'Hey, guess what?' Isabelle threw her bag onto the kitchen bench top.

'What?' Clary looked up, digging her toes into the thick shag pile carpet.

'I met this weirdo at the plaza. He grabbed me and started babbling something in Japanese. Then he finished with shouting "Hello, help me!"' She snorted. 'Homeless people are so sad.'

Clary shrugged. 'Did he looked homeless?'

'That was the weird thing.' Isabelle frowned. 'He was dressed, like, really strangely. In this red shirt and white suit. And there was a weird symbol-thing on his coat.'

'What do you mean, symbol? Like a rune?' Clary sketched a random rune onto the paper she was scribbling on, then rubbed it out.

'No.' Isabelle scribbled something on a scrap of paper and held it out. 'Like this.'

Clary took the paper and squinted at it. It looked... 'Like a wing,' she said out loud.

'Huh?'

'It's a wing.' She pointed. 'See. But only one wing.'

'Huh. Like I said, weird.'

'Yeah.' Clary shrugged. 'Whatever.' She resumed sketching. Though she had started with the intention of drawing the skyline she could see out the window, she had ended up drawing Jace, again. With wings, huge black ones that extended way out past his shoulders.

Absentmindedly, she scrubbed out one wing.

Isabelle leaned over. 'Jace again? But only one wing. That's kinda strange. Like a one-winged bird.'

'Yeah.' Clary bent over the drawing and sketched in the other wing again.

'No, it's lopsided.' Isabelle frowned. 'He looked kinda cool with one wing, actually.'

'Hmm.' A one winged bird, huh?

Battler was starving. To his horror, his wallet had disappeared, and he had no spare change in any of his pockets. And all the shopkeepers were looking at him funny, anyway.

He had realised by now that they were all speaking English. However, his English vocabulary was limited to "Hello" "Goodbye" "Help me" and for some reason "I love your tits". Of course, it had been his father who had taught him those few words, so that might have something to do with it.

Damn pervy old geezer.

He estimated that it had been roughly two hours since he had woken up... and the last time he had eaten had been breakfast, six hours ago. Of course, he had no idea how long he had been unconscious.. so...

And his back was still aching.

Meaning that all together, his temper was almost at breaking point.

A guy bumped into him, and he turned, a snarl on his lips. 'Watch where you're going, you....'

The guy turned and said something aggressively, golden hair sparkling in the sunlight. For some reason, that, and his whole angel-pretty-boy appearance, only pissed Battler off further.

'I'm sorry. I didn't realize that this whole damn city was filled with pretty-boy poncers like yourself.'

The guy's brow furrowed, and his fists clenched. Then the other guy next to him, dark haired, leaned forward and grabbed his wrist.

'Enough, Jace,' Alec said warningly. The guy yelling at them looked more than a little cracked. 'We should just go.'

'Just let me..' Jace struggled in his grip.

'No.'

Battler couldn't understand what they were saying. His head was throbbing, and for some reason his eyesight was blurring, the figures of the two guys growing indistinct.

Battler collapsed.

'What the hell?' Jace nudged the weirdo with his toe. The guy stirred, and murmured something.

'Huh?' he knelt down.

'... hungry..'