The Cat-eyed Warlock

Barney

The faint drip drip drip of wax echoed around Magnus and Max, adding substantially to the feeling of impending doom. He walked forward slowly, Max holding the long sleeve of his maroon hoodie tightly; the only lifeline in this cavern of fear.

Magnus kept thinking something was off but he brushed it aside. Something would be wrong in a dark murder cave right? Yes, he told himself firmly.

"Can we go back?" Max shivered

"It's okay Max, we have to do this and then we can see Alec, remember?" He smiled, but the little boy seemed unconvinced.

"I-I'm scared"

"Alright then, I'll tell you a story" Magnus said, kneeling down in front of Max and putting his hands on his shoulders, straightening his shirt. He could feel cold damp seeping through his trousers and he took a deep breath before continuing.

"When I was little, I got lost in the woods. It was very very dark, even the moon was clouded over"

"Were you scared?" Max asked

"Yes Max, I was very scared. I had been playing in the garden with my dog, Barney, but he ran into the trees and he didn't come back when I called him" Magnus said, "My mother told me to go and get him. I didn't want to go in, but I did anyway. It was very frightening and when I got to a clearing, Barney was sitting happily chewing on a bone. I was never scared if the woods after that"

"Was he alright?" Max muttered straightening his posture a little.

"Yes sweetie, he was fine. Just didn't want to come back. Now can you be as brave as I was?"

"Yes"

"I know" Magnus found a genuine smile creeping up on him and allowed it to blossom until the next obstacle, which, he knew, would inevitably come.

Their footsteps echoed on the cold stone, splashes tinkling from the small pools of damp.
Sliding a hand along the warped wax covered wall, Magnus held his torch out in front of him, peering into the gloomy darkness until he jumped, his heart racing.

"What is it?" Max whimpered quickly

"Run!" Magnus yelled, grabbing his hand and pulling him away into the middle of the cavern. It took him a moment to realise what he had done. He had let go of the wall.

•••

"Alec! Hold onto my hand!" Tessa yelled at him as they whizzed through the technicolour tube of light, "Portals can be tricky if you don't know where you're going"

"Where are we going then?" Alec grumbled loudly, reluctantly gripping Tessa's thin, bony hand, but was left with a noncommittal answer.

A second later the portal spat them out on the dirty floor of an alleyway, lined, it seemed to Alec, with a thick coating of mistrust and a feculent smell. He wrinkled up his nose and trued very hard not to breathe, only to live off residual oxygen trapped within his lungs. Indeed unsurprisingly, it failed. This could have been due to the fact that he had used it up, or the fact that he had been winded in the portal, leaving him with none to begin with.

After a few deep breaths of almost stagnant weird-alley-air, the effects did seem to lessen marginally, although it had seemed to take all his attention and when he spun around, Tessa was out of sight. He scolded himself. It didn't take all her concentration to merely breathe did it?

As he wandered slowly towards a yellowy-green light emanating from the end of the alleyway, he could hear the low pumping beat of disco music and faint chatter from some young men leaning against the wall ahead, sucking in deep lungfuls of cigarette smoke. It seemed that the feculent smell was increasing as he neared the building.

"There you are!" A man behind Alec said, making him jump and slide his hand towards the seraph dagger in his inner coat pocket, "I thought you had gone home or something"

"W..who are you?" Alec asked, surveying the stranger cautiously. They had dark brown locks of straggly wavy hair, grease positively dripping from its split ends onto a stained black shirt. They had a very pale, slightly yellowed face around large blue eyes which easily looked over a small snubbed nose and pube-like beard. Why had he thought of it like that? Nevermind.

"I'm Tessa you dork, I can shapeshift?" The man said, his high husky voice squeaking slightly, "Didn't Magnus tell you..." A second later Alec jumped back as Tessa, slightly taller than the stranger, appeared in front of him.

"You...were him. You're now..."

"Yeah get over it. Its like Dr Who. Bigger on the inside" she shook her head, instantly changing back into the scrubby young man he had seen earlier.

"Dr Who?" Alec asked puzzled

"Never mind, its too cultured for you little Shadowhunters"she tutted, "You will never understand how hot David Tennant is in series one. Damn! even Magnus jerked off to him"

Alec felt a little shock at hearing the words 'Magnus' and 'jerked off' in the same sentence. It didn't sound right. Not out loud at least.

His mind flooded with questions; how did she know about that? Who was David T...enson? Was Magnus in love with a fictional man? He settled for something a little more subtle.

"Where are we going?" he asked at length.

"Into the belly of the beast" Tessa/junky-looking-young-man-with-a-terrible-self-care-routine said turning to him and grinning.