Hi everyone! Sorry for the long wait for this chapter, I had a bit of trouble :( As always, I hope you guys will enjoy it! Thank you all reviewers, you are wonderful:)

All characters belong to Cassandra Clare.

After muttering furiously for the tenth time, 'I can't talk, I'm calling international from someone else's phone' to an uncharacteristically overemotional Simon, and nearly yelling at him to not hand the phone over to her mother, Clary sat down beside Luna again with a relieved sigh. 'So that was over,' she told her.

'Your family's been worried, huh,' said Luna.

'You bet,' said Clary, refraining with difficulty from rolling her eyes. 'But they tend to overreact, actually. So.'

Luna raised an eyebrow. 'You ran off with a guy who, as far as I know, is the mortal enemy of your family, and you blame them?'

'Yeah, well,' said Clary, trying to shrug it off. 'It's a bit complicated. Hey, do you happen to know where the airport is?'

'Yeah, you have to take a bus,' said Luna. 'I could walk you to the bus stop.'

'That'd be great – you aren't busy or anything?'

'Nope. Recovering from a heart break, remember?' Luna said nonchalantly. 'Let's go.'

Clary followed her companion as they walked through the sunny, picturesque park, away from the people milling around the pagoda, into more deserted areas well shaded by the interlacing and overhanging branches of huge magnolia trees. Clary shivered slightly; the breeze was chilly. It feels like autumn was approaching. She glanced around uneasily. The cold made her uncomfortable, but also the shades and shadows. She kept wondering – with half-hope – if Sebastian would suddenly pop out from under one of these trees, and if he would meet her with a hug or a knife.

Luna walked with terse, brisk steps, and kept glancing over her shoulder impatiently at Clary, who had to hurry to keep up. At that moment something dark flashed across the periphery of Clary's vision. She turned her head quickly – but it was only an old Japanese man, waddling in the shade, carrying a large, broken black umbrella.

'What are you looking at?' Luna asked curiously.

'Nothing,' Clary shook her head. 'Just – never mind.'

'You're wondering if he would show up,' stated Luna.

Clary had to make an effort to sound composed. 'Not really. I wouldn't know what to do if he had,' she admitted. 'I don't know if I still want to go with him.'

Luna shook her head. 'Girl, you wanna make that decision soon.'

Another flash of dark. Clary turned again, involuntarily. The old man was still strolling leisurely at some distance beside them, but now by his side was a little boy, by the looks of it his grandson, who Clary could almost swear was not here before. He was wearing a white shirt and held swinging a small, black umbrella in his hand.

Clary's breath caught. Her heart started pounding. 'What are you staring at?' asked Luna again, catching her gaze.

'Look,' said Clary, in a half-whisper. 'Isn't there – something strange about them?'

'About what?' said Luna, looking strangely at Clary.

She couldn't see them. The moment this realization flashed across her mind Clary's hand went to her waist for her dagger. But they were faster. In the same instant both faces were turned towards her and she saw that their eyes were flipped upwards so that only whites were showing, and what they were holding in their hands were not umbrellas but tails. The next moment the old man and the boy snarled, their features erupting into the points and scales of a reptile, and launched themselves at Clary.

'Run!' yelled Clary, pushing Luna out of the way as she avoided the demons' assault narrowly, throwing herself at the ground. 'What the hell!' Luna screamed back as she was thrust onto the ground, but Clary had no time to heed her. She clambered up again and met the demon's claw with her dagger. It took all her strength to fend off the blow. She twisted her dagger inward, drawing a gash in the creature's palm; it screeched and launched forward to bite. She jumped away hastily, managing to avoid the full blow from the other demon but for a scratch on the arm.

Clary's mind was reeling. Even with a seraph blade, she had little chance of fending off two demons alone – not to mention with a mere dagger. She prayed silently that the blade was blessed with angelic runes to inflict more damage on the demons, but glancing down she saw that like most of Sebastian's weapons they weren't. Shit.

Moving as fast as she could, she slashed across the arm of one demon so that black tar-like blood oozed out, and kicked at another – training with Sebastian had marginally helped – and heard Luna gasping. Oh, she nearly forgot, she had to protect someone else as well. The sound of surprise had not just caught Clary's attention, but also that of the demons. They turned to look at Luna now, and Clary could guess without much difficulty what was going on in their little brains. Luna was wide-mouthed in horror and inched slowly backwards.

It took a while for Clary to register that she could see the demons now.

The glamour hiding the demon must have been damaged because she wounded it, she realized. In that case, Luna could only see one demon and not the other. As the two monsters made their lunge, Clary dashed and by throwing her whole weight into her run managed to knock one off its feet. But the other one charged straight at Luna, its blood-red mouth wide open. Luna screamed –

And there was a resounding bang of a gunshot. Clary did not have time to look around; the demon she was fighting was distracted; she thrust the dagger with all her force into its throat, where she vaguely remembered the heart of this demon was located at. Blood spurted thickly in all directions and the demon screamed in agony – and then grew still, withered and was gone.

Clary whipped around only to see the other carcass disappearing in front of Luna – Luna, gun in hand, shivering like a leaf. Clary's jaw dropped as she met Luna's eyes. What just happened? As she walked slowly across the grass, she did not know who was more in shock, Luna or herself.

'Luna,' she said, slowly and emphatically. 'You just slew a demon.'

'Say what,' said Luna, without humour. She turned on Clary with fury smoldering in her eyes. 'You owe me an explanation.'

'Well, I guess there's no point hiding anything from you anymore,' mused Clary. As briefly as possible she explained the demons, the Shadowhunters and the Downworlders to Luna, leaving out however all mention of Sebastian. Luna listened, shoulders slumped forward and eyes literally glittering with excitement.

'Wow,' she said almost in exhilaration, as Clary came to a close.

'You're like my friend Simon,' observed Clary. 'You're both easily excited by all the wrong things.'

'Dude, you should've told me that right from the start,' said Luna, shaking her head. 'But no – I wouldn't have believed it. God, this whole thing is bat-shit crazy.'

'I know,' said Clary, nodding. 'Now you owe me an explanation. Where's the gun from?'

They both glanced down at the lethal piece of metal nestled in Luna's hand. With an impatient sound Luna clicked on the safety catch and thrust the gun into the back of her waistband. 'No kidding,' said Clary. 'We're not in America. And even there I don't see many guns lying around.'

'My boyfriend was a cop,' said Luna, briefly.

Clary looked at her calmly for a moment and decided to take the explanation. 'Never mind. You know,' she said, as a thought crossed her mind. 'You're probably the first mundane to ever kill a demon.'

'Excellent choice of word, by the way,' said Luna, rolling her eyes. 'Mundane. Why don't you call yourselves Excitings or something? Like the Incredibles.'

'Do you even realize the enormity of it,' said Clary. She had a strange desire to jump up and down. 'Look. Even a Shadowhunter has to train for years before actual demon-slaying. But you – wow. You killed one within like three seconds of you seeing one. You must have shot directly into its mouth, and hit its throat, where the heart is. Instant death.'

'You mean, my gun killed it,' Luna corrected her. 'Don't you guys have guns?'

Clary shook her head. 'Shadowhunters don't deal with technology,' she said. 'The runes mess them up.'

'I can imagine angels not being very happy with modern technology,' said Luna. 'I mean, look at all the trees and the animals we're killing. But still. I think you guys could look into gun making. This whole business can become a lot cleaner.' She looked pointedly at Clary's shirt, stained with black gooey demon blood.

'Shadowhunters can't use technology,' said Clary musingly. 'Mundanes can, but you don't understand demons and you can't see them.'

'Right, Miss Obvious,' said Luna. She turned to continue walking. 'Let's get going.'

Luna ended up giving Clary money for the bus as well as lunch and dinner, as well as her number. ('I will make you pay back, girl, no worries. That's what I gave you the number for.') As they parted, Clary peered at the retreating back of the girl with her waterfall of black hair. Luna almost reminded her of Isabelle by her attraction to danger and her capacity to fight; but there was also a quality of uncannily accurate judgment in her that was rather unlike Isabelle. Clary liked the idea of possibly seeing Luna again.

It was night when the flight that brought her family to her arrived. She was waiting at the Arrivals area of the airport; it felt almost as if she was the one receiving her family after a trip, instead of the other way round. First to reach her, running, was Jocelyn. She caught Clary in a tight hug and whispered, 'Baby, I'm so glad we've found you.' When she pulled away her eyes were red.

Clary hugged everyone in turn. There was Luke, Simon, Maia and Jordan, all looking extremely glad and relieved to see her. Clary smiled widely. It felt unbelievably good to see everyone again, to feel as if she was a normal girl – as normal as possible under the circumstances – surrounded by family and friends.

'I'm sorry I was away for so long,' she said. 'I just managed to escape.'

'How did you do it?' asked Simon. He shook his head. 'Clary, you're more than amazing.'

'I…' Clary opened her mouth, but hesitated. What was she supposed to say? She couldn't explain that they had a fight and Sebastian let her go because of anger. That sounded as if she was emotionally invested in the whole thing. And she wasn't, was she? She was a hostage. That was what her family saw her as, and that was the part she was determined to play. 'It's a long story.'

'Let's talk about this later,' said Luke, wrapping an arm around her shoulders and half-hugging her. 'We should find something to eat first, and in the early morning we have another flight to catch.'

'I can't wait to go home,' said Clary. And be away from it all.

Her five companions exchanged a look. 'What?' said Clary, catching it quickly.

'Oh, Clary, I'm afraid you can't go home just yet,' said Jocelyn softly. She cleared her throat. 'You see, they really need you. And they need to know what you know.'

'Who? What?' said Clary tensely, though she had a feeling she already knew what her mother was talking about.

'The Clave,' explained Jordan. 'They're on an all-out manhunt for Sebastian, now that he's announced his attempt to wage war with us. They need you to tell them whatever information you've gotten out of him.'

Clary kept her face composed, but she felt as if she just swallowed something extremely bitter. 'Sure, why not,' she said, shrugging. 'I would just like to go home and sleep for a while first, that's all.'

'Baby,' said Jocelyn, uncertainly. She looked at Luke again. 'That's not all. They want to try you under the Mortal Sword.'

'Me? The Sword? Why?' asked Clary. A bubble of panic rose inside her. She hadn't realized how much she was unwilling to reveal about Sebastian to the whole world. 'It's not like I'm a criminal. I'm a victim.'

'Yes, we know,' said Jocelyn reassuringly. Her eyes locked with Clary's, pleadingly. 'Clary, we love you and we trust you. I want you to remember that. It's just that the Clave – it's stepping up on its security measures. We're all preparing for war. We need you to help us, as much as possible. You are willing to help us, aren't you?' asked Jocelyn, and Clary saw a flash of something in her eyes, like doubt, like fear.

She pushed her mother away. 'Of course I am. Mom, what are you saying? I'm a Shadowhunter too.' Unbidden she remembered her own words to the Mermaid Queen: Do not call me a Shadowhunter. Because I am more than one. She pushed that voice away. She only said that to survive, didn't she? And anyway, that life was behind her now.

Now she had to figure out how to get through the trial without having to admit to the whole world that she loved her brother.