"Back up." Sean held his hand out. "What do you mean engineered?"
"They created an ossai, an artificial microscopic programmable virus. They loaded it with a program and used it to rewrite the genetic code of living organisms. Once it was administered, the ossai made the current generation stronger and faster and reshaped their offspring into werewolves. When you change shape it must hurt, but it doesn't hurt as much as it should. That's because when you change, the ossai in your body releases a painkiller."
"I've been in the military," Sean said. "I've had a lot of blood tests."
"The ossai is tiny. It also self-destructs when removed from the body. Cursory tests wouldn't detect it, so unless someone sequences your genetic code, you will pass for a native."
He grimaced. "Never mind. What happened with the invasion?"
"It took the Raoo almost a century, but eventually they reverse engineered the ossai and made their own version, bigger, better, badder --the werecats, also known as the Sun Horde. Your people had anticipated that this would happen because by the time the Sun Horde emerged, they were already building their own gates. The decision was made to abandon Auul, but your people didn't want the Mraar to have it. They left the gates opened, knowing it would lead to a catastrophe, and evacuated as much of the population as they could to other places in the universe. It took years. To hold the gates against the incoming Sun Horde, they bred a second generation of werewolves, which has been described to me as more powerful but less stable, to which you apparently belong."
"Nice," Sean said.
"The alpha strain werewolves held the gates as long as they could until finally their operation created a tiny black hole. The black hole consumed the planet, releasing enormous amounts of energy, until Auul was completely gone. The resulting cataclysm created a very small but super-dense mass, which upset the balance within the star system, rendering Mraar uninhabitable. Some of the Sun Horde got out, but not many. The death count was in the billions. Now Mraar is a dead rock and Auul is an asteroid belt. The people of both are refugees on the known worlds."
I waved the broom and the screen disappeared.
"That's an interesting story," Sean said. "So according to this creative narrative, when did all this happen?"
"The werewolves have been visiting Earth for centuries," I said. "Some via other gates, some by different means. But the last refugees from Auul arrived here forty-two years ago."
Most people would've told me I was insane by now. Sean was calm like a rock.
Beast ran down the stairs, leaped into my lap, and showed him her teeth.
He bared his own teeth at her. "I'll deal with you later." He looked at me. "I need to make a phone call. Do you mind?"
I nodded at the back door. "The porch is all yours."
He went out. The screen door shut behind him, and I heard his muted voice. "Hey, Dad. It's me. Does the word Auul mean anything to you?"
Chapter Six
Beast and I watched from the inside of the inn as Sean paced back and forth. He was talking to his parents and it wasn't going well.
"Aha. Were you ever going to tell me? ... When did you think I would be old enough? I'm a grown goddamned man, Dad. I've fought in two wars. ... No, sir, I'm not being disrespectful, I'm angry. ... I do have a right to be angry. You lied to me. ... Not telling the whole story is still lying, Dad. It's lying by omission. ... I think we're doing a fine job discussing this over the phone. ... Yes, please, do put me on speaker. ... Hey, Mom. ... Yes. ... Yes. ... No, I'm not upset. ... A girl. ... No, you can't talk to her."
And now I was involved. I could just imagine how that conversation would go. "Yes, hi, who are you and how do you know so much about werewolves and what exactly is your relationship with my son..."
"An innkeeper."
Now what?
Sean walked down the steps, heading deeper into the orchard. I strained. His lips were moving, but he was out of my earshot.
I sighed and looked at Beast. She licked my hand. Sean was getting a crash course in inns and innkeepers and I had no clue what they were telling him.
Ten minutes later Sean put away his phone, came back inside, and landed in a chair.
"So, how did it go?"
"About as well as you think it did." He leaned against the chair and exhaled. "They both were in their twenties when they came over here, enlisted in the Army, and built a new life. They didn't tell me because apparently our particular second-generation kind isn't welcome among other Auul refugees, and they didn't want me to have a chip on my shoulder."
A chip? Now he was carrying a two-by-four.
Sean fixed me with his stare. Uh-oh.
"How does the broom work?"
"Magic."
He locked his jaw. "Don't give me that. You hit me with the planets and wormholes. You cracked the door open. Might as well just swing it wide."
No, he cracked the door open with his midnight marking expedition. I petted Beast. "Have you ever heard of Arthur C. Clarke's third law of prediction? It states that any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Take a smart phone and hand it to an ancient Roman. He'll think it's a magic window into the world of the gods and that the Beyoncé video playing on it is showing him Venus. The broom is magic. The inn is magic. I'm magic. I can feel it, I can manipulate it, but I can't explain it. You've transformed hundreds of times in your life under the belief that it's magic. Why does it matter now that it's not?"
Sean drummed his fingers on the armrest of his chair. "So this place is supposed to be a sanctuary?"
"Yes and no. It's an inn, a neutral ground. An abnormality in the ordinary reality of this planet or whatever passes for it. I'm an innkeeper. Here I'm supreme. If you are accepted as a guest, you fall under my protection and as long as you stay here, you will enjoy the right of sanctuary. For various reasons, Earth is a way station for many travelers. We're the Atlanta of the galaxy: many beings stop here for a layover. Some are alien and some are not. The innkeepers maintain the order, provide them with a safe place to stay, and minimize the population exposure and the bloodbath that could result. Nobody wants a worldwide panic. It has been so for hundreds of years."
"So the old lady is a guest?"
"Yes."
"How long will she be staying?"
"She paid for a lifetime stay."
"Clever." Sean leaned forward. "So she stays in your inn and nobody can get her out. What did she do?"