A/N: I just want to thank every one of you readers and reviewers for your support of this story! 350 faves, 411 follows, and 80+k views truly astounds me and we still have so much further to go! I am forever grateful! XOXOX
Devil in the Details
"I'm fine, Alec," Izzy said for the tenth time, swatting away her brother's overbearing hands.
Alec, by nature as the oldest child, was a worrier. A mother hen. A natural caregiver. He just couldn't help himself. From the moment Izzy fell through the portal and stumbled into his arms, she was reduced to a three-year-old incapable of doing anything for herself. He all but carried her to the couch, forced her feet up and fretted over her, checking every cut and scrape on her body. Not a single worry was spared for Clary or Simon or Helen. Only Izzy. It was sweet, but a bit too much.
And, of course, Alec wouldn't take no for an answer.
"I'll go get you more water," he said instead, getting up from his perch by the couch. He walked to the kitchen and soon enough, Izzy heard the sounds of the ice maker and the water filter.
So strange, that she was back in Magnus and Alec's apartment like no time had passed. The blankets in the basket in the corner, the paintings on the wall, the French doors leading to Magnus's office, they were all the same as they were before she left - before she was taken. She could imagine that this was just another night with her friends. Maybe they would put on a movie and pop some popcorn. Izzy would bury her feet under Alec's thighs to keep them warm even though she would steal all the blankets, and Clary and Jace would lean into one another while Simon and Maia made obscure commentary about the cinematography.
It was a nice fantasy.
"You okay, Clary?" Izzy asked, craning her neck over the edge of the sofa took look towards the dining room.
Clary and Simon had taken over the table with bandages and soiled towels. Simon, who was a bit hopeless when it came to wound care, was trying to wrap Clary's abdomen while Clary did her best to instruct him. It was hard not to laugh at the sight of Simon's distress and Clary's frustration.
"Peachy keen," she replied through gritted teeth, trying not to yelp as Simon pulled a piece of gauze a bit too tight.
It felt wrong to laugh. Felt wrong to think anything was funny about this situation after everything they'd just been through. After the people they'd lost only moments ago. Izzy hadn't had the time to tell Alec about Raphael or Iris. What time was the right time?
It didn't feel real to her that they were gone, Raphael especially. When she cast him out of her life months ago, she was at peace with the fact that she'd never see him again. She thought he would have all eternity to get over her, to have a life, to begin again in a new city with a new coven. Now he was just...gone. Because of her. Iris was gone. Because of her. So many terrible things, all because of her.
Before Izzy could spiral too far, Alec returned with the glass of water. Condensation made the glass slippery as Izzy took it from him. She made sure to smile and take a sip to put his mind at ease.
Satisfied, Alec pulled his phone out of his pocket and started typing.
"Just letting Magnus know you're home," he explained, firing the message off and pocketing the phone immediately. Nothing was going to distract him from Izzy's health. "Also let him know that you brought a few friends with you."
By friends, he meant Helen. Helen who roamed the perimeter of the apartment. A nervous habit, obviously. She was the only outsider in the group, the only one who hadn't made this apartment home at some point in her life. She must have sensed the magic in this place, that it belonged to a warlock. Perhaps that was what was setting her on edge. After spending so much time with a xenophobe, she must have some conflicting thoughts about Downworlders, her own heritage aside.
Izzy felt a pang of pity for her, a pang of familiarity as well. She had been in Helen's shoes not too long ago. Though Izzy had always prided herself on never acting despicably towards Downworlders, she used to treat them as commodities. As second class citizens. As a bit of rebellion and fun. It wasn't until she started to really spend time with Magnus, with Simon, with Maia and Luke and the Jade Wolf pack that she had to force herself to check her biases.
And then there was Raphael and the humbling experience of Yin Fen addiction. There was her brother and Magnus forming a life together. There was her own life, spiraled out of control as she laid on a couch with the child of the Devil in her belly. So much to happen in such a short period of time. The girl she was a year ago would not recognize the woman she was today, meanwhile Helen's journey had just begun.
Would Izzy's child wind up like Helen? Torn between two heritages? Conflicted about where they belonged, to whom they showed their loyalty? Would they be ridiculed, cast out for something beyond their control like Helen and her Seelie ears? Would they be strong enough to stand up for what they think is right, like Helen to Aldertree?
Izzy would be proud, she thought, if her child wound up like Helen. She hoped that Helen would stick around after all this was said and done. It would be nice to have someone with this particular kind of experience to lean on. Someone for her child to lean on.
A knock at the door drew everyone's attention.
"You expecting anyone?" Simon asked.
"No," Alec replied with a frown. "No one."
He approached the door with all the caution of a hunt, his steps careful and silent, ears straining to pick up any noise on the other side. Izzy had seen that face a dozen times while tracking vampires or werewolves. Slowly, so slowly, her brother reached for the doorknob and twisted it open.
As soon as Alec opened the door, a blast of energy sent him flying back into the apartment, tumbling over the couch to the ground below.
"Alec!"
Izzy rolled off the couch and ran to her brother's side, checking him for a pulse that thankfully still beat. He had a cut on his forehead, groaning as Izzy helped him sit up. No doubt, the room was spinning, but there wasn't time to take things slow.
Ripples of power shimmered around the entryway as the wards held firm. There, on the other side, stood one very pissed off woman.
Lilith.
"I want what's mine!" she screeched, her voice inhumane and striating.
Her jaw widened as she screamed, wider than any human jaw. Reptilian in its flexibility and lined with rows of jagged, razor-edged teeth. As she banged against the wards, the bones in her hands snapped and reshaped themselves into claws, double-jointed and scaled. She transformed before their very eyes from something resembling human into something other. Something demonic.
Screams multiplied tenfold, and before Izzy knew what was happening, the whole apartment was under attack.
A swarm of demons descended upon the apartment like a storm cloud. They bombarded the balcony, trying to find any way inside only to be repelled by the wards like ping pong balls. They were as feral as their mother, pounding and howling, using their bodies like battering rams, unfazed by the number of times they were rebuffed.
The wards weren't meant to withstand this kind of assault. Even the great Magnus Bane wasn't powerful enough to keep the Queen of Edom away forever.
Helen gripped her blade - the only weapon any of them managed to keep in the escape - poking at the demons clawing their way through shimmering cracks that kept growing bigger and bigger. It didn't matter how many she reduced to ash; the bastards kept multiplying. For every one she smoked, ten more swarmed in its place. Like some kind of demented Hydra.
"Any ideas Fray?" Simon yelled over the chaos of wingbeats screeches.
"Stay alive!" Clary shouted back, drawing something on her palm with Aldertree's stolen stele that produced little more than a spark, her angelic power all but run dry from creating the portal.
"We're about to be demon food in two minutes if we don't come up with a plan!"
Wood splintered and the door broke off its hinges. A gaping hole in the wall showed Lilith, completely transformed into a massive winged beast. She huffed a mighty roar, spittle flying from her jowls, then threw her weight into what remained of the wards.
This time, chunks of concrete fell from the ceiling. Giant cracks ran down the floor. Everything shook.
If Lilith couldn't go through the wards, she was going to bring the whole building down.
Izzy clutched the nearest wall, trying to steady herself while shielding Alec. She calculated exactly how much time she had left to get everyone out unharmed before the whole thing collapsed, and it wasn't looking good. Alec was still groggy. Clary and Simon were bickering. Helen was out on the balcony stabbing demons, too far to snag.
And then, in a twist Izzy did not see coming, Lilith took off.
A window shattered down the hall, the sound of breaking glass and fading screeching announcing Lilith's departure.
"Did she...did she give up?" Clary asked, astounded. She was just as confused as Izzy.
Alec was confused as well, rubbing the newfound welt on his head as he grabbed his bow and quiver from where they lay strewn across the carpet. He frowned his trademark frown at the mess Lilith left behind, but was the only one brave enough to poke his head around the broken corner.
"She's gone," Alec announced, though he did not look pleased. Besides, there were still demons on the balcony to worry about. "Stay alert, we don't know when the next attack - "
Groaning replaced the screeching. Deep, painful groaning.
Alec turned back around, one step in front of Izzy as if to shield her. He nocked and arrow and kept it ready to fire. As if that would do any good if Lilith really wanted to do them both damage.
"Is that...?"
Alec swallowed. "Yeah."
The mauled, decaying body of a soldier Izzy had attended the funeral of before her self-imposed exile stepped over the rubble Lilith left behind and through the wards. Others followed. Nearly a dozen fallen Shadowhunters - some clawed half-open and others missing limbs - ambled into the entryway. Slow but steady and with deadly intent.
Lilith wasn't trying to get herself in, Izzy realized. She was giving her army more space to invade.
Alec let his arrow go flying. It landed through the good eye of a soldier twice his size. The creature stumbled to its knees, but then managed to right itself. Back on its feet, it pulled the arrow out along with the eyeball. Lack of vision did nothing to stop it.
"Zombies are real now?" Simon squeaked, his grip tight on a frying pan. "How is this possible?"
"They're dead. They have no energy signatures. The wards won't work."
One of the zombies pulled out a knife and threw it with deadly accuracy. Had Clary not ducked when she did, it would have went straight through her carotid.
"Look pretty alive to me!"
Alec went into battle mode.
"Izzy! Run!"
He pushed her down the hall, away from the battle. Exactly where Izzy didn't want to be. Just because she was pregnant didn't mean she was useless.
She ran to the kitchen and pulled the biggest knife from the butcher block. The kind of knife used to hack steaks and fillet fish. The kind of knife that was half the size of her head. Perfect for chopping up zombies.
Part of Izzy held moral qualms about butchering her fellow Nephilim. These were her fallen brothers and sisters. The honorable dead who had mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters she had likely interacted with. One or two faces even looked familiar from trips to other Institutes. It hurt her to have to hurt them. But she would. She would cut them all down to protect her family if she had to.
They were outnumbered three to one. There was no one to protect Izzy, but she didn't need protecting. She launched herself at the closest zombie coming her way, dodging a fist and landing a kick right to the diaphragm. Bones crunched under her heel, and her foot sunk into a collapsed abdomen, throwing her off balance. Izzy rolled with the zombie, knocking over another like a bowling pin until they were a tangle of limbs.
Somehow, Izzy wound up on the ground. Exactly where she didn't want to be. The zombie on top of her was a woman around her size, though heavy with the weight of death. Bony knees kept her legs pinned while jagged nails bit into her arms. Izzy bucked and thrashed, trying to free one arm to grab the knife embedded in the side of the other zombie in the scuffle.
Green mucus fell on Izzy's cheeks as the zombie roared in her face, breath reeking of rotted earth and sulfur. Tears smarted in Izzy's eyes at the stench, the urge to vomit rising in her throat. With a great thrust of her knee, Izzy was able to throw the zombie off of her just enough to twist her body and grab the knife. She twisted back around and flung her arm into the zombie's neck.
A trickle of clotted blood oozed from the wound as the zombie stumbled back. It splattered across the prison whites Izzy hadn't managed to change out of, joining all the other shades of blood matted there. As the zombie staggered, clutching at its wound, Izzy took the opportunity to get off the ground, holding the knife out in front of her as a warning as she backed away.
Her hands shook as she turned the corner to the balcony, the knife shaking with it. And for good reason.
Lilith was perched on the railing, fangs curved up in a demonic version of a smile.
THERE YOU ARE...
Her voice was distorted and eerie in this reptilian, demonic form. Something that came from inside Izzy's mind, insidious and growling. The sounds that actually came from her mouth were a series of clicks and snarls, snaps of her jowls as she pushed against the wards, desperate to get to her target.
Izzy was her target. Those beady, black eyes looked at nothing else.
"Get back!" Clary shouted at Lilith, throwing a rock at her.
Then, she grabbed Izzy by the wrist and pulled her back before Lilith's massive form threw its whole weight against the wards.
A few of the stone buttresses fell from the balcony. Izzy sent a quick prayer for the souls trapped down below, crushed underneath the falling debris. She hoped the Institute was sending backup, clearing all the mortals away from the scene. There was no hope for her and her friends, not now that the wards cracked and crumbled, dissolving out of existence like the scattering of fireflies.
Lilith roared in victory, as loud the T Rexes in the dinosaur movies Simon made them watch a few months back. The kind of roaring that made Izzy's ears ring and her heart beat in her throat.
As Lilith's cry echoed, the sky erupted. A flash of an explosion. A fissure opened in the night. A giant portal started spitting out demons left and right. How Lilith had managed to create a portal of that magnitude, no one knew and no one wanted to know. That kind of power should have been inaccessible to someone like Lilith. But there she was, advancing on them with a swarm of bat-like demons and the speed and skill of an apex predator.
Desperation set in.
This was it. This was how Izzy died: hand in hand with Clary Fairchild on the balcony of Magnus Bane's apartment, fighting for the right for her child to live.
Then, a portal, shimmering and golden, formed in the middle of the foyer. Izzy felt the heat from it, tasted the salt and sky on her tongue. She was so happy she could have cried. Magnus was here. They were saved.
Only, the person who stepped out of the portal wasn't Magnus.
The woman standing at the mouth of the portal had skin the color of tree bark and stood as sturdy and stubbornly as a tree would. She was clad in leather from head to toe, sickle shaped blades in each hand. She spun them around, the metal singing sharp as her grin. The scar running through her eyebrow twitched as she caught sight of Lilith, dark eyes sparking with something chaotic and malevolent.
"Hi Mom," she said with a half-smile, the decaying part of her face curled up in a snarl. "Let's talk."
Then, she launched herself at the great beast flying their way, sinking her blades into Lilith's thick hide and rending flesh from bone.
Lilith roared in outrage, shaking her hide to try and get the crazy woman - demon? - off of her. They crash landed and scrambled across the balcony, locked into their own private battle.
Izzy was so shocked by the scene that she didn't see the next people to pop out the portal. Magnus entered the scene, of course, in his usual dramatic fashion. He raised ringed fingers into the air and shouted a stream of words in the language of magic. Though patchy and broken, the remaining wards shimmered with newfound rejuvenation, pushing all invaders back and incinerating those standing too close.
Alongside Magnus was Jace. A little bedraggled, little bloody, but Jace.
She scrambled up from the ground and ran to her brother. Jace's eyes flooded with tears as he caught her in his embrace. Neither one of them cared about the battle raging on around them, their friends and family who were fighting for them to have this moment, but Izzy cherished it. She had lost Jace one too many times. She wouldn't lose him here. Not again.
Reunions were cut short by the cries and grunts of demons and zombies.
One of the zombies had cornered Helen, blood flowing freely from a cut on her cheek, her blade knocked to the ground. Simon ran up and whacked that zombie over the head with a mirror. Glass shattered everywhere, raining down on the zombie and Helen. She screamed and covered her face as the zombie was sliced to pieces, yet did not bleed. All it did was turn its fury on Simon, batting at him and knocking him down.
Jace wasted no time. He picked up a large shard of glass and dragged it across the zombie's neck. It took some force, but he separated the head from the shoulders and threw it across the room. Right at the zombie who was using up all of Alec's arrows - at least five sticking stoutly out of its chest. The zombie fell back, stumbling into the other behind it. Alec took the win and ran back to where Jace was helping Simon off the ground, disbelief in his eyes.
"You..." Alec stuttered, out of breath and disbelieving.
"Yeah, it's me," Jace said with a tired half-smile. The parabatai didn't need more words than that. Izzy could see how whole they both became in each other's presence, a strength and ease returning to them that had been missing before.
"This is great guys, but there's still zombies!" Simon shouted, pointing to where the headless zombie was reattaching its head and the others were rising back up from the ground, arrows and cuts and all.
It was impossible to win, but that didn't mean the battle was over.
Back to back, Jace and Alec assumed battle formation: Alec with his quiver half-empty and Jace with nothing but his bare hands and his will to survive. Izzy longed to have her whip in hand, to have anything to defend herself other than a kitchen knife, but beggars could not be choosers. Clary and Helen were back to back on the balcony, Clary desperately trying to get her runes to work while Helen stabbed at anything coming their way.
"We're getting our asses handed to us!" Alec shouted, nocking one arrow, then another and letting them fly.
"No shit!" Jace shouted back, sinking a fire poker into the gut of a zombie. "We need to cut them off at the source!"
The problem was, the source was a thousand feet up in the air. There was no way to get to it. The only creature big enough to support the weight of a human was their enemy - an enemy currently locked in battle with a scrappy demon woman who was actually kicking major ass. There was no time to make a plan, no time to do anything other than react.
React to the demon woman in leather crashing through the glass, blood in her snarl as she was thrown from Lilith's back.
UNGRATEFUL CHILD, Lilith howled.
"Learned from the best!" the demon fired back, licking the blood from her lips with relish.
"Traitor!" other demons yowled, swarming upon the woman with vengeance.
"Oh fuck off, you kiss-ass sissies," the demon woman spat, slashing at her brothers and sisters without prejudice.
But she was distracted. Without her to entertain Lilith, the Mother of Demons was free to focus on her original target. On Izzy. She dragged her battered body across the balcony, closing in on Izzy.
Alec tried to jump in front of Izzy, but he was knocked away and into a nearby wall.
"Alexander!" Magnus cried, magic flaring at his fingertips, but he, too, was rebuffed by Lilith's powerful wingspan. She flapped her wings until the gusts of wind pushed them both back into the apartment, a barricade of concrete obscuring a direct path outside. Simon and Helen tried to help, but they were still combatting zombies, trying to keep them away from their friends.
Clary raised her hand, weak and trembling, skin burned raw from rune after rune. Another gust of wind from her wings had Clary blown back.
"Clary!" Jace cried, terrified for his girlfriend but also frozen with fear at the sight of Lilith.
YOU CAN'T SAVE THEM, MY OWL, Lilith taunted, laughter in her cruel voice. OH, HOW THEY HAVE RUINED YOU. HOW I WILL DESTROY YOU!
Jace was shaking, his eyes lost and glassy. It was clear he was trapped somewhere else, somewhere Izzy could not reach him. He was breathing shallowly, panicking. So, she did the only thing she could think of. She took his hand. Fingers laced, she grounded Jace in the only way she could. Jace looked at her, sadness replacing panic, and he squeezed her hand tightly.
At least, if they were going to die, they wouldn't die alone.
Lilith was so close, Izzy could feel the heat of her breath. Could hear the thump of her heart. Could hear the wheeze of her lungs. Could taste the hatred pouring from her every molecule. The end was upon them.
Izzy closed her eyes.
"STOP!"
... _ ...
Hell of a way to make an entrance, Lucifer thought to himself.
Hell of a time to make a detour as well, but he had a reputation to uphold. Lucifer Morningstar never showed up to a party underdressed. And this...this was about to be a rager.
Lucifer landed on the balcony, white wings sweeping to either side as he pulled them back into his body. When he righted himself, his eyes blazed red with fury. Just his presence had enough power to humble Lilith, her form shrinking as he stepped from the railing onto the balcony proper. She moved away from him, out of reach as he moved forward.
It took a lot of nerve for Lilith to undermine his power this way. To open a portal to Hell without his permission. To steal his demons. To have those demons attack the mother of his child.
Downright disrespectful.
"ALL GOOD DEMONS GO TO HELL!"
Lucifer's voice echoed through the apartment, through the nighttime air, all around them and deep into their souls. It shook the walls and the floors, rattling the pictures on the wall and knocking over knick knacks on Magnus' shelves. Demons shivered in their boots, dead eyes wide and full of panic as the power of their king's voice compelled them to obey. He swept his gaze to all of them, making eye contact with as many as he could to let them know he meant business.
When one demon, bold and foolish as they were, tried to defy Lucifer's decree and attack their king, Lucifer punched them through the solar plexus so hard his hand went through the ribcage. Only when Lucifer had a grip on that sluggish, greying heart did truth ring clear in the demon's ears. But it was too late. Lucifer crushed that heart and the lights went out.
Suddenly, all at once, bodies started dropping.
Demons vacated the bodies of dead Nephilim, their spirits returning to the bowels of Hell while the husks of the people they possessed were left behind. Those lesser demons soared back into the gateway from whence they came, wings beating in double time to make it before the infernal thing closed behind them. They knew any creature left behind would be slaughtered without mercy.
As Lucifer advanced further into the apartment, as he crossed the boundary of his nephew's wards and stepped foot inside, the demons kept dropping. Even the most loyal, those who stuck by Lilith's side, shivered and shed their skins, leaving the Mother of Demons utterly alone. But not powerless.
No, Lilith took her opportunity to lash out. She did not have the energy to transform into her demonic form again, but she still swiped at him with her talons. She roared from her rancid gut and bared her rows of razor-sharp fangs. Some in-between creature of beauty and nightmare.
She never stood a chance.
Two steps and Lucifer had her by the throat, the very ring he had used to summon her pressed into her jugular. His skin burned and blistered as it touched hers, reacting to the hellfire within. Flames itched at his eyes and in his nose, as if he were already in Hell itself, ready for the torture.
"Please," Lilith begged, staring down the Devil himself. "Please, have mercy."
"Like you showed my brother?" Lucifer asked, voice dripping with hatred. "Like you were going to show Miss Lightwood?"
"You won't kill me. Not in front of her."
From the corner of his eye, Lucifer spied Isabelle and her siblings, Magnus, Mazikeen, and the gaggle of other creatures assembled with them, all witness to the spectacle. To his cruelty. To the judgement of the Devil himself.
Was this not what he feared? Scaring Isabelle away with his true nature? Of having her look him in the eye, only to see a monster not fit to hold their child?
He saw no fear in Isabelle's eyes now, no revulsion nor terror. At least, not for him. She was afraid, oh yes, but of the creature in Lucifer's grasp. Would it bring her peace to see Lilith in pieces? Or would it only bring fear that the she-demon would rematerialize in some grander, more horrific form?
"No. I won't kill you, because where's the fun in that?" Lucifer took a step back and smiled a smile that was anything but friendly. It was a smile that promised pain. Retribution. "The Queen of Edom will finally learn what it's like for every other soul in her kingdom. Personally, I can't wait to punish you."
He let her go and Lilith stumbled back, rubbing at skin that now carried the brand of the King of Hell. All five fingers wrapped around her throat, burned into her flesh, red and ugly. A warning to others who may try to defy him.
His own fingers flexed as he put his devil skin away, cracking the joints like he imagined cracking her neck. Violence still bubbled too close to the surface. Murder still shone too earnestly in his eyes, causing Lilith to take equal steps back from him as he moved forward. Directing her. Leading her right where he wanted her.
Into the pentagram drawn hastily in chalk.
It wasn't the prettiest thing Lucifer had ever seen, but Magnus was never much of an artist. As soon as she crossed the line, flames lit up and trapped her inside, igniting the symbols drawn all around. Lilith wailed in outrage, tears forming in her eyes.
"I will destroy you for this, Morningstar!" she cried as the flames climbed higher, sucking her into the void below.
"Go to Hell, Lilith."
A flash of light. The fire died out. Lilith was gone.