Chapter 8
No one slept that night. The knowledge of the nearby demon was enough to put anyone off, but then there were the noises, the unearthly cries that rang through the night, making it certain that none of the eight marooned people would sleep. Clary sighed and looked over at the forest, and she wondered why the creatures making those noises wouldn't come out onto the beach.
Clary sighed and looked up at the lightening sky, dawn was stretching milky fingers over to the east, and Clary had to admit the sunrise was breathtaking. Clary felt a hand on her shoulder and turned to see Jace next to her, she smiled slightly, and was about to kiss him when a shriek interrupted them, though it hadn't come from their companions.
Jace glanced around and then up, and Clary followed his gaze and saw a fiery bird careening around the dawn sky. Clary inhaled sharply, as she watched the majestic bird fly around, seemingly painting the dawn sky with more color.
Phoenixes were powerful, and from her studying, Clary knew that there were phoenixes of water, fire, earth, and air, the fire ones were most common, then air, then earth, and lastly, water, the air ones were invisible, and the earth ones lived underground, so the only ones that were seen were the ones of fire and water, and because the water phoenixes were so rare, it was usually only the fire ones.
Clary also learned that a Phoenix's power was measured by the amount of really long tail feathers it had, all Phoenixes had tail feathers, but there were long ones that looked slightly like a peacock's, the power could range from one feather to seven feathers, and the graceful fiery bird above them had six of those seven feathers.
By this time everyone had gathered to watch the phoenix fly around the lightening sky, and it was a scene to behold, then, there was a voice yelling to be heard.
"Chloe! Quit showing off to the newbies!" it was a girl's voice, and the group was treated to seeing a girl standing a hundred or so meters away from them, she was dressed in all black, and looked a lot like Jace, with gold hair and amber eyes. Her hair was hip-length, and she turned to look at the posse of supernaturals in front of her, and when Jace's Sensor started vibrating, they knew this was the demon they had communicated with last night, but why did it look so much like Jace?
The phoenix had started a descent, and there was a flash of light as it hit the ground, and no longer was it a bird of fire, but the phoenix had transformed into a dirty-blonde girl with lively yellow-green eyes, she was wearing short shorts and a T-shirt, with a shoulder strap which held a sword on her back, the demon was in black track pants and a black tank top. Both of them were barefoot.
As for the weapons they carried, the phoenix-girl had the long sword with engravings on it, runic-like shapes that Clary interpreted to mean 'Protection' 'Defense' 'Power' and so on, there was also a belt which held daggers and sharp throwing stars. The demon had a similar belt with daggers, but part of it was a fanny pack with small bottles sticking out of the pockets, a curved midnight-colored dagger rested in a clear sheath on her thigh.
"It's a Shadowhunter-person!" the phoenix said, grinning and looking oddly maniacal. The demon rolled its eyes and snorted.
"They're not only Shadowhunters; one of them is my brother, thank you very much." The demon said dryly, Clary assumed it was talking about Magnus, who stood there frozen, as if he was shocked at their appearance. Maia and Jordan were sticking close together, and Alec looked doubtful, Izzy appeared not to care, and Simon was shooting worried glances around, while Jace remained stoic.
All of the sudden, Alec threw his seraph blade at the she-demon, it flew towards her, but it bounced off, like it had some sort of force field. The phoenix burst out laughing. And the demon sighed, and shook its head.
"Jesus, this is why I don't like your kind, it's always stab first, ask questions later with you guys." The demon said, scowling at Alec.
"What do you want?" Jace asked, meanwhile, Simon stepped forwards and put his hand up, and leaned on it, he was leaning on thin air.
"New question, what in the Angel's name is that thing?" Izzy broke in, looking in shock at where Simon appeared to be leaning on thin air.
"It's called a force field, I didn't want the Night-Crawlers to get you guys while you were out here." The demon muttered,
"Yeah, there's some weird crap out there, trust us." The phoenix said, crossing her arms and looking at the group knowingly.
"Can you take the force field down?" Maia asked, the demon smiled, a close-lipped smile which was clearly not sincere,
"As long as you promise not to kill me until I've told you everything about this island and the reason me and my friends are here." The demon said, its smile turning wry. It put its hands on its hips and smirked slightly.
"Fine." Clary said, wanting to know just what was going on here.
"Swear it." The demon commanded. Clary glanced at Alec, Izzy, and Jace.
"We swear on Raziel I will uphold this deal. Are we done here?" Izzy said, tapping her foot impatiently.
"Yeah, I think so." The demon said before closing its amber eyes and concentrating, when Simon fell face-first into the sand, it was confirmed the force field was down.
"So, who are you?" Maia asked, the question Clary had been tempted to ask coming out of her mouth.
"I'm Lerial, this is Chloe, as you might have guessed, Chloe is a phoenix, and I am a three-quarter demon," the demon said, gesturing from herself to the phoenix.
"Three-quarter demon? That would only work if a warlock was one parent, and a demon was the other." Alec said, Clary had to admit, what Lerial was saying didn't make that much sense.
"There are other circumstances in which it can happen." Lerial said non-chalently, she started to head into the forest, Chloe looked around and grinned, and morphed into a fiery bird again and took to the air, but not before yelling,
"See ya later shitlords!" Lerial simply rolled her eyes at Chloe's antics.
"Where are you going?" Jordan asked.
"Home, and to meet with my friends." Lerial said, not turning back,
"More demons?" Jace guessed.
"Nope, Chloe, then there is Jacob, who is a warlock of Azazel, and Roxy, who is a faerie." Lerial explained, looking back at them.
"What kind of demon is she?" Clary whispered to Jace, he shrugged and called out.
"What demon are you?" Lerial turned,
"I'm an Accommodan demon," Lerial said. Clary looked over at Jace for clarification.
"Adapter, it can have wings or a tail, or anything it needs to adapt." Jace whispered to Clary, as the group started to follow Lerial into the forest, not really having anything better to do.
"I would prefer if you did not call me 'it', I am one-quarter human." Lerial said dryly.
"Yeah, you have to earn that right." Izzy said, her face showing annoyance. Lerial didn't have anything to say to that.