Alec looked around at the lavishly decorated interior of the Morgenstern Manor and whistled.
"Nice place." Jace, who was walking ahead of him leading him through the long hallway, glanced over his shoulder, his eyes hard.
"Call me clichéd, but I believe that not everything that glitters is gold." he turned and led them into a study, shutting the door behind them. "This place is a five star hell hole. Trust me." Alec looked around the room and spotted a handkerchief smeared with what looked like fae blood, thrown carelessly in an armchair.
"I believe you." he said quietly.
Jace walked around the desk and opened a door, revealing the portal. Alec came to stand next to him. "Isn't it kind of against the Law to have a portal set up in a private residence?" Jace looked at him.
"It is. My father likes to 'bend' the Law to better suit his desires." Alec suppressed a shudder, trying not to imagine what other Laws Valentine Morgenstern liked to 'bend'. The fae blood smeared cloth suddenly made him wonder what kind of horrors this room had witnessed.
"Should we go then?"
Jace nodded and stepped forward at the same time that Alec did. They bumped into each other, their faces coming very close together before Alec stumbled forward into the portal, while looking back at Jace in alarm.
"Sorr-"
Before he could finish his apology, the portal swept him away with a flash that made Jace's eyes sting. Jace stared after him, feeling a foreboding headache throbbing in his temple. Was there any chance that Alec remembered to think of Alicante in the second before he disappeared…?
"Crap." he groaned before following Alec through the portal.
Jace's feet hit the forest floor for the second time that day and only this time, he did not manage to make the landing very graceful. He tripped over and accidentally pushed a body that had been in the process of standing up and the end result was that both Jace and Alec were on the ground, grumbling angrily.
Jace stood first, brushing grass off the knees of his jeans before he reached down and pulled Alec up to his feet. Alec frowned and looked around at the towering trees with his hands on his hips.
"Uh, this isn't right." he spun in a slow circle, seeing nothing but more trees. "I have no clue where we are." Jace looked in the direction that he knew the warlock Feltman's cabin was.
"I do. This is where my father takes me for my weapons sessions." Alec peered at him in the descending gloom of the forest.
"Well I guess it's good one of us knows where we are…now the question is, how do we get from wherever here is to Alicante?" Jace pointed and Alec looked in the direction he indicated. "What? What am I supposed to be looking at? That house? How is that house supposed to get us to the city?" Jace looked at him and smirked.
"You know, you're pretty entertaining when you get all panicked." he set off towards the warlock's house, and Alec rolled his eyes and followed after him.
"I'm not 'all panicked', I'm just worried. I don't know where we are." Jace laughed.
"Well calm down. I know exactly where we are and how to get us to the city." Alec nodded and they continued walking through the increasingly darkening forest towards the cabin. "And just for the record, when you 'don't get all panicked', your voice gets all high pitched and squeaky. It's pretty funny." Alec scoffed and pushed him at a tree trunk, which Jace skillfully dodged with a chuckle.
"Shut up. I really wasn't panicked." Jace smiled again as they approached the door, feeling as if a huge weight had been lifted off his chest and he could finally breathe normally.
"Mmhm. Keep telling yourself that Lightwood." Before Jace knocked on the door, he turned to Alec. "Okay, so stay quiet and let me do the talking. We'll get the portal in like, two seconds."
He turned and pounded on the door loudly, the same way his father had. A minute passed with no answer. Alec raised an eyebrow from beside him.
"Two seconds huh?"
"Be quiet." Jace leaned in and pressed his ear to the door, a frown appearing on his face. "Do you hear that?" Alec leaned in and listened too.
"It sounds like mumbling…or chanting?" They listened harder. Jace suddenly lifted his head.
"Wait a second." There was a snap behind them, like the sound of a twig breaking. Both boys slowly turned their heads.
"Oh what the fu-" Alec swore but was interrupted by the high pitched screaming of the Ouimet demon that had appeared behind them, its long barbed talons glinting razor sharp in the dim light. Jace and Alec clapped their hands to their ears as three more screams joined in with the first and more of the demons darted around the house, their eyes a glowing white.
Jace crossed his arms in front of him and drew out his two seraph blades, thankful that he hadn't had the time to take them off. He tossed one to Alec, named his, and watched as the blade sprang up in a flash of white light that made the demons hiss and sink into crouches, their claws spread wide. Alec did the same with his, his face set with hard determination.
Jace ran up to the first one, slashing out at it with his blade, cutting it's flesh with precise and skilled movements. Alec circled around it, slicing down at it's leg and sending it to the ground as Jace plunged his blade through the center of it's back, killing it as it's scream echoed resoundingly.
Alec darted to the left as Jace sped off to the right, both meeting demons head on. Alec's demon slashed at him and he ducked, whirling his blade up and slicing off the demon's talon tipped hand. It screamed and retreated back, it's glowing white eyes wide as ichor gushed out of it's arm.
Jace stabbed his demon twice in the lower belly before it started to claw at him, however he quickly ended the fight when he thrust his blade up through the demon's skull. As he was pulling the blade loose again, the demon crumpling in on itself, another skittered up behind him.
"Jace look out!" Alec yelled.
Jace spun around, whirling his blade and caught the demon across the throat as Alec plunged his weapon up under the ribs of his demon, killing it. Alec ran up as a fifth demon jumped down onto Jace from the trees above. It attached itself to his back, digging its claws in ferociously. Jace yelled in pain and collapsed to his knees under its weight, his seraph blade slipping from his sweaty hand.
Alec wound his arm back and Jace ducked. The demon's head sheered completely from its body and thumped away on the grass, spraying black blood all over them. Jace heaved the body off of him, feeling an agonizing burning in his shoulder as he bent to retrieve his blade.
The demon with the slit throat lunged at Alec's turned back, and Jace flung his blade over Alec's shoulder, catching it right in the forehead. The demon fell to the ground before it too, crumpled in on itself, leaving behind only the glowing angel blade, dripping with its blood, to ever show it had existed in the first place.
Both boys panted and looked around, expecting more demons, but the forest was quiet again. Jace turned towards the warlocks' house, his eyes dark with fury, when his shoulder seemed to split open. He yelled in pain and stumbled sideways into a tree as Alec spun in alarm, his blade raised to fend off another attack.
When he saw that they were safe he lowered his blade again, concern crossing his features.
"What is it? What's wrong?" he asked him. Jace clenched his teeth.
"My shoulder." Alec slipped his blade into his belt and walked around Jace to look at it. His eyes widened as he inhaled a breath through his teeth. Jace glanced back at him. "What is it?" Alec bit his lip.
"Well, I think the one in the tree got you with its claws and it kind of…broke off in your shoulder."
"Well pull it out." Jace said roughly. Alec raised his eyebrows.
"Have you ever seen the ends of a Ouimet demon's claws?" Jace fought for his fleeting patience and failed.
"No, why? Are they really sharp?" Alec ignored his tone.
"That and they have wicked barbs on them…" Jace groaned lightly.
"Yeah, that feels about right."
"I don't think you want me to just yank it out, especially since it looks like its all the way in the muscle."
"Well what are you suggesting, Dr. Lightwood?" Jace snapped.
"Give me your knife." Jace gingerly pulled out the small dagger and handed it to him over his shoulder, trying not to move too fast. "Okay I'm gunna cut a line down from the hole so that the barbs won't rip through when I pull it out." Jace braced his hand on the tree trunk.
"Go for it."
Alec slipped the knife through Jace's shirt and cut it open, careful not to bump the claw. Then he pressed the point down onto his skin at the base of the claw and took a quiet breath. Jace tensed as he drew the blade down far enough to allow the quills to be pulled out without causing him too much pain.
As Alec cut him, Jace was silent. His shoulders tightened slightly but he gave no other evidence of being in pain. It made Alec wonder how he had come to bear pain so stoically. Sure, all Shadowhunters had high pain tolerances…but Jace seemed especially tolerant. Blood ran down Jace's shoulder blade from the deep cut and Alec set the knife down on the ground before wrapping his hand around the eight inch talon. He rocked it gently down towards the cut and Jace's shoulder's tightened even more.
"Sorry…" Alec said.
"It's nothing don't worry about it." Alec frowned, not sure if his definition of nothing quite matched up with Jace's.
"Okay, I'm gunna pull it now. I'll try to be…gentle? I guess?" Jace grunted at him.
"Sure."
"Okay on the count of three. Are you ready?"
"Just do it."
Alec tightened his grip on the talon, while placing his hand on Jace's back to steady himself. Jace took a breath.
"One-"
Alec yanked as hard as he could, feeling like the boy from the Sword and the Stone. Jace's yell didn't quite cover up the sound of his skin tearing, and Alec grimaced as he looked down at the dripping talon in his hand. "Three."
Jace folded at the waist, his hand still bracing the tree, and groaned in his throat. He glared up at Alec, his blonde hair falling into his eyes.
"Who the hell taught you how to count?" he panted. Alec smirked and tossed the talon at his feet.
"It's out isn't it." Jace sucked in a breath through his teeth as he straightened up and pulled out his stele. He handed it to Alec, who began drawing an iratze on his shoulder blade.
"Yeah. Thanks for that." he said as the pain left him and Alec handed him back his stele.
"Mmhm." Alec looked at him thoughtfully. "Was it just me…or did you and I make a good team?"
Jace had actually been thinking the exact same thing earlier. He now knew what his father had been trying to accomplish between himself and Jonathan, but the two boys hated eachother too much to become bonded fighting partners that watched over eachother during battles.
Jace and Alec fought with fluidity, each one sensing where the other one was when they needed help and knowing exactly what to do to help them. Their fighting styles complimented eachother's perfectly, whereas Jace's and Jonathan's clashed together and had always distracted the two from the demons. Now Jace understood what the word parabatai meant, and with a start, he realized that he already trusted Alec with his life. Jace looked up and his eyes fell on the cabin. His epiphany faded to the back of his mind.
"Hold that thought."
Now healed, Jace strode towards the warlock's house, feeling his anger igniting again with surprising speed and strength.
"Jace, what are you doing?" Alec asked as he appeared at his side.
"Feltman has some explaining to do."
Jace pounded on the door, not expecting anyone to answer it, before trying the knob.
"It's locked. Try a rune." Alec said. Jace did, and the door still would not let them enter. "Hmm. Guess he's spelled the door." Jace pushed past him. "I guess we could go around back and-"
Alec jumped as he heard a loud crash and breaking glass. He turned and saw that Jace had thrown a metal chair through the window and was now kicking the frame in. Alec scratched his ear.
"Or you know, we could go through the window. Whatever works…" he said.
"Come on, Lightwood."
Jace put a foot up onto the window ledge and pulled himself into the warlock's darkened house. With a sigh, Alec pulled out his witch light and followed, resigning himself to the fact that with Jace Morgenstern, there were no dull moments.
