City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments #4)(39)
Author: Cassandra Clare

"Talto!" Isabelle yelped. "That’s it. I knew I was remembering something. I knew there was a connection!" Quickly she told them about the Church of Talto, what Clary had found there, and how it connected to the dead half-demon baby at Beth Israel.

"I wish you’d told me about this before," Alec said. "Yes, Talto is another name for Lilith. And Lilith has always been associated with babies. She was Adam’s first wife, but she fled from the Garden of Eden because she didn’t want to obey Adam or God. God cursed her for her disobedience, though-any child she bore would die. The legend says she tried over and over to have a child, but they were all born dead. Eventually she swore she would have vengeance against God by weakening and murdering infant humans. You might say she’s the demon goddess of dead children."

"But you said she was the mother of demons," said Maia.

"She was able to create demons by scattering drops of her blood on the earth in a place called Edom," said Alec. "Because they were born out of her hatred for God and mankind, they became demons." Aware that they were all staring at him, he shrugged. "It’s just a story."

"All stories are true," said Isabelle. This had been a tenet of her beliefs since she was a child. All Shadowhunters believed it. There was no one religion, no one truth-and no myth lacked meaning. "You know that, Alec."

"I know something else, too," Alec said, handing her back the card. "That telephone number and that address are crap. No way they’re real."

"Maybe," Isabelle said, tucking the card into her pocket. "But we don’t have anywhere else to start looking. So we’re going to start there."

Simon could only stare. The body floating inside the coffin-Sebastian’s-didn’t appear to be alive; at least, he wasn’t breathing. But he clearly wasn’t exactly dead, either. It had been two months. If he were dead, Simon was fairly sure, he’d look like he was in a lot worse shape than he did. His body was very white, like marble; one hand was a bandaged stump, but he was otherwise unmarked. He appeared to be asleep, his eyes shut, his arms loose at his sides. Only the fact that his chest wasn’t rising or falling indicated that something was very wrong.

"But," Simon said, knowing he sounded ridiculous, "he’s dead. Jace killed him."

Lilith placed a pale hand on the glass surface of the coffin. "Jonathan," she said, and Simon remembered that that was, infact, his name. Her voice had an odd soft quality when she said it, as if she were crooning to a child. "He’s beautiful, isn’t he?"

"Um," said Simon, looking with loathing at the creature inside the coffin-the boy who had murdered nine-year-old Max Lightwood. The creature who had killed Hodge. Had tried to kill them all. "Not my type, really."

"Jonathan is unique," she said. "He is the only Shadowhunter I have ever known of who is part Greater Demon. This makes him very powerful."

"He’s dead," Simon said. He felt that, somehow, it was important to keep making this point, though Lilith didn’t seem to quite grasp it.

Lilith, gazing down at Sebastian, frowned. "It’s true. Jace Lightwood slipped up behind him and stabbed him in the back, through to the heart."

"How do you-"

"I was in Idris," said Lilith. "When Valentine opened the doorway to the demon worlds, I came through. Not to fight in his stupid battle. Out of curiosity more than anything else. That Valentine should have such hubris-" She broke off, shrugging. "Heaven smote him down for it, of course. I saw the sacrifice he made; I saw the Angel rise and turn on him. I saw what was brought back. I am the oldest of demons; I know the Old Laws. A life for a life. I raced to Jonathan. It was almost too late. That which was human about him died instantly-his heart had ceased to beat, his lungs to inflate. The Old Laws were not enough. I tried to bring him back then. He was too far gone. All I could do was this. Preserve him for this moment."

Simon wondered briefly what would happen if he made a run for it-dashed past this insane demon and threw himself off the roof of the building. He couldn’t be harmed by another living creature; that was the result of the Mark, but he doubted its power extended to protecting him against the ground. Still, he was a vampire. If he fell forty stories and smashed every bone in his body, would he heal from that? He swallowed hard and found Lilith looking at him with amusement.

"Don’t you want to know," she said in her cold, seductive voice, "what moment I mean?" Before he could answer, she leaned forward, her elbows on the coffin. "I suppose you know the story of the way the Nephilim came to be? How the Angel Raziel mixed his blood with the blood of men, and gave it to a man to drink, and that man became the first of the Nephilim?"

"I’ve heard it."

"In effect the Angel created a new race of creature. And now, with Jonathan, a new race has been born again. As Jonathan Shadowhunter led the first Nephilim, so shall this Jonathan lead the new race that I intend to create."

"The new race you intend-" Simon held up his hands. "You know what, you want to lead a new race starting off with one dead guy, you go right ahead. I don’t see what this has to do with me."

"He is dead now. He need not remain so." Lilith’s voice was cool, unemotional. "There is, of course, one kind of Downworlder whose blood offers the possibility of, shall we say, resurrection."

"Vampires," said Simon. "You want me to turn Sebastian into a vampire?"

"His name is Jonathan." Her tone was sharp. "And yes, in a sense. I want you to bite him, to drink his blood, and to give him your blood in exchange-"

"I won’t do it."

"Are you so sure of that?"

"A world without Sebastian"-Simon used the name deliberately-"in it is a better world than one with him in it. I won’t do it." Anger was rising in Simon, a swift tide. "Anyway, I couldn’t if I wanted to. He’s dead. Vampires can’t bring back the dead. You ought to know that, if you know so much. Once the soul is gone from the body, nothing can bring someone back. Thankfully."

Lilith bent her gaze on him. "You really don’t know, do you?" she said. "Clary never told you."

Simon was getting fed up. "Never told me what?"

She chuckled. "An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a life for a life. To prevent chaos there must be order. If a life is given to the Light, a life is owed to the Dark as well."

"I have," Simon said slowly and deliberately, "literally no idea what you’re talking about. And I don’t care. You villains and your creepy eugenics programs are starting to bore me. So I’m going to leave now. You’re welcome to try to stop me by threatening or hurting me. I encourage you to go ahead and try."

She looked at him and chuckled. "’Cain rose up,’" she said. "You are a bit like him whose Mark you bear. He was stubborn, as you are. Foolhardy, too."

"He went up against-" Simon choked on the word. God. "I’m just dealing with you." He turned to leave.

"I would not turn your back on me, Daylighter," said Lilith, and there was something in her voice that made him look back at her, where she leaned on Sebastian’s coffin. "You think you cannot be hurt," she said with a sneer. "And indeed I cannot lift a hand against you. I am not a fool; I have seen the holy fire of the divine. I have no wish to see it turned against me. I am not Valentine, to bargain with what I cannot understand. I am a demon, but a very old one. I know humanity better than you might think. I understand the weaknesses of pride, of lust for power, of desire of the flesh, of greed and vanity and love."

"Love isn’t a weakness."

"Oh, isn’t it?" she said, and glanced past him, with a look as cold and pointed as an icicle.

He turned, not wanting to, knowing he must, and looked behind him.

There on the brick walkway was Jace. He wore a dark suit and a white shirt. Standing in front of him was Clary, still in the pretty gold-colored dress she had worn to the Ironworks party. Her long, wavy red hair had come out of its knot and hung down around her shoulders. She stood very still in the circle of Jace’s arms. It would almost have looked like a romantic picture if it were not for the fact that in one of his hands, Jace was holding a long and glittering bone-handled knife, and the edge of it was pressed against Clary’s throat.

Simon stared at Jace in total and absolute shock. There was no emotion on Jace’s face, no light in his eyes. He seemed utterly blank.

Very slightly he inclined his head.

"I brought her, Lady Lilith," he said. "Just as you asked."

Chapter 17

AND CAIN ROSE UP

Clary had never been so cold.

Even when she had crawled out of Lake Lyn, coughing and sputtering its poisonous water onto the shore, she hadn’t been this cold. Even when she had thought Jace was dead, she hadn’t felt this terrible icy paralysis in her heart. Then she had burned with rage, rage against her father. Now she just felt ice, all the way down to her toes.

She had come back to consciousness in the marble lobby of a strange building, under the shadow of an unlit chandelier. Jace had been carrying her, one arm under her bent knees, the other supporting her head. Still dizzy and groggy, she’d buried her head against his neck for a moment, trying to remember where she was.

"What happened?" she had whispered.

They had reached the elevator. Jace pushed the button, and Clary heard the rattle that meant the machine was moving down toward them. But where were they?

"You were unconscious," he said.

"But how-" She remembered then, and fell silent. His hands on her, the sting of her stele on her skin, the wave of darkness that had come over her. Something wrong with the rune he had drawn on her, the way it had looked and felt. She stayed motionless in his arms for a moment, and then said:

"Put me down."

He set her down on her feet, and they looked at each other. Only a small space separated them. She could have reached out and touched him, but for the first time since she had met him, she didn’t want to. She had the terrible feeling that she was looking at a stranger. He looked like Jace, and sounded like Jace when he spoke, and had felt like Jace when she was holding him. But his eyes were strange and distant, as was the tiny smile playing about his mouth.

The elevator doors opened behind him. She remembered standing in the nave of the Institute, saying "I love you" to a closed elevator door. The gap yawned behind him now, as black as the mouth of a cave. She felt for the stele in her pocket; it was gone.

"You knocked me out," she said. "With a rune. You brought me here. Why?"

His beautiful face was entirely, carefully blank. "I had to do it. I didn’t have a choice."

She turned and ran then, going for the door, but he was faster than she was. He always had been. He swung in front of her, blocking her path, and held out his hands. "Clary, don’t run," he said. "Please. For me."

She looked at him incredulously. His voice was the same-he sounded just like Jace, but not like him-like a recording of him, she thought, all the tones and patterns of his voice there, but the life that animated it gone. How had she not realized it before? She had thought he sounded remote because of stress and pain, but no. It was that he was gone. Her stomach turned over, and she bolted for the door again, only to have him catch her around the waist and swing her back toward him. She pushed at him, her fingers locking into the fabric of his shirt, ripping it sideways.

She froze, staring. On the skin of his chest, just over his heart, was a rune.

It wasn’t one she had ever seen before. It wasn’t black, like Shadowhunter runes were, but dark red, the color of blood. And it lacked the delicate grace of the runes from the Gray Book. It was scrawling, ugly, its lines sharp and cruel rather than curving and generous.

Jace didn’t seem to see it. He stared down at himself as if wondering what she was gazing at, then looked at her, puzzled. "It’s all right. You didn’t hurt me."

"That rune-," she began, but cut herself off, hard. Maybe he didn’t know it was there. "Let me go, Jace," she said instead, backing away from him. "You don’t have to do this."

"You’re wrong about that," he said, and reached for her again.

This time she didn’t fight. What would happen even if she escaped? She couldn’t just leave him here. Jace was still there, she thought, trapped somewhere behind those blank eyes, maybe screaming for her. She had to stay with him. Had to know what was happening. She let him pick her up and carry her into the elevator.

"The Silent Brothers will notice you left," she said, as the buttons for floor after floor lit up while the elevator rose. "They’ll alert the Clave. They’ll come looking-"

"I need not fear the Brothers. I wasn’t a prisoner; they weren’t expecting me to want to leave. They won’t notice I’m gone until they wake up tomorrow morning."

"What if they wake up earlier than that?"

"Oh," he said, with a cold certainly, "they won’t. It’s much more likely the other partygoers at the Ironworks will notice you’re missing. But what can they do about it? They’ll have no idea where you went, and Tracking to this building is blocked." He stroked her hair back from her face, and she went still. "You’re just going to have to trust me. No one’s coming for you."