Spawn
In the clubhouse, in the open area, three potential new prospects stood before me.
In the recruiting process, we treated them well. We remembered their names, gave them alcohol, and even promised on their first party with us, they could have any pussy the officers didn’t take for themselves—a much greater opportunity now that Satan had removed himself from the bidding market for women.
Jack, Nelson, and Tucker were the three that stood before me. They’d already sworn that they would uphold the standards of the Devil’s Patriots and become members of the brotherhood. But now that that was done, it was time to test them.
“How many of you have been in the military or in the line of fire?”
Two of them raised their hands. Nelson did not.
“Nelson?”
“I don’t care, I’ll do whatever it fucking takes.”
The thing I wasn’t going to say out loud was that Satan had already told me that anyone that was marginally likely to contribute needed to be added as a prospect, if for no other reason than as a body in the inevitable future battles with the King’s Men. He had been relatively dismissive of the Black Reapers, but he had taken to heart the concerns about needing more men on the ground. That much was evident by our ramp-up of recruiting.
“When you join this club, understand this,” I said loudly. “You are not joining a high school or college club. You are not joining some Toastmasters or some improv club. You are joining a brotherhood. And part of that brotherhood is that if one of your brothers needs you, you help them, regardless of how dangerous the situation is. We have been shot at, we have been threatened, and we will continue to be shot at and threatened. Jack and Tucker, all the things you learned in the military, you should apply here. Nelson, you’d better be able to prove yourself in the moment of truth.”
“I understand, sir, but I swear—”
“Shut the fuck up.”
Nelson did just that.
“We don’t give a shit what you say here. We only give a shit about what you do and how you fit in. You can talk all you want about how you’re an honorable person, but if you fuck up when we need you most, you won’t be a Devil’s Patriot so much as you will be the devil’s bitch. Understood?”
Nelson nodded. To his credit, he showed no fear when I barked him down. He accepted the feedback like a man and simply waited for me to speak again.
“Go home,” I said to the three of them. “We’ll be in touch when we feel like it. If you’re called back, you will begin the initial steps of becoming a prospect in the club. In case I need to spell it out for you, know this. You can come to club parties. You will be expected to partake in club activities. But you are not a member of the club until you have been a prospect with us for at least one year. This is not something you can accelerate. Being a Devil’s Patriot is a fucking honor, and we do not just hand it out. Now get the fuck out of here.”
The three quickly rose and walked out without a word. As soon as the door shut, I shook my head and felt frustrated at the whole exercise.
It was obviously good that Tucker and Jack were in the military. It was good that Nelson said he was willing to do whatever it took, even if words ultimately proved shallow.
But it was not good that we were so focused on expanding that we were more or less having open tryouts. In the past, recruiting wasn’t even a thing; when people came to us, nine out of ten times, we said they couldn’t cut it. Only two groups ever became prospects—the obvious badasses that you knew would fit in immediately, or those who made it truly clear that nothing would deter them, not even initial rejection. This had a sort of filtering effect where you knew the ones who were becoming members would really do the club good.
But now, it was like announcing the football team could have unlimited roster spots. And that meant the quality would go down. And if there was one thing that was true in combat, it was that an untrained soldier could sometimes be even worse than no soldier at all.
And that said nothing about the fact that I worried that we were leaving ourselves open to a spy from the King’s Men. We were doing some vetting of the guys that walked in here, but we didn’t have private eyes in the club. We just checked social media, did a small amount of stalking, and moved on after that. It wasn’t a rigorous, thorough job.
It was leaving us frighteningly vulnerable, and I didn’t like it one damn bit.
The door swung back open. I turned around to see Satan walking in. He looked…concerned, almost. I hadn’t seen him look like that in a bit, but it wasn’t concern of a grand kind.
“How’d the recruiting process go?”
I grimaced.
“You know my concerns, Satan.”
“I do. And I want to know how the three that were just here went.”
I feared that Satan was too reactive to everything from the past few months. He’d always led this club perfectly, but we’d never before faced a threat like this. I wondered if the pressure was getting to him some.
“Two of them got military experience. One has desire. I’d say the military guys are at least worth keeping around. The third, push his face into the mud, treat him like shit, see how he does and if he still wants to be around.”
“Makes sense,” he said. “I trust you to do what you think is best.”
