Chapter 6 : Into the Night

Clarissa woke inwardly cold. She's expected to see the soft early morning light, bright and optimistic, beaming through her window, but all she got were the shallow afternoon rays. She felt cold someplace deep. She curled herself up tightly, desperately trying to shake away her dreams. She shivered at the thought of her brother's smile when he took that paper. She knew that smile very well. He had plans of her, now. She knew tonight would only be the first of many visits to the dream world Sebastian had created. She whimpered at the thought. Everything there gave off such as strong sense of hatred. She was so glad she had declined to go with her brother. That place would have been hell to live in. At the same time, she loved her brother. He was her only family. The last of her hard, cruel family. She let the thoughts go and tried to ease her mind.

She let her muscles relax with a heavy sigh. 'Nobody should be walking by here, if they let me sleep this long already. I can lay her for a few minutes longer.' She thought peacefully. The "powers that be" decided her to correct her her restful thoughts by having someone knock on her door. She thought angrily. 'But why would I have ever wanted to do that. Peaceful rest is just a ridiculous concept anyway. We should all just boycott it and die of sleep deprivation.'

She proceeded to throw the covers of herself and a walk to open the door, ready to slap Jace for waking her up at this wretched hour. When he opened her door all her sleep deprived hatred faded. He was wearing some of the dark gear, she found looking through the institute's supplied. Jace had his ever so slightly annoying crooked smile, the one he wears when he's got an idea in his head. His mischievous look faded after a second. "Hey, I just wanted to drop by and umm… say something. Not something, I meant I had to tell you where I was going. Well I didn't have to, I wanted to."

Clarissa rolled her eyes at him. Jace said, " Well, I guess I'll tell you where I'm going. Me and Alec are going hunting by central park. We'll be back before morning."

Clarissa beckoned for him to come into her room. Jace stared at her confused, not understanding her gesture. She pulled him by the hand into the room and deposited him on her bed. Jace sat there awkwardly while she got her white board out of a drawer. She wrote, 'What do you hunt?'

Jace stammered, "Um, demons."

She wrote, ' I assumed that. What kind of demons?"

"Any?"

Clarissa giggled. 'You're cute.'

"Am I?" Jace said, regaining his half cocked grin. Clarissa blushed brightly and gave a small smile.

Meanwhile, Alec had been looking for Jace for thirty minutes. He finally decided to look down the corridor that led to the visitors rooms. He couldn't imagine why Jace would need to be in a visitors room, but he wasn't anywhere else. As he was walking he heard laughter coming from one of the rooms. Alec walked closer to it. 'By the Angel,' He thought 'That's Jace.'

Alec walked into the room to find Jace, blushing like a red balloon and grinning like a cheshire cat, sitting on a bed next to Clarissa Morgenstern. The pair both stopped laughing abruptly when he walked in. All three of them stared at each other opened mouthed for at least five seconds before Alec broke "What the sam's hell" . He turned on his house and sprinted from the room all the way to the front room. Jace appeared about a minute later. "Alec."

Alec shook his head , "Let's go."

"Alright" Jace said and with that the pair walked out into the night. They walked the night.

It took them short pace to get city park. They didn't talk on the way there. The hate seemed to emanate off Alec like heat from a fire. Jace didn't mind Alec temper. Alec was always a moody person. Jace always just believed it was Alec's personal quirk. By the time they'd reached their destination it was almost pitch black save for the dim street lights. Jace pulled out a sensor. It flashed intensely red instantly. A sickening scream echoed out of the darkness. Alec fired his bow in the direction of the noise, but the arrow only clanged against a metal street lamp. The creature wailed again, and Alec fired and missed. Jace ran about ten feet from his parabiti.

An inanis demon, a relatively small black creature with harsh protruding limbs and spines, struck his side hard, pushing him to the ground. Jace and the creature thrashed on the pavement. Jace slipped a dagger out of his belt and sank it into the creatures side. The inanis bit Jace's arm and held itself there tightly. Alec saw his opportunity and took a shot, killing the demon. Its blood slashed Jace on his already injured arm.

Alec rushed to Jace's side, took out his stele and began to draw iratzes over Jaces arms. "Bastard, bastard, stupid bastard."

Jace cringed, "What, that was cool!"

Within a few minutes, Jace felt just as he had before being attacked and excitedly jumped up. Alec grabbed him , "You damn lucky bastard. One day you're gonna die doing things like that."

Jace grinned, "AH! So I'm not the bane of your existence anymore."

"What are you talking about?"

"You kind walked in on me and Clarissa. You seemed kind of…. exasperated."

Alec sighed. "Do you really have to flirt with every girl within a mile of you."

"I do not! They flirt with me."

"Clarissa was flirting with you?"

"No, not really. We were just talking."

"She's mute."

"You know what I mean. She's not a terrible person. She's not like her brother."

"I don't know about that. Do you like her?"

"Alec, why don't you just ask me all the philosophical questions. How was the universe created? What is the human condition? Why do we exist, Alec? Can you answer that?"

"It was a simple yes or no question. Why is this such a hard question for you to answer?"

"Nothing's simple, Alec."