He had been through a hundred heartbreaks, but he found himself afraid when he thought of Alexander Lightwood breaking his heart. He did not know how this boy with the messy black hair and the worried blue eyes, with his steady hands and his rare sweet smile that was less rare in Magnus’s presence, had acquired such power over him. Alec hadn’t tried to get it, had never seemed to realize that he had it or tried to do anything with it.
Maybe he didn’t want it. Perhaps Magnus was being a fool, as he had been so many times before. He was Alec’s first experience, not a boyfriend. Alec was still nursing his first crush, on his best friend, and Magnus was a cautious experimentation, a step away from the safety that golden and much-beloved Jace represented. Jace, who looked like an angel: Jace, who, like an angel, like God himself, would never love Alec back.
Magnus might simply be a walk on the wild side, a rebellion by one of Idris’s most careful sons before Alec retreated back into secrecy, circumspection. Magnus remembered Camille, who had never taken him seriously, who had never loved him at all. How much more likely was a Shadowhunter to feel that way?
His gloomy thoughts were interrupted by the sound of the buzzer.
Caroline Connor offered no explanation for her lateness. Indeed, she breezed by Magnus as if he were the doorman, and began immediately to explain her problem to the demon.
“I am part of Pandemonium Enterprises, which caters to a certain subsection of the wealthy.”
“Those who have used their money and influence to purchase knowledge of the Shadow World,” said Magnus. “I’m aware of your organization. It’s been around quite a long time.”
Ms. Conner inclined her head. “My particular area is in providing entertainment for our customers in a nautical environment. While there are other cruises in New York Harbor, we provide our customers with a gourmet meal served on a yacht with a view of the more magical denizens of the city—nixies, kelpies, mermaids, various and sundry water sprites. We make it a very exclusive experience.”
“Sounds classy,” gurgled Elyaas.
“However, we do not want to make it a very exclusive experience in which rebellious mermaids drag our wealthy customers to the bottom of the river,” said Ms. Connor. “Unfortunately some of the mermaids do not like being stared at, and this has been occurring. I simply want you to use your infernal powers to dispatch this threat to my company’s economic growth.”
“Wait a second. You want to curse the mermaids?” Magnus demanded.
“I could curse some mermaids,” Elyaas said agreeably. “Sure.”
Magnus glared at him.
Elyaas shrugged his tentacles. “I’m a demon,” he said. “I’ll curse a mermaid. I’ll curse a cocker spaniel. I don’t care about anything.”
“I cannot believe that I have spent a whole day watching slime rise for no reason at all. If you had told me that the problem was angry mermaids, I could have fixed it without summoning demons to curse them,” said Magnus. “I have several contacts in the mermaid community, and failing that, there are always the Shadowhunters.”
“Oh, yeah. Magnus is dating a Shadowhunter,” Elyaas put in.
“That’s personal information I’d thank you not to repeat,” Magnus said. “And we’re not officially dating!”
“My orders were to summon a demon,” Ms. Connor said crisply. “But if you can solve the problem in a more efficient way, warlock, I am all for it. I’d prefer not to curse the mermaids; the customers like looking at them. Perhaps some monetary recompense can be arranged. Do we need to amend your contract, warlock, or are the same terms agreeable to you?”
Magnus felt somewhat tempted to argue for a pay raise, but he was already charging them a satisfyingly outrageous sum of money, and he did want to avoid having a curse fall upon all the mermaids of New York. That seemed like it could get really complicated really fast.
He agreed to sign the amended contract, he and Ms. Connor shook hands, and she departed. Magnus hoped that he would never have to see her again. Another day, another dollar. (Well, another huge pile of dollars. Magnus’s special skills did not come cheap.)
Elyaas was looking extremely sulky around the tentacles about being denied the opportunity to cause chaos in Magnus’s city.
“Thank you for being totally useless all day,” said Magnus.
“Good luck with one of the Angel’s chosen, demon’s son,” said Elyaas, his voice suddenly considerably sharper and less slimy. “You think he will ever do anything but despise you, in his heart of hearts? He knows where you belong. We all know it too. Your father will have you in the end. Someday your life here will seem like a dream, like a stupid child’s game. Someday the Great Dark One will come and drag you down and down, with usssss . . .”
His sibilant voice trailed off into a shriek as every candle flame streaked higher and higher, until they licked the ceiling. Then he vanished, with his last cry hanging on the air.
“Should have bought a sssscented candle. . . .”
Magnus proceeded to open every window in the loft. The lingering smell of sulfur and slime had barely begun to clear when the phone in his pocket rang. Magnus pulled it out, not without difficulty—his pants were tight because he felt a responsibility to the world to be gorgeous, but it meant there was not a lot of room in the pocket region—and his heart missed a beat when he saw who the call was from.
“Hey,” said Alec when Magnus answered, his voice deep and diffident.
“Why are you calling?” Magnus asked, assailed by a sudden fear that his birthday present had been immediately discovered in some way and the Lightwoods were shipping Alec to Idris because of spells cast on whips by heedless warlocks, which Alec could not explain.
“Um, I can call another time,” said Alec, sounding worried. “I’m sure you have better things to do—”
He didn’t say it in the way some of Magnus’s past lovers would have said it, accusing or demanding reassurance. He said it quite naturally, as if he accepted that was the way of the world, that he would not be anyone’s top priority. It made Magnus want to reassure him ten times as much as he would have, had Alec seemed to even slightly expect it.
“Of course I don’t, Alexander,” he said. “I was just surprised to hear from you. I imagined that you would be with your family on the big day.”
“Oh,” said Alec, and he sounded shy and pleased. “I didn’t expect you to remember.”
“It might have crossed my mind once or twice during the day,” said Magnus. “So have you been having a wonderful Shadowhunting time? Did someone give you a giant axe in a cake? Where are you, off to celebrate?”
“Er,” said Alec. “I’m kind of . . . outside your apartment?”
The buzzer rang. Magnus pressed the button to let him enter, speechless for a moment because he had wanted Alec there, so badly, and here he was. It felt more like magic than anything he could do.
Then Alec was there, standing in the open doorway.
“I wanted to see you,” said Alec with devastating simplicity. “Is this okay? I can go away if you’re busy or anything.”
It must have been raining a little outside. There were sparkling drops of water in Alec’s messy black hair. He was wearing a hoodie that Magnus thought he might have found in a Dumpster, and sloppy jeans, and his whole face was lit up just because he was looking at Magnus.
“I think,” said Magnus, pulling Alec in by the strings on his awful gray hoodie, “that I could be persuaded to clear my schedule.”
Then Alec was kissing him, and Alec’s kisses were uninhibited and utterly sincere, all of his lanky warrior’s body focused on what it wanted, all of his open heart in it as well. For a long wild euphoric moment Magnus believed that Alec did not want anything more than to be with him, that they would not be parted. Not for a long, long time.
“Happy birthday, Alexander,” Magnus murmured.
“Th
anks for remembering,” Alec whispered back.
The Last Stand of the New York Institute
By Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, and Maureen Johnson
Magnus felt for a moment as if he had become a storm, black curling clouds, the slam of thunder and slash of lightning, and all the storm wanted was to leap at Valentine’s throat. Magnus’s magic lashed out almost of its own volition, leaped from both hands. It looked like lightning, burning so blue that it was almost white. It knocked Valentine off his feet and into a wall. Valentine hit the wall so hard that a crack rang out, and he slid to the floor.
—The Last Stand of the New York Institute
New York City, 1989
The man was far too close. He lingered by the postbox about six feet away from Magnus and ate a sloppy Gray’s Papaya hot dog covered in chili. When he was done, he crumpled the chili-stained wrapper and threw it onto the ground in Magnus’s general direction, then tugged at a hole in his denim jacket and did not look away. It was like the look some animals gave their prey.
Magnus was used to a certain amount of attention. His clothing invited it. He wore silver Doc Martens, artfully torn jeans so huge that only a narrow shining silver belt prevented them from slipping entirely off, and a pink T-shirt so big that it exposed collarbones and quite a slice of chest—the kind of clothing that made people think about nakedness. Small earrings rimmed one ear, ending in a larger one swinging from his earlobe, an earring shaped like a large silver cat wearing a crown and a smirk. A silver ankh necklace rested at the point over his heart, and he had shrugged on a tailored black jacket with jet bead trimming, more to complement the ensemble than to protect against the night air. The look was completed by a Mohawk boasting a deep pink stripe.
And he was leaning against the outside wall of the West Village clinic long after dark. That was enough to bring out the worst in some people. The clinic was for AIDS patients. The modern plague house. Instead of showing compassion, or good sense, or care, many people regarded the clinic with hate and disgust. Every age thought they were so enlightened, and every age was stumbling around in much the same darkness of ignorance and fear.
“Freak,” the man finally said.
Magnus ignored this and continued reading his book, Gilda Radner’s It’s Always Something, under the dim fluorescent light of the clinic entrance. Now annoyed by the lack of reply, the man began to mumble a string of things under his breath. Magnus couldn’t hear what he was saying, but he could take an educated guess. Slurs about Magnus’s perceived sexuality, no doubt.
“Why don’t you move along?” Magnus said, calmly flipping a page. “I know an all-night salon. They can fix up that monobrow of yours in no time.”
It wasn’t the right thing to say, but sometimes these things came out. You could take only so much blind, stupid ignorance without cracking around the edges a bit.
“What did you say?”
Two cops walked by at that moment. They cast their eyes in the direction of Magnus and the stranger. There was a look of warning for the man, and a look of thinly veiled disgust for Magnus. The look hurt a bit, but Magnus was sadly used to this treatment. He had sworn long ago that no one would ever change him—not the mundanes who hated him for one thing, or the Shadowhunters currently hunting him for another.
The man walked off, but there were backward looks.
Magnus shoved his book into his pocket. It was almost eight o’clock and really too dark to be reading, and now he was distracted. He looked around. Only a few years before, this had been one of the most vibrant, celebratory, and creative corners of the city. Good food on every corner, and couples strolling along. Now the cafés seemed sparsely populated. The people walked quickly. So many had died, so many wonderful people. From where he was standing Magnus could see three apartments formerly occupied by friends and lovers. If he turned the corner and walked for five minutes, he’d pass a dozen more dark windows.
Mundanes died so easily. No matter how many times he saw it, it never got easier. He had lived for centuries now, and he was still waiting for death to get easier.
Normally he avoided this street for this very reason, but tonight he was waiting for Catarina to finish her shift at the clinic. He shifted from foot to foot and pulled his jacket tighter around his chest, regretting for a moment that he had chosen based on fashionable flimsiness rather than actual warmth and comfort. Summer had stayed late, and then the trees had turned their leaves quickly. Now those leaves were dropping fast and the streets were bare and unsheltered. The only bright spot was the Keith Haring mural on the clinic wall—bright cartoon figures in primary colors dancing together, a heart floating above them all.
Magnus’s thoughts were interrupted by the sudden reappearance of the man, who had clearly just walked around the block and gotten himself into a total state over Magnus’s comment. This time the man walked right up to Magnus and stood directly in front of him, almost toe to toe.
“Really?” Magnus said. “Go away. I’m not in the mood.”
In reply the man pulled out a jackknife and flicked it open. Their close stance meant that no one else could see it.
“You realize,” Magnus said, not looking at the point of the knife just below his face, “that by standing as you are, everyone will think we are kissing. And that is terribly embarrassing for me. I have much better taste in men.”
“You think I won’t do it, freak? You—”
Magnus’s hand went up. A hot flash of blue spread between his fingers, and in the next second his assailant was flying backward across the sidewalk, then falling and striking his head against a fire hydrant. For one moment, when the man’s prone form didn’t move right away, Magnus was worried that he had killed the man by accident, but then Magnus saw him stir. He peered up at Magnus with his eyes narrowed, a combination of terror and fury plain on his face. He was clearly a little stunned by what had just happened. A trickle of blood ran down his forehead.
At that moment Catarina emerged. She appraised the situation quickly, went right to the fallen man, and passed her hand over his head, stopping the blood.
“Get off me!” he yelled. “You came from in there! Get off me! You got the thing all over you!”
“You idiot,” Catarina said. “That’s not how you contract HIV. I’m a nurse. Let me—”
The stranger shoved Catarina away and scrabbled to his feet. Across the street some passersby watched the exchange with mild curiosity. But when the man stumbled off, they lost interest.
“You’re welcome,” she said to the retreating figure. “Jackass.”
She turned to Magnus. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “He was the one bleeding.”
“Sometimes I wish I could just let someone like that bleed,” Catarina said, taking out a tissue and wiping her hands. “What are you doing here, anyway?”
“I came here to see you home.”
“You don’t need to do that,” she said with a sigh. “I’m fine.”
“It’s not safe. And you’re exhausted.”
Catarina was listing slightly to one side. Magnus grabbed her hand. She was so tired that Magnus saw her glamour fade for a moment, saw a wash of blue on the hand he was holding.
“I’m fine,” she said again, but without much heart.
“Yes,” Magnus said. “Obviously. You know, if you don’t start taking care of yourself, you’ll force me to come to your house and make my magically disgusting tuna soup until you feel better.”
Catarina laughed. “Anything but the tuna soup.”
“Then we’ll eat something. Come on. I’ll take you to Veselka. You need some goulash and a big piece of cake.”
They walked east in silence, over slick piles of wet, crushed leaves.
Veselka was quiet, and they got a table by the window. The only people around them spoke quietly in Russian and smoked, and
ate cabbage rolls. Magnus had some coffee and rugelach. Catarina made it through a large bowl of borscht, a large plate of fried pierogi with onions and applesauce, a side of Ukrainian meatballs, and a few cherry lime rickeys. It wasn’t until she had finished these and ordered a dessert plate of cheese blintzes that she found the energy to speak.
“It’s bad in there,” she said. “It’s hard.”
There was little Magnus could say, so he just listened.
“The patients need me,” she said, poking her straw into the ice in her otherwise empty glass. “Some of the doctors—people who should know better—won’t even touch the patients. And it’s so horrible, this disease. The way they just waste away. Nobody should die like that.”
“No,” Magnus said.
Catarina poked at the ice a moment longer and then leaned back in the booth and sighed deeply.
“I can’t believe the Nephilim are causing trouble now, of all times,” she said, rubbing her face with one hand. “Nephilim kids, no less. How is this even happening?”
This was the reason Magnus had waited by the clinic to walk Catarina home. It wasn’t because the neighborhood was bad—the neighborhood wasn’t bad. He’d waited for Catarina because it was no longer completely safe for Downworlders to be alone. He could hardly believe that Downworld was in a state of chaos and fear over the actions of a gang of stupid Shadowhunter youths.
When he had first heard the murmurings, just a few months before, Magnus had rolled his eyes. A pack of Shadowhunters, barely twenty years old, barely more than children, were rebelling against their parents’ laws. Big deal. The Clave and Covenant and respected-elders shtick had always seemed to Magnus the ideal recipe for a youth revolt. This group called themselves the Circle, one Downworlder report had said, and they were led by a charismatic youth named Valentine. The group comprised some of the brightest and best of their generation.
The Bane Chronicles Page 31
