CITY OF ASHES

“But that’s the problem. The demon energies change us, make us different—you can call it a sickness or whatever you want, but the demons who created vampires and the demons who created werewolves came from species who were at war with each other. They hated each other, so it’s in our blood to hate each other too. We can’t help it. A werewolf and a vampire can never be friends because of it.” She looked at Simon. Her eyes were bright with anger and something else. “You’ll start hating me soon enough,” she said. “You’ll hate Luke, too. You won’t be able to help it.”


“Hate Luke?” Simon was ashen, but before Clary could reassure him, the front door banged open. She looked around, expecting Luke, but it wasn’t Luke. It was Jace. He was all in black, two seraph blades stuck through the belt that circled his narrow hips. Alec and Magnus were just behind him, Magnus in a long, swirling cape that looked as if it were decorated with bits of crushed glass.

Jace’s golden eyes, with the precision of a laser, fixed immediately on Clary. If she’d thought he might look apologetic, concerned, or even ashamed after all that had happened, she was wrong. All he looked was angry. “What,” he said, with a sharp and deliberate annoyance, “do you think you’re doing?”

Clary glanced down at herself. She was still perched on the coffee table, knife in hand. She fought the urge to hide it behind her back. “We had an incident. I took care of it.”

“Really.” Jace’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Do you even know how to use that knife, Clarissa? Without poking a hole in yourself or any innocent bystanders?”

“I didn’t hurt anyone,” Clary said between her teeth.

“She stabbed the couch,” said Maia in a dull voice, her eyes falling shut. Her cheeks were still flushed red with fever and rage, but the rest of her face was alarmingly pale.

Simon looked at her worriedly. “I think she’s getting worse.”

Magnus cleared his throat. When Simon didn’t move, he said, “Get out of the way, mundane,” in a tone of immense annoyance. He flung his cloak back as he stalked across the room to where Maia lay on the couch. “I take it you’re my patient?” he inquired, gazing down at her through glitter-crusted lashes.

Maia stared up at him with unfocused eyes.

“I’m Magnus Bane,” he went on in a soothing tone, stretching out his ringed hands. Blue sparks had begun to dance between them like bioluminescence dancing in water. “I’m the warlock who’s here to cure you. Didn’t they tell you I was coming?”

“I know who you are, but…” Maia looked dazed. “You look so … so … shiny.”

Alec made a noise that sounded very much like a laugh stifled by a cough as Magnus’s thin hands wove a shimmering blue curtain of magic around the werewolf girl.

Jace wasn’t laughing. “Where,” he asked, “is Luke?”

“He’s outside,” Simon said. “He was moving the truck off the lawn.”

Jace and Alec exchanged a quick look.

“Funny,” Jace said. He didn’t sound amused. “I didn’t see him when we were coming up the stairs.”

A thin tendril of panic unfurled like a leaf inside Clary’s chest. “Did you see his pickup?”

“I saw it,” Alec said. “It was in the driveway. The lights were off.”

At that even Magnus, intent on Maia, looked up. Through the net of enchantment he had woven around himself and the werewolf girl, his features seemed blurred and indistinct, as if he were looking at them through water. “I don’t like it,” he said, his voice sounding hollow and far away. “Not after a Drevak attack. They roam in packs.”

Jace’s hand was already reaching for one of his seraph blades. “I’ll go check on him. Alec, you stay here, keep the house secure.”

Clary jumped down from the table. “I’m coming with you.”

“No, you’re not.” He headed for the door, not glancing behind him to see if she was following.

She put on a burst of speed and threw herself between him and the front door. “Stop.”

For a moment she thought he was going to keep right on going even if he had to walk through her, but he paused, just inches from her, so close she could feel his breath stir her hair when he spoke. “I will knock you down if I have to, Clarissa.”

“Stop calling me that.”

“Clary,” he said in a low voice, and the sound of her name in his mouth was so intimate that a shudder ran up her spine. The gold in his eyes had turned hard, metallic. She wondered for a moment if he might actually spring at her, what it would be like if he struck her, knocked her down, grabbed her wrists even. Fighting to him was like sex to other people. The thought of him touching her like that brought the blood to her cheeks in a hot flood.

She spoke around the breathless catch in her voice. “He’s my uncle, not yours—”

A savage humor flashed across his face. “Any uncle of yours is an uncle of mine, darling sister,” he said, “and he’s no blood relation to either of us.”

“Jace—”

“Besides, I haven’t got time to Mark you,” he said, lazy gold eyes raking her, “and all you’ve got is that knife. It won’t be much use if it’s demons we’re dealing with.”

She jammed the knife into the wall beside the door, point-first, and was rewarded by the look of surprise on his face. “So what? You’ve got two seraph blades; give me one.”

“Oh, for the love of—” It was Simon, hands jammed into his pockets, eyes burning like black coals in his white face. “I’ll go.”