Chapter Text
A cold night breeze blew across the ground, shaking the strategically placed city greenery into motion, the sound of leaves dancing against each other lofting through the air. A figure hurried along the shadows, glancing back and forth every few steps with fear. The night was oddly quiet for Boston, only a few mundanes wandering the streets this late. They paid the figure no mind, eyes not able to peel away the glamour that was hiding her. Her bright red, pupilless eyes glanced every which way as she darted from alley to alley, horrified that someone was following her. She clutched a wrapped parcel in her arms tightly, knowing if she dropped or lost it, she would have nothing to show the man she was going to see.
Ilya Rozanov watched from the balcony of his apartment, tracking her every step and movement. He wouldn’t have let anything happen to her, especially not with her so close to her destination. As soon as she reached the front door of the apartment building, he rushed inside to buzz her in, and then went to his door to wait for her knock. He swung the door open wide as soon as she did, breathing a sigh of relief at the sight of her.
“Svetlana,” he regarded her impatiently, speaking quickly in Russian as he ushered her inside. “What took you so long?”
“I’m sorry, Ilyushka,” she responded in a rush, pushing her curly hair out of her face. It was then Ilya noticed that she was sweating, and worry gripped at his insides.
“Were you followed?” he asked, guiding her to the living room and to a seat on the couch. He took the seat next to her, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Are you hurt?”
“No, no,” she said, “I was being followed at one point, farther away from here. I lost them a few blocks back.”
Ilya huffed out a breath of air he didn’t realize he had been holding, flopping back against the couch cushions. “You scared me,” he said, switching to English. “I was getting ready to go and find you.”
Svetlana gave a small smile, tight with her anxiety. Without another word, she handed the parcel over to Ilya, a simple manilla envelope that was creased in places where Svetlana had gripped it tightly, and he could see her hands were shaking. Carefully, he opened the envelope and pulled out a few of the papers inside.
“What are these?” he asked, skimming the text on a few of the documents. The words demon and ritual and sacrifice jumped out at him easily, until at last his eyes caught a name that pulled fear out from deep in his psyche. It started in his gut and rose to his throat, causing his blood to run cold.
Azazel.
“What are these?” he demanded again, gripping the pages and holding them closer to his face, as though the act would change what the words said. “Mundanes are trying to raise Azazel?”
He read a couple sentences of one of the pages, though some of it seemed like it was gibberish.
Red as an apple, a ritual of blood, the city finds you as you find it. Lonely, lonely, as lonely as the tunnels to Neverland. Bring forth your love, to Azazel. Rise, Azazel.
All the notes seemed to end like that. Rise, Azazel. It filled Ilya with dread from head to toe. He scanned a few more pages, but only found more odd scriptures like the first one, all ending with a command to bring something to Azazel, with Rise, Azazel closing it out. Bring forth your love. Your pride. Your soul. Your sadness.
“Sveta, I don’t understand,” Ilya said finally, turning his horrified gaze to her. She mirrored his fear, shaking her head in confusion.
“I don’t get it much either,” she whispered, taking another page from the envelope to look it over. “When Rose came to me with the information about a cult, I thought it was just another group of idiot mundanes like they always are. But then...”
Ilya knew what she was going to say as she trailed off. He had heard the rumors of downworlders going missing, as well as plenty of mundanes in Boston. At first, he thought it was perhaps just downworlders being victims of the Nephilim, with the Cold Peace being put in place and the Accords on rocky footing. Nephilim taking advantages of their own narcissistic laws like they always did, since Ilya was a younger warlock, a century ago. But when mundanes also started making headlines that they were missing, from multiple major cities from here to Montreal, Canada, Ilya had finally let himself be worried.
“Did Rose know anything else?” Ilya asked, still shuffling through paper after paper, scripture after scripture, trying to find a connection to it all.
“She said she could only ascertain from these pages that they were sent between a few different cities,” Svetlana explained, rubbing her thumb against the tips of her fingers on one hand over some of the papers. Red light crackled against the friction as she cast a spell over them, and a few words rose up into the air from between her fingers.
Montreal. New York. Ottawa.
“How did Rose come across these?”
“One of the cult’s mundanes tried to capture her,” Svetlana whispered, a cold fear in the edges of her voice. Ilya knew his Sveta was fond of the younger warlock known as Rose, a spunky, fun-loving girl that Ilya had only met a few times in passing. She lived in New York, but also spent time in Montreal, as she was close to the Shadowhunter family that ran the institute there, though Ilya knew that with the Cold Peace, she was spending less time with them. Svetlana continued after a beat, “She let them take her to a warehouse in Montreal, where she escaped, but not before she was able to find and take these.”
“She’s strong,” Ilya remarked. “Brave, to let them take her like that.”
“It could have gone much worse,” Svetlana sighed. “But I already yelled at her about it.”
Ilya thought for a moment on what this information could mean. On one hand, they could go to the Shadowhunters with the information they had, and let them take care of it. On the other hand, with quite a few of the downworlder victims being Fey, he was unsure how thoroughly the Nephilim would investigate, maybe only taking interest in the mundane victims. He knew the Shadowhunters of the Boston institute were loud and proud members of the recently made group of Nephilim known as the Cohort, a social group made up of the worst of their kind, bigoted and cruel people who took any chance they could to bring harm upon downworlders.
“I will look into this,” Ilya said finally, starting to put the papers back into the envelope Svetlana brought. “I will go around to shadow markets, ask if anyone knows anything about the cult activity. And I will head to New York and Canada, ask around their shadow markets, too.”
“Ilyushka, are you sure?” Svetlana asked anxiously, taking Ilya’s hand in her own. He could feel her trembling. “It could be so dangerous, even for the High Warlock of Boston.”
Ilya gripped her hand tightly and used his other hand to rub the back of hers comfortingly. “I am very strong, Sveta, you know this,” he said, trying to bring a lighter tone to his voice to cheer her up. “I am not High Warlock for no reason, yes?”
They talked for a while longer, Ilya gently convincing Svetlana that he would be careful, not get in over his head, and run at the first sign of trouble. Even if maybe he was lying a little to make her feel better, but he knew deep down Svetlana knew that about him.
He led her to the door again a while later, giving her a sweet kiss on her cheek as he opened it for her.
“Please, Ilya,” she said before he closed the door. “Please don’t get yourself killed.”
Ilya gently touched the side of her face, giving her cheek a little pinch to make her smile. “Yes, Sveta. I will be texting you the whole way, I promise.”
“Good,” she said, “If you do not, I will find you and kill you myself.”
—
The training room was quiet and cold, not a sound of movement disturbing the silence, not even the breathing from the one body that stood in the middle of the room. The boy’s eyes were locked on the target at the end of the room, hands curled around the hilts of two long iron daggers. They glinted under the witchlight torches that were strewn around the walls of the training room.
Shane Hollander took in a deep breath, let it out, and flung one of the daggers, then in the same motion spun and hurled the other dagger right after. They both flew through the air at lightning speed, burying themselves next to each other in the center of the target, an inch apart and at least three inches deep. Shane frowned at the sight, having hoped he could bury them fully into the target, up to the hilt. He scoffed in frustration as he went to retrieve them, his strong arms pulling them from the target easily, before returning to his position and resetting himself again.
Right as he was about to take another deep breath to throw the daggers again, the door to the training room burst open suddenly, causing him to lose his concentration as he flung the first dagger. It hit the target in the center still, but not as deep. He whirled around on the invader, knowing who it was before he even saw them.
“Hayden!” he snapped, throwing his arms up in exasperation. “I told you I was training alone!”
Hayden, Shane’s parabatai and childhood friend, stood in the doorway, arms crossed against his chest, and he glared at Shane, though his face was too boyish to hold any intimidation.
“You’re always training alone, asshole,” he grumbled at Shane, rolling his eyes. “Besides, I thought you’d like to know that Rose is here, in the sanctuary.”
Shane relaxed at that, a smile tugging at his lips at the thought of his warlock friend. Then, his eyes furrowed as he registered fully what Hayden had said. “The sanctuary? Why didn’t she just come inside like she always does?”
Hayden let his arms drop to his side as he shrugged helplessly. “She said it was official business, and official business was done in the sanctuary.”
Shane narrowed his eyes at that. The sanctuary was indeed for official meetings with downworlders, especially those who could not step on hallowed ground, like Vampires, but even then, Rose had been inside the institute plenty of times, both for business and pleasure, spending time with Shane and Hayden since they were younger, being a young warlock herself who had only just recently hit the stage in her warlock immortality where she stopped aging.
He wondered briefly if this was an effect of the Cold Peace, the Shadowhunter law put into place after the Dark War. When Faeries had taken the side of Sebastian Mortgenstern in the war, they had lost the trust of the Nephilim and the Clave, and in turn the Council voted to put the Cold Peace in place, a law that restricted Shadowhunters from helping and protecting the Fair Folk under the Accords. Since then, relationships with all downworlders had been strained. It seemed even Rose, who had known and been friends with his family since he was a child, was becoming wary of all Shadowhunters, like many of her kind.
“Let’s go and talk to her,” Shane said as he retrieved his dagger from the target. He sheathed both into his weapons belt and made for the door, pushing past Hayden in his hurry. Hayden followed behind him as he went quickly to the sanctuary.
The sanctuary was a large room off the side of the institute, off of ground that was designated as holy, with no windows and a door specifically for downworlders to enter through. There was a large table at the center with many chairs all around it, looking akin to a conference table in an office. At the head sat Rose, in a long travelling coat that covered most of her skin that was tinged pink, her Warlock’s mark. She stood as soon as Shane walked into the room with Hayden on his heels, rushing over to him to engulf him in a hug.
“Shane!” She gave him a gentle squeeze before she let him go again, taking a full step away from him quickly, as though she hadn’t meant to hug him in the first place.
“Rose?” Shane asked carefully, gaze darting around her face to try and get a read on her. She was playing anxiously with her fingers and chewing on her bottom lip, something he rarely ever caught her doing unless she was nervous about something. “What’s going on? Why won’t you come in?”
“Did something happen?” Hayden asked, guiding everyone back to the table so they could all take a seat. Rose sat back down at the table’s head, with Hayden and Shane on either side of her.
“I need you both to listen to me, and trust me,” Rose began slowly, not meeting either of their concerned gaze, choosing instead to fix her eyes on the tabletop. “And... I need you to not talk to Yuna and David about this.”
Shane’s eyebrows shot up in surprise at this, anxiety flooding into his chest. Yuna and David were his parents, and Yuna was the head of the institute, leader of the local Enclave of Shadowhunters for Montreal. Not going to the institute head about something that, he guessed, was important or dangerous was a punishable offense to the Clave.
“What do you mean?” Hayden asked, exchanging a worried look with Shane. “What’s wrong, Rose?”
“Please,” Rose begged, closing her eyes for a moment before looking into Shane’s with a pleading look. “Please promise me.”
“Okay,” Shane breathed, though he was still unnerved by the sentiment. “Okay, we promise.”
Rose took a deep breath, glancing between Shane and Hayden as if still deciding if she was going to speak. Ultimately, she seemed to choose to speak about whatever was troubling her.
“I... was almost kidnapped recently,” she whispered, hands fiddling with the sleeve of her jacket before continuing. “Have... you guys heard anything about a cult called the Rising Angels?”
Shane and Hayden shared another look, both confused and horrified at what Rose said.
“No, we haven’t,” Shane said, furrowing his brow as he leaned closer to Rose. “You were almost kidnapped?”
“I came into Montreal to come and visit you, to... well why doesn’t matter now, because on my way here, I noticed I was being followed by a man in gold robes,” she explained shakily, “I don’t know if you guys know this yet, but... Recently, there have been a lot of downworlders and mundanes going missing down in New England. Specifically in New York and Boston.”
“What?” Hayden asked in shock, reeling back a little from the information. “How haven’t we heard about this?”
Shane was equally confused, until a horrible thought crossed his mind. “It’s... because the downworld victims are Fey. Isn’t it? That’s why we don’t know yet?”
Rose hesitated before nodding once. “Not only Fair Folk, but a lot of them. And of course, mundanes, like I said. But, you know, downworlders haven’t wanted to go to the Nephilim for help because...”
“The Cold Peace,” Shane finished for her, twisting his face in disdain. Shane wasn’t exactly fond of the new law, knowing from the beginning it was only going to make life harder for many downworlders other than Fey, and already his point has been proven. Many downworlders were friendly with Shane, always helping him and Hayden on missions and with investigations. Shane was disgusted by the way the Clave handled the end of the Dark War, and even more so when the Cohort had come into fruition. He had lost a lot of respect for fellow Shadowhunters who had thrown in their lot with the Cohort.
“But, the cult,” Hayden began quietly, “Cults are usually a joke. Mundanes speaking latin words that make no sense, pretending they can convene with demons. How are they making so many downworlders disappear?”
“I don’t know,” Rose said with a sigh, slumping back in the chair. “I... I let the man in robes take me only so I could maybe discern something about the cult myself.”
“Rose!” Shane exclaimed in horror, sitting up straight and reaching to grab her shoulder. “Why would you do something like that? You could have been hurt!”
“I know, I know!” Rose groaned, swatting away Shane’s hand. “But, one of my friends, he was taken a few weeks ago and I haven’t heard from him since. I just wanted to see what we were up against, and if I could find anything out.”
“Who?” Hayden asked worriedly.
“Miles,” Rose sighed. “You remember, my Vampire friend? We were leaving a party together in New York and I was stopped by another warlock friend. He was there one second, and then when I turned around, he was gone.” Tears welled up in Rose’s eyes and she quickly scrubbed them away, taking a shaky breath.
“Rose... I’m so sorry,” Shane whispered earnestly, placing a hand on Rose’s arm in comfort. She smiled at him sadly, patting his hand before pulling away.
“I was able to escape, obviously. It was only a few mundanes in the warehouse they took me to, but I could feel it in the building, that they were using magic.” Rose’s jaw clenched slightly as she stared into the distance, as if she were thinking about the night it happened. “Before I left, I was able to find some notes they had been keeping.”
“Do you have them with you?” Shane asked hopefully.
“N-no,” Rose said, glancing apologetically at Shane. “I... I didn’t want to go to the Nephilim at first. I went to a warlock friend of mine from Boston, so she could take them to the High Warlock there. Do you know him?”
Shane shook his head, trying to hide his disappointment and hurt that Rose hadn’t gone to him first. He understood that the Cold Peace made it hard for her, and all downworlders, but that didn’t change that he and Rose were friends. He wished she had gone to him immediately.
“Well, Svetlana is really close with him. He’s a really powerful warlock, even though he’s not even two centuries old yet,” Rose said. She seemed to be relaxing a little, much to Shane’s relief. “She told me he would know what to do, without going to the Shadowhunters about it. But...”
She trailed off, once again chewing at her bottom lip. “The magic I felt in that warehouse... They’re definitely doing something really dangerous. I don’t know what yet, the notes I found were all weird little poems that made no sense. Except, they all ended with the phrase Rise, Azazel.”
Both Hayden and Shane flinched back at the sound of the demon’s name. They looked at each other with wide eyes, fear evident in both their gazes.
“Azazel? You mean the Greater Demon, one of the nine Princes of Hell?” Hayden asked Rose desperately. “That Azazel?”
“This is bad, Rose,” Shane sighed heavily, running his fingers nervously through his hair. “Like, tell the Clave level bad.”
“You promised!” Rose exclaimed, reaching over to grab Shane’s hand desperately. “You can’t, please. Svetlana doesn’t know I’m telling you guys, and I’m sure her High Warlock friend wouldn’t be too pleased that I went to you.”
“But if they’re trying to raise a Greater Demon—”
“The Clave won’t take anything to do with Faeries seriously,” Rose ground out through gritted teeth. “The Enclave in Boston is hardly even investigating the missing mundanes, they’re all Cohort members. You guys are the only Shadowhunters I trust.”
“What even are we supposed to do?” Hayden asked, rubbing his neck with his hand.
“I’ll tell you the warehouse I was at, though I’m sure the cult has bugged out of there by now,” Rose started, “And all the notes were being sent back and forth from here, Ottawa, New York, and Boston. That and knowing it’s about Azazel is all the info I have.”
“Well,” Shane huffed out a breath, leaning back thoughtfully in his chair. “At the very least, we can check out the warehouse. Maybe try to sneak our way into some downworlder bars and restaurants and ask around.”
“We could try shadow markets, too,” Hayden pointed out, scratching his chin thoughtfully. “See if we can get any of the higher ups to talk.”
“I’ll visit the New York shadow market,” Rose said, “I’ll send a fire message if I can find anything.”
“You just be careful,” Shane said warily, not wanting his friend to put herself in any more danger than she already had. “I don’t want you to get taken again.”
“Hey,” Rose said indignantly, “I got kidnapped on purpose, if you recall.”
“Kidnapped, nonetheless.”
“Screw you, jerk.”
After a few more minutes of Rose explaining where the warehouse was and some idle chatting, they stood from the table, and Shane led Rose to the door out of the sanctuary. He grabbed her arm before he let her walk out, and looked into her eyes pointedly.
“I’m serious, Rose, don’t do anything too stupid,” he said gravely. “I want you to be safe.”
Rose gazed back at him, a hint of sadness in her look. “None of us are safe while downworlders go missing,” she whispered and gently loosened her arm from Shane’s grip. “Please, if you can, find out anything you can about this.”
“We will,” Shane promised. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”
She left without another word, leaving Shane and Hayden with a heavy weight on their shoulders.
Shane turned to his parabatai, a feeling of rage and determination bubbling in his bloodstream. From his parabatai rune on his left shoulder blade, he could feel the same feelings radiating from Hayden.
“Let’s get geared up,” he said. “We’ll go to the warehouse tonight while my parents are asleep.”
Hayden nodded firmly, and together they snuck off to the weapons room, both buzzing with anxiety about what they would find.