I have stumbled into the weird part of the mansion, Jason thought to himself as he climbed up yet another set of stairs that was located in yet another strange corner of the building. His parents had told him to search for his cousin Sebastian after their lunch together, which, due to their jet-lagged condition, started around 3 p.m. He had walked around the mansion for God knew how long, coming in and out random doors, walking to and fro in different – or probably the same – corridors, seeing unfamiliar faces along his way, which he should point out, also didn't have any idea which room was where aside from the big living room near the entrance. He wondered why nobody had ever bothered drawing a map of the mansion intended for visitors in case, you know, they got lost into oblivion.

Sebastian was nowhere to be seen. True, Jason hadn't seen him in a long time, but Sebastian was not a child anymore, so what if he decided not to wait for the other Verlacs? He was probably off doing something fun with the other shadowhunters, or he was probably drunk somewhere in a club, pretending to be twenty-one. He was not the type of guy who would enjoy being trapped in a maze of corridors and bolted rooms. Now Ben was off exploring the glass city, his parents were busy with the Clave meeting, and so the tracking burden fell on Jason. He rolled his eyes and was about to let out another exasperated sigh when a huge double door with gold knobs that dangled in the middle suddenly appeared in front of him on top of the stair landing.

The door was made of metal and was carved intricately with symbols of twin angels holding a cup and a sword. He stood on the platform for several minutes, looking up at the skyline above him that made the gold knobs glinting. Finally, he touched the cold knob and pushed it inward. His heartbeat quickened as if he was about to enter a secret room full of treasure. And his expectations were met.

It was, he should have known this the moment he saw the door, none other than the infamous library, wrapping around his vision as he entered, his hands frozen on the door knobs. It was bigger than what he had imagined - with rows upon rows of bookshelves that arched around the elongated room and were stacked neatly up to the ceiling, which was almost three-story high. There were curved stairs and little balconies in between the high shelves – he could imagine himself climbing those stairs, searching for ancient books. On the far side of the wall rose a high window overlooking the skyscrapers of Idris, along with the green hills on the edge of the city and the descending sunset hovering over them all, all of which were visible from where he stood. In the center of the room stood a gilded revolving table that was covered by translucent glass, with a large opened book in the center of it. Jason had heard that the first edition of the Shadowhunter Codex was kept somewhere in Alicante's library and he was sure that what he saw right now was the one. There were also two water fountains on both sides of the room; wooden desks and chairs marched neatly around the water fountains, making two small square structures. The size of the room was so overwhelming and the sound of the cascading waterfall filled his ears with a sense of peace to the point that he found himself frozen to his toe when the majestic window in front of him, whose surface brought twinkling shades of light to the library's floor and wall panel, suddenly shattered inward, followed by a screeching sound that numbed his hearing.

It took Jason several seconds to register what had happened. His first instinct had been to make sure that nothing had happened to the Shadowhunter Codex. He ran towards it, his mind still blunted by the confusion and daze, took off his coat and covered the glass table with it. For all he knew, the worst thing that could have happened in Idris was robbery. It was when he looked up again to assess the broken window, though, that he realized how scarlet the sky was, sprinkled here and there by black dusts.

Then something clicked in his mind. "Kroni demon," he whispered to himself in a low growl and shook his head silently. "The only demons who can make a high screeching noise. Of course." But how can demons enter the city?

He stalked across the room in a surprisingly calm manner, looking down the window, kicking the rest of the broken glass. The library was facing the other end of the mansion; a dark and narrow alley spread in front of him, with some dim lights that came from the small houses. He looked up one last time, realizing that some of the skyscrapers were devoured by fire, before he jumped to the ground, wobbling a little as he landed. He grinned to himself, not bad for a three-story jump. But any trace of smile immediately disappeared from his face as a faint echo of screams and shouts reached his ear.

"Aria," he said unconsciously, remembering that she was out in the city somewhere with Ben. He quickly picked up his face, meaning to circle the mansion to go to its front gate. Surely Ben would direct her back to the mansion. The air was dank and stank of ashes and garbage. His footsteps made a crunching sound as he stepped through the shattered glasses that were spread under him; some shop windows had been smashed, its content littered across the street, mixed with the glasses. The darkness had became more clustered as he walked eastward and before long, he realized that there was something moving underneath the shadows in the corner of the street, just before the intersection.

He thrusted his hand in his pocket and fished out his seraph blade out, "Camael," he whispered. The seraph blade glowed a halo of silvery blue, provoking the moving figure, who let out a low hiss and lunged toward him. The figure resembled a large cobra, but with alligator tail and a face consisted fully of a massive mouth, with its serrated teeth and a forked tongue. Apparently he was facing the Kroni demon which voice he had just heard a minute ago.

Jason's mind scrolled the demonology dictionary he had memorized since he was little: Kroni demon, lower-ranked demon, snakelike, had a tendency of hitting the first moving target it could feel with its super-sensitive skin with the force of its heavy body, its high frequency voice was both its main weapon and its weak spot. Jason grinned to himself. He stepped lightly sideways and stood on his tiptoe, letting the demons lunge toward an empty air as he went still – well, as still as he could.

The demons continued to hiss and slithered toward Jason,a painfully slow sound of crackling glasses followed its slow movement, its tongue reverberating, searching for its suddenly-disappearing opponent. Unfortunately, as usual, Jason's tactic was not quite neat, for he slowly put the ball of his right foot against the glass-littered ground and made a crunching sound. He looked down and groaned as the Kroni demon once again lunged toward him, only missing him by a few inches, and the force of its body hitting the ground knocked Jason out of his feet. He could feel something sharp scraping his legs, but he didn't have time to respond, the Kroni demon had already prepared for its next move. In the small window of the moment, Jason quickly rolled onto his back to the other side, knowing he didn't have enough time to stand, and the Kroni demon once again landed on an empty ground beside him, its force sending splashes of dust to Jason's face, making him coughed heavily.

Then it happened; out of frustration, the Kroni demon became still, so still it gave Jason enough time to stand and gain his footing. But out of the corner of his eyes, he saw that the edge of the demon's mouth was twitching, by the time he realized what it was doing, its mouth had already trembled violently. He quickly grabbed his seraph blade and thrusted it on the demon's protruding mouth, just after it made a split-second screeching sound that resembled the sound of glass scraping metal, multiplied by ten in volume. The blade went through its mouth, penetrating its jaw, silencing it, making its tail spasmed violently. There was no trace of blood or ichor, or even slobber as it folded and disappeared though; it just blew its last gust of stinking hot breath through the thin opening of its mouth, leaving the seraph blade clattered to the floor after a few seconds.

Being in a very close proximity to the Kroni demon's scream, even though it only lasted for a little while, Jason's hearing became numb. He knew it would get back to normal soon though, so he continued his pace, stumbling through the broken glass, coughing the excessive dirt that had entered his lungs out. By the time he arrivedat the intersection, the sound in his ear had became a very high-pitched stinging noise, seemingly in tune with the terror that had bloomed inside his chest as he saw what laid in front of him.

He was now standing in front of the wide street in front of the Penhallow mansion. And what he saw was not other than the definition of chaos itself. Demons were everywhere, dashing and writhing, separately and in groups, across the street. And bodies – lifeless bodies, were everywhere, littering the once glittering cobblestone street. Even the water under the canal was now tinged with a smear of reddish liquid. Through the stinging sound in his ears, he could hear a faint sound of explosion as the facade of one of the houses blasted, expanding out from its solid foundation. The air was thick with black smoke and flying dusts. With every seconds that passed, as he stared at the scene in front of him with astonishment, one or two shadowhunters' lives fluttered away.

When he snapped out of his reveries, a small boy with a pair of glinting golden eyes was gazing at him, his face an expression of innocence mixed with terror. He was clutching his teddy bear and was about to run toward him, for protection most likely, when an Oni demon thrusted its bladelike hands to the boy's back, plunging straight through center his heart.

Jason heard himself cry out before he ran to attack the demon, an adrenaline rush fueling his vein. With one swift crouching motion, he avoided the demon's jabbing hands and buried his blade straight to its stomach. Its yellow eyes bloated before it folded unto itself to ashes. Slowly, his hearing started to come back and the sound of the shrieks and screams around him prickled the back of his neck painfully. He realized that the people in the street were all either children or elderly. Of course, he realized with startled horror, the adults and the able-bodied are all gathered in the big Clave meeting.

There was a very deep desire inside him that made him wanted to turn around and help as many people as possible. The wall of sounds that was a mix of howling demons, human screams and the galloping sound of running foot, along with the occasional sniffling and wailing, had made his whole body trembled in rage, but he fought against it. Blood sang in his ears as he continued his pace past all the helpless people, crossing the Oldcastle bridge, which arched over the Princewater canal, toward the heart of the city. He needed to find Aria, needed to know she was safe, before he could try to do anything else.

The scenes all around him was impossible. Alicante was supposed to be the home for many shadowhunters from around the world. It was also where Jason's hometown when he was a child. He still remembered the shimmering towers, the serene snow that fluttered down on winter, the witchlights on every shops and houses that illuminated the street, and theglinting water rushing down the canal in a lazy motion. Part of his heart had always belonged to Idris, but seeing the city now, with blood spattering every houses and streets, made something snap inside him.

He didn't know how the ward could possibly have disappeared, but he didn't really care at this point. He just needed to find some peace in the midst of all this chaos; by knowing that the people he loved were still safe. Ben and his parents could surely take care of themselves, he thought, but not Aria. He could feel the tension building in his chest as he went pass yet another dead bodies, some of them had lost some parts their bodies.

Finally, after shoving past some running strangers and occasionally stabbing some attacking demons on his right or left, he entered the city center with quickening pulse. There were two things that caught his attention as he threw his gaze wildly past the throng of panicked shadowhunters. First, the monsters were much more savage here, with lizardlike bodies and, Jason observed with disgust, poison sacs. Some underage shadowhunters had managed to come here and fought off some demons, though there were no traces of the demons as they vanished to another realm upon their deaths.

Second, among the howls of mayhem and the slashing of glinting seraph blade, he saw a lithe figure, with brown hair curled messily behind her back. Aria;ever-lively and shining, though her face was stained with blackened dry blood. There was a long gash across her left arm, shredding the sleeve of her tight clothes and limping her fighting stance a little bit. Even from here, Jason could see that she was holding out the pain that shot out from her left hand, but she still managed to execute her moves quite effectively. Ben was behind her, he realized with a relief, Jason guessed from their positions that they had been back to back at first, separated little by little by the wave of demons that had come tiredlessly at them.

Then he heard it; a heavy, rhytmic pounding, like the sound of a coming earthquake, rippled from the feet of the valley through the city. Even some of the demons had stopped attacking and took the time to search for the source of the sound. This gave the shadowhunters some advantage over them, but it did not last long as horror immediately crossed their faces upon realizing what those thundering voices were. Jason was quick to know what it was; black shadows, streaming over through the gaps in between the buildings heading toward the city center - a pack of glinting fur and fierce bright eyes.

Werewolves.

Jason felt his heart fell from his chest. First demons, now downworlders?

Broken glass crunched like pebbles as he started toward Aria, every step felt heavy as he realized the imminent danger Aria was in. If there was one thing he knew about the Moon Children was that their bite was lethal. They were also good at fighting and killing both their prey and their enemies, sometimes even their own kind. Those facts made them hostile in the eyes of the panicked shadowhunters, who were now running away from the city centre, which definitely was a pretty useless move, but no other actions were available as alternatives.

In a wild panic, Jason screamed Aria's name over and over again. She apparently heard him and turned around to return his gaze. Her mouth formed his name but her voice was swallowed by the clamor that was splitting the night apart. She ran toward him, as were Ben and the other shadowhunters, even some lesser-ranked demons were also running, fleeing from the oncoming rush of wolves, knowing better than to stay and fight. The barking and baying sound of the wolves rose up to the night and deafened Jason's ear as they drew close. But he kept running against the current to reach for Aria first. She was already moving to his direction, limply but determinedly, when she widened her eyes all too suddenly. Jason watched with horror as Aria stumbled on a dead corpse and fell, her knees bent, her arms holding her weight against the ground.

"Aria!" He shouted as loud as he could, his voice scraped his throat painfully. She looked up to gaze at him and blinked, her mouth slightly parted as if she wanted to say something but was too tired to do so. Then it was like a wave crashing – a sudden blast of deafening noise, rose altogether like roaring battle cries, as the first wolf from the running pack, with its gaping jaw and glinting eyes, leaped forward, lunging its paws toward the stooped figure on the ground that was Aria.