By The Angels (PJOxSH)

13

Jace looked over at the building with a scowl on his face, wishing it would go up in flames. Valentine was still inside, however, so was Lou Ellen. He'd have to put arson off for another time. 

The sun had no qualm lighting the sky on fire, however. As the sun dipped low, oranges and reds danced through the sky next to red-violet and indigo clouds. There was something dark resting on the horizon to the east, a storm of some sort, but it was too far away to be a complication for their current mission. 

Jace glanced around to the positions he knew everyone should be at. He caught the gleam of something at the top of an adjacent building, where Simon and Isabelle were, and Clary was still with him, hidden around the corner from the bottom enterence to the decommissioned building. Alec seemed to be going everything one final time in his head, while Nico held an unidentifiable look on his face.

"Emo kid. What's wrong? It's not too late to back out if you're scared," Jace said, half-serious, half-teasing. 

Nico gave him an unimpressed glare, "I'm missing the funeral."

Alec fell silent, but no one said anything, or bothered to ask whose funeral. It wasn't important right now, other than the fact that it was occupying a portion of the boy's mind. Yet again, maybe he was close to the person who had died, maybe it was relevant to their current situation. Either way, Jace had his priorities sorted, and missing a general was a lot lower than taking down Valentine a second time.  

"If we hurry up, then maybe you can get back before the funeral ends," Alec suggested, ever the optimistic one. 

Nico gave him a look, dark eyes looking even darker in the fading light of day. "Knowing my luck, I can only hope it won't end up being my own."

It was Jace's turn to give Nico a look. "Used to taking on infamous individuals with a hatred of an entire people?" He joked.

Nico just let out a half-hearted snort. "More than I would like. Now are we going to get Lou out of the there or what?"

Jace glanced up towards the rooftops, looking for the signal after giving one of his own, a flare of a witchlight. Something glinted back, two flashes. Everything was clear. 

"Wish granted," Jace said, and motioned for Clary to take the lead. 

The quartet, all dressed in black, slunk from the shadows towards a side entrance of the decrpit building, not even Nico's steps made a sound, which Jace found odd since he didn't have anything similar to a silencing rune. It was weird, but not weird enough for Jace to call him out on it. Just creepy shadow kid doing creepy shadow things. 

Clary pulled out her stele and quickly sketched a rune to unlock the door, and the hinges groaned in protest as Alec pushed it open. Clary gave Jace a quick peck on the cheek before darting away to keep watch from the ground, and provide back up in anything rune related. Nico was the first to dart into the darkness of the building, right past Jace and Alec much more easily than it should've been. 

Dressed in shadowhunter's gear, Nico looked more like a shadow than he had the previous times, especially cloaked in the darkness of the first floor of a boarded up building. Jace and Alec each gave eathother quick nightvision runes, and followed Nico inside. The teen had stopped in the area where the darkness was thickest, and the darkness writhed at his feet. Jace almost attacked, thinking there was a demon lurking there, but Nico didn't react and Alec stopped him from getting closer. 

Nico had closed his eyes in concentration, and the shadows shifting from writhing to a steady pulse, slowly calming down until they seemed to ripple like water until finally they settled and stilled. Nico had remained unmoving perfectly still, though his expression slowly relaxed along with the shadows, before he fell out of whatever trace he was in.