6

Jace crouched down again in the tangle of scrub edging a beach along the Paraná River and touched the sand where it was suddenly wiped smooth. The mid-afternoon sun beat down on the back of his neck, uncomfortably hot, and he wiped away the beads of perspiration from his brow impatiently. None of this made sense. Slipping his Sensor out of one of his many pockets, he fiddled with the settings for a moment and then squinted at it. Glared, really.

Alec called out from behind Jace, where he standing 'out of the way' and waiting for the all-clear from his parabatai, "What do you think?"

Jace sat back on his heels, arms dangling loosely over his knees as he double-checked the Sensor readings again. His mind was working overtime to process the irregularities he and Alec had started to pick up when Magnus had dropped them off here, nearly 45km north of Buenos Aires.

Demon sign had been easy to spot; the initial Sensor output had taken them right to the rip in the wards outside of the city. The crash of bodies through the trees had been easy to follow. Deadwood lay shattered, undergrowth was torn up, and the ground had been scarred by the passing of claws and talons. It had seemed inevitable that they would be able to follow the trail to wherever the demons had holed up to wait out the daylight.

But now... Jace idly lifted a handful of sand and let it trail through his fingers while he continued to evaluate what they had found.

"Jace?" Alec called again.

"I don't get it," he confessed. "The demons were making a mad dash for the city hours ago. They had plenty of time to get there before sun-up. But then this." Jace swept his hands out in front of him where the landscape revealed no trace of the monsters they had been tracking.

"Fliers?" Alec offered.

Jace shook his head. "Nah. The tracks look pretty heavy, I don't see any obvious lift-offs or landings, and the shape of the feet is wrong for most of our flappy bird friends. I'm slightly concerned that I don't recognize the prints. I'd feel a lot better if I knew what I was looking for."

"What's on the Sensor?" Alec came to stand next to his parabatai, officially crossing the line to 'in the way'.

"Nothing that the tracks don't already tell me. There was a huge demonic presence here, they were running hard for the city, and then something happened to slow them down. They vanished, hid their passing, and now I have no idea where to look." He took his gaze away from the empty beach and the brown river water rushing past, his gold eyes worried as they found Alec's. "Demons don't stop to think about stuff like this, Alec. They're hunters; they don't care about leaving trails. They don't coordinate. They don't even usually make plans. There's something else we're not seeing."

Alec exhaled slowly. "No chance that they just up and vanished, right? Fried in the sun?"

Jace shot a look sideways at him. "Not so much. Honestly, I haven't seen demons work together like this since..." He trailed off as his memories carried him back to a black ship on a very different river than the one he was looking at now.

"Since...?" Alec prompted.

"Since Valentine was commanding them with Maellartach. If I didn't know better, I'd swear they were taking orders."

Both men fell silent as they contemplated the possibility. Alec was the first to break the quiet. "What does your gut tell you?"

Jace considered for a moment. "That we could be in serious trouble once the sun goes down."

Alec lifted one dark eyebrow. "How serious?"

A slow grin spread across Jace's lips. "Like, 'we should go to church' serious."

And that was how they found themselves in a small, hot church in the Belgrano area half an hour later after Alec had called Magnus to get them back to the city. Magnus had spent the morning trying to make contact with the city's Downworlders, and he immediately returned to wherever he had been before picking them up.

Jace started quietly prying up a flagstone near the altar while Alec kept watch from the nave. Leaving Alicante the way they had, there hadn't been any time to grab weapons. Magnus had been able to get them clothes (no surprise there), but they were going to need some firepower if they had to square off against demons.

If we find them in time, Jace thought to himself as he finally managed to get the edge of the stone to lift. A scream cut through the stuffy silence of the church and Jace dropped the stone in surprise, his head whipping up to see a nun clutching at her chest in shock at the state of the altar.

"¡Sor, por favor!" He cried, jumping to his feet and holding out his hands soothingly to calm her. "¡Solo estoy aquí para quitarle tu virtud!"

His words had an unintended effect, but she did stop screaming... because she promptly fainted, her eyes rolling back as she crumpled to the stone floor.

Alec skidded to a stop, drawn from his lookout by the Sister's scream. He shot an accusatory glare at Jace as he knelt down to scoop up the nun. "Why would you say that to her?"

Jace looked at him blankly. "I said I was only here to take her weapons, didn't I?"

Alec started laughing as he laid the woman down gently in one of the pews. He bit his lip when he turned back to his brother. "Armas. Not virtud."

"Well, what did I say, then?"

Alec's eyes sparkled, and for a moment, he could almost forget the weight of responsibility across his shoulders. "You may have just inadvertently threatened her vows of chastity."

Jace frowned for a moment and then comprehension dawned across his features before he started smiling and laughing quietly. "That explains it, then," he said.

"That you just offered to deflower a nun?" Alec snorted.

"No!" Jace protested, kneeling back down to work at the stone again. "Well, yeah. But no." As he lifted it once more, he grinned up at Alec. "The last time I was in Spain, I asked a rogue vampire if he wanted a taste of my weapons... I guess now that I know, I should have been flattered that he said yes..."

Alec rolled his eyes and shook his head as Jace started passing up the cache of weapons. "You need to stop taking your Spanish lessons from Rafe," he scolded.

The stash didn't have much, but it would be enough just in case they ran into any trouble before they were able to persuade the Institute to prepare for a demon attack. But it won't be anywhere near enough if they don't listen to us, Jace worried silently.

He set the stone down gently back into place and stood up, brushing off his knees. "I won't be held responsible for your son's twisted sense of humour."

Alec laughed and turned to lead their way back out of the church, past the sleeping nun in her pew. "It's not nearly as much fun when you're on the other side of the joke, now is it?"

The Buenos Aires Institute was hidden in the Monserrat neighbourhood of the city, and the Mundanes had no idea they were walking past it as they bustled around city hall and the city legislature. Alec pushed open one of the great wooden doors of the stone edifice and they stepped into the noticeably-cooler interior.

The inside of the Institute was vastly different from its counterpart in New York. Its pews had been cleared, but the great open space was now clearly serving as an enormous training room. Stained-glass windows shone in the afternoon light, painting the wooden floor with splashes of colour. The dais was still intact, but now it hosted tall racks of weapons in place of sacrament tables.

Two Shadowhunters in their late twenties or early thirties flipped off the heavy beams overhead and landed lightly in front of the newcomers, their bodies covered in a thin sheen of sweat from their sparring.

The female of the pair brushed her dark bangs out of her warm brown eyes and tucked the loose strands behind her ears as she smiled widely. "Dios, I prayed for gorgeous men to appear and here they are!" She looked upward at the ceiling where it arched high above them, an expectant look on her face. "A million dollars would be wonderful, too!"

Jace grinned and pulled down the collar of his shirt slightly so that his marriage rune was just visible, and then he winked back at her. "Should have prayed for single men, bella."

The woman huffed before she caught sight of Alec's plain gold wedding band and then connected it with his runes. Shadowhunters didn't typically exchange rings... but everyone knew that one of them had – with a warlock. Her eyes widened in recognition as she breathed, "Consul..."

Alec nodded once and studied her face, searching his memory for her name. "Carolina Monteverde?"

She reached out her hand for his. "And my brother, Marcos." The man had the same eyes as his sister, and Alec could easily see the family resemblance. As they clasped hands she eyed the ex-Consul curiously. "I must confess that I would never have thought to find you here when Alicante is so crippled."

Alec closed his eyes. This could get complicated. He needed to be careful.

"Alicante is just a city, Carolina. There's much more at stake now than our pride and our homeland." His dark blue eyes looked past her, searching for other Shadowhunters. "Have you not received any warning from Idris?"

Carolina shook her head, her dark eyes cautious. "We learned of the sabotage, and a half dozen Shadowhunters were sent here to rest and recover from the fires. They are in the rooms above. What warning do you speak of?"

Alec's stomach clenched. Everett, you goddamn fool. "Gather your enclave, everyone you can reach." He fixed his eyes on Marcos and saw the worry in the younger Shadowhunter's eyes. "Your city stands threatened by a mass of demons that have broken through the world's wards while the magic is temporarily weakened in the aftermath of the attack on Alicante."

In less than forty-five minutes, the entirety of the Buenos Aires enclave was gathered in the Institute, along with those who were still recovering from the fires. There was no shortage of eyebrows lifted in surprise once they started to recognize Alec, and he noted with faint amusement that nearly every one of the women, and a few of the men, knew Jace on sight. Maybe he hadn't been kidding about that Mr. December photo-shoot last year...

As the last group of three Nephilim hustled through the doors and joined the crowd, Alec did a quick head-count. Only seventeen, including himself and Jace. This city had been hit by Sebastian Morgenstern at the beginning of the Dark War, and its Institute was still relatively small even after all these years. Shadowhunters had had to spread themselves pretty thin to keep the world covered while they rebuilt their ranks with the Mortal Cup. They were only just now getting back up to a decent number of active warriors, but it was still hard to keep the Institutes running. Alec had been uniquely positioned to witness that struggle day in and day out for the last decade, and he worried about what this new threat would do to their already shaky recovery.

Alec stepped up onto the dais to stand between two of the weapon racks while Jace remained with the other Nephilim. Carolina nodded to him encouragingly and then looked out over the members of her enclave as they settled for him.

"I'm going to be honest with you because we don't have enough time for anything else," he said quietly, drawing them in with his voice and forcing them to pay attention. "I can see the doubt on some of your faces. I know you think that I should be under house arrest in Alicante right now."

He let his head fall forward for a moment before shaking his head back and pushing his black hair out of his eyes defiantly. "But my home is ashes now. Everything that happened before the Unseelie betrayal is ashes. The magic they used to take their revenge was the same magic that keeps the wards around our world strong enough to keep out the worst of the demons."

Alec saw some of the Shadowhunters shift uncomfortably as they grasped what he was saying. "After the surge, there was some damage to those wards; damage that will allow the demons an easier crossing to this dimension. One of those weak spots opened north of your city.

"Jace and I have already been to the point where they crossed over. Make no mistake," his hard eyes bored into them, willing them to believe. "They are coming. More than the average breach. When the sun goes down, they will hit the city and we must stand together."

One of the men behind Jace began muttering in Spanish to the Shadowhunter standing next to him, but in the quiet of the Institute, Alec could hear him. Alec's eyes narrowed not only at what was being said, but at the audacity of interrupting the Consul. Ex-Consul, he reminded himself.

"Si piensas que no entiendo lo que dices, estas usted se equivoca," he said in a low voice, addressing the detractor.

The Shadowhunter's head snapped up, clearly surprised, but he recovered quickly. "You're asking us to join you in committing treason, Lightwood. If you think that we will risk-" Jace's fist smashed into the man's face and he dropped like a stone. The others stared in shock.

Jace looked up at Alec and held up his hands, his eyes wide open with feigned innocence. "Alec, I'm telling you - I couldn't just stand here and listen to that again. Honestly. Sorry, not sorry."

Alec closed his eyes and prayed to the Angel for strength, but it came from an unexpected quarter.

"The Consul's right," Carolina said, drawing the eyes of her Nephilim. "If we do not stand together, we will die alone. There is no treason in defending our city from demons."

The others began nodding in agreement and she continued, "If we choose to ignore the warning that they have risked their lives to bring us, then we will have failed those who most depend on us. Let the Clave squabble over the politics of who is helping whom; it's our blood that will be spilled for their games." Her face blazed with a fierce pride. "I don't see any Council members offering their lives for ours. I will accept help from any Nephilim who means to fight with weapons instead of words."

Carolina stepped up beside Alec and held out her hand to clasp his forearm, and he closed his hand around hers in turn. "May the Angel watch over us, Consul. What would you have us do?"

Alec held her arm for just one extra second and took the time to lock eyes with her and whisper his thanks. In return, she murmured gently, "For Rafe." Alec nodded in appreciation before he released her and turned to Jace, who was studying his knuckles thoughtfully. "What have you got, Jace?"

Gold eyes flashed in the light filtering through the stained-glass, looking for a moment like those of a wolf on the hunt, and he grinned. "I've got some ideas."

The next hour was a flurry of maps and a great deal of pointing as Jace outlined the likely approaches to the city and confirmed them with the locals. Demons, he explained as if lecturing at the Scholomance once more, would take the shortest possible route to reach the highest density of population to wreak the greatest amount of damage. The key was to cut them off before they got that far.

The Shadowhunters hustled around the Institute in a swirl of controlled chaos as they donned heavy gear and armed themselves generously. Tiny comm packs were clipped to jackets and earpieces were slipped into place carefully. This was going to take timing and coordination. Not one of them stopped to revive the lone protester who was still laying where he had fallen.

Alec leaned in toward Jace where he was carefully drawing curving lines on a map. "Your diplomacy is terrible," he whispered. "You know that, right?"

Jace paused for a moment and looked up from his work to flash a dazzling smile at Alec. He kept his voice low as he shot a glance at the unfortunate Shadowhunter. "Yeah, but my right-cross is fantastic."

Near the end of the hour, Magnus arrived. His hair was wilting slightly and his sky-blue shirt was a bit rumpled under his grey jacket, but he was smiling brilliantly.

"We won't be totally on our own tonight, darling," he announced proudly. "I found two good-sized wolf packs and a rather surly nest of vampires who were terribly rude about being woken during the day." He waved off Alec's unspoken concern, the rings on his fingers sparkling in the fading light. "Don't worry, they'll join us once the sun goes down."

"Speaking of which," Jace said, as he slipped in his earpiece. "We need to get moving now if we're going to be in position by nightfall."

Sixteen Shadowhunters and one warlock climbed into an assortment of topless jeeps and faded pick-up trucks to head out to the four best ambush spots that Jace had selected with the help of the Argentines.

Alec, Jace, and Magnus were squashed into the back seat of Carolina's jeep as she made her way north through the city, and Alec took the time to swap information with Magnus. "Any word from Cairo yet?"

Magnus shook his head. "No. Everything was still quiet there when I checked in an hour ago. Nothing happened at sunset, and they're not getting any readings on their Sensors." He looked sideways at Alec's worried expression. "That's good news, by the way."

Jace looked troubled as well, or at least as troubled as one can look with their shoulders scrunched up to their ears between the door and Alec, and he muttered, "Then why doesn't it feel like good news?"

Magnus looked affronted. "Because you're only happy when you're brooding, biscuit."

"Stop calling me 'biscuit', or I'm going to kick you in the biscuits if we ever get out of this jeep," Jace threatened. In between them, Alec sighed in resignation.

The sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon as Jace, Alec, Magnus, Carolina and Marcos pulled themselves over the edge of a tall building in the Núñez area. Jace had positioned the Shadowhunters strategically along the coast to form a line of defense against the northern approach to the city. Each group of four was monitoring their Sensors for any sign of demonic activity, and the first to pick up readings would signal the others to collapse inward on their location. The werewolves had linked up with the Nephilim once they had entered the area, and Jace had been quick to scatter the members of one pack through his line and to extend the edges, while he sent the second pack racing ahead to screen the approach. The vampires would have to catch up once the sun was fully down.

Each pair of Shadowhunters began exchanging runes, and Jace felt renewed as the Marks burned along his skin. The calm that always came right before a battle was settling into his body, anxiety giving way to clarity. The sky began to darken, and he started scanning the area. Depending on where the demons had gone to ground for the day, it could take them a little while to reach the city, and his group was the furthest south.

Time passed, and full night fell. The city lights came to life slowly and glowed in windows along the waterfront. Jace looked up at the brilliant moon impatiently, a seraph blade clutched in one fist. Alec was surveying the horizon carefully, bow in hand, when a dark figure rose up over the edge of the wall behind them. Alec's hand whipped an arrow from his quiver, but he barely had time to draw it before a voice called out.

"Nephilim," a male voice hissed urgently. "The demons are already inside the city!" The vampire pointed back to the south, but they couldn't see anything at this distance. "They came up from under the city! You must go! Now!"

Wary of a trap, Jace must of hesitated a moment too long, because the vampire sighed in exasperation. "Foolish Shadowhunters ask for our help, and then they do not believe us!" He turned to jump off the roof and cast a look over his shoulder as he spat, "The Night's Children will defend until you can decide if we are trustworthy or not."

"Wait," Alec called, looking sideways at Jace. "We'll follow you." Jace cast a pained look to the north where the other three groups would be waiting for the demon advance. As the others took hold of the railings on the fire escape they had climbed to get up here and started sliding back down, Jace shook his head in frustration and reached up to switch on his comms.

"Fall back, the demons are behind us. Head south immediately."

Alec didn't like the look on his parabatai's face as they rocketed back down to street level. They threw themselves back into Carolina's jeep and she floored it, racing back through the city dangerously as she wove in and out of traffic. The vampire was standing on the jeep's step rail at her door, calling directions through the window as he clung to the side of the vehicle.

Jace was relaying the directions back through the comms to guide the other groups to him, but they would be at least a few minutes behind. He hoped the pack noticed the Shadowhunter's hasty departure, but the second pack that had been sent out to scout was lost to him for now. Stupid!

It wasn't long before the jeep plunged through a thin wall of mist and Carolina screeched to a halt in the street. Screams cut through the night air ahead, but the noise of the city behind them faded beyond the edge of the fog.

"Hellmist," Marcos cursed. The Shadowhunters poured out of the jeep, weapons flashing in the glow of Jace's seraph blade. He called a second one to life in his left hand as he began jogging up the street, and Alec followed with an arrow nocked. Carolina and her brother fanned out behind them, keeping Magnus in the middle of their group as they advanced.

Less than a hundred yards further up the street, the hellmist billowed thicker and the sickly smell that it carried assailed the Shadowhunters. The screams were louder now, and roars cut through the haze as well. Alec's heart pounded in his chest, but his hands were steady on his bow as the group sliced through the fog.

Jace had just drawn level with a stopped delivery truck when a vaguely reptilian creature reared up from behind it and shrieked deafeningly, its almost tube-shaped head thrust forward as its toothless mouth gaped open. The Shadowhunters flinched back, but didn't drop their weapons to protect their ears from the assault.

Spinning in low, Jace sliced at the demon with each of his seraph blades in rapid succession, aiming for the clawed hands that dangled under it's stooped frame even as they reached for him. He sheared off the limbs effortlessly and then used the momentum of his spin to propel himself forward into the hump-backed body as the demon threw it's head back to howl in pain. Jace planted his feet firmly just in front of the creature and then slashed upwards viciously to sever it's head just behind it's grotesquely large ear structures.

Jace's eyes flashed as he scanned the street for any more demons in the immediate vicinity, and he was just in time to watch a second creature's spiked back sink to the ground in silence as it clawed at the arrow buried deep in its eye socket. Both bodies began folding in on themselves as they were drawn back to their home dimension.

Alec's lips formed a word, but Jace couldn't hear him. Couldn't hear anything, actually. The quiet was eerie. Alec grabbed the front of his parabatai's jacket and pulled him in close to yell in the ear without a comm piece, his one word barely audible.

Destrachan. Jace nodded in understanding and activated his microphone to warn the others. Primarily a subterranean demon, destrachans used sonic attacks to blast enemies and obstacles alike. But when's the last time anyone saw one in this dimension, he thought to himself. The other groups would do what they could to protect against the attacks, but Jace's group was now, for all intents and purposes, deaf, and it was better to remain so while these dangerous demons were in the field. Communication would only flow in one direction now.

The vampire took point and led them forward now that they no longer had the screams and roars to guide them in. The hellmist began to glow ahead as fires bloomed where cars were turned over and smashed in the street.

They turned a corner and found a group of roughly humanoid demons running down a fleeing crowd of Mundanes. Some of the monsters were skittering ahead on all fours, while others were running upright, towering seven and eight feet tall in the darkness. Wicked black spines bristled down their dark backs, and their maws were split open to reveal jagged teeth as they gleefully pursued their terrified prey. Whatever the Mundanes were seeing must have still been pretty horrifying, even with the natural glamour that surrounded demons in this realm, but even the Shadowhunters wouldn't have been able to identify the hezrou demons on sight. Their kind had not walked this world in centuries. The lead demon's claws shot forward and tore one of the fleeing Mundanes in half, raining blood down into the street.

Arrows streaked out of the hellmist and sank into the deep purple flesh of the demons, runed tips piercing their hides and causing them to whip around to face this new threat.

The demons launched themselves at the Shadowhunters, their maddened howls falling on deafened ears. The stench, however, was thick in the air and made the Nephilim gag in disgust. Their vampire guide vanished into the night.

Marcos closed with one of the demons, his seraph blades weaving dangerously as the hezrou tried to lock its claws around him. His sister side-stepped her attacker and whirled on her brother's instead, slashing at its unprotected back as Marcos changed targets to sink his blades into the now-unbalanced demon that staggered past Carolina.

Jace charged wildly into two of the creatures head-on and jumped at the last moment to send himself flipping over their heads. They spun around, eyes tracking him, but more arrows thumped into them from behind and they looked back at where Alec stood tall under the glow of a streetlight, his bow humming. Jace took advantage of the distraction and scissored his blades savagely at the neck of the hezrou on the right. Its toad-like head fell away and its body began to dissolve even as Jace reversed his grip to stab at the other one.

However, unable to hear and completely focused on the hezrou, the Shadowhunters didn't see the squad of enormous, russet-coloured glabrezu demons that came barrelling out of the hellmist until it was too late. The monsters were nearly fifteen feet tall and their canine faces split into wolfish grins as they joined the fray. They had four arms each, one pair ending in clawed hands, and the other had powerful pincers

The first glabrezu's pincers clicked shut just inches from the back of Jace's neck as he staggered into the hezrou he had been attacking before the untimely arrival of its demonic allies. The creature's flesh oozed with some sort of toxic pus that burned Jace's hands, and he nearly dropped his seraph blades as he hissed soundlessly in pain. Only decades of experience allowed him to duck sideways and roll through the demon's legs to avoid being crushed between the two monsters. He turned awkwardly and swiped his left blade at the hezrou's leg, cutting right through the putrid limb in a spray of ichor.

He tightened his grip on the hilts of his seraph blades as his seared hands protested and then he flipped himself up to his feet from his back, already spinning to avoid the grasping claws of the glabrezu bending over him. From the corner of his eye he saw Magnus' hands glowing a wicked shade of cobalt that he recognized as 'Seriously Pissed-Off Warlock Blue'. The hellmist was making it almost impossible for Magnus to fight, but Jace was certain that he was doing whatever he could to protect the tiny group.

Carolina and Marcos hurtled forward into the new threat, their strikes flowing seamlessly around one another as they carved a path through the forest of demon legs around them. They were boxed in on three sides, but Jace couldn't get to them yet. The circle around the brother and sister surged closed as the many reaching arms of the giant glabrezu shot inward.

Hissing vampires and snarling wolves slammed into the backs of the demons, fangs and claws ripping at vulnerable calves and hamstrings. Black blood gushed out onto the pavement and the demons howled. Heavy pincers whirled around and several landed hard blows on the flanks of werewolves to send them flying backward through storefront windows. Glass shattered around the Downworlders and rained down in a deadly shower. Those who evaded the initial thrust were able to scramble up the bodies of the glabrezu, their claws finding a grip wherever they could. The powerful jaws of the werewolves snapped closed around the deadly limbs to shake them viciously, ripping them from their joints brutally.

A pick-up truck with its bed full of Buenos Aires Shadowhunters came speeding through the fog, headlights squared up on the knot of glabrezu. The Nephilim launched themselves at the demons just as the truck slammed into the great legs and brought the monsters tumbling to the ground.

Seraph blades hacked at the fallen demons, aiming desperately for anything that seemed vital. One of the younger Shadowhunters just missed dodging a pincer, and it clicked shut to sever his leg just below his knee. He screamed hoarsely as he fell, clutching in horror at his stump.

Heedless of his own safety, Magnus charged toward the boy and dragged him backward, trying to get out of the fray. A furious stream of arrows provided cover until Alec's quiver was empty, and then the Consul rushed in, the angelic names of his seraph blades falling on deaf ears. He cut at arms that waved wildly in their death throes, keeping them off his husband and the gravely wounded boy.

Finally, the demons began to crumple and dissolve as even their giant frames proved not to be strong enough to withstand the assault of so many warriors of Heaven. Carolina's eyes were wild as she counted those still standing. Only one missing, but it was the driver of the pick-up truck, and he was disentangling himself from his seat belt and the airbag even as her eyes found him.

Magnus' hands ran over the boy's leg quickly and Marcos swooped down, a stele in hand, to began tracing irazte and amissio runes. Together, they were able to stop the bleeding, even with Magnus' hellmist-weakened magic. The boy's face was ashen under a sheen of sweat. Alec couldn't hear, but Carolina pointed back the way her group had come and ordered one of the others to take the boy to her jeep and evacuate back to the Institute.

There were no more demons left in their immediate vicinity, but smoke was rising deeper in the neighbourhood, and they didn't stop to rest any longer before the group dashed up the street. The werewolves had shaken off the heavy hits from the glabrezu, and the vampires seemed completely unharmed.

Smoke mingled with the hellmist, rising in clouds from fires that blazed down both sides of the street where the demons had taken pleasure in crushing the parked cars. More and more windows were blown out as they advanced further into the destruction zone, and the homes were sickeningly quiet; many of their former occupants were now strewn across the streets or lay dead inside.

Jace's eyes blazed with fury as he unconsciously tallied the casualties. Tonight was an absolute disaster. His grand plan to ambush the demons before they ever reached the city had been utterly destroyed. His mind obsessively tried to figure out what had gone wrong as they pounded across the pavement in search of more monsters in the night. The vampire had said the demons had come up from under the city. He felt sick as he started to piece together their plan.

The demons hadn't been holed up waiting for the daylight hours to pass – they had been making their way to Buenos Aires underground. The destrachan demons would have been perfect for that. His ambush groups hadn't found anything on the Sensors because the demons were already long-since past their defensive line. They had delayed their attack, betting that scouts would be sent north, further thinning the defender's ranks. Jace shook his head in disgust. What kind of demon plans like this?

Powerful flood lights high above cut through the swirl of smoke and fog ahead, and the stink of the hellmist grew sharper as it mixed with the scent of fresh blood. The vampires hissed as the group drew closer to the source of the brightness, and the pavement changed to grass under their feet.

A pair of screaming Mundanes careened out of the haze ahead, pursued by another destrachan with it's long claws outstretched to rake them from behind.

Four vampires became a blur as they shot ahead to intervene, and their strong hands slammed the creature's mouth shut before it could screech it's terrible attack at the Shadowhunters. The Night's Children tore it to pieces until it vanished, and the group was able to reach a flattened section of chain-link fence without further challenge.

Inside the fence was what appeared to be a high school soccer field. Brightly-coloured jerseys had become shrouds for bodies that lay broken in death. The bleachers were stained dark with blood and gore from the shredded spectators. At the far end of the field, a knot of remaining demons had cornered the remaining Mundanes against the school.

The werewolves growled dangerously and then pitched forward at a dead run as battle rage overcame their sensibilities. The vampires covered the distance effortlessly, and the Shadowhunters had to force their battered bodies to keep up. Three-quarters of them were wounded, and all of them were splattered with blood and ichor, but these avenging angels weren't finished yet.

The last of the seraph blades sprang to life, and the Nephilim charged in a sweeping line with their weapons held high as they screamed their challenges to try to draw the demons away from their deadly game.

In a tangle of fur and teeth, the werewolves crashed into the hezrou demons while the vampires sprang up gracefully to land high on the glabrezu, avoiding their lethal pincers. The weight of the pack's attack brought the smaller monsters down to where they would be vulnerable to the savage jaws of the wolves. The Shadowhunters waded in and aimed precision strikes at the unprotected legs of the towering glabrezu, jamming seraph blades into the muscled flesh and ripping them out again savagely to inflict as much damage as possible

The demons screeched and hissed as they flailed with their long limbs, but the defenders had learned from the first fight not to risk getting caught by the pincers. Bits of the horrors fell to the grass and faded away as they were cut to pieces by the combined force of the three groups of allies, and soon there was nothing left but a crumpling pile of demon flesh that vanished back into its own dimension along with the last of the hellmist.

The trapped Mundanes had fled as soon as their tormentors had turned away, all save one teenage boy. He stared directly at the group of Shadowhunters as they panted in the night, checking wounds and wiping gore from their faces. The boy's mouth was open as he gazed upon them in wonder, then he fell to his knees and bowed his head, hands clasped to his chest as he began to pray and give thanks for deliverance in fluid Spanish under his breath.

Carolina saw him and broke away from her brother as he finished sketching an iratze across her shoulder. She approached the boy slowly, not wanting to frighten him any more on this blood-soaked night. He raised his head from his prayer as her shadow crossed over him, and he looked up in awe to see her beautiful, fierce face haloed by the floodlights above.

She extended a hand down to him as sirens began to whine in the distance, and he reached up to take it. Carolina pulled him to his feet and then drew him into her arms as she squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that were finally allowed to come. She felt herself shaking as she clutched the teenager tightly and felt his arms come up around her. Comforting her. Because the slaughter they had just survived was too horrific to bear alone. It was a grief that had to be shared to be borne. The boy clearly had the Sight; he had seen enough horror tonight to last a lifetime.

Their quick iratzes had already healed their damaged eardrums, and Magnus was readying himself to open a Portal back to the Institute.

Jace turned away from the emotional scene and chucked the shattered remains of his seraph blade into the night as frustration and shame burned through him.

"Jace..." Alec started to say, reaching out a comforting hand to his brother. Jace twisted away.

"Don't. Don't try to tell me it's okay," he said in a voice that shook with anger. The sirens were drawing closer; they had to leave soon.

"You couldn't have predicted this," Alec said firmly.

"I underestimated them," Jace spat. "But they had help. If I wasn't certain of it before, I am now." He pounded his fist into his hand and closed his fingers around it, his eyes burning like molten gold. "We need more fighters."

Alec thought about his empty quiver and the ruined seraph blades of the others. "We need more weapons."

Jace's mouth tightened and his eyes narrowed with rage. "They have a commander, Alec, and I'm going to pay him back in blood for this."