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First thing Monday morning, Chloe jumped in her police cruiser and booked it to the coroner's office.

All night, she sat awake, tossing and turning Amenadiel's words over in her brain. Their talk had only increased the mystery of what exactly it was she was chasing, but he had managed to provide her with a new trail to follow. She would be amiss to leave any stone unturned. People kept dying, and if there was a chance that bodies with strange markings kept getting torn up around Los Angeles and God knows where else, then she owed it to them to try and prevent it from happening to anyone else.

Chloe didn't particularly like the coroner's office. All the parking spots outside the brown bricked building were thirty minutes or less spots with threats of towing and two hundred dollar fines. The inside was stuffy, reeked of stale cigarette smoke (though it was well known the coroner actually still smoked in the basement during his break) and was decorated like the 80's never went out of style. The receptionist was either half-asleep or pretending nothing and no one existed. It was like talking to a brick wall. Forget about making an appointment; you just had to show up and blow past her.

Which was exactly what Chloe did.

What was the woman going to do, arrest her?

All of that was to be expected. What was not expected was the eccentrically dressed young man came sauntering out of the morgue. He had glitter smudged around his water line and a litany of rings on his fingers that shimmered when they waved in the light. Definitely not the kind of person Chloe was used to seeing wandering down the halls of the coroner's office. He had a phone pressed to his ear, deep in conversation.

"That's the third one I've looked at. Nothing unusual."

He smiled and held the door open for Chloe as she passed, the back of his hand briefly touching hers before pulling away and drawing his designer coat tighter around his shoulders.

"Yes, I'm sure - " he snapped into the line. That was the last Chloe heard before he was out of earshot.

That was weird. Normally the coroner wasn't a popular guy.

He seemed to agree.

"Ah, haven't been this busy since they found that guy shot to death in the Thai place. Everyone wanted to know where to get their pad thai," the man joked, from his seat behind his desk or at least Chloe supposed that was his intention. People who crafted their careers around the dead were an odd sort. "What can I do for you?"

"Detective Decker, LAPD." Chloe flashed her badge and stepped further into the room at the man's beckon. "I was wondering if you could help me with a problem."

The coroner squinted his beady eyes from behind large, wire-rimmed glasses. "What kind of problem?"

"I'm working on a case involved with the bodies found with strange markings. The mayor's office wants to pass them off as animal attacks or gang violence. But I think it's something else."

"Most things usually are in our line of work," he agreed, finally getting up from his desk to do something. He was a tall man, on the bigger side, and wore suspenders with his high-water khakis. His socks were argyle to match his tie and he even sported a thick mustache. Suddenly, Chloe understood why no one was in a rush to update the place.

"I know those bodies inside and out. Those were no animal attacks."

"I figured as much." It was so refreshing to have someone agree with her. All that time talking to Dan was making her think she was going crazy. "Would it be possible to examine whatever bodies you have on site? I came into some new information, something that might suggest the murderer was taking organs. Hearts, specifically."

The coroner chuckled under his breath.

"What's so funny?"

"Must be a well of information," he said, shaking his head. He ambled over to the wall of bodies, found the number he was looking for, and yanked the drawer open. "You're the second person to ask me that today, Detective Decker."

"Who else was asking about the victims?"

"That man who just left." The coroner pointed to the door, waving his hands in the same manner the eccentric man on the phone did. "He was also interested in getting a better look at our John Doe. And I'll tell you the same thing I told him: nothing's missing. Everything that's supposed to be on the inside is inside. It's the outside that looks like a horror show."

Chloe didn't have time to be disappointed. She was far too preoccupied with the new player on the board. Up until now, Chloe assumed she was the only one digging into this case. It was hers, after all. But was she not alone? Were there other Detectives intent on cracking the case first, or worse, proving her wrong? Or maybe, these weren't other detectives at all. The man on the phone sure didn't look like he was affiliated with any kind of law enforcement. This case had reeked of foul play from the moment she stepped foot on the first crime scene.

If there were other forces at work, she would just have to beat them to the finish.

"Would you mind if I still take a look?" she asked, taking off her coat and rolling up her sleeves. A box of latex gloves sat on a tray with a dozen or so scalpels. She snapped a pair on, ready.

The coroner shrugged. "Be my guest."

He ambled off to another part of the office and left her to it.

Nothing prepared Chloe for the brutal sight beneath the sheet. It was almost worse to see the body now, after so much time had passed, than fresh for the first time. There wasn't any blood obscuring her sight this time, the wounds gaping and open, revealing exactly how deep and how long these gashes were. Barely an inch of the body was spared, torn to ribbons, the flesh pieced precariously back into place with pins and sutures.

The coroner wasn't lying. Every single organ was where it was supposed to be. Pickled and soured from the embalming fluid, but there nonetheless. Chloe stared at the still heart, wondering why Ithuriel had to lose his when everyone else got to keep theirs.

There was no telling what that other man had tampered with - if he was part of Raziel's cult or if he was just another interested party - but she wasn't going to find the answers here.

Another dead end.

Normally, Lucifer didn't drink so heavily during daytime hours.

However, he was not a patient man, and the only way he could pleasantly pass the time - without having sex with someone(s) - was with alcohol and nicotine. He had been chain smoking all morning, his ashtray already emptied once and well on its way to being full again. Thank Dad cigarettes didn't cause celestials lung cancer, or Lucifer would be dead twice over. He was two bottles of whiskey deep as well. Unlike with the nicotine, Lucifer did wish he could get drunk. He could use a pleasant buzz right about now.

Waiting was insufferable; he didn't know how these mortal creatures spent so much of their short lives waiting for things.

Lucifer was tempted to go downstairs and expel more of this anxious energy in a more productive, horizontal way. But if Magnus portaled back into the penthouse while a human was present...that was one mess Lucifer didn't want to find himself in. As flippant as he was about the rules, he did rely heavily on humanity's egregious ability to deny the supernatural. It would test even his powers of persuasion to convince the poor man or woman what they were seeing was nothing more than very expensive SFX.

The baby grand was taking most of his frustration at the moment. He banged angrily on the keys, creating a tune so intricate only celestial hands could play the exact pattern. Not that he ever wrote his music down. He didn't even teach anymore, not since the jazz age.

Would his own child have any interest in music? Would they sit on this bench while Lucifer guided tiny hands to the correct position, gently pressing first chords?

Magic sizzled in the air - the smell of ozone and hellfire. The hairs on the back of Lucifer's neck stood up. The atmosphere shifted, illuminated in swirling light, and then -

"You owe me soooooo many favors, Lucifer. I'm so serious."

Ah, there he was.

Magnus was in a mood. He always was when he was flustered, or when things didn't go the way he wanted. The portal snapped shut behind him, but the ozone and electricity remained behind, and would for several hours. Honestly, he couldn't take the elevator like a normal person?

"Yes, yes, I'll buy you a yacht or the Ritz or the whole of Dubai if you want." Lucifer waved his hands, impatient.

"This was supposed to be a quick outing. I didn't even leave Alexander a note, and now it's half past three and he isn't answering his phone."

"We have more pressing matters than your boyfriend troubles." Lucifer loved his nephew, he really did. But sometimes, Magnus was selfishly narrow-minded. Like uncle like nephew, he supposed. "What did you uncover? Anything sinister? Any clues leading to our murderous Nephilim?"

Lucifer would have rather gone to the morgue himself, but he didn't have much of a choice in sending Magnus. The Detective was on the hunt, and if she caught him anywhere around 'her' case then he would find himself right back in jail. It was safer to have Magnus poke his nose in this business. Besides, he had offered, which already spoke magnitudes about his guilty conscience.

"Like I told you on the phone, I found nothing," Magnus huffed, as disappointed as Lucifer was. "Outside from large amounts of embalming fluids, nothing was different about the bodies. Nothing was out of place. Nothing was taken. And there were no traces of Jace's energy to track."

"Damn," Lucifer cursed, stubbing his latest cigarette out in the ashtray atop his baby grand. "Well, we'll keep looking then. One of these corpses has to have something interesting to share."

When he went to grab another, he found he'd used the last cigarette in the pack.

Well wasn't this just day getting worse and worse?

Magnus was silent for a long time. Lucifer thought he was making himself a drink. Imagine his surprise when he turned around on the bench to find Magnus was exactly where he was: leaned up against the bar, sans martini and staring at Lucifer.

"Why do you insist on doing things this way?" he asked.

"What way?"

"The mundane way."

Lucifer scoffed and rolled. Ridiculous! As if anything about Lucifer was mundane! He was the King of Hell, the Prince of Darkness and all those other honorifics that were too numerous to count. When he did something, he did it with style. He did it with flare. He -

He was sneaking around mother's back like a child with his hand in the cookie jar.

Fuck it all.

"I suppose I didn't realize I was..."

This was the way he always did things. This was the way the Detective had taught him: formulate a theory, track down clues, gather suspects, pursue justice, never revenge.

"A hundred years ago, when you desired on something or someone, you would have destroyed anyone and anything that got in your path. Humans were inconsequential, their lives fleeting and their souls simple things to be collected when the pleasure of their bodies ran out." Magnus spoke so clinically, so dispassionately, that he had to be quoting Lucifer himself from some time past. Dad above, did he really have just jaded views? Magnus looked at Lucifer skeptically, like he was seeing someone unfamiliar but not unwelcome. "You're different, Lucifer. This stay in LA, all this time you've spent around humans, it's changed you."

"You're right," Lucifer admitted, leaning back against the piano. There was no other way to put it. "I've been treating this whole thing like a case when I should be treating it like what it is: a demonic attack. Working with the Detective, seeing her nab the bad guys and work through the judicial system...it's made me realize there is more than one way to punish people. But Lilith, she can't be throw in prison - not a mortal one at least - and here I am parading around looking at dead bodies as if clues are enough to stop her from laying waste to the world." Lucifer sighed, disgusted with himself. He slammed the lid shut on the keys and struck a strident chord. "I've lost my edge."

"You haven't lost your edge," Magnus said, shaking his head as if Lucifer were stupid for even thinking that. "All that power, it's still in you. It radiates off of you so strongly any creature in a fifty mile radius can feel it. I'd be willing to bet you're at the strongest you've ever been."

"Thank you, Magnus, but flattery won't make it true."

Lucifer didn't feel very strong. He felt weakened. Humiliated. Ashamed of letting himself go so far.

"I used to think that way, too. I used to think my life was worth more than any other creature's. That helping Mundanes or Nephilim or even my fellow Downworlders wasn't worth my time, at least not without a price," Magnus admitted, a small smile creeping up his face. "Alexander has helped to change my mind. He's taught me that, though immortal I may be, having compassion, having humanity is not a weakness. It's a strength."

Compassion did not feel like a strength at this moment. It felt like a hinderance. Why did Lucifer have to care about humans, about his life here, about anything when it constantly got in the way of doing what he knew he could? Of doing what was necessary?

He thought about storming into the LA Institute, taking Rob by the throat and demanding him let Isabelle go lest he see his flock decimated before him. Lucifer could do it. He'd wreaked similar havoc on the Nephilim before, in years past. Before the treaty they forged that let him live peacefully in Lux.

But Rob was Isabelle's father. Those Nephilim were her people. If Lucifer harmed them, what would she think of him? When he saw the look of disgust, of fear in her eyes, what would he think of himself? Would she let him touch her with blood on his hands? Would she let him touch the baby?

That was enough hypotheticals for one day.

Lucifer heaved out a sigh. "What power do these Lightwoods have over us?"

Magnus laughed, the tension broken. He walked over and placed a hand on Lucifer's shoulder. "We will stop Lilith and find a way to break Isabelle out of Alicante."

"You mean as soon as Lilith's precious Owl is out of the way and given up her location, I will cut her head clean off her shoulders and feed it to her children while you break Isabelle out of Alicante."

It was a particularly violent plan, but well-deserved and a long time coming. Magnus didn't protest the plan either, which pleased Lucifer.

"You never did explain why you can't set foot in Alicante," Magnus said, thoughtful. "I thought it was just Heaven that provoked the flames."

"Many hundreds of years ago when Raziel first came up with his crazy plan to let his pet mortals know of the divine, he approached our Father with a request. See, he wanted his parcel of Heaven. A real prodigal son moment. And Father, in His all-knowing wisdom, agreed! He actually divvied up parts of the Silver City and handed them over, can you believe? Raziel moved his bit down to the Earthly plane - mysterious ways and all that - and let his Nephilim move in," Lucifer explained. Honestly the story was ridiculous and sometimes Lucifer couldn't believe it had happened until he remembered what Jophiel did with his piece of Heaven and promptly made himself forget. "Alicante - the real, Alicante - is quite lovely in the summers, not as tourist-trappy as Barcelona or Malaga, though give it a few years and it will be on its way. The Nephilim city echoes it, in a way. Divorced from our reality, not quite in the realm of Heaven, hidden in plain sight. Granted, I probably could walk through Alicante with some mild sweating and discomfort, but eventually the flames would find me. Who knows how long I'd hold out until they claimed me. Besides..."

"Besides?"

"I would actually like to survive long enough to meet my son or daughter. Can't bloody well do that if I'm a pile of celestial ash."

Magnus's eyebrows nearly shot off his head. "Oh, so you want to be involved now?"

"No! Yes. I don't know." Was it hot in here, or was it just him? He needed a drink. "Involved is a loaded word, don't you think?"

Lucifer wasn't kidding when he said the baby and Miss Lightwood's lives would be better off without him. He was truly terrible with children. But ever since she left his penthouse, ever since he denied her offer, he couldn't help but think in the darkest corners of his mind, what if...

Magnus squeezed his shoulder again. "You'll have plenty of time to figure things out with Isabelle once she's back home."

Yes. Once Miss Lightwood was safely deposited back in New York, far away from Lilith and Alicante and all things wicked, they could figure out a custody arrangement.

Perhaps it was a good thing, Clary thought, that she didn't bother learning about the Shadowhunter world.

Her MO was to take things as they came. A new obstacle meant a new lesson, a new set of rules, a new world to uncover. Had she actually taken time to read the history books Alec shoved her way during her first fraught weeks at the New York Institute, she might have actually learned about the Gard and why, exactly, she should fear it.

In many ways, the Gard was like any other prison. Built into the mountainous outskirts of Alicante, the Gard was not meant to let anyone out. Clary was greeted warmly at the gates, wind blowing at her back as complex wards gave way to let her pass. She was stripped, washed, and given new clothes upon entry: a scratchy prison jumpsuit in a dull, dark color that was indistinguishable from the color of the walls. Then, she was led through hall after hall of miserable faces, each more hopeless than the last.

On top of the sights, there were smells. Old smells. Like rotting fish (or flesh) and mold and bleach, as if someone had tried to scrub away the horror. And there were sounds: moans and groans and sobs. Worse were the screams, the threats, the calls for violence. As if this whole place was fighting a war between raging and dying.

The Gard was, simply put, Hell.

Dark, dank, barely fit for rats never mind the creatures filled to the brim in each damp cell. Somehow, Clary knew that this wasn't even the worst this place had to offer. There was a whole mountain of horrors, endless halls of cells and grim futures. Clary knew this because she had committed, perhaps, the greatest sin a Shadowhunter could commit, and the guards didn't stop moving her deeper down, down down.

Angel only knew what lied at the bottom.

Clary didn't think she would end up missing the City of Bones, but there she was, wishing she could have stayed in that prison a little longer. Apparently sinners as grave as she got expedited life sentences.

"Wait here."

They had stopped in a rotunda, a different passage breaking off in each direction. One of them was open. The guard to her left moved through the open passage ahead while the guard at her right remained stoic, one hand on his stele and the other with a tight grip on her arm. As if Clary could actually escape in this labyrinth. Voices up ahead told Clary that her guard was talking to someone, maybe security. She was a new prisoner, maybe she had to get registered. Maybe she was headed somewhere even her guards didn't have clearance. There were places like that in the New York Institute, parts of the many basements she wasn't allowed to go because she wasn't Head of Institute or even officially registered in the ranks of Shadowhunters. Not that she'd ever be registered now. If anyone searched her face in the database, they'd get a big red banner on top that said "traitor, kill on sight."

Whatever the guard was doing, it was taking up time. So much time the guard to her right started to fidget. His grip grew a little looser, confident in Clary's obedience to stay put.

He obviously didn't know Clary at all.

A loud grinding noise came from behind her, and Clary jerked at the sound. The guard to her right did as well, the both of them turning to see as another set of double doors opened.

The hall this passage exposed was different. This hall was harshly lit and covered in white - white floors, white ceilings, white light. It almost hurt Clary to look at after so long in the dark. The light did have one benefit: she could see all the way inside, to the very end of the hall and into the large room beyond where a glass cube sat in the center, surrounded by beeping, buzzing machines and many, many lab benches. Inside that glass cube was a person - not a person, a woman. A woman in white with a shock of dark hair and the slightest protruding belly.

What were the chances? And yet...

...just as she knew there were more horrors ahead of her, Clary knew this was Izzy too.

"Izzy," Clary gasped, straining for a better look.

Yes, that was Izzy. It had to be. Even with stringy, unwashed hair, no makeup, and baggy white scrubs on, Izzy was unmistakable. Clary had found her, finally.

"Izzy!" She screamed and started running, even when the guards shouted and ran after her. "IZZY!"

The girl in the glass cube looked up, turned her head. Their eyes locked. Clary's smarted with tears.

Izzy.

"We're coming for you! We'll get you out of there! I promise!" Clary continued to yell, even when her lungs burned from running and shouting all at once. "I promise Izzy! I - "

Something hard yanked on her back, gathering her baggy jumpsuit and throwing her to the ground.

"That's enough out of you!"

A steel-toed boot met the soft underside of her belly, knocking the wind right out of her. Clary heard something crack. Pain flared up her side. She screamed in agony. The guards kept kicking her, hands and knees on her body, pinning her down.

From the edges of her vision, she saw wing-tipped shoes, the edges of crisp, clean dress pants. Pants that folded in on themselves, leading to the rest of a suit and tie, a trimmed beard, annoyed brown eyes.

"Enough, Miss Fairchild," Victor Aldertree sighed. He held a gun with a needle at the end. That needle found its way into Clary's neck.

And then there was nothing.