CITY OF ASHES

Clary said, “Simon, don’t—”

“At least I’m not wasting my time standing here flirting while we don’t know what’s happened to Luke.” He gestured for her to move aside from the door.

Jace’s lips thinned. “We’ll all go.” To Clary’s surprise he jerked a seraph blade out of his belt and handed it to her. “Take it.”

“What’s its name?” she asked, moving away from the door.

“Nakir.”

Clary had left her jacket in the kitchen, and the cold air sheeting off the East River cut through her thin shirt the moment she stepped out onto the dark porch. “Luke?” she called. “Luke!”

The truck was pulled up in the driveway, one of the doors hanging open. The roof light was on, shedding a faint glow. Jace frowned. “The keys are in the ignition. The car’s idling.”

Simon shut the front door behind them. “How do you know that?”

“I can hear it.” Jace looked at Simon speculatively. “And so could you if you tried, bloodsucker.” He loped down the stairs, a faint chuckle drifting behind him on the wind.

“I think I liked ‘mundane’ better than ‘bloodsucker,’” Simon muttered.

“With Jace, you don’t really get to choose your insulting nickname.” Clary felt in her jeans pocket until her fingers encountered cool, smooth stone. She raised the witchlight in her hand, its glow raying out between her fingers like the light of a tiny sun. “Come on.”

Jace had been right; the truck was idling. Clary smelled the exhaust as they approached, her heart sinking. Luke would never have left the car door open and the keys in the ignition like that unless something had happened.

Jace was circling the truck, frowning. “Bring that witchlight closer.” He knelt down in the grass, running his fingers lightly over it. From an inner pocket he drew an object Clary recognized: a smooth piece of metal, engraved all over with delicate runes. A Sensor. Jace ran it over the grass and it obliged with a series of loud clicking noises, like a Geiger counter gone berserk. “Definite demonic action. I’m picking up heavy traces.”

“Could that be left over from the demon who attacked Maia?” Simon asked.

“The levels are too high. There’s been more than one demon here tonight.” Jace rose to his feet, all business. “Maybe you two should go back inside. Send Alec out here. He’s dealt with this sort of thing before.”

“Jace—” Clary was furious all over again. She broke off as something caught her eye. It was a flicker of movement, across the street, down by the cement rock-strewn bank of the East River. There was something about the movement—an angle as a gesture caught the light, something too quick, too elongated to be human…

Clary flung an arm out, pointing. “Look! By the water!”

Jace’s gaze followed hers and he sucked in his breath. Then he was running, and they were running after him, over the asphalt of Kent Street and onto the scrubby grass that bordered the waterfront. The witchlight swung in Clary’s hand as she ran, lighting bits of the riverbank with haphazard illumination: a patch of weeds there, a jut of broken concrete that nearly tripped her up, a heap of trash and broken glass—and then, as they came in clear sight of the lapping water, the crumpled figure of a man.

It was Luke—Clary saw that instantly, though the two dark, humped shapes crouching over him blocked his face from her view. He was on his back, so close to the water that she wondered for a panicked moment if the hunched creatures were holding him under, trying to drown him. Then they drew back, hissing through perfectly circular lipless mouths, and she saw that his head was resting on the gravelly riverbank. His face was slack and gray.

“Raum demons,” Jace whispered.

Simon’s eyes were wide. “Are those the same things that attacked Maia—?”

“No. These are much worse.” Jace gestured at Simon and Clary to get behind him. “You two, stay back.” He raised his seraph blade. “Israfiel!” he cried, and there was a sudden hot burst of light as it blazed up. Jace leaped forward, sweeping his weapon at the nearest of the demons. In the light of the seraph blade, the demon’s appearance was unpleasantly visible: dead-white, scaled skin, a black hole for a mouth, bulging, toadlike eyes, and arms that ended in tentacles where hands should have been. It lashed out now with those tentacles, whipping them toward Jace with incredible speed.