*Here it is, my 30th chapter. I never thought it would go this long! Thanks for inspiring and encouraging me along the way you guys. Your reactions and responses make it so worthwhile, I just love entertaining you all with this story lol. So even though this chapter is a wee bit shorter than the last, it makes up for it in content. Enjoy =), oh and I finally figured out how to make these nifty little page breaks...I'm slow. lol*


Jace lie awake staring at the darkened ceiling. He hadn't even bothered undressing, instead choosing to just collapse onto his bed still clad in his jeans and white t-shirt.

He was conflicted; torn between being glad he would most likely never see Clary again and miserable because he would most likely, never see Clary again.

How could such a brief encounter with a girl change him so much? How could she have broken down the walls he had built around himself for so many years?

There were plenty of girls in his past, but not one came close to making him feel the feelings brought on by that little speck of a girl with the red hair.

A knock sounded across the room at his door.

"What?" he yelled.

"Master Morgenstern? Your father wishes you up and dressed in his study." replied Samuel. Jace groaned.

"Right now?"

"Right now."

Jace pulled himself up off his bed and crossed to the door. He pulled it open to reveal the butler on the other side.

"Did he say why he wanted to see me?" Samuel shook his head.

"No, sir. He did not."

Jace joined the butler in the hallway, while pulling closed the door behind him.

"Great. I love after midnight surprises when they involve my father."

Jace pushed open the door of the study and his eyes fell upon Jonathan, who was sitting in one of the straight backed wooden chairs in front of Valentine's desk.

Their eyes met, and Jonathan smirked.

"Jace. Sit down please."

His father's voice came from near the fireplace. Jace took the seat next to Jonathan, all the while not breaking the staring contest with his pitch black eyes.

Now that they were right next to eachother, Jace gave him a look that said, 'You better not have snitched on me, you little rat.'

Jonathan replied with a challenging look that said back, 'So what if I did? What are you going to do about it?'

Jace only flicked his eyes over to the fireplace, to the rack of assorted iron pokers. Jonathan rolled his eyes.

"So Jace, you're probably wondering why you've been summoned here at such a late hour."

Jace tore his stare away from his brother and looked at Valentine, who was now standing in front of them, leaning a hip back against his desk. Jace shrugged.

"A smart man told me to never be curious about things." Valentine laughed at the flattery.

"And you believe he knew what he was saying when he told you this?"

Jace dipped his head, slim fingers draping over the ends of the chair arms.

"Yes, sir." Valentine chuckled again.

"Very good, very good. I like this new you, Jace. You're much more…agreeable." Jace subtly clenched his teeth.

"Now, to business." Valentine crossed his massive arms across his chest and looked down at his two sons.

"There is something that you both are going to do for me tonight…a mission of sorts. It is a very important task, so I trust you both know what awaits you should you not complete it."

The boys were silent. Valentine continued.

"I expect you both to work together as seamless partners in doing this task. Be quiet, professional, and most importantly, be lethal. What you will be doing will be dangerous, and when you succeed and return home, the course of our lives will change forever."

"Can you stop being so cryptic and just tell us what we're doing?" Jace interrupted. Valentine shot him a warning look.

"You don't need to know what you're doing at all. Jonathan knows. Your job is to be his backup and to not slow him down. I want you to watch out for eachother, and more importantly, the object you are going to retrieve for me."

It took all of Jace's willpower to not throw an 'I fucking told you so' look over at his brother.

However, it was unnecessary, for Jonathan had understood what their father had just said to them just as well as Jace had.

Valentine stepped away from his desk as he gestured down at the weapons covering its surface.

"Prepare yourselves; you'll be leaving shortly."

The boys stood and Jonathan strapped on his belt, which was already laden with an assortment of blades shoved through the heavy loops. Jace stared at his own belt as Jonathan threw on an empty sheath that crisscrossed his chest with its leather straps.

"I'm not going to walk into this blind." Jace said, directing the statement over his shoulder at the blonde man. Valentine's slow footsteps behind him had Jace preparing his body for sudden defense.

"You don't have a choice." Valentine hissed. Jace turned to look at him, and Valentine was shocked and enraged to see that fire of defiance in his eyes.

"You need me to do this for you. If you didn't, you'd just send Jonathan. Or you'd do it yourself. So yeah, Father, I do have a choice."

Jonathan had stopped moving, but the blades at his waist continued to sway and bump against eachother, causing the only sound in the quiet room.

"What a shame. And I had so hoped not to have to do this."

Even though Jace was prepared for it, he could not hold him off for very long.

Valentine was too strong; bending him backwards over the edge of the desk, the stele gripped tight in his left hand as Jace struggled in vain to push him away.

But it was a pointless battle, one that he had lost far too quickly.

Jace held on helplessly to what little air was still in his lungs as he was sunctioned down the tight, dark tube that crushed him between two walls of astonishing darkness.

Jace felt his ribs snap, one at a time, as the pressure increased around him and continued to rip him downward.

Jace gasped as the tube encasing him broke like an overstretched rubber band and dumped him to the floor.

He was shaking, trying to remember how to breathe, when the demon fell down upon him; cackling insane laughs through rotted teeth that turned the air around Jace putrid and diseased.

Jace tried to cringe away from its smile stretched face but couldn't because he was already locked tight inside his body.

The demon drew one long, broken black fingernail across the curve of Jace's cheek before pointing off into the darkness.

Wishing he could close his eyes against the coming pain, Jace prayed that the loved one he was about to see tortured was not someone with dazzling green eyes…

A young boy suddenly stood in the surrounding darkness, mere yards away from him. A spot of near blinding light beamed down on him, brightening his hair to resemble strands of sunlight.

Jace stared at him, unable to turn away even if he had wanted to.

Seven year old Jonathan Morgenstern looked like an angel; smiling happily down at him with his black, storm cloud eyes peaceful like Jace had never seen them before.

Suddenly, right before his eyes, something huge and white began to unfurl from Jonathan's shoulder blades. With a ruffle of feathers, breathtaking wings slowly opened up behind his brother, their color an immaculent bleached white.

A sudden sense of serentity stole over Jace as he watched Jonathan glance over his shoulder in quiet admiration of his wings.

Jace realized he had never seen anything so beautiful in his life.

Then there was a spot of darkness on Jonathan's left wing. Jace realized it was moving.

Long, bony fingers were drumming a light beat against the pristine feathers.

A splinter of fear pierced Jace's heart. The demon rose up behind Jonathan, its horrible form seeming to stretch up endlessly compared to the small height of the boy in front of it.

Then the hand holding Jonathan's wing tightened, as it's other hand curled around his pale throat, nails scratching against his jugular.

Then, without warning, the demon began to ferociously rip the wing clenched in its hand.

Jonathan screamed over the sound of wet tearing, his other wing beating frantically against the pain. With a sickening, meaty crunch, the demon tore Jonathan's wing from his back.

Jonathan fell to his knees, blood spurting from the ripped stump and collecting in puddles made even brighter by the light beaming down on the scene.

The demon then placed a sharp clawed foot on Jonathan's back and took his remaining wing in both hands, blood drenched fingers leaving smudges of scarlet on the white feathers.

It began to yank with what looked like all its inhuman strength as Jonathan folded in on himself, screaming, with his small hands gripping his hair in agony.

The demon then tossed the severed and destroyed wing to the ground with a cackle, before kicking Jonathan over to Jace.

Without realizing he could move again, Jace sat up onto his knees before reaching out and pulling the small form of his seven year old brother towards him by his shoulders.

Jonathan was shaking and sobbing, with bright flecks of blood spattered across his pale face and drying in his hair.

Jace tried to look past the long rips of skin and muscle in his back, tried to ignore the fact that he could see Jonathan's scarlet stained ribs as pulled him onto his lap and gently shushed him, not knowing how else to help.

Soon Jace was covered in his blood.

He could see it covering his forearms like paint and he could feel the warmth of it soaking thickly through his jeans. But worse, he could smell it. The hot, coppery scent of it invaded his nostrils and made him want to gag.

Jonathan peered up at him, eyelids twitching in pain that had not yet left his body. He tried to speak to him, but all that passed his lips was a rattling breath.

Jace held him tighter, rocking him, while streams of warmth trickled down his cheeks.

"Please…please," Jace crooned hoplessly.

Jonathan's eyes began to dull over, but he still would not die. Jace knew that he was going to slowly bleed to death from the ragged rips down the length of his back.

There was suddenly a spine tingling voice at Jace's left shoulder.

"Well what do you know," the demon said in its dry, nails-on-a-chalkboard voice. "You do care for him."

Jace whipped around and blindly grabbed at the demon's face, nails leaving long gashes down its red-black skin.

The demon jerked back away from him, laughing madly. "And just for that," it said before grandly gesturing down at Jonathan. "He'll die slower."

Jace could not turn his face back down to Jonathan's, and was glad for it because the awful sounds his brother was making was breaking his heart; he did not need the added visual pain.

Stop, just please stop! Jace screamed in his head.

Jace gasped when he opened his eyes and saw the tall, seventeen year old Jonathan staring down at him, dark eyes shadowed over with concern.

Jace clenched his arms around his stomach, not believing that it was truly over until he looked down and saw for himself that there was no little boy body drenching his lap with blood.

Jace shuddered and groaned with a mixture of relief and residual horror, as Valentine stepped around him and hauled him to his feet.

"Compose yourself, Jace. You have a mission to do." Valentine demanded.

But Jace would not look at him, and could not stop the trembling that caused goosebumps to rise up along his arms. Jonathan peered around Valentine's shoulder to glimpse Jace's face.

"Fine. Go to your room and recover for ten minutes. I need you coherent, Jace."

Jace did not move until his father pushed him towards the door.

He swayed slightly when he walked, which struck Jonathan as extremely odd because Jace was only ever drenched in natural gracefulness.

What had he seen that was so horrible? he wondered, as he unknowingly added the look Jace had given him upon first opening his eyes to his album of mental pictures that would haunt him in his nightmares.

Up in his room, Jace was numbly opening the drawers in his desk, searching detachedly for a small glass vial that he had stubbornly kept over the years, telling himself he never knew what he'd need it for but that he would need it.

When Jace found it, he struggled to unstopper it with still shaking fingers. Mentally berating himself, Jace took two deep breaths and forced himself to calm down.

None of it was real, none of it was real…

Soon he was calm enough to pull the small cork out of the vial, which he set down on his desktop before reaching back into the open drawer for the small, foldable pocket knife that was commonly used only by mundanes as it was too small to be of any use to the Nephilim.

Jace flipped the nail file out before slipping the thin point under one of his fingernails.

Then he set to work scraping out the red-black skin that was still gathered under the nails of his right hand, which was to be collected and stored in secret inside the little glass vial that was innocently sitting on his desk.