Warm blood flowed over the knife handle and his fingers. His heart pounded in his ears from exhilaration. The body seized in his arms, and he squeezed tighter to keep the man's death from reaching the ears of his compatriots, letting the blade slip out of the wound to speed the process. Riddick didn't let go until the man's eyes glazed, and his heart slowed, then stopped. He lowered the body to the ground, silently letting him come to rest on the cold floor.
"Smooth," Vale commented when Riddick rose to tower over the corpse he'd just created. "You've got a gift for this line of a work. Ever consider doing it professionally?"
Riddick growled an acknowledgement. It'd been a long time since someone had revered his talent instead of condemning it. Hot blood coursed through his veins, and no matter how he tried, he couldn't remember the last time he'd felt so alive.
"So what's the verdict? Wanna bag one more, then call it a night?"
"There's one up on the catwalk," Riddick rumbled under his breath.
"Not anymore," Cody replied. "Sniped his ass while you were busy. Medium caliber with a silencer. Quiet, very quiet."
Riddick smirked, honestly amused. "Eyes in the back of my head. Coulda used you while I was in prison, kid."
Vale scoffed. "I killed people who tried to use me in prison. Had to kill a few who tried to help me, too. Didn't you?"
"In that lifetime," Riddick agreed solemnly, keeping his voice low.
"How's he doing?" Dom asked, the patch on his throat allowing him to intone the words instead of actually speaking out loud. He was lying on top of a storage boxcar, listening for his next victim to pass by.
"Kade, this guy is holy shit good. You tangled with him on top of his game?" Vale asked. He sounded like that would've impressed him.
"At the time he had a girl feeding him Seka. He wasn't full speed."
Beneath him, a nervous figure passed by, looking from left to right, but never up. Dom scooted to the edge of the cargo container, watching him pass before dropping silently behind him.
"Ah shit," Cody said, the same way anyone else would say 'what a shame.' "Did he ever go through a detox process?"
"I don't think he's even consciously aware of what happened to him," Conte intoned, ghosting up behind his victim, completely silent in spite of his ongoing conversation.
"So all these years..."
Dom wrapped one large hand over the man's mouth, popping a six inch blade through the side of his neck and upward, hitting the jugular and the voice box in one deadly stroke, then jerking the blade forward and tearing out his throat. Blood and gore slopped down the man's front.
"Mostly brainwashed. I think Jack tried to set him back to the guy he used to be, but her version was tainted—she probably didn't know he was still so open to suggestion."
"That explains a lot. No way a guy with those skills ends up in a life like that," Vale scoffed.
No, Dom thought, dragging the mess he'd just created into a shadowed crevice between crates. Pace's disappointed face flashed across his mind's eye. We definitely do not.
Vale led Riddick to another kill, then to a spot where Conte waited for him. The two of them continued on, but after getting a taste of going off on his own, Riddick balked at the thought of following someone else.
However, it did seem worth it to keep the Con-X walking in front of him, as opposed to somewhere out of sight.
The end came so suddenly, it almost caught Rick off guard. They found Vale sitting on a box. The kid watched a uniformed man trying to crawl on his belly through a pool of his own blood. A knife in the man's side seriously cramped his style.
"He gonna die on me?" Conte asked, walking over to sit down next to his recon man.
Vale shook his head; his feet swung several inches above the ground—very much like a child instead of a killing machine. "Na, he won't die until you want him to. He's the CO of this ragtag, second-rate crew. Tried to bail when I shot his buddy over there," Cody said, motioning to a body off in the shadows. "I think he's just dying to tell everything he knows."
"Any communications get out?" Dom asked, pulling a piece of gum from his jacket and unwrapping it.
Vale gave him a look of mock offense. "Pfft, no. Who the hell you think you're working with here? I got them all—and I got them on tape, along with some other good stuff."
Conte made a show of rubbing the kid's buzzed hair, then casually turned his attention back to a pissed-off Riddick, who stood with his arms crossed over his chest, still scanning their surroundings for signs of an ambush, never taking his eye off the injured man for too long.
"What're you waiting for?" Dom asked, cocky as hell.
Riddick just restrained himself from growling his defiance. How the fuck had he ended up taking orders from this power-tripping asshole?
Conte nodded to Vale, who hopped off his seat, and once again disappeared into the shadows.
"He'll keep watch so you can work without distraction. I heard you used to be good at getting people to tell you things. Go ahead—see if you've still got it," Dom challenged, cocking his head toward the groaning merc, gum snapping between his teeth.
So much for the logical side of Rick's brain. His emotions at that moment basically boiled down to wanting to strangle the life out of Conte, and wanting to jump right into torturing one of the men responsible for the fate of his children. Riddick chose the latter option, because deep down, he needed more proof he still had it.
A knife slipped into Riddick's fingers without conscious prompting. His memories of causing pain might be fuzzy, but his hands remembered well. They remained steady, waiting patiently to be put to work.
He stepped forward, standing over the dying man and then crouching down next to him, his boots just beyond the reach of the slowly expanding blood slick. Staring down at the man, he covered his mouth with his left hand in an expression of thoughtful study, letting the blade in his dangling right hand tap against the inside of his knee.
"You took something from me," he said at last, letting his voice fall to its deepest, most ominous timber.
The man on the floor had little to lose, and yet Riddick's voice inspired a notable shiver to pass through him. That calm, impossible baritone conveyed more menace than threats ever could.
"I was hired to sit on a cargo crate," the man gasped. "Private security for the company that owns the warehouse. If you have a problem, you should..." he cut off when the edge of Riddick's knife caught under his jaw.
"Lie to me one last time," Riddick encouraged.
The man's gaze froze on the blade holding him hostage. He didn't try to look up at Riddick. Didn't try to plead for his life with his eyes.
"The answer's yes," Riddick informed him. "Yes, if you tell me something useful, you might live to see morning. Talk to me or I'll make you talk to the sick piece of work standing behind me." He went with his gut on this. Conte should appreciate having another badass mother fucker to play off of while scaring the living shit out of some poor sap. Good-torturer, bad-torturer. A very effective tactic if used properly.
Sure enough, the man's gaze wandered over Riddick's shoulder, finding Dom standing three paces back with arms the size of small tree trunks crossed over his chest, his black demon eyes staring without blinking, the neutral expression on his face casually and effectively conveying 'this here is the badest of bad motherfuckers.' He looked like he might be one of those rare individuals who could tear off limbs and chew gum at the same time, and would take pride in proving it.
Just one good look at the Con-X caused the man to sketch a sign in the air to ward off evil. They couldn't have executed better if they'd planned it.
"You believe in God?" Riddick asked.
The man nodded.
Riddick smiled savagely, showing all of his teeth. "So do I." he said, pitching his voice low and pacing his words so he could watch the reaction each one inspired. "Even if you don't know where they took my son and daughter, I take comfort in knowing I'm sending you to a better place."
The man's mouth started to open, and just as it did, Vale's voice crackled over their headsets. "Guys, we've got an inbound convoy thirty men strong, coming in fast from the south side of the building and attempting to flank, heavily armed. I don't know how they knew we were here, man. I swear."
"Figure it out later. Right now, fall back to position 2," Conte ordered.
"We're not done here," Riddick protested gruffly. He was so close. He knew he could make this fucker talk.
"We are now." To illustrate his point, Dom pulled a pistol from his belt and double tapped their captive in the head when he walked past. "Don't worry, Dick, he didn't know shit." He disappeared into the darkness without pausing.
With a dead man under his blade, Riddick had nothing better to do than rise and follow after Conte. They moved quickly to a side wall with no door and seemed to be trapped. Tapping a command into his wristband, Dom initiated some sort of countdown that ended with hot sparks flying around the edges of a door-shaped area of the previously smooth warehouse wall. The sparks became brighter and brighter, reaching a white-hot level of heat that ate quickly through the thick alloy.
Dom walked up to it, kicking right in the center and causing the section to fall out backward, allowing them to walk out into the night, the hot edges of their newly formed door still glowing bright orange.
They walked away from the site of their slaughter without meeting anyone, but the sounds of heavy vehicles and men came to them from the other side of the building, at the entrance. The two of them quickly faded into the cover provided by the surrounding buildings.
A mile out, they waited on top of a rise overlooking the warehouse for all of two minutes before Conte turned and headed for the truck. Riddick didn't immediately follow, leaning against the side of an abandoned shed long since looted of all useful tools. Vale still hadn't made it back, and somehow it didn't surprise Riddick that Conte didn't seem to care about leaving his partner behind.
So much for Jack's theory that Vale served as a fill-in for Dom's absent son.
"Giving up on him already?" Riddick called after him.
Dom turned. "He should've beat us here. If he isn't here by now, they got him. The men stationed here were the dregs. They're testing us, trying to trap us."
Riddick's jaw tightened at Dom's flippant attitude. How could he be so fucking calm? They hadn't gotten anywhere, they'd lost a man, and the kids were running out of time.
"Back to square one, huh, Conte," Riddick noted sardonically. "Can't wait to hear the next brilliant plan you come up with."
Dom paused, turning around slowly to smirk at him. "I am brilliant. You've seen that for yourself, and you'll see it again before this is over. Maybe that's what pisses you off so much, Dick. You know, besides the fact I asked Jack to go with me instead of you all those years ago. I think you could've used the escape more than her. Guess I'm lucky, though. If I'd known she was just another ball and chain waiting to happen, I would've let her die. Might've saved you the hassle of becoming another statistic. You could've been great—if she hadn't gotten in your way."
Dom turned around and kept walking.
Big mistake.
Riddick watched him for a second, then calmly bent down to pick up a broken brick next to his foot. He hefted it, getting a feel for its weight. It was big enough to kill a man with.
He chucked it at the back of Conte's head with everything he had.
It hit the back of Dom's shoulder, but the Con-X still dropped to his knees with the impact.
Riddick approached warily, knife in hand, sensitive to the speed of the big man. They'd done this dance years ago in a back alley on another planet, and Riddick hadn't come out the victor then. This time he'd be ready to counter with deadly force if Conte decided to strike.
Dom's face had turned completely red, the veins standing out at his neck and temple. He huffed out quick deep breaths, struggling to keep his composure. Upon catching sight of Rick out of the corner of his eye, he turned to glare at him, holding his right shoulder with the opposite hand. "You really shouldn't have done that."
Riddick cocked an eyebrow. "Why not? Made me feel better."
Conte used his uninjured arm to get to his feet, keeping his right arm close to the vest. "Shit, you really, really shouldn't have done that," he said, attempting to shrug his shoulder. The barest hint of a grimace touched his face.
Riddick prepared himself to move fast, in case a retaliatory strike came. He needn't have worried. Pain seemed a greater concern to the Con-X than revenge. Dom repeatedly tried and failed to open his hand, and then flexed it into a tight fist.
After Conte finally straightened up, they walked on for a while. Riddick just behind Dom, watching him.
"Goddamn it, Riddick, you really are an asshole," Dom bitched over his shoulder. "You're just damn lucky I have ulterior motivation for keeping you alive, or I would've shot you for this."
Riddick only shook his head. "You're a fucking pussy, Conte. Be a man, and shut up."
Conte cussed unintelligibly to himself, before yelling back at him, "Would you hurry the fuck up? We need to get back to your place so I can get a copy of Vale's recordings. When we get to the truck, call ahead. Thanks to you, I'm going to have to talk to my wife tonight."
Author's Note: So, I'm hoping there are still people reading this story. I realize I've been very negligent about updating on a regular basis, but it's been a few chapters since I got a review and if anyone is reading, I really would appreciate hearing how I'm doing. I'd appreciate it ever so much! Thanks, and sorry for soliciting :-)