Disclaimer: I do not own The Mortal Instruments or any of the Percy Jackson books.

Chapter 3

Jace's POV

We've been killing the half bloods for about a month now and I have to say, the task was proving to be insultingly easy. I kept praying that the Clave would give us a harder assignment. Maybe there's a pack of raveners in the sewers. Or how about some Kuri demons in Central Park.

The demigods weren't a challenge at all. I didn't get the thrill of the fight that I get when I'm hunting demons. But there are a whole crapload of demigods out there and they just keep appearing. Why won't they just stay in their godforsaken camp for a week so we could do something else?

They're like ants. You kill one, there's another there to take its place.

Of course a lot of the demigods we've killed were children of minor gods. They didn't put up much of a fight. But that just made the task harder. It felt like every time I killed one of the bastards I was just murdering an innocent. They were helpless. At least with demons they put up more of a fight. They might hurt you but that just fuels your anger and makes you want to kill them more.

These people didn't really do anything wrong except have weird DNA. It wasn't their fault one of their parents decided to screw a god.

To make me feel even worse about killing these people was that they were kids. They were all teenagers. The oldest person we killed was a 23 year old. These are young people. The Clave says that a lot of demigods don't really make it to adulthood because of monster attacks and stuff but now we've been added to that equation. They're dying quicker now. Those who survived the monsters are now gonna die because of us.

I was also worried about the gods. If we killed enough of their children are they gonna come down from their mountain or building or whatever and kill us? Or maybe their just gonna blast us from the sky. This is bigger than anything we've ever faced. They were bigger than Sebastian, Valentine, Lilith, anything. These were all-mighty, undying, powerful gods and goddesses.

I think the Clave was really just interested in this Percy Jackson guy. He was the real threat. He was still at his camp though.

I voiced my concerns to Clary who seemed to agree with me. We told the others and tomorrow we are paying Alec's boyfriend, Magnus Bane, a visit. I mean, the guy's been alive for like 800 years. There's not a lot he doesn't know.

But today, we received another assignment. A girl named Clarisse La Rue was spotted. She was our next kill. She was 18, Clary's age.

When I heard about our new assignment, I almost groaned out loud. But this time the Clave gave us another message. This was what the letter said:

Be careful with this one. Study her file as much as possible. She is a daughter of Ares and one of the more lethal ones. She will be much more dangerous than the ones you've killed before. Good luck.

"Jace?" I heard Isabelle call me. "Yeah," I said, turning to look at her. She had La Rue's file in her hand. "I think this one's gonna be different from the rest. Look here. It says she's been in training since she was 8. She's the leader of the Ares kids, she's a veteran of both wars and when she was 16, she received the blessing of Ares and that same day she killed a drakon by herself."

"Don't you mean a dragon?" I corrected her. Izzy looked at me strangely. "No… I meant drakon. Haven't you been taking your Greek Demonology classes?" she asked.

Yeah. The Clave went so far as to make us take Greek Demonology. I did take the classes, I just didn't pay attention.

"Yes, I have been taking those classes. But ca-can you just...remind me what a drakon is?" I asked rather shakily. Izzy narrowed her eyes. I knew she could see right through my lie but she sighed and told me anyway.

"Drakons are way older than dragons. They're a whole lot bigger too. Only some of them have wings but their scales are nearly indestructible. Some breathe fire, all are poisonous with acid spray. Oh! And they can also paralyze you just by looking at you." "Whoa…" I said quietly. "She took one of those down?"

Isabelle nodded. "Singlehandedly," she added. "At age 16," I finished.

Okay, so maybe this girl would finally give me the challenge I wanted.

We furiously studies the girl's files. There wasn't a picture but there was a description. Reddish brown hair, muscular, tall, tan, and she had a scar from her shoulder down to her elbow.

She was an Ares kid. Literally a child of War. She was violent, aggressive, and a skilled fighter with almost every weapon. She liked fighting with an electric spear but she could probably be armed with some other weapon. She was seen by some old ware house.

After gearing up and becoming heavily runed, we had Clary open a portal and take us there. We stood on the corner of the street glamoured and keeping our eyes peeled for anyone fitting her description.

That's when we saw her. I really expected her to look different. She was a lot prettier than I imagined her. She had these reddish eyes that gleamed with malice. She was taller than Izzy, which is saying something. She had defined curves and wore a red muscle tee and grey sweat pants and a pair of sneakers. She carried a green camouflage backpack and had a bandana around her neck. As she got closer, I was able to see the scar she had on her arm.

She definitely looked like the kind of girl that could kick ass.

Her eyes were alert as she looked around. Then she looked right at us and averted her gaze. If she had been able to see through the glamour, she didn't let on. It seemed like she had looked right through us.

"She saw us," Clary said immediately. "Really? She looked like she didn't see us at all," Alec said. "Yeah Clary. I don't think demigods can see through our glamours," Simon agreed.

"No. I'm positive," Clary said. Isabelle sent her a doubtful look.

"No offense guys, but I'm an artist. I pay the most attention to detail. She may have been able to hide that she saw us on her face, but her body language totally changed. Her muscles tensed, she walked just a little bit quicker, and she seemed a bit more...jumpy after that." We all stared at her.

"Well, when you put it like that…" I said. Clary rolled her eyes and grabbed my arm. We started walking in her direction.

Clarisse disappeared behind the door of the abandoned warehouse. We quickly drew silent runes on ourselves and opened the door, following her inside. It looked like the room collapsed from the inside.

There were pieces of stone and rebars all over the place. There was a large, cracked mirror covering the whole left wall. The place was pretty big. It was a little bigger than the training room in the Institute. It was clear that the walls had not been painted and the floor was dusty and dirty. In the center of the room, there was a punching bag hanging from a chain. Training dummies were in a pile at the right corner of the room along with more punching bags. Next to that were broken and destroyed dummies and training bags. Probably ruined from a sword hacking at them. Except there was one dummy that looked charred, like someone had taken a blow torch to it. That made me kinda nervous.

Clarisse had taken off her sneakers leaving her barefoot and she had tied her hair back with her bandana. She had also stripped off the muscle tee, leaving her in her sweat pants and a black sports bra which showed of just how muscular she really was while still managing to look feminine.

She was in the center of the room punching the punching bag. It amazed me how little effort she put into her blows, yet they were still powerful enough to get the punching bag swinging on the chain.

Without looking over at us or even at the mirror, she said: "You the assholes that killed Lianna?" Her voice was loud and clear, and it echoed all over the room.

We looked at each other. This was one of those rare moments that our victims don't seem intimidated or threatened at all by us.

She gave the punching bag one good kick and it went flying off the chain. Alec's eyebrows shot up and Simon stared at her open mouthed. You had to be pretty damn strong to be able to do that. Isabelle's eyes widened as she picked up a new punching bag and hung that one up. She wasn't even sweating, and her knuckles hadn't bruised.

"I asked you people a question," she said, this time turning around. Then she looked a little startled. "Holy shit! Lianna was right. You do look like Rachel," she said, examining Clary.

I stood in front of her protectively.

Clarisse noticed this movement and smirked a little.

"So what are you people? Some sort of supernatural gang? Who put you up to this?" She asked.

"Why should we tell you?" I asked. "Well you're gonna kill me aren't you? I think I deserve to know what's happening. So that I know I didn't die for no reason," she responded.

"We've got a question for you," Isabelle said. "Shoot," she said. Alec looked at Izzy questioningly. "You said Lianna compared her," Izzy gestured to Clary, "to some girl named Rachel. How would that be possible if Lianna is dead?"

"So you admit to killing Lianna?" Clarisse asked. "Not at all," Alec spoke up. "We admit to knowing about Lianna's death."

"Well, to answer your question, which I don't see why I would have to answer it, we have our...methods of communing with the dead," she said.

My eyes widened. If they could commune with the dead...then that would mean...crap! This is bad.

"Just figured it out didn't you Goldilocks." My head snapped up to look at her. She nodded. "That's right. Every person you've killed has consulted with a friend of mine. We've been gathering information about you guys too." I closed my eyes and took a deep breath.

I looked at Alec and nodded, signaling for him to attack. He took out his bow and shot an arrow at Clarisse with lightning speed. But Clarisse was prepared. She dodged the arrow and took out a knife from behind her. She threw it so fast it looked like a blur. I heard a thud from behind me and I quickly turned around. The knife had been thrown with so much force, it embedded itself up to the hilt in the wall, pinning Alec's gear jacket there.

Alec was staring wide eyed at the dagger and Izzy shrieked. Clary gasped and looked at Clarisse. "Bitch!" she shouted at her. Clarisse held her hands up. "Hey, you were the ones that came here to kill me," she said calmly.

But why hadn't Clarisse thrown the knife and killed Alec. All she did was pin him to the wall.

"You missed," I said as Alec pulled out the knife. Clarisse looked offended. "No I didn't. Trust me, I would have loved to have killed your little blue eyed friend over there but fortunately for you, I'm under strict orders: no killing unless absolutely necessary," she said.

"So you were sent here," Simon said. Clarisse rolled her eyes. "Duh. Don't you think I have better things to do than to milk info out of you and your freaky band of weirdos?"

"You do know we have you outnumbered...right?" asked Isabelle. "Oh I know. I just happen to be the best Ares kid of my generation. Besides, if by some miracle you guys do end up killing me, there's gonna be hell to pay when my dad hears about it," she said.

And there it was. Exactly what I was worried about, angry gods after us.

"Now, you're either gonna tell me what I want to know, or you're gonna fight me. Which one's it gonna be?" We looked at each other. This girl was going to be incredibly hard to fight. Should we take it? I know I wanted to, but then I looked at Clary. She shook her head slightly. I sighed and looked at everyone else. They didn't want to do this. Not yet.

"How about neither," I said. Clarisse shook her head. "Sorry. Wrong answer blondie. That wasn't one of the answer choices." "We're gonna let you go. You can walk away, and warn your little demigod friends about us or whatever, but we're leaving." Before Clarisse could say or do anything, Clary opened a portal. We stepped through it, taking her knife with us.

A/n: Aaaaannnd done! Hope you liked that chapter. I'm feeling pretty good about the story. I know some of you are gonna have a different opinion of Clarisse, but Clarisse is one of my favorite characters and I never imagined her as ugly. Just really tough but strangely beautiful. Anyway, please review!