Yeah, so I'm a really bad person. I haven't updated in a loooong while, huh? Sorry about that - I know you're not interested in my excuses.

The New York City Institute Shadowhunters (AKA Clary, Isabelle, Alec, and now Jace) had this thing. Basically, it was that bitching rights about going on demon fights - and the ensuing chaos it wrecked on schedules - were given up once the peace between infestations hit the week mark. Since it had been a week and three days, no one really complained when the message came through at around midnight. Instead, they all suited up and loaded themselves with weapons, taking a cab to Queens.

"Take Queens Boulevard," Alec instructed the cabbie, slidingonto the vinyl seat and shutting the door behind him. Clary struggled to breathe properly, feeling like her rib cage was folding in on itself as Izzy's elbow jabbed her stomach and Alec's hips poked at hers. Jace smirked back at Isabelle from the passenger seat, exaggerating his extra space up front by stretching and pretending to yawn. She told him to do something anatomically impossible with himself just before the cabbie turned on the radio, drowning out the rest of their words.

About thirty minutes later as the cab started to cruise around Flushing, a flicker of red caught Clary's eye. Turning her head around to keep it in sight, she saw an Oni demon sneak out of an alleyway and survey the deserted street. "Stop!" she said suddenly, breaking the steady stream of music. The cabbie slammed on the brakes, just as startled as the rest of them. Alec threw a few bills over the center console and they all tumbled out. The yellow cab wasted no time in speeding away, turning the corner and zooming out of sight.

"Where - oh." Isabelle turned around to see the rest of the Onis crawling out of the alley and onto the sidewalk in front of a closed Korean deli. The tall, wispy demons stood to their full heights and faced the four Shadowhunters who in turn took out their weapons. Clary didn't bother to light her blade yet, watching Izzy's whip coil gracefully by her side. She chanced a glance behind her at Alec, who was holding his blades confidently. He had a frown on his face, although unconcerned.

"I was hoping to get them somewhere less... conspicuous," he said, nocking an arrow nevertheless. Jace laughed, not without humor, and suddenly flicked a blade straight through the first Oni's heart. It screamed and folded in on itself, spraying ichor everywhere. Clary glanced around nervously, noting that the stores around the street were all closed and they were alone. Clary shook her head - she wasn't in the zone today - and got to work, slashing a random demon across the chest and watching it disintegrate. It was like wisps were flying away into the night air, with red ash slowly burning out and eventually disappearing.

"Ah, frick," Clary muttered, caught off guard when a demon shifted into a human being. He had electric green hair and a flawless complexion, eyes alternating between deep brown and their true red color. In his right hand he held a long, wicked knife.

The demon hurled himself at her, barreling forward and almost crashing into her. She jumped out of the way in time, tripping over cracked pavement and falling on her butt. She scrambled backwards as he advanced, grin pasted onto his face and knife poised to kill. (His expression was kind of like Jace's, but Jace was infinitely more dangerous.) She rolled away and jumped to her feet, whispering "Emmanuel" and watching her blade grow brighter. She flung it at the demon but missed wildly, watching the light sail past his shoulder almost comically. (Jace would be incredibly pissed at her lack of skill. She'd been training for four years, goddammit!) It laughed at her, a horrible grating sound, then took confident steps forward. She fumbled with the daggers hanging from her belt, but her fingers felt slow and clumsy. She actually didn't want to do anything but sleep at this point. She hadn't gotten any down time in over thirty six hours.

"Goddamn, Clary, what the hell are you doing?" whispered a voice in her ear as a glowing blade whipped past her arm and embedded itself into the demon's stomach. Whipping around, she caught Jace's eye. Her conscious came roaring back, making her veins hum with new-found adrenaline.

"I - "

"Save it," he hissed, stalking over to where the demon had disintegrated and plucking his seraph blade from the sidewalk. Clary distractedly caught a flash of gold - Isabelle's whip - from the corner of her eye. "If you want to get killed, fine by me." He swept past her and threw himself into the mess, promptly jumping onto a tall Oni's back.

Ass, she thought furiously. So she wasn't in her best shape today. Sue her. It wasn't like she was going to die!

A yell from Alec snapped her attention to his area of the street. Three Onis were bearing down on him, each with at least one weapon clutched in their hands. Wiping sweaty hair away from her face, she bounded to Alec's side.

"Hello, Clary." He greeted her casually, if not a little breathlessly. She gave him a grin and returned the greeting, decapitating a demon with her dagger as she did so. Ichor sprayed everywhere, splattering against her jacket and making her hair sticky. (Suck it, Jace, she could too kill a demon.) Alec made quick work of the remaining two, causing Clary to revel in the fact that he used to not kill demons at all. The grace and ease with which he did his job left no messy ends, no untied strings. It was perfectly executed.

(Fuck you, Jace Wayland-Herondale-Lightwood. She'd take Alec over him any day.)

"Thanks," he told her, looking around the street cautiously. She mimicked him, rather surprised that no one came rushing to the scene of the fight. But that was New York City, she supposed. No one cared as long as it didn't move into their homes. Besides, this was a tiny commercial district. No one was around. She put out her blade quickly though, always careful.

Isabelle was finishing up with one last demon on her end, while Jace took on three with one blade. The Oni disintegrated quickly, no match for the Shadowhunters. It was all in a day's work, really, with the ichor as an added negative. Breathing more heavily than normal, Isabelle caught Clary's gaze. She gave her a nod, wrapping the whip back around her wrist as an innocent bracelet. Jace extinguished his blade and tucked it into his belt sheath, mischievous grin spreading across his face.

"So," he asked nonchalantly, "how are we going to get back to the Institute like this?"

Ah, crap. Ichor was hell for vinyl taxi seats.

They finally decided to take the subway back. It was just about deserted at this hour anyway, and the few people on it were either too tired or too wrapped up in their own thoughts to notice the four young adults covered in black gunk, sitting in an inconspicuous corner and drawing hastily with a strange crystal object.

Clary drew a careful iratze on Izzy's skin first, healing the nasty gash she'd obtained from one of the demons' knives. Alec was next, the rune stitching together small, but draining injuries scattered everywhere. Then, as the two blood siblings' eyes fluttered shut, she turned warily to Jace.

"Going to let me bleed to death?" he asked her lazily, gaze never wavering from the stele. She stayed silent, ruffled but hesitant. He looked vaguely amused. "I would do it myself, Rissi, but my left hand is shredded. Wanna get to work now?"

She bristled at the usage of her nickname - Ryan's nickname - but mutely extended a small hand. He placed his wrist into her fingers, looking as cool and collected as ever. Her fingertips started to tremble as the familiar contact spread throughout her nerves, but she managed to swipe an iratze onto his golden skin before dropping his arm like she was burned. He looked more entertained than ever, eyes finally flicking up to meet hers. She looked away immediately, apparently absorbed with drawing her own healing rune.

"Don't you think a thank you is in order?" he asked her softly, glad that Izzy and Alec were asleep. (They were across the aisle, anyway, so they couldn't have heard if they tried.) "I saved your ass out there."

"I could have handled it," she responded stiffly, feeling the corporeal ache of tiredness drag her eyelids down. "You didn't have to intervene."

He scoffed. "Yeah, all right. Sure."

"You really didn't! I've helped myself out of tougher spots before."

"Yeah? Like what?"

She stared at the red graffiti that lined the subway's plastic chairs, unwilling to answer that question honestly. She wasn't ready for that yet.

He scoffed, taking her silence as an inability to think of an example and leaned back into his seat. There was a tense, brief silence before he opened his mouth.

"I don't understand why you won't let me help you," he said, voice softer than before. Clary shot a harried look at the Lightwood siblings, but they were completely out of it. It was uncanny, really.

"I don't need you to," she replied tightly. "I got used to doing things on my own."

The charred note was resting on the hearth when the four Shadowhunters arrived at the Institute. Church yowled insistently until they followed him to where it was, Alec scooping it up and reading quickly.

"Mom and Dad are coming on the next flight from Switzerland. The Clave refused to grant them a Portal farther than the outskirts of Idris. They'll be here in a week."

Jace's expression hardened. Clary took one glance at his face and knew he was nervous, not cutting himself off. Then she shook her head. It wasn't possible to read someone like that unless you truly loved them. The only person she could read that well was Ryan, and there was no way that Jace was at the same level as her boyfriend.

Yeah, except for the fact that he was your boyfriend, a voice reminded her. She sighed and smacked a palm to her forehead discreetly. Izzy gave her a curious glance but she shrugged it off, not willing to explain what even she couldn't figure out.

"We had better get ready for their arrival then," Clary said, just to take her mind off things. "Does the note include their flight information?"

"No, but I'm assuming they'll either call or get here on their own," Alec responded. "I'm guessing it'll be the latter, since they almost never call."

As if scripted, Jace's cell phone started to vibrate just as the words left Alec's mouth. He glanced at the caller I.D. and rolled his eyes, raking back the curls from his face. He took a deep breath and flipped it open.

"Drew?"

"Jace!" The other three Shadowhunters looked up curiously at the lightly accented female voice. Clary felt a pang of old, premature jealousy streak through her chest before she reminded herself of the situation and Ryan. "You finally answered your phone," the woman went on. "Look, I have to come to New York for business, and I know you have friends there. Can you hook me up with someplace to stay? You're probably in New Zealand or somewhere equally obscure by now - "

"Actually, I'm back in the city to stay," he replied, brows furrowing. "I think I could get a friend to take you in. My apartment can't hold more than one person, but my friend's can hold at least three."

"Really? Oh, that'll be amazing. All right, I have to go there in about a week and a half. Can you arrange it by then?"

"Yes."

"Call me?"

Clary noted that Jace looked almost pained, as if the conversation was physically tolling. "I will. Good night, Drew."

"Good night, Jace. Sweet dreams."

As soon as he shut the phone, Izzy pounced. "Who was that, and where are you putting her?"

"Her name is Drew Salinas," he answered slowly. "And I'm going to have her room with Simon."

"What? Are you fricking kidding me - "

"Jace, what's wrong?" Alec asked, cutting across Izzy.

Jace took a deep breath, and Clary was sure that he wasn't going to talk. But then he let out the air in one big gush and said, "She's not the type to call me up for a place to stay. She's really independent, and would probably have found her own means. I don't know what's wrong with her, but she's acting weird."

Clary thought she knew what was going on, however. It was a classic case of sample syndrome. Once you had a taste of Jace, you always wanted more.

Oh, something's going down. :O Clary's keeping secrets, Robert and Maryse are coming back, and we're going to meet Drew Salinas. Where does Stricklander and his boss factor into this, I wonder?