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It’s early Friday night in New York city. Alec casts a glance upwards to see inky black sky peeking out between the silhouettes of tall apartment blocks. A smattering of tiny white stars twinkle on the dark backdrop, only the strongest and brightest able to overcome the overwhelming glow of New York’s million and one lights. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, something that could efficiently describe life in New York city and all its trials and tribulations.
Or maybe Alec’s being a tad dramatic following the poorer than expected grading on his most recent programming project. He’d worked hard on the damn thing. Had done everything Professor Hamlin had expected. The less than complimentary comments typed in glaring green beside the lines of coding Alec had spent countless sleepless nights trying to wrangle into some semblance of working order had been the icing on the proverbial shit cake this week had been. Alec is already looking forward to the Christmas break and they were only a month into the new semester.
He burrows deeper into the turned up collar of his dark jacket, the crisp fall air cooler than comfortable on his skin. With the absent attention of long familiarity, Alec lets his steps take him automatically through a small park situated in between two rows of townhouses. In the middle of the park is a colourful playground, usually occupied during the day by at least two or three children racing up and down the slides. Large trees dot the park, their bare branches casting skeletal silhouettes into the sky.
The pavement crunches beneath the soles of his boots as he trudges along. Across the park, a couple stands illuminated under a street lamp, a dog straining against its leash between them, barking aggressively in the direction of the playground. Alec is sure his left foot is twice as large as the tiny thing but it’s putting good effort into making up for its size deficiency with the amount of noise it’s outputting.
Huffing with amusement, Alec huddles deeper into his coat. He muses about his plans with his friends tomorrow, wondering if he could convince them to add a bit of drinking to the board games night they’re planning on. The incongruous crack of a whip echoing through the New York night startles him out of his thoughts, his steps slowing to a stop in the middle of the pathway.
Head tilted, Alec looks around curiously, wondering what could be happening. The sound echoes from every direction making its origin hard to pinpoint, the still barking dog making it harder yet. The whip crack sounds again. Alec looks to his left and blinks, eyebrows furrowing in consternation. Just past the playground, are two people; a man and, judging by the long hair being tossed about, a woman.
Alec is very certain they were not there a second ago.
They appear to be, for lack of a better description, in the middle of fighting something, moving together with a synchrony that spoke of long familiarity and teamwork. The woman draws her arm back and a long slender length lashes out, the sound of a whip crack exploding forth a scant quarter of a second later. The whip catches what looks to be a grown human around the neck. Alec’s eyes widen when the -- person? Creature? -- bursts into flame not a half-second later.
The man meanwhile wields a glowing blue sword with incredible speed and precision. It’s unlike any sword Alec has ever seen, the blade made of one long sinuous curve. With a quick decisive stab, the man’s aggressor bursts into a ball of flame in the exact same manner at the woman’s aggressor.
Alec watches the pair battle, slack jawed and a little terrified. Are the man and woman fighting other people? He can’t tell for sure; it’s too dark where they are. Their shapes are humanoid enough but their movements are frenetic, jerky and they seem to like charging in face first, something a normal fighter would never do. He wonders if he should call for help. But who should he call the help for?
It takes him a moment, but he suddenly realizes the shrill barking is drawing closer. Looking to his side, Alec sees that the couple is now moving down the path towards him, tiny dog being dragged bodily after them.
“Do we need to put her back in the training school?” The man mutters as they veer around him, planted as a tall looming obstacle in the middle of the path. The woman shoots him an annoyed look, the man doing the opposite and looking pointedly away, an embarrassed flush on his cheeks. Alec has to sidestep a few paces to avoid the dog -- now it’s closer he can see it’s a chihuahua -- as it struggles to plant itself in one spot. Following the angle of the dog’s gaze, he realizes that it’s barking in the direction of the pair doing battle by the playground.
The whip cracks again and, to Alec, it’s as good as deafening in the quiet air of the park. The dog barks even more aggressively, but her owners don’t even twitch as they leave the park and disappear round the corner. Alec stares after them in puzzlement.
“Izzy! The mundane!” A male voice shouts suddenly. Alec whips around, his eyes widening to the size of saucers when he sees a shadow bounding towards him, moving faster than any human could possibly move. Instinctively, he takes a few uncertain steps back. Just as he’s deciding that he should have been running for his life about two seconds ago the shadow takes a huge leap forward, arms outstretched. As it enters the illuminated circle cast by the street lamp, a length of silver cord wraps around its neck yanking it back into the shadows just as fast as it appeared.
It’s just long enough for Alec to catch a glimpse of its face.
And it’s absolutely horrifying.
The thing’s face is eldritch terror embodied, fangs and spikes everywhere, four pincer-like mandibles unfolding like a toothy flower from where its mouth should be.
“Oh my fucking god!” Alec screeches, stumbling back. The things are most definitely not human. Alec is sure its terrifying visage will feature regularly in his nightmares for the rest of his life. The thing lets out an unholy shriek of fury before bursting into a ball of flame. “What the fuck is that?!”
There’s a moment of silence, then the woman steps into the lamplight. She looks young, younger than him at any rate with cascading black hair framing attractive features. Her face is artfully made up, deep red lipstick painting her lips and eyelids dusted over with dark eye shadow. She’s wearing knee high black boots with dangerously high heels and a form fitting black dress that accentuates all her curves. In her right hand she holds a silver-coloured whip. What catches Alec’s attention though are the numerous black tattoos trailing down every available spot of skin on her bare arms, up her neck and even onto her chest just over her sternum.
“Can you see us?”
Alec blinks at her. “What the hell sort of question is that?” he says. “Of course I can see you!”
“Izzy?” The male voice from earlier says. The man steps into the lamplight to stand beside the woman, glowing blue blade still in his right hand. He’s strikingly handsome, with golden blonde hair and odd coloured eyes, one blue and the other struck through with a hint of brown. Alec’s mouth goes oddly dry at the sight of him and his next breath hitches a little in his throat. He’s dressed all in black as well with military style combat boots and a stylish leather jacket. A neck tattoo peeks out over the collar, the style of it similar to the woman’s.
“He can see us,” the woman, Izzy, says in a conspiratorial manner to the man despite Alec standing right there.
“What? Really?” The blonde looks at Alec, his glance skimming briefly over Alec’s form. Alec shifts nervously under the brief scrutiny, his face getting oddly hot. “You must have the Sight then.”
“Uh, the what?” Alec frowns at the man.
“Oh okay, that makes sense,” Izzy says, her face clearing of confusion.
No, it does not make sense Alec wants to say, but doesn’t have the time to. An unholy shriek sounds from behind Izzy and the man that has them whirling in unison. A shadow leaps at them, arms extended. The man tries to get his blade up to block the incoming attack but he’s a hair too slow and the creature knocks the sword out of his hand, the man stumbling back with the impact of the creature’s bulk slamming into him. The blade instantly disappears the moment it leaves his hand, the handle of the sword falling to the ground and skittering to a stop at Alec’s feet. The man’s forearm snaps up to catch the creature in its neck, the eldritch horror mandibles snapping viciously at his face.
“Jace!” Izzy shouts and then she’s stabbing furiously forward with a shorter blade -- a dagger -- that glows a bright blue, just the same as the sword. The creature disappears in another ball of fire. They stand frozen in a tableau for a second before the man, Jace, lets out a huff of air.
“Thanks Izzy,” Jace says.
“No problem,” she says, her lips now curling into a shit-eating smirk. “Add that to the list of things you owe me.”
Jace rolls his eyes and looks around the inky darkness of the park. “Is that all of them?”
Izzy glances around as well. “I think so…”
“Jesus Christ what are those things?” Alec says, his face twisted with disgust.
“Ah look,” Jace says turning around to look at Alec again; the expression on his face seemed to say he’d nearly forgotten Alec was there. Alec is mildly insulted. “Don’t worry too much about that. The things are creepy and gross but I promise they won’t hurt you. Just don’t pay any attention to them and they’ll leave you alone.” The blonde starts walking toward him.
Alec feels his face contort into an skeptical grimace. “Why the hell would they do that? One just tried to attack me. Who’s to say it won’t happen again? What the hell are they any ways?” Looking down at where the approaching blonde is looking, Alec belatedly remembers Jace’s fallen blade lying at his feet. He crouches down to pick it up.
“No don’t worry about--” Jace says, abruptly trailing off before tacking, “It,” onto the end of the sentence like some half-forgotten phrase.
Alec is too busy to notice, fascinated with the blue blade that suddenly springs to life under his touch. The sword is lighter than any weapon he’s ever had the privilege to work with in all the years he’s been working towards his third degree black belt in taekwondo. He gives it a few experimental swings noting the perfect balance of the weapon before flipping it handle first and offering it to Jace. His mind is whirring with curiosity about the origins of the weapon.
“That’s a really cool sword man,” Alec says, still giving it some admiring glances. He notices strange shapes etched along the surface of the blade, odd patterns that glow white against the blue and look like symbols to him. “Where’d you get it?”
He finally looks up to see that the pair are simply staring at him, mouths agape, shock writ large on their faces. Jace’s right hand hangs uselessly in the air, arm stretched out mid-reach.
“Umm. What?”
“By the angel,” Izzy says, snapping out of her shock first. “You don’t just have the Sight. You’re a Shadowhunter!”
“Umm. What?” Alec says again.
“No way, Izzy that’s not possible,” Jace says, finally snapping out of his own shock and pulling his arm back.
“Yes it has to be possible. How else is he activating the seraph blade Jace?” She waves her hand at the glowing blade still sitting in Alec’s hand.
“He’s clearly Mundane. The only way he could have angel blood but still act like a Mundane is if--” Jace abruptly cuts himself off, looking suddenly contrite, of all things. Alec couldn’t begin to guess the reasons for it.
“Is if a Shadowhunter family lost or abandoned their baby?” Izzy finishes for him. “Yeah, it’s possible Jace. You know it is.”
“Okay, hang on,” Alec says, mind whirling. “What are you guys talking about? Mundane? Shadowhunter? What are those things?”
“Raziel,” Jace says giving Alec another assessing look that has Alec’s face warming up again for no reason he can discern. “Where to start? Should we even?” He scrunches up his face and looks sidelong at Izzy.
Izzy blinks straight back at him, her expression clearly saying she thought Jace was brain damaged. “Umm, yes? Why shouldn’t we? Clearly he’s a Shadowhunter. He’s one of us. He has to know. In fact, it’s his birthright!”
“Yeah but…” Jace trails off and sends another look unreadable look at Alec and Alec can feel his hackles rising.
“Hey, I’m right here. You can include me in this conversation any time soon.”
The pair don’t immediately react to Alec’s words, instead standing in a wordless face off. It lasts long enough for Alec to start really getting pissed off when Izzy suddenly shifts her attention to him, her shoulders squaring and her chin tilting up in a challenging way that Alec doesn’t think is directed at all at him. Beside her Jace rolls his eyes but doesn’t say anything.
“I’m sorry. We didn’t mean to speak like you weren’t here,” she says. “Look, why don’t we have a seat over there,” she gestures at the three benches facing the playground. “And we can talk and answer any questions you have. I’m sure you have a lot of them.”
“Uh sure,” Alec says. “But, uh---” He trails off and stares at her.
“What?” Izzy says frowning. Beside her, Jace’s eyes narrow at Alec’s prolonged scrutiny.
“Shouldn’t we go somewhere warmer? I mean…” Alec flicks his hand in Izzy’s direction. “You’re not wearing a jacket and it’s freezing out. Aren’t you cold?”
Izzy blinks for a second at him and then laughs. Jace huffs out a chuckle as well. “You know he’s right Iz. You should wear a jacket when we head out on patrol.”
“I wear a jacket most of the times. It’s just that I thought it would be a shame to cover up tonight’s outfit.” She spins gracefully on the spot, finishing with a flourish of her arms, a flirtatious smile on her lips. Alec blinks, confusion showing on his face as he wonders what she’s trying to do.
Her smile dims momentarily but suddenly comes back full force and she laughs again. “Come on, let’s sit. I promise you, I am perfectly warm and will be fine and there is a perfectly good explanation for it.”
Still a little skeptical Alec shrugs anyways, following the two over to the nearest park bench. The bench is wooden and well-worn from years of bedraggled caregivers sitting to watch their tiny charges bounce around with boundless energy on the playground equipment.
Izzy flops down in the middle, Jace sitting to her left and Alec taking the space on her right.
“First introductions are in order I think. My name is Isabelle and this is my adopted brother Jace,” she says as she gestures at the blonde in question. The blonde nods at Alec.
“Alec,” Alec replies. “Nice to meet you.”
“Likewise,” Isabelle says smiling widely at him. She claps her hands together. “Now you’re likely wondering what those things were. And we don’t have a heck of a lot of time, so we’ll get right to it.” She straightens up, crossing her legs and angling herself to face Alec as much as the bench will allow. Alec feels himself straighten a little reflexively, a mirror to Isabelle’s movement.
“Those creepy, ugly things? Those are demons.”
Alec’s eyebrows shoot up, disbelief on his face but he doesn’t say anything, letting Isabelle continue.
“All the legends you’ve heard about vampires, werewolves, faeries, magic, angels, demons? Those are all true. They all exist in real life. None of them are fantasies or made up things like most Mundanes believe. Jace and I, we’re what are called Shadowhunters. We have the blood of angels running through our veins. That gives us special abilities and skills, which we use to protect the world, Mundanes and Downworlders alike, from demons. Shadowhunters have been doing this for thousands of years now and we will continue to do it until all of the demons are wiped off the Earth.”
“Hang on,” Alec says. “What are Downworlders? And Mundanes?”
“Ah yes,” Isabelle says. “Downworlders is the term we use to refer to vampires, werewolves, Seelies, and warlocks. Mundanes is the term we refer to all the regular humans who aren’t part of the Shadow world.” Here Isabelle pauses, casting a glance at Jace before turning back to Alec. “Initially Jace thought you just had The Sight. Mundanes can’t see the Shadow world because they don’t have the blood for it. But every so often a Mundane is born with the ability to see the Shadow world. We call that The Sight. It’s a rare enough occurrence as it is and we try to make sure those Mundanes stay away as much as possible from the Shadow world. It’s a dangerous place for those who don’t know how to defend themselves. That’s why Jace tried to send you off… but then you picked up his seraph blade.” Isabelle glances again at Jace. “The only people who can activate seraph blades are nephilim or Shadowhunters.”
Isabelle stops here, her brown eyes looking at Alec steadily.
“I picked up the seraph blade,” he says, tone vague. Alec looks down at his hands, maps out the familiar patterns of calluses put in place by long hours of archery practice. The implications seem obvious yet Alec’s mind is having trouble grasping them. “You think I’m a Shadowhunter, like you guys?” He finally says slowly, carefully. He looks up at Isabelle and Jace then, both now studying him carefully.
“Yeah.” Jace is the one that answers. “Only nephilim can activate seraph blades. Somehow someway, you have Shadowhunter blood but grew up a Mundane.”
“So one or both of my parents might be a Shadowhunter but just haven’t bothered to tell me or their spouse about it?”
“It’s the only thing that makes sense,” Jace says with a shrug. “Or you could be adopted,” he adds flippantly.
Alec scrunches his nose up at that. “I’m not adopted. I’ve lived with them for 21 years, I think they would have told me by now.”
Jace shrugs again. “Regardless, you have angel blood. You’re a nephilim like us. You’re a part of the Shadow world.”
Alec shakes his head. “This is completely unbelievable.” He runs his hands through his hair in agitation. Jace shrugs once again and Isabelle rolls her eyes at him.
“Shadowhunters,” Alec says out loud, as if vocalizing the strange word will somehow help him make sense of the entire situation. “So… you guys fight creepy demon things in the shadows to protect the rest of the world from what, eternal damnation?”
Isabelle smiles. “Not quite but close enough. If we let the demons run amok here on Earth they can and will bring actual, literal Hell here. As in, Hell will come here and make itself at home here on Earth.”
“Hell exists?”
“And Heaven too, with all the angels and such,” Jace adds with a nod.
“Crap,” Alec says. A thought occurs to him. “So is that why the couple walking their dog couldn’t see you guys? They were, what do you call them? Mundanes or something? Why was the dog going insane?”
“Animals with their heightened senses can sense parts of the Shadow world, especially the demons,” Isabelle says. “That dog could probably sense something evil was nearby and was trying to alert its people to it. The Mundanes, of course, wouldn’t have been able to see anything.”
“And you said Mundanes can’t see the Shadow world,” Alec says, suddenly remembering something else that had puzzled him. “Because they don’t, what did you say… Have the blood for it?”
“Yes, they don’t have either angel or demon blood in their veins,” Isabelle replies. “Angel blood and demon blood give you the ability to see the true nature of things. We, Shadowhunters, or nephilim, have angel blood. Downworlders all have demon blood of some sort.”
Alec stares in consternation at Isabelle. “You just said Shadowhunters protect Mundanes and Downworlders from the demons. But if the Downworlders have demon blood then aren’t they your enemies as well?”
“Good question,” Isabelle says. “One might think so, but every group that makes up the Downworld has a human aspect to them, barring the Seelies. Vampires and werewolves all were originally human to start before being bitten or scratched. Warlocks have demons for fathers but they have a human mother. And Seelies are half-angel and half-demon. Regardless of the demonic content of their blood, demons see Downworlders, Shadowhunters, and Mundanes all the same way. Just as something to kill and destroy. It makes it so we’re all on the same side against the demons.”
“Okay, alright.” Alec stares at his hands for a moment. He pulls his phone out of his pocket and winces when he sees the time. His mom is going to wondering where he is right now. He sits for another moment and then gets to his feet. “Well good talk, but I gotta go now. My mom is going to kill me if I get home too late.” He starts striding away then, as if eager to leave Jace and Izzy’s presence behind.
“Hey wait a second, Alec!” Isabelle says, shooting to her feet as well.
Alec pauses and looks back at her.
Isabelle scoffs. “What-- you’re just going to walk away? After hearing all of this you’re just going to leave?”
Alec blinks back at her, nonplussed. “Seriously?” He turns to face her. “Isabelle, you and Jace seem like very nice people and if what you’re saying is true--”
“It is true!”
“If it’s true,” Alec says over Isabelle’s protest. “Then I am very glad that you and Jace and all the other Shadowhunters are out there protecting all our pretty little behinds from the demonic threat. But I just got shitty grades on a project that was worth a third of my course grade as well as on two quizzes and a midterm I wrote last week. And next week, I have yet another midterm, plus I have two other huge coding projects due next month that are both worth a massive percentage of my grades. So this stuff is cool and all, but I’m out. My grades suck already as it is and I don’t need them to suck more by being distracted by this weird shit.” Alec splays his hands out to both sides and shrugs his shoulders before turning around to start heading back home.
“Alec!” Isabelle shouts after him, her voice taking on an irritated tone. Alec just ignores her and flicks his right hand sideways above his head in a farewell gesture as he lets his long legs carry him quickly out of the park.
Behind him, Jace and Isabelle watch his departure in stunned silence, more so on the part of Isabelle.
“By the Angel! I can’t believe it! After everything we told him and he just leaves like that!” Isabelle stamps her foot in clear frustration. “I didn’t even get to the part about runes!”
“Izzy give him a break. He didn’t grow up with this. It’s a lot to take in all at once.” Jace shoots her a chastising look.
Isabelle creases her eyebrows stubbornly. “He’s a Shadowhunter though. That-- that has to mean something.”
“To us maybe. But to Alec? It’s been like a half hour since he learned that there is an entire other world existing alongside what he knows. It’s new and weird. Give him time Izzy.”
“Ugh, okay, okay. You’re right.” Isabelle draws her hand through her hair in annoyance and takes a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm herself. “I don’t even know why I’m so worked up. I just really wanted him to-- I don’t know, join us?” Isabelle laughs self-deprecatingly. “And now I just made us sound like a cult.”
Jace laughs. “It’s okay Iz. You can say it. I may be straight but even I can identify a hot guy when I see one.”
“By the Angel, Jace!” Isabelle smacks him hard on his arm. “Come on, we need to get going.”
“Yeah, yeah let’s go.” Jace follows Isabelle out of the park. “By the way, I didn’t hear a denial from you.” His tone is teasing, eyes lit up with a leering smirk.
Isabelle rolls her eyes at him and smacks him again. “Yeah he was a looker but that’s not why.” She reaches down to her thigh holster and fishes out her stele from it as they walk along. “I just felt, I don’t know, like a weird sort of connection to him.”
With the efficiency of long practice, she draws the stele along the heat rune on her thigh and sighs with relief when she feels the wash of angelic magic run over her body, warming her limbs up again. It now felt like she was walking through a warm summer evening instead of a cold autumn one. Beside her, Jace quirks an eyebrow but doesn’t say anything about the frivolous use of runes when he is just as guilty of such frivolity himself.
“Anyways, I think we should keep an eye on him,” Isabelle says. “Just to make sure nothing weird happens to him.”
“Fair,” Jace says. “And also if he changes his mind.” He grins toothily at Isabelle, making her roll her eyes again.
“Yes, that too.”
There’s a beat of silence. Jace takes in the neighborhood they’re walking through. Ahead of them in the distance, a lone figure strides through the night. Jace sighs. “We’re following him, aren’t we?”
“Glad to see you’re finally getting with the program,” Isabelle says with a chortle.
It’s Jace’s turn to roll his eyes. “Come on, let’s get on with it then. We’re late on our route as it is.”
Isabelle nods in response and they continue on into the New York night.
Back in the empty park, deep shadows shift and shiver. A dark shape emerges, scuttling to and fro in swift but uneven movements. It steers itself around the brightly lit circles cast by the street lamps and hastens in the direction the three nephilim departed from the park in.
***
Alec doesn’t get up until nearly noon the next day.
His eyes are bleary and scratchy from too little sleep. He hadn’t been able to fall asleep until well past 4AM, the encounter in the park with the pair of Shadowhunters running in endless circles round and round his brain. At about 2AM, he’d had enough and had dragged out his laptop, launched his web browser and trawled through Google search after Google search using keywords like Downworlder, Shadowhunter, nephilim, vampire, werewolf, and more.
Alec is surprised he isn’t more surprised that he had found nothing useful. The search results had, of course, returned nothing that Alec and the rest of the world wasn’t already aware of. The odder terms like Downworlder and Shadowhunter had simply returned nothing at all. He’d given up at 4AM and thankfully had been able to fall asleep then.
Now he drags himself into the shower, lamenting the morning hours he’d planned on using to study, now wasted due to his inability to sleep. If he hurries through his shower and studies while eating lunch, Alec is sure he could eke out at least an hour and a half of productivity before heading out to meet his friends.
Freshly showered and dressed, Alec enters his parent’s massive kitchen, laptop and nearly useless (in his opinion) computer science textbook in hand. The kitchen, scratch that, the whole entire townhouse, is one magazine worthy room after another of sophisticated and sleek contemporary design complete with splashes of homey warmth and comfort to make it welcoming. Alec barely notices it any more, but his friends always gawk when they come over.
He rummages through the massive steel fridge, emerging with a container of leftover lasagna. Serving himself a piece, Alec throws it into the microwave to warm up, turning back to the island counter where he’s placed his laptop and hits the power button to boot it up. He stares unseeing at the elegant pale, blue marble counters while he waits for his computer to boot up from its sleep cycle and his lunch to finish warming up.
Alec is just halfway through the lasagna, resentfully trying his best to read and actually process the dryer than Mars words on the textbook pages before him, his favorite study music playing quietly from his laptop speakers, when his parents come into the kitchen.
“Hey mom, hey dad,” Alec says vaguely, sparing them a quick glance before returning his attention back to his textbook. He shoves another bite of the lasagna into his mouth, wondering if he could just face plant onto the page and somehow absorb the information via osmosis.
“Uh Alec?” His mother says, tone hesitant. Alec frowns then and looks up. His mother is never hesitant.
Catherine Evans shoots a somewhat tremulous smile at him. Alec blinks in confusion and finally takes in his parents before him. They are smartly dressed as always, ever the consummate professionals even on the weekends. His mother’s blonde hair is coiffed in a neat and elegant updo as always, light makeup accentuating her classical features. Her normally confident blue eyes are filled with a sort of doubt and fear that makes Alec want to start panicking instantly. His father, Malcolm Evans, has the same look in his brown eyes. Alec watches with trepidation as he absently runs a hand through his neatly styled dark hair, leaving an awkward mess in its wake. It’s a nervous tic that Alec picked up from his father but not one his father allows himself to give into often if at all.
Alec gives into his mounting panic when he sees it.
“Is something wrong?” Alec says, feeling his heart rate rocket from zero to one hundred in less than a split second. He stares at them with wide eyes.
“Alec, do you have a-- a moment to talk?” The words seem to stick in his mother’s throat. Something crinkles loudly and Alec looks down to find that his mother has a white knuckle grip around a rather thick sheaf of papers.
“Uh yeah, yeah,” Alec replies. He flips his textbook shut and hits the spacebar on his laptop to pause the music. Thick silence fills the void soft piano and cello music leaves behind. He glances back at the sheaf of papers and the oddly nervous and terrified expression on his parent’s face. Somehow he doesn’t think this is a conversation he can say no to. “What do you want to talk about?”
“It’s-- it’s about this,” Catherine says, timidly waving the sheaf of papers at Alec.
“What is it?”
His mother’s mouth opens then shuts a few times like a fish gasping for air on land.
“There’s something your mom and I need to tell you,” his father says, taking over. “It’s something we should have discussed with you a long time ago. There… there isn’t really a good reason for why we haven’t brought it up until now. But it’s something you definitely need to know.”
Alec frowns at his parents. His eyes are glued to the sheaf of papers and his stomach is doing nervous cartwheels. Silently, his mother places the sheaf down on the counter and pushes it towards him. Alec lays a finger down carefully on it like it’s a bomb that could go off at any second and drags it gingerly towards him.
Eyebrows creasing further together, Alec leans forward carefully to look at the evenly spaced type writing on the page. In the document header the word ‘Adoption’ screams out at him in bolded black and a scant inch or so lower, on another line he sees the word ‘Alexander’ typed out in square black letters. The line below has ‘Matthew’ and further down ‘Evans.’
He freezes.
“What?” The word is said quietly, disbelievingly. Alec can’t tear his eyes off the page. For the second time in as many days, things are being laid out before him with implications that are clear but Alec’s mind is again having trouble grasping them. Nothing is making sense. His whole world is suddenly making no sense. Alec’s mind is a spinning wheel trapped in mud, throwing splatters everywhere and going nowhere fast.
It was a bomb, Alec suddenly thinks wildly. It was a bomb and it went off and proceeded to blow Alec’s entire life into tiny irreparable pieces in less than a millisecond flat.
“Son,” Malcolm says quietly.
“That can’t be true,” Alec whispers.
“It is,” Catherine says, finally speaking, her words little more than a whisper as well, voice choked with tears.
“It’s-- This is--,” Alec gestures uselessly at the document. He stares for another second at the sheaf of paper, damning words still glaring at him and then looks helplessly back up at his parents. “I don’t understand,” he says.
His father takes a deep breath before speaking. “We adopted you from an orphanage in Romania. Your mother and I…” Malcolm gestures helplessly here. “We tried for years to have a baby. Countless visits to fertility clinics, treatments after treatments, thousands of dollars. The doctors didn’t know what was wrong exactly, just that none of the embryos would take. Or if they did, they self-terminated.”
Beside his father, his mother sniffs, her eyes welling with tears, old pain on her face.
“After a while, we hit the limit for the fertility treatments. You can only do so much before it becomes a medical risk for the mother. We’d used up all the embryos from the treatments by that time so surrogacy wasn’t an option. That left adoption for us and we took it. We worked with an adoption agency for a few weeks and they showed us your profile. It just… it felt right somehow when we saw your photo.” He reaches over and takes his wife’s hand in his before looking back at Alec. “So we flew to Romania and met you. You were three at the time. You said hello to me, told me your name was Alexander and then you offered me the cookie you were eating. We fell in love with you right there and then. We just knew you were our son.”
Malcolm smiles softly, expression gentle, a fond remembrance. Then his eyes harden and when he looks back up at Alec, his expression is fierce. “You are our son Alec. Being adopted, it doesn’t change anything. Your mother and I love you dearly.”
Alec nods numbly. His ears buzz and he feels like he’s hanging off the edge of a precipice by the very tips of his fingers, strength draining fast and about to fall into a yawning abyss.
“Alec,” his mother says quietly, her words filled with heartbreak, yet there’s a quiet strength in her tone. She rounds the island and envelopes him in a tight hug. Alec unconsciously latches onto one of her arms, hanging on tightly, and the abyss falls away, just enough that Alec feels like he can hold on for a little while longer.
Catherine holds on for a moment longer before letting go and moving back a step. “We’re sorry we took so long to tell you.”
Alec closes his eyes and huffs a breath. Unbidden, Jace’s flippant comment from last night about adoption rises to the surface and he wants to laugh. Oh, if only he had known.
“Why did it?” He says. He can’t help the accusatory tone in his voice, but Alec thinks he’s well within his rights to be angry. “I’m 21 now, don’t kids usually get told they’re adopted sooner than that?”
Malcolm sighs deeply, but Catherine is the one who answers. “They do. We should have told you sooner. But there was always something stopping us. Oh there’s an archery tournament and it’s important, let’s not distract Alec with this until after, then a taekwondo tournament, then it was finals, then birthdays, Christmas, the first day of college, and then more finals. Before, we knew it, it was a decade and ten thousand excuses later.”
His mother looks at him, eyes puffy from earlier tears, but her expression, otherwise, was resolute. “We were afraid Alec. I was afraid Alec. I--” She looks away and then looks back at Alec and shame lies heavy on her features. “Your father wanted to tell you many times over the years and I always stopped him, made some stupid excuse as to why we shouldn’t. Honestly, I don’t know what I was afraid of. Change maybe? But you had to be told some time and delaying the inevitable was really extremely unfair of me. Last night your father told me if we didn’t tell you now, we may as well never tell you.”
Tears start filling his mother’s eyes again. “And I’m--” She takes a deep breath before continuing though the tears are rolling down her face now. “I’m really so sorry that I didn’t allow us to tell you sooner about this. There’s really no excuse I have. Just an explanation.” She dabs at her eyes and Alec feels his heart clenching at the sight of his mother’s tears. He moves to hug her again and she laughs while returning the hug, a small choked thing, equal parts pain and amusement.
“Oh look at me, crying and you comforting me when it’s you that’s just been told a life altering thing.”
Alec chuckles wryly as well. When his mother seems a little more in control, he lets her go and they step back from each other. He studies his parents silently for a moment. “I guess my hair isn’t from dad then?” He quirks a wry grin at Malcolm and Malcolm returns it with one of his own.
There is another stilted silence and then Alec heaves another big sigh. “Look, I’m-- I don’t really know what to do or say. It’s… a lot to process.” Among other things, Alec adds mentally, the events from last night springing to mind.
“We understand,” Malcolm says. “Take your time Alec. It’s a big thing to be told. We don’t expect you to just… I don’t know, be okay with it instantly.”
“And if you have any questions, any at all, or want to talk about it more,” Catherine says. “You can ask us Alec. We’ll be here to talk.”
Alec nods, his chest feeling tight all of a sudden as the weight of everything, everything he’s just found out threatens to crash down on him. He takes another deep breath and wills himself to calm down again. “Look, I have to get going. We’re all hanging out to play boardgames in a little while and I should leave now if I don’t want to be late.”
“Okay, alright,” his mother nods.
Alec nods back though it’s unnecessary and quickly begins packing up his things, his parents watching him. The air hangs a little awkwardly in the kitchen. He doesn’t look at the microwave clock which is informing him in bright green digits that he’s still got over an hour left before he really has to leave for the meet up.
“Alec,” Catherine says just as he’s exiting the kitchen. He pauses and glances back over his shoulder.
“We love you, you know that right? Always have and always will.” Her gaze is earnest, equal parts love and worry.
Alec manages to dredge up a small smile for her. “Yeah I know. I love you too. Both you and dad.” He finds he means it. The sudden revelations have rocked his world, destroyed the foundations upon which his life had existed, but his parents are still his parents, regardless of blood, and he still loves them.
“I gotta get going,” Alec says and Catherine nods again.
Upstairs he packs up his backpack, slipping the stupid textbook in along with his laptop, hoping that he might be able to get something done at the cafe before his friends show up.
When he goes to leave the house, his mother and father both sweep him up into tight hugs, one after another before letting him go on his way.
***
When Alec arrives at the cafe he orders a cup of coffee and claims a corner table that will provide enough room for everyone to gather around comfortably while hunching over a bunch of board games. He takes his textbook out and tries desperately to get some reading done, but his mind buzzes, a whirlwind of half-remembered words and conversations whipping away his ability to concentrate, so he spends most of the time staring sightlessly at the words on the page.
By the time the hour is up and the first of his friends arrive, Alec’s coffee has gone cold, he hasn’t read a single word in his textbook, and he’s no closer to even beginning to comprehend the new axis his world is suddenly turning on. Resolutely, he flips his textbook shut, pastes a smile on his face and decides to shove everything into a dark and dusty back corner of his mind to deal with later.
He’s feeling a bit better, great even, by the time they call it a night and Alec heads out of the cafe to take the subway home. Alec at least feels like he can breathe again, enough so that he can start sorting things out, figuring out what labels to use and which boxes to organize everything that’s changed for him into. The night is as chilly as it was yesterday, the air now holding a sharp edge to it, a crisp scent that warns of snow.
It’s late enough that Alec is sure his parents would have gone to bed already. Guiltily, he feels a tiny bit relieved that he might not have to see them again tonight; he’s not quite sure how to act around them just yet. As he approaches his house, he sees that the first floor living room lights are still glowing from behind the drawn Venetian blinds, and he frowns a little in disappointment. It might be Saturday night, but his parents have always been sticklers for their routines, even during the weekends. It’s rare for them to deviate.
With a deep breath to steel his nerves, Alec takes the front steps two at time. He pauses briefly before gritting his teeth and shoving his key into the lock and opening the door. He enters the house with his usual clatter, kicking off his boots and hanging his jacket up but hesitates on what to do next. Should he do as he normally does and look for whoever is still awake to say hi? Or can he just run straight up to his room and hide the way he wants to?
Heaving a sigh, Alec dutifully heads to the kitchen to, if nothing else, at least check in with his parents and let them know he is safe. The open concept layout of the main floor means he sees them almost instantly.
His eyes take in the limp hand of his mother, trailing up her arm to her body where it lays in a crumpled heap on the kitchen floor, just in front of the island. Her eyes, still open, are vacant and empty, expressionless and filmed over with death. Her face, however, is contorted into a rictus of pain and fear. There is a gaping hole where her throat used to be. Her blood soaks the elegant white cardigan she was wearing this morning, staining it crimson red.
His father lays on the other side of the island, closer to the fridge. His throat is also torn out, his face also contorted with fear but also rage as well. A kitchen knife lays discarded nearby, as if Malcolm had grabbed it in an attempt at self-defense. His blood has dried into a sticky pool on the gray marble flooring. Some faraway part of Alec is screaming in horrified disbelief, but the rest of him is buzzing with a weird kind of numbness that makes the world hazey and his ears feel stuffed with cotton. Alec’s knees give out on him then and he drops heavily onto them, the haze beginning to blur. It takes him a moment to realize it’s tears that are making it difficult to see.
Unbidden, his hand reaches out and he watches, as if from a great distance, as it moves towards his father’s outstretched one. Lightly, gingerly, he rests two fingers where a pulse should be. Ice and stillness met his fingertips and he snatches his hand back to himself not a half-second later. He curls in on himself then, a wretched sob wrenching itself from his throat. The ice-cold feel of his father’s skin will surely be seared into his memory forever.
From behind him, a sudden screech sounds. Alec twists around to look and his eyes widen when he sees a creature, similar to the ones from the night before snarling at him from the living room. A demon, according to Isabelle and Jace. It’s even more terrifying to behold in the bright glow of the living room lights, the pincered mandibles clicking ominously at him. He has but a split second to react when the demon recoils on itself. Alec throws himself to the side, towards the dining table and away from his father’s body and lands with a heavy oomph onto his left shoulder.
The demon slams heavily into the counter where Alec’s head was just a second ago. The wooden cupboards crack and splinter from the impact, metal pots and pans held within clanging from the impact. Alec scrambles to his feet, his shoulder throbbing in protest and looks around wildly for something to defend himself with.
There’s the familiar sound of a whip and a thin silver cord winds itself around the demon’s neck before it bursts into flame. Alec stares into the living room where Isabelle and Jace, along with four more demons, have suddenly appeared, having all somehow magically gotten into his house. There’s a beat where the demons snarl and spit at the Shadowhunters and Alec, spiny jaws and horrifying pincers snapping in their direction.
Then Isabelle shouts, “Catch!” and Alec barely has time to register the black thing flying towards him before he catches it and a blazing blue blade springs instantly to life from the hilt he just caught. He’s vaguely thankful that he caught the blade in the right direction before the demons are springing for them.
“Shit!” Alec swears. He’s been working on his sword forms for a few months now, but he’s rustier than he would like to be owing to his focus on his college courses; he hasn’t been to a taekwondo class since the semester started. Added to that is the fact that none of his training had ever included any real world, practical application and Alec is surprised he manages to swing the sword properly at all, let alone parry the demon’s attack as it attempts to swipe at him with its wickedly sharp claws. He redirects the blade into a thrust at the demon’s undefended stomach and the thing bursts into a ball of flames.
Across the room, Jace finishes off the last demon with a quick slash at its neck. Alec takes a deep breath. In the enclosed space of the living room, the scent of sulfur and ash hangs heavily in the air, making Alec’s nose itch. He sways, suddenly feeling light headed and dizzy, dropping heavily to the floor. Alec flinches when he catches sight of his father’s body out of the corner of his eye.
“Alec, are you alright?” Isabelle asks, hurrying over to him.
Alec lets out a ragged laugh at that. “Oh god, I don’t think I’ll ever be alright again.” He buries his face in his hands. He wants to cry but he’s suddenly too exhausted to feel anything at all.
Silence hangs in the air. Then Isabelle says quietly, “Jace we got here too late.”
“Angel,” Jace says softly, quiet footsteps drawing nearer. Alec unburies his face enough to see Isabelle and Jace staring sorrowfully at the dead bodies on the kitchen floor. They’re not his parents, Alec decides. They’re not his parents because his parents would move and talk and his mother would say just the right thing to make everything better and his father would nod in support because while he’s never been the best with words he’s always tried anyways. Those things on the floor aren’t his parents, they’re just… bodies.
Alec buries his face in his hands again and takes another deep breath. “Oh god, what do I do now?”
Another silence hangs, heavy and thick. A hand lays itself gently on his shoulder.
“You could come back to the Institute with us,” Isabelle says quietly. “We don’t know how you’re a Shadowhunter just yet, whether it was your mom or dad that was hiding something. And well… we can’t ask any more. Since there’s a possible Shadowhunter death here we have to get the Institute involved anyways. We could help you figure out which of your parents was--”
“It wasn’t either of them,” Alec interrupts with a heavy sigh. He finally looks up. Isabelle is crouched beside him, her small hand still sitting gently on his shoulder. Jace is leaning against the kitchen island a few paces away.
“How do you know that?” Jace asks frowning.
“They told me that I was… adopted. Just this very morning in fact.” Alec says each word carefully, navigating the syllables like each one is a landmine. “Adopted from some orphanage in Romania.”
“Angel, I was joking when I said that last night,” Jace says, after a moment of stunned silence.
“Yeah, I thought so too,” Alec says with a mirthless chuckle. He rubs his face tiredly.
“I’m so sorry Alec,” Isabelle says after another pause.
Alec sighs. He stares blindly at his hands before he slowly looks up and says, “These demons were the same as the ones in the park from last night, weren’t they?”
Isabelle nods slowly in confirmation. Alec frowns then. “Was it me? Did they come here because of me? Did my parents die because I ran into you guys in the park last night?”
“Alec, no!” Isabelle says, her face distraught as she realizes Alec’s line of thinking. “This is not your fault,” she says fiercely, taking in the grisly scene around them with a sweep of her hand. “Demons, they’re evil incarnate. There’s no rhyme or reason to what they do. If they want to kill something, they’ll kill it. If they want to possess something, they’ll possess it. It’s what they do, what they are. That’s why the Shadowhunters are here, to protect the world from demons.”
“But we failed, this time,” Jace says, tone sombre. Isabelle flinches away at his words, her angry expression turning guilty. “We didn’t get here in time. I’m sorry Alec.” His blue eyes are hooded, expression one of sincere regret.
Alec just nods.
Silence weighs thick and heavy over the three of them, the stench of death hanging in the air.
“Alec,” Isabelle’s voice is careful as she gently pushes the silence back. “Maybe you should come back to the Institute with us.”
Alec lets out a mirthless chuckle. “I don’t know. I know you want me to but I think I just want to be alone right now.” He stares at his hands, clean and otherwise normal. It just feels all sorts of wrong to him. He feels like they should be caked in grime with dried blood stuck beneath the fingernails, anything to show Alec that monumental things had just happened.
“Alec, you shouldn’t be alone right now,” Isabelle protests.
“Oh and what should I be doing?” Alec says in a sneer, mood suddenly flipping from morose numbness to cold, icy fury. It happens so fast his head spins and he even feels a bit nauseous. “Should I be joining you guys? Become a Shadowhunter? Fight the forces of evil and darkness? Get a few people killed along the way?” He glares at Isabelle and feels an angry sort of satisfaction alight in his gut when she flinches at his words.
“Hey now!” Jace says, standing straight and squaring up to Alec, his brow furrowed. “We know you’re hurting but you’ve no right to take it out on Izzy just because she’s the nearest target.”
Alec finds himself springing to his feet all of a sudden. The icy rage turns into an inferno that’s looking to burn anything and everything in its path. “Well that wouldn’t be the case right now if you two had just done your jobs!” Alec all but screams into Jace’s face. “Where the hell were you guys? Huh? All this talk of protecting Mundanes and saving the world and you couldn’t even be assed to--”
Alec suddenly finds himself being shoved back into the same cracked cabinets the demon had slammed into earlier, Jace’s muscular forearm pinning him in place.
“Back. Down. Alec.” Jace bites out slowly. His brows are pulled together in an angry glare. Alec snarls at the blonde, struggling to shove the other man off of him, but Jace is immovable. He may be a head shorter than Alec, but he seems almost inhumanly strong. Alec snarls again, this time in frustration. He wants to move, he wants to prowl and pace, scream and shout, and punch and destroy something. His limbs quake with the unfulfilled urges and Alec struggles once more. Jace just glares at him and suddenly the fight drains from Alec and he goes limp.
“Whoa, whoa,” Jace says, going from pinning Alec on the spot to being one of the only things holding him up in a split second.
“I’m sorry,” Alec mumbles. He straightens himself up, leaning away from Jace’s support to prop himself up against the partially destroyed surface of the cabinet behind him. The demon must have been incredibly strong to have caused such damage because the broken surface barely creaks under Alec’s weight. “That was horrible of me to say,” he says, unable to look either Shadowhunter in the face. “I didn’t mean any of it. I’m sure you guys do everything you can to stop things like this from happening.”
“It’s okay Alec,” Isabelle says softly.
“Look,” Jace says after a moment. “We can stay or we can go. Your call.”
“I--” Alec looks at his hands then breaths out a sigh. “I think I need to be alone.”
“Alec--”
“Izzy,” Jace interrupts Isabelle before she can say more. To Alec he says, “I know you don’t know me, but trust me, I get it. We’ll leave but, Alec.” Jace stops and only continues when Alec looks up at him. “Alec, we’ll be around okay?”
Alec looks into Jace’s eyes, sees the sincerity in them and nods.
“But on an unfortunately practical note…” Jace looks around the kitchen and looks back at Alec, face twisted into an apologetic look.
Alec nods. “I know. I have to call the police. Unless you guys have some procedure…?” He trails off and looks at the Shadowhunters inquiringly.
“No,” Isabelle says with a shake of her head. “Your parents are Mundane. The Institute doesn’t have the authority or jurisdiction to do anything with their bodies beyond an autopsy if we suspect Shadow World involvement in their deaths, but… we already know what happened so…”
“Okay,” Alec says tiredness suddenly flooding through him, his limbs suddenly feeling like limp jello. “You guys should go now. The longer I leave this, the worse it’ll be.” Alec’s jaw tenses and he starts to fish around in his pockets for his phone.
“Alright,” Jace says. “We’ll get going now. And remember Alec, we’ll be around. Come on Izzy, let’s go.”
“Jace, I really don’t--”
“Come on, Izzy,” the blonde says tone exasperated. He hooks a hand around one of her wrists and starts bodily dragging her to the front door.
Alec watches after them until the door clicks shut. With a deep breath, he turns his attention back to his phone, unlocking the screen, before taking another deep breath and dialling 911.
***
Isabelle rounds on Jace the moment they step outside of Alec’s house. “Jace, seriously? Are we really just going to leave him here by himself right after he just found his parents’ murdered bodies?”
“No of course not,” Jace replies, nose wrinkling slightly. “Didn’t you hear a word I just said?”
“Oh,” Isabelle says, suddenly losing her steam. “Right. You said that we’d be around? Wait, how’re we going to do that? Keeping watch over him isn’t priority and isn’t going to be a priority.”
“We’ll make it work somehow Izzy. Look, I think we should let Maryse and Robert know about Alec. He’s a Shadowhunter by blood. He’s one of us. They’ll have to at least look into him. And they can’t deny him if he does want to start training to be a Shadowhunter.”
Isabelle is silent for a moment, her quick mind mulling over the possibilities. “You’re right. We should let mom and dad know what’s going on. Even if they don’t sanction official missions I still want to keep an eye on him for a little bit. We can’t let what happened to his parents happen to him. That’s on us. If we’d been here instead of responding to Daniels’ lame call for help with a tiny demon pack this wouldn’t have happened.” She looks at Jace, her expression steely determination laced through with guilt and sorrow.
Jace nods, his own expression mirroring hers. “And I’ll help Izzy. We’ll do what we can. And hopefully you know...” Jace gestures between them. “He decides he wants in.”
“We’ll have to give him time,” Isabelle says. “A lot’s happened to him over the past two days. He’ll need some space to process.” Isabelle chuckles suddenly. “Angel, but I don’t want to give him time, I just want to shake him and drag him to the Institute. Make him start training.”
Jace’s face breaks into an amused smile. He pats Isabelle in the back. “Don’t worry, we’ll keep your new boyfriend safe and then you can make him start training all you like.”
“Jace!” Isabelle says, tone scandalized, but she’s smiling even as she rolls her eyes.
“Look, I’ll head back to the Institute, let Maryse and Robert know what’s happening. Hopefully they’ll be on board and you can stay behind and look after your boyfriend in the meanwhile.” Jace shoots her a playful smirk, descending the stairs of the front stoop two at a time to get away from the heavy swat Isabelle aims at his shoulder.
“We should get moving anyways,” he calls while walking backwards, his right hand waving to indicate the air. In the distance, they can hear the sound of sirens approaching, likely the Mundane police responding to Alec’s 911 call.
“Get your fat butt moving then,” Isabelle calls down to him and Jace chortles out a laugh. He flips her the middle finger, which makes Isabelle chortle herself, before using his stele to activate his speed rune. He’s a blur after that, disappearing almost instantly into the night shadowed darkness of New York’s streets.
***
James is the only one who picks up. It’s not surprising since it’s pushing two in the morning and despite what any of his other friends say, none of them are true night owls the way James is. They’re usually in bed by one and so would Alec as well, if not for what was happening.
“Got a place to go son?” The officer who speaks is middle-aged with graying black hair and kind friendly eyes. He’d introduced himself as George Golding when they’d met about ten minutes ago.
“Yeah, yeah,” Alec says. “A friend. He lives about fifteen minutes away.”
Officer Golding nods. “Ready to head out now? Best to get going before the detectives come up with more questions to grill you with.” Officer Golding gives him a friendly wink, gently trying to make light of the situation.
Alec just smiles weakly and nods. The interview with the detective he’d had half-an-hour ago hadn’t been all that bad, but Alec had unwillingly found himself crying through most of it. He’d been able to keep himself in check enough not to start babbling about demons or Shadowhunters, so Alec was thankful for that at least.
“Can I grab some things from my room?”
Officer Golding shakes his head. “Place is an active investigation right now. We can grab things when they’re done documenting everything but for now, nothing can be taken from the scene that isn’t evidence. Unless you’ve got medications or something you need?”
Alec sighs and shakes his head.
“Alright, we’ll head out then.”
They wade through the sea of police vehicles parked haphazardly all along the road, a huge black crime scene investigation truck backed half-way up onto the sidewalk. His house has been a literal hive of activity for the past hour or so, streams of investigators of sorts coming in and out the front door the entire time. Alec doesn’t even know half of what they do or why there are so many of them.
Officer Golding leads him to a police cruiser parked at the edge of the chaos. He opens the passenger-side door for Alec and Alec gets in, trying to pretend he doesn’t notice all his neighbors peeking out their front windows or even just brazenly standing on their front door steps in their winter jackets and flannel sleepwear to gawk at what’s going on. With quiet blips, Officer Golding enters James’ address into his GPS as Alec tells it to him, before starting the cruiser and driving off.
The drive over to James’ place is quiet, the only sound coming from the GPS quietly doling out directions. Alec is glad for this. His mind is clouded with exhaustion and he feels about two seconds away from face planting into the glass of the passenger door.
“Here we are,” Officer Golding says what feels like moments later. Alec startles, his eyes feeling bleary and itchy and he realizes that he dozed off during the ride. He scrambles to exit the cruiser meeting Officer Golding as they both round the vehicle and walk in silence towards the apartment block. It’s a looming rectangular shadow this time of night, the reddish brick facade hidden by the cover of darkness.
At the entrance way Alec squints blearily at the buzzer list trying to find James’ name on it. It takes him too long, the tiny letters refusing to focus and arrange themselves properly. Officer Golding gently pushes him out of the way.
“What’s the name son?” He says.
“James,” Alec says. A thought moves like treacle through Alec’s brain and takes an embarrassing second or two to make any sense. “Owen,” Alec adds. “James Owen. His mom’s name is Kathy Owen.” Because James isn’t the one who owns the apartment and isn’t the one who would be listed on the buzzer list.
Officer Golding just smiles kindly at Alec and pushes the appropriate buzzer.
“Yo man! What’s up?” James’ too chipper voice sounds through the intercom in a staticky burst. Officer Golding’s eyebrow quirks up and his smile turns into one of amusement.
Alec sighs tiredly. “Hey James, mind letting us up?”
“Yeah, sure, sure. Hang on.” A second later, there’s the popping sound of the front door unlocking and Officer Golding pulls it open all the way for them. He lets Alec walk-in first before following him through. The elevator in the building is a piece of crap and takes ages to get to the lobby level. Alec is nearly asleep on his feet before it arrives with a desultory ding. The ride up is thankfully faster, a blessing considering the interior smells faintly of body odor and old socks.
Just as they step into the hallway, the elevator doors rolling shut with a small squeak behind them, Officer Golding lays a hand on Alec’s shoulder.
“Just a second.” Alec glances back at him. “When we get to your friend’s place, do you want me to tell him about the situation? Or would you like to do it yourself?”
Alec would do it himself, but right now he thinks he’ll burst into tears again if he has to talk about it and he’s way too drained to deal with another bout of crying. “You do it,” he replies, shrugging his shoulders.
“Alright, if you’re sure. I’ll give him a basic rundown then and have him ask you if he has more questions. Is that alright?”
Alec nods and starts down the hallway, leading the way to Robert’s apartment. The hallway is like the rest of the building, a bit shabby but neat and well-kept. He knocks on the heavy wooden door of the apartment when they arrive. It pops open almost immediately revealing a far too perky looking James.
Alec has to squint to see into the dark apartment, the only source of light being James’ monstrous gaming rig whirring away in the corner, the illumination strips cycling sedately through all the colours of the rainbow, and his three brightly glaring 25-inch monitors. The centre one is lit up with Assassin’s Creed Two, Ezio perched neatly atop of a crucifix affixed at the highest point of a church, a pixel version of the Italian hills rolling out for miles around him. The right monitor is playing one of the new Star Trek movies and the left one displays a sprawl of code, a tiny cursor blinking at the bottom. James is multi-tasking as usual then.
“Hey dude--” James starts to say, freezing immediately when he catches sight of Officer Golding. His brown eyes widen to the size of saucers and he stares at the two of them, dumbfounded.
“Can we come in?” Alec says tiredly. It takes a moment, but then James visibly rallies himself and he steps to the side, making space for Alec to pass.
“Yeah, yeah, sure.” Sheepishly, James flicks some lights on revealing a quaint and homey space. The furniture is mostly second hand or purchased from Ikea. There’s a vague attempt at adding some modern design choices but it’s difficult to cover up the mostly 90s style finishings around the apartment. It’s a far cry from the Homes Magazine townhouse Alec lives in but then again, Alec’s mother is a lawyer who’s partner at one of the top firms in New York while his father owns a multi-million dollar architectural company and James’ mother is a single mother trying to figure out how to pay college tuition for two children and feed everyone at the same time on the salary of an ER nurse.
Were. Past tense. Alec’s parents were. Alec feels even more exhausted just thinking about it.
“Umm, sit, sit,” James says, ever the awkward host. Alec flops down onto the familiar overstuffed couch, dotted with some extremely suspicious stains that in no way detracts from how amazingly comfortable it is. “Can I get you guys something to drink?”
“Don’t worry about,” Officer Golding says smoothly, a friendly smile on his face. “I’m just here to drop Alec off and make sure he settles in alright.”
“Uh, okay,” James says.
“Don’t worry, your friend isn’t in trouble with the law.”
“Oh, okay. That’s good,” James says. He shifts awkwardly in place. “But what is going on? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Not at all,” Officer Golding says. He shoots a look at Alec before continuing. “Do you have somewhere private we can speak?”
“Uh yeah,” James says. He shoots his own look at Alec who simply tilts his head back and closes his eyes, exhaustion carved deep into his bones, very sure he could fall asleep in this exact position given enough time.
And he does just that. The last thing he remembers is hearing Officer Golding and James walking to one of the bedrooms at the back of the apartment, a door clicking shut, and the low murmur of conversation starting up before he’s drifting off to sleep and oblivion.
He isn’t awake for when Officer Golding leaves or for when James studies his sleeping friend with a sad, devastated look on his face before gently tucking a warm fleece blanket around his tall frame.
***
“Alec man, come on. Nobody will blame you if you take a week off.” James is looking at him, concern in his eyes. “It’s only been two days. Take some time.”
“Hey, I need to go to class. Not all of us are genius computer programmers who can breeze through all the assignments while half-asleep,” Alec says lightly. “I’m sure MIT would have been much more of a challenge for you.” He finishes shoving his laptop into his backpack before shouldering it.
James shifts his willowy frame uncomfortably. “You know why I didn’t go to MIT. First, I didn’t get the full-ride, so not so much of a genius as you think, and second, I couldn’t have left my family anyways.”
Alec scoffs. “The full-ride was yours. Remember what my mom said? The cheapass rich guy that decided to use his influence so his kid could get the scholarship instead of you? It was enough of a scandal that the only reason everyone is still where they are is because they were all rich enough to sling their high-powered lawyers around to threaten each other.” Alec sobers immediately at the voluntary mention of his mother.
“Anyways,” Alec says briskly, turning towards the front door of the small apartment so that James won’t spot the sudden sheen in his eyes. “We should get going if we still want to grab coffee and get to class on time.”
James huffs, his thin shoulders going up and down with the movement. He shakes his head, tightly coiled dark hair bouncing about his face. “Okay, whatever you want dude. I maintain that you should still take a break though.”
Alec just shrugs and steps out the apartment door before James.
James is right.
It has only been two days and Alec really should take a break because he hasn’t actually had one. Sunday had been spent at the police precinct being interviewed to death by the investigating detectives about the murders and then gathering his stuff from his house so he could stay with James until it stopped being a murder scene. On Monday he’d been contacted by both his mother’s and father’s personal assistants and their lawyers -- because even a lawyer needed a lawyer -- and every single last detail of inheritances and funeral arrangements and insurance policies and more had been hammered out until Alec’s head had been spinning. All he knew by the end of it was that the assistants would contact all his relatives on his behalf, since Alec was grieving, and that he was suddenly richer than any twenty-one year old had any right to be.
So no, he hadn’t had a break, not a real one anyways. But taking a break was the last thing Alec wanted to do. A break would just open up endless swathes of time Alec could use to live in his own head and ruminate on all the ways his life had gone to shit before sinking into a pool of abject despair and never surfacing ever again. So no, he’s heading to class.
At the coffee shop, Alec pays for James’ coffee because, what else is he going to do with his money? James, never one to scoff at free food or drink, simply nods in thanks at him as they leave the coffee shop and make their way to the subway station. As they weave their way through the New York morning rush hour, a man with horns on his forehead walks straight past James, deeply engrossed in an apparently aggravating phone conversation about acquiring more vampire hair for a potion he’s brewing. The conversation is loud, the horns are not at all subtle and James doesn’t even look as the man strides past them. In fact, no one looks.
‘It’s New York though,’ Alec thinks. ‘A man could be dancing naked on the street and New Yorkers would only care if he happened to be blocking the entrance to the subway tunnel.’ Still, Alec thinks, the man should have garnered at least a couple looks then the classic New York I’ve-got-better-things-to-be-worrying-about shrug.
In the subway, a woman turns to glance in James’ and Alec’s general direction and he nearly chokes on his coffee when her eyes catch the light and an unnatural green sheen flashes over, otherwise, warm brown eyes. It’s there and gone in less than a second, but makes Alec wonder if he’s seeing things. During the walk to campus, Alec catches sight of a pair of what are clearly Shadowhunters, striding down the sidewalk. They’re bristling with weapons, black tattoos crawling up and down every inch of available skin and dressed in an intimidating all-black ensemble. They look like they’re ready for some sort of urban warfare and neither draws a single glance either.
After classes, Alec heads to the archery range where he shoots targets until his arms are sore and his fingers are raw and bleeding but at least his mind is a little quieter. On the way back to James’ place, he passes a small group of people who appear to be having an argument. On some hidden cue, all of them bare their teeth at each other and Alec is treated to a forest of long, elongated canines that could only be called fangs. He hurries away, pretending he saw absolutely nothing.
The rest of the week proceeds in much the same way. Alec feels jumpier than a cat in a room full of rocking chairs, each glimpse that he catches of the Shadow World feeling like another piece being added to the wall that is slowly separating him from his old life.
On Saturday, his parents’ funerals take place. He’d chosen a closed casket ceremony as his parents had looked absolutely terrified when they died and he didn’t want to have to see it again. The funeral service is packed with somber business partners of both his parents and his teary eyed relatives, the ones who could make it over from the West Coast on such short notice anyways.
At the wake Uncle David approaches with Aunt Ingrid at his side. His father’s younger siblings look absolutely devastated and hug him tightly enough that Alec feels his own tightly held control start unraveling.
“Alec, there’s something you should know,” Uncle David says somberly when he pulls back from the hug. “It’s something they should have told you years ago but you should know. And I know the timing isn’t great but--”
Alec blinks at the familiarity of the words and realizes where this is going. “I know already,” Alec blurts out before Uncle David can repeat the words that have run round and round in his head like a macabre merry-go-round every night since he’s been told. “They told me the same day-- it happened.” Alec trips on his words, still unable to talk about it.
He takes a heavy swig of the orange juice he has with him, wishing the wake was serving alcohol.
“Oh honey!” Aunt Ingrid says, staring at him before pulling him into another tight hug.
“It’s good you heard it from them,” Uncle David says nodding. “It was the biggest secret. None of us could even tell your cousins because you hadn’t been told. I’m just sorry this happened, right after you’d been told.”
“I’m sure they told you some things,” Aunt Ingrid says. “But probably not everything. So if you have any questions or just want to hear more, your Uncle David and I will be happy to tell you more.”
Alec nods, eyes watering again. It’s nice to have his family here. They may not be his blood but he would still call them his family anyways. “Thanks, I will,” he says. Then he thinks about the Shadow World, thinks about the fact that he was three when his parents had adopted him.
“Mom and dad said I was three when they got me.” Alec fiddles with the plastic cup in his hand for a moment. “I was just wondering, do you guys know the reason why I was at the orphanage? Like did the orphanage say anything to mom and dad? Did they maybe give them a way to contact my biological parents or something?”
Am I actually a Shadowhunter like Jace and Isabelle think I am or is that just a load of bullshit? Alec, of course, doesn’t say that out loud but it’s a thought that’s been circling his mind for days. He doesn’t know if he actually wants it to be true or not.
“Oh it was a closed adoption,” Aunt Ingrid says with a shake of her head. “No information about your biological parents was given to Malcolm or Cat.”
“It was an extremely suspicious closed adoption was what it was,” Uncle David chimes in. Aunt Ingrid rolls her eyes at him.
“What? How so?” Alec says, latching on to his uncle’s words.
“Alec, it was just a weird thing your father and Uncle David thought--” Aunt Ingrid starts.
“And we were totally right to be suspicious,” Uncle David interrupts.
“It didn’t pan out in the end!” Aunt Ingrid says, expression annoyed. “We’re just lucky Cat didn’t catch wind of it or I’m sure there would have been hell to pay!”
“Guys? What are you talking about?” Alec says, eyebrows creased with curiosity.
Aunt Ingrid sighs, her exasperation palpable. Uncle David is the one who answers. “Look, from the get go, I thought the adoption agency that worked with your parents was suspicious as hell. Your father had his reservations as well but your parents saw your profile and they got attached to you like that.” Uncle David snaps his fingers and Alec blinks.
“What was so suspicious about the adoption agency?” Alec asks.
“Everything,” Uncle David says. “The fees for a start, they were exorbitant. International adoptions have always been expensive but yours cost a small fortune. Your parents had to borrow money from everyone in the family just to make it happen.”
Alec’s eyes round out at that. Aunt Ingrid nods her head and sighs. “It’s true. Your parents were just starting out in their careers and especially after the IVF treatments, they didn’t have that kind of cash laying around.”
“Besides the expense,” Uncle David continues. “None of the adoption agents spoke English and none of them were in the States yet they had marketed themselves as an adoption agency for Western parents looking to adopt. Your parents had to fly to Romania to even begin being able to look at any of the kid’s profiles. We all thought when your parents left that they’d be flying back and forth for a little bit if any of the kids caught their eye and it’d be a year or two at minimum before we would even have to think about a new niece or nephew, but a week after they left I get this call from your father and mother asking to borrow money because they’ve met their son and would like to take him home.
“We argued, for hours over the phone about this. We all argued with them. But they were set on you and they were about to take out a loan with some loan sharks they were that serious, so we lent them the money to get everything done. All told it was maybe a month before you were on American soil with Malcolm and Cat, adoption and everything completely finalized.”
Uncle David shakes his head. “I have no idea how the paperwork made it through so quickly. No adoption moves that fast. None. But you were here in America and after we met you, none of us wanted to change a single thing about what had happened regardless of how shady it was.”
“Except then your father starts second-guessing some things,” Aunt Ingrid says with a sigh. “And no, no, it wasn’t you he was second-guessing,” she adds when she sees Alec tense up.
“No not you Alec, but he was second guessing the whole situation. Even before they adopted you he was already thinking things weren’t so right. Like how for one thing, you didn’t speak a word of Romanian.”
Alec blinks. “I didn’t speak any Romanian?”
“Nope. You spoke English with an American or Canadian accent as well as any three year old could. I remember Malcolm telling me you didn’t seem like you understood what any of the caretakers were saying to you at the orphanage and when he asked the adoption agents about it they all shrugged and said they had no idea. Just said your parents had dropped you off one night and left without saying anything and then assured him you were Romanian, despite not speaking or understanding any Romanian.”
“That’s weird,” Alec says.
“It is,” Uncle David nods. “And your father thought so too. But he didn’t want to just leave you there so he went through with the adoption and when you guys hit American soil, he hired a private investigator.”
“What? Why?” Alec frowns.
“Think about it Alec. You clearly had American or Canadian parents. Eastern Europe is notorious for human traffickers. Your father was worried they’d just adopted the kidnapped kid of some poor couple who was missing their child. He loved you Alec, but he couldn’t keep you in good conscience if your biological parents were still out their looking for you.”
Uncle David takes a long drink of his own cup of orange juice.
“Was that the thing mom would have given you hell for? Hiring the PI?” Alec asks.
Uncle David nods. “Your Aunt Ingrid and I were the only ones your father talked to about that. He didn’t want to tell Cat about what was happening unless he absolutely had to. It would have broken her heart even thinking about having to give you up.”
“So anyways, he hired the PI, which by the way, I also had to help pay for,” Uncle David says this with an amused twinkle in his eye. “But nothing came of it. The PI searched up missing children notices for kids fitting your description in Europe and North America. We couldn’t find anything and after a few months, we let it go.”
“And that was that,” Aunt Ingrid says interrupts her tone dismissive and airy. “And all the money we paid the PI was a total waste and you two gave me anxiety for months for absolutely nothing more than a useless gut feeling. Now Alec, dear, surely you want to hear about something else. Like what we thought of you when we first met you?”
“Ingrid!” Uncle David protests. “That stuff is the interesting bit. It’s the stuff Alec can tell his grandkids when he has them!”
“I need kids first for that Uncle David,” Alec says with a wry grin. “And for that, I’d need a wife and to get a wife, I’d need a girlfriend first.”
“And pray tell Alec, why don’t you have a girlfriend yet?” Uncle David asks with a teasing smirk. “Handsome boy like yourself shouldn’t be having so much trouble with that.”
“Aunt Ingrid,” Alec says feeling amused despite himself. He knew Uncle David didn’t mean anything by it but Alec was still desperate to get off the topic of his non-existent lovelife. “Tell me everything about what you thought of me when you first met me.”
Aunt Ingrid shoots her own look, a victorious smirk, at Uncle David before gamely answering Alec’s question. “Well we loved you instantly. You were such a charming child and extremely well-behaved. Better than the hooligans I had to call my children and you, your cousins. And what a wonderful imagination you had. That’s why Kayla and Russell and Matthew loved playing with you so much. You always came up with such wild stories about werewolves and vampires and angels and demons. You all could play endlessly for hours with the scenarios you came up with.”
Alec feels the smile freeze on his face. “Oh?” He says, mouth refusing to say more.
“Yes and you had that game that you made up. Used to play it all the time. What was it called again David?”
“Shadow-- Shadowhunters?” Uncle David says, tone searching.
“Right yes!” Aunt Ingrid beams. “You called it Shadowhunters and pretended you were some sort of angelic beings battling the forces of evil. I swear that’s why Matthew is so into that comic book stuff; you were such a bad influence early on, he never had a chance.”
Alec’s ears start to buzz, his heart starts to thump a staccato rhythm and he can’t quite seem to draw enough air. The plastic cup creaks in his hand. Yes, his adoption is interesting, but this stuff Aunt Ingrid is telling him is far more interesting. And far more panic inducing.
Calm down, clam down he tells himself and tries to draw in deep breaths surreptitiously. Uncle David and Aunt Ingrid are still talking, relaying some anecdote about the one time he fell out of a tree and broke his arm because he was trying to fly but all Alec can hear is blood rushing through his ears. He needs to get out of here, find some place he can calm down.
“Oh, um, guys, sorry, I need to go to the bathroom,” Alec says over their reminiscing. “I’ll be right back.” He leaves, barely hearing his Aunt and Uncle acknowledging his words.
Alec stays in the men’s washroom for a very long time, staring at himself in the mirror and wondering if the life was quite finished with throwing world-destabilizing revelations at him.
***
Alec had more than half-way believed the Shadowhunter thing was a joke. Not the part where they existed or the part where they battled demons to protect the world from certain death. It wasn’t even the part about the vampires and the werewolves and all manner of supposedly fictional things actually existing that Alec didn’t believe.
No, it was the part where he was a Shadowhunter that Alec couldn’t wrap his head around. Jace and Isabelle had to be playing some kind of messed up joke on him. He just hadn’t been able to believe that he, boring old, archery obsessed, not-that-great-at-programming Alexander Evans was actually part of some secret shadow organization tasked with protecting the world from evil incarnate.
It’d been a ridiculous notion to Alec.
Up until he’d spoken with his aunt and uncle that is. The evidence was piled too high now, the neon signs were lit and flashing. Alec couldn’t not accept it any more. It was a fact. Alec was, is, a Shadowhunter. There was no denying it any more.
How else could he have known about Shadowhunters when he was three years old? It hadn’t been just the vivid imagination of an overactive toddler. He’d been playacting things that had simply been fact to him at that point.
So now, Alec stands at a crossroads. What should he do? His adoptive parents are dead, killed by the very forces of evil Alec’s blood heritage is sworn to fight against. In a way, Alec can see a macabre sort of poetry there. The people he loved most in the world, murdered horribly by forces beyond their comprehension and he has the power, the capability, the privilege of being able to do something to stop the same thing from happening to other people. It’s not something everybody gets the option of having. So why not? Why not join the Shadowhunters? Why not learn how to fight so he can help protect the world from demons?
On the other hand though, what about his current life? Is he really willing to risk all he’s ever known to join some wild world-saving crusade? The Shadow World seems secretive; Alec isn’t sure he’ll be able to keep things secret from his friends and his family -- even if all of them live on the other side of the country from him. He’d have to lie to them, or worse leave them behind completely.
Plus, life is certain where he is. He’s absolutely loaded now, what with everything he’s inherited from his parents, the payout from both life insurance policies, and his trust fund looming on the horizon, accessible when he turns 25. Some people would say that on that point alone, he’s got it made.
Then there’s James, his genius of a friend, a tech mogul in the making. He’s been working on what he assures Alec is absolutely revolutionary computer security software. It’s true because there’s three tech giants currently in a bidding war to get James to join them and bring his pieces of revolutionary code with him. James has said he’s more than willing to let Alec get in on it with him. The whole entire thing is sure to be more successful than Alec could imagine even in his wildest dreams. He could work a more than decent job with his good friend, find some girl, settle down, have a family. Live the American dream in comfort and privileged luxury and forget about the weirdness of the Shadow World and the world-saving obligations that come with it.
Alec doesn’t know what to do.
Life altering decisions are not his forte. During his senior year in high school Alec spent six months just trying to decide on his college major because he was so worried about choosing the wrong one and those things had the ability to be changed once a year.
With a grimace, Alec hunches down further behind his laptop screen, retracting his neck like a turtle hoping to avoid the imaginary accusing eyes his mind has conjured up for him, all demanding he make a decision now. His latest coding assignment is open on the screen but he hasn’t made any progress on it in the last half hour he’s been sitting there, too distracted with the forked road that lies before him.
A glance in the direction of James’ desk shows James giving half an eye to a Netflix show, Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, while his fingers fly over his keyboard. He’s working on the same assignment as Alec on his main screen. Alec’s just in time to watch James finish his last line of code with a flourish. He hits the execute button and forgets about the whole thing, turning to focus fully on his show. Alec’s insides writhe with jealousy when the code executes without throwing a single error; Alec’s been trying to solve his mess of logic errors for the last two days while James just started the assignment yesterday and is already done.
He watches James belatedly remember his assignment before quickly taking the program through a bunch of function tests. A few errors pop up, a few things don’t quite do what they’re supposed to do. James fixes all of it with the ease of breathing while Alec looks on. A half hour passes like this before Alec realizes and then he wants to scream in frustration.
He’s done with this. So done with it. Possibly in more ways than one.
“I’m going out for a walk,” Alec announces, carelessly saving his miniscule amount of progress and sending his laptop to sleep.
James looks away from Dirk Gently going back in time to stare owlishly at Alec. He glances at the kitchen clock. “At eleven at night?”
Alec shrugs.
“Do you want me to come with?” James frowns at him and Alec can tell he really doesn’t want to go. He’s already dressed down into a t-shirt and comfortable sleeping pants.
“No man, don’t worry about it. I’ll be fine.” Alec is glad he’s still dressed in his day clothes, it means he can just shrug on his jacket and stuff his feet into his boots. “Don’t wait up if you suddenly decide to go to bed early,” Alec adds.
James snorts at that. “When hell freezes over maybe.” James is lucky he’s got dark skin, it helps to cover up the crater-sized black rings he has around his eyes from staying up too late all the time.
Alec snorts back at him. “Maybe. See you dude.” He steps out of the apartment closing the front door gently behind him. James’ is up on the eighth floor and Alec doesn’t feel like waiting for the crappy elevator to crawl its way up to him so he decides to take the stairs.
Outside is freezing, the air harsh and biting against his skin. White specks start drifting past him and Alec looks up to see that it’s snowing again, the sky glowing with just a hint of orange as the cloud cover reflects the city lights. His boots crunch over the accumulation from the last few snow falls as he walks along the paved sidewalk.
He lets his mind wander, lets his feet take him along the city blocks, now familiar from staying with James for the past three weeks. An unholy shriek and a streak of black shooting across his vision snap Alec out of his reverie. He looks wildly about, the shriek terrifyingly familiar. It pauses long enough in the park across the street from him for Alec to see it is indeed what he thought it was. A demon.
Terror and fear make him shrink back into his jacket, like the fabric will be enough to shield him from the danger in front of him. The creature skitters back and forth in odd frenetic zig zags, its face lifted to the air. It looks like it’s trying to sniff something out.
Alec’s first instinct is to run. He almost does, but then the creature seems to catch scent of what it is looking for. The demon freezes in place before it streaks off deeper into the park and Alec finds himself crossing the road, running after it instead of away from it. Terror suffuses his core again but Alec realizes it’s not for himself. He’s terrified for whatever the demon is looking for. He’s terrified of what it’s going to do, who it will hurt, who will be left bereft in the aftermath, and Alec wants to stop it.
He pounds the pavement, running as fast as he can, but the demon is quick, limbs a blur of movement as it speeds along. The only thing helping Alec keep it in sight is the fact that it’s constantly pausing to scent the air, digging its head into the skeletal bushes growing at the edges of the park one moment and sniffing under a park bench the next.
By the time Alec catches up to it, he’s panting heavily, limbs heavy from exertion, sweaty forehead cooling off quickly in the cold wintry air. It takes Alec a second to realize the demon is looking at him, an odd cant to its head making it look almost surprised. It takes yet another second for Alec to realize he has no idea what to do next. He may have Shadowhunter blood, but he knows next to nothing about how to actually be a Shadowhunter. He’s not prepared for this encounter at all.
Alec realizes distantly that he’s probably going to die because of the one and only impulsive decision he’ll ever make in his short life on this beautiful green Earth.
The demon snarls at him, legs coiling in preparation for pouncing. He’s saying his fond farewells in his head to all his friends and family when another streak of black enters his vision. It slams into the demon with a glowing blue blade and the creature dissipates in a ball of flame and black smoke.
Jace takes a step back and stands up straight turning to look at Alec, seraph blade still glowing in his hand. His golden blonde hair glows like the sun in the illumination from the street lamp, wispy strands falling down to frame his handsome face. He looks vaguely angelic in the light and Alec swallows thickly, suddenly finding it difficult to breath.
“Angel, I look away for one minute and you’re gone, running after a demon like an idiot.” Jace shoots him an unimpressed look and Alec feels oddly forlorn.
“Umm, yeah, not my brightest idea,” Alec agrees, shifting from foot to foot awkwardly.
Jace studies him for a moment, before sighing and looking away. “What were you trying to do anyways?”
“Ah,” Alec glances away awkwardly. “I may have been thinking about trying to stop the demon before it hurt someone.” He lifts his hand to scratch the back of his head.
Jace scoffs at him. “Really dude? You and what seraph blade?”
“Yeah I know. It was dumb. I have already realized this.” Cold wind gusts through the park, bringing an even deeper chill with it and Alec huddles deeper into his jacket, stuffing his icicle hands into his pockets.
“Good, as long as we’re on the same page.” Jace frowns at him, studying him a moment longer before shaking his head. “Look, we should move. Demons rarely travel on their own. There could be more hanging around that just haven’t got to us yet.”
The shadows suddenly look deeply ominous and Alec nods quickly, feeling exposed in the wide, open space. Jace leads the way out of the park and Alec trudges along a half-step behind him. When they get out to the street a thought occurs to him.
“Were you watching me?” Alec tries to ignore the tiny thrill that zings up his spine at the thought. The minor indignation he feels at the thought makes a little more sense to him. Around them, the New York streets are quiet in deference to the late hour, but some lone cars still speed along every so often. Across the road, a rowdy group of teenagers has just spilled out of a 24-hour convenience store.
“Yup,” Jace says without skipping a beat. “Trying to make sure you keep out of trouble. Isabelle and I have been taking it in turns to keep an eye on you for the past couple of weeks.”
“Oh.” Why Alec feels disappointed at the mention of Isabelle, he has no idea. “Wait, I don’t understand. Don’t you Shadowhunters have better things to do than use up your time watching over some random guy?”
“Some random guy who has Shadowhunter blood.” Jace says it simple and straightforward. “Look, let me cut to the chase here.” He stops suddenly in the middle of the sidewalk, turning to face Alec. Alec stops beside him.
“You’re right, we don’t do this normally,” Jace says. “Normally we’d have just kept an eye on you for a day or two maybe and then we’d have left you alone if nothing happened. But you’re a Shadowhunter, a nephilim. One of us. Sure you weren’t raised as a Shadowhunter, but it’s in your blood. So yeah, we’ve been keeping an eye on you. Not all the time, but Izzy and I have been checking up on you with the permission of the Institute lead. Maryse made them official missions even.”
Alec nods. “Okay... so I’ve had some literal personal guardian angels following me for a few weeks. I feel like you guys are angling for something.”
“You’re right,” Jace nods. “It’s simple really Alec. You’ve got two choices. Either you can keep on with your life as it is now, finish whatever Mundane college course you were talking about the first time we met, and go on to do whatever it is mundies do with their lives. Or you can be who you were born to be, who you were meant to be. You can train to be a Shadowhunter and you can help us fight the forces of evil in this world.”
Alec looks at Jace and Jace looks back. Alec knows he already decided the moment he ran after the demon instead of away from it. But admitting it outloud is different to admitting it in the comfort and safety of his own head.
Jace chuckles, a small smile softening his features and his bi-coloured eyes twinkle with amusement. “Honestly, I don’t even know what you’re hesitating for. I think we both know what you’ve decided.”
Alec chuckles too. “Yeah you’re right.” He closes his eyes for a moment, huffs a breath. “I’m just the world’s worst decision maker sometimes. But you’re right. I have already decided.”
“So?” Jace raises his eyebrows at Alec. He’s not letting him off the hook that easily.
“Yup. Yes. I want to join the Shadowhunters. As cultish as that sounded.”
The small smile grows wider on Jace’s face and Alec feels like he just won the world for some reason.
“Good, great. Izzy will be happy. She’s been wanting to talk to you since your parents’ funeral. I kept having to talk her down, get her to give you more time.” Jace smirks then. “It was getting to the point where I was thinking we were giving you too much time.”
“Almost,” Alec admits with a shrug. “Though I would have come around eventually. My uncle and aunt told me some things about when I was adopted.” Alec pauses. He hasn’t told anyone about this, because telling them would mean having to explain everything and Alec doesn’t know who he can tell that won’t try to get him committed after he’d finished talking.
He takes a deep breath, continues. “They told me that I used to play a game called Shadowhunters with my cousins. We’d pretend to battle demons and apparently I’d tell all sorts of stories about vampires and werewolves and warlocks.” Alec smiles sheepishly. “After hearing that well… There’s no way I would have been able to stay away. Not for long. Not only is it what I was born to do, but my blood family is one of you guys. How else am I going to find them?”
“Works for me,” Jace says, smiling and then clapping a hand companionably on Alec’s shoulder. “What do you say we get things rolling then?”
“What, now?” Alec blinks, nonplussed.
“No time like the present,” Jace says, starting to walk backwards, his hands spread out and a cocky smirk on his face. “Come on, let’s head back to the Institute. Izzy and I can get you started on Shadowhunter basics.”
“Am I going to be able to sleep any time soon?” Alec says, a smile working its way onto his face.
Jace scrunches his face, thinks for a second. “Mmmm nope. Maybe when you’re dead.”
Alec chuckles. “Sounds exciting.”
“It is.” Jace smirks again. “Come on, what are you waiting for?” He spins on his heel then and starts trudging up the sidewalk, not bothering to check if Alec is following. The snow is falling fast now, rushing in swirls and eddies in the air that make New York look like it’s stuck in a snowglobe.
Alec looks behind him briefly in the direction of James’ apartment. Then he looks forward at Jace’s rapidly disappearing form and hurries to catch up to him.