This is AU after City of Glass.
Cold Milestones Chapter One
Mortal danger isn't anything new to Alec. He's used to the icy rush of adrenaline, the heavy pounding of his heart, the jarring of his bones as he fights. He's been a fighter since he was a child, born and raised to wield blades, shoot arrows, and kill things. It's the family business, almost inasmuch as having dysfunctional relationships is. True, he always was better at the researching part of things than his other two siblings (and finally he can include Jace in that category of his mind without wincing), but at the end of the day, this is where his heart lay. In the ichor-splattered alleys, in the push-pull of muscles working, in the heavy, self-satisfied power that comes from taking something evil down.
In some ways, Alec's always been most comfortable when he's fighting.
The thing is, in middle of fights, when you're exchanging blows and only a half-second ahead of your opponent, reality narrows down to what's in front of you. The rest of the world fades, leaving nothing but the next move, the movement to block, the strike to attack. There's no room in your head for anything other than the foe('s', if he's being technical) in front of you and how to get rid of them. You can't bother yourself with what-if's and should-I's and what's-next, can't fear your every expression and move and word you say. There's nothing to hide when you're fighting, nothing to be ashamed of or afraid of. Especially not of yourself, if you're as good at fighting as Alec is.
It's the only situation where he truly feels safe in mind, not that anyone but him has noticed. Funnily enough, most people assume fighting is what he likes the least as part of his job as a Shadowhunter, unable to grasp that just because he's more cautious, he's in no way less enthusiastic.
Alec ducks an attack from an eerily feline demon, digging a knife into its gut and yanking it to the side, black ichor spraying over his forearm and grey entrails hitting the ground with a sickening 'plop' before dissolving. He turns on his heel, slipping under an attack from a demon behind him. He buries the knife in the demon's throat and twists his wrist, and the demon gurgles before falling. It digs its claws into Alec's side weakly as it does so, one last spiteful move before death. Alec hisses in pain as the skin over his ribcage opens over bone. The claws of the body, Alec notes with slight foreboding before they disappear, had something sticky and dark secreted from them, and he prays to a god he only half believes in that the poison is slow-acting enough for him to be done with the fight before he needs an iratze.
The ichor coating his arms and hands smells like a mix of sickly sweet decomposition and rust, and it blends with Alec's blood dripping onto the pavement to form an ugly purplish colour. He claps a free hand over the wound in his side, trying to staunch the blood flow, grimacing. The wound itself is nothing fatal, just particularly painful to deal with. It's the poison he needs to worry about.
Being safe in mind always comes with a high price, he supposes with a thin smile.
(Smiling in fights has only ever start After Magnus, and it's one of the only things Alec faults him for; Izzy has commented more than once that while Jace looks like a dashing hero when he smiles in fights, Alec just looks like a serial killer.)
The gathering of multiple demons in a single area wasn't unheard of before Valentine's work, but it wasn't common. This is the third time it's happened in the city post-Valentine, and at each incident the number of demons increased. From what Alec had gathered from his parents, occurrences like these have been happening all over the world, so much so that a few in the Council would be saying it was strategized if the placements of these attacks weren't completely random. As it is, they just assume that the battle in Alicante had a few unforeseen side effects.
Which would be comforting, if for the fact that Alec has to deal with it.
Alec can hear Jace swearing frantically somewhere behind him, and judging from the few words in Jace's tirade that aren't curses Alec can make out, Clary has jumped into something over her head without thinking. Again. He sighs before swivelling his head to look for her, hoisting his blades higher. She may be exceedingly irritating, but she has a habit of growing on people, and Alec has subconsciously started to include her in his mental list of People He Is Responsible For During Fights. Capitalized with annoyance.
Instead for finding Clary, however, he finds himself face to face with a prekian demon.
It has a disjointed form, the limbs too long and skinny, the shoulders too slim and the head too large. It jerks, arms bending at its two joints as it approaches Alec it a fashion that seems too quick for its broken gait.
Alec mumbles a few choice words, taking a step back as the thing moved closer, out of range for his bow. The adrenaline is making him twitchy, his sweat turning cold and his skin turning feverish. The wound on his side is stinging with the grit the wind had swept into it and the poison Alec has concluded is probably not as slow acting as he had hoped.
He raises his knives and is shocked at how badly his arms are shaking. Not slow acting at all, then. Fear hasn't quite had time to make it into his mind yet, still focused as it is on the demon at hand, but he still wishes he had time for a quick iratze.
The prekian wails, and Alec gives up on his dream of iratzes and world peace for everyone he steadies himself for an attack. It throws its arms out and bears down on him, hitting him with what feels like the force of a fright train and the black fabric hanging off its arms cocooning him in a demented embrace.
Alec drives his knives in and up its chest cavity as he goes down, rolling over to straddle it as best he can. The breath of the creature chokes off with a gurgle. He shivers as the body disintegrates underneath him and looks around.
He's in an abandoned factory, judging from the concrete floor and skeletons of equipment.
Last time he checked, he was in an alley fighting off a horde of demons with his parabatai, his parabatai's girlfriend/former sister, and his (unquestioned) sister.
His skin gets so hot it's cold – or is it so cold it's hot? – and his stomach tries to rebel against him as a dictionary definition rhymed off in his head, automatic.
Prekian: a pack demon that possesses the ability to relocate itself by a self-contained portal. A 'sighter' often uses this ability to transport prey back to the nest of its pack, to be used-
Alec swallows, his mouth dry as he fumbles for his stele. He needs an iratze. Putting one hand on the cold floor, he rises stiffly.
-to be used in the ritualistic slaughters they partake in every cycle of the new moon.
There's no moon out tonight.
A yowlemanates from the corner, and Alec readies his bow, grimacing at the feel of dried blood chafing between his fingers. Apparently, iratzes would have to wait.
Two prekians scuttle towards him, their nails screeching as they scrape across the concrete.
Alec shoots one in the black cavity where an eye should be, meeting the other halfway with his knife and slicing off its head. It bounces hideously before dissolving, prompting a few others to approach, twitching and shuddering their way towards him.
Alec's head pounds feverishly and his vision swims out of focus as his wound burns and his balance wobbles dangerously. He really needs a damned iratze.
Adrenaline surges through his veins at the sound of something approaching, and the other intangible sense of his surroundings let out warning bells. Alec lashes out blindly, feeling his knife sink into spongy flesh and warm liquid trickling over his hands, replacing the crusty blood on his hands with fresh. There's a nails-on-a-chalkboard screech that sounds more enraged than pained, and Alec hazards a guess that he didn't hit anything vital.
There's sounds of retreat, thank the Angel, and Alec takes the time to shake his head and pray that it stops swimming. It doesn't, but he feels a tad more fit for movement when he's done.
Two unwounded prekians lope towards him again, and he lowers his stance, dodging one's attempt at tearing his throat out and slicing its throat easily, its battle cry cut short and replaced by liquid burbling. Alec readies the knife to dispatch the other one, shifting his weight to the balls of his feet to face the other one.
He turns.
Stops.
Strikes.
His breath comes out in a wordless gush as his knife bears down on the prekian.
And he sucks it in with a gasp as the prekian's fingers pierces his stomach.
.:.:.
"Where the hell is Alec?" Jace's voice is furious, liquid fire and righteous indignation and a load of other crap that wasn't there before his balls dropped. Isabelle rolls her eyes and gets ready to whip out a scathing remark, because really, Jace, is it that hard to look for once before throwing a temper tantrum? Alec doesn't follow him like a lost puppy anymore, and apparently Jace is still adapting to the idea that Alec isn't the Spock to his Kirk any longer.
And it's good that he isn't, actually. Isabelle has had enough pseudo-incest crises to last her a lifetime.
She glances around, fully expecting Alec to be doing a last sweep of the alley like the obsessive compulsive once-was closet case he is, instead seeing nothing but Clary dithering over Jace and an indecent about disappearing carnage. Really, this 'shitton of different demons banding together to fuck shit up'? Not her thing.
Isabelle rolls her eyes again even though no one's watching her as she hears Clary mumbling defensively. The poor girl still hadn't yet mastered the use of her feminine superiority.
After a few minutes of this nonsense, Isabelle frowns and shifts her weight. Seriously, where is Alec? She had a date to get to, and Isabelle doubted that Magnus was peachy keen on the idea of Alec being held up for too long on a friggin' Saturday.
Neither is she, come to think of it.
"Alec? Can we go?" She walks forwards a couple steps, past the bickering couple. Her steps echo weirdly in the alley, and Isabelle pushes down the anxiety rising in the pit of her gut. They'd been in situations like these before, she reminds herself, and they always ended with Alec popping up somewhere and dithering over how many demons there were and how many different types showed up and deciding to spent three hours in the library researching things when they got back.
Isabelle is so intent on comforting herself she's completely – well, not completely, but much more than she usually is – surprised by a demon.
It wails, and she curls her upper lip in disgust. It looks like an ugly love child of a human and Shelob the Spider. The ugly thing grabs at her, curling overlong fingers around her wrist. She flicks her whip, coiling it around the creature's neck and yanking hard.
Blood burbles over its lips as it seizes once, twice, and collapses.
Isabelle yanks again, freeing the whip and turning on her heels and the sound of Jace's hiss of breath.
"Thank you, Jace, for your stunning amount of help in the situation I just found myself. With your aid, I was able to overcome this –"
"Shut up, Isabelle!" Jace's eyes were wide. "Shit. Shit, goddamni-"
"What?" Clary interrupts. "What's the problem? Or can that knowledge not be blessed upon us lower mortals?" She narrows her eyes.
Jace swallowed. "That was a prekian."
Isabelle froze, her blood freezing in her veins. She'd hear of them, but she'd never seen one. They were supposed to be rare, and more importantly, they were supposed to only be found in Europe. She turns her face up to the sky, where a new moon lies in the smog choked sky.
"…are you saying that if I hadn't killed that thing fast enough I would have been Shadowhunter-napped, killed in a ritualistic fashion involving strangling me with my intestines, and eaten?"
"Pretty much, yeah."
Clary looks nauseated, glancing at where the body of the Shelob-man used to be. "What does this have to do with your epiphany?"
Jace started to lace and unlace his fingers, and Isabelle has to resist the urge to cut his hands off, her protective sister instincts wailing frantically.
"I saw one try to attack Alec earlier, and he isn't here now."
Isabelle feels her gut drop.
A/N: Reviews would be lovely~ What did you think?
