The Wicked Ones Read online

  He was still married to Amatis, of course; even if he desired Céline—maybe even, a little bit, loved Céline—there was nothing to be done about it.

  But what if?

  “Is anyone else hungry?” Céline said.

  “Am I ever not hungry?” Stephen said. He slapped the warlock sharply. She stirred but did not wake.

  Céline backed toward the door. “Why don’t I go find us something to eat, while you’re . . . taking care of this?”

  Robert yanked the warlock’s hair back, hard. She yelped, and her eyes flew open. “Shouldn’t take long.”

  “Great.” Céline hoped they couldn’t tell how desperate she was to get out of the apartment. She didn’t have the stomach for this kind of thing, but she couldn’t have them report that back to Valentine. She’d worked too hard to gain his respect.

  “Hey, you’re limping,” Stephen said. “You need another iratze?”

  He was worried about her. She told herself not to read anything into it. “It doesn’t even hurt anymore,” she lied. “I’m fine.”

  She’d applied the healing rune halfheartedly, and it had not completely closed her wound. She preferred, sometimes, to feel the pain.

  When she was a child, her parents had often refused her iratzes after training sessions, especially when her injuries were caused by her own mistakes. Let the pain remind you to do better next time, they told her. All these years later, she was still making so many mistakes.

  Céline was halfway down the precarious staircase when she realized she’d forgotten her wallet. She tromped painfully back up, then hesitated outside the door, stopped by the sound of her name.

  “Me and Céline?” she heard Stephen say.

  Feeling slightly ridiculous, Céline withdrew her stele and drew a careful rune on the door. Their amplified voices came through loud and clear.

  Stephen laughed. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  “It sounded like a pretty good kiss . . .”

  “I was under the influence!”

  “Still. She’s pretty, don’t you think?”

  There was an excruciating pause. “I don’t know, I never really thought about it.”

  “You do realize that marriage doesn’t mean you’re never allowed to look at another woman, right?”

  “It’s not that,” Stephen said. “It’s . . .”

  “The way she follows you around like a drooling puppy?”

  “That doesn’t help,” Stephen acknowledged. “She’s just such a child. Like, no matter how old she gets, she’s always going to need someone else telling her what to do.”

  “I’ll give you that,” Robert said. “But Valentine seems convinced there’s something more to her.”

  “Nobody’s right all the time,” Stephen said, and now they were both laughing. “Not even him.”

  “Don’t let him hear you say that!”

  Céline didn’t realize she was in motion until she felt the rain on her face. She collapsed against the cool stone of the building façade, wishing she could melt into it. To turn herself to stone; to shut down her nerves, her senses, her heart; to feel nothing . . . if only.

  Their laughter echoed in her ears.

  She was a joke.

  She was pathetic.

  She was someone Stephen had never thought about, never cared about, never wanted. Would never want, under any circumstances.

  She was a pathetic creature. A child. A mistake.

  The sidewalks were empty. The streets shimmered with rain. The searchlight beacon atop the Eiffel Tower had gone to sleep, along with the rest of the city. Céline felt utterly alone. Her leg throbbed. Her tears would not stop. Her heart screamed. She had nowhere to go, but could not go back upstairs, back to that room, to that laughter. She set off blindly into the Paris night.

  Céline was at home in the dark, slumbering streets. She wandered for hours. Through the Marais and past the hulking Pompidou, crossing from the Right Bank to the Left and back again. She visited with the gargoyles of Notre Dame, those hideous stone demons clinging to gothic spires, awaiting their chance to devour the faithful. It seemed unfair that the city was so full of stone creatures who could feel nothing, and here she was, feeling so unbearably much.

  She was in the Tuileries—more bloody ghosts, more creatures carved of stone—when she spotted the trail of ichor. She was still a Shadowhunter, and she was a Shadowhunter in desperate need of distraction, so she followed it. She caught up with the Shax demon in the Opera district, but stayed in the shadows, wanting to see what it was up to. Shax demons were trackers, used to hunt people who didn’t want to be found. And this demon was definitely tracking something.

  Céline tracked it, in turn.

  She tracked it through the slumbering courtyards of the Louvre. It was oozing ichor from a wound, but it wasn’t moving like a creature slinking off to nurse its wounds. Its giant pincers skittered at the cobblestones as it hesitated at corners, deciding which way to turn. This was a predator, tracking its prey.

  The demon paused in the archway of the Louvre, at the foot of the Pont des Arts. The small pedestrian bridge stretched across the Seine, its railings crowded with lovers’ locks. It was said that if a couple attached a lock to the Pont des Arts, their love would last forever. The bridge was almost deserted at this hour, except for one young couple, locked in an embrace. Completely oblivious to the Shax demon slithering out of the shadows, pincers clicking together in eager anticipation.

  Céline always carried a misericorde blade. Its narrow point was exactly what she needed to penetrate the insectoid demon’s carapace.

  She hoped.

  “Gadreel,” Céline whispered, naming a seraph blade. She crept behind the Shax demon, as steady and silent as it was. She too could be a predator. In one smooth, sure motion, she stabbed the misericorde straight through the carapace, then slid the seraph blade into the wound she’d opened.

  The demon dissolved.

  It had all happened so swiftly, so quietly, that the couple on the bridge didn’t even break from their embrace. They were too intent on each other to realize how close they’d come to being a demon’s late-night snack. Céline lingered, trying to imagine it: standing on the bridge with someone who loved her, a man gazing so intently into her eyes that he wouldn’t have noticed the world ending.

  But Céline’s imagination gave out. Reality had caged her in. As long she thought Stephen hadn’t noticed her, she could fantasize about what might happen if he ever did.

  Now she knew. She could not un-know.

  Céline wiped and sheathed her blade, then crept closer to the couple, close enough to hear what they were saying. She was glamoured, after all, so there was no danger in doing a little eavesdropping. What did a man say to the woman he loved, when he thought no one else could hear? She might never find out, if she waited for someone to say them to her.

  “I hate to say I told you so,” the woman said, “but . . .”

  “Who knew he’d be so willing to trust a warlock?”

  “Who knew anyone would believe you were the long-lost descendant of some noble Shadowhunter line?” she said, then laughed. “Oh wait, I knew. Admit it, deep down, you knew it would work. You just didn’t want it to.”

  “Of course I didn’t want it to.” He touched her cheek, impossibly gently. “I hate this. I hate leaving you here.”

  “It’s not for long. And it’s for the best, Jack, I promise.”

  “You’ll come find me in LA as soon as it’s taken care of? You swear?”

  “In the Shadow Market. At our old place. I swear. As soon as I can be sure the trail’s gone cold.” She kissed him, long and hard. When she pressed her hand to his cheek, Céline spotted the glint of a wedding band.

  “Rosemary—”

  “I don’t want you anywhere near these people. It’s not safe.”


  “But it’s safe for you?”

  “You know I’m right,” she said.

  The man hung his head and tucked his hands into the pockets of his trench coat. It looked expensive, except for the giant gaping hole torn through the left side. “Yeah.”

  “You ready?”

  He nodded, and she pulled a small bottle from her bag. “This better work the way it’s supposed to.” She handed it to her husband, who uncorked it, swallowed its contents, and tossed it into the river.

  A moment later, he clutched his hands to his face and began to scream.

  Céline panicked. It wasn’t her place to interfere, but she couldn’t just stand here and watch as this woman murdered her—

  “Jack, Jack, it’s okay, you’re okay.”

  She clung to him as man moaned and shuddered, and, finally, slumped quietly into her arms. “I think it worked,” he said.

  When they backed away from each other, Céline gasped. Even in the dim light of the streetlights, she could see that his face had transformed. He had been a blond with sparkling green eyes and sharp, chiseled features, around the age of Stephen and nearly as handsome. Now he looked ten years older, his face carved with worry lines, his hair mud colored, his smile crooked.

  “Hideous,” the woman named Rosemary said approvingly. Then she kissed him again, just as desperately as before, as if nothing had changed. “Now, go.”

  “You sure?”

  “As sure as I am that I love you.”

  The man fled into the night, his coat melting into the darkness.

  “And ditch the trench!” Rosemary called after him. “It’s too obvious!”

  “Never!” he shouted back, and then he was gone.

  Rosemary sagged against the bridge and buried her face in her hands. So she didn’t see the gargoyle behind her blink its eyes and swivel its stone snout in her direction.

  Céline suddenly remembered: the Pont des Arts had no gargoyles. This was a flesh and blood Achaieral demon, and it looked hungry.

  With a furious roar, the monstrous shadow peeled itself off the bridge and unfolded a set of huge, batlike wings that blotted out the night. It opened its jaw wide and bared razorlike teeth, then lunged straight for Rosemary’s throat. With shocking speed, Rosemary hefted a sword and slashed. The demon screeched in pain, raking its talons against the metal blade with enough force to knock it from the woman’s hands. Rosemary stumbled to the ground, and the demon seized its moment. It leapt onto her chest, immobilizing her beneath its massive wings, and hissed. Teeth neared flesh.

  “Sariel,” Céline whispered, and stabbed her seraph blade through the demon’s neck. It yowled with pain and whirled toward her, its innards bursting through its hide even as it tried, in its last remaining moments, to attack.

  Rosemary heaved her sword and sliced off the creature’s head, seconds before head and torso exploded into a cloud of dust. Satisfied, she collapsed backward, the wound in her shoulder bleeding freely.

  Céline could tell how much it hurt—and how determined the woman was to reveal no pain. She knelt by her side. Rosemary flinched away. “Let me see—I can help.”

  “I would never ask for help from a Shadowhunter,” the woman said bitterly.

  “You didn’t exactly ask. And you’re welcome.”

  The woman sighed, then examined her bloody wound. She touched it gingerly, winced. “As long as you’re here, you want to give me an iratze?”

  It was obvious the woman was no mundane. Even a mundane with the Sight couldn’t have fought the way she did. But that didn’t mean she could withstand an iratze. No one but a Shadowhunter could.

  “Look, I don’t really have the time to explain it, and I can’t exactly go to the hospital and tell them I got gnawed on by a demon, can I?”

  “If you know about iratzes, you know that only a Shadowhunter can bear a rune,” Céline said.

  “I know.” Rosemary met her gaze steadily.

  She didn’t bear the Voyance rune. But the way she had moved, the way she had fought . . .

  “Have you borne a rune before?” she asked hesitantly.

  Rosemary smirked. “What do you think?”

  “Who are you?”

  “No one you need worry about. You going to help, or not?”

  Céline withdrew her stele. Applying a rune to anyone who wasn’t a Shadowhunter meant probable death, certain agony. She took a deep breath, then carefully applied stele to skin.

  Rosemary let out a relieved sigh.

  “Are you going to tell me who sent a Shax demon after you?” Céline said. “And whether it was the same person who made sure an Achaieral demon was here to finish the job?”

  “No. You going to tell me why you’re wandering around in the middle of the night looking like someone just drowned your pet rock in the Seine?”

  “No.”

  “Okay then. And, thank you.”

  “That guy who was here with you before . . .”

  “You mean, the one you didn’t see and won’t say anything about, ever, if you know what’s good for you?”

  “You love him, and he loves you, right?” Céline asked.

  “I guess he must, because there are some dangerous people out there looking for me,” Rosemary said. “And he’s done his best to make sure they think they’re looking for him instead.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “And you don’t have to. But, yeah. He loves me. I love him. Why?”

  “I just . . .” She wanted to ask what that was like, how it felt. She wanted, also, to extend the conversation. She was afraid to be alone again, stranded on this bridge between the endless black of river and sky. “I just want to make sure you have someone to take care of you.”

  “We take care of each other. That’s how it works. Speaking of which—” She gave Céline an appraising look. “I’m in your debt now, for helping me out with the demon. And for keeping my secret.”

  “I didn’t say I would—”

  “You will. And I don’t believe in debts, so let me do you a favor.”

  “I don’t need anything,” Céline said, meaning, I don’t need anything anyone can give me.

  “I keep my eyes open, and I see what’s happening in the Shadowhunter world. You need more than you think you do. Most of all, you need to stay away from Valentine Morgenstern.”

  Céline stiffened. “What do you know about Valentine?”

  “I know that you’re just his type, young and impressionable, and I know that he can’t be trusted. I pay attention. You should too. He’s not telling you everything. I know that.” She looked over Céline’s shoulder, and her eyes widened. “Someone’s coming. You should get out of here.”

  Céline turned around. A Silent Brother was gliding along the left bank, nearing he edge of the bridge. There was no way of knowing if it was the same one she’d met in the Shadow Market, but she couldn’t risk running into him again. Not after what she’d told him. It was too humiliating.

  “Remember,” Rosemary said. “Valentine is not to be trusted.”

  “And why should I trust you?”

  “No reason at all,” Rosemary said. Without another word, she strode down the bridge toward the Silent Brother.

  The sky was pinking. The endless night had finally given way to dawn.

  I had expected to find your husband on this bridge. But even as he formed the words, Brother Zachariah sensed their untruth.

  He had trusted a man he knew could not be trusted. He had let his sympathies for the Herondale line, his desire to believe there remained some bond between the Carstairs and the Herondales—even though this man was barely a Herondale and Zachariah was barely a Carstairs—cloud his judgment. And now it was Jack Crow who might bear the consequences.

  “He’s not coming. And you’re never going to see him again, Shadow
hunter, so I suggest you not bother to look.”

  I understand that the Shadowhunters have given your family every reason not to trust us, but—

  “Don’t take it personally, I don’t trust anyone,” she said. “It’s how I’ve managed to stay alive.”

  She was stubborn and rude, and Brother Zachariah couldn’t help but like her.

  “I mean, if I was going to trust someone, it wouldn’t be a cult of violent fundamentalists who get a kick out of executing their own . . . but like I said, I don’t trust anyone.”

  Except Jack Crow.

  “That’s not his name anymore.”

  Whatever name he chooses, he will always be a Herondale.

  She laughed, and when she did, her face took on a strangely familiar cast. Familiar in the way that Jack Crow’s had never been. “You don’t know nearly as much as you think you do, Shadowhunter.”

  Brother Zachariah reached into his robe and pulled out the heron necklace he’d bought from the Shadow Market. The necklace, he remembered, that Crow had sold without his wife’s permission or knowledge. As a man might do if it were not truly his to sell. The pendant glittered in the dawn light. Zachariah marked her surprise, and offered the chain.

  She opened her palm and allowed him to place the pendant gently in her possession. Something deep in her seemed to settle as her hand wrapped around the heron charm—as if she had lost some essential piece of her soul, and now it was returned to her.

  “A pigeon?” She raised her eyebrows.

  A heron. Perhaps you recognize it?

  “Why would I?”

  Because I purchased it from your husband.

  Her lips were pressed together in a thin, tight line. Her hand had formed a fist around the chain. It was clear the child at the booth had spoken he truth: she didn’t know the pendant had been for sale.

  “Then why give it to me?”

  She could pretend a lack of interest, but Zachariah wondered what she would say if he asked for it back. He suspected he would have a fight on his hands.

  Because I have a feeling it belongs to you—and to your family.