Sent Back

Chapter One: "Shucking Time Demon."

ERIN'S POV

"Jace! Look out!" I called to my older brother. Jace, Alec, my parabatai Sarah and myself were fighting a time demon that showed up in New York. We would've had help from Jem, Raphael (that's another story for another book), Isabelle and Clary... if they weren't all busy. It wasn't exactly going well, either. All four of us had been struck by the demon at least five times, and it only seemed to be getting more powerful. The demon started glowing with a golden light, and I knew whatever it was doing wouldn't end well for us.
"Oh no." Alec confirmed my worries. "Everybody hide!" But he warned us a little too late, and before I knew it, I was tumbling through the air with Sarah, but no sign of the boys.

I landed badly, falling so that I twisted my ankle.
"Ow..." I muttered.
"You alright?" Sarah asked me. She, somehow, had managed to land on her feet. I drew an iratze on myself, and stood up.
"Yeah, I'm fine. Shucking time demon."
"I beg your pardon?" a girl's voice asked from behind me. I turned, and saw a girl who I recognised as Tessa Gray. No doubt she would be confused about what just happened - two girls dressed in all black falling out of the sky, one with a messy blonde plait and the other with a slightly less messy midnight-black ponytail? Nobody would be able to explain that. Plus, I was pretty sure that the Maze Runner hadn't been written yet.
"Uh, nothing?" Sarah replied, but it sounded more like a question than a statement. Tessa raised an eyebrow.
"You're not from around here, are you?" she guessed.
"No."
"So where are you from?"
"It's complicated."
"I'm sure I can keep up."
"We're from way in the future - 2009. Erin and I were fighting a powerful time demon with our brothers - that's why we're dressed like this - and then it just sent us back in time to what I'm assuming is Victorian London." Tessa looked surprised, but then we heard soft noises outside.
"You must hide," Tessa whispered to us quickly. "I'm not sure what Miranda would do if she sees you both." Nodding, Sarah and I ducked behind the bed, where Miranda wouldn't see us.
"The Sisters would like to see you in their chambers, Miss Gray." Miranda stated.
"One moment, Miranda." Tessa said.

Ten minutes later, Miranda came back in.
"It is time to come with me now. Mrs. Black and Mrs. Dark are waiting." Tessa left with Miranda, leaving Sarah and I alone together.
"What do you think happened to Alec and Jace?" I asked Sarah.
"I'm not sure. Hopefully, they ended up at the London Institute, though they'll be more confused than we are, that's for sure."
"Yeah, hopefully we'll be back soon and not in like six weeks."
"I doubt your brother could survive Victorian London for six weeks with only Alec to question things to. Not like Alec would know too much either."
"Could they even face the Infernal Devices right after Valentine?"
"I'm not sure. I hope so."

We talked among ourselves until Tessa and the Dark Sisters came in. We'd moved away from the bed by then, choosing instead to hope that invisibility runes worked - the only place we could hide in the room was behind Tessa's bed, and for all we knew, today could be the day Tessa became Emma Bayliss. Turns out we were right, and Mrs. Black was fastening Tessa to the bed, saying she was stupid for trying to run. They began talking about the Magister, but I tuned out - I'd read the conversation so many times I knew most of it by heart now. Tessa froze a few minutes after the Sisters had left, realising that her talent could get her out of the sticky situation she was in. Tessa was soon lying there not as I knew her best, but as Emma Bayliss, the ropes around her wrists now loose. She sat up and untied her ankles. Tessa stood up, and Changed back into herself. She whirled as the door handle jiggled a bit, and Sarah and I decided we might as well take off the glamours - Tessa and Will would be able to see us, glamoured or not. The door swung open, and Will stepped in. Tessa, who was now holding a jug since she thought Mrs. Black was at the door, lunged forward and threw the jug. Will attempted to dodge it, but he wasn't quick enough. He yelled, and muttered a string of curses.
"Honestly, you Herondales and your cursing..." Sarah laughed.
"Us Herondales? I'm sure that's mainly Jace." I scoffed. Tessa just shook her head at the two of us, and dashed for the door, but it had already slammed shut. No matter how hard she tugged on the doorknob, it wouldn't budge. She spun around, and Will stood in front of her, no doubt confused about what Sarah and I said when he was hit by the jug.
"You cut me." he remarked.
"No shit, Sherlock," Sarah muttered.
"You comment about my family and cursing, then you say that?" I asked her, barely holding back my laughter. Tessa looked at us like we were mental - which I'm pretty sure we were.
"It might be fatal." Will continued. Tessa looked at him with wide eyes.
"Are you the Magister?" Will simply tilted his hand to the side, and blood splattered to the floor.
"Dear me, massive blood loss. Death could be imminent."
"Are you the Magister?"
"Magister?" Will asked, mildly surprised. "That means 'master' in Latin, doesn't it?"
"Yes." I replied. Will turned back to look at me and Sarah at last, and certainly looked confused once he saw what we looked like.
"What?" Sarah asked. "Is something wrong?"
"No, it's just... oh, never mind." Will turned back to Tessa. "And to answer your question, I've mastered many things in my life. Navigating the streets of London, dancing the quadrille, the Japanese art of flower arranging, lying at charades, concealing a highly intoxicated state, delighting young women with my charms... alas, no one has ever actually referred to me as 'the master' or 'the Magister', either. More's the pity..."
"Are you highly intoxicated at the moment?" Tessa asked, and I had difficulty holding back my laughter at Tessa's bluntness.
"How very direct, but I suppose all you Americans are, aren't you? Yes, your accent gives you away. What's your name, then?"
"What's my name?"
"Don't you know it?"
"You - you've come bursting into my room, scared me nearly to death, and now you demand to know my name? What about their names?" She pointed to Sarah and I. "What on earth's your name? And who are you, anyway?"
"My name is Herondale," Will said cheerfully. "William Herondale, but everyone calls me Will. As for the names of the other two girls, I believe I already know them - Erin Herondale and Sarah Lightwood. Is this really your room? Not very nice, is it?" He wandered toward the window, pausing to examine the books stacked on Tessa's bedside table, then the bed itself. "Do you often sleep tied to the bed?" He asked, waving a hand to the ropes. "Here. Hold this." He handed Sarah the witchlight he was holding. "Pity we're on the third floor. The other two and I could probably manage the jump, but it would kill you. No, we must go through the door and take our chances in the house." Knowing the door wouldn't open, I went over to it and drew the open rune on it.
"Go through the - what?"
"How can you not understand?" Will asked, pointed to Tessa's stack of novels. "You read novels. Obviously, I'm here to rescue you. Don't I look like Sir Galahad?" He raised his hands dramatically. "My strength is as the strength of ten, Because my heart is pure -"
A door slam echoed somewhere within the house, and Will cursed again, springing away from the window. He landed with a wince, and glanced at his cut hand. "I'll need to take care of this later. Come along..."
"Miss Gray," Tessa said faintly. "Miss Theresa Gray."
"Miss Gray," Will repeated. "Come along then, Miss Gray." Will sprang past Tessa, and out through the opened door.
"Miss Herondale, how did you do that?"
"I'll explain later. Right now, we have to get the hell out of here."
"Miss Herondale's right," Will agreed. "Let's go." Tessa hesitated.
"My books -"
"I'll get you more books." Will urged Tessa into the corridor, and Sarah and I followed. Sarah pulled the door shut behind her, and we ran after Will and Tessa down the hallway and around a corner. We all took the steps two at a time in an attempt to make it out without getting caught, even though Sarah and I knew we wouldn't. Mrs. Dark screamed somewhere above us.
"They've found you missing," Will remarked. We'd reached the first floor, and although Tessa slowed down, Will showed no signs of stopping.
"Aren't we going out the front door?" Tessa demanded.
"Can't," Sarah replied. "They've surrounded the house. There's a line of carriages pulled up at the front."
"Yes, I seem to have arrived at an unexpectedly exciting time. Do any of you know what the Dark Sisters had planned for this evening?"
"No."
"But you were expecting someone called the Magister?" We were in the cellar now, where plaster walls suddenly gave way to damp stone. It was pretty dark down there, with the only light coming from the witchlight Sarah held, not to mention way too hot for my liking. "By the Angel, it's like the ninth circle of Hell down here -"
"Or a heatwave in Brisbane." I added.
"The ninth circle of Hell is cold," Tessa blurted out. Will stared at her.
"What?"
"In the Inferno," she told him. "Hell is cold. It's covered in ice." He stared at her for another moment, the corners of his mouth twitching.
"Miss Gray," he said, "let me give you a piece of advice. The handsome fellow who's trying to rescue yourself, and the younger sisters of two of my friends, from a hideous fate is never wrong. Not even if he says the sky was purple and made of hedgehogs." I think Sarah almost choked trying to hold back her laughter. Will started striding towards the Sister's chambers.
"No!" Tessa pulled him back. "Not that way. There's no way out. It's a dead end."
"Correcting me again, I see." Will turned, and strode the other way.
The corridor we turned down narrowed as we walked along it, the walls pushing in on either side. The heat was even more intense, and I knew the hair that had fallen out of my plait would be curling. The air was so thick I was having trouble breathing. For a while, we walked in silence, until Tessa spoke up.
"Mr. Herondale, did my brother send you to find me?" Will looked at Tessa curiously.
"Never heard of your brother," Will stated. "And outside of the past ten minutes, Miss Gray, I'd never heard of you, either. I've been following the trail of a dead girl for near on two months. She was murdered, left in an alley to bleed to death. She'd been running from... something." The corridor had reached a forking point, and, after a pause, Will headed to the left. "There was a dagger beside her, covered in blood. It had a symbol on it. Two snakes, swallowing each other's tails."
"That's the same symbol that's on the side of the Dark Sister's carriage," Tessa spoke up. "That's what I call them, Mrs. Dark and Mrs. Black, I mean -"
"You're not the only one who calls them that," Sarah told Tessa. "The other Downworlders do the same. Mr. Herondale here discovered that fact while investigating the symbol."
"Yes, he carried that knife through probably a hundred Downworld haunts, searching for someone who might recognise it." I added. "He offered a reward for information and, eventually, the name of the Dark Sisters came to his ears."
"Your brothers weren't kidding when they said you'd read books about me then?" Will asked, impressed.
"You mean Infernal Devices? We've only read that series about a thousand times."
"Downworld?" Tessa repeated what I'd said. "Is that a place in London?"
"Technically," I replied.
"But never mind that," Will added. "I'm boasting of my investigative skills with the help of the girls, and I would prefer we did it without interruption. Where were we?"
"The dagger -" Tessa broke off as a voice echoed down the corridor, high and sweet and utterly unmistakable.
"Miss Gray." Mrs. Dark's voice. Of course. I only knew this because of how much I'd read Clockwork Angel, but still. It truly did drift through the walls like smoke. "Oh, Miss Graaaay. Where are you?" Tessa froze.
"Oh, God, they've caught up with -" Will seized Tessa's wrist again, and they took off.
"Miss Herondale, Miss Lightwood, come on!" He called back to us, seeing we were planning to hold them off. "You can't hold them off on your own!" Knowing he was right, I reluctantly ran off after them, Sarah right behind me. The witchlight Sarah held cast strange lighting patterns on the wall as we sped down twisting corridors. The floor sloped down, the stones growing slowly slicker, the air getting hotter and hotter. I felt like we were racing towards hell itself... actually no. Didn't Tessa say it was covered in ice? If that was true, I had no idea what we were racing towards. A Brisbane heatwave maybe? Anyway, the voices of the Dark Sister's voices echoed off the walls.
"Miss Graaaaaay! We shan't let you run, you know. We shan't let you hide. We'll find you, poppet. You know we will." We careened around a corner, and came up short at the metal doors. Releasing Tessa, Will flung himself against them. The burst open, and he tumbled inside, closely followed by Sarah and I. I spun around and slammed the doors shut. The only light in the room came from Sarah's witchlight, its light dimmed down to an ember in her fingers, casting a kind of creepy light over her. Will slammed the bolt down on the door.
"Miss Gray?" Will was leaning against Tessa, her back against the closed doors as we all stood against them trying to stop them from blowing open.
"Where are we?" Tessa whispered. "Are we safe?" None of us answered, unsure what to say. Sarah raised the witchlight, and the light blazed up, illuminating the room. We were in a large cell. The walls, floor, and ceiling were all made from stone. The only window was crazy high up the wall, at a height I wondered even Jace would be able to jump to, and believe me, my brother is an amazing jumper. The only doors were the one's we'd just come through.
The place we stood in was a slaughterhouse - long wooden tables ran the length of the room, and human bodies lay in them, stripped and pale. Each body had a black Y-shaped incision on its chest, and each head hung back over the table. The sight before me was even worse than how I imagined it. Piles of blood-stained knives and machinery were on the center table.
"By the Angel, this is even more gruesome than I imagined it!" Sarah remarked.
"I'm with you on that one." I agreed. "This place is horrid. But I've certainly seen worse."
"Yeah, thank God for demons." Tessa's hand was crammed into her mouth to stop herself from screaming. The metal doors shuddered with a huge crash.
"Mr. Herondale!" Tessa cried out. I pulled a seraph blade out from my weapons belt.
"Ithuriel," I muttered. My seraph blade lit up, and I just hoped the Dark Sisters hadn't heard me, but I had to risk it. Will turned as the doors shuddered again. A voice echoed from the other side of them:
"Miss Gray! Come out now, and we won't hurt you!"
"They're lying," Tessa said quickly.
"Oh, do you really think so?" Will asked, as sarcastically as human possible. "Could I have the witchlight please, Miss Lightwood?" Sarah threw him his witchlight, which he quickly pocketed. He leaped onto the center table, and picked up a brass cog. He hurled it at the window, shattering the glass. "Henry! Some assistance, please! Henry!" He called.
"Who's Henry?" Tessa asked. But, at that moment, the doors shuddered a third time, causing thin cracks to appear in the door. I knew they wouldn't hold much longer, so, pointing my seraph blade at the door, I backed away from it. Sarah drew her own seraph blade, and named it Michael. The doors swung open almost as soon as Sarah's blade lit up. Blue sparks surrounded the Dark Sisters as they stood in the doorway. Their gazes slid over Will (who had also drawn a seraph blade), Sarah, and me, then landed on Tessa. Mrs. Black grinned.
"Little Miss Gray," she said. "You ought to know better than to run. We told you what would happen if you ran again..."
"Then do it! Whip me bloody. Kill me. I don't care!" Tessa shouted. The Dark Sisters looked shocked at Tessa's sudden outburst. "I won't let you give me to the Magister! I'd rather die!
"What an unexpectedly sharp tongue you have, Miss Gray, my dear," Mrs. Black said. "Perhaps if we cut it out of your head, you'd learn to mind your manners." She moved towards Tessa - and was blocked by all three of us Shadowhunters.
"Malik," Will said, causing his own blade to light up.
"Get out of my way, little Nephilim warriors," Mrs. Black told us. "And take your seraph blades with you. This is not your battle."
"That's where you're wrong." I corrected her. "We've heard some things about you, my lady."
"Whispers that run through the Downworld like a river of black poison." Will added. "We've been told you and your sister will pay handsomely for the bodies of dead humans, and you don't mind how much they get that way."
"Such fuss over a few mundanes." Mrs. Dark chuckled and moved to stand beside her sister, so that Will, Sarah, and I stood between Tessa and the two ladies. "We have no quarrel with you, Shaowhunters, unless you choose to pick one. You have invaded our territory and broken Covenant Law in doing so. We could report you to the Clave -"
"While the Clave disapproves of trespassers, oddly they take an even darker view of beheading and skinning people. They're peculiar that way." Sarah replied, quoting Will's line from Clockwork Angel perfectly.
"People?" Mrs. Dark spat. "Mundanes. You care no more about them than we do." She then looked toward Tessa. "Have they told you what they really are? They aren't human -"
"You're one to talk," Tessa's voice trembled.
"And has she told you what she is?"" Mrs. Black demanded of us.
"Yes, actually." I spoke up. "We know of Miss Gray's talent. We know it relates to the Magister, too." Mrs. Dark looked suspicious of my answer.
"You know of the Magister?" she glanced at Tessa. "Ah, I see, only what she has told you."
"Actually, we know so much more than that," Sarah muttered, but it was so quiet that I doubt anyone other than Sarah and myself heard it.
"The Magister, little girl angel, is more dangerous than you could ever imagine. And he has waited a long time for someone with Tessa's ability. You might even say he is the one who caused her to be born -"
Mrs. Dark's words were cut off as the room's east wall caved in. Mrs. Dark screamed, and seized her skirts with her bony hands. Will caught hold of Tessa and pulled her towards him, shielding her from the stone and plaster. The shadowy outline of two Shadowhunters holding seraph blades appeared in the hole in the wall. Mrs.Black screeched and lunged forward. She threw her hands out, and sparks came out of them like fireworks on the 5th of November (Sarah probably thought it was more like the 4th of July, but I'd never been in America on their Independence day, so the only fireworks date I'd seen fireworks was Guy Fawkes day in England - the 5th of November). I flung my seraph blade at Mrs. Black. It spun through the air, and drove into her chest. Screaming and twisting, she staggered back into one of the tables, causing it to collapse in a mess of blood and splintered wood. Will grinned, probably hoping she'd stay down. The other two Shadowhunters moved in then, brandishing their seraph blades. Tessa backed towards the far wall to stay out the confusion. Mrs. Dark was fending us off with sparks of energy from her fingertips, and Mrs. Black was on the floor, writhing and smoking. I heard Tessa shrieking, and a man yell out.
"Will!" the man cried. "Will, she bit me!"
"Did she, Henry?" Will asked.
"Dark or Black?" I asked Sarah.
"I think Mrs. Black," she replied. "She won't stay down for much longer, and the others think she's already dead." I nodded, and we went to stand near Mrs. Black, but where we knew she wouldn't see us. When she stood up and threw the cog at Will, Sarah managed to catch it.
"Will! Look - oh, never mind..." the other Shadowhunter's voice trailed off when he saw Sarah catch the cog. Black flame licked up around my seraph blade as Mrs. Black attempted to advance towards Tessa, but I pulled out another seraph blade.
"Nakir," I muttered. Sarah and I fought back Mrs. Black, but she was still managing to advance slowly.
"Damn," Will cursed. "I thought we'd put that thing down -" Mrs. Black lunged at Sarah and I and bared her teeth, Sarah, Will and I just managed to dodge out the way, but Henry wasn't as lucky; Mrs. Black struck him and knocked him backward. She rode him to the ground, her claws sinking into his shoulders as he yelled. Sarah moved up to her quickly, and her seraph blade cut neatly through Mrs. Black's throat. Her head hit the ground, rolling and bumping, as Henry, yelling in disgust and soaked in her black blood, shoved the remains of her body off him and scrambled to his feet. A terrible scream echoed through the room.
"Nooooo!" The man holding Mrs. Dark suddenly let go with a cry as blue fire shot from her hands and eyes. Yelling in pain, he fell to the side as Mrs. Dark tore away from him and advanced on the rest of us, hissing in some language I didn't know. Her eyes were flaming like black torches. She shot a bolt of lightning at Tessa, but I jumped in front of her, my seraph blade extended. The bolt ricocheted off the blade, and struck one of the stone walls.
"Henry," Will shouted. "If you could remove the girls to a place of safety - soon -" Henry placed one of his hands on my shoulder, as Mrs. Dark flung another lightning bolt at us. Sarah used her seraph blade to make the lightning rebound. Henry shouted, and I pushed Tessa to the ground before she could get hit, but the bolt ended up hitting my shoulder instead.
"D'Arvit..." I muttered. The pain from the bolt was worse than anything I'd felt before. In the book, Tessa had said it was like getting hit by a train, but I had a feeling that would actually be less painful. Tessa was unharmed, but I was flung back by the lightning. I only heard Mrs. Black's screeching laughter before the pain made me loose consciousness.