A doctor in the institute

chapter 1: Doctor who?

William Herondale stood atop the raised edge of Blackfriars Bridge, staring down at a swirling black mass of water below; thinking – in all honesty- about death. In the past three weeks six bodies – if they could be even described as bodies- had turned up in random points in the city. They had all had been skinned to the bone and left for someone to find. This led the police to believe that the bodies had been either dug up, or had been left to rot.

At first the London institute had brushed the first body off as a long dead mundane that had only just been discovered; after all the police, these days, were as useful as ten men absent. What really had drawn the shadowhunters to this case was that after two weeks there had been three new bodies that looked exactly the same. The confusing part was that when Will and his brother-in-law, Gabriel, began to dig deeper in to the investigation they found that there was no other cause of death other than aging and the obvious... well, death.

There was no mark on the bones, no bite marks, no sign of splintering on the skull, nothing. None of it made any sense. The only plausible explanation was... that there was no plausible explanation; but even that theory was flawed. It had been the bafflement of Scotland Yard and now the London institute were in over their heads too.

He'd been staring down at the river for a long time just waiting for anything at all to happen. Alas there had been nothing. Not that he'd known what he had been expecting but exactly nothing at all had been rather disappointing.

Behind him the city was punctuated by the clatter of carriages returning from functions and men's clubs melding with the calls of the poor and dying. As a young boy- living in London with nobody but himself and the people he tried not to get too close to- the calls of those people shook him too his core. He had thought as an adult he would have learned to block it out, but he hadn't. Their cries, if anything, got louder and more noticeable.

All of this made him wonder if the people who had died had been one of the people he had walked past in the streets; given money too when they had held their dying children close and whispered the only words of comfort they could without lying. He wondered now if he had made any difference to their lives. He supposed he would never know.

As he turned to get down from the edge of the bridge he caught sight of a figure in long parchment robes making their way towards him. Turning he jumped down on to the path bellow and walked the rest of the way towards the figure; plastering a grin on his face.

"You, my friend, are late" he said, placing a hand, pointedly, on his hip. He knew the figure like he knew his wife and son and was just as fond of him. Jem raised an eyebrow at him – something that was uncharacteristic of a silent brother. But then again Jem was no ordinary silent brother.

"I am sure you found a way to entertain yourself in my absence."  Came the other man's –almost emotionless - reply.

Will internally shivered as Jem's familiar- yet strange- voice whispered in his mind. He still hadn't gotten used to hearing his friend's voice while watching as his mouth didn't once open. Externally, however, his grin widened and leaned against the rails of the bridge with an air of serenity.

"By the angel, Brother Zachariah, did you just use sarcasm? I didn't know silent brothers were capable of such a thing!" he watched as Jem lowered his eyebrow quickly, and schooling the amused expression that had crept up on him.

Will's face dropped at that. Why had he said anything at all? Jem would never have noticed and Will would have had a few more minutes to see his Jem behind the dark façade of the bone city. He missed the other boy with such intensity it amounted to agony; to be without his parabati was agony. It was never –as the great writers say – a stab wound, but a million little tiny papercuts to his heart all day, every day. It may have been melodramatic and he may have to take the grief from others who didn't understand, but he knew better than them. He felt it.