A Silent Brother No More

A Silent Brother No More, Pt 13

:: PART 13 ::

Jem and Diana charged down the steps leading toward Angel Square ready to face the hoard of oncoming Endarkened and other Downworlders. Neither spared a glance in the other’s direction as they flung themselves into the fray yelling with primal rage.

Shadowhunter clashed against Endarkened, blazing seraph blades against dull steel, and both Shadowhunter and Endarkened fell beneath crushing blows. The losses on both sides would be great, but the Shadowhunters were fighting against utter obliteration, fighting for their very lives and that of the children locked within the Accords Hall.

As Jem was locked in battle with a Vampire moving with lightning speed, he heard a roiling in the distance, like the cracking of whips in the air. Simultaneously bringing down his staff in a wide arc with his right hand, and extending his left in front of him, Jem grasped and knocked his foe to the ground pinning him where he fell with his foot. In a flash, Jem had drawn his blade, name it after the Angel Nuriel, and deprived the Vampire of his head.

Turning his attendtion to the sky, Jem saw the clouds gather momentarily blotting out the moon. With a thunderous clap, the clouds burst open uncovering riders on black horses with flaming hooves alongside riders on black dogs with eyes blazing like fiery pits. The generational span of the riders of The Wild Hunt was evident as more modern forms of transportation, carriages drawn by skeletal horses and motorcycles gleaming in the moonlight, burst forth.

Jem’s heart pounded against his chest from physical exertion and the realization that The Wild Hunt had been coerced into joining Sebastian’s cause. The wind became like a living thing, whipping the clouds into steep peaks that the riders seemed to traverse with warrior cries that could be heard above the rising gale.

Jem’s attention was not held long as he began to hear a new sound. The groaning, and cracking of wood, broke his gaze from the sky and turned it toward the Accords Hall. All around him Shadowhunters turned to face the Hall where the great doors, held with the wooden bar, were shaking on their hinges. Jem took a moment to imagine the children locked within the Hall, frightened and unsure of the security of their hiding place.

Without warning the wooden bar placed across the doors of the Hall exploded into a shower of splinters and with it whatever illusions the Shadowhunters had about keeping their children safe through the night’s onslaught.

Not a second later, Jem observed the riders of The Wild Hunt attacking the guards placed in front of the Accords Hall, driving them from the steps while Endarkened worked to remove the iron, salt and grave dirt from the Hall’s perimeter. The last lines of defense between Sebastian’s forces and the Nephilim children were being eradicated before his very eyes and the distance between himself and the Hall seemed insurmountable in that moment.

The doors to the Hall shattered and blew inward, and a wave of Endarkened rushed forward greeted by the Nephilim guards that had been locked inside with the children. Jem surged forward, joined by other Shadowhunters fueled by the desperation to protect the countless children who were defenseless and trapped within the walls of the Hall that had been meant to protect them. Jem fought against his own feelings of desperation to reach and protect the girl with the wild eyes, knowing the interior guard would not last long against the waves of Endarkened and Downworlder.

Pushing his way forward, and slashing his blade and driving it home time and time again, Jem drew nearer to the Hall. Screams of fury, pain and fear could be heard echoing through the doors. Uncertainty rippled through Jem’s heart, and for only a split second he entertained the notion he may not make it in time.

A great cry of pain rose in unison from all around Jem, breaking through the other cries coming from within the Hall. As Jem prepared to bring his blade down on the figure of an Endarkened man standing in front of him, the man suddenly crumpled in front of him to the ground before Jem’s blade could reach it’s mark. Stunned, Jem saw more and more figures dropping to the ground around him, grasping their chests and crying out in pain. Something had happened, something unexplained, causing the Endarkened to lose their life force leaving them dead or dying.

With renewed vigor the Nephilim rushed to Hall meeting no resistance from the men and women who were once their brothers, sisters, fathers, mothers, husbands and wives. There was hope now, hope that the Nephilim children could be defended, the night could be won and the city with it.

By the time Jem entered the Hall the Downworlders who remained within the Hall when the Endarkened fell had seemingly surrendered.  Parents who had survived the battle hurried to find their children, wrapping them in their arms, a timeless gesture of parental protection and creating a tangible means of confirming they had made it out alive. But for every family reunited there were multiple others who would never be reunited, children who would never again feel the embrace of their parents, who would join the ranks of previous generations of Nephilim children who had found themselves orphans because of some unnamed evil and they sadly would not be the last.

The air before him started to shimmer like heat waves rising off hot asphalt, and from the shimmering figures began to appear. Clary slammed into the floor of the Accords Hall, rolling to stop at the fountain in the cener of the room. Soon the rest of her party appeared, Jace, Alec, Isabelle, Jocelyn, Luke and Magnus, in similar fashion. Jocelyn was grasping a figure in her arms, her face buried in the neck of the form.  Jem quickly recognized it as Sebastion, or it looked like Sebastion but didn’t at the same time. The only person missing was Clary’s Vampire friend, Simon.

The Nephilim who weren’t occupied detaining the surrendered Downworlders, ran to Clary and the others, wanting to heal them and embrace them. Again, the primal need to have tangible proof they had survived taking over and pushing aside the usual decorum of the Shadowhunters.

They had survived, the city was saved, but the cost had been great. Ahead of them now was the work of rebuilding, not just the city but their lives. There would be debriefings, trials and meetings in the upcoming days and weeks. Nephilim would be mourned and burned, orphaned children would be assigned to new homes and new Institute heads would be appointed.

With the inaudible sigh of relief washing over the room, in his heart Jem knew the relief would not last beyond sunrise and he prayed it would be enough to sustain them through the tribulation ahead because after war came fear, doubt and uncertainty that could be just as toxic as the evil that had initiated it.