The Banhee (An Alec Lightwood Story)

Chapter Sixteen

In the heart of the iron works, in the largest room, stood a sound proof glass box. One large enough to be a small lab, large enough to hold someone who's scream could shatter skulls, If he was trained properly. The only way into this box or cell of sorts was through a single door connected to the box, made of the same glass as the box itself, with a lock that could only be opened by a certain fingerprint. Valentine's fingerprint to be exact. The mad-man stood a few feet away from the box, his arms crossed, smirking, having a winning feeling bubbling inside of him. He was so close, so close indeed to achieving his goal. Looking at the contents that the glass box held in front of him.

In the very centre stood an old chair you would find in a 1950's mental health facility, leather arm restraints for the wrist and ankles included. Who sat in that chair however was the catatonic person, a creature that Valentine hated with every fibre of his being. A Banhee, Alec Lightwood, the descendant of Maryse and Robert Lightwood, both were very loyal to the cause of the circle. They helped him round up the others like Alec back when the circle was in power, using the dead bodies of downworlds they killed on their special missions. The Banhees and Banshees were drawn to them like moths to a flame, it was almost too easy to round them up, study them and kill them all. This one however, wasn't.

Alec Lightwood proved to be a challenge, not a welcomed one. He was starting to wake up from his catatonic state and Valentine couldn't understand it. The boy spoke, and even now he was waking up, being able to turn his head side to side. But that didn't worry Valentine anymore, now that he had made the serum composed of the mundane mental health drugs that were used to calm the people's minds. In this case they were going to open Alec's mind to all the voices of death. Valentine walked round to the door. The only way in or out of the sound proof box, placed his thumb to the fingerprint scanner and entered the box.

Valentine's eyes fell on the needle, sitting on the table beside Alec, filled with sinister red ooze with swirls of the dark black flowing through it. He smiled and chuckled, walking in front of Alec, looking the boy in his hazel eyes. "Ten minutes." His words were quite small so only he and Alec could hear them, even though Alec just blankly stared at the grey concrete beyond the box he was trapped in. "Ten minutes until I can open your mind, and hear you die screaming." Valentine walked over to the table once again picking up the circle sticky pads, placing them on both temples of Alec's head. Connecting the wires up to the monitor he's stashed under the table, only to place it on the table a better way to see the brain activity of the lightwood. What would be more interesting to see would be the brain activity of Alec when he had his mind opened.

Sure Valentine could have just opened Alec's mind right there and then, but would have been for fun, or interesting to do it under the darkness of night, after all night was when death happened the most. He wanted Alec to suffer, to hear the most death possible, for being a demon of death as Valentine used to call them when he first found out they were real. All the more reason to have the more death at his disposal.

*********

The war raging inside the mind of Alec Lightwood was obvious. Shown by the rumbling that consumed the Banhee's mental prison, forcing both Alec's to fall to the ground. Alec looked at his alternate self, who was consumed by fear and worry, presenting itself through his heavily breathing and the frantic body language shown by him. "What did you mean?" Alec questioned as his alternate self darted his head in the direction of Alec's voice. "That I'm running out of time."

"Out of time to wake up." Alternate Alec explained at a rather fast paced tone of voice. Which was acceptable given the situation. "Your mind, your Banhee side is trying to warn you to wake up. Otherwise Valentine will kill you, by opening your mind." Alec's eyes instantly became glassed over with the realisation and horror. He had to, there was no question of it. He had to wake up now or he would die a slow and painful death, with his last living breath being the inhuman scream of his own death.