Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (31 page)

“He’s gone,” she whispered. “Simon. He was in my
backpack—”

“Did he climb out?”

It wasn’t an unreasonable question, but Clary, exhausted and
panic-stricken, reacted unreasonably.
“Of course he
didn’t!”
she screamed. “What, you think he wants to get
smashed under someone’s car, killed by a cat—”

“Clary—”

“Shut up!” she screamed, swinging the pack at him. “You
were the one who said not to bother changing him back—”

Deftly he caught the pack as she swung it. Taking it out of her hand, he
examined it. “The zipper’s torn,” he said. “From the outside.
Someone ripped this bag open.”

Shaking her head numbly, Clary could only whisper,
“I didn’t . . .”

“I know.” His voice was gentle. He cupped his hands around his
mouth. “Alec! Isabelle! You go on ahead! We’ll catch up.”

The two figures, already far ahead, paused; Alec hesitated, but his sister
caught hold of his arm and pushed him firmly toward the subway entrance. Something
pressed against Clary’s back: It was Jace’s hand, turning her gently around.
She let him lead her forward, stumbling over the cracks in the sidewalk, until they were
back in the entryway of Magnus’s building. The stench of stale alcohol and the
sweet, uncanny smell Clary had come to associate with Downworlders filled the tiny
space. Taking his hand away from her back, Jace pressed the buzzer over Magnus’s
name.

“Jace,” she said.

He looked down at her. “What?”

She searched for words. “Do you think he’s all
right?”

“Simon?” He hesitated then, and she thought of
Isabelle’s words:
Don’t ask him a question unless you
know you can stand the answer.
Instead of saying anything, he pressed the
buzzer again, harder this time.

This time Magnus answered it, his voice booming through the tiny entryway.
“WHO DARES DISTURB MY REST?”

Jace looked almost nervous. “Jace Wayland. Remember? I’m from
the Clave.”

“Oh, yes.” Magnus seemed to have perked up. “Are you the
one with the blue eyes?”

“He means Alec,” Clary said helpfully.

“No. My eyes are usually described as golden,” Jace told the
intercom. “And luminous.”

“Oh, you’re
that
one.” Magnus sounded disappointed. If Clary hadn’t been so
upset, she would have laughed. “I suppose you’d better come up.”

The warlock answered his door wearing a silk kimono printed with dragons,
a gold turban, and an expression of barely controlled annoyance.

“I was sleeping,” he said loftily.

Jace looked as if he were about to say something rude, possibly about the
turban, so Clary interrupted him. “Sorry to bother you—”

Something small and white peered around the warlock’s ankles. It had
zigzag gray stripes and tufted pink ears that made it look more like a large mouse than
a small cat.

“Chairman Meow?” Clary guessed.

Magnus nodded. “He has returned.”

Jace regarded the small tabby kitten with some scorn. “That’s
not a cat,” he observed. “It’s the size of a hamster.”

“I am kindly going to forget you said that,” said Magnus,
using his foot to nudge Chairman Meow behind him. “Now, exactly what did you come
here for?”

Clary held out the torn pack. “It’s Simon. He’s
missing.”

“Ah,” said Magnus, delicately, “missing what,
exactly?”

“Missing,”
Jace repeated, “as
in gone, absent, notable for his lack of presence, disappeared.”

“Maybe he’s gone and hidden under something,” Magnus
suggested. “It can’t be easy getting used to being a rat, especially for
someone so dim-witted in the first place.”

“Simon’s not dim-witted,” Clary protested angrily.

“It’s true,” Jace agreed. “He just
looks
dim-witted. Really his intelligence is quite
average.” His tone was light but his shoulders
were tense as
he turned to Magnus. “When we were leaving, one of your guests brushed up against
Clary. I think he tore her bag open and took the rat. Simon, I mean.”

Magnus looked at him. “And?”

“And I need to find out who it was,” said Jace steadily.
“I’m guessing you know. You
are
the High Warlock
of Brooklyn. I’m thinking not much happens in your own apartment that you
don’t know about.”

Magnus inspected a glittery nail. “You’re not
wrong.”

“Please tell us,” Clary said. Jace’s hand tightened on
her wrist. She knew he wanted her to be quiet, but that was impossible.
“Please.”

Magnus dropped his hand with a sigh. “Fine. I saw one of the vampire
bike kids from the uptown lair leave with a brown rat in his hands. Honestly, I figured
it was one of their own. Sometimes the Night Children turn into rats or bats when they
get drunk.”

Clary’s hands were shaking. “But now you think it was
Simon
?”

“It’s just a guess, but it seems likely.”

“There’s one more thing.” Jace spoke calmly enough, but
he was on alert now, the way he had been in the apartment before they’d found the
Forsaken. “Where’s their lair?”

“Their what?”

“The vampires’ lair. That’s where they went, isn’t
it?”

“I would imagine so.” Magnus looked as if he’d rather be
anywhere else.

“I need you to tell me where it is.”

Magnus shook his turbaned head. “I’m not setting myself on the
bad side of the Night Children for a mundane I don’t even know.”

“Wait,” Clary interrupted. “What
would they want with Simon? I thought they weren’t allowed to hurt people . .
.”

“My guess?” said Magnus, not unkindly. “They assumed he
was a tame rat and thought it would be funny to kill a Shadowhunter’s pet. They
don’t like you much, whatever the Accords might say—and there’s
nothing in the Covenant about not killing animals.”

“They’re going to kill him?” Clary said, staring.

“Not necessarily,” said Magnus hastily. “They might have
thought he was one of their own.”

“In which case, what’ll happen to him?” Clary said.

“Well, when he turns back into a human, they’ll
still
kill him. But you might have a few more hours.”

“Then you have to help us,” Clary said to the warlock.
“Otherwise Simon will die.”

Magnus looked her up and down with a sort of clinical sympathy.
“They all die, dear,” he said. “You might as well get used to
it.”

He began to shut the door. Jace stuck out a foot, wedging it open. Magnus
sighed. “What now?”

“You still haven’t told us where the lair is,” Jace
said.

“And I’m not going to. I told you—”

It was Clary who cut him off, pushing herself in front of Jace. “You
messed with my brain,” she said. “Took my memories. Can’t you do this
one thing for me?”

Magnus narrowed his gleaming cat’s eyes. Somewhere in the distance
Chairman Meow was crying. Slowly the warlock lowered his head and struck it once, none
too gently, against the wall. “The old Hotel Dumont,” he said.
“Uptown.”

“I know where that is.” Jace looked pleased.

“We need to get there right away. Do you have a
Portal?” Clary demanded, addressing Magnus.

“No.” He looked annoyed. “Portals are quite difficult to
construct and pose no small risk to their owner. Nasty things can come through them if
they’re not warded properly. The only ones I know of in New York are the one at
Dorothea’s and the one at Renwick’s, but they’re both too far away to
be worth the bother of trying to get there, even if you were sure their owners would let
you use them, which they probably wouldn’t. Got that? Now go away.” Magnus
stared pointedly at Jace’s foot, still blocking the door. Jace didn’t
move.

“One more thing,” Jace said. “Is there a holy place
around here?”

“Good idea. If you’re going to take on a lair of vampires by
yourself, you’d better pray first.”

“We need weapons,” Jace said tersely. “More than what
we’ve got on us.”

Magnus pointed. “There’s a Catholic church down on Diamond
Street. Will that do?”

Jace nodded, stepping back. “That’s—”

The door slammed in their faces. Clary, breathing as if she’d been
running, stared at it until Jace took her arm and steered her down the steps and into
the night.

At night the Diamond Street church looked spectral, its Gothic
arched windows reflecting the moonlight like silvery mirrors. A wrought iron fence surrounded the building and was painted a matte black. Clary rattled the front gate, but a sturdy padlock held it closed. “It’s locked,” she said, glancing at Jace over her shoulder.

He brandished his stele. “Let me at it.”

She watched him as he worked at the lock, watched the lean curve of his back, the swell of muscles under the short sleeves of his T-shirt. The moonlight washed the color out of his hair, turning it more silver than gold.

The padlock hit the ground with a clang, a twisted lump of metal. Jace looked pleased with himself. “As usual,” he said, “I’m amazingly good at that.”

Clary felt suddenly annoyed. “When the self-congratulatory part of the evening is over, maybe we could get back to saving my best friend from being exsanguinated to death?”

“Exsanguinated,” said Jace, impressed. “That’s a big word.”

“And you’re a big—”

“Tsk tsk,” he interrupted. “No swearing in church.”

“We’re not
in
the church yet,” Clary muttered, following him up the stone path to the double front doors. The stone arch above the doors was beautifully carved, an angel looking down from its highest point. Sharply pointed spires were silhouetted black against the night sky, and Clary realized that this was the church she had glimpsed earlier that night from McCarren Park. She bit her lip. “It seems wrong to pick the lock on a church door, somehow.”

Jace’s profile in the moonlight was serene. “We’re not going to,” he said, sliding his stele into his pocket. He placed a thin brown hand, marked all over with delicate white scars like a veiling of lace, against the wood of the door, just above the latch. “In the name of the Clave,” he said, “I ask entry to this holy place. In the name of the Battle That Never Ends, I ask the use of your weapons. And in the name of the Angel Raziel, I ask your blessings on my mission against the darkness.”

Clary stared at him. He didn’t move, though the night wind blew his hair into his eyes; he blinked, and just as she was about to speak, the door opened with a click and a creak of hinges. It swung inward smoothly before them, opening onto a cool dark empty space, lit by points of fire.

Jace stepped back. “After you.”

When Clary stepped inside, a wave of cool air enveloped her, along with the smell of stone and candle wax. Dim rows
of pews stretched toward the altar, and a bank of candles glowed like a bed of sparks against the far wall. She realized that, apart from the Institute, which didn’t really count, she’d never actually been inside a church before. She’d seen pictures, and seen the insides of churches in movies and in anime shows, where they turned up regularly. A scene in one of her favorite anime series took place in a church with a monstrous vampire priest. You were supposed to feel safe inside a church, but she didn’t. Strange shapes seemed to loom up at her out of the shadows. She shivered.

“The stone walls keep out the heat,” said Jace, noticing.

“It’s not that,” she said. “You know, I’ve never been in a church before.”

“You’ve been in the Institute.”

“I mean in a real church. For services. That sort of thing.”

“Really. Well, this is the nave, where the pews are. It’s where people sit during services.” They moved forward, their voices echoing off the stone walls. “Up here is the apse. That’s where we’re standing. And this is the altar, where the priest performs the Eucharist. It’s always at the east side of the church.” He knelt down in front of the altar, and she thought for a moment that he was praying. The altar itself was high, made of a dark granite, and draped with a red cloth. Behind it loomed an ornate gold screen, etched with the figures of saints and martyrs, each with a flat gold disk behind his head representing a halo.

“Jace,” she whispered. “What are you doing?”

He had placed his hands on the stone floor and was moving them back and forth rapidly, as if searching for something, his fingertips stirring up dust. “Looking for weapons.”

“Here?”

“They’d be hidden, usually around the altar. Kept for our use in case of emergencies.”

“And this is what, some kind of deal you have with the Catholic Church?”

“Not specifically. Demons have been on Earth as long as we have. They’re all over the world, in their different forms—Greek daemons, Persian
daevas
, Hindu
asuras
, Japanese
oni
. Most belief systems have some method of incorporating both their existence and the fight against them. Shadowhunters cleave to no single religion, and in turn all religions assist us in our battle. I could as easily have gone for help to a Jewish synagogue or a Shinto temple, or—Ah. Here it is.” He brushed dust aside as she knelt down beside him. Carved into one of the octagonal stones before the altar was a rune. Clary recognized it, almost as easily as if she were reading a word in English. It was the rune that meant “Nephilim.”

Jace took out his stele and touched it to the stone. With a grinding noise it moved back, revealing a dark compartment underneath. Inside the compartment was a long wooden box; Jace lifted the lid, and regarded the neatly arranged objects inside with satisfaction.

“What are all these?” Clary asked.

“Vials of holy water, blessed knives, steel and silver blades,” Jace said, piling the weapons on the floor beside him, “electrum wire—not much use at the moment, but it’s always good to have spare—silver bullets, charms of protection, crucifixes, stars of David—”

“Jesus,” said Clary.

“I doubt he’d fit.”

“Jace.”
Clary was appalled.