I'd called him the day after the battle and tried to talk to him, but he'd remained reticent, remote. I'd told him I was worried about him, after blowing that much energy. He'd hung up on me. He'd cut short two more calls since.
So, being as how I am a smart and sensitive guy who respects his brother's feelings, I was tailing him to find out what the hell he was trying so hard not to talk to me about. This way, I was sparing him all the effort and trouble of telling me about it by finding out all on my own. Like I said, I'm sensitive. And thoughtful. And maybe a little stubborn.
Thomas wasn't being very careful. I would have expected him to move around the city like a long-tailed cat at a rocking chair convention, but he sort of trudged along, fashionable in his dark slacks and loose, deep crimson shirt, his hands in his pockets, his hair hiding his face most of the time.
Even so, he attracted more than a little feminine attention. He was like a walking, talking cologne commercial, except that even silent and standing he was making women look over their shoulders at him, while coyly rearranging their hair.
He finally stalked into the Park Tower, and went into a trendy little boutique-slashcoffee shop calling itself the Coiffure Cup. I checked a clock, and thought about following him in. I could see a few people inside, where a coffee bar backed up to the front window. A couple of fairly pretty girls were getting things set up behind the counter, but I couldn't see any more than that.
I found a spot where I could watch the door and loomed unobtrusively-which is easier than you'd think, even when you're as tall as I am. A couple of women whose hair and nails screamed "beautician" came in later. The boutique opened for business a few minutes after Thomas got there, and immediately began doing a brisk trade. A lot of evidently wealthy, terribly attractive, generally young women started coming and going.
It put me in a quandary. On the one hand, I didn't want anyone to get hurt because my brother had exerted himself so furiously on my behalf. On the other, I didn't particularly care to go in and find my brother lording it over a roomful of worshipful women like some dark god of lust and shadow.
I chewed on my lip for a while, and decided to go on in. If Thomas had...if he had become the kind of monster his family generally did, I owed it to him to try to talk some sense into him. Or pound it in. Whichever.
I pushed open the door to the Coiffure Cup and was immediately, pleasantly assaulted by the aroma of coffee. There was techno music playing, thumping bouncily and mindlessly positive. The front room contained the coffee bar, a few little tables, and a little podium next to a heavy curtain. Even as I came in, one of the young women behind the bar came out to me, gave me a bubbly, caffeinated smile, and said, "Hi! Do you have an appointment?"
"No," I said, glancing back at the curtains. "Um, I just need to talk to someone. One second."
"Sir," she said in protest, and tried to hurry into my path. My legs were longer. I gave her a smile and outdistanced her, pushing the curtain aside.
The techno music grew a little louder as I went through. The back room of the boutique smelled the way boutiques always do, of various tonsorial chemicals. A dozen styling stations, all in use, stood six on a side, marching up to a rather large and elaborate station on a little raised platform. At the base of the little platform was a pedicure station, and a young woman with a mud mask, and cucumber slices, and a body posture of blissful relaxation was lounging through a pedicure. On the other side, another young woman was under a dryer, reading a magazine, her expression heavy and relaxed with that postcoiffure glow. On the main chair on the platform, a deluxe number that leaned back to a custom shampoo sink, another young woman lay back with a blissful expression while having her hair washed.
By Thomas.
He was chatting with her amiably as he worked, and she was in the middle of a little laugh when I came in. He leaned down and said something in her ear, and though I couldn't hear the substance of it, it came across in an unmistakable just-us-girls kind of tone, and she laughed again, replying in a similar manner.
Thomas laughed and turned away, practically prancing over to a tray of...styling implements, I supposed. He came back with a towel and, I swear to God, a dozen bobby pins held in his lips. He rinsed her hair and started pinning.
"Sir!" protested the coffee girl, who had followed me into the room.
Everyone stopped and looked at me. Even the woman with the cucumbers over her eyes took one of them off and peered at me.
Thomas froze. His eyes widened to the size of hand mirrors. He swallowed, and the bobby pins fell out of his mouth.
All the women looked back and forth between us, and there was an immediate buzz of whispers and quiet talks.
"You have got to be kidding me," I said.
"O-oh," Thomas said. "Ah-ree."
One of the stylists glanced back and forth between us and said, "Thomas." (She pronounced it Toe-moss.) "Who is your friend friend?"
Friend. Oy vey. I rubbed at the bridge of my nose with one hand. I was never going to get away from this one. Not if I lived to be five hundred.
Thomas and I sat down at a table over cups of coffee.
"This?" I asked him without preamble. " I asked him without preamble. "This is your mysterious job? is your mysterious job? This This is the moneymaking scam?" is the moneymaking scam?"
"It was cosmetology school first," Thomas said. He spoke in a French accent so thick that it barely qualified as English. "And night work as a security guard in a warehouse where no one else ever showed up, to pay for it."
I rubbed at my nose again. "And then...this? Here I'm thinking you've created your own batch of personal thralls while running around as a hired killer or something, and...you're washing hair hair?"
It was difficult to keep my voice quiet, but I made the effort. There were too many ears in that little place.
Thomas sighed. "Well. Yes. Washing, cutting, styling, dying. I do it all, baby."
"I'll bet." Then it hit me. "That's how you're feeding," I said. "I thought that took..."
"Sex?" Thomas asked. He shook his head. "Intimacy. Trust. And believe me, next to sex, washing and styling a woman's hair is about as intimate as you can get with her."
"You're still feeding on them," I said.
"It isn't the same, Harry. It isn't as dangerous-more like...sipping, I suppose, than taking bites. I can't take very much, or very quickly. But I'm here all day and it..." He shivered. "It adds up." He opened his eyes and met mine. "And there's no chance I'm going to lose control of myself. They're safe." He shrugged a shoulder. "They just enjoy it."
I watched the woman who'd been under the hair dryer come out, smile at Thomas, and pick up a cup of coffee on the way out. She looked...well, radiant, really. Confident. She looked like she felt sexy and beautiful, and it was quite pleasant to watch her move while she did.
Thomas watched her go with what I recognized as his look of quiet possession and pride. "They enjoy it a lot." He gave me one of his brief, swift grins. "I imagine there's a lot of husbands and boyfriends enjoying it, too."
"But they're addicted to it, I'd imagine."
He shrugged again. "Some, maybe. I try to spread myself around as much as I can. It isn't a perfect solution-"
"But it's the one you've got," I said. I frowned. "What happens when you try to wash somebody's hair and it turns out that they're in love? Protected?"
"True love isn't as common as you'd think," Thomas said. "Especially among people rich enough to afford me and superficial enough to think that it is money well spent."
"But when they do show?" I asked.
"That's why I've got all the hired help, man. I know what I'm doing."
I shook my head. "All this time and..." I snorted and sipped at some coffee. It was amazing. Smooth and rich and just sweet enough, and it probably cost more than a whole fast-food meal. "They all think I'm your lover, don't they."
"This is a trendy, upper-class boutique, Harry. No one expects a man with a place like this to be straight."
"Uh-huh. And the accent, Toe-moss?"
He smiled. "No one would pay that much money to an American stylist. Please." He shrugged. "It's superficial and silly, but true." He glanced around, suddenly self-conscious. His voice lowered, and his accent dropped. "Look. I know it's a lot to ask...."
It was an effort not to laugh at him, but I managed to give him a hard look, sigh, and say, "Your secret is safe with me."
He looked relieved. "Merci." "Merci."
"Hey," I said. "Can you stop by my place tonight after work? I'm putting something together that might help people if someone else starts something like those White Court bozos just tried. I thought maybe you'd want to be in on it."
"Um, yeah. Yeah, we can talk about it."
I sipped more coffee. "Maybe Justine could help, too. Might be a way to get her out, if you want to do it."
"Are you kidding?" Thomas asked. "She's been working for a year to get closer to Lara."
I blinked up at him. "Hell's bells, I thought she was acting weird," I said. "She came on all zonked out, like the mindless party girl, but she dropped it a couple of times, where I could see. I just put it down to, well. Weirdness."
He shook his head. "She's been getting information to me. Nothing huge, so far."
"Does Lara know about her?"
Thomas shook his head. "She hasn't tipped to it yet. Justine is, as far as Lara is concerned, still one more helpless little doe." He glanced up. "I talked it over with her. She wants to stay. She's Lara's assistant, most of the time."
I exhaled slowly. Holy crap. If Justine stayed in place, and was willing to report on what she knew...intelligence gathered at that level could turn the entire course of the war-because even if the White Court's peace proposal went through, it just meant a shift in focus and strategy. The vamps weren't about to let up.
"Dangerous," I said quietly.
"She wants to do it," he said.
I shook my head. "I take it you've been in touch with Lara?"
"Of course," Thomas said. "Given my recent heroism"-his voice turned wry-"in defense of the White King, I am now in favor in the Court. The prodigal son has been welcomed home with open arms."
"Really?"
"Well," Thomas amended, "with reluctant, irritated arms, anyway. Lara's miffed about the Deeps."
"Guess the bombs weren't good for them."
Thomas's teeth showed. "The whole place just collapsed in on itself. There's a huge hole in the ground, the plumbing at the manor got torn up, and the foundation cracked. It's going to cost a fortune to fix it."
"Poor Lara," I said. "No more convenient corpse-disposal facilities."
He laughed. "It's nice to see her exasperated. She's usually so self-assured."
"I have a gift."
He nodded. "You do." We sat quietly for a few minutes.
"Thomas," I said, finally, gesturing at the room. "Why didn't you tell me about this?"
He shrugged and looked down. "At first? Because it was humiliating. I mean...working nights to put myself through cosmetology school? Starting my own place and posing as..." He waved a hand down at himself. "I thought...I don't know. At first I thought you'd disapprove or...laugh at me or something."
I kept a straight face. "No. Never."
"And after that...well. I'd been keeping secrets. I didn't want you to think I didn't trust you."
I snorted. "In other words you didn't didn't trust me. To understand." trust me. To understand."
His cheeks turned very slightly pink and he looked down. "Um. I guess so, yeah. Sorry."
"Don't worry about it."
He closed his eyes and nodded and said, "Thanks, Harry."
I put a hand on his shoulder for a second, then dropped it again. Nothing else needed to be said.
Thomas gave me a suspicious look. "Now you're going to laugh at me."
"I can wait until you've turned your back, if you like."
He grinned at me again. "It's all right. I sort of stopped caring about it after I got fed steady for a few weeks straight. Feels too nice not to be starving again. Laugh all you want."
I looked around the place for a minute more. The coffee girls were having a private conversation, evidently discussing us, if all the covert glances and quiet little smiles were any indication.
I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing, and it felt good.
Author's Note When I was seven years old, I got a bad case of strep throat and was out of school for a whole week. During that time, my sisters bought me my first fantasy and sci-fi novels: the boxed set of I got a bad case of strep throat and was out of school for a whole week. During that time, my sisters bought me my first fantasy and sci-fi novels: the boxed set of Lord of the Rings Lord of the Rings and the boxed set of the Han Solo adventure novels by Brian Daley. I devoured them all during that week. and the boxed set of the Han Solo adventure novels by Brian Daley. I devoured them all during that week.
From that point on, I was pretty much doomed to join SF&F fandom. From there, it was only one more step to decide I wanted to be a writer of my favorite fiction material, and here we are.
I blame my sisters.
My first love as a fan is swords-and-horses fantasy. After Tolkien I went after C. S. Lewis. After Lewis, it was Lloyd Alexander. After them came Fritz Leiber, Roger Zelazny, Robert Howard, John Norman, Poul Anderson, David Eddings, Weis and Hickman, Terry Brooks, Elizabeth Moon, Glen Cook, and before I knew it I was a dual citizen of the United States and Lankhmar, Narnia, Gor, Cimmeria, Krynn, Amber-you get the picture.
When I set out to become a writer, I spent years writing swords-and-horses fantasy novels-and seemed to have little innate talent for it. But I worked at my writing, branching out into other areas as experiments, including SF, mystery, and contemporary fantasy. That's how the Dresden Files initially came about-as a happy accident while trying to accomplish something else. Sort of like penicillin.
But I never forgot my first love, and to my immense delight and excitement, one day I got a call from my agent and found out that I was going to get to share my newest swords-and-horses fantasy novel with other fans.
The Codex Alera is a fantasy series set within the savage world of Carna, where spirits of the elements, known as furies, lurk in every facet of life, and where many intelligent races vie for security and survival. The realm of Alera is the monolithic civilization of humanity, and its unique ability to harness and command the furies is all that enables its survival in the face of the enormous, sometimes hostile elemental powers of Carna, and against savage creatures who would lay Alera in waste and ruin.
Yet even a realm as powerful as Alera is not immune to destruction from within, and the death of the heir apparent to the Crown has triggered a frenzy of ambitious political maneuvering and infighting amongst the High Lords, those who wield the most powerful furies known to man. Plots are afoot, traitors and spies abound, and a civil war seems inevitable-all while the enemies of the realm watch, ready to strike at the first sign of weakness.
Tavi is a young man living on the frontier of Aleran civilization-because let's face it, swords-and-horses fantasies start there. Born a freak, unable to utilize any powers of furycrafting whatsoever, Tavi has grown up relying upon his own wits, speed, and courage to survive. When an ambitious plot to discredit the Crown lays Tavi's home, the Calderon Valley, naked and defenseless before a horde of the barbarian Marat, the boy and his family find themselves directly in harm's way.
There are no titanic High Lords to protect them, no Legions, no Knights with their mighty furies to take the field. Tavi and the free frontiersmen of the Calderon Valley must find some way to uncover the plot and to defend their homes against a merciless horde of Marat and their beasts.
It is a desperate hour, when the fate of all Alera hangs in the balance, when a handful of ordinary steadholders must find the courage and strength to defy an overwhelming foe, and when the courage and intelligence of one young man will save the Realm-or destroy it.
Thank you, readers and fellow fans, for all of your support and kindness. I hope that you enjoy reading the first two books of the Codex Alera, Furies of Calderon Furies of Calderon and and Academ's Fury, Academ's Fury, as much as I enjoyed creating them for you. as much as I enjoyed creating them for you.
-Jim Furies of Calderon and and Academ's Fury Academ's Fury are available in paperback from Ace Books. are available in paperback from Ace Books.