Soli Deo gloria

DISCLAIMER: I do NOT own the magnificent Infernal Devices. Hey, guys, I got the Maze Runner today, which means: Read book. Read book series. Fall in love with series. EPIC FANFICTION TIME. :)

Magnus hadn't slept so well in a long time. The bed was made, the windows were closed, and the walls didn't have large holes in them with too many mice running about for Church to eat. So, it was understandable that when there was a loud knock on the door that woke him up, he was greatly annoyed.

"Who dares annoy me with their presence this early in the morning?" Magnus groaned, his eyes still closed, his body caught in a torrent of sheets. "If it's the maid, I can make my own fire."

"I've never been a maid. Never really fancied me," Will said, coming through into the room like he owned the place. He stood at the foot of the bed, his body covered in webs of black leather, his gear criss-crossing all over him, a belt at his waist and his feet covered in thick, long boots. His white skin was covered in black, bold runes, and his hair was ruffled, like he had not combed it when he had woken up, making Magnus open his eyes and keep them open as he said, rubbing a hand over his face, "What do you want, Shadowhunter?"

"I have decided to extend an invitation to you to come to the demon den with us," Will said, his voice too loud and calm and pleasant for this early in the morning.

"Pardon?" Magnus said, almost disgustedly. "I am not one to kill demons. That is your job, your responsibility. Your special gift that was bestowed to you hundreds of years ago, etcetera."

"It's grand to watch. I know how you like a show," Will said. "And you have to come and work the Portal. We're taking it to the workhouse, and Henry's not coming and you're the only one to get it to open on the other side."

"Not this early," and Magnus flopped onto his stomach and buried his head in the pillow he was snuggling against.

"What a disappointing houseguest. You barely participate in anything. No wonder Woolsey got tired of you," Will said, shrugging, and he was out the door by the time Magnus brought his head back up to snap an insult in the direction of the Shadowhunter, but when he was only met with a slowly closing door, he sighed and fell back into bed with a terrifically soft thud.

Will came along to the sitting room, where the rest of the party that was going was. There was Gideon and Gabriel, Great Uncle Wallace and First Cousin Alexander, the Inquisitor, Pangborn, a few Blackthorns, several Lightwoods, Ragnor Fell, Whitelaw, Ms. Highsmith, Aunt Callida, who deemed that Henry was fine with Charlotte, and Cecily, who was standing tall with her hands on her hips, which had clasps of weapons attached to her belt around them, and said upon walking up to Will as the other Shadowhunters milled about, preparing, "What did Magnus say?"

Will looked at her for a moment, trying not to show her that he was startled. He did not ask her how she knew that Magnus had come in last night (she had bags under her eyes. She had probably had been in the training room with Gabriel, making Will remember to remember to strangle him sometime after this) or he had been to see him, so he just said, "And why are you in gear? You aren't thinking of going with us, are you?" Typical Herondale fashion, answering a question with a question.

"Yes, I am," Cecily said, sounding, as Will, too cheerful for this early in the morning. "Sophie has decided not to go, seeing as she doesn't want her first big demon hunt to be this big with so many people and so near to her wedding, so I decided that there was a lack of Shadowhunters, female Shadowhunters in general—"

"There's six with us," Will said. "That's a lot, I thought."

"That six would include Tessa," Cecily said, nodding her fine head and pointing to Tessa, who was dressed in plain clothes but was just standing in the background and taking in the large number of Shadowhunters, her inquisitive eyes taking everyone in.

"And what about Tessa?" Will said lightly.

"And what about Tessa?" Cecily said indignantly, throwing an eye at Tessa, who in turn looked at Will with wondering eyes upon seeing the two talking about her.

Will shrugged, but looked thoughtful as he looked at Tessa. "Tessa can do whatever she likes."

"And I can't?" Cecily exclaimed.

Will turned back to Cecily with a firm look. "Tessa doesn't go on demon hunts. You know that. There's probably another female we're expecting — ah," and he pointed to the door, through which came, to his surprise but relief, Tatiana Blackthorn. Her hair, the color of orangish sand, was tied back, and her green eyes were soft yet stern as she looked around the room. She caught sight of her two brothers, who were applying runes on each other in turn, and went toward them, capturing their surprised looks in a second.

"There's a sixth," Will said triumphantly.

Cecily looked disgusted. "Tatiana Blackthorn? That coward? She insulted Charlotte and testified against her to Consul Wayland. She ran away while I was the one to take care of her worm of a father. How come she gets to go and I don't?"

"Ah ah ah, Cecily," Will said, clicking his tongue, "it wouldn't do for there to be a rift in the family. If I were you, I'd rather not complain about my boy's sister. It causes strain and unneeded but frequent glares across the dining room table, which causes many to lose their appetites."

Cecily flushed a dark, furious red, but Will turned away from her before she could add anymore to her case and said, not even having to yell to garner the gathered Shadowhunters' attention, "Well, I'd say everyone is here." His eyes landed on Tatiana, who had her arms folded over her chest and was standing between her two brothers, who towered over her and were throwing her the strangest looks. "Henry Branwell has a Portal in his crypt, a rune-magic door that can lead to anywhere in the world. I'll be leading, seeing as I know where we should go, and so we don't end up someplace like America."

"Excuse you, young man," a woman with a New York accent said, probably a Lightwood. Tessa smiled behind her hand as Will sighed and said, "It's not that I have anything against America, it's just that I'd rather not end up there and have to take a boat back here. Henry should be waiting for us in his crypt, and he'll set it up and we'll go to the workhouse. Our footman Cyril and several other Shadowhunters will come along with carriages to pick us up." That was the original plan, of course, if Magnus didn't want to, which would now be implemented. Will gave a dramatic bow and said, "Everyone to the ground floor."

Everyone started shifting over to the door leading to the hall, and Will felt someone come up to him; he turned to see Tessa, who said wonderingly, "And what did you mean by saying I can do whatever I like? Does this mean that I can come along?"

Will looked at her for a moment, taking her in. She had trained for weeks under the direction of Gideon and Gabriel, mastering how to throw a dagger and use a sword, but never a seraph blade. Never a seraph blade. Will was sure some part of her would burn if she touched a lighted one. It would be too much for him if she were to suddenly get accidentally cut by one of the seraph blades. But also, her Changing could be helpful. But Will knew better than to exploit her like that. She had once told him the feeling of Changing one rainy day in the library. The descriptions, the shivers and shudders she let off, had stirred him into a shivery alarm, and he had held her and now he knew that he couldn't make her do that.

"No. You can't come along, Tess," Will said. "Too much of a risk, with you being part demon, to be surrounded by demon killing weapons." When they — Tessa had defeated Mortmain, she had been looking for Will, and there hadn't been many weapons for them then. This was far too dangerous, and that was just the fact of the matter. Will looked at Tessa, sure she was going to blow up at him, which he was so fond of, but she instead went on the tips of her toes and gently pressed a kiss against his forehead, like her own special goodbye to him.

She leaned back and her hands went to the ties of his gear around his white shirt, and she started to fix the collar as she reprimanded him to "get home by lunch."

"Goodness knows Lucy is going to have a good time fetching each and every dirty Shadowhunter hot water for their bath," Tessa said, patting him around the collar, leaving her fingertips pressed gently just against his white neck. "Maybe I should help her."

Will frowned. "Haven't those servants Charlotte secured come yet?"

Tessa shook her head, her body getting bumped about as Shadowhunters headed to the door to the crypt. "Not until this afternoon, which before I want you to come." She kissed him on the lips very uncarefully then, catching him in an impossibly surprised moment, and she let off and whispered, "Come back, Will," and she pressed her hand against his heart and then headed out of the room to who-knew-where, leaving Will to stare after her like she was an enchanting, distrustful faerie who had entranced him in something.

He finally went after the other Shadowhunters, though, realizing that he would get left behind if he didn't, and he ran down the halls and the stairs two at a time, surpassing many, who, while in ready to be in battle mode, were still talking with many of the relatives, and he was able to bypass them and narrowly beat Gideon and Gabriel to the Portal, the two brothers having a great argument (on the same side, for once) with their sister, who was a few good months pregnant with the child of her late husband, who had been eaten by her father, and Will thought himself glad to not be a part of their family; at least, not just yet.

He came up to Henry, who was mulling something over in his mind as his elbow stuck up from his wheelchair armrest, his hand holding up his head. He tilted his head toward Will as the boy came bounding up to him, saying, "Ready to open the Portal, Henry?"

Henry absentmindedly nodded his head, and looked to the crowd of oncoming Shadowhunters coming toward his invention. He straightened and moved his seat next to the rune-covered Portal, which was swirly and dark and it was like looking into the sky at the darkest part of the night, where there's barely any stars and there's an infinite amount of places they could end up.

"Good morning," Henry said to the Shadowhunters. He cleared his throat, not sure what to say. This was always Charlotte's forte. She was the one who talked aloud to the vast majority, not he, but he gulped back whatever oncoming surge of blush was coming to appear on his face, and he said, gesturing to his invention, "This is—is a something called a Portal. I—I have invented it"—he dared not mention that a warlock, one with magic, had helped him. It was not the time and he could not handle such a crowd if they were angry—"and it actually will work. I swear. It's worked before. It's helped get us to Wales to defeat Mortmain. If it hadn't worked, there would have been trouble—"

"Too true, Henry," Will said, coming up to take his place, having enjoyed the view of watching Henry nearly fumble over his own words quite thoroughly, and he patted the man on the shoulder, relieving him of his position. "Honestly, fellow Shadowhunters, if this man had not worked his wonderful magic, Tessa Gray would be dead; Mortmain would be ruling supreme because there was far too many of his automatons for all the Shadowhunters in the entire world; there would be a lot of dead mundanes, not making particularly any of you look good; and there would have been chaos and ruin and we'd have to wear the color white instead of black, and everyone knows Shadowhunters look better in black."

Will gave them a curt nod and said, "Watch and follow, folks. And trust me. I survived, and if I can survive, you can bet your best handkerchief you will," and he turned before the great and swirling Portal and imagined, imagined the great greyness of the workhouse, the salty smell of the river Thames that had run by it, the feel of the cobblestones under his feet, the great doors with the terrible aroma of demonic activity seeping through the doors, and he opened his eyes when he heard several gasps, and there before him was the lot of grey workhouses, the one he wanted just a little to his left, and he smiled broadly, feeling particularly pleased with himself, and he turned and bowed to the crowd, and then took a step back and disappeared into the Portal as if it were some strange glass.

There was several shocked gasps when it appeared in the glass Will turning around and, after nodding at seeing there was no demons around to catch him off guard, he turned back to where he knew the Portal to be and swept his hand toward the workhouse, inviting the guests to jump right in.

Gabriel stepped forward first and stepped in. And then it was Tatiana Blackthorn, much to Gideon's reluctance, to go through next, and then Gideon followed her, and then Aunt Callida went swiftly through, and with such an older, respected Shadowhunter going through, the rest of the assembled Shadowhunters hesitantly went through, looking around in astonishment when they came out into the wilds of London, wind blowing through their hair, the sounds of machines working away in the workhouses around them.

Will smiled broadly and said, turning to the abandoned workhouse, which looked so quiet and boarded up from the outside, "Let's go kill us a few demons," and his seraph blade lit up in his hand, his long fingers coiled around it, and the Lightwoods came to his sides, his usual hunting partners now, and the entire procession, covered in a light sprinkling of glamour, went through the street and surrounded the workhouse.

Will was at the front, and Gabriel snuck in and nodded when there was verification of no guards.

"There's a whole lot of demons on the floor," he said as Will passed him, nodding, satisfied.

"Hopefully the majority lot of them. Or all," said Will, who felt like wiping out an entire pack of collected demons in one fell swoop. It would be better than to go continually to the workhouse to see if any more had returned to the place.

Blue lights shone throughout the crowd. Seraph blades, lit up at the mere prospect of the slaughtering of demons. The runes laced against skin seemed to stand bolder against their receivers as Will moved closer, his whole countenance screaming with him being the leader, and he whispered, only so that Gideon and Gabriel, who were very near to him, glancing between him and their deathly determined sister, "Let the damned fall," and in burst the Shadowhunters, knowing that sneaking up on these foul creatures with the number they had would fall apart as a plan in their fingertips upon being executed, and so the plan to move in and dominant had won out as the better choice, and dominant they sounded, their feet knocking against the creaky floorboards, the shouts and yells that ripped out of their throats filling the room as they flew to the nearest hellish creature.

But the demons were not surprised.

They had all been sitting around in their benches, slithering body parts creeping along in slime as they watched their head leader, who looked positively straight from Satan, talk and lick his eyes at particularly delicious parts. But now they turned and went rabid, looking deathly with their teeth, filed and long and tinted with green, slimey poison, the horrors of their bodies something that would make mundies faint dead away from shock and horror and fright, but the Shadowhunters had a determined streak in them, and they rushed at the demons with nary a thought to be afraid. They had done this craft for too long to freeze up and suddenly realize that the disgusting creatures they were attacking were to be feared. No, they realized them to be enemies of the Angel, and of heaven, and so destroyed they must be.

The room was so suddenly a battlefield that it was hard to decide the moment the true bloodshed began. Will was being pushed backwards, his feet dancing about in a puddle of slippery black ichor and blood, which he tried to stay out of as he slashed his blade against a creature that had seven legs, all resembling hands, with black fingernails. The beast blew a raspberry and shouted, its hands draw out, and Will ducked and cut them off, ducking away as the beast screeched and turned to him, but the blade had wounded it, and it let out a scream that echoed in Will's ears as its body parts started to fold away, and it became dust in a matter of seconds.

Will was covered with green spit, with ichor on his blade and leg, which he tried to rub off onto a newel post as soon as he could, not wanting it to burn through to his skin, and blood, where a cut from a fallen box had struck him on the forehead. He was breathing heavily, but not panting violently. He turned and saw Gabriel and Gideon on the stage the head demon had been standing on, dueling and ducking and sliding away from six demons, all crawling atop each other and leaning forward, shooting their forked tongues at the brothers.

Will sighed and quickly wound his way through, cutting away at a demon to his left as he turned to save Aunt Callida, who had been being pushed into a corner. He turned and leapt onto the stage, shaking the floorboards under his feet with his weight, and his blade glowed in his hand as he gritted his teeth and said, "Need a bit of help, Gabby?"

"Will, honestly?" Gabriel scowled as the three hunting partners moved forward in one fluid motion, their arms drawing down and slicing limbs off demons before they turned to the ones crawling over the ones they had cut, who were now screaming and shriveling away into themselves, into oblivion.

"Oh, you don't want my help, I see how it is," Will said, grunting as he turned, and a great slithering dragon of a demon came up to him, scales across its back, several legs sticking out from the bottom of it, its eyes pure dark red and thumping like hearts. He sliced away and turned just in time to see Gideon cutting one down like a tree, and then came a sleek, great demon that was zigzagging toward them, teeth yellowed and black at the roots, its skin shriveled and grey like that of a bark of a tree, and it was quite huge, and the three Shadowhunters turned fully to see it, all in battle stance, just as it launched at them.

BATTLE BATTLE BATTLE. Thanks for reading! Please review!