City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments #2)(41)
Author: Cassandra Clare

“How long has it been?” she asked, for either the fourth or fifth time, she wasn’t sure.

“Five minutes longer than the last time you asked me,” Luke said. He was leaning back in his seat, his head back, looking utterly exhausted. The stubble coating his jaw and cheek was silvery gray and there were black lines of shadow under his eyes. All those nights at the hospital, the demon attack, and now this, Clary thought, suddenly worried. She could see why he and her mother had hidden from this life for so long. She wished she could hide from it herself. “Do you want to go in?”

“No. Jace said to wait outside.” She peered out the window again. Now she was sure there were figures in the doorway. As one of them turned, she thought she caught a flash of silvery hair—

“Look.” Luke was sitting bolt upright, rolling his window down hastily.

Clary looked. Nothing appeared to have changed. “You mean the people in the doorway?”

“No. The guards were there before. Look on the roof.” He pointed.

Clary pressed her face to the truck window. The slate roof of the cathedral was a riot of Gothic turrets and spires, carved angels, and arched embrasures. She was about to say irritably that she didn’t notice anything other than some crumbling gargoyles, when a flash of movement caught her eyes. Someone was up on the roof. A slim, dark figure, moving swiftly among the turrets, darting from one overhang to another, now dropping flat, to edge down the impossibly steep roof—someone with pale hair that glinted in the gunmetal light like brass—

Jace.

Clary was out of the truck before she knew what she was doing, pounding down the street toward the church, Luke shouting after her. The huge edifice seemed to sway overhead, hundreds of feet high, a sheer cliff of stone. Jace was at the edge of the roof now, looking down, and Clary thought, It can’t be, he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t do this, not Jace, and then he stepped off the roof into empty air, as calmly as if he were stepping off a porch. Clary screamed out loud as he fell like a stone—

And landed lightly on his feet just in front of her. Clary stared with her mouth open as he rose up out of a shallow crouch and grinned at her. “If I made a joke about just dropping in,” he said, “would you write me off as a cliché?”

“How—how did you—how did you do that?” she whispered, feeling as if she were about to throw up. She could see Luke out of the truck, standing with his hands clasped behind his head and staring past her. She whirled around to see the two guards from the front door running toward them. One was Malik; the other was the woman with the silver hair.

“Crap.” Jace grabbed her hand and yanked her after him. They raced toward the truck and piled in beside Luke, who gunned the engine and took off while the passenger side door was still hanging open. Jace reached across Clary and jerked it shut. The truck veered around the two Shadowhunters—Malik, Clary saw, had what looked like a flinging knife in his hand. He was aiming at one of the tires. She heard Jace swear as he fumbled in his jacket for a weapon—Malik drew his arm back, the blade shining—and the silvery-haired woman threw herself onto his back, seizing at his arm. He tried to shake her off—Clary twisted around in her seat, gasping—and then the truck hurtled around the corner and lost itself in the traffic on York Avenue, the Institute receding into the distance behind them.

Maia had fallen into a fitful doze against the steam pipe, Simon’s jacket draped around her shoulders. Simon watched the light from the porthole move across the room and tried in vain to calculate the hours. Usually he used his cell phone to tell him what time it was, but that was gone—he’d searched his pockets in vain. He must have dropped it when Valentine charged into his room.

He had bigger concerns, though. His mouth was dry and papery, his throat aching. He was thirsty in a way that was like every thirst and hunger he’d ever known blended together to form a sort of exquisite torture. And it was only going to get worse.

Blood was what he needed. He thought of the blood in the refrigerator beside his bed at home, and his veins burned like hot silver wires running just under his skin.

“Simon?” It was Maia, lifting her head groggily. Her cheek was printed with white dents where it had lain against the bumpy pipe. As he watched, the white faded into pink as the blood returned to her face.

Blood. He ran his dry tongue around his lips. “Yeah?”

“How long was I asleep?”

“Three hours. Maybe four. It’s probably afternoon by now.”

“Oh. Thanks for keeping watch.”

He hadn’t been. He felt vaguely ashamed as he said, “Of course. No problem.”

“Simon…”

“Yes?”

“I hope you know what I mean when I say I’m sorry you’re here, but I’m glad you’re with me.”

He felt his face crack into a smile. His dry lower lip split and he tasted blood in his mouth. His stomach groaned. “Thanks.”

She leaned toward him, the jacket slipping from her shoulders. Her eyes were a light amber-gray that changed as she moved. “Can you reach me?” she asked, holding out her hand.

Simon reached for her. The chain that secured his ankle rattled as he stretched his hand as far as it would go. Maia smiled as their fingertips brushed—

“How touching.” Simon jerked his hand back, staring. The voice that had spoken out of the shadows was cool, cultured, vaguely foreign in a way he couldn’t quite place. Maia dropped her hand and twisted around, the color draining from her face as she stared up at the man in the doorway. The man had come in so quietly neither one of them had heard him. “The children of Moon and Night, getting along at last.”

“Valentine,” Maia whispered.

Simon said nothing. He couldn’t stop staring. So this was Clary and Jace’s father. With his cap of white-silver hair and burning black eyes, he didn’t look much like either one of them, though there was something of Clary in his sharp bone structure and the shape of his eyes, and something of Jace in the lounging insolence with which he moved. He was a big man, broad-shouldered with a thick frame that didn’t resemble either of his children’s. He padded into the green metal room like a cat, despite being weighted down with what looked like enough weaponry to outfit a platoon. Thick black leather straps with silver buckles crisscrossed his chest, holding a wide-hilted silver sword across his back. Another thick strap circled his waist, and through it was thrust a butcher’s array of knives, daggers, and narrow shimmering blades like enormous needles.

“Get up,” he said to Simon. “Keep your back against the wall.”

Simon tilted his chin up. He could see Maia watching him, white-faced and scared, and felt a rush of fierce protectiveness. He would keep Valentine from hurting her if it was the last thing he did. “So you’re Clary’s father,” he said. “No offense, but I can kind of see why she hates you.”

Valentine’s face was impassive, almost motionless. His lips barely moved as he said, “And why is that?”

“Because,” Simon said, “you’re obviously psychotic.”

Now Valentine smiled. It was a smile that moved no part of his face other than his lips, and those twisted only slightly. Then he brought his fist up. It was clenched; Simon thought for a moment that Valentine was going to swing at him, and he flinched reflexively. But Valentine didn’t throw the punch. Instead, he opened his fingers, revealing a shimmering pile of what looked like glitter in the center of his broad palm. Turning toward Maia, he bent his head and blew the powder at her in a grotesque parody of a blown kiss. The powder settled on her like a swarm of shimmering bees.

Maia screamed. Gasping and jerking wildly, she thrashed from side to side as if she could twist away from the powder, her voice rising in a sobbing scream.

“What did you do to her?” Simon shouted, leaping to his feet. He ran at Valentine, but the leg chain jerked him back. “What did you do?”

Valentine’s thin smile widened. “Silver powder,” he said. “It burns lycanthropes.”

Maia had stopped twitching and was curled into a fetal position on the floor, weeping quietly. Blood ran from vicious red scores along her hands and arms. Simon’s stomach lurched again and he fell back against the wall, sickened by himself, by all of it. “You bastard,” he said as Valentine idly brushed the last of the powder from his fingers. “She’s just a girl, she wasn’t going to hurt you, she’s chained up, for—”

He choked, his throat burning.

Valentine laughed. “For God’s sake?” he said. “Is that what you were going to say?”

Simon said nothing. Valentine reached over his shoulder and drew the heavy silver Sword from its sheath. Light played along its blade like water slipping down a sheer silver wall, like sunlight itself refracted. Simon’s eyes stung and he turned his face away.

“The Angel blade burns you, just as God’s name chokes you,” said Valentine, his cool voice sharp as crystal. “They say that those who die upon its point will achieve the gates of heaven. In which case, revenant, I am doing you a favor.” He lowered the blade so that the tip touched Simon’s throat. Valentine’s eyes were the color of black water and there was nothing in them: no anger, no compassion, not even any hate. They were empty as a hollowed-out grave. “Any last words?”

Simon knew what he was supposed to say. Sh’ma Yisrael, adonai elohanu, adonai echod. Hear, oh Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. He tried to speak the words, but a searing pain burned his throat. “Clary,” he whispered instead.

A look of annoyance passed across Valentine’s face, as if the sound of his daughter’s name in a vampire’s mouth displeased him. With a sharp flick of his wrist, he brought the Sword level and slashed it with a single smooth gesture across Simon’s throat.

17

EAST OF EDEN

“HOW DID YOU DO THAT?” CLARY DEMANDED AS THE TRUCK sped uptown, Luke hunched over the wheel.

“You mean how did I get onto the roof?” Jace was leaning back against the seat, his eyes half-closed. There were white bandages tied around his wrists and flecks of dried blood at his hairline. “First I climbed out Isabelle’s window and up the wall. There are a number of ornamental gargoyles that make good handholds. Also, I’d like to note for the record that my motorcycle is no longer where I left it. I bet the Inquisitor took it on a joyride around Hoboken.”

“I meant,” Clary said, “how did you jump off the cathedral roof and not die?”

“I don’t know.” His arm brushed hers as he raised his hands to rub at his eyes. “How did you create that rune?”

“I don’t know either,” she whispered. “The Seelie Queen was right, wasn’t she? Valentine, he—he did things to us.” She glanced over at Luke, who was pretending to be absorbed in turning left. “Didn’t he?”

“This isn’t the time to talk about that,” Luke said. “Jace, did you have a particular destination in mind or did you just want to get away from the Institute?”

“Valentine’s taken Maia and Simon to the boat to perform the Ritual. He’ll want to do it as soon as possible.” Jace tugged at one of the bandages on his wrist. “I’ve got to get there and stop him.”

“No,” Luke said sharply.

“Okay, we have to get there and stop him.”

“Jace, I’m not having you go back to that ship. It’s too dangerous.”

“You saw what I just did,” Jace said, incredulity rising in his voice, “and you’re worried about me?”

“I’m worried about you.”

“There’s no time for that. After my father kills your friends, he’ll call on an army of demons you can’t even imagine. After that, he’ll be unstoppable.”

“Then the Clave—”

“The Inquisitor won’t do anything,” Jace said. “She’s blocked the Lightwoods’ access to the Clave. She wouldn’t call for reinforcements, even when I told her what Valentine has planned. She’s obsessed with this insane plan she has.”

“What plan?” Clary said.

Jace’s voice was bitter. “She wanted to trade me to my father for the Mortal Instruments. I told her Valentine would never go for it, but she didn’t believe me.” He laughed, a sharp staccato laugh. “Isabelle and Alec are going to tell her what happened with Simon and Maia. I’m not too optimistic, though. She doesn’t believe me about Valentine and she’s not going to upset her precious plan just to save a couple of Downworlders.”

“We can’t just wait to hear from them, anyway,” Clary said. “We have to get to the boat now. If you can take us to it—”

“I hate to break it to you, but we need a boat to get to another boat,” said Luke. “I’m not sure even Jace can walk on water.”