Don't know if this chapter answers any questions, or just creates more. But it will all make sense in the end, I promise! The reviews have been so great, thank you all so much to everyone taking the time to give me a little feedback, it's greatly appreciated.
Chapter 9: New Blood
The interior of Caldwell's apartment was overwhelmingly cramped, filled with weird trinkets and odd devices the likes of which Tessa had never seen before. Every surface was covered with sheets of loose leaf paper, piled high and scribbled all over with tiny script that Tessa couldn't quite make out. It didn't appear to be English. Large books were scattered in among all the papers, their pages also covered in the same foreign script.
It was cold in the apartment, almost as cold as if Tessa were still outside, and there was a strong draft. Tessa's hair actually blew slightly in the wind that gusted through the cracks in the crumbling walls. In the center of the room, buried among the piles of scattered papers, was a large wooden bucket that was almost filled to the top with water that was dripping down from the ceiling.
Tessa, Jem, and Will stuck close together as they walked farther into the room as Caldwell attempted to clear off the couch and chairs from the clutter.
"How charming," Will said in a light voice, his eyes following a particularly large rat as it scurried across the floor.
"Yes, well, I have to move around a lot," Caldwell answered, snapping a massive book with a large rune on its cover closed and shoving it under a massive pile of papers on the floor. "I've made a lot of enemies over the years."
Caldwell looked around, eyeing his work in satisfaction. He looked up at his guests, a triumphant smile on his old withered face. "Won't you have a seat?" He motioned to the dilapidated couch.
All three hesitated. The couch looked as if it would not support one of them, let alone all three. It's velvet covering was torn in places, stuffing pouring out, and a greenish substance was growing on the edge of the cushions. Eventually Tessa stepped forward, smiling at Caldwell. "Thank you very much," she said politely, moving towards the couch and shooting Jem and Will looks to follow.
Jem followed quickly after Tessa, sitting delicately down on the couch, it moaning slightly under his small weight. Will walked slowly to the couch, poking it with the toe of his boot before he gave a small sniff of indignation and perched himself barely on its edge.
Now settled, Tessa looked up expectantly at Caldwell and found him sitting across from them in a large ratty armchair, his small eyes staring intently at her. His look was slightly unnerving, like he was searching her face for something, looking for some sort of clue. Tessa took a deep breath, deciding to break the silence.
"You knew my parents?" she asked in a small voice.
Caldwell didn't say anything for a moment, just continued to stare at her, his blue eyes never blinking. Eventually he spoke, his voice thick and gravely.
"I know your parents, my dear. I saw them only four days ago."
Tessa's heart began to beat faster, hammering against her ribcage.
"And they're here? In London?" Her voice was rising slightly in anticipation.
Caldwell didn't answer this time, he simply stared harder at her, taking his time. When he spoke again, his voice was softer, thick with memory.
"You look so much like her, your mother. When you showed up at my door just now I thought I had been transported back twenty years to when your mother showed up on my doorstep in much the same way, asking for my help."
"She—she asked for your help?" Tessa asked, the knot in her stomach growing. "Why?"
"She needed help disappearing, both herself, your father, and their little boy." His watery eyes bore into Tessa's. "There had been a terrible accident, something that had changed everything. And she said she needed to protect you."
"Why?" Tessa asked eagerly. She was right there, she could feel it, just out of reach of the key to everything. "What was the accident? What happened?" She was so close, one more sentence and everything would fall into place.
Caldwell blinked for the first time, his eyes dropping down to look at the floor. "I don't know. She never told me."
"What do you mean she never told you?" It was Will speaking this time, incredulity in his voice.
"She never told me what happened, only what would happen if I didn't help her," Caldwell said, his eyes flashing to Will's before returning to Tessa's. "She said that she had had an accident and that something was happening to her, something that she didn't completely understand herself. Something that she feared would be passed onto to her yet unborn child."
"Me?" Tessa gasped. "She was pregnant with me when the accident happened?"
Caldwell nodded.
"But you have no idea what this accident was?" Will asked again, a tinge of skepticism in his voice.
"She wouldn't tell me, even when I asked. She said it was for my own good, that if the Clave came looking, the less I knew the more protected I'd be."
"But why did she think the Clave would come looking?" Jem asked, speaking up for the first time. "Tessa's parents were mundanes, they knew little to nothing about the shadow world. How did she even know about the Clave?"
"She knew a great deal about the Clave. About its shaky treaty with Downworlders, the intolerance and hypocrisy of its laws, and of its insatiable greed for power. She knew it better than most. And she feared it." Caldwell's eyes moved from Jem's back to Tessa's. "My dear, when I knew your parents they were not Robert and Elizebeth Gray, they were Robert and Elizabeth Clareview, and they were Shadowhunters."
Silence filled the room.
"But—but that's not possible," Tessa stuttered out, her brow knitting together in confusion. "If they were Shadowhunters, that means that I would be too, but I'm not. I can't bear marks."
Caldwell sighed. "No, no you're not a Shadowhunter and I fear that is where I come into play." His eyes bore into her own, a sort of anxious pleading in them. "You must understand, when she came to me she was desperate, wild with fear. She begged me to help her, to do everything I could to take her away from this life. Permanently."
Tessa heard Will gasp beside her. "You didn't—"
"She begged me to!" Caldwell exclaimed, tears filling his already watery eyes. "I had been retired for almost twenty years, but I took up my stele one last time." He was shaking is head now, his eyes lowered to the floor. "I swore it was the last thing I would ever do with it."
"I don't understand," Tessa said, looking back and forth between Will, and Jem, both of which had stunned and horrified looks on their faces. "What did he do?"
"There's only one way unmake a Shadowhunter," Jem said in a soft voice, the eyes that flicked up to meet hers filled with grief. "You must first strip them of their marks, and then—and then strip their blood of all angel blood. You must, essentially, give them new blood."
Caldwell gave a shuddering sob, tears rolling down his wrinkled cheeks.
"It's an agonizing process," Will spoke in a low voice. "The stripping of the marks is bad enough, but the stripping of the blood is something that few survive. The potion you have to ingest literally burns the angel blood out of you."
"I told her I wouldn't do it," Caldwell wailed in agony. "Especially not when she was pregnant. It had never been done before on someone with child, there was no way to know what affect it would have on the baby. But she said it was the only way to save you all!"
"And Nate?" Tessa asked, her voice barely a whisper.
Caldwell's pained eyes met hers. "He was so young. He barely remembered it when he got older."
Tessa sat completely still, stunned into immobility. She couldn't even blink, all she could do was stare back at Caldwell.
"It's illegal to perform a stripping on someone so young," Will stated, ice in his voice.
"It's illegal to perform a stripping on anyone at all without the consent of the Clave!" Caldwell exclaimed in a frenzied voice. "I know the law, Shadowhunter. But sometimes exceptions must be made." He hung his head again, shaking it slightly. "After that I went deeper into the underground, associating less and less with Nephilim and more with Downworlders, giving the Clave tips into illegal schemes every now and then to keep them off my back. They never did find out what happened to Robert and Elizabeth Clareview. Shadowhunters disappear sometimes, go rogue and what not. Your parents fell to the bottom of a long list of missing Shadowhunters, forgotten in less than a decade."
"And Tessa," Will asked. "What affects did the stripping have one her?"
"It would appear it had the desired affects," Caldwell answered, eyeing Tessa again. "She is not a Shadowhunter, she cannot bear marks." He paused momentarily. "Though we cannot be certain there were not a few—side effects."
"Side effects?" Tessa asked in a shaky voice.
"I have no clue as to what they may be," Caldwell replied hastily. "But you are a unique being, Tessa Clareview. None have endured what you have, none have been given new blood while still in the womb. It is all very curious."
Caldwell's gaze began to make Tessa uncomfortable. His eyes had lost their remorse and instead looked hard and shrewd, looking at her like an interesting new toy.
"And the accident," she asked, straightening up slightly and trying to make her face a mask of indifference. "They faked the carriage accident?"
"Ah yes," Caldwell said, folding his hands into his lap, "the accident. Three years after they left me, transformed into mundanes, I got a letter from a Robert and Elizabeth Gray asking for my assistance once again. They said that you were no longer safe, something had happened but they wouldn't say what, and that they had to leave you to protect you. And so I helped them one last time. I faked the accident, glamored the bodies I dug up from a random grave to look like your parents, and left you and your brother with the nanny Harriet. Your parents disappears once again and I returned to London, hoping to never see your parents again."
"Aunt Harriet wasn't actually my aunt?" Tessa gasped.
"My dear, of all the information you've been given this evening, that is what shocks you the most?" Caldwell asked disbelievingly.
"Well, no, it's just—it's just things are so different now, everything is so different." Tessa's brow furrowed in thought. She was so lost, she couldn't process everything she was being told.
"We must all reach that point, where the disillusionment of youth wears down and the truth shines through," Caldwell sighed. "Reality is much less kind than the fairy tales spun by fearful adults who wish to protect their young. Life is painful."
"Only because people like you make it that way," Will said, his voice cold as ice.
Caldwell turned to look at Will, a surprised look on his face. "But I only tried to help," he said in defense. " I only had Tessa's best interest in—"
But Will was having none of it. His eyes were fierce, closed into dangerous slits. "And why were you so willing to help her parents?" he asked, cutting Caldwell off. "You risked your life for them, more than once. What did you get out of it?"
"I didn't ask for anything in return," Caldwell growled, his voice suddenly taking on a hard edge. "I was connected to their family, for a very long time. I knew Elizabeth's mother, back when we were young. We grew up together." His voice softened slightly, his eyes misting over in memory. "You and your mother look so much like her. Same eyes, same long hair, same innate gentleness." He paused, his voice dropping to just above a whisper. "She was a wonderful woman. One of the few women I ever loved."
"Did you know my mother well?" Tessa asked in a quiet voice. Despite all that she now knew, despite knowing that her mother and father were still alive, she had trouble referring to them in the present tense. It wouldn't be real until she saw their faces.
"Not nearly as well as I would have liked," Caldwell sighed.
Tessa paused for a moment, deep in thought, before she continued in the same soft voice. "Mr. Caldwell, how did Mortmain know about the Clave's attack?"
Caldwell hung his head low again, shaking it. "I don't know, I don't know. The information was good, it came straight from your parents' mouths! Four days ago, they showed up on my doorstep and asked me to deliver a message to the London Institute, said that it was urgent. I didn't know it would end like that!"
Will shot Jem a look, a look Tessa knew she was not meant to see. But she did see it, and she knew what it meant. Caldwell appeared to be telling the truth, and that meant only one thing; Tessa's parent's had actually set the Clave up for attack.
Caldwell had also caught the look and he was now looking back and forth between Will and Jem in confusion. "You can't possibly think—Robert and Elizabeth disliked the Clave, yes, but they would never—no certainly not."
"Mr. Caldwell, we need to find Tessa's parents." Jem said, his voice gentle but urgent. "We need to find out directly from them what happened before the Clave does. Do you know where we can find them?"
Caldwell's eyes flashed up to meet his in a dazed sort of confusion, his thoughts clearly still elsewhere. "They would never tell me where they were staying," he answered in a slow voice. "It was to protect me as much as them."
Will swore softly under his breath, leaning back on the couch in frustration. Tessa and Jem shared disappointed looks.
"But," Caldwell continued, "I do have an address they gave me, a long time ago. It's for a warlock, Vincent Deuschel, he's the one that mixed the stripping potion for them. He's the only other person they trusted with their secret, their only other friend." Caldwell had crossed the room and was fumbling through the papers that were scattered across the tabletop. After a moment he produced ink and a quill and began scrawling something on a loose sheet of paper. "I don't know if he still lives there, it was over sixteen years ago. But it's worth a shot."
He folded the piece of paper and handed it to Tessa, staring down at her behind wrinkled, watery eyes.
"I hope you find everything you're looking for," he said softly, reaching out and taking one of her hands into his own. He shook it warmly.
Tessa rose from the couch, Will and Jem rising next to her. "Thank you Mr. Caldwell, for everything."
He nodded slightly and released her hand, turning and hobbling back over to his worn chair, slumping down into it.
Tessa, Jem, and Will moved towards the door, Will stopping just before he passed Caldwell's wilting form and speaking in a hard voice. "We'll be in touch."
Caldwell didn't look up, just continued staring off into space, his eyes misted over again with the memory of the past.
All three stole through the door quickly, Will snapping it shut behind him with a large sigh of relief. "I don't know about you, but found that man to be extremely weird," he said, dusting invisible dirt from his clothing. "And he has horrendous cleanliness habits."
But Tessa wasn't listening, she was still back in Caldwell's apartment, still mulling over everything that had just been said. She looked up suddenly at the two boys standing before her, shoving the piece of paper with the address scribbled across it at Jem. "How far away is this? How long will it take us to get there?" she asked in a rushed voice.
Jem took the paper haltingly, glancing down at the address and then back up to Tessa. "It's on the east side of London, by the river. It's about fifteen minutes away, but Tessa, I really think we should find out more about this man before we just walk through the front door. It could be extremely dangerous." He glanced at Will, looking for help in convincing her, but Will remained silent. "We don't know anything about Vincent Deuschel, I've never even heard of him. I think we should wait."
"No," Tessa said firmly. "I'm done waiting. I want this finished, now. We go to find Vincent Deuschel, right now."
Jem opened his mouth to protest, but Will cut him off. "It's settled then. We head out now."
Will had that fire in his eyes, the look Jem recognized as the one he always got before a good demon hunt, reckless and wild and impulsive. It made his nervous. This was not the time to jump blindly into danger, not with Tessa here.
But all he could do was sigh in surrender. "Fine. But if this backfires epically, don't say I didn't warn you all."
"We've been warned," Will grinned, the fire flashing up again. "Now let's pay Mr. Deuschel a little visit."
