Thank you all so much for the reviews, it makes me feel loved, XD, anywho, after much blood, much pain, much pushing, this chapter was born, I hope you guys like it!

Chapter 15

Clary caught her breath watching Jace, and pulled her gaze away from his chest and to his face, only to see that he was smirking. Cocky bastard.

"What was it?" Clary said suddenly, trying to divert attention away from her slipup.

"Not much, but I don't trust them." Jace muttered, glancing at where Drakiel had disappeared.

"And the sky is blue." Clary responded.

"Not always, sometimes it's red, or orange, or pink, or black." Jace said, pretending to be in deep thought. Clary rolled her eyes, and sat down on a rock jutting out of the ground next to her, she gestured for Jace to sit next to her and he did, watching her eyes carefully.

"Jace…"

"What?"

"Never mind, is the only thing you wanted to tell me that was you didn't trust them?" Clary said, steering the conversation away from something that Jace could twist around to show off his cockiness.

"Well, it's true, you saw Lerial with Sebastian." Jace said flatly, leaning back slightly, and frowning when he realized that there was nothing behind the rock they sat on to lean onto.

"And she died; it makes me think they aren't on the best of terms." Clary countered, Jace sighed, and ran a hand through his luscious blond hair, his amber eyes turning away from her and then back to meet her emerald ones.

"Still, there's something off about this place, and no one's telling us anything, you heard them mention the Mundies doing something, something about Night Crawlers and even more small things that need explaining." Jace pointed out, matching Clary's gaze, she was just about to respond when they heard a call,

"Hey, Shadowy Hunters! Get your asses up here!" it was Chloe, the crazy phoenix. "We got shit to discuss, so come on!"

Jace glanced back at Clary, but she had already gotten up and was walking towards the Main Raven Tree. Stepping inside under the lush vine covering, clary began to walk up the stairs that seemed to be carved right out of the living tree. Glowing lanterns hung from the sides of the staircase, and Clary knew that they held a small soul inside them, a creepy thought, though. Vines hung inside the tree as well, and as Clary reached the top of the staircase she came into a room with a table in the middle, Chloe at its head. The rest of the supernaturals were gathered around the table.

"Okay, as anyone can see, there's some issues." Chloe began, and was interrupted by some coughing and a muffled "No shit" from someone. Chloe glared at everyone and started up again, "Okay, so, everyone knows about the force-field thingy that surrounds the island? Good, okay, that thing is only supposed to last while the four of us, me, Roxy, Jacob, and Lerial, were alive, but somehow it's still working. Any ideas?"

"Maybe Lerial's not dead?" Drakiel suggested,

"I'm pretty sure we all saw her get blasted, no offence dude." Jordan said flatly. Drakiel said nothing. All of the sudden there was a crash from another of the rooms.

"Holy shit! What the crap was that?" Izzy shrieked, and everyone jumped up and pushed past each other to get to the next room, a vase had been knocked over, but instead of flowers and water inside it, blood and bones spilled onto the floor.

"What in the name of the Angel…" Alec trailed off, the blood seeped and seemed to form words,

Death shall come on swift wings

"If that's a prank, its freaking messed up." Jacob said, his blue eyes widened in shock. There was a long pause then Maia walked close to the blood and sniffed, then made a disgusted face.

"Wherever this came from it smells bad." Maia said, her nose wrinkling. Jordan sniffed as well and gagged slightly, Simon backed away, and everyone else covered his or her nose in the next few seconds.

"Could it be Sebastian?" Magnus asked, glancing around. There were unsure looks passed around the group.

"For some reason the field is still up, so no." Roxy said; Jacob snorted and levitated a bucket towards the bad-smelling blood; a rag fell out of it and soaked it up, then fell back into the bucket.

"He got in here to kill Lerial." Jace pointed out icily. Drakiel shook his head and looked at Jace.

"The field was down because I was let in, it must not have been put back up." Drakiel murmured, looking down.

"But, how did we get in then?" Alec burst out, there were odd looks thrown at each other, but Chloe shrugged.

"I don't know, it was down, but Lerial said she had to do something, so…." Chloe trailed off and shrugged again.

"Wait, so, Lerial was the one who took down the field when these idiots got washed ashore?" Roxy asked, and as an afterthought, "no offense guys," she added.

"None taken." Magnus said mildly, there were some looks exchanged between the New York supernaturals, but no one said anything else.

"Yeah, she didn't tell you?" Chloe asked Roxy in shock, Roxy shook her head.

"She didn't tell me either." Jacob broke in, and Chloe narrowed her eyes.

"Looks like Lerial had more than good intentions around." Jace said, his voice smug at being right.

"Lerial wouldn't hurt anyone on purpose, unless she was ordered to by Destiny or someone who gained control of her soul." Drakiel said vehemently. There was a long silence.

"So maybe Destiny ordered her to? Who the hell knows, it's Lerial for craps sake! She never tells anyone anything!" Chloe exploded, glaring at Drakiel, who picked an invisible piece of lint off of his shirt and looked sheepish.

"She told me things…" he trailed off.

"What? She trusts you more than us? Gimme a break!" Chloe snapped, everyone had backed off slightly to watch the two of them argue.

"Not exactly, we had an…arrangement, I think she told me things to give me the semblance that she trusted me." Drakiel muttered.

"This just gets weirder and weirder." Simon murmured, and Clary had to agree with him, it seemed Lerial and this odd rag-tag group had more secrets than anyone had previously thought.

"Well, spit it out!" was Chloe's angered and dangerous words directed at Drakiel.

Cliffy, yes, I'm evil, please review, I'm really grateful so many of you have stuck with me so far, and hopefully now that my inspiration is back, a more regular posting system will be in effect,