Simon, as if scenting the blood, curled up and let out a piteous wail. He was still twitching; his broken-nailed hands gouged at the dirt and his eyes were rolled back to the whites. Raphael held out the blood packet, letting some of the red fluid drip onto Simon’s face, streaking the white skin with scarlet. “There you go,” he said, almost in a croon. “Drink, little fledgling. Drink.”
And Simon, who had been a vegetarian since he was ten years old, who wouldn’t drink milk that wasn’t organic, who fainted at the sight of needles—Simon snatched the packet of blood out of Raphael’s thin brown hand and tore into it with his teeth. He swallowed the blood in a few gulps and tossed the packet aside with another wail; Raphael was ready with a second one, and pressed it into his hand. “Do not drink too fast,” he cautioned. “You will make yourself sick.” Simon, of course, ignored him; he had managed to get the second packet open without help and was gulping greedily at the contents. Blood ran from the corners of his mouth, down his throat, and spattered his hands with fat red drops. His eyes were closed.
Raphael turned to look at Clary. She could feel Jace staring at her too, and the others, all with identical expressions of horror and disgust. “Next time he feeds,” Raphael said calmly, “it will not be quite so messy.”
Messy. Clary turned away and stumbled out of the clearing, hearing Jace call out for her but ignoring him, starting to run when she reached the trees. She was halfway down the hill when the pain hit. She went to her knees, gagging, as everything in her stomach came up in a wrenching flood. When it was over, she crawled a short distance away and collapsed against the ground. She knew she was probably lying on someone’s grave, but she didn’t care. She rested her hot face against the cool dirt and thought, for the first time, that maybe the dead weren’t so unlucky after all.
11
SMOKE AND STEEL
THE CRITICAL CARE UNIT OF BETH ISRAEL HOSPITAL ALWAYS reminded Clary of photos she’d seen of Antarctica: It was cold and remote-feeling, and everything was either gray, white, or pale blue. The walls of her mother’s room were white, the tubes that snaked around her head and the endless beeping banks of instruments around the bed were gray, and the blanket pulled up around her chest was pale blue. Her face was white. The only color in the room was her red hair, flaring across the snowy expanse of pillow like a bright, incongruous flag planted at the south pole.
Clary wondered how Luke was managing to pay for this private room, where the money had come from and how he’d gotten it. She supposed she could ask him when he got back from buying vending machine coffee in the ugly little café on the third floor. The coffee from the machine down there looked like tar and tasted like it too, but Luke seemed addicted to the stuff.
The metal legs of the bedside chair squeaked across the floor as Clary pulled it out and sat down slowly, smoothing her skirt down over her legs. Whenever she came to see her mother in the hospital she felt nervous and dry-mouthed, as if she were about to get in trouble for something. Maybe because the only times she’d ever seen her mother’s face like this, flat and without animation, was when her mother was about to explode with rage.
“Mom,” she said. She reached out and took her mother’s left hand; there was a puncture mark on the wrist still, where Valentine had shoved one end of a tube. The skin of her mother’s hand—always rough and chapped, spattered with paint and turpentine—felt like the dry bark of a tree. Clary folded her fingers around Jocelyn’s, feeling a hard lump come into her throat. “Mom, I…” She cleared her throat. “Luke says you can hear me. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Anyway, I came because I needed to talk to you. It’s okay if you can’t say anything back. See, the thing is, it’s…” She swallowed again and looked toward the window, the strip of blue sky visible at the edge of the brick wall that faced the hospital. “It’s Simon. Something’s happened to him. Something that was my fault.”
Now that she wasn’t looking at her mother’s face, the story poured out of her, all of it: how she’d met Jace and the other Shadowhunters, the search for the Mortal Cup, Hodge’s betrayal and the battle at Renwick’s, the realization that Valentine was her father as well as Jace’s. More recent events too: the nighttime visit to the Bone City, the Soul-Sword, the Inquisitor’s hatred of Jace, and the woman with the silver hair. And then she told her mother about the Seelie Court, about the price the Queen had demanded, and what had happened to Simon afterward. She could feel tears burn her throat while she talked, but it was a relief to tell it, to unburden herself to someone, even someone who—probably—couldn’t hear her.
CITY OF ASHES
CASSANDRA CLARE's books
- City of Ruins
- Invincible (A Centennial City Novel)
- City of Fae
- City of Lost Souls
- City of Heavenly Fire
- CITY OF GLASS
- City of Fallen Angels
- CITY OF BONES
- City of Lost Souls
- Velocity
- Ascendancy of the Last
- Blood of Aenarion
- Broods Of Fenrir
- Burden of the Soul
- Caradoc of the North Wind
- Cause of Death: Unnatural
- Dark of the Moon
- Demons of Bourbon Street
- Edge of Dawn
- Eye of the Oracle
- Freak of Nature
- Heart of the Demon
- Lady of Devices
- Lance of Earth and Sky
- Last of the Wilds
- Legacy of Blood
- Legend of Witchtrot Road
- Lord of the Wolfyn
- Of Gods and Elves
- Of Wings and Wolves
- Prince of Spies
- Professor Gargoyle
- Promise of Blood
- Secrets of the Fire Sea
- Shadows of the Redwood
- Sin of Fury
- Sins of the Father
- Smugglers of Gor
- Sword of Caledor
- Sword of Darkness
- Talisman of El
- Threads of Desire (Spellcraft)
- Tricks of the Trade
- Visions of Magic
- Visions of Skyfire
- Well of the Damned
- Wings of Tavea
- Wings of the Wicked
- A Bridge of Years
- Chronicles of Raan
- Dawn of Swords(The Breaking World)
- A Draw of Kings
- Hunt the Darkness (Guardians of Eternity)
- Lord of the Hunt
- Master of War
- Mistfall(Book One of the Mistfall Series)
- The Gates of Byzantium
- The House of Yeel
- The Oath of the Vayuputras: Shiva Trilogy 3
- The Republic of Thieves #1
- The Republic of Thieves #2
- Edge of Dawn
- A Quest of Heroes
- Mistress of the Empire
- Servant of the Empire
- Gates of Rapture
- Reaper (End of Days)
- This Side of the Grave
- Magician's Gambit (Book Three of The Belgariad)
- Skin Game: A Novel of the Dresden Files
- Murder of Crows
- The Queen of the Tearling
- A Tale of Two Castles
- Mark of the Demon
- Sins of the Demon
- Blood of the Demon
- The Other Side of Midnight
- Vengeance of the Demon: Demon Novels, Book Seven (Kara Gillian 7)
- Cold Burn of Magic
- Of Noble Family
- Wrath of a Mad God ( The Darkwar, Book 3)
- King of Foxes
- Daughter of the Empire
- Mistress of the Empire
- Krondor : Tear of the Gods (Riftwar Legacy Book 3)
- Shards of a Broken Crown (Serpentwar Book 4)
- Rise of a Merchant Prince
- End of Days (Penryn and the End of Day #3)
- Servant of the Empire
- Talon of the Silver Hawk
- Shadow of a Dark Queen
- The Cost of All Things
- The Wicked (A Novella of the Elder Races)
- Night's Honor (A Novel of the Elder Races Book 7)
- Born of Silence
- Born of Shadows
- Sins of the Night
- Kiss of the Night (Dark Hunter Series – Book 7)
- Born Of The Night (The League Series Book 1)