City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments #4)(18)
Author: Cassandra Clare

The phone rang, and for a moment Clary felt only relieved that something, anything, had cut through her misery. Her second thought was, Jace. Maybe he couldn’t reach her on her cell phone and was calling her house. She dropped the ring on her bedside table and reached to lift the receiver out of its cradle. She was about to voice a greeting when she realized that the phone had already been picked up, by her mother.

"Hello?" Her mother sounded anxious, and surprisingly awake for so early in the morning.

The voice that answered was unfamiliar, faintly accented. "This is Catarina from Beth Israel hospital. I’m looking for Jocelyn."

Clary froze. The hospital? Had something happened, maybe to Luke? He had pulled out of the driveway awfully fast-

"This is Jocelyn." Her mother didn’t sound frightened, but rather as if she’d expected the call. "Thank you for calling me back so soon."

"Of course. I was glad to hear from you. You don’t often see people recover from a curse like the one you were suffering from." Right, Clary thought. Her mother had been in Beth Israel, comatose from the effects of the potion she’d taken to prevent Valentine from interrogating her. "And any friend of Magnus Bane’s is a friend of mine."

Jocelyn sounded strained. "Did my message make sense? You know what I was calling about?"

"You wanted to know about the child," said the woman on the other end of the line. Clary knew she ought to hang up, but she couldn’t. What child? What was going on? "The one who was abandoned."

There was a catch in Jocelyn’s voice. "Y-yes. I thought-"

"I’m sorry to say this, but he’s dead. He died last night."

For a moment Jocelyn was silent. Clary could feel her mother’s shock through the phone line. "Died? How?"

"I’m not sure I understand it myself. The priest came last night to baptize the child, and-"

"Oh, my God." Jocelyn’s voice shook. "Can I-Could I please come down and look at the body?"

There was a long silence. Finally the nurse said, "I’m not sure about that. The body’s in the morgue now, awaiting transfer to the medical examiner’s office."

"Catarina, I think I know what happened to the boy." Jocelyn sounded breathless. "And if I could confirm it, maybe I could prevent it from happening again."

"Jocelyn-"

"I’m coming down," Clary’s mother said, and hung up the phone. Clary gazed blankly at the receiver for a moment before hanging up herself. She scrambled to her feet, ran a brush through her hair, tossed on jeans and a sweater, and was out her bedroom door just in time to catch her mother in the living room, scribbling a note on the pad of paper by the telephone. She looked up as Clary came in, and gave a guilty start.

"I was just running out," she said. "A few last-minute wedding things have come up, and-"

"Don’t bother lying to me," Clary said without preamble. "I was listening on the phone, and I know exactly where you’re going."

Jocelyn paled. Slowly she set her pen down. "Clary-"

"You have to stop trying to protect me," Clary said. "I bet you didn’t say anything to Luke, either, about calling the hospital."

Jocelyn pushed her hair back nervously. "It seems unfair on him. With the wedding coming up and everything-"

"Right. The wedding. You’re having a wedding. And why is that? Because you’re getting married. Don’t you think it’s time you started trusting Luke? And trusting me?"

"I do trust you," Jocelyn said softly.

"In that case you won’t mind me coming with you to the hospital."

"Clary, I don’t think-"

"I know what you think. You think this is just like what happened to Sebastian-I mean Jonathan. You think maybe someone’s out there doing to babies what Valentine did to my brother."

Jocelyn’s voice shook slightly. "Valentine’s dead. But there are others who were in the Circle who have never been caught."

And they never found Jonathan’s body. It wasn’t something Clary liked to think about. Besides, Isabelle had been there and had always been adamant that Jace had severed Jonathan’s spine with the blade of a dagger and that Jonathan had been quite, quite dead as a result. She had gone down into the water and checked, she’d said. There had been no pulse, no heartbeat.

"Mom," Clary said. "He was my brother. I have a right to come with you."

Very slowly Jocelyn nodded. "You’re right. I suppose you do." She reached for her purse where it hung on a peg by the door. "Well, come on, then, and get your coat. The weather forecast says it might rain."

Washington Square Park in the early morning was mostly deserted. The air was crisp and morning-clean, the leaves already thickly covering the pavement in sheets of red, gold, and dark green. Simon kicked them aside as he made his way under the stone archway at the south end of the park.

There were few other people around-a couple of homeless men sleeping on benches, wrapped in sleeping bags or threadbare blankets, and some guys in green sanitation uniforms emptying the trash cans. There was a guy pushing a cart through the park, selling doughnuts and coffee and pre-sliced bagels. And in the center of the park, by the big circular stone fountain, was Luke. He was wearing a green zip-up Windbreaker and waved when he saw Simon.

Simon waved back, a little tentatively. He still wasn’t sure he wasn’t in some kind of trouble. Luke’s expression, as Simon drew closer, only intensified Simon’s foreboding. Luke looked tired and more than a little stressed out. His gaze, as it fell on Simon, was full of concern.

"Simon," he said. "Thanks for coming."

"Sure." Simon wasn’t cold, but he stuck his hands into the pockets of his jacket anyway, just to give them something to do. "What’s wrong?"

"I didn’t say anything was wrong."

"You wouldn’t drag me out here at the crack of dawn if nothing was wrong," Simon pointed out. "If it isn’t about Clary, then …?"

"Yesterday, in the bridal shop," Luke said. "You asked me about someone. Camille."

A flock of birds rose, cawing, from the nearby trees. Simon remembered a rhyme his mother used to recite to him, about magpies. You were supposed to count them and say: One for sorrow, two for mirth, three for a wedding, four for a birth; five for silver, six for gold, seven for a secret that’s never been told.

"Right," Simon said. He had already lost count of the number of birds there were. Seven, he guessed. A secret that’s never been told. Whatever that was.

"You know about the Shadowhunters who have been found murdered around the city this past week or so," Luke said. "Don’t you?"

Simon nodded slowly. He had a bad feeling about where this was going.

"It seems Camille may be responsible," said Luke. "I couldn’t help but remember you had asked about her. Hearing her name twice, in a single day, after years of never hearing it at all-it seemed like quite a coincidence."

"Coincidences happen."

"On occasion," said Luke, "but they are rarely the most likely answer. Tonight Maryse will be summoning Raphael to interrogate him about Camille’s role in these murders. If it comes out that you knew something about Camille-that you’ve had contact with her-I don’t want you to be blind-sided, Simon."

"That makes two of us." Simon’s head had started pounding again. Were vampires even supposed to get headaches? He couldn’t remember the last time he’d had one, before the events of these past few days. "I met Camille," he said. "About four days ago. I thought I was being summoned by Raphael, but it turned out to be her. She offered to make me a deal. If I came to work for her, she’d make me the second most important vampire in the city."

"Why did she want you to work for her?" Luke’s tone was neutral.

"She knows about my Mark," Simon said. "She said Raphael betrayed her and she could use me to get back control of the clan. I got the feeling she wasn’t enormously fond of Raphael."

"That’s very curious," said Luke. "The story as I’ve heard it is that Camille took an indefinite leave of absence from heading up the clan about a year ago and made Raphael her temporary successor. If she chose him to lead in her place, why would she move against him?"

Simon shrugged. "I don’t know. I’m just telling you what she said."

"Why didn’t you tell us about her, Simon?" Luke said very quietly.

"She told me not to." Simon realized how stupid this sounded. "I’ve never met a vampire like her before," he added. "Just Raphael, and the others at the Dumont. It’s hard to explain what she was like. Everything she said, you wanted to believe. Everything she asked you to do, you wanted to do. I wanted to please her even though I knew she was just messing around with me."

The man with the coffee and doughnut cart was passing by again. Luke bought coffee and a bagel and sat down on the edge of the fountain. After a moment Simon joined him.

"The man who gave me Camille’s name called her ‘the ancient one,’" Luke said. "She is, I think, one of the very, very old vampires of this world. I imagine she would make most people feel fairly small."

"She made me feel like a bug," Simon said. "She did promise that if in five days I didn’t want to work for her, she’d never bother me again. So I told her I’d think about it."

"And have you? Thought about it?"

"If she’s killing Shadowhunters, I don’t want anything to do with her," said Simon. "I can tell you that much."

"I’m sure Maryse will be relieved to hear it."

"Now you’re just being sarcastic."

"I am not," said Luke, looking very serious. It was at moments like this that Simon could put aside his memories of Luke-Clary’s sort-of stepfather, the guy who was always around, who was always willing to give you a ride home from school or lend you ten bucks for a book or a movie ticket-and remember that Luke led the biggest wolf pack in the city, that he was someone to whom, at crucial times, the whole Clave had listened. "You forget what you are, Simon. You forget the power you have."

"I wish I could forget it," Simon said bitterly. "I wish if I didn’t use it, it would just go away."

Luke shook his head. "Power is a magnet. It draws those who desire it. Camille is one of them, but there will be others. We’ve been lucky, in a way, that it’s taken this long." He looked at Simon. "Do you think that if she summons you again, you could get word to me, or to the Conclave, letting us know where to find her?"

"Yes," Simon said slowly. "She gave me a way to contact her. But it’s not like she’s just going to show up if I blow a magic whistle. Last time she wanted to talk to me, she had her minions surprise me and then bring me to her. So just having people hang around with me while I try to contact her isn’t going to work. Otherwise you’ll get her subjugates, but you won’t get her."

"Hmm." Luke looked considering. "We’ll have to think of something clever, then."

"Better think fast. She said she’d give me five days, so that means by tomorrow she’s going to expect some kind of signal from me."

"I imagine she will," said Luke. "In fact, I’m counting on it."

Simon opened the front door of Kyle’s apartment cautiously. "Hey there," he called, coming into the entryway and hanging up his jacket. "Is anyone home?"

No one answered, but from the living room Simon could hear the familiar zap-bang-crash sounds of a video game being played. He headed into the room, holding in front of him like a peace offering the white bag of bagels he’d picked up from Bagel Zone on Avenue A. "I brought breakfast…"

His voice trailed off. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected would happen when his self-appointed bodyguards realized he’d sneaked out of the apartment behind their backs. It had definitely involved some form of the phrase "Try that again, and I’ll kill you." What it hadn’t involved was Kyle and Jace sitting on the futon couch side by side, looking for all the world like newly minted best friends. Kyle had a video game controller in his hands, and Jace was leaning forward, his elbows on his knees, watching intently. They barely seemed to notice Simon’s entrance.

"That guy over there in the corner is totally looking the other way," Jace observed, pointing at the TV screen. "A spinning wheel kick would put him out of commission."

"I can’t kick people in this game. I can only shoot them. See?" Kyle mashed some buttons.

"That’s stupid." Jace looked over and seemed to see Simon for the first time. "Back from your breakfast meeting, I see," he said without much welcome in his tone. "I bet you thought you were very clever, sneaking off like that."

"Medium clever," Simon acknowledged. "Like a cross between George Clooney in Ocean’s Eleven and those MythBusters guys, but, you know, better-looking."

"I’m always so glad I have no idea what you’re vacantly chattering about," said Jace. "It fills me with a sense of peace and well-being."

Kyle set his controller down, leaving the screen frozen on a close-up of an enormous needle-tipped gun. "I’ll take a bagel."