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I read 2 or 3 books in this series in the UK, sometime between 1985 and 2000, I can't recall if paperback or anything about the covers.

I don't remember too much about them, he's a young magic user in a modern urban environment, I think in the US. He wears a suit of like mithril chain mail under his normal street clothes.

He's had several bad injuries when fighting demonic monsters and, as a consequence, he has this massive high tech bed. He bought it used, it was designed by some eccentric and it's got lots of stuff like built in massage pads, retractable TV screen (an amazing idea back then), stereo music etc.

I think he lives with his aunt or granny and they're often horrified at his injuries, but they're not aware of what he does for a living.

That's all I got

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This is Tannim. He features in several of the SERRAted Edge series, written by Mercedes Lackey in collaboration with other writers. He also appears as a teenager in Jinx High; the third of her Diana Tregarde series.

Chrome Circle

The description of the bed is:

He flipped on the bedroom light; and there was The Bed - the single piece of furniture he had acquired and held onto through so many changes of address that he'd forgotten half of them.

It was the size of two king-size beds put together, and completely filled the bedroom. The basis for construction had been two orthopedic hospital beds, complete with controls, with a flat section in between. The bookcase-headboard behind it went up to the ceiling, and held mirrors, speakers, a lot of his audio gear, bed controls, and remotes for the TV and VCRs across the room on the shabby bureau. Plus a tiny bar-fridge and microwave. It had padded rails, and one section of the padding on each side flipped up like the armrests on a first-class airline seat; inside were tray-tables. When he was really hurt or sick, he didn't even have to leave The Bed except to hit the bathroom.

He'd found it (sans electronic gear, but wired with four power-strips and its own pair of breaker-boxes) in a Goodwill store in Dallas. It had been made in Germany, and he'd always figured its previous owner was one of the victims of the slump in oil prices. Occasionally he looked at it, and wondered why he'd hung onto it with such tenacity. It was a stone bitch to move, and holding onto any piece of furniture was so completely unlike him that keeping this monster was insane. But then he'd get hurt, or he'd have one of his days when he'd wake up after a race or a fight hardly able to move, and he'd know why he kept it. He'd never find another like it. And it at least gave him one constant in all of his changes of address.

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  • The one that non-matching part, I think, is that he doesn't live with a family member. However, I do vaguely remember a line or two about him talking to lovers, and trying to find ways to explain his injuries.
    – FuzzyBoots
    Jan 14 at 12:45
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    He drove racing cars (for elves!) and when visiting his Mum, passed some bite-marks off as being caused by the "jaws of life".
    – sueelleker
    Jan 14 at 13:45

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