City of Lost Souls

Azazel showed a metallic smile. “You may not be proud like old Faustus, warlock, but you are impatient. I am sure my willingness to remain in this pentagram will outlast your desire to keep watch over me inside it.”


“Oh, I don’t know,” Magnus said. “I’ve always been fairly bold where decorating is concerned, and having you here does add that little extra touch of something to the room.”

“Magnus,” Alec said, clearly not thrilled at the idea of an immortal demon taking up residence in his boyfriend’s loft.

“Jealous, little Shadowhunter?” Azazel grinned at Alec. “Your warlock is not my type, and besides, I would hardly want to anger his—”

“Enough,” Magnus said. “Tell us what the ‘little’ thing you want in return for your plan is.”

Azazel templed his hands—hard workman’s hands, the color of blood, topped with black nails. “One happy memory,” he said. “From each of you. Something to amuse me while I am bound like Prometheus to his rock.”

“A memory?” said Isabelle in astonishment. “You mean it would vanish out of our heads? We wouldn’t be able to recall it anymore?”

Azazel squinted at her through the flames. “What are you, little one? A Nephilim? Yes, I would take your memory and it would become mine. You would no longer know that it had happened to you. Although, please do avoid giving me memories of demons you’ve slaughtered under the light of the moon. Not the sort of thing I enjoy. No, I want these memories to be… personal.” He grinned, and his teeth gleamed like an iron portcullis.

“I’m old,” Magnus said. “I have many memories. I would give one up, if needed. But I cannot speak for the rest of you. No one should be forced to give up something like this.”

“I’ll do it,” Isabelle said immediately. “For Jace.”

“I will too, of course,” said Alec, and then it was Simon’s turn. He thought suddenly of Jace, cutting his wrist and giving him his blood in the tiny room on Valentine’s boat. Risking his own life for Simon’s. It might have been for Clary’s sake at its heart, but it was still a debt. “I’m in.”

“Good,” Magnus said. “All of you, try to think of happy memories. They must be genuinely happy. Something that gives you pleasure in the recollection.” He shot a sour glance at the smug demon in the pentagram.

“I’m ready,” Isabelle said. She was standing with her eyes closed, her back straight as if braced for pain. Magnus moved toward her and laid his fingers against her forehead, murmuring softly.

Alec watched Magnus with his sister, his mouth tight, then shut his eyes. Simon shut his own too, hastily, and tried to summon up a happy memory—something to do with Clary? But so many of his memories of her were tinged now with his worry over her well-being. Something from when they were very young? An image swam to the forefront of his mind—a hot summer day at Coney Island, him on his father’s shoulders, Rebecca running behind them, trailing a handful of balloons. Looking up at the sky, trying to find shapes in the clouds, and the sound of his mother’s laughter. No, he thought, not that. I don’t want to lose that—

There was a cool touch on his forehead. He opened his eyes and saw Magnus lowering his hand. Simon blinked at him, his mind suddenly blank. “But I wasn’t thinking of anything,” he protested.

Magnus’s cat eyes were sad. “Yes, you were.”

Simon glanced around the room, feeling a little dizzy. The others looked the same, as if they were awakening from a strange dream; he caught Isabelle’s eye, the dark flutter of her lashes, and wondered what she had thought about, what happiness she had given away.

A low rumble from the center of the pentagram drew his gaze from Izzy. Azazel stood, as close to the edge of the pattern as he could, a slow growl of hunger coming from his throat. Magnus turned and looked at him, a look of disgust on his face. His hand was closed into a fist, and something seemed to be shining between his fingers as if he held a witchlight rune-stone. He turned and flung it, fast and sideways, into the center of the pentagram. Simon’s vampire vision tracked it. It was a bead of light that expanded as it flew, expanded into a circle holding multiple images. Simon saw a piece of azure ocean, the corner of a satin dress that belled out as its wearer spun, a glimpse of Magnus’s face, a boy with blue eyes—and then Azazel opened his arms and the circle of images vanished into his body, like a stray piece of trash sucked into the fuselage of a jet plane.

Azazel gasped. His eyes, which had been darting flickers of red flame, blazed like bonfires now, and his voice crackled when he spoke. “Ahhhh. Delicious.”

Magnus spoke sharply. “Now for your side of the bargain.”