Opening Gambit
"I take it, since you stand before me empty handed, that your attempts to find the Lightwood children have been a failure."
Jonathan Morgenstern glanced up at his father with a flash of annoyance. It wasn't his fault that the brats had found a meddling warlock to help hide them! He had tracked them all over New York City, and that was no small feat. He'd almost had them at that warehouse too, but Bane had interfered. The image of that tall, dark haired girl looking at him in terror swam up, and he smiled. Jonathan could think of a thing or two he'd like to do to her to work off some of this stress.
"I almost had them once, Father," Jonathan answered after a moment. "They've got some warlock helping them; he has wards up to stop me from tracking them. I can't do magic, you know."
Valentine stared at his son dispassionately. "Stop whining, Jonathan. I expect you to see this task through to the end. I'm sure you have some resources you could fall back on to find this warlock."
"But, Father, even if I could find the warlock, he's sure to have cast spells around his home." Jonathan met Valentine's cold stare with a hot look of his own. "Why do we need the Lightwood brats anyway?"
"Are you that much of a fool?" asked Valentine mildly. When Jonathan just looked at him expressionlessly, he clasped his hands together and leaned back in the chair at his desk. "Maryse and Robert want their children back, and if I bring them, the Lightwoods will trust me explicitly. I already have spies in the Clave, people working for our cause, but to have shadowhunters in the outside world with me would greatly help. The Lightwoods would be a great addition to my army." He paused thoughtfully. "Also, I have no doubt that those children are trying to track down Jace and my daughter. They'll know exactly where those two ran off."
Jonathan's lips curled. "And what if the Lightwood children refuse to tell you what they know?"
Valentine sighed, considering his options. "I suppose, though I take no pleasure in it, that I will allow you to question them. I trust you can get some answers from them?"
A grin spread across Jonathan's face and he felt his blood pulse faster. "I'm sure I could work something out."
"I'm happy to heat that," said Valentine swiftly. "Stay here another night and recuperate, but I want you up tomorrow morning. I can't have those children running around the city, looking for my daughter."
This seemed to unsettle Jonathan. "But where am I supposed to start?"
"Figure out where the warlock lives," he said simply. "I'm sure the Lightwoods are with him; they're certainly not out wandering the streets alone." A smile quirked his lips. "Wouldn't that be a sight? Three shadowhunters, highly trained, waiting tables or deep frying food, or whatever Mundane children do to make a living."
"No," Jonathan said, running over plans in his mind. "No, they're with the warlock. I'll figure out where he lives and pull the place apart."
Valentine nodded approvingly. "I'm sure that will suit just find." He rose and headed for the office door. Jonathan didn't move, but continued running over options. "Oh, and Jonathan, don't kill the poor children. At least not yet."
Jonathan watched his father leave and nodded, eyes sparkling in a sinister fashion. "I'm sure I'll manage something."
It was a miserable sight. Almost too unbearable.
Isabelle was slumped over a chair in the kitchen of Lyle House, tears running down her cheeks. Beside her, holding her hand tightly and shaking as he sobbed, was Max. He'd been confused at first, because the house was so empty. He'd thought that they must have just come into the wrong house by accident, but no, this was Lyle House. He'd kept asking for Jace, asking to know where he was, but when no answered, Max finally understood. Now, the aftershocks of loss crashed down on his nine year old shoulders.
Come on, Isabelle told herself firmly, trying to get a grip on her emotions. You're a shadowhunter, a warrior; you're better than this. Get up, Isabelle Lightwood, get up and salvage what you can.
It took a few minutes for Isabelle to take her own advice, and when she did, it was only to lift her face from the chair back and stare around the kitchen. It was painted soft yellow with white flower designs, and lit by the sun that poured in through the large glass windows. There was a counter that ran along one wall with an implanted washer and oven. On the adjacent wall was a refrigerator, humming softly. The table was still set with placemats and a bowl of fruit.
Isabelle rose from the chair, shaking, and walked the length of the room, running her hand along the tile countertop. She paused before the sink where the washed dishes were sitting in a rake, still damp. She touched a plate and wondered if Jace or Clary had recently eaten off this plate. Had they had dinner before being packed up and shipped off to the Edison Group? Were they hungry right now?
She bit her lip hard to stop the tears that threatened.
"Izzy." Isabelle spun around to find Alec in the door way of the kitchen. He looked diminished, like a light had been put out in him. "Magnus and I were going to search the house, you know, to see if there's anything left. If you would rather wait outside with Max…"
"No!" Max wailed, springing up. "I'm not waiting outside. I want to know what happened."
"Max-"
"No, Alec," Isabelle said firmly though her throat tightened. "I want to see this place. I want to know how Jace and Clary lived…" Her voice wobbled off dismally. She took a deep breath. "We'll all search the house."
Alec shrugged. He really didn't have the energy or the will to try and stop his siblings. "Alright. Well, we saw the kitchen, let's try the T.V. room."
It was a miserable expedition for everyone, even Magnus. The television room was homey and warm, with worn furniture and soft blankets, and a door to the backyard. There were pillows lumped on cozy couches, and shelf full of children's movies. The carpet was thick and soft, like someone could sit there and watch hours and hours of movies. But it was slightly off kilter, and all they could think about was Jace's letters. How he'd said they were forced to live a normal life.
A quick search of the room gave nothing, and they passed to the next room that faced the front lawn. It was painted the favored color of Lyle House, pale yellow, and, to everyone's surprise, lined with three rows of desks. There were bookshelves of English and mathematics, science, and history, and the wall that faced the desks had a blackboard mounted on it. Two large windows gave a beautiful view of the lawn, but when Alec tried to open one he found it securely locked. He glanced back to the desks, where Jace and Clary and all the others must have sat, and then back to windows that wouldn't even open. They couldn't even get a fresh breeze; trapped inside a cage.
Magnus provided the search of the class room because Isabelle and Alec were too lost in thought. They had spent many days in the library at the Institute with Jace, laughing and learning, but this was all wrong. Alec couldn't picture Jace locked in a room, staring at a blackboard. Max gave up trying to be brave and asked if Isabelle would carry him. Wordlessly, she lifted him up and left the room to search the downstairs bathroom.
The first floor provided nothing, and none of them felt brave enough to explore the basement where Jace had said was a makeshift lab. They headed up, past pleasant pictures of landscapes and sunny walls, to a long hallway that offered up six bedrooms and a bathroom.
All the rooms were the same; they found all small squares with one bed, a dresser, a closet, a desk, and a window that refused to be opened. Each bed was made properly, the closet cleaned and hung with waiting hangers, the floors swept and the desks organized. Isabelle wondered which one her brother had lived in.
It was so desolate, so empty. It was strange to pass all these rooms that children should have lived in, should have laughed in, played in, loved in, and find them devoid of people. When they reached one of the last rooms on the house front, Max yelped from Isabelle's arms. He was pointing frantically at the floor, spewing incomprehensive words. Isabelle started and followed his fingers.
There, on the run before the bed, was a glint in the sun. Isabelle knelt beside it and gasped in surprise and elation. It was a silver ring, a sliver ring with stars along the band. The Morgenstern ring. Jace's ring, passed down, father to son.
"Jace!" she cried, and Alec came shooting into the room, eyes with a manic light.
"What?" he rasped, eyeing roving around the room.
"I found his ring! Jace's ring. We can trace him with it! Magnus!" Isabelle was dancing around, waving the ring in the light. "Max, you're brilliant. I would never have seen it." She kissed him all over his cheeks, and Max smiled, tears drying in his eyes.
"What, what now?" Magnus moaned, coming in after Alec.
"We found Jace's ring!" She brandished the ring before his eyes. "Can you track him with it?"
Magnus snatched the ring from her hands. "Let me check the ring. I'll be in the kitchen." Magnus vanished in a flash and Isabelle, Alec, and Max looked to each other with dazzling smiles. There was hope, faint hope, but hope.
"So this is where Jace lived," Alec said after a moment, studying the room. The bed was pressed against the wall, the rising sun light falling on it. It was such a small room, like an itty bitty cage. Alec moved to the window. It gave the view of the sloping lawn, flower beds, and the road beyond. Freedom had been so close. "I think Jace would have liked the view."
Isabelle roved around it. She hated it. All of it. She thought of Jace with his blades drawn, energy pulsing through him, killing demons. He didn't belong locked in a room like this, this small little chamber with the locked windows and the teasing view. Furious, Isabelle kicked the bed.
"Izzy!" Alec said sharply.
"I hate this place, Alec!" Isabelle snarled, and then stormed out of the room. She crossed to the one on the other side of the hall, and kicked the door in. It was a room the same as Jace's, with the same bed and the same promising view. Isabelle and Max roamed around the room, knocking things out of place aimlessly.
"Izzy," Alec said softly, following her into the room. "Stop doing this."
Isabelle glared at Alec and grabbed a pillow off the bed and chucked it across the room. Max laughed as Alec ran to grab it. It hit the wall with thud that made some of the down in it poof out, and slid to the floor. As he bent to pick it up, Alec caught a glimpse of something under the bed. He frowned and Isabelle sighed.
"Alec, it just a pillow!" she groaned exasperatedly.
"There's something under the bed, Izzy." Alec braced himself against the foot board and pulled hard on it. "Grab it."
Isabelle crawled across the bed and patted her hand behind the bed until she made contact with a thick leather something. Carefully, as if cradling a baby, Isabelle pulled the thing out and found she was holding a book. She carefully undid the clasp as Alec and Max joined her. The cover fell open and the first page had the name Clarissa Morgenstern and a date scribbled on it.
"What is this, Alec?"
"Clary's book," he said simply. "Open it."
Isabelle flipped the first page and was greeted by a burst of color and shadow. It was another of Clary's painted pictures, and so were the next and the next. Each page was like a chapter of a story. Her story.
The first page was of Clary and Jace, sitting in the back of a car, side by side. They each wore strained smiles and had their hands in their laps, clenched into fists. It was the fists that caught Isabelle and Alec's eyes. The rest of the picture was pleasant; there was sun outside the car and a glow on the paint that seemed to lighten the eyes. But why the fists?
Alec thought of the other picture Clary had left. The one with the hidden runes that left a new image before them. Had Clary left them another clue in here? He began to study the picture, eyeing the corners and the shadows where Clary might have hidden the rune. But there was nothing. He sighed.
"What is it?" Isabelle asked, still staring at the picture.
"I was sure Clary left a rune on here that would change the picture, but I can't find it." Alec looked from Isabelle to Max. "There's gotta be a rune here."
The three fell on the painting. It was hard to focus on finding a rune when they were faced with the boy the considered their brother and his girlfriend. He looked so happy in the picture, so relaxed and carefree.
"There!" Max said suddenly, pointing to the lower left corner where Clary's legs vanished into the car. It was hard to see, just a small glimmerspell, but it was there.
As if the rune knew it had been found, it glowed with a white light that rippled out over the page. When the white light melted away it left behind a new picture.
"What the hell was going on here?" Isabelle whispered.
It was still a picture of Jace and Clary sitting in the back seat of a car, but it was drastically different. Except for the fists. Jace and Clary were tied hand and foot in the picture with plastic restraints, they had gags in their mouth, and wide terrified eyes. It was a night sky with no stars, no moon, just black nothingness. The darkness was reflected in the children's eyes, in their anger and their fear. Jace's hands were clamped so tightly together that his hands were bleeding from the plastic. Clary was leaning against him, trying to hide against his side.
The three Lightwoods exchanged dark glances and turned to the next page.
Clary had left the rune in the same place for every picture, and once they found it, the same white light rippled over the drawing and offered a new view. But none of the pictures seemed to get better than the first. In fact, they got worse and worse.
The next was of Clary, standing in a cheery basement with yellow walls and a washer and dryer. She was leaning against a wall, her red hair hanging wild around her face. Her eyes were wider than usual, hectic spots of red on her cheeks. Just like the fists, it was the red spots on Clary's cheeks that drew their attention.
When the picture changed, Clary was still there. She was pressing against the wall in terror, her mouth open in a silent scream. Before her was a metal table with straps hanging from the sides. On the walls was a large assortment of medicals tools, glinting nastily in the low light. And in the corner of the drawing was a woman with a large needle in her hand, eyes pitch black and glowing. The shadows in the room were churning with horrible images, nightmares come to life.
On the following page was a boy no one knew. He was tall and well built, darker skinned with a shock of thick curling black hair. His eyes were so green they were almost glowing, like a dog's in the dead of night. He had a strong face with fine cheek bones and an attractive scowl. Isabelle thought he was darkly handsome and rather striking.
When the image turned Isabelle bit back an angry curse. The boy was there, but he'd been consumed by something wild. It was huge black wolf, snarling viciously at them. His fangs glinted white in the sharp light and his lips were curled back to reveal pink gums. It was the eyes that were the same, the same glowing green, burning with a furious fire. It was the boy, just in wolf form.
The wolf was tied down to a cement floor with a thick chain that wound around his neck. There were scraps in the floor from where the wolf had dug his claws in, and a pool of blood that was dribbling down from his ruff and onto the floor. The wolf looked desperate and angry, terrified and determined.
"That must be Derek," Alec said softly, staring at the wolf. "Remember, Jace said he was werewolf."
"Derek." Isabelle tried his name out. She could almost smile about it.
"Don't even think about it, Izzy," Alec warned. "He's an unstable werewolf."
"I wasn't thinking about that," Isabelle snapped back, even though she was. Her eyes ran over the many pages left. "Here, there's more."
On the next page was a very pretty girl, Isabelle thought. And she couldn't help but feel a flash of annoyance. She was just like Clary, small with great big eyes and cute as a button. Her hair was the color of apricots and straight as a ruler. She was sitting at the kitchen table, leaning against a chair, twisting the sun dress she was wearing so it covered her knees in her position. She wasn't smiling, but her face was set in a beautifully calm visage.
Alec flinched when the image changed. The girl was there, but she was wearing black rags, her hair hanging in limp strands around her eyes. She was staring up from the chair helplessly, her hands bound by strange black somethings to the chair back. She was straining against them, but it was making no difference. Black shadows were coming down on her, ghostly hands reaching out, grabbing her. There was a tear running down her cheek. Alec turned away violently, recognizing the girl as Chloe.
The next picture was a boy with blond hair and brown almond shaped eyes. He was reclining on a couch, very relaxed, the sun hitting his hair. But when the real picture appeared, it was the same boy, same couch, but with a thick black band bound around his wrist. There were little white shocks running up his arms. He wasn't relaxed anymore, he was curled up on himself in a climax of pain.
Another picture showed a girl with shot black hair painting her nails in the sunny bathroom. Then, after a flash of white, it was the same girl bent over, tied to the sink with a chain, washing the floor with a bucket and sponge. Her hands were red from scrubbing, her face flecked with dirt. Her eyes were big and round and reflecting pain and humiliation, and her shoulders were strained with the tension of hard work.
Picture after picture, the children seeming happy once, and then curled up on the floor. The children tied up, with bruises, with people coming at them with needles, with fear written all over their faces. Isabelle, Alec, and Max were finding it harder and harder to keep turning pages. They'd only seen the one of Jace, but they were sure Clary had drawn one, and that when they found it, it would be terrible.
And they did find one, and it was.
At first, they saw Jace standing in his bright room, sunlight streaming in through the window. His hair was glowing more golden than ever, his eyes burning like the sun, and a small smirk curling his lips. It was strange to see him in normal clothes when they'd always seen him in black. Now, in a pair of jeans and a red tee shirt with some brand name running up the side, it was just weird.
Alec eyed the rune, sketched in the floor, and they saw the new Jace. He was still in his room, but now he was behind a row of metal bars. He was in a cage. And his hair had grown wild and curlier. It was almost like a lion's mane, the way the sun hit it. His eyes were upturned now, like a cat, and he had little white fans bared. There was a collar around his neck, chained to the headboard of his bed. It was hard to miss that scowl that was so like Jace, but even harder to understand the pain in his eyes. Clary had painted him looking uncertain. Looking scared and on the verge of attacking the bars. It was hard to believe it was Jace.
Isabelle and Alec exchanged a look while Max traced Jace's face. Nothing was right about this. Jace wasn't an animal.
"Alec," Isabelle said, shifting Max onto her lap to hug him firmly. "We have to find these kids. Whatever was going on here, it's gotta stop. We can't leave Jace and Clary to this. They're like…our siblings!"
Alec closed the book with a snap. "I know. We'll get them back."
"Have the children been moved?"
There was a long pause over the phone while voices on the other end shouted back and forth. The sharp sound of metal being dragged across metal rang out, and then there was wheezy cough.
"Yes, Mrs. Enright. We're moving them into their new quarters as we speak. By the time you get here they should be awake and ready for…for whatever plans you've got." Davidoff hated admitting that the plans of the Board of Directors weren't his general knowledge.
"Excellent, I was worried that the shadowhunter boy would cause problems, but I suppose he's finally come to reason." Enright sounded pleased with herself.
"Well, he loves the little red head. I don't think he'd risk anything if her life were on the line. After we let him next to her he calmed down and let us drug him." Davidoff paused for a moment, considering the boy. "I don't think he'll be causing us any more problems."
"He'd better not, or we'll have to put him down." Enright laughed. "We can't have him losing his wits about the place."
"Well, he needs to have a chance to exercise his abilities again. I think keeping him and Derek locked up was giving them unnatural stress. Once we let them out more, let Jace burn off some of the frustration, he'll settle down like we want."
Enright tucked the phone between her shoulder and ear as she drove. "I think he needs a reminder of where he is and why he's there. When he wakes up give him a tour of the facilities. Especially the hospital laboratory." She paused as she changed lanes. "In fact, take them all one by one around. Let them see just how little chance they have escape. It'll help them adjust."
"Alright, Enright." Davidoff cleared his throat. "Listen, there's a problem down in Ward C. I have to go. When you get here we can talk more at length."
"Excellent."