CITY OF ASHES

They moved hastily backward. Clary found Isabelle clutching her elbow and turned to see that the other girl was white to the lips. “What’s wrong?”


“Everything,” Isabelle said. “Clary, maybe we should have just let him go—”

“Let him die, you mean.” Clary jerked her arm out of Isabelle’s grip. “Of course that’s what you think. You think everyone who isn’t just like you is better off dead anyway.”

Isabelle’s face was the picture of misery. “That isn’t—”

A sound tore through the clearing, a sound unlike any Clary had ever heard before—a sort of pounding rhythm coming from deep underground, as if suddenly the heartbeat of the world had become audible.

What’s happening? Clary thought, and then the ground buckled and heaved under her. She fell to her knees. The grave was roiling like the surface of an unsteady ocean. Ripples appeared in its surface. Suddenly it burst apart, clods of dirt flying. A small mountain of dirt, like an anthill, heaved itself upward. At the center of the mountain was a hand, fingers splayed, clawing at the dirt.

“Simon!” Clary tried to rush forward, but Raphael yanked her back.

“Let me go!” She tried to pull herself free, but Raphael’s grip was like steel. “Can’t you see he needs our help?”

“He should do this himself,” Raphael said, without loosening his hold on her. “It is better that way.”

“It’s your way! It’s not mine!” She jerked herself out of his grip and ran toward the grave, just as it heaved upward, hurling her back to the ground. A hunched shape was forcing itself out of the hastily dug grave, fingers like filthy claws sunk deep into the earth. Its bare arms were streaked black with dirt and blood. It tore itself free of the sucking earth, crawled a few feet, and collapsed onto the ground.

“Simon,” she whispered. Because of course it was Simon, Simon, not an it. She scrambled to her feet and ran toward him, her sneakers sinking deep into the churned earth.

“Clary!” Jace shouted. “What are you doing?”

She stumbled, her ankle twisting as her leg sank into the dirt. She fell onto her knees next to Simon, who lay as still as if he really were dead. His hair was filthy and matted with clots of dirt, his glasses gone, his T-shirt torn down the side, blood on the skin that showed under it. “Simon,” she said, and reached to touch his shoulder. “Simon, are you—”

His body tensed under her fingers, every muscle tightening, his skin hard as iron.

“—all right?” she finished.

He turned his head, and she saw his eyes. They were blank, lifeless. With a sharp cry he rolled over and sprang at her, swift as a striking snake. He struck her squarely, knocking her back into the dirt. “Simon!” she shouted, but he didn’t seem to hear. His face was twisted, unrecognizable as he loomed up over her, his lips curling back, and she saw his sharp canines, the fang-teeth, gleam in the moonlight like white bone needles. Suddenly terrified, she kicked out at him, but he grabbed her shoulders and forced her back down into the dirt. His hands were bloody, the nails broken, but he was incredibly strong, stronger even than her own Shadowhunter muscles. The bones in her shoulders ground together painfully as he bent down over her—

And was plucked away and sent flying as if he weighed no more than a pebble. Clary shot to her feet, gasping, and met Raphael’s grim gaze. “I told you to stay away from him,” he said, and turned to kneel down by Simon, who had landed a short distance away and was curled, twitching, on the ground.

Clary sucked in a breath. It sounded like a sob. “He doesn’t know me.”

“He knows you. He doesn’t care.” Raphael looked over his shoulder at Jace. “He is starving. He needs blood.”

Jace, who had been standing white-faced and frozen at the grave’s edge, stepped forward and held out the plastic bag mutely, like an offering. Raphael snatched it and tore it open. A number of plastic packets of red fluid fell out. He seized one, muttering, and tore it open with sharp nails, spattering blood down the front of his dirt-stained white shirt.