Masonic Werewolves, James Livingood [top 100 books of all time checklist .txt] 📗

Brandon walked several steps away from Jacob and yelled, "Your first choice, is to either trust your safety to the brothers or yourself. If you want to learn to be safe, without any of our help, we offer you this: Brother Thomas is a black belt. He will teach you, free of charge, how to defend yourself. He will stick with you until you have a black belt as well."

A man replied from the other side of the fire, “I will! Until you are as skilled or more so than I am.”

Brandon continued, “You only have to leave now, and that will be yours. You have our word.”

The group became silent again. Jacob thought, and decided against it. He could have paid for lessons himself. Money wasn’t the issue. Why hadn’t he paid for lessons already? Maybe he needed something more. Jacob said to the group, “I will stay.”

Brandon walked over to him and slapped him on the back. “Gentleman, we have a brother here, that is for true. But there is one more thing he must understand before he is a true moon moaner. Everyone, begin the shift.”

Jacob heard grunting and cracking. He wondered what was going on. Were they making noises trying to get him to take off the blindfold? Huge thumps and ripping sounded from everywhere. Jacob knew enough about secret societies that they always tested you to try and get you to falter from their requests. He sucked in a breath and kept his blindfold on.

“The moment of truth, brothers, has come for Jacob.” Brandon reached for Jacob’s blindfold and took it off.

Around the fire were piles of shredded clothing. On top of those piles, were giant wolves, sitting on their back legs. They did not look threatening. No teeth were bared, no eyes were glinting with hunger. They all looked like giant trained dogs, sitting at their place as requested.

Brandon stood next to Jacob, smiled politely, and said, “You will see what we are. What you are. You will then need to choose. Once you know your power, will you flee into the woods, scared at what you might do? Or will you stay with us? Let us see.”

Jacob wondered how they got so many trained large dogs in here so quickly and where everyone had gone. His eyes flicked around the circle until they rested back on Brandon. Before Jacob's eyes, Brandon expanded in unusual ways. His nose grew to a snout, a whistle of air being sucked in as the mouth grew. Brandon’s hands bunched and grew flatter, hair poofing out, while claws poked from under the new fur. His spine twisted and then burst out of the back, a tail sprouting already in fur. In a moment, it was over, and Brandon shook like a wet dog. Bits of clothing fell all around him, and he sat down. None of it looked painful or uncomfortable. It almost looked like his human form was uncomfortable and now he was in a more relaxed state.

Jacob wondered if he was in a dream, but no dream he had ever had would include such oddities. One time he dreamed about a giant playing video games, but even that seemed ordinary compared to this. He wondered if he ran, would they chase him down and eat him? He decided that probably wouldn't happen since they were all sitting quietly. He knew that wolves would stalk their prey, and these wolfmen were watching him with those yellow eyes.

Jacob looked around, not quite sure what to say. He settled on a small speech about how he always loved dogs when a bird cawed overhead. He looked up, just for a moment, but caught sight of the moon. His mind slipped away, lost in a long-forgotten thought. He felt something come over him. It felt like he had been resting and was waking up. It was like that first big yawn of the morning where you stretch out far and hear things pop. His mind flooded with sensations of smells and sounds. He realized that for some reason he could not identify, that all the others looked familiar. Yes, they were wolves, but there was something in their face that made them easy to identify.

To his surprise, there was something about their scents that also made them easy to identify. He looked down, trying to make sense of things, and saw a paw where his hand had been. He gasped in-breath and jumped backward.

Like a rubber-band coiling back from a stretched-out state, Jacob returned to his human form. All the other men around him returned to their human forms as well.

“How, how did I? What?” Jacob stumbled out.

“We’ll explain what it means after a run,” Brandon said with a wink, “but for now I want to tell you the last part of my speech.”

Brandon walked around the circle of men, each smiling and stretching. He boomed out his voice as loud as possible. "He was offered a life of solidarity; he refused! He was shown what we are; he stood next to us! Now, he'll know why we gather."

Brandon cleared his throat, sucked in a breath, and then the group said altogether, "We will not be shallow-rooted, to become a tumbleweed on the winds of life. We grow deep together. When the black night shows its teeth in a flash of lightning, we will peel back our toothy laughter. United not just by blood, but by action. In service to our relief, our brothers, our order!"

Jacob scratched his head, feeling confused. Everything he had heard about werewolves was that you had to be bitten and survive. That hadn't happened to him. How did he change? How did they know he would change? Did they have some method of making a person transform into a werewolf?

Brandon walked over to Jacob and