Infernal Angels

Chapter One: The Team

December 7th, 2030
Tessa

"Magnus, this is the fifth message I've left you. If you don't call soon, I swear I'll come over to your house and kidnap Chairman Meow. I mean it." Tessa exhaled shakily and ran her hands through her hair, ending the message. If he didn't realize it was her after one-hundred-and-forty-eight years, he was clearly a lost cause. She cast a glance over at the cane and dagger, lying on the counter. After she'd calmed down, she'd put on gloves and hurried them over to the cleanest surface in her house, worried that her own magic might affect whatever traces surrounded the dagger. She's cast a few warding spells around them, too, to protect them from damage.

Jem's cane.

Will's dagger.

And she was here, staring at the two weapons that had been buried with the two boys, both dug up and as in excellent repair, as they had been over a century ago. She stifled a sigh, dropping her head into her hands. What does this mean? Are they...no. No, not possible.

The phone rang, sudden and loud, and she scrambled for it, practically knocking it off of the kitchen table in her rush. She picked up and pressed it to her ear. "Hello?"

"Tessa?"

Alec. Though she would've liked to speak with Magnus, someone who had the same (and even greater) experience with immortality and magic as she did, this was the next best thing. "Alexander," she greeted. "Sorry if I woke you up."

"Don't be." There was a wry chuckle. "I'm used to waking up to the sounds of screaming. I didn't think you'd be the one to freak out, though. What's going on?"

"It's---" Tessa broke off, thinking of the note. Come find them. Like the beginning of a game. "I don't think it's wise to discuss it over the phone."

"Tessa? Is something wrong?" There was genuine concern in his voice. "You're never this..." The word paranoid went unsaid.

She sighed. "Please wake Magnus and hurry over. It's urgent."

"Got it. We'll be there in twenty."

"Thank you, Alec." She hung up without another word and buried her face in her hands.

Will, Jem...why now? If you are alive, if you have survived everything, if you are reborn...why now? Or is it even you at all? She sighed and ran a finger over the water in her glass. "I wish you were here," she murmured, closing her eyes wearily. "I miss you."

A tear splashed into the cup and she rubbed at her eyes, pouring out the glass into the sink.

-------

Tessa paced back and forth in front of the door wildly. It had been forty minutes since Alec had called and no one had showed up. Whenever she texted them, Magnus assured her that they were on their way.

She got the feeling that they weren't.

The doorbell rang and she whirled around, grabbing the letter opener just in case, her magic at the ready. She threw open the door---and stopped short. "What the hell?"

Magnus grinned down at her. "We brought a few friends with us."

"A few?!"

Clary squeezed around Magnus' side and smiled, green eyes bright. "You helped us," she said simply. "Now we'll help you. All of us."

"Really," she said dryly. "Really. All---" she counted the heads crowding behind Magnus and Clary. "Nine of you---seriously, Emma? Julian---hell, Catarina? I expected better from you, at least."

"We owe you this, Aunt Tessa," Emma called from the back. "Let us help."

Tessa stared at their bright, willing eyes, and shook her head with an exaggerated sigh. "Fine," she said. "Fine. I'm in no mood to fight your puppy-dog eyes, you manipulative little Nephilim-Downworlder allies." She held open the door as they filed in, counting the heads again. Magnus, Alec, Jace, Clary, Simon, Isabelle, Julian, Emma, Catarina... Despite her protests, she was selfishly glad they'd come for to her aid.

"So, Tessa dearest," Magnus said cheerfully. "What seems to be the issue?"

She took a deep breath and grabbed the dagger and cane, holding the former out hilt-first to Magnus, who took it, weighing it in his hand. He blanched. "This isn't..."

Tessa bowed her head. "It is."

"I don't understand," Jace cut in, staring at it. "That's...that's Will's, right? My ancestor's? Wasn't it buried when J---"

"When Uncle Jem died," Emma breathed. "And that's his cane, isn't it?"

"Which was buried with him," Tessa went on grimly. "Someone gave me these along with a note." She set the slip of paper on the coffee table, and the nine of them bent over it, frowning.

"Come find them," Clary read. "That's what it means, right? So...are they alive, or---"

"I don't know," she interrupted wearily. "But I do know that this 'S' has something to do with it, as well as Fallen I."

"Fallen Industries," Simon said suddenly. "That big corporation that deals in Downworld." He made an impatient noise at their uncomprehending stares. "They're trying to combine magic with technology in order to better the lives of Downworlders and Nephilim."

"Sounds a lot like Pandemonium," Magnus muttered.

"That club that Clary took us to once?" Alec furrowed his brow at his husband. "It's just a mundane club."

"Actually," Catarina interjected, "it's not. It's a Downworlder place that was started back in the nineteenth century, from what I've heard." The blue-skinned warlock met Tessa's eyes, and the brunette looked down at her lap.

"So?" Isabelle said impatiently. "How does that tie in to---"

"Mortmain," Tessa cut in softly, "the Magister, the master of the club, wanted to do the same thing. Combine magic with technology, create an army born of neither Heaven nor Hell."

"I'm guessing that's not good," Jace muttered.

"He came close to killing Tessa and the Shadowhunters of the London Institute," Magnus said matter-of-factly. "Including your ancestor, biscuit." He nodded to Clary and passed the dagger to Jace, who took it almost reverently.

"Why haven't we heard about them before?" Alec demanded, looking horrified.

"Because the Clave abandoned them," Tessa replied, her voice full of bitterness. "The Clave thought the clockwork army would strike in London, and left eleven fighters to face down an army of hundreds of beings immune to angelic runes and their powers. The Clave does not like to be wrong, and insisted that it could never happen again."

"The Clave," Clary commented, her mouth quirking up at the corner, "apparently has less than the collective intelligence of a pineapple if they think that history doesn't repeat itself."

Tessa inclined her head. "Just so." Just then, her phone buzzed and she frowned at it, her face draining of color as she read it. No... "It's a text message," she said aloud. "A clue. They've turned it into a hunt."