Anastasia's P.O.V
Crack, it unnerves me sometimes that the sound of a bone breaking comforts me. Crack, there it is again. I am pretty sure that that was the fifth rib I've broken on this man alone. This is the ninth person today that father has had me train with. When I say "train with", I mean when the person isn't listening he tells me to kill them. He doesn't know it but I could have finished him off about an hour ago, yet it amuses me to watch them think they actually have a chance. He tries to get up and come after me, and he would have succeeded had I not broken five of his ribs beforehand. With a loud thump he landed on the floor in a heap. "Finish him Anastasia," yelled my father from the other side of the room. My father, Valentine Morgenstern is a despicable man. He takes innocent lives, even if he personally does not commit the murder. He doesn't like to get his hands dirty, that's why he has me. The lives of downworlders mean nothing to him and any Nephilim or mundane who get in his way are just as worthless. HE IS HEINOUS. A monster is the only way that I can think to describe him. My father uses me as a weapon, an unimportant object to help him make his way to the top and when he gets there I will be nothing. With that last thought, I come back to reality. Seeing the man lying on the floor and remembering my father's words, I drive my sword straight through the stranger's spine."Well done Anastasia, be down for dinner in an hour." I only then realized that my father was standing to my right, looking down at the man that I killed with a smile gracing his features. I should have been proud that I received his praise but all I felt was empty inside, hollow. 'Yes father," is all I say before dragging myself to my room to get cleaned up. The second the door is closed I press myself against its cool wood. I am a monster who deserves to be in pain, but I cant ever be injured for long unless an iratze cant fix the wound. Normally a shadowhunter would need a stele to draw an iratze but I am anything but normal. There are permanent runes that you get once your training is completed, and then there are runes that turn into thin, white scars after being used. My runes though, I have had them all my life, and I doubt that they will ever go away. When I need them they glow and then they fade back to black. I also know that I definitely deserve the pain that always evades me. There is no way that my father will control me anymore. I need to get out and soon. So this will be my last dinner in this house. My escape must be fool-proof or he will find me. Valentine Morgenstern will never know what hit him.
Like I said my plan was fool-proof. As I turn the corner of my street, the explosion goes off. It is set to only destroy my side or our estate and he will think that I am dead. Good. I will never take another innocent life again. My one problem is that I just blew up my only home. With no relatives besides my father (my mother died while giving birth to me) I now have nowhere to go. To my dismay I come to a conclusion. I need to get far away from my father and the only way to do that is to leave Idris. All of a sudden the portal rune I made starts to burn on my forearm. (Did I tell you that I can make new runes, strengthen them and fall great heights without injury also?) I don't even need to look at the rune to know that it is glowing gold. Here is the part where I run into another problem. I don't know where is safe to go to get away from my father. Apparently I don't need to know. Before my eyes a portal appears showing a crowded city street. "I guess its now or never," I say aloud before jumping through the portal. The familiar swirling feeling of a portal engulfs, and then my feet hit hard on a solid surface. Landing in crouch, I stand and examine my surroundings and immediately know the city. Home of my former best friend, Skyler Bane. Walking to a hotel that I knew from living here for nine years of my life, the first part of my plan begins.
-Part one: find a place to stay
-Part two: find Skyler and get her help
-Part three: find out my father's plans
-Part four: stop them before he kills me and takes over the clave
Sounds easy enough right? Well if you think so you are dead wrong
The hotel is nice. The only downside is that I cant use my credit card because the bill goes to my father, so I take money out of my savings account to use. The money should be enough to keep me here until I can find a better place to stay. Using some of my former contacts, I track down the location of Skyler. She happens to be living with her brother, the high warlock of Brooklyn, in New York because of a demon attack on her mansion. Her brother, Magnus Bane, only lives about a block from the hotel that I'm staying at so I decide to pop by and pay them a visit. I can only hope that Skyler remembers me. "Might as well get it over with," I mutter as the hotel room door closes swiftly behind me. The walk is short but it only feels like a second passes before I realize that I am now standing at the top of his steps with my hand poised to knock. Before I get the chance though, the door swings open. Standing in the doorway looking just like she did three years ago when I last saw her with the same long brown hair and dark eyes is Skyler Bane. "Skye?" I ask and she just stands and stares at me. I know that I had changed a lot since I was eleven but I didn't think that there was that much of a noticeable difference. I had dyed my hair light brown from the silver-blonde color that I inherited from my father and hated so much. I also had grown more than a foot taller and my eyes changed from bright blue to more of a silver-gray color. The largest differences were the shade and amount of runes on my body and the fact that I now had large golden specks in my eyes. I realized then that I was almost an entirely new person and that she on the other hand hadn't changed a bit. I try again to get her attention by waving my hand in her face.
"Anastasia?" "Is that you?" I cant even reply. I nod and she hits me on the arm.
"What the hell was that for Skye?"
"I haven't heard from you in three years and then you just show up here. That's what it's for." I should have expected something like this. She always was the violent type, that being part of the reason we got along. I'm snapped out of my thoughts by Skyler roughly grabbing my wrist and jerking me inside, looking around frantically. "You shouldn't be here," is all she says.
"Why not? Am I such a horrible person now that being in my company disgusts you Skye? Oh and I'll have you know that I faked my own death to get away from my father using me to kill innocent people and downworlders." She just stands there, a look of shock clearly written across her face.
"I-I-I I didn't know that," she stutters while trying to pull herself together. I didn't think my news would have shocked her this much considering that she was the only person who knew how much I despised my father. "Where are you staying if your father isn't with you?"
"Just at a hotel I remembered from when we were kids," I reply while waving my hand in dismissal. "That's not why I'm here. I need your help."
"Wiiiiiiittttttthhhhhh?" She drags out the word in the way she knows that I hate all the while smirking. I absolutely hate needing her help because even though we are friends it always seems to come back and bite me in the butt.
"First of all I need a better place to stay and you have been in new York for longer than I have and second I cant defeat my father on my own, I need allies and you would be one of them and finally I NEED to find a way to de-stress myself tonight or I might explode." Once I finish I am gasping for breath and Skye is still smirking at me. Oh how I long to wipe that smirk right off of her face but that will just get me on her bad side instead of getting me her help. I do not need another enemy right now.
"Well one of those problems is EASILY fixed." The glint in her eyes tells me that I'm either going to love the idea or hate it completely.
Well Skye's idea for stress relief was demon-hunting at a club called Pandemonium and it was exactly what I was hoping for. You got all dressed up to catch the demon's attention then you lure them into a back room and finish them off. This is so my style. We decided to walk to the club and right before I step out of the door my conceal rune on the back of my neck starts burning. I look down at my arms to see that the swirling black patterns that I have grown so accustomed to seeing are no longer there. Thank the angel that this rune works or every demon in the place would know that I am a very experienced shadowhunter. "What happened to your runes," questions Skye while curiously looking over my arms," and what was that golden light shining through your hair at the back of your neck?"
"Conceal rune," I say simply and walk past her confused face and out the door.
"I have looked over the entire Gray Book and there is no such thing as a conceal rune," she states sounding superior like she always did when she was stating a fact.
"I already know that captain obvious, like you said before I have read the entire Gray Book also. It's standard in shadowhunter training, especially with my father."I guess she doesn't know that I can make new runes yet. Oh well better get this over with."I can make new runes that no one has ever seen before, are you happy, now you know."
"That's impossible," she says sounding flabbergasted. I decide to ignore her the rest of the way.
The line was long but moved quickly. I am thankful for that because the whole time after I told Skye that I can make new runes, she kept staring at me like I had three heads but even that was an understatement. Up ahead of us a boy with hair dyed brightly orange kept looking at us. Any normal mundane would have thought him just to be a good looking teenager going to the club to dance. I knew better than that. You know the saying that eyes are the windows to the soul. Well that's true and in the case of a demon all you see in their eyes is black nothingness. In my opinion that is the perfect description. When we finally get to the front of the line we are let in right away and we move to the dance floor keeping our eyes open for demons. When I notice one staring at me and Skye hungrily I wave to him and jerk my head towards a door in the back labeled employees only and start walking there. There is no need to look behind me to see if he is following, they are just too stupid not to. Once in the room, I turn around to face the demon who is staring at me like he won the biggest prize. The fool.
Jace's P.O.V
As I am sitting at the bar in Pandemonium, I wonder again how I got here. Clary and I were in the training room this morning practicing hand to hand combat. Right as I got her pinned, Isabelle walks in and decides that our training is over and that we have been working too hard. Her exact words were, "Quit beating up Clary. You both have been working hard and deserve a night of fun." With that she dragged Clary out of the training room and up to her room where they stayed for three hours. It only took me and Alec about twenty minutes to get ready. Right now Alec and I are sitting at the bar scanning the room while Isabelle and Clary are dancing trying to get a demon's attention. At that moment I notice two mundane girls walk into the club. One has long brown hair and dark brown eyes that are cruel and calculating. The other has light brown hair and silvery-gray eyes. They are both a decent height. The one with the light brown hair looks strangely familiar but not in an "I've met you before" way more of like an "I know someone who is related to you" way. Neither of the girls look like someone to be messed with though. After a while of scoping the club and trying to keep my eyes off of Clary, I notice that the girl with light brown hair is leading a demon to the back room. Stupid mundane girl, she doesn't know what she is getting herself into. I poke Alec in the side and gesture with my head. He gets the picture and goes into the crowd to get Izzy and Clary while I follow the girl and the demon into the room marked "Employees Only." I just hope that we are not too late. As soon as I enter the room I hear the head demon hiss " did you think we were stupid little shadowhunter, that we wouldn't know what you are" right before she plunged a glowing seraph blade into his heart and turned to face off the nine other demons.