Soooo...it's been a while. I'm sorry about the lack of updates on this story, but my updates have been pretty hectic. I started my new story and it's kinda been taking up all my writing time. It's easier for me to write because I don't have to actually have the book with me, just my phone. And I've got more freedom in what happens in it, which makes it easier for me to have it flow.
On top of my other stories, I'm currently in the middle of lots of craziness including school, babysitting, and soccer-holy angel soccer takes up so much time and energy it's not even funny.
Anyway, I got a PM from someone reading asking if I was going to continue this. The answer is a sound 'yes'. I will not give up on it. They also gave me the idea of putting out some short chapters instead of striving for big monster chapters. So, what do you guys think? Shorter chapters with more frequent updates-which would honestly be so much easier for me-or long waits for longer chapters?
anyway, on with the chapter :)
I watched Clary closely as she waited on the curb, looking fairly grumpy as she stared out , just my at the empty roads. It was an odd sight, an empty street in New York City.
I thought about making a joke about her standing at the corner like that, but I figured it wouldn't improve her mood any.
"I don't see why we have to leave separately from Brother Jeremiah. What, is he embarrassed to be seen with Shadowhunters or something?"
"The Brotherhood are Shadowhunters," I reminded her. I looked down the road again, trying to see if Jeremiah was within sight.
I knew that Clary might not be able to see him if he did pull up. Well, she should be able to see something, but probably not what was really there.
"I suppose he went to get his car?" Clary asked snarkily, shoving her hands into her pockets as she shot me a glare from the corner of her eyes.
I just grinned, ignoring her sudden attitude. "Something like that," I confirmed.
Clary finally shook her head, crossing her arms across her chest as her shoulders slumped. She didn't seem to know how she wanted to act, as though she was torn between being irritated with just about everything and being nervous. Then I started to wonder, as I watched her more carefully, if she was doing the same thing I did-with a bit less success. I knew that if I was in her position, I would be nervous. And I would be covering it up with sarcasm and irritation just like it seemed like she was trying to do.
"You know," she started with a sigh. "I'd feel a lot better about all this if Hodge had come with us." A sharp hurt made itself known in my chest and I fought back a frown.
"What, I'm not protection enough for you?" It came off sarcastic, as I'd intended. But I was hoping for a serious answer. She sighed again.
"It's not protection I need right now," she said. I begged to differ. She'd been attacked by a demon and a forsaken in just a couple days. Clearly, someone was after her. "It's someone who can help me think."
I was about to respond when she suddenly clapped a hand over her mouth, her green eyes wide. "Oh-Simon!"
I had to fight an eye roll. "No, I'm Jace. Simon is the weaselly little one with the bad haircut and dismal fashion sense," I joked.
"Oh, shut up," she said automatically, not really seeming to realize that she was saying the words. "I meant to call before I went to sleep. See if he got home okay," she explained.
I tipped my head back, looking at the sky. 'Raziel help me with this girl' I thought with a sigh. "With everything that's going on, you're worried about Weasel Face?"
He sighed. "Don't call him that. He doesn't look like a weasel," she defended. I huffed.
"You may be right. I've met an attractive weasel or two in my time. He looks more like a rat."
"He does not-" I cut off her angry words, knowing it would irritate her. I wasn't exactly sure why I wanted to irritate her, but I did anyway. It probably didn't work to my advantage when I was trying to be serious, though.
"He's probably at home lying in a puddle of his own drool. Just wait til Isabelle gets bored with him and you have to pick up the pieces."
Clary looked at me, biting her lip. "Is Isabelle likely to get bored with him?"
I thought about all the different people Isabelle had dated. Clary's friend was the most mundane out of all of them-probably because he was a mundane. "Yes," I finally said.
Clary looked away, still chewing her lip. I watched the emotions play across her face for a moment before speaking again. "She likes to date people that her parents wouldn't like."
Suddenly she looked back at me, blinking, her face blank. I grinned. She'd gotten lost in her head again.
"What?"
"I wish you'd stop desperately trying to get my attention like this. It's become embarrassing," I teased. She just rolled her eyes.
"Sarcasm is the last refuge of the imaginatively bankrupt." I almost laughed.
Where did she come up with stuff like that? Oh, how I wished I could see what went on in her head. Especially when she seemed to wander away from where she was. I wanted to see what drew her attention so much that she could completely lose track of what was going on around her.
"I can't help it," I finally joked. "I use my rapier wit to hide my inner pain."
"Your pain will be outer soon if you don't get out of traffic. Are you trying to get run over by a cab?"
I hadn't realized that I had wandered out into the road. I was too distracted by talking with Clary. I felt a little jolt when I realized that she made me do the same thing she did so frequently herself. She made me forget what was going on around us.
"Don't be ridiculous. We could never get a cab that easily in this neighborhood," I said absently, watching as a black shape approached us. I stepped back to the curb and stood next to Clary as the black horses trotted by me, smoke billowing from their noses.
I looked at Clary out of the corner of my eyes. She looked surprised, but not as surprised as she should be. I gave her a look I hoped she would read as 'look closer'. When she looked back at the carriage, blinking suddenly before her eyes widened, I sighed in relief.
"Get in," I told her as she stared at the carriage in unbridled shock. She didn't move, and I pushed her gently towards the door. She climbed in, snapped out if her daze. I followed her, closing the door as the horses began to move. "A personal escort to the Bone City is nothing to turn your nose up at," I told her, seeing her look around herself in shock.
"I wasn't turning my nose up," she defended. "I was just surprised. I wasn't expecting...I mean, I thought it was a car."
"Just relax," I told her. "Enjoy that new carriage smell."
She rolled her eyes at me again, making me smile. I watched her expressions as the carriage made its way down the streets. I nearly laughed at her reaction to the carriage going up in the air.
"I always thought cab drivers didn't pay attention to traffic but this is ridiculous," she choked out.
"Just because you can see through glamours now..."
"I can only see the ought them when I concentrate. It hurts my head a little," she admitted. I shrugged.
"I bet that's because of the block in your mind. The Silent Brothers will take care of that." I put more assurance in my tone than I felt.
"Then what?" She asked, looking at me with raised brows.
I gave her a flat smile. "Then you'll see the world as it is-infinite."
"Don't quote Blake at me."
My smile turned more real then. "I didn't think you'd recognize it. You don't strike me as someone who reads a lot of poetry."
"Everyone know that quote because of the Doors," she said, waving me off. I blinked at her, raising a brow.
"The Doors. They were a band," she elaborated.
"If you say so." Clary looked thoughtful.
"I suppose you don't have much time for enjoying music in your line of work." I almost smiled. Of course we listened to music. Just not all of us and it tended to be different music than mundanes were interested in. I just shrugged, deciding to mess with her a bit.
"Maybe the occasional wailing chorus of the damned." Clary looked at me in surprise, trying to tell if I was joking. But I was a master of hiding my expression. She wasn't going to be able to tell.
"But you were playing the piano yesterday. At the Institute. So you must-"
Clary cut herself off, grabbing the edge of her seat as the carriage jerked up into the air.
"I was just messing around," I said. "My father insisted I learn to play an instrument."
"He sounds strict, your father," she said.
"Not at all," I lied sharply. Of course he was. I remembered the lifeless form of a falcon and shoved the image away. "He indulged me. He taught me everything-weapons, training, demonology, arcane lore, ancient languages. He gave me anything I wanted. Horses, weapons, books, even a hunting falcon."
Clary looked as though she wanted to say something, but bit her lip before saying something else. "Why didn't you mention to Hodge that you knew the men that Luke was talking to? That they were the ones who killed your dad?"
I looked at the ring glinting on my finger. The Wayland ring.
"Because if I did, he'd know I wanted to kill Valentine myself. And he'd never let me try."
I saw Clary's brow raise and knew immediately what she was going to say. "You mean you want to kill him for revenge?"
"For justice," I corrected bitterly. "I never knew who killed my father. Now I do. This is my chance to make it right." I looked away, knowing what she was thinking.
She didn't agree, as I knew she wouldn't. She didn't understand what it was like, to see someone you loved murdered right in front of you. If someone was willing to do that, kill someone so callously, their life deserved to be forfeit. She was too naïve to know any of that. Clary said something, but I let it brush past me when I realized it wasn't important.
I needed to make her understand. I didn't want her to think that I was just a cruel person, who wanted to kill two men. She needed to understand.
"I was ten. We lived in a manor house, out in the country," I began. She turned to look at me. "My father always said it was safe away from people. I heard them coming up the drive and went to tell him. He told me to hide, so I hid. Under the stairs. I saw those men come in. They had others with them. Not men. Forsaken." I felt incapable of forming a full sentence. "They overpowered my father and cut his throat. The blood ran across the floor. It soaked my shoes. I didn't move."
She looked at me, her lips parted in shock. Her eyes glimmered slightly and I felt bad suddenly, for upsetting her. "I'm so sorry, Jace," she finally said, her voice soft.
"I don't understand why mundanes always apologize for things that aren't their fault," I said with a frown.
"I'm not apologizing," she said. "It's a way of-empathizing. Of saying that I'm sorry you're unhappy."
"I'm not unhappy," I argued. "Only people with no purpose are unhappy. I've got a purpose." She looked skeptical.
"Do you mean killing demons or getting revenge for your father's death?"
"Both."
"Would your father really want you to kill those men? Just for revenge?"
"A Shadowhunter who kills another of his brothers is worse than a demon and should be put down like one." As soon as I had read that passage in the codex, it was forever ingrained in my mind.
Clary looked at me again, her green eyes sparking in curiosity. "But are all demons evil? I mean, if all vampires aren't evil, and all werewolves aren't evil, maybe-"
"It's not the same thing at all," I said, cutting her off this time because I needed to correct her, not to irritate her. I think I still managed both though. "Vampires, werewolves, even warlocks, they're part human. Part of this world, born in it. They belong here. But demons come from other worlds. They're inter-dimensional parasites. They come to a world and they use it up. They can't build, just destroy-they can't make, only use. They drain a place to ashes and when it's dead, they move on to the next one. It's life they want. Not just your life or mine, but all the life of this world, it's rivers and cities, it's oceans, it's everything. And the only thing that stands between them and the destruction of all this is the Nephilim," I explained, gesturing around us.
"Oh," Clary said, her eyes a little wide. "How many other worlds are there?"
"No one knows. Hundreds, millions maybe," I replied.
Clary's eyes were suddenly not as bright, her curiosity giving way to solemness. "And they're all dead worlds? Used up? That seems so sad."
"I didn't say that," I corrected, mostly to make her cheer up. I wanted to see her eyes brighten again. "There are probably other living worlds like ours. But only demons can travel between them. Because they're mostly non-corporal, partly, but nobody know why. Plenty of warlocks have tried, and it's never worked. Nothing from earth can pass through the wardings between the worlds. If we could, we might be able to block them from coming here, but nobody's even been able to figure out how to do that. In fact, more and more of them are coming through. There used to be only small demon invasions into this world, easily contained. But even in my lifetime more and more of them have spilled through the wardings. The Clave is always having to dispatch Shadowhunters, and a lot of times they don't come back." So much for cheering her up.
She didn't look upset though, just thoughtful and a little wary. "But if you had the Mortal Cup, you could make more, right? More demon hunters?"
"Sure, but we haven't had the Cup for years now, and a lot of us die young. So our numbers slowly dwindle."
"Aren't you uh..." She paused, as though unsure how to phrase her question. I could see by the pink tinge to her cheeks already that this question was going to be good. "Reproducing?"
I was right. She startled a burst of laughter from me and I saw her cheeks become darker just before the carriage took a sharp turn, catching her off balance. I caught her before he fell into me, holding her a safe distance away. A part of me was yelling to just let her fall against me. But I had a feeling that if I did that, I would lose whatever control I had.
"Sure," I said, hoping she didn't notice how my voice shook a little. "We love reproducing. It's one of our favorite things." And it's fairly often on my mind when I'm around you, I didn't add.
Clary moved away from me, her cheeks flushing. I could almost pretend that hers were for the same reason I felt heat in my own. But I knew the reality was that she was just embarrassed that I'd laughed at her. She was still looking out the window when I recognized the cemetery we turned into. "We're here."
"But they stopped burying people here a century ago because they ran out of room. Didn't they?" She was looking raptly out the window at the surroundings.
"The bone city has been here longer than that," I said, reaching across her as the carriage came to a stop and pushing the door open.
"You don't get a choice do you? About being a Shadowhunter. You can't just opt out."
"No," I said immediately. Not without completely abandoning your family and safety and everyone and everything you've ever know. "But if I had a choice, this is still what I'd choose."
"Why?" She asked, not seeming scornful, just curious. Like she always was. I raised a brow at her.
"Because it's what I'm good at."
I jumped the distance from the carriage to the ground. I turned around to help Clary down, but she had already jumped. A flash of pain went across her face and I noticed why. She'd landed flat on her feet, something you were never supposed to do. Nevertheless, she looked up at me triumphantly. I forced a grin down. This girl would be the death of me.
"I would have helped you down," I said.
She blinked at me, as though the thought hadn't even occurred to her. "It's okay. You didn't have to."
I looked over my shoulder at Jerimiah to avoid staring at Clary any longer. I was sure she would start to notice that I was doing it if I kept it up.
I was certain by now that my obituary would have her name in it
Don't forget to review if you liked it and if you have an opinion on what I mentioned above :).
-Cassidy❤️