Infernal Angels

Chapter Two: The Caged

December 14th, 2030
Jem

It was cold underground.

This was something Jem had learned intimately over the past few days. It's cold underground. Don't try to get out unless you want to be locked down there.

It's cold in the Pit.

The Pit: the nightmare realm for the captives. Or captive, singular, since he was the only one he knew of. Jem shuddered at the thought again, skin crawling. The Pit was where the guards sent you when you pissed them off enough to earn some pretty traumatizing experiences. They injected you with some kind of serum that made you see the things you feared the most and locked you in a dark hole, slamming a metal cover over it so that the cold would stay within the Pit. There you'd stay for however long they decided you deserved, though it felt like thrice that, before getting pulled out, shaking and terrified, injected with the antidote, and fed a small meal that provided little to no nourishment. Most people in the past, the guards had told him, had only needed one day-long trip to the Pit to make them obedient.

For Jem, it had taken a week-long stay in the shadowy Pit, feeling like he was choking on poison and seeing the two ghosts as solid beings getting torn to pieces. He saw clockwork creatures, London in flames, the boy and girl dying, always dying, gruesomely and painfully. He had been shaking, malnourished, and sobbing when they'd pulled him out. Even the thought of the place made bile rise in his throat, and yet he wanted to fight them still, even if it meant a lifetime in the Pit. 

"Sleep," one of the guards grunted, banging his blade on the cage. Jem curled up on the floor of the metal cage, the thin fabric of his shirt and pants doing little to keep out the cold of the metal, and shut his eyes despite his earlier vow to fight. It would do no good to anger them now, not when he was so close to death, not when another week in the Pit would surely kill him....although perhaps he should've let himself die, in order to stop whatever foul plan they wished to set in motion.

However, the instant he closed his eyes, scenes from his nightmares started dancing behind his eyes. A blade pierced through the chest of the girl and she went limp around it, a grim imitation of a shish-kabob. The boy let out a roar of terrible grief and lunged for the shadowy blade-wielder, who sliced downwards with a grim smile, cleaving him in half. Their bodies hit the ground with a thump, blood everywhere, and when Jem looked up, he was the one carrying the blade, his entire body soaked in blood---

"DEMON POX, OH DEMON POX," a voice bellowed, shocking Jem out of his nightmare. He jerked upwards into a sitting position, realizing with shame that he had started to cry in his sleep. He brushed aside the tears impatiently and leaned forward, the guard that had commanded him to sleep gone to deal with...whoever was singing like a madman.

"Stop that!" one of the guards commanded.

"JUST HOW IS IT ACQUIRED?"

Jem's mind whirled at those words, to a time when he had not lived, a place where he had not been, watching the blue-eyed boy dance in a circle singing this very song. Who...what...

"ONE MUST GO DOWN TO THE BAD PART OF TOWN---"

"Until one is very tired," Jem breathed, recalling the next line just before the voice sang it. Jem strained to recall the name of the singer, nails digging into his palms as he forced himself into his subconscious, pawing through it even has his instincts screamed at him to get out, the voice still bellowing out the words of the song.

"DEMON POX, OH DEMON---" There was a sharp cry of pain, a loud clanging noise, and the call of a guard to be quiet. Jem's birthmark flared up and he gasped in a mixture of pain and confusion, just as the voice started up again, more ragged than before. "Demon pox, oh demon pox, I had it all along...."

The words were rising up in Jem's throat, clawing to get out, the fierce urge that screamed protectprotectprotect filling his body with adrenaline. "No, not the pox, you foolish blocks," he shouted, "I mean this very song."

"For I was right and you were wrong!" they both finished triumphantly. One of the guards groaned and slammed his blade against Jem's cage, causing him to flinch away on instinct, even as the other boy started singing again.

"There once was a lass from New York,
Who found herself hungry in York.
But the bread was like rocks,
The parsnips shaped like---"

"You cheated!" Jem called, even as he inched nervously away from the spear the guard clutched. "You cannot rhyme York with York, especially with fork being so obviously the correct choice."

"Who are you, stranger?" the unseen boy called, and Jem could sense the grin in his voice.

More words were rising up in Jem, though he knew what he should've said. These words were strange and yet terrifyingly unfamiliar, and they needed to be said.

"Entreat me not to leave thee
Or return from following after thee---
For wither thou goest..."

The unfamiliar boy's voice caught in his throat and he continued the oath, his and Jem's voices rising and falling in perfect harmony.

"I will go.
And where thou lodgest, I will lodge.
Thy people shall be my people, and thy God, my God.
Where thou diest, I will die, and there will I be buried."

Jem's voice hitched on the last word, memories flooding back in a violent rush, his birthmark---rune---parabatai rune pulsing with white-hot fire. Doddering off to the grave---good shot---are you really dying---two, maybe three years---say you'll train with me---I'll train with you.

"The Angel do so to me, and more also,
If aught but death part thee and me."

And he remembered.

Jem buried his face in his hands, tears slipping down his cheeks despite how hard he had tried to stop them. He heard the guards back off, clearly confused, but he ignored them, lost again in the nineteenth century. Disloyal bastard---follow the witchlight--- convince me---poultry pie---mallards---cannibal ducks---ate it too---never trust---Reparations---game----genuphobia---honor---honor and debt---can't never forgive me----alone---whose fault---never meant to hurt you---biannual---depths of their souls---don't waste that on me---astriola---evidence---et tu, Brute!---not going to live---burn as bright as I can---for her---Tessa---parabatai---ask anything of you----tear myself in half---heart will continue to beat----go in peace, James Carstairs---as if I am not used to badly behaved Herondales---I take your hand, brother, so that you may go in peace.

His entire body shook as the force of his first life, his only life, his true life bore down on him like a train, trembling wildly like a leaf caught in a hurricane, sobbing into his hands like a child----but for the first time in his life, he was truly happy.

Will Herondale.

My parabatai.

Alive.