Full summary & A/N at bottom. AU/OOC.
Special thanks to my beta for getting this back to me so quickly and helping me figure out one particular error in here. I love ya!
Disclaimer: Everything Mortal Instruments related is rightfully own by the amazing Cassandra Clare and her brilliant mind. I am merely just a puppeteer who gets to toy around with her characters. If that makes any sense 0.o
The wind howled and shuddered against the window pane, rattling the thin glass. The smell of blood swirled around the living room area where two bodies lay face down, slaughtered and beaten to death. The blood on the hard wooden floors had long since dried out to a thin, brown crusted coating, spreading out like limbs on a dead tree. The killer stared with disdain at the scene before her, her eyes roaming over the dead bodies the way a scientist would look over an experiment. Silent. Calculating. Observing.
It was messy, she noted absently, a lot more messier than usual. The larger male was prepared for her arrival, waiting for his time to come to an end. He had surprised her with a shotgun, holding it in his hands as if it would help him, as if it would save him from her. The appearance of a gun made it harder for her to kill him quickly and silently. Instead of slitting his throat in his sleep as she usually would've done, she ended up having to dodge shotgun shells that were being blown at her repeatedly. His wife woke up and, before she knew it, she was downstairs lying in a pool of her own blood. She had already killed the man by that time; if he would've been alive any longer, the whole neighborhood would've woken up eventually, startled by the sounds of gunshots.
Killing his wife wasn't part of the plan, but she had no choice. It was them or her and, in the end, it would always be her. Still, it had set her back a couple of minutes, something that happened very rarely during her jobs. It not only took away her precious minutes, it also upset him. Having a punctual master was nothing to be proud of, especially if she was a minute late in calling him and telling him that all had gone well.
Something buzzed inside of her pocket and she groaned internally. "Speak of the devil," she mumbled and took her phone out, not even bothering to check the screen name. "It's done," she said bluntly, "he's dead."
"Then why didn't you call?" the voice on the other end of the line asked withan eerily calm demeanor. She cringed inwardly. Usually, when he was at his worst, he acted patient and understanding, then he would lash out, vicious, menacing. It was moments like those that she hoped toavoid.
"There were other casualties," she paused and looked at the dead bodies oncemore, "I had to eliminate the other resident."
"The wife?"
She closed her eyes and exhaled heavily, puffing her cheeks. "Yes."
"Good," he said, "the less witnesses the better."
She longed to ask a question, something that always nagged at her mind whenever she was sent on her missions. Never had she had the courage to ask it, but now, it seemed acceptable. "Why him?" she whispered into the though she didn't know him, she had seen pictures of the man around the house. And in every one he was smiling or laughing, an expression of pure happiness on his face. Surely, he couldn't have done anything bad?
"Why do you want to know?" he asked after a brief second of silence.
She shrugged even though he couldn't see her. "Just curious. He doesn't seem like the type of guy you would normally send me to go after."
He sighed, the force of wind causing the phone lines to crackle with static, and she heard a rustle of papers before he answered, "Are you doubting me?" he asked with a sort of fierce calmness, and she knew she'd gone too far. If he even sensed a speck of doubt in her, she would be dead before she could even blink.
"No, I'm not-"
"Then why are you wasting my time asking stupid questions?"
She said nothing. The anger was evident in his voice, barely hidden, but it was there. And she didn't want to deal with his mood later on when she returned home.
"That's what I thought. Now hurry up and finish what you have to do. Discard the bodies, burn the house and leave nothing behind. Return home as soon as you're done."
"Yes sir."
The buzz of the dial tone answered her stiff reply.
I guess I should start with the summary first, huh? I'll try to explain it as best as I can.
Summary: Clary is an assassin raised by her vengeful father Valentine who uses her to kill his friends that turned against him sixteen years ago when they were all banded together in a cult called The Circle. They killed his wife Jocelyn and, ever since then, he's been patiently waiting for the chance for revenge. With only one surviving Circle member left, Valentine searches for their whereabouts, moving him and his daughter to a neighborhood where he suspects they may be.
Clary, a fully devoted daughter to her father, kills mercilessly and without a second thought. Years of living under her father's watchful eye has left her cold and distant, uncaring to anyone or anything; the perfect assassin.
Jace is just a boy who happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Or, as he thinks, in the right place at the right time. While wandering around downtown, he spots an unusual fiery head of hair and is immediately captivated by the short tempered beauty.
As the two become closer together, it gets dangerous. Valentine, who is on the verge of finding the Lightwood's location, is keeping an even tighter leash on Clary, who unfortunately, is losing focus on the mission at hand. All the while, poor, clueless Jace is left alone in the dark, trying to fight his way through the cold, thick wall of Clary's emotions.
0_0 I know it sounds confusing now, but I promise, if any of you have questions, PM me and I will answer as thoroughly and honestly as I can without spoiling anything from future chapters in the story. And since I'm grounded and technically not supposed to be on fan fiction, updates will be irregular. But I will work on chapters while I'm at school *winks*
Now, for those of you who have read my other story Standing On The Edge know that I put it on Hiatus and said that I might continue it. Well, it seems that I lied and I will not be continuing the story. Sorry if anyone became infatuated with it, as sucky as the story was.
Oh! Me and my beta had some technical difficulties sending the document to eachother so when I uploaded it on FF it came all bunch up in one huge paragraph. I had to go through it and separate EVERYTHING and some words weren't spaced apart so I tried to find as many of those as I could. I have a feeling that I missed some so if you guys spot any *looks around* tell me so I can fix it.
And there was some other things that I had hoped to present here and now but I seem to have forgotten it. Damn.
This must be the longest A/N I have ever written *frowns* I'll try to work on that.
One last thing, I swear! I apologize (kinda) if the idea of Clary being an assassin - yes, that is in fact Clary in the beginning who killed those people - is hard for some of you to grasp. My sister pointed out that Clary being all bad-assy might not sit well with the readers. She didn't use those exact words but it was something along those lines. I've just had an obsession with assassins lately, what with me playing Assassins Creed:Brotherhood non-stop and reading this really good assassin book that my friend let me borrow.
Okay, I'll shut up now