Jonathan was right.
When the siblings entered Valentine's office, he was pacing the length of the back wall and his face was set in a frown, which seemed to now be his default face. It was rare for Jonathan to see their father do anything for pleasure, his life seemed to revolve around the Clave. Jonathan admired that in his father, his drive for success, but he knew that it shouldn't completely take over your life. What point is there in striving to achieve something if you don't enjoy the process celebrate the successes.
They approached Valentine's desk and waited for him to address them. Clarissa stood beside her brother and crossed her arms behind her back, not wanting to show her nervousness. Father could have called them here to punish her for yielding in training just as easily as he could have wanted them here to assign them a mission.
"There's a demon in New York City that currently has information that I'd prefer the Clave not know. It will be at the club called Pandemonium tonight. Your objective is to kill it."
"What kind of demon is it?" Jonathan asked.
"It's your job to figure that out." Valentine sat beck down behind his desk and continued to do paperwork. "And don't be seen by the Clave's Shadowhunters," he added as an afterthought.
Clarissa sighed, of course father would give them as little information as possible. She had hoped that as they got older, father would start giving them more information for their missions instead of giving them the bare minimum and leaving the rest as a test.
Pandemonium is a nightclub that's well known for the large amount of demons, Shadowhunters, and downworlders that hang out there, but the majority of its patrons are mundanes. There could be over 100 demons there at any one point and they had to find the exact one that had the information. They didn't even know what the demon knew. The only thing that kept her from speaking her mind was the memory of the beating she got last week for not holding her tongue.
Valentine didn't have anything else to say and it was clear that the siblings were dismissed.
"Do you want to portal right into Pandemonium or a couple blocks away and walk there?" Clarissa asked, pulling her stele out of her boot.
"A couple blocks away. I don't want to risk being seen by any mundanes." Jonathan answered.
Jonathan cut through his rune to deglamour his eyes since he never bothers to mask his demon side during missions. Before Jonathan was born, Valentine injected Jocelyn with demon blood, which changed Jonathan's blood, and Valentine did the same when Jocelyn was pregnant with Clarissa, except with angel blood. Because of their extra blood, both of the siblings have superior Shadowhunters abilities. Clarissa has more angel blood than a normal Shadowhunter, so she has the ability to create runes and any normal runes that she drew has a lot more power. Jonathan's extra blood made him stronger, more durable, and with better reflexes than normal Shadowhunters, even Clarissa, and he is immune to demon's venom and their internal offensive weapons.
Clarissa didn't understand why mundanes enjoyed this kind of music. It was completely electronic and required no musical talent. Being forced to listen to this for several hours made her long for her music at home that used real instruments and not buttons on a computer.
The siblings weaved through the dancing crowd of sweaty mundanes who parted unconsciously to give them a path; a subconscious reaction to Jonathan's dangerous aura.
Jonathan and Clarissa had decided to glamour their runes; they didn't want to call any more attention to themselves than necessary. But Jonathan left his eyes black since the flashing lights and copious amounts of alcohol, and probably drugs, being consumed would be enough to discredit any mundanes who happened to catch a glimpse of Jonathan's black eyes.
They found two demons and interrogated them, but they had no useful information. An hour of work, wasted. The only purpose that they could serve now was providing Jonathan with some entertainment and he wanted to take his time killing this one, so he sent Clarissa back into the club to look for more.
Clarissa was on the receiving end of a lot of interested looks from both guys and girls and even a few downworlders now her brother wasn't with her. Luring in demons was much easier now that she was alone. They looked dissimilar enough that people always assumed that they were dating and steered clear of here because they were afraid of angering what they thought was her boyfriend.
It didn't take long for her to find another demon – this place was full of them – but it was a long process to figure out if they knew anything, especially since they didn't know what kind of demon they were hunting and she couldn't really do much interrogating with so many prying eyes. She looked back at the supply closet, whose door was still closed but with the light on, indicating that Jonathan was really taking his time. So, she set her focus back to the dance floor and the demons who occupied it.
Flirting was definitely Clarissa's least favourite part of hunting, it wasn't that she was bad at it, based on the reaction that she got, she was pretty good, she just found it tedious and repetitive. She'd compliment them on their hair or eyes, they'd mention her amazing body and that they want to fuck her, she'd giggle and be a tease, then lead them to a private part of the club, and to Jonathan, so they could interrogate it together. This particular demon had blue hair, and with The Sight she could see that it acted like fire, so it was almost too easy to recognize him as a demon. She didn't even bother to ask what its name was because it'd be dead in a few minutes and neither father nor Jonathan cared enough to know what names they chose.
Jace nudged Alec and pointed to the mundane that was leading a demon to a private part of the club.
"I swear some mundanes just want to get killed." Jace muttered under his breath. They grabbed Izzy, who was flirting with a vampire, and followed the mundane.
It took Clarissa less than a second to notice that some of the New York Shadowhunters were following her and she knew that her brother would see them and stay away. Their father would already be furious that she had been seen, but if they had to tell him that both of them had been seen, he'd be furious.
She rounded a corner with the demon, and it pressed her up against the wall. The New York Shadowhunters had chosen that moment to make their appearance. The tall male with black hair pulled the demon off her and pushed her away from them. Once the demon realized that it was surrounded by Shadowhunters, it revealed its true form in the hopes that its added strength would help it survive.
Clarissa backed into the wall; her facial expression was one of shock. She couldn't believe that these Shadowhunters made no effort to conceal who they were and what they were doing. The demon bared its sharp teeth and took a step forward to attack the blond but the girl with the black hair snapped her whip around its neck and threw it to the ground.
"Wait!" The demon cried out. "I have information that you'll want."
"We don't need anything from you." The blond one snarled back.
"Jace, just kill it." The black-haired boy said. Jace, Clarissa now knew his name, raised his seraph sword to cut off its head.
"Valentine Morgenstern is alive," the demon cried out and Jace hesitated. "And he wants to tak-." The black-haired boy cut its head off before it could finish the sentence.
"That was my kill Alec." Jace said dryly. Clarissa took that moment of their inattentiveness to run back to hers and Jonathan's meeting spot. She didn't want to be caught and forced into a conversation with the Shadowhunters. Jace swore.
"We need to find her." The New York Shadowhunters took off after Clarissa but weren't able to find her.
Clarissa got back to their meeting point before Jonathan but didn't have to wait too long before he showed up.
"You took your time." Clarissa smirked.
"At least I didn't get caught."
"I wasn't caught. They just saw me," Clarissa said. "And it wasn't like I could avoid it." She took out her stele and drew her portal rune on the building. They stepped through the portal and came out in the front foyer of their home. Clarissa glanced at her brother.
"Do you think father would be mad if we showered first?"
"Yes." Jonathan answered.
"Couldn't find fewer words to use could you." Clarissa asked sarcastically.
"If I wanted to, I'm sure I could. We should go see father and get this over with."
"While I was finishing up with the demon, I sent Clarissa back out to find another one. Once I finished, I spotted Clarissa with another demon and she led it away from the mundanes and downworlders. I saw that she Shadowhunters were following her and I assumed that they were hunting the demon, so I kept an eye on her but stayed well out their line of sight. After Clarissa left them in the club, I took an alternate route and met her where we portaled in. Then we returned home." Jonathan's explication did nothing to sate Valentine's anger. Valentine turned to Clarissa, indicating that he wanted her to explain what happened too, so she summarized her side of the mission.
There was a long minute of silence where Valentine just stared at Jonathan and Clarissa.
Valentine kept his eyes on Clarissa as he dismissed Jonathan. He left the room and Clarissa looked to the floor. She knew that her father was going to punish her for being seen.
Jace tried to follow the red-haired girl but once he rounded the corner, she was gone.
"I forgot she was there." Izzy said.
"This isn't going to go over well with the Clave." Alec was scanning through the crowd of sweaty mundanes. It was bad enough that the amount of demons in New York was increasing, but now a mundane with the sight just saw them.
"Who said the Clave has to find out." Izzy said.
"I'm with Izzy on this one." Jace agreed. Izzy smirked at Alec.
"Don't get to excited Iz, Jace is always on the side that causes problems for the Clave." Alec said. He started walking towards the exit of Pandemonium.
"Why are we leaving?" Izzy ran a few steps to catch up with Alec.
"We've only been here for an hour and we just started having fun." Jace said as he fell in step with Alec. "The Clave will just want us to follow her and make sure she doesn't tell anyone."
"Which is exactly why we need to tell the Clave." Alec countered.
"What the Clave doesn't know won't hurt them." Jace responded.
"No, but it will hurt us." Alec bit back.
"Let's just tell them when we get back to the institute. We can come back tomorrow Jace." Izzy cut in. They finished the trip back to the institute mostly in silence.
When Izzy, Jace, and Alec finished telling Hodge what happened at Pandemonium, Hodge didn't move for a full minute, his face set in concentration. Jace eventually got impatient and started calling his name. He called his name a full 6 times before Hodge refocused on the Lightwoods.
"So, what do we do about the mundane?" Alec was getting impatient too.
"Yes. Um, find her and shadow her. Just make sure she doesn't tell anyone and if she does, make her seem crazy."
Jace's nostrils flared. "Isn't that a bit cruel, Hodge?" He questioned.
"What else do you suggest you do?" Hodge challenged.
"I don't know. I don't have an issue with following her but making her seem crazy is just plain mean. It wasn't her fault that she saw that." Alec and Izzy kept quiet during the exchange.
"Then consider it your punishment. Start tomorrow and don't stop until you find her." Hodge packed up his books and left the library.