I really appreciate the random messages and reviews that I get from everyone and it warms my heart how much everyone cares about me and my husband even though none of us have ever met. You only know me as far as the stories I can weave for you, and I haven't been a timely weaver lately. I am trying, know that, I am trying for you. I'm not always in the best of places emotionally. It's incredibly hard to watch the person you love while they are sick and in pain and there is nothing that you can do to help them. In the big picture he is doing better than earlier this year, but it's not something that is ever going to go away. This is a new normal now and that is incredibly difficult. But I am here, and I am trying, hope you like it.
Chapter 12
The answer wasn't straight forward, and why would it be with angels? Magnus had gone through an impossible list of different ways that an angel could enter hell, but he didn't bother to start with the ones that would be most plausible for Clary in her current situation. She found after the fifth or sixth scenario that she began to let her mind wander. None of the information was particularly earth shattering or even that different from all the other variations. Mostly it boiled down to a few points. An angel could fall, an angel could find a portal into hell, or an angel could summon a demon and then best it in combat, which would require the demon to do as the angel asked or be destroyed. Clary had been a demon and she had never even heard of that rule before. She figured that when she was a demon she would have been willing to do just about anything to keep from being destroyed. Combat seemed the most likely path that Jace had chosen. She thought about Jace wielding a giant sword against some lowly demon, easily coming up the victor and then demanding he be taken to hell. It wouldn't be that easy for Clary. She could probably find a demon and maybe she could beat him in combat, not likely since she didn't have any powers. The problem was more that she wouldn't have anything to threaten the demon with. Humans couldn't smite demons, maybe exorcise them and send them back to hell, but that didn't really pose a threat to demons like some humans believed. True demons never took bodies of humans so true exorcisms were very rare. A true exorcism would simply send the demon, along with his body back to hell where it was free to simply climb back up the nearest portal.
Clary wasn't really an angel so there was no way for her to fall and become a demon. She only had one option left, and that was to find the nearest portal into hell and hope that it would open for her, just like the portal to heaven did. Now being a former demon actually could come in handy as she knew of all the portals. She thanked Magnus for all his help and again he gave far too dramatic of a bow. Clary smiled, she couldn't help it, there was something that she liked about him. Magnus said farewell and Clary closed her eyes as he teleported her back to the steps of the grand but aging church. It was much better this time that she knew to close her eyes. Watching time slow and then catch up double time was a bit nauseating.
Clary knew that there was a portal to hell not too far from the church. It was in a quaint ancient cemetery, right next to the more modern crypt. Clary never understood how humans feared the places where they buried their dead and usually ended up putting them on top of hell portals. You would think that they would want all their loved ones to do to heaven and would therefore pick more uplifting ground. But human rarely act in the way you would think they would and Clary could see now how they avoided their dead and flocked themselves to churches which ironically really did get you that much closer to heaven.
It only took Clary a little over an hour to reach the cemetery, and then sun was already sinking low on the horizon. Night would be best because that was when the portal was open the widest. Clary was familiar with how to get in and out of the portal as a demon, but as a human, she had no idea how that would work out. She was counting on her angel part to fill in the gaps and take her into hell so she could finally just go and find Jace. There was a sinking feeling that getting into hell would be the easiest part. Figuring out how to get Jace out of hell would likely be the challenge.
The air was cool and crisp. Clary could smell the autumn air creeping up on her, threatening to push the last of the summer warmth away. The leaves on the encroaching trees had not yet begun to turn yellow or orange, but within a matter of weeks, the cemetery would dance in the light of the changing colors. As a demon Clary would frequently take strolls in cemeteries, not to be morbid, she simply felt closer to her home. Cemeteries were honestly peaceful because all the annoying humans avoided them or were at least quiet when they were there. Clary had found peace in these places of resting.
The last of the sun's rays were beginning to fade from the sky, the light from the moon was beginning to shine as the dominant and Clary began to dig. It took time without her demon strength and before long she was feeling tired. The hole she had managed could barely fit her to her knees. She sat back, frustrated and choking back tears. This would be an impossible challenge for a human. She would sooner die of exhaustion or suffocate underground before she reached hell. The ground here was not giving way to her angel essence as the portal to heaven had. Here she was just a stupid human sitting alone in a graveyard at night trying to dig a hole with now mud caked and broken nails. Clary gave in and let the tears spill over.
The way Clary could see it; there was only one option left; a way that Magnus had not mentioned, because it had not been a way for an angel to get into hell. There was a way that a human could get into hell. Clary would have to die and become a demon again. Her tears stopped and her breathing slowed. She had a new focus and it calmed her rather than frightened her. She hadn't been very good at being a human the first time around, and then only happiness she had ever known was while a demon and with Jace. A life without Jace, human or not wasn't one that she was interested in living. Humans die all the time; at least she could make her death mean more than she could by living. However, she couldn't just die, or else, she would literally just die and then she would never see her angel again. She had to die a painful, horrible death that would leave her soul in a state of unrest enough to come back. It was like catching lightening in a bottle and she had already done it once, it would be near impossible to do it twice.
Clary stood on weak knees, her strange calm was leaving her with the realization that getting into hell was proving to be an impossible task. She dusted herself off which did nothing to actually shake the caked on dirt from her clothes. She began the walk to her apartment. She had nothing there waiting for her, but she had nothing anywhere else either. The walk home was surprisingly quiet once you ignored the honking of cars and the ever-constant buzz of traffic. The moon shone overhead and cast an eerie glow on the road, lighting her way just enough. It was quiet enough to think, her mind racing, bouncing with ideas that she rejected because they would never work. She had become immune to most horrors of the world and none of them would anger her soul. Most demons were angry because they had been a victim. You couldn't simply make yourself a victim on purpose and be at such an unrest to come back. Even now as she was walking down a poorly lit road, if she were to be hit by a car, she would feel too much joy at being hit to ever truly be angry.
G&G
Jace sat on his makeshift chair, his feet propped up on the tangled web of a footrest and truly he felt sorrow. Never before had such true darkness entered into his heart. He was still an angel, and he was free to leave, they hadn't enough strength to keep him, but they had power over her therefore they had power over him. He could feel her thinking of him, every time his name ran through her mind or spilled from her lips. He could feel her despair and right now he could feel her and he had never known such sadness. All he had wanted was to free her from her slavery and instead he caused her more pain than he had ever known. Demons really were good at torture because they had found a way to torture someone that could never be captured. This wasn't what he had wanted.
G&G
Clary had made it a block away from her apartment when she collapsed on the side of the road. Perhaps it was because of exhaustion or just despair, but she found her legs wouldn't work anymore. An animalistic yell bubbled up from within her and echoed off the buildings. She looked up into the heavens with tear-streaked eyes, she had seen past the veil and into heaven because of Jace more times than she could have counted but now it all seemed like a cruel joke. Her first human life, her freewill was a shit joke. She had only ever found joy after becoming an evil creature that somehow attracted the love of the purest creature out there. Now that she had been redeemed it was only by losing everything that ever made living worthwhile. How was any of that fair? How could there be a higher being out there that liked to put its creations, its children through so much pain and claim it to be a test of faith? Clary never had a chance to have blind faith and now that she knew what secrets the universe really held, how could she be graded on the same scale? Life was nothing more than a cruel joke. Finally, Clary was angry enough, but it wouldn't do any good. She couldn't be killed by being pissed off at the world.
"Jonathan." She called into the night sky. If she couldn't play by the rules because she knew too much, then she might as well break all the rules she knew.
The moon flicked off like a light bulb sputtering and then coming back on like nothing had happened. A moment of darkness flashed before Clary and when the light returned a shadowy figure stood by her side.
"I told you I only wanted to watch." Jonathan purred.
"I know you won't or can't help me. Not with Jace. But I'm ready to make a deal." Clary didn't even have the nerve to look him in his eyes. Breaking rules wasn't for the faint of heart.