City of Lost Souls

Clary tensed, but Sebastian didn’t move. His dark eyes followed his mother as she came toward him. “Is that what you want?” he said. “For me to die?” He opened his arms, as if he meant to embrace Jocelyn, and took a step forward. “Go ahead. Commit filicide. I won’t stop you.”


“Sebastian,” said Jace. Clary shot him an incredulous look. Did he actually sound concerned?

Jocelyn moved another step forward. The knife was a blur in her hand. When it came to a stop, the tip was pointed directly at Sebastian’s heart.

Still, he didn’t move.

“Do it,” he said softly. He cocked his head to the side. “Or can you bring yourself to? You could have killed me when I was born. But you didn’t.” His voice lowered. “Maybe you know that there is no such thing as conditional love for a child. Maybe if you loved me enough, you could save me.”

For a moment they stared at each other, mother and son, ice-green eyes meeting coal-black ones. There were sharp lines at the corners of Jocelyn’s mouth that Clary could have sworn hadn’t been there two weeks ago. “You’re pretending,” she said, her voice shaking. “You don’t feel anything, Jonathan. Your father taught you to feign human emotion the way one might teach a parrot to repeat words. It doesn’t understand what it’s saying, and neither do you. I wish—oh, God, I wish—that you did. But—”

Jocelyn brought the blade up in a swift, clean, cutting arc. A perfectly placed blow, it should have driven up under Sebastian’s ribs and into his heart. It would have, if he had not moved even faster than Jace; he spun away and back, and the tip of the blade cut only a shallow slash along his chest.

Beside Clary, Jace sucked in his breath. She whirled to look at him. There was a spreading red stain across the front of his shirt. He touched his hand to it; his fingertips came away bloody. We are bound. Cut him and I bleed.

Without another thought Clary darted across the room, throwing herself between Jocelyn and Sebastian. “Mom,” she gasped. “Stop.”

Jocelyn was still holding the knife, her eyes on Sebastian. “Clary, get out of the way.”

Sebastian began to laugh. “Sweet, isn’t it?” he said. “A little sister defending her big brother.”

“I’m not defending you.” Clary kept her eyes fixed on her mother’s face. “Whatever happens to Jonathan happens to Jace. Do you understand, Mom? If you kill him, Jace dies. He’s already bleeding. Mom, please.”

Jocelyn was still gripping the knife, but her expression was uncertain. “Clary…”

“Gracious, how awkward,” Sebastian observed. “I’ll be interested to see how you resolve this. After all, I’ve got no reason to leave.”

“Yes, actually,” came a voice from the hallway, “you do.”

It was Luke, barefoot and in jeans and an old sweater. He looked tousled, and oddly younger without his glasses. He also had a sawed-off shotgun balanced at his shoulder, the barrel trained directly on Sebastian. “This is a Winchester twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun. The pack uses it to put down wolves who’ve gone rogue,” he said. “Even if I don’t kill you, I can blow your leg off, Valentine’s son.”

It was as if everyone in the room took a quick gasp of breath all at once—everyone except Luke. And Sebastian, who, a grin splitting his face in half, turned and walked toward Luke, as if oblivious of the gun. “‘Valentine’s son,’” he said. “Is that really how you think of me? Under other circumstances you could have been my godfather.”

“Under other circumstances,” said Luke, sliding his finger onto the trigger, “you could have been human.”

Sebastian stopped in his tracks. “The same could be said of you, werewolf.”

The world seemed to have slowed down. Luke sighted along the barrel of the rifle. Sebastian stood smiling.

“Luke,” Clary said. It was like one of those dreams, a nightmare where she wanted to scream but all that would scrape past her throat was a whisper. “Luke, don’t do it.”

Her stepfather’s finger tightened on the trigger—and then Jace exploded into movement, launching himself from beside Clary, flipping over the sofa, and slamming into Luke just as the shotgun went off.

The shot flew wide; one of the windows shattered outward as the bullet struck it. Luke, knocked off balance, staggered back. Jace yanked the gun from his hands and threw it. It hurtled through the broken window, and Jace turned back toward the older man.

“Luke—,” he began.

Luke hit him.