The Tenebrous Weapons

The theatre doors opened, spilling movie-goers out onto the street in a warm rush of noise. Piper shivered in the night air and pushed her hands deeper into her pockets, marveling at just how quickly the crowd dispersed at the late hour. The street was all but empty in less than a minute.

"Are you sure we can't give you a lift?" April was turned halfway towards the car where her mother waited, staring at Piper anxiously.

Piper dismissed her friend's anxiety with a casual shake of her head; they'd been over this already. "For the last time, April, I'll be fine. It's one bus ride and a two block walk, I'm perfectly capable of getting myself home."

"It's late..." It was the last time April would offer, Piper could read it in the set of her shoulders and the tone of her voice. She hesitated for a half second, almost tempted to accept and climb into the car, avoid the streets.

No. The boy in the cinema had unnerved her, that was all. He hadn't done anything. Relax. There was no reason to put April's mother out. "It's barely eleven, and I couldn't be further out of your way if I tried. Go, I'll see you tomorrow."

"Alright." April hurried to her car, eager to be out of the cold. She paused with the door open, "Call me when you get home, okay?"

"Promise!" Piper called and watched the station wagon pull out onto the street before turning her back and heading to the nearest bus stop. She'd call, because April would sit by the phone and worry until she did. April always worried, and scary movies always made her worse.

She found herself ridiculously grateful that she wasn't the only one waiting at the shelter and blamed April. When the bus arrived without anything coming out of the shadows to grab her, Piper reminded herself that the she rode this bus a dozen times a week and nothing ever grabbed her. If she eyed the few other passengers a little more carefully than usual, it was because she was a girl traveling alone and not because she was looking for a telltale shimmer in the air.

Focus. Piper leant her head against the window and recited the rhyme her mother had used to teach her the days of the week. Monday's child is fair of face, Tuesday's child is full of grace... By the time she reached the third round of repetition, she was feeling less jumpy. She'd always felt sorry for anyone born on a Wednesday.

As the bus turned a corner, Piper caught a glimpse of two boys pacing each other further up the street. Dressed entirely in black, one on either side of the road, they reminded her of nothing so much as pack animals stalking prey. Piper shut her eyes and didn't open them again until the bus rolled to a halt at her stop. Today had been lousy with sightings and all she wanted was to crawl into bed.

She was within sight of her house when something grabbed her arm and hauled her down an unlit service lane. Piper's first instinct was to scream and run. Back in the days when people still had iceboxes, the laneway had been useful. Now it was just a narrow, dark gravel path kids used as a shortcut. She spun, bracing to pull herself out of the person's grip and the scream died in her throat as she came face to face with three more, all looking at her like she was dinner, all decidedly not human.

Piper struggled against the one holding her, freezing when her arms were tugged behind her back and the hands restraining her grew claws sharp enough to cut through to skin. The one with too-bright eyes stepped forward and trailed his hand down her front in a horrific imitation of a caress. His claws sliced through her clothing as if it wasn't there, baring her chest and drawing blood in four fine lines from collarbone to navel. Piper whimpered.

"We're going to have so much fun with you.”

Her last clear thought was that they were going to play with their food before they ate it. After that, all she knew was pain.



It took Harry all of two seconds to assess the scene in front of them. Far enough back from the street that they weren't instantly visible, four roughly humanoid demons crouched over the unconscious body of a girl, so focused on her that they hadn't noticed the arrival of the two Shadowhunters.

Harry pulled a seraph blade from his belt while Niall pocketed his Sensor. A tilt of the head from one and a raised eyebrow from the other, and the two boys had a plan. They weren't parabatai but Harry had been in Dublin long enough that they knew how the other fought. A final nod and they moved silently into the laneway.

"Jophiel," Harry murmured, adjusting his grip on the hilt. He'd thrown Jophiel before the sudden glow of the blade could do anything more than startle the demons. It sank into the back of the closest one and in the next instant; the boys were at the girl's side. He hissed in a breath - by the Angel, she was a mess. There was so much blood Harry wondered if they'd found her in time.

A clawed hand raked at his shoulder, tearing through flesh and he hissed in pain. Right: demons first, girl next. Harry yanked Jophiel free and kicked the shrinking body out from under his feet. He parried the demon's next two wild swipes at his face and stepped forward. Twisting his body with the motion, he used his uninjured arm to drive the blade between its ribs. It died with a satisfying expression of surprise on its twisted face.

Trusting that Niall had the other demons covered, Harry drew a slender silver tube from an inner pocket and set it to a half-finished Mark under his ruined shoulder. He looked up in time from completing the iratzeto see the blond roll to his feet. The fight had taken them further into the lane and with its shirt soaked in ichor from a gash on its chest, the fourth demon took a final look at the empty space where its companions had been and fled. Niall turned a pleading look on Harry.

"Go," Harry said, sliding his stele back into his belt. "I've got her."

Niall took off after the demon and Harry was left to focus his attention on the girl slowly bleeding out onto the gravel. She was worse than he'd first thought, but at least she had a pulse. Her face and neck were untouched but for a single cut across her cheek. Her clothing had been reduced to bloody ribbons and a shallow cut matched every tear in the material. Her wrists had been slit just deeply enough to bleed freely, and if the wash of blood halfway down her thigh was any indication, one of the other cuts had nicked a major vein. They’d wanted her to suffer.

If she were a Shadowhunter, this was the part where he'd look for an uninjured stretch of skin to Mark her with a healing rune or three. The fact she wasn't meant an iratze was out of the question. Harry cursed; she didn't have time for him to wonder about alternatives. He had no idea how much blood she'd lost, but she was losing more with every second he wasted.

Using the ruined scraps of her clothes for bandages, Harry bound the worst of her injuries as tightly as possible and lifted her into his arms. Mundane or not, there was no way he could simply drop her off at the nearest hospital. As long as she didn't die before he got her to the Institute, Siobhan would understand.