Disclaimer: I do not own The Mortal Instruments, either the book or the artefacts themselves.

Warnings: Rated for other chapters, this is probably a T, but with some werewolf violence

False Idol

Chapter 21

Luke watched Valentine's back as he left the clearing. He had the absurd hope that his former teacher would turn back, or even glance back. He didn't and Luke watched the retreating figure until it was lost from sight behind the tree trunks. Then he stared at the knife in his hand. It was easily recognisable.

The gracefully tapered blade was notched from long, hard use. It was a functional knife with very little decoration. There were some blue stones set in the hilt, obviously more for balance than decoration. The only embellishment was the Morgenstern star carved shallowly into the blade. Luke turned it over and over in his hands. Then he froze. He knew the link that this blade held for Valentine to his father, but he also remembered something else. He had seen Valentine wield it as part of a matched pair. This kindjal was one of two daggers. Valentine held the other one. Luke's breathing came rapid and shallow.

He knew he couldn't kill himself outright. It didn't seem right. But he knew what he could do. He knew how he could avenge himself and Valentine's father, for that matter. Also, if he was lucky, he might just die in the process.

Luke turned toward the depths of the forest and began to run. He wasn't thinking and took refuge in his instincts. Sometimes he ran as wolf and other times as a human. Even though he despised the wolf within, he was willing to use it for this purpose. It was less tiring running on four legs and his thoughts were blessedly incoherent as a wolf.

(-)

Luke staggered to a stop, in his human form, when he reached his target. The pack that had changed him had a scent that was burned into his memory. Luke fingered the knife and then drew it. There would be death tonight and he was beyond caring who's.

He stumbled into the clearing, brandishing the knife. He felt almost drunk. When you had lost everything and expected death, nothing could touch you.

"Come on you flee-bitten dogs!" He hollered. "Fight me!"

A numb, detached part of his mind wondered what he must look like. He was smeared with old blood and dirt from the forest floor. He probably didn't look like anything that could possibly pose a threat. Then again, the last thing anyone wanted to fight, even a wolf, was a rabid, half-sane werewolf. To call such a creature merely unstable was stretching the word to the limits of its definition. Unstable meant unpredictable.

The creatures that were wearing their human faces smirked at him. A couple of the more feral ones bared their teeth. Luke noticed fresh blood on some of their claws and nails. The scent of recently butchered meat wafted past his newly sensitive nose. They had hunted not long ago. The glade hummed with tension, and Luke prepared himself to take down at least one of these creatures before he was overwhelmed.

Then a previously unnoticed male stood up. He had shaggy grey hair and even in his fully human form he seemed to retain something lupine. He had a large frame and heavy brows. When he stepped forward the pack sat back. Each of his steps was placed with deliberate care, as if he was unaccustomed to two legs.

He stopped a few paces from Luke and looked him up and down.

"Now if you were just some Nephilim, the clan would be tearing you apart and I wouldn't even try to stop them. However, you're more than that, so you get rights. If you wanna fight, we fight. Just you and me. If you wanna talk, we'll talk," he announced in a gruff rumble.

Luke's muscles quivered with suppressed tension and he shook his head, his eye never leaving the clan leader. The big male shrugged.

"Have it your way, we fight then. I can't say I ever cared much for Nephilim, even one in your unique circumstance."

Without further ado he leapt, changing in mid air to crash against Luke in his wolf form. Luke held up the dagger and managed to ward off the initial onslaught. The ensuring struggle was ugly. Luke was unaccustomed to his werewolf characteristics and didn't have the skill or finesse of his opponent. The clan leader was clearly a veteran of werewolf fighting. As far as Luke could ascertain, this style of combat was a matter of trading off. Claws and teeth could tear fragile skin, while opposable thumbs and human flexibility could out-mauver the wolf form. It was a matter of balancing the forms in order to maximise your advantage and minimise your disadvantage.

Luke was under no illusions about his melee ability. Valentine had always been the stronger hand-to-hand fighter, but Luke had some advantages over the clan leader. Luke was desperate and reckless. Pain and damage didn't matter because he expected to die. He took risks in the fight that no sane creature would take and he wouldn't stay down. Werewolves healed rapidly and he had been trained as a Shadowhunter in his former life. He was intimately familiar with endurance. The clan leader was looking for victory. Luke was looking for mutual destruction.

"You fight well… worthy of a werewolf," the clan leader panted as they grappled. Luke could see the approval shining in the leader's yellow-green eyes. It drove him to greater rage and he snarled inarticulately. The sound tore from his human throat, but it was unequivocally lupine. Luke renewed his assault, trying to tear at flesh with nails, claws, teeth and even the knife. The clan leader easily flowed around most of his attacks, his body was sinuous and sleek regardless of which form he fought in. Luke only managed the occasion bite or gash and felt may wounds open across his flanks, chest and back. But he never stopped, surrender didn't even occur to him, so consumed by his own pain and rage.

The rest of the pack watched in silence. The occasional human form shifted from foot to foot. The occasional wolf form would give a flick of its tail. Other than that there was stillness. Luke didn't realise this at the time, but it was rare for werewolf fights to last longer than an hour or so. An outclassed opponent would usually succumb to despair and yield. Their fight was progressing deep into the night.

When dawn began to creep over the forest, the pack gradually shifted until the wolves were lying on their paws and the human-formed members sprawled. Luke could tell that the clan leader was tiring. He no longer spared any words for their encounter and his graceful movements had begun to stiffen. There was an unspoken understanding that there would be no mercy. Luke was too enraged to let the clan leader live and the clan leader knew when the only viable course of action was to put down a rabid animal. Luke would be too dangerous to let live.

The day wore on. Luke was put in the dirt more times than he could count, but the other could never find an opportunity to deliver a killing blow. Luke's anger never abated and in the end, it was inevitable. It was sunset when the clan leader left himself open, and in a moment of startling clarity Luke saw his opportunity and drove the dagger into the leader's neck and tore out his throat with the finely honed metal. A werewolf heals rapidly, but there is no way for a dead body to regenerate.

Luke got shakily to his feet. His chest heaved with his deep breathes. He stared at the pack, waiting for them to rush him and tear him apart. He was grimly satisfied that he had killed their alpha and he welcomed the final battle of his life.

Then, by some unspoken signal, every werewolf shifted together. The human forms knelt and bared their throats. The wolf forms rolled over and showed their vulnerable undersides. Luke stood in the midst of the pack and stared in disbelief. He began to tremble with more than simple fatigue.

"Stop! What are you doing! I killed him, here in front of you!" He growled.

One of the wolves rolled over to face him, still lying down. It tilted his head and regarded him.

Luke took some calming breaths before he spoke again. "Just give me one reason why I shouldn't try and kill you all." Or turn the knife on myself, he added silently.

The wolf that had rolled over got to its feet and scratched itself behind the ear. Then it changed to its human form without apparent concern. It was one of the males that had smirked at him earlier when he had first entered the glad. It tilted its head to one side again, a parody of the lupine action.

"I got plenty of reasons, if you're interested, Chief."

Luke's lips pulled back from his teeth at the unwanted honourific.

"Firstly," the werewolf began, ignoring Luke's obvious displeasure. "I don't think you're the type to kill in cold blood. You're leader now and none of us are even allowed to fight you until after you've recovered from the last fight."

Some of the other pack members had gotten up to stretch or alter their forms. A few of the human ones nodded.

"Second," the unofficial spokesperson continued. "As you can see, we ain't the most… civilised of packs."

"Yeah, barely even housetrained," drawled a female with dark hair. Her statement was accompanied by a few nervous chuckles.

The spokeswolf glared at her. "Anyway, the point is, I'm not ashamed to admit that we could use a bit of help. In fact we could help each other."

Luke raised an eyebrow in a fair imitation of his former teacher.

"Well, you could teach us how to live without being hunted down and we could give you a reason to live."

Luke froze, his face instantly going blank.

The spokesperson swallowed. "I knew it was a risk bringing that up, but it's clear that you were trying to get yourself killed. You stink of desperation. Now I'm not one to pry, I'm sure you got your reasons. We've all done things we ain't particularly proud of during the first few changes. The point is, we can give you purpose, if you'll extend the same curtesy to us."

"I'm a Nephilim, a Shadowhunter and you are Accord-breakers," Luke whispered. It was a pale argument, considering his now inherent monstrosity, but it was all he had.

Some of the wolves shifted uncomfortably. The spokesperson cleared his throat.

"As I said, we've all got things we're not proud of. We won't hold the whole, the whole…Nephilim, thing against you. You are our clan leader now. Chief."

Luke snorted and then it became a laugh. It was a horrible bubbling sound that he knew was a replacement for tears. It was funny, it really was. His dark and sordid past was his Shadowhunter roots. The murdering werewolves would try not to hold it against him. He wondered if Valentine would find it amusing. The laughter died on his lips.

The pack was looking at him with worry in their human and lupine eyes. Luke thought hard about the proposal. He could do some good here, in a way. Hadn't he himself been given the opportunity to make something of himself, to use his potential? Besides, it wasn't as if he had anything else to go back to and deep down, on a fundamental level, Luke wanted to live.

He looked at the knife he still held in his hand. He carefully wiped the blade clean on his tattered clothing. He kissed the hilt once before he slid it back into its sheath. He knew that would be the last time he would ever do that. It was no longer a tie to his past, but a symbol of his future. It was a future that he had carved out in blood and pain and it was his alone. He turned to his pack. He was a leader now.

(-)

The End