by J. R. Ward
Phury, Son of Ahgony
“I am the strength of the race. I am the Primale. And so shall I rule!”
—LOVER ENSHRINED, p. 484
J.R.’s Interview with Phury:
After my noninterview with V, I head up to the kitchen and hand over my mug and napkin, along with my compliments, to Fritz and his staff. I’m informed that Phury has arrived and is waiting for me in the library, and I head there.
Breaching the room’s majestic entrance, I find Z’s twin facing the stacks. He’s got on a spectacular pin-striped black suit, and the contrast of his wavy, multicolored hair with the precisely tailored dark wool is arresting. He turns as I arrive. His shirt is blush pink with white collar and cuffs, and his tie is one of those Ferragamo small prints in red and pink . . . birds, I believe the pattern is birds.
Phury:
(frowning) What’s wrong?
J.R.:
Oh, nothing. (Looking around deliberately to avoid his yellow eyes.) God, I love this room. All the books . . .
Phury:
What’s happened?
At this point I head for one of the silk couches and sit down facing the fire. The cushions curl up around me, and the crackling of the cedar logs makes me think of winter things, like snow falling and canopy beds that are heavy with comforters and pillows.
Phury joins me on the sofa, jogging his trousers up at the thigh before sitting down. When he crosses his legs it’s in the European fashion, knee over knee, not ankle to knee. His hands link in his lap, his massive diamond pinkie ring flashing . . . and making me think of V.
Phury:
Let me guess . . . the interview with tall, dark, and icy didn’t go very well.
J.R.: I’m not surprised, though. (trying to shake self out of it) So tell me, how are the Chosen liking this side?
Phury:
(eyes narrowing) If you don’t want to talk about him, we won’t.
J.R.:
I appreciate the kindness, but honestly, that’s just the way it is. I’ll be fine.
Phury:
(after a long pause) Okay . . . the Chosen are doing surprisingly well. All but five have come for a visit on this side, and what they do here varies based on their personality and predilections. The way it works, we usually have anywhere between six and ten in the house up north and . . . You’re not tracking.
J.R.:
Between six and ten. Personality. Predilections.
Phury:
(standing up) Come on.
J.R.:
Where?
Phury:
(holds out hand) Trust me.
Like Z—and all the Brothers for that matter—Phury is someone you can put your faith in, so I lay my palm in his and he pulls me to my feet. I hope we’re not going to see V, and am relieved when, instead of heading back to the kitchen, we go up the grand stairs. I’m surprised when he takes me into his old bedroom, and the first thing I think of is that it smells of red smoke, all coffee and chocolate together.
Phury:
(stops in the doorway, frowning) Actually . . . let’s go to the guest room next door.
Clearly he’s noticed the scent too, and I’m happy to help him avoid what is no doubt a trigger for him. We step out into the balconied hall and go into the room Cormia stayed in when she was at the mansion. It’s grand and lovely, just like his, just like all of theirs. Darius had spectacular taste, I think to myself as I look at the lush silk drapery and the museum-quality Chippendale dressers and the glowing landscapes. The bed isn’t so much a place to sleep, but a sanctuary to be absorbed in—with its canopied top and acres of red satin bedding, it is exactly what was in my mind when we were downstairs by the fire.
Phury:
(taking off his suit jacket) Sit here. (points to floor)
J.R.:
(planting it, cross-legged) What are we—
Phury:
(mirroring me on the floor and putting palms out) Give me your hands and close your eyes.
J.R.:
(doing what he asks) Where are—
The sensation that comes next is something like submerging your body in a warm bath—except then I realize that in fact I’ve become liquid; I am the water and I’m flowing somewhere. I panic and start to—
Phury:
(voice coming from far distance) Don’t open your eyes. Not yet.
A century later I feel like I’m condensing again, becoming whole . . . and there’s a new smell, something like flowers and sunshine. My closed lids diffuse a sudden light source, and my weight is absorbed by a soft pad as opposed to the short-napped Oriental I’d first seated myself on.
Phury:
(taking his hands away) Okay, you can open now.
I do . . . and am overwhelmed. I blink not from disorientation, but from too much orientation.
When I was little I spent my summers on a lake in the Adirondacks. My mother and I would move up there at the end of June and stay straight through until Labor Day—and my father would come on the weekends and for a block of two weeks at the end of July and the beginning of August. Those summers were the happiest times in my life, although part of that, I’m realizing as I get older, is the glow of nostalgia and the simplicity of youth. Still, for whatever cause, colors were brighter back then and watermelon on a hot day was wetter and sweeter and sleep was deeper and easier to come and no one ever died and nothing ever changed.
I have been far away from that special place for many years now—distanced in a way that a trip up the Northway can no longer cure. Except . . . I am there now. I am sitting in a meadow of long grass and clover and there are monarch butterflies drunkenly skipping from milkweed to milkweed. A red-winged blackbird is letting out its call as it heads for a row of shagbark hickory trees. And up ahead . . . there is a red barn with a flagpole and a massive stand of purple lilacs in front of it. A dark green Volvo from the eighties is parked to one side, and woven wicker lawn furniture marks the pale stone terrace. The window boxes are the ones my mother planted every year with white petunias (to match the white trim on the barn), and the porch pots have red geraniums and blue lobelia in them.
I can see the lake on the other side of the house. It’s deep blue and sparkling in the sunshine. Farther out in its midst is Odell Island, the place where I’d take my boat and my friends and my dog for picnics and swimming. If I turn my head, I see the mountain that rises up from the meadow, the one on which my family going back for generations is buried. And if I look behind me, I see across the meadow my great-uncle’s white house and then my best friends’ house and then my cousin’s Victorian manse.
J.R.:
How did you know about this?
Phury:
I didn’t. It’s just what’s in your mind.
J.R.:
(looking back to the barn) God, it feels like my mother’s in there getting dinner ready, and my dad’ll be here soon. I mean, it really . . . is my dog still alive?
Phury:
Yes. That’s the beauty of memories. They don’t change and they’re never lost. And even if you can’t recall all of them anymore, the pathways they created in your brain are always with you. They’re the infinity for mortals.
J.R.:
(after a while) I’m supposed to ask you a lot of questions.
Phury:
(shrugging) Yeah, but I thought you’d appreciate this answer.
J.R.:
(smiling sadly) Which is?
Phury:
(puts hand on my shoulder) Yes, it’s still all here. And you can come back anytime you like. Always.
I stare out over the landscape of my childhood and think . . . well, shit. Isn’t this just like Phury. I’ve been totally sniped by his kindness and thoughtfulness.
Bastard. Lovely, lovely bastard.
But this is the essence of him. He knows what you need more than you do, and he delivers. And he’s also flipped the interview on its head, making it about me, not him. Which is also his way.
J.R.:
I’ll bet you give fantastic birthday presents, don’t you. The really freaky-thoughtful kind.
Phury:
(laughing) I think I do all right.
J.R.:
You wrap well, too, don’t you.
Phury:
Actually, Z’s the best bow man you ever want to see.
J.R.:
Who in your life would do something like this (sweeps arm around) for you?
Phury:
Lots of people. Cormia. My Brothers. The Chosen. And also . . . myself. Like the whole recovery thing? (Pauses.) This is going to come out way wrong, just totally nancy, but the whole stop-using thing? That’s my gift to me. For instance, right now, you’re glad you’re here, but it’s hard too, right? (I nod.) Well, recovery hurts like hell sometimes, and it gets lonely and sad too, but even at its most difficult moments, I’m grateful for it and I’m glad I’m in it. (Smiles a little.) For Cormia, it’s the same. Making the transition out of the strict traditions of the Chosen has been a real challenge for her. It’s not easy to completely restructure everything about your life. She and I . . . we kind of bond over that. I’m redoing the way I’ve lived, you know, as an addict for the last two hundred years, and I’m discovering who I really am. She’s doing a lot of the same work. We flounder and triumph together.
J.R.:
Is it true Cormia’s going to design Rehvenge’s new club?
Phury:
Yup, and she’s finished. They’re starting construction on it as we speak. And Wrath’s commissioned a new Safe Place facility from her as well. She’s thrilled. I bought her a CAD program and taught her how to use it . . . but she likes to do everything on paper. She has an office in Rehv’s Great House with an architect’s desk—no chair, she stands up when she’s drafting. I’ve bought her every book on architecture I can think of, and she’s devoured them.
J.R.:
Do you think the other Chosen will find mates?
Phury:
(frowning) Yes . . . although any males who come sniffing around are going to have to get through me first.
J.R.:
(laughing) You’re going to be as bad as Z with Nalla, huh?
Phury:
They’re my females. Every one of them. Cormia is my mate, and I love her in a deeper, very different way, but I am still responsible for the futures of the others.
J.R.:
Something tells me you’re going to do an outstanding job taking care of them.
Phury:
We’ll see. I hope so. I can tell you one thing, when it comes to their hellrens, I’m going to choose character over bloodline every time.
There’s a long silence that’s companionable, and after a while I let myself fall back in the grass and stare at the sky. The blue positively glows, and the white of the cotton-puff clouds is brilliant and a little blinding. The pair together remind me of fresh laundry for some reason, maybe because it’s all so sparkling clean and the sun is warm on me and everything smells so good. . . .
Yes, I think to myself, these are the colors I remember . . . the ones from childhood, their vividness enhanced by the wonder and the excitement of just taking them in.
J.R.:
Thank you for bringing me here.
Phury:
I didn’t do anything. This is just where you wanted to go. And it’s a lovely trip, by the way.
J.R.:
I couldn’t agree more.
The other questions I might have asked him drift out of my mind and into the fair skies above. When I hear a rustle of grass beside me, I realize he, too, has lain down. Together we stretch out on the grass, hands behind our heads, legs crossed at the ankles.
Eventually we return to the mansion and the bedroom we’d been in, and we talk about nothing special. I know that Phury’s giving me a chance to reorientate and I appreciate his thoughtfulness.
When it’s finally time for me to leave, he and I go down the hall to the study. I say good-bye to Wrath and Beth, and Phury stays there to have a meeting with the king and queen. As I put the grand staircase to use, I hear the voices of the doggen once again coming from the dining room. They’re setting up for Last Meal, laying out the place settings for the Brothers and the shellans.
Fritz comes forward, opens the vestibule’s door, and leads me back out to the Mercedes. Before I get into the sedan, I glance up at the mansion’s dour gray facade. Lights glow in almost every single window, evidence that in spite of the grim, bulwark-like exterior, there is great life and joy inside.
I slide into the backseat of the car, and as Fritz shuts the door I see that there’s a small black leather pouch on the place where I should be sitting. After the butler gets behind the wheel, I ask him what it is, and he says that it’s a present for me. When I start to thank him, he shakes his head and tells me it is not from him.
As the partition rises between me and Fritz, I take the satchel, pick apart the tie at the top, and spill its contents out into my palm.
It’s a small black-bladed dagger, still warm from the forge. The workmanship is breathtaking. . . . Every detail, from the hilt to the razor-sharp tip, is perfectly wrought, and the miniature weapon gleams. It took its maker a long time to create it . . . and he cared about the outcome, cared greatly.
I curl my palm around the gift just as the Mercedes eases forward and we descend from the mountain, heading back for the “real world.”
Lover Enshrined
The People:
Phury
Cormia
The Wizard
Rehvenge
Xhex
Lassiter
Tohrment
Zsadist and Bella
John Matthew
Qhuinn
Blaylock
Wrath and Beth
Fritz
Butch O’Neal
Rhage
Doc Jane
iAm
Trez
The Scribe Virgin
The Omega
Lohstrong (Qhuinn’s father)
Lash
Mr. D
Havers
Amalya, Directrix of the Chosen
Selena
Pheonia
The Princess
Payne
Low (the biker)
Diego RIP (gang member in the jail)
Skinhead (unnamed man in the jail)
Eagle Jacket (the human drug dealer)
Stephanie (the manager at Abercrombie & Fitch)
Places of Interest (all in Caldwell, NY, unless otherwise specified):
The Brotherhood mansion, undisclosed location
The Other Side (the Chosen Sanctuary)
Havers’s clinic, undisclosed location
ZeroSum (comer of Trade and Tenth streets)
Screamer’s
The Caldwell Galleria
Cabin in the woods, Black Snake State Park, Adirondacks
Rehvenge’s Great Camp, Adirondacks
The farmhouse (Lash’s birthplace), Bass Pond Lane
Lash’s parents’ house
Blaylock’s parents’ home
The Caldwell Police Department
Summary:
Phury finds love and conquers both his addictions and his race’s restrictive social and spiritual constructs.
Craft comments:
I love Phury. He was a dream to write, he truly was. And as I said, boy, did I need the break.
On that note, some thoughts about my daily working patterns.
My writing schedule is pretty much set in stone. I write seven days a week, no excuses, no compromises: sick days, holidays, travel days—my butt is in the chair. I’ve kept this up for about ten years now, and I think I’ve missed three days in that decade—due to extremely extenuating circumstances. I’ve gotten up at four-thirty in the morning in Manhattan in hotel rooms to write. Sat down after root canals. Stayed inside when it’s sunny. My point is—writing is a priority, and I make it clear to everyone around me that writing time is nonnegot
iable. It’s not that I’m a superhero. I’m just very disciplined, for one thing, and for another, I need to write. If I don’t, it’s like not exercising. I just get antsy to do it.
Were all these days stellar examples of drafting at its finest? Absolutely not. I can write crap just like everyone else does sometimes. But I keep after it and rework it and just hammer away until the words feel right. Often, it’s slow going, and tedious. When I’m laying down a first draft, I can do only about six to ten pages a day. When I revise those pages, the first trip through is usually no more than ten pages a day. Then it’s fifteen. Then it’s twenty. After my editor reads the manuscript, I’ll go through it again and again, doing no more than twenty-five pages a day. If I’m hitting copy edits, maybe I’ll do forty. For galleys? It’s hard for me to do more than fifty or seventy-five.
The thing is, I don’t write fast, I write long—which means I just put the hours in.