The Memory of You
Magnus placed a piece of chocolate in Alec's mouth. The scent of cocoa, vanilla and cinnamon enticingly tickled Alec's nose; and its texture, hard at the beginning, slowly filled his mouth with velvety softness and his mind with tantalizing thoughts of seduction and love. The sweet taste of the chocolate intensified a thousand-fold the sensations triggered by the kiss that followed it. A loud sigh of pleasure raised from the center of Alex's chest and escaped through his lips. In response, Magnus pulled back just a couple inches and smiled, a smile that illuminated his whole face and shone in his eyes with a mischievous brilliance, before closing the distance once again, his lips as soft and sweet as the chocolate.
Alec recognized the memory; it was from one of the first nights that he spent with Magnus. They had just portalled back from an evening strolling the streets of Prague and they were sitting in Magnus' terrace, the lights of the city bellow resembling stars shinning in the dark warm night. The memory was so vivid that Alec didn't just taste the sweetness in his mouth, but could also perceive the familiar scent of forest and mountain air that he always associated with Magnus, and feel the softness of Magnus' silk shirt in his fingers.
Suddenly, Alec became aware of the odd quality of the recollection; the memory was too vivid, its colors and textures unusually bright, its effects on Alec's body too intense. Abruptly, other memories replaced it: Magnus' face projected, like a still shot from a horror film, against a red sky; a deafening explosion; bodies on the ground; the smell of burnt flesh; and the overwhelming sensation of nausea.
"I am dreaming," thought Alec, "this isn't real." Before fear and nausea overtook him, he tried to gather his thoughts and force his body to wake up, to move, to pull his mind back to reality. He began to fall fast and out of control and then, with a startle, his eyes opened, bright lights momentarily blinding him, his heart beating at double its usual speed.
"Good, good, you are awake," came a nasal and overtly bright voice from his right. "And, I can see that the memory rune is working. Good, good."
Alec turned and tried to force his eyes to focus on the face, but moving his head seemed to require all his energy and concentration, and his body felt oddly heavy and disjointed, as if it had been pulled apart and badly reassembled. He tried to say something, ask the man who had just spoken where he was and what had happened, but while his mouth opened and his lips formed the words, no sound came out. The sensation of panic sent his heart into a run once again. He attempted to speak, but again no words came out. He struggled to lift his arms and bring his hands to his chest or his throat, but he was restrained, arms and legs in shackles that tied him to the bed on which he was laying.
"Calm down, Mr. Lightwood," said the man, his freckled face framed by a mane of red curls becoming clearer as Alec's eyes adjusted to the light. "Calm down, clam down, I am here to help you. I am Inquisitor Dearborn and I am one of the Inquisitors overseeing the investigation into the warlock terrorist attacks."
The man's voice had a forced tone of friendliness and concern that, for some reason, contrasted with the distrust and malevolence that shone through his eyes. Alec wanted to tell the man to let him go, to untie him, that he didn't need his help, but for some reason his voice betrayed him and refused to cooperate.
Calling on all his soldier training, Alec forced himself to control the alarm that was sending a rush of adrenaline through his body, and to focus his mind long enough to assess the situation. He made an inventory of his recent memories: he had been in an explosion; he had been outside the Barcelona Institute, trying to help the injured before losing consciousness; and now he was tied to a bed in a bright infirmary room. His body and head hurt, but he didn't think he was seriously injured anymore. But something was missing, something fundamental to his survival. He couldn't feel his connection to Jace and the sensation threatened to send him into another state of panic. Was Jace dead? He wanted to ask, but his voice still refused to obey him.
Alec looked around the room searching for someone else, someone other than the Inquisitor, who could help him or at least explain, but there was nobody else. He looked back at the Inquisitor, tried to mouth Jace's name, ask what had happened to his parabatai, panic and adrenaline coursing uncontrollably through his body.
"Calm down," the Inquisitor repeated. "Your parabatai is well, I just spoke to him. He is busy but not injured or harmed. What you are feeling is the effects of the blocking rune I drew on you," he stated and lifted his hand so Alec could see the stele he held between his fingers. "For the treatment to work, we need to temporarily block your link to your parabatai. We need to put you in isolation, so to speak. Otherwise, the cure will not work."
"Cure?" thought Alec. "Cure for what?"
"I hope you don't mind that this remains for now a monologue, Mr. Lightwood," said the Inquisitor, the nasal quality of his voice annoying Alec more and more with each word. "I have drawn a silencing rune on your throat. It is for your own good as well as for the good of the Shadowhunters who are outside this room currently dealing with the emergency. We do not want to distract them, do we? The treatment can be painful, but let me assure you that it is effective."
"Treatment?" thought Alec. "Treatment for what? What is wrong with me?"
"I am sorry to say that the treatment is rather painful, but its effectiveness increases and produces faster results when the patient experiences it without the release that comes from screaming or speaking. Unfortunately, we are rather in a rush considering the current emergency, so we need to speed things up; hence the silencing rune. It is meant to intensify the sensations. Let me assure you that I am an expert; I know what I am doing; you have to trust me."
Alec wished he could tell the man that he didn't trust him as far as he could throw him. Not only had the Inquisitor restrained him against his will, but he had also cut him off from his parabatai. This and the fact that his experience with Inquisitors in the past left a lot to be desired told Alec that the man was not to be trusted, no matter what he said.
Alec wondered whether Jace felt the severing in their connection; was he weakened by the loss in the way Alec was? Would Jace notice that something was wrong and come help him? Would he even care or be able to help? Maybe Jace thought Alec was dead. He needed to get a hold on himself, bide his time until Jace came, or he found a way to free himself. He thought of Magnus then, and wondered where he was, what had happened, and whether he needed help. He needed to get free; go find Magnus and Jace; go find out what happened.
"You are a soldier," Alec told himself taking a deep breath to calm his racing heartbeat and reign in his confusion. "You can get through this; you have gotten yourself out of tight situations before."
Inquisitor Dearborn moved to the other side of the bed and, after opening the hospital gown Alex was wearing, began to draw a rune on Alec's chest, the burning pain unusually intense making Alec realize that his healing iratze was probably deactivated or depleted. He looked down at himself and saw that another relatively fresh rune was already drawn on his chest, a rune he had never seen before. The new rune the Inquisitor was drawing connected to the first one, as it to complete it. The result was a rune that had sharp edges pointing in all directions and that reminded Alec of a gaping angry mouth, its teeth sharp and angry red.
"This rune," said the Inquisitor pointing with his stele to the first one, his voice acquiring the tone of a teacher, "is a derivative of the memory rune. It will help us recall those memories that matter to the treatment. The rune I am drawing now," he continued as he reapplied his stele to Alec's skin, "is a variation of an agony rune. By connecting it to the memory rune, we can reprogram your memories to have the desired effects, ensuring the effectiveness of the treatment."
Inquisitor Dearborn's voice was oddly detached and had the tone of someone who is explaining an experiment to a group of students or scholars, and not to his prisoner. The words made little sense and Alec wondered what the man meant by reprograming his memories and what kind of desirable effect that could possible accomplish. The expression of Alec's face must have betrayed his confusion, for the Inquisitor looked at Alec and took a deep breath before speaking again.
"Let me explain what we are doing here, Mr. Lightwood," said the Inquisitor when he finished drawing the rune, his voice betraying not a hint of emotion. "You have been spelled-bound by Magnus Bane, the warlock who is now the primary suspect in the terrorist attacks. He has infected and corrupted you with demonic magic, made you engage in deviant and unnatural behaviour, possibly make you believe that you were a willingly participant in that behaviour. Now, now, let me assure you," he added as he moved to stand at the foot of the bed, his hands interlaced in his back and the expression of a scholar giving a lecture firmly set on his face, "that we do not blame you at all; it is not your fault that you became enthralled by such powerful dark magic. However, we must cure you before the deviance takes permanent root and the aberrant and, frankly immoral, behaviour becomes permanent. You are young and I am confident the treatment will permanently cure you and eradicate, once and for all, those filthy and unnatural thoughts and impulses. You are sick, Mr. Lightwood and I am your best hope for a cure."
Alec was so stunt that he thought that even if he could speak, he would be unable to formulate a coherent sentence. There was too much and too little information in the Inquisitor's statement, and Alec wondered whether he was still confused and couldn't make sense of what the man was saying. Why was Magnus accused of terrorism? What did he mean when he said that Alec was sick and spellbound? The man was mad, Alec realized, there was nothing wrong with him, nothing unnatural about his feelings. On the contrary, Alec had never felt more complete than he felt when he was with Magnus, and Alec was sure that if the Clave gave him the chance, Alec could prove that Magnus was not involved in the explosion.
It dawned on Alec then the extent of the danger he and Magnus were in. The Clave was blaming Magnus for whatever had happened in Barcelona and Alec, being in an open relationship with him, had also become a subject in the investigation. Worse, the incident –whatever it was –had created the perfect conditions for a surge of the bigotry Alec knew was rampant among conservative and influential Shadowhunter circles, and he and Magnus had become the target. He knew, at that moment, that he had to get out of there; he had to do it before this mad man put in practice whatever plan he had in mind. He had to go and protect Magnus.
Alec began to struggle against his restrains, but his efforts were futile. His body became quickly exhausted and his head began to pound.
"I would normally want more time for the treatment to work," continued the Inquisitor, ignoring Alec's feeble attempts to free himself. "But considering the urgency of the situation and the fact that we need your help to catch the terrorist, and put an end to the warlock threat, we have to haste things along. This means that we need to move through the stages of the treatment in a speedy fashion. Now, now, this is going to be painful, I am not going to lie to you, but you are young and strong and can withstand the pain; I am sure of it. What I am going to do, so you know, is trigger certain memories, especially those connected to the corruption and the contamination. For that, we will use the memory rune," he stated and pointed with his stele at one of the new runes on Alec's chest. "Then, I am going to reprogram those memories with the help of the agony rune." The Inquisitor moved the stele to the rune he had just finished, with the gesture of a teacher pointing to a new fact written on a blackboard. "The result is that you will realize the undesirability of those memories and the feelings they trigger, and when that happens, you will be cured. Since we are in a rush, I must intensify the experience; hence the silencing rune," he added. "By restricting your capacity to vocally express the pain, we will make the pain more intense. It is the pain, you see, that is the key to the cure."
Alec could see the excitement in the Inquisitor's voice and the sparkle suddenly shinning in his rodent-like eyes. The man was deranged, and what was worse, he enjoyed inflicting pain.
"Now, now, let me remind you that this is for your own good," stated the Inquisitor.
The man approached Alec's side once again, and brought the tip of his stele to the memory rune. Alec tried in vain to squirm away, put distance between the man and himself, resist whatever this maniac was trying to do. But the effort was futile and as soon as the Inquisitor activated the rune, Alec felt himself transported to another time and place; to a moment in his memory; back to Magnus; back to the night Alec met Magnus and the warlock's eyes rested on him for the first time.
Suddenly, Alec was back to that night when he, Jace, Clary and Izzy went to Magnus' party in search of information about who had taken Clary's memories. Alec could feel Jace's presence beside him, his radiance obscuring everybody else's, but the sensation was odd because it lacked the connection he usually felt to his parabatai. Alec could also hear the boisterous voices of the people at the party, and smell the alcohol and perfume that impregnated the place.
Then, there was Magnus, his eyes on Alec for the first time, stirring something deep inside Alec, awakening something that, until then, had been dormant. The light from Magnus' eyes on Alec made him feel like the whole room disappeared, leaving just Magnus and Alec alone in the world. Alec, so accustomed to being unseen, to going unnoticed, to people not seeing beyond Jace to the figure in his shadow, felt Magnus' eyes like warm touches on his skin and he couldn't help blushing, his body fidgeting while his mind went numb. No one had ever looked at Alec with such attention and intensity, no one's eyes had ever stirred such tumultuous feelings in him.
Another memory followed: Alec going home that night thinking of Magnus; thoughts of the warlock taking permanent residence in his mind, tormenting him at night and keeping him awake, jumping at him from dark corners, waiting for him when the elevator door opened or when he entered a room.
The memories suddenly turned dark, Magnus' eyes on Alec were no longer desiring or friendly, but hostile and threatening. His face was no longer the beautiful face Alec loved to watch while Magnus slept, and become, instead, menacing and terrifying. And then, the pain took over, the most excruciating and agonizing pain coursing through Alec's body, erasing everything –the world, the room, Magnus' warm eyes –taking away the memory or turning it into something else. The pain felt hot and cold at the same time, like sharp hot needles being inserted in his eyes and in between his nails. For a moment that was an eternity, all that existed was the pain; the pain became Alec's whole universe; it overrode the memory of love, of desire, of the beautiful eyes of the man Alec loved.
Alec tried to scream, to yell to the Inquisitor to stop the agony, to not take his memories, but when he opened his mouth, not sound came, and Alec knew he was lost.
"Good, good, that was very good," said Inquisitor Dearborn, as he watched Alec's body contort and begin to retch.
Alec heard the Inquisitor's voice as if it came from a long distance, as a thick fog began to cover everything and he felt himself fall into a darkness so complete that it seemed to have no beginning and no end. "Help me, please, Magnus, Jace, anybody, please help me," he wanted to say, but his voice was gone, just the pain remained in its place.
"I am sorry Mr. Lightwood, we cannot let you lose consciousness," said the voice of the Inquisitor, reaching across the distance and the darkness and seizing Alec, forcing him back to a reality that had become harsher than anything Alec had ever experienced.
Two hours later, Inquisitor Dearborn walked out of the infirmary, whistling and rubbing his hands together. The treatment was going splendidly, he thought. In no time, he would cure Alexander Lightwood of his deviance and degeneracy, and would bring him back into the fold of respectable Nephilim society. He would turn Alexander Lightwood into a proper Nephilim once again, and that would earn him, Dearborn, the respect and recognition of his peers.
The Inquisitor was sure his treatment would work. He had studied the methods that some mundanes had proposed to convert degenerates back to their natural and normal state. It was true that those treatments had been discredited as ineffective, but he thought he knew why. Mundanes were unwilling to go the distance it took for the treatment to work and had, thus, stopped short of success. And, mundanes lacked the tools that the Nephilim had at their disposal, tools that could cause more pain and discomfort than any mundane tool ever could. Yes, yes, he was certain his treatment would work.
Once the treatment was complete, Alexander Lightwood would be more than willing to help the Clave catch that degenerate warlock that had corrupted one of the Shadowhunters' best and brightest son; that same warlock that now threatened the safety and security of the Nephilim. Alexander Lightwood was key to the capture of the warlock; for no one knew him, his weaknesses, and his modus operadi better that Alexander. Once Alexander understood the extent of the warlock's evil, he would surely jump at the opportunity to assist in his capture.
Inquisitor Dearborn was convinced, not only that warlocks were deviant by nature, but also that their mission in life was to corrupt the Nephilim. They were, after all, demon spawn, a natural enemy of the children of the angel. The Inquisitor thought it was his mission to make sure no other Nephilim was ever again corrupted and he was willing to go to any distance to achieve his mission.
"Jessica, darling, can you please take some water to our patient?" he instructed as he walked into a room adjacent to the infirmary. "And, please remember to treat him kindly and warmly."
"Yes, uncle," replied the young woman who was sitting on an armchair, a book in her hand, her voice soft and feminine. She placed the book on a side table, stood up and, after smoothing her dress, walked out of the room and in the direction of the kitchen.
The Inquisitor watched as her niece walked out and, once again, congratulated himself for having raised such a beautiful and dutiful niece. Yes, yes, he thought, she would be a great asset in Alexander Lightwood's treatment; he was sure of it.