passing.
As he made to step over what he thought was a lump of clothing, he realized there was a human on the floor, facedown. He bent down and gently reached into the mass of long black hair to turn the person’s face upward. It was a woman, and there was still some warmth in her, and a faint pulse beating in her neck.
“That’s Sarah,” Camille said, flopping onto the bed and hanging her head off the end to watch.
“You’ve been feeding from her,” Magnus said. “Is she a willing donor?”
“Oh, she loves it. Now, Magnus . . . You look marvelous, by the way. Is that Halston? . . . We’re just about to go out. And
She slid from the bed and tripped her way into a massive closet. Magnus heard hangers being scraped along rails. Magnus examined the girl on the floor again. She had punctures all over her neck—and now she was smiling weakly at Magnus and pushing back her hair, offering him a bite.
“I’m not a vampire,” he said, resting her head gently on the floor again. “And you should get out of here. Do you want my help?”
The girl made a sound that was just between a laugh and a whimper.
“Which one of these?” Camille said as she came stumbling back out of the closet, holding two almost identical black evening dresses.
“This girl is weak,” he said. “Camille, you’ve taken too much blood from her. She needs a hospital.”
“She’s fine. Leave her alone. Help me pick a dress.”
Everything about this exchange was wrong. This was not how the reunion should have gone. It should have been coy; it should have had many strange pauses and moments of double meaning. Instead Camille was acting like she’d just seen Magnus yesterday. Like they were simply friends. It was enough of an entry to allow him to get to the point.
“I’m here because there’s a problem, Camille. Your vampires are killing people and leaving bodies on the street. They’re overfeeding.”
“Oh, Magnus.” Camille shook her head. “I may be in charge, but I don’t control them. You have to allow for a certain amount of freedom.”
“This includes killing mundanes and leaving their bodies out on the sidewalk?”
Camille was no longer listening. She had dropped the dresses onto the bed and was picking though a pile of earrings. Meanwhile Sarah was attempting to crawl in Camille’s direction. Without even looking at her, Camille set a mirror full of white powder down on the floor. Sarah went right for it and began sniffing it up.
And then Magnus understood.
While human drugs didn’t quite work on Downworlders, there was no telling what would happen when that drug was run through a human circulatory system
It all made sense. The disarray. The confused behavior. The frenzied feeding in the clubs. The fact that they all looked so ill, that their personalities seemed to have changed. He’d seen this a thousand times in mundanes.
Camille was looking at him now, her gaze unwavering.
“Come out with us tonight, Magnus,” she cooed. “You are a man who knows a good time. I am a woman who provides a good time. Come out with us.”
“Camille, you have to stop. You have to know how dangerous this is.”
“It’s not going to kill me, Magnus. That’s quite impossible. And you don’t understand how it
“The drug can’t kill you, but other things can. If you continue like this, you know there are people out there who can’t let you go on murdering mundanes. Someone will act.”
“Let them try,” she said. “I could take on ten Shadowhunters once I’ve had some of this.”
“It may not be—”
Camille dropped to the floor before he could finish and buried her face into Sarah’s neck. Sarah flailed once and groaned, then became silent and motionless. He heard the sickening sound of the drinking, the sucking. Camille lifted her head, blood all around her mouth, running down her chin.
“Are you coming or not?” she said. “I would simply love to take you to Studio 54. You’ve never had a night out like one of our nights out.”
Magnus had to force himself to keep looking at her like this.
“Let me help you. A few hours, a few days—I could get this out of your system.”
Camille dragged the back of her hand across her mouth, smearing the blood onto her cheek.
“If you’re not coming along, then stay out of our way. Consider this a polite warning, Magnus. Dolly!”
Dolly was already at the door. “Think you’re done here,” she said.
Magnus watched Camille sink her teeth into Sarah again.
“Yes,” he said. “I think I am.”
Outside, a downpour was in progress. The doorman held an umbrella over Magnus’s head and hailed him a cab. The incongruity of the civility downstairs and what he’d seen upstairs was . . .
It wasn’t to be thought about. Magnus got into the cab, gave his destination, and closed his eyes. The rain drummed onto the cab. It felt like the rain was beating directly onto his brain.
Magnus wasn’t surprised to find Lincoln sitting on the steps by his door. Wearily he waved him inside.
“Well?” Lincoln said.
“It’s not good,” Magnus replied, pulling off his wet jacket. “It’s the drugs. They’re feeding on the blood of people who are taking drugs. It must be escalating their need and lowering their impulse control.”
“You’re right,” Lincoln said. “That isn’t good. I thought it might have something to do with the drugs, but I thought they were immune to things like addiction.”
Magnus poured them each a glass of wine, and they sat and listened to the rain for a moment.
“Can you help her?” Lincoln asked.
“If she lets me. But you can’t cure an addict who doesn’t want to be cured.”
“No,” Lincoln said. “I’ve seen that myself with our own. But you understand . . . we can’t let this behavior continue.”
“I know you can’t.”
Lincoln finished his wine and set the glass down gently.
“I’m sorry, Magnus. I really am. But if it happens again, you need to leave it to us.”
Magnus nodded. Lincoln gave him a squeeze on the shoulder, then let himself out.
For the next several days Magnus kept to himself. The weather was brutal, flicking between heat and storm. He tried to forget about the scene in Camille’s apartment, and the best way to forget was to keep busy. He hadn’t really kept up with his work for the last two years. There were clients to call. There were spells to study and translations to do. Books to read. The apartment needed redecorating. There were new restaurants and new bars and new people. . . .
Every time he stopped, he flashed back to the sight of Camille squatting on the carpet, the girl limp in her arms, the mirror full of drugs, Camille’s face covered in blood. The mess. The stink. The horror. The blank looks.
When you lost someone to addiction—and he had lost many—you lost something very precious. You watched them fall. You waited for them to hit the bottom. It was a terrible wait. He would have nothing to do with it. What happened now was not his problem. He had no doubt that Lincoln and the werewolves would take care of things, and the less he knew the better.
It kept him awake at night. That, and the thunder.
Sleeping alone was Hell, so he decided not to sleep alone.
He still woke up.
It was the night of July thirteenth—lucky thirteen. The thunderstorm outside was incredibly loud, louder than the air conditioner, louder than the radio. Magnus was just finishing up a translation and was about to go out to dinner, when the lights flickered. The radio faded in and out. Then everything went very bright as power surged through the wires. Then . . .
