The Course of True Love [And First Dates] (The Bane Chronicles 10)

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.

He saw teeth flash in the dark and did not see Alec, because Alec was a blur of motion, rolling away, then coming back at the wolf.

At Marcy, Magnus thought, and at the same time he saw that Alec hadn't forgotten that Marcy was a person, or at least that Magnus had asked him to help her.

He wasn't using his seraph blades. He was trying not to hurt someone who had fangs and claws. Magnus did not want Alec to get scratched--and he definitely did not want to risk Alec getting bitten.

"Alexander," Magnus called, and realized his mistake when Alec turned his head and then had to back up hurriedly out of the way of the werewolf's vicious swipe at him. He tucked and rolled, landing in a crouch in front of Magnus.

"You have to stay back," he said, breathlessly.

The werewolf, taking advantage of Alec's distraction, growled and sprang. Magnus threw a ball of blue fire at her, knocking her back and sending her spinning. Some yells rose up from the few people still left in the bar, all of whom were hurrying toward the exits. Magnus didn't care. He knew Shadowhunters were meant to protect civilians, but Magnus was emphatically not one.

"You have to remember I'm a warlock."

"I know," Alec said, scanning the shadows. "I just want--" He wasn't making any sense, but the next sentence he spoke unfortunately made perfect sense. "I think," he said clearly, "I think you made her mad."

Magnus followed Alec's gaze. The werewolf was back on her feet and was stalking them, her eyes lit with unholy fire.

"Those are some excellent observational skills you have there, Alexander."

Alec tried to push Magnus back. Magnus caught hold of his black T-shirt and pulled Alec back with him. They moved together slowly out of the back lounge.

The werewolf's friend had been as good as her word: the bar was empty, a glittering shadowy playground for the werewolf to stalk them through.

A

lec surprised Magnus and the werewolf both by breaking away and lunging at Marcy. Whatever he had been planning, it didn't work: this time the werewolf's swipe caught him full in the chest. Alec went flying into a hot pink wall decorated with gold glitter. He hit a mirror set into the wall and decorated with curling gold fretwork with enough force to crack the glass across.

"Oh, stupid Shadowhunters," Magnus moaned under his breath. But Alec used his own body hitting the wall as leverage, rebounding off the wall and up, catching a sparkling chandelier and swinging, then dropping down as lightly as a leaping cat and crouching to attack again in one smooth movement. "Stupid, sexy Shadowhunters."

"Alec!" Magnus called. Alec had learned his lesson: he didn't look around or risk getting distracted. Magnus snapped his fingers, a dancing blue flame appearing from them as if he had snapped on a lighter. That caught Alec's attention. "Alexander. Let's do this together."

Magnus lifted his hands and cast a web of lucent blue lines from his fingers, to baffle the wolf and protect the mundanes. Each of the shimmering strings of light would give off enough of a magical charge to make the wolf hesitate.

Alec wove around them, and Magnus wove the light around him at the same time. He was surprised at the ease with which Alec moved with his magic. Almost every other Shadowhunter he had known had been a little wary and taken aback.

Maybe it was the fact that Magnus had never wished to help and protect in quite this way before, but the combination of Magnus's magic and Alec's strength worked, somehow.