The elevator rattled to a halt and the door slid open revealing the Institute's foyer. Clary Fray stepped out into the darkened, empty room, and she shivered in the unnaturally chilly air. The place felt strange and alien. Confused by the odd stillness that greeted her, she squinted through the dim light and took in her surroundings. The foyer looked the same as it always had, elegant furniture pieces silhouetted against the fading, dusky window light, the large luxurious rug that dominated the middle of the room, the paintings of Alicante-inspired landscapes that adorned the wall.

Where is everyone? She wondered. And why is it so cold?

She shivered again, rubbing her bare arms, her fingers passing over spidery thin ridges, the tell-tale signs of her Shadowhunter heritage. Her eyes swept the room again and this time her gaze went downward. In surprise, she noticed angry gouges running along the floor boards. The marks were deep and small chunks of wood were littered along the gashes. All the muscles in her body tensed. Something was wrong. The ugly scars made a clear path down the hallway to her left, and she slowly followed, her hand moving to the seraph blade at her side. At the end of the hallway, she thought she could just make out a yellow glow of light leaking out from under the study doors. Her eyes darted back and forth, watching for movement, as she padded quietly down the long corridor and she strained her ears, listening for anything out of the ordinary. There was only silence. She reached the doors and grabbed the brass handle. Taking a deep breath, she carefully opened it.

The scene inside was one of unimaginable horror. Clary gasped and staggered backward, her hand to her mouth, holding back a silent scream. Books and papers littered every surface, islands in a sea blood. And the bodies. Just beyond the door, a thin form lay in heap in front of her, long dark hair shrouding the girl's white and bloody face. A golden whip lay a few feet away, frayed and torn. Moving into the room she saw Maryse slumped against a reading desk, her dark eyes blank and empty, her features frozen in fear. Alec, his chest shredded lay across a large ottoman. His arms, clearly broken, were bent into unnatural positions. The blood was everywhere.

"No, no, no...." Clary stumbled forward into the study, numbly repeating the words over and over as if her denial could somehow reverse the gruesome reality before her. She shook her head, trying to clear it. It could not be true. Isabelle. Maryse. Alec. Each name caused something in her chest to tighten.

But where...

The thought trailed off in her mind and an insane fear suddenly clawed its way to the surface. She frantically called out for Jace.

"Jace! Jace, where are you?" she cried as she picked her way through the ruins of the study, praying and hoping that he would not be here. That she would not find him amongst the carnage.

She whirled around towards a row of windows that lined the far wall, her eyes raking her surroundings in panicked desperation. And then she saw him, he sat on one of the deep window sills, outlined against the black-blue night sky of the window. She ran toward him stumbling and falling to her knees. She grabbed his rune-covered arms and looked up at him. Up into his dead amber eyes. She could see now that his golden hair was matted with blood and he gazed back down at her unseeing. His face was pale and stony.

"No!" Clary whispered in disbelief and she fell backward into a bookcase, her heart feeling like a lead weight in her chest.

She was unable to take her eyes off Jace's expressionless face and the grief crashed around her. She thought of him alive, his easy confidence, his quick sarcastic nature, his beautiful eyes laughing, his lips upon hers. She couldn't reconcile this dead, unmoving Jace with the Jace she knew, the Jace she loved. She felt as if she were drowning in a sea of the deepest sorrow and she couldn't breathe. But instead of tears filling her eyes, an icy calm overtook her; the numbness subsided and instead a white-hot rage filled her at seeing her friends, Jace, slaughtered so mercilessly.

Why hadn't the wards protected them? What kind of power could do such a thing?

A faint scratching sound broke into her thoughts. And she suddenly was alert, the rage sharpening her senses. The sound grew louder as it neared the open doorway of the study. The scratching now a painful scraping of metal, or was it bone, Clary wondered, against the exotic wood floor. Clary quickly turned to the door and stood to face whatever may come across the threshold. She grabbed her stele and quickly drew several runes across her forearms, the protective marks lightly burning her flesh. Once done, she unsheathed her seraph blade.

"Icabethel." She spoke softly and the blade glowed to life.

She fixed her gaze back on the doorway as a hulking, shapeless form came into view. The demon was a 7 foot mountain of dull, reddish-brown skin. Innumerable oozing yellow pustules covered the surface of the creature and countless black eyes were randomly spread over the surface facing Clary. She could only guess as to how many more the creature possessed that she couldn't see. A large gaping mouth lined with rows and rows of shark-like teeth snapped open and closed, and large black, boney claws protruded beneath its considerable weight.

So this was the creature that killed Maryse, Alec and Isabelle. The monster that killed Jace.

Jace. Clary's eyes closed briefly in pain and she forced herself not to look at his lifeless form still propped against the window.

She squared herself ready to meet the demon. It spotted her immediately and began dragging itself toward her, ripping into the blood-soaked persian rug that decorated the floor. It stopped just in front of her and a sound emanated from its terrible mouth. It was laughing, or what Clary imagined passed for laughter for a creature such as this. The sound was cruel and mocking.

She spoke, "You, demon. You have done this?"

But the creature ignored her question and in a deep, grating voice she heard it speak her name, "Clarissa Morgenstern."

Clary was taken aback.

"How do you know my name?" she asked quietly. Her voice edged with anger, her hand tightened on her blade.

But it continued as if it hadn't heard her, "You, Clarissa Morgenstern, are not to be harmed. Not to be harmed." The demon spoke the last sentence with a more than a little disappointment Clary thought. It eyed her hungrily.

She tried again. "Who sent you demon? Why have you done this? How could you have done this?" She paused slightly on the last word, her voice shaking a little.

But again the demon ignored her questions, and with a regretful look at her, it began to turn away slowly.

"Who sent you?" She suddenly screamed at the creature, and in a moment of blind anger she advanced on the demon, plunging the seraph blade into the largest of its bulbous eyes. She struck at the demon again and again, puncturing its diseased skin, dodging the demon's counter attacks and its shark-like, razor-sharp teeth. The demon screamed in pain and threw her off, sending her flying into a leather wing back chair. She hit it hard and rolled to the floor, her hands and shirt stained red from the puddles of blood covering the surface like a sticky, wet rug.

Dragging herself to her knees, she saw with surprise that the creature had not folded in upon itself, returning to it's own dimension from it's surely fatal wounds. Instead it had moved in front of her again. Cackling cruelly, it picked up her fallen seraph blade from the floor, put the blade between its terrifying teeth and bit down. Clary watched in horror as the blade burned a deep red and then shattered into a million tiny pieces.

"Stupid girl." It hissed in delight. "The Angel has no power here."

Then, with one terrible claw, it reached for her.

Clary opened her eyes to the darkness of her bedroom and realized that she was screaming. Moonlight streamed in through the window, bathing the room in silvery light. Her room. Breathing heavily, she looked around the familiar surroundings trying futilely to take comfort in the normalcy of home. She sat up slowly pushing back a mass of sweaty hair, trying to regain a grip on reality. Her cami and sleep shorts clung to her clammy skin, but she was barely aware of it as she relived the nightmare again and again. The grief and terror overtaking her once more.

The dream. It was always the same. Always just as terrifying. Always just as heartbreaking.

It came more often these days. When she'd first had the nightmare, it had left her deeply shaken, but she convinced herself it was just a product of her overactive subconscious, nothing more. But the next week, it came again, and then again a few days after that. Now it seemed to come almost every night. A feeling of great unease started to rise in her chest whenever she thought of the frighteningly real vision, like it was a premonition warning her against some great unforeseen and impending danger.

No.

She turned her pillow over and punched it savagely. Laying her cheek against the cool, dry surface, she tried to force the nightmare from her mind. But all she could see when sleep finally claimed her were a pair of lifeless golden eyes.