Burns Like Acid

Raphael POV:

Raphael tapped one fingernail on his ornate desk, watching the door to the bedroom. He could hear Clary had woken up, cursing him under her breath before dressing in the clothes he had left her. It was past dawn now but he had no intention of sleeping – he needed help, and he knew just where to get it from.

Clary opened the door and strolled through, glaring at him with a savage anger that – on the face of someone so short and innocent – was adorable. He chuckled under his breath, standing up to greet her.

"You drugged me," she growled, crossing her arms. He ignored this and stepped closer, breathing in the delicious scent of her and swallowing the blood lust it triggered. "You had no right-"

"You're staying under my roof and you'd have been a danger to yourself if I hadn't. I had every right," he said, cutting her off. It wasn't that he didn't enjoy her getting worked up, but they had other things to discuss. "Sit with me?"

He didn't wait for her reply, sitting on the sofa he'd found at a car boot whilst whistle-walking a year ago. He knew he was old when he pretended to hunt a blonde man who smelled like pine trees and sugar only to be distracted by a piece of furniture.

She sat opposite him, playing with a strand of red hair, pouting in an amusing mixture of anger and curiosity. "So… what's the big drama?"

He resisted the urge to laugh, sobering when he remembered how his last few hours had gone. "After I drugged you, I broke up a fight between a boy and a youngling. I thought it would be a disrespect case, or a relationship that had gone wrong." He paused, trying to think how to explain the tale he'd dragged out of Michael's protesting lips. "Michael's a good kid, but he's always been that deadly combination of ambitious and easily led. When Jonathan Morgenstern approached him… he told me he was too scared to say no, but I'd bet he was just too greedy. Jonathon has everything Michael wants – power, influence, charm at times and ruthless efficiency at others."

Clary's green eyes had first shown fear, her entire frame taut with the urge to run. But slowly it was overcome with a fierce determination – the knowledge he was telling her this for a reason, that Raphael clearly knew more than he was letting on. He flashed a smile at her, his fangs just touching the edge of his lip even as her eyes lit up with the challenge.

"Last night Michael overheard Jonathan saying he'd be at a hangout tonight… it's a pretty shady place anyway, but there's an underground level called the Blood Trap where anyone can go and do any sort of business. It's all built on a precarious but pretty good idea – to get in, you have to be marked, so you tell anyone about it at your own risk."

Clary froze, her mouth half open with the unasked question. Why tell her then? On an impulse – no, more than an impulse, a need – he reached across and stroked her face. Her skin was soft, flecked with tiny bumps and human flaws but still so beautiful. Warm too, flushed with blood that made his mouth water, fuelling his desire to taste her at some point. As though nothing had happened he withdrew his hand.

He smiled and unbuttoned his sleeve, rolling it past the elbow. Scars, some pale and thin, others red and angry, stood out on his unconcealed arm, but no marks or runes marred it. He chuckled at her bewildered expression.

"I told you it was a precarious idea. Almost everyone knows about the Blood Trap, the Clave included. But they can't do anything about it either, as the mark is demonic in nature, and so can only be applied by the warlock Viass who runs the entire thing," he smiled as he talked, fangs gleaming. "The Clave might know about it, but they have no proof that it harbours criminals because they can't enter. The Blood Trap has fingers in lots of pies and by the time a warrant is ready, so is the Trap."

"But- that makes no sense. The Clave just lets them get on with it, or what?" She asked, brows furrowing.

"Pretty much. They could storm the place, but that would break the Accords. Or they could try to bribe or sneak their way in, but that has a tendency to go very badly. They're stuck, and so is everyone else who doesn't want to take the risk of joining." He didn't mention that there were ways of getting information, of bribing and blackmailing, because innocent as she was she'd only get angry. "Of course, that wouldn't be true if you could apply the rune."

"Me?" She stared at him in utter bewilderment. "But- Raphael, I can't do that. I don't have a stele for one thing and even if I did, what good would it do? I was given angel not demon blood, and I don't even know if I can cast demon runes. I didn't even know they existed."

"Demons and angels are of the same bloodline, are the same creature – it's not the ability that's died out, it's the knowledge. If you can cast the Mark of Cain then you can cast non-angelic runes, and you can draw the entrance mark."

She sighed in frustration, one hand running through her red, red hair before she let it drop, resting in her lap. "But I don't even know what it looks like, plus all marks mean something. It has to be a command word; it'll affect you especially if permanent."

He shrugged, surprised by her lack of knowledge. "Is the Mark of Cain a command word? Do permanent marks have constant affects? No. The reason you don't know of marks that have no command to them is because they're pointless. They do nothing." He sighed, struggling to think of a way to explain. "Come on, I'll show it to you. That way you'll understand."

He led her to his desk, smiling to himself when she looked around expectantly. As if he would keep something this important in a bit of wood, as if he hadn't been initiated into this place by half-burning his fingers off. He placed his hands flat against the wall and then gently, very gently, eased the panel backwards before sliding it across. She gasped, flushing as she stared at the expanse of metal, twice the size of a door and littered with thousands of holy signs. The crescent and star, the star of David, the cross… Hindu, Sikh, even Buddhist were all included.

"A few decades ago this would have been fool proof," he said, placing his fingers carefully in the right places and pressing down, unlocking the door. "Now with the amount of atheist vampires around…"

He led her inside. It was a decent sized space but cramped, stuffed with stuff. There were carefully organised filing cabinets that looked big enough to sit in, jars labelled things like living heart and angel feather, and pride of place a wine rack that would in all likely hood not contain wine. Raphael knew exactly where he was going though, and in the third drawer in a purple folder, folded in half and worn, was a single sheet of paper. He passed it to her, watching her unfold it, her eyes widening.

She seemed to drink it in, her finger trailing over the design. It was a complex one, made mostly of loops and tangled dead ends, but she seemed to understand it in a way he never could.

"It's beautiful…" She whispered suddenly, her pink lips breaking into a radiant smile. Her freckled skin flushed with joy. "Thank you – for showing me. It's exceptional."

Gently he took it from her and she let it go immediately, its design obviously memorised by the angel blood in her veins. He stored it, motioning her back towards the couch. "How is it different from the others?" He asked – whilst he made a show of being the smart one, he knew perilously little about the shadowhunters. She laughed a little, shrugging her delicate shoulders.

"It just is, you know? I just know that this rune is lovely, the same way you look at someone's face and know they're beautiful." She sat down as he closed up the storage room, smiling softly. "It's strange that it has no meaning, it's not like I can't find it, just that it's not there… It can't be just pointless though. Everything has meaning."

He shrugged. "Then maybe its meaning is to have no meaning. Either way it's harmless. What's important is getting you a stele, marking us up and going to the Trap, all of which will have to be done tonight when the sun has gone down." His eyes raked over her clothes in a way that was decidedly not professional. "And you should probably go see Elise. She'll have a dress or two you could borrow."

She huffed but didn't refuse and he smiled to himself. She was a mess of contradictions – innocent but fiery, stubborn but intelligent, attractive but never flirtatious. Loyal, definitely, which made him wonder why Jace hadn't even been contacted… why she would leave the supposed love of her life in the dark?

"So… what does one do when stuck with a vampire and waiting for nightfall so she can sneak into an illegal club and catch her half-demon brother?" She asked, head cocked to one side. He grinned at her, fighting the urge to sit next to her, brush his mouth against the beating pulse of her throat and whisper what do you think, darling? Instead he leaned back and ran a hand through his hair, admiring her from afar.

"One tells said vampire her life story, if she is so inclined. Starting with when she found out about shadowhunters." She blushed a deep, beautiful, mouth-watering scarlet, before launching into a tale that was as bizarre as it was interesting.