Chapter 11

Jace's POV

I had only been to New York City a few times, but every time, I enjoyed admiring the girls with daddy issues. I watched an attractive blonde, who wore stilettos and a low-cut, form fitting dress, walk past, paying special attention to her, ahem, assets. Her perfect, round ass swayed back and forth as she passed. I followed her movements up until the point where I would've had to turn around to continue watching.

"Can you please stop ogling all the girls on the street, Jace? We have actual work to do." Alec gave me an extremely disapproving look before rolling his eyes. I smirked back at him.

"I'm just looking, Alec. It's not slowing down our pace." Isabelle snorted at me as I tried to defend my behavior. No one else said a word, though. I was surprised Clary had no snarky remarks to add. "Hey, Clary, it's not like you to not get the first word in on these types of subjects, especially when it comes to me," I said. Clary, though, said nothing in return, so I looked behind me to see what was wrong.

But she wasn't there. Neither was Simon.

I stopped walking and turned to where they should have been. "Son of a bitch."

"What?" Isabelle followed my movements and turned around. "Where are they?"

"I don't know, but when I find them, rat boy is in for it." I headed back the way we came with walking faster than previously.

"Why Simon?" Isabelle had to run a bit to keep up with me. Alec was close on our tails.

"Because this is no doubt his fault. If Cl-" I began, but I dropped off as I thought about Clary getting hurt. I felt my stomach drop at the thought of harm coming to her, but it was unsettling. I still didn't understand why I cared so much.

I focused on trying to figure out where Clary and Simon had gone by backtracking. We passed several small, run-down restaurants and fast food establishments and even a few clothing stores. I slowed down as we passed for just a moment to inspect the interior of each, looking for Clary's red hair. I didn't even bother to slow down or look when we came upon a sex toy shop. No way would Clary go in there. Simon might. I didn't really know rat boy that well, but I knew Clary wouldn't have followed him in there. I was fairly certain that wherever they'd gone, they'd gone together. A couple more minutes had passed. How long ago did we lose them? I stopped and circled around again. Maybe they'd gone down an alley, but I couldn't see any except across the street. There were too many cars for them to have crossed the street without a crosswalk, so that was out. They had to be in a building. There was no other option. Izzy and Alec were busy scanning the street while I had focused on looking through windows.

I continued on with my search, Alec and Izzy close on my heels. "Maybe I should call Magnus and ask him to track Clary? You saw how much she meant to him. He'd probably help for no charge." Alec spoke up, trying to think of a solution. I turned to face him and saw that Izzy was giving Alec a knowing look. Alec, in turn, appeared embarrassed, and he shrugged.

I sighed and ran a hand through my hair. "Let's look for a few more minutes, and if we don't find either of them you can-" Suddenly a window crashed through right behind me. I swung around reaching for my seraph blade, realizing I still had Clary's sword. Fuck. She better be okay. A few people screamed in surprise but hurried along, not wanting to get involved. I looked down at the werewolf who had been thrown through the window. "What's going on?"

The werewolf whipped up to look at me while quickly pouncing to his feet. "Thank God. They sent for backup."

"What are you talking about?" Izzy stepped forward. I noticed her whip had found its way into her hand.

Before he even replied, I knew Clary and Simon were here because I realized he had said 'they sent for backup.' We were Shadowhunters, so only other Shadowhunters could be here. As far as I knew, we were the only ones in the vicinity. I mentally said every expletive I knew.

The werewolf pointed inside, saying, "Demons just showed up and started to attack us."

Isabelle began to ask some more questions, but I cut her off. "We can figure out all that later. Right now, we need to deal with this." I jumped through the open window and took note on what was going on.

There were about 7 Raum demons attacking various Downworlders while they managed to keep them at bay. They weren't however having much success in killing the demons, just preventing the demons from killing them. My eyes moved across the room, and I found Clary's small form at the same moment a Raum demon abandoned its previous faerie opponent and leapt at Clary's back. She slammed into a table in front of her from the momentum, and she tried to reach behind her to pull the Raum forward; however, the Raum quickly flung its tentacles forward, pinning her arms to the table I heard her scream as the poisonous teeth of the tentacles pierced her arms, and she thrust her body back, trying to dislodge the demon.

I immediately began to rush towards her, whispering Dumah to awaken my blade. I hacked through the crowd, throwing a quick stab at the demons I passed in a hope to help the werewolves, warlocks and faeries get the upper hand in their battle. I'd help more later, but first, I had to get to Clary. I heard her scream again as another of the Raum's tentacles wrapped around her waist. Where the hell was Simon? He's her parabatai. He should be here to help, but there was no sign of him. I focused back on making my way to Clary. The Raum demon seemed to be trying to pull her arms away from her as if to rip them off. It was then I noticed most of her gear was pretty torn up. Whatever had happened before this moment had been pretty bad, yet she had still managed to stay fighting without her sword. I was momentarily impressed. Finally, I reached her and slammed my blade into its back, slashing down. The demon screamed but let go and stumbled back before disappearing to its original realm.

I dropped my blade on the seat next to the table and reached to pull Clary up. She was still lying across the table, breathing hard. I couldn't tell if she was unconscious yet, but if not, she would be soon, thanks to the amount of poison that demon sent into her body. I lifted her body into my arms. She didn't resist and laid limply in my arms. Definitely unconscious, then. I needed to get her out of here before doing anything else, so I grabbed my blade again while still holding Clary close. I moved towards the open window. Alec stood just outside, shooting arrows in at the demons. Upon seeing me with Clary, he began covering me while I ran outside and gently placed her down behind Alec.

"Call Magnus." I ordered and turned around to help Izzy and the Downworlders finish off the Raum demons. I was now extremely pissed because of what the demon did to Clary, so I was taking no prisoners.