Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1)

“Will!” Tessa called to him, though she wasn’t sure if he could hear her over the din. “Will—”

Something seized her by the back of her dress and hauled her up and backward. It was like being caught in the talons of an enormous bird. Tessa screamed once, and found herself flung forward, skidding across the floor. She hit the stack of chairs. They crashed to the floor in a deafening mass, and Tessa, sprawled among the mess, looked up with a shout of pain.

De Quincey stood over her. His black eyes were wild, rimmed with red; his white hair straggled over his face in matted clumps, and his shirt was slashed open across the front, the edges of the tear soaked with blood. He must have been cut, though not deeply enough to kill him, and had healed. The skin under the torn shirt looked unmarked now. “Bitch,” he snarled at Tessa. “Lying traitorous bitch. You brought that boy in here, Camille. That Nephilim.”

Tessa scrambled backward; her back hit the wall of fallen chairs.

“I welcomed you back to the clan, even after your disgusting little—interlude—with the lycanthrope. I tolerate that ridiculous warlock of yours. And this is how you repay me. Repay us.” He held his hands out to her; they were streaked with black ash. “You see this,” he said. “The dust of our dead people. Dead vampires. And you betrayed them for Nephilim.” He spat the word as if it were poison.

Something bubbled up out of Tessa’s throat. Laughter. Not her laughter; Camille’s. “‘Disgusting interlude’?” The words came out of Tessa’s mouth before she could stop them. It was as if she had no control over what she was saying. “I loved him—like you never loved me—like you’ve never loved anything. And you killed him just to show the clan that you could. I want you to know what it is like to lose everything that matters to you. I want you to know, as your home burns and your clan is brought to ashes and your own miserable life ends, that I am the one who is doing this to you.”

And Camille’s voice was gone just as quickly as it had come, leaving Tessa feeling drained and shocked. That didn’t stop her, though, from using her hands, behind her, to scrabble among the smashed chairs. Surely there had to be something, some broken-off piece that she could use as a weapon. De Quincey was staring at her in shock, his mouth open. Tessa imagined that no one had ever talked to him like that. Certainly not another vampire.

“Perhaps,” he said. “Perhaps I underestimated you. Perhaps you will destroy me.” He advanced on her, his hands out, reaching. “But I will bring you with me—”

Tessa’s fingers closed around the leg of a chair; without even thinking about it, she swung the chair up and over and brought it crashing down on de Quincey’s back. She felt elated as he yelled and staggered back. She scrambled to her feet as the vampire straightened up, and she swung the chair at him again. This time a jagged bit of broken chair arm caught him across the face, opening up a long red cut. His lips curled back from his teeth in a silent snarl, and he sprang—there was no other word for it. It was like the silent spring of a cat. He struck Tessa to the ground, landing on top of her and knocking the chair from her hand. He lunged at her throat, teeth bared, and she raked her clawed hand across his face. His blood, where it dripped on her, seemed to burn, like acid. She screamed and struck out at him harder, but he only laughed; his pupils had disappeared into the black of his eyes, and he looked entirely inhuman, like some sort of monstrous predatory serpent.

He caught her wrists in his grasp and forced them down on either side of her, hard against the floor. “Camille,” he said, leaning down over her, his voice thick. “Be still, little Camille. It will be over in moments—”

He threw his head back like a striking cobra. Terrified, Tessa struggled to free her trapped legs, meaning to kick him, kick him as hard as she could—

He yelled. Yelled and writhed, and Tessa saw that there was a hand caught in his hair, yanking his head up and back, dragging him to his feet. A hand inked all over with swirling black Marks.

Will’s hand.

De Quincey was hauled screaming to his feet, his hands clamped to his head. Tessa struggled upright, staring, as Will flung the howling vampire contemptuously away from him. Will wasn’t smiling anymore, but his eyes were glittering, and Tessa could see why Magnus had described their color as the sky in Hell.

“Nephilim.” De Quincey staggered, righted himself, and spat at Will’s feet.

Will drew the pistol from his belt and aimed it at de Quincey. “One of the Devil’s own abominations, aren’t you? You don’t even deserve to live in this world with the rest of us, and yet when we let you do so out of pity, you throw our gift back in our faces.”

“As if we need your pity,” de Quincey replied. “As if we could ever be less than you. You Nephilim, thinking you are—” He stopped abruptly. He was so smeared with filth that it was hard to tell, but it looked as if the cut on his face had already healed.

“Are what?” Will cocked the pistol; the click was loud even above the noise of the battle. “Say it.”

The vampire’s eyes burned. “Say what?”

“‘God,’” said Will. “You were going to tell me that we Nephilim play at God, weren’t you? Except you can’t even say the word. Mock the Bible all you want with your little collection, you still can’t say it.” His finger was white on the trigger of the gun. “Say it. Say it, and I’ll let you live.”

The vampire bared his teeth. “You cannot kill me with that—that stupid human toy.”

“If the bullet passes through your heart,” Will said, his aim unwavering, “you’ll die. And I am a very good shot.”

Tessa stood, frozen, staring at the tableau before her. She wanted to step backward, to go to Nathaniel, but she was afraid to move.

De Quincey raised his head. He opened his mouth. A thin rattle came out as he tried to speak, tried to shape a word his soul would not let him say. He gasped again, choked, and put a hand to his throat. Will began to laugh—

And the vampire sprang. His face twisted in a mask of rage and pain, he launched himself at Will with a howl. There was a blur of movement. Then the gun went off and there was a spray of blood. Will hit the floor, the pistol skidding from his grip, the vampire on top of him. Tessa scrambled to retrieve the pistol, caught it, and turned to see that de Quincey had seized Will from the back, his forearm jammed against Will’s throat.

She raised the pistol, her hand shaking—but she had never used a pistol before, had never shot anything, and how to shoot the vampire without injuring Will? Will was clearly choking, his face suffused with blood. De Quincey snarled something and tightened his grip—

And Will, ducking his head, sank his teeth into the vampire’s forearm. De Quincey yelled and jerked his arm away; Will flung himself to the side, retching, and rolled to his knees to spit blood onto the stage. When he looked up, glittering red blood was smeared across the lower half of his face. His teeth shone red too when he—Tessa couldn’t believe it—grinned, actually grinned, and looking at de Quincey, said, “How do you like it, vampire? You were going to bite that mundane earlier. Now you know what it’s like, don’t you?”

De Quincey, on his knees, stared from Will to the ugly red hole in his own arm, which was already beginning to close up, though dark blood still trickled from it thinly. “For that,” he said, “you will die, Nephilim.”

Will spread his arms wide. On his knees, grinning like a demon, blood dripping from his mouth, he barely looked human himself. “Come and get me.”

De Quincey gathered himself to spring—and Tessa pulled the trigger. The gun kicked back, hard, into her hand, and the vampire fell sideways, blood streaming from his shoulder. She had missed the heart. Damn it.