Heres the next update, up as soon as I could get it posted (I tried to upload it from my phone on my way to school this morning... it didn't work). Hope you like it!
If the smell outside the factory was strong, inside, it was almost intolerable. The potent scent of burnt sugar engulfed Jace with the first breath he took within the structure, and he had to fight the urge to cough against it.
The belly of the factory consisted of a single, vast room, long and very dark. Windows lined the walls where they met the high ceiling, but they were almost completely blackened, which kept the light of day from shining in. Support columns were spaced evenly throughout the wide room, and as Jace's eyes adjusted, he could see that some of them were crumbling with age and rot. Scattered around in a seemingly haphazard fashion, were large bits of old machinery. Conveyer belts still connected some of the less rundown pieces.
Beside him, Simon whistled under his breath. "Always wondered what the inside of this place looked like," he said, "I have to say, I'm disappointed."
Jace shushed him. "Let's just hope the ceiling holds long enough for us to get out." He looked to Jem, who stood on the other side of Simon, "What do you think? Is this the place?"
The older Shadowhunter's voice was cold. "If I were a betting man, I'd place all my money on yes." He looked then from the empty factory before them to Jace, "I'm almost positive."
Jace nodded, both relieved and anxious. That confirmation was good enough for him. Looking around, it wasn't hard to agree. This place was as dismal as they came. The demon was here. That meant Clary was too. It was hard to believe she'd only been missing for a day; it might as well have been a century for the effect it was having on him. "Alright," he said, "Let's go."
At some point during the endless torture, Clary's hallucinations turned horrifying, rather than confusing, which was definitely worse. There was blood now, lots of it. The world was burning around her. The tortured screams of her loved ones sounded in her ears. Trapped in the endless blackness that had completely entombed her, she wondered if she had died and was in Hell. Nothing else could be this awful. Her body still burned, licked by the endless tongues of flame that were consuming her from the inside out, and somehow, even thinking hurt. So she didn't try, simply resigning herself to the endless wandering of the delirious and dying mind that was surely her own. The nightmarish images would come, plague her, and then move on to the next. An endless cycle of torment.
She came to again, released once more from the mental anguish and temporarily left with just the physical, though surely it wouldn't last long; it never did. Yanluo was there again. The room seemed slightly brighter than it had before. Maybe it was daytime outside. Maybe it was just her imagination. Either way, it did not at all improve the sight before her.
The demon grinned at her, like he was satisfied to see her awake. Perhaps he was. "Why…?" she attempted to ask, but her voice was choked off, her throat dry as the Sahara, and the most she could manage was a pitiful, broken whimper.
"Why am I doing this?" Yanluo finished for her, assuming that was what she'd been attempting to ask. Clary didn't know if it was. She couldn't remember what she'd been trying to say. The demon's grin widened, his taught face revealing the full extent of his evil, which was evident in every inch of it. "I told you, revenge." He spoke the word like a purr, or maybe like a hiss. Clary's head was pounding so hard she honestly wasn't able to process it. Yanluo continued, "I am finishing what was started long before you were born. And while I was intent to settle on the first Shadowhunter I could find upon arriving back to my old hunting grounds, I have to admit, I am glad this deal involved me getting you instead. You are a tough one, and breaking your will has turned out to be an exceptionally enjoyable challenge."
Clary put her every effort into scowling up at him, trying to look unafraid. She honestly doubted it was working. "What…" she weakly spit through her teeth, "do you… want… from me?"
Yanluo's eyebrows narrowed, his smile as taunting as ever. "I am so glad you asked," he said as he bent down until his face was inches from her own. The stench coming off him was beyond repulsive, in spite of how bad Clary knew she smelled herself. "I want you to beg, Clarissa. I want you to grovel at my feet and plead for your life. I want you devoid of every last ounce of pride inside you," he paused, "Do that, and I might just let you live." That was a lie. Flat out. Greater Demons didn't work like that, and Clary was not about to fall for such an obvious trick. She would go out fighting just as hard as she had come in. She owed that much to herself, to her family, to Jace.
"Go," she ground out painfully, "to Hell." Yanluo, with an earsplitting growl, lurched back upright and sent his hand cracking against her face, so hard, it knocked the folding chair on its side, Clary still bound to it. She cracked her head hard on the cold floor, though the pain was nothing compared to the agony that again consumed her as more of the poison entered her system at the demon's hand. She only wished the concussion had been bad enough to knock her out.
"Go ahead, foolish girl," Yanluo taunted slowly, bent over her once more, enjoying every bit of torment he unleashed on her. "Continue to resist. You will break eventually. They always do. I will get what I want, and then, I will enjoy killing y-" He broke off abruptly then and straightened. His face contorted in anger again after a second and he let out a sigh, which turned into a growl and randomly turned and walked quickly out door, leaving Clary alone again in the room, poison pulsing through her veins, blood seeping, again, from her head onto the floor, and a flicker of curiosity allowing her to hope just a tiny bit, even through the agony, as the hallucinations pulled at her again and her eyes closed once more.
They didn't get very far before Jem halted their procession. "Wait," he warned, eyes scanning the dark room cautiously. Jace and Simon did the same, the former slipping a Seraph blade from his belt.
Simon asked, "What's-?" but cut off quickly when a large dark shape flew toward him out of nowhere. "Woah!" He dove out of the way, the cry escaping his lips in pure surprise. He landed in a heap on the hard concrete floor, far from gracefully, but he was alive. He scrambled to his feet. The other two Shadowhunters were already facing the Greater Demon.
"How dare you come here?" Yanluo-Jem had called him that on the way there, roared furiously. "Foolish! Every one of you! Coming here like this, as if you'd possibly stand a chance."
"We killed one of you today. I don't see what makes you any better than he was," Jace spat, his barely controlled rage fraying the edges of his tough façade. On the blonde Shadowhunter's other side, Jem stood, literally shaking in his anger. Simon had never seen the usually calm Shadowhunter so filled with rage.
"Asmodeus was a prideful imbecile. Go ahead and try defeating me. You won't live to see the sun set tonight. Not a one of you. I don't allow for survivors."
And then Jem seemed to lose it a little. "That is where you are wrong!" he exploded, his sword appearing threateningly in his hand. He held it between the demon and himself.
Yanluo looked amused, if not slightly taken aback at his outburst. "And why is that? Do enlighten me, stupid mortal."
Jem's glare was unyielding. "You don't remember me, do you? Frankly, I'm not surprised, a creature as obtuse as yourself."
"Obtuse? You dare call me obtuse? If you, impudent Shadowhunter, were anything yourself but that, you would know that I haven't seen a single one of your kind in over a century."
Jem simply continued, unrelenting. "And your assuming that I wouldn't know such only strengthens my argument. Frankly, it figures you wouldn't remember me; the helpless twelve year old you tortured and made an orphan, and then left to die from the poison you injected him with, fleeing like the coward you are."
"You Nephilim seem to be growing worse and worse in your lying abilities. That boy lived over a hundred years ago. Even if he had survived long into adulthood, which I made sure would never have happened, he would still be long dead. Your argument is flawed."
Believe what you wish," Jem spat, "But I will not allow you to subject that innocent girl to the same fate you did me."
Yanluo looked exceptionally entertained. He raised his eyebrows and spread his arms wide. "Go ahead and try. It is always a pleasure to kill Shadowhunters. Especially irritating ones."
Jem moved so quickly, Simon's eyes missed the movement in the dark. A single runed blade flew forward toward the Greater Demon's throat with lightning quick precision. Yanluo snatched the knife from the air before it could hit its mark, but the angelic runes in the hilt burnt into his hand, emitting a satisfying frying sound. He dropped it quickly but the damage to his hand had already been done, and it had provided just enough time for Jem to spring into action. He got a solid sword strike in before Yanluo could get completely out of the way. It wasn't fatal, but it slowed him down, and that was clearly the point. "Go!" Jem yelled to Jace, who had named his Seraph blade and looked ready to assist him. When he hesitated, looking the most torn Simon had ever seen him, Jem, after rolling out of the way of one of Yanluo's blows-they were fully engaged in the fight now, said again, "Go. Find Clary. I need to do this myself."
"I won't let you get yourself killed," Jace protested, which, in a fleeting thought, Simon found ironic, being as that was exactly the opposite of what Jace did almost every day.
"Leave Simon then," Jem countered, moving so quickly in the deadly match that he seemed more a shadow in the dark factory than a person. Honestly, Simon doubted his chances against a Greater Demon on his own, but Jace, after sizing him up quickly, seemed indifferent of that plan because he ran off into the darkness. Yanluo attempted to follow him, to protect his captive from rescue, but Jem made sure that didn't happen.
Simon, after standing and watching helplessly as the older Shadowhunter completely battled it out with the demon, decided he needed to do something useful here. Assuming the odds were pretty good that Yanluo, who was adequately occupied, wouldn't attack him in the next five seconds, he allowed himself a cursory scan of the area. He could make out more details, now that his eyes had fully adjusted to the dim light, and as he eyed the windows lining the tops of the walls on either side of the long room, the beginnings of an idea began knitting itself together in his mind. It was a weak plan, and kind of unoriginal, but still, it had potential. Or, at least, the potential to have potential.
He threw one last look towards Yanluo and Jem, determined that his fellow Shadowhunter was still steadfastly holding his own, and crossed the space to one of the piles of old machinery that lay scattered across the floor. The scraps of metal were twisted and looked like they had been torn apart, as if some angry giant had taken his feelings out on the contraption. Simon didn't know what could have caused that and he didn't care. He just dug through the pile until he found some useful bits, large and heavy enough to serve his purpose without being too big.
He carried as many as he could in his arms until he stood directly in front of the closest dirty window, readied one of the scraps in his hand and threw it as hard and straight as he could at it. The old glass stood little chance against the weighty object-which would have been too heavy for Simon to throw that far four months earlier-and it shattered, emitting the rays of bright sunlight that had been kept out until that point and lighting the room significantly.
"What are you doing?" Yanluo demanded, making an obvious effort to move away from the light, which allowed Jem a lucky shot with his sword.
"Yes," the other Shadowhunter asked as well, eyes not leaving his opponent, "What are you doing?"
"Shedding a little light on the situation," Simon answered, moving to the next window and breaking it too. Jem probably thought he was insane, but with every pane that broke, more light flooded in and Yanluo backed further and further away.
After the fourth window was shattered, Jem finally seemed to figure out what was going on. "Yes!" he shouted, grinning as he dodged another of the Greater Demon's attacks, "Yes, Simon, that's brilliant!" Grinning himself now, Simon continued with his plan. Crazy as it was, it seemed, by some miracle, to be working.
He had almost cleared the entire row of windows when his supply of toss-able objects had dwindled severely and Jem seemed, finally, to be losing ground. He was clearly getting tired, despite the obvious anger that fueled him, and Yanluo obviously knew it. There wasn't time to dig through the heaps of twisted machinery again and Simon knew his lack of experience wouldn't allow for him to help in actual combat. His best option was sticking to his well-meaning plan. He grabbed a knife from his belt, heavy and made well, and threw it at the next window. It was a nice weapon-he'd have to remember to retrieve it later. It worked-the window, like the others, shattered and the room grew brighter still.
Eventually, Yanluo was cornered, the threatening sunlight confining him to about a seven-foot square area. He clearly knew he was in a sticky situation, one he could no longer easily fight his way out of, though if that's what he had been doing before, he didn't have much to show for it. Even Simon could tell his intention was to run. "Is that what you will do then?" Jem demanded, "Flee from another fight you can't win like the coward you are?" He didn't wait for the demon's answer. "I don't think so, not this time. He lifted a shining dagger from his belt and held it up to a ray of light shining down on him from the nearest broken window. The blade caught the sunlight and Jem expertly directed it toward Yanluo, who, under the beam, collapsed in, shying away from it as it literally seemed to burn right through him. He began folding in on himself, escaping, but Jem had other ideas. Between one second and the next, he lifted his last Seraph Blade from his belt, named it "Raziel," an exceptionally powerful name, and thrust it at what had been the demon's chest. Yanluo yelled as black blood shot from the wound around the blade and he began to melt into it, as if the angelic power was absorbing every bit of the evil engulfing it.
Simon came to stand beside Jem, who stood staring at the spot that had formerly been Yanluo, the Greater Demon he apparently had quite an extensive history with. Jem looked at him when he approached and held out his hand, which Simon shook. "That was an exceptional idea," he complimented him, his subtle English accent becoming evident as he spoke, breathing heavily.
"Thank you. You're bleeding." And he was. He had a gash across his cheek, down to his chin, severing one of the scars already there from the runes of the Brotherhood.
"I know. I'm alright, thanks."
Simon eyed him. "So, uh… twelve year old orphan? Poison…? I hope you plan on elaborating a bit."
Jem sighed as he pulled a stele from his pocket and traced a healing rune onto his wrist. "I will. Later. We aren't done yet. Hopefully Jace was able to locate Clary. We need to find them." At the mention of her, all of Simon's worry and fear for his best friend came flooding back to him like the light had through the broken windows, and she was all he could think about. He nodded. "Lead the way," Jem said.
I know you guys are dying here to see what happens with Clary, but you'll have to wait just a little longer! I have started the next chapter already though and it is in there, I promise! Thank you for reading and I promise to again update ASAP.