The Weight of Sorrow

"How can it be that after twenty-four hours we still don't know anything about the next target?" Alec asked the Shadowhunters gathered in the situation room, his voice reflecting the frustration and anger plainly visible on his face. "How are we supposed to stop the attacks if we cannot even figure out where to look?"

"We are doing all we can," Marite Acquaclara replied sharply, battling her own irritation. "We have all available hands working on this investigation. What else do you want us to do?"

After ten days, Alec Lightwood's unreasonable demands and high expectations were testing the limits of the Acting Head of the Barcelona Institute's patience. He might be the Head of the New York Institute, Acquaclara thought, but that didn't give him the right to come into her Institute and order her Shadowhunters around. Besides, he was likely the reason why they were in this mess in the first place. She had said it all along: Shadowhunters should not fraternize with the downworlders they were supposed to police and protect, and the kind of fraternizing in which Lightwood had engaged made her cringe to say the least. 'He has no right to act all high and mighty, after what he has done,' she thought but didn't say.

"As I told you, Mr. Lightwood," interjected Inquisitor Dearborn, "the secret to finding Bane is in your knowledge of him. You are the one Shadowhunter who knows him best. What do you think he will do and where do you think he will go?"

"Do you think that if I really knew him, I would be in this mess now?!" replied Alec, his voice almost a shout, his anger finally getting the best of him. A heavy silence fell over the room and a few of the Shadowhunters turned and looked anxiously in his direction.

"Calm down, Mr. Lightwood" said the Inquisitor, placing a hand on Alec's shoulder in a gesture of apparent concern but that Alec thought was utterly insincere. "Remember that you are not yet fully recovered; you must stay calm."

"Do not touch me," snapped Alec and pushing the Inquisitor's hand away, shove past him and out of the room, his hand fisted at his sides and his back straight.

Dearborn stared after him for a moment, concern evident on his face. Alec had been highly agitated since the events in Zürich, and the Inquisitor questioned whether he had made an error in judgement when he thought Alec was ready to be released from the infirmary, whether in his haste to get Alec out in the field, he had jumped through the stages of his treatment too quickly.

Dearborn turned towards his niece who, as he had instructed, had been quietly standing where Dearborn knew Alec would see her. "Go after him, Jessica," he quietly instructed. "This is taking too long and we must finish his treatment. You know what to do," he added, giving her a knowing look.

"Yes uncle," the young woman replied, running a hand through her long hair and then, with the same hand, smoothing her emerald green dress in a nervous gesture that Dearborn knew all too well. She then walked down the same hallway through which Alec had just disappeared.

Dearborn rubbed his hands together in a gesture of preoccupation, anxiety and anticipation. He was still confident that the treatment would work, but he should document in his file notes that time was a critical factor for success. It was now up to Jessica to move things to the last stage, and Dearborn worried that his niece might not be up to the task, or that Alec was not yet ready. For the treatment to work, it was imperative that the patient be offered an alternative, a replacement, to the abnormal object of desire, and all along, the Inquisitor had planned for Jessica to be that replacement. The match would surely be advantageous, Dearborn thought, and would certainly improve his standing in Nephilim society. The Lightwoods were an old and highly respected Shadowhunter family, despite that unfortunate episode with The Circle. That is why, he had exposed Alec to Jessica's presence from the beginning, hoping that she would build the necessary rapport with him. Now, there was not time to waste and if the treatment was going to work, Dearborn needed to rush things along. Otherwise, the alternative was to begin the treatment all over again, and that might prove difficult considering that Alec had regained much of his physical strength and Dearborn doubted he would submit willingly.

Alec was in his room, pacing back and forth, his hands in tight fists, his temper like volcano ready to erupt with enough force to set everything around him on fire. He felt his head was about to explode, unable to contain any longer all the thoughts that crowded his mind. His was so exhausted and he longed for a few minutes of silence; for just a few minutes of rest, of thoughtlessness, of sleep. In the last three weeks, he had hardly rested, and on those occasions when his eyes closed and the exhaustion finally defeated him, his sleep was restless and full of confusing and unsettling dreams. He didn't think he could continue going on at this pace for much longer, and not even the energy and stamina runes were working any more. They had to find out soon what the next target was, or, when the time came, he would be too exhausted to do his job.

Someone knocked faintly on his door, and before Alec could tell whomever it was to go away, Jessica let herself in.

"Alec, are you okay?" she asked as she approached him, her voice annoyingly gentle.

"I am fine but I would like to be alone for a while."

"You are upset," she stated, an odd mixture of condescension, affection and something else he couldn't quite identify in her expression. Ignoring his request, she stepped closer, and reaching for him, run a hand down his arm in a suggestive gesture that made Alec's stomach tighten and his jaw lock. "Let me help you."

"Not now, Jessica. I need to be alone. Please," Alec pleaded, and took a step backward putting further distance between him and the girl who refused to leave.

Jessica took another step in his direction, and tried to touch him again, and Alec felt something break inside him, like an elastic band that reaches its breaking point and snaps in two, each end recoiling with the violence of a whip. All the fury that he had been accumulating since the attacks finally broke free. He didn't know how or why, but one moment he was trying to get away from this girl whose touch he didn't want, and the next he had grabbed her by the waist and had pushed her against the wall, pinning her with his body, one hand wrapped tightly around her slim neck.

"Why are you here? What do you want from me?" Alec asked, his mouth very close to her ear, his tone deadly serious, his voice carrying a rage like no other he had ever felt, a rage that blinded him.

"I wa-wa-want to help you," Jessica replied; her voice shaking and no louder than a whisper; her terrified eyes staring wildly at Alec; her breathing rapid and shallow.

Alec could feel her racing pulse beating against the hand he had wrapped around her neck, and for a split second, he thought that if he tightened his fingers just a bit, he could, with little effort, extinguish the life out of this annoying girl. The feeling of power made him dizzy, and he felt pins and needles in his arms and legs, as if every nerve ending in his extremities had suddenly come alive. He had never experienced such a rush before, and the sensation confused and startled him.

'What are you doing Alexander?' a voice echoed in the back of his mind, stopping him cold in his tracks. 'This isn't you; you are not this person.'

Despite his soldier training and his combat experience, Alec had never thought he was capable of unprovoked violence, especially against someone who was smaller, weaker and unarmed. Every time he had had to fight anyone, or anything, it had been in battle, but deep down, Alec had always considered himself peaceful by nature. Now he wanted to hurt and cause pain to this girl, perhaps even killed her, and the thought made him sick to his stomach. It was as if his body had been taken over by someone else, someone who invaded his thoughts with dark ideas, and made him act in ways that betrayed his true nature.

"Is this what your uncle wants from me?" he asked, his fingers tightening just a bit more around the girls' neck. His voice, low and unusually deep, sounded foreign to his ears and contained an anger and despair that he had never heard in it before. "Is this what he wants for you?"

"I am carrying out my duty," Jessica replied, her face as white as paper, her eyes wide with fear, her heartbeat pulsating against Alec's fingers.

Alec felt as if a stone that had been wedged in the center of his chest finally come loose and, as it dislodged, it took with it the fury from a moment ago, leaving just shame and disgust in its place. He looked at Jessica Hawkblue and saw her for the first time as she truly was: a young, lost and weak girl that thought that only blind obedience would make her a good niece and a good Nephilim. He released the breath that had been caught in his throat, and as he exhaled, he let go of Jessica and stepped away.

"No, this isn't duty," he said as he run a shaking hand through his hair. "There is no honor in any of this. Please leave."

Jessica brought a hand up to her neck and rubbed the spot that Alec's hand had just squeezed and took a tentative breath as if unsure whether her lungs would work. She then looked down, her face full of shame and defeat, and taking a step away from the wall, turned and left the room. Alec closed the door as soon as she walked through it and locked it. He then leaned and rested his forehead against it, and run both hands along the sides of his head, pressing forcefully as if to squeeze out all the dark thoughts currently filling his mind.

Alec hated himself for what he had just done; he hated himself for what he had become; he hated his hands for wishing to squeeze Jessica's neck and for releasing that arrow that may have killed Magnus; he hated himself.

A sudden attack of revulsion and nausea overcame him, squeezing his stomach and forcing him to bend over, vile filling his mouth. He run to the bathroom, and barely made it before he began to throw up, his stomach constricting, twisting and tightening uncontrollably. He continued heaving even after nothing but vile was left in his stomach; even after he felt that he had expelled his own soul through his mouth and that he had been turned inside out. By the time the heaving subsided, he felt completely empty and his whole body shook uncontrollably.

He stood up carefully, his legs shaking under the weight of his body, his whole skin covered in sweat. With tentative movements, Alec removed his clothes and stepped into the shower, turning on the water as hot as he could stand it. He began to scrub his skin furiously, trying to wash away the disgust, filth and self-loathing that threatened to overwhelm him. He stayed under the water for a long time, until finally, the dam that had been containing all his grief broke and, falling to his knees, Alec began to cry in deep and ragged sobs that carried all the despair that, since the attacks, had been building up in his chest. He cried for a long time, all his grief pouring out of him like a cascade that, for a while, Alec felt would never end, but that eventually run its course and left him too exhausted to cry anymore.

Eventually, Alec dragged himself out of the shower, and after drying his raw skin, he slowly walked into the bedroom. He stood in the middle of the room, too exhausted to get into bed, too upset to get dressed and head out. He felt abandoned, lost, orphaned, empty. He felt broken like a boat repeatedly thrown against the rocks by merciless waves.

His eyes aimlessly wandered around the room, looking for any clues that could point him in the right direction, or in any direction at all. After a moment, his eyes rested on a pile of clothes on top of the dresser by the bed. He recognized the clothes he was wearing the morning of the attacks, his shirt still dusty and dirty, his pants stained with what appeared to be blood. He walked towards the dresser and, as if by instinct, searched in the pockets of his pants for the note and the necklace Magnus left behind and that Alec had shoved in his pocket as he walked out of their room that terrible morning.

The note still contained the same four words that had sent his whole world crushing down –It is not enough. The words echoed in his mind yet they felt foreign, as if they were intended for someone else, or as if they had been written in a different time and a different place. He wrapped his hand around the old silver arrowhead that Magnus had worn around his neck for as long as Alec had known him. The metal felt unusually warm in his hand, as if it was radiating energy of its own.

Alec sat on the bed, the necklace and the note nestled in his hands, and, once again, his eyes filled with tears, clouding his vision and falling down his face and onto the words on the page. The terrible realization that Magnus might be dead, that he might have killed him, suddenly felt as heavy as a boulder on his shoulders. He might never know why Magnus wrote those words; why just those words and nothing else; why the rejection; and if he never knew, it would be his own fault, for he had released the arrow that took Magnus' life.

After a while, exhaustion finally prevailed, and Alec curled into bed in a fetal position, his knees bent towards his chest, both his hands cradling Magnus' necklace, and resting near his heart. He would not remember later when he finally fell into a deep dreamless slumber, the most restful and profound sleep he got in almost three weeks.

Hours later, the sound of doves cooing outside his window finally woke Alec, their cooing reminding him of the sad lament of mourners. It took him a moment to get his bearings, and remember where he was. His eyes felt like they were full of sand, and the muscles of his stomach ached from the vomiting of the previous night. Otherwise, his mind was clearer than it had been in days, and he felt that for the first time in a long while, he could breathe without feeling that his lungs were half-filled with lead.

After a few minutes of looking up towards the ceiling, his mind devoid of all thought, Alec got up and headed into the bathroom where he brushed his teeth and washed his face. He looked at his reflection in the mirror and was not surprised to see that his face appeared older than it had been just a few weeks ago. So much had happened, after all, so much had been lost. Before turning away, he forced his face to adopt the stern expression that was expected of him, the expression of a soldier with an unescapable mission. He willed the expression to become a permanent feature, a second skin, a mask behind which he would hide his sorrow.

Back in his bedroom, Alec put on black jeans and then, without thinking, he reached for Magnus' necklace and hanged it around his own neck, the metal warm and comforting against his skin. He had never been one to wear jewelry, but the arrowhead didn't feel like jewelry. It felt like penitence, like a reminder of his sins and of the mission he must fulfill even if it was the last thing he ever did.

He then searched in the dresser for a shirt and realized that there was no much there except for a black t-shirt. That, and the white shirt he had worn for the ritual of mourning ten days ago when the Shadowhunters killed in Barcelona, Paris and New York were finally put to rest. With his fingers, Alec lightly traced the runes of grief and sorrow that were stitched along the cuffs and the collar. He then put the shirt on and buttoned up, making sure that Magnus' necklace was safely hidden underneath it. The garment was appropriate, he thought. After all, he was in mourning, grieving for the death of the young man he had once been but was no more; for the dreams that would never come true; for the pieces of his soul that he was leaving behind, scattered like leaves that fall from a dead tree.

Where to go from here? How to live without a soul? Alec silently asked, as he donned on his Shadowhunter jacket and walked out of the room, ready for another day of battle.

"I think we may have something," Jace told Alec a few minutes later.

Looking at his brother's ashen face and red eyes on the screen, Alec wondered when was the last time that Jace had slept, and why he hadn't noticed Jace's exhaustion before. He was, after all, his parabatai, and it was his job to take care of him. Jace had always been reckless, pushing himself beyond his own strength, and it was always Alec the one that had to remind him that he was not a machine, that he needed rest, that it was okay to have feelings. He also faintly remembered his argument with Izzy a few days ago, and realized that he had not talked or seen his sister since then. This whole mess was taking a toll on everyone and Alec wondered if, when all was said and done, there would be enough life left in him to repair all the damage.

"What do you have?" Alec asked, pushing his concern for his siblings aside and turning his attention to the matter at hand.

"We may have the location of the next attack. I am waiting for confirmation but we think it will be in Rome in no more than two days from now. I also think that we should not discount Zürich just yet. You stopped the attack but Annaliese Fen may try again."

"What makes you say that?"

"At this point, call it an informed guess," replied Jace. "These cities are being hit for a reason, and I think Fen may need Zürich for her plan, whatever it is, to work. Do you know what the Institute did with the bodies of the warlocks that died there?"

"I don't know, but I can ask," said Alec and turning to one of the Shadowhunters in the room, instructed him to get in touch with the Zürich Institute and request an update on their investigation.

"I think we should examine those bodies," Jace suggested; "have someone do an autopsy, look for any signs of demonic possession or magic still active. And, they should also keep them in a secured place for now, until we are sure that they present no danger."

"Alright, but are you going to tell me where this hunch is coming from and how accurate it is?" asked Alec.

"I am not sure yet. For now, it is just a feeling, but I will let you know as soon as I know more," Jace replied, and Alec wondered whether there was more in Jace's expression that what his words contained.

"You should get some sleep, Jace," Alec told his brother after they had talked strategy for a few minutes. "You look like hell."

Jace didn't say anything. Instead, he gave Alec one of his ironic smiles that communicated more than any words could ever say.

Alec stared at the screen for a few moments after their call ended, his mind working, processing all the information currently available, trying to order the clues into some pattern that could point to a course of action. So far, Jace's intel, however he was procuring it, had proven more helpful than anything The Clave had provided, and Alec thought he would be a fool if he ignored it now. Besides, Jace's argument had its logic: there was a reason behind the madness of these attacks, and even if they didn't know what it was yet, they should not ignore the connections. He would request an autopsy of the bodies in Zürich, hoping that they would contain some clue as to what was behind these terrible acts of violence.

He looked around the room and realized that it was unusually quiet. It was early in the morning and the situation room was relatively deserted. Neither Dearborn, nor Jessica were anywhere to be seen, and Alec briefly wondered where the girl was and what she had reported to her uncle. But he quickly pushed the concern away. No matter what Dearborn said, he was cured of whatever the Inquisitor thought he had, and he didn't need him to tell him that he had a job to do.