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?"
"You don't want to know."
"You're not going to tell me."
I shook my head. "No." I protected my guests and that included safeguarding their privacy.
Sean pondered me. I could almost feel the wheels turning in his head. He was disturbingly quick on the uptake.
"My father told me that, as an innkeeper, you're supposed to remain neutral."
"It's customary that I do. There is no compulsion or law that forces me to maintain my neutrality."
"And you can't ask for help."
"Your father is wrong. It's up to each innkeeper's discretion whether or not to ask a guest or a third party for assistance. Most innkeepers never resort to such requests because we don't want to put others in danger. The safety of our guests is our first priority."
Sean smiled. Under ordinary circumstances, I might have enjoyed seeing it—he was really handsome—but the way he was smiling now made me want to turn my broom into a shield, preferably with spikes, and brace myself.
"So you asked me for help and now I'm in danger because of it."
What? "I did no such thing. At no point did the words 'Help me, Sean Evans' come out of my mouth."
Beast barked to underscore my point.
"You approached me"—he counted off on his fingers—"you admonished me for my inaction, you tried to elicit an assurance that I would do something about the situation, and then, after I assured you I would, you still involved yourself in a violent action, escalating the level of danger for both of us. All of this can be construed as a plea for assistance and cooperation, and now because of you, my life is in jeopardy."
"No." This was crazy. There were so many things I wanted to say at once if the words would just get out of each other's way.
"Fine." He grinned again, flashing white teeth. "Is there someone we can contact and settle this dispute? Somebody with the power of oversight, perhaps?"
The Innkeeper Assembly. Oh, you bastard. His father must've told him about it. "Are you threatening me?"
"I don't make threats. I solve problems."
"And that didn't sound conceited. Not at all."
He spread his arms. "I'm simply stating facts."
The Assembly was an informal self-governing organization of innkeepers. If Sean went to them, their investigation would begin and end with one question: "Was the inn directly threatened?" I would have to answer no. Technically I hadn't broken any written laws because we didn't have any, but I'd broken the unspoken canon of neutrality. They would view it as unwise, advise me to not do it again, and bump the rating of the inn down to one mark, which would broadcast to everyone that staying at Gertrude Hunt equaled gambling with your safety. The inn was at already at two marks due to having been abandoned and me being an unknown commodity. My parents' inn had been rated at five. Getting branded with one mark would kill any chances of reviving Gertrude Hunt. We would not recover.
Argh. He had me and he knew it. "Just what exactly did your parents do in the military?"
"My dad was arrested once because he didn't know the laws, so he decided he would learn all of them. He went green to gold, which means he became an officer and worked as a JAG Corps attorney. My mother really enjoyed watching people's heads explode from far away, so she served as a countersniper."