Riddick stepped on board his new ship, he got it for a really low price, and I mean really, really low. He was surprised to see it in better condition than he thought it would be for such a low price. The former owner had given him one warning before finalizing the purchase.

"Never, and I repeat never go into the second cargo hold. Other than that, its all fine." He said and signed the papers. Riddick nodded folding the papers up and sticking them into a pocket.

"Why don't I want to do that?" he asked.

"There's something in there in cryo-stasis that isn't pleasant." The former owner said and wished him good luck before heading to his wife and his new life. He went into the cockpit and launched, breaking atmosphere.

Over the weeks he heeded the former owner's warning and didn't go into the second cargo hold, but his pesky curiosity started to nag at him. Arming himself after recalling the cautioned fear in the former owner's eyes when he told him what was in the cargo hold, he went to the second cargo hold and pressed his palm into the scanner. It beeped and the door slid back revealing darkness, an eerie green glow coming from a cryo tube. He removed his goggles and looked in it seeing a woman inside wrapped in cryogenic plastic, a breathing apparatus hooked to her mouth and nose, her hands chained in front of her, the chain hooked to an eyebolt in between her feet, which were also chained together. Her eyes were closed and her chest was rising and falling in a smooth steady pattern. She didn't look particularly threatening, he's killed more threatening people than her. She wasn't that tall, maybe 5'8 or 5'9, medium build, long arms, legs and torso. He looked at her hands, long slender fingers, wide palm, and medium length well maintained nails. He looked back at her face, delicate cheekbone structure, short chin, smooth jaw, her eyelashes were long and curved and from the look of it she was a very pale Caucasian with long dark brown hair.

Riddick cracked open the tube and tore away the plastic, he removed the breathing device and she breathed on her own, still asleep. Her nose was small with slender nostrils and her bottom was lip was slightly fuller than the top, which was pretty much a thin line. Her eyes snapped open and before he could react he was on his back on the floor with her sitting on his chest pinning his arms, one of his own knives pressed into his neck the remains of the chains hanging from her wrists. He swallowed and she pressed harder. She perked an eyebrow at him and with her hand moving in a blur, knocked him out.

The road to consciousness was long and hard. When he finally did wake up he noticed that he was still in the cargo hold, the woman sitting across the room watching him. Checking for his weapons he found them gone and looked at her again, she had them strapped to her own body. He tried to sit up but when the muscles and tendons in his neck tensed hot pain flared through his body from a spot on his neck. He laid back down and put his hand to his neck, it stung and he pulled back looking at his hand, there was a small amount of blood on it. Ignoring the pain he put his hand to his neck again and felt the wound. There were two puncture marks on it that was still slowly seeping blood. Movement catching his eyes, she was suddenly sitting on his hips, she leaned over and licked his neck. Riddick felt the two wounds close instantly. She took her place back across the room and continued to watch him. Finding it easier to sit up he did and looked right back at her.

"What's your name?" he asked and she perked an eyebrow at him.

"Usually when something like this happens the person usually asks me what the hell am I. Not what my name is." She said, she had a slight accent that he didn't recognize. "My name is Victoria Greco. I already know your name." She said and leaned back against the wall giving him the mental image of a big cat resting peacefully, but still very aware and very dangerous. That's what she was, she was a predator, what kind he wasn't quite sure of.

There was a drop of blood on the corner of her mouth and her tongue flicked out licking it away, he saw her swallow then smile tiredly.

"What were you doing in there?" Riddick asked moving his head at the cryo-tube.

"I was put in there until my maker came for me. He entrusted my life in a human, a mortal. One he trusted. He told him that in fifty years if he wasn't back to sell the ship and me along with it." She said and he stood, the room spun and he found himself sitting down again. "Blast, I knew I took too much." She said and in an instant she was by his side helping him stand and keeping him upright. "Tell me something Mr. Riddick."

"How do you know my name?"

"I saw it as I fed from you. Now tell me this...why did you go down there?"

"I was curious." He said, by now they had left the second cargo hold and were walking down the short hall to his room, she must have seen that too because she knew the way.

"Curiosity killed the cat."

"What?"

"Nothing, just an extremely old saying."

"How old are you, exactly?"

"I'll say this one thing. I look good for my age."

"So you don't know you're true age."

"No, I do, but if I say it it'll make you feel really young."

"How old are you?" he asked looking at her daringly.

"I'm a little over five thousand, give or take a century." Victoria said and he looked at her.

"That does make me feel really young."

"I warned you. I was twenty-two when I was brought over. I've seen empires rise and fall, complete civilizations disappear with time, wars and plagues. You ever read anything by Anne Rice?"

"Who?"

"Guess not. I have some of her books in with my belongings." She said and pushed open his door, they hobbled over to his bed which he laid on and she sat on the edge looking at him.

"If I fall asleep, will I wake up with holes in my neck again?"

"In the first awakening, it's crucial to have human blood. I can sustain myself in other ways. Sleep Mr. Riddick, sleep." she said putting her hand over his eyes and brushing his lids down, he soon fell asleep.

When Riddick woke up he felt Victoria curled up against him, her face buried in his neck, her breath cold against his skin. He could feel her slow heartbeat against his arm, her hands around his wrist. Her skin was cool and hard, he looked at her to see her eyes closed. She exhaled a shaky breath and ceased to breathe, her heart stopped and she went very still and her very cold grip on him loosened. He rolled her onto her back and pressed his fingers against her neck, pulling them away when he felt no pulse, she was dead. One look at his chrono told him one reason, on any planet in the sector they were in the sun was rising. That particular part of...her mythology seemed to be true. Her mouth opened and he pushed up her top lip seeing pointed fangs, her canines and the teeth right in front them and the same with her bottom jaw. He ran his finger along them and pulled away at the sharp pain, a drop of his blood fell into her mouth and she swallowed reflexively. He pressed on the cut on his finger until it stopped bleeding and continued to look at her.

Her skin was deathly white like marble, her lips colorless. He took one of her hands and examined them, the fingers were long and slender, almost skeletal with crystal like fingernails, the nail bed long. The veins in her wrist were thick and protruding. He ran his thumb along them to her pulse and almost pulled back when he didn't feel one. Riddick lowered her hand and got off the bed leaving her to rest, or something. He took a shower and set his chrono to go off when 'sunset' happened. He spent the day moving her things into the spare room, including a long extra wide coffin of polished cherry wood. In it he found a rosary, curious he pressed the cross into her palm, the skin did not burn or sizzle. Her hand closed around it and he left finishing the job. He took the bed out of the room and replaced it with the coffin, opening it and finding it lined with black silk.

He suddenly had the urge to climb in it, just to feel what it felt like. But he wanted her to be in it if he did, to feel her arms around him, pressing her to him as she died only to come alive again with the setting sun, to have his head on her chest and listen as her heart stopped beating. Glancing at his chrono he went back into his room and sat down in a chair facing the bed, the second the alarm went off her eyes fluttered open and he pressed a button silencing it. She looked down at the rosary still clutched in her hand in confusion.

"I found it in your coffin, I thought it was weird for something such as yourself to have it. Especially since you were alive before Christianity was formed." He said and Victoria put it in her pocket getting off of the bed.

"It belonged to a German monk in the twelfth century, one I was rather fond of actually, he knew what I was and didn't care. He was executed for heresy and communicating with an agent of the devil. I mourned him for over a hundred years, clutching his rosary and praying for getting an innocent killed. I had told him that there was no God or Satan, no heaven or hell, just existence. I wanted to change him but my maker kept me from it. He said that the monk was too fragile in the mind, that living forever would drive him insane then I would be forced to kill him. I saw his reasoning and watched as my beloved monk was burned at the stake. The last thing he said before death took him was my name." She said and her mind flashed back hundreds of years.

She was standing in a crowd stationed around a stake, a man in brown robes tied to it. Flames caught the robes and he started to scream.

"Victoria!" he screamed over and again and she wept while she watched him die.

She vanished, the bedroom door hanging open.

Riddick found her in the 'kitchen' sipping a glass if dark liquid that by scent he knew was blood. But something had been added to it, distorting the smell and making her grimace when she sipped it.

"Pigs blood with a shot of whiskey. Doesn't get much better that this." she said and downed the rest, color flooded her cheeks and she looked alive. She rinsed out the glass and when she passed he took her hand, it was warm and soft. "Drinking blood is the same effect as having it my system originally, it makes me appear alive. But I'm not alive Mr. Riddick, I died a long time ago. You'd be best to remember that." she pulled her hand out of his and walked away. He looked in the refrigerator and saw several clear bottles of blood with labels along with an amber bottle of thousand-year-old Irish whiskey.

He took out the whiskey and poured himself a small glass, sipping it slowly because thousand-year-old whiskey is a close relative to fire water. He downed the rest of it and resisted a cough, blinking away the reflexive tears that formed in his eyes, he definitely won't be doing that again. Looking for her he found her in her coffin on its raised platform, her hands laced behind her head, headphones strapped to her ears. He could hear loud music coming out of them. Victoria looked at him then back at the wall in front of her. He went to the side and looked down at her. She took off her headphones and looked up at him.

"What was his name?" Riddick asked.

"Whose?"

"The man who made you."

"Elias." She said and sat up pushing herself up so she was sitting on her pillow at the head.

"Do you even know where he is?"

"No, I mean I know he's still alive, I can feel him in my head, but I just don't know where he is."

"Do you know why he put you in cryo-stasis?"

"He said that something was after him, something that would destroy me if I was with him when it caught up with him. He did it to protect me, he loved me." Victoria said and he continued to look at her. "What?"

"Your bone structure is amazing." He said and ran his thumb along her cheekbone.

"Is that your way of saying you think I'm pretty?"

"Yes." Riddick said and she shrugged.

"Thank you, I guess." She said and he continued to look at her. "Could you not do that please? It's making me uncomfortable." He left and went into his own room, lying down on his bed.