CITY OF GLASS

Jace hurried them across the courtyard—Clary could tell he didn’t like the open, unprotected space much—and down one of the streets that led off it. There was more wreckage here. Shop windows had been smashed and their contents looted and strewn around the street. There was a smell in the air too—a rancid, thick, garbage smell. Clary knew that smell. It meant demons.

“This way,” Jace hissed. They ducked down another, narrower street. A fire was burning in an upper floor of one of the houses lining the road, though neither of the buildings on either side of it seemed to have been touched. Clary was oddly reminded of photos she’d seen of the Blitz in London, where destruction had rained down haphazardly from the sky.

Looking up, she saw that the fortress above the city was wreathed in a funnel of black smoke. “The Gard.”

“I told you, they’ll have evacuated—” Jace broke off as they came out from the narrow street into a larger thoroughfare. There were bodies in the road here, several of them. Some were small bodies. Children. Jace ran forward, Clary following more hesitantly. There were three, she saw as they got closer—none of them, she thought with guilty relief, old enough to be Max. Beside them was the corpse of an older man, his arms still thrown wide as if he’d been protecting the children with his own body.

Jace’s expression was hard. “Clary—turn around. Slowly.”

Clary turned. Just behind her was a broken shop window. There had been cakes in the display at some point—a tower of them covered in bright icing. They were scattered on the ground now among the smashed glass, and there was blood on the cobblestones too, mixing with the icing in long pinkish streaks. But that wasn’t what had put the note of warning into Jace’s voice. Something was crawling out of the window—something formless and huge and slimy. Something equipped with a double row of teeth running the length of its oblong body, which was smeared with icing and dusted with broken glass like a layer of glittering sugar.

The demon flopped down out of the window onto the cobblestones and began to slither toward them. Something about its oozing, boneless motion made bile rise up in the back of Clary’s throat. She backed up, almost knocking into Jace.

“It’s a Behemoth demon,” he said, staring at the slithering thing in front of them. “They eat everything.”

“Do they eat …?”

“People? Yes,” Jace said. “Get behind me.”

She took a few steps back to stand behind him, her eyes on the Behemoth. There was something about it that repulsed her even more than the demons she’d encountered before. It looked like a blind slug with teeth, and the way it oozed … But at least it didn’t move fast. Jace shouldn’t have much trouble killing it.

As if spurred on by her thought, Jace darted forward, slashing down with his blazing seraph blade. It sank into the Behemoth’s back with a sound like overripe fruit being stepped on. The demon seemed to spasm, then shudder and re-form, suddenly several feet away from where it had been before.

Jace drew Jahoel back. “I was afraid of that,” he muttered. “It’s only semi-corporeal. Hard to kill.”

“Then don’t.” Clary tugged at his sleeve. “At least it doesn’t move fast. Let’s get out of here.”

Jace let her pull him back reluctantly. They turned to run in the direction they’d come from—

And the demon was there again, in front of them, blocking the street. It seemed to have grown bigger, and a low noise was coming from it, a sort of angry insectile chittering.

“I don’t think it wants us to leave,” Jace said.

“Jace—”

But he was already running at the thing, sweeping Jahoel down in a long arc meant to decapitate, but the thing just shuddered again and re-formed, this time behind him. It reared up, showing a ridged underside like a cockroach’s. Jace whirled and brought Jahoel down, slicing into the creature’s midsection. Green fluid, thick as mucus, spurted over the blade.

Jace stepped back, his face twisting in disgust. The Behemoth was still making the same chittering noise. More fluid was spurting from it, but it didn’t seem hurt. It was moving forward purposefully.

“Jace!” Clary called. “Your blade—”

He looked down. The Behemoth demon’s mucus had coated Jahoel’s blade, dulling its flame. As he stared, the seraph blade spluttered and went out like a fire doused by sand. He dropped the weapon with a curse before any of the demon’s slime could touch him.

The Behemoth reared back again, ready to strike. Jace ducked back—and then Clary was there, darting between him and the demon, her seraph blade swinging. She jabbed the creature just below its row of teeth, the blade sinking into its mass with a wet, ugly sound.

She jerked back, gasping, as the demon went into another spasm. It seemed to take the creature a certain amount of energy to re-form each time it was wounded. If they could just wound it enough times—

Something moved at the edge of Clary’s vision. A flicker of gray and brown, moving fast. They weren’t alone in the street. Jace turned, his eyes widening. “Clary!” he shouted. “Behind you!”