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At First Sight
Tonight was like any other night, Isabelle, Alec, and I, Jace Wayland, were out hunting demons. We are what you call Shadowhunters and our purpose was to kill demons. Along time ago, a man named Jonathan Shadowhunter had an encounter with an Angel named Raziel. To protect humans from extinction, the Angel Raziel made Jonathan drink some of his blood from a cup, making Jonathan half-human, half-Angel creating the Shadowhunter order. Raziel also gave him a book called "The Gray Book" which listed different runes, each rune meaning something different. Most runes enhanced our fighting skills, making us faster, lighter, and stronger. While others could heal and also hide us from the human world or mundanes, as we called them.
Tonight we decided to go to Pandemonium, a mundane club, which made it a hot spot for demons and downworlders (other supernatural beings like werewolves and vampires). Mundanes were easy targets because they were gullible and easily manipulated. I was leaning on a rail on a platform raised a few feet above the dance floor with Alec and Isabelle standing beside me.
I was scanning the crowd searching for any demons and so far we hadn't seen any. All I saw were mundanes dancing their strange gyrations to this awful sound they called music. It was nothing but electronic sounds of different beats strung together.
I was starting to get impatient from being here so long and still not seeing a demon. Suddenly Isabelle elbowed my arm and pointed towards the bar; leaning on the rail in front of the bar was a demon. To a mundane, the demon looked like any other human; he had spike blue hair like some rocker from a punk band.
I looked at him sizing him up to see what we were up against. As I studied him, I noticed his gaze was fixed on one spot out on the dance floor. I turned my gaze to the direction he was staring at, and then I notice his gaze was following a Mundie girl who was making her way through the crowd on the dance floor. I looked at the girl he was staring at and was puzzled as to why this girl had caught his attention. There was nothing really special about her. She had long fire red hair wearing regular blue jeans with a simple tee which did make her look out of place compared to the dress of other girls at the club. From where I stood, I could tell that she had a small petite figure and was very pretty for a mundane. My parabati, Alec, started talking, taking my attention off the small red hair girl the demon was staring at.
"So the usual plan. Isabelle lures the demon to the storage room where we surprise him, taking care of him in there." Alec said.
"Sounds good to me." Isabelle replied. She started to leave, walking over to where the demon was trying to get his attention. As she went to lure the demon to the storage room, Alec and I went ahead to the room to hide there until Isabelle brought the demon in. We started making our way through the crowd trying not to run into any mundanes, they couldn't see us but they could still run into us, not knowing what they had bumped into.
We finally made it to the storage room, opening the door me and Alec walked in hiding in the shadows behind one of the pillars in the back. "I hope this doesn't take that long." Alec said. "I'm ready to get back to the Institute. I'm getting tired of being around all theses mundies."
"I know what you mean. The music they listen to is terrible and it's giving me a headache." I said. That's when we heard the door open. Isabelle came into sight from around the corner with Demon not far behind her.
"What's your name?" The Demon asked her.
"Isabelle." She answered in a flirtatious tone.
"That's a nice name." He said walking toward her closing the distance between them. "I haven't seen you here before."
"You're asking me if I come her often." Isabelle giggled covering her mouth with her hand. Isabelle started walking towards him and he froze as he saw the runes marking Isabelle's wrist.
"You – ". Before he could finish, moving with lightning speed, Isabelle uncoiled her whip, whipping it out towards him curling it around his ankles, jerking him off his feet. The Demon hit the ground writhing in pain from the touch of her whip on his skin. Isabelle stood over him laughing, yanking hard on her whip, securing it in place.
"He's all yours boy's." Isabelle taunted. Alec and I walked out of the shadows behind him. Alec grabbed him by his shoulders slamming him against one of the concrete pillars, securing the demons hands behind him with some wire. I walked around the other side of the pillar bringing myself standing in front of him.
"So," I sad, "Are there any more of your kind here?"
"Any other what?" said the Demon trying to play dumb.
"Come on now." I said holding my hands up making my sleeves fall down my arms showing my runes. "You know what I am?" The Demon with hatred on his face hissed, "Shadowhunter."
"Got you." I said with a huge grin on my face. "So," I said, "You still haven't told me if there are any other of your kind with you?"
"I don't know what you're talking about." The Demon replied being defiant. Why did he have to make this hard. He knows we know what he is.
"He means Demons." Alec said taking a step up to stand beside me. "You know what a Demon is, don't you?"
"Demons," I said tracing the word in the air mocking him, "Religiously defined as hell's denizens, the servants of Satan, but understood here, for the purposes of the Clave, to be any malevolent spirit whose origin is outside our home dimension – "
"That's enough, Jace." Isabelle said cutting me off.
"Isabelle and Alec think I talk too much," I said confidingly, "Do you think I talk too much?" The Demon started to sense my growing impatience finally decided to give us some information but no matter what information he gave, he wasn't leaving this room alive.
"I could give you information," the Demon said, "I know where Valentine is." His answer didn't surprise me a lot of the demon scum we had caught the last few weeks kept bringing Valentine's name up. I looked at Alec who just shrugged.
"Valentine's in the ground." I said. "The thing's just toying with us" or at least that's what everybody thought. Valentine was a Shadowhunter. Some years ago Valentine and other Shadowhunters who joined him, who he called the circle, tried to overthrow the Clave. Valentine didn't like how the Clave was being run and thought they had turned their back on their oath to the Angel Raziel. But Valentine's plans ended up falling apart when others in his circle turned against him and as far as the Clave knew Valentine had died in a fire inside his house.
"Kill it, Jace," Isabelle said, "It's not going to tell us anything." I agreed and I was tired of playing his games. I was ready to be back at the Institute. I took out my blade. The Demon seeing it in my hand started to panic.
"Valentine is back!" he gasped struggling against the wire that bound his hands trying to escape. "All in the infernal worlds know it. I know it – I can tell you where he is – " Rage started to build inside me. I was tired of hearing his nonsense.
"By the Angel, every time we capture one of you bastards, you claim you know where Valentine is. Well, we know where he is too. He's in Hell – " I turned the knife in my grasp, the edge sparkling like a line of fire "and you can join him there." I started to raise my blade about to send the demon back to the hellish dimension he came from when I was startled by a girl's voice that came from behind me.
"Stop," the girl said, "You can't do this." I whirled around, so startled my blade flew from my hand and clattered against the concrete floor. It was the same red hair Mundie the Demon was staring at earlier but what was even more confusing was the fact she could see Isabelle, Alec, and me. We all had the blinding ruin on so there was no way a mundane should have been able to see us. Isabelle, Alec, me and even the Demon stood there staring with astonishment. Finally Alec said something, "What's this?" He said just as confused as I was, looking from the girl back to us.
Recovering my composure I said, "It's a girl. Surely you've seen girls before, Alec. Your sister, Isabelle, is one." I took a step forward to get a better look at the girl to make sure I was seeing things right. Like I said earlier the girl didn't seem to be special with her red fiery hair, jeans, and t-shirt but being this close to her, I noticed she was a lot prettier than I had realized. That's when I noticed her eyes. They were beautiful, huge and round whose color was a marvelous emerald green. They seem to sparkle like two gems and reminded me of the green rolling hills at my house in Idris where I had lived with my father. She stood there glaring at me with those eyes, a look of courage and strength in them which you wouldn't expect from a girl her size.
"A mundie girl," I said. Half to myself, "And she can see us."
"Of course, I can see you," She replied back like I was insane or something, "I'm not blind you know."
"Oh, but you are," I said bending to pick up my blade off the floor, "You just don't know it. You'd better get out of here, if you know what's good for you." Trying to make the girl leave, for some reason, this girl unnerved me.
"I'm not going anywhere," the girl defiantly said, "If I do, you'll kill him," pointing at the demon.
"That's true," I admitted twirling my blade between my fingers, "What do you care if I kill him or not?" Not knowing why, I wanted to hear the girls answer. This girl was starting to amaze me. Any other mundane girl who saw three people trying to kill somebody, would have ran off screaming in the other direction but not this girl, she stood her ground, not backing down.
"Be-because – " the girl stuttered looking shocked I would even ask that question, "You can't just go around killing people."
I pointed at the Demon, "That's not a person, little girl. It may look like a person and talk like a person and maybe even bleed like a person. But it's a monster."
"Jace," Isabelle said warningly, "That's enough." Mundanes weren't allowed to know about our world so Isabelle was trying to stop me before I said something I shouldn't.
"You're crazy," she said fear starting to creep into her eyes as she started to back away from us, "I called the cops and they should be here any minute." I couldn't tell if she was bluffing or not.
"She's lying," Alec said but there was doubt on his face, "Jace, do you – "
He never got to finish his statement. At that moment the Demon, with a high yowling cry, tore free of the restraints binding him to the pillar and flung himself on me. Being distracted by the Mundie girl, I wasn't prepared for his attack. We fell to the ground as he hit me, rolling around on one another. The Demon having the element of surprise, had the advantage rolling on top of me pinning me down with his weight. I heard Isabelle shrieking in the background. The Demon raised his hand with his claws extended. I threw my arm up to protect myself just in time for his claws to rake across my arm, splattering blood from the gash he made on it. I kicked the Demon off of me trying to create space between us to avoid another attack. The Demon lunged again for me but before he got there, Isabelle's whip came down across his back making the Demon shriek and fall to the side.
I rolled over pushing myself up, my blade gleaming from my hand. I sank the blade into the Demon's chest. Blackish liquid exploded around the hilt. The Demon arched off the floor, gurgling and twisting. I looked down at the twitching form at my feet and yanked out the blade. My shirt was drenched from the Demon's black blood and so was my blade. The Demon's eyes flicked open and fixed on me. Between his teeth he hissed, "So be it. The Forsaken will take you all." With that the Demon's body began to jerk and twitch as he crumpled, folding in on himself, growing smaller and smaller until he vanished entirely.
Alec was now by my side. He took my injured arm examining the damage the Demon had caused. Have forgotten about the Mundie girl, I saw she was trying to escape but before she made it to the door, Isabelle flicked her whip at the girl, wrapping it around the girl's wrist. The girl gasped with pain and surprise.
"Stupid little Mundie," Isabelle said between her teeth, "You could have gotten Jace killed."
"He's crazy," the girl said trying to free her wrist from Isabelle's whip, "You're all crazy. What do you think you are, vigilante killers? The police – "
"The police aren't usually interested unless you can produce a body," I said nodding in the direction the Demon had been. She glanced at the spot, her eyes growing big with surprise. There was nothing left from the Demon to even prove he had existed. I was trying to make her realize that she didn't know what she had actually witnessed.
"They return to their home dimensions when they die," I explained to her, "In case you are wondering."
"Jace," Alec said, "Be careful."
"She can see us, Alec," I pointed out, "She already knows too much." Maybe there was something special about this girl. She could see us when no other mundane could. I remembered from different Shadowhunter histories, I read at the Institute, that long ago there used to be certain humans who had the ability to see us. They were said to have the sight and were used as servants by some of the Shadowhunter's. Maybe that's what this girl was and she would be the first one in more than 100 years.
"So what do you want to do with her?" Isabelle demanded. That I really didn't know. We couldn't take her to the Institute without Hodge's permission and if she did end up being just a mundane, we would have to turn her over to the Clave according to Clave law. For some reason, I didn't want to bring that upon this girl, feeling sorry for her.
"Let her go," I said quietly. Isabelle shot me a surprised, almost angry look, but didn't argue. Isabelle released the whip around the girl's wrist. The girl rubbed her wrist where the whip had been.
"Maybe we should bring her back with us?" Alec said. "I bet Hodge would like to talk to her."
"No way are we bringing her to the Institute," said Isabelle, "She's a Mundie."
"Or is she?" I asked thinking aloud. While they were talking just a minute ago, another thought entered my mind. Maybe somehow she was a Shadowhunter. There were some Shadowhunter's who willing left the order for one reason or another and lived in exile. "Have you had dealings with demons, little girl? Walked with warlocks, talked with Night Children? Have you – "
"My name is not little girl," She interrupted starting to get mad, "And I have no idea what you're talking about. I don't believe in – in demons, or whatever yo - " Suddenly a nerdy mundane boy came walking into the storage room. He had brown curly hair and wore glasses. His clothes were similar to the girls with blue jeans and some stupid graphic tee he had on. By the way the boy was looking at her, he must have been her boyfriend because I could tell he was totally enamored by her. The tone of his voice and look of worry was also a total give away. Why would this girl be with somebody as geeky as him? Instantly being confused by the thought I just had, why did I care who this girl was with? I didn't care about the affairs of mundanes.
"Clary?" said the boy. So Clary was her name, this only increased my interest in her remembering an old Shadowhunter legend about an herb called Clary sage. Clary whirled around looking at the boy. A bouncer had come in behind him.
"Are you okay?" Why are you in here by yourself? What happened to the guy's you know, the ones with knives?"
Clary stared at him then looked back at us realizing that the boy wasn't able to see them. I grinned at her and gave her a half-apologetic, half-mocking shrug. She turned back towards the boy and the bouncer.
"I thought they went in here," she said, " But I guess they didn't, I'm sorry." I felt sorry for her, seeing how the mundane boy and the bouncer looked at her with frustration. Why is this girl affecting me so much? Her Mundie friend looked back at the bouncer telling him, "It was a mistake," with embarrassment on his face. After that, Clary, the Mundie boy, and the bouncer left, leaving us alone in the storage room. I stood there for a moment looking at the door and thought I have to know who this Clary is and what makes her different.