It didn't take long for the news to get out that Mac was working again. In an even shorter time she was getting offers. It all came to a catalyst the following day. Five men stepped out of the lift and started walking towards the ship. Mac was fiddling with the landing gear and Riddick and Jack were inside.

"Heard you was working again Mac, good news travels fast."

Mac looked up.

"Bad news travels faster."

She said in a cold, flat voice. Jolay, The Web Mistress's right hand man didn't lose any of his composure.

"Mistress has a job she thinks you might-"

"No."

" 'Scuse me?"

"No I won't excuse you and no, I won't do the job. I'm simply doing this to repay a favor. That is all."

"No one refuses The Mistress."

Said one of the men flanking Jolay. Mac put the tools she had been working with down and raised her cowled face.

"I just did."

Two of the men moved forward, fast. But not fast enough. With a feral hiss Mac buried a knife into the one on the lefts' guts, as she turned to confront the man on the right she pulled hard on the hilt. Going with the arm motion she used her elbow to break his nose, then swung around with her left arm, thrusting upwards she used the momentum of her swing to push the broken cartilage up into the frontal lobes of his brain. He dropped like the proverbial stone.

"Nobody threatens me."

Mac crouched back down and returned to her work on the landing gear.

"Take your garbage with you when you go, and spread the word, I'm not working."

Riddick's senses kicked in big time as soon as he left the interior of the ship. There was a scent in the air salty, metallic.copperish. It was one he knew well. Blood. Walking over to where Mac was working Riddick surveyed the ground. Finding nothing he lent casually against the side of the ship.

"Cut yourself?"

Mac looked up into Riddick's face.

"It's not mine."

"Whose is it then?"

Riddick inquired.

"Someone who wanted to make a deal."

"What happened?"

Mac smiled beneath her hood.

"I didn't like the terms."

Jack looked up as Riddick came in.

"What was wrong?"

She asked. Riddick looked down at Jack's upturned face and forced a smile.

"Nothing. How you goin'?"

Jack looked down at the mess of hacked up objects in front of her.

"Well, I think it's edible."

She offered with a weak grin.

"I've eaten worse kid."

Jack looked down at what was supposed to be their lunch.

"Then I sure as hell hope you've eaten better."

She muttered going back to work.

As Mac went back to fiddling with the landing gear she winced. She could feel a massive migraine coming on. They happened every once and a while. When she'd spent to long in her lair. Yesterday was her first trip out in about two months. And after two months seeing in pitch-black darkness or near enough, her eyes weren't coping well with the change. Mac ignored the nausea and concentrated on rewiring the circuits in the repulsor-lifts, no malfunctions had showed up on the scan but Mac wanted to be sure. She didn't want these people coming back.

*Though I would like to see him land with malfunctioning repulsers. It would make a nice show 'How not to land a ship', a crash course in flying*

With a small sigh of relief Mac rose and stretched her cramped muscles. The repulsor-lifts were all in perfect working order and her list of things to do had gone from five to four. Mac turned before Jack could tug at her coat.

"What do you want?"

She asked with a hint of menace. Jack looked up into the shadowed face and tried not to shiver. The person Riddick'd hired was good at what she did, but personally, she gave Jack the creeps.

"I've got a meal going, if you'd like some. That is.?"

"No."

Mac thought about what she'd just said and decided it was rather rude.

"I've already eaten."

Actually the thought of food was making Mac ill. Her head felt like it was being attacked by gijibots, the special kind they make on Adren-7.

"Tell Big Bad I'll be back tomorrow with some friends."

"Okay."

Jack answered, trying not to laugh. Riddick described as Big Bad was like describing a star going nova as being destructive.

Mac weaved her way through the streets of Vatica. Tags from some of the local gangs decorated the buildings and warehouses she passed, she ignored them, the only tags she was interested in had long since faded. The sky was boiling again, rain was a certainty. Mac gathered her cloak tighter around her.

"She was an ominous figure, a Valkyire of Myth, and a Warrior from Legend- or so the gossip ran amongst the rubbish of the street. Monster, Mystery, Murder. A figure of terror, akin to Death, for neither was ever seen uncowled, and those that saw seldom survived the experience. A Warrior of Virtue, yet possessing none herself. Mistress of the fates of many, Savior of a few. Thread Cutter, Life Taker, Soul Stealer. The shape in the darkness seen just before the meeting of ones gods. Heard in the whistle of a blade as it plunges downwards into the back of an unsuspecting victim and felt in the breath of ice wind creeping up you spine. The one they never broke, the one that got away, the one they haven't caught. Wryd-writer, Wolf-stalker, Wraith-sister. The Black Widow."

Jack looked into the face of the old man and shivered. He was blind, two empty sockets all the testimony that was, all that told that this blind old bard had once seen the world, Jack looked around at the blackened buildings, the scarred faces of the people walking by.

*Such as it is*

She thought sadly.

Jack reached into her pocket just as she realised she had no money. The old man seemed to sense her dilemma.

"Do not feel shame child, that you have nothing to barter or bequeath. Your enjoyment of the Tale is enough for me."

Jack felt a shiver of something shoot up her spine. It wasn't wonder; it couldn't be, for a street rat grows up fast in the gutters, childhood but a myth that others live. But maybe, just maybe, it was akin to wonder.

"Is she real?"

Jack found herself asking. The old man purposely misunderstood.

"Who? Death?"

"No, Her. The Black Widow."

The old man chuckled, his laugh turned into a wheezing cough. Jack took a step back. When he could breath again the old man continued.

"Some say She's just a story."

Jack might've been a genius, but she was amazingly astute at times.

"And what do you say?"

She replied shrewdly. The old man smiled.

"Well, I'm just an old man, who cares for my opinion, hey? Just a crazy old gaffer who should have been put away a long ago."

"What do you say?"

Jack repeated. The old man gave another of those discontenting smiles.

"The Black Widow is real, child, as real as you and me, and very much alive. And as far as I know still relatively human."

The old man got out a battered pipe, made of some kind of alloy.

"Would you like to hear a song, girl?"

He asked changing the subject. Jack nodded, then felt colour rise to her cheeks as she realised the old man couldn't see her.

"Yeah. Okay."

She said. The old man gave a smile and started to sing in a deep, strong voice.

"Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes, are calling From glen to glen, and o'er the mountainside. The summers gone, and all the roses falling. 'Tis you, 'tis you, must go and I must bide."

The old mans voice was rich, and, Jack closed her eyes and imagined, a deep brown colour. The bard now played piping notes on the battered old instrument, then his voice started again.

"But come ye back, when summer's in the meadows Or when the valley's, flushed and white with snow And I'll be here in sunlight or in shadow. Oh Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so."

"That was. good."

Jack said, when the last notes of the pipe had died away. The bard chuckled.

"Only good?"

He asked with a smile.

"Well I wouldn't want you to get a big head."

Jack added.

"Of course not."

Agreed the old man. Jack looked over her shoulder as yet more bells signaled the time.

"Maybe I'll see ya round."

Jack winced at the inappropriate sentence, but the old man just smiled.

"Maybe." He agreed.