CITY OF BONES

I’m here, she wanted to say, but no words would come out of her mouth. The group was still moving up the lawn toward the hospital, agonizingly slowly. Luke’s grip was rigid as iron. Clary couldn’t tell who was winning, if anyone. The wolves had size and speed on their side, but the Forsaken moved with a grim inevitability and were surprisingly hard to kill. She saw the big brindled wolf who was Alaric take one down by tearing its legs out from under it, then leaping for its throat. It kept moving even as he ripped it apart, its slashing ax opening up a long red cut along Alaric’s glinting coat.

Distracted, Clary hardly noticed the Forsaken that broke through the protective circle, until it loomed up in front of her, as if it had sprung up from the grass at her feet. White-eyed, with matted hair, it raised a dripping knife.

She screamed. Luke whirled, dragging her sideways, and caught the thing’s wrist, and twisted. She heard the snap of bone, and the knife fell to the grass. The Forsaken’s hand dangled limply, but it kept coming on toward them, evincing no sign of pain. Luke was shouting hoarsely for Alaric. Clary tried to reach the dagger in her belt, but Luke’s grip on her arm was too strong. Before she could shout at him to let go of her, a lick of slim silver fire hurtled between them. It was Gretel. She landed with her front paws against the Forsaken’s chest, knocking it to the ground. A fierce whine of rage rose from Gretel’s throat, but the Forsaken was stronger; it flung her aside like a rag doll and rolled to its feet.

Something lifted Clary off her feet. She shouted, but it was Alaric, half in and half out of wolf-form, his hands taloned with sharp claws. Still, they held her gently as he swung her up into his arms.

Luke was motioning at them. “Get her out of here! Get her to the doors!” he was shouting.

“Luke!” Clary twisted in Alaric’s grasp.

“Don’t look,” Alaric said in a growl.

But she did look. Long enough to see Luke start toward Gretel, a blade in his hand, but he was too late. The Forsaken seized up its knife, which had fallen into the blood-wet grass, and sank it into Gretel’s back, again and again as she clawed and struggled and finally collapsed, the light in her silvery eyes fading into darkness. With a shout Luke swung his blade at the Forsaken’s throat—

“I told you not to look,” Alaric growled, turning so that her line of sight was blocked by his looming bulk. They were racing up the steps now, the sound of his clawed feet scraping the granite like nails on a blackboard.

“Alaric,” Clary said.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry I threw a knife at you.”

“Don’t be. It was a well-placed blow.”

She tried to look past him. “Where’s Luke?”

“I’m here,” Luke said. Alaric turned. Luke was coming up the steps, sliding his sword back into its sheath, which was strapped to his side, beneath his jacket. The blade was black and sticky.

Alaric let Clary slide to the porch. She landed, turning. She couldn’t see Gretel or the Forsaken who had killed her, only a mass of heaving bodies and flashing metal. Her face was wet. She reached up with a free hand to see if she was bleeding but realized that she was crying instead. Luke looked at her curiously. “She was only a Downworlder,” he said.

Clary’s eyes burned. “Don’t say that.”

“I see.” He turned to Alaric. “Thank you for taking care of her. While we go on—”

“I’m going with you,” said Alaric. He had made most of the transformation to man-form, but his eyes were still wolf’s eyes, and his lips were drawn back from teeth as long as toothpicks. He flexed his long-nailed hands.

Luke’s eyes were troubled. “Alaric, no.”

Alaric’s growling voice was flat. “You are the pack leader. I am your second now that Gretel is dead. It would not be right to let you go alone.”

“I—” Luke looked at Clary, and then back out at the field in front of the hospital. “I need you out here, Alaric. I’m sorry. That’s an order.”

Alaric’s eyes flashed resentfully, but he stepped aside. The hospital door was ornate heavy carved wood, patterns familiar to Clary, the roses of Idris, curling runes, rayed suns. It gave with the popping noise of a burst latch when Luke kicked at it. He pushed Clary forward as the door swung wide. “Get inside.”

She stumbled past him, turned on the threshold. She caught a single brief glimpse of Alaric looking after them, his wolf eyes gleaming. Behind him the lawn in front of the hospital was strewn with bodies, the dirt stained with blood, black and red. When the door slammed shut behind her, cutting off her view, she was grateful.

She and Luke stood in half-lit dimness, in a stone entryway lit by a single torch. After the din of battle the silence was like a smothering cloak. Clary found herself gasping in breaths of air, air that wasn’t thick with humidity and the smell of blood.

Luke gripped her shoulder with his hand. “Are you all right?”

She wiped at her cheeks. “You shouldn’t have said that. About Gretel being just a Downworlder. I don’t think that.”

“I’m glad to hear it.” He reached for the torch in its metal holder. “I hated the idea of the Lightwoods turning you into a copy of them.”

“Well, they haven’t.”