Alec took a deep breath and tapped out MISS U into his phone.
He immediately received back MISS U TOO and let himself take a breath, the ache in his chest easier now. Jace was there, waiting for him in New York with the rest of his family. Talking about feelings wasn’t so bad.
Then he received another text.
R U OK?
In rapid succession, Alec received several more texts.
R U IN SOME KIND OF TROUBLE?
DID U GET HIT IN UR HEAD!
Then he got a text from Clary.
WHY DID JACE GET A TEXT FROM YOU AND LOOK VERY PLEASED BUT THEN SUDDENLY VERY WORRIED? IS SOMETHING GOING ON?
Talking about feelings was the worst. Once you did it, everybody immediately wanted you to do it more.
Alec typed out a grouchy I’M FINE and then called out cautiously, “Rafe?”
Rafael popped immediately up from his bed.
“Would you like the phone back?” asked Alec. “Here it is. Take it. Don’t worry if any more texts arrive. Just show me if there are any more pictures.”
He didn’t know how much Rafael understood of what he said. He suspected not much, but Rafe certainly understood the gesture of Alec offering his phone. He held out his hands eagerly.
“You’re a good kid, Rafe,” said Alec. “Take that phone away.”
* * *
“Are we going to smuggle our way into the house in laundry carts?” Lily asked Alec excitedly.
Alec blinked at her. “No, we’re not. What laundry carts? I’m a straightforward person. I’m going to knock on the door.”
He stood with Lily on the cobbled street before that great gray house. Jem and Tessa were waiting on the roof. Alec had literally used rope to tie Rafe to Jem’s wrist.
“I know Rafe stole your phone,” said Lily, “but who stole your sense of adventure?”
Alec waited, and the door opened. A warlock blinked up at him. He looked as if he was in his early thirties, a businessman with close-cropped blond hair and no visible warlock mark until he opened his mouth and Alec saw his forked tongue.
“Oh, hello,” he said. “Are you another of Clive Breakspear’s men?”
Alec said, “I’m Alec Lightwood.”
The warlock’s face cleared. “I see! I’ve heard of you.” He winked. “Fond of warlocks, aren’t you?”
“Some of them,” said Alec.
“Want your cut, I expect?”
“That’s right.”
“No problem,” the warlock told him. “You and your vampire friend should come in, and I’ll explain what I’ll want in return. I think the vampire will be very amused. They don’t like werewolves, do they?”
“I don’t like most people,” Lily said helpfully. “But I do love murder!”
The warlock waved his hand to let them through the wards, and led them through a hexagonal hall with a ceiling carved in a shape like a plaster jelly mold. The green quartz of the floor shone like jade. There were no signs of ruin or decay here. The warlock obviously had money.
There were several doors, all painted white, set in the many walls. The warlock chose one and led Alec and Lily down rough-hewn stone steps into the dark. The smell hit Alec before the sight did.
There was a long stone passage, with flaming torches on the walls and with grooves on either side for filth and blood. Along the passageway were rows of cages. Eyes shone from behind the bars, catching the firelight in the same way Juliette’s eyes had shone from her throne in the Shadow Market. Some cages were empty. In others were huddled shapes that were not moving.
“So you’ve been taking werewolf women, and hiring the Shadowhunters to help you,” said Alec.
The warlock nodded with a cheery smile.
“Why werewolves?” Alec asked grimly.
“Well, warlocks and vampires can’t bear children, and faeries find it difficult,” said the warlock in a practical tone. “But the werewolves whelp more easily, and there’s a great deal of animal strength. Everybody says that Downworlders can’t bear warlock children, that their bodies always reject them, but I thought of putting a little magic in the mix. People whisper about a warlock born from a Shadowhunter woman, and that’s probably a myth, but it got me thinking. Imagine the power a warlock might have, with a werewolf mother and a demon father.” He shrugged. “Seems worth trying. Of course, you do use up the werewolf women at a terrible rate.”
“How many have died?” Lily asked casually. Her expression was unreadable.
“Oh, a few,” the warlock admitted genially. “I’m always in need of a fresh supply, so I’m happy to pay you to snatch more. But these experiments haven’t been going as well as I’d like. Nothing has worked yet. You’re, uh, close to Magnus Bane, aren’t you? I’m probably the most powerful warlock you’ll ever meet, but I hear he’s pretty good too. If you can get him to come on in an assisting capacity, you’ll be very well rewarded. So will he. I think you’ll both be very happy.”
Alec said, “Yeah, I hope so.”
It wasn’t the first time someone had assumed Magnus was for sale. It wasn’t the first time someone had assumed that because Alec was connected to Magnus, Alec was sullied.
That used to make Alec angry. It still did, but he’d learned to use it.
The warlock turned his back to Alec, surveying the cages as if selecting a product from a market stall. “So, what do you say?” he asked idly. “Do we have a deal?”
“I don’t know yet,” said Alec. “You don’t know my price.”
The warlock laughed. “What is it?”
Alec scythed the warlock’s feet out from under him, so he fell to his knees. He drew his seraph blade and held it to the man’s throat.
“All the women go free,” he said. “And you are under arrest.”
Alec realized why the warlock was burning torches, and not using witchlight or electricity, when a torch tumbled out of the wall and onto the straw. Lily, who was kneeling to speak to someone behind the bars, rolled hastily away from the flames. She came up to her feet with fangs out. Alec had to leap to stamp out the fire.
The warlock was good, Alec thought, as the world went orange with not just fire but magic, crisscrossing from the bars, blinding Alec with its light.
Then another light sliced through the orange wires of magic, pearly gray, cutting through all darkness. Tessa Gray, daughter of a Prince of Hell, stood at the foot of the stairs with her hands glowing.
Tessa’s magic was all around him. Alec had learned how to sense magic over the years, learned to move with it and fight with it as another weapon on his side. This wasn’t the singing power he was used to, well-known and well-beloved as his bow, but it felt friendly. He let Tessa’s magic wrap around him, cooling and protecting, as he ducked through the fiery sparks of power back to the warlock.
“The most powerful warlock I’ve ever seen?” Alec snarled. “She cut through your wards like tissue paper. And my man would eat you for breakfast.”
He made a mistake, because he was overconfident. He didn’t hear Tessa’s stifled sound, and he didn’t see the shadow moving as he swept his blade toward the warlock.
Clive Breakspear’s seraph blade met his. Alec met Breakspear’s furious eyes. He looked to Tessa, struggling with three Shadowhunters with Jem coming to help her, Lily with another Shadowhunter prowling toward her, and he glanced toward the warlock, who was making every torch fall. Alec was used to being able to see the whole battle, fighting at a distance.
Too late, he saw the blade in Clive Breakspear’s free hand, aimed for his heart.
Rafael barreled out of the shadows and sank his teeth deep into Breakspear’s wrist. The blade dropped to the stone.
The man roared, and with all the Nephilim strength that should be used to shield the defenseless, he hurled Rafael’s body into the cage bars. There was a sickening crack.
Alec shouted: “No!”
He backhanded Clive Breakspear in the face. The warlock dashed a torch at his feet, and Alec stepped ove
r the flames and seized him by the throat, then lifted him like a doll and smashed the warlock’s skull against Breakspear’s forehead. The warlock’s eyes rolled back, but Breakspear screamed in outrage and charged at Alec. There was still a seraph blade shining in his hand, so Alec broke that hand, then used his hold on it to force the corrupt Shadowhunter to his knees. Alec stood over them, panting so hard his chest felt as if it would split apart. He wanted to kill them both.
Only Rafael was here. Magnus and Max were at home, waiting for him. Tessa, Jem, and Lily had made short work of the Shadowhunters attacking them. Alec turned to Tessa now.
“Will you enchant ropes to hold them?” he asked. “They have to stand trial.”
Tessa moved forward. So did Lily. Alec knew the situation was desperate because Lily didn’t make a joke about murdering them. Alec was too close to the edge. He was afraid he would have taken her up on it.
He went to the place where Rafael lay, his body a small wretched shape thrown into the dirt. Alec pulled Rafe into his arms, feeling his throat close up. He understood now what he had found here in Buenos Aires. He understood now that it might be too late.
Rafael’s grubby face was still. He was barely breathing. Jem came to kneel beside them.
“I’m so sorry. He slipped the rope, and I came in for him, but—but—”
“It isn’t your fault,” Alec said numbly.
Jem said, “Give him to me.”
Alec stared at Jem, then bundled Rafe into his arms.
“Take care of him,” he said. “Please.”
Jem took Rafe and ran toward Tessa, and together they rushed up the stone steps. There was still orange magic in the air, and the flames had caught in earnest. Smoke was rising fast, in a thick choking cloud.
One of the werewolf women reached out a thin hand and clutched the bars.
“Help us!”
Alec took an axe with an electrum head from his belt and struck open the lock on her cage. “That’s what I’m here to do.” He paused. “Um, Lily, are there keys on that warlock?”
“Yep,” said Lily. “Just grabbed them. I’ll open the doors with the keys, and you can keep doing your cool dramatic axe thing.”
“Fine,” said Alec.
The werewolf woman who had spoken to him bolted out the door as soon as she was free. The woman in the next cage was unconscious. Alec walked into the cage and knelt beside her, and that was when he heard the sounds of a fight breaking out at the top of the stairs.
He picked the woman up and ran for the stairs.
Tessa and Jem were in the hall, almost at the doors. The burning house was crawling with Shadowhunters. Jem couldn’t fight, because he was holding Rafael. Tessa was doing her best to clear a way for them, but Rafael needed Tessa’s help too.
One man shouted, “Where’s our leader?”
“You call that a leader?” Alec shouted back. He looked at the woman in his arms, then held her out so the Shadowhunters of the Buenos Aires Institute could see. “He helped a warlock do this. He crushed a child’s body against a wall. Is that what you want to lead you? Is that what you want to be?”
Several Shadowhunters turned to him in total puzzlement. Lily quickly shouted out a translation.
Joaquín stepped forward.
Lily said quietly, “He told them to stand down.”
The man who’d shouted for his leader hit Joaquín across the mouth. Another Shadowhunter shouted in startled fury and produced a whip, defending Joaquín.
Alec ran his eyes over the crowd. Some of the Shadowhunters looked uncertain, but Shadowhunters were soldiers. Too many of them were intent on following whatever orders they had been given, fighting Joaquín and Alec and whoever else stood in their way, to get to an unworthy leader. They were blocking Jem and Tessa’s way. They were keeping Rafe from help.
The doors of the burning house burst open. The Queen of the Shadow Market stood outlined against the smoke.
“Get to Alec!” Juliette shouted, and a dozen Downworlders sprang.
Juliette cleared a path. Jem and Tessa slipped out the door. Rafe was out of this place of filth and smoke. Alec fought toward Juliette.
“Mon Dieu,” she breathed when she saw the woman in Alec’s arms.
She made a gesture, and a warlock jumped to take the unconscious werewolf out into the night.
“There are more women down there,” Alec said. “I’ll get them. Some of the Shadowhunters are on our side.”
Juliette nodded. “Which ones?”
Alec turned to see Joaquín, fighting two Shadowhunters at once. The man with the whip who’d come to help him was down.
“That one,” said Alec. “And whoever else he tells you.”
Juliette set her jaw and began to transform to her wolf shape, striding across the green-quartz floor to Joaquín’s side. She tapped one of the men fighting him on the shoulder. When he turned, she ripped out his throat with one clawed hand.
“Maybe take them alive!” said Alec. “Not that guy, obviously.”
Joaquín was staring at Juliette with eyes gone enormous. Alec remembered that Joaquín had heard tales of horror about the Queen of the Shadow Market. Juliette, with blood on her hands and firelight in her snarled hair, might not be doing a lot to dispel that image.
“Don’t hurt her!” Alec cried. “She’s with us.”
“Oh good,” said Joaquín.
Juliette squinted at him suspiciously through the smoke. “You’re not evil?”
“Trying not to be,” said Joaquín.
“Bien,” said Juliette. “Show me who to kill. I mean . . . take alive if possible.”
Alec left them to it. He spun around and raced back down the stairs, Lily at his heels. The smoke was thick in the passage below by now. Alec saw there were Shadowhunters there already, getting Clive Breakspear and his warlock confederate out. Alec’s lip curled. “If your loyalty is to the Clave, put a watch on them. They’re going to stand trial.”
He and Lily opened the remaining doors. The women who could move on their own did. Too many could not. Alec picked up one woman after another and carried them out. Lily helped women who needed support to walk. Alec gave the women to the Downworlders of the Shadow Market whenever he could, so he was able to get back to the basement faster. He reached the top of the stairs with another woman and saw the hall was deserted, taken over by smoke and falling masonry. Everyone had fled the death trap this building had become.
Alec bundled the woman into Lily’s arms. Lily was small enough that it was difficult, but she was strong enough to bear her weight.
“Take her. I have to get the others.”
“I don’t want to go!” Lily shouted over the crackling fire. “I don’t ever want to abandon anybody again!”
“You won’t. Lily, go.”
Lily stumbled for the door under her heavy burden, sobbing. Alec turned back. The smoke had turned the whole world into a gray hell. He couldn’t see or breathe.
A hand caught his shoulder. Joaquín stood behind him.
“You can’t go down there!” he panted. “I’m so sorry about those women, but they’re—”
Alec said icily, “Downworlders?”
“It’s too dangerous. And you—you have a lot to go back to.”
Magnus and Max. If Alec closed his eyes, he could see them with absolute clarity. But he knew he had to be worthy of going back to them.
Joaquín was still holding on to him. Alec shrugged him off, and not gently.
“I will not leave one woman down there, abused and forgotten,” he said. “Not one. No real Shadowhunter would.”
He looked over his shoulder at Joaquín as he was going down the steps into hell.
“You can leave,” said Alec. “If you do, you can still call yourself a Shadowhunter. But will you be one?”
* * *
Rafael lay on the cobbled street as Jem and Tessa hovered over him. Jem used every silent enchantment he had learned among the Silent Brothers. Tessa whispered every heali
ng spell she had learned in the Spiral Labyrinth. Jem could tell, from long, bitter experience, that there was too much broken and bruised within that small body.
There was a fire burning and a battle raging. Jem could not pay attention to any of it, could not bring himself to care about anything but the child under his hands.
“Dittany, Jem,” Tessa whispered desperately. “I need dittany.”
Jem climbed to his feet, searching the crowd. There were so many from the Shadow Market here, there was surely one who could help. His gaze fell on Mother Hawthorn, with starlight on her dandelion hair.
She met his eyes and made to run. Jem was fast as a Shadowhunter still, when he had to be. He was at her side in a moment, catching her wrist.
“Do you have dittany?”
“If I do,” snarled Mother Hawthorn, “why should I give it to you?”
“I know what you did, more than a century ago,” he said. “I know better than you do. The trick you played, causing one Shadowhunter to poison another? It poisoned an unborn child. Does that amuse you?”
The faerie’s mouth went slack.
“That child died, because of you,” said Jem. “Now there is another child who needs help. I could take the herb from you. I will if I have to. But I’m giving you the chance to make another choice.”
“It’s too late!” said Mother Hawthorn, and Jem knew she was thinking of Auraline.
“Yes,” said Jem, merciless. “It’s too late to save the ones we lost. But this child is not lost yet. This choice is not lost yet. Choose.”
Mother Hawthorn turned her face away, her mouth set in bitter lines. But she reached inside the worn pouch at her belt and put the herb into his hand.
Jem took it and raced back to Tessa. Rafael’s body was arching under her hands. The dittany flared to life at her touch, and Jem joined his hands with Tessa’s, joined his voice with hers as they spoke in all the languages they had ever taught each other. Their words were a song, their linked hands magic, and they poured everything they knew, together, into the child.
Ghosts of the Shadow Market Page 35
