Impossible Love

Elisabeth Péril

In the picture, you can see a shax demon, they'll be present in this chapter. 

Another week had passed in which Alec had found nothing in the archives. There were just so many books, even just taking the ones that seemed like they could have something to do with greater demons left him with dozens.

Despite that, it felt like he was making progress in his research. There had been nothing about Asmodeus so far, but Alec had found out where the demonic core of Azazel and Sammael were. He had told Jace about that of course, like with everything else that might be of importance.

Those findings also made him feel confident that he could find what he was looking for in here. It might take a lot of time but the endless hours of sitting on dusty stone floors and going through book after book would at least lead to something. At least he could strongly hope for that.

Alec had spent another night with Magnus in the past few days and it had been just as amazing as the first one. He had given himself the limit of not doing that more than once a week and at least tell Jace beforehand that he wouldn't be talking to him through the Seelie rings. His brother had been somewhat mad after the first night because Alec had not contacted him.

It was one of the times that made Alec appreciate their parabatai bond all over again. Thanks to their connection Jace had felt that he had been more than just fine and thankfully hadn't worried too much about the absence of his nightly report. That he had however been slightly sulky about it couldn't be helped.

Alec concentrated back on the page he was reading when the name 'Asmodeus' caught his eye. He continued reading with increased attention. The first few pages were just about how the greater demon had managed to overpower all the others. Alec had to stop reading for a second out of shock.

Apparently Asmodeus had taken the magical power of his warlock children to get more powerful himself, killing them in the process. His mind immediately shot to Magnus. Would he end up with the same fate someday if another demon threatened to become equal to Asmodeus?

With all that he knew about the king of Edom by now, he didn't doubt that theory for one second. If Asmodeus ever feared his power could be challenged he surely would take it from Magnus. That was something he couldn't allow to happen. Asmodeus had to die.

The text went on about how one of the demon's children had found out about that and planned to kill her father before he could kill her. Unfortunately, the warlock hadn't succeeded and even though it wasn't in the text Alec was sure that she had come to be one of her father's victims.

He turned the page, realizing frustrated that the next page was about a completely different topic. He turned the page again, hoping that maybe the old paper was just sticking together because of age.

To his own astonishment, the two pages were in fact sticking together, but it seemed like someone had glued them together deliberately. Alec tried to separate the sides carefully. It took some time, but when he finally was able to free the pages he was surprised not to see an extension of the chapter inside.

Instead, there was something that looked like a letter. Alec took the small piece of paper and tried his best to decipher the sloppy handwriting. He had been educated in demonic languages and Latin, but it was even more difficult to read them when they were written like this.

After a lot of time, he eventually was confident that he had read the page correctly and what he found was almost making him smile if the context hadn't been so sad.

My courageous sister tried to save us all. She found a spell that allowed her to find father's demonic core and she succeeded in using it. She told me about it before going to see him.
I never saw her again after that day. I think he recognized her magic as the one scanning his body or she was just not clever enough about  stabbing him. He already killed Elias, Anne and Barnabas. Now her. My favorite sister. I fear that I will be next. I don't know who you are, reading this now and I will probably be long dead, but maybe this will save some of my future brothers and sisters from suffering the same fate as we did. I am afraid there is still a part of me that loves him, despite the knowledge that he will never love me back. Maybe you are stronger than me, maybe you can kill him.