Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

After that the battle became a nightmare. Tatiana danced an odd, jerking dance of delight as one by one they beat the Watchers back and one by one the demons rose again. Throwing weapons were abandoned. They would not kill the Watchers, and would only become weapons in the creatures’ hands if they chose to use them. Matthew and Christopher drew seraph blades, their glow helping to illuminate the courtyard even through the thickening fog. James kept his gun—it seemed able to put the Watchers down for longer than a blade, though it would not kill them. Nothing seemed to. And worse, they healed—Jesse had nearly severed one’s arm, but Lucie saw that the arm had been restored, the Watcher seemingly unhurt as it battled Matthew, its staff blazing as it slammed over and over into Matthew’s seraph blade.

Matthew had already slipped once on the icy step. He had caught himself and rolled fast away from the downward slice of the Watcher’s staff, but Lucie knew that their time was limited. They were Nephilim, but they were human; they would grow exhausted eventually. Even the blood of the Angel could only hold out so long against unstoppable foes.

They were already getting hurt. James had a torn and bleeding sleeve where his arm had been gashed, Ari a bad scrape from a staff that had slammed against her torso. And Cordelia—Lucie was desperately worried about Cordelia. Cordelia was doing what she could, using the Watchers’ own staffs to drive them back—apparently this did not count as raising a weapon, as Lilith had not appeared—but there was already a bad burn on her cheek, and it would only be a matter of time—

“Cordelia Carstairs!” Tatiana had stopped dancing; she had her hands clasped under her chin in glee, like a little girl on Christmas morning. “Is this really the great wielder of Cortana? Look at you. Too afraid to even use it in battle, lest my master find you out and take it.” She turned to the Watchers at her side. “Capture her. We will get that blade.”

Cordelia froze. Two Watchers started up the steps, moving quickly toward her. The next moments were a blur. Lucie began to run toward Daisy and saw that James was doing the same, raising his pistol as he darted down the steps, trying to get a clear shot at the Watchers—

But Christopher got there first. He dashed in front of Cordelia, facing the Watchers, his seraph blade blazing in his hand. For a moment, it illuminated them both like fireworks lighting a dark night: he and Cordelia stood haloed in angelic light. Never had Christopher looked more like a warrior—

Something metal flashed as it left Tatiana’s hand and flew through the air. Christopher jerked, cried out, and tumbled backward, landing awkwardly on the steps.

“Christopher!” Cordelia shrieked, and started to go after him, just as James stepped in front of her, pistol in hand. Two loud shots rang out, and then two more; the attacking Watchers were flung back like rag dolls, their bodies pitching headlong down the steps.

Anna darted through the fog, zigzagging up the steps to fall at Christopher’s side. “I’m all right,” Lucie heard him say, as Anna bent over him. “It’s just my shoulder.”

And indeed, something sharp and silver was embedded just above his clavicle. A throwing knife. But battle did not stop because a warrior was wounded; something white fluttered at the edge of Lucie’s vision, and she was turning to hack and slash at a lunging Watcher, its red-black blood spattering her. As it fell, she saw Jesse’s blade through the fog and gun smoke, as he buried it in a demon’s shoulder. Ari, Matthew, James, Cordelia, all were fighting too, now not just to protect the Institute but to keep the Watchers away from Anna as she crouched over her brother; she had already pulled the dagger from his shoulder and was drawing healing runes on his arm as he protested; Lucie couldn’t hear him, but she knew what he was saying: that he was fine, ready to fight again. That there was no time for him to be injured.

The Watcher at Lucie’s feet had begun to stir again. She buried her axe in its spine, pulled it free, and ran up several steps; at least she could avoid being right there when it rose again. Exhausted, she looked down. She felt like she had swallowed a lump of ice. She had been in battles before, they all had, but never one where she couldn’t see a way to win, or even a way out. If Charles didn’t return soon with the First Patrol—and perhaps, even if he did—she could see no way forward in which they all survived. Perhaps if they ran to the Sanctuary, locked themselves in… But one of these creatures had gotten into the Sanctuary in Cornwall. Perhaps all they’d be doing was trapping themselves in a corner.…

Something cold touched Lucie’s arm. She spun, raising her axe—then lowered it again in surprise. Grace stood in front of her. Still barefoot, with Jesse’s jacket once more wrapped around her shoulders. Her face was thinner than Lucie remembered it, her huge gray eyes blazing. “Lucie, I want—”

Lucie was too exhausted to be polite. “Go back inside, Grace. You’ll just get in the way.”

“You have to listen,” Grace said, with a ghost of her former forcefulness. “You can stop this.”

Lucie glanced around and realized that for the moment, they were alone, or at least out of earshot of the others. The fight was concentrated lower down the steps, where a sort of half circle of Shadowhunters had formed around Christopher and Anna. “What?” she demanded. “Grace, if this is a trick—”

Grace shook her head violently. “They’re killing you,” she said. “I could see it from the window. My mother won’t stop them until you’re all dead. She might spare Jesse, but—” She bit her lip, hard. “She might not. And there is only one person she will listen to—”

“Belial?”

“Not him. Someone you can reach. Someone only you can reach.” Grace leaned up then and whispered in Lucie’s ear, as if she were telling a secret. And as Lucie listened, her body growing cold, she realized—with a terrible sense of dismay—that Grace was right.

Without a word, she drew away from Grace and began to walk down the steps. She was conscious of Grace behind her, watching; she was conscious of the flickering light of seraph blades, dancing through the fog; she was conscious of Anna helping Christopher to his feet; she was conscious of Cordelia’s blazing hair as she savagely kicked a Watcher’s legs out from under it; she was conscious of James and Matthew, fighting side by side.

And yet even as she was conscious of all that, she was reaching inside herself. Into the silence and the dark, through the thin veil that was all that ever separated her from that shadowy place between life and death.

In one world she was surrounded by battle, by Tatiana’s laughter, by the gleam of demonic fire as the Watchers wielded their staffs. In the other, darkness rose up around her as if she were looking up from the bottom of a well. When it closed overhead, she was floating, surrounded by shadow on all sides, a darkness illuminated by flickering points of light.

Lucie did not believe this was what death looked like for those who died. This was a translated world, interpreted by her mind in the only way that made sense to her. She could as easily have visualized a great ocean, the hidden recesses of a green forest, a vast and featureless plain. For whatever reason, this was what Lucie saw. A depthless field of stars.

Into that field she reached, steadying her breathing, calling out into the silence. Rupert Blackthorn?

She felt something move, like the tug of a fish on a line.

Rupert Blackthorn. Father of Jesse. Husband of Tatiana. She held tight to the tenuous connection she felt. Drew it closer, outward. Come. Your family needs you.

Nothing. And then, suddenly, the connection exploded into motion, like rope sliding through her hands, fast enough to burn her skin. She held on tight, despite the burning pain. Held on as she opened her eyes wide, willing herself back into the world of wintry London, the world of the battle that roared all around her. A world where she had only been gone a few seconds—gone in her mind, not her body—a world where she could smell blood and cordite on the air, where she could see the white shadow of a Watcher making its way across the steps toward her.

A world where, just in front of her, on the steps of the Institute, Rupert Blackthorn’s ghost was beginning to take shape.

Here was no hidden shade, the kind that went unseen. This was the spirit of Rupert Blackthorn, half-translucent but entirely recognizable. As Lucie watched, he began to solidify—she could see his face now, so much like Jesse’s, and his old-fashioned clothes, and his pale, half-clenched hands. Even little details—a pair of unlaced boots—had become as clear as if he had been drawn onto the air with shimmering ink.

The Watcher that had been approaching her stopped in what seemed like real confusion, its head tilting, as if to say, What is this? The other Watchers were still fighting; Lucie could hear the crash of weapons, the sound of boots on ice, though she did not dare to look away from Rupert’s ghost.

The ghost raised his head. His lips parted and he spoke, his voice ringing out even over the storm. “Tatiana?”