The Black Dagger Brotherhood

by J. R. Ward

  Butch:

  (going back to duffel) The critical thing is trajectory. (Returns to platform and measures with leveler. Makes adjustment.) We’ll start small. (Again goes over to duffel and this time takes out . . . )

  J.R.:

  Oh, my God, that is fantastic!

  Butch:

  (beaming) I made it myself. (brings rocket over to me)

  The model rocket is about two feet in length from pointed tip to flared bottom, and it has three sections. White, with a Red Sox logo painted on the side, its top is fluorescent, no doubt to track its path and increase the chances of recovering it in the dark.

  J.R.:

  I didn’t know you were into this.

  Butch:

  I used to make models when I was a kid. Airplanes and cars, too. The thing is, some people like to read, but I’m slightly dyslexic, so that was never relaxing—too much work to get the letters to come out right. But models? It’s a way to get my brain to shut off when I’m awake. (Shoots me a sly grin.) Plus I get to do something with my hands, and you know how much I feel that. (Takes rocket over to launching pad and slides it down vertical shaft. Makes more adjustments.) Can you bring me the ignition wires? They’re the two bundles tied with twists?

  J.R.:

  (goes to bag) Holy . . . crap. You have, like, three more in here.

  Butch:

  I’ve been keeping busy. And here, take the flashlight, you’ll probably need it. I told V to shut off the motion-sensitive security lights in this section of the acreage.

  J.R.:

  (catches penlight he throws over and finds wire bundles) You want this box with the switch, too?

  Butch:

  Yes, but leave it there. We’re going to want to be a distance away when we fire them off.

  J.R.:

  (brings over wires and, as he reaches up to take them, I notice his bent pinkie on his right hand) May I ask you something?

  Butch:

  Hell, yeah. That’s the point of interviews, ain’t it?

  J.R.:

  Do you miss any part of your old life?

  Butch:

  (hesitates briefly in unrolling the wires) My knee-jerk answer is no. I mean, that’s the first thing that comes to mind. (resumes unrolling, then takes rocket off of launcher and attaches wires at bottom) And the core truth is that I’m happier where I am now. But that doesn’t mean I don’t wish I could do some of the things I used to. Red Sox game on a Saturday afternoon? With the sun on your face and a cold beer against your palm? That was pretty cool.

  J.R.:

  What about your family?

  Butch:

  (voice gets tight) I don’t know. I suppose I miss the next generation . . . like, I wouldn’t mind finding out what Joyce’s kids look like and where they end up. The others’ as well. I wish I could go back to see my mom every once in a while—but I don’t want to add to her dementia, and I think my visit didn’t help. (slides rocket back onto base) I do go to Janie’s grave still.

  J.R.:

  Really?

  Butch:

  Yup.

  J.R.:

  (I give him some space to speak. He doesn’t.) Were you surprised you ended up here? With the Brothers, I mean.

  Butch:

  Let’s get some distance between us and flyboy, shall we? (As we walk back toward the duffel, he strings the wires across the short grass.) Was I surprised? Yes and no. I was surprised at a lot of shit in my life before I ever met the Brothers. The fact that I ended up a vampire? Fighting the undead? In a way, how’s that any more shocking than the fact that I managed to live through all the self-destructive crap I did to myself before I met any of them.

  J.R.:

  I can understand that. (Pauses.) What about—

  Butch:

  By the oh-god-how-do-I-ask-this-question in your voice, I’m assuming you mean the Omega and his little implant surgery?

  J.R.:

  Well, yes.

  Butch:

  (repositioning Miami Ink hat) This is going to come out wrong . . . but in some ways, to me, it’s like I have cancer they can’t operate on. I can still feel what he put in me. I know exactly where it is in my body, and it’s wrong, it’s bad. (Puts hand on stomach.) I want it out, but I know if it’s removed, assuming that’s even possible, I can’t do what I do. So . . . I deal.

  J.R.:

  Has the aftermath gotten any easier? After you inhale a—

  Butch:

  (shaking head) No.

  J.R.:

  So . . . aside from that . . . (shifting the subject, because clearly he’s uncomfortable) what’s been the thing that’s surprised you most since coming into their lives?

  Butch: (kneeling down next to ignition box) You ask such serious damn questions, woman. (Looks up at me and smiles.) Thought this was going to be more fun.

  J.R.:

  I’m sorry, I don’t mean to make you—

  Butch:

  It’s okay. How about we shoot off a rocket or two and then get back to the inquisition stuff. I’ll let you push the butttttttttton. . . .

  I’m pretty sure at this point he’s waggling his eyebrows at me, but I can’t see under the brim of the Miami Ink hat. I smile anyway because . . . well, some things you can’t help but do.

  Butch:

  Come on, you know you wanna.

  J.R.:

  (kneeling down) What do I do?

  Butch:

  The way this works is this. . . . (Holds up blue box.) Inside here are four double-A batteries. I turn the ignition key and this light (points to glowing yellow spot) tells us we’re ready. We pull out the key (pulls it out), and when you hit this (points to red button), the wires take the charge to the rocket’s igniter, and we’re talking a whole lot of zoom-zoom-zoom. Which is why we have over sixteen feet of cord between us and it. You ready? Okay. Let’s count this shit down. Three . . .

  J.R.:

  (when he doesn’t go further) What? Is there something wrong?

  Butch:

  You’re supposed to say two.

  J.R.:

  Oh, sorry! Two.

  Butch:

  No, we have to start over. Three . . .

  J.R.:

  Two . . .

  Butch:

  One . . . Fire in the hole!

  I press the butttttttttton, and a moment later there’s a spark and a flash and a whizzing fizzle that’s like a hundred Alka-Seltzers in a glass. The rocket shoots up to the autumn sky, an arcing trail of light and smoke streaming behind the glowing point at its tip. The angle is perfect, taking it precisely toward the center of the mansion. Its descent is just as smooth, and about three hundred feet from the ground the parachute unfurls. We watch the rocket as it slowly eases down, wagging from side to side like a lazy dog’s tail. In the lights from the library I see that it lands in a rose bed.

  Butch:

  (quietly) V.

  J.R.:

  I’m sorry?

  Butch:

  You ask what’s surprised me most, and it’s him. (Takes another rocket out of the duffel. This one is much larger and has the Lagavulin label repro’d on the side.) Now, this bad boy’s got some extra payload in him. He’ll go almost twice as high as the first, which is why I brought these. (takes out binocs) My eyesight and night vision are so much better than when I was a human, but I’m nowhere near where the Brothers are, so I need these. I like to watch the parachutes come out.

  J.R.:

  (desperate to ask him to explain about V, but respecting his distance) How long does it take you to build them?

  Butch:

  ’Bout a week. Phury paints the exteriors. (Goes over to launching platform and sets up rocket. When he returns, he nods at the ignition box.) Ladies should do the honors, don’t you think?

  We count it down, and this time we’re coordinated. As we rise to our feet and watch the rocket shoot to the heavens, I can feel that he’s about to say something.

  Butch:

  I am in
love with Marissa. But without V I’d be dead, and not just because of the whole healing thing.

  J.R.:

  (glancing over) And that’s what surprises you most?

  Butch:

  (trains binocs on rocket) Here’s the thing, that relationship with V? It doesn’t fit into any neat buckets, and it doesn’t have to . . . although sometimes I wish it did. I feel like it would be smaller and less important if it was just best friends or brothers or some shit. It’s hard enough to be wicked vulnerable to one person, like your wife. But to have this other guy out there in the world, banging and crashing into lessers . . . See, I worry about losing them both, and I hate that. V’ll go out on his own sometimes and I can’t be with him, and I check my phone constantly until he gets home safe. There have been nights when Jane and I have sat side by side on my sofa in the Pit and just stared straight ahead. (Pauses.) It’s a pain in the ass, to tell the truth. But I need them both to be happy.

  Butch goes back, gets another rocket, and explains to me the ins and outs of its construction. This one is about the same size as the Lag and is painted black with silver bands. We go about shooting it off, and he’s funny and charming and irreverent, and you’d be hard-pressed to imagine that just minutes before he’d shared something so deeply personal. I assume the serious conversating is done for the night, yet when we launch number three, he returns to the subject of Vishous—as if the rocket’s flaring rise and parachuted fall creates a special zone for talk.

  Butch:

  It’s not a creepy incest thing, by the way.

  J.R.:

  (eyes bulge) Excuse me?

  Butch:

  V and I being tight. I mean, we were tight like that way before the Omega . . . you know, did that shit to me. Sure, Vishous is the Scribe Virgin’s son and I’m . . . what I am thanks to Her brother, but there’s nothing sleazy about it.

  J.R.:

  I never thought that.

  Butch:

  Good. And P.S., I like Doc Jane a lot. She’s a real ass-kicker, that one. Man . . . (laughs in a bark), she’ll hand him his head on a plate if she has to. Damn fun to watch—although he behaves himself most of the time around her, which is disappointing.

  J.R.:

  And Marissa? How’s she dealing with another roommate?

  Butch:

  She and Jane get along like a house afire, and Jane’s been a real help. She does the checkups at Safe Place now. It’s much better to have a woman physician doing the exams. The nurses Havers sent over were nice enough . . . but it’s easier with Jane, and she has more medical training.

  J.R.:

  Have Marissa and Havers had much contact?

  Butch:

  No reason to. He’s just another physician. (looks over at me) Family is what you make it, not who you were raised with. (turns back to duffel)

  Butch sets up our last rocket, and this is my favorite of all of them. It’s the biggest and has David Ortiz’s Sox uniform and the words Big Papi painted on the side. We do our countdown and I press the button . . . and there’s the whiz and fizzle as what Butch built goes barreling up to the sky. As I watch the glow at the tip rise, I see that this one is going really high. At its apex, it becomes the only star in the cloudy night sky.

  Butch:

  (softly) Pretty, isn’t it.

  J.R.:

  Lovely.

  Butch:

  You know why I build them?

  J.R.:

  Why?

  Butch:

  I like to watch them fly.

  We stand side by side as the parachute comes out and the rocket drifts back to earth and into the rose garden. As it floats down, swinging gently from side to side, the glow at its tip tells us its location relative to the house . . . and abruptly I know without asking the reason why he likes to aim them toward the mansion. With all the security lights, he could easily find them anywhere on the grounds. But Butch likes home . . . and he wants to send these models he spends hours working on back to where he loves and needs to be. After having been without a family or a place in the world for so long, now he has his parachute, his slow, easy ride after a blistering meteoric rise . . . and it’s the people in that mansion.

  Butch:

  (grinning at me) Damn, wish we had another, don’t you?

  J.R.:

  (wanting to hug him) Absolutely, Butch. I absolutely do.

  Lover Revealed

  The People:

  Butch O’Neal

  Marissa

  Vishous

  The Scribe Virgin

  The Omega

  Mr. X

  Van Dean

  Wrath and Beth

  Zsadist

  Rehvenge

  John Matthew

  Blaylock

  Qhuinn

  Xhex

  Lash

  Ibex, Lash’s father and the glymera’s Leahdyre

  Havers

  José de la Cruz

  Mother and child

  Joyce (O’Neal) and Mike Rafferty

  Odell O’Neal

  Places of Interest (all in Caldwell, NY, unless otherwise specified):

  The Brotherhood mansion, undisclosed location

  The Tomb, on the mansion property

  Havers’s clinic, undisclosed location

  Brotherhood training center, on the mansion property

  ZeroSum (comer of Trade and Tenth streets)

  The Commodore, luxury high rise

  Blaylock’s bedroom

  Ibex/Lash’s home

  Safe Place, undisclosed location

  Summary:

  Butch O’Neal finds his true destiny as a vampire and a Brother while falling in love with Marissa, a beautiful aristocrat.

  Craft comments:

  Butch O’Neal had me from the moment I first saw him in Dark Lover, when he’s investigating Darius’s bomb scene. This description of him is from Beth’s point of view, and what I liked so much about him was how he tackled his gum:“So, Randall, what’s doing?” He popped a piece of gum in his mouth, wadding up the foil into a tight little ball. His jaw went to work like he was frustrated, not so much chewing as grinding.

  —DARK LOVER, p. 26

  Butch’s aggression was palpable, and in my opinion that’s hot. And my attraction to him only deepened when he arrested Billy Riddle, the young guy who attacked Beth on her way home from work. Here, Billy, who maintained Beth “wanted it,” is facedown on the floor in his hospital room, and Butch is reading the kid his Miranda rights while cuffing him:“Do you have any idea who my father is?” Billy yelled, as if he’d gotten a second wind. “He’s going to have your badge!”

  “If you can’t afford [an attorney], one will be provided for you. Do you understand these rights as I’ve stated them?”

  “Fuck you!”

  Butch palmed the back of the guy’s head and pressed that busted nose into the linoleum. “Do you understand these rights as I’ve stated them?”

  Billy moaned and nodded, leaving a smear of fresh blood on the floor.

  “Good. Now let’s get your paperwork done. I’d hate not to follow proper police procedure.”

  —DARK LOVER, p. 37

  Butch O’Neal was absolutely my kind of guy—a hard-ass renegade who, although he didn’t always follow the rules, had his own code of honor.

  Plus he’s a Red Sox fan, too, so there you go.

  The heroes in the Brotherhood books are not perfect, not by a long shot: For example, Wrath almost kills Butch in Dark Lover, and Rhage had a sex addiction, and Zsadist was a misogynistic sociopath before he met Bella, and Phury’s got a drug problem. The thing is, however, they have heroic qualities in addition to these faults, and that’s what makes them attractive.

  I write alpha males. Always have. The Brothers, though, are ALPHA males, if that makes sense. Maybe part of it is me getting in touch with rule two (Write Out Loud) such that everything in the BDB books is pushed as far as it can go, including the heroes and their actions. But most of it is
golden rule eight (Listen to Your Rice Krispies). The Brothers in my head are just over-the-top, hyperaggressive, and, in my opinion, utterly compelling.

  Butch fits right in with the other heroes in the series: He’s got a god-awful past that has shaped who he is, as well as a complex interweave of faults and virtues. With respect to his early years, some of the details of it come out in the scene when he finally tells Marissa a little about his background (LR, pp. 322—326.) It’s been clear all along that he’s driven to self-destruction by his sister’s abduction and murder and that he’s a cop with a razor edge because of what he sees as his culpability in that crime. As he tells Marissa about his drug use and the violence in his life and the fact that he’s always felt alienated from everyone around him, it brings into focus how critical the Brothers and their world are to him as a person—the mansion is the only place he’s ever felt comfortable in, and he doesn’t want to be on the fringes of the Brotherhood’s world as an outsider. (When you think of John and Beth, Butch is very similar to them in this regard. All three have always sensed that there is something that separates them from the humans around them, but they are unaware of the why of it all.)