Clary, Jace, Alec, and Isabelle stood in the hallway outside Dorothea’s apartment. They were all wearing outfits an old lady would think suggested “party”: Jace and Alec wore pinstripe suits with top hats and canes, and Clary and Isabelle wore hoop skirts. Their arms were filled with buckets of popcorn and large boxes of Milk Duds and Jujubes.
“Well, here goes nothing,” said Clary, and knocked on the door.
“Who is it?” said Dorothea from behind the door.
“Dorothea, it’s me, Clary!”
Dorothea opened the door, saw their outfits, and smiled.
“Well, well, well, you all are sure looking stylish!” said Dorothea. “To what do I owe this lovely visit?”
Clary held up a bucket of popcorn. “We were wondering if you’d like to have a movie viewing party!”
Dorothea’s eyes lit up like this was the greatest thing that had ever happened to her.
“Really? A viewing party? With me? Come in, come in!”
Dorothea ushered them into the apartment and sat them on the couch.
“So, what would you like to watch?” said Dorothea, picking up some DVDs. “I have Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, The Marx Brothers…”
“Actually, we were hoping you had Titanic,” said Clary.
Dorothea frowned.
“I’m sorry, I don’t have that one. But I do have Gone With the Wind!”
“Darn,” said Clary. “Titanic was really the only movie we wanted to see. Oh well, maybe some other time.”
Clary and the others stood up to leave, and Dorothea got a look of horror.
“No wait!” she said. “I think I might actually have it!”
She went over to a bookcase and slid aside some books, revealing a secret compartment in the wall. She opened the compartment and took out the Titanic DVD.
“Well what do you know, I found it!” said Dorothea.
“Hooray!!!!” shouted Clary and the others happily.
Dorothea put the DVD into the player and hit play, and the opening credits began.
“Dorothea, why don’t you give me the remote?” said Clary, “That way you can fully enjoy the movie without worrying about it.”
“Oh, how thoughtful of you!” said Dorothea, handing Clary the remote.
Clary immediately pressed fast-forward and started skimming through the movie, looking for the Mortal Keg.
“What’s going on?” said Dorothea. “Don’t you want to see the beginning?”
Clary shook her head. “We’ve seen Titanic 15 times, and trust us, it’s wayyyyyy better if you start in the middle.”
Isabelle nodded. “It’s really the only way to watch it,” she said.
“Well I guess I’ll trust the experts, then!” said Dorothea.
Clary kept fast-forwarding and finally came to the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio stands on the prow of the ship and shouts, “I’m the king of the world!” But on this DVD, he was standing on top of a keg.
“That seems odd,” said Dorothea. “Did they really have kegs on the Titanic?”
“It was the Jewel of the Sea!” said Alec. “It had everything!”
Clary paused the movie on a close-up of the keg.
“Hey Dorothea, wanna know something really cool?” said Clary. “You have the Collector’s Edition of the DVD, which comes with a free keg, just like the one in the movie!”
“Really?” said Dorothea.
“Yeah! Here, let me get it for you.”
Clary walked up to the TV and drew a tramp stamp on it.
“Hey!” said Dorothea. “Why are you drawing on my TV?”
“I didn’t draw anything,” said Clary. “It’s just the Energy Star logo. You probably just never noticed it before.”
The TV screen shimmered, and Clary reached inside the screen and grabbed the keg. She tried to pull it out, but could barely move it because it was so heavy.
“Keg…must…be…full,” she said, straining. “Guys, a little help here?”
The others got up and grabbed the keg. They managed to lift it, but it wouldn’t fit through the TV, so Jace had to cut through the sides of the TV with his stele to allow a couple more inches of clearance. Finally they managed to get the keg out, and dropped it hard on the floor. The TV itself was in shambles.
“Well Dorothea, it’s been a fun party, but unfortunately we have a croquet match we have to get to,” said Clary. “We’ll just take the keg with us to the match and drink all the beer there so it’ll be nice and light for you. Sound good? Kbye!”
Clary and the others lifted the keg and slowly started walking toward the door with it.
“STOP!” shouted Dorothea, so forcefully that Clary couldn’t believe it was coming from an old lady. “Put the keg down!”
“Okay, I get it, you like beer,” said Jace. “How ‘bout this: we’ll replace whatever we drink with 24-packs of Sam Adams.”
“Hmmmm,” said Dorothea. “I’ll need to check with my partner.”
“Your partner?” said Jace.
Dorothea pulled aside the curtain that covered the portal that Clary had gone through a few days before. The portal was glowing with blue light, and a black blob appeared in the middle of it, growing bigger and bigger.
“What’s that?” said Alec, pointing at the blob. But before anyone could answer, the blob flew out of the portal and into Dorothea’s body, and she rapidly transformed into a 10-foot-high scaly demon monster.
“The keg stays here,” hissed the demon, and it started slithering toward Clary and the others.
“Hey Clary,” said Jace, “if you have any friends looking for an apartment, you might want to tell them about this unit, because it’s gonna be unoccupied soon.” He took out his seraph blade and threw it at the demon, where it stuck into its scaly skin.
“Gee, that hurt sooooooo much,” said the demon, nonchalantly flicking off the blade with its finger.
“Crap, it must be a Greater Demon,” said Isabelle.
“Greater Demon?” said Clary. “What’s that mean?”
“It means we need to run!” said Jace, and they all took off for the door. But before they could reach it, the demon shot out four arms, grabbed each of them, and started dragging them toward its open mouth.
Suddenly, there was a knock at the door.
“Come back later, please,” said the demon in Dorothea’s voice. “I’m eating dinner.”
But the door opened anyway, and Simon walked in. He saw Clary, but didn’t yet notice she had a demon arm around her.
“Hey Clary,” said Simon. “Hodge said you guys were having some sort of party over here, and I figured you must’ve just accidentally forgotten to invite me, so I—”
Finally, Simon saw the demon.
“Ahhhhh!” screamed Simon, and turned to run away. The demon reached out another arm to grab him, but as it did, its arm crossed a shaft of sunlight that was streaming into the apartment through the open door. The demon emitted an ear-piercing shriek and began to fold in on itself like a burning piece of paper. Within seconds it had disintegrated into a pile of ash.
“Simon, you saved us!” said Clary, hugging Simon and giving him yet another false hope that she was now willing to hook up with him.
“Hey Simon, if you really want to save the day, help us move this keg,” said Jace. Everyone grabbed the keg, except for Alec, who still lay on the ground, moaning. Clary ran over to him and saw he had several large wounds from where the demon had grabbed him.
“Jace, quick, fix him with your stele,” said Clary.
“I wish I could,” said Jace. “But I can’t.”
“Why not?” said Clary.
“I’m not in his Participating Provider Network,” said Jace. “Come on, let’s get him back to the Institute!”
