City of Bones mi-1 Page 15

"You may be right," said Jace. "I've met an attractive weasel or two in my time. He looks more like a rat."

  "He does not—"

  "He's probably at home lying in a puddle of his own drool. Just wait till Isabelle gets bored with him and you have to pick up the pieces."

  "Is Isabelle likely to get bored with him?" Clary asked.

  Jace thought about this. "Yes," he said.

  Clary wondered if perhaps Isabelle was smarter than Jace gave her credit for. Maybe she would realize what an amazing guy Simon was: how funny, how smart, how cool. Maybe they'd start dating. The idea filled her with a nameless horror.

  Lost in thought, it took her several moments to realize that Jace had been saying something to her. When she blinked at him, she saw a wry grin spread across his face. "What?" she asked, ungraciously.

  "I wish you'd stop desperately trying to get my attention like this," he said. "It's become embarrassing."

  "Sarcasm is the last refuge of the imaginatively bankrupt," she told him.

  "I can't help it. I use my rapier wit to hide my inner pain."

  "Your pain will be outer soon if you don't get out of traffic. Are you trying to get run over by a cab?"

  "Don't be ridiculous," he said. "We could never get a cab that easily in this neighborhood."

  As if on cue, a narrow black car with tinted windows rumbled up to the curb and paused in front of Jace, engine purring. It was long and sleek and low to the ground like a limousine, the windows curved outward.

  Jace looked at her sideways; there was amusement in his glance, but also a certain urgency. She glanced at the car again, letting her gaze relax, letting the strength of what was real pierce the veil of glamour.

  Now the car looked like Cinderella's carriage, except instead of being pink and gold and blue like an Easter egg, it was black as velvet, its windows darkly tinted. The wheels were black, the leather trimmings all black. On the black metal driver's bench sat Brother Jeremiah, holding a set of reins in his gloved hands. His face was hidden beneath the cowl of his parchment-colored robe. On the other end of the reins were two horses, black as smoke, snarling and pawing at the sky.

  "Get in," said Jace. When she continued to stand there gaping, he took her arm and half-pushed her in through the open door of the carriage, swinging himself up after her. The carriage began to move before he had closed the door behind them. He fell back in his seat—plush and glossily upholstered—and looked over at her. "A personal escort to the Bone City is nothing to turn your nose up at."

  "I wasn't turning my nose up. I was just surprised. I wasn't expecting … I mean, I thought it was a car."

  "Just relax," said Jace. "Enjoy that new-carriage smell."

  Clary rolled her eyes and turned to look out the windows. She would have thought that a horse and carriage wouldn't have stood a chance in Manhattan traffic, but they were moving downtown easily, their soundless progression unnoticed by the snarl of taxis, buses, and SUVs that choked the avenue. In front of them a yellow cab switched lanes, cutting off their forward progress. Clary tensed, worried about the horses—then the carriage lurched upward as the horses sprang lightly to the top of the cab. She choked off a gasp. The carriage, rather than dragging along the ground, sailed up behind the horses, rolling lightly and soundlessly up and over the cab's roof and down the other side. Clary glanced backward as the carriage hit the pavement again with a jolt—the cab driver was smoking and staring ahead, utterly oblivious. "I always thought cab drivers didn't pay attention to traffic, but this is ridiculous," she said weakly.

  "Just because you can see through glamour now…" Jace let the end of the sentence hang delicately in the air between them.

  "I can only see through it when I concentrate," she said. "It hurts my head a little."

  "I bet that's because of the block in your mind. The Brothers will take care of that."

  "Then what?"

  "Then you'll see the world as it is—infinite," said Jace with a dry smile.

  "Don't quote Blake at me."

  The smile turned less dry. "I didn't think you'd recognize it. You don't strike me as someone who reads a lot of poetry."

  "Everyone knows that quote because of the Doors."

  Jace looked at her blankly.

  "The Doors. They were a band."

  "If you say so," he said.

  "I suppose you don't have much time for enjoying music," Clary said, thinking of Simon, for whom music was his entire life, "in your line of work."

  He shrugged. "Maybe the occasional wailing chorus of the damned."

  Clary looked at him quickly, to see if he was joking, but he was expressionless.

  "But you were playing the piano yesterday," she began, "at the Institute. So you must—"

  The carriage lurched upward again. Clary grabbed at the edge of her seat and stared—they were rolling along the top of a downtown M1 bus. From this vantage point she could see the upper floors of the old apartment buildings that lined the avenue, elaborately carved with gargoyles and ornamental cornices.

  "I was just messing around," said Jace, without looking at her. "My father insisted I learn to play an instrument."

  "He sounds strict, your father."

  Jace's tone was sharp. "Not at all. He indulged me. He taught me everything—weapons training, demonology, arcane lore, ancient languages. He gave me anything I wanted. Horses, weapons, books, even a hunting falcon."

  But weapons and books aren't exactly what most kids want for Christmas, Clary thought as the carriage thunked back down to the pavement. "Why didn't you mention to Hodge that you knew the men that Luke was talking to? That they were the ones who killed your dad?"

  Jace looked down at his hands. They were slim and careful hands, the hands of an artist, not a warrior. The ring she had noticed earlier flashed on his finger. She would have thought there would have been something feminine about a boy wearing a ring, but there wasn't. The ring itself was solid and heavy-looking, made of a dark burned-looking silver with a pattern of stars around the band. The letter W was carved into it. "Because if I did," he said, "he'd know I wanted to kill Valentine myself. And he'd never let me try."

  "You mean you want to kill him for revenge?"

  "For justice," said Jace. "I never knew who killed my father. Now I do. This is my chance to make it right."

  Clary didn't see how killing one person could make right the death of another, but she sensed there was no point saying that. "But you knew who killed him," she said. "It was those men. You said…"

  Jace wasn't looking at her, so Clary let her voice trail off. They were rolling through Astor Place now, narrowly dodging a purple New York University tram as it cut through traffic. Passing pedestrians looked crushed by the heavy air, like insects pinned under glass. Some groups of homeless kids were crowded around the base of a big brass statue, folded cardboard signs asking for money propped up in front of them. Clary saw a girl about her own age with a smoothly shaved bald head leaning against a brown-skinned boy with dreadlocks, his face adorned with a dozen piercings. He turned his head as the carriage rolled by as if he could see it, and she caught the gleam of his eyes. One of them was clouded, as though it had no pupil.

  "I was ten," Jace said. She turned to look at him. He was without expression. It always seemed like some color drained out of him when he talked about his father. "We lived in a manor house, out in the country. My father always said it was safer away from people. I heard them coming up the drive and went to tell him. He told me to hide, so I hid. Under the stairs. I saw those men come in. They had others with them. Not men. Forsaken. They overpowered my father and cut his throat. The blood ran across the floor. It soaked my shoes. I didn't move."

  It took a moment for Clary to realize he was done speaking, and another to find her voice. "I'm so sorry, Jace."

  His eyes gleamed in the darkness. "I don't understand why mundanes always apologize for things that aren't their fault."

  "I'm not apologizing. It's a way of—empathizing.
Of saying that I'm sorry you're unhappy."

  "I'm not unhappy," he said. "Only people with no purpose are unhappy. I've got a purpose."

  "Do you mean killing demons, or getting revenge for your father's death?"

  "Both."

  "Would your father really want you to kill those men? Just for revenge?"

  "A Shadowhunter who kills another of his brothers is worse than a demon and should be put down like one," Jace said, sounding as if he were reciting the words from a textbook.

  "But are all demons evil?" she said. "I mean, if all vampires aren't evil, and all werewolves aren't evil, maybe—"

  Jace turned on her, looking exasperated. "It's not the same thing at all. Vampires, werewolves, even warlocks, they're part-human. Part of this world, born in it. They belong here. But demons come from other worlds. They're interdimensional parasites. They come to a world and use it up. They can't build, just destroy—they can't make, only use. They drain a place to ashes and when it's dead, they move on to the next one. It's life they want—not just your life or mine, but all the life of this world, its rivers and cities, its oceans, its everything. And the only thing that stands between them and the destruction of all this"—he pointed outside the window of the carriage, waving his hand as if he meant to indicate everything in the city from the skyscrapers uptown to the clog of traffic on Houston Street—"is the Nephilim."

  "Oh," Clary said. There didn't seem to be much else to say. "How many other worlds are there?"

  "No one knows. Hundreds? Millions, maybe."

  "And they're all—dead worlds? Used up?" Clary felt her stomach drop, though it might have been only the jolt as they rolled up and over a purple Mini. "That seems so sad."

  "I didn't say that." The dark orangey light of city haze spilled in through the window, outlining his sharp profile. "There are probably other living worlds like ours. But only demons can travel between them. Because they're mostly noncorporeal, partly, but nobody knows exactly why. Plenty of warlocks have tried it, and it's never worked. Nothing from Earth can pass through the wardings between the worlds. If we could," he added, "we might be able to block them from coming here, but nobody's even been able to figure out how to do that. In fact, more and more of them are coming through. There used to be only small demon invasions into this world, easily contained. But even in my lifetime more and more of them have spilled in through the wardings. The Clave is always having to dispatch Shadowhunters, and a lot of times they don't come back."

  "But if you had the Mortal Cup, you could make more, right? More demon hunters?" Clary asked tentatively.

  "Sure," Jace said. "But we haven't had the Cup for years now, and a lot of us die young. So our numbers slowly dwindle."

  "Aren't you, uh…" Clary searched for the right word. "Reproducing?"

  Jace burst out laughing just as the carriage made a sudden, sharp left turn. He braced himself, but Clary was thrown against him. He caught her, hands holding her lightly but firmly away from him. She felt the cool impress of his ring like a sliver of ice against her sweaty skin. "Sure," he said. "We love reproducing. It's one of our favorite things."

  Clary pulled away from him, her face burning in the darkness, and turned to look out the window. They were rolling toward a heavy wrought iron gate, trellised with dark vines.

  "We're here," announced Jace as the smooth roll of wheels over pavement turned to the jounce of cobblestones. Clary glimpsed words across the arch as they rolled under it: new YORK CITY MARBLE CEMETERY.

  "But they stopped burying people in Manhattan a century ago because they ran out of room—didn't they?" she said. They were moving down a narrow alley with high stone walls on either side.

  "The Bone City has been here longer than that." The carriage came to a shuddering halt. Clary jumped as Jace stretched his arm out, but he was only reaching past her to open the door on her side. His arm was lightly muscled and downed with golden hairs fine as pollen.

  "You don't get a choice, do you?" she asked. "About being a Shadowhunter. You can't just opt out."

  "No," he said. The door swung open, letting in a blast of muggy air. The carriage had drawn to a stop on a wide square of green grass surrounded by mossy marble walls. "But if I had a choice, this is still what I'd choose."

  "Why?" she asked.

  He raised an eyebrow, which made Clary instantly jealous. She'd always wanted to be able to do that. "Because," he said. "It's what I'm good at."

  He jumped down from the carriage. Clary slid to the edge of her seat, dangling her legs. It was a long drop to the cobblestones. She jumped. The impact stung her feet, but she didn't fall. She swung around in triumph to find Jace watching her. "I would have helped you down," he said.

  She blinked. "It's okay. You didn't have to."

  He glanced behind him. Brother Jeremiah was descending from his perch behind the horses in a silent fall of robes. He cast no shadow on the sun-baked grass.

  Come, he said. He glided away from the carriage and the comforting lights of Second Avenue, moving toward the dark center of the garden. It was clear that he expected them to follow.

  The grass was dry and crackling underfoot, the marble walls to either side smooth and pearly. There were names carved into the stone of the walls, names and dates. It took Clary a moment to realize that they were grave markers. A chill scraped up her spine. Where were the bodies? In the walls, buried upright as if they'd been walled in alive … ?

  She had forgotten to look where she was going. When she collided with something unmistakably alive, she yelped out loud.

  It was Jace. "Don't screech like that. You'll wake the dead."

  She frowned at him. "Why are we stopping?"

  He pointed at Brother Jeremiah, who had come to a halt in front of a statue just slightly taller than he was, its base overgrown with moss. The statue was of an angel. The marble of the statue was so smooth it was almost translucent. The face of the angel was fierce and beautiful and sad. In long white hands the angel held a cup, its rim studded with marble jewels. Something about the statue tickled Clary's memory with an uneasy familiarity. There was a date inscribed on the base, 1234, and words inscribed around it: nephilim: facilis descensus averni.

  "Is that meant to be the Mortal Cup?" she asked.

  Jace nodded. "And that's the motto of the Nephilim—the Shadowhunters—there on the base."

  "What does it mean?"

  Jace's grin was a white flash in the darkness. "It means 'Shadowhunters: Looking Better in Black Than the Widows of our Enemies Since 1234.'"

  "Jace-"

  It means, said Jeremiah, The descent into Hell is easy.

  "Nice and cheery," said Clary, but a shiver passed over her skin despite the heat.

  "It's the Brothers' little joke, having that here," said Jace. "You'll see."

  She looked at Brother Jeremiah. He had drawn a stele, faintly glowing, from some inner pocket of his robe, and with the tip he traced the pattern of a rune on the statue's base. The mouth of the stone angel suddenly gaped wide in a silent scream, and a yawning black hole opened in the grassy turf at Jeremiah's feet. It looked like an open grave.

  Slowly Clary approached the edge of it and peered inside. A set of granite steps led down into the hole, their edges worn soft by years of use. Torches were set along the steps at intervals, flaring hot green and icy blue. The bottom of the stairs was lost in darkness.

  Jace took the stairs with the ease of someone who finds a situation familiar if not exactly comfortable. Halfway to the first torch, he paused and looked up at her. "Come on," he said impatiently.

  Clary had barely set her foot on the first step when she felt her arm caught in a cold grip. She looked up in astonishment. Brother Jeremiah was holding her wrist, his icy white fingers digging into the skin. She could see the bony gleam of his scarred face beneath the edge of his cowl.

  Do not fear, said his voice inside her head. It would take more than a single human cry to wake these dead.

  When he released
her arm, she skittered down the stairs after Jace, her heart pounding against her ribs. He was waiting for her at the foot of the steps. He'd taken one of the green burning torches out of its bracket and was holding it at eye level. It lent a pale green cast to his skin. "You all right?"

  She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The stairs ended in a shallow landing; ahead of them stretched a tunnel, long and black, ridged with the curling roots of trees. A faint bluish light was visible at the tunnel's end. "It's so… dark," she said lamely.

  "You want me to hold your hand?"

  Clary put both her hands behind her back like a small child. "Don't talk down to me."

  "Well, I could hardly talk up to you. You're too short." Jace glanced past her, the torch showering sparks as he moved. "No need to stand on ceremony, Brother Jeremiah," he drawled. "Lead on. We'll be right behind you."

  Clary jumped. She still wasn't used to the archivist's silent comings and goings. He moved noiselessly from where he had been standing behind her and headed into the tunnel. After a moment she followed, knocking Jace's outstretched hand aside as she went.

  Clary's first sight of the Silent City was of row upon row of tall marble arches that rose overhead, disappearing into the distance like the orderly rows of trees in an orchard. The marble itself was a pure, ashy ivory, hard and polished-looking, inset in places with narrow strips of onyx, jasper, and jade. As they moved away from the tunnel and toward the forest of arches, Clary saw that the floor was inscribed with the same runes that sometimes decorated Jace's skin with lines and whorls and swirling patterns.

  As the three of them passed through the first arch, something large and white loomed up on her left side, like an iceberg off the bow of the Titanic. It was a block of white stone, smooth and square, with a sort of door inset into the front. It reminded her of a child-size playhouse, almost but not quite big enough for her to stand up inside.

  "It's a mausoleum," said Jace, directing a flash of torchlight at it. Clary could see that a rune was carved into the door, which was sealed shut with bolts of iron. "A tomb. We bury our dead here."

  "All your dead?" she said, half-wanting to ask him if his father was buried here, but he had already moved ahead, out of earshot. She hurried after him, not wanting to be alone with Brother Jeremiah in this spooky place. "I thought you said this was a library."