So that was my routine for the next two to four weeks. As a friend of the club, all I have to do is to watch out for a text from any of the Vampires, and then I just go and do it. It's little different from being a hang-around and a prospect; the only difference is that if you're a prospect, the full-patch members can do anything to you and you can't do anything about it. However, if you're just a friend of the club or a hang-around, the full patches pretty much don't touch you.

And then, two weeks into my infiltration of the Vampires as a friend of the club, I saw firsthand the Vampires' capacity for damage, destruction and mayhem. We had gone out for yet another run, and we had gone back to that bar in north Etobicoke where Chains and Archer drilled me about the Vampire that I had said saved me. We were all drinking beer and chatting shit when suddenly the bar went quiet. Three biker dudes in the classic biker getup walked into the bar and looked around. I know that it sounds like the setup to a bad joke, but that's what happened. I also happened to notice that the patches on their kuttes were far different from the ones on the Vampires. These biker dudes had what looked like a Buddha in the classic lotus position riding a bike. A cross-legged Buddha riding a bike. Yeah, I did an actual double take when I saw their patches and, as a yoga enthusiast myself, I have to admit that I have no idea how a person can actually assume the lotus position while at the same time riding a motorcycle.

"Take a look at those Lazyboys, girls," Genius said under their breath. "Waltzing into the bar like they own the place."

"Lazyboys? Who are they?" I asked.

"The Elysium Motorcycle Club," Countess replied. "AKA the Lazyboys. They're our rivals, Hollis. They lay claim to the whole Greater Toronto Area, which we also happen to claim. They control the majority of Toronto itself while we control some parts of it. We've been practically at war with the Lazyboys ever since we took over Etobicoke and split it with the Red Devils. But these guys know better than to walk into a bar packed full with Vampires."

"It's like those guys have a bit of a death wish," Mother agreed.

"What are you going to do about it?" I asked.

"Stand back and watch the pros do this, Hollis," Chains said as she stood up and cracked her knuckles. "And it's been a while since my chains has tasted some Lazyboy blood."

Mother and I stayed behind and watched as Genius, Chains and Countess stood up to confront the Lazyboys. Some of the other Vampires in the bar tensed up as well as they noticed the three of them walking up to the Lazyboys, and they braced themselves for the fight that was sure to come later.

Countess and Chains placed themselves behind two of the Lazyboys while Genius sidled up to the third Lazyboy who had made his way to the bar. Genius grabbed a bottle of beer and then they tapped the Lazyboy on the shoulder. "Hey, buddy," they said, and when the Lazyboy turned his head, Genius smashed that bottle right in his face.

What followed next was so quick and chaotic that I only got a few glimpses of it. The next thing that I saw after Genius had smashed that beer into the Lazyboys' face, Countess was already punching the second Lazyboy silly while Chains had wrapped her bike chain around the third Lazyboy's neck. The Lazyboy may have been bigger physically than Chains (but only by a little bit because Chains is a tall mofo but the Lazyboy still has her beat for muscle mass) but it was Chains' superior height advantage that eventually allowed her to haul down the Lazyboy to the ground, and that was when the stomping started. And I do mean a stomping. These Vampires were basically using the poor Lazyboy as their personal doormat, and they even began kicking, spitting and spilling beer on the Lazyboy. You wouldn't have thought that these women were college graduates or at least came through the hallowed halls of Silas University the way that they went down on that Lazyboy.

Eventually the Lazyboy that Chains had brought down to get stomped on finally got himself away from the mob of Vampires, and then he and his fellow Lazyboys ran out of the bar pronto. As the Lazyboys hopped into their Jeep, Genius and Chains chased after them but Mother eventually held them back at the parking lot. "Leave it!" she said to them. "The Lazyboys know when they're beat."

But then the Lazyboys did something that none of us had expected. Or at least I didn't expect it to happen. The Lazyboys backed their Jeep right up to the Vampires' motorcycles in the parking lot, knocking them down like a pile of dominoes. "Hey! What the fuck, you fuckers!" Chains shouted.

"Come on! Let's get them!" Genius said, and they, Chains, and a couple of other Vampires got into a pickup truck and chased the Lazyboys and their Jeep away. Meanwhile, I was left there standing in the parking lot, not knowing what to do. I then decided that I might as well start helping the Vampires get their bikes up and ready for when they returned so I walked over to the first bike in line that was lying on its side and hauled it back upright. I was in the middle of parking the bike when the pickup truck carrying Chains, Genius and the others returned to the bar. "We chased the bastards all the way to the edge of their turf," Chains said as she hopped out of the pickup. She then noticed me parking one of the fallen bikes back into place and asked me, "Did you touch my bike, Hollis?"

"Yeah, I set it back upright," I replied. "I'm just trying to help, that's all."

Chains then walked up to me and got all in my face. "Next time you touch my bike without my permission, I will cut your tits off myself," she said. And then she walked away from me and shouted out loud, "Somebody get the hang-around a beer!"

When I walked back into the bar, Countess handed me a bottle of beer. "Congratulations, hang-around," she said. "Now, I don't know if you just made a friend for life or an enemy of life out of Chains, but congratulations nonetheless."

I accepted the bottle in her hand and toasted Countess. "To the Vampires," I said.

"The Vampires," she repeated.

That Friday, I reported back to Vordenburg that I had been made a hang-around by the Vampires, a promotion in all but name from my previous status as a friend of the club. Vordenburg seemed pleased about it, although I couldn't tell if he was pleased for me for making it that far into the club so quickly or if he was pleased with himself for having picked me out as a new confidential informant.

"That's good news, Laura," Vordenburg said to me as he ate his breakfast. "You're actually doing quite well at this, if I may say so. You're actually the first CI we've had that made it to hang-around in a biker gang in such a short period of time. Two weeks, Laura! Even though I still have trouble believing it. But that's good, Laura. Keep it up. At this rate you could very well become a full-patch member within six months."

"If I make it that far," I muttered.

"And, as promised, your pay," Vordenburg said as he slid over a small brown envelope to me. I peeked inside and saw ten- and twenty-dollar bills inside. "It's been split into smaller denominations," he explained. "I believe it makes it easier for you to settle your arrears this way."

I pocketed the envelope and asked, "You know that what I'm doing is a very dangerous job, right?"

"Yes, of course it is," Vordenburg replied. "I'm very well aware of that."

"So, I need your assurance that if I want out of this operation of yours then you're going to get me out immediately."

"Of course I will. On my word and honor as a Vordenburg, I will make sure that you get out when you want out."

"And if I get killed because of what I'm doing," I continued, "I want your word that you will tell Dad everything that happened to me, everything that I did. He deserves to know everything that I've done."

"I will make sure that your father will be briefed on the circumstances of your death, should it happen," Vordenburg said. However, the way that he said those last three words did give me a sneaking suspicion that they were just an afterthought on his part. But unfortunately enough for me, it would have to be enough.

And so it went on for another two weeks. I continued doing little favors for the Vampires as a hang-around and joining them on their runs if they called for it. If Mother wanted a beer and a pack of smokes then I was supposed to bring her a Moosehead Lager and a pack of Camels. If Chains needed a ride home because she was drunk as a skunk and couldn't remember where she had parked her bike then I was supposed to go to wherever she was in my rental Mazda to drive her home. And if Countess needed "protection" thanks to Aunt Flo's monthly visits then I was supposed to bring her a box of Kotex pads and tampons.

The one day, I received a short but strange text from Countess. It said simply, CHURCH. NOW. "Oh, shit," I muttered, and then I immediately rushed for the bathroom to get a quick shower. Church in biker terms is not the same as church in the normal sense of the word. Church for bikers is the weekly meeting by the chapter members to discuss all sorts of things. As a mere hang-around, I was not supposed to be anywhere near biker church, so when I got this text from Countess calling me over for their chapter's church meeting, I didn't know how to react to it. Heck, I don't think I even how I was supposed to feel about it.

I arrived at the chapter clubhouse in Kitchener and was then told to wait outside while they held church. I had no idea what they were talking about. And then Chains arrived at the clubhouse just after me, and she noticed me waiting outside. "Are you feeling good right now, Hollis?" she asked, although I didn't think that she was asking me out of concern.

"Honestly, I don't know what or how to feel at the moment," I replied honestly. "I don't know if I should be nervous or afraid so I'm just trying not to feel anything."

Chains chuckled at me in a sort of sneering way. "I'd run if I were you, Hollis," she said.

"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked. Chains merely shrugged her shoulders and walked into the clubhouse. "Hey!" I shouted, but she was already inside the clubhouse, which was basically forbidden territory for me to enter. I had no choice but to stop my pursuit of her and walk back to my waiting place to wait for church to finally end. I think I might have waited for an hour or so before Chains came out of the clubhouse and gestured at me to stand up. "Front and center, Hollis," she said. "They're waiting for you."

I stood up and followed Chains into the clubhouse. The rest of the Kitchener chapter (Mother, Countess and Genius) was in there as well. Only the incandescent bulbs had been lit up inside the clubhouse, but I knew that they had brighter fluorescent lights inside the clubhouse as well. "What's going on, guys?" I asked.

"Take a seat, Hollis," Mother said, gesturing at a folding steel chair that had been set up right in front of her. I walked up to the aforementioned seat and sat down.

"The whole chapter has been talking about you, hang-around," Mother said once I was seated. "Now tell us again why you wanted to fall in with the Vampires."

"I already told you," I replied. "A Vampire saved my life, and I wanna feel like I'm finally doing something meaningful with my life."

"Aha," Mother said. "You see, Hollis, the problem here is that nobody here in this chapter knows you. We don't know who you are, we don't know where you're from, and we don't know why you seem dead set on wanting to join us." She then held up what appeared to be a questionnaire and handed it to me. "This is a background check," she explained. "I need you to fill it out. It's gonna tell us if you've been up front with the truth to us and whether you've got any sort of juicy secrets in your past."

"Yeah, you better make sure everything you put down there checks out," Countess added. "Because, if your data don't match up with what you wrote down, well, you wouldn't want to know what's gonna happen next."

I took the background check and looked at it. This could very well be the thing that kills me. However, if I didn't take it, then everyone would know that something's up with me and they would kill me right then and there. So I had no choice but to take the questionnaire anyway. "What, you want me to fill it out right now? Anyone got a pen?" I asked.

"No, keep hold of it," Mother said. "You can bring it back tomorrow. And four hundred bucks to pay for it. All right, now I got good news and bad news for you. What do you want to hear first?"

"All right, what's the good news?" I asked.

"The good news is that Countess here has agreed to sponsor you as a prospect," Mother replied, turning to look at Countess, who had what had to be her best poker face on. "And what's the bad news?" I asked.

"The bad news, Hollis, is that Countess here has agreed to sponsor you as a prospect," Mother replied, and this time Countess busted out a sly grin. Chains and Genius laughed loudly at that as well. "Now you might that going up from hang-around to prospect would be a promotion, Hollis," Mother said, "but you're dead wrong. As a probationary member of the Vampires Motorcycle Club, your ass belongs to us, to the Vampires, to this chapter. Your life is our property. Anything we tell you to do, you do quickly and with a smile on your face. If a full-patch member tells you she needs a beer, what do you do?"

"I bring her a beer," I replied.

"If a full patch calls you in the middle of the night because she needs pads or tampons, what do you do?"

"I bring her a full U by Kotex set."

"If a full patch tells you to fight, what do you do?"

"I fight."

"If I tell you to kill someone?"

I hesitated, but only barely. I didn't know if I would really get asked to kill someone later on, but I knew what I was supposed to say for this. "I kill someone," I told Mother.

"And if I tell you to go to my apartment, get down on your knees and eat me out, what are you gonna do?" Mother asked. Now that threw me off by quite a bit because I was simply not expecting it. I didn't know if she was serious about me wanting to eat her out or not. "Can I ask you to reconsider on that?" I said, hoping that that wasn't the sentence that would get me killed by these biker chicks.

The Vampires laughed at my attempt at lifting the mood in the place. In all honesty, that place was dark as fuck, and I mean both physically and in terms of mood. But I got them to laugh and ease up on all the darkness. Even Mother managed to laugh at my joke before she turned deathly serious once again and said, "If I catch you staring at my crotch for more than three seconds, I'm going to force-feed my asshole to you. Countess!" Countess got off of her place and handed me a black zippered pouch bag. "What's this?" I asked.

"Prospect kit, smartass," Countess replied. I opened the bag and saw inside two spools of thread, a couple of needles, a thimble, and even those strange wire things that you use to stick the thread into the eye of the needle if your fingers weren't dexterous enough. I also some white tubular objects inside the bag, and when I lifted one up to the light, I finally saw what it was. "Tampons?" I asked.

"It's great for plugging up bullet holes," Countess replied. "Also useful in case you encounter the other kind of emergency."

"And another thing, probate," Mother added. "There's only one thing that I can guarantee you. If you survive your probationary period, and God knows how long that could take, you can only end up in one of two places with us: either you end up dead or in jail. That's the price of being a Vampire. Do you think you can handle that?"

"I'm willing to do whatever it takes," I replied.

The fluorescent lights finally came on in the clubhouse and I saw Mother standing in front of me holding out a strip of red cloth. "Welcome aboard, probate," Mother said, and I took the strip. It was the bottom rockers for my kutte, identifying the province where the chapter where I was a prospective member was based. Sure enough, it had the word ONTARIO written on it in white letters in stark contrast to its blood-red background. "You got five minutes to sew it onto your kutte, prospect!" Mother said, and then everyone was surrounding me, celebrating my entry into the chapter as a prospect. Countess embraced me and then whispered to me, "You better make sure you don't embarrass me and make me look stupid in front of my sisters, Hollis."

I finally managed to get myself free of the others to sew on my bottom rockers, and just like that, I was a legit biker gang prospect. Maybe Vordenburg did have a point when he said that I might be able to become a full-patch member of the Vampires in just six months. That is, if I survived my probationary period first.

So now I was a prospect for the Vampires. I'd worked hard to get this far into the Vampires, and now I had no intention of ever turning back. I thought trying to infiltrate the Vampires was just going to be another thankless job for me. But the funny thing was, I was actually enjoying going this deep into the Vampires. I'm actually getting a thrill from it. And I'm just getting started.