Wednesday

June 7th

Gideon stared into the mirror and deliberated about shaving. He hadn’t shaved yesterday, but he had the day before, and with a shrug he decided to skip it again. He rubbed his face and hair with a towel and walked out of the bathroom, using his fingers to scrub his hair with the towel. Thus his eyes were on his toes.

His door opened and shut with a click.

Gideon froze and looked up slowly.

Black strap sandals with metal studs, toenails painted the color of red wine, an ankle bracelet with a moon motif that was familiar, legs, long pale legs, a black mini-skirt, a belly baring cotton tank top that showed off a belly chain that he was all too familiar with. By the time he saw her face, he remembered who owned that belly chain and who else had a key to his apartment, Savannah.

Oh thank God that he had a towel around his waist this time.

She raised the cloth grocery bag she had in her hand by the straps and raised an eyebrow. “Good morning, how do you like your eggs, scrambled or fried?” she asked. He didn’t know it, but this was a trick question. She liked her eggs fried and he was getting scrambled eggs whether he liked them or not.

He stared at her for a few minutes. She’d invaded his apartment, again. He blinked. “Scrambled,” he said, like his brain at that moment.

She smiled at him. “Good.” He passed. The fried eggs were hers, period. She nodded at the couch. “Sit,” she ordered and walked over, swinging the bag. She raised an eyebrow. He had a couch and a coffee table and that was it. She inwardly rolled her eyes, boys, and sat down on the end of the couch, setting the bag on the table. She supposed she should be happy he had a coffee table at all.

Gideon’s brow furrowed and he took a few steps towards the couch. Didn’t she want him to get dressed first? And why wasn’t she at the Clarks working on the roof? She was the one who said that it needed to get done. And, did she not notice he was next to naked? Or did she not care?

He came close enough to her to smell her, something herbal and homey smelling. He sniffed again, trying to be discreet. Monday and Tuesday he swore she smelled like peaches and sake. This new scent was definitely more soothing than the other. The other made him want to nibble on her.

And she was now his sponsor. He didn’t think that would exactly be polite or acceptable. This scent made him want to cuddle up to her and snuggle for a while and then do naughty things to her. He cudgeled his brain under control.

She set out a couple of those plates that kept hot food hot, and cold food cold, and the smell of eggs, bacon, and pancakes decided him. He came around the couch and sat, spreading the other towel over his legs on top of the other. He looked at her out of the corner of his eye and tried to gauge her reaction.

She didn’t twitch. She pulled out a cup of coffee and what looked like a metal canister, except it was really fancy, etched with the symbol of the Club. She held the coffee out to him. “Black, right?”

He nodded and took it. “Yeah, thanks.”

She smiled at him and pulled out her hot cocoa. She took the top off and sipped it. “All right, Prospect. This is the most important part of joining the Club. One of the most well-protected, well-guarded and most treasured secrets. It is the reason for our survival and prosperity,” she said and set the cocoa down next to her plate.

And then she cracked open the canister. It hissed as the seal broke. “This is the Club Code of Behavior,” she said. “You need to read it and sign the bottom. That way we know you have read and agreed to it.”

Secrets? He eyed the scroll. The top had the title of The Code of Behavior in fancy letters of the same style as the writing of the Heaven’s Heathens signage and patches and drawings along the top and the sides. His eyes traveled downwards. The writing was small, neat, and looked like old-fashioned calligraphy. It really looked like one of those documents that you signed your soul over to the devil with. He looked at her. Was she serious? “Do you want me to sign it in blood?”

Savannah raised an eyebrow at him. If he wanted to go to that trouble, fine. “If you think it’s necessary. And then you’ll need to memorize it.”

She said it was a secret. He supposed it could be considered classified, top secret information. “And then eat it?”

Savannah pursed her lips and eyed him. “That would ruin the point of bringing breakfast.”

He grinned.

“Prospect, if you don’t read this and agree to it, you can’t be part of the Club,” Savannah said gently.

He held his hand out. “Melodrama, melodrama,” he said.

She snorted and passed it to him. She picked up her plate and started cutting her eggs with the side of her fork.

He took a sip of coffee and started to read. ‘You can’t talk about Club business,’ was the first thing on the list. Wasn’t there some old book or movie where the first rule about Fight Club was you couldn’t talk about Fight Club? This sounded similar.

He stopped sipping the further down he got. The first part seemed pretty normal and familiar with the laws that he was used to. Don’t murder. Don’t lie. He did notice there as nothing in there about stealing or breaking and entering. However, the further down in the document he went, the stranger it got. There were rules about the treatment of women, children and the elderly that sounded something like the Bible meeting the code of Chivalry or what he assumed was the code of Chivalry.

It wasn’t that he disagreed with them, however the section about abuse, what constituted abuse, rape, what constituted rape and how these would be punished was a bit long and explicit and sometimes stomach churning. He got to the next section, rules about changing a human into a werewolf. His eyes widened and looked over at Savannah. “Wait, you know how to change someone into—” He gestured at his chest.

She tried to not look too amused. “Yes, we do.”

“And you tell your people this?”

“It’s not exactly easy to do and with knowledge of how to do it, comes the knowledge of responsibility,” Savannah said. “Go on, read it.”

Gideon turned back to the Code of Behavior. He’d been born this way, born with what was according to Hope, a virus that bonded to his DNA. He’d call it a parasitic virus but he would be able to live without a parasite. It wasn’t symbiotic either. That would imply a mutual benefit if he was remembering his life science right. He didn’t know if the virus was sentient enough to receive a benefit from bonding with his DNA. All werewolf stories out of Hollywood he knew of were full of the idea that one could turn a normal human and he’d heard rumors that this was actually true but had never met anyone who actually knew how to do it. He read down, part of his mind recoiling in horror, a virgin, three bites over the three days of the full moon, a month for the virus to replicate and invade the body, the punishment, watching the one you changed and not being able to help.

“A virgin?” he asked. “Those aren’t exactly growing on trees.”

For some reason, Savannah bristled but calmed right away. “Not really. However, a virgin is the most reliable way to turn a human.” She jerked her chin in a futile motion to move her hair. “There is a thirty-three percent chance of success if you try to change a non-virgin.”

“Only thirty-three.”

“If they are lucky, nothing happens,” Savannah said and her tone turned wry. “Otherwise, their body rejects it and they die, horribly. Two in three chances of death, not good odds.” She looked at him steadily. “You have to hope to find a forty-year-old virgin or else you’re changing twelve year olds. The recommended age is the fairytale sixteen to twenty-one. Too old, the body has too much time damage to it, too young, the stress of the first change could kill them despite being a virgin.”

“But—”

“You were born this way. If your mother was smart, she changed during the pregnancy and as a fetus you changed as well. This accustomed your body to it before you were born. And you most likely went through your first change within the first two weeks outside the uterus while your bones were still somewhat soft.” She paused. “Morgan says that about the second to third month of pregnancy, the urge to change almost becomes irresistible, like the wolf wants to run before she gets too big.” She shrugged. “I think Morgan knows what she’s talking about.”

“She has six kids.”

Savannah snickered. “Much to Ted’s chagrin.”

Gideon looked down at the Code again. “But a virgin?” That seemed like a ridiculous condition to him.

“If it wasn’t a virgin, we would be overrun with werewolves,” Savannah said dryly. She held up a hand, took a sip of cocoa and put the cup down. “According to Hope, and Raoul agrees with her, the current theory is that there is an electronic switch in the neural matter.”

Savannah changed her tone to try and sound lofty and academic. “And after a person has sex, this switch is thrown producing a hormone that counteracts the werewolf virus.”

She shook her head and reverted to her normal voice. “Needless to say, no one wants to experiment on a human to find out. And it is entirely plausible because there are organs that produce hormones that we don’t know the purpose of yet. But that is the theory and it is a theory.”

Gideon nodded and went back to reading. He continued to read. “Rules of challenge,” he said and with a glance at Savannah he kept reading. It was like a dueling code, werewolf style. There were more mentions of honor like the section about the treatment of women. This really sounded like chivalry to him.

He got to the end, sat there and tried to digest it. There was a lot to think about there. Did he agree with it? It rang inside him with half-forgotten memories of a man he loved and words of wisdom from this same man being repeated by his mother. He looked at Savannah. “You have a pen?”

“Not a needle?”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “I was being facetious.”

She grinned, reached into her kutte, and handed him a pen.

He signed the Code of Behavior and handed the pen back at her. She set her plate down, took the canister back, and pressed a button. The scroll rolled up and the canister sealed again. She stuck it back in her bag. She reached back into her kutte and pulled out a data strip. “Here is your electronic copy of the Code of Behavior, a copy of the Club bylaws. Read them. Memorize them. Love them,” she said with a grin. “And a few other things that should be helpful for you.”

He leaned forward, grabbed his computer, flipped it open, and stuck the data strip in. A light on the computer flashed green.

“The strip will automatically delete itself after you transfer the files.” Savannah added, “Security.”

Gideon raised an eyebrow. She couldn’t say that before he put it in there. He fitted it into his ear and let his glasses appear on his nose. He double checked to see if the files were on there and raised his eyebrow. “Five Minute Easy Recipes that Even a Bachelor Can Make.”

Savannah snickered.

“Is that supposed to be a joke?”

She shook her head. “No, Esme and Darcy put it together for a laugh.”

“A joke.”

“But then it became really handy for the young people. Esme keeps adding to it.”

“Uh huh.”

“Potlatch is every week. And you have mandatory attendance for the next four weeks you’re in Jasper. Then once a month afterwards as Esme decrees.”

“Good to know.”

“I’ll remind you,” Savannah said and it was extra sweet.

Oh he bet she would. He opened up the by-laws and read them slowly. Once again, the first admonition was ‘You can’t talk about Club business.’ Since his hands weren’t full, Gideon picked up his plate and started to eat without really paying attention to what he was doing. The rules seemed rather straightforward, what it took to form a charter, who was eligible to join and what made one ineligible to join.

He noticed there weren’t any mentions about being a werewolf. He wondered if that was simply caution. Prospecting, motorcycle specs, rules of conduct, a lot of them said ‘see the Code of Behavior,’ rules specific to the Club, like borrowing money, business related rules, meetings, weekly versus mandatory, motorcycle runs, charity, pleasure and mandatory, Club property versus personal property, flash, what it was, how to earn it, and how one could modify their kutte otherwise.

He paused. “It doesn’t have anything in here about sponsors,” he said.

“There aren’t any hard and fast rules about sponsoring,” Savannah said. She set her empty plate down and drew a knee up to her chest. She wiggled her toes.

Gideon looked at them. Why were they painted and not her fingernails? It made no sense. Her toes were long but as cute as the rest of her too. He realized he was staring and jerked his gaze back to the bylaws.

“The rules of the Code of Behavior do apply though.” Savannah stretched her other leg and cracked her ankle.

Gideon watched, fascinated. “That doesn’t say what it is though,” he said in something of a daze.

“A sponsor, in this case me, is someone who tells and shows a prospect, in this case you, what to do at what times and how to act.” She paused. “A sponsor has the first priority on a prospect’s time. You aren’t my slave, however, if I tell you to do something and you say no, you better have a damn good reason for it. It is my job to look after you and if you mess up, I shoulder responsibility for not teaching you well enough. Don’t fuck it up, Prospect.”

Gideon blinked and dragged his brain back to the conversation. “First priority?”

“That’s right,” Savannah said. “Until you are a full member, your time is at the disposal of the Club at all times. You have to earn the right to keep that kutte and get the patch.”

This was beginning to feel more and more like the military all the time. He nodded slowly.

“If a member tells you to do something, Prospect. You do it.”

“This feels like it could be abused easily.”

“That’s why there is the Code of Behavior. Trust your instincts, Prospect. If something goes against your morals, ethics, or something smells wrong, then by all means, say no. Tell them to fuck off. Sometimes, they might be testing you to see what you would be willing to do, trying to find your boundaries. If they have a problem with it, then you have every right to get me involved. That’s part of what being sponsored is about. You have my protection from the rest of the Club if necessary.”

“I’ll look silly cowering behind you. You know that.”

“You’ll be cowering before me if I find out you did something stupid, or got hurt, or broke the bylaws or Code of Behavior because they told you do something idiotic and you didn’t think about it and did it like a god damn lemming. Choose where you god damn want to be, Prospect.” She glowered at him.

That image was more amusing than it should have been. He ducked his head and grinned, rubbing the back of his head. “Since you put it that way.”

Savannah bounced up off the couch. “Are you getting dressed sometime today?” She started picking up plates and such.

Gideon narrowed his eyes, glared at her back, and resisted the urge to snap her with the towel that was still in his lap. He would have been dressed over an hour ago if she hadn’t interfered. He rolled his eyes and got up, heading towards his bedroom, muttering nonsense words under his breath. At least he wasn’t dealing with her hung over, not that Eberron and the others hadn’t tried.

Savannah turned her head, raised an eyebrow, and smirked.

He came out a few minutes later. Savannah had everything cleaned up and was headed out the door. He grabbed his kutte off the hook by the door and slung it on, hurrying to catch up with her. He shut the door behind him and locked it. This reminded him of a question he needed to ask her. She, however, was bouncing down the stairs, garbage in hand. By the time he got down the stairs, she’d gone down to the basement, dumped the garbage and come back up. He pushed the door open for her, going for his auto keys.

“You won’t need those today. I’ve got the auto van. We’ve got errands to run,” she said.

“Errands?” Gideon asked.

Savannah headed towards the van and pulled the driver’s door open. “This week I’ll drive because you don’t know where to go. Next week, you get to drive and I get to relax.”

Gideon went around to the other side of the van and got in. He sat down and looked over at her. “Errands?” he asked again.

She put the van into gear and pulled out. “You did listen to the meeting, right?” she asked without looking at him. She pulled onto the road and then didn’t bother to wait for his answer. “Esme is the den mother.”

She paused. She guessed she better explain. “A den mother is someone who looks after the pack, holds us all together. They’re like emotional glue. If the one who does this is male, then they’re a den daddy. But, we have a den mother and that’s Esme and she gives us a report on how the pack is doing. Sometimes people get behind on their bills or the mortgage or their job isn’t paying as much as they would like or they don’t have the hours, things fall to the wayside. Cupboards get lean. Clothes get old. Houses need to be repaired like the Clarks. The Club steps in and lends a helping hand. It’s summer. Driveways need sealing. Plumbing needs fixing. Yards need tending. And someone has to pick up the supplies for all of this to happen and we are that someone.”

“That’s,” Gideon paused, “nice of us?”

“That’s the benefit of being part of the Club. The Club is there for you, takes care of you.” Savannah looked over at him.

He nodded. Okay, he liked that. He glanced back over at her. “How did you get a key to my apartment?” he asked.

Savannah neatly ignored the question. She reached into her kutte and fished out another data strip without looking away from the road. “Here’s the newsletter. I haven’t had a chance to look through it yet. Would you do it and see what Esme plans for this Saturday? We’ll have to pick up the food.” Which reminded her, they needed to stop by the post office and pick up his mail, get that permanent port settled. His mail should have his telephone number with it, and they should stop by the Police Department and get the plates for his auto. Those New York plates stuck out way too much.

Gideon narrowed her eyes at her and took the data strip. She was avoiding the question. Fine. He’d ask Beda. He stuck the strip into his computer. The menu came up and he paused. It wasn’t one newsletter. There was a list. They all read ‘The Lunatic’ and then after that were ‘Editions.’ The one on top was ‘Jasper Edition.’ Underneath it, he wasn’t sure if there was a particular order or not were others titled ‘Los Angeles Edition,’ ‘Northern Rockies Edition,’ ‘New Orleans Bayou Edition,’ ‘Appalachian Bluegrass Edition,’ ‘Nomad Edition,’ ‘The City Edition,’ ‘Sturgis Edition,’ ‘Brotherly Love Edition’ he scrolled down. There were at least a dozen newsletters. What in hell did that mean?

He went up and opened the Jasper Edition. It opened like a newsfeed. He skimmed through it, trying to find what Savannah wanted. There were announcements, an advice column, a few news type stories, recipes, the minutes from chapel, birthdays and anniversaries, jokes, he paused at the picture of a wolf and read the caption ‘weekly picture from the wolf preservation’… it looked like a newsfeed.

“It should be under events.”

Gideon found it. “Um, Saturday, dinner.” He frowned, a dinner to welcome him. He must have missed that in the whole sponsor fall out.

“At least she’s sensible. What are we having?”

“Pancakes?”

Savannah sighed. “Breakfast for dinner. Trying to appease Houston.” She shook her head. It wouldn’t work. He could come help on the roof instead of fixing the transport if he wanted a Club breakfast and dinner.

He continued to skim. There was a list in the back of who was to come to potlatch, jokes. He read them and snorted. There was a short article by Dr. Hope about health. An article about food, reviewing a local restaurant, and a list of what was going to be playing in the local theatres and a short article whether or not in the article writer’s opinion it was any good. And then there were a large section of coupons and advertisements for sales.

“There’s no crossword puzzle or find a word,” he said. He liked cross word puzzles and find a words. “Or a cryptoquote.” He paused. “And horoscopes. What is a newsfeed without the horoscopes?” He added a fake petulant pout.

Savannah flicked a glance over at him. “I’ll tell Esme,” she said in a dry tone. “But don’t be surprised if she has you doing it.”

He rolled his eyes at her. “The Club has their own newsfeed.” He blinked. “With Editions.” Gideon backed out and counted.

Savannah wrinkled her nose. “Every charter has their own newsletter.” The others weren’t as long as Jasper’s. The other charters weren’t nearly as large either.

He was going to have to assume charters were divisions, units, or branches or smaller packs like the pack in Texas. He didn’t want to ask that question and sound too stupid. “Fourteen charters.”

“Yep.” Savannah looked proud. “We’re the mother charter. The one and original Heaven’s Heathens. Our officers are the International Officers.”

Gideon looked at her. That would make her International Vice President. He felt slightly uneasy. He didn’t know if this made him important or a potential problem that Brand, thusly the International President and Savannah’s grandfather, wanted under his thumb. “And that means?”

“That they all answer to us.” Savannah bit the inside of her lip. They didn’t allow their charters as much autonomy as other Clubs did. But from her judgment of Gideon, he didn’t know how other clubs worked at all. She figured that information would confuse him. “Um, your former military. Think of us as an upper ranking general versus the general that runs your base. Did I get that right?”

He grinned. “Close enough.” He settled back in and brought up the Jasper newsfeed. He might learn as much as he could while he had the chance.

---

Hope turned the corner into one of the waiting rooms. She had been told there were a few men there asking about Dr. Brown, and currently didn’t have any other patient in recovery that had family waiting for them, at least not in this section of the hallway. Her staff was careful in keeping families separate from Heaven Has Mercy clients.

She put a polite smile on her face. There were three men waiting for her, all in sober three-piece suits that screamed businessmen. None of them shared Dr. Brown’s skin tone. Uneasiness bit at her gut. “Gentleman, I’m Dr. Mead. Welcome to St. Nicholas’ Hospital. I understand you were asking after Dr. Brown.”

One of the men got up and adjusted his suit jacket before holding his hand out to her. “I am Mr. Smith. These are my colleagues Mr. Jones and Mr. White,” he said.

Hope took his hand and shook down once. The handshake felt dry and somewhat limp. She let go as soon as politeness would allow. She nodded. The obvious pseudonyms sharpened the uneasiness she felt. Was Dr. Brown a pseudonym? Brown was a common name. One common name meant nothing, two would be coincidental but she was now at four. It was beginning to feel less and less like an accident.

“Imagine our surprise when instead of having Dr. Brown delivered to us as requested, we were summoned here and were told to apply at the hospital.” The man smiled, but it didn’t reach his eyes, which glittered strangely under the lights.

Hope shifted her weight and refrained from touching the silver cuff around her wrist with what she considered considerable restraint. “I am sure when Brand got in contact with you, he explained that it is company policy when a client has been as severely injured as Dr. Brown has that they bring them here to Jasper. It should have been in the contract that you signed.”

“Severely injured?”

Dr. Hope looked between them. “Dr. Brown is not a regular patient of mine, gentleman, and I am not comfortable talking about his injuries to you without his consent.”

Mr. Smith turned and looked at Mr. White.

Hope felt the power shift for a second, her other nature making her more sensitive to it. She didn’t believe that Mr. Smith knew how much he had conveyed with that small look. He turned back to her and smiled that smile that didn’t reach his eyes again.

“That is understandable, Doctor.”

“Mr. Smith, it is my belief that Dr. Brown would recover better if he had his family around him,” she said.

“I don’t know if that is possible. If he is injured as you say, perhaps it would be better to move him to a facility closer to his family instead of bringing them here.”

Hope smiled again. “That will be up to Dr. Brown, and as his doctor and head of this facility, I extremely discourage any movement of my patients without their consent or my approval,” she said. “If you will wait here, I will go see if Dr. Brown is up for visitors.” She smiled at them again and walked out of the room.

Mr. Jones spoke up. “That one has teeth,” he said.

Mr. Smith turned to Mr. White. “Perhaps we were wrong in utilizing this company to retrieve Dr. Brown.”

Mr. White didn’t look away from his contemplation of the painting hanging on one of the walls. “I made my choice of companies carefully. This was the one with any probability of success in extracting Dr. Brown no matter what the cost to their people. It is our unfortunate luck that Dr. Brown turned out to be injured severely enough for them to activate that clause of their contract.”

“You knew then.”

“Of course I knew. There is to be no second guessing, Mr. Smith.”

Hope returned. “Dr. Brown is awake. I passed along your names. He desires to speak with Mr. White,” she said. “The rest of you may wait here.”

Mr. White stood and smiled at her. “Thank you, Doctor,” he paused. “Mead.” He finished, making a point of remembering her name.

Hope nodded and turned away. “Please follow me, Mr. White. You have five minutes.” She looked at him. “Use them wisely.” She stopped in front of Dr. Brown’s room. She nodded at the guard on duty. “He has five minutes,” she told him.

The guard nodded and shifted his stance.

Mr. White looked at her. “Guards.”

Hope smiled and it did reach her eyes. “Dr. Brown is under our protection until he leaves Jasper.” She paused. “Have a good day, Mr. White.”

She turned and walked away. She entered her office and picked up her phone. She punched in a few numbers. “I want to talk to Brand.” She paused. “In person.”

On the other end of the line, Ted grunted. “I’ll convey your request.”

“Before he meets with the three men who are here for Dr. Brown,” Hope said.

“I’ll denote it as urgent,” Ted said. He paused. “He’ll be there as soon as traffic allows him.”

Hope sighed. “Thank you, Ted,” she said and hung up the phone. She crossed her arms and paced her office.