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.