Isabelle Lightwood (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
seveninchmotto) wrote2014-08-19 12:02 am
seveninchmotto) wrote2014-08-19 12:02 am
Around New York, Monday Evening
"I think we should go in," said Isabelle, her ear pressed to the library door. She beckoned for Alec to come closer. "Can you hear anything?"
Alec leaned in beside his sister, careful not to drop the phone he was holding. Magnus had said he'd call if he had news or if anything happened. So far, he hadn't. "No."
"Exactly. They've stopped yelling at each other." Isabelle's eyes gleamed. "They're waiting for Valentine now."
Alec moved away from the door and strode partway down the hall to the nearest window. The sky outside was the color of charcoal half-sunk into ruby ashes. "It's sunset."
Isabelle reached for the door handle. "Let's go."
"Isabelle, wait —"
"I don't want her to be able to lie to us about what Valentine says," Isabelle said. "Or what happens. Besides, I want to see him. Jace's father. Don't you?"
Alec moved back to the library door. "Yes, but this isn't a good idea because —"
Isabelle pushed down on the handle of the library door. It swung wide open. With a half-amused glance over her shoulder at him, she ducked inside; swearing under his breath, Alec followed her. Their mother and the Inquisitor stood at opposite ends of the huge desk, like boxers facing each other across a ring. Maryse's cheeks were bright red, her hair straggling around her face. Isabelle couldn't help shooting Alec a briefly hesitant look. Maybe they shouldn't have come in after all?
On the other hand, if Maryse looked angry, the Inquisitor looked positively demented. She whirled around as the library door opened, her mouth twisted into an ugly shape. "What are you two doing here?" she shouted.
"Imogen," said Maryse.
"Maryse!" The Inquisitor's voice rose. "I've had about enough of you and your delinquent children —"
"Imogen," Maryse said again. There was something in her voice — an urgency — that made even the Inquisitor turn and look.
The air just by the freestanding brass globe was shimmering like water. A shape began to coalesce out of it, like black paint being stroked over white canvas, evolving into the figure of a man with broad, plank-like shoulders. The image was wavering, too much for Isabelle to see more than that the man was tall, with a shock of close-cropped salt-white hair.
"Valentine." The Inquisitor looked caught off guard. The air by the globe was shimmering more violently now. Isabelle gasped as the man stepped out of the wavering air, as if he were coming up through layers of water. Jace's father was a formidable man, over six feet tall with a wide chest and hard, thick arms corded with ropy muscles. His face was almost triangular, sharpening to a hard, pointed chin. The hilt of a sword was visible just over his left shoulder — the Mortal Sword. It wasn't as if he needed to be armed, since he wasn't corporeally present, so he must have worn it to annoy the Inquisitor. Not that she needed to be more annoyed than she was.
"Imogen," Valentine said, his dark eyes grazing the Inquisitor with a look of satisfied amusement. That's Jace all over, that look, Alec thought. "And Maryse, my Maryse — it has been a long time."
Maryse, swallowing hard, said with some difficulty, "I'm not your Maryse, Valentine."
"And these must be your children," Valentine went on as if she hadn't spoken. His eyes came to rest on Isabelle and Alec. Isabelle could sense Alec shiver next to her. She was glaring. Jace's father's words were perfectly ordinary, even polite, but there was something in his blank and predatory gaze and the way he'd addressed Maryse that made Isabelle want to punch him. Or run away. "They look just like you."
"Leave my children out of this, Valentine," Maryse said, clearly struggling to keep her voice steady.
"Well, that hardly seems fair," Valentine said, "considering you haven't left my child out of this." He turned to the Inquisitor. "I got your message. Surely that's not the best you can do?"
She hadn't moved; now she blinked slowly, like a lizard. "I hope the terms of my offer were perfectly clear."
"My son in return for the Mortal Instruments. That was it, correct? Otherwise you'll kill him."
"Kill him?" Isabelle echoed. "Mom!"
"Isabelle," Maryse said tightly. "Shut up."
The Inquisitor shot Isabelle and Alec a venomous glare between her slitted eyelids. "You have the terms correct, Morgenstern."
"Then my answer is no."
"No?" The Inquisitor looked as if she'd taken a step forward on solid ground and it had collapsed under her feet. "You can't bluff me, Valentine. I will do exactly as I threatened."
"Oh, I have no doubt in you, Imogen. You have always been a woman of single-minded and ruthless focus. I recognize these qualities in you because I possess them myself."
"I am nothing like you. I follow the Law —"
"Even when it instructs you to kill a boy still in his teens just to punish his father? This is not about the Law, Imogen, it is that you hate and blame me for the death of your son and this is your manner of recompensing me. It will make no difference. I will not give up the Mortal Instruments, not even for Jonathan."
The Inquisitor simply stared at him. "But he's your son," she said. "Your child."
"Children make their own choices," said Valentine. "That's something you never understood. I offered Jonathan safety if he stayed with me; he spurned it and returned to you, and you'll exact your revenge on him as I told him you would. You are nothing, Imogen," he finished, "if not predictable."
The Inquisitor didn't seem to notice the insult. "The Clave will insist on his death, should you not give me the Mortal Instruments," she said, like someone caught in a bad dream. "I won't be able to stop them."
"I'm aware of that," said Valentine. "But there is nothing I can do. I offered him a chance. He didn't take it."
"Bastard!" Isabelle shouted suddenly, and made as if to run forward; Alec grabbed her arm and dragged her backward, holding her there. "He's a dickhead," she hissed, then raised her voice, shouting at Valentine: "You're a—"
"Isabelle!" Alec covered his sister's mouth with his hand as Valentine spared them both a single, amused glance.
"You... offered him..." The Inquisitor was starting to seem like a robot whose circuits were shorting out. "And he turned you down?" She shook her head. "But he's your spy — your weapon —"
"Is that what you thought?" he said, with apparently genuine surprise. "I am hardly interested in spying out the secrets of the Clave. I'm only interested in its destruction, and to achieve that end I have far more powerful weapons in my arsenal than a boy."
"But —"
"Believe what you like," Valentine said with a shrug. "You are nothing, Imogen Herondale. The figurehead of a regime whose power is soon to be shattered, its rule ended. There is nothing you have to offer me that I could possibly want."
"Valentine!" The Inquisitor threw herself forward, as if she could stop him, catch at him, but her hands only went through him as if through water. With a look of supreme disgust, he stepped back and vanished.
Alec released his hold on Isabelle, probably half-expecting her to start screaming the moment he took his hand off her mouth. She didn't. She stood beside him and stared as the Inquisitor stood, swaying slightly, her face a chalky gray-white.
"Imogen," Maryse said. There was no feeling in her voice, not even any anger.
The Inquisitor didn't seem to hear her. Her expression didn't change as she sank bonelessly into Hodge's old chair. "My God," she said, staring down at the desk. "What have I done?"
Maryse glanced over at Isabelle. "Get your father."
Isabelle feeling suddenly cold and frightened, nodded and slipped out of the room. She ran to her father's office, and she told him what had happened, breathlessly. He sent her off to gear up, as he went to alert the Conclave. They were going to mount an attack Valentine. They were going to try and end this today.
The idea had Isabelle's heart beating faster, but it also filled her with resolve. Something was going to be done. This was something she could handle and focus on. She spared some attention for leaving a voicemail while she geared up, but from there on she was in full Shadowhunter mode. She was a soldier, and this was her army. She marched back into the library, with her long silver-gold whip in one hand and a wooden-bladed naginata in the other. And she frowned at her brother, still standing there. "Go get ready," she said. "We're sailing for Valentine's ship right away."
For whatever reason, the corner of his mouth twitched upward. "Is that for me?" he asked, indicating the naginata.
Isabelle jerked it away from him. "Get your own!"
Alec sighed and shook her head, then headed toward the door, while Isabelle stepped up to Maryse, handing her the naginata. "Here you go, Mom."
"Thank you, Isabelle," Maryse said, and with a movement as swift as any of her daughter's, she lowered the blade so that it pointed directly at the Inquisitor's heart. Imogen Herondale looked up at Maryse with the blank, shattered eyes of a ruined statue. "Are you going to kill me, Maryse?"
Maryse hissed through her teeth. "Not even close," she said. "We need every Shadowhunter in the city, and right now, that includes you. Get up, Imogen, and get yourself ready for battle. From now on, the orders around here are going to come from me." She smiled grimly. "And the first thing you're going to do is free my son from that accursed Malachi Configuration."
She looked magnificent as she spoke, a true Shadowhunter warrior, every line of her blazing with righteous fury. It was too bad that Alec had to go and spoil the moment, but it was unavoidable. He cleared his throat. "Actually," he said, "there's something you should probably know..."
–––––
They sailed out to Valentine's ship with the rest of the Conclave. There were demons all over the deck, as if the ship hadn't been terrifying enough without them. But this was what their lives were about. So Isabelle set out into the fray with practised ease – on the outside, if not inside. It didn't take long before her jacket was smeared with yellowish blood and her whip was in desperate need of cleaning. And while slaying demons was all well and dandy, Jace was her number one priority. So when she spotted Alec with him – both covered in blood, of course – she ran to them.
And of course, that was how you got distracted.
"Isabelle!" Jace shouted, but it was too late: A massive spider demon reared up behind her, jetting yellow poison from its fangs. Isabelle screamed as the poison struck her, burning her, but her whip shot out with blinding speed, slicing the demon in half. It thudded to the deck in two pieces, then vanished. Not that she saw that. She slumped forward, her whip slipping from her hand. She was faintly aware of someone catching her as she fell but she could barely feel anything, sense anything at all at the burning at her throat. Demon poison. Her skin was burning and sizzling and blood as streaming from her neck and all she could do was whimper. Isabelle, who never showed pain.
"Give her to me. Hold off whatever comes while I heal her."
We have to get her off this boat. If she stays here —"
"She'll die?"
Isabelle didn't really hear her brothers as they huddled around her. The words went through her ears but barely made sense. But after a while, she felt a more familiar kind of burn. Precise, meaningful. A stele against her skin. The unbearable burning on her neck began to subside, until she blinked her eyes open just in time to blurrily witness Jace disposing of a Ravener demon not too many feet away. Alec hauled her upright. Her legs were... Well, they were holding okay but she still felt like she might fall over.
"Jace." Alec said, holding her by the arm. "We need to get Isabelle out of here."
"Fine," Jace said. "You get her out of here. I'm going to deal with that."
"With what?" Alec said, bewildered.
"With that," Jace said again, and pointed. Something was coming toward them through the smoke and flames, something huge, humped, and massive. Easily five times the size of any other demon on the ship, it had an armored body, many-limbed, each appendage ending in a spiked chitinous talon. Its feet were elephant feet, huge and splayed. It had the head of a giant mosquito, complete with insectile eyes and a dangling blood-red feeding tube.
Alec sucked in his breath. "What the hell is it?"
Jace thought for a moment. "Big," he said finally. "Very."
"Jace —"
Jace turned and looked at Alec, and then at Isabelle. He hesitated, and then he said, "Alec, get Isabelle to the ladder, now, or we'll all die."
Isabelle found herself protesting, desperately, but no one listened to her. Alec pushed her towards the railing, and helped her up onto it and then over, and she began to descend the ladder because there was nothing else to do, and Alec had promised to follow. But no, he jumped back down from the railing, onto the deck of the ship, and Isabelle screamed after him, scrambling furiously to haul herself back up. She screamed and she screamed, for Alec and Jace both, but her hands were slick with blood and she fell into the cold water, but she had no scream left in her for that.
When they hauled her into one of the boats, she didn't seem to have anything left for anything at all anymore. Everything went black.
[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay. Again taken from City of Ashes, which is pretty much finished now because these books are ridic easy to breeze through with a secondary character.]
Alec leaned in beside his sister, careful not to drop the phone he was holding. Magnus had said he'd call if he had news or if anything happened. So far, he hadn't. "No."
"Exactly. They've stopped yelling at each other." Isabelle's eyes gleamed. "They're waiting for Valentine now."
Alec moved away from the door and strode partway down the hall to the nearest window. The sky outside was the color of charcoal half-sunk into ruby ashes. "It's sunset."
Isabelle reached for the door handle. "Let's go."
"Isabelle, wait —"
"I don't want her to be able to lie to us about what Valentine says," Isabelle said. "Or what happens. Besides, I want to see him. Jace's father. Don't you?"
Alec moved back to the library door. "Yes, but this isn't a good idea because —"
Isabelle pushed down on the handle of the library door. It swung wide open. With a half-amused glance over her shoulder at him, she ducked inside; swearing under his breath, Alec followed her. Their mother and the Inquisitor stood at opposite ends of the huge desk, like boxers facing each other across a ring. Maryse's cheeks were bright red, her hair straggling around her face. Isabelle couldn't help shooting Alec a briefly hesitant look. Maybe they shouldn't have come in after all?
On the other hand, if Maryse looked angry, the Inquisitor looked positively demented. She whirled around as the library door opened, her mouth twisted into an ugly shape. "What are you two doing here?" she shouted.
"Imogen," said Maryse.
"Maryse!" The Inquisitor's voice rose. "I've had about enough of you and your delinquent children —"
"Imogen," Maryse said again. There was something in her voice — an urgency — that made even the Inquisitor turn and look.
The air just by the freestanding brass globe was shimmering like water. A shape began to coalesce out of it, like black paint being stroked over white canvas, evolving into the figure of a man with broad, plank-like shoulders. The image was wavering, too much for Isabelle to see more than that the man was tall, with a shock of close-cropped salt-white hair.
"Valentine." The Inquisitor looked caught off guard. The air by the globe was shimmering more violently now. Isabelle gasped as the man stepped out of the wavering air, as if he were coming up through layers of water. Jace's father was a formidable man, over six feet tall with a wide chest and hard, thick arms corded with ropy muscles. His face was almost triangular, sharpening to a hard, pointed chin. The hilt of a sword was visible just over his left shoulder — the Mortal Sword. It wasn't as if he needed to be armed, since he wasn't corporeally present, so he must have worn it to annoy the Inquisitor. Not that she needed to be more annoyed than she was.
"Imogen," Valentine said, his dark eyes grazing the Inquisitor with a look of satisfied amusement. That's Jace all over, that look, Alec thought. "And Maryse, my Maryse — it has been a long time."
Maryse, swallowing hard, said with some difficulty, "I'm not your Maryse, Valentine."
"And these must be your children," Valentine went on as if she hadn't spoken. His eyes came to rest on Isabelle and Alec. Isabelle could sense Alec shiver next to her. She was glaring. Jace's father's words were perfectly ordinary, even polite, but there was something in his blank and predatory gaze and the way he'd addressed Maryse that made Isabelle want to punch him. Or run away. "They look just like you."
"Leave my children out of this, Valentine," Maryse said, clearly struggling to keep her voice steady.
"Well, that hardly seems fair," Valentine said, "considering you haven't left my child out of this." He turned to the Inquisitor. "I got your message. Surely that's not the best you can do?"
She hadn't moved; now she blinked slowly, like a lizard. "I hope the terms of my offer were perfectly clear."
"My son in return for the Mortal Instruments. That was it, correct? Otherwise you'll kill him."
"Kill him?" Isabelle echoed. "Mom!"
"Isabelle," Maryse said tightly. "Shut up."
The Inquisitor shot Isabelle and Alec a venomous glare between her slitted eyelids. "You have the terms correct, Morgenstern."
"Then my answer is no."
"No?" The Inquisitor looked as if she'd taken a step forward on solid ground and it had collapsed under her feet. "You can't bluff me, Valentine. I will do exactly as I threatened."
"Oh, I have no doubt in you, Imogen. You have always been a woman of single-minded and ruthless focus. I recognize these qualities in you because I possess them myself."
"I am nothing like you. I follow the Law —"
"Even when it instructs you to kill a boy still in his teens just to punish his father? This is not about the Law, Imogen, it is that you hate and blame me for the death of your son and this is your manner of recompensing me. It will make no difference. I will not give up the Mortal Instruments, not even for Jonathan."
The Inquisitor simply stared at him. "But he's your son," she said. "Your child."
"Children make their own choices," said Valentine. "That's something you never understood. I offered Jonathan safety if he stayed with me; he spurned it and returned to you, and you'll exact your revenge on him as I told him you would. You are nothing, Imogen," he finished, "if not predictable."
The Inquisitor didn't seem to notice the insult. "The Clave will insist on his death, should you not give me the Mortal Instruments," she said, like someone caught in a bad dream. "I won't be able to stop them."
"I'm aware of that," said Valentine. "But there is nothing I can do. I offered him a chance. He didn't take it."
"Bastard!" Isabelle shouted suddenly, and made as if to run forward; Alec grabbed her arm and dragged her backward, holding her there. "He's a dickhead," she hissed, then raised her voice, shouting at Valentine: "You're a—"
"Isabelle!" Alec covered his sister's mouth with his hand as Valentine spared them both a single, amused glance.
"You... offered him..." The Inquisitor was starting to seem like a robot whose circuits were shorting out. "And he turned you down?" She shook her head. "But he's your spy — your weapon —"
"Is that what you thought?" he said, with apparently genuine surprise. "I am hardly interested in spying out the secrets of the Clave. I'm only interested in its destruction, and to achieve that end I have far more powerful weapons in my arsenal than a boy."
"But —"
"Believe what you like," Valentine said with a shrug. "You are nothing, Imogen Herondale. The figurehead of a regime whose power is soon to be shattered, its rule ended. There is nothing you have to offer me that I could possibly want."
"Valentine!" The Inquisitor threw herself forward, as if she could stop him, catch at him, but her hands only went through him as if through water. With a look of supreme disgust, he stepped back and vanished.
Alec released his hold on Isabelle, probably half-expecting her to start screaming the moment he took his hand off her mouth. She didn't. She stood beside him and stared as the Inquisitor stood, swaying slightly, her face a chalky gray-white.
"Imogen," Maryse said. There was no feeling in her voice, not even any anger.
The Inquisitor didn't seem to hear her. Her expression didn't change as she sank bonelessly into Hodge's old chair. "My God," she said, staring down at the desk. "What have I done?"
Maryse glanced over at Isabelle. "Get your father."
Isabelle feeling suddenly cold and frightened, nodded and slipped out of the room. She ran to her father's office, and she told him what had happened, breathlessly. He sent her off to gear up, as he went to alert the Conclave. They were going to mount an attack Valentine. They were going to try and end this today.
The idea had Isabelle's heart beating faster, but it also filled her with resolve. Something was going to be done. This was something she could handle and focus on. She spared some attention for leaving a voicemail while she geared up, but from there on she was in full Shadowhunter mode. She was a soldier, and this was her army. She marched back into the library, with her long silver-gold whip in one hand and a wooden-bladed naginata in the other. And she frowned at her brother, still standing there. "Go get ready," she said. "We're sailing for Valentine's ship right away."
For whatever reason, the corner of his mouth twitched upward. "Is that for me?" he asked, indicating the naginata.
Isabelle jerked it away from him. "Get your own!"
Alec sighed and shook her head, then headed toward the door, while Isabelle stepped up to Maryse, handing her the naginata. "Here you go, Mom."
"Thank you, Isabelle," Maryse said, and with a movement as swift as any of her daughter's, she lowered the blade so that it pointed directly at the Inquisitor's heart. Imogen Herondale looked up at Maryse with the blank, shattered eyes of a ruined statue. "Are you going to kill me, Maryse?"
Maryse hissed through her teeth. "Not even close," she said. "We need every Shadowhunter in the city, and right now, that includes you. Get up, Imogen, and get yourself ready for battle. From now on, the orders around here are going to come from me." She smiled grimly. "And the first thing you're going to do is free my son from that accursed Malachi Configuration."
She looked magnificent as she spoke, a true Shadowhunter warrior, every line of her blazing with righteous fury. It was too bad that Alec had to go and spoil the moment, but it was unavoidable. He cleared his throat. "Actually," he said, "there's something you should probably know..."
They sailed out to Valentine's ship with the rest of the Conclave. There were demons all over the deck, as if the ship hadn't been terrifying enough without them. But this was what their lives were about. So Isabelle set out into the fray with practised ease – on the outside, if not inside. It didn't take long before her jacket was smeared with yellowish blood and her whip was in desperate need of cleaning. And while slaying demons was all well and dandy, Jace was her number one priority. So when she spotted Alec with him – both covered in blood, of course – she ran to them.
And of course, that was how you got distracted.
"Isabelle!" Jace shouted, but it was too late: A massive spider demon reared up behind her, jetting yellow poison from its fangs. Isabelle screamed as the poison struck her, burning her, but her whip shot out with blinding speed, slicing the demon in half. It thudded to the deck in two pieces, then vanished. Not that she saw that. She slumped forward, her whip slipping from her hand. She was faintly aware of someone catching her as she fell but she could barely feel anything, sense anything at all at the burning at her throat. Demon poison. Her skin was burning and sizzling and blood as streaming from her neck and all she could do was whimper. Isabelle, who never showed pain.
"Give her to me. Hold off whatever comes while I heal her."
We have to get her off this boat. If she stays here —"
"She'll die?"
Isabelle didn't really hear her brothers as they huddled around her. The words went through her ears but barely made sense. But after a while, she felt a more familiar kind of burn. Precise, meaningful. A stele against her skin. The unbearable burning on her neck began to subside, until she blinked her eyes open just in time to blurrily witness Jace disposing of a Ravener demon not too many feet away. Alec hauled her upright. Her legs were... Well, they were holding okay but she still felt like she might fall over.
"Jace." Alec said, holding her by the arm. "We need to get Isabelle out of here."
"Fine," Jace said. "You get her out of here. I'm going to deal with that."
"With what?" Alec said, bewildered.
"With that," Jace said again, and pointed. Something was coming toward them through the smoke and flames, something huge, humped, and massive. Easily five times the size of any other demon on the ship, it had an armored body, many-limbed, each appendage ending in a spiked chitinous talon. Its feet were elephant feet, huge and splayed. It had the head of a giant mosquito, complete with insectile eyes and a dangling blood-red feeding tube.
Alec sucked in his breath. "What the hell is it?"
Jace thought for a moment. "Big," he said finally. "Very."
"Jace —"
Jace turned and looked at Alec, and then at Isabelle. He hesitated, and then he said, "Alec, get Isabelle to the ladder, now, or we'll all die."
Isabelle found herself protesting, desperately, but no one listened to her. Alec pushed her towards the railing, and helped her up onto it and then over, and she began to descend the ladder because there was nothing else to do, and Alec had promised to follow. But no, he jumped back down from the railing, onto the deck of the ship, and Isabelle screamed after him, scrambling furiously to haul herself back up. She screamed and she screamed, for Alec and Jace both, but her hands were slick with blood and she fell into the cold water, but she had no scream left in her for that.
When they hauled her into one of the boats, she didn't seem to have anything left for anything at all anymore. Everything went black.
[ooc: NFB, NFI, OOC-okay. Again taken from City of Ashes, which is pretty much finished now because these books are ridic easy to breeze through with a secondary character.]