The Black Dagger Brotherhood_ An Insider's Guide - J. R. Ward [97]
The theme of silent communication also comes into play in the last line of the book. Here Phury is holding Cormia close to his heart after suggesting they get mated back at the Brotherhood mansion:
The hooting and hollering and backslapping of the Brotherhood cut off the rest of what he was going to say. But Cormia got the gist. He’d never seen any female smile as beautifully and broadly as she did then while looking up at him.
So she must have known what he meant.
I love you forever didn’t always need to be spoken to be understood.
—LOVER ENSHRINED, pp. 533-534
And that just about sums up Phury and Cormia.
Some thoughts about John Matthew and Lash.
One of the great things about John Matthew (who is Darius reincarnated) is that in the earlier books I could introduce parts of the world to the reader through his eyes. As he is unfamiliar on all levels with the vampire thing, what was new to the reader was new to him. John has also lent great continuity from book to book: On balance, the POVs change with each story, and thus far, once I’ve done a hero and heroine, except for in Slices of Life outside the books, I do not return to them (although I think in Rehv’s story that might change—I can see where Wrath might come back in a huge way). John, however, has been a constant—as well as constantly evolving as he goes through his life.
As I begin to prepare for John’s book (which might well be coming after Rehvenge, I’m not sure), I wanted to show readers how the whole time thing works with respect to the Omega and the Scribe Virgin—as a way of anticipating the Darius reincarnation issue. To this end, Lash as the Evil’s son, which I knew about much earlier, was the perfect way to do this. At the end of Lover Revealed, when the Omega says to Butch: “Lo, how you inspire me, my son. And may I say you would be wise to search for your blood. Families should congregate.” (p. 427), the Omega is making a reference to his defensive reaction to Butch’s changing the dynamic of the war. Having “spawned” Butch, in a sense, and being at the cop’s mercy, the Omega realizes that he needs to do something to counteract the threat to his survival. What he does is this. After Lover Revealed, the Omega went back in time, impregnated a female vampire, and created Lash. Lash was not in existence prior to the time between Lover ReveaLed and Lover Enshrined (the lapse of a matter of months reflected the Evil’s failed attempts at procreation, which were not detailed), but was created when the Omega went back to the early eighties at the start of Phury’s book.
This, of course, created a problem. For me as the author, bringing in a major character like Lash and having to explain why all of a sudden everyone knew him was just not going to work—it would have involved way too much exposition. So I had to work off of absolute time—which is different from the fungible time the Scribe Virgin and the Omega can manipulate at will. Absolute time is the absolute destiny that is the sole province of the Scribe Virgin and the Omega’s father. This absolute truth and time in the vampire world reflects the culmination of all the choices ever made by all actors in that universe, and the books have to run on that absolute—otherwise it’s a mess (or, more accurately, a boring stretch of explaining and flashbacks).
Lash is therefore shown from the day John Matthew first meets him on the bus. Which is, in absolute time, exactly what happens.
It’s on this same absolute time that the John Matthew and Darius thing went down. When Darius is killed in Dark Lover, and he goes to the Scribe Virgin in the Fade, John Matthew does not exist. But after the Scribe Virgin and Darius strike a deal, the