Chapter Eight

Among the problems with shame was that it in fact did not make you shorter or quieter or less visible. You just felt like you were.

Phury stood in the mansion’s courtyard and stared up at the looming facade of the Brotherhood’s home. All dour gray, with a lot of dark, glowering windows, the place was like a giant that had been buried up to its neck and was not happy with the dirt submersion.

He was no more ready to go into the mansion than it seemed ready to welcome him.

As a breeze came up, he looked to the north. The night was typical August in upstate New York. All around it was still summer, with the fat, leafy trees and the fountain going and the potted urns on either side of the house’s entrance. The air was different, though. Little drier. Little cooler.

The seasons, like time, were relentless, weren’t they?

No, that was wrong. The seasons were but a measure of time, just like clocks and calendars.

I’m getting older, he thought.

As his mind started to head off in directions that seemed worse than the ass-kicking he was likely to find in the mansion, he went through the vestibule and into the foyer.

The queen’s voice came out of the billiards room, accompanied by a quartet of pool balls clapping gently together and a couple of thunks. Both the curse and the laughter that followed had a Boston accent. Which meant that Butch, who could beat everyone else in the house, had just lost to Beth. Again, evidently.

Listening to them, Phury couldn’t remember the last time he’d played a game of pool or just hung out with his brothers-although even if he had, he wouldn’t have been completely at ease. He never was. For him, life was a coin that had disaster on one side and waiting for disaster on the other.

You need another blunt, mate, the wizard drawled. Better yet, have a bale of the stuff. Won’t change the fact that you’re a right bastard fool, but it’ll increase the chance of you lighting your bed on fire when you pass out in it.

On that note, Phury decided to face the music and go upstairs. If he was lucky, Wrath’s door would be shut-

It wasn’t, and the king was at his desk.

Wrath’s stare lifted from the magnifying glass he was holding over a document. Even through his wraparounds, it was straight obvi the guy was pissed. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

In Phury’s head, the wizard swooped up his black robes and parked it in a Barcalounger slipcovered in human skin. My kingdom for some popcorn and Junior Mints. This is going to be specTAAAcular.

Phury walked into the study, his eyes barely registering the French blue walls and the cream silk sofas and the white marble mantel. The lingering smell of lesser in the air told him that Zsadist had just been right where he was.

“Guess Z talked to you already,” he said, because there was no reason not to call a spade a spade.

Wrath put the magnifier down and leaned back behind his Louis XIV desk. “Shut the door.”

Phury closed them in together. “You want me to talk first?”

“No, you do enough of that.” The king lifted up his massive shitkickers and let them fall on the dainty desk. The pair landed like cannonballs. “You do plenty of that.”

Phury waited for the list of failures to get rolling out of courtesy, not curiosity. He was well aware of where he was at: trying to get killed out in the field; assuming the mantle of the Chosen’s Primale but not completing the ceremony; being overinvolved with Z and Bella’s life; not paying enough attention to Cormia; smoking all the time…

Phury focused hard on his king and waited for a voice other than the wizard’s to run down his fuckups.

Except none of it came. Wrath said absolutely nothing.

Which seemed to suggest that the problems were so loud and obvious it was like pointing at a bomb exploding and saying, Boy, that’s really noisy-going to leave a crater in the pavement, too, huh?

“On second thought,” Wrath said, “tell me what I should do about you. Tell me what the fuck I should do.”

When Phury didn’t reply, Wrath murmured, ’’No comment? You mean you have no idea what to do, either?”

“I think we both know what the answer is.”

“I’m not so sure about that. What do you think I need to do?”

“Take me off rotation for a little while.”

“Ah.”

More silence.

“So is that where we’re at?” Phury asked. Man, he so needed a blunt.

Those shitkickers knocked together at the toes. “Dunno.”

“That mean you want me to fight?” Which would be a better outcome than he could hope for. “I’d give you my word-”

“Fuck. You.” Wrath stood up in a quick surge and came around the desk. “You told your twin you were coming back here, but dollars to shit piles you went to see Rehvenge. You promised Z you’d stop with the slayers and you didn’t. You said you’d be the Primale and you aren’t. Hell, you keep talking out your ass about how you’re going back to your room to get some sleep, but we all know what you do in there. And you honestly expect me to take your word about anything?”

“So tell me what you want me to do.”

From behind the sunglasses, the king’s pale, unfocusable eyes were searching. “I’m not sure time off and a fuckload of therapy is going to help, because I don’t think you’ll do either.”

Cold dread curled up like a wet, wounded dog in Phury’s gut. “Are you going to kick me out?”

It had happened before in the history of the Brotherhood. Not often. But it had. Murhder came to mind… shit, yeah, he was probably the last one to get the boot.

“Not as simple as that, is it,” Wrath said. “If you get curbed, where does that leave the Chosen? The Primale has always been a Brother, and not just because of blood-lines. Besides, Z wouldn’t take to that well, even as pissed off at you as he is now.”

Great. His safety nets were saving his twin from a head fuck and being the Chosen’s man-whore.

The king walked over to the windows. Outside, the summer trees swayed in a gathering wind.

“Here’s what I think.” Wrath popped his sunglasses up off his nose and rubbed his eyes like his head ached. “You should…”

“I’m sorry,” Phury said, because that was all he had to offer.

“So am I.” Wrath let the glasses fall back into place and shook his head. As he returned to his desk and sat down, his jaw was set along with his shoulders. Popping open a drawer, he took out a black dagger.

Phury’s. The one that had been left in the alley.

Z must have found the damn thing and carried it home.

The king turned the weapon over in his hand and cleared his throat. “Give me your other blade. You’re off rotation permanently. Whether or not you see a shrink or how the shit shakes out with the Chosen is not my business. And I’m out of advice, because the truth is, you’re going to do what you’re going to do. Nothing I demand or ask of you is going to make a difference.”

Phury’s heart stopped for a moment. Of all the ways he’d thought this confrontation would play out, Wrath’s washing his hands of the mess had never been in the cards.

“Am I still a Brother?”

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

Some things didn’t need to be said, did they.

“I’ll talk to Z,” the king murmured. “We’ll say you’re on administrative leave. No more fieldwork for you, and you don’t come to the meetings anymore.”

Phury felt a rush as if he were free-falling off a building and had just made eye contact with the pavement that had his name on it.

No nets anymore. No promises to break. As far as the king was concerned, he was on his own.

Nineteen thirty-two, he thought. He’d been in the Brotherhood for only seventy-six years.

Bringing his hand up to his chest, he palmed the grip of his remaining dagger, unsheathed the weapon in a single pull, and put it on the silly pale-blue desk.