AN: Infernal War is a large fic - completed it will be 25 chapters and with a word count of at least 75k. It was originally a cracky prompt based fic (2 prompts: "AU Bad Guys Win" and "A Character Can't Communicate Using Speech") but it has since grown into the largest and most carefully plotted story I have ever put out for people to read.

I would love to know what you think.

This is an updated first chapter, if you have read it before you will find that this is quite a bit different though it wouldn't change your understanding of the story to not read this version.

This story has some pretty intense violence and some abusive themes.

Each chapter is dated as the story is not told in strict chronological order.

Tessa Gray

March 24, 1881

The carriage passed under gates inscribed in Latin and approached the grand cathedral with its doors thrown open to the mild spring air. Unconsciously the girl in a fashionable blue gown leaned her head back to take in the soaring facade. She looked at the other person in the carriage but he was looking out the other window. She rubbed her thumb over a scar on her palm. When he turned to look at her, her gloves were in place and she was silent and composed.

"Come along darling," he said holding out a hand as a footman opened the door. She didn't so much give him her hand as let him take it from her. She considered every possible fight she could put up but they all ended painfully and she let him help her down to the cobbles.

Her brother had died in this building. She'd been told that so many times that the sentence barely had meaning any more. Nathaniel had been killed by Shadowhunters because they were cruel and malicious. She glanced at the man walking in front of her. He was much older than she was, well dressed and chatting with another man on the steps of the building.

Nathaniel would never have been caught infiltrating the Shadowhunters' Institute if Axel Mortmain hadn't sent him to do it. She ran through the things he told her and compared them to the things she knew to be true. It was a daily ritual. Some people said prayers, some people counted blessings, she cataloged lies. The day she started to believe them would be the day she had truly lost herself and she was going to hold that day off as long as she could.

The party beyond the doors was lavish and bright. Lit both by a blue-white lamps and lanterns strung over a dance floor. It might have been beautiful but Mortmain held her by the arm and nothing was beautiful when she was that close to him.

She let her eyes wander over the marble floors. She knew the story. Mortmain's army of automatons had invaded this place, taken the pyxis that held souls prisoner and taught the Nephilim a lesson in humility. It was a great victory. She cataloged the lies and looked to see if the the marble was still stained with blood or if there were still gouges cut out of railings or beams as someone had fought for their life.

There was no evidence of the attacks of the winter of 1879. It was just a fancy church with a ballroom. She took the champagne that was offered but didn't take more than a sip for politeness's sake. It wasn't safe to be less than perfectly alert.

The man who ran the Institute was a Nephilim but also an ally. He was apparently immune to the arrogance and cruelty of the rest of his people or perhaps he was just useful to Mortmain. She didn't call out the hypocrisy of destroying a race of people and then befriending the remaining ones if they were useful enough.

She wasn't sure which of them was worse. Probably this Benedict Lightwood, it was his people who had been destroyed after all. She curtsied and lifted her mouth in something that impersonated a smile but said nothing to him when they were introduced.

She was finally released with an approved dance card of important strangers to charm. She wouldn't. She would dance but she wouldn't do more than that. There would be interesting insults to collect and perhaps she would be lucky enough to avoid any of Mortmain's crueler friends who would find ways in the course of a public dance to leave bruises.

She looked up at the carving of the angel with outstretched wings who watched over the ballroom and wondered if it was more than a story. Was there anything out there left to care about what Mortmain had done and would do?

William Herondale

March 24, 1881

Across town, while Mortmain and his allies were busy drinking champagne and talking about their plans for the future, a young man who had once fought for his life in the room that the girl in the gown had passed through was breaking into a house.

William Herondale had been there in the spring of 1878 when the Shadowhunters of the London Institute had investigated the Pandemonium Club and the disappearance of countless mundanes. He had been there when they'd found a broken automaton in the basement of a brothel that spouted warnings of their impending doom. He had been there when destruction had arrived at their doorstep on the morning of January 7, 1879.

Now he stood in shadows and watched Mortmain's automaton guard crisscross the yard of a mansion.

He was alone. Sophie, had told him that the next time he went out alone to do something dangerous she was going to wash her hands of him and leave him to rot in whatever predicament he landed himself in. She had been a maid once, now she was the heart and soul of a resistance movement made up of the dregs of Britain's Nephilim who had managed to survive the concerted attacks that had destroyed not just London but all the Institutes of the British Isles.

Will was a dreg. The last bit left over after everything good had been swept away. He wasn't the leader that Charlotte had been. He wasn't the genius that Henry still tried to be on the days when he could function through his grief. He certainly wasn't the good man that Jem had been before he'd been killed.

Jem who had been dying as long as Will had known him hadn't died at the hands of illness though he was weak enough by the end that standing for long periods of time was nearly impossible. If he'd been stronger, if he hadn't sent Will for help, if it had only been automatons and not the contingent of vampires who came up the back entrance and broke into the sanctuary from that side.

If.

But if wouldn't bring anyone back. Will tried to do the best he could without them. He tried to let Charlotte guide him and to hear that little conscience in his head that always spoke with Jem's voice. That voice was telling he was an idiot. Tonight he was ignoring it. A chance like this where Mortmain was in the city but away from his home was unlikely to happen again soon. There were secrets in there worth having.

He watched the automaton guards make one more pass to be sure that he had the timing correct before he jumped the fence. He probably should have brought someone to watch his back but he hated going out on these patrols, on the bombing missions, on the breaking and entering missions with anyone who wasn't his parabatai. And as his parabatai wasn't an option he went alone unless someone else refused to let him.

"That's how you will die," Sophie had said after his last close call, "You will die alone because you don't let anyone help you."

He had believed her.

He just hadn't expected it to happen today.