Chain of Thorns (The Last Hours, #3)

Belial snorted. “There is no one who might try to stop me. There are your foolish little friends who stayed in London, of course, but there are too few of them to make any difference. The Watchers will see to them handily.”


He sounded sure of himself in a way that made James cold inside. He took in the abbey uneasily. He had been here before, of course; it was always a strange experience to walk through the peaceful space, echoing with the quiet voices of tourists and those at prayer. To see the endless memorials and chapels dedicated to the heroes of what mundanes called Britain. No Shadowhunters were mentioned. No battles against demons were recorded. Nobody here knew what he knew: that the world had almost been destroyed as recently as 1878, that his parents had saved it before either had even turned twenty.

Now he strode through the empty nave, Belial’s boots echoing against the tombstones embedded in the floor. Ghostly light from the clerestory windows illuminated the gold bosses that studded the ribs of the vaulted roof, a hundred feet above, and filtered down in dusty rays past shadowed arches upheld by massive fluted stone pillars. Behind the arches, tall stained-glass windows threw colored patterns on the myriad plaques, tombs, and memorials that lined the abbey’s ancient walls.

Belial came to a sudden stop. James was not sure why—they had not reached the High Altar yet, but were in the center of the nave. Here were long rows of empty wooden pews, lit by tall wrought-iron candlesticks in which burning tapers flickered. Past the pews was an ornately carved and decorated screen and beyond that, the tiered stalls and gilded arches of the empty choir. The emptiness of the place was vast, deathly; James could not escape the feeling they were making their way through the bare rib cage of some long-dead giant.

“Kaal ssha ktar,” Belial breathed. James did not know the words: the language was guttural, sour. But he felt the anger that coursed through Belial: a bitter, sudden rage.

“James,” Belial said. “I am learning some things that are making me quite upset.”

Learning them how? James wondered, but there was no point speculating. Belial was a Prince of Hell. It was reasonable to assume he could hear the whisperings of the demons who served him, that he could read patterns in the universe invisible to mortals such as James.

“These friends of yours,” Belial went on, his voice in James’s head growing shriller, almost painful. “I mean, really. I offered them mercy. Do you know how rare it is for a demon to offer mercy? Much less a prince of demons? I lowered myself for their sake. For your sake! And how do they repay me? They sneak about my city, they do their best to disrupt my plans, and worst of all, my own granddaughter creeps into Edom with that girl who bears Cortana—”

“I knew it,” James breathed. And he had known—he had been sure, somehow, that Cordelia would come after him, would find a way. And it did not surprise him at all that Lucie had not left her side.

“Oh, be quiet,” snapped Belial. “If it weren’t for Lilith, always interfering—” He broke off, seeming to exert control over himself with some effort. “It hardly matters,” he said. “They arrived in Idumea too late to snatch you away from me. Their bones will whiten in the sun of Edom, along with those of your parabatai. And now…”

He stalked forward, passing through the choir, into the center of the abbey, between the north and south transepts. The cathedral, like most, had been built to resemble a cross: the transepts were galleries that formed the cross’s arms. High above, two enormous rose windows glowed in jeweled shades of blue, red, and green; before them a set of shallow steps led up to a dais, on which was another carved screen with two doors. A table bearing a large gold cross and draped in richly embroidered cloth stood between them.

“Behold.” Belial seemed to have forgotten his troubles; his voice was thick with glee. “The High Altar of my coronation.”

Placed before the altar was a heavy, high-backed oak armchair with legs carved to resemble gilded lions. With a sense of nausea, James remembered seeing it on display during a visit here, long ago. The Coronation Chair of England.

“Do you know,” Belial said, “that this chair has been used to crown the king of England for six hundred years?” James didn’t answer. “Well, did you?” Belial demanded.

“I wouldn’t think that six hundred years would impress a Prince of Hell,” James said. “Isn’t that but the blink of an eye for one who saw the world born?”

“You miss the point, as usual.” Belial sounded disappointed. “It’s not what six hundred years means to me. It’s what it means to mortals. It is the desecration of things held holy and significant by human souls which is so very delicious. By crowning myself here, I snatch hold of the soul of London. It shall never leave my grasp, once this is done.”

Belial ascended the steps—wincing, as the wounds in his side sent a stab of pain through James’s body—and flung himself into the chair. Its back was too high, the seat hard and uncomfortable, but James doubted that Belial cared.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking,” Belial said in a singsong voice, as if he were teaching a history lesson to a small child. “The king of England can only be crowned by the archbishop of Canterbury.”

“That,” said James, “is not what I was thinking.”

Belial ignored this. “You would think there would be plenty of them here,” Belial said, “with all the crypts below us. But most of them are interred in Canterbury Cathedral. One has to go all the way back to the fourteenth century to find an archbishop buried here in Westminster. Right over there, in fact.” He gestured behind him, toward one of the transepts. “Which provides an excellent opportunity for you to witness the power I have gained. So much, just from being here, on Earth, in your body! Out there in the heavens, or deep in Hell, my power is a pinprick of light, a star among other stars. Here—it is a bonfire.”

As Belial said the word “bonfire,” a wave of what felt like heat tore through James. For a moment, he thought he was truly burning, that Belial had found some way to harness the fire of Hell to burn his soul away. Then he realized it was not fire at all, but power—the power Belial had spoken of, tearing through his veins, the vast and terrifying power that had been Belial’s goal, all this time.

A deafening scraping noise shattered the stillness of the cathedral. It sounded as if stone were being ripped apart like paper. It went on and on, shuddering and grinding. Belial curled James’s mouth into a pensive smile, as though he were listening to beautiful music.

The sound stopped abruptly with a crash, as if something massive had fallen to the ground. A wave of cold air blasted through the abbey, air that carried with it the stench of tombs and rot.

“What,” James whispered, “have you done?”

Belial chuckled, as around the nearest pillar came shuffling the corpse of a man, one bony hand wrapped around a carved ivory shepherd’s crook. Some flesh still clung to his bones, and some long, yellowing hairs to his skull, but he was far more skeleton than flesh. He wore robes that were tattered and stained, but horribly similar to the ceremonial white tunic and gold-embroidered chasuble that James had last seen in a newspaper photograph of King Edward’s coronation.

He reached the foot of the dais. The tomb stench hung on the air as his grinning mouth and hollow eyes turned toward Belial. He slowly inclined his skull in a gesture of obedience.

“Simon de Langham, the thirty-fifth archbishop of Canterbury,” Belial announced. “After the Norman conquest, of course.” James felt his own face stretch as Belial grinned down at the skeleton of de Langham. “And now, I believe, the ceremony can begin.”



* * *



Anna had felt such a rush of relief at seeing the Shadowhunters outside the doors of the Iron Tombs that she had come as close as she ever had in her life to fainting. The witchlight lanterns had become a pattern of swirling stars, the ground the tilting deck of a ship beneath her feet. Ari had taken hold of her arm, steadying her as the Shadowhunters approached.

“Haven’t eaten,” Anna had said gruffly. “It’s making me light-headed.”

Ari had just nodded. Lovely Ari, who understood Anna had nearly fainted with relief, but would never press her to admit it.