**********

Light fell away into darkness, all encompassing. The ozone humming street lights were left behind in favor of following his quarry. The man was sickeningly easy to track, to stalk, so he drew out the night's hunt pulling every ounce of pleasure he could from the mundane exercise. This was the first job Riddick had taken since hitting an actual inhabited planet, inhabited by humans that is. Usually this sort of thing was carried out in the name of survival, sometimes pleasure. More and more he found it was both, particularly where Slam had been concerned. The job had been commissioned anonymously, a single envelope arriving at the small dilapidated apartment he shared with Jack and the holy man, Imam. Simple thickly embossed initials lined the front of the envelope and inside where instructions and more company credits than he'd ever seen. Now, as the night wound out towards dawn, he had maybe three hour before the light of day would drive him inside, eyes far to sensitive to tolerate natural light. Standing in the alley way his senses fully alert he scanned the shadows for his target, shive in hand, he was ready to send his victim into eternal night.

Lets do this! Show yourself!

Too late he would realize this was the wrong night, the wrong alley, the wrong mark. In a sudden flash he found himself face down in a stagnate puddle, shive skittering off into the black abyss of the ally. "What the fuck...." he growled, rolling onto his back.

"Ummm, such vulgar language."

The shadow detached from the building near where he lay, having retreated after what was for the most part was a gentle shove. Circling the downed man, the new predator allowed Riddick to gain his footing. "I have to admit to liking that in an adversary or pupil, whatever the case maybe."

"Adversary? Definately. Pupil? What is it you think you can teach me?" Riddick laughed, low and menacing.

"I, dear boy, can teach you to embrace the artistry of a deeper purpose. Open your true eyes to the world around you. Allow you to savor that which you enjoy the most." The figure came closer and Riddick glimpsed his first real look at the man. No more than 30, tall, slim build, pale, to pale. The color of death, he mused.

"And why would I need YOU to teach me these things? What makes you think........."

He struck like a cobra stretching for his prey, but was met with only empty air and a fire storm of pain across his chest. Glancing down, he saw three neatly executed lacerations across the hard wall of muscles below his T-shirt. A low moan came from the man behind him. Swinging around he stared, eyes narrowed.

"You smell heavenly, Richard. Good enough to eat, in fact." High, almost feminine laughter accompanied the comment.

"You're a heart beat away from being a ghost, sonofbitch," Riddick growled, as they paced one another, circling.

"If you feel you need to fight me, you're welcomed to try. But I assure you, you'll not win." Another pin prick of laughter filled the space between them.

"You do not know......."

"Know who I'm fucking with?" He dodged Riddick's charge with an unearthly grace, too quick, too devoid of real motion. In the next instant he pounced, taking Riddick to the ground, twisting him around to meet the mocking face of humanity. "Oh, but I would, I know you almost as well as you know yourself."

"No reason for you to lie....."

Riddick struggled against the single hand, fingers splayed, exerting an immoblizing pressure against his chest.

"You're absolutely right, Richard. There isn't a single reason to lie. Not after five hundred years of watching humans degenerate into graceless purposeless slugs with no more originality than the herd animals they were once so fond of consuming. That's why I shall indulge you in a little tale." Thin opaque lips twisted in a semblence of a smile.

"Fuck you!" Riddick barked in response.

"Oh, what a delicious offer. But quite impossible I'm afraid. However, if it were, rest assured I would seduce you and you WOULD come to my bed willingly." He leveled a stare at Riddick that reached into the center of his brain, swiping everything one would ever want to know about the murderer.

"So it is, the only lust I suffer from, sweet boy, is blood. Not so different from you really."

"Get on with it!" Riddick lay pinned to the ground, tired of listening to the sharp grating french voice above him. If it was death looming there he wanted it fast, wanted it done. But the french prick seemed intent on talking him to death.

"Patience. Patience." He raised the hand that pinned Riddick to the hard pavement. The tip of his tongue slithered from the hollowed mouth to lap at the blood covering his fingers, relishing the metalic taste, eyes closing in a euphoric rush. Riddick siezed the oppurtunity to push himself off the ground, only to be slammed back down with the opposite hand.

"Richard Riddick, you wouldn't be thinking of running now would you?"

"Hadn't planned on it. I have a job to finish first," he sneered, wanting to grab the mane of raven hair above and use as leverage to snap the vertebrae in the bastards neck.

"And you think you're so intelligent." Nose to nose, the man hovered over him, exerting more pressure on his rib cage. "You think it's a conincidence you found me so easily tonight? In THIS alley?" He reached up and ran a razor sharp nail over Riddick's lower lip. "The envelope? The credits? I set you up, Richard. You would have never glimpsed me if I hadn't allowed it." He lapped at the blood ozzing down Riddick's chin.

"Get the fuck off me you bastard," he ground out, trying to twist away from the tongue practically suckling at his chin.

"The name is......" a low laugh rumbled between them ... "Vetal."

"Makes no difference to me."

"Oh, it will." Putting space between them, he stared down at the man he'd made a point of knowing, intimately. "Now look, you've distracted me and I promised you a tale."

"Spare me your goddamn fairy tale!" Riddick spat, voice filled with deadly venom.

"Can't do that, mon amour. Then you'd understand nothing. So, lets see. Where should I begin?" Vetal tilted his head in thought. "Ahhh, at the beginning of course. Your beginning, Richard." A slow languid sigh filled the night around them. "I watched your birth, mon amour. Watched you enter the world. Your mother, so young and barely even conscious. I did her a favor, really. She would have bled to death anyway in that ally." He smiled knowing , no matter how hard the other man fought it, he'd captured his attention. Nocturnal eyes travled the perimeter of the alley way before coming to light on Riddick's luminous eyes, similiar but not exact to his own. "Not at all unlike this alley. Thorougly amusing how life can begin and end in such filth and decay. But again, I stray. Her body was easily reduced to nothing, not even bone remained. I musn't take credit for that, our parasitic little brethren handle such details. But you needn't worry yourself with such details just yet."

"There's only one detail I'm concerned with......"

"Yes. Yes. I know...killing me. There is a little secret to that too, but we'll save that for dessert. Where was I? Oh, of course. I actually held you in my hands. Still warm from your mother's womb, struggling to breathe, that dreadful blue tint creeping over your skin. I was poised to take your pitiful life then, Richard, mon amour. But a terrible thing occured. Something uncharacteristically vile, most distrubing indeed ... compassion." Vatel snorted in disgust, glaring at his prey. "I tossed you into the refuse bin. A thought was all it took." He tapped his own forehead. "A mear thought saved your life. They came running to rescue the poor abandon infant. If only they knew what they were saving."

"Liar!"

"No, there's no need. You know, I decided then and there to do something I've never bothered to do with a human. Watch. I've watched your whole life, Richard. Always a step behind you, looking over your shoulder. I witnessed your first kill, your second, third, like a proud father. And I must say, dispatching Johns was simply inspiring."

"You couldn't know about Johns." Riddick smiled viscously, thinking he had come up with a flaw in the man's story.

"Wrong again, mon amour. What I did not directly witness, your mind provided the rest. There is something I simply can't understand. Why did you spare the girl. Jack, isn't it? Why bother? Johns point was a valid one. And for a human, Johns did mount an admirable defense ... but it simply paled in comparison." He tilted his head studying the angles and planes of Riddick's face."Beautiful, oscura belleza," he sighed, just barely managing to shake the spell he fell under. "So, now we come to the end of our tale at the same point we began, always the alley." He moved over Riddick again.

"Johns was a evil sadistic bastard. He deserved to die." Riddick began struggling with a renewed intensity. Something was about to go down, something far worse than death. He could feel it, smell it.

"Agreed. But what make you so different than him?" A wide knowing smiled tugging his lips up in a monstrous smile. It was then that Riddick saw them, stared unbelieving at the sharp spiked fangs. "Like all good children, Richard ... it's time to come home." There was a flash of movement before the explosion in his neck, skin and muscle gave way to hot streaming blood. The slurping sound was the last thing he heard, the last thing before he tumbled towards the waiting arms of death.

************

Almost dawn! Can't stand it!

Riddick pulled his hands away from his face long enough to glance around him, trying to gain his barings. It was an impossiblity. Giving up, he simply wandered, sick, mind and body. Without knowing exactly when, he became a creature of instinct ready to feed. The figure ahead, searching the street, became the object of his nourishment.

"Why stay away this long?" he heard the voice, feminine, young. Just for the briefest second he thought the voice sounded familiar. But that was just a trick of the night, had to be. He waited until the girl's attention was soley on the oppositite side of the street. To his horrific amazement, he moved with a thought. Think it and it was done. He was behind her, silent ... waiting. Just as she was about to turn he grabbed her around the head, tilting her neck up to the perfect angle. Penetration, quick, and deep. He sucked at the pulsing artery raviously.

"Riddick?"

He head his name whispered, and now he knew that voice, knew it a moment too late to save her this time. He eased to the ground with her in his arms. Staring in morbid fascination. Why wasn't he angry? Why wasn't he sorry? He had loved her in his own warped way hadn't he? Then there was the other voice, urging him on, trying to impose its will.

"Finish it! Create new life, Richard! You have that power! Breath life into my legions!" The voice was a shrill scream in his head, demented, manic. "I HAVE chosen well! You can make our kind gods! JUST DO IT!"

Jack's agonized face filled his vision pulling forth that newly banished human side of him that still thrashed about for life. He had his answer, knew what he would do. He was an abomination now in the truest sense of the word but she never would be. He would make certain of that. Opening his mouth, the hollowed pikes just past his lips turned towards the light ripped sky.

"NO!"

FINI