He began to half-pull her, half-push her, to the edge of the crowd. The vampires winced away from the light of the seraph blade as it swept over them, all of them hissing like scalded cats.
“Enough standing around!” It was Raphael. His arm was streaming blood, his lips curled back from his pointed incisors. He glared at the teeming mass of vampires milling in confusion. “Seize the trespassers,” he shouted. “Kill them both—the rat as well!”
The vampires started toward Jace and Clary, some of them walking, others gliding, others swooping down from the balconies above like flapping black bats. Jace increased his pace as they broke free of the crowd, heading toward the far wall. Clary squirmed, half-turning to look up at him. “Shouldn’t we stand back to back or something?”
“What? Why?”
“I don’t know. In movies that’s what they do in this kind of … situation.”
She felt him shake. Was he frightened? No, he was laughing. “You,” he breathed. “You are the most—”
“The most what?” she demanded indignantly. They were still backing up, stepping carefully to avoid the broken bits of furniture and smashed marble that littered the floor. Jace held the angel blade high above both their heads. She could see how the vampires circled around the edges of the glimmering circle it cast. She wondered how long it would hold them off.
“Nothing,” he said. “This isn’t a situation, okay? I save that word for when things get really bad.”
“Really bad? This isn’t really bad? What do you want, a nuclear—”
She broke off with a scream as Lily, braving the light, launched herself at Jace, her teeth bared in a searing snarl. Jace seized the second blade from his belt and hurled it through the air; Lily fell back screeching, a long gash sizzling down her arm. As she staggered, the other vampires surged forward around her. There were so many of them, Clary thought, so many—
She fumbled at her belt, her fingers closing around the hilt of the dagger. It felt cold and foreign in her hand. She didn’t know how to use a knife. She’d never hit anyone, let alone stabbed them. She’d even skipped gym class the day they’d learned how to ward off muggers and rapists with ordinary objects like car keys and pencils. She pulled the knife free, raised it in a shaking hand—
The windows exploded inward in a shower of broken glass. She heard herself cry out, saw the vampires—barely an arm’s length from her and Jace—whirl in astonishment, shock mingling with terror on their faces. Through the shattered windows came dozens of sleek shapes, four-footed and low to the ground, their coats scattering moonlight and broken bits of glass. Their eyes were blue fire, and from their throats came a combined low growl that sounded like the roiling crash of a waterfall.
Wolves.
“Now this,” said Jace, “is a situation.”
15
HIGH AND DRY
THE WOLVES CROUCHED, LOW AND SNARLING, AND THE vampires, looking stunned, backed away. Only Raphael held his ground. He still clutched his wounded arm, his shirt a smeared mess of blood and dirt. “Los Ni?os de la Luna,” he hissed. Even Clary, whose Spanish was almost nonexistent, knew what he had said. The Moon’s Children—werewolves. “I thought they hated each other,” she whispered to Jace. “Vampires and werewolves.”
“They do. They never come to each other’s lairs. Never. The Covenant forbids it.” He sounded almost indignant. “Something must have happened. This is bad. Very bad.”
“How can it be worse than it was before?”
“Because,” he said, “we’re about to be in the middle of a war.”
“HOW DARE YOU ENTER OUR PLACE?” Raphael screamed. His face was scarlet, suffused with blood.
The largest of the wolves, a brindled gray monster with teeth like a shark’s, gave a panting doglike chuckle. As he moved forward, between one step and the next he seemed to shift and change like a wave rising and curling. Now he was a tall heavily muscled man with long hair that hung in gray ropelike tangles. He wore jeans and a thick leather jacket, and there was still something wolfish in the cast of his lean, weathered face. “We didn’t come for a blooding,” he said. “We came for the girl.”
Raphael managed to look furious and astounded at once. “Who?”
“The human girl.” The werewolf flung out a stiff arm, pointing at Clary.
She was too shocked to move. Simon, who had been squirming in her grasp, went still. Behind her Jace muttered something that sounded distinctly blasphemous. “You didn’t tell me you knew any werewolves.” She could hear the slight catch under his flat tone—he was as surprised as she was.
“I don’t,” she said.
“This is bad,” said Jace.
“You said that before.”
“It seemed worth repeating.”
“Well, it wasn’t.” Clary shrank back against him. “Jace. They’re all looking at me.”
CITY OF BONES
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 ASHES
- 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)