Chapter 5: Hotel DuMort Divergence - Part 1
Night falls over New York like a velvet curtain, and Dexter waits in shadows across from the poetry reading where Simon will be taken. His vampire senses paint the world in sharp relief—every heartbeat a beacon, every shadow a potential threat, every scent carrying stories of violence and hunger. The system interface counts down: forty-three minutes until canonical kidnapping.
Raphael's people are in position. Three blocks north, two south, one east. His text said "This better be worth the risk," and I hope to hell it is. Because I'm about to change a major plot point, and the universe has already proven it doesn't like that.
[EMERGENCY QUEST: PREVENT SIMON LEWIS CAPTURE]
[TIME REMAINING: 43 MINUTES]
[SPECIES ENERGY: VITALITY 45/100]
[WARNING: LOW VITALITY AFFECTS BORROWED ABILITY EFFECTIVENESS]
Java House buzzes with the nervous energy of open mic night. Through the windows, Dexter watches Simon Lewis fidget with his notebook, pages covered in lyrics that blur the line between music and poetry. The mundane boy has no idea that his best friend's world exploding into supernatural chaos has made him valuable to vampire politics.
In the original timeline, four of Camille's loyalists take him after the reading. Clean, efficient, designed to send a message to Raphael about the cost of reform. But that assumes I don't exist. Assumes I haven't spent six hours preparing to turn kidnapping into war.
Eight-seventeen PM. Simon finishes his poem to scattered applause. The piece is raw, emotional, clearly influenced by recent trauma even if the audience assumes it's fictional. He packs his notebook with shaking hands, exchanges awkward pleasantries, heads for the exit.
Eight-twenty PM. The Camille loyalists move.
Dexter raises his camera as vampires emerge from shadows like predators scenting blood. Four of them—two male, two female, all carrying themselves with the lethal grace of apex predators who've never known fear. They position themselves between Simon and safety, timing their approach for maximum psychological impact.
They want him afraid. Terror makes humans easier to control, more compliant. But Simon Lewis survived watching demons attack his best friend. He's processing trauma, but he's not helpless. And tonight, he has advantages they don't expect.
The lead vampire steps into the alley's flickering streetlight—tall, pale, beautiful in the inhuman way that draws prey closer instead of warning them away.
"Simon Lewis?"
"Uh, yeah? Do I know you?"
"Not yet. But you're coming with us anyway."
Simon's heartbeat spikes, flooding the night air with the scent of human fear. But instead of running, he takes a step backward, positioning himself against the coffee shop's rear wall. Smart—limiting their angles of approach.
That's not how it happened in canon. He should be panicking, freezing up. The timeline is already changing just because I'm here to witness it.
"I don't think so," Simon says, voice steadier than it has any right to be. "Whatever you want, you can ask nicely or find someone else."
The vampires exchange glances loaded with predatory amusement. They're used to human compliance, to terror overriding reason. Simon's defiance is unexpected but not threatening—what's a mundane going to do against four vampires?
The lead vampire moves with inhuman speed, crossing the alley faster than mortal eyes should track. But Dexter is ready.
His camera flash erupts like a miniature sun, perfectly timed to catch the vampire mid-lunge. The burst of light doesn't hurt—Dexter calculated angles to miss their eyes entirely—but it's disorienting enough to make the vampire stumble into a pile of garbage bags.
"RUN FOREST RUN, THE SPARKLE SQUAD IS HIRING!"
The words explode from Dexter's throat as he breaks cover, his curse mangling the warning into apparent madness. But Simon doesn't hesitate—he bolts toward the coffee shop's rear entrance while the vampires are still processing what just happened.
Enhanced vampire reflexes let me track their movements, anticipate attacks that would blindside normal humans. But I'm still mostly human, still operating with borrowed power that's already depleted. Four vampires versus one exhausted photographer with delusions of heroism.
"Who the hell—" the lead vampire starts, then stops as he processes what occurred. "You positioned the flash deliberately. You know what we are."
"Lucky guess," Dexter replies, raising his camera for another shot. "But if you want to test that theory, feel free to look directly into the next one."
The vampire's nostrils flare as he scents the air. His expression shifts from annoyance to confusion to something approaching fear.
"You smell of death. Of us. But you're warm, breathing." His eyes narrow to predatory slits. "What are you?"
Before Dexter can answer, Simon reaches the coffee shop door—only to find it locked. The evening's events have ended, staff gone home, leaving him trapped in the alley with monsters he's only beginning to understand exist.
"Photographer," Dexter says, buying time while calculating odds. "Urban explorer. Someone who documents things that shouldn't exist."
"And someone who's about to disappear permanently," the vampire snarls, fangs extending with lethal elegance.
The attack comes from three directions simultaneously—supernatural coordination that would overwhelm any normal human. But Dexter's vampire contract allows him to perceive their movement, to react with enhanced reflexes even as his depleted Vitality makes every motion feel like swimming through molasses.
He sidesteps the first lunge, triggers his flash again to disorient the second attacker, then tackles Simon away from the third vampire's reaching claws. They crash through the coffee shop's rear window in an explosion of glass and cursing.
Twenty-five Vitality left. Maybe thirty. Not enough for extended combat, but enough to keep us alive until—
The coffee shop erupts in chaos as Shadowhunters burst through the front entrance. Jace moves like liquid violence, seraph blade blazing with holy fire. Alec's bow sings as arrows find vampire hearts with surgical precision. Isabelle's whip cracks through the air, silver wire drawing lines of ichor across undead flesh.
But the real surprise comes from the north—Raphael Santiago appearing with three of his clan members, engaging Camille's loyalists with the cold fury of reformers protecting their territory.
POV: Alec Lightwood
The scene in Java House defies every tactical assumption Alec has been trained to make. Vampires fighting vampires while a mundane photographer moves with supernatural grace, protecting a civilian who should already be dead. The strategic situation is unprecedented—multiple factions engaged, no clear ally-enemy distinctions, chaos that could escalate into full Downworld war.
The photographer—Dexter—fights like someone with training but moves too fast for baseline human. When he shields the Lewis boy from vampire claws, his eyes flash amber for a split second. Not possible. Mundanes don't develop vampire sight without being turned.
"Alec, what the hell is happening?" Isabelle demands, her whip keeping two Camille loyalists at bay while she processes the impossible tableau.
"Unknown," Alec replies, drawing his bow with practiced efficiency. "Multiple vampire factions, mundane with enhanced abilities, civilian in immediate danger. Prioritize saving lives, sort politics later."
He releases an arrow that takes down the vampire threatening the photographer, then freezes as he sees Dexter's reaction. Instead of terror or gratitude, the mundane nods acknowledgment—like a fellow warrior receiving tactical support.
He's coordinated this. Somehow, impossibly, a mundane photographer orchestrated vampire clan infighting to prevent a kidnapping. But that level of political knowledge requires insider information no mundane should possess.
"What the hell are you?" Isabelle shouts at Dexter, but there's no time for answers.
More vampires pour from Hotel DuMort—Camille loyalists responding to the attack on their operation. The coffee shop becomes a battlefield as Shadowhunters and Raphael's reformers find themselves fighting side by side against forces that threaten the fragile peace both groups want to preserve.
POV: Simon Lewis
This is insane. This is completely, totally insane. Three days ago the weirdest thing in my life was Clary drawing runes she'd never seen before. Now I'm hiding behind an overturned table while vampires and angels fight each other with magic weapons in a coffee shop where I just read poetry about my trauma.
Simon presses against the wall, watching Dexter move through combat with impossible grace. The weird photographer who warned him about fancy hotels is somehow keeping pace with supernatural predators, using camera flashes like weapons and moving faster than human reflexes should allow.
"Simon!" Clary appears in the shattered window, Jace beside her, both of them armed with glowing swords that hurt to look at directly. "Are you hurt?"
"Define hurt," Simon manages, voice cracking with stress. "Because physically I'm fine, but psychologically I think I'm having the world's worst panic attack."
Dexter staggers nearby, clearly exhausted, and Simon watches in fascination as the photographer places his hands on a wounded vampire—one of the ones who helped fight off the attackers—and somehow makes the injuries close. Actual healing, happening in real time, powered by whatever impossible force lets a mundane survive supernatural warfare.
He's not human. Can't be. Humans don't heal vampires with touch, don't move fast enough to dodge claws, don't coordinate clan politics like chess pieces. But he's not a vampire either—he's warm, breathing, his heart pounds like mine does when I'm terrified.
"Clary," Simon says quietly, watching Dexter collapse as whatever power he's been using finally gives out. "What is he?"
Jace's expression is grim as he surveys the aftermath—three dead vampires, one injured Shadowhunter, and a mundane who shouldn't exist unconscious on the floor.
"Something that shouldn't exist."
POV: Dexter Hale
Consciousness fades in and out like a broken radio signal. The system interface flickers at the edges of my vision, text scrolling past too fast to read clearly. Victory, I think. Simon wasn't kidnapped. Camille's operation disrupted. Timeline successfully altered.
[EMERGENCY QUEST COMPLETE]
[VAMPIRE AFFINITY: 40→50 (NEUTRAL-FRIENDLY THRESHOLD)]
[RAPHAEL SANTIAGO BOND LEVEL: 1→2 (35% PROGRESS)]
[NEW ABILITIES UNLOCKED: VAMPIRE SPEED BURST, ENHANCED HEALING FACTOR]
[WARNING: VITALITY DEPLETED TO 0/100]
[BACKLASH ACTIVATED: ALL VAMPIRE ABILITIES LOCKED FOR 24 HOURS]
[CANON DIVERGENCE: +12% (MAJOR TIMELINE ALTERATION)]
The cost of borrowed power, paid in full. For the next day, I'm purely human again—no enhanced senses, no supernatural reflexes, no vampire abilities to help me navigate the consequences of tonight's victory. Just knowledge I can't share and a curse that won't let me explain why I know what's coming next.
Through fading consciousness, I hear voices arguing about what to do with me. Alec wants detention. Jace wants answers. Isabelle is defending me, which is surprising. Simon keeps asking questions no one can answer.
I changed the timeline. Prevented Simon's kidnapping, saved his life, kept him human for now. But every alteration creates ripples, and some of those ripples will be tsunamis. Camille will adapt. Valentine will accelerate his plans. New threats will emerge because I removed old ones.
The game is changing. I just hope I'm strong enough to keep playing it.
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