Chapter 12 – The Demon In Me
Magnus was running out of magic again. Every day, for the last nine days, they've made him work on that damn portal until he hit the point of exhaustion. He was doing his best, but that didn't seem to be enough. He had no idea how much longer it would take him to finish the job and the uncertainty only made it worse.
He couldn't stand being in the same room with Valentine after what he'd made him do. Thankfully, that didn't happen often. Valentine was busy creating new Shadowhunters and his dedication had certainly been rewarded – his army had grown to over 800 members by now. Valentine wasn't going to wait much longer to attack the Shadow World and Magnus knew he had to accelerate his work on the portal if he wanted to stop him.
And he wanted to stop him so badly. Magnus's blood was boiling with vengeance and at the end of each day, when he was locked up in his magic proofed cell, he couldn't stop thinking about ways of defeating him. The scheming was what kept him going day after day.
He did have one idea. A bold move that, if carried out successfully, could destroy everything Valentine had. But Magnus still had to finish the portal first.
He crashed on the floor and leaned on the rocky wall, breathing heavily as sweat ran down his forehead. He just needed to slow down for a minute, catch his breath…
"Day's not over yet, warlock," one of the Shadowhunters informed him sharply. Magnus closed his eyes to suppress the irritation he felt towards all the Shadowhunters who stood as guards while he worked. Valentine had made clear instructions about never leaving him alone while he was working in the only chamber in the labyrinth of caves where magic worked. It was small and tight, a bit claustrophobic, but after nine days Magnus got used to it. His clothes, on the other hand, were becoming filthy as layers of dirt accumulated on them. On his second day here, Valentine had offered him new and boring clothes which Magnus rejected saying that if he was going to die here, he will - at least - do it with style.
"You're lasting less and less every day." The Shadowhunter stepped closer and shook his head in disapproval. "I think Valentine should get rid of you already. You're useless."
"Why don't you tell him that then?" Magnus replied and used the wall behind him as support to get back on his feet. "I'm sure he can't wait to hear his most incompetent soldiers complain about his decisions," He teased the annoying Shadowhunter after facing him.
He saw rage join hatred on the Shadowhunter's face and before he could blink, Magnus felt something wet and thick cover his nose and lips. The Shadowhunter had spat on him.
"Okay. This is not how I imagined getting Shadowhunter saliva on me." Magnus grimaced in disgust and wiped his face clean with his fingers.
Oh God, this blazer is ruined forever, he thought with a knot forming in his stomach as he wiped his fingers on its sleeve. He didn't dare to use magic to clean it up. He couldn't afford to waste any more of his precious energy.
The Shadowhunter just scowled at him and finally stepped away. The other eight Shadowhunters received him with high fives and pats on the shoulder for his undignified move. Magnus rolled his eyes and, now that he has recovered a bit of magic, turned back to work on the portal, which was only a fist sized blue ball floating a few inches above the ground. But the person standing next to the ball distracted him completely.
Ragnor Fell, holding a cup of tea so casually like he was just attending one of Magnus's fun tea parties.
Oh, for the love of the Angel… What is he doing here!?
"Go away," Magnus murmured so only Ragnor could hear him. "I can't waste my time on you!"
"It's nice to see you too, buddy!" Ragnor decided to ignore the hostility in Magnus's voice and smiled at him enthusiastically. "I thought you could use a friendly face around here," he said and took a sip of tea.
"Is that…" Magnus narrowed his eyes at the object Ragnor was holding.
"Your favorite cup of tea?" Ragnor finished his friend's question. "You bet it is! You never let me anywhere near it when I was alive, so obviously, I couldn't let this opportunity go to waste now that you can't stop me." He smiled at Magnus with mischief.
Magnus was left speechless for a moment. The last thing he expected to see here was his late best friend. Although, it made sense, since the last few days had been extremely stressful for him. But Magnus wanted him gone. He had to focus on his task if he hoped to finish it one day.
"Ragnor, my dear friend." Magnus put the palms of his hands together and tried to smile at his friend. "Don't take this the wrong way, but I've been wearing the same outfit for nine days in a row now, which makes me want to scream my lungs out." He raised his hands in despair at the last words, then put them back together as he continued. "So believe me when I say that you do not want to mess with me now!" He gave Ragnor his crazy warlock look, his cat eyes wide open. Ragnor stared at him for a few seconds then gave him a careless shrug.
"Well, at least you haven't lost your sense of humor. You haven't gone completely mad yet," Ragnor said lightly.
"You have to leave. You're distracting me," Magnus grumbled at him.
"Oh, I think you could use some distraction. In fact, I think it could do you good if you got a chance to talk to your beloved boy, if you know what I mean," Ragnor chattered on and relished his tea.
Magnus knew what he meant. He'd been playing with the idea himself, but he was afraid it would completely drain him out of magic. Visiting people in their dreams was complex magic at its highest level and Magnus hadn't done it in a very long time. He had tried to visit Alec the other night, but they were either in different time zones, or Alec wasn't getting enough sleep – that thought had smashed Magnus's heart a little -, or maybe Magnus's magic just wasn't strong enough.
"No," He said firmly. "That requires way too much magic and, if you haven't noticed, I can't waste any more of it!" Magnus gesticulated the entire sentence to make Ragnor see how impossible that idea was.
"Who are you talking to, warlock?" One of the Shadowhunters yelled at him from across the room.
Damn it, Magnus thought as he realized he might have raised his voice at Ragnor a little.
"I told you he was mad," a second Shadowhunter informed the first one mockingly and Magnus heard them approach him.
"And here we go," Magnus muttered, held up a hand and, expressing his despair, closed his fingers into a fist one by one.
He knew what was coming. The Shadowhunters had the best fun mocking and humiliating him. They had covered pretty much every aspect of Magnus's life, from his sexuality, clothes, bohemian life style, to his magic and the fact that he was immortal and half demon, and they never got tired of it. It was nothing Magnus hadn't experienced before, but it was becoming less and less tolerable each day. There was something especially tiring about hearing people harass you 24/7 for nine days straight. Whenever Magnus felt like he was losing it he pictured Alec in his head. But it was getting harder not to lose control, and when he made comments like "If you were as good at fighting as you are at calling people names, you'd make maybe… half of a soldier," it didn't help his situation, to say the least. Magnus wasn't sure anymore how he would take the next insult. He was on the verge of completely losing it.
And the worst part of it all? He didn't have any alcohol to help him cope with it. Not a single drop.
"I wonder if you will ever let me do my work in peace," he said wearily when the Shadowhunter who had spat on him reached him accompanied by another who loved calling him the mad warlock. That sort of became his nickname to the members of the Circle.
"You don't seem to be doing enough of said work, warlock. What's the matter? Is it getting too much for you to handle?" the spitter teased him.
You would love to have me admit that, wouldn't you? Magnus was definitely not giving them what they so eagerly wanted. He casually perched on the big piece of rock that was protruding from the wall as he chose to change the subject.
"Let me ask you something, boys. What are your plans once Valentine gets arrested?" He gave them a playful smile. "Or worse, turned into a forsaken." He lowered his voice at the word pretending to be concerned.
He was really curious about their opinion on that matter. Most of Valentine's army was composed of fairly young men and some women that, Magnus suspected, came from dysfunctional or broken homes with an eager desire to prove themselves to the world. He understood that kind of need and he couldn't really blame them for being so susceptible to Valentine's brain washing. He pitied the youngest the most, since they represented the biggest waste of human potential. He knew a lot of these new Shadowhunters had brought their little brothers and sisters to Valentine, as a form of repayment for changing their lives. This kind of sick loyalty made Magnus shiver in disgust whenever he thought about it. He wondered if the possibility of Valentine losing had ever crossed their mind.
"You're going to die before all of us, mad man," the second Shadowhunter stated, like it was the most obvious thing in the Universe and Magnus was too dumb to see it. So, the answer to Magnus's question was, apparently not.
"Oh, we'll see about that," Magnus replied with the most innocent smile he could draw on his lips.
Ragnor didn't leave, he watched Magnus attentively from the background, curious about where this was heading.
"Enough of the chit-chat. Get back to work." The Shadowhunter who had spat on Magnus's face grabbed him by the arm and pulled him down. Magnus landed on his feet and massaged his sore arm where that brute had grabbed him.
"Yeah, unless you want that precious Shadowhunter of yours to suffer," the other said slyly. "Not that he shouldn't suffer. He doesn't deserve to be a Shadowhunter, he's just as filthy as you…"
Thanks to Magnus's intervention, the Shadowhunter couldn't finish his sentence. The furious warlock held his index finger up and drew an invisible line in the air, which was then burned onto the skin of the Shadowhunter's neck, who let out a scream of pain.
"I'm sorry," Magnus said softly as he approached the writhing Shadowhunter on the floor, his voice filled with quiet rage. Fury was burning him up like it never had before. "I don't think I heard you properly. Would you mind… repeating that?"
He could take all the insults, all the humiliation from these worthless people; it didn't mean a thing to him. But speaking ill about Alec? That was unforgivable. He would not tolerate a single bad word about him.
As he moved his finger, the burnt line of skin grew longer on the Shadowhunter's neck. The room went silent except for his yelps of pain. Everyone stared at the scene startled and when the Shadowhunter next to him woke from his puzzled state, he drew his seraph blade out ready to attack Magnus with it.
Magnus raised his other hand and, with a grabby gesture, smashed the bones of the spitter's neck. He was dead before his corpse had even hit the ground, and Magnus looked up to see six more Shadowhunters advancing at him with their weapons. Magnus held up the hand that had just taken the Shadowhunter's life and threatened the small group with a burning blue flame. He didn't need to say a word to make them stop right where they were.
Exactly a second later, Valentine marched in the room, followed by a group of 20 Shadowhunters.
"That's enough, Bane!" He yelled at Magnus.
Magnus's eyes fell on the young boy, barely a teenager, standing behind the crowd, staring at him with wide eyes. It was the same boy from a couple of days ago when Magnus had seen him for the first time and was so astonished to see such young kids being used as Valentine's weapon that he had turned his seraph blade into a stuffed teddy bear and told him that's what he should be playing with. His big brother, who was about Alec's age, hadn't appreciated that very much, and when Magnus tried to explain to him the importance of keeping sharp objects away from children, he attacked Magnus with the most obscene words possible along with his blade. But to Magnus's luck, all that happened in the magic zone, as he liked to call it, so he could easily fight back.
The boy's gaze pierced Magnus like a knife. He was obviously horrified at the scene and Magnus felt like waking up from a hypnotic state. His hands fell limply to his side, releasing the agonizing Shadowhunter from his torturing magic and turned back to Valentine.
"This is how things will go from now on," Magnus dictated the rules to Valentine fiercely. "You will tell your little puppets to leave me alone, not just when I'm here, but during the entire period of our pitiful arrangement. You want to know why? Because you can either have the portal you want, or you can live knowing your army wins at humiliation. But you can't have both." He said reminding Valentine of his own words to Magnus when he forced him to murder those people to become more powerful.
Magnus heard an enthusiastic "Oh, burn!" from behind. Ragnor clearly couldn't help himself. He was too shocked and amazed at the same time, and Magnus couldn't blame him. He couldn't believe what just happened either.
If looks could kill, Magnus would have died from Valentine's. But he glared back without a blink until Valentine ordered his Shadowhunters to take care of the body and to let Magnus work undisturbed. Only then Magnus could finally turn away.
He turned and stood face to face with Ragnor, who gave him a soft questioning look. Magnus's face twitched in bitterness and he thought maybe his friend was right. He didn't want to become this monster. This wasn't him. Valentine had been such a bad influence on him, he only made his inner demon grow and Magnus had to put an end to that before it was too late; before he would turn into something unrecognizable. He was filled with remorse at his actions. He should have known better. He should have let it pass. Magnus would never have approved this behavior and the entire cave crashing on him couldn't have hit him harder than shame was hitting him right now.
This needs to stop, he thought, taking a deep breath to calm himself.
He needed Alexander. Only his caring, selfless and warm Alec and the love Magnus felt for him could make him cope. If only he could catch a glimpse of those gorgeous hazel eyes, feel his sweet rosy lips against his or just lean against him to feel his strong, warm body… it would make Magnus's world infinitely better.
He turned his attention back to the small blue ball floating above the ground, as he made up his mind: he would attempt contacting Alec in his dream again soon.
A/N: I live for the reviews… reviews make me very happy… just a hint there. ;)