Forgetting the Past

Chapter Fifteen: Going in Circles

Alec watched Jace pace back and forth by the wall, staring at the ground and muttering to himself. His blond hair was a disheveled mess, like the rest of him; he was wearing the same clothes as yesterday, his fingernails were bitten down to the quick, and circles like dark smudges sat underneath his eyes. He had been like that for the past few days-five, to be exact. That was when Clary had been kidnapped.
Jace had come to the New York Institute, looking just as desperate, and as if he had taken a nice midnight run in the woods while being chased by an axe murderer. He had actually been looking for Clary, and come back when it looked hopeless. They had tried tracking Clary and sent search parties all over the Idris countryside, but every person came back unscathed and bearing no evidence.
Meanwhile, Jace had brainstormed and searched and trained until he passed out. He was staying with Magnus and Alec, and his restless antics kept them all up late into the night. The Lightwoods could tell he blamed himself; that was just his nature. Especially when bad things happened to Clary.
Although he knew it was wrong, Alec was almost mad at her. Though it was because of her they had been saved from Sebastian, she hadn't let recovery come easy. That had made it just as much of a hell for Jace back here on Earth. And Alec knew how much love could really suck when the other person was hurting.
He was suddenly jerked out of his own thoughts when Jace began banging his head on the wall. "God. Fucking. Damn. It."
"Jace, we're doing all we can-" Alec began.
"Well it's not enough!" His Parabatai accused, whirling on him. "We have to find her, and we're getting nowhere! We can't track her, and we can't find her in Idris. Damn, I can't even imagine of where she could have possibly gone." His voice filled with sudden hatred that was as lethal as poison. "All I know is it was Sebastian who took her, and that bastard will pay."
"Revenge won't do us any good if we don't find her in the first place," Alec reasoned quietly.
"Don't you think I know that? Don't you think I've been trying to find Clary for every possible second I could?" He shouted, staring at his Parabatai with burning eyes. Alec wasn't shocked by his sudden anger, but it took him off guard none the less.
The fire on Jace's eyes died down. "I'm sorry, Alec... It's just that we've been trying so hard to find Clary and it's like we're going in circles. And I can't stand the thought of her being gone for good this time," his voice cracked, "even if it's uncertain."
Alec nodded, standing up. "I can tell its wearing on you. Come on, let's go get some food. When's the last time you ate, anyways?"
Jace threw on his coat on as Alec grabbed his. He could tell that Jace was already getting distracted before his mind even wound down completely. He shrugged. "Yesterday? I don't know."
Alec sighed. "Alright. Let's go."

The room was dark. Not the kind of dark where you could vaguely see objects or sense where they were, but the kind of dark that turned everything into black nothingness. The way a completely blind person might see the world. Clary wondered if such suffocating blackness existed anywhere on Earth.
She knew she wasn't on Earth though. Over the past few days (which couldn't pass the same way time normally did), she had learned a few things. But she was still completely, hopelessly imprisoned.
•She had been captured by Sebastian.
•He hadn't violated their agreement, according to herself, since the demons had brought her here and not himself.
•This place was Pandemonium, the demon capital.
•Sebastian was the ruler of this place.

All in all, the information she had gathered only terrified her more.
She paced along a wall, finding her way only by touch. She had been stuck here since the first day- consumed in the pitch-black darkness. Through feeling her way around, she had discovered a bed, a nightstand, and four walls. No door. That was it.
She felt like a toy, a brand new plaything that Sebastian had won but wasn't ready to show off yet. Or perhaps he would just let her rot down here forever. Her insides boiled with frustration from not knowing.
The only real communication she had experienced was in her sleeping hours. She could tell the dreams she had were not figments of her imagination, but rather messages sent from an outside force. She didn't know who or what had given the dreams to her, but whoever it was wanted to help her. She felt it.
At first the visions were confusing. She saw meetings Sebastian was having with other demons, incoherent babbling in languages Clary shouldn't have understood but somehow did. Slowly, though, the pieces came together and she learned all the things she continued to dwell on now. Except for the last two. Those she had figured out last night.

While asleep, she had seen a giant pit full of monsters, their numbers stretching as far as she could see. Walls as black as obsidian rose straight upward, reaching up into darkness. The stone was shot through with unlit tunnels on all sides; some on the ground, some many feet above. She knew something was up there, in the blackness, but she couldn't see it.
Sitting in the center of the room, on a tall, circular platform, was Sebastian. He was perched on a throne of black marble, set in with bleach white bones that looked frighteningly human. Beside him was a throne of white marble, decorated with golden feathers each the length of Clary's hand. Something in the back of her mind told her they were from angels' wings. That was the part of the dream that told her he was true ruler.
Addressing them in their most universal demonic tongue, he began to speak. "Citizens of Pandemonium," he said, but his words began to fall away from her mind as the dream faded. And that was how she knew that they were in the demon capital of hell.
What a joyous thing to understand.