Chapter Eight

"Excuse me, Detective."

Riddick turned at the sound of the woman’s voice and saw one of the nurses he had just questioned about Jack. She approached him cautiously, pushing a supply cart and pausing occasionally to look over her shoulder. Riddick stopped and waited for her to catch up.

"Nurse," he said when she reached him.

"Hi, um, I probably shouldn’t be here, talking to you," she said, casting her gaze over her shoulder again, "we were told not to talk to anyone about the girl." She motioned for him to follow her and she led him towards a storage room.

Once they were inside she shut the door and turned to him. "I can’t talk for long. So no questions. Just listen. The girl that you asked about is here. She was moved to ICU about half an hour ago." Riddick looked at her calmly, and nodded for her to continue. "None of us wanted to tell you about her, because the Merc made it pretty clear that the girl was in real danger. That her mark would be looking for the kid and that he was a violent criminal. We were told not to talk to anyone." She looked into his goggles, "but you are a cop, my boyfriend is, so I know that your badge is real. I don’t care what that Merc says about not talking to anyone. If that girl is in danger, then maybe you can help her too." She opened the door and stepped outside, "ICU is on level two. Please don’t tell anyone that you were talking to me."

Riddick watched as she stepped back out side and walked back towards the ER.

He wanted to ask her about what she had told him, but she was already disappearing around a corner. He was somewhat disturbed by this brief encounter and what he had learned.

Jack was in ICU. A Merc had tracked her to get to him.

Riddick could already feel a head ache forming at the back of his skull. He’d gotten himself into some bad situations through out his life, and gotten himself out of them too. But this bordered on nightmarish.

The fact that Jack was in ICU meant that her injuries were severe. He couldn’t move her without risking further injury, she had to heal first. And he was sure that there would be a Merc or security guard parked at her door. In his suit he might be invisible to the general population, but would he make it past security? He knew that he would never get by the Merc without killing him first. Hence his headache. How could he get Jack without risking her life and his?

He stepped out of the supply room. He needed to do something. Standing around and twiddling his thumbs was not a pastime that he enjoyed. No, he was going to do something productive. *A recon?* he thought. Find out exactly where Jack was located and what security was like. It was risky, but he had to know what he was up against. *Yes, a little fact finding venture would do just fine.* If there was a guard and he was unfortunate enough to recognise Riddick, well, the hospital would be making out a bereavement check to his family by the end of the day.

Casteel crossed the threshold of the hospital’s main doors and headed for the elevators. The girl had been moved to ICU an hour ago and that’s where she was heading now. The mysterious ‘police officer’ bothered her. She was going to have to question the emergency staff. But first she was going to check on Jack.

She pushed the button to summon the elevator. Her earlier conclusion that no police officer on the planet would investigate any crime so thoroughly and accurately still buzzed around at the back of her mind. Something was definitely wrong with the situation and her whole body was on edge.

The elevator doors opened and she stepped inside. She stilled her mind. Sometimes she thought too much. A couple of Doctors and several interns joined her in the elevator. They paid no attention to her as she pressed the button for her floor. She had counted on her costume to render her invisible or damn close, and she was pleased with the results.

As ‘Casteel the Merc’, she was extremely visible. "Larger than life, almost ethereal", she had been told once. People looked at her differently. Unless she was on the hunt, when she could melt into the shadows or become a part of the crowd, she exuded authority. And authority made you stand out like a neon sign. Not always a bad thing, but today was different. She wanted to see if she could get past the security on Jack’s door. And she wanted to be invisible to whoever was sniffing around looking for Jack. Because her gut told her that she would be meeting this officer soon.

In the end it had been easy to get in to see Jack. His recon had been successful. He had learnt that only one person guarded Jack. A hospital security employee and a young one at that. The boy who had greeted him at Jack’s door looked to be barely twenty. Not even ten minutes earlier, Riddick had watched the boy relieve an older woman from her position. Luck had handed him a break and he took it. He had approached the guard, secure in the knowledge that he could get past the rookie with a disapproving stare, a bit of attitude and his badge. It had worked.

Now he was standing over someone that looked like Jack, but couldn’t be. There was no life in that slack little body, even though the monitors attached to her beeped a different conclusion. Riddick looked down at her. He felt emotions that he couldn’t fathom. Had that planet made him weak? Had Fry forced him to become human? Looking at Jack now, lying on the bed unconscious, covered in bandages and hooked up to a variety of machines, he felt. Pain, compassion, regret, anger and fear. He suffered them all and then some.

Oh, he was becoming human all right. And he didn’t like the experience one bit. *Does it have to hurt so much to rejoin the human race, Caroline?* he asked, as he touched Jack’s cold face.

Anger swelled inside him. Who had done this to her? *The Merc? To get to me? How could any Merc connect us? According to all records, we’re both dead.* His anger grew. He was pissed off. At the Merc for doing this to her, because that was the only conclusion he could draw. Angry at Jack for leaving the safety of Iman’s. And angry with himself for not being able to protect her. It was painfully obvious that if he had arrived at the Northvilla a few hours earlier, he could have stopped this.

His silent rage continued as he examined her medical chart. Only a sick animal could have done this to her. And he intended to do what any responsible person did to a sick animal - he was going to put it down. Slowly and painfully.

Footsteps outside the door drew his attention away from Jack. He edged himself to the door and looked through the glass. A young nurse approached the guard. Riddick looked closer and he couldn’t believe his eyes. The guard was sleeping!

Oh, this was a very secure hospital indeed, he thought. He retreated to the private bathroom at the back of the room and shut himself inside, bemused by its presence. It wasn’t like Jack was going to get up and use it. Or any other ICU patient for that matter. *Rich people* he thought, as he heard the door outside open.

Casteel looked at the sleeping guard, quelling an urge to kick him. *Of all the stupid, idiotic things I have ever seen-*. She shook her head. *Good thing I’ve found another place for her. I have a feeling I’d be kicking guards on a regular basis if I kept her here. Inept bloody fools.*

She ignored him and entered the room quietly. The moment she stepped inside she sensed that somebody else was in there. Her nostrils flared at the masculine smell that assaulted them. So, her instincts had been right. She’d bet her entire holdings that the ‘officer’ was hiding in the useless bathroom at the back of the room. She made a mental note to marvel at the stupidity of the rich and their luxuries at a later date. Right now, she had to decide what she was going to do. Force a confrontation, or wait outside somewhere for the man to emerge and confront him then. She made up her mind. Curiosity got the better of her. She was going to draw this guy out of the bathroom and onto her turf.

Riddick saw the nurse pause when she entered the room. She shook her head after a moment of thought and shut the door. She made her way to Jack’s bed and picked up the Doctors chart. After a brief glance she tossed it lightly onto the bed.

Riddick frowned. He didn’t know much about nurses, but this one seemed to be behaving unusually. Now she was fiddling with the monitors that were hooked up to Jack. She moved around the bed, making adjustments here and there, before moving to the door and peering outside. Something was up, and Riddick found his hand slowly working the door open when he saw he taking a syringe from a tray next to the bed.

Casteel pulled out the syringe. *If this doesn’t draw you out, I’m going to go in there myself and drag you out by the balls*, she thought. She heard the door handle turn slightly, *bingo*.

She kept her eyes on the hall, her other senses working together to form a picture for her. She already knew that the intruder was male. Now she knew that he was tall - she heard him scrape against the door at a point just above her head. Almost silent footfalls told her that this person was good. Dangerous too. *This person knows what he’s doing. Intelligent people are dangerous people.*

She felt his breath on her ear and she sensed his hand moving towards her throat. Was he holding a shiv? The weight of her own knife on her wrist reassured her. But she was going to get him with out using it.

It took Riddick only a few seconds to open the door and close the distance between them. She hadn’t didn’t seem to sense him, otherwise she would have turned around. Shiv in hand, he moved it towards her throat. He’d get some answers from her before he decided whether or not to kill her.

The metal touched her neck and suddenly he felt a hand on his, exerting a force he would not have expected from a woman half his weight, while one of her elbows met his ribcage. He heard one of his ribs break and he gasped in pain, letting go of his shiv and staggering backwards. She spun around and snapped a solid roundhouse to his exposed side, breaking another rib. Riddick fell to his knees, clutching at his chest. *This is no nurse*, he realised. This could only be the Merc that the other nurse had told him about. He silently cursed his own stupidity in assuming that the Merc would be a male. A near fatal mistake.

He stood up, determined to get back on top of this situation. He struck out at the Merc and landed a lucky blow to her stomach. She fell back as he struggled to his feet.

Casteel was not impressed that she’d dropped her guard. Her stomach wasn’t either. She stood up and balanced herself, fists up, ready to strike. Her mysterious man was also up, but she was going to remedy that soon.

He struck again, but she blocked it easily. He spoke suddenly, his voice gravelly, "Lights off".

Casteel was enveloped by the darkness. He struck again, connecting with her jaw this time. She fell to the floor and stayed there, not moving. Squeezing her eyes shut she let her other senses take centre stage.

She knew he was unsure of her - Merc’s weren’t that easy to knock out. She heard his movement, felt the slight changes in the air around her body. He moved to strike again, but this time she was ready and she caught his fist and twisted his arm forcing all his joints to extend until his whole arm was locked right up to the shoulder. She kicked out, landing a blow to his sternum. She moved fast, pulling him to the ground. She sat on his chest, her legs pinning his arms to his side. She threw a mean right hook that connected with his jaw and she knew he would be done fighting for the moment. She cleared her throat, and called for the lights.

When the lights returned, Casteel got her first real look at the man who had been just a faceless body only moments earlier. She blinked not believing what she was seeing. He was squinting at the intensity of the lights, distorting his face slightly. But squinting aside, Casteel could not believe whose chest she was sitting on.

*Holy shit,* she thought, *Richard B-*

"Riddick" she finished aloud, barely able to contain her surprise, "well I’ll be damned."