City of Ashes mi-2 Read online

  Jace stroked his fingers along the blades—they were flat and gray-white, waiting to be named. "I didn't have a chance to get to the armory, so these are the weapons we have. I thought we might as well get as ready as we can before Magnus gets here." He lifted the first blade. "Abrariel." The seraph knife shimmered and changed color as he named it. He held it out to Luke.

  "I'm all right," Luke said, and drew his jacket aside to show the kindjal thrust through his belt.

  Jace handed Abrariel to Clary, who took the weapon silently. It was warm in her hand, as if a secret life vibrated inside it.

  "Camael," Jace said to the next blade, making it shudder and glow. "Telantes," he said to the third.

  "Do you ever use Raziel's name?" Clary asked as Jace slid the blades into his belt and shrugged his jacket back on, getting to his feet.

  "Never," Luke said. "That's not done." His gaze scanned the road behind Clary, looking for Magnus. She could sense his anxiety, but before she could say anything else, her phone buzzed. She flipped it open and handed it wordlessly to Jace. He read the text message, his eyebrows lifting.

  "It looks like the Inquisitor gave Valentine until sunset to decide whether he wants me or the Mortal Instruments more," he said. "She and Maryse have been fighting for hours, so she hasn't noticed I'm gone yet."

  He handed Clary back her phone. Their fingers brushed and Clary jerked her hand back, despite the thick woolly glove that covered her skin. She saw a shadow pass over his features, but he said nothing to her. Instead, he turned to Luke and demanded, with surprising abruptness, "Did the Inquisitor's son die? Is that why she's like this?"

  Luke sighed and thrust his hands into the pockets of his coat. "How did you figure that out?"

  "The way she reacts when someone says his name. It's the only time I've ever seen her show any human feelings."

  Luke expelled a breath. He had pushed his glasses up and his eyes were squinted against the harsh wind off the river. "The Inquisitor is the way she is for many reasons. Stephen is only one of them."

  "It's weird," Jace said. "She doesn't seem like someone who even likes kids."

  "Not other people's," said Luke. "It was different with her own. Stephen was her golden boy. In fact, he was everyone's… everyone who knew him. He was one of those people who was good at everything, unfailingly nice without being boring, handsome without everyone hating him. Well, maybe we hated him a little."

  "He went to school with you?" Clary said. "And my mother—and Valentine? Is that how you knew him?"

  "The Herondales were in charge of running the London Institute, and Stephen went to school there. I saw him more after we all graduated, when he moved back to Alicante. And there was a time when I saw him very often indeed." Luke's eyes had gone distant, the same blue-gray as the river. "After he was married."

  "So he was in the Circle?" Clary asked.

  "Not then," Luke said. "He joined the Circle after I—well, after what happened to me. Valentine needed a new second in command and he wanted Stephen. Imogen, who was utterly loyal to the Clave, was hysterical—she begged Stephen to reconsider—but he cut her off. Wouldn't speak to her, or his father. He was absolutely in thrall to Valentine. Went everywhere trailing after him like a shadow." Luke paused. "The thing is, Valentine didn't think Stephen's wife was suitable for him. Not for someone who was going to be second in command of the Circle. She had—undesirable family connections." The pain in Luke's voice surprised Clary. Had he cared that much about these people? "Valentine forced Stephen to divorce Amatis and remarry—his second wife was a very young girl, only eighteen years old, named Céline. She, too, was utterly under Valentine's influence, did everything he told her to, no matter how bizarre. Then Stephen was killed in a Circle raid on a vampire nest. Céline killed herself when she found out. She was eight months pregnant at the time. And Stephen's father died, too, of heartbreak. So that was Imogen's whole family, all gone. They couldn't even bury her daughter-in-law and grandchild's ashes in the Bone City, because Céline was a suicide. She was buried at a crossroads outside Alicante. Imogen survived, but—she turned to ice. When the Inquisitor was killed in the Uprising, Imogen was offered his job. She returned from London to Idris—but never, as far as I heard, spoke about Stephen again. But it does explain why she hates Valentine as much as she does."

  "Because my father poisons everything he touches?" Jace said bitterly.

  "Because your father, for all his sins, still has a son, and she doesn't. And because she blames him for Stephen's death."

  "And she's right," said Jace. "It was his fault."

  "Not entirely," said Luke. "He offered Stephen a choice, and Stephen chose. Whatever else his faults were, Valentine never blackmailed or threatened anyone into joining the Circle. He wanted only willing followers. The responsibility for Stephen's choices rests with him."

  "Free will," said Clary.

  "There's nothing free about it," said Jace. "Valentine—"

  "Offered you a choice, didn't he?" Luke said. "When you went to see him. He wanted you to stay, didn't he? Stay and join up with him?"

  "Yes." Jace looked out across the water toward Governors Island. "He did." Clary could see the river reflected in his eyes; they looked steely, as if the gray water had drowned all their gold.

  "And you said no," said Luke.

  Jace glared. "I wish people would stop guessing that. It's making me feel predictable."

  Luke turned away as if to hide a smile, and paused. "Someone's coming."

  Someone was indeed coming, someone very tall with black hair that blew in the wind. "Magnus," Clary said. "But he looks … different."

  As he drew closer, she saw that his hair, normally spiked up and glittered like a disco ball, hung cleanly past his ears like a sheet of black silk. The rainbow leather pants had been replaced by a neat, old-fashioned dark suit and a black frock coat with glimmering silver buttons. His cat's eyes glowed amber and green. "You look surprised to see me," he said.

  Jace glanced at his watch. "We did wonder if you were coming."

  "I said I would come, so I came. I just needed time to prepare. This isn't some hat trick, Shadowhunter. This is going to take some serious magic." He turned to Luke. "How's the arm?"

  "Fine. Thank you." Luke was always polite.

  "That's your truck parked up by the factory, isn't it?" Magnus pointed. "It's awfully butch for a bookseller."

  "Oh, I don't know," said Luke. "All that lugging around heavy book boxes, climbing stacks, hard-core alphabetizing…"

  Magnus laughed. "Can you unlock the truck for me? I mean, I could do it myself"—he wiggled his fingers—"but that seems rude."

  "Sure." Luke shrugged and they headed back toward the factory. When Clary made as if to follow them, though, Jace caught her arm. "Wait. I want to talk to you for a second."

  Clary watched as Magnus and Luke headed for the truck. They made an odd pair, the tall warlock in a long black coat and the shorter, stockier man in jeans and flannel, but they were both Downworlders, both trapped in the same space between the mundane and the supernatural worlds.

  "Clary," Jace said. "Earth to Clary. Where are you?"

  She looked back at him. The sun was setting off the water now, behind him, leaving his face in shadow and turning his hair to a halo of gold. "Sorry."

  "It's all right." He touched her face, gently, with the back of his hand. "You disappear so completely into your head sometimes," he said. "I wish I could follow you."

  You do, she wanted to say. You live in my head all the time. Instead, she said, "What did you want to tell me?"

  He dropped his hand. "I want you to put the Fearless rune on me. Before Luke gets back."

  "Why before he gets back?"

  "Because he's going to say it's a bad idea. But it's the only chance of defeating Agramon. Luke hasn't—encountered it, he doesn't know what it's like. But I do."

  She searched his face. "What was it like?"

  His eyes were unreadable. "You see what
you fear the most in the world."

  "I don't even know what that is."

  "Trust me. You don't want to." He glanced down. "Do you have your stele?"

  "Yeah, I have it." She pulled the woolly glove off her right hand and fished for the stele. Her hand was shaking a little as she drew it out. "Where do you want the Mark?"

  "The closer it is to the heart, the more effective." He turned his back on her hand and drew off his jacket, dropping it on the ground. He shrugged his T-shirt up, baring his back. "On the shoulder blade would be good."

  Clary placed a hand on his shoulder to steady herself. His skin there was a paler gold than the skin of his hands and face, and smooth where it was not scarred. She traced the tip of the stele along the blade of his shoulder and felt him wince, his muscles tightening. "Don't press so hard—"

  "Sorry." She eased up, letting the rune flow from her mind, down through her arm, into the stele. The black line it left behind looked like charring, a line of ash. "There. You're finished."

  He turned around, shrugging his shirt back on. "Thanks." The sun was burning down beyond the horizon now, flooding the sky with blood and roses, turning the edge of the river to liquid gold, softening the ugliness of the urban waste all around them. "What about you?"

  "What about me what?"

  He took a step closer. "Push your sleeves up. I'll Mark you."

  "Oh. Right." She did as he asked, pushing up her sleeves, holding her bare arms out to him.

  The sting of the stele on her skin was like the light touch of a needle's tip, scraping without puncturing. She watched the black lines appear with a sort of fascination. The Mark she'd gotten in her dream was still visible, faded only a little around the edges.

  " 'And the Lord said unto him, Therefore whosoever slayeth Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold. And the Lord set a Mark upon Cain, lest any finding him should kill him.' "

  Clary turned around, pulling her sleeves down. Magnus stood watching them, his black coat seeming to float around him in the wind off the river. A small smile played around his mouth.

  "You can quote the Bible?" asked Jace, bending to retrieve his jacket.

  "I was born in a deeply religious century, my boy," said Magnus. "I always thought Cain's might have been the first recorded Mark. It certainly protected him."

  "But he was hardly one of the angels," said Clary. "Didn't he kill his brother?"

  "Aren't we planning to kill our father?" said Jace.

  "That's different," said Clary, but didn't get a chance to elaborate on how it was different, because at that moment, Luke's truck pulled up onto the beach, spraying gravel from its tires. Luke leaned out the window.

  "Okay," he said to Magnus. "Here we go. Get in."

  "Are we going to drive to the boat?" Clary said, bewildered. "I thought…"

  "What boat?" Magnus cackled, as he swung himself up into the cab next to Luke. He jerked a thumb behind him. "You two, get into the back."

  Jace climbed up into the back of the truck and leaned down to help Clary up after him. As she settled herself against the spare tire, she saw that a black pentagram inside a circle had been painted onto the metal floor of the truck bed. The arms of the pentagram were decorated with wildly curlicuing symbols. They weren't quite the runes she was familiar with—there was something about looking at them that was like trying to understand a person speaking a language that was close to, but not quite, English.

  Luke leaned out the window and looked back at them. "You know I don't like this," he said, the wind muffling his voice. "Clary, you're going to stay in the truck with Magnus. Jace and I will go up onto the ship. You understand?"

  Clary nodded and huddled into a corner of the truck bed. Jace sat beside her, bracing his feet. "This is going to be interesting."

  "What—," Clary began, but the truck started up again, tires roaring against gravel, drowning her words. It lurched forward into the shallow water at the edge of the river. Clary was flung against the cab's back window as the truck moved forward into the river—was Luke planning to drown them all? She twisted around and saw that the cab was full of dizzying blue columns of light, snaking and twisting. The truck seemed to bump over something bulky, as if it had driven over a log. Then they were moving smoothly forward, almost gliding.

  Clary hauled herself to her knees and looked over the side of the truck, already fairly sure what she would see.

  They were moving—no, driving—atop the dark water, the bottom of the truck's tires just brushing the river's surface, spreading tiny ripples outward along with the occasional shower of Magnus-created blue sparks. Everything was suddenly very quiet, except for the faint roar of the motor and the call of the seabirds overhead. Clary stared across the truck bed at Jace, who was grinning. "Now this is really going to impress Valentine."

  "I don't know," Clary said. "Other crack teams get bat boomerangs and wall-crawling powers; we get the Aquatruck."

  "If you don't like it, Nephilim," came Magnus's voice, faintly, from the truck cab, "you're welcome to see if you can walk on the water."

  "I think we should go in," said Isabelle, her ear pressed to the library door. She beckoned for Alec to come closer. "Can you hear anything?"

  Alec leaned in beside his sister, careful not to drop the phone he was holding. Magnus said he'd call if he had news or if anything happened. So far, he hadn't. "No."

  "Exactly. They've stopped yelling at each other." Isabelle's dark eyes gleamed. "They're waiting for Valentine now."

  Alec moved away from the door and strode partway down the hall to the nearest window. The sky outside was the color of charcoal half-sunk into ruby ashes. "It's sunset."

  Isabelle reached for the door handle. "Let's go."

  "Isabelle, wait—"

  "I don't want her to be able to lie to us about what Valentine says," Isabelle said. "Or what happens. Besides, I want to see him. Jace's father. Don't you?"

  Alec moved back to the library door. "Yes, but this isn't a good idea because—"

  Isabelle pushed down on the handle of the library door. It swung wide open. With a half-amused glance over her shoulder at him, she ducked inside; swearing under his breath, Alec followed her.

  His mother and the Inquisitor stood at opposite ends of the huge desk, like boxers facing each other across a ring. Maryse's cheeks were bright red, her hair straggling around her face. Isabelle shot Alec a look, as if to say, Maybe we shouldn't have come in here. Mom looks mad.

  On the other hand, if Maryse looked angry, the Inquisitor looked positively demented. She whirled around as the library door opened, her mouth twisted into an ugly shape. "What are you two doing here?" she shouted.

  "Imogen," said Maryse.

  "Maryse!" The Inquisitor's voice rose. "I've had about enough of you and your delinquent children—"

  "Imogen," Maryse said again. There was something in her voice—an urgency—that made even the Inquisitor turn and look.

  The air just by the freestanding brass globe was shimmering like water. A shape began to coalesce out of it, like black paint being stroked over white canvas, evolving into the figure of a man with broad, plank-like shoulders. The image was wavering, too much for Alec to see more than that the man was tall, with a shock of close-cropped salt-white hair.

  "Valentine." The Inquisitor looked caught off guard, Alec thought, though surely she must have been expecting him.

  The air by the globe was shimmering more violently now. Isabelle gasped as a man stepped out of the wavering air, as if he were coming up through layers of water. Jace's father was a formidable man, over six feet tall with a wide chest and hard, thick arms corded with ropy muscles. His face was almost triangular, sharpening to a hard, pointed chin. He might have been considered handsome, Alec thought, but he was startlingly unlike Jace, lacking anything of his son's pale-gold looks. The hilt of a sword was visible just over his left shoulder—the Mortal Sword. It wasn't as if he needed to be armed, since he wasn't corporeally present, so he must h
ave worn it to annoy the Inquisitor. Not that she needed to be more annoyed than she was.

  "Imogen," Valentine said, his dark eyes grazing the Inquisitor with a look of satisfied amusement. That's Jace all over, that look, Alec thought. "And Maryse, my Maryse—it has been a long time."

  Maryse, swallowing hard, said with some difficulty, "I'm not your Maryse, Valentine."

  "And these must be your children," Valentine went on as if she hadn't spoken. His eyes came to rest on Isabelle and Alec. A faint shiver went through Alec, as if something had plucked at his nerves. Jace's father's words were perfectly ordinary, even polite, but there was something in his blank and predatory gaze that made Alec want to step in front of his sister and block her from Valentine's view. "They look just like you."

  "Leave my children out of this, Valentine," Maryse said, clearly struggling to keep her voice steady.

  "Well, that hardly seems fair," Valentine said, "considering you haven't left my child out of this." He turned to the Inquisitor. "I got your message. Surely that's not the best you can do?"

  She hadn't moved; now she blinked slowly, like a lizard. "I hope the terms of my offer were perfectly clear."

  "My son in return for the Mortal Instruments. That was it, correct? Otherwise you'll kill him."

  "Kill him?" Isabelle echoed. "MOM!"

  "Isabelle," Maryse said tightly. "Shut up."

  The Inquisitor shot Isabelle and Alec a venomous glare between her slitted eyelids. "You have the terms correct, Morgenstern."

  "Then my answer is no."

  "No?" The Inquisitor looked as if she'd taken a step forward on solid ground and it had collapsed under her feet. "You can't bluff me, Valentine. I will do exactly as I threatened."

  "Oh, I have no doubt in you, Imogen. You have always been a woman of single-minded and ruthless focus. I recognize these qualities in you because I possess them myself."

  "I am nothing like you. I follow the Law—"

  "Even when it instructs you to kill a boy still in his teens just to punish his father? This is not about the Law, Imogen, it is that you hate and blame me for the death of your son and this is your manner of recompensing me. It will make no difference. I will not give up the Mortal Instruments, not even for Jonathan."