Neeeeext chapter! This time, you'll get very much of our beloved warlock :) I hope you like it and if you do, please write a review! Of course you can also write one if there are things you didn't like; I'm open for new ideas as well.

I don't own the characters! (sadly :'( )

Chapter 9

In the evening of the day Clary and Simon told the adults that they wanted to become parabatai, Magnus went to a meeting of some warlocks from all over the world.

They had decided to meet in New York because the city had been in the focus of the events of the previous year and Magnus secretly thought that the other warlocks wanted to see something different. At least New York was the best city in the world and there you could see many exciting things.

Alec hadn't been too happy about him going there alone, but he didn't say anything against it as well. He had been strange in the past days and Magnus knew why - Alec had told him about his doubts and fears, which surprised and delighted him. Of course it would be really bad if Alec was right and Magnus had to be careful from now on. Nevertheless, he couldn't just stop going out and doing his job. He was kind of responsible for the warlocks in New York and they counted on him when they had problems.

So now he was sitting in a room behind a bar that was well-known by all kinds of downworlders. The Nephilim avoided getting here because it was easy to get in trouble with so many of them in one place. Shadowhunters weren't wanted here and Magnus understood why. He would never have brought Alec here. It was too dangerous and Magnus was afraid that something could happen to him.

Next to him and Catarina Loss there were seven other warlocks sitting around the table. Magnus thought that one of them came from Tokyo and one from Cairo, but he wasn't sure anymore. Maybe he didn't listen that carefully when they introduced themselves...

First, they talked about some rather boring things. Every warlock described the situation in the city he or she was living in and sometimes, they also complained about the shadowhunters (because they were so arrogant and useless and whatever else). And of course they asked Magnus about the wars that had taken place. Only two of them had been in Idris during the Mortal War and none had seen or heard anything from the Dark War against Sebastian. So Magnus had to tell them the entire story, which took quite some time (Catarina only said a few sentences, officially because she didn't want to interrupt Magnus and stop him from letting the others hear his great voice). At the end of his story, they all looked at him wide-eyed.

"Why didn't you write me about this?" One woman, Magnus remembered that her name was Ines, asked.

Slowly, he raised one eyebrow. "That would have been a very long letter, wouldn't it? And I thought we were here because we wanted to exchange information."

"Yes, but that were very important things! Something could have happened in Athens too and then I wouldn't have known anything about it."

"So it's my fault that you haven't been in Idris for years?" Magnus asked and crossed his arms.

"Why should I go to Idris? I don't like the shadowhunters as much as you do." Ines spat and slowly, Magnus began to get angry.

"It doesn't matter anyway." Catarina cut in quickly and leaned forward. "The wars are over and nothing happened to you or your city. And we aren't responsible for you, so we don't have to write you a letter about everything that is happening here."

Magnus looked at her thankfully and a little smile appeared on Catarina's lips. The time she spend in the hospital made her quite patient and she was good at preventing arguments.

"So what is going to happen now?" Another warlock, whose name Magnus didn't know, asked. He wasn't sitting too close to anyone else and it seemed as if he didn't like to be there. Apparently, the attention he was getting now embarrassed him. Magnus realized that he was a very young warlock. He wasn't even fully grown yet and Magnus searched for an explanation why he was there.

"We'll try to live in peace with the shadowhunters and the other downworlders." Cheng, the warlock from Tokyo, explained and looked at the other man patiently.

"Is that even possible?" Ines asked and looked at Cheng scornfully.

"Of course it is. The shadowhunters aren't as bad as you think. Ask Magnus, I'm sure he'll confirm it to you." Magnus shot him an angry look. He didn't want to argue with someone this evening. Maybe he shouldn't have come at all. This was getting boring...

"Do you really think that I can trust the judgement of someone who's sleeping with a shadowhunter?"

Now Magnus couldn't stop himself anymore. He pounded on the table as hard as he could and blue sparks flew through the air. He heard the sound of the breaking wood and when he lifted his hand again, there was an imprint on the table. He made it vanish quickly, which produced even more blue sparks. "That's enough! If you want to talk about my love life, you can do it without me." With those words, he stood up and started to walk towards the door.

"Magnus, you can't just go away!" Catarina protested loudly and stood up too.

Angrily, Magnus turned around and looked at her. His cat-like eyes were sparkling in a dangerous way. "And why not?"

Catarina sighed loudly. "You know that we can't discuss all those things without you." she murmured so that only he could hear her. "I'm sure Ines didn't want to insult you." She turned around to look at the other woman, who was very surprised. When Ines didn't answer, Catarina took a step forward and crossed her arms. The other warlocks at the table were starting to look at her crossly too and suddenly, Ines didn't seem to be as confident anymore.

"Yes, that's right. I wasn't thinking about the things I said. I'm sorry, Magnus." Magnus had to exert himself very much to understand the last words and when he heard the annoyed tone of Ines' voice, he couldn't hold back a grin anymore.

"Why don't we continue then?" he asked cheerfully and clapped his hands. He sat down again and Catarina, who walked towards her chair slowly, only shook her head with a smile.

The rest of the meeting proceeded without any interruptions and they discussed many important things. Catarina had been right, it wouldn't have worked without Magnus. Since he had so good connections to the Nephilim and the other downworlders in New York, he could contribute much information and with that, they were able to agree on many things.

Notwithstanding, Magnus was happy when the meeting was over and the other warlocks left the bar. In the end, Catarina and Magnus were alone in the room.

"That went well, didn't it?" she asked and smiled delighted. Apparently, she didn't like the others very much too.

"Yes, I think so. But isn't it strange that the demons are appearing more often in every city, even if there are many shadowhunters?" Magnus asked and frowned.

Catarina shrugged. "I don't know, Magnus. At least I'm working in a hospital and fighting doesn't belong to my favourite activities." With those words, she started to walk towards the exit and Magnus couldn't do anything else than following her.

The streets on Magnus' way home were empty and in some of them, it was very dark. Apparently, the lighting didn't work correctly.

First, it didn't bother him, but when he thought that he heard the sound of footsteps behind him, Magnus wished that the street lamps were all working. Of course it wasn't difficult for him to enlighten the alleyways with his magic, though he had a bad feeling about it. So he didn't do it and continued to walk in the dark.

The sound of the footsteps grew louder and Magnus turned around quickly. The alley seemed to be empty, but the warlock knew that something was there. He could feel it and suddenly, he had to shiver.

In that moment, Magnus decided to risk producing a little light. He looked at one of the street lamps and after half a second, it began to glow in a blue light. For a few heartbeats, he couldn't see very much, but when his eyes got used to the light, Magnus saw a dark creature lurking a few meters away from him. Without thinking about it, he took a step back. However, he had to stop when a hissing noise chimed right behind him.

Slowly, Magnus turned around just to see another demon focusing him. "Oh, that's nice." he muttered darkly and let the light of the street lamp become a little brighter. "Very nice." The words sounded muffled and now Magnus wasn't as calm as a few seconds before. There weren't just two demons. It were about ten of them!

"What do you want?" If you want to know why Magnus tried to talk to them, the answer's pretty easy. He didn't know it either. Presumably, the demons weren't able to speak or communicate in any other way, so it was completely stupid to do something like that.

"Bane..." The demon hissed and Magnus raised his eyebrows in surprise. That thing could speak?

"Yep, that's me." Magnus wanted to sound light-heartedly, but he knew that he failed.

"Kill him.."

"Oh." Now he wasn't that optimistic anymore (if he'd ever been in that mood). "That's not nice, you know?" He didn't wait for the demon to respond. Maybe it also didn't want to say anything, when you had to deal with those creatures it was difficult to tell what they wanted.

The blue flash of light hit the first demon right in the face and it fell backwards, so that another one of them landed on the ground as well. Magnus' attack seemed to make the other demons angry because they all started to run towards him at once. Some of them hindered each other, which was good for the warlock, while one demon came far too close to him.

The blue sparks made his skin burn and the demon let out a loud cry. Magnus used the fact that it was distracted to shot a ball of light at him and with a crack, the demon exploded. But before Magnus knew what was happening, two other demons had reached him and he felt a sharp pain in his left arm. One of them had cut his arm with his claws and blood was running down on it and wetted his hand.

Magnus couldn't stop the other demon from jumping on him and they fell on the ground together. He gasped and for a moment, he didn't know what to do because of all the dust in the air.

Suddenly, the weight on his body vanished and Magnus was able to breathe again. Then he heard a loud swish and the demon cried out loudly. When he opened his eyes again, Magnus thought that he was seeing an angel standing in front of him.

The seraph blade in Alec's hand was shining and the light made his skin seem even paler than it normally was. His hair was messed up and he was breathing heavily, as if he'd been running for a long time. He just wanted to say something, when the demon who'd cut Magnus' arm ran towards them again.

With a determined expression on his face, Alec jumped over Magnus and swung his sword. The demon wanted to hit him with his claws too, but the shadowhunter was too fast. He cut off his opponents arm, dodged away from his spiky tail and stabbed the demon with glowing eyes.

When he turned to Magnus again, he couldn't stop himself from looking at Alec wide-eyed. He'd become a very good shadowhunter during the previous months. On their first meeting, Alec hadn't even killed a demon (at least that's what Isabelle and Jace told Magnus). And now he was just as good as Jace or his sister.

"Magnus, are you all right?" Alec asked worried, but he couldn't go to him. Another demon attacked and he had to turn around to fight against it.

Suddenly, Magnus realized that he was still sitting on the floor. Apparently, the wound on his arm was worse than the thought because the loss of blood made him dizzy. Nevertheless, he couldn't just let Alec fight against the remaining demons alone.

He tried to stand up and was surprised about how little his arm was hurting. When the demon had injured Magnus, the light of the street lamp had become weaker and now he concentrated on it, so that he and Alec were able to see the demons better.

In that moment, another demon came running towards Magnus, but now he was prepared for it. He took a step back quickly and ducked when the demon tried to hit him with his tail. When he wanted to throw himself at Magnus, he rolled to the side and in one fluid motion, the warlock stood up again and shot a blue flash of light at his enemy.

The last two demons froze and looked at Magnus appraisingly. Magnus just wanted to attack them too, when one of them bared his teeth. "There will be a time when you'll wish that you would have died during the last great war, warlock. The time of big changes will come and you won't have to wait long for it. It'll come very soon." The words surprised Magnus, but he didn't give them the time to plan another movement. One of them also was hit by a flash of light, while the other demon was covered in blue sparks that melted his body.

After they had dissolved, Magnus began to feel weak and he fell to his knees.

"Magnus!" Alec cried in a frightened way and caught him before he could hit the ground too hard.

"Apparently, I've overestimated myself a little bit." he murmured and his voice wasn't more than a whisper.

"Should I help you? Do you need my strength for healing yourself?" Alec whispered and Magnus could see the fear in his eyes.

"You're wounded too, Alec." His boyfriend had a long cut on his waist and Magnus looked at it with a frown, but Alec just shook his head.

"It's nothing." he answered automatically and Magnus wanted to roll his eyes. However, he didn't have the strength to do it anymore. "Please, let me help you!" Alec begged and tears appeared in his eyes. How often had Magnus seen him crying?

"Give me your hand." The warlock murmured as a sign that he gave in. Delighted, Alec took Magnus' hand and squeezed it. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Suddenly, the two of them began to glow in a soft blue light. It didn't last very long and after it vanished, Magnus was able to sit up again and he felt much better than before. "And now you have to take care of yourself."

Alec still was too delighted to contradict and so he took his stele and began to draw an Iratze on his waist. Magnus watched the wound close itself and nodded at Alec. "Better." he muttered and before the other man could answer, Magnus had grabbed his shirt and pulled him closer. Their lips met and for some time, they just kissed each other slowly, each one of them happy about the fact that nothing happened to them.

When they pulled apart, they were both a little breathless. "I love you. And thank you for saving me." Magnus whispered and Alec smiled at him.

"I love you too. And you don't have to thank me for that. You should've known that I'll keep an eye on you after what happened a few days ago."

"And for that, I think I have to apologize. I didn't take your thoughts too serious, did I?"

Alec shook his head quickly. "I wasn't sure about it myself. But now we know that these demons wanted to..." he fell silent and swallowed. Kill you... Even though Alec didn't say it, they both knew that it was true. The demons wanted to kill Magnus for some reason and they had to find out what it was soon.

"Did you hear what the last demon said to me?" Magnus asked quietly and avoided looking into Alec's eyes.

"Yes, of course. That was why I didn't intervene immediately." Alec touched Magnus' cheek and made him look into his eyes again. "Do you know what it means?"

"No idea. But I think it could be important." Magnus admitted and frowned.

"We have to inform the others." The others... Magnus thought. Not the clave. That also showed how much Alec had changed since he and Magnus met each other for the first time.

The warlock nodded. "This wasn't the last attack. There'll be more of them and next time, there could be even more demons or more dangerous ones."

"You know that I won't lose sight of you in the next time, right?" Alec's blue eyes met Magnus' green ones and he nodded.

"Just like I won't stop keeping an eye on you." he answered and now Alec seemed to be surprised. Apparently, he didn't think that Magnus would be okay with him trying to protect him all the time. After all, he knew that Magnus was one of the most powerful warlocks and didn't like to be protected.

"You're amazing." Alec murmured and shook his head with an unbelievingly smile.

"That's right." Magnus grinned and tried to stand up slowly. Luckily, it worked very well and he was even strong enough to let the lamps shine a little brighter. Alec seemed to have given him much of his strength. "We should go to the institute and tell the others what happened. Or do you think that they won't like being disturbed at this late hour?"

"They would be angry if we wouldn't go to them right now." Alec replied and took Magnus hand. He raised his eyebrows slowly and there was concern in his beautiful blue eyes. "Are you sure that everything's okay? I mean, can you make it to the institute?"

Magnus smiled slightly. "I'm fine, you can believe me when I say it." he kissed Alec on the cheek and together, they began to walk into the direction Magnus had come from, away from their apartment in Brooklyn.

They were both very silent and thought about the words of the demon Magnus had killed.

There will be a time when you'll wish that you would have died during the last great war, warlock. The time of big changes will come and you won't have to wait long for it. It'll come very soon...