City of Fallen Angels

When it was over, he pressed his forehead against the cold stone floor. Sweat was cooling on his body, his shirt sticking to him, and he wondered, not idly, if eventually the dreams would kill him. He had tried everything to stop them—sleeping pills and potions, runes of sleep and runes of peace and healing. Nothing worked. The dreams stole like poison into his mind, and there was nothing he could do to shut them out.

Even during his waking hours, he found it hard to look at Clary. She had always been able to see through him the way no one else had, and he could only imagine what she would think if she knew what he dreamed. He rolled onto his side and stared at the box on the nightstand, moonlight sparking off it. And he thought of Valentine. Valentine, who had tortured and imprisoned the only woman he’d ever loved, who had taught his son—both his sons—that to love something is to destroy it forever.

His mind spun frantically as he said the words to himself, over and over. It had become a sort of chant for him, and like any chant, the words had started to lose their individual meanings.

I’m not like Valentine. I don’t want to be like him. I won’t be like him. I won’t.

He saw Sebastian—Jonathan, really—his sort-of-brother, grinning at him through a tangle of silver-white hair, his black eyes shining with merciless glee. And he saw his own knife go into Jonathan and pull free, and Jonathan’s body tumbling down toward the river below, his blood mixing with the weeds and grass at the riverbank’s edge.

I am not like Valentine.

He had not been sorry to kill Jonathan. Given the chance, he would do it again.

I don’t want to be like him.

Surely it wasn’t normal to kill someone—to kill your own adoptive brother—and feel nothing about it at all.

I won’t be like him.

But his father had taught him that to kill without mercy was a virtue, and maybe you could never forget what your parents taught you. No matter how badly you wanted to.

I won’t be like him.

Maybe people could never really change.

I won’t.





4

THE ART OF EIGHT LIMBS


HERE ARE ENSHRINED THE LONGING OF GREAT HEARTS AND NOBLE THINGS THAT TOWER ABOVE THE TIDE, THE MAGIC WORD THAT WINGED WONDER STARTS, THE GARNERED WISDOM THAT HAS NEVER DIED.

The words were engraved over the front doors of the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza. Simon was sitting on the front steps, looking up at the facade. Inscriptions glittered against the stone in dull gilt, each word flashing into momentary life when caught by the headlights of passing cars.

The library had always been one of his favorite places when he was a kid. There was a separate children’s entrance around the side, and he had met Clary there every Saturday for years. They would pick up a stack of books and head for the Botanical Garden next door, where they could read for hours, sprawled in the grass, the sound of traffic a constant dull thrumming in the distance.

How he had ended up here tonight, he wasn’t quite sure. He had gotten away from his house as fast as he could, only to realize he had nowhere to go. He couldn’t face going to Clary’s—she’d be horrified at what he’d done, and would want him to go back to fix it. Eric and the other guys wouldn’t understand. Jace didn’t like him, and besides, he couldn’t go into the Institute. It was a church, and the reason the Nephilim lived there in the first place was precisely to keep creatures like him out. Eventually he had realized who it was he could call, but the thought had been unpleasant enough that it had taken him a while to screw up the nerve to actually do it.

He heard the motorcycle before he saw it, the loud roar of the engine cutting through the sounds of light traffic on Grand Army Plaza. The cycle careened across the intersection and up onto the pavement, then reared back and shot up the steps. Simon moved aside as it landed lightly beside him and Raphael released the handlebars.

The motorcycle went instantly quiet. Vamp motorcycles were powered by demonic spirits and responded like pets to the wishes of their owners. Simon found them creepy.

“You wanted to see me, Daylighter?” Raphael, as elegant as always in a black jacket and expensive-looking jeans, dismounted and leaned his motorcycle against the library railing. “This had better be good,” he added. “It is not for nothing that I come all the way to Brooklyn. Raphael Santiago does not belong in an outer borough.”

“Oh, good. You’re starting to talk about yourself in the third person. That’s not a sign of impending megalomania or anything.”

Raphael shrugged. “You can either tell me what you wanted to tell me, or I will leave. It is up to you.” He looked at his watch. “You have thirty seconds.”

“I told my mother I’m a vampire.”

Raphael’s eyebrows went up. They were very thin and very dark. In less generous moments Simon sometimes wondered if he penciled them on. “And what happened?”

“She called me a monster and tried to pray at me.” The memory made the bitter taste of old blood rise in the back of Simon’s throat.

“And then?”

“And then I’m not sure what happened. I started talking to her in this really weird, soothing voice, telling her nothing had happened and it was all a dream.”

“And she believed you.”