Of course the Shadowhunters would not believe that their best and brightest had become just a little bit too bloodthirsty. Of course they would accept the excuses Valentine and the others gave them, and of course they would believe that Magnus and any other Downworlder who complained simply wanted criminals to escape justice.
Knowing they could not turn to the Shadowhunters, Downworlders had tried to put their own safeguards in place. A safe house had been set up in Chinatown, through an amnesty between the constantly feuding vampires and werewolves, and everybody was on the watch.
Downworlders were on their own. But then, hadn’t they always been on their own?
Magnus sighed and eyed Catarina over their plates.
“Eat,” he said. “Nothing’s happening right now. It’s possible nothing will happen.”
“They killed a ‘rogue vampire’ in Chicago last week,” she said, chopping into a blintz with a fork. “You know they’ll want to come here.”
They ate in silence, pensive on Magnus’s side and exhausted on Catarina’s. The check came, and Magnus paid. Catarina didn’t think much about things like money. She was a nurse at a clinic with few resources, and he had ample cash on hand.
“Gotta get back,” she said. She scrubbed a hand over her weary face, and Magnus saw cerulean trails in the wake of her fingertips, her glamour faltering even as she spoke.
“You are going home and sleeping,” Magnus said. “I’m your friend. I know you. You deserve a night off. You should spend it indulging in wanton luxuries such as sleep.”
“What if something happens?” she asked. “What if they come?”
“I can get Ragnor to help me.”
“Ragnor’s in Peru,” said Catarina. “He says he finds it very peaceful without your accursed presence, and that’s a direct quote.”
Ragnor was wily enough that Magnus did not worry about him too much. He would never let his guard down anywhere that he did not feel completely safe.
“So it’s just us,” Catarina said.
Magnus knew that Catarina’s heart lay with mortals, and that she was involved more for friendship’s sake than because she wanted to fight Shadowhunters. Catarina had her own battles to fight, her own ground to stand on. She was more of a hero than any Shadowhunter that Magnus had ever met. The Shadowhunters had been chosen by an angel. Catarina herself had chosen to fight.
“It’s looking like a quiet night,” he said. “Come on. Finish up and let me take you home.”
“Is this chivalry?” Catarina said with a smile. “Thought that was dead.”
“Like us, it never dies.”
They walked back the way they had come. It was fully dark now, and the night had taken a decidedly cold turn. There was a suggestion of rain. Catarina lived in a simple, slightly run-down walk-up off West Twenty-First Street, not too far from the clinic. The stove never worked, and the trash cans out front were always overflowing, but she never seemed to care. It had a bed and a place for her clothes. That was all she needed. She led a simpler life than Magnus.
Magnus made his way home, to his apartment farther down in the Village, off Christopher Street. His apartment was also a walk-up, and he took the steps two at a time. Unlike Catarina’s, his place was extremely habitable. The walls were bright and cheerful shades of rose and daisy yellow, and the apartment was furnished in some of the items he had collected over the years—a marvelous little French table, a few Victorian settees, and an amazing art deco bedroom set entirely in mirrored glass.
Normally, on a crisp early fall night like this, Magnus would pour himself a glass of wine, put a Cure album into his CD player, crank up the volume, and wait for business to start. Night was often his working time; he had many walk-in clients, and there was always research to do or reading to catch up on.
Tonight he made a pot of strong coffee, sat in the window seat, and looked down on the street below. Tonight, like every other night since the dark murmurs of the bloodthirsty young Shadowhunters had started, he would sit and watch and think. If the Circle did come here, as it seemed that they would do eventually, what would happen? Valentine had a special hatred for werewolves, they said, but he had killed a warlock in Berlin for summoning demons. Magnus had been known to summon a demon himself a time or twenty.