The Shadowhunter's Codex (9 page)

Whither thou goest, I will go;

Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried:

The Angel do so to me, and more also,

If aught but death part thee and me.

—The Oath of the Parabatai

The tradition of the
parabatai
goes back to the beginnings of the Shadowhunters; the first
parabatai
were Jonathan Shadowhunter himself and his companion, David. They in turn were inspired by their coincident namesakes, from the biblical tale of Jonathan and David:

“And it came to pass . . . , that the soul of Jonathan was knit with the soul of David, and Jonathan loved him as his own soul. . . . Then Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.”

—1 Samuel 18:1–3

Out of that tradition Jonathan Shadowhunter created the
parabatai
, and codified the ceremony into Law.

David the Silent was not at first a Silent Brother (See Excerpts from
A History of the Nephilim
, Appendix A, for more details). At first there were no Silent Brothers; earliest Nephilim hoped that their more difficult and mystical roles could be integrated into their warrior selves. Only as time passed did it become clear that the work of David would take him ever toward the angelic and farther and farther from his physical form. David and his followers set down their weapons, exchanging them for a life of mystical contemplation and the pursuit of wisdom.

Before this time, however, Jonathan and David fought side by side as the first
parabatai
. Tradition tells us that the ritual they performed, where they took of each other’s blood and spoke the words of the oath and inscribed the runes of binding upon each other, was the second-to-last time that David was known to shed human tears. The last time was the moment when the
parabatai
bond was broken, as David took the Marks that made him the first Silent Brother. This is a bromance of very heavy-duty proportions.

You have no idea.

Today
parabatai
must be bonded in childhood; that is, before either has turned eighteen years old. They are not merely warriors who fight together; the oaths that newly made
parabatai
take in front of the Council include vows to lay down one’s life for the other, to travel where the other travels, and indeed, to be buried in the same place. The Marks of
parabatai
are then put upon them, which enable them to draw on each other’s strength in battle. They are able to sense each other’s life force; Shadowhunters who have lost their
parabatai
describe being able to feel the life leave their partner. In addition, Marks made by one
parabatai
upon another are stronger than other Marks, and there are Marks that only
parabatai
can use, because they draw on the partners’ doubled strength.

The only bond forbidden to the
parabatai
is the romantic bond. These bonded pairs must maintain the dignity of their warrior bond and must not allow it to transform into the earthly love we call Eros. The late Middle Ages were littered with Shadowhunter-troubadours’ songs of the forbidden love of
parabatai
pairs and the tragedies that befell them. The warnings are not merely of heartache and betrayal but of magical disaster, impossible to prevent, when
parabatai
become romantically linked.

Like the marriage bond, the
parabatai
bond is broken, normally, only by the death of one of the members of the partnership. The binding can also be cut in the rare occurrence that one of the partners becomes a Downworlder or a mundane. Per above, the bond dissolves naturally if one of the partners becomes a Silent Brother or Iron Sister: The Marks of transformation that new oblates take are among the most powerful that exist and overwhelm and dissolve the
parabatai
Marks of binding just as they overwhelm and dissolve more ordinary warrior’s Marks.

A Shadowhunter may choose only one
parabatai
in his lifetime and cannot perform the ritual more than once. Most Shadowhunters never have any
parabatai
at all; if you, newmade Nephilim, find yourself with one, consider it a great blessing.

HOW TO REPORT A DEMON

• If you are not sure you can handle the demon yourself, do not engage it in battle or even in conversation.

• Remember such things as the number of demons, exact location, their current activity.

• If you know the demon’s species (or name, in the case of a Greater Demon), report it; if you
don’t
know the demon’s species, remember possible identifying features such as:

» Skin color (gray, green, purple-black, iridescent) and texture (scales, hide, bony spikes, fur)

» Presence of slime, color of slime

» Number of eyes, mouths, noses, arms, legs, heads

» Size (compare to other things of similar size rather than trying to estimate actual measurement—e.g., “about as big as a grizzly bear”)

» Noises (languages spoken, high-pitched voice versus low-pitched voice)

» Gender markings (very rare except with Greater Demons)

» Noticeable strengths (eats rocks or metal, ability to cling to walls and ceilings, etc.) and weaknesses (sensitive to being harmed by frostbite, compulsive need to count individual grains of spilled rice, overweening pride)

» Obvious sources of physical danger: fangs, talons, claws, spines, constricting body, acid blood, prehensile tongue, etc.

• Bring your thorough report to your local Institute, which will evaluate the threat and decide on next steps. You can assist by searching for the demon you’ve seen in
Deutsch’s Demonfinder
, the definitive resource cataloguing demons based on their physical characteristics. (It is, however, quite possible that the Institute already knows of the demon you’re reporting, in which case the investigation may be quite short.)

Demons, the great trespassers into our universe, are the reason why the Nephilim exist. They are the shadows that we hunt. Though our work managing and maintaining the careful balance among Downworlders and mundanes often feels like the majority of our responsibility, it is secondary. It is the work we do when we are not fighting demons. The primary task of the Shadowhunter, the mission granted us by Raziel, is to eliminate the demon scourge by returning the demons, once and for all, to the Void from whence they came.

WHAT ARE DEMONS?