The Spark

It took a few moments for Alec to register what had happened to their house, hazel eyes darting across the mess on the floor and the seemingly moving Ravener saliva. Only a second after he realized what was going on, Alec pushed past Jace and hurried up the stairs, vaguely noticing how the blond followed closely behind. Alec continued to move toward the bedroom that he shared with Jace, eyes moving across the hallway as to inspect it. A similar thing had happened here - blankets, pillows, clothing and all kinds of personal stuff had been thrown into the hallway. Several doors had been left wide open while others were partially closed. The sigh made Alec wonder what had happened. It looked like someone was searching for something, aggressively and hurriedly. A desperate search for something unknown to him. The smell of death that lingered in the air easily gave away that it was a demon, and the strength of it told that it was still nearby.

Alec moved into the bedroom carefully, making sure there were no demons inside before moving to the wardrobe in front of him. He reached up and blindly searched the top of it for the two seraph blades that they held there, his eyes focused on Jace, who was still in the hallway. He watched how the blond peeked through the small opening that gave him a view into the bedroom of Isabelle and Clary, hand pressed flat against the door and opening it as slowly as he could. Alec felt relief wash over him when he closed his fingers around the handles of their blades, not wanting Jace to walk into a demon without his weapon - which he would if he continued searching for it like that.

He walked out of their room and whistled softly, throwing one of the blades at Jace, who successfully caught it. Their weapons lit up simultaneously, Jace now pushing the door open with a bit more force and creating an opening for Alec to slip through, while he followed closely behind. The only abnormality in the room that they noticed, however, was the mess on the floor and the broken window.

"Where is this asshole," Jace cursed under his breath.

The distinct and loud noise of shattering glass sounded from down the hallway, making the both of them turn around. Alec held his arm in front of Jace almost instinctively as he started to move, preventing the younger one from walking out in front of him. Jace's sigh was short and somewhat annoyed, something that Alec decided to ignore when he made his way to the source of the noise, seraph blade out in front of him. Moving closer and closer, he started to hear low growls coming from behind the mostly closed bathroom door. He stopped moving when he was a few meters away from the door, the low growls suddenly replaced with a roar so loud that Alec could feel it in his bones.

Alec didn't know what had then suddenly caused him to lay on the ground, a heavy weight on top of his body. He couldn't recall what had happened after the demon roared. All he knew was that his head hurt, and that something was running down the side of his face. He could hear someone shout his name as he tried to push the heavy weight off of him, a sudden flash of red hair jumping into his view to help him do so. Clary helped him sit up straight and kept a hand pressed to his back, the thumb of her other hand gently brushing over Alec's eyebrow and making him wince in return.

Alec's eyes landed on the demon that had now entered the hallway, seeing how the bathroom door was now missing from the door frame. The demon was big and looked like it had been dug up from a grave. Its eyes seemed to pop out of the skull because the muscles and the skin had sunken into its eye sockets. Skin on its neck had gone missing and showed seemingly dried up muscles and the entirety of its body had a gray tone.

A Forsaken.

Alec watched how Jace took a swing at it with his seraph blade, and how the Forsaken stopped the blade with the palm of its hand, fingers closing around it an obviously attempting to crush the weapon. It just made the creature scream, pulling it out of Jace's grip harshly and throwing it against the wall before it hurled at the blond. Alec wanted to stand up to help, having already grabbed his own seraph blade that lay to the side of him, but he felt Clary push him back down, her hands gripping onto his shoulders tightly before she stood up herself. He watched how Isabelle's whip curled itself around the Forsaken's neck, preventing it from even as much as touching Jace as she held it back with all her strength. The runes that were coded onto the silver that the whip was made of burned at its flesh. This combined with the lack of air that it received because of it made it even angrier, causing it to pull at the whip harshly and knocking Isabelle onto the ground. At this point Alec decided to stand up, against Clary's wishes, and walked closer, ignoring the headache and the nausea as he pushed his blade through the Forsaken's chest at the same time as Clary pushed hers through its back. They both turned the weapon to the side with all their strength before pulling it out again. The growls disappeared along with the roars as they watched the demon fall to the ground.

It was at this point that Alec noticed his dizziness and had to lean against a wall as not to fall over, instantly prompting the worry of the other three. He pulled away from Jace's hand as the blond's fingers brushed against the injury on his head, the stinging feeling far from pleasant. "Please, stop touching my eyebrow."

"Well, excuse me for being worried about you after you get a door kicked at you," Jace replied sarcastically, fishing his stele out of his back pocket and lifting up Alec's shirt, finding his iratze on his left side and activating it.

"Is that what happened?" Alec questioned, feeling how the headache and the dizziness disappeared, allowing him to stand without needing the wall to lean against.

"Yes, Alec," Jace officially sounded worried. "You were standing in front of the bathroom door, the Forsaken let out this bone shaking battle cry and kicked the door out in the opposite direction it normally opens in. It hit you straight in the head. I think you may have a concussion."

"I'm fine. The healing rune will do its job."

"Just make sure to tell us when it doesn't," Isabelle said as Clary returned Jace's seraph blade to him.

"You okay, too?" Alec asked, watching how his sister twisted her right wrist in various directions.

"The healing rune will do its job."

Alec rolled his eyes at her and for a moment they said nothing, the silence that surrounded them interrupted only by a quick tapping sound. The four of them looked around, Alec's semi-relaxed muscles tensing up again. His eyes darted up, scanning the ceiling until his vision landed on a spider-like demon hanging upside down. He could feel his skin crawl. "Above us."

As if on queue, the demon crawled closer to them at a high speed, eventually jumping off of the ceiling and launching itself at them. Isabelle hit it with her whip harshly before it could touch them, disintegrating the demon before it could even touch the ground. And then the tapping sound came from elsewhere.

"Luke told us to get out of here," Clary spoke in a flustered tone, as if she had only just remembered. "There's more going on than just the Forsaken."

"We can handle a few demons," Jace answered.

"We don't know if they're just a few, Jace."

"Clary is right, let's quickly grab our weapons and then leave," Alec declared.

The four of them moved quickly and not without complaints, unsure where the tapping noise came from as it seemed to sound through the entire house. While there was no other weapon for Jace to grab, both Isabelle and Clary returned with their own seraph blades while Alec had grabbed his bow and quiver. They all kept their weapons ready as they started to move down the stairs, Alec in front with his bow drawn. They were almost down the stairs when Alec's reflexes picked up on some movement and he released his arrow, shooting it through the door frame to the living room, a high screeching sound confirming the death of the demon.

They moved out of the front door, walking down the sidewalk quickly and making sure to stay away from the street lanterns, staying in the shadows as to lower the chance of being seen.

"Where are we going?" Isabelle questioned.

"To get some Chinese food," Clary said.

No questions followed up on that. It was another one of the codes they used within their little group, similar to the ear pinching. It simply meant that they were going to the Chinese restaurant on the pier. More commonly known among the supernatural as the werewolf base. With Luke being the Alpha, and being very much like a father-figure to all of them, they were on friendly terms with the pack, occasionally even getting free dinner.

The four of them turned around the corner and into an alleyway. While it may not have been the safest choice, their ultimate goal was to stay out of the light and an alleyway was a perfect option, their Nyx runes taking care of them not being able to see in the dark. Aside from that, it was a shortcut to where they needed to go.

Alec held out his left arm when he noticed a shadow move against the walls, stopping Isabelle from moving any further and with that stopping Clary and Jace. The three of them caught on to his suspicions immediately as the shadow seemed to move around more and more, prompting the shadowhunters to get their weapons ready to strike.

"What's with all these demons chasing us?" Jace whispered. "It's not a coincidence that we get attacked by a Forsaken, raveners and now... this all in the same day."

That was not a question that any of them could answer. The only reason that Alec could think of was because they were shadowhunters, and they had lowered in numbers immensely since the Idris Massacre roughly 20 years ago. This made the shadowhunters a very attractive hunt for demons, especially after the Clave ceased to exist and there were no institutes left to train and teach them. Seeing a group of shadowhunters had become a rarity, and while more dangerous, demons adored going after those. Alec remembered how his mother always said that being in groups meant both safety and a death sentence, but that being in a group was always the favorable choice. It was better to have a group fight a bunch of demons more frequently, than to fight a group on your own. At least there would be someone to have your back when you needed it. This had been her way of telling their group to never leave anybody behind, and to always stick together.

But this? This wasn't normal. Not even for a group of shadowhunters.

The shadow seemed to surround them, moving too quickly for them to get a good look at it, let alone to get a hit on it. When it did finally stop moving, however, nobody was entirely sure what to do. While Alec's bow was drawn, he could not let go of the arrow, because in front of him stood Isabelle, held still by her neck. Held by a demon that he hadn't seen before.

It looked oddly human, but it's fingernails were pointy and looked sharp, digging into Isabelle's skin and drawing small bits of blood. The demon was smiling, wide, showing off teeth that were as thin, as long and as pointy as toothpicks but its dark eyes seemed to lack any emotion. Alec could feel his skin crawl as he looked at it, and the demon stared at him, head tilting sideways slowly, smile growing impossibly wider. He didn't dare to move, afraid of what would happen to his sister, and Jace and Clary didn't move a muscle either.

The demon opened its mouth, and the sound that came out of it was the tapping noise that they had heard in the house.

It looked like it was about to bite Isabelle in the neck, and Alec pointed his arrow at the demons head, jaw clenched together tightly, but he was not the one to shoot the arrow that put the demon down - he didn't shoot at all. Yet they watched the demon let go of Isabelle's neck and drop to the ground. Alec hugged his sister close when she stumbled back to them, and he watched how the demon melted, the arrow with blue fletching soon lying in a puddle of seemingly tar.

Alec looked up, and in front of him was a blonde young woman, bow in hand and walking closer. She had shot the demon from behind, and before she payed attention to them she picked up her arrow, pulling a disgusted face at the substance that covered it. She then focused her eyes on them. "You okay?"

"We're okay," Clary whispered. "Thank- Thank you for doing... that..." Clary hesitated, as she didn't know the woman's name, and the blonde gave a half smile in return.

"Lydia Branwell."