“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.
Alec 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.
The wolf snarled and ducked and whimpered, her world filled with blinding light, and everywhere she went, there Alec was. Magnus kind of knew how the wolf felt.
The wolf flagged and whimpered, a line of blue light cutting across her brindled fur, and Alec was on it. His knee pressed into the wolf’s flank, and his hand went to his belt. Despite everything, fear flashed cold up Magnus’s spine. He could picture the knife, and Alec cutting the werewolf’s throat.
What Alec drew out was a rope. He wrapped it around the werewolf’s neck as he held her pinned down with his body. She struggled and bucked and snarled. Magnus let the lines of magic drop and murmured, the magic words falling from his lips in fading puffs of blue smoke, spells of healing and soothing, illusions of safety and calm.
“Come on, Marcy,” Magnus said clearly. “Come on!”