only one of them had been human.

He grinned at the memory of Johns' death, but the hairs on the back of his neck still prickled. The dry smell of the air meant the stars were out, although they were too dim for his eyes to distinguish. And Janus had no moons. Something inside him, though, made him scan the sky before going any further into the night.

Though he knew that expecting to find those creatures here was absurd, his instincts disagreed. But he shook the feeling off: After all, those flying teeth couldn't have evolved on that eclipse planet. Nocturnal beasties in a system with three suns? Not fucking likely. No, those flying teeth had to have originated from somewhere else, like...

Here? Riddick smiled at the thought. He felt too familiar with this part of Janus to let his imagination go any farther.

Turning his back on the town, and the handful of functioning streetlights, he went hunting in earnest.

Jack groaned and slid into a boneless heap on the floor. With a heavy sigh, Imam sat down beside her.

"Why'd she have to run away? And why does Riddick care so much about her running away? Everything was fine until she came along!"

"Hush, now, child." He began wiping the blood from her lip with the fringe of his robe. "It is the collar she wears that holds her to an owner, to Riddick. She could have escaped from either of us. It is to her great credit that she did not simply kill me." He closed his eyes and bowed his head. "My boys, I imagine, would have liked her."

Jack imagined no such thing, but she kept that thought quiet. "Wait a minute. Killed you? But she's a--I mean, she's not a..." She paled at the grave expression that made Imam's face seem carved from stone.

"I must make an apology to you, child..."

The end of the evening found Jack hunched in a corner, as far away from Imam as she could get; but her mind kept straying back to his left wrist, to the tattooed glyph hidden once more beneath his sleeve.

There was no one she could trust anymore.

The outcropping ahead of him, shimmering purple, made a good place for him to wait. To watch. A lithe figure was crouched not far beyond, in a small copse of trees. Not trees, he realized. Big goddamn mushrooms. He forced silent the nagging voice that said he'd never seen trees like that before--he'd never been out this far before.

The pet was still wearing the short dress from his little collection. Here, kitty, kitty. I'm probably safer than whatever beasties might live out here. He'd hardly finished the thought when he spotted something moving through the tall grass toward Kat's position.

There were two of them. They looked like some bizarre cross between deer and warthog, with their enormous, quivering ears and ugly, warty snouts. Long whiskers trembled as they continuously tested the air. Riddick saw that the creatures were blind--eyeless--and a chill tiptoed down his spine.

They were a doe and a calf. The mother's flexible snout reached under one of the trees' caps to pull out the meaty underside, while the little one scurried around her, gobbling up what she dropped. Spindly legs looked ready to run at a moment's notice.

Riddick watched, fascinated, as the pet inched forward. He could tell she was stalking the fawn--but would she bite it? Strangle it? Was that small, wiry body strong enough to break its neck?

The next thing he knew, she was down, writhing, her fingers clutching at her neck as the animals fled. Long years of caution kept Riddick frozen in place until his mind caught up with what he was seeing.

Kat's fingers scrabbled at her collar as she struggled for breath. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes as her body writhed against the collar's impelling pain. The convulsions had been wracking her since she'd fled, and they were only growing worse.

The collar loosened its grip, and Kat collapsed, gasping. She was so tired. They told stories in the Dens about slaves like her. Slaves who'd run away from their owners, only to be found, months or even years later, their remains still frozen in struggle against their collars.

Kat didn't want to end up like them.

But she couldn't go back. Riddick would kill her, because that was the kind of man he was. The kind of man she'd heard news reports and rumors about, twenty-two years ago, when he'd gone on a killing spree in the Gramercy system. He hadn't done anything to her yet; but she'd seen owners like him--owners who would not so much as touch their pets, then one day snap and kill them.

She couldn't go back. And she couldn't stay out here. So Kat slowly drifted off, waiting for the next round of attacks from her collar to finish her off.

Her inner eyelids were almost closed before she noticed him standing over her. Riddick sank down on his haunches, lips twisted in a half smile, head cocked as he studied her.

It wouldn't be so bad, she thought, if only he'd get on with it.

"Look at you," Riddick said, flicking his fingers over her collar, her ragged, dirty dress. "Can't even look after yourself. You ought to thank me for coming after you."

Kat's throat tightened against her fear as Riddick leaned over her.

"What's wrong? Cat got your tongue?"

She licked her lips. "N--no."

He smiled sardonically. "Actually, you ought to thank the holy man. He's the one who suggested I take care of you."

Kat pushed herself up on her elbows. "I suppose he would want me 'taken care of,' wouldn't he?"

Riddick grinned. "Not what you're thinking, Spots. He wanted me to look after you. You know--food and water, shelter, Mommy can I keep it?"

She stared up at him. "Don't let him near me. Please."

He threw his head back in a cruel laugh. "What, you thought just because he carried prayer beads, he'd save you? Ain't that quaint."

Kat chewed on her lip. Though she hadn't actually asked the priest, the thought that he would help her--that he must help her--had crossed her mind more than once. More than a few times. But Riddick had known. Somehow he'd known what that priest really was.

"Once a Trainer, always a Trainer, pet."

Kat cringed under the glint of unnatural eyes, shrank from the grin that bared all his teeth. Her body began moving as it had been trained to, but her owner only held her down and raked her body with his terrifying gaze.

"What are you waiting for?" she finally cried.

He smiled. "The right time."