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Alec entered the meeting with Jace, Clary, Isabelle and Simon in tow. Despite the slight look of disapproval from Mark and a glowering Nick, no one seemed to mind or notice the fact that Simon was with them.

Though Alec honestly wouldn't have cared if they did, he was floating on cloud nine right now; his family was there as if they could sense what was happening. He thought that if he just got to have a talk with Izzy, possibly listen to some of Jace and Simon's snarky banter, Clary refereeing the two, then maybe everything he was feeling lately would just disappear and he could be okay again. Hell, maybe one day he would be better than just okay.

It was a possibility, right?

Mark cleared his throat, his shoulders slumped instead of in their normal upright stature, something was definitely wrong. Alec took a closer look around, noticing Jenna's usually fresh faced make up was not there, something that almost never happened, why hadn't he realized that before?

Apparently Maria had taken notice as well, because she had just slapped Nick's hand as he attempted a whispered conversation with her. The mundane frowned, but got the idea, even managing to look slightly worried at the sight.

Alec glanced across the room, at his table there was Jace, Isabelle, Simon and Clary. The table next to theirs had Maria, Nick, Jenna, and an empty seat presumably left open for Jasper, and at a table next to theirs sat a Shadowhunter by the name of Christopher, he had only been to the Institute twice and only for emergency situations.

What the hell was going on?

"If everyone is okay with it, I would like to begin our meeting." Mark said, running a large hand through his already mussed up hair- a habit Alec was already too familiar with- yes Mark was definitely upset about something.

Of course, Maria spoke up. "Jasper isn't here yet."

As if they hadn't noticed, it wasn't as if it was a room full of so many people that a person's absence wouldn't be noted. But that was Maria, always looking out for her parabatai, as Jace and Alec would do for each other.

"Yes, we've noticed," Mark replied sternly. "I'm sure you can manage to fill him in on what's going on."

Maria pursed her lips but even she knew that it was best not to say anything else, so she leaned back in her chair and Nick placed a hand on her lap. Okay, the guy was not an ass all the time.

As if on cue, Jasper burst into the room, this earning a stern look from Mark, but Maria smiled in triumph.

"Your ears must have been burning." Jenna whispered as Jasper took his seat at their table. Alec saw that Jasper seemed to have headed his warning about the arriving a few minutes late thing, even knowing the possible consequences, he was also wearing a bandage over the nape of his collarbone, where Alec knew he must have left a mark.

Whoops, but at least it was more creative than a turtleneck or something, they could blame this on the hunt and it would be a good explanation for Jasper sleeping in if he was injured.

Jasper flushed, unconsciously touching the bandage and glancing at Alec for just a second. However, like everyone else, his attention is drawn to Mark at the front and center of the room, his distress all too obvious to everyone who knows him. Simon ever murmured a snarky comment about how fast his heart was beating. Yes, something was up.

Mark cleared his throat again. "Now that we're all here, I guess I'll try and begin, again."

Jasper blushed and choked out an apology before slinking down in his chair.

"As some of you may have noticed, there has been a recent increase in demonic activity in this area," Mark began.

Yes, Alec had noticed but hadn't really cared, he was actually incredibly grateful for any distraction lately.

The rest of the room, including Jace and the rest for some reason, nodded their heads.

Why in the hell were they agreeing? Was the same thing happening in New York? Or was it politeness? No, if it were politeness Clary would be the only one nodding.

Alec began to listen to Mark's words even more intently, noticing the man seemed to be struggling to find the right ones. That was also something unusual for the normally straight forward, no nonsense man.

"After some correspondence with some other institutes we found the problem is all over, and not only is the activity higher, but there is also a higher body count than normal, for both mundanes and downworlders, and as of last night, the Chicago institute was attacked, resulting in the death of one of our own."

A small choking noise was the only sound made at the statement. The distress all made sense now as Jenna's sister, Jessica, resided at the Chicago institute. It wasn't her was it? That would absolutely devastate Jenna, and hard as Alec had tried to cut himself from too many personal connections, he couldn't help but worry about the woman, as she did the same for everyone else.

The death of a Shadowhunter was hardly shocking news, it was part of the lifestyle after all, but the attacking of an institute? Now that was practically unheard of, and Alec was getting flashbacks of the attacks on Idris, all of the unexpected deaths, Max . . .

"It was not anyone that any of us have a personal connection to, but whatever is going on is obviously something that needs our attention and Christopher here," Mark explained, making a sweeping gesture towards the elderly man who reminded Alec of an older, slightly more closed off version of Hodge, "has been tracking the activity spikes all across various institutes and noticed each one has a personal connection to our institute specifically."

Mark took a deep breath, as if the speech had somehow wore him out, "While we aren't sure of what the connection could be, and we aren't even one hundred percent sure if any of this has anything to do with us at all, after all Shadowhunters are almost all connected in some way, shape or form, we should be looking out for anything suspicious."

Makes sense, Alec thought, it was always a good idea to be aware, it was practically the Shadowhunter motto. Though, in some cases Shadowhunters took it a little overboard crossing the fine line between aware and paranoid.

"Today, you all may noticed that we have some visitors,"Mark introduced emphasizing the last word distastefully (probably because of Simon), "from the New York institute. They are also family and friends of our own Alexander Lightwood."

The words "our own" combined with the use of his full name made Alec cringe internally. He didn't know why, part of it was that he always had hated when people called him Alexander, but most of it was the "our own" part, especially in front of his siblings.

"They are here to explain their own experience with the recent demonic activity in New York, and just one week ago there was an unsuccessful attack on their own institute, which is part of the reason they are here. They believe, and Christopher agrees, that our institute may be next. Mr. Herondale, if you would."

Jace cleared his throat getting ready to speak as Isabelle mumbled something about him being a Lightwood, as Alec gave his group a sharp glace. What in the hell was going on? So that's why they were there? Not for him but for business purposes. He should have known. He had been trying to get them to visit him since he moved here (he didn't want to go to New York) but they always claimed it would be too hard to find a time that worked for all four of them.

Isabelle quickly realized what happened, and shot Alec a sorrowful glance, her eyes promising an explanation. An explanation Alec really didn't want at the moment. Not only had there been an attack on them last week and thus ample opportunities to write or text him and tell him they were visiting. No, instead they came with no warning and acting as if they were here for him, instead it was about business.

Alec just glared at her and turned his attention to whatever Jace was about to say, still glaring. Jace seemed unaffected by this and simply pushed his chair out from where he was sitting and began his explanation.

"For the past month there has been an unexplained jump in demonic activity, me being the excellent Shadowhunter I am, simply took this as a challenge- ouch Clary!"

Jace glared down at the small red head who had just elbowed him, "Be serious Jace this isn't New York and this is a serious situation. Someone died," Clary hissed.

Jace opened his mouth to protest, once again as if this wasn't an important meeting and the rest of hunters around him had time to listen to the quarreling couple.

"Please, do be serious Mr. Herondale, we our short on time and would like to hear what is happening." Mark chastised.

Jace set his jaw, and looked up from his girlfriend to the tall man, wanting to challenge him but one more glance at Clary and he decided against it.

"It's actually Lightwood, but of course this is a business meeting," Jace replied, unable to stop himself from making some sort of remark, "and I apologize."

"For the past month there has been a huge increase in demon attacks and not only have their numbers increased, but the viciousness of their attacks has as well. We decided this was worth an investigation and with the help of some downworlder connections, we had traced this increase to a rogue group of downworlders."

"Of course," Nick snorted, earning a glare from Izzy and Simon, Maria glaring back at them in defense of her boyfriend.

Jace cleared his throat and all eyes were back on him, as he was used to.

"Sorry for interrupting the cat fight, but this is important Shadowhunter business ladies. Anyways, the point of all of this is, we traced the origin of the demonic activity to a small group of warlocks, rather small time ones, no big deal. We quickly investigated only to find the entire group dead, with signs of a demon attack everywhere. So whatever this is, it's capable of killing an entire group of warlocks, though not very powerful ones, and so on-"

"What about the attack on the institute?" Mark interrupted.

Jace sighed clearly annoyed by the interruption, "As I was about to say, after finding the warlocks dead we immediately placed a call to a local warlock,"

Magnus. Alec knew the local warlock Jace was speaking of had to be him. What other warlock did they know well enough to call? Did this mean they had kept in contact with him after what he put Alec through? This was all just too much.

"And when we got ahold of him we were warned that there were currently a battle at the institute and our assistance was needed. Apparently the dead warlocks were simply a distraction for that, and there were no Shadowhunters at the institute at the time. Luckily, our warlock friend had been keeping close tabs on everything and was there to stop whatever or whoever was there, but he was unable to identify the attacker."

"So this means that whatever is at the cause of this is less powerful than a warlock, but managed to kill a group of them as well?" Jenna asked kindly.

"Well, it's a high warlock to be exact, and it may have just been that the attacker was caught by surprise."

Alec noted that Jace did glance over at him as he said this. Maybe he did feel some guilt, or just didn't want Alec to know he was now apparently still in contact with the man who had stomped all over his heart. Whatever, Alec felt to numb to meet his parabatai's gaze. Besides if he did, he might just break down.

It was just all too much: his siblings lying about why they were here, the fact they didn't warn him when they could have, being in contact with Magnus- the name still made his heart hurt- and everything else that he had been feeling was back.

Earlier he was on cloud nine, but now he had fallen back down into a cold hard reality, and it sucked.

"Alright, so is there anything else we need to know?"

There was a pregnant pause in which Jace, Clary, Isabelle, and Simon all looked at each other. They were saying something with their eyes that Alec couldn't understand, and that was just another addition to the list of things wrong lately. Alec was basically kicked out of the group of people who he still considered his closest confidants.

Finally, Jace turned to them, and Alec considered him a moment. How much he had changed in five years since Clary had come into his life. Two years he watched the changes, and when he left there was still pieces of the old self-loathing angel boy, now just three years after Alec left, that boy was not there at all. Sure, he had obviously still kept the wit and sarcastic aspects of his personality, but right now he seemed to actually care about himself in a way he hadn't before, and therefore was more obliged to openly caring about others. Alec could tell by the sorrowful gaze he gave him before adding the final nail in Alec's coffin of problems.

"Yes, well um, the warlock whose assistance we have been using was in contact with some other warlocks in this area. After some discussion, we found that not many warlocks were willing to assist any Shadowhunters in this particular institute, and the few that were would only do so for an obscene amount of money."

There was a pause, and everyone in the room was waiting on Jace to continue. Mark nodded for him to do so.

"So, our warlock friend decided he would come and assist, free of charge."

"And who might this warlock be?" Mark asked, his tone not giving away the annoyance Alec knew he was feeling.

"Magnus Bane, High Warlock of Brooklyn." Jace answered.

And then nearly every set of eyes in the room were on Alec, waiting for his reaction.

Sorry if this was terrible, but it's 1 in the morning but I wanted to post this quickly because the chapter with Magnus is next!

Hope it's at least decent.