Clary…Clary…
She heard someone call out to her, someone familiar, but she couldn't tell who. She felt like she was deep underwater, in a warm embrace, floating and dancing with water angels. Arms were pulling at her, not harshly, but gently. She let herself be pulled, down, down into the murky depths…
"Clary!"
She felt water on her face, and spluttered. Two faces came into focus before her. Alec and Jace. She was crumpled in a heap on the floor, and Alec had been shaking her. Jace held an empty cup of water, looking concerned.
Clary wiped the water off of her face. She sat up.
"Where are we?" she asked.
"The Met Opera," said Jace. "Or what, did the fall erase your memory too?" He smirked. "Great 'cause then we can start all over. Hi, I'm Jace, Shadowhunter and demigod—"
"The fall?" said Clary absentmindedly. Then it all came back to her. Valentine!
"Valentine!" she said.
"What?" asked Alec.
"I saw Valentine! Next to the Senator. He was sitting there!"
"Amnesia and dementia," said Jace. Alec glared at him.
"He wasn't there, Clary," said Alec. "Don't you think we'd have spotted him first thing?"
"I…I guess," she said. Maybe she had hallucinated after all. Maybe she was expecting to see him so badly that she imagined it. It would make sense.
"Are Isabelle and Maryse still in there?" she said looking towards the door across from them.
Alec nodded. "We needed someone to stay keep an eye."
Clary looked at Jace. The worry was gone from his face, replaced by a coy sort of amusement. As if he found this whole thing funny.
"Don't even start, Jace," she said.
"What?" he said, in an accusatory tone.
"You're gonna tell me how you should've left me at the Institute, that you saw this coming, that you knew I'd freak out." Clary bit her lower lip.
"I didn't say anything!" said Jace, now smiling, but Clary could tell that was exactly what he wanted to say. "In fact, I think this has been a false alarm, and we can all go home now and play Scrabble. Domino's might still be open."
Alec laughed. "Are you kidding? The show's just started. We've got another two hours here at least."
Jace groaned. Clary felt embarrassed and let down, by herself. We only just got here and I can barely keep myself together. I can't believe I fainted. I need to be stronger. For everyone.
She made to stand up, stumbled slightly, still a bit wobbly and shaky. Alec helped her up.
"Thanks, Al—"
She didn't get to finish. A muffled scream emanated from behind the door. Then a lot of tumult and noise at once. Clary, Jace, and Alec ran towards the door, Alec pushing it open.
The sight before them was one of utter chaos. The golden curtain, which had come down for the first intermission, was completely engulfed in flames, licking their way up the cloth. The people down below were a mass of hysteria, screaming and running and all flinging themselves at the door. The people on the upper levels weren't doing any better.
"What happened?" Alec yelled to Maryse, trying to make himself heard over the din. Clary could smell the burning and the smoke, and her eyes started to water.
"We don't know," Maryse yelled back, "everything was fine one minute, then suddenly this."
"Mom!" yelled Isabelle. "Look!" She was pointing at the balcony across from them, where the Senator and his wife had been. Only his wife wasn't there anymore. The Senator looked just as bewildered as Clary and the rest of the gang. Maryse came to her senses, her Shadowhunter's instinct taking over suddenly.
"Let's go," she said, and ran out of the compartment. They followed her. Running out, they joined the mass of people trying to exit the building. She turned down a corner, and then down another. Where are we going? thought Clary. Instead of running towards the exit, they seemed to be going deeper inside the building. They went through a door marked Staff Only. At the end of a long corridor, there was an empty staircase. Maryse flew down the stairs, followed on her heels by Jace, Alec, Isabelle, and finally Clary. They reached the ground floor, and Maryse called out to someone Clary didn't know.
In almost an instant they were surrounded. A dozen or so Shadowhunters emerged, all with the same looks of apprehension on their faces.
"Maryse," said one of them, acknowledging the elder Shadowhunter. "We can't seem to find any demon activity." He was holding a Sensor, which seemed to be very still. Jace and Alec were clutching their Seraph Blades, ready to name them at any moment. Clary didn't have any weapons, which she regretted now. She felt for the stele inside her pocket, her mother's stele.
"They have to be here," said Isabelle. "Who else could it be?" Isabelle, she saw, was dressed differently. Somehow between their flight from the upper levels to here she had managed to tear the train off her dress. It was very short now, reaching down to her knees, her black boots visible. Clary wished she could do the same, the green velvet dress dragging almost to her ankles.
"We've searched all the levels. There's nothing," said the Shadowhunter. Maryse scowled. "One of our men went to find the source of the fire. The actors that were being evacuated are saying it was an accident."
Maryse muttered something under her breath.
"What did you say?" said the Shadowhunter.
"I said it can't be," said Maryse. "An accident? It's far too big of a coincidence."
"Maybe that's what he wants us to think," said another Shadowhunter. "So we can all go home."
"The Senator's wife was missing. If she was taken then the Senator and his bodyguards will still be looking for her," said Maryse. She looked over at a pair of Shadowhunters. "Go and find them."
The two of them retreated. Maryse opened her mouth as if to say something, but before she could, the building shook, and a flash of blinding light pierced through the semi-dark basement.
A massive gaping hole, at the other end of the room where a boiler stood, opened. And out from it poured black shapes, many of them, too many for Clary to count.
She recognised them. Scorprios demons. Angry yellow eyes, teeth like broken needles, and hissing loudly. Their arms were huge like monkey hands, and they had stinger tails. The venom was deadly. Their tails swished ominously back and forth, and they charged at Clary and the others.
"Abrariel!" Jace shouted, and his Seraph Blade leapt to life, glowing blue. The rest of the Shadowhunters did the same.
Clary realised that she was weaponless. Jace looked at her, and realised the same.
"Clary! Get behind me!" He yelled. Not in the mood to argue, she went to stand behind him.
The demons charged at the Shadowhunters, and a melee broke out. Isabelle snapped the tail off of one using her whip, and Alec was slashing at them left and right. He got a particularly cumbersome one that wouldn't die, and when he knelt to drive the blade through the demon he nearly missed the stinger of another. Jace leapt to his aid, slashing at the demon as it spit venom everywhere.
"Don't touch the venom!" yelled Maryse, to nobody in particular, but Clary felt it was aimed at her. She dodged this way and that to avoid them. She looked to the portal that had opened. The demons kept pouring in. They were doing a fair job at slaying most but soon they would be outnumbered.
Clary looked around her, and in a moment she seemed to lose Jace. She backed up away from the fighting, away from the demons. This was a cowardly thing to do, she thought, but she couldn't help it. Without realising it, she backed herself into a corner, just as a demon was closing in on her. Her fingers were gripping her stele very tightly, but she didn't know what she could do with it. Was there a rune that killed demons?
The Scorprios demon's monkey arms grabbed Clary and pinned her to the ground. She couldn't breathe. Just as it was about to bring its stinger down on Clary, there was a flash of a blade and the demon turned to ash and dust. Behind it stood Jace. He helped her up.
"Jace!" called Maryse, swinging at a demon that nearly got her in the back. "Get Clary out of here!"
It was written clear on Jace's face that the last thing he wanted to do was leave. He never retreated from battle. Even when the odds weren't in his favour, he would stay and fight to the end. Reluctantly, he grabbed Clary's arm, and said, "Let's go."
Clary felt awful as they ran from the basement together. She gave one last glance behind her at the fighting, at Isabelle who was slaying demons so gracefully and beautifully. The way I wish I could. And at Alec, who was helping a Shadowhunter who got knocked down to his feet. He's so heroic. They all are, she thought. I wish I could be one of them. But I know I'm not. I know I'll never be. She felt Jace pulling her hand, and she ran alongside him, even though she didn't want to, because she knew he didn't want to. And she could feel that he was starting to resent her presence just that little bit more.