Chapter 3—Blackout
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"We need to get him to the infirmary," Isabelle said as I hit the ground.
"Not enough time," Clary and Jace said at the same time. They turned me onto my stomach and Clary began sketching runes next to the wound, dulling the pain when Jace pulled out the object that hit my shoulder. I heard him swear.
"The knife was poisoned," he growled, tossing the knife on the ground. "Clary, can you stop the poison's progress long enough for us to get him to the infirmary?"
"Probably," she said, drawing one more rune. When she finished Jace picked me up and we took an elevator up a level to what I assume was the infirmary.
"What happened to him?" an unfamiliar voice asked.
"Hit by a poisoned knife," Jace said briefly. "I'm not sure what kind of poison it was, though."
"We'll have to hope for the best," she said, using something to place a few drops of liquid onto the open wound. My back arched in pain as it sizzled.
"This is a powerful poison, most likely demon poison of some kind," she said. She tried several different combinations, and after what felt like the fifth unsuccessful attempt the right antidote was found, easing the pain. They placed a few healing runes, iratzes, on my shoulder to close the wound.
"Who is this?" the woman asked the others. "You never told me."
"It's the person I called you about last night, Mom," Alec said. "He was hit as we made our way here."
"How? Who hit him?" she demanded.
"Let's explain this in the library," Alec said. "Simon, stay here and let us know when Jacob wakes up."
"Sure," Simon said. I heard him pull up a chair, but after that I fell too deeply asleep to listen any more.
As I slept I dreamt an odd dream. I was watching two adults, one of whom was holding a small child. They were looking over a large city.
"Jacob, this is Alicante," the mother said. "It's the capital of our great country, Idris."
I walked over to them and saw a large city. Two large towers were in the city, made from the same material as seraph blades.
"What kind of dream is this?" I said. I walked over to the couple and looked down on the couple. The father was about my height and similar build and the mother was a bit shorter with light blonde hair. I looked down at the baby and jumped.
Its hair looked like mine.
"This isn't a dream, this is a memory," I said. The dream changed suddenly. It went from middle of the day to night, a few weeks later. Several Shadowhunters snuck up on the house the three people lived in, taking care of any alarms before sneaking in. I ran inside and saw the parents, my parents, I realized, fighting the Shadowhunters. They were overpowered and killed, though, and I watched as the Shadowhunters took me from my crib and took me away. I followed the man who was the one to kill my parents, and when light shined on his face my eyes widened, shocked.
It was the Director.
"No!" I screamed. I tried to fling fire at him, but my powers didn't work in the dream. I kept screaming until I was shaken awake.
"Jake! It's just a dream!" Simon yelled, shaking me awake.
My eyes shot open and I sat up, almost hitting my head on his. There were scorch marks on the sheets and bed.
"Sorry about the bed," I told him.
"It's fine," he assured me. I put my head in my hands and thought back to the mysterious dream I had.
"I'll go tell the others you're awake," Simon told me.
"Kay," I replied. He left the room and I concentrated on the dream, or was it a memory? I wasn't sure. The child looked like me, but I was sure they made me like that. One thing I knew for sure, though, was that I wasn't born part-warlock. The baby's eyes weren't the same bright blue as mine.
Before I could think about anything else the infirmary doors opened and Simon, Alec, Isabelle, Clary, Jace, and Alec and Isabelle's mother walked in.
"Good, you're awake," Alec's mom said.
"Um, okay?" I replied, confused.
"Alec explained everything to me," she said. "My name is Maryse Lightwood, and I am the head of this Institute."
"Nice to meet you," I replied. "I'm Jacob."
"Jacob DiCarten, I know," she said.
"Actually, I'm not sure what my last name is anymore," I said with a sigh.
"What?" she demanded. "What do you mean, you're not sure what your last name is?"
"A doctor gave me that name," I told her. "Plus, I had this strange dream."
"What kind of dream?" Clary asked me.
"I'm actually not sure if it was a dream," I replied. "It felt more like a memory. I was watching a Shadowhunter couple holding a baby while looking over the city of Alicante. The mother called the baby 'Jacob', and he had the same hair as me. He didn't have the same, eyes, though. They were a normal blue. I saw another memory, a few weeks later and at night, of Shadowhunters breaking into my parents' house and killing them, kidnapping me in the process. That means I was born a Shadowhunter, and 'DiCarten' doesn't sound like a Shadowhunter name."
"Whoa," Jace said. "How did you do that all in one breath?"
"Jace, be nice," Clary said.
"I thought you couldn't remember anything," Alec commented.
"Apparently, memories are beginning to come back," I replied. "Before, we just thought that I never had memories before I woke up, but they were just well-suppressed. Having Magnus read my memories or something must have begun unlocking them."
"That's good," Maryse said. "I contacted the members of the Conclave so that we can have a meeting. After that, we'll go to the Clave."
"What's the difference?" I asked her. "Between the Clave and Conclave, I mean."
"The Conclave is the gathering of Shadowhunters in our area," Jace said. "The Clave is all Shadowhunters."
"Oh."
"We meet tonight to discuss you," she said. "You five are allowed to come, since you are 18 or older," she added, looking to the other five teenagers. "Jacob, how old are you?"
"Good question. I have no idea," I told her.
She looked me up and down a few times. "You look about 18. You're allowed to go, too."
"Only Shadowhunters eighteen years old or older are allowed to go," Simon explained.
"Thanks," I replied. I sat up and the sheets fell down to my stomach. "Can I have a shirt since you took mine?"
"Well, it was covered in blood," Jace said.
"I'll get you a shirt," Simon said. "You look about my size."
"Thanks," I told him. He nodded and left.
"How long was I out?" I asked them as I stretched my back.
"About a day, give or take an hour," Isabelle said. "We took shifts looking over you."
"Okay."
The next few minutes were filled with an awkward silence until Simon came in with a black tee shirt.
"I figured you'd like another black shirt," Simon explained, tossing it to me.
"Thanks," I replied, pulling it over my head. It was a bit tighter than my old shirt, but would work.
"Do you think you could've gotten him a tighter shirt?" Clary said sarcastically.
"Yeah, but then it wouldn't fit him," Simon said with as much sarcasm as she used.
They just rolled their eyes as I looked around for my hoodie.
"Where's my hoodie?" I asked them.
"It had to be trashed as well," Jace said. "Sorry."
"Where are my weapons and stele?" I asked them.
"You gave him weapons?" Maryse demanded.
"I stole them from the people that were holding me in the tube," I explained to her. "Even though my magic works as well as a weapon, I've gotten used to the blades."
"Of course," she said. Isabelle held out a box from a table next to me.
"We put your stuff in here," she told me. I accepted the box and removed the two seraph blades and stele. They even put a weapons belt in the box for me. They watched me as I figured out how to put on the belt and attach my blades and stele.
"Your boots are right here," Clary said, tossing me my boots.
I climbed out of the bed and pulled on the boots.
"I'll show you to your room," Simon said when I was ready to go. I followed him through the halls as he talked about how he used to be mundane.
"I actually used to be a vampire," he told me. "It was taken away from me by a demon, though, along with my memories. Clary and the others managed to recover my memories and Ascended me to be a Shadowhunter. Ascension is when a mundane becomes a Shadowhunter by drinking from the Mortal Cup."
"That's cool," I replied. "What's with Clary and Jace? It's like they never leave the other's side."
He chuckled. "They're in love," he said simply.
"Like you and Isabelle?" I asked him.
"What?" he sputtered.
"I see the way you two look at each other," I said. "If it were any more obvious, it would be like Clary and Jace."
"Oh," he said, smiling faintly.
We walked a few more minutes before we reached two rooms, the doors to which were open. Each looked like it had been recently cleaned.
"Yours is the one on the right," he told me.
"Thanks. Were you guys expecting visitors?" I asked him.
"The Clave alerted us that they plan to assign two Shadowhunters here," he said. "Once a Shadowhunter reaches 18 they are usually either assigned to Idris or another Institute."
"Oh. If you're expecting two people, I can take a different room," I told him. "I don't want to disrupt anything."
"It's fine," he assured me. "If they have you stay they'll most likely send one Shadowhunter instead of two."
I nodded and walked in the room. It had a faint Victorian/Gothic style with a red carpet, a red four-poster bed and Victorian era furniture. There was a trunk at the end of the bed, which I sat on as I looked at the rest of the room. There was a modern bathroom attached to one wall and a chair and desk in one corner.
"What do you think?" Simon asked me.
"It's great," I replied.
"My room's three rooms to the left in case you need anything," he added. "Let me know when you're done in here."
I nodded and he left. I opened the trunk and found a couple sets of combat gear and a black suit. The gear actually would have fit me perfectly, but I didn't try it on in case I couldn't stay there. I checked the drawers of the dresser and the closet, but both were empty.
"That was fast," Simon commented when I knocked on his door five minutes later.
"There wasn't much for me to do," I told him. He took me up to the library, where I was in awe. There were countless stacks of books, and in the middle was a mural of an angel rising out of a lake with a sword in one hand and a golden chalice in the other.
"It's a picture of the Angel Raziel rising out of Lake Lyn to create the first Shadowhunters and bestow upon them the Mortal Instruments," Clary explained, looking up from a sketchbook at us.
"Mortal Instruments?" I asked her.
"The Mortal Sword, Mortal Cup, and Mortal Mirror," Simon said.
"There's no mirror in the picture," I added.
"Lake Lyn acts as the Mirror," Clary said.
"Oh."
"There you are," Maryse said as she walked up to us from behind a row of books. "I need you to ask you some questions before the meeting begins."
"Sure, go ahead," I told her, sitting at a table.
"Where you were held, it was a lab, correct?" she asked, writing something on a paper.
"True," I told her.
"The doctor's name was Kingsmill?" she added.
"Also true."
"Can you describe the Director for me?" she asked me.
'"Sure," I replied. "He's a bit taller than me, much bulkier, has blackish hair, steely gray eyes, and has a slight tan."
"You sure have a good description of him," she said.
"He was the first person I saw when I woke up, beside myself," I told her. "Him and Kingsmill, that is."
"Describe Kingsmill for me," she told me.
"A few inches shorter than me, very thin, dark skin, black hair, brown eyes," I explained. "He wears glasses, too."
"Okay, that was all," she said. "The Conclave will most likely ask you the same questions later, but I needed to record this beforehand."
"Of course," I replied. My stomach growled loudly, drawing everyone's attention.
"When was the last time you ate something?" Clary asked me.
"Um…before I was kidnapped, over ten years ago," I told her. "Since then I've always had needles in me pumping in nutrients."
"That's not good," she stated.
"We can go to Taki's for lunch," Jace suggested.
"I'll call Magnus so that he can meet us there," Alec added as we all stood up at once.
"Can you guys get Jake a jacket first?" Maryse asked them. "It's still raining out."
"Sure," Jace said. "One of my jackets should work for you."
"Thanks," I told him. We walked to the elevator and first went down to the level with all the bedrooms, where Jace raced out and got back in thirty seconds flat, a leather jacket in his hand.
"Here you go," he told me, tossing me the jacket. I pulled it on along with my sunglasses before we walked out into the rain.
"Can't you create some kind of spell to keep us dry or something?" Jace complained after a block of walking.
"I don't really know how to create spells, but I'll try," I muttered. I moved my hands in a pattern and created a shield above our heads, working as a shield.
"That's better, thanks," Jace said.
"No prob," I replied.
We walked the rest of the way to Taki's Diner, which is a nice little diner a few blocks from the Institute. When we arrived I saw several warlocks, vampires, and werewolves among the people there.
"Don't stare," Alec told me. He spotted Magnus and we followed him to the large table Magnus was sitting at.
