Here is another chapter. I hope you'll like it :)
The gaze Clary gives us when her phone goes down is full of despair, panic and helplessness.
It catches me slightly off guard, making me feel uncomfortable. From what I've heard of her conversation, her mother is in some kind of danger. If Clary was an ordinary mundane, I'd hardly be worried. What kind of danger could an ordinary woman be in? But, Clary can see us without knowing who we really are. She's not as ordinary as she seems. And that means her mother probably faces something much worse than a broken limb.
It's obvious that Clary needs comfort. She needs someone to tell her that everything will be alright. And there is no-one here but us. Jamie won't do it, that's sure as the sunset. I could do it, but why? I don't know her and she doesn't know me.
Clary's eyes, green like emeralds, wander from me to Jamie and back for few moments, before they stop on me.
"Give me your phone." suddenly, she moves forward to take the Sensor out of my hand.
I surprise myself by letting her do it. But, she won't have any use of it. At least not the use she wants.
She realizes that quite soon. She puts my Sensor in her pocket and then starts to run. I have a strange feeling I'll never see that gadget in one piece again.
"Hey, where do you think ... "
"Let her go." I grab Jamie's forearm before she can run after Clary and knock her down. "We'll catch her."
"Why should I chase her the entire day when I could be done with it in just a few seconds?" she snorts, but her muscles relax. I remove my hand from her forearm when I'm sure she won't start running.
"We'll give her a head-start." I grin. "Otherwise, it'd be no fun."
"Chasing after a mundane." Jamie's voice is full of sarcasm. "Where exactly is the fun in that?"
"In knowledge that we could even have a drink now and still catch her." I put my hands in my pockets and start walking in the direction Clary has gone. "But, I'm not in the mood for a drink. So we're going to her place at once."
Jamie catches up with me in a moment.
"You know where she lives?" she checks.
"Of course." I fake shock on my face. "You know I always do my tasks properly."
"Yeah, right." she smirks. "If they have anything to do with any girl."
"Is that jealousy I hear in your voice, Jamie?" I'm not quite sure what I want to hear. Even if she says it is, it will be a joke. And I don't want it to be a joke. I've been in love with her for little less than a year and still haven't found the perfect moment, or better said, courage, to admit it to her.
"Of course." she puts her hands on her chest over her heart and sighs dramatically. "I'm a broken-hearted little girl who just desperately wants to be with you."
"I knew it." I keep playing the game, despite the hurt I feel inside. This is the only secret I've managed to hide from her. Now it's not a good time to reveal it. We have to find Clary first. She is the most important now. "You can't live without me, can you?"
"I'm dying just at the thought." she rolls her eyes, showing that she's had enough of this game. She wants to play another one, called 'catch the mundane'. The game is very simple, but she still wants to win it. She just wants to find Clary and be done with it. At this particular moment, it feels like I'm looking at Alec in female form.
"We'll discuss your hopeless love for me later." I pat her shoulder theatrically, but I still worry that she'll feel how fast my heartbeat is. "Let's find the mundane first."
Clary's house is just one in the line of the little houses made of brick in the block. Surrounded by small garden full of pretty rose-bushes, half-covered with ivy, it looks like one of those commercials for perfect life. I can imagine some lawyer coming out of a fancy black car, going into the house to greet his wife and two children, a boy and a girl, of course. The wife has just made delicious dinner and the kids have done their homework and can't wait to tell their father all about good marks they got today at school.
But, in the reality, there is no perfect family on the door of this house. There is only Jamie by my side as we enter it. Though, I wouldn't change her, not even for Jonathan Shadowhunter himself. I doubt he has as good sense of humour as she does.
There is one door in the corridor to our left and stairs in front of us. I head for the door, but then I hear noise coming from upstairs. I glance at Jamie, wanting to warn her not to rush, but there's no use. She's already skipping two stairs at the time, like bringing Clary to the Institute has been all her idea and she hasn't complained about it at all. For a moment, I wonder where that sudden concern for Clary's well-being has come from, but another sound from upstairs that sounds like broken glass falling on the floor makes me forget all about it. I follow Jamie at once, biting my lip, worrying that we've arrived too late.
Jamie stops at the door of the apartment on upper floor. It is wide open, but there are no sounds coming from it now. Still, she glances inside for a moment and then turns around to look at me. I raise my eyebrows and she nods, taking her sai out of her gear. I do the same with my blades and then we enter the apartment.
Jamie's back are leaned against the left wall, mine against the right. We move soundlessly deeper into the apartment. The furniture is broken, floors are covered with dust, but we see no source of that destruction. No-one in the corridor. No-one in the common room. No-one in the kitchen. No-one in the dinning ...
Clary lies on her back with her eyes closed, a Ravener demon on top of her. I open my mouth to yell something in order to distract it, but then I notice something strange. Demon's outlines are becoming more blurred with every second. It's dying, vanishing here to take its form in its own dimension again. The last thing I notice before it dissolves completely is my Sensor in its mouth. Like I've thought, I'll never see that thing again.
"I can't believe it." Jamie whispers next to me. "She killed it."
"There is obviously more in her than it seems at first sight." I kneel down next to the unconscious girl, put my blades into my gear and then put my arms under her knees and back.
In a second, I'm on my feet again, but this time I hold Clary in my arms. Her weight is hardly something I can't cope with, so I raise my eyebrows when I see Jamie still standing in front of me, her eyes on Clary's face. I want to ask her why we are still hanging around, but she speaks before me.
"Beginner's luck." she frowns at Clary, although the other girl can't hear her, so the insult doesn't really make sense. Jamie has never been the one to talk behind others' back. People know exactly what she thinks of them. If she likes them, she tells them so. If she scorns them, she tells them so.
"If we don't move soon, she won't survive long enough to hear this evaluation." I suddenly feel mad at Jamie. This is an extraordinary achievement for a mundane. Or at least for someone who has spent her entire life living as one. Maybe it was beginner's luck, maybe it wasn't, but Jamie can't deny Clary has saved herself.
Jamie's eyes are cold when she looks at me, but she says nothing. She heads for the door and searches the corridor for any possible threat before we start to descent down the stairs. We pass the door in the ground-floor, but Jamie stops at the exit of the house.
"Crap." she spits. "Cops."
"They can't see us." I protest, but she shushes me with a wave of her hand.
"Only the mundanes can't." she hisses. "And some things there aren't mundanes."
"We can't stay here." I mumble as she looks outside again. "Even mundanes could notice an unconscious girl levitating."
I put Clary down on the floor and start to look for any injury. I doubt she lost consciousness because of pure fear, somehow she seems too tough for that. After few moments, I find the answer. A big bruise on the back of her neck has unhealthy dark purple colour and the skin around it is pale as if it had no blood streaming under it.
"Jamie." I point at the wound.
"Her shirt." she grabs Clary's arm and tears the piece of Clary's sleeve off. As she tears the piece into first strip, Clary suddenly gasps and opens her eyes.
"Don't move." I say as I try to bandage the wound with the strip Jamie has handed me.
I have no idea why I've bothered. I knew she wouldn't listen anyway.
"I told you not to move." I frown at her after she's tried to lift her head and flinched in pain. Her head is back on the floor at once. "It's not much of a sting, since it was half-dead, but we have to get you to the Institute. Hold still."
"That thing ... " Clary's whole body is trembling, just like her voice. "It talked."
"The demon in the club talked too." Jamie interferes sarcastically while handing me another strip. "I wonder why you didn't believe that one was demon too. Maybe you thought it was handsome."
"Jamie, this is not a good time." I glance at her and she rolls her eyes, saying 'You're ruining all the fun.' without words.
"After." I shape the word with my lips, careful that Clary doesn't hear it.
"The demon in Pandemonium." Clary tries to look at Jamie, but I put my hand or her forehead to keep her still. "It looked like a person."
"Phasmids look like branches." Jamie adds me the last strip, not bothering to even look Clary in the eyes. "Does that make them plants?"
Clary falls silent for few moments. I catch Jamie's gaze, rebuking her silently for being so rude toward half-conscious person whose mother has obviously disappeared. But, Jamie just rolls her eyes again, not caring for Clary's feelings. I can't deny that she's right, but a little compassion for Clary wouldn't hurt at the moment. She can tease her all she wants when we're safe in the Institute, I won't mind. I'll probably join her. But, she has to restrain herself now.
"It said it was going to eat me." Clary interrupts the silence again.
I look at Jamie, worrying she'll come up with some sarcastic answer again. To my surprise, her mouth is closed. She lays her eyes on Clary for a moment and then rolls her eyes at me again.
If you don't stop doing that, your eyes will fall out. I smirk at her and she does it once again, just to annoy me.
Comfort your little friend. I can't miss the sarcasm in her features. I'm getting tired of her. Tell her whatever you want, just make her shut up. If you don't, I will and my way won't be nearly as pleasant as yours.
"But, it didn't." I finish the knot on the back of Clary's neck. "You killed it."
Clary raises her head slowly and manages to sit. She avoids looking at Jamie, so her green eyes focus on me.
"My Mum is missing." she says to me, like I should jump on the horse like a true Prince Charming and hurry to her mother's rescue. "We should call the police and ... "
"The police is already out there." I interrupt her. "Someone must have heard screams coming from your apartment and reported it."
"So, why don't we ..."
"Because some of them aren't real cops." I try to think of a plan to get out of here unnoticed by the mundanes at least, but nothing crosses my mind. "Demons have their ways of covering their tracks. So, some of them take forms of cops."
"If she weren't a bloody mundane, we'd have some chance." Jamie snorts, her words sounding like Clary isn't even there. "How can we get out of here unnoticed if twenty mundanes can see her? It'd be easier to smuggle blood under vampire's noses."
Mundane. See. Blood. Jamie's words flow through my mind, forming an idea. It's risky. If I'm wrong, Clary is lost. There won't be a way back for her. We'll have to kill her. But, there is no other choice. If we want to make our way through the cops, we have to be invisible at least to the most. And there is only one way to achieve that.
I take my stele out of my belt and grab Clary's hand before either of the girls can protest. In a couple of seconds, the rune is over. Clary stares at it, half-shocked, half-amazed. Jamie stares at me just shocked.
"What's that supposed to do?" Clary asks me and I separate my eyes from Jamie's.
"It'll hide you." I answer, looking at her. "Temporarily."
Her eyes then look at the stele in my hand. I put it back where it belongs and then look at her again.
"My stele." I say simply.
She doesn't ask what it is. Her eyes are closing again. But, it's not what I've been afraid of. She's not turning into a Forsaken. I've been right, she has Shadowhunters' blood in her veins. Now we have to make sure she lives long enough to discover whom she got it from.
I catch her before her head can fall down on the floor again and take her in my hands. Jamie doesn't even offer to help me. She still looks at me as if I went mad.
"Are you out of your mind?!" she hisses at me. "Putting a rune on a mundane?"
"I've just proven she's not a mundane." I stand up straight, swinging my head to show her to move. "Now that we're all hidden, we should get going."
I see Jamie is on brink of starting a fight with me over the recklessness of my action, but in the end she decides there's no use now. What's done is done. Clary isn't a Forsaken and we can avoid mundane cops. Everyone wins. Besides, she knows I'll hear everything from Hodge and Alec. No matter how mad at me she is, she won't be the one to rebuke me. She's always been on my side, like I've been on hers. That will never change, especially not because of the delicate girl I carry in my arms.
I've never believed in that Romeo-Juliet thing about love on first sight, so I don't believe Jace has fallen for Clary in a second. ( I know he says differently in CoG, but I still don't believe it. ) He'll fall for Clary eventually in this story, but in time. For the time being, he's still closer to Jamie, but very small signs of Clary coming between them were visible in this chapter. So, this was the first act of the drama :) Thank you all for the support and I apologize for any grammatical mistake. O, and happy Easter to all who celebrate :)
