The Black Dagger Brotherhood

by J. R. Ward

  My normal day starts when I get to the computer upstairs around eight. I write for two hours. Take a break to make more coffee (during which I sometimes check e-mail downstairs), then go back up for another two hours. After that I run and come back and spend the rest of the day editing and dealing with business-related stuff. This all changes, however, if I’m under deadline—which means nothing except a run takes me away from the computer.

  I do not have Internet access on either computer I write on, and I strongly urge folks, if they can afford the luxury, to draw that line and keep Web and e-mail distraction far, far, far away from their writing machines. See, for me, the writing uses a very specific part of my brain. If I stop working to deal with other issues, it can be a struggle to get back to the zone I was in before I put on my business head.

  No one goes up into my working space except my dog (who’s always welcome) and my husband (who’s usually welcome). I don’t describe it anywhere, and there are no pictures of it. I will say that it is extremely uncluttered and has a tremendous amount of light. I think part of the reason I’m so territorial about the physical space is that keeping the real world out helps me to focus on what’s in my head. I’m also by nature, as I said, rather private, and the writing is very personal to me—so I’m quite protective of it.

  In addition to my agent and my editor (and all the spectacular folks at my publisher’s who are incredible), I work with a lot of absolutely amazing people. My personal assistant makes sure everything runs smoothly and keeps me in line by being thoroughly unimpressed by any of the J. R. Ward stuff and liking me for me (well, most of the time it’s about our friendship—sometimes I drive her insane and she stays only because she loves my dog). My research assistant is a walking, talking Brotherhood encyclopedia who can find obscure pieces of knowledge and know-how with amazing alacrity—he’s also endlessly patient with me and one of the kindest people I’ve ever met. I also have a six-foot-ten-inch consigliere with a metal fetish—because everyone who writes about vampires needs one of those—and a woman who, even when six months pregnant, is willing to hump bags around hotel lobbies and go to conferences and make sure the trains run on time (we call her the APA).

  My critique partner, Jessica Andersen (who writes fabulous paranormals), and I met like eight years ago, and we’ve been through a lot of ups and downs (the downs are what we call roadkill periods). She writes plot-driven stories and I’m into character sketches, so we don’t have a thing in common when it comes to material—which is one of the reasons I think we work so well together. I call her my CP, but because I don’t really share my content much, she’s more like a brain trust. I run a lot of business as well as writing issues by her, and she never fails to give me good advice.

  My two assistants run the J. R. Ward message boards and the BDB Yahoo! Group and work with a tremendous team of volunteer moderators, most of whom have been with the Brothers from the very beginning. Our mods are amazing, and I’m so grateful for what they do just because they like the books.

  Everything’s a team effort. And I couldn’t get the time and space to write like I do without the help of these folks.

  Usually my days end around nine at night, when my husband and I get to spend a little time together before we pass out and get up and do it all over again. The truth is, I’m actually kind of boring. I’m mostly in my head all of the time—writing consumes my life, and the solitary existence nourishes me as nothing else could or has: I’m happiest at the computer by myself with my dog at my feet and it’s been that way since day one.

  I kind of believe writers are born, not made—but that’s not specific to writing. I think it’s true of athletes and mathematicians and musicians and artists and engineers and the hundred million other endeavors that humans pursue. And in all my life, I believe the single best thing that’s ever happened to me, aside from having the mother I do, is that I found my niche and have been able to make a living out of doing what I love (my husband has had a huge hand in this whole publishing thing, so I thank him for that).

  Now, before I nancy out completely and get all mushy with gratitude, let’s talk about Phury.

  I have always seen Phury as a hero. From day one. I’d also been aware all along that his book was going to be about addiction—which was going to be tricky. To be honest, I was very concerned about the heroin thing. I remember, when I got the image of Phury passed out next to the toilet in that bathroom, going, Oh, God, no . . . I can’t write that. How are people going to be able to see him as a hero if he shoots up and ODs? And my problems weren’t just about him doing it, either.

  The thing is, heroes are not always right, but they are always strong. Even if they tear up or break down, the context that brings them to that state is so overwhelming that we excuse them for their brief unraveling. With Phury abusing red smoke and exhibiting an addict’s need to protect his habit (with all the lying that implies), I was really concerned that if I didn’t portray him correctly, readers would view him as weak, instead of tortured.

  Tortured is okay for heroes. Weak, in terms of constitution, is really not.

  I think it’s understandable that Phury has some serious problems getting through the day. Considering all the stuff with Zsadist, and the complex interweave of guilt and sadness and panic that Phury’s had to live with all these years, the red smoke was a way of self-medicating his feelings. The first step to depicting him sympathetically was bringing the Wizard out before the readers so they had an idea of what Phury was trying to shut up with all the blunt rolling and lighting. Once again, like V’s actions at the war camp, it was all about context.

  The Wizard is the voice that drives Phury’s addiction, and it lives in Phury’s head:In his mind’s eye, the wizard appeared in the form of a Ring-wraith standing in the midst of a vast gray wasteland of skulls and bones. In its proper British accent, the bastard made sure that Phury never forgot his failures, the pounding litany causing him to light up again and again just so he didn’t go into his gun closet and eat the muzzle of a forty.

  You didn’t save him. You didn’t save them. The curse was brought upon them all by you. The fault is yours . . . the fault is yours. . . .

  —LOVER ENSHRINED, pp. 5-6

  The next thing that needed to be shown was Phury beginning to realize that he is an addict. For him to be a hero, he had to conquer his drug use, and the first step of recovery is recognizing you have a problem. The initial inkling for him comes when he and a lesser are looking for some privacy to fight downtown and they interrupt a drug sale. When it looks as if the transaction won’t go through, the desperate buyer ends up attacking the dealer, killing him and cleaning him out before taking off:The rank joy on the addict’s face was a total head nailer. The guy was clearly on the express train to one hell of a bender, and the fact that it was a free fix was only a small part of the buzz. The real boon was the lush ecstasy of super-surplus.

  Phury knew that orgasmic rush. He got it every time he locked himself in his bedroom with a big fat pouch of red smoke and a fresh pack of rolling papers.

  —LOVER ENSHRINED, p. 47

  Identifying with another addict was the start for Phury. But things had to get worse before they got better:“Am I still a Brother?”

  The king just stared at the dagger—which gave Phury the three-word answer: in name only.

  —LOVER ENSHRINED, p. 87

  Phury’s getting the boot from the Brotherhood was not just about his addiction, but also about his other method for dealing with his emotions—torturing lessers before he kills them.

  This was, originally, something I thought Zsadist was doing. I even alluded to it on the message board. Except I was wrong. It was Phury who was cutting up slayers before stabbing them—which is pretty hard-core. Funny, when I saw the scenes, I just thought that Phury, the nice one, the kind one, wouldn’t do something as base and cruel as torture. But here’s the thing—and I think to some degree it’s one of the points of Phury’s book: Even people who dress we
ll, come from titularly good backgrounds, and look put-together can be totally unhinged on the inside.

  Speaking of backgrounds, a word on Cormia. The parallels between her and Marissa are obvious. Both are high-stationed females suffering under the load of social expectations they were born into-and both transform themselves, becoming agents not only of their own liberation, but of others’ as well (the vote at the Council meeting and her work at Safe Place for Marissa; helping Phury to transform the Chosen for Cormia).

  As a couple, I think Phury and Cormia work on a lot of levels, and in this passage I think she sums up her side of the connection well:. . . But that wasn’t what really compelled her. He was the epitome of all that she knew to be of worth: He was focused always on others, never on himself. At the dinner table, he was the one who inquired after each and every person, following up about injuries and stomach upsets and anxieties large and small. He never demanded any attention for himself. Never drew the conversation to something of his. Was endlessly supportive.

  If there was a hard job, he volunteered for it. If there was an errand, he wanted to run it. If Fritz staggered under the weight of a platter, the Primale was the first out of his chair to help. From all that she’d overheard at the table, he was a fighter for the race and a teacher of the trainees and a good, good friend to everyone.

  He truly was the proper example of the selfless virtues of the Chosen, the perfect Primale. And somewhere in the seconds and hours and days and months of her stay here, she had veered from the path of duty into the messy forest of choice. She now wanted to be with him. There was no had to, must do, need to.

  —LOVER ENSHRINED, p. 18

  Of course, this puts her in direct conflict with her role as First Mate—who under the traditions of the Chosen must share the Primale with her sisters. This clash between Cormia’s upbringing and who she is and what she truly wants is the core of what she struggles with, not only romantically but individually.

  On Phury’s side, I think that in addition to the instinctual bonding thing he has going on, Cormia really sticks by him. She is incredibly steadfast and accepting, and the two of them go through a lot. She is also instrumental in his recovery—more on this later.

  Phury’s decent into the dark hell of his addiction truly bottoms out after he’s with Cormia sexually. The scene where he takes Cormia’s virginity was a hard one to write, because I knew I had to be very careful with what I saw, and I didn’t want there to be any confusion: Cormia absolutely wanted what happened to go down, but Phury, in his haste, truly believed he had hurt her.

  There is nothing sexy about rape. Period.

  Phury’s misconception about his actions drives him right into the Wizard’s playground. He’d had a near miss with heroin already (in Lover Awakened), and I suppose his doing H was inevitable, given his addiction and his emotional instability. It did break my heart, however:This shit was definitely not red smoke. There was no mellow easing, no polite knock on the door before the drug stepped into his brain. This was an all-guns-blazing assault with a battering ram, and as he threw up, he reminded himself that what he’d gotten was what he’d wanted.

  Dimly, in the far background of his consciousness, he heard the wizard start laughing. . . . heard his addiction’s cackling satisfaction get rolling even as the heroin took over the rest of his mind and body.

  As he passed out while throwing up, he realized he’d been cheated.

  Instead of killing the wizard, he was left only with the wasteland and its master.

  Good job, mate . . . excellent job.

  —LOVER ENSHRINED, p. 431

  It was a wonder Phury lived through it, and I shudder to think what would have happened if Blay hadn’t come to stay at the mansion and he and Qhuinn and John hadn’t walked into that spare bedroom.

  So that was Phury’s bottom, and to his credit he didn’t stay there. The first significant step he took in his recovery was the choice he made the following day. He goes to complete the Primale ceremony with Layla, but instead of laying with her, he sits on the steps in the vestibule of the Primale Temple and makes a personal resolve to stop drugging:As the wizard started to get pissed and Phury’s body milk-shaked it something fierce, he stretched out his legs, lay down on the vestibule’s cool marble floor, and got ready for a whole lot of going-nowhere.

  “Shit,” he said as he gave himself over to the withdrawal. “This is going to suck.”

  —LOVER ENSHRINED, p. 459

  This in turn led to what was for me the most significant scene between Cormia and Phury as a couple—the one where she helps him through his detox hallucinations. By taking him around his parents’ overgrown garden and directing him to clean it up (the scenes start on page 468), Cormia is a hero in her own right, being strong when her male can’t be and providing him with leadership when he needs to be led.

  The symbolic nature of the ivy, when Phury’s either remembering how it covered the statues in his parents’ garden or using it to do away with one of his drawings, is obvious. The past has been choking him all along, and I loved the fact that during those hallucinations, not only does he free the statues, but he frees himself—and gets to see his parents in a happier place.

  As a result of the detox, Phury then has the lucidity and the gumption to re-haul the whole construct of the Chosen—which was about fricking time. I love this part when he becomes resolved:After a lifetime of watching history unfold in a bowl of water, Cormia realized as she measured the medallion being held aloft that for the first time she was seeing history made right in front of her, in live time.

  Nothing was ever going to be the same after this.

  With that emblem of his exalted station waving back and forth under his fisted grip, Phury proclaimed in a hard, deep voice, “I am the strength of the race. I am the Primale. And so shall I rule!”

  —LOVER ENSHRINED, p. 484

  That is Phury’s inner heroic nature being truly realized—and man, does he go to town with it when he goes to see the Scribe Virgin.

  About that confrontation. During his conversation with the Scribe Virgin, I think he hits on what is her essential failing when it comes to the race she created and loves. She’s too overprotective and has to, as Phury says, have faith in her creation. The traditions of the vampire race are hindering their survival as much as the war with the Lessening Society is, and things must change: The pool of candidates for the Brotherhood must be opened up so that more warriors can be brought on, and the Chosen need and deserve to be liberated.

  A note on all the social and religious restrictions within the vampire race. There were those at the beginning of the series who criticized the books for being too male-dominated and chauvinistic. But that was the point.

  Rule four: Plotlines Are Like Sharks. They must move or die.

  The series needed to start at a place where there were things to be fixed, otherwise there would be no struggles, no conflict, no evolution and resolution. And even with the improvements made in Lover Enshrined, the world remains ripe with strictures that need changing or areas where conflict is going to breed—Rehvenge’s Lover Avenged is going to have a lot of that.

  A symphath working with the Brotherhood? Pow.der.keg.

  The thing is, plotlines must advance across a credible playing field of people. Always. For example, to me, the most powerful scene in Phury’s book comes when he leaves the Scribe Virgin’s private quarters after having freed the Chosen. Here, he returns to Chosen’s sanctuary:He froze as he threw open the door.

  The grass was green.

  The grass was green and the sky was blue . . . and the daffodils were yellow and the roses were a Crayola rainbow of colors . . . and the buildings were red and cream and dark blue. . . .

  Down below, the Chosen were spilling out of their living quarters, holding their now colorful robes and looking around in excitement and wonder.

  Cormia emerged from the Primale temple, her lovely face stunned as she looked around. When she saw him, her hands clam
ped to her mouth and her eyes started to blink fast.

  With a cry, she gathered her gorgeous pale lavender robe and ran toward him, tears streaming down her cheeks.

  He caught her as she leaped up to him and held her warm body to his.

  “I love you,” she choked out. “I love you, I love you . . . I love you.”

  In that moment, with the world that was his in transformation, and his shellan safely in his arms, he felt something he never would have imagined.

  He finally felt like the hero he had always wanted to be.

  —LOVER ENSHRINED, pp. 492-493

  I’ll be honest: I bawled like a baby right there. It was just the most perfect moment for Phury—and it couldn’t have happened if there hadn’t been something huge to fix in the world.

  And speaking of things that needed to be fixed, a word on Phury and Z. The relationship between the twins had to be addressed in the course of the book, and there was some serious stuff to deal with. Phury had a lot of pent-up frustration and anger, and it eventually came out (I’m thinking of that scene in front of the mansion that starts on page 277, where the two of them go at it). I will say that I think Z’s lack of gratitude was more about the current suffering he was dealing with—namely the concern about Bella and her pregnancy—than a fundamental resentment over the fact that he had been saved. After all, it’s hard sometimes to be grateful that you’re walking the planet when the very foundation of your life is unstable.

  Phury needed the acknowledgment from his twin, and needed the thank-you, though. Hands down for me, one of the most moving scenes in the series—and the one I absolutely wept at when I wrote it—was the reunion of the twins following the birth of Nalla. By this point, Phury’s on the road to recovery and has redefined his role as the Primale—and Bella and Nalla have lived through the birth, so Z’s in a much better place as well. The twins, however, remain estranged. At least until Zsadist comes up to Rehv’s house in the Adirondacks and approaches his brother while singing Puccini:Phury got to his feet as if his twin’s voice, not his own legs, had lifted him from the chair. This was the thanks that had not been spoken. This was the gratitude for the rescue and the appreciation for the life that was lived. This was the wide-open throat of an astounded father, who was lacking the words to express what he felt to his brother and needed the music to show something of all he wished he could say.