Chapter 7 Phury, son of Ahgony
Phury, son of Ahgony
I can’t decide what’s more resplendent, the great rise of the mansion’s foyer, with its malachite and marble columns, and the crystal sconces, and the blood red runner that races up between golden balustrades to the second floor...
Or the hair.
Dear God, Phury has the most beautiful mane of multi-colored hair I’ve ever seen. It is blond and red and brown, thick as Niagara Falls, and the wave to it looks like something that a style wand created and Pantene froze into place. Which is not true. The shit just does that.
“Hi,” he says with an easy-breezy-COVERGIRL smile that is honestly how he feels.
As the Brother steps back and lets me in, I marvel that he’s finally gotten the peace that he once tried to medicate into with all that red smoke.
Even though the war with the Lessening Society is very real, and he now has a son added to the mix of that shit salad of stress, and even though he will never be completely at ease about his twin brother, he is at peace. In his soul.
As he opens his arms, I go right in there and hug him back. It’s nice to have one uncomplicated relationship. Well, actually, I have two in the Brotherhood, come to think of it.
Phury is wearing an enormous, ivory, Irish knit sweater, and even through its beautiful bulk, I feel the weapons on him.
Two guns, at his hips, under the lip of the knit-one-pearl-two his shellan made him to keep him toasty on a cold autumn night like tonight.
When we step back, my hand brushes the autoloader on the left, the little bump on the butt’s base a reminder that even though he’s so relaxed now, there is another gear for him, a place he can go when he has to, when he’s defending and protecting Wrath and the other Brothers and fighters, and the species at large.
I think of his shellan, Cormia, a Chosen, who is as lovely and kind as they come. She is exactly what he needed, a true north that is steady, instead of another storm to fall into.
I’m so glad they have each other.
Glancing at the entrance, he smiles again. “Let me close that door before I get into trouble with the management.”
He’s referring to Fritz, of course.
“So I heard this is an interview?” Phury says as he takes us into the billiards room.
The space is like a lake that has islands in an orderly setup, the pool tables with their green felt campsites for the hearths of those triangles of colored balls, all kinds of fun on the verge of happening.
In spite of the long vacancy, everything is still set up for a game, the cue balls on the little dots, the stacks ready to be split, the sticks lined up like soldiers in the wall mounts.
And off to the right, the full bar remains stocked with the top-shelf.
I have a brief wonder whether Fritz has kitted the drink station out with lemons and limes, too.
Probably for tonight, he has—
I come back to attention and find that I’ve walked myself over to the huge TV. What was the question? Interview...right. “Sorry. Ah, it’s more like a conversation?”
“I’m happy to do whatever.” He sits down on the couch that faces the screen, and his hand idly fiddles with Lassiter’s remote.
“What do you want to know? I’m a bonded male who’s happily mated, I have a son who’s transitioned into a male of worth, and I still like opera.
Oh, and I’m still sober. Over thirty-five years now. ”
Between one blink and the next, a pair of memories from his past come to me. One ushers in a bracing gust of damp, salty air. The other threatens tears, mere drops in an ocean shed for him and his brother, Zsadist.
He was always going to go try to rescue his twin out of blood slavery.
It just took time to find Z in that horrible castle by the cliffs of Dover in the Old Country.
And because real life is always messy, the pair were oh-so-close to getting away when Phury’s boot got stuck in a wedge of rock.
It might have saved them from the free-fall they were in, but it also trapped them in the escape.
I can recall with terrible clarity the pair of them dangling there on those cliffs, waves crashing below, an army of castle guards with weapons preparing to come down and get them.
The brothers are tangled together, like they were in the womb, like their destinies always have been, like their souls always will be.
Z had just killed his Mistress, the sadistic cunt who had been using and abusing him for a century, but his twin had been integral to getting him out of that fortified castle.
And now, they were oh-so-close to freedom.
And going nowhere.
Phury shot his own leg off to save them.
Given that salt seals wounds up, their plunge into the sea saved his life, but he’s been dealing with the physical repercussions of the amputation ever since.
Fortunately, the technology for limbs has advanced so much, and I’m happy that he can afford state-of-the-art.
The sacrifice, though…and of course he did it for his brother.
That was part of Phury’s problem for a long time.
“Congratulations on your sobriety.” I smile as I sit across from him. “That’s quite an achievement.”
“It is. I’m proud of it, but I’m not confused.
You know, they have a saying, that while you’re in recovery, your addiction is out in the parking lot, lifting weights and doing push-ups.
I think it’s important not to be fooled by longevity.
I take each night, one night at a time, always aware that there’s a shadow in me that can jump out. ”
This brings up the second vision I have of him.
My mind takes me back to a bathroom. Phury is standing in front of the mirror over the sink, staring at himself.
It’s a scene out of Lover Awakened, Z’s book—and you know, it always made sense to me that there was a lot of Phury in Zsadist’s story.
Anyway, I can remember looking through the open doorway and seeing him there, and thinking WTF are we doing?
Like the Jolly Rancher scene, it wasn’t anything I’d seen in the outline.
As I said, I get pictures in my head, and boy, I have no control over them—or when they come.
I can get them at totally random times, and they snatch me out of the present and my surroundings—I can’t tell you the number of times I find myself in a different room in my house, wondering how I got there.
Or discover the tinfoil in the refrigerator and the skim milk in the cupboard.
Or realize that I’m standing in front of someone and they’re talking to me, but I don’t have a fucking clue what they’ve said or are saying because I’ve taken a side step into this other world.
My job, as I’ve always said, is to put these scenes into an order that creates an impact for the reader, and then describe what I’m seeing so that they can approximate what I’ve been shown.
That’s it. That’s why I call myself a secretary.
I don’t generate the people or the content, outside of choosing the words—and even when I outline everything in preparation for the drafting, there is still ten to fifteen percent that happens live time.
That’s actually always the best parts of the books, btw.
So there I was, looking into the bathroom, and thinking…what the fuck are we doing here? This is toward the end of Lover Awakened, when Z is about to give himself over to the lessers, and Bella is pregnant with their Nalla and he doesn’t know it yet.
Phury knows it, though.
When he started shaving off his hair, I got a chill because the plan he was working suddenly became plain. And then when he picked up the knife on the counter, I was like…holy shit—
I can still remember seeing him take that sharp, pointed steel and draw it down his own face, turning himself into his twin.
I was horrified, and not surprised. The pair of them were inseparable then, even though it was only on Phury’s side.
And here he was, taking the entanglement to a whole new level.
He was prepared to sacrifice himself, to take the place of his brother with the Lessening Society.
“Some nights still must be hard for you.” As I realize what I’ve just said, I want to grab the words back. “I mean—”
“Oh, it’s okay.” That smile is so calm, so centered. “They are. Especially as Aggie wants to get out into the field and fight. He’s been trained, of course.”
“But that doesn’t matter.”
“No, it doesn’t. I’ve seen and done too much in all these years to have faith that being prepared is enough of a shield. It’s better than not, for sure. But…things happen.”
I feel like apologizing. For everything.
Phury holds up his forefinger. “And that’s what’s different now that I’ve been so long in recovery.”
“I’m sorry,” I say roughly.
“Well, now when things are hard, they’re hard because of life, not because I’m fighting the urge to go smoke.
That was really tough in the beginning. Even though Cormia and I were so solid back then, the need to light up was such a habit, something I did to treat myself or take a break.
What everybody said was true. When you give up your addiction, whatever that is, you lose your best friend, the thing that’s closest to you.
It’s a very specific void that has to be filled, and I don’t care how much you love your mate, that is something a person has to come to terms with on their own terms and in their own time. ”
“Yes, I agree.”
“And again, even after all these years, I’m not confused. I know where the banana peel leads, and the only thing I can say with absolute surety is that I’m not going back there today. That’s the only timeline I can rely on.”