Alec is running on fumes and he knows it.
His entire body aches and his mind is racing and his stomach feels like it's tied itself into knots that can never be worked loose. Magnus's voice is becoming clearer in his mind, tormenting him with the echo of his dead love, as clear in Alec's ears as if he is standing right beside him, living and breathing.
Alec does his best to ignore it. It is no use lingering unless he can have justice. Then, and only then, will he allow himself to mourn.
Institutes around the world are falling with massive casualties both shadowhunter and mundane. Perhaps this is Alec's wishful thinking, but his gut tells him that it's Jonathan; if only so he can have an excuse to go after Magnus's killer with the full force of the institute at his back.
He barely glances to the shadowhunters following him through the Ops Centre as he gives his commands.
"I need a complete list of Institutes that have been attacked. We need to see if there's a pattern. We might be able to establish a path and warn the institutes of his next likely targets. Until we can locate him, preparation is our greatest weapon."
The shadowhunters around him are staring at him, eyes round with anxiety. They are afraid for him, but there isn't time for their sympathy. Their sympathy won't do any good. Alec simply glares at them.
"Now."
Shadowhunters scatter at his command. Alec finds himself impatient with them all.
"They're doing their best, Alexander… Even if they were in Alicante, they couldn't have stopped it. You can't blame them for a choice I made."
Alec swallows hard, fighting to ignore the voice in his head, knowing that it isn't Magnus. It's just an echo of him. Alec can still imagine what he would say in every situation, hear his voice and his tone as clear as if he were right beside him. Magnus is gone, however. Hearing his voice now just makes Alec a little insane.
The list gets to him quickly, the shadowhunters apparently motivated by his lack of patience. He sets it on a table and casts his hand to bring a screen up in front of him, a map of the word. With a pointed finger, he tags the Institutes that have fallen.
"Alec," a voice says behind him and he glances briefly to see his siblings and Clary gathering around him. It is Jace who had spoken. "Hey, do you think you might want to take a little break? You haven't eaten anything since before Alicante and—"
"Do you notice anything strange about these cities?"
Jace hesitates a moment before looking to the screen. His brow furrows softly. "Cairo, Shanghai, Istanbul, Tokyo…" He inhales deeply. "It's the main Institutes… The biggest, the most populated ones…"
"It's Jonathan," Clary says decisively. "He's doing this."
"I called the London Institute," Alec tells them, "and I reached their head. She told me that she has received multiple distress calls from all over Europe… The reports were confusing and there were a lot of languages for her to decipher, but there's one phrase that kept coming up…" He looked to Clary. "Fallen angel."
Clary swallows hard. "I have to stop him… Where is he going? Did London have any ideas?"
"London has fallen," says Alec, "and you are not going after him alone."
"Alec, he will kill everyone who goes anywhere near him. I'm the only one who stands a chance of talking him down."
Alec casts a hand to dismiss the screen, turns on her with a twisted expression. "You don't have a chance and neither do I!" he snaps and she stares up at him with softly narrowed eyes. "He killed Magnus."
"Alexander…"
Alec closes his eyes against the warlock's voice echoing in his mind.
"He killed Magnus," he repeats, forcing calmness, "and he's going to die for that."
Clary opens her mouth to respond, anxiety bright in her eyes, but she is silenced by the blare of a siren. The lights flash red and a sharp sense of danger fills the air.
"Everyone arm yourselves, now!" Alec yells at the room.
If it is Jonathan, they are as good as dead. None of the other institutes were able to stop him. They will be no different. Alec will be damned if they don't try, however. They will go down fighting, like every other institute, like their ancestors, like Magnus.
"Sir!" a voice yells and someone hands him his bow and quiver full of arrows. "It's a greater demon, sir!"
"Alec!" Underhill calls to him from the door.
Alec nocks an arrow into the string of his bow, runs to the entrance. A dozen different scenarios rush through his mind, a list of known greater demons. When he gets there, he skids to a halt because stood in the entrance of the institute with a dozen seraph blades pointed to him is—
"Asmodeus," Alec growls, hiding his surprise under his anger.
"I am not here as an enemy," says Asmodeus, his hands held up in submission. It's a strange look on him. "Lock me up if it makes you feel safer, but I need to speak to you, Alexander. Now."
Alec grits his teeth, waves a hand. "Get him to the cells."
"Alexander, you have to listen to me!"
"Don't," Alec snaps, enraged by the use of his name. Only Magnus gets to call him that and Magnus is gone. "Maybe it's hard for your pride, but we have bigger problems than you right now."
"Jonathan," says Asmodeus. "I know. I also know about Magnus. More than you apparently."
That catches him off guard. Alec narrows his eyes and gestures with the arrow in his bow. "Move."
Asmodeus does so, allowing Alec to herd him into the elevator. He is silent on the way down to the cells. Honestly, it's a little awkward, especially when Alec considers that this man could have been his father-in-law under different circumstances. Alec fights to think of where to start. He goes with the most recent query.
"How did you get through the wards?"
"Your warlock isn't here to maintain them," says Asmodeus simply, glances to the shadowhunter. "You might want to consider calling another to strengthen them… Immediately."
"Immediately is kind of in short supply right now," Alec mutters, pressing the point of an arrow between the demon's shoulder blades when the elevator doors ping open. "Move."
"Alexander—"
"Move!"
The demon doesn't try speaking again. He simply huffs, frustration and impatience bleeding out in the sound, and follows Alec's command. The shadowhunter shoves him into a cell. The door slams shut and locks automatically and Alec glares at it a moment before wandering around to the front of the cell, the glass wall that separates him from the greater demon.
"What are you doing here?" Alec growls finally, glares at him through the glass, unflinching even when Asmodeus runs to slam a fist against it.
"He's coming," he says, his voice low with warning. "These walls won't stop him."
Alec lifts his head. "The cells are warded from magic and from demonic power. Now, tell me who you're talking about and why you're so afraid of them. Is this Jonathan? Do you know if it's him attacking the Institutes?"
Asmodeus shakes his head, laughs almost manically and Alec watches him with stony eyes. "Jonathan… That child has no idea what is coming for him. No, not Jonathan, someone more powerful… He created the wards for this place. He can take them down just as easily. All the power of Edom is with him now. Lilith has been poisoning him with obsidian."
"Are you talking about Magnus?" Alec asks, daring for a moment, just for a moment, to dream. "He… He's alive…? You saw him?"
Asmodeus snorts softly. "Oh, no, Lilith won't let a soul near her precious new child. I feel his power rising. He is stronger than me now; he was always going to be stronger than me in the end, but this…" He curls his lip in distaste. "Lilith has mutilated him." He pounds his fist to the glass. "He was mine!"
"Magnus is not anyone's," says Alec firmly, taking a step closer to the glass. "Whatever Lilith has done to him, we will figure it out. You will rot in here until The Clave decide what to do with you. Now, where is he?"
Asmodeus's eyes flash gold, a perfect match of his son's and Alec takes a sharp inhale. "Magnus cannot be saved… The second you see him, you kill him. If you don't, he is going to kill me and anyone who gets in his way. He'll kill you if he thinks he needs to."
Alec grits his teeth. "Magnus is not like you."
Rage flashes in the demon's cat eyes and his lips part as if to speak. Crimson washes the room before he can utter a word, a deafening alarm sounding and Alec frowns, lifts his eyes to the ceiling. Something has set off the institute alarms again. Something demonic has breached their wards.
Asmodeus closes his eyes, ducks his head.
"It's too late," he utters, presses a hand to the glass. "Kill him before he destroys everything."
Alec opens his mouth to speak, to challenge the demon's words, to do anything except stand here and accept that Magnus—beautiful, selfless, love-of-his-life Magnus—is lost to him forever. He never gets the chance to defy the demon.
The ceiling above Asmodeus crashes downward, littering the inside of the cell with rubble and rock-dust. There is a moment of complete stillness; a moment where Alec Lightwood locks eyes with Magnus Bane and that brief spark of desperate relief vanishes like mist under summer sun. The golden cat's eyes are hateful and wild. Alec doesn't recognise the man staring back at him.
"Magnus," he says, like if the warlock replies then it will prove he is real, then it might prove that Alec isn't completely insane.
The gold irises flash with something soft, something darker like his glamour. For a moment, Alec thinks that Magnus might come to him, embrace him, tell him that he's okay, that everything will be okay. The trance is broken as Magnus's attention snaps to his father.
"Magnus," the greater demon tries to plead, but too late.
Alec is thrown backwards as a jolt of gold shatters the glass in a vicious shockwave. Ragged shards explode outwards and Alec lands painfully on his back, teeth gritted as he feels the hot sting of blood slipping down his cheek, the soft skin falling victim to merciless shards of glass.
Asmodeus is on his back too. Magnus stands over him, his hands alight with magic, power conjured by rage. Now that his body is turned a different way, Alec sees it. The forked rivers of black that creep up the side of Magnus's neck, catching the light strangely when he leans down to his father.
"Magnus," Asmodeus gasps again, "you don't have to do this. Look at your shadowhunter. What will he think of you?"
Magnus casts his gaze to Alec, but there is nothing there in his eyes. "I'm sure shadowhunters understand that demons such as yourself are a threat to all," Magnus replies, attention returning to his father. His voice is strange. "You caused me such torment… That cannot be forgiven."
His magic flares and Asmodeus screams as he is engulfed by it. Alec has to look away, unable to bear seeing that mad rage in Magnus's eyes. When he turns back, Magnus stands over a pile of ash.
Alec staggers to his feet, gaping at the remains of Magnus's father, at the floor of glass fragments, at the magic, fading now from Magnus's hands. The warlock looks to him, doesn't put up his glamour. His mark glows unnaturally beneath the stark, artificial lights of the institute cells.
"You're hurt," he says, an observation and nothing more, unmoved eyes scanning the shadowhunter.
"It's just a scratch," Alec replies, instinctively trying to ease any anxieties that Magnus might have about being responsible for his pain. The warlock apparently has none. "By the Angel, Magnus," Alec breathes out, taking a few steps closer, relieved when Magnus makes no attempt to flee. "I thought you were dead… What happened to you?"
A harsh spark of danger catches Magnus's eyes. "You know what happened. I went to Edom to prevent demons destroying your city. I believed I would die, but, as you can see, I survived."
Alec shakes his head, moves in closer, barely a metre from him now. "Sweetheart, your neck…" he trails, gestures to his own throat. "Are you hurt? I can get you to a medic, or I—I can call Catarina to help you…?"
"No," Magnus says, firm enough to have Alec halt. "I don't need your help."
"Magnus—"
The elevator cuts off Alec's voice and he whips around to see a group of shadowhunters piling out, seraph blades drawn and hurrying to the blasted cell, to Magnus.
"Hold!" Alec orders and the group stop immediately, still stuck in wary stances, low and anxious. The command that halts them is sharp and certain. Whatever he has done, Alec will not let them hurt Magnus. "Put your weapons away."
"Sir," one of them says. "It's a greater demon."
Alec frowns, looks back to Magnus. "You're a warlock," he says, looking for affirmation. "You only set off the warding because… because you've come from Edom… right?" Golden eyes search his own, narrowing softly. "Magnus…?"
"No," Magnus says. "Your soldiers are right. I have demon ichor in my veins. I set off your wards—my wards, I should say—because they recognised the demonic signature of my power. My father's blood runs in my veins. Lilith's now adds to it… It is natural that the wards confused my blood as that of a singular greater demon."
Alec shakes his head. "But, you're not—"
"A demon?" Magnus says, guessing the finish and quirking an absent smirk. "No, not entirely. I have elements of the demonic within me, but no, I am not a demon… I'm better than a demon."
He blinks a little, a pinch to his brow like confusion, like he doesn't know why he is saying all of this. Golden magic flares his fingers suddenly. A rushing portal cracks from his hand and he leaps through without another word.
"Magnus!" Alec yells, taking a hurried step forward.
The portal snaps shut before he can get to it and Alec is left with a roil of emotions in his mind and without Magnus. Again.
Only this time, Magnus is not dead. All that mourning, all those tears, had been in vain. Magnus is alive, and he knows that Alec didn't come to find him. He is different now, however. His eyes were not the eyes that Alec remembers and that strange black crystal on his throat is foreign to him. Both Magnus and Asmodeus had spoken of Lilith. This was her doing.
"Sir."
"Get me the analysis from the warding breach," Alec orders, electing to slip back into his leadership mindset. It is almost instinctual upon hearing the voice of a subordinate. "I want forensics down here to search. They're looking for anything that can identify what that was. Before anything else, I want proof that it was Magnus and not something impersonating him."
"Yes, sir."
The group returns to the elevator. All but one.
"Sir," a familiar voice says and Alec turns to see Underhill beside him. "What will we do if… if it was him?"
Alec looks back to the cell, to the shattered glass and the ruined ceiling and the pile of ashes that was Asmodeus; the carnage left behind. He knows in his heart that, even if it is Magnus, it still isn't really him.
That was not the man that Alec knew. If it is Magnus, it is a twisted version of him. Alec will not abandon him again.
"If it is Magnus, then we save him."