City of Ashes mi-2 Read online

  "I doubt he minds, somehow," Jace said, but he stood up obediently enough and reached for his stele, which was propped against the wall. As he drew a healing rune on the back of his bleeding right hand, he said, "There's something I've been meaning to ask you."

  "And what's that?"

  "When you got me out of the cell in the Silent City, how did you do it? How did you unlock the door?"

  "Oh. I just used a regular Opening rune, and—"

  She was interrupted by a harsh, tolling ring, and clapped her hand to her pocket before she realized that the sound she'd heard was much louder and sharper than any sound her phone could make. She looked around in confusion.

  "That's the Institute's doorbell," Jace said, grabbing his jacket. "Come on."

  They were halfway to the foyer when Isabelle burst out of her own bedroom door, wearing a cotton bathrobe, a pink silk sleep mask pushed up on her forehead, and a semi-dazed expression. "It's three in the morning!" she said to them, in a tone that suggested that this was all Jace's, or possibly Clary's, fault. "Who's ringing our doorbell at three in the morning?"

  "Maybe it's the Inquisitor," Clary said, feeling suddenly cold.

  "She could get in on her own," said Jace. "Any Shadowhunter could. The Institute is only closed to mundanes and Downworlders."

  Clary felt her heart contract. "Simon!" she said. "It must be him!"

  "Oh, for goodness' sake," yawned Isabelle, "is he really waking us up at this ungodly hour just to prove his love to you or something? Couldn't he have called? Mundane men are such twits." They had reached the foyer, which was empty; Max must have gone to bed on his own. Isabelle stalked across the room and toggled a switch on the far wall. Somewhere inside the cathedral a distant rumbling thump was audible. "There," Isabelle said. "Elevator's on its way."

  "I can't believe he didn't have the dignity and presence of mind just to get drunk and pass out in some gutter," said Jace. "I must say, I'm disappointed in the little fellow."

  Clary barely heard him. A rising sense of fear made her blood slow and thick. She remembered her dream: the angels, the ice, Simon with his bleeding wings. She shivered.

  Isabelle looked at her sympathetically. "It is cold in here," she observed. She reached up and took down what looked like a blue velvet coat from one of the coat hooks. "Here," she said. "Put this on."

  Clary slid the coat on and drew it close around her. It was too long, but it was warm. It had a hood, too, lined with satin. Clary pushed it back so she could see the elevator doors opening.

  They opened on a hollow box whose mirrored sides reflected her own pale and startled face. Without a pause for thought, she stepped inside.

  Isabelle looked at her in confusion. "What are you doing?"

  "It's Simon down there," Clary said. "I know it is."

  "But—"

  Suddenly, Jace was beside Clary, holding the doors open for Isabelle. "Come on, Izzy," he said. With a theatrical sigh, she followed.

  Clary tried to catch his eye as the three of them rode down in silence—Isabelle pinning up the last long coil of her hair—but Jace wouldn't look at her. He was looking at himself sidelong in the elevator mirror, whistling softly under his breath as he always did when he was nervous. She remembered the slight tremor in his touch as he had taken hold of her in the Seelie Court. She thought of the look on Simon's face—and then of him almost running to get away from her, vanishing into the shadows at the edge of the park. There was a knot of dread inside her chest and she didn't know why.

  The elevator doors opened onto the nave of the cathedral, alive with the dancing light of candles. She pushed past Jace in her hurry to get out of the elevator and practically ran down the narrow aisle between the pews. She stumbled on the dragging edge of her coat and bunched it up impatiently in her hand before dashing to the wide double doors. On the inside they were barred with bronze bolts the size of Clary's arms. As she reached for the highest bolt, the bell rang through the church again. She heard Isabelle whisper something to Jace, and then Clary was hauling on the bolt, dragging it back, and she felt Jace's hand over hers, helping her pull the heavy doors open.

  Night air swept in, guttering the candles in their brackets. The air smelled of city: of salt and fumes, cooling concrete and garbage, and underneath those familiar smells, the scent of copper, like the tang of a new penny.

  At first Clary thought the steps were empty. Then she blinked and saw Raphael standing there, his head of black curls tousled by the night breeze, his white shirt open at the neck to show the scar in the hollow of his throat. In his arms he held a body. That was all Clary saw as she stared at him in bewilderment, a body. Someone very dead, arms and legs dangling like limp ropes, head fallen back to expose the mangled throat. She felt Jace's hand tighten around her arm like a vise, and only then did she look more closely and see the familiar corduroy jacket with its torn sleeve, the blue T-shirt underneath now stained and spotted with blood, and she screamed.

  The scream made no sound. Clary felt her knees give and would have slid to the ground if Jace hadn't been holding her up. "Don't look," he said in her ear. "For God's sake, don't look." But she couldn't not look at the blood matting Simon's brown hair, his torn throat, the gashes along his dangling wrists. Black spots dotted her vision as she fought for breath.

  It was Isabelle who snatched one of the empty candelabras from the side of the door and aimed it at Raphael as if it were an enormous three-pointed spear.

  "What have you done to Simon?" For that moment, her voice clear and commanding, she sounded exactly like her mother.

  "El no es muerto," Raphael said, in a flat and emotionless voice, and laid Simon down on the ground almost at Clary's feet, with a surprising gentleness. She had forgotten how strong he must be—he had a vampire's unnatural strength despite his slightness.

  In the light of the candles that spilled through the doorway, Clary could see that Simon's shirt was soaked through at the front with blood.

  "Did you say—," she began.

  "He isn't dead," Jace said, holding her tighter. "He's not dead."

  She pulled away from him with a hard jerk and went to her knees on the concrete. She felt no disgust at touching Simon's bloodied skin as she slid her hands under his head, pulling him up into her lap. She felt only the terrified childish horror she remembered from being five years old and having broken her mother's priceless Liberty lamp. Nothing, said a voice in the back of her head, will put these pieces hack together again.

  "Simon," she whispered, touching his face. His glasses were gone. "Simon, it's me."

  "He can't hear you," said Raphael. "He's dying."

  Her head jerked up. "But you said—"

  "I said he was not dead yet," said Raphael. "But in a few minutes—ten, perhaps—his heart will slow and stop. Already he is beyond seeing or hearing anything."

  Her arms tightened around him involuntarily. "We have to get him to a hospital—or call Magnus."

  "They can't do him any good," said Raphael. "You don't understand."

  "No," said Jace, his voice as soft as silk tipped with needle-sharp points. "We don't. And perhaps you should explain yourself. Because otherwise I'm going to assume you're a rogue bloodsucker, and cut your heart out. Like I should have done last time we met."

  Raphael smiled at him without amusement. "You swore not to harm me, Shadowhunter. Have you forgotten?"

  "I didn't," said Isabelle, brandishing the candelabra.

  Raphael ignored her. He was still looking at Jace. "I remembered that night you broke into the Dumort looking for your friend. It is why I brought him here"—and he gestured at Simon—"when I found him in the hotel, instead of letting the others drink him to death. You see, he broke in, without permission, and therefore was fair game for us. But I kept him alive, knowing he was yours. I have no wish for a war with the Nephilim."

  "He broke in?" Clary said in disbelief. "Simon would never do anything that stupid and crazy."

  "But he did," said Raphael,
with the faintest trace of a smile, "because he was afraid he was becoming one of us, and he wanted to know if the process could be reversed. You might remember that when he was in the form of a rat, and you came to fetch him from us, he bit me."

  "Very enterprising of him," said Jace. "I approved."

  "Perhaps," said Raphael. "In any case, he took some of my blood into his mouth when he did it. You know that is how we pass our powers to each other. Through the blood."

  Through the blood. Clary remembered Simon jerking away from the vampire film on TV, wincing at the sunlight in McCarren Park. "He thought he was turning into one of you," she said. "He went to the hotel to see if it was true."

  "Yes," said Raphael. "The pity of it is that the effects of my blood would probably have faded over time had he done nothing. But now—" He gestured at Simon's limp body expressively.

  "Now what?" said Isabelle, with a hard edge to her voice. "Now he'll die?"

  "And rise again. Now he will be a vampire."

  The candelabra tipped forward as Isabelle's eyes widened in shock. "What?"

  Jace caught the makeshift weapon before it hit the floor. When he turned to Raphael, his eyes were bleak. "You're lying."

  "Wait and see," said Raphael. "He will die and rise as one of the Night Children. That is also why I came. Simon is one of mine now." There was nothing in his voice, no sorrow or pleasure, but Clary could not help but wonder what hidden glee he might feel at having so opportunely lucked into an effective bargaining chip.

  "There's nothing that can be done? No way to reverse it?" demanded Isabelle, panic tinging her voice. Clary thought distantly that it was strange that these two, Jace and Isabelle, who did not love Simon the way she did, were the ones doing all the talking. But perhaps they were speaking for her precisely because she couldn't bear to say a word.

  "You could cut off his head and burn his heart in a fire, but I doubt that you will do that."

  "No!" Clary's arms tightened around Simon. "Don't you dare hurt him."

  "I have no need to," said Raphael.

  "I wasn't talking to you." Clary didn't look up. "Don't you even think about it, Jace. Don't even think about it."

  There was silence. She could hear Isabelle's worried intake of breath, and Raphael of course did not breathe at all. Jace hesitated a moment before he said, "Clary, what would Simon want? Is this what he'd want for himself?"

  She jerked her head up. Jace was looking down at her, the three-pronged metal candelabra still in his hand, and suddenly an image flashed across her mental landscape of Jace holding Simon down and plunging the sharp end of it into his chest, making the blood splash up like a fountain. "Get away from us!" she screamed suddenly, so loudly that she saw the distant figures walking along the avenue in front of the cathedral turn and look behind them, as if startled at the noise.

  Jace went white to the roots of his hair, so white that his wide eyes looked like gold disks, inhuman and weirdly out of place. He said, "Clary, you don't think—"

  Simon gasped suddenly, arching upward in Clary's grasp. She screamed again and caught at him, pulling him up toward her. His eyes were wide and blind and terrified. He reached up. She wasn't sure if he was trying to touch her face or claw at her, not knowing who she was.

  "It's me," she said, gently pushing his hand down to his chest, lacing their fingers together. "Simon, it's me. It's Clary." Her hands slipped on his; when she looked down, she saw they were wet with blood from his shirt and from the tears that had slid down her face without her noticing. "Simon, I love you," she said.

  His hands tightened on hers. He breathed out—a harsh, ratcheting sound—and then did not breathe in again.

  I love you. I love you. I love you. Her last words to Simon seemed to echo in Clary's ears as he went limp in her grasp. Isabelle was suddenly next to her, saying something in her ear, but Clary couldn't hear her. The sound of rushing water, like an oncoming tidal wave, filled her ears. She watched as Isabelle tried gently to pry her hands away from Simon's, and couldn't. Clary was surprised. She didn't feel like she was holding on to him that tightly.

  Giving up, Isabelle got to her feet and turned angrily on Raphael. She was shouting. Halfway through her tirade, Clary's hearing switched back on, like a radio that had finally found a station within range. "—and now what are we supposed to do?" Isabelle screamed.

  "Bury him," said Raphael.

  The candelabra swung up again in Jace's hand. "That's not funny."

  "It isn't supposed to be," said the vampire, unfazed. "It is how we are made. We are drained, blooded, and buried. When he digs his own way out of a grave, that is when a vampire is born."

  Isabelle made a faint sound of disgust. "I don't think I could do that."

  "Some can't," said Raphael. "If no one is there to help them dig out, they stay like that, trapped like rats under the earth."

  A sound tore its way out of Clary's throat. A sob that was as raw as a scream. She said, "I won't put him in the ground."

  "Then he'll stay like this," said Raphael mercilessly. "Dead but not quite dead. Never waking."

  They were all staring down at her. Isabelle and Jace as if they were holding their breaths, waiting on her response. Raphael looked incurious, almost bored.

  "You didn't come into the Institute because you can't, isn't that right?" Clary said. "Because it's holy ground and you're unholy."

  "That's not exactly—," Jace began, but Raphael cut him off with a gesture.

  "I should tell you," said the vampire boy, "that there is not much time. The longer we wait before putting him into the ground, the less likely he'll be able to dig his own way back out of it."

  Clary looked down at Simon. He really would look as if he were sleeping, if it weren't for the long gashes along his bare skin. "We can bury him," she said. "But I want it to be in a Jewish cemetery. And I want to be there when he wakes up."

  Raphael's eyes glittered. "It will not be pleasant."

  "Nothing ever is." She set her jaw. "Let's get going. We only have a few hours until dawn."

  10

  A Fine and Private Place

  The cemetery was in the outskirts of Queens, where apartment buildings gave way to rows of orderly-looking Victorian houses painted gingerbread colors: pink, white, and blue. The streets were wide and mostly deserted, the avenue leading up to the cemetery unlit except by a single streetlight. It took them a short while with their steles to break in through the locked gates, and another while to find a spot hidden enough for Raphael to begin digging. It was at the top of a low hill, sheltered from the road below by a thick line of trees. Clary, Jace, and Isabelle were protected with glamour, but there was no way to hide Raphael, or to hide Simon's body, so the trees provided a welcome cover.

  The sides of the hill not facing the road were thickly layered with headstones, many of them bearing a pointed Star of David at the top. They gleamed white and smooth as milk in the moonlight. In the distance was a lake, its surface pleated with glittering ripples. A nice place, Clary thought. A good place to come and lay flowers on someone's grave, to sit awhile and think about their life, what they meant to you. Not a good place to come at night, under cover of darkness, to bury your friend in a shallow dirt grave without the benefit of a coffin or a service.

  "Did he suffer?" she asked Raphael.

  He looked up from his digging, leaning on the handle of the shovel like the grave digger in Hamlet. "What?"

  "Simon. Did he suffer? Did the vampires hurt him?"

  "No. The blood death is not such a bad way to die," said Raphael, his musical voice soft. "The bite drugs you. It is pleasant, like going to sleep."

  A wave of dizziness passed over her, and for a moment she thought she might faint.

  "Clary." Jace's voice snapped her out of her reverie. "Come on. You don't have to watch this."

  He held out his hand to her. Looking past him, she could see Isabelle standing with her whip in her hand. They had wrapped Simon's body in a blanket and it lay on
the ground at her feet, as if she were guarding it. Not it, Clary reminded herself fiercely. Him. Simon.

  "I want to be here when he wakes up."

  "I know. We'll come right back." When she didn't move, Jace took her unresisting arm and drew her away from the clearing and down the side of the hill. There were boulders here, just above the first line of graves; he sat down on one, zipping up his jacket. It was surprisingly chilly out. For the first time this season Clary could see her breath when she exhaled.

  She sat down on the boulder beside Jace and stared down at the lake. She could hear the rhythmic thump-thump of Raphael's spade hitting the dirt and the shoveled dirt hitting the ground. Raphael wasn't human; he worked fast. It wouldn't take that long for him to dig a grave. And Simon wasn't all that big a person; the grave wouldn't have to be that deep.

  A stab of pain twisted through her abdomen. She bent forward, hands splayed across her stomach. "I feel sick."

  "I know. That's why I brought you out here. You looked like you were going to throw up on Raphael's feet."

  She made a soft groaning noise.

  "Might have wiped the smirk off his face," Jace observed reflectively. "There's that to consider."

  "Shut up." The pain had eased. She tipped her head back, looking up at the moon, a circle of chipped silver polish floating in a sea of stars. "This is my fault."

  "It's not your fault."

  "You're right. It's our fault."

  Jace turned toward her, exasperation clear in the lines of his shoulders. "How do you figure that?"

  She looked at him silently for a moment. He needed a haircut. His hair curled the way vines did when they got too long, in looping tendrils, the color of white gold in the moonlight. The scars on his face and throat looked like they had been etched there with metallic ink. He was beautiful, she thought miserably, beautiful and there was nothing there in him, not an expression, not a slant of cheekbone or shape of jaw or curve of lips that bespoke any family resemblance to herself or her mother at all. He didn't even really look like Valentine.