Chapter 10

A/N: UGH! I am sooo mad at right now. I wrote this chapter, and when I tried to save it, my three days were up and it said I had to 'log in' again. Which meant, I lost the entire chapter : ( Oh, well, here it is... again. I know I usually update at odd hours of the night, but that's just because I get all my best ideas at night : ) Anyway, on with the story... Oh, and by the way, 'Celina' is, well, you'll find out. Celina without the ' ' is just Celina.

Disclaimer: HONESTLY, I'M NOT CASSANDRA CLARE! Who would want to be her anyway... I know I would ; )

Celina stepped out of the shadows. No, not Celina, just a demon that looked like Celina. Kat kept thinking to herself, It's not Celina, It's not Celina. Nix gasped an closed his eyes, muttering to himself. Kat could not hear him, but she guessed it was similar to what she had been thinking a minute ago.

'Celina' looked hurt, "Why are you afraid of me? It's me, Celina."

"You're not Celina!" spat Nix.

'Celina grimaced for a second before her face returned to it's hurt expression, "Of course I am!"

Kat could hear loud footsteps storming down the alleyway. She looked up and saw Celina and Cole were running towards them, Cole with a seraph blade in hand and Celina with her newly prized whip gripped tightly in her hand.

'Celina' hissed in annoyance. The warlock sighed again and snapped his fingers. Black circles twisted around Cole and Celina's hands, legs, arms, and feet. Cole fell forward and Celina wobbled slightly before falling against the wall.

Kat grimaced as she looked at her friends before turning back to the Warlock and fake 'Celina' with a poker face. The warlock smiled back at her before nodding towards 'Celina.'

"What do you want?" her voice was controlled and stronger than she felt.

"I hear you're a good fighter," the 'Celina' said with an angelic smile that was did not look normal.

"Yes," her reply was short.

"Don't tell them anything!" growled Nix from behind her. That surprised her, Nix never liked her.

"Well, you obviously know what I am, shadowhunter. And I know more about you than you do," she left the sentence hanging.

"So?" demanded Celina.

"Sooo," the demon said, drawing out the word. "I can use it against you."

"That's it?" laughed Kat. "You're going to blackmail me like a middle school girl?"

The demon's smile reveled two rows of sharp teeth. Kat knew that they were sharper than any of her weapons and would hurt if she was bit. "Of course not! Your family has some interesting secrets that I could share with the Clave for a lot."

"They'd kill you," Cole said with venom in his voice.

'Celina' laughed and turned to Cole, "Of course they would! But at least she would never haunt my kind again."

Kat was trying very hard not to shake with fear. In the back of her mind, she remembered a quote from one of her favorite books, The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan, "Sometimes things go wrong... Heroes get hurt. They... they die, and the monsters just keep coming back." (233) It was true, she thought, if her friends died killing demons, they would stay dead, but the demons would just come back.

Celina seemed to be thinking along the same lines, her eyes showed it when Kat risked a glance at her. The demon looked at Kat, "You can choose your weapon."

Kat nodded and reached for her seraph blade. When she did not grab it, she looked down and realized she had dropped it somewhere while the demon talked. She looked at Nix, who was closest to her, and his seraph blade lying next to his foot. He groaned before replying, "Just take it."

Kat smiled a small smile before leaning down and grabbing it. She whispered, "Ariel." The blade shot out and Kat saw a flash of fear in the demons eyes. Even the warlock looked slightly uneasy at the sight of the blade.

The fake Celina did not need weapons. Kat noticed how her hands curled into claws and her fingers grew into claws. She had the sharp teeth like before, but now there were three rows of sharp teeth.

"If you defeat me, we'll leave in peace. If I defeat you, you and your friends come with us," the demon said.

"No, if you defeat me, you take me and my friends go free," Kat said stubbornly.

"Are you insane?" demanded Nix from behind her. "You can't beat her, no matter how well you can kill demons." Kat paused, she'd never heard him give her a compliment before, even if it did sound the way it did. Shaking it off, she waited for the demons answer.

"Fine," it said. Nix was yelling at Kat not to have made the deal while Celina was yelling at the warlock and asking why he was doing this.

The demon launched herself at Kat, who dodged out of the way. 'Celina' hissed in annoyance before spinning around and facing Kat again, a deadly look in her eyes. Kat tried hitting the demon, but was met with empty air. She turned to see the demon chuckling softly as it leaned against the wall.

"I'm much faster than you, little shadowhunter," it said before pushing away from the wall and leaping at Kat again.

This time, Kat did not move fast enough and gasped in pain as she felt the needle sharp claws brush against her skin. Though it should have only been a scratch, the claws went right through her skin, blood gushing from the wound. She faintly heard an intake of breath from behind her, but did not have the energy to turn around. Celina was in the middle of her rant of profanities at the warlock and demon before the warlock just glared at her and her voice was taken away. She glared angrily at the warlock before continuing the rant silently.

Kat, hoping to hit the demon, swung one last time. She knew the fight had gone far too shortly on her part. Willing her death to be short, she looked at her friends for the last time. Clary was staring wide eyed at her. The mundane had fainted next to her. Celina was letting silent tears fall down her face. Kat realized slowly that she had not seen Celina cry since they were six. Nix and Cole's eyes were wide with fear for her, like Clary's, but they tried to free themselves of the bonds encircling their wrists.

The demon smiled at Kat, exposing all of her teeth again. She then looked disappointed, "I though you said you were a good fighter. Too bad you couldn't win."

Kat closed her eyes and felt a burning pain across the left side of her face down to her elbow. Celina gasped and cried harder as she saw the demon slide four of her claws down Kat's face, leaving deep wounds. Cole looked away sadly. Nix was numb, he didn't know what to feel.

Then the triplets glared angrily and started yelling at the demon and warlock as they picked up Kat and walked towards the other end of the alley. Before they left through a new portal, the warlock turned around and said, "Valentine will come back for the others." He snapped his fingers and the bonds surrounding the five disappeared. Nix and Cole leaped up and tore after the warlock. Seconds before they reached the portal, it disappeared.

A/N: I'm mean, I know. It was a sad chapter, but good things don't happen in the MI series without something bad happening first.

Sorry it took so long to update. If I don't update for a while, it's usually because I'm lazy. On Friday, I told myself to update. I thought I would. But nothing works for me. During lunch at school I fell and landed on my back. I had back surgery last January and am still in recovery. The school called the paramedics and I ended up in the hospital for a while, so I was kind of busy : ( Sorry!

Anyway, I don't like this one as much as I liked the first version of this chapter : ( But I think it turned out all right : ) R & R!

Oh, yeah, for those of you who go to my school (I'm sure you know who you are), the girl that slipped (me) did not have a seizure and did not split my back open. If I did have a seizure, I'm pretty sure I would know, and if I split my back open, I think there would be a lot of blood. There was no blood, I was fine, so THE RUMORS ARE NOT TRUE!