City of Lost Souls

She whirled around. Sebastian was fighting another of the Elapids by the door of the shop; Jace was fending off two next to a display of antique ceramics. Shards of pottery littered the floor. Clary swung her arm back and threw the dagger, as Jace had taught her to. It soared through the air and struck one of the creatures in the side, sending it jittering and squeaking away from Jace. Jace whirled around and, seeing her, winked before reaching up to scissor off the head of the remaining Elapid demon. Its body collapsed as it vanished and Jace, splattered in black blood, grinned.

A surge of something went through Clary—a sense of buzzing elation. Both Jace and Isabelle had spoken to her of the high of battle, but she’d never really experienced it before. Now she did. She felt all-powerful, her veins humming, strength uncoiling from the base of her spine. Everything seemed to have slowed down around her. She watched as the injured Elapid demon spun and turned on her, racing toward her on its insectile feet, lips already curling back from its fangs. She stepped back, yanked the antique flag from its mounting place on the wall, and slammed the end of it into the Elapid’s open, gaping mouth. The pole punched out through the back of the creature’s skull, and the Elapid disappeared, taking the flag with it.

Clary laughed out loud. Sebastian, who had just finished off another demon, swung around at the noise, and his eyes widened. “Clary! Stop him!” he shouted, and she spun around to see Mirek, his hands fumbling at a door set into the back of the shop.

She broke into a run, yanking the seraph blade from her belt as she went. “Nakir!” she cried, vaulting up onto the counter, and she flung herself from the top of it as her weapon exploded into brightness. She landed on the Vetis demon, knocking him to the ground. One of his eel-like arms snapped at her, and she sliced it off with a sawing motion of her blade. More black blood sprayed. The demon looked at her with red, frightened eyes.

“Stop,” he wheezed. “I could give you whatever you want—”

“I have everything I want,” she whispered, and drove her seraph blade down. It plunged into the demon’s chest, and Mirek disappeared with a hollow cry. Clary thumped to her knees on the carpet.

A moment later two heads appeared over the side of the counter, staring down at her—one golden-blond and one silver-blond. Jace and Sebastian. Jace was wide-eyed; Sebastian looked pale. “Name of the Angel, Clary,” he breathed. “The adamas—”

“Oh, that stuff you wanted? It’s right here.” It had rolled partly under the counter. Clary held it up now, a luminous chunk of silver, smeared where her bloody hands had touched it.

Sebastian swore with relief and grabbed the adamas out of her hands as Jace vaulted over the counter in a single movement and landed beside Clary. He knelt down and pulled her close, running his hands over her, his eyes dark with concern. She caught at his wrists.

“I’m all right,” she said. Her heart was pounding, her blood still singing in her veins. He opened his mouth to say something, but she leaned forward and put her hands on either side of his face, her nails digging in. “I feel good.” She looked at him, rumpled and sweaty and bloody as he was, and wanted to kiss him. She wanted—

“All right, you two,” said Sebastian. Clary pulled away from Jace and glanced up at her brother. He was grinning down at them, lazily spinning the adamas in one hand. “Tomorrow we use this,” he said, nodding toward it. “But tonight—once we’re cleaned up a little—we celebrate.”



Simon padded barefoot out into the living room, Isabelle behind him, to find a surprising tableau. The circle and the pentagram in the center of the floor were shining with a bright silver light, like mercury. Smoke rose from the center of it, a tall black-red column, tipped with white. The whole room smelled of burning. Magnus and Alec stood outside the circle, and with them Jordan and Maia, who—given the coats and hats they were wearing—looked as if they had just arrived.

“What’s going on?” Isabelle asked, stretching her long limbs with a yawn. “Why is everyone watching the Pentagram Channel?”

“Just hang on a second,” Alec said grimly. “You’ll see.”

Isabelle shrugged and added her gaze to the others’. As everyone watched, the white smoke began to swirl, fast and then faster, a mini-tornado that tore across the center of the pentagram, leaving words behind it spelled out in scorch marks:

HAVE YOU MADE YOUR DECISION YET?

“Huh,” Simon said. “Has it been doing that all morning?”

Magnus threw his arms up. He was wearing leather pants and a shirt with a zigzag metallic lightning bolt on it. “All night, too.”

“Just asking the same question over and over?”

“No, it says different things. Sometimes it swears. Azazel appears to be having some fun.”

“Can it hear us?” Jordan cocked his head to the side. “Hey, there, demon guy.”

The fiery letters rearranged themselves. HELLO, WEREWOLF.

Jordan took a step back and looked at Magnus. “Is this… normal?”

Magnus seemed deeply unhappy. “It is most decidedly not normal. I have never called up a demon as powerful as Azazel, but even so—I’ve been through the literature, and I can’t find an example of this happening before. It’s getting out of control.”