So, this chapter is a bit longer than usual, and the focus skips around a bit, but I hope you enjoy it!
Risen
"Hurry, Simon, we're losing them!" Isabelle called behind her as she pushed onward, up the sloping lawns of the palace, after the two specks that were Jocelyn and Luke. "Simon, hurry!"
Behind her, far more worried for Isabelle's safety than that of Jocelyn or Luke, Simon continued to scan the surrounding areas for demons. He had been surprised by the lack of them around the palace, and even more, by the presence of only lesser demons in the city. He had thought Jonathan would have them pouring into the city to stop the shadowhunters.
"Izzy, we have to be careful," he warned her, drawing up to her side. "Don't you think it's a bit odd that Jonathan has an army of demons, and yet we haven't seen any of them?"
Isabelle was clearly not thinking of that, all that concerned her was the palace, Jonathan, and getting to Clary and Jace in time. She slowed just a little, giving him a penetrating look. "Does it even matter where we meet them? Sooner rather than later, we're going to run astray of them, so I won't be worrying myself about them too much now. We're running toward them anyway."
Simon worried his lip. "Even if we are, I don't think we should run headlong into a horde of demons." He saw her face flush in the pale light of the moon. "It's just a precaution, a bit of common sense."
With a crooked smile, Isabelle looked around her. Below them, the city was being consumed with flames, and the roar of fire was growing and growing, blotting out almost all the screams. There were shadows moving about between flames, striking out in the dark and pulling people into them. Up the hill, a shadowy tornado was swirling ominously above the palace, and through the windows, faint, erratic light kept flashing.
"There is no sense in this," Isabelle said, gesturing around wildly. "Everything has gone mad, Simon, and me with it!"
"No, Isabelle!" Simon cried, but she tossed her hair back and took off back toward the castle.
It didn't matter how much of a head start Isabelle had, Simon covered the distance between them with the speed of a vampire. The two streaked up the hill, toward the looming shadow of the castle, and as they approached, Simon felt a chill pass through him. The moment they passed beneath the gates to the castle silence fell around them; the screams from the city faded away, the roar from the fire vanished, it was quiet as a grave. They walked slowly over the dirt path, the ground crunching beneath them, the ice breaking below their feet. The very air was still, waiting to crack, and their breath rose before them in small clouds.
"What is this?" Isabelle demanded, looking back and forth at the dark, empty grounds. Even now, even within such a close distance of the castle, there was silence. "What has Jonathan done?"
Simon became very still, barely moving, listening with every fiber of his being. "This place is dead. There's nothing here."
"Is it a demon spell?" Isabelle drew her weapon and slashed through the air, waiting for a demon to come charging down. "Is this Lilith's magic?"
"I don't know," Simon murmured, his voice soft as a whisper, but it seemed to echo through the grounds like a bell being rung. "But, I think that maybe we should get inside. I don't like being out in the open like this."
Isabelle nodded her head sharply. "Quick, we can go through the servants' entrance. I get the feeling that the front doors are going to be watched closely." I never would have thought that being a slave could ever have been a good thing, Isabelle thought with dark humor, and led Simon off across the lawns and to the side where a small servants' stair was tucked behind a few sparse bushes.
They slipped through the door and into the dark passage beyond and carefully maneuvered the stairs that would take them down to the belly of the palace. As they went, the air became colder and colder and Isabelle felt herself becoming stiff from the chill; Simon, who didn't feel temperature, was surprised when he looked at the wall and saw streaks of trickling water on the it were frozen.
"Was it always this cold down here?" Simon wondered.
Isabelle recalled the unbearable heat of the slaves' quarters and the feeling that she was running out of oxygen with each breath she drew. "No."
Simon was a quiet a long moment as the both considered the implications of this. "There are demons ahead of us," he said softly.
"Good," said Isabelle with her fierce determination. "It's about time we found one."
"Sit there and don't move," Jonathan ordered, tossing Clary and Jace by the collars of their shirts into a corner of the library. Clary opened her mouth to say something, but Jonathan snarled at her. "Don't make a sound."
Jace reached forward and drew Clary against him, farther into the corner, and held her tightly against him. "He's not in his right mind, Clary, don't say anything," he whispered in her ear.
"Jace, he's summoning something; we can't just let him unleash a greater demon on the shadowhunters."
"In time, Clary," he replied, and she saw his dagger was glinting in the light from the fire in the city. "He'll turn on us if we try to stop him now, and I don't think either of us is capable of fighting him when he's like this. We need to wait for help."
Clary's eyes turned to the window where she could see the city burning. "No one is coming to help us, Jace."
"Then we'll have to wait for the opportune moment," he returned swiftly and when she tried to argue he held up a hand. "Clary, you said you wanted to save Jonathan, didn't you? Well, if we attack now, Lilith is going to respond and she's going to fight back. We have to let her loosen her grip on him first."
Held tightly in his arms, Clary couldn't struggle much, but she wanted so badly to lunge at Jonathan and stop from making a horrible mistake. She knew if she could just reach him, she could talk him out of whatever he was doing, but Jace wasn't going to risk her again. Instead, she was forced to watch while Jonathan worked, muttering to himself, checking with a book he'd tossed open on a table. The pages in the book were covered in dark, spiky runes that Clary didn't recognize, and she felt lightheaded just looking at them.
"Jace…those runes. Jonathan shouldn't be using them." She swayed like she was going to faint. "They're wrong, Jace, they're wrong."
Jace wondered if Clary's affinity for runes was rendering her weak in the presence of such dark magic. He held her tighter, trying to reach out with his mind and soothe her, but it was like she had erected a very thick, very tall wall; she was trying to protect herself from Jonathan's magic, and the force of it was keeping him out.
Clary, let me in, Clary, please, let me in, he thought gently, prodding her ever so slightly. You need to let me in.
After a long moment where she seemed to be fighting with herself, Clary let her guard drop and Jace could feel her again. She relaxed in his arms and he could feel the rush of thoughts and emotions that now bound them. He knew she was terrified, but he also knew she was determined and unafraid of Jonathan, he knew she wasn't going to run from her brother, and that even now, she had that wild hope that Jonathan could still be saved. He kissed the top of her hair.
"We'll wait and watch and see what he's doing, and that way, we'll be here when he summons his demon," Jace said reasonably, and Clary nodded mutely, watching.
Jonathan was now drawing a pentagram on the floor in black ink, murmuring in a strange language. There was a large, jagged knife on the table near him where a number of candles were burning, and it glinted wickedly, like it was winking at them. As they sat, hunched over, a bone-chilling cold began to creep into the room, and their breath misted on the air before them. Still, Jonathan was moving frantically, still he was muttering, still it was getting colder and colder, darker and darker; outside the window, a breeze was picking up and rattling the glass pane.
Jonathan, stop, Clary thought desperately, and her stomach flipped painfully. You don't need to do this, just put it all away and forget it. It doesn't have to end this way.
"Where is the priestess?" Jonathan demanded, swinging around, and Clary and Jace both saw that his eyes were completely black and bulging slightly. He snared and his teeth were pure black and pointed. "I summoned a priestess!" His gaze turned on them, and it was as if an arrow shot through Clary, pinning her to the wall.
Not me, she thought with mounting terror, and Jace had to stop her from shaking. I'm not a priestess, I'm not a follower of Lilith. Not me!
"Where?" Jonathan hissed, and his jaw was working in a strange way.
"I-I don't know, Jonathan, maybe she-she's just late-"
"Now!" Jonathan roared, and he reached out with a clawed hand for her when the sound of the door to the library opening alerted them to an intruder. Jonathan swiveled about, his eyes popping, his teeth bared like a snarling dog.
Someone help us, Clary prayed.
Magnus was leading Alec at a punishing pace, fast as they could up the hill. The sounds of the city had faded back a little and Alec was able to focus entirely on his sister and Jace and Clary. They were approaching the gates to the palace entrance when Alec noticed that they had not been followed. He skidded to a halt, looking back and forth and feeling a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach.
"Magnus, wait, look around!" Alec called, and he saw Magnus slow a bit.
"What do you mean?" he asked, his cat eyes flicking back and forth, his hands glowing with fire.
"There's no demons, there's no anything," Alec panted, and drew up to his side. "Why weren't we followed? Where are the armies? I think it must be a trap."
Magnus smiled mockingly. "Well, obviously it's a trap, Alec; Jonathan is expecting the Clave to march into his castle, swords out, arrows flying. He has no doubt set sentries all around the palace, and probably has sent his demon people to wait at the front entrance."
"And we're going that way?" Alec asked, his breath skittering out of him.
"I don't have a death wish, Alec," Magnus said, sounding taxed. "We'll be using the garden door by my old rooms. It was constructed so I might be able to go down to the garden and procure necessary herbs at need. As far as I know, I am one of the few who know of it."
"But then Isabelle and Simon won't have used it," Alec pointed out.
"True, but it's the best way I know, and it will allow us to sneak in, unnoticed and find them." Magnus seemed anxious to keep moving but Alec looked uncertain. "Alexander, I am not going to abandon your sister to demon hordes. I think, as I'm sure you would were you in your right mind, that Isabelle has taken the servants' stair, which will take her down to the basement. As soon as we're in the palace, we will go directly to the basement and the servants' quarters and fetch them out." Below them, something exploded and Magnus gave himself a small shake, coming to his senses. "We don't have time for this, Alec, we have to hurry. Come on!"
Alec fell in behind Magnus and allowed him to lead them under the gates into the courtyard. The moment they passed beneath the wrought-iron gate, a chill came over both of them and silence fell around them. Magnus shuddered but pushed onward, knowing that the chill was the result of a demon summoning, a very great demon summoning.
"Alec, hurry, I think Jonathan is summoning Lilith." Magnus watched the clouds move across the sky, collecting ominously over the palace. "We need to get inside."
Alec didn't argue but followed Magnus as they crunched over hard, icy ground thinking, If Jonathan is going to summon Lilith inside the palace, do we want to be in there?
When he said as much to Magnus, the warlock merely laughed. "Better in there than outside. Trust me, whatever is going to escape that vortex when Lilith comes is going to charging down to the city, and you don't want to be there for that."
"Will those people die?" Alec asked as they ran past crystallized plants, caught in the grip of Jonathan's demon winter.
"If they don't, they'll be damn lucky," Magnus said back and threw his hand out, the light illuminating the door embedded in the palace wall. "It'll be a job, summoning all those things back. I don't know how we'll do it, but that's a worry for another time."
Magnus tore the door open and hurtled in, holding it just wide enough for Alec to follow behind him. The moment the door shut, they were engulfed in darkness, and the creeping chill that had been present outside was magnified within, until their skin was covered in goose flesh and their very blood seemed to slow. The stair they were on was ascending, up toward the tower where Magnus had lived, but he was feeling along the wall, murmuring to himself in an undertone.
"…it's here…somewhere…"
"What is?" Alec asked quietly, because his voice carried far away.
"There was door here, an entrance to the third floor, much closer to Isabelle and Simon than my tower," Magnus replied, now banging his fist against the wall now and then. "If I can find it, we can take the parallel stair down to the basement; it should only take five minutes."
"What about Jocelyn and Luke?" Alec asked, but Magnus gave a victorious hiss and hooked his fingers around a handled, giving a long, hard tug. Alec watched a small beam of frail light pierce the dark, but it was only an inch wide. Quickly, before it was gone, he lodged his fingers in the crevice and pushed in the direction Magnus was pulling. Slowly, the door opened wide enough for them both to pass through.
"No magic," Magnus panted, fitting himself through the door and helping Alec through. "Any magic I use is going to alert demon sentries to my presence. I'm sure Jonathan is expecting us."
"What about Jocelyn and Luke?" Alec asked again as he and Magnus set off for the stair that would take them down to the basement.
"No clue," said Magnus shortly. "They could be anywhere, but I'd have to bet that they're looking for Clary and Jonathan right now."
"They'll meet Lilith," Alec pointed out gravely. "They can't fight a demon like her."
"No," agreed Magnus darkly. "No they can't. But then, who can?"
"They're dead, Simon," Isabelle whispered, her lips barely moving. Her eyes roved around the room, the wreckage of a room, and saw only limp, bloody bodies and blank, staring eyes. "They're all dead."
"Jonathan must have ordered the demons to kill them," he said, trying to herd Isabelle along. "I'm sure the demons needed energy, and he had a whole house of slaves, just waiting…"
At Isabelle's feet was a small girl, mostly starved, and bruised. Through the gashes in her tattered dress were deep tears where her organs were spilling out, some of them in pieces, others not. Her face was still caught in that look of pure terror and absolute helplessness, the look on a person's face right before they meet their fate. Isabelle bent and closed her wide, dark eyes, but she was shaking with fury.
She spun on Simon, looking mutinous. "I was a slave, Simon! This could just as easily have been me!"
Simon reached out and cupped her face, brushing his thumbs over her soft, flushed cheeks. "I've said it once," he said, not unkindly, "that you can not dwell on could have beens and should have beens and ifs. You can only think of what there is and what you can do. You could not have saved these people, even if we'd come earlier, we would have been overwhelmed."
Isabelle was shaking and her eyes were sparkling with tears. "It could have been me, Simon. I don't understand…how come I got to live and they didn't?"
"I don't know, Isabelle," Simon said, and he heard something creak behind her, in the shadows of the door. "Life was never guaranteed to be fair and just." Isabelle stood in his arms for a moment, feeling that same calming sensation she always felt when he was near her. She nodded listlessly, and then blinked, her hand going for the sword at her hip. She opened her mouth to speak, but someone else beat her to it.
"Life never was fair and just, you're right about that, my boy."
Simon convulsed a moment and then his eyes snapped up, Isabelle whipping around at the same time. There was a woman standing before them, her neck bent in an odd way, her jaw unhinged and her eyes gone, in their place, gaping, bloody wholes. She was wearing a dress of fine make, and when she sensed them looking at her, she dropped into a freakish courtesy where one of her knee caps popped out of the skin.
"You never told me you have a woman, Simon," the demoness said, her face turned to Isabelle. "She looks like an upstart, if you ask me, a commoner, probably a loose woman."
"Who are you?" Isabelle demanded. "Name yourself!
Simon tried to speak, but the woman sneered. "I am Lady Lewis, Simon's mother."
Isabelle felt Simon twitch behind her and she reached out a hand to stop him, but he stepped forward instead. "You're lying."
"You don't recognize your own mother?" the demoness asked. "Simon…my poor little boy."
"No, that's not what I mean," Simon said clearly, though it looked like he was sickened by it. "You're just a demon wearing her skin."
The demoness seemed to recoil like he brandished a whip, but then it snapped its jaw. "Well, whose fault is that? Who abandoned us in our time of need? Who ran away like a whipped cur?"
"Be quiet!" Isabelle ordered, because Simon looked like he might be sick.
"You left us to the demons and the darkness, and you never thought twice did you?" The demoness was moving closer and closer, her clawed hands shining in the light from the fireplace. "You just ran away to your friends and this woman, and you never came back for us, your sister and I."
"Where is she?" Simon suddenly asked. "Where's Rebecca?"
"Dead," said the demoness indifferently. "She refused to join our king, so he had her sent away, tossed her out into the park where he runs his deer, for the court to hunt."
"You ran your own daughter down?" Isabelle asked with disgust."
"I never saw her again," the demoness laughed. "Not hide nor hair of her."
"You're a monster," Simon murmured, looking at the thing that had been his mother. "You're a monster."
"Me? And what about you?" she demanded, sniffing the air. "Vampire. Blood-drinker. Dead."
"I've never murdered innocent people," Simon hissed back.
"Not yet," replied the demoness sweetly. "But you will, Simon, oh, you will; it's in your nature, and when that day comes, will you think of me then?"
"No," Simon snapped.
"You will, you will think of what I did and wonder, Am I as bad as her?" The demoness laughed at the look on his face. "It's just a matter of time."
"No!" Simon snarled, and he felt his fangs descend. "No, it's not!"
"With your pretty, little girl there," the demoness crowed. "One day, her beauty won't be enough for you, you'll have the blood lust on your and you will-"
"I don't think so."
Simon and the demoness looked to the side and saw that Isabelle was standing between them, an arrow knocked in a forgotten bow, waiting to fire. The tip flared brightly in the fire light for just a moment before she released it with the twang. The arrow shot through the air and lodged itself deep in the eye socket of the demon. It howled in pain, scrabbling at its face, but Isabelle was faster. She drew her sword, covered in glowing runes, and drove it through her chest. The demoness roared in agony, but it was short death, and the runes did their work quickly.
Simon's mother swayed on the spot, opened her mouth and vomited, and out poured a black sludge, and for a moment, it held a shape, but the demon had been destroyed, and its corporeal body vanished. Simon's mother collapsed, a gaping hole forming around the point where the sword entered.
"She's dead," Simon said emptily, staring at his mother's distorted face.
"I'm sorry, Simon," said Isabelle quietly, "but, there wasn't another way-"
"She's been dead a long time," Simon said blankly. "Ever since that demon took her, she's been dead. But, Rebecca…"
"We'll find her, Simon," said Isabelle at once, taking his arm. "We'll find her body and give her a proper burial."
"She's not dead, she can't be," Simon said frantically. "I know her, Izzy, and I know she would have escaped. I know it! And the demon said, it said she ever saw her, but it doesn't mean that she's not alive."
There was such a bright light in Simon's eyes, such hope, that Isabelle didn't have the heart to say otherwise. She nodded her head and kissed his cheek. "Alright, Simon. When this is over, when it's done, we'll go and find-"
Isabelle's words were cut off by a horrible keening screech. They both whipped around to face the source and knew it had come from the stairs leading up to the castle proper and the Great Hall. After a moment, it was followed by another scream and another and another, and then there was a sound of a fire consuming debris as it went. Isabelle felt for her sword, and was about to kiss Simon once more before storming into battle when she heard a yell she knew, one she had always known.
"Alec!"
Rushing down through the palace had not been a good idea in retrospect, Alec thought as he barely maneuvered around the gaping maw of a demon man. Maybe a bit of planning might have gone a long way.
At his side, Magnus was directing a steady stream of fire from his palms, catching anything that came too close. The problem they were encountering at this point was that, while they could effectively keep the demons at bay, they were beginning to swarm into the Great Hall, and Alec and Magnus were now back to back in a tight circle composed of Alec's swinging sword and Magnus's fire. More and more demon people were swarming in, swiping ugly clawed hands at the air, snapping fangs threateningly, twisting their bodies into awful shapes.
"At least we found out where all the demons were!" Alec shouted to Magnus, who laughed rather manically and shot a ball of blue flame at the nearest demon, which was quickly consumed with the blaze.
"Just in time, too, I was starting to get worried," Magnus called back.
Alec looked around frantically, watching more of the demon people crowd in, snapping their jaws and flashing claws. Through the glass windows, he could just see the fire light from the city, and knew that there was no help coming now. The army of shadowhunters was far too busy, and they were on their own now.
"How many do you think there are?" Alec asked, driving his sword into one and watching it collapse to the ground, dead.
"Fifteen, maybe twenty, but they're stronger than normal demons, and they have the human bodies to protect them." A ball of flame burst from Magnus's hand, illuminating the room and causing the demons to fall back as the light burned their eyes. He pointed across the hall. "There's the exit to the servants' stair. Your sister must be down there."
"If we fight our way through we could use the stair as a bottleneck," Alec offered. "It would be easy to pick these off if they tried attacked us."
"That's assuming that there aren't any down there," Magnus said, but his eyes narrowed in thought. "It's a plan, though, so we might as well try; there's no point standing in the middle of the court waiting for them to kill us."
Magnus aimed both his palms flat in the direction of the door and shot a stream of white, blinding light. The demons fell back, unable to dear the intensity of the light and Magnus and Alec darted through the parted crowd, reaching the door just as the demons shook themselves free of the blinding stars in their eyes. Alec reached forward and tore the door open, banging it off the wall and almost charged through when he found his way barred.
"Isabelle!"
"Alec!"
"Move!" Magnus ordered, and pushed them both back, down the stairs. "Get down a bit, we're going to have to lure them in."
Isabelle didn't ask twice what he meant because she saw the horde of demons recovering themselves and prowling forward. She tripped back down a few stairs, Simon right behind her, and drew her sword.
"There's no demons down in the servants' quarters, if we get them down there we can kill them off one by one as they try to enter the room," she called up to Magnus.
"Go!" he cried, and sent another blaze of fire behind him to hold off the demons while they escaped.
The four of them tumbled out into the common room, panting, weapons drawn. Between them, they had two swords, one set of arrows, Simon's fangs and Magnus's fire, and it was all they had to hold off twenty or so demons. After this dawned on them, they turned as one to face the door and the sounds of demons echoing down the stairs.
"Who's there?" Jonathan called, picking up his wicked dagger from the table and holding it, ready to throw. "Show yourself!"
Jace, holding tightly to Clary, noticed that the bookshelves and the cover they provided were very close by. The two of them could slip past Jonathan while he was preoccupied with the intruder and escape from the room. It would be a simple matter to find better weapons and return, prepared to fight. He nudged Clary in the back, and she looked up at him; carefully, he nodded in the direction of the bookcase nearest them.
"It's no use," she whispered back. "He's too fast."
She's probably right, Jace thought, but he didn't enjoy standing by while they did nothing. But maybe help is coming, maybe-
"I said, show yourself!" Jonathan snarled, and this time, there was a small rasping noise that was heard from the shadows.
Clary and Jace both watched while a thin, sallow faced woman emerged from the bookshelves. Her eyes were almost completely black and her yellow skin was pulled tight over the bones in her face. She looked ill and neither Clary nor Jace recognized her.
"Ah," said Jonathan slowly, lowering the dagger. "Amatis, how kind of you to come."
"You sent for me, my lord," she croaked in a strange, dead voice.
"I did indeed, and you have come at just the right moment," Jonathan said, gesturing her forward. "It is time that you honored your word and served the Great Goddess."
The woman, Amatis, smiled, and some of her teeth were missing, rotted out. "I am honored, my lord."
Jonathan shot a sly smile toward Clary and Jace. "Come forward, Amatis, and do as I say."
Amatis scuttled forward, her head bent and Jonathan placed her in the center of the black pentagram. He whispered something in her ear and she gasped, whether in fear or delight, they didn't know. He then turned about and faced Clary and Jace, looking supremely smug.
"The time has come, my little shadowhunters, to see my full power unleashed," Jonathan said loudly and clearly. "I will prove once and for all that I am king of this world and the next, and all will bow to me. I am supreme, I am all powerful-" here his black eyes turned to Clary "-I will not be denied what is mine."
"You don't have to do this, Jonathan," said Clary swiftly. "It doesn't have to be this way. Jace and I, we can protect you from the Clave; just call off your armies and send the demons back. We can help you-"
"Your words are pointless, little girl!" snapped Jonathan, but the voice wasn't his, and Clary's eyes widened in shock. "My time has come."
"Lilith," Jace breathed, and Jonathan's eyes bulged.
"So you know?" he asked, and his tongue slithered out. "You know who I am?"
"We've known for ages," Clary answered simply. "And I stand by what I said before, I am not afraid of you."
"Then you're a fool, and a fool to say it." Jonathan moved with odd sharp motions as Lilith took control of his body. "You think little Jonathan can protect you once I have come? You think he will stop me from crushing you like the bugs that you are?"
"He won't be pleased," Jace said smartly.
"He won't care," Lilith answered with a disjointed shrug. "I will give him dominion over this world and he will forget you and your promise. It shall be as it has always been, Jonathan and I."
Clary's looked on in horror. "You love him?"
"He is my son," she answered. "He is all that matters in this world. You two are annoyances, irritations, usurpers of his attention. I will kill you, and he will think no more of you and your precious little smiles," she shot at Clary. "I will give him whatever he needs."
"He won't," said Clary with certainty. "He gave his word."
"Was it Jonathan or me?" Lilith asked, smirking all over Jonathan's face. "I wonder who it was that signed that paper?"
"It doesn't matter," said Clary firmly. "Jonathan's my brother, and I won't leave him."
"It won't be your choice in the matter," laughed Lilith, and she turned back to Amatis in the circle and the book. "Now, behold, Angel children, my power!"
Jace tugged Clary against him, holding the blade in his hand now as tightly as he could. Jonathan was standing in his own pentagram while Lilith spoke, a horrible language neither of them knew. Slowly, the runes that covered Jonathan's arms, the runes of the demon, began to glow brighter and brighter, and the runes of the pentagrams were humming with energy. In her pentagram, Amatis was issuing a string of prayers in the same language, her eyes shut tight, her hands clasped.
The runes on Jonathan were now almost blindingly white, and all the sounds of chaos and madness around them were drowned out. The wind outside the window was now banging so hard that the glass cracked and then shattered in a burst of jagged glass. The bits of glass flew through the room, glancing off everything and scattering on the floor, reflecting the light that Jonathan was emitting.
Jonathan, stop, stop! Clary thought frantically, wishing her brother was there to hear here. Don't do this!
"Jace," Clary rasped, "Jace, what is this?"
"I don't know," he said in the same breathless voice.
For a moment, everything seemed to be still, and it was like the feeling one gets when they miss a stair and feel only the empty air before they tumble down. Then, with a horrible sound like a painful howl, Jonathan tossed his head back and the runes on his body were torn off his skin in the gale around them, becoming a black, shapeless smoke, and then shooting through the air and swirling around Amatis in the pentagram. The woman screamed in torment, but it was too late. The black smoke poured into her, in her mouth, her eyes, her ears, her nose; her screams were gone and instead, there was a roar like a lion.
As Clary and Jace looked on, Amatis's face bent and twisted, her eyes bulging and shirking, her mouth widening and narrowing. Her body jerked back and forth, growing and reshaping itself, the bones breaking to form something new. It was like her insides were being fundamentally changed and reformed to fit something else. Jonathan, meanwhile, had fallen to his knees and was watching with a face so full of anticipation it seemed like he had been waiting for this moment all his life.
This is wrong, Clary thought, her stomach turning. This is all, horribly wrong.
Amatis dropped to her misshapen knees and gave a keening cry, her neck snapping back and bending in a new way. Clary, unable to watch anymore, closed her eyes and pressed her face against Jace's chest. She knew his eyes were closed too, and he was muttering a stream of curses into her hair.
Then, it was over.
The humming and vibrating had stopped. The fierce glow from the runes was gone. Amatis had stopped screaming and Jonathan had stopped his frantic breathing. All Clary heard was Jace speaking into her ear and her own heart pounding.
Don't look, don't look, she told herself, but opened her eyes all the same.
There stood a woman, not Amatis, but a new woman. She was tall, shapely, with a curtain of long, black hair and black eyes. Her skin was creamy white, and was glowing in the light from the fire in the city below. She was beautiful, but there was something fundamentally wrong about her, an air of one who is rotten and dead. She looked down at her hands and smiled, and her teeth were completely black.
Clary couldn't help it; she bent over and retched. Jace, behind her, was gagging like he was choking on something. When she recovered, Clary looked up and saw that Lilith was looking at her with something akin to amusement. Jonathan was standing now, too, but he was staring at the demon woman.
"Are you quite alright?" Lilith asked in a silky voice.
Wrong, wrong, wrong, was all Clary could think.
"She will recover in time, Mother," Jonathan said carelessly, and he was smiling.
Lilith turned her gaze on Jonathan and her smile widened. "My boy, you have done so well."
"I need you, Mother, for the Angel's children have come to destroy me," he said softly.
"It is their destruction, not yours, that shall be the fate of this day," Lilith said with vicious relish. "Now that I have crafted this body of flesh and blood, we may go to battle together, my son, and end the rein of the Angel."
Jonathan was glowing. "We shall be rulers of this mortal world."
"You will be king, my son, as was your birthright," Lilith said, and she reached out to him. He moved toward her and she kissed his forehead. "It is the dawn of a new age of-"
"Clary!" cried a voice from the direction of the door. "Clary! Jace!"
Oh, no, thought Clary in horror. No… "Mother, no! Mother, don't come!" Clary cried desperately, tugging free of Jace. "Don't come in!"
"My, my, my." Clary turned and saw that both Jonathan and Lilith were staring at her with a look of fascination. Lilith, particularly, looked a little discontented. "You have been keeping secrets, haven't you, Clarissa?"