48)

Charles nodded as if he was agreeing to something and set his fingertips one by one on the tabletop with each question.

“My father, uncle John’s full blooded brother, had lung cancer several years ago, he’s also down a leg, but it’s the cancer coming back that concerns us.”

“Can my uncle save my father from another round of chemo that probably won’t work? Can he get his leg and his health back? Can he get the extra years that becoming one of you grants even at his age?”

Adora looked a little set aback, and thoughtful. The last gave me hope.

“I...my family were all born as Lycaos, as were most of those who had settled in this area. So the truth is, I really don’t know much about those who have turned into one of us after being bitten.”

She glanced over to me for a moment before she continued.

“My husband was of the few I have know. One of his fellow soldiers, whose family was from this area, bit him in hopes that it would help him survive his wounds, and it did, but he was only injured, not fighting a sickness.”

She nodded, more to herself as she was deep in thought. “However his father, and some of his family were taken by cancer, while my Dorian never got sick, even for a day, for the rest of his life.”

Adora looked up at Charles with a fond smile in remembrance. “And Rian was not one of the strong ones, it would take him an entire night to turn human again.”

With a slight shake of her head, she continued. “I haven’t heard of any of us getting cancer, or sick, or even getting any of ailments of age. Our vision stays sharp, as do our minds. We just... get tired as we age, more and more until we just drift away at some point.’

She rolled her eyes at some memory. “Or we do something too stupid to heal from long before that, my uncle decided to race cars. Idiot.”

Adora looked over to me. “Violence too, a shotgun to the head can kill anyone.”

She tossed her hair back and tired to force herself into a better mood. “Almost anything else gets fixed by changing, if you are strong enough, and not tired, or too skinny. Then it might have to wait until you’ve rested, and eaten well.”

She waved her hands around while she struggled to find the right words. “It is magic, but a whole leg has to come from somewhere. Is you father fat?”

Charles laughed. “Yeah, he’s put on some weight. More then enough for a leg.”

Adora smiled. “He should have a lot of milk and cheese after, I’m remember my uncle breaking some teeth on some hard candy right after he regrew an arm, so it probably leeches calcium from your bones.” She shook her head at the memory. “Anoitos. The fool tried playing with a mechanical thresher.”

Charles sighed and relaxed in his chair. I reached over to lay my hand on top of Adora’s. “Thank you.”

She seemed surprised and may have even blushed a little. I gave her hand a little squeeze before sitting back. “Is it going to be any sort of problem to turn my brother into a...Lycos you said?”

She frown a bit in confusion. “Oh! No, it was Lycaos, to be like Lycaon, a king Zeus turned into a wolf.”

I nodded, and joked. “So that’s who to blame.”

Adora tittered. “No, we don’t know for sure how we came about. But...”

She glaceed over to were the girls were playing keep away with a twig floating around in the air, both Sara and Mel jumping several feet in the air as Ami stared up at the stick intently, magically jerking it out of their reach each time at the last moment to their shrieks and curses.

The younger girl was doing the shrieking both in excitement and disappointment as the stick popped up out of her reach, while Sara was yelling something angry sounding as her sister in Japanese.

I suspect she was taking full advantage of all the adults in earshot not being able to understand her to freely use all the words some of her cousins had undoubtedly taught her.

I held up my hands beside my face to yell. “Ami! You got to let them win once in a while or it stops being fun. For them anyways.”

She whipped her head around and Sara took advantage of the distraction to snatch the stick out the air, while bumping into a leaping Mel on her way down. Sending them both to land awkwardly on the ground, Mel somehow ending up with stick and running off with Sara in pursuit, calling her “Baka!”

Wait, I know that one, and I think it’s kid safe.

This was the first time the rest of the people a the table had seen magic, other then turning into wolves, and they looked fairly shocked, even after I had warned them.

Dare whispered. “She’s really a witch, that’s real magic.”

He sounded more concerned then amazed. Sara stopped her pursuit and turned to look over at us at the tone in his voice.

Adora spoke in a careful tone of voice. “My father always told us to avoid magic workers, because he believed that since they could command us with their magic so easily, that it was they who made us as to be their slaves.”