Tag: And With Great Power

Alec called Magnus and told him where to meet us. The other three would meet us outside the demon perimeter a few blocks away. Alec asked, “You have any weapons? I don’t want you to get hurt.”

I sighed. His words just a reminder this wasn’t what I did. This was Nox’s job. I didn’t want him doing this and I was considering doing it. Alec asked, “You are coming aren’t you?”

There was disappointment on his face. He took a step back and looked at me. “I didn’t peg you as a coward. We finally have a location and now you want to back out?”

“This isn’t what I do.”

Alec shrugged. “This isn’t what Magnus does. But he’s here. He’s working.”

“He knows how to use his powers.”

“You don’t?”

“No. I don’t. They aren’t even mine.” I whined and cringed at my own voice.

Alec sighed. “Fine, stay here and monitor the screen.” Alec didn’t wait for me to respond before he was opening the door, activating his stealth rune and was running before the door closed behind him.

I flopped down on the couch. I disappointed a fictional character in my dream. Nox would let me stay here. Nox would let me help from the computer. That’s what I did. But I had Nox’s powers, I was Nox in my dream. I could still do what I did, but there was no Nox. I couldn’t call him for help. I couldn’t ask Dev or Dee. I didn’t have anyone.

My epiphanies were great in this dream. Nox was alone for so long. He did everything without help. No one in the Venatori believed in what he did. Dorian and Dae’lin obliged him in things, let him do his thing because that was Nox. They saw great potential in him. Hell even I saw the raw potential of the great things he could be, but he didn’t see any of it. He didn’t see beyond the messed up brain of his. And I wasn’t helping was I? I told him to get out of my life because what he did was too dangerous. The fact that he was still talking to me amazed me.

I sighed and climbed out of the couch and grabbed Nox’s leather jacket from the coat hook. I don’t know why it was here, but I was grateful that it smelled like him as I wrapped it around my arms. Maybe it would give me the confidence it gave him to trust someone. The scars on his back made him sensitive to touch there. He let me touch without anything between my skin and his. It was so open so hard and so scary for him but he let me. He trusted me. But he went out into the world with sleeves and thick coats even in the middle of a scorching summer. It was his armor from the world. I could only hope it would give me that kinda courage.

I opened the door. At the top of the basement stares Alec stood with a grin on his face. “It took you long enough.”

I frowned up at the archer waiting for me. “How did you know?”

He shrugged and waved for me to join him as he walked away. “I didn’t. But I didn’t think you were a coward. I think you are having a crisis of faith and there was nothing I could say that would make you come with me. So I did the only thing I could think of, I called you names and left without letting you respond.”

“That was the only thing you could think of?” I asked.

Alec chuckled. “I didn’t think you’d like me dragging you out by your ear and making you come with me kicking and screaming so this was the better option.”

I laughed. “I’d like to have seen you try it.”

Alec grinned at me. “Magnus called while you were down stairs. They’ll be there in ten.”

We were both sitting in our chairs watching the computer and Alec’s device work. He still had to power the thing, but neither of us were actively doing anything. We were seeing demon not spots. And we were tracking Dean, Magnus and Cass through Magnus’ cell phone which oddly enough worked in our world. I had almost forgotten it was a dream until that coincidence.

I was surprised again that I just hadn’t woken from it. Maybe it wasn’t as long or coherent as I was thinking it was, but I was pretty sure Devin had a hand in keeping me asleep and making me dream I had Nox’s powers.

And I think I was getting some understanding of why he was doing it. Why he trust me into a world where I had super powers and a problem to solve. He was proving a point. Nox didn’t want to do this. But if he didn’t who else would, right? He got thrown into it. He didn’t ask for it.

But I was learning more than that. One of the most annoying t hings about Nox was his tight control on everything. He got up at the same fucking time. Everyday. He didn’t sleep in, he didn’t stay up late. It was the same everyday. He did the same work out routine, he ate the same thing for breakfast lunch and dinner. Even his clothes were all the same. Yeah he had different t-shirts and dress shirts and things, but he always wore jeans and t-shirt and a long sleeves. Always. Everything was about control, even my house was perfectly organized.

But if you thought Nox was a clean freak then you’d be wrong. He didn’t dust or vacuum unless it was chore day. But everything had a place. Control, control, control…

That control was necessary. He controlled his vision, his power. He didn’t know any other way.

I sighed. Alec was shaking his head. “It can’t be that bad.”

I laughed. “No it’s worse. I told Nox I was done with this. It was over. That if he walked out the door to hunt vampires I didn’t want to see him again.”

Alec nodded. “Did you mean it?”

I sighed. “At the time, yeah I did.”

“Now?” Alec asked.

“I regretted it the moment I said it but I was so angry at him for so many things that I didn’t take it back. He turned around and I could have stopped him. Made him explain it to me. But instead I ran down stairs, to my safe place.”

“I’m not exactly the person you should be telling all this stuff to. I can’t give you any advice. Izzy could, but I’m no good at relationships.”

“I’m not looking for advice, so don’t worry about it.” I smiled at him. “Nox is kinda rubbing off on all of us. He talks about everything. If you ask it, even rhetorically, be prepared for an answer you didn’t want to hear. Right now he’s talking all the time. He’s not happy here with me. So I figured saying those things he’d leave me and then I wouldn’t need to worry about him.” I sighed. “Funny thing about it all, I’m more worried now that I’ll never see him again and the last thing he’ll have heard from me, is ‘I’m done’. “

“Nox talks or he takes action, he doesn’t sit around waiting for things to happen.” I sighed. “He walked out my door and if he’s pissed off enough at me, he’ll never walk through it again. He doesn’t deal well with change.”

“Who does?” Alec said.

“You’d think it was just that when someone says it to you. Drake’s bedroom is set up with shelves and toy bins and everything has a home. But Drake is three. Drake plays with his toys and then gets another one out leaving the last one where it was when he was playing. Normal kid things. Nox can’t walk into Drake’s room anymore. The mess hikes his anxiety and he winds up in our closet where it’s safe and orderly and just sits there calming himself and hiding from the kids. Not that the boys don’t know he has panic attacks, everyone steps wide when things change. We all know, we’ve all seen the mess our big strong leader type becomes when he’s stressed out. It’s not pretty to see him like that. It’s scary to think that someone made him like that.”

Alec sighed. “He sees a therapist?”

“He used to. Religiously. He needs to, he knows that. But he can’t forgive her.”

Alec asked, “Why not?”

I shrugged. “He hates liars. And she’s been lying to him his whole life. And she did some other things that are hard to forgive.”

I didn’t get to finish what I was saying because a bunch of dots appeared on the screen. Not just little blips either, big ones. Alec smiled. “I think that’s their hub.” It was a ware house out by the docks. Always the docks… Did bad guys have this thing about docks written in a handbook or something?

Alec and Magnus had shared a sweet kiss good-bye and Dean asked, “Hey, where’s mine?” Magnus had chuckled and Alec blushed. If it had been Dev or Nox kissing like that, well they wouldn’t have been sweet, it would have been full on passion – it always was. But if they had been kissing and Dean asked. One or both of them would have tries to place a kiss on those plump lips of his. Fuck! I was grateful to be moving away from him and those thoughts.

There was a purple portal standing before us and Alec took my elbow and we walked through. Both of us blushing furiously.

When we walked out we were inside my basement apartment just missing the couch separating the kitchenette from the ‘living room’. The portal closed behind us and Alec stepped around towards the computer. He set the device down on the computer and took a seat where Adam usually sat. “I miss our touch screens.”

I sighed. “I wish I had them. If I did Nox would be in heaven. He could actually do more that way.”

“He doesn’t use computers?” Alec asked.

“He does. He’s just a user though, he does even less with them now that I do it all for him. But he has his things he must do himself.” I sighed. Nox always had issues – he had issues with just about everything.

“You seem fustrated with him.” Alec observed.

I sat down at my computer and let my power go. I make sure I knew I had Nox’s power under control. My vision blurred a little while I got things settled. But it wasn’t so hard, keeping that tight control. Nox didn’t have accidental fires. It took him years to gain control. Or had it?

Garrett had beaten him, that would be incentive enough for me to do what I had to do quickly, but once he learned the beating kept happening. Nox had mentioned a year and more. He was 6 when he stopped training with Garrett.

Alec touched my elbow, “You okay?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I was just thinking how frustrating Nox was.” I grinned at him.

“Jace is always rushing around getting in to trouble and I have to bail him out. And then he met Clary and our lives all turned upside down. Now, I’m living with a warlock, working with werewolves and vampires to make a better world for my kids and everyone else’s.”

“Nox doesn’t get into trouble. He attracts it. He hunts trouble that’s the problem. I really don’t see why he can’t just be happy living with me and the boys.”

Alec frowned but I turned away. I didn’t want to see the disappointment in his fact just like in everyone else’s when I said that. I was suppose to be supportive, but I didn’t want to lose Nox. And fighting vampires and demons and things was just going to get him killed. I don’t think I could handle that. So I ignored it and I started working.

The device was weird. It didn’t have any gears or switches, much less anything else I recognized. But I felt it humming with energy and I knew it was tech – just not something I had ever seen before.

I let my gift flow through the device I took a panel off and Alec hummed softly to himself. I wasn’t sure if he was making notes or proud I had figured something out on my own. I hooked up leads from his device to my computer. I didn’t know if it was digital or analog in signal but it didn’t matter the converter would either work or not so then I’d have an answer.

The problem was it wasn’t reading anything so I couldn’t even tell if there was a data stream. I asked, “How does this work?”

Alec picked it up. “I’ll have to operate the box, while you do the rest, it uses angelic powers.”

I chuckled to myself. “Yeah I don’t know how to recreate that. Guess you are stuck holding the box while it works.”

Alec leaned back in his chair with the box in his hand and smiled. “That’s why I’m here.”

“Cass could have done this.” I said.

Alec raised an eyebrow. “You’d rather spend time with him? Than with me? I find that shocking.”

I blushed but I also grinned at him. “If I were Nox I’d have a smart comeback to say. And if I were Dev I’d have a perfect quote from some movie or song sitting on the tip of my tongue. I’m surprised I got that out of my mouth.”

“I make you tongue-tied?” It was Alec’s turn to blush.

“Let’s just say we match color for color on it all.”

Alec laughed and nodded. “I bet Nox and Dev make you blush on purpose.”

“Dee too.”

Alec shook his head. “I don’t know how you do it? Two boyfriends and a girlfriend. With three boys, two of them who are only a few years younger right?”

I nodded. “They are both sixteen. But they adore Nox.”

“Sure it’s not a crush?” Alec asked.

“Yeah, we are. Dev would let us know if Matt’s feelings changed.”

We sat in silence for a the next few minutes while I typed furiously on the keyboard. My gift was doing it’s thing and I was telling the computer what to do that my gift couldn’t do. It was unique and fun to watch. Jack and Adam didn’t do it quite the same way. Jack said that no one works exactly the same way and our powers are much the same. It’s not one set prescribed method, we all figure it out as we go and learn different tricks. But the two different techs were working well together. I just had to hook it up into the police system and map it all out and get real time data. It wasn’t difficult to do, just time consuming.

I looked at the building that Cass indicated and wondered what the fuck I was doing. This wasn’t me. I didn’t save people. I didn’t run into buildings blind.

But here I was walking in behind Dean, who insisted on going first. I wasn’t going to object and Alec was equipped with a bow and arrow and he preferred the back. Us magic users I guess got the middle. It was very much like playing some MMO with my friends. The tank went first, the squishes next and followed up with the DPS just in case we got attached from the rear. I never imagined I’d ever be a squishy though, I disliked playing mages and wizards and the like. But then me and my friends tended towards Halo and FPS games, that is if we weren’t out hitting each other with paint balls.

It was almost like a game, except lives were at stake, people could die. I could kill them.

Alec put his hand on my shoulder and shook his head, “Don’t think about it. Just think about what’s next. What you have to do next. One foot in front of the other and then the next. When we are done you can think about it. We don’t have time to deal with our feelings right now.”

I sighed and nodded as we moved silently through the building, moving up and up each floor following Cass’s demon trail. He didn’t see the thing skitter in front of Dean. Dean didn’t see it. But the arrow that streaked past their heads and landed into the demon caught their attention as it burst into flames. “One.” I whsipered to my self.

(Really want to to have the legolas gimili challelnge quoe here) from Magnus.

I laughed softly to myself. It was good when someone else catches your references and you don’t even have to try. But Magnus was really the only one to catch my references, it was sad. Almost like being a big bad ass hunter made you not into pop culture. Nox, and Dean and Alec, they all looked at me like I was this strange foreigner in their already strange land.

Upstairs we went. Level by level until we were on the roof. “There is nothing here Cass.” He turned to look at his friend who was shrugging as he pointed at the little light that was blinking furiously. “That’s what it says.”

Alec moved around us with his bow knocked. “It’s here.” He couldn’t see it either, but he could feel it. I felt something. I felt nauseous as I thought about the feeling. My sight blurred. The lights shifted and I saw things in minute detail. Halos around objects. I could see the small pebbles that made up the top of the roof. The sound of the bird flying over head. There was a small noise behind us.

I turned just as I saw a dark thing skitter across the roof behind us for entry onto the roof. It jumped at me and I out of reflex I threw my hands out in front of me. I thought about all the other times when the fireball flew from my hands and this time I saw the patterns form. Felt the heat of the fire as it built in slow motion. Like time had stopped just for me.

The flame flew and the demon howled a foot away from my head and then shattered into a thousand little floating black specs.

“Nice shot.” Alec tapped me on the back and walked past me. “But there is nothing else here. None of these are Azazel.”

Dean cleared his throat, “You fire happy, whatever you are’s can’t go killing Azazel while he’s inside my brother.”

Alec looked at him with confusion. “How’d that happen?”

“It just did.” Dean said as he looked around the rest of the roof. He looked over the edge and down. “Could it have jumped?”

“Nox would have.”

Alec looked back at me and asked, “He can fly?”

“No. Not fly. Falling with Style.”

Magnus chuckled. “I don’t think the demon jumped. I don’t think he was here. We can’t keep chasing one by one.”

Alec said,”We really need the institute system to track demons.”

“How do you track them? You have that sensor thing yeah? Maybe I can rig it to my system?”

Dean said,”You could do that?”

I shrugged. “I dunno. I might blow something up in the process but yeah I can.” I may not know Nox’s power but I knew my capabilities. And I could do this. Even if I couldn’t I’d damn well try. “But we have to go back to my apartment.”

Dean sighed. “I don’t want to just sit on my ass. This is a hot spot. I’m going to stick around here. Arrow boy you go with him, the rest of us will stay here and look around.”

Alec looked to Magnus, “You okay with staying here with him?”

Magnus gave Alec a glittery smile and then pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I think he should be more afraid of me than you Alexander, I am the high warlock of Brooklyn.”

Alec nodded. “I know, but that doesn’t mean anything here. Or in his world. And…”

“Isn’t it cute. Alexander, I can take care of myself.”

Alec blushed. “I know but…” He didn’t finish his sentence you could tell it had something to do with loving him and caring for him. But he walked over to our full on Angel and extended his hand. “I’m going to need that back so Sage can use it.”

Cass handed it to him with a smiple nod of his head. “Thank you.” He entoned.

Alec walked back to me and looked at Magnus with a great big smile. “Can you portal us back?” He was sweet and innocent and Magnus sighed.

“How can I resist that?”

Portaling was much like how I imagined what Nox said walking through the shadows was like.

Is this what Nox warred with? I hated this. I just wanted to go back to my chair and sit down and let them do their jobs. Like I had with Nox. Where it was safe, where I didn’t accidentally kill someone. This wasn’t me. Why was I even here?

Alec stood up. “Come on. Magnus and Dean and the weird angel dude are waiting for us back where you left us.”

“His name is Castiel. Call him Cass. And I can’t go back to that place.” I still felt like retching.

Alec offered me his hand. “Come on, trust me.”

I looked up into his blue eyes and saw sincerity. The same I’l protect you as I did with Nox every time there was danger around. I sighed and took his hand. He heft me to my feet with ease.

We walked in silence back the way we’d come. The others met us a block from where the man had died. There were no sirens, no cop cars, there was nothing. Dean looked at me and smiled, “These guys are handy to have around.”

I didn’t know what he meant by it but Magnus was pulling me off in the opposite direction. “Cass found another track this way.”

Alec looked at Cass and shrugged. I guessed his angelic device worked for Cass too. Cass asked, “Can I have one of these?”

Again Alec shrugged, “You can have that one. I’ll just say a demon smashed it.”

Magnus chuckled, “That’s my Alexander stretching the truth.”

The look they exchanged made me blush and I felt awkward not like when Dev and Nox share the same look. And they share it more often than I liked. It was endearing and annoying all at the same time. I knew they both loved me but I Nox wasn’t supposed to fall for Dev so hard. I was jealous, I knew it. But it wasn’t either of their faults. I brought them together, otherwise Dev would just be another pretty blue eyed boy who served us drinks at Aspect instead of our other lover. And I loved him too.

Magnus whispered to me, “Someone will find the body but it will look like suicide. The scene is clean. You don’t have to worry.”

“I still killed that man.”

Magnus smiled. “But you saved that woman from being raped. He may not have deserved to die, but she definitely didn’t deserve to be raped.” Magnus handed me a rolled bill, “She wanted to thank us, we said we didn’t need it. But she refused to take no for an answer, none of us are from this world so it’s yours. You did save her after all.”

“I don’t deserve it.” I said as I stuffed it back into Magnus’ hand. He snapped his fingers and it vanished. I groaned, “It’s in my pocket now isn’t it?”

Magnus laughed. “Yes. Sometimes you have to take the things you don’t think you deserve. Sometimes you have to do the things you don’t want to do. All because it’s the right thing to do.”

I stopped in the middle of the street and asked, “Why is giving me the money the right thing to do?”

The crowd was thick at this hour of the morning, but they walked around our little party as if they saw us, but we didn’t get any stares, they just walked past us like we weren’t here.

Magnus smiled at me. His white smile enhanced by the glitter on his lips and the blush at his cheeks. He wore way more make up than Nox but he wore the thick eye liner as he did. His eyes weren’t as dark, but the sparkled with the same love of life as Nox’s. “Because it made the woman happy.”

“You could have taken it.”

“And done what with your currency, Sage?” Magnus held up a dollar from his world. “There are slight differences, you can see them.”

I shook my head, “No. It looks like money to me.”

Magnus shrugged, “Trust me, there are. And you could see them if you weren’t being a stubborn git.” He chuckled. “It made her happy to pay back the man who saved her. We’ve another demon to hunt.”

Cass pointed up into an older building in the middle of Harlem. It was one of those huge apartment buildings. “The trail leads in there.”

I ran until my legs couldn’t carry me anymore. I sat down on the stoop of some house in Harlem. It would be dangerous if it wasn’t a dream. But I knew I’d be fine. But that man …

I had killed him.

I hadn’t been sitting long when Mr Tall and always right stepped out of the shadows and sat down next to me. “Accidents happen.” He said.

“Not to me they don’t.” I said. “I don’t have accidents. I don’t do anything where an accident can happen. Everything is very deliberate. Every piece of code I write has a purpose. Everything I do has a purpose even if it’s just to have fun. I don’t do accidents.”

Alec laughed, “There are always accidents. You can’t tell me you haven’t fallen down the stairs, said something someone took the wrong way.” Alec watched my reaction and stopped there when I was blushing. “See. You do things by accident. You didn’t mean to.”

He clashed his hands together and hung his head, “I remember the first time I killed a mundane. It was an accident. There was a crowd of people, a demon through Jace into me and I let lose an arrow in the fall. My finger had just slipped. It shot into the nearest window and killed a woman who was feeding her baby while watching the street below. “

“What did you do?” I asked.

“Me, I didn’t do anything. Jace with his level head cleaned up my mess. My accident never made the books. The woman looked like she died of natural causes.”

“But she had an arrow….”

Alec nodded. “Part of the magic of our world, we can cover up a lot of things, and with the right cop in the know it’s easy. I’m sure your Nox does the same thing. I’m sure he’s killed by accident as well. It happens when we first do this, when we are young and still learning.”

I shook my head, “Nox doesn’t kill anything, that’s kinda his thing.”

Alec smiled. “He hunts things that want to kill him, I’m sure he’s killed to save his life.”

I nodded, “Shortly after I first met him he killed a man – a dragon actually – with his gift, he was dead on his feet afterwards, but after a nap he was back to working.”

“I think I’d like him.” Alec said.

“You probably would.” I nodded. “I don’t know if I can do this.”

Alec put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “You can. You will. It’s the right thing to do. We need your help. You got us this far. Why not help us find Azazel and let’s send him back to the hell dimension he belongs.”