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

She caught the entire transformation on video. Jacob's grief did not end there. Several days later, the video was on all the local social media alerts for the community.

Jacob read the comments as he stared at a video of himself. ‘That’s fake, you can easily tell.’, ‘Werewolves? Seriously? This is just bad computer graphics.’, ‘I would run away from her too!’.  Needless to say, Jacob did not want to go to the next meeting. He had sworn an oath to keep secrets and they would be exceptionally angry with him. The main group may not know or care, but the other werewolves would be very interested.

He wondered if they would kick him out of the group. Maybe they would find a way to silence the video. Perhaps they would do a combination of the two. Jacob looked up the polices on not attending meetings and decided to get it over with.

 

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER SIX

 

 

The Grand Lodge of Wonderous Repute had an odd mix of happy and sour people. Jacob could quickly tell you which were which. It was his night of sponsorship inside the lodge. Brandon was going to sponsor him to the rest of the brothers. He wondered if Brandon would take back his sponsor role and instead denounce him in front of the entire lodge.

Jacob stumbled a bit on one of the speeches he had learned for the occasion. That caused a few chuckles, but half the room was still and judging. Finally, came the moment Brandon would officially sponsor Jacob. He didn’t make eye contact but said all the correct rituals. Jacob sighed out a breath, wondering if all the tension in the room was in his head.

After the ceremony, Brandon asked Jacob to step aside. He asked Jacob several questions in low, hushed tones. The questions almost seemed a little angry. "Do you know why we have our group inside the Masons?"

Jacob shook his head since he didn't know the answer.

"It's because we need to work together. In the old days, the Masons used to be a social safety net. If your business fell on hard times, you needed some advice or a loan… a brother would help you out. We have our net here as well. We work hard to make sure that our secret isn't discovered and to remove any evidence if it is. However, by allowing yourself to be recorded, it becomes tough to remove that evidence." Brandon said.

“So, are you going to kick me out of the order?” Jacob asked.

Brandon looked him in the eye and said, “I should. I am not sure why you were in a park transformed. I am not going to kick you out though. You’re a pup with ‘the relief’, so you need to figure out what can and can’t be done. This will fall under the can’t be done column. No more transforming until we say so, okay?”

Jacob nodded his head and Brandon walked off, scratching his beard and shaking his head. Jacob could hear Brandon repeating a word, “Stupid” several times while walking away. Jacob was relieved that he wouldn’t be kicked out and it was indeed stupid. Why did he let petty revenge cloud his vision so much? Wasn’t he smarter than that?

Brother Scott Ywett walked up to Jacob and put his arm around him. “Trouble with your new clique of friends?” It was easy to hear the man’s sneer in his voice. “You know I used to be in charge of the largest order. I kept things in line and was respected. My order in the brotherhood is shrinking, while theirs just keeps growing. If you were smart, you would do well to keep clear of them. They have some trouble coming down on them that will certainly even things out in numbers.”

Jacob looked at the man. “What do you mean?”

Brother Scott did not go into more detail. Instead, he left Jacob's side and went to speak to more of the people from his order. This left Jacob in an odd situation. He wanted to talk to Brandon about the ominous warning, but at the same time, he knew he wasn't on the best of footing. He decided that the time might be best during dinner. Perhaps he could make an off-handed remark to see if Brandon knew anything?

Loud pounding at the door interrupted Jacob's thoughts. Who was pounding at the door this time of the evening? He knew that it must be an outsider because everyone inside the lodge (and even some branches outside) knew when the ceremonies would be held.

Jacob heard yelling and more pounding at the door. Several of the guys from the moon moaner order looked sharply at the door. Their ears must have picked up something that most people couldn't have. Jacob stretched his keen sense of hearing towards the door.

“We know they are in here. You’ve harbored unnatural beasts in this devil’s den. We’ll root out the lot of you from this town!” came the voice of an angry woman. Sounds of agreement and yelling were coming from beyond her. Jacob turned towards his order and mouthed the words, “mob?” with a confused look on his face.

He was indeed right when the group burst past several doors into the inner chamber of the Masons.

Brother Scott Ywett walked over to the woman in charge. After a few words, he pointed towards the group of moon moaners. He had a look on his face of triumph. He had felt excluded enough to do something rash. What he didn't anticipate was that two strong men would grab him shortly afterward.

“What, what is this? I am not one of them.” Brother Scott Ywett said.

The men shrugged, but one said, “You may not be one of them, but you certainly helped harbor them. That makes you just as bad. Good men who do nothing are just as guilty as the bad guys.”

Instead of confronting