Three of Swords. New Mecca. Kyra.
Life, Kyra thought, sucks.
More mysterious strangers. They just kept coming. She was finding it increasingly hard to make herself believe it was just coincidence.
There were only two of them. She'd killed groups of two a couple of times. Found cool stuff on their bodies. But these guys seemed to know she could fight. With that, much of her advantage was gone.
One managed to shove her against a wall, get her right wrist into a force cuff; before she managed to kick out his knee. He kept a dogged grip on the other cuff, and she felt her panic rise. This had not been covered in unarmed combat lessons.
IUnarmed combat/I She cursed herself. She was never unarmed. She grabbed her knife awkwardly with her left hand. The one Riddick had given her, with a blade that went through anything, including the man's stomach. His banshee scream was exhilarating, as was the other man's blood sliding out of a slit jugular.
She could hear sirens. Okay. Find the key to the dangling cuff. No time. Just grab their kits, run. Think later.
The Star, Harbinger. Leaving the Underworld.
As he prepped the ship, Riddick thought about some of the people he had liked recently. He'd liked Caroline Fry. Hadn't felt like that for a long time. Willing to let dozens die to save her own skin, then spent the entire time he knew her trying to achieve redemption. It was cute. She buzzed in his head, but he kinda liked it. And she didn't mind it when he killed someone; actually thought he might be a hero afterwards. Been a long time since he'd been a hero in anyone's eyes. He started to fall for her, a little. Thought it might be fun to hang.
Right up until the end, when she tried to save his life. Died for it. Saddling him with a girl and a holy man, damn it. A girl he started to feel . . . something for. Like she really was his little sister. Or something. He liked being with her. She didn't buzz in his head.
But he had liked having her around too much. Felt too good; too much like family. Worried about the mercs figuring that out. Worried that they would shred her to get to him. Worried about just how many ways she could be hurt; how it could be drawn out for days or months or years, transforming her into something ugly and damaged. Found himself looking at her and seeing her screaming; imagining that the best thing he could do for her was give her an easy death.
Then the merc team had shown up, nosing around for his scent on her, all thoughts of killing her went away. Killing them to protect her felt good. Righteous. The way it used to. And, because he was a righteous man again, he left. To keep her from being a target, a means to him. To keep her from following him out into the dark.
But he couldn't quite stop thinking about her; the smell of her blood and tears and earnest sweat. About how good it felt to kill for her. (How good she felt when she'd crawl into bed beside him, wriggle into his arms, trying to escape from the nightmares. No, don't think about that).
The closest planet was dreary, but it was plugged into the information nets. He was surprised to find out that Jack – or at least, someone who looked like an almost grown up Jack, living with the holy man, calling herself Kyra al-Walid – was quite the hero.
She'd saved a child from a wolf; bodily interposing herself in between them. That annoyed him. That she'd risk herself like that for some kid. He snorted at himself.
They had three pictures of her – one staring down the wolf; one crouched over the wolf, rubbing its belly, looking as happy as he'd ever seen her; the final one looking devastated over its unconscious body. She might have been a hero, but it was clear she didn't feel like one. Cute kid. Sentimental, in her own fucked up way.
The second story was more disturbing. Though it did not quite ring true. You don't just wake up from cryo-sleep on a slave ship, step out of the tube, and kill seven men.
Well, he could.
He was proud of her. But damn it, she was supposed to be safe on New Mecca. That was the whole fucking point of taking her there and leaving. She was not supposed to have to kill people to be safe. If that was what he'd wanted for her, he would have taken her with him.
Some treacherous part of himself smirked. No. You wanted one girl in all the worlds to believe you were a hero. She wouldn't have believed that long, if you'd taken her. He put the thought aside roughly.
Other news was also interesting. The Emperor who had tortured members of his old unit to death had been assassinated. Damn. Why didn't I think of that?
He thought of himself, stalking through a throne room, towards a man who had killed the people he was supposed to protect. It made his stomach ache.
For the first time in a bleak eternity, he wondered if anyone else of the group had survived. Might be nice to see old friends again . . . to have someone to watch his back . . .
The thought hurt. Where was all this sentimentality coming from? Good way to get killed.
He didn't know where they'd be, anyway. Could take years to find them. Unlike some people. He went back to Jack -- Kyra. Meant sun, he remembered vaguely. Why'd she take that name, anyway? Some pun on Helios? Some ironic comment on surviving that fuckin' planet? Some swipe at me? Foundan article that said she was a survivor of the Hunter-Grazner. The article reported solemnly that she was one of three survivors. Damn.
Uneasily, he looked in some less reputable sources this time. Being a hero made you interesting. Some of those who'd taken an interest had some theories about Jack, about how she survived the night on that nightmare planet.
Some of them speculated he was not dead. Some of them luridly associated their names, suggested he had done terrible things to her on that planet, on the trip to New Mecca. That really pissed him off.
Five of Wands, Competition, Kyra on New MeccaThis time, four men jumped her. She had not had to handle more than three before. They killed the boy she was walking with, pulled her into an alley, tried to inject her with something. Kyra smashed the needle into the throat of the man wielding it, figured that killed him from the way he gurgled. She managed to kill two of the others with her knife before it was knocked out of her hand. The fourth was the biggest man she had ever seen; bigger than Riddick, and he seemed to like throwing her into things. She was hurt, fast, even though he did not seem to be in a hurry.
It was a brutal, unbeautiful fight. A probable concussion, an absolutely dislocated knee, a pain in her stomach like nothing she'd ever felt. Then she was down. He knew her name. He picked her up like she weighed nothing, and sauntered toward the space port.
She relaxed against him as if she was lapsing into unconsciousness. He shifted to accommodate. Then she pulled the little blade from around her neck and sliced his jugular. They both went down. She barely managed to roll out of the way of his not-inconsiderable dead weight. Ended up crashed against a garbage can. She could hear the police coming. Time to move.
Legs not moving. She looked down at her right leg, dislocated. Deep breath, grasp it firmly, and pop it back into place. Right. She could do that.
Oh yeah. That hurt.
She struggled to her feet. Worse pain, and more weakness, than she had ever felt radiated out of her knee. She could hear the sirens. How the hell do I get out of this one?
Why are you worried? You didn't do anything wrong, a voice inside of her asked reasonably. Just wait.
No, I didn't do anything wrong. But there will be questions. . . and then there are all the other not-wrong killings I don't want to explain. Or the thing about raiding the bodies. They don't do that here.
Her knife was on the ground. She scooped it up. As she did so, she noticed for the first time that she was right under an old fashioned fire escape. She made it up the agonizing first two stories, imagining the conversation she would have to have with the investigators if they found her before here. So, Ms. al-Walid, God be praised, it's a miracle you escaped. God be praised. Any thoughts on how Our Lord's mercy manifested itself this time?
Well, officer, it's like this. I had intensive self defense training from a serial killer. Then a bunch of gods started showing up in my dreams telling me to prepare myself to be the handmaiden of death. Gods be praised, I'm a pious woman, so I've applied myself assiduously.
Yeah, right. She'd be committed. Another two floors. And another.
Then there were peace officers below her. She flattened herself on a small landing, glad she always wore dark clothing, and listened. They were not happy about this. They were talking themselves into the conclusion that it was a mugging gone wrong; that these four had killed the boy, then each other. Some turf war between gangs of off world tourists. They were having a great deal of trouble with the logistics and motivations. She was astonished at how thick they were being until she realized – they didn't want there to be a victim who escaped, or was taken by some survivor, and they didn't want to have a killer on the loose. Mutual annihilation was not a sensible solution, but it was a comparatively comfortable one.
That poor boy. She should have known better than to let him walk her home. Never again. A moment of panic when she wondered if anyone had seen them together. She calmed herself down. No. None had.
Damn it, she thought, that just wasn't fun this time.
Fun? She paused. Was this fun?
With a bolt of ontological lightning, she realized that it was. Not so much tonight. But she felt the most alive, the most engaged, either in dreams or in fights for her life. When she wasn't in the ordinary world.
Great. I'm a danger junky.
No, it was more than that. It was like . . . destiny. What she was born to do. But because she knew it was wrong, she didn't get to do it unless someone else initiated it. And because she knew it was wrong, she convinced herself she hated it.
But if she hated it, why didn't she try to stop it? Talk to the police? Stay out of dark shadows? Stop going alone places where these things kept happening?
She wanted to bury her face in her hands, but her hands were sticky with blood. She did not want it in her eyes.
What, a part of her sneered, you thought you'd become a Handmaiden of Death with your hands clean? Sit astride the pale horse, floating majestically above the battlefield? Your role is to sink up to your elbows in the muck and gore. To be a killer. You just haven't understood it yet.
No, some other part said. It's wrong.
You think so? You love to kill. You love to feel the flicker of life fade out under your hands. So turn yourself in. Ask for rehabilitation. Ask for protection. Any girl on this planet would do that.
She didn't move.
See? You belong out here, on the fringes. At best, you patrol the line between the firelight and the darkness. You belong out here, alone in the dark, singing your little songs.
But I only kill people who need killing.
Right.
Does Riddick think that?
Was I an excuse to kill and be righteous, because he was protecting me?
Had he left to keep me from following him into the dark places?
She shuddered. It was wrong to kill. It violated the base precepts of civilization – that every person deserved to be treated with dignity; to be more than a means to an end.
Sometimes, killing was an excusable wrong. To protect others. To protect yourself. It was right to stand between the firelight and the darkness. Sometimes, it was good.
But it was always wrong to want to do it.
Damn. Why was she realizing all this now?
She closed her eyes, but somehow, she knew where every person in the alley was. The bodies, cooling, fading from her perceptions, even the innocent one who died for her tonight. But the investigators were like bees. She could hear them, smell them, feel them.
Six of them. If she was going to kill them, start with throwing knives . . . with what she had on her person, she could kill four before they reacted; leap down; kill the other two with slashes across the jugular with the last knife. She could feel them die.
No. Don't think about it. They are good men. They are not a threat.
She was being ripped apart. The aspiration to be a good person. The desire to kill.
She made a decision.
To turn herself in. Ask for rehabilitation, redemption. She started to descend.
She never made it.