chapter 3; meeting

Jace pushed upon the back door of the Pandemonium Club and smiled slightly at the contact of the cool, September air of downtown Manhattan. He shook the sweat out of his hair and used the back of his hand to wipe his nose and jaw of residue blood from Clary's attack.

He was still in shock. He had only come to the club to talk to Clary, to try to understand what had happened and why she had acted so differently at the Institute. He could still remember the scene in the guest room, could still remember the amusement in her eyes. He'd noticed her outfits, so different than they had been a while ago. He blinked as memories of the scene flashed through his eyes. He could picture so much, yet so little at the same time...

Clary's hilarity as Jace fumbled awkwardly for his shirt.

Isabelle's blatant disbelief strewn across his face, replaced quickly with a murderous expression.

Clary's soft leather boots as they came off with a thump.

The mundane's shocked, embarrassed expression.

Clary's unruly, untidy hair that had been pulled up behind her ears by a pair of metal aviator sunglasses.

Clary's face.

Clary's eyes.

Clary -

The fiery red head behind him coughed, and Jace moved awkwardly out of the doorway, gesturing with his hands for her to follow through. Her emerald eyes watched him suspiciously as she took short, but confident steps into the city. The faint glow of neon lights didn't do her skin justice, Jace thought as she brushed past him. Her skin, pale in the bright lights of Manhattan, almost radiated strength and beauty under the black sky. Clary caught him looking, and Jace quickly spun around and shut the door silently, the hint of the blush still on his cheeks.

Clary coughed again, and Jace found himself asking:

"Are you cold?"

Clary shot him a look that Jace couldn't quite decipher, a mixture of anger and confusion and confidence and something...else. She eyed him expectantly as she ignored his question and asked instead:

"Want to tell me why you were stalking me?"

Her harsh tone surprised Jace, and he blinked. Her hands, that had once upon time been soft, now calloused and scared with runes, were resting on her hips, and her head was cocked to the side. She wouldn't take a bullshit answer, Jace knew, and he mentally slapped himself for not having listened to Isabelle when she'd warned him not to bother Clary.

"I wanted to talk to you," he said, surprised at how confident his voice sounded. "I didn't really get a chance to talk to you before, and I didn't think it would be fair to deny you the magnificence of my presence." He flashed her his signature cocky grin, gesturing down at himself, and for an instant Jace was reassured his arrogant-confident self was still present. The look Clary gave him silenced his momentary joy, almost glaring at him before she snapped her head away from him and began walking down the back parking lot and onto the sidewalk of busy West 34th street. Jace paused for a moment before taking long, springing strides to catch up to her.

She crossed her arms over her chest and snorted as he caught up to her.

"So, what was his name?" Jace asked, trying to change the topic, and thinking of the mundane boy he'd watched Clary dance with. He usually felt, in these kind of situations, that he intimidated or angered girls, but with Clary, this wasn't the case. She acted almost as though she were indifferent, and that sent Jace off the edge, tumbling into uncharted oblivion as he tried to hold onto, and inevitably lost, all sense of control. She hadn't been like this before, he had noted, and somehow in three years in Idris she'd become a completely different person. Jace still hadn't decided if he liked this or not.

She snorted again.

"What was her name?" she deadpanned, and Jace couldn't help but wince inwardly as he recalled the scene in Clary's room with a dull pain in his mind. Outwardly, he flashed another cocky smile.

"Touché," he said, shaking his hair before continuing. "I never pegged you for that kind of girl, Fray," he said amicably, letting amusement creep into his voice so that she knew he was teasing. She smiled wickedly before dropping her hands into her pockets, shaking her hair out a little.

"Mmmh," she said, her emerald eyes glittering in amusement, "I never had a reason to when I knew you. Then again, if I'd known what I was missing out on..."

Jace shot her a look of mock-horror as he registered her last insult. On a subconscious level, the dull pain returned, replaying her sentence in his mind like a broken record. I never had a reason to when I knew you. I never had a reason to when I knew you. I never had a reason to when I knew you. He saw the mundame boy's hands on her hips, her soft lips on his. I never had a reason to when I knew you. Outwardly, he scoffed and changed the topic, trying to disperse the turmoil boiling up inside him.

"So what brings you back to New York City?" he asked, grinning down at her as he spread his arms wide and gestured around him to the flashing lights and jumble of people. "Did you miss my irresistible good looks? My perfect smile? My awesome hair?"

Clary shot him another of those looks Jace couldn't quite decipher, before she looked him up and down and smirked.

"Nope, sorry, that can't be it," she said, her eyes twinkling with amusement again, but shinning a little duller this time. Jace recognized the dull expression, it was something he'd seen before, when she wasn't being completely continued, looking away.

"I finished my training with the Clave a year ago," she explained, tugging on the hem of her tight, form-fitting tank top, "but I stayed in Idris for a while. Then I got a reconnaissance mission from the Clave here, and so I came. As soon as this is over, they've got something else...But I want to travel a little." The last part had been added as an afterthought, but Jace noted the uncertainty in her voice.

"Since when are you a Clave agent?" he asked, curious and slightly reproachful at the same time. He hoped the latter wouldn't show, but he couldn't deny that he was slightly jealous of Clary's sudden attachment with the Clave. He still couldn't bring himself to trust them, not after Valentine. And yet...

Clary looked up at him, and for a half a second Jace thought he saw fear register in her eyes. It was gone quickly and replaced with a look of indifference that had become all to common in Clary's features.

"Since they trained me," she retorted, her voice dripping in obviousness as they turned the corner, the Institute now in sight. "Besides, they like my rune abilities. I'm going to write a book for them with new runes in it in a year or two, after I - "

Clary trailed off abruptly, glancing away from the Institute and to the cement sidewalk in front of her. Jace, his curiosity spiked, asked despite himself:

"After what?"

Clary looked up from the side walk and stared into Jace's eyes, indecision etched across her features. Jace found himself stopping at the same time she did, confused and curious. Her eyes flickered and danced under the light of a nearby lampshade, and suddenly she grinned, the white of her teeth gleaming brightly.

"After I beat your sorry ass back to the Institute," she said finally, taking off in a sprint as she left Jace standing, confused, in her dust.

-x-

Clarissa Morgenstern.

Clary's eyes shot open in the dark, a light layer of sweat on her forehead. She sat up quickly in her bed, pulling the covers off her barely covered body. She set a tentative foot on the floor as she felt the soft carpet brush her toes. Gliding off the bed, she found herself in a half-kneeling position, her eyes shut. She furrowed her eyebrows in concentration, her voice a little hoarse as she whispered into the darkness:

"Raziel?"

The effect was instantaneous.

Lights flickered behind her closed eyelids, a blur of light and darkness and colour exploded in her mind. Clary saw a blinding light of white, followed by a dulling covering of grey as the face of the Angel she had grown to know appeared in front of her kneeling body. His eyes blinked once, twice, before he finally spoke, a melodious string of words that emerged inside her head.

My child, he spoke softly, and Clary felt herself shiver unconsciously. It is time you learnt what power lies behind your lids. Do you understand me?

Her eyebrows furrowed themselves deeper as she whispered, confused:

"I - no. What power?" In her head, the angel's face remained unchanged, no sign of emotion showing. His eyes were as black and impenetrable as ever, and yet Clary felt she could see the very slightest revelation of pity, of love at the very bottom of the pool of black that were the Angel Raziel's pupils.

Do you remember last time I communicated with you, child? Raziel's melodious voice spoke again, and Clary nodded, almost indiscernibly, her eyes still sealed shut. I told you to come to New York, to leave Idris. Why did you listen?

Clary frowned again, her mouth pulled into a hard line. "Because I follow your guidance," she answered finally, her mouth relaxed, "and trust your wisdom. Whatever you ask of me, my Angel, I will comply." It was the truth, Clary knew, for she could never lie to Raziel. He could read her like an open book, and she trusted him completely.

His face remained impassive, as cold and void as stone.

And you have done so, child. There will come a time when I will ask you to make a choice, Clarissa, daughter of the morning star. But for now, I only seek to help you, to guide you, so when you must make the choice, you will be ready. Clary nodded again, still not completely sure of the direction Raziel was taking.

Keep your eyes closed, he instructed her, and Clary shut them even tighter. Now tell me, what colours do you see? Take those colours, Clarissa, and mold them, shape them into whatever shape you wish. Then, and only when you have a perfect object assembled in your mind, may you open your eyes.

Suddenly, Raziel's face disapeared from her mind, and Clary found herself seeing darkness and the familiar, faint colours that she often saw when she closed her eyes after looking into a bright light. Mold them, the Angel had said, and so Clary tried, in vain, to mold them into a square. She sat for the better part of an hour, watching different colours come and go, becoming fainter and fainter, and trying without avail to shape them, to move them.

Suddenly, just as she was about to give up, Clary felt a pull at the back at her mind, and saw one of the shapes jerk, ever so slightly, to the left. She tried the pull again, and the shape moved again, a little more pronouncedly. Clary visualized the shape, attached to a piece of string like a puppet, and tugged again, this time to the right. The piece moved all the way over, until Clary mentally 'dropped' the string. For over fifteen minutes she moved, pulled, tugged, and cursed as she assembled what she believed resembled a small notebook, strewn together from various pieces of mental-image-light-shape things.

Holding the picture there for a moment, she proceeded to open her eyes as Raziel had instructed. The room, that had seemed so dark when she'd first woken up, now felt lighter, and Clary had to blink several times before she adjusted to it. Gazing around her, Clary confusedly wondered what had happened with her book-vision, and why it had been necessary.

Suddenly, just as suddenly as she had felt the pull in the back of her mind, Clary felt her fingers tingle lightly, as though a cool wind was brushing over her. Clary glanced down at her fingers idly sitting on her lap, and she couldn't help but stare. She couldn't help but stare at the object that had materialized itself out of thin air and had appeared in her hands.

The book. The leather, soft, supple notebook she'd pictured and assembled in her mind, was somehow in between her fingers, concrete and real. She was brought out of her revery when a loud voice exclaimed, incredulous:

"What the fuck?"

yay third chapter up :)

note: I understand this last bit was a bit confusing, but I'll clear it up a little in the next chapter I promise :) Also, some people told me I should get a beta...Not to be a newb or anything, but what's a beta? :S apologies...Also, I'll try to update asap, but no promises :) this chapter is 2,302 words long! :)

disclaimer: officially disclaimed

hopefully you all like it? :) review!