Awakening
"Wake up warlock," spoke a soft and deep voice in Magnus' ear, but Magnus didn't want to wake up. He was too tired and he was having the most wonderful dream, a dream of a windless night laying on a warm blanket, under a dark sky studded with the brightest of stars; the call of crickets the only sound around him. Magnus knew that sky; he and his mother used to spend nights looking up at those stars when he was little and not yet a warlock; when he was not yet the son of a demon and a woman who couldn't love him.
"Come on, Magnus, open your eyes," the familiar voice beckoned once again. Magnus felt a soft hand brushing a lock of hair away from his forehead, the gesture so intimate and familiar, the feel of the hand so comforting that he couldn't help walking away from the dream, from the warm blanket and from the dark sky of his childhood.
An "aahahh" sound escaped from deep inside him as his lungs expelled the last of the sleepy air out, and he reluctantly opened his eyes, light hitting their pupils and momentarily blinding him.
"There you are," said the voice, Alexander's voice, deep, youthful and, oh, so sexy. As Magnus' eyes adjusted to the light, Alec's face came into focus, first as a silhouette against a bright background, and then as the face of an angel, the sunlight from the window shinning on his black hair creating an aura around his lovely head. The aura competed with the light shining in Alec's beautiful brown eyes. Alec rewarded him with one of his broad and bright smiles; one of those smiles that Magnus thought could stop traffic, and perhaps even war.
"It's time to get up, you can't sleep all day, you have things to do," Alec said and then his gaze drifted from Magnus' eyes and down to his lips, in that way that always stirred the butterflies in the pit of Magnus' stomach and filled him with delicious anticipation. Alec's eyes rested on Magnus' lips for a second before he closed the distance between his mouth and Magnus', the kiss gentle but also full of passion.
Magnus inhaled the familiar scent of Alec, a mixture of soap, lemon and something else he couldn't quite describe. He wanted the kiss to never end; he wanted to remain in this room, in this bed forever, to spend eternity exploring Alec slowly and thoroughly. Magnus entangled the fingers of one hand in Alec's silky hair, while with his other hand, he traced the curbs and planes of Alec's back, starting between his shoulder blades and making his way down, pulling Alec closer, wanting to make the distance between their bodies disappear. At that moment, Alec was the sun and the moon to Magnus; the breath in his lungs and the light in his eyes; the earth on which his feet rested and the breeze that kissed his face. Everything was Alec and nothing made sense without him. Alec here, his scent in Magnus's nostrils, the feel of his soft skin in Magnus' fingertips, Alec, always Alec, and nothing but Alec.
"I have missed you so much," Magnus wanted to say, but his lips were busy. Instead, he let his fingers, hands and body say it for him.
"You have to get up Magnus," Alec whispered taking a break from the kiss. "You still have a lot to do."
"I don't want to," replied Magnus, sounding like a stubborn child, his mouth seeking Alec's lips once again. "Can we not stay here forever?"
"Oh, warlock, but you see, I am not here. I am out there and I need your help."
The words sounded strange to Magnus and a feeling of confusion and then panic settled in the pit of his stomach. He wanted to ask Alec what he meant, but at that instant, he felt a force, like a gigantic hand, lifting and then suddenly dropping him as if from a cliff, the sensation of vertigo increasing the panic. A moment later, Magnus stood by a window in his penthouse looking out towards the New York skyline. He heard footsteps approaching but before he could turn, Alec's arms were wrapped around his waist, and he felt a gentle kiss on the side of his neck, and Alec's steady breathing near his ear.
"Hi," Magnus said, his body instinctually leaning against Alec's strong and steady frame, the sensation of Alec's body familiar and comforting. "How did you get here?"
"I have always been here," Alec replied. "I never left. But, Magnus, it is you who has to go."
"Go where?" Magnus asked, renewed apprehension washing over him.
"Out there. You still have a lot of work to do and I need you to do it," Alec said, his voice gentle but firm.
As he turned, Magnus felt Alec's steady gaze on him, and the comforting feel of Alec's strong arms sheltering him.
"I don't want to go; I like it here with you," he protested.
"But I am not here," Alec said again. "I am out there and I need you. Your job is not done yet."
As if someone had turned up the volume on a radio, Magnus heard other voices growing louder, interrupting this lovely moment; anxious voices saying things that Magnus couldn't quite make up. He was afraid of those voices, those voices that beckoned him to leave this place, to leave the comforting home of Alec's arms.
"Don't make me go," he told Alec. "I cannot live without you."
"It will be okay, Magnus," Alec replied, his voice full of love and encouragement, his expression gentle and warm. Alec unwrapped his arms from around Magnus' waist, leaving him feeling cold and, oh, so alone. As Alec stepped back, he began to fade, becoming translucent as if the light from the window was erasing him.
"Don't go yet, I have something to tell you," said Magnus, urgency in his voice. "I have to tell you what I found out…I have to tell you how…" But Alec was gone, his silhouette swallowed up by the light from the window that now seemed to be overtaking everything, blinding Magnus, returning him to a reality of pain and suffering, a reality without Alec.
"I am telling you, we have to remove the manacles," said a deep masculine voice. "Or they will continue draining his powers and he won't be able to heal himself."
"But we need his magic, Khuno," retorted another voice, the deceptively soft voice of a girl that would never grow to be a woman. "We need all the power we can harness if we are going to succeed. It is taking more magic than we anticipated to open the rift, and Magnus is one of the most powerful warlocks we have."
"Yes, but there won't be any power to harness if he is dead," the other voice replied, Khuno's voice, Magnus realized, as his mind finally took hold of reality. He kept his eyes close, not because he didn't want Khuno to know that he was conscious, but because he was too tired and it felt like his eyelids were made of concrete.
"What happened?" asked the other voice, the voice belonging to Annaliese.
"I had no choice," replied Khuno. "The Shadowhunter had already killed Harjeet and he was about to kill me too. I couldn't defend myself because I had to keep the portal open. I had to use Magnus as a shield."
If Annaliese said anything, Magnus couldn't hear it. However, he did feel a hand fumbling and then removing something from his wrists. Suddenly, as if a faucet that had been closed was abruptly opened, Magnus felt his magic flowing from the center of his chest, through his veins and towards the surface of his skin, and then extending into the earth like growing roots in search of water. The tendrils of his magic searched in the earth for the energy he needed to heal his wound. Before his mind sunk back into unconsciousness once again, Magnus inhaled, the air feeling like sharp needles as it made its way into his lungs, but at least he could breath for the first time in what felt like an eternity. With his last conscious thought, Magnus willed himself to go back to his dream, back to the warm blanket and the starry night of his childhood, when he wasn't yet an immortal, when he didn't yet carry the weight of his mistakes.
Magnus finally opened his eyes many hours later, and, for a moment, he felt disoriented and lost. He was lying on a soft bed covered with white sheets, in a room illuminated only by the faint glow of a lamp on the night table. The white curtains on the window billowed in the cool and gentle breeze produced by a fan quietly turning on the ceiling. A blast of images rushed back to Magnus' mind all at once: Alec pointing his bow directly at Khuno's chest and then releasing the arrow; Khuno's magic powers abruptly pulling Magnus towards him and into the arrow's path; the startled expression in Alec's lovely brown eyes, as he realized the change in the target. Then, the indescribable pain as the arrow broke through skin, muscle and bone, and pierced his lung, knocking the air out of him. The sensation of being dragged through a portal and landing on a cold stone floor, like a rag doll, powerless and unable to muster the magic needed to conjure the arrow out of his chest, stop the bleeding and close the wound. The feeling of gasping for air just before the world went black.
Instinctually, Magnus brought his hand to the spot on the right side of his chest, where the arrow had pierced his lung, and determined that, while he was sore, he was able to breath without feeling the stabbing sensation he had felt earlier. Something else was different: he no longer felt his powers being drained like he had felt since Khuno put those enchanted manacles on his wrists that first night in Barcelona. Even though Magnus had depleted a lot of his magic healing himself, at least for now, he didn't feel the sensation of his powers being steadily suctioned out through the manacles in his wrists. He doubted though that he would be free for long.
"The boy must mean a lot to you, considering how much energy you have spent keeping him safe from me," a voice coming from a corner of the room interrupted Magnus' thoughts. "How are you doing it?"
The voice was soft and musical like the voice of a child, and Magnus remembered that once that voice had made him think of butterflies fluttering their wings. He turned his head towards the source of the voice and all he could see were a pair of iridescent red eyes looking at him from the dark corner. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the low illumination and then he saw the small youthful figure of Annaliese Fen sitting on an armchair, her legs folded under her, her black hair falling in curls past her shoulders. Her face and posture, and the simple black t-shirt and yoga pants she wore made Magnus think of a teenager sitting in her room, thinking of boys or her favorite artist. The image contrasted sharply with what he knew of this warlock, her plans and the workings of her mind. Not for the first time, Magnus thought that this was likely Annaliese's most enduring quality: her capacity to appear so incredibly harmless even as she was bringing destruction down on everything around her.
"Tell me Magnus, what kind of magic are you using to protect the Shadowhunter boy?" Annaliese asked again.
"I don't know what you mean?" Magnus replied, imbuing his hoarse voice with a tone of innocence that he hoped sounded sincere. "Since you put those manacles on me, I have been unable to muster even the energy needed to do my hair, which is not fair; you know how much I like my hair looking fabulous."
"Don't toy with me, Magnus," said Annaliese, the words contrasting with the gentle tone in her voice. "I am very disappointed that you would choose a Shadowhunter over your own people, especially knowing what his people did to me."
Magnus thought that it was unfortunate that Annaliese stopped aging when she was still so young. Not only she never got to realize the full potential of her magic powers, and she had to walk through the world being eternally looked upon as a vulnerable child. But also, her youth deceived people into thinking that she was not dangerous. It had been her youth, and her apparent innocence and weakness that, over two centuries ago, had fed Governor Valckenier's hunger for power and cruelty and had deceived him into committing the most terrible of crimes. By the time Valckenier realized the poison Annaliese had been feeding him in her soft voice, it was too late and he was condemned to go down in history as the one responsible for the massacre of thousands of people in his charge as well as the fires that practically destroyed Batavia.
That deceiving innocence had once worked its magic on Magnus too. And, by the time the veil with which Annaliese had covered his eyes fell, it was too late and he was already too entangled in Annaliese's web. He too was made to share in the responsibility for the destruction she left in her wake. For a moment, the image of the body of a small boy lying on the mud centuries ago came back into Magnus' mind; a boy looking with lifeless eyes at Magnus, his face still bearing the half-healed mark left by the tortoiseshell sticks of Governor Valckenier's fan; the boy Magnus saved only so he could die months later in a senseless massacre that Magnus had been too blind to predict or stop.
Magnus also suspected that it had been Annaliese's apparent innocence that had persuaded the Shadowhunters to take her in when, as a newborn, she was abandoned on the doorsteps of the Belgium Institute in the late 1400s. Surprised later to discover that the girl was a warlock, the ancestors of the Nephilim saw an opportunity to study how her magic worked, not caring how much pain they inflicted on the child, and not anticipating that their cruelty would unleash a hatred and destruction that Annaliese would carry through the centuries.
"That was centuries ago, Annaliese," Magnus replied. "Didn't anyone tell you that it is not good for immortals to hold grudges for so long."
"To me, it was yesterday," she spouted, her voice full of rage, hatred and resentment. "You know what they did to me; you know how much they hurt me; how those people, who I thought loved me like parents are supposed to love their children, tried to destroy me. How can you now go and get involved with one of them?"
Magnus sighted, and part of him felt sorry for Annaliese, for the young and innocent child she had once been; a child who until her powers manifested had felt loved by the Shadowhunters who sheltered her. Those same Shadowhunters who then turned on her and used her as a Guinea pig in their experiments. He sympathized; for he too had experienced what it is like to be loved one day and feared the next; he too had experienced rejection, first from his own mother, and later from mundanes and Shadowhunters.
"Those Shadowhunters died a long time ago, Annaliese," replied Magnus, his tone conciliatory even though he knew his attempt to reason with her would be futile. "The world has changed since then."
"Has it?" asked Annaliese, an ironic smile lifting the corners of her mouth. "Do the Nephilim accept your relationship with their golden boy? Didn't Valentine try to eliminate the whole Downworld just weeks ago? Don't be naïve Magnus. Given the chance, the Nephilim would destroy us. That is, if we don't destroy them first. But once again, you have shown your true allegiances, like you did in Berlin."
Annaliese stood and, approaching the bed, sat beside Magnus. Picking up the manacles that had been sitting on the night table, she proceeded to put them back on Magnus' wrists. Instantly, Magnus felt the effect of their enchantment, as if a pair of iron balls had been tied to his hands, balls that made her arms feel heavy, and his body weak.
"Tell me Magnus, how are you protecting the Shadowhunter boy? What kind of magic are you using to conceal him from me?" Annaliese asked for the third time, the soft and apparently inoffensive tone back in her voice.
"I am not doing anything. He is protecting himself."
"No matter, whatever it is, it will not work for long. Soon, I will open the doorway to the underworld and Mother will come back to us. No power, Nephilim or otherwise, will be strong enough to resist her."
"I don't have any interest in being there for Lilith' return, so you may as well either let me go or kill me," said Magnus, his voice steady. "I don't see what you need me for."
"Oh Magnus," Annaliese said, placing a hand against Magnus' cheek. "Don't you see? You have always been part of the plan, mine and Khuno's. The three of us were always good together. You may have tried to destroy us in Berlin –and let me tell you that you almost succeeded –but we never gave up on you. Mother loves you like she loves all her children."
"If that is so, why is she letting you kill so many warlocks in your attempt to bring her back?"
"Those are necessary sacrifices," replied Annaliese, her voice full of righteousness. "Those warlocks are martyrs in a struggle to build a world that will belong only to us."
"We are part human, Annaliese," Magnus said, reaching for her hand, trying, unsure why, to reason with her. "We share this world with mundanes, downworlders and Nephilim; we cannot destroy them."
"But they can destroy us," Annaliese retorted brusquely taking her hand away. "You helped them. You almost destroyed me in Berlin. Your hurt me badly, Magnus, in more ways than one."
Magnus looked into Annaliese's eyes, searching for some remnant of the humanity that he knew had been there once. Instead, Annaliese dropped a heavy glamor that, until that moment, he didn't know was there, and allowed him a glance of her horribly scarred face. Magnus inhaled sharply surprised to see that part of her face and half of her hair were gone, replaced with scar tissue that was almost black and that resembled lava that had cooled on her face.
"You did this to me, Magnus," she said, tears in her eyes. "This is what you and your Shadowhunter friend did in Berlin. Didn't you know that magic cannot heal burns from demonic fire? But no matter," she added donning on the glamor once again, smooth skin and long black curls disguising the scars. "Soon, Mother will heal me once and for all, and I will finally have my vengeance. In fact, I am already getting revenge for what you did, Magnus. I may not be able to get to your Shadowhunter boy yet, but I am making darn sure that he knows that you are with us. When he dies –and believe me, he will die –he will do so knowing that you were part of the group that killed him. He will never forgive you and you will go on knowing that he died hating you."
Annaliese stood up and after gazing at Magnus for an instant, her eyes full of determination, she left the room. "Get some rest," she said just before she opened the door and left. "I need you to recover your strength for our next mission."
Once he was alone, Magnus laid his head back on the pillow, the sensation of the manacles suctioning out his magic powers causing him to feel dizzy and weak, a headache settling in his temples. What now? He asked himself, as he closed his eyes and tried to push the image of Annaliese's horribly scarred face from his mind. He had to gather his wits and think about his next move.
He made a quick inventory of what he had learned so far. The most important was that the attacks were not random. In fact, they followed a pattern that Annaliese and the warlocks in her close circle were following in star charts and old documents that they spent hours studying. Annaliese and Khuno had also installed a small, but sophisticated telescope on the roof of the Tuscan Village that served as their headquarters. Khuno had taken Magnus there a few nights ago to show him how clearly the rings of Saturn looked through the eyepiece. Annaliese was using the stars to determine her targets and Rome would be next.
Annaliese and Khuno were trying to open a doorway into the underworld to summon Lilith, the mother of all demons, into this realm. Magnus wondered whether Annaliese was already somehow communicating with Lilith, whether Lilith was helping by weakening the border between realms at each point in which the attacks had taken place. Magnus had seen the holes in the ground that the explosions left behind, holes that remained incandescent and that continued to release demonic fumes days after the explosions.
He didn't yet know why Annaliese was targeting more than one city. In Berlin during the Second World War, she had focused her attention only in one place, why was she targeting more than one now?
Magnus knew that the attacks required considerable magic energy; energy that Annaliese was harnessing from other warlocks by using manacles like the ones she had put on him. The manacles appeared, at first sight, quite harmless, not more than metal bracelets with strange runes and designs engraved in them, but their power was considerable.
For the first few days after Barcelona, Magnus had thought that the manacles were meant to restrain him, stop him from trying to escape, and possibly block any attempt to track him. However, since they arrived in Tuscany, he had learned that the manacles were designed to suction his powers out of him. Wearing them felt like carrying heavy weights on his wrists, weights that got heavier and heavier the more power Annaliese took from him. He also learned that he was not the only one who was made to wear the manacles. Most of the warlocks who unwillingly arrived in the house received the same treatment, their magic mined and used to increase the power needed for the explosions. The drainage had devastating consequences for the warlocks forced to relinquish their powers.
In addition to the two warlocks that sacrificed themselves in each attack, the power of at least three other warlocks were needed to increase the power of the explosions. In the last two attacks, those warlocks whose powers were harvested died, their power completely depleted until not an ounce of it was left, not even enough to draw breath. Those warlocks had died gasping for air, and the manacles had continued draining their power even after death, until nothing was left but dried skin and bone, and the terrified expressions of eyes looking upon the face of death. If he was going to stop Annaliese's plans, he had to figure out how to weaken her, how to disrupt the flow of magic and the drainage of warlock power.
Finally, Magnus knew that the demonic energy released in the explosions was affecting the vampires and would possibly eventually affect the werewolves too. He had seen it in Berlin the last time Annaliese had tried to summon Lilith, and Annaliese had used that side effect to increase the impact of the destruction. Unable to control themselves, vampires poisoned with demonic energy had gone into an uncontainable feeding frenzy that had resulted in countless deaths. Some vampires had fed to death, unable to stop until they died from too much blood. Back then, the war had provided the perfect disguise for the mundane and vampire deaths. There was no human war on now and Magnus feared that if Annaliese achieved her plan, that would not matter; mundanes, the Nephilim, and eventually even downworlders, would be at her mercy.
Suddenly, Magnus felt a tug in that spot above his heart where he kept his most treasured memory of Alec, and he instinctually lifted his hand and rested it there. His heart skipped a couple of beats, and then picked up speed as if it was answering a call that his ears couldn't hear; as if Alec, wherever he was, was calling to him. Alec was safe, Magnus thought, and out of Annaliese's reach; it was imperative that this remained the case. Anneliese already knew that Alec was Magnus' Achilles' heel and if she captured him, he would use him to force Magnus to obey her. Thus, Alec had to remain as far away from Magnus as possible. Thankfully, Annaliese hadn't yet realized the reason why she couldn't track Alec. With any luck, she would never learn that Magnus had left him a powerful source of protection.
He turned on the bed and lied on his side and he conjured up the memory of Alec spooning with him, his long arms wrapped around Magnus sheltering and warming him. After a few minutes, he began to drift to sleep, the memory of Alec's angelic face and beautiful smile the only thought in his mind. At that moment, hundreds of kilometers away, in the situation room of the Barcelona Institute, Alec felt the warmth emanating from the arrowhead hanging around his neck increase slightly, the sensation strangely comforting.