So Here's the next installment of What Should Have Been Said. I love this chapter because it has such a dark aura to it that I think really captures the essence of the Mortal Instruments Series. Tell me What you think when your finished.
Disclaimer: The Wonderful Writer of TMI is Cassandra Clare
Jocelyn's vision swirled as she attempted to regain consciousness. The images of Shadowhunters, clad in the black hunting gear pouring into her room, danced alongside the darkness of her prison. Jonathan's wails filled her ringing ears and she could only hope and plead to the emptiness that nothing had happened to her little boy. She just got him back. She couldn't lose him. Not again.
"Hello!" she called into the emptiness, praying that someone would come to her aid. "Can anyone hear me?"
Through her ringing ears, Jocelyn heard no sound of movement. Sobs broke through her throat and she cried. "Please! Just tell me about my son! Is he alright? Please tell me he's alright!"
Her cries echoed off the walls of the dark room, shadows engulfing the area and her cries for reassurance were met with stony silence. Spasms of rage rocked her body and she screeched. "Someone answer me!"
Not even her fury could bring someone to her.
Jocelyn's eyes couldn't seem to adjust to the darkness. It surrounded her like a fog and swallowed anything that might have been there into its depths. The shackles of runic fire provided the only dim light for the room, barely illuminating the dim circle for which Jocelyn sat in. Her legs felt like lead and as she wiggled she knew that they would never hold her weight. The darkness seemed to be advancing, constricting like a snake around her, suffocating her as she thought of her poor son who could be anywhere.
Her terror lessened slightly as a brilliant light filled the room. Her head turned and she squinted to see what must have been a door opening. Two dark figures entered the room holding witchlight rune-stones in their raised hands. The door swung shut behind them but their faces could be glimpsed in the glow of the witchlight.
The first was a tall man, towering over Jocelyn even from a distance, with black hair and a cruel face. The witchlight that he held cast ominous shadows over his weathered face, and his dark eyes glared cruelly down on Jocelyn.
The second was a woman with pale blond, almost colorless hair. Her face was severe and here grey eyes like chips of frozen steel glared down at her with unconcealed hatred. Her mouth was set in a line that made it clear that she despised the person whimpering before her.
Her right hand held aloft her witchlight but her other hand held a sword. The sword was a long, silver blade glowing in the darkness, with a hilt carved of outspread angel wings. It had rubies encrusted on its hilt and the woman gripped the hilt with such a force her already pale hands got even paler.
Finally, Jocelyn thought. She was about to get some answers. She cast relieved glances up to the pair and felt that, at least they could answer her questions. Barely managing to gather her strength, Jocelyn pushed herself up with her bound hands, struggling under her own weight. She barely managed to keep herself upright when the man hastened his pace.
"Stay down!" he ordered, a black boot flying out and connecting with Jocelyn's chin. It shot pain through her body and she cried out in pain before her arms gave out and she tumbled to the floor again. Through tear filled eyes she saw the man grinning maniacally at her obvious pain.
"You are Jocelyn Morgenstern," the woman asked. At Jocelyn's docile nod, she continued. "The wife of Valentine Morgenstern?" Again, Jocelyn nodded. "You have been brought before the Clave on war charges and are being tried by the Mortal Sword to ensure honesty. Answer the questions and you can be punished faster."
"Wait," Jocelyn struggled. "What are you talking about? Why am I here? I should be tried in front of the Council."
"You won't be," interrupted the woman. "You are being tried by the pair of us. If you refuse to answer our questions then you will simply be cursed."
"You can't do that," Jocelyn exclaimed through her tears. "The Law states that I'm to be tried in front of the Council!"
The woman came down; sneering at Jocelyn's whimpering form. "Circle members do not get the privilege of a trial in front of impressionable council members. We are your questioners. Answer us."
She lowered the Mortal Sword into Jocelyn's hands, balancing it on her open palms. "Maellartach," the woman whispered. It glowed upon hearing its name and white light shone from the blade, glowing with divine power.
"Jocelyn Morgenstern," the woman asked. "Are you or are you not a member of Valentine's Circle?"
Jocelyn tried to shake her head but a force like no other encompassed her, as if the hand of God were forcibly holding her head in place. "I won't," she cried through gritted teeth. "I won't answer unless I'm in front of the Council."
"Insolent bitch," the man hissed. "Do you not understand that you're not getting the Council? We'll keep you locked up in her for the rest of your miserable life if you don't answer us!"
"I don't care, she screeched. "I want a fair trial in front of the Council. I won't answer without it."
The man crouched beside the woman and forcefully backhanded her across the face, leaving a significant bruise on her skin and eliciting a cry from her.
"My son," she sobbed. "At least tell me what happened to him."
The woman, relatively calm compared to the man, snarled and her hand shot out to fiercely yank Jocelyn's hair down, her crying in pain at the sudden feeling. Through gritted teeth, the woman snarled "You don't get to talk about sons to me. That thing of yours will get what his father deserves—"
"NO!" Jocelyn screamed. "Don't hurt him! He didn't do anything wrong. He's just a baby for the Angel's sake! Please leave him be."
The woman chuckled darkly. "Why should I leave him alone," she asked. "When he is the best way to demolish Valentine's legacy? If he is gone, so is the last bloody Morgenstern."
"Please," Jocelyn sobbed. "Don't hurt him. Hurt me instead."
"Oh I plan to," the woman replied. "But why should I stop with you? You and every other Circle member will be nothing but a pool of blood when I am through with my search."
"Don't hurt him," Jocelyn breathed.
"I will," the woman promised. "And there's nothing you can do to stop it."
Annamarie Highsmith was not used to the Gard being so full of activity. In times of relative peace like she had been living in for most of her life, there were little need for such large scale activity inside the Clave headquarters. Still, it was always good to keep on guard and she felt that she was going to be doing quite a bit of work soon.
Consul Dieudonne and Inquisitor Herondale were both AWOL for the time being so the interrogations had, for the most part, be stopped. However, after several hours of nothing happening, the Council decided that it was time to continue the investigation. They were interrogating those that had been earlier deemed trustworthy to tell the truth so that they could figure out what the Circle's plans were, if only bits of them.
Pushing a strand of golden blond curls out of her face, Annamarie turned down the pathway toward the dungeons. She had been ordered to bring the next prisoner up to be interrogated and they were in the holding cells under the Gard.
The walls looked to have been hastily carved out of the wet earth as their damp surfaces dripped water into puddles across the floor. The torches of witchlight cast shadows over the hall and shone on the dark iron doors in the walls. Annamarie slowed to a halt as she heard screams and pleading coming from inside one of the rooms.
"Please," the voice, a woman, begged. "Don't hurt my son! He's just a baby!" The voice's heartbroken sobs filled her ear as she pressed it up against the door. "Shut up!" another voice hissed. "I'm going to destroy your son and there's nothing you can do about it."
What could have been happening, Annamarie thought. Were Circle members in there threatening one another? Could some Shadowhunter guards have gone in their to taunt the Circle members?
SMACK! And a cry rang around, piercing the iron door easily. "Tell us what we want to know you stupid bitch!" another voice snarled.
"Not until I know you won't hurt my son," it gasped through obvious pain. The voice was a woman's and Annamarie knew that it was familiar to her, though she could not immediately place it.
Another voice, another woman's, smoothly spoke, the smug arrogance clear even through a door. "Nothing you say or do will save your son. He will suffer for everything that happened!"
Having heard enough, Annamarie pushed the door open and strutted into the room. There, in the glow of their witchlight stones, were Consul Dieudonne and Inquisitor Herondale. They both sprung up from crouching in front of a woman lying on the ground behind them.
She had dark red hair hanging limply from her head, blood matting bits of it to her skin. The pale skin had several harsh bruises on it and there were deep circles under her eyes. Legs laid limp behind her and her arms seemed too frail to carry her weight. Looking up, a motion that seemed to require far too much effort, Annamarie saw bright green tear filled eyes.
Horror and rage washed through Annamarie as she looked into those eyes. She knew those eyes. And the face was coming into focus, a memory as sharp as if it had only been yesterday filled her gaze. Two girls, one blond and the other redhead, stood in front of the Clave swearing their loyalty to one another. The rune that symbolized parabatai, sisters in arms, being burned into their forearms. Instinctively, Annamarie's hand moved to grip her right forearm.
"Jocelyn," she whispered.
The two standing over her looked to Annamarie with disdain and fury. "What are you doing here?" the woman snapped. "Get out! This is a private matter."
Ignoring the command, a dangerous thing to do when it was given by the Inquisitor, Annamarie ran forward, knocking the man and woman out of the way. Annamarie ripped the Mortal Sword out of Jocelyn's hands and it clattered to the floor. She crouched in front of Jocelyn, pushing the red blood matted hair out of her face as she caressed her friend's face.
Up close the injuries were worse than they appeared. The purplish bruise blossoming on Jocelyn's jaw stretched up to cover most of her cheek. The deep circles under her eyes were almost black and shone under the intensity of the light. Beads of sweat streamed down her face and her heavy breathing was ragged and erratic.
"Oh sweetie," Annamarie sighed. "You'll be okay. I won't let anything happen to you."
"Jonathan," Jocelyn whispered. "Help him."
Annamarie nodded. "Of course sweetie. We'll find him, but first we need to get you some help. Come on," she rose, circling her arm around Jocelyn's waist and pulling her up. "Let's get you out of here."
Jocelyn could not support her own weight at all so Annamarie was forced to shoulder her friend while gripping the Mortal Sword that she had picked up off the floor. The two most powerful members of the Clave, The Consul and The Inquisitor, tried to run forward and stop them.
"You cannot take her!" Herondale exclaimed. "She stays here!"
With the flat of her blade, Annamarie whacked both the Consul and the Inquisitor over the head, knocking them unconscious. Satisfied with her work, Annamarie struggled out of the room with Jocelyn clinging to her side. At the door, she dropped the Sword and pulled out her stele, tracing a locking rune into the metal to seal the pair inside. Then, she took her friend up the halls.
Carrying a limp legged, near-catatonic woman up several flights of damp stone stairs isn't at all easy. The water occasionally dripped on them, but Jocelyn was passed the point of noticing their drops on her as she muttered about her son and having to find him.
When she passed the entryway into the well-lit, well-heated hall of the Gard, Annamarie began yelling.
"Somebody help!" she called. "This woman's been hurt and she needs medical attention! Please!"
Almost immediately, several Shadowhunters ran forward, pulling Jocelyn off of Annamarie and helping carry her through more winding corridors, well-lit and cream colored walls, into an infirmary. Jocelyn was laid down on one of the beds and several Shadowhunters came out with tools to check her heart rate and various other medical know hows that Annamarie knew nothing about.
Several tense moments passed which filled Annamarie with dread over the state of Jocelyn. Slowly, the Shadowhunters filed out of the room. One stopped by Annamarie's shoulder. "A Silent Brother will be here soon," she said.
Annamarie nodded. "Thank you. I'll wait with her."
And so Annamarie was alone with her comatose friend. She sat there, looking down on Jocelyn's face, and worried about what was going to happen to her. Would the Silent Brothers be able to heal her? That was a silly question, of course they would. They could heal anything. The real question was how would she react to not having her son around.
With that in mind, Annamarie rose from her seat. She walked across the room to where the papers were kept, and picked up a blank sheet of paper. On the paper, she jotted down all the questions she needed answered by Lucian Graymark and traced a fire rune on the back of it. The paper ignited upon the rune's completion and Annamarie let the paper drop as it crumbled to ash, hopefully falling into Lucian's waiting hands.
Luke was frantically conferring with Elodie about what had happened to Jocelyn almost two weeks before. They had been in the kitchen when they suddenly heard screams and wails from somewhere in the Institute and immediately Luke sprinted to see if Jocelyn was alright.
From Jocelyn's room, she managed to see Shadowhunters entering a portal built into the wall across from her room, dragging a limp Jocelyn through with them. Luke had screamed "Stop! Don't hurt her!" He had been hoping that they might hesitate for him to catch up, but no luck. They entered the portal and, two Shadowhunters hastily closed it as Luke reached them, beating his hands against the wall fruitlessly to try and get to her.
Then he turned on the Shadowhunters. Immediately he had punched one of them and kneed another when he tried to retaliate. With them both incapacitated, Luke ran into the room, relieved to find Jonathan inside. He was in the arms of a Shadowhunter woman in black gear but at least he was unhurt.
Raising a knife he had taken from the kitchen, Luke told the woman to put Jonathan down or else. She staunchly refused, saying that Valentine's son should get no courtesy in the eyes of the Clave.
Preparing to strike but fearful of accidentally hurting the boy, Luke inched forward, hoping to get close enough to strike without harming him. That proved to be unnecessary because, at that moment, the woman gave a sharp gasp, falling on her side and releasing Jonathan. Standing behind her, a candlestick in hand, was Elodie.
"I'd thought there was a demon attack," she confessed. "I climbed out the window and planned to come in from behind. I heard what she said. But no child should pay for the sins of their father."
And that had started their alliance. They spent the last two weeks questioning the three captured Shadowhunters to find out what had happened. Elodie had taken Jocelyn to her brother's house and her brother and sister-in-law were watching him with their son Sebastian.
For the most part, the Shadowhunters had been uncooperative. All they had gotten out of them was that Jocelyn had suspiciously closed the curtains of her room and that they were justified in breaking down her door and storming the place. Elodie had sent word to Idris asking if Jocelyn was taken there but the Consul replied that to his knowledge, she was nowhere in Idris. So the remaining Shadowhunters were their only leads.
"I really don't know," the woman said. She put her head in her hands as she sat at the kitchen table, a defeated look on her face.
"The Shadowhunters won't talk," she ticked off on her fingers. "Jocelyn's missing. And then Clave doesn't know anything."
"Malachi says the Clave doesn't know anything," Luke corrected. "He could be lying or someone else in power could be calling the shots."
Reluctantly, Elodie nodded her head. "Maybe," she hissed through gritted teeth. "But none of my connections in Idris have any idea where she is. If the Clave knew about her then one of them would know where she was."
"Unless," Luke droned on, rolling his eyes at the repetition. "Someone very high up is keeping it a secret and no one knows."
"But why would someone do that?" Elodie asked exasperated.
Luke shook his head. "Because," he said again. "Jocelyn was Valentine's wife. They can't punish him but they could punish her. She's the only one that they can punish with him gone."
"I don't know," Elodie said, rising to pace around the room. "Maybe I just don't want to believe that any Clave member would do something like that. I guess I just want them to be innocent."
Lucian understood this. When he had first left the Circle, first been attacked by a werewolf, he had suspected that Valentine might have set him up because he had been questioning him about worries that Jocelyn had shared with him. He didn't want to believe it either but that didn't change the fact that it was true.
"What we need," Lucian thought. "Is a person in Idris that is very high up in the Clave to tell us everything that's going on there. Someone to spy and snoop around there."
"What a lovely thought," Elodie snapped. "But how will we fi…" her voice trailed off as a flash of fire formed in midair, falling into Luke's lap.
Picking it up, he swiftly read it over. His eyes widened and he released a breath he didn't know he was holding as he went through the letter.
"She's safe," he muttered as he read, not taking his eyes from the paper.
"Who is?" Elodie demanded. "Who's safe? Jocelyn? What does it say?"
Luke looked up, relief coloring his features. "Apparently the Inquisitor and the Consul were keeping Jocelyn locked up and she was found by her parabatai. She's being treated as we speak and I need to bring Jonathan to Idris so that he can be there when she wakes up."
Elodie came to a complete halt. "Oh thank God," she whispered. "Well then let's go get the portal open. I'll contact the Clave—"
"No!" interrupted Luke. "There could still be people after Jonathan in the Clave. I'm going to go by car and carriage. My village isn't close enough to Alicante to stop cars from working. I'll take one there and use my family's horse to go the rest of the way."
The stayed silent for a moment, pondering the plan. If it worked, then he could get to Idris safely in less than four days. If not, then he's screwed.
"Alright," Elodie said finally. "But I'm coming with you."
Brother Zachariah worked calmly over Jocelyn's unconscious form, greatly unnerving Annamarie with his silence. She was used to never actually hearing anything with the Silent Brothers, but for the Angel's sake the water he kept dipping a rag into didn't even make a sound as it splashed.
"Is she going to be alright?" Annamarie groaned.
She will be fine, Brother Zachariah replied. The wounds are deep but it is the child that concerns me.
Huh? Annamarie hadn't known that Jocelyn was pregnant. They hadn't spoken in weeks due to clashing schedules but she thought Jocelyn would have found the time to tell her best friend that she was going to have another child.
"Will the baby be okay?" she hesitantly asked.
Brother Zachariah nodded, turning so that Annamarie could see kindness in his dark eyes. The baby will be fine, he said, strangely kind. I am just trying to keep her stable after the stress of the Uprising and the beatings. But the baby will survive. Thankfully, Jocelyn hadn't suffered any direct blows to the abdomen recently so the damage to the girl is minimum. She will be alright by nightfall.
Nodding her head, fearful for her 'niece', Annamarie leaned back in her chair and prayed that Brother Zachariah knew what he was doing.
So there it is. I wanted to show the dilemma between Elodie's Kind Yet Clave attitude and Luke's Let's Get Things Done I'm Desperate approach to finding Jocelyn. And I thought adding in Annamarie would be a nice touch.