He’s putting the jacket back on and turning away from me as the inner lock springs. Just before the door is opened for me, he pivots back and our eyes meet.
I want to hug him. I lift my hand instead. “See you later?”
It’s a question, but I already know the answer and so does he. I will see him later. In the books, in the world that he was outside of for a little while before he went down the rabbit hole, met his best friend and roommate, became a member of the troika, and then went through a tremendous transition of his own.
After the Omega got a hold of him.
He crooks that charmer smile of his. “Yeah, I’ll see you later, sweethaht. Take cahr of yahself.”
With a wink, he walks down the stone steps.
And the door to the mansion opens behind me.
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 doesthat.
“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 hisshellanmade him to keep him toasty on a cold autumn night liketonight. 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 hisshellan, 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, andI 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.
