City of Fallen Angels

“But your mom didn’t abandon him,” Simon said. “She stuck with raising him even though she knew there was something horribly wrong with him.”


“She hated him, though,” Clary said. “I don’t think she’s ever gotten over that. Imagine hating your own baby. She used to take out a box that had his baby things in it and cry over it every year on his birthday. I think she was crying over the son she would have had—you know, if Valentine hadn’t done what he had.”

“And you would have had a brother,” said Simon. “Like, an actual one. Not a murdering psychopath.”

Looking close to tears, Clary pushed her plate away. “I feel sick now,” she said. “You know that feeling like you’re hungry but you can’t bring yourself to eat?”

Simon looked over at the bleached-haired waitress, who was leaning against the diner counter. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”


Luke returned to the table eventually, but only to tell Clary and Simon that he was taking Jocelyn home. He left some money, which they used to pay the bill before wandering out of the diner and over to Galaxy Comics on Seventh Avenue. Neither of them could concentrate enough to enjoy themselves, though, so they split up, with a promise to see each other the next day.

Simon rode into the city with his hood pulled up and his iPod on, blasting music into his ears. Music had always been his way of blocking everything out. By the time he got out at Second Avenue and headed down Houston, a light rain had started to fall, and his stomach was in knots.

He cut over to First Street, which was mostly deserted, a strip of darkness between the bright lights of First Avenue and Avenue A. Because he had his iPod on, he didn’t hear them coming up behind him until they were nearly on him. The first intimation he had that something was wrong was a long shadow that fell across the sidewalk, overlapping his own. Another shadow joined it, this one on his other side. He turned—

And saw two men behind him. Both were dressed exactly like the mugger who had attacked him the other night—gray tracksuits, gray hoods pulled up to hide their faces. They were close enough to touch him.

Simon leaped back, with a force that surprised him. Because his vampire strength was so new, it still had the power to shock him. When, a moment later, he found himself perched on the stoop of a brownstone, several feet away from the muggers, he was so astonished to be there that he froze.

The muggers advanced on him. They were speaking the same guttural language as the first mugger—who, Simon was beginning to suspect, had not been a mugger at all. Muggers, as far as he knew, didn’t work in gangs, and it was unlikely that the first mugger had criminal friends who had decided to take revenge on him for their comrade’s demise. Something else was clearly going on here.

They had reached the stoop, effectively trapping him on the steps. Simon tore his iPod headphones from his ears and hastily held his hands up. “Look,” he said, “I don’t know what this is about, but you really want to leave me alone.”

The muggers just looked at him. Or at least he thought they were looking at him. Under the shadows of their hoods, it was impossible to see their faces.

“I’m getting the feeling someone sent you after me,” he said. “But it’s a suicide mission. Seriously. I don’t know what they’re paying you, but it’s not enough.”

One of the tracksuited figures laughed. The other had reached into his pocket and drawn something out. Something that shone black under the streetlights.

A gun.

“Oh, man,” Simon said. “You really, really don’t want to do that. I’m not kidding.” He took a step back, up one of the stairs. Maybe if he got enough height, he could actually jump over them, or past them. Anything but let them attack him. He didn’t think he could face what that meant. Not again.

The man with the gun raised it. There was a click as he pulled the hammer back.

Simon bit his lip. In his panic his fangs had come out. Pain shot through him as they sank into his skin. “Don’t—”

A dark object fell from the sky. At first Simon thought something had merely tumbled from one of the upper windows—an air conditioner ripping loose, or someone too lazy to drag their trash downstairs. But the falling thing, he saw, was a person—falling with direction, purpose, and grace. The person landed on the mugger, knocking him flat. The gun skittered out of his hand, and he screamed, a thin, high sound.

The second mugger bent and seized the gun. Before Simon could react, the guy had raised it and pulled the trigger. A spark of flame appeared at the gun’s muzzle.