The Red Scrolls of Magic (The Eldest Curses #1)(88)

Magnus whirled, his happiness abruptly replaced by sick dread.

All the color was draining from the stone around them. From the top tiers and moving downward, the stone bleached to white until it seemed to spread to the air, forming a column of white static that joined the funnel of cloud and smoke that marked the site of the ritual. A blizzard of tiny black specks flitted within the column. Wisps of smoke danced inside the light. Buzzing filled the air, a torrent of sinister whispers from another world.

A voice in his head said, I told you, it is time to remember everything.

It had not been his own fear speaking, but his father.

“He is coming!” Shinyun shouted.

“Why?” Magnus shouted at her. “No one’s done any sacrificing yet!”

I come because my followers wish it, said the voice. The way is open enough for me.

There was a terrible thickness in the air, the feeling of a dank breath that froze the veins. It was a ripple of agitation that made Magnus want to run somewhere, anywhere, to get away, but his body would not let him move. Some animal instinct deep inside him knew there was nowhere to run that would be safe.

The approach of a Greater Demon, empowered by the adoration of so many worshippers, filled every sense, destroyed every other feeling, until only horror remained.

Above the pentagram, the static was resolving into a shape.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN




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Forged in Fire


ALEC UNDERSTOOD THAT THEY WERE badly outnumbered. Every soul sitting in the amphitheater—and there were many—had turned to face them. Quite a few had already risen to their feet and were reaching for weapons—clubs and staffs mostly, though he saw several blades flash in the light.

“Wow, there are a lot of cultists,” Aline muttered. “They must have carpooled.”

Helen’s quick smile dimmed when two cultists grabbed her arm. Aline elbowed one in the throat and Helen head-butted the other in the chest. A fool charged at Alec and was summarily punched in the face. He lost sight of Magnus, faced with a wall of clawing hands and kicking feet.

The only way to Magnus was through them.

“Ladies,” said Alec. “Shall we?”

“Gladly,” Helen murmured sweetly, and kicked a man in the kneecap.

Alec dodged a badly thrown punch and returned it with a well-thrown one. In the pauses between brawling, Alec shot his bow at demonic shapes wheeling in the sky.

He could keep this up all day. He only knew how to move in one direction. Toward the stage. Toward Magnus. Nothing mattered until he reached Magnus.

He could see Magnus in gaps between the crowd: he was standing onstage as though he’d been addressing the assembly. Shinyun was next to him, shouting and waving her arms, thankfully not participating yet in the battle. Magnus turned halfway; there was blood on Magnus’s throat and his shirt, and a dark bruise on his face.

Alec’s heart wrenched. Then Magnus caught his eye: there was one of those brief moments of battle stillness, like the eye of a hurricane, where time felt stretched thin. Magnus seemed so close, as if Alec could reach out and touch him, gentle his bruises, stand between him and the crowd.

He remembered running to Magnus’s Brooklyn brownstone one day. They had just started dating. There had been so much going on then, in the world and inside Alec. The war was beginning, and Alec could not work out the mess of rage and confusion and longing in his own heart.

He’d known Magnus only a couple of weeks. It did not make any sense that he was seizing this chance to see him, when his family thought he was training, when his lies could be discovered at any moment. He was so afraid, all the time, and he felt so alone in his fear.

Alec already had a key—Magnus had explained it was easier for him, and he had enough wards on the apartment to know if anyone other than Alec entered with that key. Alec had run in, heart beating too fast. He’d seen Magnus in the center of his loft, absorbed and intent on his work. He was wearing an orange silk shirt and flipping through three spell books at once, turning pages with two ringed hands and a flurry of blue sparks. There was a pit of dread in Alec’s stomach, at the thought of what his father would think if he knew Alec was here.

Then Magnus had looked up from his spell books, seen him, and smiled. And Alec’s heart had stopped its frantic pounding, like a prisoner desperate to escape. Alec thought he could be all right just standing in that doorway, watching Magnus smiling to see him, for the rest of his life.

Magnus smiled the same way now, despite the horror unfolding around them, the corners of his golden eyes crinkling. It was such a sweet, surprised smile, as if Magnus was startled enough—and happy enough—to see Alec that he had forgotten everything else.

Alec almost felt like he could smile back.

Then Helen shouted, “Shinigami demons!”

The Crimson Hand was not messing around. Of all flying demons, Shinigami were among the worst. With their leering, sharklike jaws and vast, untidy black wings, Shinigami demons took pleasure in ripping people’s faces off and crunching their bones into powder.

A shadow fell on Alec. He looked up into a grinning maw, crowded with teeth, and loosed an arrow.

The first Shinigami narrowly avoided the arrow and dove straight for the Shadowhunters. Several more of the large creatures followed close behind. A second arrow knocked the closest Shinigami out of the air, sending it careening into the seats. And then the rest of the demons were upon them.