Nobody talked during the running, mostly because it would be a waste of our strength and would decrease our speed. It wasn't like we had anything special to say to each other. We were enemies forced to cooperate. I checked on Jonathan and New Yorkers every couple of minutes, but none of them looked at each other at all. Jonathan ignored them, like they weren't there, and New Yorkers glanced more at each other than at him. I guessed it was the best situation I could get, due to circumstances.

I had no idea how to get to Jeff Goldmayer's house, since everything Amelia had said was that the house was somewhere in Newham. But, as we ran through Newham, I could see column of smoke rising towards London's sky. None of the mundanes even glanced at it, much less got worried about it, so the only assumption was that it came from the place covered in glamour. I could hardly imagine that there was some other place that was scene of bad events beside the house of a dead warlock.

Led by the smoke that marked our target, we soon found the source of it. It even looked pretty normal for warlock's house, with no colour-mix or shiny things on the walls. There were just gray stone walls, dark wooden doors and windows. It seemed like an average London house. But, I guessed it had assumed that aspect because of Jeff's death. When there was no more magic to keep the house and its peculiarities alive, it just went back to what it was before Jeff had moved in.

The front door was open and I didn't even stop running. I burst into the house, holding Seraph blades in my hands and looking for a sign of demons' presence. The corridor was empty, dark and quiet. I could hear only my heartbeat, echoing among the walls and mingling with my deep breaths.

The light behind my back reinforced. I turned around and saw Jace holding witchlight in one hand and Seraph blade in other. When he noticed my gaze, he nodded quietly. I nodded too and continued to walk towards the door in front of us. I could feel Jonathan's presence on my left and Jace's on my right.

Real gentlemen. I smiled to myself. Ladies first, even when the room behind the door is dangerous. Luckily, this lady can defend herself.

I pushed the door open, praying that they didn't creak. It did for a moment, but then opened. In front of us was a small kitchen, illuminated by gray sunlight from a window on our left. The only reason we could recognize it as a kitchen was the fridge. Everything else was demolished, pieces of furniture lying all over the floor. Only the white fridge remained in one piece, like the one who had destroyed the rest of the kitchen had been hungry and decided to spare it.

"What happened here?" I heard Alec's voice while walking towards the fridge.

"Somebody didn't like interior decoration." Jace's tone was half-amused. At least the other half sounded a bit worried.

I stretched my hand out, grabbing the doorknob of the fridge. But, before I could pull it, somebody's hand grabbed mine.

"Are you crazy?" Jonathan whispered in my ear, sounding angry. "There's a good reason for that fridge being left in one piece. Maybe it's a trap."

I turned around to face him.

"How can we know if we don't open it?" I asked fiercely.

We stared at each other for few moments, our gazes waging war. He had revealed himself without having agreed on that with me; I didn't have to ask for his opinion now. He wasn't my conscience or my mother, he was my parabatai. Those were completely different things. If he wanted to act on his own hand, he had to let me do the same.

He finally yielded. His eyes left my face and looked at the fridge.

"Okay." he said, reconciled with my stubbornness. "But, I'll open it. Stay behind me."

I wanted to protest, but the way he looked at me stopped me. It seemed like he was afraid.

Jonathan Morgenstern, afraid? it sounded like the stupidest thought ever, but it was streaming through my mind anyway. He's never afraid. He can face anything. But, why did he look at me like that then?

I followed his hand as it came closer to the fridge. He grabbed the doorknob and pulled.

The room was immediately filled with the worst scent I had ever smelled. It was the smell of death, disintegration and demons. I felt the need to throw up, but I managed to calm my stomach by putting my hands in front of my face and breathing through mouth. It wasn't pleasant that way either, because I felt like I could almost taste the air on my tongue, but it was a bit of improvement.

When I finally managed to focus on anything beside the smell, I looked into the fridge.

What I saw destroyed all my effort to prevent myself from throwing up.

There was a head in the fridge, but barely recognizable. There were few locks of brown hair left on it. The rest of the face was completely demolished. I could see holes in flesh where eyes used to be. It looked like the eyeballs were pierced, even through the skull, where we could also see holes, and then pulled out of the head. There was so much blood around the eyes that I guessed it had happened while this person was alive. I shivered ar the thought, trying to stop imagining pain so great. The nose was violently torn off from the face, leaving empty space behind. And mouth of the Silent Brothers seemed like blessing comparing to this one. Most of teeth were missing and the remained ones were broken and covered in blood. There was no tongue or lips left, but the trails on the chin and under nose suggested they were pulled out by teeth. Beside the blood, the face was covered with some kind of dust. It was greenish-gray and it was the reason for the smell even more than the flesh. It was the sign that demons had had their fun with the head and I didn't even want to think about things they had done with the rest of the body.

I could feel content of my stomach in my throat. Nobody looked much better than I felt. Everyone's faces were pale and even started to turn green. We were all Shadowhunters, but some things were too much even for us.

"Let's move away." I said that as fast as I could, shutting my mouth before anything else could come out of it.

Everybody listened to me at once, except for Jonathan who listened a second later, after he closed the fridge. We went back to the corridor, still holding our hands in front of our mouths. Jace was the first one who spoke again.

"What was that?" his voice was weak, like I had never heard from him before. I definitely couldn't blame him.

"Jeff Goldmayer's head." Jonathan was the one who answered him.

I remembered he had already seen the body before. But, he looked as sick as the rest of us.

"Did it ... " my stomach threatened again, so I had to take a deep breath before I could speak again. "Did it look like that when you saw it this morning?"

Jonathan shook his head.

"It was dreadful before, but now it's even worse." he said and coughed. "I guess that whoever does all this has let his demons to have little fun with it even after he was dead."

I remembered my guess about pierced eyes, but I said nothing. There was no need to make everyone even sicker.

"We still haven't found Amelia and Thomas." I mentioned, just to distract everyone from thinking about the scene we had just seen.

But, my idea didn't work out, in fact, it did the opposite. I could see everybody thought about the same thing I did. If demons did this to a warlock, who was partly of their kind, what would they do to Shadowhunters, their worst enemies?

"Check out every room in the house." Jace's voice was urgent. "If you find something, call the others at once."

Nobody objected. We split up and started to check other rooms. Alec and Jace stayed in the ground floor, while Isabelle and Clarissa and Jonathan and I went to check the upper floor. Clarissa and Jonathan also pulled a witchlight out of their gears, not even noticing each other doing the same. In this house, an enemy from the outside became a friend inside.

When we climbed up the stairs, Clarissa and Isabelle went to the left and Jonathan and I to the right.

There were two rooms on our side of the floor. First one was a small bathroom. We could see ceramic pieces of what had used to be bathtub, toilet bowl and sink. It was demolished, every last piece of it. Nothing remained whole, but after what we had seen in the kitchen, I was grateful for that.

Without a word, we left the bathroom and opened the door facing it. It was a bedroom.

Gray rays of sun, typical for England instead of gold ones, were coming through the broken window, illuminating the mess in the room. Again, nothing remained whole, but there were pieces of fabric that used to be sheets. Feathers from destroyed pillows flew around the room when tiny breath of wind would come into the room.

I looked all over the room, but saw nothing suspicious. There was nothing we could look into. I walked over broken furniture towards the window. I felt sudden need to feel the warmth of the sunlight on my skin. I needed a proof that normal world was still out there, beyond the walls of this dark house full of death. I needed to see buildings of London under the gray sky, hear sound of traffic created by mundanes, smell filthy air of London which carried scents of smoke, dirt and Thames.

It had become so familiar during the last few months, so familiar I thought less and less about Alicante. It was said that every Shadowhunter thought of Idris as of his or hers homeland, but I lost that feeling. I remembered my family who was back there, my friend Levi and I missed them, but I knew I didn't want to come back there. It was the place which reminded me of loneliness and feeling of not-belonging. It reminded me of the Law which I found imperfect in some areas. It reminded me of Jonathan Morgenstern, Valentine Morgenstern's son.

London reminded me of their opposites. Of a feeling I had someone I could trust and who trusted me. Of all the good things that came out from obeying the Law in the end. Of Jonathan Morgenstern, my parabatai.

I looked through window, my gaze wandering around. At first I looked at sky, but then my gaze lowered and I noticed something in the backyard of Jeff Goldmayer's house.

There were three human silhouettes. Their faces were turned towards the house, but they didn't move at all, like they were trapped or waiting for something.

"Jonathan." I called for him and pointed towards the silhouettes.

He stood next to me, following the direction in which my forefinger pointed. His face was serious.

"Do you think it's them?" he asked quietly.

I shrugged my shoulders.

"There's only one way to find out."

We left the room and went towards the other side of the floor. Clarissa and Isabelle just got out of the room on the same side of the corridor as the bedroom.

"Did you see them?" I asked when we got closer to them. I didn't want to shout in this house.

There was confusion in their eyes.

"Who?" Isabelle asked. "This room is some kind of warehouse. There's nobody in here. And it's too dark to see almost anything even with the witchlight."

I took a deep breath and turned around.

"Hurry up." I began to descend down the stairs. "We have to find Jace and Alec immediately."

I heard their footsteps following mine. In few seconds we were on the ground floor again and I was looking around, trying to catch a glimpse of Jace's witchlight.

"What's going on?" I heard Clarissa's voice.

"Clary?" Jace showed up in front of me, followed by Alec. His eyes checked if Clary was alright, then he looked at me.

"Did you find anything?"

"It's in the backyard." I said, not sure what exactly was in the backyard, but I knew we had to go there. We had nothing to look for in this house and besides, I couldn't wait to get out of it.

We ran out and went around the house. My heart was beating fast, preparing for the battle and for shock. I had never been very optimistic. After I had seen Jeff Goldmayer's head, I couldn't stop myself from preparing to see Amelia's or Thomas's in the same condition.

But, when we got in the backyard, there was no heads on the ground and no demons around. There were only Amelia, Thomas and some guy I didn't know. When she heard our steps, Amelia's gaze immediately fixed on us.

"Finally." he said as her gaze skipped from one of us to another and then stopped on me. "I'm really disappointed in you, Sam. It took you a lot more time than I'd expected to come here."

I was confused.

"We came as soon as we could."

And it's not my fault that we were slowed down. I wanted to add, but I didn't. New Yorkers wanted to pick a fight.

She shrugged her shoulders and waved her hand.

"Never mind, you're here finally. And you didn't lose either of them. That's what's important."

I was politely confused before. Now I was rudely insulted.

What are you thinking? That I'm some kind of idiot? Of course I didn't lose them. I wanted to argue, but Amelia already turned towards the unknown guy.

She nodded.

"Only the Morgensterns."

He nodded calmly.

A second after, the whole backyard was filled with demons.