25)

There was pause before I got a somewhat tense response. “Then I guess we should talk, maybe starting with who it is I’m talking to?”

Heh, get the other person talking, looks like he had some of the same training as me. I talked in my normal voice. “Ah, so this time, you are actually going to talk to me...Son.”

I waved away the girls from their side of the door, not sure how much time they were going to give me, and if I wandered away from the door, I knew they would just track me down.

There was a significant pause, followed by a very carefully controlled “I’m guessing one of the girls told you about that, but they didn’t have the whole story.”

He took a deep breath before he continued. “I owe you a apology and the reasoning on why I didn’t talk to you then, but first, are they okay?”

...I can respect his priorities at least. “The mouthy teen is horrified at what I’ve been feeding them, the younger girl is on the edge of losing it from the stress, and the little guy is being pretty quiet, but think that’s normal for three of them.”

I rapped on the glass of the door as the two girls both had put their hands on the handle of the door, Sara seemed ready to march out while Ami was arguing with her and beginning to look upset. I did not want to call for another door again, so…

“Just a second...” I ignored the voice on the phone while I pulled the door open yanking the handle from out of their hands and putting a startled look on both their faces. “Adults are talking, now go back and sit at the counter, it’s going to be like, two more minutes, so hold your horses.

Then I pulled the door shut on them before they could start to do much more then make some semi verbalized protesting sounds.

I got back on the phone. “Sorry, the brats were clawing at the door, so to keep this quick, they showed up at my door with their grandma’s necklace I had gotten her, a story about their mom sending them to me, and then Ami started showing off how she can do magic, here they are...”

I managed to get the last out as Aran walked pass the two girls and pulled the door open, just in time for Ami to hear me rat her out with a look of shock and outrage before I handed her the phone.

“Your dad wants to talk to you, I think they call it proof of life”

Ami managed to get a teary eyed “...daddy?” before Sara snatched the phone out of her hand “Dad? What the hell is going on?”

Seeing Ami beginning to loose it, I gently thumped Sara on top of her head with two fingers, and pointed at her sister when the elder girl glared at me. “I gave her my phone first, let her talk.”

The brat narrowed her eyes at me, got a look of realization and glance at his sister as she realized that she might be about to be launched into a wall by a irritated sibling and handed the phone over to her sister after a brief, “Hang on, Ami wants to talk to you.”

Aran made a creditable attempt at grabbing the phone himself as it passed over his head with a pleading “Dad” before Ami grabbed it and began quickly scampering off while beginning to machine gun natter on the phone asking about her mom, telling how they had gotten to my house, the size of the house, the Gatling gun and probably more after she got out of earshot.

Hope I had enough minutes on that phone. Girls tend to chatter a bit.

I had more then enough time to clear up the breakfast dishes, put away the milk and cereal and start to think about what I was going to feed the three of them the rest of the day before Aran wandered back in and solemnly handed me the phone. I could hear the girls off somewhere in the house calling his name having apparently not noticed him wandering off once he finally had his turn.

I took the phone with a “Thank you.” to the boy out of politeness and to let him know I had a hold of it, and a “Hello” to the phone.

“You’re a werewolf?” Junior sounded a little dubious.

Keep it simple, the kid sounded a little rattled, children missing, talking to his father for the first time in his life. “Yep”

“...I was told they existed, but...am I a werewolf?”

I laughed. “I didn’t think we would ever have this talk son, but I guess you’re old enough, as you get older you’re going to notice that your body is going to go through some changes.”

I ignored the confused sounds. “You’re going to start growing hair where it never grew before, and girls are going to become a lot more interesting...”

He stopped me, “Okay, I get it, stupid question.”

I choked down my laughter, “Seriously, I think it is hereditary, but it sounds like the kids skipped pass a few details. I only got bitten like a week ago so I can’t have passed it on to you, hell, as far as I know it might even wear off, but it sounds like it can only be passed on by bite, so the kids are safe. At least from me.”

“I..have a lot of questions about this, but what I do know is that vampires are real, and they don’t get along with...well they don’t get along with anyone, but they stick to the cities because of your kind.”

I wonder how big a city has to be before vampires start living in one. Ojibwe wasn’t that big of a town and it had at least a few, but maybe the Redd’Smart set up isn’t typical.

“Met a few, they seemed nice, but at least one of them is involved in something hinky, but the sheriff is looking into it on behalf of the local community. As in the, turns into wolf, community.”

“...how many werewolves are we talking about here?”

I thought about that question. Best to establish some ground rules here. “Hard to say, I haven’t met them all yet, and to be honest son, even if I did know, that’s not something I would be willing to share with someone I don’t really know.”

There was a sigh, “And that’s my fault I guess. So here’s the other half of the story, when my mom came home in a panic over being pregnant, my grandma was ready to kill you, as in seriously end your life with a spell kill, mom talked her out of it, but only if she agreed to never see you again.”

“The reason I didn’t talk to you when I tracked you down is I didn’t think it was possible to meet you without giving you a reason to start tracking my mom down again, and I didn’t think I could convince someone who didn’t know about magic being real that their life would really be at risk.”

I let that roll around my head for a moment. “Yeah, I can see that being a problem. So what do we do now?”

My son paused again. “Well I try to get a man that owes me nothing to keep taking care of my kids while I go to rescue their mom from a secret ninja compound while trying to keep my aunt, the witch who burned down my house, from following me and starting a lethal family feud.”