Author's Note: This is the final part of story #3! Thanks for the feedback—don't forget to leave a review for this one (fanfiction writers make $0.00 per hour, ha)!
Parabatai Pain
PenPatronus
Story #3
Part 5
Hitler's Warlocks
The submarine floated beside and beneath a ship half the size of Valentine's tanker. Magnus, cat eyes aimed down like a sniper's laser scope, stood on the port side with Raphael, Clary, and Luke lined up behind him. The full moon shone down on the scene like a spotlight.
Roger, Eugene, and Gabe peeked over the shield created by the kneeling Alec and Jace. They sensed warlock magic and their suspicious eyes landed on Magnus, who stared longingly at his boyfriend. The tattoo on Alec's neck. The bruises on his torso. The dagger lines from one rune to the next—the worst game of connect-the-dot. Jace's grip on his arm was the only reason why Alec didn't collapse onto his bleeding nose.
Water and air suddenly stilled like Poseidon flipped a switch. Time stuttered. Heartbeats doubled in speed. Everything smelled like sweat and iron and blood—primal. Anyone who felt irritated suddenly felt angry. Anyone angry suddenly felt enraged. Anyone enraged suddenly felt that nameless step beyond furious where you stop seeing red and remember nothing. Everyone felt the atmosphere shiver with electricity—electricity that affected each soul differently. Roger scratched at his arm he was digging up something stinging beneath it. Gabe batted his braid aside like it was a hangman's noose. Eugene struggled to breathe. Luke's eyes glowed and Raphael's teeth extended. Clary covered her ears like thunder clapped inside her skull. Isabelle and Simon—still unconscious—flexed their fingers and twitched. Max cowered under his sister's arm. Jace grew goosebumps and his teeth started chattering. Fish scurried away and birds pivoted in midair and flew in the opposite direction.
Alec felt cradled by warm, invisible arms, but they were strangling everyone else. "Magnus!" he shouted. "Take. Back. CONTROL!"
His words, his voice broke the invisible, out of control spell and everyone felt normal again. Brief panic, quick recovery, but then the three warlocks chose their 'fight' instinct instead of 'flight.' As a unit, they raised their palms and shot columns of undulating blue light. Jace shoved Alec to the deck and put his arm and upper body over his parabatai's back to protect him from stray sparks. Not only did Magnus not flinch, but he didn't even raise his hands to block the attack. Magic leaked from his lungs and poured from his pores. Invisible shields both blocked and absorbed the magic. Magnus Bane—one warlock—swallowed an attack from 12!
It weakened him. He held his hand out and Clary took it. "Luke, Raphael," he gasped, "swim over there. I'll need your help." The werewolf and the vampire dove into the sea without argument.
The Arch brothers alternated between staring at Magnus with awe and at each other in fear. After a minute, Roger opened his arms as if for a hug, and called out, "Sieg heil Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn—of New York! Your reputation precedes you—and one hell of a reputation it is!"
Magnus' fists shook like maracas. He addressed the warlocks, but didn't take his eyes off Alec's still form. His voice shook when he asked questions he already knew the answers to: "Are you Roger, Gabe, and Eugene Arch, the High Warlocks of Berlin?"
Pleased, flattered, cocky, Roger bowed slightly and said, "You've heard of the Black Sun!"
"We're impressed and humbled!" Eugene said in a shaky voice.
"So humbled!" said Gabe. He unwrapped and wrapped his thumb around his hair—over and over again like a ritual.
Roger pointed at the Lightwoods. "We acquired these Shadowhunters in the name of Hitler! With their strength, warlocks can rule the country—rule this world! The Downworld and the Mundanes will need strong leaders, Bane. Leaders like you, like us!"
Magnus didn't blink. Nothing in his posture or his face revealed that he was even listening. "You admit that you are Nazis. You are the Arch Triplets. You served the Third Reich as Hitler's warlocks and bodyguards?"
Roger smiled, frowned, then smiled again. "Proudly!" he declared. He turned his head and looked across the scene once, twice, three times, trying to get a handle on the mood. He changed tactics for the first time (but not for the last). "If you prefer not to join us then we'll leave in peace with the Shadowhunters we've claimed."
Color flooded Magnus' cheeks. Jace leaned forward to look at Alec's face. They wore identical expressions: slight smiles with a side of reluctant empathy. "Claimed?" Alec chuckled, nearly mute. "Magnus is so angry. Can't you feel it in the air? So angry..."
"Think he'll be able to take these guys out?" Jace wondered.
"Nothing pisses off my warlock more than injustice."
"And seeing you hurt."
"No kidding." Alec flattened his body on the deck and nodded for Jace to do the same. "These warlocks are already dead."
Roger kicked Jace's knee. "What did he say?"
Jace looked up at his captor and smiled. "He said you're screwed. Seriously, play dead while you still can. Magnus tore a submarine apart. What do you think he's going to do to you?" The Shadowhunter traced his throat with his thumbnail, miming a knife slicing through Roger's neck.
Magnus, once again, sounded like a restless judge in court. "Did you Roger, Gabe, and Eugene Arch willingly commit war crimes against innocent Mundanes?"
"Uh—" Roger replied.
"Did you evade the Nuremburg trials of 1945 and 1946?"
"Well—" Gabe began.
"Did you also elude Clave investigators intent on arresting and punishing you for your crimes?"
Eugene's nose wrinkled. "Why the hell are you bringing this shit up, Bane?"
"Take it easy," Roger hissed. "This guy's more powerful than I anticipated."
Eugene ignored his brother. "Maybe we did massacre Mundanes! Maybe we did take a few Shadowhunters off these streets but, who cares? We haven't hurt anyone important!"
Alec and Jace groaned. "Should we roll into the ocean?" Jace wondered. "We're kind of in the line of fire."
"Just stay near me," Alec sighed. He smirked and said, "He's already erected shields around us."
The soaking wet Luke and Raphael climbed up the far side of the submarine, nodded a greeting at Max, and snuck up behind the warlocks—teeth and claws bared.
Magnus squared his shoulders, lifted his chin, and stepped to the edge of the boat. "By the authority of the Brooklyn Downworld, of the Clave, of the Allies, and of the United States of America… I, Magnus Bane, hereby charge you with war crimes against humanity. Your sentence will be carried out—now."
"Sentence?" Roger took two steps backwards. "Sounds like a threat, Bane. It's only fair to warn you that we've drained the strength of every Shadowhunter on this vessel. If you attack us again, we won't hesitate to use our magic to kill you all!"
"Understood." Magnus' eyes glowed brighter as his voice softened. "Jace?"
"Yeah?"
"Protect him."
Triple gasps behind them. "You know these Nephilim bastards?" Roger demanded.
"You're a traitor to your kind!" Gabe accused.
Eugene shook his fist and shouted, "We'd never align ourselves with the likes of you, Bane! You're dead. You hear me? Dead! We have enough power to kill, heal, and then kill you again over and over until the end of time!"
Magnus yawned. "Alexander?"
Alec's bleary eyes blinked and he croaked, "Magnus?"
"Stay down, my love."
"What the hell do you mean your 'love'?" Roger demanded.
Alec and Jace smiled.
Bye, bye bravado.
Roger paled. His body drooped—even his mohawk. "Oh, SHIT."
"We—We're sorry!" said Gabe.
"Take him—have both of—take all the Shadowhunters!" Eugene insisted.
"Forgive us! We didn't know! We're sorry, we're sorry, we're sorry, Bane!" Roger roared.
Magnus cracked his knuckles and aimed his fingers. The part of his heart Alec inhabited brewed and boiled over with the deadliest magic known on earth. Spells like neon rainbows swirled and climbed out of Magnus' soul. "Time to shut you Nazi assholes up."
"You son of a—" Eugene didn't stand a chance when he chose to go on the offensive instead of raising a shield. In that moment, Luke clamped his teeth and all ten claws around his spine. Magnus' magic bore through each cell in his body and separated it from the others. Eugene turned to dust, the dust of dust, in a heartbeat. Gabe defended himself. He raised a ward and lasted a whole five seconds longer than his brother. Raphael's fangs in his forearm distracted him and less than a second later he evaporated like a cloud. Roger blocked and attacked the werewolf, the vampire, and the warlock at the same time. Mohawk askew, pointed teeth gleaming, eyes glowing red, he raised a ward with one hand and fired spells with the other. His bullets of magic collided with Magnus' tsunami and both warlocks physically tripped. Clary darted forward to help Magnus get back up on his feet.
Jace and Alec stared up at the fireworks like it was July 4th and they were on a picnic blanket in Central Park. Neither moved. They could no longer see straight. The terrified, desperate, Roger was siphoning the final few calories from the tattooed Shadowhunters. The parabatai passed out and missed the finale.
Max Lightwood ducked when Roger's magic sent Luke and Raphael flying across the brig. The landing knocked them out and they joined Simon and Isabelle on the floor. Max saw Jace and Alec faint. He saw Magnus ask Clary for her strength, and saw her give it to him without hesitation. And then he saw Magnus' swirling strikes of magic fade in color and speed. Roger seemed to grow taller. Clary collapsed to her knees. Magnus followed.
Electricity in the air again—on purpose from Roger this time instead of accidentally from Magnus. Sea waves lashed out. Wind rumbled. Iron plates rattled. The warlock laughed when all Magnus could manage was a weak shield to hide behind. Roger coiled his hands in the air and, with each rotation, another layer of fire made the comets he was constructing larger, hotter.
Comets the size of fists… Then plates… Then watermelons… Roger wound up like a baseball pitcher. The moon's light turned blood red.
The silver seraph blade Max used on Eugene sat useless on the deck. Angel, Max hated warlocks. More than that—more than anything—he hated the blood on his brothers. That hatred reminded Max of his love, and that love told him to get to his feet. The 12-year-old picked up the blade, twirled it once, and then launched it at Roger's back with everything he had.
Magnus sensed the precise second the sword impaled Roger—sensed it in the sudden hesitation in the warlock's magic. In that moment, he rose and channeled everything he had left into his biggest, strongest, deadliest attack. His magic searched for and found a physical chink in Roger's imperceptible armor. And, like he had with the submarine, Magnus peeled Roger Arch apart layer by layer and cast him into the water.
Weight in the sudden silence—a heavy, consuming absence of sound. Ears that could still hear only heard lapping water. The red-faced moon softened back to ivory.
Magnus grabbed Clary and portal-ed them both onto the sub. She ran to Jace. He ran to Alec. "No, step back," Alec ordered. Clary hesitated. She didn't wipe at her wet cheeks or comb back the hair in front of her eyes. "Clary!"
Hiccupping, Clary reversed blindly. Simon woke up, got up. He let Clary back up to his chest and then put his hands on her shoulders. The others stirred one by one: Isabelle, Luke, Raphael. Max took Izzy's hand.
Magnus knelt between the parabatai. Sweat and sea breeze dampened his disheveled clothes and humidity flattened his hair. Alec and Jace's warm blood stained Magnus' trousers, then chilled him past the bone. The others watched, mute, as the warlock placed his hands on the Shadowhunters' chests, whispered foreign words, and then trickled healing magic over them—magic that looked like lava mixing with water.
Jace woke up gasping. He sat up on his elbows, mismatched eyes darting in every direction, confused. The Black Sun tattoo on his neck shriveled and shrunk. Color returned to his body as the stray blood disappeared. Magnus teetered. He barely had the strength to remain conscious, let alone heal Alec. Magnus clenched his teeth tight and his eyes shut and sent not only his healing magic but his own strength. Jace reached for him when he started to fall forward, but didn't have to catch him. Alec sat up right when Magnus collapsed down. Strong arms caught and clung to the warlock, and Magnus opened his eyes.
Alec's cold, plump lips parted Magnus' warm, narrow lips and they exhaled sighs of relief right into their lover's mouths. Magnus explored Alec's damp hair with his fingernails and when they parted, out of breath but so thrilled to be, he started to cry not with tears, but with convulsing shoulders and a closed throat. "Proud—" Alec struggled to whisper, "…proud of you." He wiped his hand across Magnus' forehead, down his cheek, behind his neck. "The millions those bastards hurt… You avenged them. That was justice."
Magnus' chin trembled. He folded forward and burrowed his nose into Alec's chest. A shaky breath, a sniff, and then he sat up straight again and admitted, "I spoke on their behalf but, Alexander, I only thought of you. Only of you."
Maybe the moment deserved to last longer, but Max Lightwood was impatient. He ran towards Jace, Alec, and Magnus and nearly knocked all three into the water with his hug. Clary and Isabelle followed. And although there was no room left, Simon jumped into the fray as well while Raphael and Luke looked on, shaking their heads, amused.
THREE DAYS LATER
Jace walked into Alec's bedroom with the vial of Hitler's blood held at arm's length like it was dead rabid rat. "Ugh, here, you take it," he said, turning towards Simon.
The vampire raised his palms like the vial was a gun. "No way, man, that blood smells weird. I don't know what Hitler was, but he wasn't human."
"Oh, but he was," Magnus told the group. "He wasn't a demon, wasn't a monster. Just a corrupted human. What you're sensing, Simon, is pure evil."
Alec sat on the end of his bed between Isabelle and Clary. "Smells like burnt hair," he said, nose wrinkled. "And gasoline."
"Burnt werewolf hair," said Isabelle. "And burning gasoline."
"Daisies!" All eyes landed on Clary. "Kidding!" she said with shrug. "Just kidding, geeze…"
"Let's get rid of it, already! Would you like to have the honor?" Jace asked Alec, who shook his head 'no.' "Well, somebody do something with it, quick. I keep expecting it to explode or burn off my hand."
"May I?" Magnus asked.
"Ooo!" Simon cooed. "Are you going to cast it into another dimension? Bury it in the middle of the earth? Launch it into space?"
Magnus smiled. "Don't be ridiculous! I'm going to give it the most formal, respectful sendoff it deserves!"
The group crowded into the bathroom and circled around the warlock. Grinning, Magnus raised his middle finger at the vial, then dumped the last of Adolf Hitler into the toilet.
The End
