36)

After a few minutes, Charles came back to the front door, checked behind him, and pulled it shut before heading over to me.

I guessed he wanted to talk, so I set the TV down and leaned it up against the back of the car.

He gave me a nod, and took a deep breath. “So...grandchildren, and Asian ones, just as well they never met grandpa.”

I grunted at him. I hadn’t really thought about that one, and I wasn’t all that sure how my dad would have been about it. If they had been black he might have had...issues, but I had never heard him say anything troubling about anyone else.

At least not troubling to me, but I’m not exactly what you would call “Woke.” I try, but what I considered fair and just was pretty much cemented forty years back, so I’m a bit behind and too set in my ways.

“To be fair, he got over things pretty fast, and he wasn’t ever rude to your girlfriend. Just troubled about a situation he never had to deal with before. The man is gone, no use getting upset over how he might have felt about things, even if he never said them.”

He took a deep breath and let it, and a troubling memory go. “The two girls are tearing into the boxes of clothes, and the boy is playing with the packaging, so we have a moment to talk.”

My nephew and lawyer crossed his arms. “Why are you convinced they’re your grandchildren.”

Well…how to approach this? Maybe not start with, “They smelled like family.”

So...”The eldest, Sara, has my mother’s eyes.”

He started to inhale, readying his objections, but hesitated when I held up my hand to stop him, instead limiting himself to a “I’m going to need more then that Uncle John.”

I pursed my lips in thought. Not really much else I can do here, can I? I held up my hand. “Nothing up my sleeves here kiddo, check my arm, no make up, no fake arm, what I’m about to do is no trick, but it may be more then was dreamt of in your philosophy.”

I twisted my hand back and forth while he gave me a dubious stare, but didn't take the chance to grab hold of my arm to physically inspect it.

“I’m going to do a...partial transformation I’d guess you’d call it. You need to see it first before there’s any point in telling you what’s all going on.”

His dubious look returned, complete with a head tilt and raised eyebrow. Oh yea of little faith. I focused on letting the bones of my hand and arm go hot and soft. This time making sure it happened slowly enough that it stopped before the change reached my elbow and went no further.

Doing so meant I could see the bones below the skin seems to swell up in pulses with snapping noises before the bone evened out, the muscles swelled, and the hair on my arm became thicker and longer in place, even as more hairs grew out to form an actual coat.

My fingernails sort of bent up in the middles as they thickened and stretched out into short points reaching out a good inch or so beyond the ends of my fingers, the nail on the thumb ending up much shorter.

There was hardly any pain this time, more like a stretching feeling where you can feel the strain, but it feels better then being stiff.

Charles’s face had gone blank as he stared for a moment, began to reach for my hand with a pause to give me look to confirm he still had my permission. Then he took hold of my arm, squeezing and pulling at the skin on my hand and arm as if looking to see if it would come off.

Then he froze for a moment before he turned and walked away for a good twenty feet, stared out at the woods for moment, then turned back to stare at me. Then he stomped up looking angry before examining my arms again.

Finally he let go and demanded. “Explain.”

...”Werewolf... Got bit earlier this week. Not just the hand, it’s a whole body thing. Had to struggle to stay human during the full moon. I can feel it when people show up on my land, and can smell that the kids are related to me by blood, same way I can smell you.”

I could see him mulling that over. “Ready for the rest?”

He held up one finger for a moment and then stepped around me to sit on the inside of the back of the SUV, finger still up in the air. After a moment he dropped it. “Go”

“Both my son and daughter in law are magically enhanced warriors, his mom, aunt and grandmother are witches, as is the younger girl, Ami.”

He nodded and I asked. “More?” He sighed and nodded again.

“Vampires are real, and can get addicted to werewolf blood. Three guys showed up last night to try to kidnap me as a living meth lab.” He started to get up, eyes wide.

I shook my head. “The law around here is like me, it’s taken care of. More?”

He sat back down after a moment. “Right...hit me.”

“Both sides of their family want to take Ami away from her parents, so my ex sent them here. My son is trying to cut his wife loose from her family and then he’s planning on running off and hiding out somewhere.”

I shook my head. “I’m not sure it will work, even if his mom, who is on his side, helps him. But he knows more about all this.” I waved my hands around, noticed that my one hand was still a gruesome weaponized wolf, hand, paw thing. Then I focused for a moment on switching it back to normal.

Which was apparently long enough for Charles to start to get his thoughts back together. “Right, not much I can do to help with anything with...my cousins, without leading anyone here. But with the werewolf thing...”

He looked pretty shook up. “It’s left you looking better, stronger, healthier then you’ve been in years.”

Oh...yeah. My brother, his father, Andrew.

“My dad survived cancer once, but it wrecked him. He won’t survive it again.”

I finished his thought “Not as a human...”