We crest a small hill and start to slow. Tucked into a small, green valley is what must be the Order. It looks like one of those snooty, exclusive, Aspen-type resorts, just a compound of a few red wooden buildings and solar panels, and entire walls made of smoked glass windows. It has to be worth several million dollars, but it’s still less conspicuous than a gray stone fortress or a monastery. Thomas must feel my wonder, because he struggles up from Carmel’s lap to peer out the window. The bleeding has mostly stopped. He’ll be okay, as long as he doesn’t get an infection from dead incisors.
“Welcome,” some dude says to us as he opens the car door when it pulls up to the main building. He’s young and groomed, in a black suit, looking like he fell out of GQ. He and the driver might be twins. It’s sort of disconcerting, like Fembots in reverse. I bet the cook looks like this too.
“Robert, please alert Dr. Clements,” says Burke. “Tell him he has some stitching to do.” Robert leaves for the doctor and Burke turns to me. “Junior members,” he explains. “They learn the Order through observation, and do their time in service.”
“Makes sense,” I say, and shrug. It’s also completely creepy, but I think he knows that.
As I look around, it feels like I’ve been splashed with cold water. I don’t know what I expected, but it wasn’t this. I thought … I guess I thought I’d show up to find just more Gideons. Old men in comfy sweaters, clamoring around me like grandfathers. Instead I find Burke, and the instant animosity runs both ways between us in a static current. Gideon, on the other hand, still won’t look at me. He’s ashamed, and he should be. We all got out in one piece, but we didn’t have to.
“Ah, Dr. Clements.” Now there’s what I was expecting. A gray-haired, bearded man in a burgundy sweater and khakis. He walks straight to Thomas and gently pulls up the red-stained cloth, revealing a ragged, crescent-shaped cut. My stomach flips as images of Will and Chase, and imagined images of my dad, flash behind my eyes. Damn bite wounds.
“It’ll need to be washed and stitched,” he says. “With an herb pack it should heal well, with hardly a scar.” He puts the cloth back over the wound, and Thomas holds it down. “Dr. Marvin Clements,” he says, and shakes his hand. When he shakes my hand, he turns it over and scrutinizes my fingers. “Those could do with stitches as well.”
“It’s fine,” I say.
“Wash it at least,” he says. “It’s putrid.” He turns and takes Thomas by the arm to lead him inside. I go too, and Carmel’s right behind. Jestine stays with Burke, and I’m unsurprised.
* * *
After Thomas is treated and my hand is scrubbed out with iodine, we’re shown to a set of rooms arranged around a common area. I grab a nervous shower and rewrap my hand. I don’t trust one inch of this place, and leaving Thomas and Carmel alone for even twenty minutes makes me tense.
The room where they put me is large, decked out with a small fireplace and big bed with expensive-looking blankets. It reminds me of a hunting lodge I saw in a movie once. The only things missing are the stuffed heads on the walls.
“I think if this place had stuffed heads, they’d be human,” Thomas quips. He and Carmel walk in holding hands.
“No lie.” I grin. There are windows cut into the wall, and skylights along the arch of the ceiling. There have to be about a million windows covering the whole compound, but it doesn’t make it feel open, or illuminated. It makes it feel watched.
Gideon knocks on the open door, and Thomas turns too fast; he winces and presses his hand to his fresh bandage.
“Sorry, lad,” Gideon says, and pats his shoulder. “Dr. Clements makes an excellent henbane poultice. The pain will be out of it in an hour.” He nods at Carmel, waiting for an introduction.
“Gideon, Carmel—Carmel, Gideon,” I say.
“So you’re Gideon,” she says, eyes narrowed. “Was it too much trouble to take the car and meet the ferry at Loch whatever the hell it was?” She turns away in disgust without waiting for an answer.
“I can’t believe you sent us there,” I say, and he meets my eyes without flinching. He’s solemn, and maybe regretful, but he’s no longer ashamed, if in fact he ever was.
“I warned you,” he replies. “Make up your mind, Theseus. You’re either a child, or you’re not.”
Damn him and his points.
“I never wanted you to come here. I wanted to keep my promise to your parents, and keep you out of danger. But you are your father’s son. You always put yourself there. Hell-bent on ruin.”