Chapter 7

With trembling hands Janus Dark took the book from his dead friend. He felt some sadness for the loss of Xavier Malum, but most of all he felt fear, and more than that, a heartfelt wish he'd never gotten involved with the Curatio Daemonium Insanitas, or the Hellfire Club. Whatever it was Xavier had left him in this book, he prayed it would be enough to prevent the Abbot and his brutes from attacking him, as they'd done Malum. Without further delay, Janus got to his feet and opened a portal to his potion shop in New York. The wards that would have prevented him from doing so had collapsed with Xavier's death. He didn't think he could have faced another trip to the Witch Trial Memorial. This whole evening had been a disaster of the worst magnitude as far as Dark was concerned.

Arriving back at the shop, Janus Dark closed the blinds and doubled the wards before sitting down in an arnchair by the fire with a snifter of brandy. The potion maker's hands trembled slightly as he opened the small, leather-bound volume Xavier Malum had given him, only to gasp in surprise when he saw that the pages were blank. Was this some kind of joke? What kind of person plays a joke on their deathbed Dark thought aggravated at such an unsatisfying end to a very trying night.

Just as he was about to throw the book down on the table and head off to bed, words in a unique, spidery hand began to form on the page as though some phantom pen were being scraped over the parchment. Fascinated, Janus Dark watched as page after page began to fill with words. When the writing ceased, the pages of the book flipped back to the start, and the potion maker began to read...

My Dear Janus,

If you are reading this, then I am dead and it is time you learned the true nature of the ingredient I provide you for the Curatio. I'm sure you must have suspected it is my blood, dried to powder, that I've been sending you, which means the Curatio is in essence a blood magic potion. I always believed it would require something of that sort to control a demonic sickness, but I digress. There is nothing else unusual in the ingredients, but that does not mean the blood of any warlock will do, in order for you to understand this, I will have to start at the beginning, and I apologize, in advance, for the length of time it takes...

I was born Timothy Xavier Whitelaw, the only son of a shadowhunter, Alexandra Whitelaw, and father unknown; but of course, that was just what the official records said. The truth was much stranger, my 'unknown' father was the warlock, Chance Malum. Oh, I know what you will say, warlocks are sterile and can't father children; but is that strictly true? I have found over the many years of my long life that what nature can't accomplish, magic often can.

My parents relationship was unusual to say the least, especially given the times they lived in. Shadowhunters were suspicious of warlocks and often viewed them with hatred and distrust, even when they needed something from them. But, the heart wants what the heart wants, and these two, from very different worlds, fell in love and were secretly married. They knew they were playing a dangerous game, the Clave would certainly have stripped Alexandra of her marks, and probably killed Chance if they found out.

As time went on and their relationship remained secret, the two lovers yearned for a child, and Chance began searching for a way to make it happen. He found the answer he was looking for in a very old, very rare spell book. It took time to translate the old text and collect the necessary ingredients for the spell, but at last their plans were in place and Chance performed the magic.

It was an enormous risk, of course. It would be more difficult than ever to keep their secret. Alexandra did her best to conceal the pregnancy, wearing loose fitting clothing and attending as few Clave functions as she could. As with many risky plans, however, it only took one unexpected event to expose the secret. Near the end of her term, a slip on the stairs sent Alexandra into premature labour. The shocked Whitelaw family called immediately for a midwife who delivered the girl of a healthy baby boy, with light mauve scales on the back of his neck and around his wrists and ankles.

Walter Whitelaw, Alexandra's father was horrified and demanded to know what his daughter had done. She refused to say a word and Walter sent for the Inquisitor. The baby was given to the midwife who was told to dispose of it. Alexandra was taken to the guard and interrogated by the Inquisitor for days until she finally broke and told him everything.

The Clave sent several shadowhunters to kill Chance Malum, and confiscate the spell book he used to create the pregnancy. The idea that a warlock could use magic to procreate terrified them. With Malum dead, and the spell book safely stored in the Silent Brother's monastery, the Inquisitor arranged to have Alexandra stripped of her marks. Exhausted by her interrogation and grieving the loss of her baby and death of her husband, Alexandra did not survive the ordeal.

Despite the best efforts of the Clave to hush the story up, rumours circulated about a spell that would allow a warlock to have a child. In order to try and dissuade any downworlders from attempting to find the spell, the Clave spun the story that a baby born in such a manner would be a soulless abomination, a monster, and perhaps they truly believed it.

The Clave thought that the midwife who had been instructed to dispose of the child had drowned me, and so in a final desperate act to bury the truth, they had her killed. What they did not realize, of course, was that she had sold me to a warlock couple who wanted a child. I don't believe she lived long enough to enjoy the money she'd been given for her part in this sordid story.

I grew up, became an apprentice and was finally able to earn a good living as a potion maker, all the while knowing nothing of my own true history. I might still be living in blissful ignorance if I hadn't, like you my dear Janus, developed an interest in finding a cure for demon pox. I read everything I could find on the disease, its symptoms and the earlier cures that had been attempted. I quickly concluded that the approach most likely to be effective would be a blood magic potion and set about to test this theory.

By this time I was doing well enough to have several apprentices who were just as interested as I in the experiment, and were willing to let me use small samples of their blood in my experiments. Nothing I made however was any more effective than the best of the old cures, slowing the onset of the symptoms but not truly controlling them or curing the disease. Late one evening, I was becoming very discouraged and thought I would give up the search for a cure if my next attempt should no greater promise that its predecessors. I went to the cupboard to get some dried blood only to discover that my stock had all been used up. Rather than wait until morning when my apprentices returned, I took a small sample of my own blood.

The results were better than I'd dared to hope and I was ecstatic. It didn't take long, however, for my enthusiasm to turn to frustration as I tried to recreate the potion over the next several days using blood drawn from my apprentices. It seemed I could not duplicate the efficacy of my original, late night potion. I was beyond aggravated, and ready to turn my back on the whole endeavour, when it occurred to me that the only variable had been the blood I used, though why that should matter escaped me.

When I used my own blood, the potion was just as effective as I could wish, but that left me with a mystery I wanted to get to the bottom of. What was it about my blood that made it more potent than the apprentices? I began to analyze my blood and research my own past. It took years, but at last I knew the truth, I was the product, through magic, of a marked shadowhunter and a warlock. I was the original, the abomination that the Clave warned of. There weren't any others like me, and with my death the Curatio Daemonium Insanitas can no longer be made. I have sent a message to the Abbot of the Hellfire Club explaining this, so you should be safe from them my old friend...

Janus Dark dropped the book as he started up from the chair, because Xavier Malum had been wrong! He wasn't the only magically born child of a marked shadowhunter and a warlock. Another had been so born, to the High Warlock of Brooklyn and his shadowhunter husband. Never had he thought, when Magnus came to his shop three years ago, that he would become privy to such a potentially explosive secret. If the Hellfire Club found out about the child, he didn't like to think what might happen. He must warn the High Warlock.