Chapter Eleven, Part C

Riddick trotted down the steps, two by two, his blood pumping and anticipation coursing through his veins. He was so close. When he reached the ground floor he straightened up his suit and walked into the main foyer.

He casually approached the reception desk but stopped mid-stride and changing his mind, headed towards the elevator. Once inside he spun around on his heal and walked back out into the foyer cursing loudly as he went.

"Fucking elevator. Nothing in this fucking rat hole works." He kicked the pot plant next to the elevator. The people milling around the foyer didn't know which way to look. After a few more kicks and a fist into the wall, they all looked away. Riddick continued his tirade though, until a woman in her forties approached him cautiously.

"Is there a problem sir?" She asked, standing well away from him, "I'm the Manager, is there something I can do to help?"

"Yeah, there's something you can do," he said, "you can fix the fucking elevator. I press the buttons and it goes nowhere. The doors won't even shut. I've got to get ready for a meeting and I can't get to my fucking room."

She moved to wards the elevator, "I apologise, sir. We've never had problems with the elevator before, but let's take a look at it, shall we?" She motioned for Riddick to enter the elevator with her.

He had to admire her guts. He was a big motherfucker and she wasn't cringing in her petite little shoes at the mere site of him. He followed her into the elevator and stood just inside the door while she looked at the buttons. She pushed one and the door slid shut and they began to move up.

Riddick smiled.

"Well, it seems to be working fine, maybe it just needs-" she stopped talking, seeing his smile.

"It was never broken, was it?" she said after a pause.

"No, it wasn't."

"What-what do you-"

"Want?" Riddick asked, he pulled his shiv out from his waistband and tapped it on his leg, "I want to go to the sixteenth floor."

Casteel stepped out of the shower and wrapped a towel around her body and wiped the steam off of the vanity mirror. Her mottled face stared back at her. She cringed at the unsightly bruise on her jaw. It wouldn't be easy to blend in anywhere with a face that looked like it had collided with a ground car.

"Damn you Riddick. What the hell were you doing there?"

She turned away and walked into the bedroom of her suite. Tacked to the walls were pictures of Len and Jack. Talking. Eating. Walking. A mug shot of Len from his one stint in a minimum-security facility. Jack entering her hotel. Shots taken by Casteel herself of the pair talking as Len escorted Jack back to her hotel.

And now Riddick, three pictures from the Standard Criminal Dossier issued to active Mercs.

She had down loaded it the months ago, along with the dossiers of twenty-four other slam escapees listed as terminally dangerous. She never thought she'd have to use it. And now the poster boy for the universe's most dangerous criminals had crossed her path and intended on crossing it again.

She flopped down onto the bed and stared up at the ceiling. He was a complication she didn't need. Or want. She had always enjoyed a good mystery, but she preferred her mysteries not to be in the form of a tall hulking mass of muscle holding a knife to her throat.

A sharp rap at the door startled her out of her musings.

Sitting up slowly, she reached under a pillow and retrieved her gauge and from under another, a silencer, which she screwed onto the gun's muzzle.

"Hello? Miss?" a female voice called through the door.

Casteel stood up without making a sound and moved towards the door, her gun ready. Halfway across the room she stopped. Looking down, she realised she was wearing only a towel.

"Miss? I'm the manager. I'd like to speak to you about your account."

Casteel said nothing. Instead, she got down on all fours and pressed her head to the floor. Through the crack under the door, she could see three feet.

Three feet. Two covered in fashionable ladies shoes and the other a black boot.

Riddick.

She stood up and trained her gun on a spot just to the left of the doorjamb and at her shoulder level and fired.

"Miss? I'm the manager. I'd like to speak to you about your account."

Riddick stood off to the side out of the view of the peephole in the door, his shiv resting on the woman's stomach. The Manager was doing remarkably well, she had listened to Riddick in the elevator and repeated her lines word for word after him. Now she was going along with his plan beautifully.

All he needed was for Casteel to open the door, or at least get close enough, so that if he kicked it in, she would be knocked down by it. So far, apart from the light under the door, there was no indication that she was even in the room.

The Manager looked at him for instructions and she moved to knock again when a part of the wall next to Riddick disintegrated. White-hot pain seared through his arm.

Had he been shot? He hadn't heard a gun go off, but it sure as hell felt like a bullet had ripped through his arm. The wall exploded again, this new bullet, he had to guess, missing him by millimetres.

He moved quickly, positioning himself behind his hostage. Two more holes appeared in the wall and then nothing.

No sound could be heard from within.

But he could smell her now. She was at the door.

He moved the woman roughly to his side and kicked at the door, breaking it open immediately. He immediately pushed her inside and straight into Casteel. Both women fell onto the floor, the Manager crying out in panic.

Riddick followed close behind, ramming the door shut behind him.

Casteel detangled herself from the woman and leapt to her feet. Riddick was waiting for her and he knocked the gun out of her hand then threw himself at her, tackling her to the floor.

She kicked out at him as they fell, connecting with his knee, but he didn't let go. They landed with a thud and Casteel felt the air rush out of her lungs. Gasping for air, she swung at him, but he caught her fist easily. He missed the next one though, and she caught him on the jaw.

He moved to capture her other arm when he felt something cold press against his the base of his skull.

"Let her go Bastard. I'll shoot"

Riddick slowly released Casteel's hand.

"Now drop the knife and stand up," the Manager said, clutching Casteel's gun tightly in her hand.

"Do it, damn you." She said when he didn't move.

"You should shoot me," he said casually. He looked at Casteel, struggling to regain her breath on the floor. He had to get control. Now. Before she could stand up and get her gun back.

He turned slowly to face the woman holding the gun. She looked terrified and her whole body was shaking.

"Shoot me," he said calmly, "just - pull - the - trigger" he said. When she didn't, he snatched the gun out of her hand, moving almost inhumanly fast. He backhanded her across the face, rendering her unconscious.

He whirled back around to face Casteel and instead of finding her on the floor, he found her fist meeting his face.

Casteel followed her hook to his face with a solid roundhouse to his chest. She cursed silently when it fell short of its target: his broken ribs. She dodged his jab and landed another punch before dancing out of the way of his large fists.

She didn't know how much longer she could take this. Every breath hurt, and he didn't seem to want to go down. He'd dropped the gun, somewhere in the fray and that evened it up a little, barely.

They traded blows, each one more vicious than the last. She was barely getting out of the way now and he picked up on her grogginess and began to hail blows onto her body.

She dodged another jab, but fell victim to his nasty right cross, falling onto the floor. This time she couldn't get her breath back fast enough and Riddick was on top of her immediately, pinning her hands over her head.

She struggled against his hands, but he was too strong. She stopped moving and glared at him, as if asking him what he wanted.

"You're going to tell me what you did to Jack now," Riddick said, seeing the question in her eyes "and then you are going to take me to her. Do you understand?"

She merely looked at him.

"You're going to tell me what you did to her," he repeated, placing both her hands into one of his palms. His free hand gripped her neck, "You are going to take me to her." Then he looked at her, a small smile on his face, "then you're going to tell me where exactly are your clothes?"