"Entre la nuit, la nuit et l'aurore
Entre les voyants, les vivants et les morts"
(Roughly translated as 'between the night, night and dawn. Between the realm of the living and the dead"
Reflektor by Arcade Fire
The song for this chapter is Reflektor by Arcade Fire. This is where the story starts getting creepy...
She was in the Morgensterns' basement again, although Jonathan and Valentine were nowhere to be seen. She shuddered as her gaze touched on knives, rusted manacles, blood, dried and fresh, pooled on the floor-
And realized she was not alone in the room. An angel lay limp in the corner of the room, its wrists bound by chains. One wing was hanging at an odd angle, and white feathers drifted to the cement floor like new snow, where they mixed with the blood. Its body was lean and muscular and, even bruised and bleeding, beautiful. Something about it- him- called to Clary, although she wasn't sure why.
She made a small, pained noise in the back of her throat, and approached the creature as one might approach a wounded animal, cautiously and ready to run at a moment's notice. "It's alright. I won't hurt you," she said softly, and the angel pulled himself into a sitting position, still facing the wall.
His wings, she realized with a shock, had turned black as the night.
"Who are you?" she said with a slight tremor. She had to know, had to know why she felt an undeniable pull towards him.
The angel turned. Golden eyes, hard as steel, hair the color of sunlight-
-And Clary woke with a start, her heart in her throat, gasping for air. Her eyes stung, and she clutched the pillow for support. Just last night, she'd lain in Jace's arms, without a care in the world. Now he was gone from her, maybe forever, but she couldn't just forget him. Not that fast.
Jace. How had he managed to make her fall for him in less than a week? She wanted him so badly it hurt, but it was pretty obvious that he didn't want or need her.
He'd probably had an insane amount of 'girlfriends' before her, anyway. She thought of Kaelie and shuddered. Clary wasn't that type of girl, not as pretty and not as fun to be around. He'd kissed her- and why? To prove he could have any girl he wanted?
She slid her feet over the side of the bed and climbed down, looking at her pale, black-and-white reflection in the darkened mirror. Behind her, the moon outside cast an unearthly glow around the room.
Once, in one of the few history classes she hadn't slept through, she'd heard about an old, strange legend. On certain nights a year, Swedish men used to starve themselves and then go on a 'year walk' to see what their future held, often claiming to have seen strange beasts, and sometimes disappearing- forever. She thought it a good story but hadn't really believed the tale, although now she wondered...
It seemed like the kind of night that strange things happened.
She slipped on some jeans and her battered green sketchers and went downstairs, wincing whenever she stepped on a creaky spot.
She finally reached the bottom without Jocelyn or Luke catching her, and slid open the door, locking it behind her.
The night was cool, with only a few clouds, remnants of the afternoon's storm. Clary ran through it, alone but only partly unafraid. She didn't realize where she was going until she was almost there: Prospect Park, the site of her first kiss with Jace.
She almost turned around, but something made her keep going, although she knew there had to be all sorts of perverts and muggers and who knew what else. The mysterious force that guided her to the park that night was like the angel's pull in the dream, she realized, wide-eyed.
The park was eerily quiet, the only sound being the wind in the trees. The full moon made everything silver and white and black, another world of night and mist and shadows.
And a strange orange glow, coming from the woods.
Clary stole a glance over her shoulder and considered her two options: go home, go back to sleep, and pretend it was all a dream, or follow the light.
It wasn't even a choice for her.
She continued into the forest, towards the glow- had someone lit a fire? Should she call the police?- and stopped when she heard voices.
Every bit of common sense she had was screaming at her to leave, but she held her ground. She needed to know what was going on here.
She spotted a pine tree not too far off with low, strong, spreading branches and went to it, started to climb. When she was high enough to make out the glow clearly, she nearly fell out of the tree in horror.
There was a fire, all right. It blossomed in the center of sticks stuck in the ground in the form of a pentagram.
And there were four people clustered around it, all men- a tall, dark haired man whom Clary estimated at about forty, a boy in his late teens with hair as black as night, too black to be real, Raphael...and Jace.
Her Jace, with blood running down his arms, his head down.
She gripped her branch even tighter.
"Get up, boy," the older man ordered. Jace didn't move.
"NOW, BOY!" he roared, and Jace scrambled to his feet. Raphael and the raven-haired boy laughed. He walked slowly over to the pentagram, letting the blood from his arms pour into the flames.
And looked up, just for a minute. His eyes met hers, and she gasped aloud. She'd seen enough. She scrambled down from the tree and made a run for it.
"What was that?" Raphael asked. "Did you hear it? Someone's watching us."
She stopped short, holding her breath. Would Jace give her away?
"It was probably just a raccoon, Raphael," Jace spat, his contempt for the other boy clear. "They tend to hang around this time of year."
Clary didn't wait to hear the rest. She dashed home, her mind full of all she had seen.