The Rise of a Fallen Angel

Summary: After years of waiting in hope that his wife would return to him, Valentine Morgenstern tracked down Jocelyn in New York and went to find her. Just half an hour earlier and Jocelyn would not have had time to drink the whole potion, leaving her a conscious captive of her former husband. But Jocelyn was always the one person who could change Valentine's mind; so what if she had been able to do so?

Disclaimer: I only own the idea; Cassandra Clare owns everything else.

Chapter One

Clary and Simon had barely left the apartment when Jocelyn closed the door behind them, and their voices were still audible as she leant back against the door, sliding to the floor against it with a sigh. It seemed that it did not matter how much of an effort she made; her daughter would never listen to her advice.

She knew that it would be hypocritical to judge Clary for her rebellious behaviour, when she had been precisely the same at her age, but things had been very different then; she had been vigorously trained since the age of sixteen to fight the dangers of the demon world, the very dangers she had hidden from her daughter's eyes for all these years. She had always thought that hiding the darkness of the life she had left behind would be safer for Clary, but it seemed that the young woman was hell bent on making her mother's efforts futile.

Jocelyn sighed slightly, shaking her head, before moving to rise, deciding to make a start on a new painting to take her mind off her worries for Clary. Painting had always calmed her nerves in the past, ever since she had been a child scribbling on scrap pieces of parchment, and she hoped that it would have the same effect now.

But just as she moved away, she heard hushed voices on the landing. The voice was clearly a man's, judging by its depth, but it sounded nothing like Simon's, or like Luke's, the only other male who would ever visit the apartments. 'It's probably just one of Dorothea's customers.' she told herself, trying to remain calm. But there was an air of familiarity in the voice that told her that could not be the truth.

The wood was obscuring the subtleties of the man's words and Jocelyn's burning curiosity led her to take away the barrier, opening the door slightly with the intention of putting her head around, to catch a quick glimpse of the figure and see if she recognised him. But it took only a single sentence for her to slam the door again, locking it as securely as she could do.

"It's time for her to come home."

Breathing heavily, Jocelyn sprinted across the room, lifting a heavy sideboard and shoving it up against the door, doing the same with the floral armchair she had always loved so much. She could hear footsteps on the staircase now, heavy and clunking, the result of the heavy boots many Shadowhunters wore. He always wore.

There was a heavy smell in the air now, the kind of smell that could be found in the landfill site she had once passed by on the outskirts of town. The smell of rotting garbage; the smell of demons.

Immediately, Jocelyn thought of her daughter and reached into her pocket for a mobile phone. There was no time to call, so the woman quickly tapped out a text message telling the girl to go to Luke's and stay there. She could only hope that Clary had enough common sense to listen, or at least to stay away for long enough that the intruders would be gone by the time she got here.

Panicking, Jocelyn staggered away from the door, glancing frantically from side to side in search of a weapon, anything that could help her defend herself against that horrid man. Suddenly, she remembered the box underneath her bed. She had spent so much time trying to forget the life she had once lived that she had hidden it within the disarray of two dozen other boxes. 'I only kept it for dire emergencies.' she reminded herself, but if this was not an emergency, then she did not know what was.

As she dove for her bedroom, Jocelyn heard the front door shatter and could not help but shriek with fear. She only had a few seconds, half a minute at the most before he would be upon her. She had to act fast.

Tearing her way through the boxes, the redhead finally found what she was looking for. It was a small simple box made of varnished wood, with the initials 'J.C.' embossed on the top of it. Every year, on her son's birthday, she had retrieved this box from beneath her bed and spread the contents out across her bed, allowing herself a few precious minutes to mourn the son who had been taken from her while still in her womb. She had never thought about the other secret it contained; she had never really imagined she would need it.

Jocelyn pulled the loose base from the box and retrieved the small glass vial that had been hidden within it. The woman took a moment to examine the shimmering emerald liquid it contained, then took out the stopper and raised the vial to her lips. At that moment, the door burst open.

Everything happened so quickly. The dark-clothed figure sprinted across the room with surprising agility. The vial was knocked from Jocelyn's hand with such force that it shattered against the opposite wall, leaving a green stain in its wake. The world around her began to swim, her vision blurring.

Without warning, Jocelyn's legs collapsed out from under her. She opened her mouth to cry out as her head collided with the wooden floorboards, but found herself unable to make a sound. All she could feel was the agonising pain and the vague sensation of a hand stroking the hair away from her face.

Her final thought was of Clary before the darkness overcame everything.

A/N: Please review!