City of Bones: at Madame Dorothea's

All the way to Brooklyn in the mundane's--the other mundane, the one with glasses--roaring van, Alec heard Jace's voice in his head, taunting him. "If you're afraid of a few Forsaken, by all means stay home."

He'd wanted to believe that Clary had been lying about what Jace had said, about him being afraid, but Jace had all but said it himself. When they got to Clary's home, Alec had made up his mind. He was going to prove himself today.

"Ready to go," Alec said, dropping their equipment bag onto the sidewalk. "Let's kick some demon butt!"

"You all right?" Jace asked him, and Alec knew he was going to have to tone it down some.

"Fine," he said, deliberately not looking at Jace as he set aside his bow and pulled out a featherstaff instead. Close quarters combat would be better for this, better to prove himself. "This is better," he added when Isabelle gave him a strange look.

"But the bow..."

"I know what I'm doing, Isabelle."

They convinced the mundane to stay behind and headed into the building. Alec could feel the thrum of pre-battle adrenaline zinging through him, stronger than ever before, and not just because they might be about to retrieve the Mortal Cup. The stench as they approached was sickening, and Alec felt his stomach lurch. The sensors had shown very little demon activity, but whatever was here...it wasn't just Forsaken.

"Demons have been here," Jace said, a sharp grin on his face that only heightened Alec's anxiety. "Recently, too."

Clary's pale face went paler still. "But they're not still--"

"No," Jace was quick to assure her. "We woud have sensed it. Still." He gestured to the Control's door. "She might have some questions to answer if the Clave hears she's been entertaining demons."

Inside, the medium, Madame Dorothea, chattered with Jace and Clary as Alec and Isabelle inspected the room as unobtrusively as possible. He watched in awe as Clary, impossibly, pulled the Cup from Madame Dorothea's tarot card.

What happened next zipped past Alec almost too quickly for him to keep up. Madame Dorothea was saying something about the cup being damaged, then Jace's blade was at her throat, then she pulled the curtains down, and there was an open Portal behind, and then, suddenly, Madame Dorothea was not herself but a demon.

"But you said there wasn't much demonic activity--you said the levels were low!" Alec choked out as they stared in horror at the thing.

"They were low."

Alec shouted, "Your version of low must be different from mine!"

The thing was growing, filling the room, and Jace grabbed Clary, shoving her out the door into the foyer. Isabelle ran to let them out but the door wouldn't open. "It's resistant," she said. "Must be a spell--"

"Where the hell is my stele--?" Jace searched his pockets.

"I have it," Clary offered, and then the wall exploded in front of Alec, and he stood, shocked into stillness, staring at the creature.

He heard Jace's voice calling his name, and then Jace was tugging him back, away from the danger.

"Give me," the demon was saying, "the Mortal Cup. Give it to me, and I will let you live."

"What are you?" Jace asked, and Alec envied him the steadiness in his voice.

"I am Abbadon," the thing said. "I am the Demon of the Abyss. Mine are the empty places between the worlds. Mine is the wind and the howlign darkness. I am unlike those mewling things you call demons as an eagle is unlike a fly. You cannot hope to defeat me. Give me the Cup or die."

"It's a Greater Demon," Isabelle said, and Alec felt the fear in her voice freeze his blood. "Jace, if we--"

"What about Dorothea?" Clary interrupted, and Alec glared at her. Hadn't she done enough? "What happened to her?"

"She was a vessel only," Abbadon said, turning his gaze to Clary. "She opened the Portal and I took possession of her. Her death was swift. Yours will not be."

It moved toward Clary, and in a hearbeat Jace was in its way, seraph blade blazing in his hand.

"By the Angel," he said, giving the demon a once-over like a girl in a club. "I knew Greater Demons were meant to be ugly, but no one ever warned me about the smell." The demon opened its mouth, but Jace continued. "I'm not so sure about this wind and howling darkness business. Smells more like landfill to me. You sure you're not from Staten Island?"

The demon struck, and Jace slashed out, into the thing's abdomen, before it hit him, sending him sprawling. Isabelle's whip curled around a limb, but it kept going for Jace, who pulled another seraph blade, speaking its name and facing off against Abbadon, against a Greater Demon, grinning fiercely in the face of death.

And he was beautiful and strong and made of pure light, and Alec couldn't stand it, couldn't stand to see Jace throw himself away like that. Without a thought, Alec leaped between Jace and the thing's outstretched claws, featherstaff raised, and buried his blade deep into the demon.

It struck back, lightning-quick. Alec felt its talons slicing into him, and he was thrown across the room, slamming hard into the far wall. He heard a crunch, and then the world slipped into blackness.

When he woke, he was lying on his back, his head cradled in Isabelle's lap as Jace's face, golden and beautiful, hovered over him. Alec held onto his wrist, his fingers sliding through blood, human and demonic.

"Did I...." He broke off as he saw Clary's face, and he knew. This was his one chance to prove himself. "Did I kill it?"

Jace started to speak, "You--"

But Clary cut him off. "Yes," Clary said. "It's dead."

Alec laughed in relief, and something gurgled in his throat as he did. Jace tugged his hand out of Alec's grip and held onto Alec's face with both his hands. "Don't," he said. "Hold still, just hold still."

Alec's eyelids felt heavy, too heavy. He let them fall. "Do what you have to."

He was dimly aware of Jace and Isabell moving over him, speaking, of the tip of the stele touching his skin, the sting of a rune being drawn, and then there was nothing at all.


[ooc: All dialogue comes from City of Bones by Cassandra Clare.]