Into the Shadows

"Aldous Nix was a conniving evil maniac, but no one can deny that he was also a powerful and knowledgeable warlock genius," Tessa stated, her eyes fixed on the spell book in her hands and a reluctant admiring smile on her lips. "And that he kept excellent notes," she added turning to Alec and Catarina who at that moment were walking into the room. She noticed the sorrowful look in Alec's face, the last vestiges of the tears that he had obviously attempted to wipe off, and the bleary eyes, evidence of grief, guilt and, she suspected, exhaustion.

Alec had silently walked out of the room a while ago, leaving Catarina and Tessa to their research. The two warlocks had not noticed his absence, engrossed as they were in their search for a way to unlock the secrets of the spell book they had stolen from the Spiral Labyrinth. Catarina had gone in search of him when she noticed that it had been a while since the last time he had spoken. She had found him sitting on the edge of Magnus' enormous bed, his face in his hands, the weight of the weeks of absence, and the last several hours of waiting and watching over Magnus bending his back.

"Catarina, I beg you, give me something to do, anything," he had pleaded in response to Catarina's suggestion that perhaps he should lie down for a while. She was worried that despite his stamina runes, Alec was at the limits of his strength. "I cannot sit idly any longer. I have to do something. I cannot watch Magnus slip further and further away without doing anything."

"You need to rest, Alec," she had insisted. "You will be of no use to Magnus exhausted."

"I can't," the Shadowhunter had replied. "Remorse does not let my mind rest. I did this, I caused this."

"Yes, you did," Catarina had replied sharply, exhaustion and apprehension interfering with her capacity to hold her temper in check. She was not the most patient person at the best of times, and Magnus had always said that her filter was somewhat non-existent. Seeing the despondent and wounded look that Alec gave her, she wished her sharp tongue had not gotten the best of her once again, and that she could take the words back, but it was too late. The thoughts were already out, and it was better to push through and say what was in her mind. "You are lucky to have Magnus, Alec. He is a wonderful, loyal and generous man. When he loves, he does so with all his heart. Do you know how hard it is for an immortal to risk their heart every time they fall in love, to know without the shadow of a doubt that no matter the outcome, all love will end in loss and heartbreak? Why do you think we shy away from love? Why do you think we put such a hard facade or hide behind glittery and nonchalant exteriors? We do because love for us always hurts. But precisely because love hurts, and we try hard not to be taken by love, when we do fall, we fall hard in love; we love without reservation."

She tried to ignore the tears that threatened to scape Alec's eyes and pushed on. "It doesn't matter what you think Magnus did or said to you, Alec. You behaved like a spoiled child. You went into a temper tantrum because you couldn't deal with the fact that Magnus had a life before you and, by so doing, you did to Magnus what he would have never done to you. You hurt my friend," she affirmed, emphasising each of the last words to make sure Alec understood their significance. "No matter how you think you were wronged, it was you the one who did the wronging and there is no excuse for that."

"Yes," Alec replied, his voice low and full of emotion. He looked down as his hand folded on his lap in a gesture of constriction. "Yes," he repeated, "of course you are right. I have tried to excuse my behavior, but it has no excuse. There is nothing I can say that can justify my actions."

"We may be immortal, and we may have magic, but we are not indestructible. You thought that immortality was hurting you. You never stop to think how much of a burden it is to us," added Catarina. She realized, of course, that her words contained more than just anger towards Alec. They contained the accumulated resentment she felt towards all those she had met in the centuries of her life who couldn't see beyond the image of the powerful warlock, who couldn't understand the weight of immortality, and the burden of carrying demon blood in your veins.

"Catarina," Alec said, looking up into the warlock's eyes, his voice carrying a mixture of determination and guilt, "you have to believe that I love Magnus with my body, heart and soul. If we get him back and he allows me to, I will spend the rest of my life atoning for my mistake."

"I believe you," said Catarina. "But you must also know that Magnus is, first and foremost, my friend and that if he decides not to forgive you, I will not do anything to try to change his mind. There are hundreds of years of distrust between your people and mine," she went on, more harshness in her voice than she had originally intended. It was as if a dam was breaking and an uncontained anger which depth she had misjudged was spilling out. "I have given you a chance because Magnus loves you, but don't push your luck and think I will overlook another blunder on your part. Magnus's love is a rare gift. Do not squander it, or you will lose more than his respect."

Alec nodded in understanding, his eyes fixed on Catarina as if conveying that he appreciated the full meaning of her words. At that moment, he realized that Catarina's friendliness towards him had been her way of supporting Magnus and he respected her even more for it. Her loyalty was so unwavering that she had looked beyond the differences that separated the Nephilim and Lilith's Children, the long history of mistreatment and abuse, the bigot and disparaging mindset of his people in order to support her friend. "I will do whatever it takes to regain yours and Magnus' trust," he stated, his words acquiring the tone of a solemn oath.

"It is not my trust that should concern you. You have not yet seen an angry powerful warlock like Magnus," she stated, her voice a little less harsh, a smile involuntarily suggesting itself at the corners of her mouth. She couldn't help it. She believed that Alec's remorse was genuine. He was young and, unlike many of the Nephilim she had met, he seemed to carry his heart in his sleeve. "Anyway," she went on, "I think we are close to unlocking the secrets of the spell book." Catarina hoped the assertion was accurate, and that she was not overestimating hers and Tessa's abilities.

The spell book had proven reluctant to relinquish its secrets. Powerful spells hid its darkest contents behind almost unintelligible cyphers and obscure magic safeguards. More than once in the last few hours, Catarina had had to restrain her impulse to go and shake Magnus awake. After all, out of the three of them, Magnus was the expert in deciphering obscure texts and unravelling complicated locking and disguising spells. Deciphering the spell book was like trying to extract water from solid rock. In fact, it had taken them more than an hour just to learn that the book had once belonged to Aldous Nix, the ancient, enigmatic and now deceased former High Warlock of Manhattan.

Catarina and Tessa had tried everything they could think of: powerful counter spells, unlocking magic symbols, an old plain dictionary, and even some of the tricks that mundane archivists used to decipher hieroglyphs in ancient texts. Their latest attempt was a potion that Tessa had concocted using the blood of a demon, crushed shell of a dragon's egg, a powder made from the desiccated heart of a fairy and some other ingredients that Tessa had produced from an old bottle she carried in her backpack and that she indicated that she rather not describe or discuss. The resulting concoction was a mass that resembled mud and that hissed and turned into black smoke as soon as the spell book was submerged in it.

Tessa had not been raised a warlock and, in fact, she had learned she was a magic-maker rather late in life. She was unique among her kind, the offspring of a demon and an unmarked Nephilim and, thus, she carried the blood, magic, creative and destructive powers of both species. She had also lived among the Nephilim for many years. Perhaps because of her upbringing and her association with the Children of the Angel, magic of any kind had never been a significant part of her life, and she had certainly never shown any interest in, or affinity for, dark magic. Catarina, on her part, had always shied away from the dark arts, preferring healing and mending over any magic that could be at all destructive. Yet, now they had had to resort to dark magic to unlock the secrets of the book they hoped would help them save their friends. Catarina still felt the effects of the baleful spell on her. It was as if she had just dipped her hands in putrid mud.

Thankfully, as she now walked back into the living room, Alec a step behind her, Tessa's face and words suggested that the potion had worked and that they had finally unlocked Aldous Nix's book of spells.

"Who is Aldous Nix?" asked Alec as he approached Magnus and brushed a lock of hair away from his forehead, a loving expression on his face, an expression that Tessa thought illuminated his whole face and erased some of the sadness from a second ago. The expression reminded her of the way her beloved Will's face had illuminated when he looked at her.

"Aldous Nix was a very ancient and, thus, very powerful warlock," replied Tessa. "I never met him, but by all accounts, he was at least two thousand years old when he died in a magic spell that went terribly wrong during the 1920s."

"Unfortunately, I did meet him," added Catarina. "He was a nasty character who dabbled in the darkest of crafts: necromancy, black spells, curses capable of killing, or worse, of transfiguring people into monsters, demonic summoning, pestilent potions, Satanism, blood bindings, and what mundanes call left-hand path. In sum, Aldous was into the kind of magic that taps into the most malevolent of forces, the kind of magic that got many of our people in trouble in the past, landing us in witch-hunts and trials that cost many warlocks their lives."

"It seems," added Tessa, "that after his death, the Spiral Labyrinth confiscated his belongings including his book of spells which they have zealously guarded ever since."

"What does he or his book have to do with petrification?" Alec asked still standing beside Magnus, apparently unconcerned about the dark forces that emanated with increasing intensity from the warlock.

"According to his book," Tessa replied, carefully flipping back through some pages of the old book in her hands, the pages sounding both brittle and heavy as Tessa handled them, "Aldous studied and experimented with petrification and kept detailed notes. If there is a way to reverse Magnus' condition, I am convinced we will find it in this book. We still need to do some deciphering and research, but I am confident we will find something."

"Okay," said Alec with a sigh that sounded reluctantly hopeful. He barely dared nurture hope. Things still looked dire and an old book written by a maniac warlock who dabbled in necromancy was hardly reason for optimism but at least it was something, not a light at the end of the tunnel yet, but at least the promise of a light.

"That is a very dangerous proposition," stated Tessa a few hours later, as she paced back and forth along the length of Magnus' living room. "Are you sure Catarina that is what Aldous wrote?"

"Yes," replied Catarina from where she was sitting at Magnus' worktable where Aldous' book now rested, her face showing exhaustion and resignation, "it is apparently the only way that Aldous found. We have no other choice but to believe that it is the only one that exists."

"What does the book say?" enquired Alec who at that moment was at the kitchen counter making coffee and toast for everybody. He was not hungry, but Catarina had insisted that he needed to eat and after several hours of non-stop work, he suspected the two warlocks were in need of coffee and food. The light that barely filtered through the window suggested that it was morning again. He had finally fallen asleep in the early hours, on the armchair beside Magnus, lulled by the low and sometimes unintelligible conversation of the two warlocks, exhausted after almost 48 hours without sleep. He had tried to keep up with Tessa and Catarina, but his limited knowledge of magic, spells and warlock powers had made the conversation sound foreign as if it was being held in a strange language. In more than one occasion, he had kicked himself for not having asked Magnus to explain magic to him, and he had wished with all his heart to have the opportunity to undo that oversight. At the end, the long watch, and the undeniable effects of the draining powers emanating from Magnus had finally gotten the better of Alec and he had fallen into a restless sleep. He had woken up a couple of hours later, his hand cold from holding Magnus' frigid hand, still exhausted.

"In the last centuries of his life," started Catarina, "Aldous was obsessed with opening a portal to pandemonium in order to journey there, to go back, as he argued, to the place where he truly belonged. Petrification was apparently one of the methods he explored."

"According to his notes and the research we have conducted," Tessa continued, "during petrification, warlocks get trapped in their minds while dark forces feed on their memories and fears, weakening their immune system, and using them as a conduit between this realm and another. It seems," she went on, "that he discovered a way to enter the mind, to go, if you will, to the place where petrification traps the affected warlock."

"Something happened during one of those experiments though," Catarina observed, her eyes following her finger as it pointed to a passage on the book, "something that scared him deeply, and that made him abandon the experiment. However, he did leave detailed notes about the procedure."

"And you think that by going into Magnus' mind, we can bring him back," Alec said, the words meant to sound both as a question and a statement.

"Aldous never tried to bring anyone back from petrification," replied Tessa, "but his notes do suggest that he made contact with the warlocks he studied."

"Okay, how do we replicate Aldous' experiment?" asked Alec, trying not to hope, but failing. This was the something to do he had been praying for, the light at the end of this very dark tunnel. The possibility of finding a cure to the disease that kept Magnus frozen in time and place, his eyes unseeing, his mind lost in some unknown distance or, worse, trapped in some unimaginable hell, increased the sense of urgency that had kept him at the edge of his seat since this whole ordeal began.

"The process requires a carefully balanced and rather volatile combination of potions and spells," said Catarina cautiously.

"But do we have what we need?" asked Alec handing cups of coffee to the two women and refusing to acknowledge the look of concern in Catarina's face.

"I would need to contact Jem and ask him to send us a few things," replied Tessa, "and we need to still decipher the spells Aldous used, but I think so."

After a few more speculations, the two warlocks returned to their work, while Alec divided his attention between making and bringing them breakfast, keeping an eye on Magnus, watching for any change in his condition, and listening to Tessa and Catarina's low conversation, attempting once again to keep up with their reasoning. Catarina and Tessa worked well together and seemed to greatly respect one another despite their different personalities and temperaments. Yet, Alec suspected that they both wished Magnus could take part. They were friends because they shared their friendship with Magnus and, thus, their connection to one another seemed to be missing a leg now that Magnus was, for all intent and purposes, absent. Alec understood how they felt; for he too felt incomplete, a stranger in this house in which he had shared such wonderful times with Magnus, a ship which sails had ripped and that now drifted without destination or purpose.

"That is way too risky Tessa! There must be another way!" Catarina suddenly raised her voice above the low and polite tenor that had until then characterized her exchanges with Tessa, each word gaining in intensity and force alerting Alec that the warlocks were at an important crossroad in their research. In the long hours they had been cloistered in this ever-colder and darker apartment, Catarina and Tessa had many times offered different perspective on an issue, but they had rarely disagreed. It was as if their commitment to help their friend superseded all differences. However, in the last few minutes they seemed to have gotten locked in a battle of wills, each pulling in different directions. Catarina showed increasing concern about the dangers of a course of action that Tessa argued was the only option with even a remote possibility of success. "What Aldous proposed could kill Magnus and whomever goes into his mind, or worse," Catarina pleadingly added.

"I know," Tessa responded, lifting her hands with her palms out in a gesture of appeasement. "But there is no other option, Catarina, and since it is risky, I should be the one to try it."

"Absolutely not," interjected Alec, more determination in his voice than in any other of the interventions he had made in the last few hours. Until then he had been listening from the sidelines, trying to keep up with the debate and the information about the risks of Aldous' experiment, but now he was sure that his time of idled waiting was coming to an end. "I will do it."

The two women turned to look at Alec, their faces betraying a mixture of panic, unease and surprise. "It is too dangerous Alec," argued Tessa and Catarina's nodding head suggested that, while the two of them might be in disagreement about the course of action, they were of one mind in their assessment of Alec's capacity to take part in the procedure.

"You would be defenseless," added Tessa, "your Nephilim abilities would be completely useless in that state, and you would be at the mercy of strong demonic forces."

"But for what I gather," Alec refuted, "so would yours. There is no guarantee that your magic powers would work once you enter Magnus' mind. Catarina, Tessa, I am the right choice, the only choice," he added looking from one warlocks to the other. "I have a close connection to Magnus. He will listen to me. Besides, Magnus needs the two of you to mix the potions and perform the necessary spells. I cannot be of any help in that regard."

"You don't understand," Catarina said, her eyes fixed on Alec who at that moment stood beside Magnus in a protective stance that had become routine since he walked into the apartment all those hours ago. "If Aldous's notes are accurate, petrification lures and then traps warlocks in their darkest memories and thoughts while the demonic infection takes hold. That is how it manages to feed on their magic and create a conduit between pandemonium and our realm. You risk getting trapped with Magnus in whatever dark place he is currently lost. If that happened, the disease would also claim you. We don't know what that kind of demonic poisoning would do to you."

"The procedure is very dangerous," added Tessa wringing her hands in a gesture that denoted more anxiety than Alec had seen since she abruptly arrived at Magnus' penthouse. "Not only to Magnus, but also to whomever goes into his mind as well as to the warlock performing the spell. The forces that have taken hold of him will resist and will try to drag you and us into the darkness. If you don't find Magnus in time and convince him to fight back, you will not be able to resist, and, at the end, we could all end up trapped in a hell like no other you could ever imagine."

"The more reason for me to do it," Alec stated, a stubborn inflection in his words. "I can bring him back and, since I am the reason he is in that state, it is only fair that I am the one to take the risk."

"You may not like what you find once you follow Magnus into the darkness," Catarina repeated in a warning tone. "We are children of the dark and the light, Alec. As such, we carry good and evil, light and dark forces within. You may not like the darkness you see in Magnus."

"There is nothing dark or evil about Magnus," Alec stated. "Or at least nothing that could ever turn me away from him. I don't care what it costs me. I will bring him back, you can be sure of that."

After a moment of silent reflection, Tessa and Catarina looked at each other, and Alec wasn't sure whether what he saw in that look was resignation or silent agreement, but one thing was certain: he had won the argument.

They next hours were spent in swift preparations. Once the decision had been made, the need to put the plan in motion became even more urgent. If what they were seeing in Magnus and reading in Aldous' notes were true indications of the course that petrification took, they had little time to bring Magnus back. Tessa spent the time researching and rechecking the spells they would use to transport Alec's mind to whatever place Magnus' mind was now lost. Meanwhile Catarina, using the ingredients that Jem magically sent them, mixed the potions that would put Alec into the state of inertia needed for the magic to work. Alec, in the meantime, was instructed to rest. This was hard to do. Alec's mind had been in a constant racing state and, no matter what he tried, he couldn't manage to quiet it long enough to regain his strength. So, instead, he sat next to Magnus whispering to him, recalling for him happy memories of their time together, telling him in countless ways how much he loved him and how much he needed him back.

"Do you remember Prague Magnus?" he asked quietly. "It was one of our first dates. We spent the evening strolling along the city, walking among other couples. I wanted to hold your hand so badly, put my arm around you, whisper in your ear how lovely your hair sparkled in the moonlight. But I was still scared, terrified really, that we would run into other Shadowhunters and my secret would be out. You understood and respected my need for secrecy, but I was a coward. I wasn't ready yet, but now I wish I had put aside all my fears and my insecurities. Now I wish I had stopped you, put my hand on your cheek and kiss you, there in front of everybody, the way I wanted to do." Alec took Magnus' hand in his in the loving gesture that had been Alec's line of connection to Magnus since he came back from Idris. "If you come back to me Magnus, I promise to never again hide my feelings for you. I will scream to the four winds that you are the rightful owner of my heart and soul."

"It is time, Alec, we are ready for you," Tessa's soft voice interrupted Alec's declaration of love.

"I swear I will bring you back Magnus, or I will die trying," Alec whispered in Magnus' ear. He then stood and gently kissed the warlock on the forehead, before turning and walking towards the couch where Catarina was waiting, a glass in her hand, a dark metallic grey liquid swirling in it.

"Drink all of it," she said handing him the glass once Alec was sitting down. "The first couple of swallows will taste vile but soon you won't notice it anymore." She gave him one of those smiles he was sure Catarina used with her small patients, a smile he could not resist returning.

"We will keep you under for only a few minutes the first time," Tessa told him, placing a hand on his upper arm in a gesture of reassurance. "Think of this apartment when you hear my voice calling you back."

Catarina had been right, the first gulps of the potion were absolutely revolting, as if he was drinking something that had been extracted from the ass of a dead demon. But soon he couldn't taste the liquid anymore, for whatever the potion contained numbed his lips and tongue, the numbing sensation spreading down his throat, and from there expanding through his veins, causing his skin to tingle and making him lightheaded. Alec handed the empty glass back, barely aware of the hand that received it, and then looked around the room. The faint lights that illuminated the apartment began to grow a halo, their shimmer bleeding into the air, blinding him at first and then dimming once again, plunging the room into more darkness. He could hear Catarina and Tessa's voices telling him something, and he thought he saw blue and red magic sparkles dancing between Tessa's fingers. But he could not hold on to his thoughts long enough to make sense of the words or grow concerned. It was if he had a hole in his skull through which all thoughts and ideas rapidly escaped.

Alec had never done drugs, very few drugs had any effects on the Nephilim, but at that moment, he thought that this was what being high must feel like. But then that thought too flew away from his mind, its escape so swift that he didn't have enough time to turn it into words.

Suddenly, the room became crowded, shadows moving in the corners, eyes peering at Alec from behind curtains and closed doors, some sad, some menacing, eyes that looked like the eyes of a hundred cats. Mouths, some moaning, some sneering, joined the eyes, their presence so startling that Alec felt his heart jump and loudly beat against his ribs. He tried to warn Tessa and Catarina of the presence of the spying eyes and the sneering mouths, but the words came out in a slur of sounds, unintelligible even to him, muddled as his thoughts. He tried to point in the directions of the shadows but, as the numbness reached every last corner of his being, he lost control of his muscles.

"I think he is hallucinating," Catarina said to Tessa, as she placed a hand behind Alec's head and gently helped him lie down on the cushions. "The potion took effect faster than anticipated." Tessa simply nodded in acknowledgement as she tried to keep her mind singularly focussed on the spell she was conjuring up.

Alec heard the words, and for an instant the words made sense, before they too became like water running through rocks, rushing along with other sounds, sounds of screams, moans and laughs that flooded his mind, making it even harder to hold on to his thoughts. Alec felt that he was suddenly in a crowded and loud room, a room too small to hold so much noise. He closed his eyes to keep the sounds out and as he did, everything went abruptly silent, as if the noise had been cut by the swift motion of a sword, leaving just an echo behind, an echo bouncing against the walls. As all noise died down, Alec became aware of the loud sound of his own rapid breathing. He cautiously opened his eyes and looked around, and suddenly found himself no longer in Magnus' apartment. Instead, he stood in front of an old and heavy wooden door, its hinges and handles made of solid black iron. Knowing that there was no turning back, to return without Magnus, he reached for the door handle and pushed hard. Once the door gave way, he took a deep breath and stepped into the shadows.

This still needs a bit of work…