Second Death

'"You know what it's like when your parents are good churchgoing folk and you happen to be born with the devil's mark?" He pointed at his eyes, fingers splayed. "When your father flinches at the sight of you and your mother hangs herself in the barn, driven mad by what she's done?"'
Magnus Bane
City of Bones, Pg 215

He sits on the floor, dark hair falling over his forehead and eyes as he absently examines the small stones he has collected - another thing his father hates. He should be interested in farming and hunting and all those other 'manly' things. Not stones. But there is something hypnotising about the smooth cool of them, the tiny, brilliant lights that flash and change as he moves them. The way that sometimes, if he holds them and thinks in the right way, he feels that ripple up his spine and the stones glow. He's never let anyone else see that.

"Magnus?"

He looks up at the voice, allowing the smooth fragments to fall through his fingers. His father stands in the doorway, looking tired but decisive - and pleased with whatever decision he has made. Magnus tries a tentative smile, and is amazed to see the answering grin on his father's face. It's been a long time since that face looked at him with anything other than hatred and fear.

"I was wondering if you'd come down to the creek with me. There's something I'd like to show you."

Startled, he feels his eyes widen and his mouth open to argue. He quickly clamps his mouth shut and nods. Whatever strange, soft-hearted mood his father is in, he doesn't want to ruin it, doesn't want to spoil the first civilized conversation he's had with him in years - since his mother killed herself, he thinks. Pushing himself gracefully to his feet, he follows the older man out of his room, down the stairs and out the front door.

He likes the creek. He goes there often, when he wants to be alone, or to think, or to just get away from... everything. He finds nice stones here, smoothed by the water. They're the ones that glow the best, better than the ones he finds in the woods or in the farming fields. And sometimes, when they break open, there are small, glittering lights inside, reflected off of what looks like shards of glass. His feet follow the path automatically, tracing the familiar footsteps behind his father, until they turn off onto an unfamiliar path and he nearly stumbles, jarred out of some natural rhythm he'd fallen into.

Now he's paying attention, he can see that the calm his father had earlier is gone, along with the smile he wore. There's a nervous, excited expression there now, and his shoulders are tense, fingers knotting and unknotting themselves and they hand by his side. As if he can feel the gaze of his son, the man turns and smiles distractedly at Magnus, before looking at the sun as it sits low on the horizon, and speeds up the pace of his walking. Magnus glances at the sun too, noticing the orange-red hue of the sky around it, and shivers. He's not superstitious -not like those idiots at the village, he thinks contemptuously - but he can't help thinking; blood will have blood, as they say.

They arrive by the edge of the creek just as the bottom of the sun touches the earth. The sky deepens almost instantly to a crimson blood red. The river is deeper here, water running swiftly over treacherous rocks submerged deep beneath the waterline. Only sprays of white foam on the surface betray their presence. Magnus has never been to this spot before, preferring the calmer, smoother waters, and he doesn't like it. The hairs on the back of his neck prickling, and he slips one hand into his pocket and runs a hand over the rock there, thumb smoothing over its rough surface. He wishes he could take it out and make it glow, illuminate the darkness that is steadily falling, but his father is still watching him. Such a move would be more than suicidal, no matter how much the action would calm him.

There is rustling behind him, and he spins around, slit-pupiled eyes squinting into the gloom. His father moves closer behind him, pulling him back slightly until he is inches away from the waters edge. He doesn't question the movement, has never questioned anything his father has done to him. In some small, dark recess of his mind he knows he deserves it - otherwise, why else would his father do it to him?

As he watches, people emerged from the bushes. Men, whom he knows as friends of his father, appear on by one, forming a loose semi-circle around Magnus and his father. Magnus glances behind him and looks at the river, before turning back and looking at the ring of grinning faces. Finally, he turns to face his father. The older man was pale, very pale, forehead shining with sweat.

"So, you came, then? Thought you might be too scared."
The men seem to be ignoring him, addressing his father directly. The voice that speaks is deep and growly, with the hint of a sardonic laugh waiting to be voiced.
"Ye- yes." His father is hesitant and nervous. "I'd never let- let you down." He laughs anxiously.
The other men laugh along with him - but not in the nice sense. Magnus flinches, wrapping arms covered in goosebumps around his shoulders.
"Get on with it then!" This voice is gruff, impatient. "We've not got all night."

Magnus looks confusedly at his father, feeling- he's not quite sure. Betrayed? Upset? Angry? He doesn't understand what's going on, and he doesn't understand how he's feeling. He just stands there, looking at the man that's made the last few years a living hell for him, taking in his worried eyes, nervous movements. What's going on?

"Magnus. Come here."

He complies, turning to face the water with his father at his back, watching the swirling, shifting patterns. One of his hands drops again to his pocket, worrying at the stone that sits there.

"Look closer."

He crouches down, peering closely at the rolling, deeply sapphire surface, and sees, dimly, his father behind him, one hand coming down towards his back. A sudden rush of understanding comes to him, and he tries to twist around, to get out of the way, but it's too late and-

Water. All around him, rushing in his mouth and nose and ears and he can't breath, he can't see, he can't think, he can't anything, and he's so, so scared. Trying to drag in a breath, he chokes, feeling the water rush down his throat. His eyes open in surprise, staring at the murky bottom of the river, at the jagged rocks, and he wonders if he'll die here, water in his lungs and body trapped in the blue dusk between the grey-brown stone with the glittering lights...

Lights.

A rush of remembering brings the memory off the glowing stones, lighting up the night, and how the ones from the river work best, the ones with the light already inside. These ones, they have the have the light on the outside, he thinks, so they might work even better. A distraction, maybe long enough for him pull away from the hands around his neck and wrists, to run away - anywhere would be better.

His body is screaming out for oxygen as he closes his eyes, calling up the warm, gentle feeling he remembers so well from the rocks, recalling it as vividly as possible, and then the shudder running up his spine is there. It feels as if he's opened his eyes again, but a different set - one that is far inside him, in his chest, and despite the dizziness from lack of oxygen it is the most wonderful sensation he's ever felt. Carefully, with hands that don't seem quite real, he reaches out for the rocks, brushing lightly over them and calling up the memory of light from deep within.

The response reaches him almost instantly, and he screams with the force of it, bubbles streaming out of his mouth as he uses the last of his breath. These rocks are different, so different. The pebbles know light, with a small, gentle touch of heat. These rocks were born in fire, in heat strong enough to melt stone and boil earth, a heat strong enough to tear across the land in a glowing wave of molten stone. They remember only that boiling, searing fire and they pour it directly into Magnus' bones, answering his command with sun and fire. He struggles with the unbearable pain for a moment, before releasing it, channelling it towards the restraints around his neck and wrists.

The response is instant release - he drags himself from the river, on hands and knees, retching up water as he shakes with fear and adrenalin and that strange, shivering sensation still rippling through his spine. After all he water has left him, he pulls himself upwards, aching from the fire of moments ago.

The faces of the men around him move from the young, bedraggled boy in front of him, with the burns around his wrists and the glowing hands, to the charred form on the ground, eyes wide with horror. Magnus' eyes move with theirs, drawn irresistibly to the dead body of his father, burnt beyond recognition, lying on the floor.

He should feel shocked, sad, sorry, anything – not numb and tired. Not, not… blank. But he aches all over and his lungs are burning from the water and the smell of burnt flesh is making him want to throw up again, and he looks at the faces of the advancing men-

-and runs. He doesn't look back, doesn't think, just stumbles almost blindly forward in the near dark, just runs.

He's not quite sure what he's running from.