Chapter 13
The portal Magnus created took him immediately to an alley near the site of Melrose Hall. He moved quickly to the front of the old tenement building and through door. The feeling of the glamour that shifted the decaying old building into the shape of a pristine, colonial era mansion did not disturb him this time, he was expecting it. Despite the more lavish look of the glamoured interior, Magnus felt the heavy, forbidding atmosphere of the place. Whether it was due to the restless spirits of that haunted site, or his sister's evil influence, he wasn't sure.
In the few minutes since he had left Janus Dark's shop, Magnus had formed a desperate plan. In addition to the ingredients Dark had prepared for him, two other items had to be added to complete the spell, the blood of the warlock who wanted the child, and the seed of a fertile mortal or downworlder. He knew he would have no choice but to use whatever seed Lucia provided, but he intended to substitute his own blood for Lucia's. It would be risky with her present and already suspicious of him, but Magnus could think of no other way to ensure that the child would in no way be his half sister's.
Magnus had already combined all the ingredients except the seed and the blood when Lucia came tripping into the room. "Oh Magnus! You should have called me, I so wanted to watch you! Oh well, I'll just have to kidnap your boy toy again if I want to have another child;" She giggled.
Magnus glared at her, but said nothing as he stirred the mixture one last time.
"Oh lighten up brother dear, I assure you, your little angel boy is quite safe, for the moment. You know it is really your fault he has to be here at all, if you hadn't tricked me last time none of this would be necessary." She said stamping her foot like a spoiled child.
Magnus handed her a small glass vial; "I need your blood to complete the potion as well as the seed, I assume you've collected;"
"Certainly Magnus!" Lucia responded smiling as she pulled a small dagger from its sheath strapped to her left ankle and proceeded to cut her hand and fill the vial as requested. Once that was done, she moved to a desk on the other side of the room and extracted a similar glass vial filled with a cloudy white substance. It was while Lucia was doing this that Magnus substituted her blood for his own which had been secreted in his jacket pocket in an identical container.
For a brief moment, as Lucia crossed the room to join him, he was afraid the substitution had been detected, but she only commented on the length of time she'd been waiting for this moment and handed him the last ingredient. Magnus glanced at her sharply as he took the vial from her hand.
Lucia smirked at him and said; "No, I didn't use your precious angel boy's seed;" and she laughed at the look of anger on Magnus' face.
Desperate to get this over with and have Alec back safely in his arms, Magnus mixed the remaining ingredient into the potion as he mumbled the words of the incantation softly under his breath. The last thing he wanted was for Lucia to be able to repeat this spell on her own. "You must drink it all for the magic to work;" Magnus said as he handed the cup to his half sister.
Lucia gave a curt nod and downed the potion, frowning slightly at the bitter taste. A few moments later a look of surprise crossed Lucia's beautiful face; "It's working! It's working! I can feel it!" She crowed.
"I want Alec back now." Magnus said sternly; "And he'd better not be badly hurt."
"Of course, Magnus;" Lucia said an evil smile spreading across her face as she snapped her fingers. Suddenly the trappings of the Colonial mansion began to melt away, replace by the damp, decaying ruins of the old tenement building. Another snap of her fingers saw a portal begin to form on the far wall.
Magnus took a threatening step toward his half sister, blue energy gathering and sparking from his fingertips.
"You had better hurry and find poor Alexander. Hellequin has fulfilled her part of the bargain and is now a free agent;" Lucia laughed as she stepped toward the now fully formed portal. Just as she was about to go through, she turned her head to look at Magnus one more time and said; "Oh, by the way, when I told you I didn't use your foolish shadowhunter as my donor, I lied;" The sound of her cacophonous laughter rang in Magnus' ears until it was swallowed up by the closing of the portal behind her.
Magnus turned on his heel and raced for the stairs desperate to get to Alec, ignoring the ominous creak of the rotten floor boards under his feet. Once he'd reached the basement, it was the roar of Hellequin and the even more disturbing cries of pain from Alec that guided him to the cell. In the blink of an eye, Magnus' power, fueled by adrenaline and rage, blew off the door and sent Hellequin flying into the back wall with bone crushing force.
Magnus raced to Alec's side and quickly vaporized the bindings that had kept him immobilized. Before he could help Alec to his feet, however, Magnus heard the ominous crack of Hellequin's whip and the roar of a hellcat as it sprang toward them. Blue fire leap from Magnus' finger tips felling the vicious beast before it could get close enough to hurt them with fang, claw or the demonic flames that licked along its back and tail. Magnus knew Hellequin could easily overwhelm him with hellcats until his power was exhausted. He had to get her whip away from her, then at least it would only be his demon half sister he had to deal with.
Equally concerning to Magnus was the fact that he didn't know how badly Alec was injured. There hadn't been time for him to access the damage and it was unlikely that a fight with Hellequin, even if he won it, would leave him enough energy for healing. The situation was desperate and Magnus had no choice but to concentrate his efforts on the demon.
Keeping himself between Hellequin and Alec, who was struggling unsuccessfully to get to his feet, Magnus and the demon exchanged a barrage of magical strikes with neither being able to subdue the other, but at least he had managed to prevent her from releasing any more hellcats.
Suddenly, a lucky strike by Hellequin knocked Magnus backward and, before he could regain his balance, the crack of her whip told him there was another hellcat to deal with. Magnus directed a blast of magic at the animal as it leaped for his throat catching its vulnerable underbelly. While he was busy with the wounded hellcat, Hellequin took the opportunity to create several more ensuring that the odds were now heavily stacked in her favour.
"You cannot win warlock!" the demon snarled; "I will make you pay in pain for each of my hellcats you abuse with your magic;"
The only answer Magnus made was to send a blast of blue flame toward Hellequin that raked a deep new fissure in her death-like mask.
"You are dead warlock!" the monster screamed as she rallied her hellcats and moved in to finish the fight.
"I've been telling him that for years;" A sarcastic voice said from the doorway.
"J-Jace!" Magnus breathed softly, seeing the shadowhunter flanked by Izzy and Richelieu preparing to join the fight. He and Alec might have a real chance to survive this encounter now.
"Magnus help Alec, we've got this covered;" Jace called out as his flaming seraph blade severed the head of a charging hellcat.
Magnus didn't have to be told twice, he promptly dropped to his knees beside his husband and began to send as much healing power as he could muster into Alec's battered body. Isabelle, meanwhile had wrapped her own whip around Helleqiun's arm effectively preventing the demon from creating more hellcats. Frustrated and enraged, Hellequin charged toward Izzy and Richelieu.
At a word from the warlock, Izzy gave a sharp tug on her whip and then darted out of the path of the demon whose forward momentum could not be checked. Hellequin landed in Richelieu's vice like arms just as he completed the incantation to send her back to the demon dimension.
Magnus raised his head sharply and looked toward the former High Warlock of Paris as he heard the familiar words of the spell; "Armand no!" he screamed though a part of him knew it was already too late.
"I owe you this my friend, for Adrien;" Richelieu said a sad smile on his austere face. Armand Du Plessis de Richelieu and Hellequin disappeared in a flash of blinding light, leaving only the scuffed marks of a small pentagram to show they'd ever been there.