The crowds thinned somewhat the closer they got to the river. The club was in one of the old meatpacking warehouses. The brick industrial facade had been painted silver, and the word ELECTRICA, along with a lightning bolt, was above the old service doors. Two werewolves stood by these, holding flashlights, and Lincoln waited off to the side. He was deep in conversation with Consuela, who was his second-in-command. When they saw Magnus, Consuela stepped aside to a waiting van, and Lincoln came over.
“This is what we feared,” Lincoln said. “We waited too long.”
The werewolves guarding the entrance parted, and Lincoln pushed open the doors. Inside the club it was entirely pitch black, save for the beams from the werewolves’ flashlights. There was a strong smell of spilled, mixed liquor and something unpleasantly tangy and sharp.
Magnus raised his hands. The neon lights around the room buzzed and glowed. The overhead work lights—unflattering fluorescents—sputtered on. And the disco ball crept to life, slowly spinning, sending a thousand points of colored reflected light around the room. The dance floor, made of large squares of colored plastic, was also illuminated from below.
Which made the scene all the more terrible.
There were four bodies, three women and one man. All looked like they had been running for various points of exit. Their skin was the color of ash, marked everywhere with greenish-purple bruises and dozens of marks, and garishly lit by the red, yellow, and blue lights below them. There was very little blood. Just a few small puddles here and there. Not nearly as much blood as there should have been.
One of the dead women, Magnus noticed, had familiar long blond hair. He’d last seen her on the plane, handing him the passes . . .
Magnus had to turn away quickly.
“They were all drained,” Lincoln said. “The club hadn’t opened for the night yet. They were having trouble with their sound system even before the power went out, so the only people here were the employees. Two there. . . .”
He pointed to the raised DJ platform with its piles of turntables and speakers. Some werewolves were up there examining the scene.
“Two behind the bar,” he continued. “Another one ran and hid in the bathroom, but the door was broken down. And these four. Nine total.”
Magnus sat down on one of the nearby chairs and put his head in his hands for a moment to gather himself. No matter how long you lived, you never got used to seeing terrible things. Lincoln gave him a moment to collect himself.
“This is my fault. When I went to see Camille, one of them took the passes to this place from my pocket.”
Lincoln pulled over a chair and sat next to Magnus.
“That doesn’t make it your fault. I asked you to speak to Camille. If Camille came here because of you . . . it doesn’t put the blame on either of us, Magnus. But you can see now, it can’t go on.”
“What do you plan on doing?” Magnus said.
“There are fires tonight. All over the city. We take this opportunity. We burn this place down. I think it would spare the victims’ families for them to think their loved ones died in a fire, rather than . . .”
He indicated the terrible scene just behind them.
“You’re right,” Magnus said. “No good could come of anyone seeing their loved one like that.”
“No. And no good would come of the police seeing this. It would send the city into a complete panic, and the Shadowhunters would be forced to come down here. We keep this quiet. We deal with it.”
“And the vampires?”
“We’re going to go and get them, and lock them in here while it burns. We have permission from the Praetor Lupus. The entire clan is to be treated as infected, but we’ll try to be judicious. The first one we’ll be getting, though, is Camille.”
Magnus exhaled slowly.
“Magnus,” Lincoln said, “what else can we do? She’s the clan leader. We need this to end now.”
“Give me an hour,” Magnus said. “One hour. If I can get them off the streets in an hour—”
“There’s already a group headed up to Camille’s apartment. Another will go to the Hotel Dumont.”
“How long ago did they leave?”
“About a half hour.”
“Then I’m going now.” Magnus stood. “I have to try to do something.”
“Magnus,” Lincoln said, “if you stand in the way, the pack will remove you from the situation. Do you understand that?”
Magnus nodded.
“I’ll come up when we’re done here,” Lincoln said. “I’ll go to the Dumont. That’s where they’ll end up anyway.”
A Portal was required. Given the situation on the streets, there was every chance that the werewolves hadn’t gotten to Camille’s apartment yet—if that was even where she was. He would just need to get to her. But before he could even start to draw the runes, he heard a voice in the dark.
“You’re here.”
Magnus turned on his heel and threw up a hand to illuminate the alley.
Camille was moving toward him, unsteady. She wore a long, black dress—rather, it was a dress that was now colored black from the sheer quantity of blood on it. It was still wet and heavy, and it stuck to her legs as she made her way forward.
“Magnus . . .”