blockquote
p id="docs-internal-guid-a954d58e-4744-3f10-db39-728cf83c96c2" dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;" /span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Clary/span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Clary followed Jace as they crept along the wall, simultaneously giving thanks for the silent-walking rune she had received an hour ago and desperately hoping she wouldn't foul up her first field mission. She and Jace had been training in the early morning hours when the alert came, and with Alec and Izzy already on assignment, there had been no choice but for the two of them to investigate the demon alert. /span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jace had been hesitant to take her along, but she had insisted. She wanted to be out there, fighting demons, and secretly hoping she would find some clue to the whereabouts of her mother. He had relented, put a half dozen runes on her, and then gripping her hand and run so fast she didn't know how she managed to follow as they ducked in and out of alleys and deserted side streets. One of the runes must have been for speed, because she had never shown such talent for moving quickly in gym class. In only a few minutes they were in a completely different part of town, following a trail of destruction that led to the broken door of an old building./span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Which was how Clary found herself peeking around the corner of the rough cement wall trying to see the creature amoung the detritus filling the abandoned warehouse. She could hear wood splintering and low growls, but the close quarters and hard surfaces distorted the source of the sound./span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Wait here" Jace whispered in her ear, pressing a short sword into her hand. Then he was gone, creeping around the stacks of boxes. Clary tried to follow his with her eyes, but the shadows swallowed him seconds after he left her side. Gripping the Seraph blade so hard her knuckles had probably turned white, she strained her ears to track any sounds to let her know what had happened. There were crashes in the darkness, but she couldn't tell where they were coming from./span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Movement out of the corner of her eye caused her to spin around, but she still couldn't see well in the near-pitch dark. Then the white light of another Seraph blade came into view, swinging wildly like a glow stick in the inky blackness. It was Jace, chasing after the demon, and they were running right towards her. The monster had no more definition than a shadow blocking the light of the sword until it crashed into her, knocking Clary onto her back. She stretched out her arms and legs, trying to hold the creature away from her face as its back feet clawed at her. She screamed, but something wet and sticky dripped onto her face and she closed her mouth in horror, trying to hold down the contents of her stomach./span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Just when she was sure her arms couldn't hold her attacker away any more, the weight vanished and her hands were flailing in midair. In the next breath Jace had pulled her to her feet, inspecting her with a practiced if frantic eye. "Are you hurt?" he asked, panic in his voice./span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""No, I don't think so." she replied, taking a mental inventory of her body. Head? Check. Arms? Check. Legs? /span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"As soon as she thought about her legs she realized that there was a shooting pain in her ankle. "Dammit" she hissed, and she crumpled to the floor "I think I broke my ankle in the fight". Jace grabbed her in time to ease her down, but as the flood of adrenaline left her system the pain became excruciating. Jace looked around worriedly. "I'm not sure of there were one of them or two."/span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Then go check, I'll be fine."/span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Like hell I will." /span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jace pulled out his stele and carved a healing rune into her skin, his head twisting from side to side as he watched for danger. The sting quickly faded and the pain in her ankle eased, but didn't go away completely. She tried to put weight on her leg, but it refused to hold her./span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""I don't think I can walk." Clary said, trying to hold back the frustration in her voice. Here she was, a newly minted shadow hunter, and she'd turned out to be about as useful as concrete water wings. /span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"Jace/span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"It was Clary's first time out on an official mission with him, and he'd gotten her hurt. He wanted to kick himself, all the moreso because he still wasn't sure if there had been one demon or two, so he didn't know if they were still in danger. In the maze of boxes it had been impossible tell what was the origin of a sound and what was echo, and he'd gotten disoriented, eventually chasing the creature back where he had left Clary in an attempt to keep her safe. He swore his heart had stopped beating when the thing had lunged at Clary, though she had done an impressive job of holding it off until he had gotten there with his blade to slay...whatever the hell it was. It wasn't a demon he recognized, though he'd gotten a decent look at it with his night-vision rune./span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"But now she was on the floor with an injured ankle, and he didn't know whether he should go hunting for a demon that might not be there, or get her to safety. His instincts were warring with his training, something he hadn't experienced before./span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;""Look," she said in a voice that attempted to ooze confidence, but came out an adorable squeak. "Glamour me so I'm invisible, and search the premises. We need to know if there is another one before we go."/span/p
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p dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial; color: #000000; background-color: transparent; font-weight: 400; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"As much as he hated to admit it, it was a decent plan. Loathe as he was to cause her more pain, he carved the glamour rune into her skin, and set off to find his prey./span/p
/blockquote
