Chapter Text
As Simon and I stepped inside, several shadowhunters had already gathered around the windows, looking to see what had happened. I didn't have to look. The ugly scar across the sky was still etched into my brain. I held Simon's arm and moved to put my back against a wall as far from the windows and door as I could get but even from across the room I could see the eerie red glow pressing in from the street.
An uneasy tension was building in the room as the shadowhunters murmured quietly to one another and exchanged grim looks. Part of me wanted to grab someone and shake them and demand to know what was going on but I knew any answer they could give would to nothing to quell the fear tightening around my chest.
Maryse appeared in the room bare moments after Simon and I, with Hodge following close behind. Her expression was sombre and her voice, when she spoke was cool and hard as stone. “We have demons incoming,” she said bluntly. “We probably have twenty minutes – maybe a bit more if we're lucky. Glyphs on and gear up. I want everyone armed and ready to fight in ten.”
She had barely finished speaking before the tension in the room abruptly dissolved into rapid motion. It was a frenzy of preparation, but in place of chaos there was only quick, determined efficiency.
As people cleared out of the room and set about their tasks, one older woman drew up short by Maryse and looked up at her grimly. “You know what this is,” she said, her voice quiet and angry. “We don't have the people to fight this.”
Maryse met her gaze evenly. “We have no other option,” she replied, her tone as blunt as her words.
The silence stretched between them for moment. Then the woman simply nodded once and walked away.
Maryse watched her go, and as she did I thought I could see her shrink ever so slightly as though the wind had gone out of her.
“She's right,” Hodge said, quietly. “Even if we didn't have wounded to worry about, the numbers wouldn't be on our side.”
“We'll get reinforcements when there are reinforcements available,” Maryse replied, not turning her head. “There's nothing else we can do until then. For now, we just need to make it through tonight.”
She took a deep, shuddering breath, then straightened, her shoulders square and her face blank. “Post a perimeter. I want at least one person at every entry point and a buffer into the street.” She started to walk away, then stopped with a grimace. “And if anyone in the infirmary can stand and fight, give them a weapon and get them up to the main floor.”
They left, and suddenly Simon and I were alone in a very quiet room.
“Clary, you're hurting my arm.” Simon sounded strangely detached, and it took me a moment to understand what he meant.
I started and let go of him abruptly. “Sorry,” I said, looking up at him.
He looked drawn and pale. I wasn't even sure if he'd heard me.
I swallowed. “What do you think is coming?”
“You heard Maryse,” he replied, still staring bleakly at the window on the other side of the room. “Lots and lots of demons.”
I shook my head. “We're not even supposed to be here,” I muttered. “I'm sorry, Simon.”
He shook his head slightly but didn't answer. “Where do you think it is?”
I frowned. “What do you mean?”
“The thing in the sky,” he said. “Where in the city do you think it is? If you had to guess?”
“I don't know.”
He was quiet for a moment, then, “I'm just trying to figure out how close it is to my parents' house.”
I opened my mouth to speak but couldn't think of anything comforting to say. Before either of us could say anything, Isabelle stepped into the room and then came to an abrupt halt, looking at the two of us with and expression somewhere between surprise and guilt.
“Clary! Simon,” she said. “You probably shouldn't stay there. Um...” She glanced around, thinking, then said, “Come on. I'll take you down to the infirmary. You should be safer there.”
I noticed that she had said 'safer' and not 'safe', which was not entirely reassuring, but since I didn't want to stay out here in the open either, I wasn't about to complain. She led us down into the basement, past the armoury, to where the infirmary had been set up in a large room opposite the training area. It was filled with an array of first aid equipment and a row of ten cots, three of which were occupied.
She exchanged a few short words with the medic who seemed to be in charge of the room. He nodded but after she hurried away he gave Simon and me a look that said very clearly if we wanted to stay here we had better stay out of the way. I hardly needed to be convinced so I started making my way to one of the empty cots, farthest from the door.
After a few steps, Simon caught my arm. “Hang on,” he said. “It's Jace.”
I looked down at the cot where we'd stopped and felt my stomach twist when I saw the familiar figure sleeping there. They'd washed the blood off his face and given him what looked like pyjamas in place of his stained and torn clothes, but no amount of scrubbing would wash away the bruises darkening on his throat or the swollen glyphs that looked as though they had been branded onto his arms.
“Here,” Simon said. There weren't any chairs nearby but the adjacent cot was empty so we sat there. I figured that should be out of the way enough, unless they took more casualties. Until they took more casualties.
After a few seconds of silence Simon said, “He looks like shit.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, although he still looked better than he had when we'd picked him and my mother up from the alley a few hours before. I wondered where she was now – if there had been anyone to stitch her up or if she was still slowly bleeding out from the bullet wound in her shoulder.
“You know I was never totally sure he actually could sleep?”
“He doesn't sleep much,” I replied, almost absently. My eyes drifted to his wrist but there was no sleep glyph there. In his current condition, I suspected it would have done more harm than good. “They must have him sedated.”
“I think I like him better asleep,” Simon said, with forced good humour. “More peaceful, you know?”
My lips tightened. He didn't look peaceful. He just looked small.
After a moment, Simon took my hand and squeezed it. “He'll be okay.”
I smiled back at him, with more confidence than I actually felt. “We're all gonna be okay,” I replied.
Almost in answer to my words, I heard a faint shout from the main floor followed by the indistinct sound of gunshots. The fighting had started.
We sat quietly for a few minutes, staring at the floor or the walls or the door and not speaking. Every noise that echoed down from the floor above us seemed to fall like another weight in the room, pressing down on us. My heart was pounding hard against my chest and even the effort of sitting still and staying upright exhausted my muscles.
“You know, I was terrified of thunderstorms when I was little,” I said finally. “I guess most kids probably are. My mom used to sit with me and count the seconds between the lightning and the thunder and tell me how far away it was.” I flinched at the sudden noise of shattering glass directly above us, and glanced uncertainly at the ceiling. “This storm feels awfully close.”
Simon gave me a sympathetic look but didn't say anything. Another minute or two passed and then he said, “What do they look like?”
“Hm?”
“The demons,” he said. “You know, in all of the rescuing people, fighting bad guys, arguing with vampires and werewolves, making deals with... whatever the hell Magnus is, I don't think I've ever actually seen one.”
“Oh. Um...” I frowned, thinking. “There's different kinds – but I think they can look human if they want to.” I found myself looking down at the scar on my arm where the ravener had sunk it's teeth into me, right after my mother went missing.
“Tell me.”
“Are you sure?”
Simon nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “I want to know.”
I did my best to describe them as far as I could remember. It wasn't exactly a comforting topic of conversation but it was less grating than silence. I couldn't tell if hearing about the demons actually made Simon feel any better but talking about them made me feel more in control somehow.
At least until one of Maryse's shadowhunters came bursting into the infirmary, carrying a wounded woman in his arms and yelling for the medic. Her face looked as though it had been slammed into the wall and she was bleeding badly though I couldn't tell from where. The man was bleeding, too, from what looked like a deep bite in his arm, but as soon as the woman had been handed over to the medics he was back out the door and into the fray.
For just a moment, I was afraid I was going to be sick. I felt like I ought to help but didn't know what I could do. I had a sneaking suspicion all I could manage would be to get in the way.
“What's going on?”
The words were strained and quiet and it took me a moment to realize it was Jace who had spoken, peering blearily at me from his cot. Whatever they had given him must have started to wear off, since he was definitely awake and struggling to sit up.
I moved to help him but he shook me off. “What's happening?” he repeated, more insistently.
“Nothing,” I said quickly, but almost as I spoke the woman gave out a pained moan from the other end of the room, belying my words.
Jace glanced sharply towards her, then turned back to me with a defiant look, made all the more intense by his one red eye. When I didn't answer he turned his attention to Simon. “Tell me,” he demanded.
Simon sighed. “Demons,” he said after a moment. “We're under attack.”
“Fuck,” Jace growled. He started glancing anxiously around the bed. “Where's my stele? My knife?”
I shot a panicked looked at Simon as Jace swung his legs over the side of the cot and climbed to his feet. “Jace, you're hurt!” I said, reaching for his arm. “You have to stay here.”
“I'm fine,” he snapped. “I can fight.”
I still wasn't entirely convinced he'd be able to make it up the stairs without help, but had already started toward the door. “For fuck's sake,” I muttered. He wasn't even wearing shoes...
I stood and started to chase after him, then stopped and looked back at Simon. “Stay here,” I said firmly. “Promise me.”
He nodded once, and I hurried to follow Jace out the door.
I found him in the armoury, searching the shelves for a weapon. As he turned away from the shelf with a knife in hand I stopped in the doorway, blocking his path.
“Put it away,” I said, with as much authority as I could muster. “Put it away, and come back with me to the infirmary.”
He scoffed. “You think I'm just going to sit there and wait like a fucking civilian?” he said. “Let me through.”
I stared at him, disbelieving. “You're hurt!”
“I'm fine,” he growled, though it seemed to me that his eyes were struggling to focus.
“You're not fine!” I yelled. I wanted to grab him by the shoulders and shake him except that, in his current state, I wasn't sure he could take it. “If you go out there now, you're going to get yourself killed.”
“Get out of my way, Clary,” he snapped.
I glowered at him stubbornly and didn't move.
He glared back, and after a moment he simply shoved past me with enough force that I nearly lost my feet.
“Damn it, Jace,” I hissed, staring after him. Then I stepped into the armoury and started rifling hurriedly through the gun locker for a pistol I could use. As soon as I found one I ducked back out the door and went sprinting up the stairs, swearing under my breath. Jace was faster than me to begin with, and he had a head start; it would be sheer dumb luck if I caught up to him before anything else did...
When I reached the top of the stairs, I turned to see Jace at the far end of the hall. I had barely taken two steps toward him when something leapt at him with claws outstretched. He spun, swinging his knife towards it, but his glyphs were faded and he was injured and he had moved too late.
The demon slammed into his chest, its jaws tearing into his neck.
I raised the pistol. It was a little heavier than my nine-millimetre and the first round missed the demon and buried itself in the far wall, but the noise caught the creatures attention and it released Jace to turn its dripping jaws in my direction. The second round glanced off its shoulder as it barrelled toward me, closing the distance. I braced my shoulders and fired again.
The third round caught it squarely in the chest, and it stumbled and skidded along the wooden floor, leaving a long smear of black blood before crumpling in on itself.
I swallowed, trying to ignore the deafening pounding in my ears, and ran to Jace.
The flesh where his neck met his shoulder was gnawed and torn and there were ugly gashes across his stomach where the demon's claws had raked him. He wasn't moving.
I crouched beside him, my throat tight. “Jace?”
His head moved slightly, and his eyes flickered open and focused on me for a moment before drifting closed again.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone running toward us through the open front door. By the time I registered the pale, mottled skin and the eyeless face, the thing was within arms' reach. I jerked the pistol up and fired twice. There hadn't been time to aim, but at point blank range, it didn't make any difference.
I stared dumbly as the demon fell to the floor in front of me, and waited, unable to tear my eyes away until it had crumpled into nothing.
My skin burned with adrenaline and when I looked down I could see my hands shaking.
And Jace, lying still in a slowly growing pool of blood.
I wanted to yell for help, but by the looks of things everyone already had their hands full and this close to the open door, I was at least as likely to attract a demon as a shadowhunter. But it definitely wasn't safe here.
I wasn't strong enough to carry Jace and he certainly wasn't walking anywhere on his own, but after some rearranging I managed to grip him awkwardly around the chest and start to drag him towards the kitchen. He gave a faint pained groan as my grip tightened, which I tried to take as a good sign.
He felt impossibly heavy and it took an agonizingly long time to move him. By the time I felt my back hit the cabinet doors in the far corner of the kitchen, I was near tears and I just collapsed to the floor which Jace's head and shoulders propped awkwardly in my lap.
A loud crash from the living room made me jerk upright and I brought the pistol up to point at the kitchen doorway. We were safer here than out in the open but if the demons were in the house there was nothing to stop one from barging through that doorway at any second. Nothing but me and my gun and however many rounds of ammunition were left.
So I waited with my eyes pinned on the doorway and my gun raised and tried not to think about Jace's blood slowly seeping through my clothes.
My muscles were screaming in protest when someone appeared at last, and I recognized Maryse just in time to stop myself as my finger spasmed on the trigger.
“Clary!” she said, her voice and expression alarmed as she took in the gory scene. Then she turned to someone I couldn't see and yelled, “I need a medic in the kitchen now!”
The realization that help had arrived hit me like a tidal wave, and I abruptly found myself shaking with sobs as the gun slipped from my fingers and fell to the floor.
Maryse snatched a handful of tea towels from a kitchen drawer and hurried over to us.
“I tried to stop him,” I told her.
“You did everything right,” she assured me as she tucked one into the wound on his neck and gently placed my hand on top of it. “Push down there.”
“He didn't listen.”
“I know,” she said, meeting my eyes squarely as she pressed towels against the wounds on his abdomen. “It's not your fault. Are you hurt?”
I shook my head.
A moment later the shadowhunter medic hurried into the room with Hodge and someone I didn't know carrying a stretcher. I could hear them speaking but couldn't seem to form the noises into words and when they started to load him onto the stretcher Maryse had to carefully pry my hands away before I would release him. She pulled me tight against her and gently stroked my hair as I sobbed into her shoulder.
After a minute or two I felt like I could breath normally again and I pulled away feeling almost abashed. As she helped me to my feet, it finally occurred to me that she didn't look to be in great shape herself. There was a large bruise darkening along her jaw and another all down one arm. Her blouse was torn and a nasty scrape from something had left her neck and sternum raw and bleeding. But there was no sign of pain in her stance or expression, only sincere concern.
She poked her head out into the hall and called Isabelle over. “Can you make sure Clary gets a shower and some clean clothes,” she asked quietly.
The sight of someone I knew nearly started me sobbing again but I clenched my jaw and let Isabelle usher me upstairs. There were more tears in the shower, but by the time I had scrubbed away all the blood and demon goo I was starting to feel mostly human again. Isabelle had left me some sweats which were soft and comfortable even if they didn't quite fit.
The atmosphere downstairs was tense and exhausted as people set about clearing away broken glass and furniture, rehanging doors and taping up windows. Everyone was busy with something but it was impossible not to notice that there were fewer people walking around the house than there had been a few hours before.
Almost as soon as I stepped off the stairs someone I didn't recognize ushered me into the kitchen where Isabelle was dishing out bowls of soup and -
“Simon!” My throat tightened and I kicked myself internally for not going to check on him right away. I hurried to join him at the kitchen table. “Are you okay?”
He nodded and smiled weakly. “I mean, I've been better,” he said. “But I'm fine. None of the demons made it into the basement.”
“Oh, thank god,” I breathed, rubbing my face, and trying not to think about the fact that I had left him alone in the middle of a demon attack.
“Look, Clary, I've got to go home,” Simon said. “Don't worry, Alec's going to make sure I get there safe, I just... I need to make sure my family's okay.”
“Right,” I said dazedly. “I'm sorry.”
He shook his head, getting to his feet. “Don't worry about me,” he said gently and leaned in to kiss the top of my head. “I'll talk to you soon.”
I nodded. “Text me when you get home!” I called after him, before remembering Whitehawk still had my phone. Fuck.
Isabelle set a bowl of hot soup in front of me with stern instructions to eat. I managed a few spoonfuls but my eyes kept drifting against my will to the floor in the corner of the kitchen. Someone had cleaned away the blood but I could still see Jace lying there, dying, and I found I didn't have much of an appetite.
After a few more minutes I gave up and went down to the basement to check on Jace.
The door to the infirmary was closed but I could see through the wide window that most of the beds that had been empty when Simon and I first came down here were occupied with wounded shadowhunters. One was covered with a sheet.
Maryse was standing by the window, watching with crossed arms and a stony expression. She hadn't changed out of her torn and bloodstained blouse and the raw, red scrape across her neck still hadn't been bandaged. For the first time since I'd met her, she looked truly exhausted.
Biting my lip, I moved to stand beside her. There were three people gathered around Jace's cot. I couldn't see what they were doing but there seemed to be a lot of blood. “Is he okay?” I asked.
“They're still working on him,” she said quietly. “We'll know more when they finish.”
“He's tough,” I said, though I wasn't sure which one of us I was trying to reassure.
“I know.” Her voice sounded thin and strained.
I swallowed. “Have you had anything to eat? There's soup in the kitchen.”
She shook her head. The movement was minute but it seemed to set her whole body swaying ever so slightly, as though the only thing keeping her upright was sheer force of will.
I opened my mouth to speak, hesitated, then, “You should get some rest. I can stay here and come get you when -”
She shook her head again, never taking her eyes off of Jace. “He's my son,” she said simply. “It can wait.”