Escape from the Zürich Institute
As soon as Alec, Magnus and Kat emerged in the Zürich Institute's library, Alec looked around searching for Alicia. He noticed that the library hadn't change much since the last time he was there almost two decades ago. It had the same dark brown wood panelling, red carpets and deep brown sofas that he remembered. The only difference was the additional bookcases that housed volume after volume of books. The room was empty, silent and in semi-darkness, the curtains drawn, the light of a lamp on a reading table the only illumination.
A wave of apprehension hit Alec and he feared that either Alicia had changed her mind or their plans had been discovered and they were walking into a trap. This was a risky mission and too many things could go wrong, he thought as he looked at his watch, confirming they had arrived at the time they had agreed on.
A faint noise coming from outside the room suddenly broke the silence and they run to hide behind a bookcase. Magnus raised his hands ready to open an escape portal if whomever entered the room was not a friend.
"Alec?" said a hesitant voice from the door, and Magnus needed just one word to recognize the Australian accent; it was, after all, very distinct. "Alec, are you here?" Alicia repeated as she entered and closed the door behind her. Alec stepped out from behind the bookcase, and Magnus and Kat followed.
Alicia was a willowy woman with fine features and intense black eyes; her skin was the tone of milk chocolate; and her black hair fell midway down her back in tight and stylish curls. Pretty, thought Magnus, just the kind of girl that Jace would have gone after when he hadn't yet been in love.
Alicia was visibly nervous and shifted her weight from foot to foot, as if getting ready to run. She looked past Alec to his two companions with a distrustful expression, and the sight of the two warlocks made her even more uneasy. She was obviously not the kind of Shadowhunter that hanged out with downworlders on a regular basis.
"It is okay Alicia," Alec told her in a calming tone. "They are with me. We are trying to figure out what is behind the attacks. We just need to see the bodies."
Alicia looked at Alec and let go of the breath that had been caught in her throat. "We don't have a lot of time," she said, shifting her gaze between Alec and the warlocks. "A team of Shadowhunters arrived from Barcelona last night, and they just told us that they are taking the bodies with them tomorrow."
"Okay then, we came just in time," Alec said, his voice carrying the steady tone of someone used to leading difficult missions. "Can you show us to where the bodies are stored?"
"We are keeping then in the lower levels, in a secured room that sometime serves as a vault. We have turned it into an autopsy room, but there are guards outside. It will be hard to elude them."
"Can we use a disguising spell?" Alec asked turning to Magnus and Kat.
"Yes, but whatever we use will not be effective for long," replied Magnus. "I can feel that the wards protecting the Institute are designed to prevent the use of magic inside."
"That is correct," Alicia informed them. "Inquisitor Dearborn ordered the reinforcement of the wards after the attack in Rome."
"We have to take the risk," Kat interjected. "I have to examine those bodies; I am certain that they contain clues that can help us in the investigation."
"Okay, let's get that spell working," said Magnus rolling up his sleeves and getting ready to perform magic.
"So, I wasn't wrong about you," Alicia casually told Alec after she explained the layout of the Institute and the route they would take to reach the room where the bodies have been stored. "I knew you were not into girls, I told Jace as much. How is he by the way?"
Alec looked at her with a mixture of surprise and understanding. He was surprised that someone whom he had seen no more than a couple of times had suspected that he carried a secret. He also understood that Alicia's offer to help was the result of her lingering feelings for Jace. This didn't surprise him; Jace had that effect on women. He smiled and shrugged in a 'what can I say' gesture.
He pondered whether other people had suspected that he was different. Had his parents known and perhaps hoped that he would decide to live forever in the closet? Perhaps they had hoped that he would live a hidden life, a sad lonely life, just so the family's reputation would remain intact. Alec thought of his parents and his little brother and wondered whether they were okay. He knew that they were in Idris behind closed borders and heavy wards. He had also learned from Jace that they had sent a fire message saying that they were fine but that The Clave was likely monitoring their communications. Would this last ordeal be the final nail in the Lightwood's reputation's coffin? He hoped not; his family was a distinguished one, with history and traditions that he, Izzy and Max were supposed to carry on. He looked at Magnus and at that moment his only hope was that their future would be longer than the next few minutes.
A couple of minutes later, the four of them were making their way cautiously and with as much haste as they could manage through the corridors and stairs of the Institute. They were under the cover of a disguising spell that, at least for the moment, was holding. They passed the situation room and Shadowhunters going about their business unaware of their presence. They took the stairs down to the lower levels, and continued walking until they finally took a turn and there, at the end of a corridor, they found a door that led to the secured room's antechamber. Kat snapped her fingers and the door lost its solidity for a second allowing them to pass without needing to open it.
Three Shadowhunter in full combat gear stood guard inside and, as they walked past them and through the last door, Magnus concentrated his whole attention in keeping the spell from failing. The spell finally lost its power as soon as they were in the secured room where the bodies were kept.
"That was a close call," Alicia whispered as she turned and saw the door recover its solidity and the backs of the Shadowhunter guards disappear behind solid wood. She breathed a sigh of relief, amazed that the guard had remained completely oblivious to the fact that two Shadowhunters and two warlocks were walking right past them. "I hope this favour doesn't cost me my runes, Alec."
Alec gently tried the door handle to make sure it was locked and then flipped a switch on the wall. The room was suddenly bathed in a bluish light that gave the space the feel of a sterile operating room. The air in the room was cold, a few degrees colder, in fact, than outside.
"We converted this room into an examination room. We are planning to conduct the autopsies tomorrow before the Barcelona team takes the bodies," Alicia explained.
Alec turned and walked towards the autopsy tables that occupied most of the back section of the room. Two bodies, a white man and a black woman, not much older than Magnus and Alec, laid there, naked, just the midsection of the man and the torso of the woman covered by a light white sheet. Alec looked at Magnus, who stood silent, his eyes fixed on the bodies, his expression somber.
"Did you know them, Magnus?" Alec asked softly.
"He is Josiah Droit and her name is Saville Bret. They are a couple, married for over two hundred years, most of which they have lived in New Orleans," Magnus replied, his voice low and sad.
"I am sorry," Alec said and put a hand on Magnus' shoulder in a gesture meant to comfort him. Magnus was thankful that despite all the destruction some of his people were bringing down on the Nephilim, Alec still cared for his feelings about the deaths of two warlocks.
Magnus hadn't known the couple very well, but knew that they led a quiet life, making a living selling voodoo enchantments and spells, mostly white magic, love potions that rarely worked, and spells to mend broken hearts. At a Mardi Gras party in the fifties, Magnus had had a heated discussion with the High Warlock of New Orleans about them. Apparently, the warlock was afraid of the attention that two magic beings living together would attract, but Magnus suspected that it was their interracial marriage that most unsettled him. As he had told Alec before, mundanes and Nephilim didn't have the monopoly on bigotry.
He hadn't known that these were the warlocks that Annaliese and Khuno sent to Zürich. He hadn't seen them at the Villa in Tuscany and didn't have time to look at their bodies outside the Institute the night of the frustrated attack. He didn't know either whether the couple had been willing participants, or whether they had been coerced. Seeing them now laying side by side, he knew only that their deaths had been futile, an unnecessary waste of life.
"I am sorry Magnus, but I have to examine them," said Kat. "You don't have to watch."
"It is okay," said Magnus. "I am fine." He approached the tables and rolled up his sleeves even higher up his arms, getting ready to assist in whatever manner Kat required.
While Kat began to perform the autopsy with Magnus' assistance, Alec and Alicia kept watch by the door in case someone decided to come into the room. Alec was worried that as long as they were in this room, they were cornered. There was only one way out and that was through the Shadowhunters standing guard outside. He hoped that either Kat or Magnus would be able to perform another disguising spell; he didn't want to fight his own kind to escape. And, he definitely didn't want Alicia to be drawn into the mess in which he and his people were in.
Kat took out of her pocket a small digital recorder and began to speak softly into it, making a record, as she worked. For a few minutes, her low and steady voice was the only sound in the room. That and the faint sound of movements as Kat and Magnus worked on the bodies. Alec preferred not to look. He had never cared much for the sight of blood, and he was glad not to be the one assisting Kat in the disagreeable task of performing the autopsies. He did glance at Magnus a few times though, concerned because his somber expression from before had suggested to Alec that the deaths of the couple had affected him.
"What is that smell?" asked Magnus interrupting Kat's monologue a few minutes later. An overpowering stench, a mixture of ichor, sulfur and something else that Magnus couldn't identify had begun to permeate the air around the bodies and was rapidly spreading throughout the room. Alec's eyes began to water as the stench reached the place where he and Alicia were guarding the door, and they had to cover their mouths with their hands to prevent inhaling whatever had been released into the air. Alec wondered whether the air was becoming toxic, and he looked towards Alicia to make sure she was okay.
"This is very strange," said Kat, trepidation in her voice. Her eyes were fixed on Seville's midsection where a few moments before she had made an incision to open the warlock's abdomen. "It is as if their bodies have been filled with ichor. Their veins and their stomachs are full of the stuff, and it is moving."
"What do you mean it is moving?" asked Magnus bending to look in the direction of Kat's gaze.
"It is as if their hearts were still pumping the stuff through their bodies," Kat clarified.
Saville's eyes suddenly opened, causing a startled Magnus to jump back. When he turned, he saw that Josiah's eyes were also staring up at the ceiling. The warlocks' eyes were entirely black as if they were completely made of tar.
"Are they supposed to do that?" asked Alec, who having heard the exchange between Kat and Magnus, had approached the tables. He kept his hand over his mouth because the stench was becoming unbearable.
"I don't think so," replied Magnus, his voice even more anxious. "Kat, I have a bad feeling about this."
As if obeying some silent command, Josiah and Saville began to chant in a language that neither Magnus nor Alec could identify. Their voices sounded mechanical and were completely devoid of any inflection as if they were a pair of ventriloquist dummies, their mouths moving but their voices originating elsewhere. The words sounded eerie and made the hair in the backs of Magnus and Alec's necks stand on end. They looked at each other, surprise, fear and concern plainly written on their faces, and both new that they were in terrible danger.
Apparently, Kat recognized a few of the words; for she brought her recorder closer to the warlocks to capture as much of their chant as possible. She also tried to mouth some of the words as if trying to remember a language long forgotten. "The words sound familiar but I cannot pinpoint their meaning or origin," she said, her tone curious yet also nervous.
The chanting increased in speed and intensity and Magnus began to back away slowly, his hand firmly on Alec's arm as if to guide him or protect him. "We need to leave," he said urgently. "I don't know what they are saying but the chanting seems awfully familiar. We are in danger."
Other voices began to echo in the warlocks' chanting, as if the corpses were suddenly broadcasting voices from far away. Their mouths continued moving with increasing speed, repeating the words until they became no more than a jumble of sounds.
Saville abruptly stopped and turning towards Magnus, gave him an evil smile, the look in her face even more frightening because of the blank stare of those black eyes. "You betrayed me, Magnus" she said in a voice that was not her own. "You killed Khuno and now I will kill you." It was Annaliese's voice, Magnus realized, and he understood that this was their cue to leave.
"Come on, we must leave now," Magnus said with even more urgency. As Saville rejoined her husband and the other voices in their chant, a pool of red lava began to form in the warlocks' abdomen, consuming their flesh and pouring out, spilling on the tables and dripping onto the floor, setting the white sheets on a fire that quickly spread and threatened to consume the whole room.
"This room is going to explode," said Kat as she too began to back away. "We have to warn the guards outside and leave."
It was Alicia who, opening the door, alerted the guards of the danger. A moment later, as they were running out of the room and past the astonished Shadowhunter guards, the bodies of the two warlocks exploded sending a rain of lava and ichor that set fire and burned everything it touched. Magnus turned and saw that the explosion was gaining in intensity and power, and realized that unless something was done, the Institute would collapse. So, he waved his arms on a wide circle, mastering as much power as he could, and conjured up a shield of energy that he hoped would contain the power of the explosion, and reinforce the building's foundations.
Alec yelled for the Shadowhunter guards to run and as they did, Magnus extended his arms even wider to protect them inside the magic shield. He run backwards, his arms fully extended, keeping Alec on his peripheral vision for guidance. As they reached the end of the corridor, the ceiling behind them collapsed in an thunderous explosion that made their ears pop.
Kat who had been running on Magnus' other side waved her own arms and conjured up the debris to form a barrier that she hoped would reinforce Magnus's spell and stop the explosion and the fire from spreading and consuming the Institute.
She and Magnus then turned and began to run at full speed searching for the way out. They followed Alicia for a couple of hundred meters up the stairs and through corridors looking for the exit. Other Shadowhunters come out of their rooms, as alarms rung throughout the building, and they too began to evacuate. They finally stepped through a threshold and they were outside, the crisp evening air hitting their faces and clearing the stench from their nostrils. Alicia quickly joined her Shadowhunter peers hoping that no one would noticed that she had been running with Alec and his team.
Alec, Kat and Magnus continued across the Institute's grounds searching for a place where they could open a portal to take them back to New York.
"Alexander Lightwood, stop," yelled a voice from behind them and Alec halted and turned. Marite Acquaclara, the acting head of the Barcelona Institute was coming out of the building, the tip of the stele in her hand touching a spot in the inside of her opposite arm where a rune was clearly visible.
"You must stay, Alexander" she said, her voice commanding. "Listen to me, Inquisitor Dearborn is very worried about you. Your treatment is not complete and you are in danger of losing whatever you have gained in your recovery."
"No, I am not sick," Alec said, but he lifted his hand to the rune on his chest which had begun to burn as if a fire had been lighted there. He looked at Acquaclara perplexed.
"You are confused Alec, you are sick but the Inquisitor can help" the woman said. "We are your family and we only want the best for you." Acquaclara then gave the stele in her hand a turn as if drilling a hole in her own arm, and Alec felt a stabbing pain on the agony rune and a rush of images invaded his thoughts.
Magnus who had run ahead suddenly halted when he realized that Alec was not beside him. He turned and saw that Alec had stopped a few meters back, and was now looking at a woman that was deliberately walking in his direction. He retraced his steps and reached Alec in a few fast strides.
"Come on," he said, putting his hand on Alec's arm. "We have to go."
"How dare you touch one of the Nephilim," Acquaclara said as she took a few more decisive steps in their direction, her stele still firmly held against the rune on her arm, her voice full of hatred and disgust. Magnus looked up at Alec and saw the look of confusion on his face, as if he wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do.
"Alexander," he said softly, imbuing his voice with as much warmth and conviction as he could under the circumstances. "Come with me, Alexander."
Alec turned to him and his eyes locked with Magnus'. He smiled as if seeing him for the first time, and then turned and let Magnus guide him in the direction of the portal that Kat had just opened as few meters away. They followed Kat through the portal not caring much where they were going as long as it was not here. As he stepped through after Alec, Magnus turned and saw in the distance, the unmistakable figure of Annaliese Fen, surrounded by several other warlocks. Her fierce red eyes, luminescent and full of hatred, were fixed on him.