Blood Song

"Poor Uncle Oliver," Rebecca chuckled. A pained expression replaced the grin on Oliver's face. Rebecca chuckled again.

"Dude," Mark walked in just in time to catch the end of the conversation. "You're almost two hundred years old, but the idea that you're an uncle brings you out in a rash."

"It makes me feel old," said Oliver.

"You are old," Mark told him frankly. "Batteries?" he asked, directing the question to nobody in particular.

"Second drawer from the right," Rebecca said almost automatically.

"Well, just you wait until you become an uncle," muttered Oliver darkly, and then he turned to Rebecca and winked. She frowned a warning at him.

Mark seemed oblivious to the unspoken conversation taking place behind him as he rummaged through the drawer. But as he casually leaned against the counter and replaced old batteries with new, he spoke again as if to no one in particular.

"I'll be an uncle in a few months, but I won't be freaking out about it like some people I know," he said, his voice heavy with a kind of teasing sarcasm. "Mum might be a bit surprised, and who knows what Hugo will think, but I reckon it's pretty cool. It'll give Angus something to do with all his free time," he said nonchalantly, while the rest of us gazed at him in stunned silence.

"I can feel the heart developing," he said by way of explanation before he grinned and walked out as abruptly as he'd arrived.

"There are no secrets with these people around," Rebecca complained, a bewildered expression in her eyes. "I wasn't even sure myself, and my little brother knows all about it."

"He's not so little anymore," said Oliver speculatively, staring at the doorway that Mark had just strolled through.

"Don't try to corrupt him, Oliver," I told him seriously.

"I don't think I could if I tried," said Oliver, equally serious now. "I had a look inside that mind. That boy's about as incorruptible as they come. It's a shame, really. I could do with a protégé."

"You can teach your wild and mindlessly bloody ways to someone else, Uncle," Rebecca told him, grinning at his outraged expression.

"You keen?" he asked her, lifting an eyebrow.

"I'm good, thanks," said Rebecca dryly. "What game are they playing now?"

"I'm not sure, but it requires a lot of shooting at what may or may not be a set of fairly hostile mutated dogs. Hard to say what they are really. Some of them spit green poison."

"I don't think I've ever seen that one. Is it any good?"

"It's very entertaining, but not much of a challenge for someone like me," Oliver said smugly. Rebecca shook her head in mock disapproval, and rolled her eyes theatrically.