The Course of True Love [and First Dates]
Page 3

“What a pill,” Magnus remarked loudly.
“Yeah,” said Alec, tearing off a new strip of injera. “What have the Shadowhunters ever done to him?”
Magnus lifted an eyebrow. “Well, he did mention a dead uncle.”
“Oh,” said Alec. “Right.”
He went back to gazing fixedly at the tablecloth.
“He’s still a total pill, though,” Magnus offered. Alec mumbled something that Magnus could not make out.
It was then that the door opened and a handsome human man with deep-set green eyes came in. His hands were in the pockets of his expensive suit, and he was surrounded by a group of gorgeous young faeries, male and female.
Magnus slunk down in his chair. Richard. Richard was a mortal who the faeries had adopted in the way they did sometimes, especially when the mortals were musical. He was also something else.
Magnus cleared his throat. “Quick warning. The guy who just walked in is an ex,” he said. “Well. Barely an ex. It was very casual. And we parted very amicably.”
At that moment, Richard caught sight of him. Richard’s whole face spasmed; then he crossed the floor in two steps.
“You are scum!” Richard hissed, and then picked up Magnus’s glass of wine and dashed it in his face. “Get out while you can,” he continued to Alec. “Never trust a warlock. They’ll enchant the years from your life and the love from your heart!”
“Years?” Magnus spluttered. “It was barely twenty minutes!”
“Time means different things to those who are of faerie,” said Richard, the pretentious idiot. “You wasted the best twenty minutes of my life!”
Magnus grabbed hold of his napkin and began to clean off his face. He blinked through the red blurriness at Richard’s retreating back and Alec’s startled face.
“All right,” he said. “It’s possible I was mistaken about the amicable parting.” He tried to smile suavely, which was difficult with wine in his hair. “Ah well. You know exes.”
Alec studied the tablecloth. There was art in museums given less attention than this tablecloth.
“Not really,” he said. “You’re my first ever date.”
This wasn’t working. Magnus didn’t know why he had thought it might work. He had to get out of this date and not hurt Alec Lightwood’s pride too much. He wished he could feel satisfaction that he had a plan in place for this, but as he texted Catarina under the table what he felt was a sense of enveloping gloom.
Magnus sat there silently, waited for Catarina to call, and tried to work out a way to say, “No hard feelings. I like you more than any Shadowhunter I’ve met in more than a century, and I hope you find a nice Shadowhunter boy . . . if there are any nice Shadowhunter boys besides you.”
His phone rang while Magnus was still mentally composing, the sound harsh in the silence between them. Magnus hastily answered. His hands were not entirely steady, and he was afraid for a moment that he would drop the phone as Alec had dropped his glass, but he managed to answer it. Catarina’s voice filtered down the line, clear and unexpectedly urgent. Catarina was clearly a method actor.
“Magnus, there’s an—”
“An emergency, Catarina?” Magnus asked. “That’s terrible! What’s happened?”
“An actual emergency happened, Magnus!”
Magnus appreciated Catarina’s commitment to her role but wished that she would not shout so loudly right into his ear.
“That’s so awful, Catarina. I mean, I’m really busy, but I suppose if there are lives at stake I can’t say n—”
“There are lives at stake, you blithering idiot!” Catarina yelled. “Bring the Shadowhunter!”
Magnus paused.
“Catarina, I don’t think you fully understand the point of what you’re meant to do here.”
“Are you drunk already, Magnus?” Catarina asked. “Are you off debauching and getting one of the Nephilim—one of the Nephilim who is under twenty-one—drunk?”
“The only alcohol that has passed my lips is the wine that was thrown in my face,” said Magnus. “And I was totally blameless in that matter as well.”
There was a pause. “Richard?” said Catarina.
“Richard,” Magnus confirmed.
“Look, never mind him. Listen carefully, Magnus, because I am working, and one of my hands is covered in fluid, and I’m only going to say this once.”
“Fluid,” said Magnus. “What kind of fluid?”
Alec goggled at him.
“Only going to say this once, Magnus,” Catarina repeated firmly. “There is a young werewolf in the Beauty Bar downtown. She went out on the night of a full moon because she wanted to prove to herself that she could still have a normal life. A vampire called this in and the vampires are not going to be of any help because the vampires never are. The werewolf is changing, she is in an unfamiliar and crowded place, and she will probably lose control and kill somebody. I cannot leave the hospital. Lucian Graymark has his phone off, and the word from his pack is that he is in a hospital with a loved one. You are not in a hospital: you are out on a stupid date. If you went to the restaurant you told me that you were going to, then you are the closest person I know who can help. Will you help, or will you continue to waste my time?”
“I’ll waste your time another time, darling,” said Magnus.
Catarina said, and he could hear the wry smile in her voice, “I bet.”
She hung up. Catarina was often too busy to say good-bye. Magnus realized he did not have all that much time himself, but he did waste a moment looking at Alec.
Catarina had said to bring the Shadowhunter, but Catarina did not have a great deal to do with the Nephilim. Magnus did not want to see Alec cut off some poor girl’s head for breaking the Law: he did not want someone else to suffer if he made a mistake in judgment, and he didn’t want to find himself hating Alec as he had hated so many of the Nephilim.
He also did not want mundanes to be killed.
“I’m so sorry about this,” he said. “It’s an emergency.”
“Um,” Alec said, hunching his shoulders, “it’s okay. I understand.”
“There’s an out-of-control werewolf in a bar near here.”
“Oh,” said Alec.
Something inside Magnus cracked. “I have to go and try to get her under control. Will you come and help me?”
“Oh, this is a real emergency?” Alec exclaimed, and brightened immeasurably. For a moment Magnus felt pleased that a maddened werewolf was ravaging downtown Manhattan, if it made Alec look like that. “I figured it was one of those things where you arranged to have a friend call you so that you could get out of a sucky date.”
“Ha ha,” said Magnus. “I didn’t know people did that.”
“Uh-huh.” Alec was already standing up, shrugging his jacket on. “Let’s go, Magnus.”
Magnus felt a burst of fondness in his chest; it felt like a small explosion, pleasant and startling at the same time. He liked how Alexander said the things that other people thought and never said. He liked how Alec called him Magnus, and not “warlock.” He liked how Alec’s shoulders moved under his jacket. (Sometimes he was shallow.)
And he was cheered that Alec wanted to come. He’d assumed that Alec might be delighted for the pretext to exit an uncomfortable date, but perhaps he’d read the situation wrong.
Magnus threw money down on the table; when Alec made a demurring noise, he grinned. “Please,” he said. “You have no idea how much I overcharge Nephilim for my services. This is only fair. Let’s go.”
As they went out the door they heard the waiter yell “Werewolf rights!” at their backs.
 
The Beauty Bar was usually crowded at this time on a Friday night, but the people spilling out of the door were not doing it with the casual air of those who had meandered outside to smoke or hook up. They were lingering under the shining white sign that had “Beauty” written in spiky red letters and what seemed like a picture of a golden Medusa’s head underneath. The whole crowd had the air of people who were desperate to escape, yet who hovered, pinned in place by a horrified fascination.
A girl clutched Magnus’s sleeve and gazed up at him, her false lashes dusted with silver glitter.
“Don’t go in,” she whispered. “There’s a monster in there.”
I am a monster, Magnus thought. And monsters are his specialty.
He didn’t say it. Instead he said, “I don’t believe you,” and walked in. He meant it, too: the Shadowhunters, even Alec, might believe Magnus was a monster, but Magnus didn’t believe it himself. He’d taught himself not to believe it even though his mother, the man he’d called his father, and a thousand others had told him it was true.
Magnus would not believe the girl in there was a monster either, no matter what she might look like to mundanes and Nephilim. She had a soul, and that meant she could be saved.
It was dark in the bar, and contrary to Magnus’s expectations, there were still people inside. On a normal night the Beauty Bar was a kitschy little place full of happy people getting manicures from the staff, perched in the chairs that looked like old-fashioned hairdresser’s chairs with massive hairdryers set up on the chair backs, or dancing on the black-and-white tiled floor that suggested a chessboard.
Tonight nobody was dancing, and the chairs were abandoned. Magnus squinted at a stain on the chessboard floor and saw that the black and white tiles were smeared with bright red blood.
He glanced toward Alec to see if Alec had noticed this too and found him shifting from foot to foot, obviously nervous.
“You all right?”
“I always do this with Isabelle and Jace,” said Alec. “And they’re not here. And I can’t call them.”
“Why not?” Magnus asked.
Alec blushed just as Magnus realized what he meant. Alec couldn’t call his friends because he didn’t want them to know he was on a date with Magnus. He especially did not want Jace to know. It was not a particularly pleasant thing to think about, but it was Alec’s business.
It was also true that Magnus certainly didn’t want any more Shadowhunters in the mix intent on dealing out their rough justice, but he saw Alec’s problem. From what he’d seen of Jace and Alexander’s showy sister, he was sure that Alec was used to protecting them, shielding them from their own rash actions, and that meant Alec was used to defending and not attacking.
“You’ll do great without them,” Magnus encouraged. “I can help you.”
Alec looked skeptical about that, which was ridiculous since Magnus could do actual magic, something Shadowhunters liked to forget when they were deep in contemplation of how superior they were. To Alec’s credit, though, he nodded and moved forward. Magnus noted, with slight puzzlement, that whenever Magnus tried to edge ahead, Alec put out an arm or moved slightly faster, staying in front of Magnus in a protective stance.
The people still in the bar were flattened against the walls as if pinned there, unmoving with terror. Someone was sobbing.
There was a low, rattling growl coming from the back lounge of the bar.
Alec crept toward the sound, Shadowhunter-soft and swift, and Magnus followed.
The lounge was decorated with black-and-white pictures of women from the 1950s and a disco ball that obviously provided no useful light. There was an empty stage made of boxes and a reading lamp that provided the only real illumination. There were couches in the center of the room, chairs at the back, and shadows all around.
There was a shadow moving and growling among all the other shadows. Alec prowled forward, hunting it, and the werewolf gave a growl of challenge.
And there was suddenly a slender girl with her hair in long dark coils, trailing ribbons and blood, dashing straight at them. Magnus leaped forward and caught her in his arms before she could distract or be attacked by Alec.
“Don’t let him hurt her!” she screamed while at the same time Magnus asked, “How badly did she hurt you?”
Magnus paused and said, “We may be at somewhat of an impasse. Yes or no questions now: Are you badly hurt?”
He took hold of her shoulders gently and looked her over. She had a long, deep scratch all the way up one smooth brown arm. It was welling with blood, falling in fat drops to the floor as they spoke; she was the source of the blood on the floor outside.
She glared at him and lied, “No.”
“You’re a mundane, aren’t you?”
“Yes—or I’m not a werewolf or anything else, if that’s what you mean.”
“But you know she’s a werewolf.”
“Yes, dumbass!” snapped the girl. “She told me. I know all about it. I don’t care. It’s my fault. I encouraged her to go out.”
“I’m not the one encouraging werewolves to go out at the full moon and attack people on the dance floor,” Magnus said. “But perhaps we can settle which of us is the dumbass at a better time when there are not lives at stake.”
The girl clutched his arm. She could see Alec, visible as Shadowhunters almost never were to the mundanes. She could see his weapons. She was bleeding too much, and yet her fear was all for someone else.
Magnus held on to the girl’s arm. He would have done better with ingredients and potions, but he sent blue crackling power twining around her arm to soothe the pain and stop the bleeding. When he opened his eyes he saw the girl’s gaze fixed on him, her lips parted and her face wondering. Magnus wondered if she had even known that there were people who could do magic, that anything but werewolves existed in the world.
Over her shoulder he saw Alec lunge and join battle with the wolf.
“One last question,” said Magnus, speaking rapidly and softly. “Can you trust me to see your friend safe?”
The girl hesitated, and then said, “Yes.”
“Then go wait outside,” said Magnus. “Outside the bar, not this room. Go wait outside and clear out everyone that you can. Tell people it’s a stray dog that wandered in—give people the excuse they will all want to dismiss this. Tell them you’re not badly hurt. What’s your friend’s name?”
She swallowed. “Marcy.”
“Marcy will want to know you’re safe, once we’ve got through to her,” said Magnus. “Go for her sake.”
The girl nodded, a sharp jerky movement, and then fled from Magnus’s grip. He heard her platform heels hitting the tiles as she went. He was able, finally, to turn back to Alec.