CHAPTER 4 – Demons
The night had gotten hotter, and running home felt like swimming as fast as she could through boiling soup. Clary stumbled along behind her, her wrist still in Lillian's grasp.
"Lillian, stop," Clary said, stumbling. "Why are we running? Slow down! Ow, you're hurting me!" Lillian slowed and relaxed her grip, taking her stiff, cramping fingers off Clary's arm. Clary glared reproachfully, rubbing the red finger-marks on her skin.
"Sorry," Lillian said, jittering impatiently up and down on the balls of her feet as they got trapped at a DON'T WALK sign. She watched the cars race past, oblivious to her conflict.
"So… you saw him," Clary began hesitantly. Lillian nodded.
"Yeah, I saw him," she said shortly, and nothing else. The sign flashed to WALK, and Lillian jolted forward. Clary jogged to catch up.
"Why do we have to run home?" she said with annoyance. "I didn't even say bye to Simon…" Clary trailed off, looking down. Something happened with him, Lillian immediately recognized, groaning internally. Way to pick the worst time to express your feelings, Simon.
"Lillian?" Clary said again. Lillian nearly sighed in frustration. She wanted so badly to talk to Clary about everything, about Simon and Jace, about Shadowhunters and love, but now was not the time. Not when this strange fear was bubbling up. Now when something was very wrong.
"Sorry, Clary," Lillian replied. "I just… Mom called me, and I just have a really bad feeling." She couldn't explain it, speeding up as they turned onto their street. The second-floor windows were lit, the usual sign that Jocelyn was home. But that did little to comfort Lillian, and she could see the same feeling rising on Clary's face. Lillian's stomach tightened as she stepped over the entryway.
The overhead light was burned out, and the foyer was in darkness. The shadows seemed full of secret movement. A shiver passed through her as she started for the stairs.
"And just where do you think you're going?" said a voice. Clary jumped, whirling around in surprise. Lillian reached out a hand and took her am, gently this time.
"Sorry, Madame Dorothea, but we have to go," Lillian said firmly, dragging Clary with her and leaving Dorothea's complaints behind.
"Your mother has been making a god-awful racket up there…"
"Sorry!" Lillian called back, climbing up the steps, Clary right behind her. She slowed in the hall, apprehension running through her.
The apartment door was unlocked, hanging slightly open, spilling a wedge-shaped shaft of light onto the landing. All the lights were on inside, the brightness burning her eyes.
"Mom?" Lillian called out cautiously. "Mom, we're home."
There was no answer. Walking into the living room, Lillian saw the windows were open, the gauzy white curtains flapping like restless ghosts in the breeze. The whole place was ransacked; cushions and pillows had been torn off the sofa, scattered and torn, spilling cotton innards. Bookshelves were tipped, the piano bench on its side and spilling music books. Nothing was missing, but everything was destroyed.
"Oh God," Clary breathed behind Lillian. Lillian watched as she reached out to one of Jocelyn's paintings. They had all been shredded, their frames like gaping mouths with ragged, drooping canvas teeth.
"Mom!" Clary shrieked. "Where are you? Mommy!" Lillian could see the panic and fear hitting Clary, and she took her by the shoulders.
"Shhh," Lillian said soothingly. "It's going to be fine. We'll find her." Clary took deeps breaths, staring into Lillian's eyes like she desperately wanted to believe her. Lillian's stomach was flipping, her heart pounding; she hoped to God she was right.
They cautiously explored the house, going from the upturned kitchen to the hall and into Jocelyn's seemingly untouched bedroom. Out from a picture on the dresser stared Clary's five year old face, a gap-toothed smile framed by strawberry hair, sitting on happy eight-year-old Lillian's lap, her dark hair cut in a short bob, blue eyes sparkling.
The silence was deafening.
Then a noise sounded through the apartment, one that raised the hairs on the nape of Lillian's neck. A thud and a dragging slithering, coming toward the bedroom. Lillian heard Clary's breathing catch, her own stomach contracting with terror as she turned to face the door.
For a moment she felt weak-kneed relief. There was nothing there. Then she looked down.
It was crouched on the floor, a long, scaled creature with a cluster of flat black eyes set dead center in the front of its domed skull. Something like a cross between an alligator and a centipede, it had a thick, flat snout and a barbed tail that whipped menacingly from side to side. Multiple legs bunched underneath it as it readied itself to spring.
Lillian heard Clary's shriek, loud and grating in her ears. She reached and dragged Clary back just as the thing lunged. They both staggered back, sprawling on the floor in a tang of limbs and rolling away just in time. It missed them by inches, sliding along the wood floor, its claws gouging deep grooves. They both stumbled to their feet as fast as they could, terror making their limbs clumsy.
"Run!" Lillian shouted, shoving Clary towards the hall. But the thing was too fast, leaping and clinging to the wall above the door, where it hung like a malignant spider. It stared down at them, opening its jaws slowly, showing a row of fanged teeth spilling greenish drool. Its long black tongue flicked out with a gurgle and hiss.
Lillian realized with horror that the noises it was making were words.
"Girls," it growled. "Flesh. Blood. To eat, oh, to eat."
Clary froze as it began to slither slowly down the wall, claws digging into the plaster. Lillian scrambled, still on her knees, to get up in time. Her heart pounded up in her throat.
"Clary!" she screamed. "MOVE!" The thing was still talking, and Clary had backed up right to the wall, seizing a picture of the four of them on Coney Island–their family: Jocelyn, Clary, Lillian, and Luke–and chucking it at the monster. It bounced off its midsection, the glass shattering, and it kept going right for Clary.
Lillian didn't think–she just reacted.
With a warrior cry she didn't know she had, she threw her herself at the monster, colliding with it in a full-body tackle. Insect-like legs scraped against her sides with a feeling that made her skin crawl, tearing her shirt. She tumbled to the floor with it on top of her, her head and shoulders slamming down hard. The smell was overwhelming, nauseating, its slimy, oppressive weight making her want to gag.
Its hot breath stank of blood, and it was moaning again, "To eat, to eat. But it is not allowed, to swallow, to savour." Lillian struggled to breath, her body pinned down. Her mind raced with everything of martial arts that she'd learned at the studio over the past three years. She could hear Clary screaming in the background, saw out of the corner of her eye that Clary was chucking one book after another off Jocelyn's nightstand next to the bed at the creature, but it did no good. Lillian worked her arms free desperately as stinging drops of hot, acidic saliva burned the skin of her face and throat. "Valentine will never know…"
"Get OFF!" she shouted, heaving with all her strength and upending the creature. It rolled onto its back with a screech, multiple legs wildly churning in the air.
"Clary," Lillian said, as she struggled to her knees. Clary's face was white as snow, her eyes wide, her chest heaving with erratic breathing. "Go!" Lillian cried, trying to catch her breath.
"Lillian," Clary gasped, reaching for her, staring at the spreading warm dampness where the thing's claws had scrabbled against her torso and tore her shirt.
"GO!" Lillian ordered again more urgently, waving Clary forward with one hand. "I'm right behind you." That thing won't stay on its back forever.
With that in mind, Lillian didn't move after Clary right away. Her fingers had closed around a large, sickeningly sharp shard of broken glass. It bit into the palm of her hand, but she hardly noticed. Crawling forward, she sank the glass into the thing's soft, unprotected underbelly. It hissed, gurgling as it strained to curl up like a pill bug, black blood gushing from its mouth as it twitched.
That's when Lillian allowed herself to think about what the thing was, as it lay dying in front of her.
A demon.
A long second later, Lillian pulled away from it, stumbling to her feet. Time seemed to speed up suddenly, leaving her behind. The demon gave one last nerve spasm without warning, its whole body jerking as the barbed tail flew up, the stinger shooting from the end. Lillian cried out in warning as it whistled through the air, but it was too late. It slammed heavily into the back of Clary's skull as she tried to run away, and she collapsed forward.
Lillian pulled herself to her feet, feeling like she left her stomach on the floor. She isn't moving. She rushed towards her sister, her heart pounding painfully in her chest.
"Clary," Lillian said, touching her back. "Clary?" There was a trickle of blood in her hair. Lillian rolled her over gently. Her body was limp, her eyes closed. Lillian leaned over her, pressing her trembling fingers to her throat. "Please," she whispered, her voice breaking. She breathed a deep sigh of relief when Clary's warm breath touched her face and her pulse beat steadily. "Thank you," she said, shutting her eyes for a long moment. She had no idea who she was thanking but she said it anyway. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me; you killed it."
Lillian's head snapped up, her eyes flicking open. The familiar blond stepped inside the room, silent and graceful as a jungle cat. He held an oddly translucent blade loosely but firmly, like a professional. His bare arms were laced with patterns of black ink, matrixes of swirling lines. Runes, she remembered. His eyes scanned the room and alighted on Lillian on her knees next to Clary and then shifted to something beyond them.
Following his gaze with a glance behind her, Lillian watched as the dead demon crumpled, folding in on itself and growing smaller and smaller until it vanished entirely.
"They return to their home dimensions when they die," Jace said, walking forward and crouching on Clary's other side. Broken glass crunched under his boots. "All demons do, not just Raveners," he clarified. She nodded, the adrenaline draining out of her. Nothing Jace said was possible. But then again, she'd known he'd always been telling the truth.
"C'mon, we have to get out of here," he said, sliding the blade through his belt.
"But Clary–" Lillian immediately protested, and Jace just slipped his arms underneath Clary and swung her up into his arms.
"The Ravener was half-dead so it wasn't much of sting, but we still have to get her back to the Institute," he said. Lillian didn't question for once, and followed him as he strode down the hall, down the stairs and through the foyer, right out the front door. The apartment was eerily silent again. But as soon as they hit the sidewalk, white police cars came screeching around the corner with lights flashing, the wailing sirens rising in pitch like the scream of a terrified child. Jace cursed under his breath and turned abruptly, ducking into the shadows of the side of the building and slipping around to the back with Lillian close behind.
"Jace," she hissed to him through the darkness. "It's the police. They'll help us! My mom…"
"There's nothing they can do," Jace replied. "Somebody probably heard you screaming and reported it. Ten to one those aren't real police officers. Demons have a way of covering their tracks." Glancing behind her, swallowing hard as the beam of a flashlight caught the edge of the apartment. When she looked back at him he was watching her; his hair gleamed pewter like the washed-out stars, his eyes looked silver in the moonlight.
"We have to get out of here. Can we go through the alley?" he asked.
"It's bricked up. There's no way out," she told him, her eyes continually looking down at Clary. Her face was pale; her body looked even tinier than usual in Jace's arms. "Will she be okay?"
"She'll be dead in an hour if we don't get back to the Institute," he said bluntly. He looked behind him one last time at the dead-end alley and then kneeled down on the grass, laying Clary down gently.
"What are you doing?" Lillian exclaimed. "If she's dying, we have to go!"
"And how do you propose to get by them?" he said, gesturing to the police with one hand as he pulled something sharp and silver off his belt with the other. It was a long, luminous cylinder, as thick around as an index finger and tapering to a point. "My stele," he told her as he took it to the white skin of the inside of Clary's arm. He drew a black inked symbol like the ones covering his bare arms, a set of overlapping circles, before she could utter a word.
"What–!" she began sharply.
"I'm not hurting her," he said. "I'm trying to help." Lillian stopped, watching suspiciously. Clary didn't show any sign of waking up. His words played on her mind: She'll be dead in an hour…
"Jace, you'd better not–"
"Come here," he ordered when he was done.
She hesitantly knelt on the other side of Clary and he reached for her, taking her arm and turned it over. She felt the stinging kiss as he touched the stylus-like object to her skin just below the fold of her wrist, inking her with the same rune before she could jerk away.
"What–?"
"That'll hide you," he said. "Temporarily." He studied her face for a moment, and she returned his gaze steadily before starting to her feet and saying, "Let's go." The sight of Clary's pale, motionless form lying limply on the grass was making her anxious. Not to mention the fact that she still had no clue where their mother had gone.
Jace scooped up Clary again, creeping down the side of the building, over to the corner. Lillian followed closely, peering over Jace's shoulder. She was near enough to feel his warmth, watching as the officers came up the path. He smelled of dirt, blood, and metal. Lillian caught a glimpse of skeletal hands sharpened to bone points at the fingertips, her stomach tightening. She turned all her attention to getting her little sister out of this alive.
"Follow me," Jace breathed over his shoulder at her. She spotted the break in the swarm of demon police, bursting into motion behind Jace. They slipped by unnoticed, to Lillian's relief. "C'mon," Jace said as they made their way down the street. Clary coughed weakly and he cursed, picking up his already brisk pace.
"Where are we going?" Lillian asked when they were far enough away from the apartment that the sirens were fading echoes. Jace led her through the shadowy labyrinth of New York City streets, moving deeper and deeper into the heart of the city. It wasn't long before Lillian was hopelessly lost. If Jace decided he didn't want to help them, she'd have a hell of a time finding her way back. Not that she even really wanted to go back, with her home swarming with creatures that shouldn't exist.
"The Institute," he replied. "It's where Shadowhunters get trained. It's where I live."
"Where you live," she repeated dumbly. The idea of Jace in any type of home setting didn't really work in her head.
"Hodge will be able to help your sister," he said, "but don't expect a warm welcome."
"What do you mean?" she said, narrowing her eyes at him.
"I told you there hasn't been a mundane past these doors in over a hundred years," he answered. "And the laws have only gotten tighter." That was when Lillian looked up and realized they were standing in front of a massive cathedral. It seemed to have sprung up out of empty space. Lillian blinked and craned her neck back to look up at the spires reaching into the night sky.
"This is the Institute?" He was looking at her curiously, with a tinge of satisfaction. She nearly rolled her eyes, smiling faintly for the first time that night. "Yes, I can see it," she said. Jace smirked faintly back before he turned his gaze to the thick oak doors bolted shut in front of him. He leaned against them with the skin of his bare arm against the wood, muttering a few words and pushing as they swung open silently. The interior was full of shadows, swallowing him up as he walked in. But he was still carrying Clary, and Lillian hesitated only a moment before stepping inside.