Jace staggered into the Institute at dawn, utterly exhausted. His wings felt like they were going to fall off because they were so sore. The trip back from Clary's had been a struggle. He hadn't let Clary see how difficult it was for him to get off the ground, but he had almost crash-landed at least three times since then.
He pushed open the door, his only intention to collapse upon his bed and sleep for a month. He froze in the entryway when he heard a voice behind him, though.
"I knew you were reckless, but I never expected you to be stupid."
Jace whirled around, tired muscles groaning in protest, to see Jonathan step out from behind the door. His arms were crossed over his chest and his wings were held tight to his back.
"What do you mean?" Jace asked, rubbing a hand over his face. He could tell the other man- no angel- was looking for a fight, and any other day he would have gladly given Jonathan a scuffle, physical or verbal. But right now he was just too drained to summon the effort needed.
"You're weak. Flying is difficult, and you've been lying in bed for sometime now. You should have started off small, concentrated on getting your strength back, rather than jumping off of a roof."
Jace frowned. He could have sworn he had locked the door to the roof behind him, so how had Jonathan seen him? His brain was too fatigued to ponder the problem for long, so he simply waved a hand in the angel's general direction with a muttered "That's nice," before he dragged himself up the stairs to his room.
He flopped face-first onto his bed and quickly slipped off into the arms of Morpheus.
-‹◊›-
It was a week before Jace's wings stopped hurting enough for him to even begin to think about flying again. He had spent most of that week avoiding Jonathan. For some reason, the angel seemed to think that Jace wanted to talk about, well, everything. It had gotten old fast.
As a consequence, Jace had spent the week at Clary's. Training hadn't been their main focus, although she had tried to teach him how to paint. They had both decided it was better if he never went near paint again once they had finished cleaning the living room.
It had been fun, the week at Clary's. She had taken the opportunity to introduce him to some of her favorite books and TV shows. However, by the end of the week, Jace had been feeling fidgety. He wanted to be doing something, preferably demon killing. Clary had confiscated all of his weapons the minute he walked through her door, so even throwing knives at drawings of demons was out. It had been one of her rules: Get rid of the weapons or get out. When given a choice between spending a week with Clary sans weapons or with Jonathan discussing who-knows-or-cares what, his decision had been easy.
They had spent some of the time working on Clary's hand-to-hand skills, which were woefully inadequate. Jace could now say with confidence that she could now successfully overpower the majority of mundanes with in a matter of minutes if she wanted to. She might be able to hold a demon off long enough for backup to arrive with the skills she had now. Of course, if she had a stele she could utterly decimate anyone who tried to tangle with her, but Jace wanted her to be able to defend herself in case her writing implements were taken from her.
All in all, Jace was content with how he spent his week, even though he itching to go kill some demons. So, he headed back towards the Institute, idly flipping one of his favorite knives with a glamour rune in place, to round up Alec or Isabelle for some hunting.
He stopped dead in his tracks when a sudden, intense feeling of wrongness hit him.
Demon.
He wasn't sure how he knew, but he figured it must be some sort of instinctual knowledge he gained with the wings. He had just known how to fly the same way he knew that the thing that was causing this sense of rotten opposition was a demon.
Jace mentally weighed his options. He could take off after the demon now, with only nine knives and a stele on him, or he could continue on to the Institute, get more weapons to supplement his meager supply, bring Alec and Isabelle along with as back up, and potentially lose the demon. His decision was made in a heartbeat.
He turned and began loping in the direction of the wrongness.
-‹◊›-
The bad feeling led Jace to an abandoned warehouse on the other side of the city. Seriously, Jace wondered, what was it with demons and abandoned warehouses? More than half of the ones Jace has killed in New York lived in them. The others tended to frequent clubs and bars.
He pushed open the door and immediately gagged at the potent stench of rotten meat. Underneath that smell was the iron tang of spilled blood.
It was liberally splashed around the walls, most of it red, but some of the blood was clearly demonic because of its green hue. It hadn't yet dried, so Jace would have thought it was paint if not for the stench.
There was a complex summoning circle occupying the center to the warehouse. Jace couldn't identify most of the symbols, but then he hadn't made it a priority to study the runes necessary for summoning a demon.
There was another, smaller circle off to the side. This circle was occupied by an insect-like demon. The size of a small dog, it had four large mandibles and a three-forked scorpion tail. It hissed at him and scuttled to the far side of the circle, cowering away from him.
"Ssssave me from the nassssty angel father. Ssssave me pleasssse." it hissed pathetically.
Jace approached the trapped demon, knife in hand. This seemed to anger it.
"Cowardly angel, my father will rip you to piecessss. He will drink your blood and feasssst on your marrow. Your puny archarngelssss are powerlessss before him."
Jace simply snorted and threw his knife, impaling it through the head. It twitched before melting into gelatinous goop. The bad feeling disappeared.
He glanced around the walls before turning and heading back towards the Institute.
Jace was a little worried about this "father" the demon had spoken of. He had never heard of a demon being a father, except when it came to warlocks, and he had never known them to have a strong sense of family before. Siblings would eat each other just as often as they would work together. The only demon Jace knew of that was at all fond of its brethren was Lilith, who claimed to be their Mother. Maybe this father was actually their Father in the way that she was their Mother. It was worrying to think about.
A/N: Anybody else see the season 9 premiere of Supernatural? 0.o It was CRAZY! If you did, please feel free to share your thoughts on it. If you didn't, why are you reading this? Go watch Supernatural!
