Trouble [5]

The alley between the two buildings was little more than eight feet across at its narrowest point, pocked with broken bottles and litter sodden from the earlier rains. Puddles slowly soaked into the hard ground, leaving the pathway slick and the going treacherous but Granger was in sight and Riddick wasn’t in a hurry. It was dark. A little light washed down over the slanted roof above. For Riddick, the dim illumination glowed purple-white along the edges of the buildings, diffusing out to shades of dark purple in the deepest shadows. He knew that Granger saw much less, just enough light to sharpen the shadows. Depending on how long he had waited in the alley, his eyes may have become acclimated to the dark but the merc would never see clearly.

Occasional shouts rang out, sounding strange in the twisted passages between the buildings, echoing, making it hard to tell exactly from where they came. Crouched in the dark beside the rain barrel, Riddick watched as Granger scanned the alley at every noise. Noticed that the merc never once went for his weapon. A dangerous frontier town was a bad place to be twitchy but to never once reach for a weapon was a sign. Of naivete, cold blood, or something else. After reading through Granger’s logs, Riddick settled on the merc being simply beyond caring, the most dangerous position of all.

‘Knows I’m here.’

That was a certainty, Riddick knew, or the man would have moved on, continued to search for his target. That the merc didn’t know exactly where Riddick was, couldn’t see him, didn’t mean that he didn’t feel the target. Good at what he did. Riddick hated mercs straight through to the bone but he could admire the skill nonetheless. Admired another hunter’s talent.

Watching Granger, Riddick shuffled the toe of his boot against the ground and made a quieter, subtler sort of sound. Watched as Granger stepped out briefly into the alleyway, his head moving from side to side as he tried to make up for his lack of sight. In time, and given the opportunity, Riddick knew that Granger could walk out into the dark and find what he looked for. Riddick didn’t intend to wait that long.

To Riddick’s eye, Granger stood exposed, clear as day against the side of a building. It was curious. For all of the man’s skill, Riddick expected the man to hide himself better.

‘Not the name of the game; he wants to be found. Gotta stop looking at this fuck like he’s Johns.’

Johns was crazy but he wasn’t stupid with his life. Johns would have hidden better. Would have baited the alleyway, Riddick thought darkly, remembering the crying injured girl, right before the butt of a rifle knocked him cold. There was no bait, no team, only a lone merc with a death wish. Still, Riddick took a deeper look around the alleyway to satisfy instinct. They were alone, even Jack was gone.

Silent, Riddick slid along the wall, never taking his eyes off the other man. It was a strange position he was in. Unsure, uneasy. If there was another way or if there was time to gain access to the lockouts he would need to access the ship’s navigation and bypass the port authorities, he would do so, just slip past and leave Granger where he stood. But he needed that access. And truth be told he needed to satisfy his own curiosity.

The grit of the alleyway made way for the rotted wooden slats of a makeshift boardwalk along the side of the building and Riddick knew that being quiet would be impossible. He could avoid the wooden walkway and step out into the middle of the lane and risk being seen by Granger in the weak light that came over the top of the roof. Or his boot falls would squelch and creak along the boardwalk, echoing hollowly, betraying him with every step he took.

The choice of being quiet was taken from him as his chest hitched and he tried to muffle the hacking cough by biting his arm. It didn’t matter. The sound may as well have been gunshots in the confined space and, ignoring the sound of his boots, he ran to the end of the wooden slats. Coughing rattled down to a wet wheeze as Riddick stepped back against the building once more but hiding was out of the question. Eyes watering, he crouched, tense, ready to bolt if Granger went for his gauge.

Across the alley Granger tracked him easily, even in the near dark, stepping out into the middle. Drawn, haggard, the merc’s features were chiseled by the pain that was evident in his eyes. The coughing died out and Riddick continued to slide alongside the building, stopping at the corner, assessing. The cough had temporarily abated but the cold chills that came with it settled into his bones like a damp cloak.

There had been no date on the merc’s picture, just a dry list of stats, so there was no way to know when it had been taken but Riddick figured that it had been well before his wife had died. Now he looked thinner, paler, his hair more grey. And he looked as though he hadn’t had a good night’s sleep in months. Haunted. The merc looked haunted, and Riddick felt another sort of chill race down his spine, thinking of his own ghost-girl. No pity, just the sharp awareness of a weakness spotted, something to be exploited.

Straightening to his full height, Riddick flicked one edge of his cloak over his shoulder and stepped away from the building, letting the light from the marketplace filter down over him. Noted that Granger didn’t go for the gauge on his hip, not once.

“Been looking for me,” Riddick opened simply. It was obvious but he wanted to get Granger to say something, anything. Put a voice to the image that he had. They were both armed. They both knew they were armed. Riddick knew that he could just as easily fight for what he wanted. Even on a bad day, he was sure he could kill for it, but that was never as interesting and in his weakened condition, he didn’t want to risk it. Faced with a certain death, the merc could always change his mind at the last moment.

“You know how this goes, Riddick. You’re going back to finish your piece on Decarra.”

The accent was hard to place, as though Granger had spent so long in so many places that he had taken on a piece of all of them. The fatigue, the strain, showed in every syllable. If Riddick was beaten, he wasn’t alone.

“And how do you think that’s going to happen?” Riddick’s voice softened slightly, becoming insinuating, as he stepped sideways, even further out into the open space of the alley. “You gonna bring me back? Alone?”

Granger took a step forward until there were scant feet between the two men, the lines of his face deepening as he moved further into the light. “You’re going back, with a bit in your mouth if need be. I don’t need anyone else.”

Anger flashed through him at mention of the bit. Riddick eyed Granger carefully as the man dropped his hand to the butt of his gauge, dropped it and nothing more. The catch remained over the grip, making the weapon useless until the merc snapped it over. Twice as much alive. A merc might take a shot at him but kill him? Not when the half he would bring in dead was more than most mercs made in a year. With the chance to double that just for bringing him in alive? No merc in the universe would shoot a payday like the one he promised but the threat was just that, a threat.

‘Fucker’s looking to push me.’

A smirk pulled at the corner of Riddick’s mouth as he eyed Granger. “Don’t need anybody else? You sure about that? Been on your ship, merc, and I think that’s not exactly the truth.” His knife hand itched but Riddick ignored it. There was more than one way to cut a man.

The anger was a visceral change that briefly contorted Granger’s face. The eyes darkened and lips bled white and he watched the merc’s gun hand as Granger splayed out his fingers over the butt. It would have been so easy for him to go for it. A shot in the leg wasn’t a kill. Still a full payday, with a little medical care. Riddick ticked off the seconds, knowing that he could fall back into the open space alongside the building before the merc could unsnap his weapon but there was no need. Telegraphing the movement, Granger’s hand knotted into a fist and he stepped forward, the weapon all but forgotten at his side.

A short vicious swing and Riddick was grabbing the merc’s elbow, closing his eyes against the vertigo and letting momentum take them both down. Mud splashed up as Riddick’s full weight landed on Granger’s back. Eyes closed, Riddick toed the ground, seeking purchase, anything to try to stop the ground from spinning. If the merc managed to get Riddick on his back, he knew it would be over. Beneath him, Granger spluttered and let out a strangled shout, struggling to roll over onto his back.

The noise from the marketplace beyond stretched out and bled together strangely and Riddick squeezed his eyes shut. Moving so quickly, falling so hard, made him disoriented and the one certain thing was the fighting man beneath him. Fumbling once, Riddick reached down and unsnapped the merc’s guage, sending the gun sailing out into the alley where it tinked impotently on the gravel.

Pulling the merc over, Riddick slammed him hard onto his back and pulled his blade free in a fluid motion, holding it to Granger’s neck. Something like victory flitted across the merc’s expression as he raised his chin imperceptibly.

“Just do it,” Granger ground out angrily, daring Riddick to kill him.

The merc had left her to die alone. If he had wanted, he could have taken contracts closer to home. He could have done something else. He could have lived on the money Riddick knew he had cleared from other jobs. But he hadn’t done any of those things. It would be so easy to kill him. Too easy. Nobody got off that easy.

“If you really loved your wife, you wouldn’t have let her die like that. You wouldn’t have left her alone. Was it worth it, merc?”

Like a double edged blade, what he had said cut deep and he thought of the young girl that he had pushed into a cave, ready to abandon her if it meant he’d save his own skin. He wasn’t sure what hurt more, that he had done it or the look on her face when he came back. After all of that, he had left her again, on New Mecca. As he held the blade against Granger’s throat, all he could think of was the way that her chin had dimpled as she watched him leave, standing in the dark outside the Holy Man’s house. She wasn’t supposed to be awake but she was. He left her alone. Twice.

Voice straining under the threat of the blade, Granger tipped his chin up a scant half an inch and swallowed, his hands fisting the gravel, flung out wide to either side. “I read about you too, Riddick. About the girl…”

A tiny bead of blood welled on the edge of the blade. Riddick watched and brought back the knife. The blood didn’t surprise him but the loss of control did. Little more than a scratch but it wasn’t what he had intended and he was pissed off that the merc had gotten his own cuts in.

“Don’t know what you heard, merc,” Riddick said in a near whisper, mere inches from Granger’s face. For a few days there had been rumors when they touched down at New Mecca. Rumors that first multiplied, as Riddick fed them with a sighting here and a whisper there. Rumors that were dismissed out of hand as they grew in scope. One thing he had learned from mercs was that there was a limit to what people would believe, what they would be willing to accept. After a while, interest moved on to the next big thing and he was forgotten. Forgotten by most, but apparently Granger had been paying attention.

“What you heard doesn’t matter.”

Wanting to twist the knife a little more, Riddick leaned in further even as he pulled the blade back, letting the edge rest against the coarse fabric of Granger’s vest. “What does matter is that I’m going back for her. That to me she means enough to go back. Can you say the same?”

The taunt was as physical as a slap, more cutting than a slashed throat, and Granger recoiled. Recoiled and then pushed up against Riddick, his hands leaving the gravel alleyway and scrabbling at Riddick’s wrists. Riddick coughed as a fist struck him in the chest and pulled back slightly, taking the blade off Granger altogether. Rather than fight to break free at Riddick’s misfortune, the merc struggled even harder. The desperation was so thick that Riddick could smell it. Familiar and painful, he remembered retching miserably into the sewers of Decarra, and how he clung to the image of the one thing in his life that mattered, that made him matter.

‘I should just kill him, leave this fuck in the dust. This is going to come back and bite me in the ass.’

Straddling the merc’s waist, Riddick batted away another wild swing from the man beneath him and dropped his blade back into its sheath. Rather than put Granger at ease, it only made him fight all the harder but even as ill as he was, he still outweighed the other man by thirty pounds and Granger couldn’t shake him off. Keeping Granger pinned, Riddick turned out the man’s cargo pockets roughly, dumping the contents onto the gravel. First the pants, then the vest, only finding the dogeared notebook last, in an inside pocket, zippered neatly. As Granger fought harder, Riddick knew that what he had found was important. A long list of alphanumeric code scribbled in a neat hand on the first two ages. The lock out code. Riddick was curious about the rest of the notebook but they had spent enough time in the alley and he had places to go.

“You can’t leave me here like this.”

Granger had stopped lashing out at Riddick and lay back in the gravel, eyes closed, panting slightly, and for a brief moment, Riddick felt something like pity. It wouldn’t last and he would never voice it but it was there. At least he had Jack.

“You’re just going to have to live with it.” Raising to one knee, Riddick pulled up Granger, shaking him loosely. They both staggered as Riddick got to his feet, dragging the merc with him and then the cold wall of the building held them both up as Riddick moved back into the comfort of darkness. “The next time we meet, I’ll kill you.”

It was a cold promise and Granger dropped his head, defeated. Only when the merc slid down the wall, settling heavily into the gravel and filth at the side of the building did he slowly back away. Into the dim light of the alleyway and disappearing alongside the side of a building.

There were no sounds of pursuit but Riddick cut back on his path several times, even circling back once, to see the merc still slumped against the building, his head in his hands this time. In silence, Riddick watched for a few minutes more, debating whether he should go back and finish Granger off. He should, the merc was a loose end, but the Riddick that would have killed Granger without a second thought was dead. Left behind on T2. It still wasn’t pity that he felt; he didn’t know what it was. Whatever it was, Riddick crept back to the main market, clinging to the walls as he moved toward the port.

As before, no one stopped him as he slipped into the ship and, with the codes he had taken from Granger, he easily accessed the navigation system. A chill wracked through him as he eased into the harness, making adjustments and dimming the lights that came up on the console, greeting him as the ship’s nav console came up on the HUD in front.

There were things that he needed. Medical care. Stop somewhere and strip the merc ship down so that it couldn’t be traced. Fuel. As he cleared his exit with port security, he ran the route through his head, tapping keys on the console to plot out a course, leaving his final destination until last.

‘New Mecca.’

END