The Morgenstern

The Blood Of Ithuriel

   Jace froze for a second and Mia wondered why until she heard the sound herself. A high-pitched whirring and grinding, like the sound of machinery coming to life. Mia looked to her right where there was a stone wall sliding open. Beyond the doorway there was a set of stairs, leading down into darkness. 
   "Has this always been here?" Mia asked, Jace looked at Mia just as confused. 
    "Not sure I didn't remember there even being a cellar here." Jace said as the three stood staring at the gaping hole in the wall. Clary shared a glance with the others to see what they were going to do. Jace stepped forward to the entrance and tried to look down. Darkness.
    "Shall we go see what's inside?" Jace asked raising his eyebrow. Mia looked around the room and agreed.
    Reaching out his witchlight in front of him, Jace started to descend the steps. The witchlight gave them just enough light to see at least 4 steps in front of them. They had been descending the stairs for a while until they opened up to a dark room. They all glanced at each other as they all walked in.
    "This is quite far down" Mia said. "Getting scared yet Jace?" She joked as Jace then took a step forward and the sound of something crunching under his feet echoed, all three looked down at the same time to see white stones, no scratch that they were. "Bones." The three of them whispered at the same time.
   "What was Valentine doing down here?" Clary asked sounding a bit scared. 
    "I believe the seelie queen mentioned something about experiments." Mia commented as she kicked a pile of bones with her feet before walking closer to what looked like a humped shape behind a cloth. "Jace turn the witchlight over here." Mia whispered, but then realized he was talking about something with Clary, so she pulled out her witchlight instead and held it tightly in her hand as she held it up high enough for the light to shine brightly throughout the room, three of the corners were empty. But as Mia had noticed a couple of minutes ago, there was a humped shape behind a white cloth. Before Mia could do or say anything, Jace strode forward and twitched the cloth aside with the tip of a seraph blade and jerked it down. Dust forming a cloud as Jace staggered back, the witchlight falling from his grasp, Mia had only seen his face due to the fact that she was still holding onto her witchlight as she stared in horror at the gruesome sight. Mia heard a gasp from behind her as she guessed that Clary had seen also. Then the figure turned it's head, Mia was met with the sight of the skull of a face, black empty sockets where the eyes should have been. "Ithuriel." Mia whispered so low that no one heard. But the angel turned to face her. And then the angels mouth opened and a piercing golden music poured out from it's throat, a single singing note, held and held so high and sweet that the sound was like pain.
    A flood of images rose up before Mia's eyes. Everything she had seen moments ago faded as her mind was taken somewhere else. It was her in a bare and clean wine cellar, a single huge rune engraved on the stone floor. A younger version of Valentine was there with an open book in one hand and a blazing white torch in the other. The rune blazed up into fire, and when the flames receded, a crumpled figure lay among the ashes: an angel, once beautiful wings, spread and bloody, like a bird shot out of the sky....
    Then the scene changed. It was Valentine with Jocelyn, Jonathan and Clary's mother. The young couple seemed to be happy but that could not be said about the words being said on Valentines end. Valentine was talking about The Accords, the Clave, Nephilim, Downworlders. While Jocelyn expressed nothing but love towards her hateful husband. That faded and was replaced by Valentine kneeling in the center of a circle of trees, the clearing would have been beautiful to Mia with the bright moon overhead if the picture didn't include Valentine and the perfect illuminated black pentagram scrawled into the scraped earth of the clearing. In the center of the five pointed star sat a woman with long, shining hair; her shape was slim and lovely, her face hidden amongst the shadows, her arms bare and white. Her left hand was extended in front of her, a long slash across her palm became visible as she opened her fingers, a stream of blood dripping into a silver cup that rested on the pentagram's edge. The blood seemed to be black in the moonlight, and Mia realized exactly who this woman was.
   "The child born with this blood in their veins," she spoke in a soft and lovely voice, "will exceed in power the Greater Demons of the abysses between the worlds. The child will be more mighty than the Asmodei, stronger than the shedim of the storms. If it is properly trained, there is nothing this child will not be able to do. Though I warn you," she added, "it will burn out the humanity, as poison burns the life from the blood." 
    "My thanks to you, Lady of Edom," said Valentine, and as he reached to take the cup of blood, the woman lifted her face, the face Mia knew all too well from nightmares and memory. Mia was glad to see the forest vanish and replaced with a no longer pregnant Jocelyn speaking to Ragnor Fell. But a rather distressed Jocelyn who now seemed to see her husband for the monster he is as she realizes that her baby Jonathan is not human at all, but instead, a monster. She vanished.
    Valentine was pacing relentlessly around the circle of runes, he was angry, and Ithuriel was victim to that as Valentine drove down with the knife and the angel writhed as golden liquid poured from it's wound like spilled sunlight. "If you won't give me answers," Valentine hissed, "you can give me your blood. It will do me and mine more good than it will you." 
    Then there was Jocelyn in the Wayland library slipping a thick book into the shelf. And she was gone. The next scene was the cellar, the same scrawled pentagram scarred the floor, and within the star lay Ithuriel. Valentine stood by, no longer young but now older, years older. He was speaking to Ithuriel, asking the angel why Raziel created the race of Shadowhunters without the powers of the Downworlders.
   Within the imprisoning star, Ithuriel sat silent as a marble statue, unmoving, wings folded in. Eyes expressing nothing beyond a silent sorrow. Mia was furious, she was basically a child of Ithuriel and here was Valentine keeping the angel captive and not allowing the angel to kill himself in hopes of being set free from captivity. Mia watched as it faded and she was bombarded with glimpses of angels with wings both white and black, sheets of mirrored water, gold and blood. 'Angelic Power' Ithuriel had spoke softly into her mind before she was struck back to reality, she noticed she was on one knee with her head bowed looking at the ground, part of her was still processing all of it, the other part was eagerly hoping to help Ithuriel out of his misery. He had been chained up, starving, unable to die. Mia looked up just as Clary began changing the binding runes to runes of release. The runes shimmering as she finished, Jace holding a seraph blade out to the angel. Ithuriel took the blade from her brother and shut his blind eyes as he turned the blade so it drove the blade home just below his breastbone. The angels head fell back, hands dropping from the hilt protruding from where it's heart would be. The angels body shimmered into white flame as flames burst from the wound and the chains burned like iron left too long in a fire. Clary was holding onto Jace as the scene unfolded, but then there was a thin rain of dirt sifting down from the ceiling, Mia knew what that meant.
   "The manor, it was tied to Ithuriel. If the angel dies, the manor." 
    "Collapses. Yep I think we got the memo Clary now you coming or what?" Mia asked as she waited for the two to hurry and run up the stairs. There was one thing Mia would never do, and that is leave first from any situation. As the three raced up the stairs and into the library, the soft roar of the stairs collapsing. Mia had to think quickly as she picked up a chair and threw it at the stained-glass window. Quickly Jace picked up Clary, tossed her out and followed in pursuit, the three of them rolling down the steep incline. Mia being the only one to escape being buried under the rubble.