One
The world was a blur of shadows and movement, dim flickering light and the jarring rumble of noise—shouting, laughing, taunting, all meaningless, crushed together into a universe of chaos. Oliver could barely stay on his feet, and darkness sat waiting behind his eyes; the tall man stood before him, a vague blur with arms that occasionally struck out at him. Here came an arm again, and Oliver ducked sideways—knuckles scraped his ear and he stumbled a foot backwards, his hands dipping as a surge of dizziness nearly knocked him right over.
The blur with arms made a move. It barreled straight into him, radiating heat and exhaustion, and the both of them tumbled backwards. Oliver's back smashed into the low wall and hands pushed him back out again, into the chest of the man. He slid out and backed away, trying to blink meaning back into the world—and then an arm flashed out, a speedy shadow, and he got knocked square in the face.
He blinked, feeling that the was lying on the ground, splayed out awkwardly with the dim lamp hanging overhead, casting its dingy light over the small, cramped, smoky room. People were yelling and jeering. Oliver lifted himself up onto his knees, and then to his feet; slowly the noise died, until it was back to its usual fierce muttering. The tall man had been resting with his hands on his knees, and now he looked up and swore, and spat out a mouthful of blood.
"Come get me, go ahead," Oliver taunted, stumbling sideways and holding out his arms. The crowd liked this, and showed their approval by jeering some more.
The man's little eyes narrowed, and he forced himself on shaking legs back towards Oliver. He was a brute, this man, over six feet tall with a neck the size of a lamppost, and broad shoulders that two grown men could have sat on, at either side, comfortably. The man was currently having a bit of trouble—blood leaked from his nose, his mouth, and from over one eye—his knuckles were scraped and raw from punching, and bruises from older fights covered his face and his stomach. He moved towards Oliver, wheezing through his nose, blinking the sweat and the blood out of his eyes.
"Barely human!" a voice shouted from the darkness surrounding the ring, and Oliver wondered if they meant him. In which case they were on to something.
The man lunged for Oliver, who ducked aside. The man growled as he stumbled into the low wooden wall—he turned dizzily, and threw a punch, which missed. Oliver punched him in the kidney, his fist sinking into the man's sweaty skin. While he was dazed, he swung back and hit him as hard as he could in the jaw. The impact jarred Oliver's fist, and the man went sprawling backwards, falling onto the dirty floor, smack unconscious.
The crowd jeered some more, and Oliver quietly lay down and passed out.
Ten minutes later Oliver was stumbling out onto the street with his arm around another boy's shoulders. The street was dark and empty, except for a stray cat rooting around in the garbage by the sidewalk and the lampposts, standing above the road glowing softly yellow. Voices in French carried after them as they left behind the alleyway, down which was the fighting ring. Oliver had a rag stuffed up his nose and he was feeling too fuzzy to really get a grasp of what had happened, other than that fifty dollars sat rolled up safely in his jacket pocket.
"You're a monster, by the way," said the boy who was supporting him.
"Course," Oliver grunted, with a satisfied smile. "Big scary monster."
"You are. You killed him you know."
Oliver's eyebrows drew together. "I did what?"
"Aneurism. A punch in the wrong spot, I guess, and plop, dead. Nice job, Ollie."
Oliver was too confused to think up an answer, so they walked on in silence. This part of Montreal, near to the harbor, was a dangerous place by night; muggers and addicts and worse things besides wandered the darkened streets and lay waiting in the alleys. It was nothing they couldn't handle—in fact it was everyone else who should have been afraid of them. They didn't look it, though—Oliver was tall and skinny, with a mop of brown hair and owlish eyes that were fierce and usually bright with the suggestion of intelligence. At the moment, they were glazed and bloodshot, and his mouth was hanging open slightly as blood gradually soaked the rag stuffed up his nose. He leaned heavily on the other boy, his feet dragging.
"We'll talk about it in the morning," the other boy decided, hefting Oliver's weight uncomfortably. He said to himself, "Right now you're dead out of it. One day you're going to drop and never get up again, Ollie, I swear. No amount of iratzes…" He trailed off, realizing it was hopeless, and they moved on in silence for a while. Sebastien was the same height as Oliver, though he was a handful of years older—he looked smart and handsome, his long coat sweeping around his legs and his top hat low over his eyes.
They stumbled together down Aylmer Street, towards Sainte-Catherine—to any onlooker, they might have seemed like two drunk boys heading home late; that is, if anyone had been able to see them. After leaving the public house, Sebastien had sensibly cloaked them in glamours—after drawing a handful of iratzes on his friend, who, though they had certainly helped to some degree, still looked like a walking hunk of raw meat, covered in blood and bruises. Sebastien suffered Oliver's boxing habit with grace, but he didn't like it very much.
"Ici, mon ami," Sebastien murmured under his breath, as they came up to the front of St. James. The church towered above into the cloudy night sky, its tower topped with a large stone cross. Behind the stained-glass windows, soft light glowed welcomingly. Sebastien half-dragged Oliver up the steps, and leaned over to ring the bell rope near the doors.
A minute or two later, the left-hand door was pulled open and a woman appeared, a familiar shadow against the backdrop of light. She took them in, and said, "I'm considering closing the door in your faces."
"I know, I know," Sebastien said. He sighed at Oliver, who was leaning heavily against him, his head lolling slightly as he blinked his eyes through the doorway. "Couldn't stop him."
The door was pulled open all the way and Eve stepped back. Sebastien hauled Oliver in with him. The main hall of the church was grand, almost breath-taking, especially now in the dimness, lit by flickering witchlight that sat in the candle-holders between the rows of pews. Stained-glass windows lined the walls, depicting angels and Biblical scenes; the church was still used for Sunday service, although the mundanes had no idea whatsoever that the rest of the time it was used by demon-hunting Shadowhunters.
Eve helped Sebastien with Oliver; they took him up the three flights of stairs to his room. He started rambling about the money he'd won, which Eve promptly took out of his pocket; when they finally got to his room, Sebastien felt his arms in danger of falling off. He dragged him inside, and dropped him onto the bed, where he lay looking dazed.
"Eve?" he called to the woman in the doorway. He smiled, his teeth slightly bloody. "I won again."
Eve shut the door loudly.
"She's not happy, either," Sebastien said, and he came over to help Oliver out of his clothes.
"About what?" Oliver said vaguely, as Sebastien undid his jacket.
"About you." Sebastien tossed the jacket into a corner and meanly wrenched his shirt off over his head. He tossed that away, too, and looked at his skinny friend, who sat on the bed, face a mess, hair askew, in his shirtsleeves. A nasty bunch of purple-green bruises covered the visible part of his chest, and there was one growing on his jaw.
"You're beautiful," Sebastien told him, and pulled the blankets back so Oliver could climb in.
He did, and put his head on the pillow, still looking dazed. "Did you say I'm beautiful?" he murmured.
"Yes, gorgeous. Has Rembrandt painted you yet?" He untied Oliver's shoes and took them off, then put them at the side of the bed.
"I don't think so," Oliver said uncertainly, his eyes closed and his voice slurred.
"Get some sleep. Hopefully in the morning you'll be all there." He started towards the door.
"All right," Oliver said faintly, obviously already half-asleep.
Sebastien glanced back, sighed, and then stepped out into the hallway, closing the door quietly behind him. He went to his own room, which was all the way at the top of the church, on the floor below the attic, and changed into some new clothes, softer, more comfortable ones. He hung his hat up and put away his coat, and briefly glanced in the looking-glass—a pale young man looked back at him, tired and slightly red-eyed. He hadn't been getting enough sleep, he reminded himself; between Oliver's antics, his own personal problems, and his duties as a Shadowhunter, he'd barely been sleeping at all lately.
He didn't feel like it yet tonight, either. He went out of his room, closing the door softly, and headed down through the labyrinthine hallways of the Montreal Institute. The small windows looked out on the late-night streets of the city—the lights of buildings, the long strip of darkness that was the river, winding through. The immediate area surrounding the church was quiet and residential, and it was a fairly long walk to the downtown core.
Sebastien made his way down the long, winding staircase, towards the floor above the main one, where there was the parlour, the dining room, and Marcel's office. He went into the parlour and took a look around; Eve was sitting on the couch before the fire, looking over a stack of papers. He came in softly, and she looked up when she noticed him.
"Can't sleep," she said to him in French.
"I don't feel like it either," he replied, sinking down into an armchair beside her. For a few moments Eve sifted through her papers, and the fire snapped and cracked into the silence.
"That Oliver," she murmured eventually. She was smallish and had sweet French features, an oval face with a little beaked nose and thin eyebrows. Her fair hair was pulled into a bun behind her head, and she was wearing men's clothes this evening, as usual—a grey shirt and vest, black trousers and a thick belt. She held up a page for Sebastien to look at. "You see this?"
"What is it?" he asked.
"It's all the money Oliver has won boxing," she said, and put the page down again.
"Is it a lot?"
She nodded. "Seven hundred and twenty dollars since January." She glanced at the fire, her expression difficult to read. She was in her twenties somewhere, or early thirties—Sebastien had no idea really and was too polite to ask. Her husband Marcel, who ran the Institute, was at least fifty.
"If Oliver lost money boxing, or even if he won a bit less," she went on, "I'd put my foot down and tell him to stop. But he's winning so much that I think it'll hurt the Institute if I do."
"It's hurting him anyway," Sebastien said.
"Yes, and that's why I wish I could tell him to stop! But we need the money. The Council doesn't pay us enough to keep the place going, not with all of us here…"
"Well, Renaud is leaving in June."
"Even with Renaud gone." She sifted through the papers again. "But never mind all this. It gives me a headache. How are you doing, Sebastien? I feel like we haven't gotten a chance to talk in ages, with all the madness going around here."
"I'm all right," he said. "Tired."
"Naturally. We run you like a mule." She put the papers away, and crossed her thin arms. "And… how is all that going? We can talk about it, if you want. A good time for it, everyone's fast asleep—,"
"I hate that we can only talk about it in secret," he said, restlessly shifting on the chair.
"Well," she said softly, "you know what would happen if everyone knew, Sebastien. They would not take you seriously anymore. It would be a disaster."
He ran a hand through his hair, and breathed out through his teeth. "I'm so tired."
"We all are," she told him.
He thought of Oliver, sleeping off his injuries in his room, oblivious to everything. Even his best friend didn't know—Eve was the only person in the world. The other person who had known was now dead; Sebastien tried not to think too much about that, though. He glanced towards the window—firelight flickered orange against the glass, reflecting back a ghost image of the parlour. He looked at his hands, pale with large knuckles, crisscrossed with faded runes and newer ones, that stood out sharp and black against his skin.
He was a Shadowhunter. A man.
But of course women were Shadowhunters, too. Though it was harder for them certainly. "Eve, what do I do?" he said.
"Keep it quiet," she replied, her narrow brown eyes full of meaning and compassion. Despite her hard, sharp features and attitude, Eve was very kind. Sebastien knew Oliver didn't believe that, because she treated him strictly—it was probably good that someone did. If nobody told Oliver what not to do, he'd just go ahead and do everything.
"I could get away with it, maybe," Sebastien said, but he already knew how this conversation would go. They'd had it enough times.
"Oh, mon cher Sebastien," she said. "I wish that was so, but you know you couldn't."
"I could try!"
"And how people would look at you! In a better world, Sebastien, but we live in this one, and it's a hard, cruel place."
He knew she was right.
Tom walked down the side of the road, his shoulders hunched and his head ducked against the crisp autumn wind. His hat was pulled over his eyes, and he walked with a slight limp, wishing nothing more than for the world to forget he existed.
He'd passed through town after town in the last few days, wandering into stores to buy any sort of food they had, and then wandering out again to continue on down the road. No one really seemed to notice him—a few people happening to pass him asked if he was all right. He never replied.
It was early in the morning, and the grass under his feet crunched with frost. His breath showed up in the air, wisps of smoke that quickly rose into the sunlight and the cold air—the sun was just starting to rise over some faraway hills, showering the fields and the farms and the little towns scattered around in gold; it was a beautiful place to be walking, and there were plenty of horses and carriages and wagons—but Tom felt none of it. He had only one thing in mind, to get to Montreal. What happened then was anyone's guess. If he couldn't find the Institute, maybe he'd just crawl into a gutter and die.
"Attends!"
He didn't look up. He barely reacted. It wasn't until a hand caught at his arm that he was jarred back into reality, and stared into a woman's obviously very concerned face.
"Mon Dieu," she said, seemingly to herself, staring at him and hesitantly reaching with gloved hands to raise his hat and look into his face. She spoke to him quickly in French, and Tom took very little meaning from it—he stared at her blankly, feeling dizzy and afraid.
"Please, no," he said, trying to pull away.
"Anglais?" she demanded. "English? Little boy, you are very sick."
"I'm fine," he said, feeling vaguely insulted while at the same time distantly pleased. "I need to go. Get away from me."
A flash of confusion, then deeper concern, raced across her kind face. She was a French lady of the highest degree, it seemed—a large hat with feathers on it, a shawl around her shoulders, and a checkered dress that was obviously expensive. Pearls dangled from her neck; behind her, Tom saw, was a man, watching under the brim of his top hat, holding onto a cane suspended a few inches from the ground.
"Alors," he said to the woman. "Le laisser seul, Marie."
The woman ignored him, and fussily examined Tom's face, turning his head side to side. He stood without complaint, but rather wished she could have stopped bothering him.
She went on in fractured English, but Tom was past being able to listen. The man took the woman's arm, and led her away. She gave up, and they quietly passed through a garden gate and down a path toward a farmhouse that sat up a slope from the road. Tom continued on, stumbling down the road with the distant blur of the city in the distance. He judged that he would get there by dark, or just before. His legs ached—all of him ached—and he had been wondering for days why he just didn't lie down and give up.
Something in him refused. On he went.
He passed more farmhouses, and gradually the road became wider and more well-taken-care-of—it turned into cobblestone around the time the sun began to descend in the clear fall sky. Small shops and houses lined the road here, and there were more people about; past the houses, the green fields rolled off into the distance, and trees, colored spectacularly red and orange and yellow, stood quietly as sentries out there against the fading blue sky. Tom passed through the little village, refusing his body's furious need to sit down and rest for a while. He was so close to Montreal—he could see it now in better detail—and the idea of stopping now seemed a bit like giving up. No one noticed him, ragged as he was in his old coat, the clothes he'd gotten from a trash bin. None of them fit quite right, the trousers were too short, the shirt too long on his arms and too large in the shoulders—the coat much too big, a man's coat, reaching down to near his knees; but at least the hat was all right. He could hide his face with it.
Through his fogged, exhausted mind, some thoughts got through—he remembered the frantic haze of events that had forced him to leave the Ottawa Institute. There had been a fight with a vampire, and his cousin had been killed—and that had put him in a bad frame of mind—and then the funeral, and someone's birthday the day after, what terrible timing… there had been a dance, and he had stood upstairs in a dress and felt frozen and unable to move a foot—the maid came in, said Are you going down or not? He'd said he would. She left, and he ripped off his clothes, snuck through the halls in his underclothes to his cousin's empty room—grabbed things from the dresser to wear, (they were comically big on him), got his knife from the weapons room, hacked off all his hair, took all the money from his room, and left into the darkness. He wasn't sure where he was going. He'd gotten a ride on a cart carrying hay out of the city, and it was morning before he had the idea of continuing on to Montreal. He was heading east anyway. He had no real idea of how far it was, or how he would manage to get there without dying on the road, but it was a plan—and he stuck to it.
Now he was almost there.
The runes helped. He had his stele, of course, and he'd inked some wakefulness, night vision, and stamina runes on himself—glamours might have helped, but he wasn't very good at those and the last time he'd tried, he'd set his eyebrows on fire. He realized how badly trained a Shadowhunter he was; he could fight just fine, and throw knives like anybody else at the Institute, but he was a coward and a fool, (he told himself so), and he didn't possess the levelheadedness of the others. His plan had been terrible from the outset, and it was a miracle he was still alive. Just outside of Ottawa, he'd been ambushed by a group of vicious little demons, who not only tried to kill him, but also teased him mercilessly and seemed, somehow, to know exactly what he was, regardless of how he dressed. He killed them all (after spraining an ankle and losing a small slice of his left ear) and kicked them into the gutter at the side of the road. It hadn't been the end of his troubles; the next day when he stopped to try and get some food at someone's farm, he'd taken off his coat and they'd caught on. They drove him out and he remembered the woman standing in the doorway, watching him go, crossing herself. He'd decided after that to keep the coat on, never take it off.
All that remained now was the last few miles to Montreal. He stumbled on in a haze of fear, hunger, exhaustion and shame—he knew what he looked like. He knew what he sounded like. To pretend he was Tom was a stretch by anyone's imagination. But he tried to tell himself the more he believed it, the more it would be true—like Aladdin in Arabian Knights, who was turned into a prince by the genie, and began to be convinced that's what in fact exactly what he was, even when he was only really still a poor boy.
Tom forced his feet on. Here more buildings began to appear—houses, large brick ones of three or four stories, rising behind thick hedges and unfriendly gates. The road was narrower, but cobblestone and busy—he had to keep to the side to avoid getting run over by horses and wagons and carriages. Well-dressed men ambled by in hats and coats, women on their arms. Tom realized, blearily, how awful he probably looked. He'd been passing out in ditches for the past two weeks, after all.
He wandered by a tavern, and happened to catch a glimpse of himself in a window—and he stopped dead, horrified by the image staring back at him. Surely that couldn't be him. So pale and scrawny, short lank dark hair escaping from a dirty hat, coat long and ragged—tattoos were visible at the bottom of his throat, and on his hands. He looked terrible.
Never mind, keep walking, he told himself, mouthing the words at the apparition in the window, and on he went.
The wind played games with the fallen leaves on the street, tossing them around people's feet, the legs of horses and the wheels of wagons and carriages and carts. Tom walked through them, now with more of a purpose and energy in his step since obviously he was finally getting there—the farmland he'd been passing through for weeks had been beautiful, but ultimately boring and vaguely depressing; it was lonely, and it forced him into a listless haze. Now that he was back among people, the world seemed to shift into focus again, and get some meaning back. He was off to find the Montreal Institute—that was the plan—and since it was against the Law for an Institute to refuse any Shadowhunter who showed up on the door, he knew he would at least get lodging there. After that, he had no idea. Maybe they would be nice, and let him stay—or maybe the Ottawa Institute was in hysterics wondering where he'd gone, and after whoever ran the one in Montreal found out who he was, he'd be sent back. He didn't like that idea much at all.
He strode down the street with all the energy he could muster, which wasn't a lot. He felt desperately conspicuous—maybe in better clothes, it would be all right? Easier to get by unnoticed? Or maybe not. He just tried to keep his head down, and to avoid people's eyes. It was a strange feeling, walking as a boy; you got less attention, that was for sure, and total strangers didn't reach for your arm to help you over puddles. That part of it, he was enjoying quite a bit. He'd never liked people helping him, and as a boy it was obvious you didn't get much of that.
Except for the woman back in the farmland, who had stopped him and said he looked sick. Well, he knew he looked sick, but what could he do about it? There was nothing to do, until he got to the Institute. Wherever it was.
He turned a corner and found himself at the beginning of a wider thoroughfare; the thick of the city lay up ahead, an hour's walk now—he could feel his legs shake, not from exhaustion, but from nerves. There were cars here, lots of them, and people talking in French. He wasn't very good at French, he knew the basics, but a city full of it was daunting.
He passed an alleyway, and someone in there looked up at him. He didn't realize, he was too caught up in fear and worry. It wasn't until a few blocks later that he got a tap on the shoulder, and turned, his heart leaping into his throat, to face a tall man in an expensive-looking suit. The man had white gloves and held a jade-tipped cane—he cocked his head at Tom, and smiled, without showing his teeth. Tom stared back, and felt a distant prickle of distrust. Vampire, maybe? He had that look about him.
"Hello," said the man. He had long, colorless hair, and a thin beaked nose. Tom sensed something beneath the surface, and then the glamour began to fade, peeling away like layers of paint—sure enough, the man now had slitted red eyes and horns curling out the sides of his head. He looked positively devilish. "I noticed you passing by, Shadowhunter."
"What are you?" Tom said. He didn't want to fight, not now—he could barely stay on his feet as it was, he was so exhausted. He had his knife, hidden under his coat, but if the creature struck, could he reach it in time? He felt that if it came to a fight, he'd have no chance.
"Who, you mean," the creature said, assuming a hurt expression. "I'm Isaiah Claw. Before you comment that it sounds silly—I didn't make it up. It's my stage name, someone else made it up for me. Claws, you see." He slipped off a glove, and raised a hand, wiggling his fingers, which Tom saw had long, sharp black nails. He lowered his hand and peered intently at Tom. "You're in bad shape, Shadowhunter."
Tom swayed on his feet slightly, trying to think of an appropriate answer. He'd been learning about demons since he was little, but he could not for the life of him remember what you were supposed to do when one struck up a pleasant conversation with you. Knife them in the heart? Was that right? That was what you were supposed to do, regardless of what the demon did.
"Oh, don't fall down," the creature said, and took his arm firmly. It began to lead him down the street, and Tom was a little too out of it to argue. "How would it look, falling right in the middle of the street? No, that won't do. You've been walking for a long time, haven't you?"
"From Ottawa," Tom said. "I think I'm supposed to kill you."
"Yes, of course. After we have a little talk, you can do all the killing you want."
Seemed reasonable enough. They walked in silence for a while, and then the creature went on, "I'm not the devil, or a demon, for that matter, if you are wondering. I'm a warlock. Call me Isaiah—Mr. Claw is what people call me when they're making fun of me, which is quite often, for some reason. Shadowhunter, may I ask your name?"
"A… Tom."
"A-Tom," the warlock repeated. "Curious name."
"Tom."
"Ah, of course. Your given name, I wonder, or a name you gave yourself?" Isaiah was still holding Tom's arm; they were walking leisurely down a quieter street. Up ahead, water glimmered between tall brick buildings with dark facings—crows grouped on the roofs. The sun had almost set now, and the sky was a dizzying blaze of autumn colors. The air smelled crisp and cool. Tom watched his and the creature's shadows follow them along the uneven cobblestone ground.
"Where are we going?" Tom said.
"Somewhere safe, Shadowhunter, somewhere safe. You've—unknowingly I hope—wandered right into the vampire part of Montreal. We're going to go to a house that belongs to a friend of mine, and I'm going to get your story out of you, and save your life at the same time. Don't bother thanking me." His voice became light and amused. "No one ever thanks me—they think I'm a big joke. Just up there, that's the way. Good girl."
They had come to a dark doorway—the door was set deep into the brick wall, and it all looked very unwelcoming. Tom was about to comment on something to this effect, but then he passed out, neatly into the warlock's arms.