Jace looked around the room…. And saw nothing. There's no one here, he thought. He foot was tangled in some wires, and he bent to untangle it, and heard voices. He looked up and saw them.
There was the black-haired boy holding up his sleeve to the blue-haired boy, whose hands were being bound by the little red-head, and his feet were wrapped up in a whip. The tall, black-haired girl was leaning on the wall looking bored and the red-head stood up and walked over to stand next to black haired boy.
"Shadowhunters." The blue haired boy spat.
"Gotcha." The tall girl laughed.
"You still haven't told us," the little one said, "if there's any more of you kind with you."
Your kind? Jace tried to think of what that could mean. Maybe he'd stumbled onto some kind of gang war.
"I don't know what you're talking about." The punk boy said.
"He means other demons." The other boy said. "You know what a demon is, don't you?"
"Demons," the short one said, writing the word in the air with her finger, "religiously defined as Satan's servants but understood to be any malevolent spirit that's originated outside our home dimension—"
"That's enough, Clary." The tall girl said.
Demons? Jace thought. These people are crazy, actually crazy.
The red-head, Clary, hung her head in embarrassment and her cheeks turned a deep pink. It was cute. Jace shook that lost fault from his head. Psycho killers are not cute, he reminded himself. "Sorry," the girl mumbled.
"I know where Valentine is," the so-called-devil-spawn practically shouted, like he was telling them in return for his life.
"Me too," Clary said, "He's in the ground. Where he should be. Where he has been for a good sixteen years. The thing's just playing with us."
"Kill it, Alec. It doesn't have anything we need."
Alec raised his hand, gripping a knife. The blade wasn't metal though, it was as clear as crystal and looked about as sharp as a shard of glass, red stones embedded in the hilt. The punk kid gasped, "Valentine's back! I swear!" he protested. "All the Infernal Worlds know it! I know it!" He kept shouting things that didn't make any sense to Jace. He watched as Alec leaned back, ready to put the knife in the boy. Jace couldn't just let the punk boy die. Without thinking, he lunged forward from his hiding spot, pummeling Alec to the ground.
Everything happened so fast. All the sudden, the punk kid was freed from whatever had bound him and was lunging toward Clary. She pulled out her own blade almost lightning fast and slashed the punk kid across the chest and he fell to ground. A black liquid oozed from the wound, definitely not normal blood. The now-injured boy jumped up clutching his chest, and bared his teeth, two rows of them.
Maybe I'm the one going insane, Jace thought.
The tall girl jumped up behind the demon, and Jace was sure it was a demon now, and lashed her whip out. It look like a stream of gold light as it sliced the air with beauty and grace… and it made a snapping sound as it made contact with his back, like when you pull a rubber band too far and it breaks, but I'm sure this hurt about three thousand times that amount.
The demon boy staggered forward with his arms stretched out behind him and he screamed in pain. It was only for a second, but it was enough time for Clary to shove her dagger into his abdomen. He fell to the ground and, as if there wasn't a bone in his body, he started to fold in on himself. First, his legs folded up and his arms, his head, all curling toward the center of his body, which was quickly getting smaller by the second. Within the span of 5 second, the thing was gone. Not even of drop of its black ooze remained on the floor.
"What were you thinking?" The tall girl shouted at him, "You could've gotten us killed, or he could've escaped."
"I thought he was a regular kid!" Jace was shouting at her too. He had never been known to go down without a fight. "How was I supposed to know he was some devil spawn, flesh-eating monster thing?"
"Well if you'd heard us say demon," her voice was like venom when she said the word, "maybe you would understand! You stupid little mundane—"
"STOP!" Clary was screaming. "It's not his fault, Isabelle." She looked at Jace with a sheepish smile on her face. He smiled and nodded.
"Thank you. Now will someone tell me what's going on?"
"Wait how can you see us?" Clary asked.
"What do you mean?" Clary opened her mouth, ready to answer, when the door burst open and Maia and the bouncer flew in.
"Jace," Maia looked confused, "where'd they go?"
"Uh, I don't know, no one's in here." He heard Alec laugh from behind him, but by the look on Maia and the Bouncer's faces, they didn't hear, or even see him. "Must've been a mistake, sorry." The bouncer looked annoyed and walked out with an angry scoff. Maia walked to his side and put her hand on his arm.
"You're weird," she said shaking her head, then smiling, "but that's why I love you." Then holding his wrist, she pulled him out of the room.
Just before the door shut, Jace turned around and saw the three of them standing there, not only were they waving at him, but they were laughing.
