Disclaimer: I really don't own these characters or the plot that they are a part of. I'm just chaperoning them while they have a play date, and am trying to make sure that Jace and Will play nice.
Clary was not generally a fast runner. She was what some people may even consider 'accident prone'. Simon had jokingly claimed that she was just more highly devoted to testing weather gravity was still working than most people were. Running up a hill in a dress and high healed shoes is never easy for anyone but people like Isabelle. For Clary, running up a hill in a Victorian dress with high heels was nearly synonymous with the word, 'impossible.' That was why Clary had thought that wearing her own sneakers was worth the risk. She had come to learn that no matter how safe someone said a trip involving Shadowhunters was, someone would probably end up running for their lives. That someone was generally Clary.
She seamed to be having a slightly easier time of it than Tessa was though. Clary was at least used to running for her life. Tessa had only had the pleasure a few times. Clary whipped around to look back down the hill when she heard Tessa scream. She saw a tall, spindly automaton with hands that bore a stunning resemblance to weed whackers.
Tessa rolled to the side and picked up a large stick.
Clary swore with a few choice words that she would have probably been grounded for if Jocelyn had been around to hear them, before she began to hurriedly move back down the hill. People always assumed that running down a hill was easier than running back up it. Clary had decided that those people were wrong, or at the very least not considering all of the angles. Running down a hill is easier than going up it if and only if you have no quams about the possibility of breaking your neck. If you had to run down a hill and keep all of your limbs in the shapes they originally formed in, then going down the hill in question becomes considerably harder.
Clary tripped a bit, and nearly turned her ankle several times but managed to get down to where Tessa was before too much time elapsed. She reached down towards her waiste for the seraph blade she normally kept in her belt loop. She remembered that she was wearing a dress, and so had no belt loops a split second before her fingers were met with empty air.
Clary let out another swear before reaching up quickly to the top of her dress for her spare knife. She figured, if regular people did it with phones, then why couldn't she apply the practice to deadly weapons. Her fingernails clacked against, and pulled at the chain around her neck where the Morgenstern ring hung. In her haste, Clary accidentally pulled the chain free of her dress. Clary held the still closed seraph blade in her hand. "Raphael," Clary said. Her voice trembled a little. No matter how many times she went head to head with a demonic creature, the initial jolt of fear never went away completely.
The blade sprang to life with a sputtering light just as the creature shattered the stick Tessa had been using to defend herself. Clary heard a metallic whirring sound. It was like the buzzing of a small, metallic, wasp. A small, bronze, shape seemed to fly from near Tessa's collarbone and out towards the automaton. The creature jerked back, one of it's fingers was leaking a sinister looking fluid.
The sight made Clary shudder. It brought up memories of the night her brother had brought down the demon wards of Alicante. His blood had been black too.
Suddenly a hole appeared in the creatures chest.
The automaton shuddered and keeled sideways onto the ground.
Jace, Jem, and Will were revealed in the gap. Will was holding a long, glinting sword. Jem was clutching a witchlight stone. Jace was empty handed since he had used his weapon to impale the automaton.
Will swung the sword and cut the automaton almost completely in half to reveal a disgusting, bioligical looking mess.
Clary skipped away from the spilling wires, feeling more grossed-out than anything else. She had never liked dissections in biology class. She had only barely gotten through the class with Simon volunteering to deal with the more gooey parts of the proceedings.
Jace had his eyes fixed on the creature. He seemed to be using the same sort f tunnel vision that Jace developed when he was really, really, pissed off. "Tell us," he gritted out. "What are you doing here? Why are you following us?"
"Who gives," Jace said. "I want to know where in the hell Billy Boy got the sword from."
Both Will and the automaton ignored him. The creature's razor-lined mouth opened and it spoke with a buzzing, grinding noise that hurt Clary's ears. "I am a warning from the Magister."
"A warning to who?" Will demanded. "To the family in the manor? Tell me!"
Jem stepped forward and placed a hand on Will's shoulder. "It doesn't feel pain Will," he said in a low, calm voice. "It has a message. Let it deliver it."
"A warning to you Will Herondale... and to all Nephilim," The automaton's voice jerked to a halt before grinding back up again. "The Magister says...you must cease your investigation. The past...is the past. Leave Mortmain buried, or your family will pay the price. Do not dare approach or warn them. If you do, they will be destroyed."
Will snarled like an animal with rabies, and slashed out with a sword. He hacked at the demon until it resembled so many shredded metal bits.
"I think it's dead now," Jace commented mildly.
Jem stepped forward and yanked his friend bodily backwards to bring him to a stop. "Will enough," he said firmly. He glanced up into the distance and Clary shuddered. She saw that there were several more automatons like the one Will had just shredded lurking there. "We must go," Jem said. "If we want to draw them off away from your family then we have to leave."
Will hesitated
Jace rolled his eyes. "Oh by the Angel," he muttered. He pitched his vocal level a little higher to actually add it to the conversation. "Look, I'm all for breaking the law, but making contact with your family is a pretty major 'do not do.' If something goes wrong then the Clave won't help, and frankly," jace cast his golden eyes lazily over the small group. "We're not prepped for a battle from a tacticle stand point." He fixed his eyes on Will. "You know how to play chess, think about how this play could end. I give us about a 40% chance of us all getting out of that kind of battle okay."
The group hid the destroyed remains of the automaton, and trudged back towards the carriage. Clary shivered in the now damp air. "It's going to rain soon," she commented.
Jace looked up at the sky and squinted as a few small raindrops fell down onto his face. "Soon seems to be getting sooner now a days," he mused.
They all climbed back into the carriage, and Jem pulled the door closed as they began to put York behind them.
Jem tried to make some small conversation about the weather but it didn't go anywhere.
Clary looked over at Will. He looked...empty. His eyes were the same color as the bottom of the ocean. "Cecily," Clary said in a kind voice. "You said she was your sister. She does look like Isabelle." Will remained silent.
Tessa shivered visibly and Jem, who was sitting next to her pulled an old blanket from off the floor and spread it over them both.
Clary simply shifted closer into Jace who shifted his arm so that it lay over the back of her shoulders. He had been incredibly warm ever since the heavenly fire had entered his veins. Jace radiated heat almost like a furnace.
"Are you cold Will?" Tessa asked.
Will just shook his head and continued to stare out of the window at the passing blur of countryside.
Tessa looked at Jace, Jem, and Clary with something close to desperation.
Jace merely shrugged and tipped his head down so that his cheek was lying on top of Clary's damp curls. Clary could tell from his breathing that he was quickly beginning a journey to a mini nap. Clary gave Tessa a sympathetic expression. She still sometimes had trouble getting Jace to tell her everything that he was thinking. She figured that her chances of getting Will to open up were at a grand total of zip.
It was Jem who spoke. "Will," he started cautiously. "I thought... I thought that your sister was dead."
Will pulled his gaze from the window. He made it look like a physical trial. When he smiled, he looked more like the surrealist painting Scream than someone who was actually at all happy. "My sister is dead," he said.
"She looked pretty functional to me," Jace murmured so only Clary could hear him.
Despite her best efforts, Clary felt her mouth twitch into the ghost of a smile.
There was no more time for any kind of conversation as they boarded the train. Thankfully Jace woke up by himself before Clary had to. She always felt guilty when Jace was sleeping and she had to wake him up. When it came to Jace, cat napping was practically a sacred event.
His wakefulness didn't really last long. As soon as the train had pulled out of that station, Jace had fallen back asleep.
Clary was tired herself, so she got comfortable in the train seat. She half listened to the conversations going on and half dozed. Apparently Will didn't want Tessa to pry about his sister, and still wasn't talking for the most part. Everything was still worrying about Will's family, Tessa was worried about what Jessamine would think of that state of her hands, and she would guess from Jem's manor that he harbored feelings that were a little warmer than friendly towards Tessa.
Clary supposed that that could be something to worry about, but she was getting to sleepy to care. She only caught a few more key things, like the fact that Tessa had managed to procure something of Starkweather's that she could use to change into him. Frankly Clary found that a little bit creepy, and Clary's perception of what was creepy was fairly jaded by that point.
She jolted back to being almost fully awake by the harsh sound of Jem's coughing. She looked at him carefully. Earlier when Jem had been coughing up blood she had given him a few runes. One was one she had made up to sooth lung function when Luke had had pneumonia. The other rune was just an energy rune she had modified to be stronger than it would be normally, like an instant recharge. She hadn't even asked why he was caoughing up blood. If it became a habit then she would have to start asking some questions.
"Just some dust caught in my throat," Jem assured the room.
Everyone relaxed, and Clary let herself actually fall asleep. She woke up to Jace shaking her shoulder when the train pulled in at Kings Cross.
Before the train had even stopped moving Will was out of his seat and out the door. Clary thought if he hadn't been a Shadowhunter he would have gotten himself hurt. Some Shadowhunters would have even been hurt by that jump. Clary mused that it might just be a part of the Herondale DNA strands. A whole lot of dumb luck.
Jace looked around the room quickly. "I'm going after him," he announced. And almost more quickly than the others could even see he was out of the train and a part of the crowd on the platform, melding seamlessly with the other people.
Jem moved to follow but he didn't really have a prayer. Clary studied expressions and body language quiet often as an artist, and Jem's said that he knew both boys were to quick with too much of a head start for him to follow after them. With a deliberate movement he slid the door shut and sank into the seat next to Clary and across from Tessa.
"But Will and Jace-" Tessa began to protest.
"They'll be alright," Clary assured her. "If there is one extra thing that Jace has a special talent for it is handling nasty situations."
Jem nodded. "I think that Will most probably wants to be alone. I doubt he will even take kindly to Mr-" he broke off again as he still didn't know Jace's last name. That only left his first name, and that felt a little bit to familiar to use simply because a last name was unknown. "I doubt he will take kindly to Jace following him," he finished. Clary saw that he was a little more worried then he was really letting on, but was trying to be calm for Tessa. "They will both be alright," he said with forced conviction.
Clary turned to look back out at the crowd. She knew Jace and Will were capable. Now she could only hope that Jem was right.
A/N: What did you think? I am sorry about the delay and the length, but I've had a math exam I had to study for as well as end of year testing. Besides, my computer deleated this like three times so I had to retype it repeatedly. I hope you like the chapter. Review for me! I'll get the next one out sooner I promise! :) :) :)
