City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments #4)(41)
Author: Cassandra Clare

"Alec," she said softly. Her pendant was writhing as if alive, its ruby heart painfully hot against her skin.

In a moment her brother was beside her. He raised his blade, and the room was full of light. Isabelle’s hand flew to her mouth. "Oh, dear God," she whispered. "Oh, by the Angel, no."

"You’re not his mother." Simon’s voice cracked as he said it; Lilith didn’t even turn to look at him. She still had her hands on the glass coffin. Sebastian floated inside it, silent and unaware. His feet were bare, Simon noticed. "He has a mother. Clary’s mother. Clary’s his sister. Sebastian-Jonathan-won’t be too pleased if you hurt her."

Lilith looked up at that, and laughed. "A brave attempt, Daylighter," she said. "But I know better. I saw my son grow up, you know. Often I visited him in the form of an owl. I saw how the woman who had given birth to him hated him. He has no love lost for her, nor should he, nor does he care for his sister. He is more like me than he is like Jocelyn Morgenstern." Her dark eyes moved from Simon to Jace and Clary. They had not moved, not really. Clary still stood in the circle of Jace’s arms, with the knife near her throat. He held it easily, carelessly, as if he were barely paying attention. But Simon knew how quickly Jace’s seeming uninterest could explode into violent action.

"Jace," said Lilith. "Step into the circle. Bring the girl with you."

Obediently Jace moved forward, pushing Clary ahead of him. As they crossed the barrier of the black-painted line, the runes inside the line flashed a sudden, brilliant red-and something else lit as well. A rune on the left side of Jace’s chest, just above his heart, glowed suddenly, with such brightness that Simon closed his eyes. Even with his eyes closed, he could still see the rune, a vicious swirl of angry lines, printed against the inside of his eyelids.

"Open your eyes, Daylighter," Lilith snapped. "The time has come. Will you give me your blood, or will you refuse? You know the price if you do."

Simon looked down at Sebastian in his coffin-and did a double take. A rune that was the twin of the one that had just flashed on Jace’s chest was visible on his bare chest as well, just beginning to fade as Simon stared down at him. In a moment it was gone, and Sebastian was still and white again. Unmoving. Unbreathing.

Dead.

"I can’t bring him back for you," Simon said. "He’s dead. I’d give you my blood, but he can’t swallow it."

Her breath hissed through her teeth in exasperation, and for a moment her eyes glowed with a harsh acidic light. "First you must bite him," she said. "You are a Daylighter. Angel blood runs through your body, through your blood and tears, through the fluid in your fangs. Your Daylighter blood will revive him enough that he can swallow and drink. Bite him and give him your blood, and bring him back to me."

Simon stared at her wildly. "But what you’re saying-you’re saying I have the power to bring back the dead?"

"Since you’ve been a Daylighter you’ve had that power," she said. "But not the right to use it."

"The right?"

She smiled, tracing the tip of one long red-painted nail across the top of Sebastian’s coffin. "History is written by the winners, they say," she said. "There might not be so much of a difference between the side of Light and the side of Dark as you suppose. After all, without the Dark, there is nothing for the Light to burn away."

Simon looked at her blankly.

"Balance," she clarified. "There are laws older than any you can imagine. And one of them is that you cannot bring back what is dead. When the soul has left the body, it belongs to death. And it cannot be taken back without a price to pay."

"And you’re willing to pay it? For him?" Simon gestured toward Sebastian.

"He is the price." She threw her head back and laughed. It sounded almost like human laughter. "If the Light brings back a soul, then the Dark has the right to bring one back as well. This is my right. Or perhaps you should ask your little friend Clary what I’m talking about."

Simon looked at Clary. She looked as if she might pass out. "Raziel," she said faintly. "When Jace died-"

"Jace died?" Simon’s voice went up an octave. Jace, despite being the subject under discussion, remained serene and expressionless, his knife hand steady.

"Valentine stabbed him," Clary said in an almost-whisper. "And then the Angel killed Valentine, and he said I could have anything I wanted. And I said I wanted Jace back, I wanted him back, and he brought him back-for me." Her eyes were huge in her small white face. "He was dead for only a few minutes … hardly any time at all…"

"It was enough," breathed Lilith. "I was hovering near my son during his battle with Jace; I saw him fall and die. I followed Jace to the lake, I watched as Valentine slew him, and then as the Angel raised him again. I knew that was my chance. I raced back to the river and took my son’s body from it… I kept it preserved for just this moment." She looked fondly down at the coffin. "Everything in balance. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. A life for a life. Jace is the counterweight. If Jace lives, then so shall Jonathan."

Simon couldn’t tear his eyes away from Clary. "What she’s saying-about the Angel-it’s true?" he said. "And you never told anyone?"

To his surprise it was Jace who answered. Brushing his cheek against Clary’s hair, he said, "It was our secret."

Clary’s green eyes flashed, but she didn’t move.

"So you see, Daylighter," said Lilith, "I am only taking what is mine by right. The Law says that the one who was first brought back must be here in the circle when the second is returned." She indicated Jace with a contemptuous flick of her finger. "He is here. You are here. All is in readiness."

"Then you don’t need Clary," said Simon. "Leave her out of it. Let her go."

"Of course I need her. I need her to motivate you. I cannot hurt you, Mark-bearer, or threaten you, or kill you. But I can cut out your heart when I cut out her life. And I will."

She looked toward Clary, and Simon’s gaze followed hers.

Clary. She was so pale that she looked almost blue, though perhaps that was the cold. Her green eyes were vast in her pale face. A trickle of drying blood spilled from her collarbone to the neckline of her dress, now spotted with red. Her hands hung at her sides, loose, but they were shaking.

Simon saw her as she was, but also as she had been when she was seven years old, skinny arms and freckles and those blue plastic barrettes she’d worn in her hair until she was eleven. He thought of the first time he’d noticed she had a real girl’s shape under the baggy T-shirt and jeans she always wore, and how he hadn’t been sure if he should look or look away. He thought of her laugh and her quick pencil moving across a page, leaving intricately designed images behind: spired castles, running horses, brightly colored characters she’d made up in her head. You can walk to school by yourself, her mother had said, but only if Simon goes with you. He thought of her hand in his when they crossed the street, and his own sense of the awesome task that he had undertaken: the responsibility for her safety.

He had been in love with her once, and maybe some part of him always would be, because she had been his first. But that wasn’t what mattered now. She was Clary; she was part of him; she always had been and would be forever. As he stared at her, she shook her head, very slightly. He knew what she was saying. Don’t do it. Don’t give her what she wants. Let whatever happens to me happen.

He stepped into the circle; as his feet passed over the painted line, he felt a shiver, like an electric shock, go through him. "All right," he said. "I’ll do it."

"No!" Clary cried, but Simon didn’t look at her. He was watching Lilith, who smiled a cool, gloating smile as she raised her left hand and passed it across the surface of the coffin.

The lid of it vanished, peeling back in a way that reminded Simon bizarrely of peeling back the lid of a tin of sardines. As the top layer of glass pulled away, it melted and ran, dripping down the sides of the granite pedestal, crystallizing into tiny shards of glass as the drops struck the ground.

The coffin was open now, like a fish tank; Sebastian’s body drifted inside, and Simon thought he could once again see the flash of the rune on his chest as Lilith reached into the tank. As Simon watched, she took Sebastian’s dangling arms and crossed them over his chest with an oddly tender gesture, tucking the bandaged one under the one that was whole. She brushed a lock of his wet hair away from his still, white forehead, and stepped back, shaking milky water from her hands.

"To your work, Daylighter," she said.

Simon moved toward the coffin. Sebastian’s face was slack, his eyelids still. No pulse beat in his throat. Simon remembered how much he had wanted to drink Maureen’s blood. How he had craved the feeling of his teeth sinking into her skin and freeing the salty blood beneath. But this-this was feeding off a corpse. The very thought made his stomach turn.

Though he wasn’t looking at her, he was aware of Clary watching him. He could feel her breath as he bent over Sebastian. He could sense Jace, too, watching him out of blank eyes. Reaching into the coffin, he closed his hands around Sebastian’s cold, slippery shoulders. Biting back the urge to be sick, he bent and sank his teeth into Sebastian’s throat. Black demon blood poured into his mouth, as bitter as poison.

***

Isabelle moved silently among the stone pedestals. Alec was with her, Sandalphon in his hand, sending light winging through the room. Maia was in one corner of the room, bent over and retching, her hand braced against the wall; Jordan hovered over her, looking as if he wanted to reach out and stroke her back, but was afraid of being rebuffed.

Isabelle didn’t blame Maia for throwing up. If she hadn’t had years of training, she would have thrown up herself. She had never seen anything like what she was looking at now. There were dozens, maybe fifty, of the stone pedestals in the room. Atop each one was a low crib-like basket. Inside each basket was a baby. And every one of the babies was dead.

She had held out hope at first, as she walked up and down the rows, that she might find one alive. But these children had been dead for some time. Their skin was gray, their small faces bruised and discolored. They were wrapped in thin blankets, and though it was cold in the room, Isabelle didn’t think it was cold enough for them to have frozen to death. She wasn’t sure how they had died; she couldn’t bear to investigate too closely. This was clearly a matter for the Clave.

Alec, behind her, had tears running down his face; he was cursing under his breath by the time they reached the last of the pedestals. Maia had straightened up and was leaning against the window; Jordan had given her some kind of cloth, maybe a handkerchief, to hold to her face. The cold white lights of the city burned behind her, cutting through the dark glass like diamond drills.

"Iz," Alec said. "Who could have done something like this? Why would someone-even a demon-"

He broke off. Isabelle knew what he was thinking about. Max, when he had been born. She had been seven, Alec nine. They had bent over their little brother in the cradle, amused and enchanted by this fascinating new creature. They’d played with his little fingers, laughed at the weird faces he made when they tickled him.

Her heart twisted. Max. As she had moved down the lines of little cribs, now turned into little coffins, a sense of overwhelming dread had begun to press down on her. She couldn’t ignore the fact that the pendant around her neck was glowing with a harsh, steady glow. The sort of glow she might have expected if she were facing down a Greater Demon.

She thought of what Clary had seen in the morgue in Beth Israel. He looked just like a normal baby. Except for his hands. They were twisted into claws…

With great care she reached into one of the cribs. Careful not to touch the baby, she twitched aside the thin blanket that wrapped its body.

She felt the breath puff out of her in a gasp. Ordinary chubby baby arms, round baby wrists. The hands looked soft and new. But the fingers-the fingers were twisted into claws, as black as burned bone, tipped with sharp little talons. She took an involuntary step back.

"What?" Maia moved toward them. She still looked sickened, but her voice was steady. Jordan followed her, hands in his pockets. "What did you find?" she asked.

"By the Angel." Alec, beside Isabelle, was looking down into the crib. "Is this-like the baby Clary was telling you about? The one at Beth Israel?"

Slowly Isabelle nodded. "I guess it wasn’t just the one baby," she said. "Someone’s been trying to make a lot more of them. More … Sebastians."

"Why would anyone want more of him?" Alec’s voice was full of nak*d hatred.

"He was fast and strong," Isabelle said. It almost hurt physically to say anything complimentary about the boy who had killed her brother and tried to kill her. "I guess they’re trying to breed a race of super-warriors."

"It didn’t work." Maia’s eyes were dark with sadness.

A noise so soft it was almost inaudible teased at the edge of Isabelle’s hearing. Her head jerked up, her hand going to her belt, where her whip was coiled. Something in the thick shadows at the edge of the room, near the door, moved, just the faintest flicker, but Isabelle had already broken away from the others and was running for the door. She burst out into the hallway near the elevators. There was something there-a shadow that had broken free of the greater darkness and was moving, edging along the wall. Isabelle picked up speed and threw herself forward, knocking the shadow to the floor.