Eleven p.m. turned up with no call from Viv, so Rich went to the diner she had told him about. He found her sitting in the back corner in now rather oily overalls next to a man dressed the same way, grinning and joking around.

“Hey, Rich, over here!” she waved in case he hadn’t seen them. he walked over to the table. “Rich, meet Marcus, M to his friends. He’s, what was it, second cousin three times removed or third two times?”

“I can never get it straight. Hi Rich, can I call you that? Call me M. Marcus is my father, you know?” the guy said, holding out a surprisingly clean hand, with a friendly grin on his face. “Don’t worry, I’m clean. You don’t work on cars that cost more than your house without getting real good at keeping your hands clean.” he looked at Viv while he said that and Viv laughed at what seemed to be an in joke as Rich shook the hand and sat down.

“M, this is the friend I told you about, the one that got mugged.”

“Oh yeah? Looking pretty healthy compared to what I heard about.” Marcus said.

“Yeah, well, I’ve got a headache bigger than my head, you know?” Rich lied and rubbed the back of his head a bit.

“Been there. Anyway, we were just negotiating what Viv owes me for all this. I was up half the day about this one.”

“M, don’t tease. Family. Next time I can do something for you you only got to name it, you know that.”

“Yeah, but you know what I want and you’re saving it all for this MacLeod person.”

“Marcus! Rich, just tell him I’m not shagging Mac. He won’t believe me.”

“You stayed the day with the guy, what am I supposed to think?”

“Hey, she was on the sofa the whole time. I had the bed. Mac was working anyhow.” Rich said, feeling a little left out of what was obviously a close friendship.

“Oh, so she slept with you? I got to warn you about the women in this family. Run us lot ragged they do.”

“You only say that cos you’re one of Ethel’s lot.”

“Yeah, I guess Emily isn’t so bad. But it was you I was thinking of.”

“Ooh, you. Just get on with it, if we’re going to sort this tonight we’ve got to get a shift on.”

Marcus went serious and got out a fairly illegible note pad. “Okay. But are you sure you don’t want me to get some of the boys round to help? These guys might be small time but guns are always serious business.”

“You worry too much. I’m a grown girl, I can look after myself.”

“Half grown more like.” Marcus quipped back reflexively. “But if you insist... Guy in the alley was a high school bully name of Dave. Nobody special. But the alley was where the gang he was part of usually hang out. Not a good neighbourhood.” he looked up at Rich.

“Yeah, I know. Just in too much of a hurry, I guess. Usually I can take care of myself too.” Rich shrugged.

Marcus continued. “I hear there was some sort of disagreement with him and Miller, the guy in charge. Mean bastard, thinks with his fists on a good day. Seems like last night he thought with his gun. You’re lucky to be alive, if you walked into that.” watching Rich’s reaction. Rich looked uncomfortable and rubbed his head again. Marcus copied a bit of his notes out carefully, in block capitals that were actually legible. “I got his address, but he isn’t there right now. Didn’t go far though. Friend found him in a motel across town, room number and everything right here.” He tore off the note and handed it to Viv. “I assume you’ll be wanting to take care of it from here?” he asked here, concern all over his face.

“My friend, my problem. I’ll be okay, Marcus, I always am.” she reassured him. “Look, now seems like a pretty good time to do this. I’ll get changed and we’ll head over there.” she looked at Richie to check and he nodded agreement. “If I’m late back, just cover for me, okay? Don’t go sending out the cavalry. Boss would have a fit.”

“And if anything happened to you about a million cousins, aunts, uncles and great aunts would have a fit, and I’d never hear the end of it. Just be careful, okay?”

“You know it.” she grinned, and got her bag out from under the table then headed for the ladies room to change. Rich noticed for once she wasn’t actually wearing her sword, but he knew that bag of hers was never far away from her. She was probably just making some attempt to look respectable for work.

Marcus was watching him watching her. His face had gone very serious now Viv was out of view.

“Look... I don’t know much about you. Viv keeps her life on a need to know basis. But she trusts you, so I guess that’s good enough for me. Aren’t many friends she would call in a family favour for. But I want you to know, if anything happens to her.. we know where you are. And there are a lot of us, just in case you were thinking you could take me. Look after her.” He was dead serious, and Richard replied the same way.

“We care about her too, Mac and me. We’re sort of responsible for her right now. We won’t let anything happen to her.”

“Damn right you’re responsible.” Marcus agreed, then shut up as Viv returned, in leather jacket, black jeans and sneakers, buckling on her sword belt. “Viv, I wish you wouldn’t carry that thing around.” he complained, almost light hearted.

“Hey, he’s the best friend a girl could have. Vivianne and The Light Fantastic together can deal with anything. Come on, Ryan, we’ll take your bike if that’s okay.”

“Sure.” he agreed and they left together, a meaningful stare from Marcus following them.

“So how much did you tell him?” Richie asked as he got on the bike.

“About Immortals? Nada. News like that would go all the way up to the great greats, and they would tell everyone else. Suddenly you’ve got a few thousand people with all their different agendas who know all about Immortals. M’s okay, but a lot of my lot... well, they’re family, but that don’t mean you can trust them. To guard your back or help you out of a fix, but not with everything.” Viv replied, climbing up behind him and holding on around his waist, obviously used to riding that way.

Richie was rather relieved. The thought of every Impson around the world knowing to take his head if anything happened to Viv was less than appealing.