Clare Cassandra - The Fall of the Hotel Dumort

“This is my fault. When I went to see Camille, one of them took the passes to this place from my pocket.”

Lincoln pulled over a chair and sat next to Magnus.

“That doesn’t make it your fault. I asked you to speak to Camille. If Camille came here because of you . . . it doesn’t put the blame on either of us, Magnus. But you can see now, it can’t go on.”

“What do you plan on doing?” Magnus said.

“There are fires tonight. All over the city. We take this opportunity. We burn this place down. I think it would spare the victims’ families for them to think their loved ones died in a fire, rather than . . .”

He indicated the terrible scene just behind them.

“You’re right,” Magnus said. “No good could come of anyone seeing their loved one like that.”

“No. And no good would come of the police seeing this. It would send the city into a complete panic, and the Shadowhunters would be forced to come down here. We keep this quiet. We deal with it.”

“And the vampires?”

“We’re going to go and get them, and lock them in here while it burns. We have permission from the Praetor Lupus. The entire clan is to be treated as infected, but we’ll try to be judicious. The first one we’ll be getting, though, is Camille.”

Magnus exhaled slowly.

“Magnus,” Lincoln said, “what else can we do? She’s the clan leader. We need this to end now.”

“Give me an hour,” Magnus said. “One hour. If I can get them off the streets in an hour—”

“There’s already a group headed up to Camille’s apartment. Another will go to the Hotel Dumont.”

“How long ago did they leave?”

“About a half hour.”

“Then I’m going now.” Magnus stood. “I have to try to do something.”

“Magnus,” Lincoln said, “if you stand in the way, the pack will remove you from the situation. Do you understand that?”

Magnus nodded.

“I’ll come up when we’re done here,” Lincoln said. “I’ll go to the Dumont. That’s where they’ll end up anyway.”

A Portal was required. Given the situation on the streets, there was every chance that the werewolves hadn’t gotten to Camille’s apartment yet—if that was even where she was. He would just need to get to her. But before he could even start to draw the runes, he heard a voice in the dark.

“You’re here.”

Magnus turned on his heel and threw up a hand to illuminate the alley.

Camille was moving toward him, unsteady. She wore a long, black dress—rather, it was a dress that was now colored black from the sheer quantity of blood on it. It was still wet and heavy, and it stuck to her legs as she made her way forward.

“Magnus . . .”

Her voice was thick. Smears of blood covered Camille’s face, her arms, her silver-blond hair. She held one hand against a wall for support as she moved toward him in a series of heavy, toddler-like steps.

Magnus approached her slowly. As soon as he got close enough, she gave up the effort of standing and fell forward. He caught her halfway to the ground.

“I knew you’d come,” she said.

“What have you done, Camille?”

“I was looking for you. . . . Dolly said you were . . . you were here.”

Magnus gently lowered her to the ground.

“Camille . . . do you know what’s happened? Do you know what you did?”

The smell coming from her was nauseating. Magnus breathed sharply through his nose to steady himself. Camille’s eyes were rolling back into her head. He gave her a shake.

“You need to listen to me,” he said. “Try to stay awake. You need to summon all of them.”

“I don’t know where they are. . . . They’re everywhere. It’s so dark . It’s our night, Magnus. For my little ones. For us.”

“You must have grave dirt,” Magnus said.

This got a loose nod.

“Okay. We get the grave dirt. You use it to summon them. Where is the grave dirt?”

“In the vault.”

“And where is the vault?”

“Green-Wood . . . Cemetery. Brooklyn . . .”

Magnus stood and began to draw the runes. When he was finished and the Portal began to open, he picked Camille up from the ground and held on to her tightly.

“Think of it now,” he said. “Get it clearly in your mind. The vault.”

Considering Camille’s state, this was a risky proposition. Holding her closer, feeling the blood on her clothing seep through his shirt . . . Magnus stepped through.

There were trees here. Trees and a bit of moonlight cutting through the cloudy night sky. Absolutely no people, no voices. Just the distant rumble of the stuck traffic. And hundreds of white slabs jutting up from the ground.

Magnus and Camille were standing in front of a mausoleum that resembled a folly—the front piece of a tiny colonnaded temple. It was built directly into the side of a low hill.

Magnus looked down and saw that Camille had found the strength to wrap her slender arms around him. She was shuddering a bit.

“Camille?”

She tipped her head upward. She was crying. Camille did not cry. Even under these circumstances, Magnus was moved. He still wanted to console her, wanted to take the time to tell her everything would be all right. But all he could say was, “Do you have the key?”

She shook her head. There hadn’t been much chance of that. Magnus put his hand on the lock securing the wide metal doors, closed his eyes, and concentrated until he felt the light click under his fingertips.

The vault was about eight-foot square and was made of concrete. The walls were lined with wooden shelves, floor to ceiling. And those shelves were filled with small glass vials of earth. The vials varied quite a bit—some were thick green, or yellow blown glass with visible bubbles. There were thinner bottles, some extremely small bottles, a few tiny brown bottles. The oldest ones were stopped up with corks. Some had glass stoppers. The newest had screw-on caps. The age was also seen in the layers of dust, the grime, the amount of webbing running between them. In the back, you wouldn’t have been able to lift some of the bottles from the shelves, so thick was the accumulated residue. There was a history of New York vampirism here that would probably have interested many, that was probably worth studying. . . .

Magnus put out his hands, and with one great blast of blue light, all the vials burst at once. There was a great cough of dirt and glass powder.

“Where will they go?” he asked Camille.

“The Dumont.”

“Of course,” Magnus said. “Them and everyone else. We’re going there, and you’re going to do as I say. We need to make this right, Camille. You have to try. Do you understand?”

She nodded once.

This time Magnus was in control of the Portal. They emerged on 116th Street, in the middle of what appeared to be a full-scale riot. There were fires here. The echoes of screams and breaking glass went from one end of the street to the other. No one took any notice of the fact that Magnus and Camille were suddenly in their midst. It was too dark, and far too crazy. The heat was much worse in this area, and Magnus felt his entire body dripping with sweat.

There were two vans parked directly in front of the Dumont, and an unmistakable crowd of werewolves was already gathered. They had baseball bats and chains. That was all that was visible. There were undoubtedly some containers of holy water. There was already plenty of fire around.