Still not sucked into the Void, he thought. Good. Definitely good.
The bodies were now smoldering skeletons, and the white marble floor was completely fractured. The blood had evaporated and left a dark stain. The granite slab, however, was fine. It was also levitating, about six feet from the ground, bathed in the faint green light Magnus had seen earlier. Aldous was nowhere to be seen.
What are you?
The voice came from nowhere. It was in the room. It was outside. It was in Magnus’s head.
“A warlock,” Magnus answered. “And what are you?”
We are many.
“Please don’t say you are legion. Someone’s taken that.”
Do you make mirth from the mundane scriptures, warlock?
“Just breaking the ice,” Magnus said to himself.
Ice?
“Where is Aldous?” Magnus said, more loudly.
He is with us. Now you will come with us. Come to the altar.
“I think I’ll pass,” Magnus said. “I’ve got a place here I like a lot.”
This was interesting. It didn’t seem that the demons could come out. If they could, they would have. This was what demons did. But a connection had been opened. A one-way connection, but still a connection.
Magnus stepped just a tiny bit closer, trying to look for any markings on the floor, anything to tell him how large the Portal was. There was nothing.
Warlock, do you not tire of your life?
“That’s a very philosophical question for a nameless and faceless voice from a Void,” Magnus replied.
Do you not tire of eternity? Do you not wish to end your suffering?
“By leaping into the Void? Not really.”
You are like us. You have our blood. You are one of us. Come and be welcome. Come and be with your own.
Blood . . .
If warlock blood opened the Portal . . . well, warlock blood might be able to close it.
. . . or not.
It was as good a guess as any.
“Why would you want that?” Magnus asked. “Pandemonium has to be a pretty crowded place, considering you’re always trying to leave it.”
Would you not know your father?
“My father?”
Yes, warlock. Your father. Would you not know him?
“My father never took much interest in me,” Magnus said.
Would you not know your father, even if you spoke to him?
Magnus stopped on that one.
“No,” he said. “I don’t suppose I would. Unless you are trying to tell me that what I am hearing now is the voice of my father.”
You hear your own blood, warlock.
Magnus regarded the levitating slab, the destruction, the remains of the bodies. He also became dimly aware of a presence behind him. Some of the Shadowhunters had come inside and were looking at the slab, but seemed to hear nothing.
“Magnus?” one of them asked.
“Keep back,” Magnus replied.
Why do you protect them? They would not protect you.
Magnus went to the closest Shadowhunter, grabbed a blade, and cut himself.
“You.” He pointed to the Shadowhunter who had shot Aldous. “Give me an arrow. Now.”
The arrow was handed over, and Magnus tipped it in his blood. Then he rubbed some more blood down the shaft for good measure. He didn’t need the bow. He directed the arrow at the slab with all his might, casting every Portal-closing spell he knew.
It felt like he was locked in place, his entire body concrete, time stretched and slow. Magnus was no longer certain where, or maybe even what, he was, only that he was still spell-casting, only that the altar remained, and the voices in his mind were yelling. Hundreds of voices. Thousands of them.
Magnus . . .
Magnus, come to me. . . .
Magnus, come. . . .
But Magnus held on. And then the slab fell to the ground, breaking into countless pieces.
There was a figure leaning against Magnus’s hotel door when he returned home that night.
“You got the message then, huh?” Dolly said. “About the mundie money? Guess it all went bust, huh?”
“It does appear to have all gone bust,” Magnus said.
“I didn’t think you believed me.”
Magnus leaned against the opposite wall and sighed heavily. There was no noise from any of the rooms on the hall, except for some distant, muffled yelling at the far end. He got the feeling that many people were probably leaving the hotel now that they had no money to pay the bill, or they were sitting behind their doors in stunned silence. And yet they had no idea that the crash was really the least of their worries, and the real danger had been averted. They would never know. They never did.
“You look tired,” Dolly said. “Like you need a pick-me-up.”
“I just closed a Portal to the Void. I need sleep. About three days’ worth.”
Dolly let out a low whistle.
“My friend said you’re a hot potato. She wasn’t joking, huh?”
“She?”
Dolly slapped a hand over her mouth, nicking her nose with her long, lacquered nails.
“Oops!”
“Who sent you?” Magnus asked.
Dolly lowered her hand and flashed a smile.
“A good friend of yours.”