The Evil We Love (Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy, #5)

Robert gripped the man’s feeble jaws and pried them open.

Valentine pressed the flat side of the dagger to the man’s tongue and held it there as the man’s shriek turned into a howl, as his scrawny muscles bulged and fur bloomed across his flesh, as the tongue bubbled and blistered, and then, just as the fully transformed wolf snapped its bindings, Valentine sliced off its tongue. As its mouth gushed blood, Valentine slashed a sharp line across the wolf’s midsection. The cut was sure and deep, and the wolf dropped to the ground, intestines spilling from its wound.

Valentine leaped upon the writhing creature, stabbing and slicing, tearing through its hide, flaying flesh to pearly bone, even as the creature flailed and spasmed helplessly beneath him, even as the fight drained out of it, even as its gaze went flat, even as its broken body reclaimed human form, lay still on bloody earth, an old man’s face bled pale and turned lifelessly to the night sky.

“That’s enough,” Robert kept saying, quietly, uselessly. “Valentine, that’s enough.”

But he did nothing to stop it.

And when his friends returned from their patrol to find Valentine and Robert standing over the disemboweled corpse, he didn’t counter Valentine’s version of events: The werewolf had slipped free of its bonds and tried to escape. They had endured a fierce battle, killed in self-defense.

The outline of this story was, technically, true.

Stephen clapped Valentine on the back, commiserating with him that he’d lost the potential lead to his father’s killer. Michael locked eyes with Robert, his question clear as if he’d spoken it aloud. What really happened?

What did you let happen?

Robert looked away.

*

Isabelle was avoiding him. Beatriz was fuming at him. Everyone else was buzzing with too much excitement about the previous night’s adventure and the secret one to come. Julie and Marisol only echoed George’s cryptic promise—that something good was on the horizon, and if Simon wanted to know about it, he would have to join them.

“I don’t think Isabelle would want me there,” he told Sunil as they picked warily through the steamed heap of vaguely vegetable-shaped objects that passed for lunch.

Sunil shook his head and grinned. The smile fit his face poorly; Sunil with a grin was like a Klingon in a tutu. He was an unusually somber boy who seemed to consider good cheer as a sign of unseriousness, and treated people accordingly. “She told us to convince you to show up. She said ‘whatever it takes.’ So, you tell me, Simon.” The unsettling smile grew. “What’s it going to take?”

“You don’t even know her,” Simon pointed out. “Why are you suddenly so willing to do whatever she tells you to do?”

“We are talking about the same girl here, yes? Isabelle Lightwood?”

“Yes.”

Sunil shook his head in wonder. “And you even have to ask?”

So that was the new order: the cult of Isabelle Lightwood. Simon had to admit, he could completely understand how a roomful of otherwise rational people could fall completely under her spell and give themselves to her entirely.

But why would she want them to?

He decided he was going to have to see this for himself. Simply to understand what was going on and make sure it was all on the up-and-up.

Not at all because he desperately wanted to be near her. Or impress her. Or please her.

Come to think of it, maybe Simon understood the cult of Isabelle better than he wanted to admit.

Maybe he’d been its charter member.

*

“You intend to do what?” On the last word, Simon’s voice jumped two octaves above normal.