Scars of her Blood • Shadowhunters

Chapter 46: General Suspicion 2

Promptly only a few minutes later, the door opened and Jace stepped in, followed by another Shadowhunter. Celia immediately focused on her enhanced hearing when Maia approached them:

"Sorry, gentleman, but this is not a leather bar.", she said.

Jace looked around the room, ignoring her comment:

"We're here on Clave business. Are there any Mundanes here tonight?"

Maia got serious:

"No..."

Jace nodded and took a deep breath. He had not yet noticed Celia:

"Well, there is a new mandate, for everyone's safety: GPS trackers."

The Shadowhunter next to him pulled out a device that was apparently meant for implanting the trackers, right here and now. Even though Celia could not see her whole face, Maia looked furious:

"You've got to be kidding me!", she said, slowly raising her voice. The first guests were starting to notice something was going on. But Jace still tried to argue in his own favor:

"The Clave has always been able to track Shadowhunters through their runes, this is no different."

"This is very different!", Maia threw in and turned around to face the guests, "hey, everyone! The Clave wants to implant tracking chips into all of us. Like pets."

The last sentence hit especially hard, since the majority of the people present were werewolves. But Jace was speaking up now as well:

"It's nothing like that. This is just temporary until we catch the killer."

The murmurs in the room did not get any less angry and Maia was about to attack. Her eyes turned green and Celia braced herself to step in, just in case they were going to implant these chips on everyone with force. On the other hand, the odds for the two Shadowhunters were bad.

"Hey", Jace was aware of their situation, "can we get this done without any violence?"

"And where is the fun in that?", Maia asked, before delivering a clean punch right into his face. The second Shadowhunter was not getting away any better. He was about to raise his hand with the chipping device in it, when Maia first punched him in the gut, and then rammed her elbow into his nose. He tumbled over and landed on a near-by table. The crowd started cheering. Celia leaned back in her seat and took a sip of her drink. She has everything under control. No need to let this drink get warm. Celia reached over to the neighboring table and snatched some pretzels out of the bowl that was standing between the two werewolves there. They were too busy watching the fight unfold to notice anything.

By now, Jace had taken the next hits, before Maia dragged him across the bar counter a few meters and then slammed him into the wall. Celia still did not budge. If Jace was really this blindly following the Clave's orders – especially when he had always judged Alec for doing so - he did not deserve any better. Also, he had not been too severely injured so far.

But then the door of the bar opened once more and Luke stepped in. As soon as he realized what was going on, he started pushing through the onlookers, who were still cheering for Maia:

"Maia, stop!", he yelled, but was completely ignored. He was even being held back by some guests.

Then, there was more movement getting into the scenario. The Shadowhunter Maia had just knocked out got up again, jumped her from behind and rammed the tracking device into her neck.

"Son of a bitch!", Maia yelled out in pain and let go of Jace. Luke got himself free and stepped in between the two:

"Do you want a Downworlder revolt?!", he snapped at Jace, "because this is how you'll get one!"