Cassandra Clare: The Mortal Instruments Series (74 page)

“We came to see Jace,” Clary said. “Is he all right?”

“I don’t know,” Magnus said. “Does he normally just lie on the floor like that without moving?”

“What—,” Alec began, and broke off as Magnus laughed. “That’s not funny.”

“You’re so easy to tease. And yes, your friend is just fine. Well, except that he keeps putting all my things away and trying to clean up. Now I can’t find anything. He’s compulsive.”

“Jace does like things neat,” Clary said, thinking of his monklike room at the Institute.

“Well, I don’t.” Magnus was watching Alec out of the corner of his eye while Alec stared off into the middle distance, scowling. “Jace is in there if you want to see him.” He pointed toward a door at the end of the room.

“In there” turned out to be a medium-size den—surprisingly cozy, with smudged walls, velvet curtains drawn across the windows, and cloth-draped armchairs marooned like fat, colorful icebergs in a sea of nubbly beige carpeting. A hot-pink couch was made up with sheets and a blanket. Next to it was a duffel bag stuffed full of clothes. No light came through the heavy curtains; the only source of illumination was a flickering television screen, which glowed brightly despite the fact that the television itself was not plugged in.

“What’s on?” Magnus inquired.

“What Not to Wear,”
came a familiar drawling voice, emanating from a sprawled figure in one of the armchairs. He sat forward and for a moment Clary thought Jace might get up and greet them. Instead, he shook his head at the screen. “High-waisted khaki pants? Who
wears
those?” He turned and glared at Magnus. “Nearly unlimited supernatural power,” he said, “and all you do is use it to watch reruns. What a waste.”

“Also, TiVo accomplishes much the same thing,” pointed out Simon.

“My way is cheaper.” Magnus clapped his hands together and the room was suddenly flooded with light. Jace, slumped in the chair, raised an arm to cover his face. “Can you do
that
without magic?”

“Actually,” said Simon, “yes. If you watched infomercials, you’d know that.”

Clary sensed the mood in the room was deteriorating. “That’s enough,” she said. She looked at Jace, who had lowered his arm and was blinking resentfully into the light. “We need to talk,” she said. “All of us. About what we’re going to do now.”

“I was going to watch
Project Runway,”
said Jace. “It’s on next.”

“No you’re not,” said Magnus. He snapped his fingers and the TV went off, releasing a small puff of smoke as the picture died. “You need to deal with this.”

“Suddenly you’re interested in solving my problems?”

“I’m interested in getting my apartment back. I’m tired of you cleaning all the time.” Magnus snapped his fingers again, menacingly. “Get up.”

“Or you’ll be the next one to go up in smoke,” said Simon with relish.

“There’s no need to clarify my finger snap,” said Magnus. “The implication was clear in the snap itself.”

“Fine.” Jace got up out of the chair. He was barefoot and there was a line of purplish silver skin around his wrist where his injuries were still healing. He looked tired, but not as if he were still in pain. “You want a round table meeting, we can have a round table meeting.”

“I love round tables,” said Magnus brightly. “They suit me so much better than square.”

In the living room Magnus conjured up an enormous circular table surrounded by five high-backed wooden chairs. “That’s amazing,” Clary said, sliding into a chair. It was surprisingly comfortable. “How can you create something out of nothing like that?”

“You can’t,” said Magnus. “Everything comes from somewhere. These come from an antiques reproduction store on Fifth Avenue, for instance. And these”—suddenly five white waxed paper cups appeared on the table, steam rising gently from the holes in their plastic lids—“come from Dean & DeLuca on Broadway.”

“That seems like stealing, doesn’t it?” Simon pulled a cup toward him. He drew the lid back. “Ooh. Mochaccino.” He looked at Magnus. “Did you pay for these?”

“Sure,” said Magnus, while Jace and Alec snickered. “I make dollar bills magically appear in their cash register.”

“Really?”

“No.” Magnus popped the lid off his own coffee. “But you can pretend I did if it makes you feel better. So, first order of business is what?”

Clary put her hands around her own coffee cup. Maybe it was stolen, but it was also hot and full of caffeine. She could stop by Dean & DeLuca and drop a dollar in their tip jar some other time. “Figuring out what’s going on would be a start,” she said, blowing on her foam. “Jace, you said what happened in the Silent City was Valentine’s fault?”

Jace stared down at his coffee. “Yes.”

Alec put his hand on Jace’s arm. “What happened? Did you see him?”

“I was in the cell,” said Jace, his voice dead. “I heard the
Silent Brothers screaming. Then Valentine came downstairs with—with something. I don’t know what it was. Like smoke, with glowing eyes. A demon, but not like any I’ve ever seen before. He came up to the bars and he told me . . .”

“Told you what?” Alec’s hand slid up Jace’s arm to his shoulder. Magnus cleared his throat. Alec dropped his hand, red-faced, while Simon grinned into his undrunk coffee.

“Maellartach,” Jace said. “He wanted the Soul-Sword and he killed the Silent Brothers to get it.”

Magnus was frowning. “Alec, last night, when the Silent Brothers called for your help, where was the Conclave? Why was no one at the Institute?”

Alec looked surprised to be asked. “There was a Downworlder murder in Central Park last night. A faerie child was killed. The body was drained of blood.”

“I bet the Inquisitor thinks I did that, too,” said Jace. “My reign of terror continues.”

Magnus stood up and went to the window. He pushed the curtain back, letting in just enough light to silhouette his hawklike profile. “Blood,” he said, half to himself. “I had a dream two nights ago. I saw a city all of blood, with towers made of bone, and blood ran in the streets like water.”

Simon slewed his eyes over to Jace. “Is standing by the window muttering about blood something he does all the time?”

“No,” said Jace, “sometimes he sits on the couch and does it.”

Alec shot them both a sharp glance. “Magnus, what’s wrong?”

“The blood,” said Magnus again. “It can’t be a coincidence.” He seemed to be looking down at the street. Sunset
was coming on fast over the silhouette of the city in the distance: The sky was striped with bars of aluminum and rosy gold. “There have been several murders this week,” he said, “of Downworlders. A warlock, killed in an apartment tower down by the South Street Seaport. His neck and wrists were cut and the body drained of blood. And a werewolf was killed at the Hunter’s Moon a few days ago. The throat was cut in that case as well.”

“It sounds like vampires,” said Simon, suddenly very pale.

“I don’t think so,” Jace said. “At least, Raphael said it wasn’t the Night Children’s work. He seemed adamant about it.”

“Yeah, ’cause
he’s
trustworthy,” muttered Simon.

“In this case I think he was telling the truth,” said Magnus, drawing the curtain closed. His face was angular, shadowed. As he came back to the table, Clary saw that he was carrying a heavy book bound in green cloth. She didn’t think he’d been holding it a few moments ago. “There was a strong demonic presence at both locations. I think someone else was responsible for all three deaths. Not Raphael and his tribe, but Valentine.”

Clary’s eyes went to Jace. His mouth was a thin line, but “Why do you say that?” was all he asked.

“The Inquisitor thought the faerie murder was a diversion,” she said quickly. “So that he could plunder the Silent City without worrying about the Conclave.”

“There are easier ways to create a diversion,” said Jace, “and it is unwise to antagonize the Fair Folk. He wouldn’t have murdered one of the clan of faerie if he didn’t have a reason.”

“He had a reason,” said Magnus. “There was something he wanted from the faerie child, just as there was something
he wanted from the warlock and the werewolf he killed.”

“What’s that?” asked Alec.

“Their blood,” said Magnus, and opened the green book. The thin parchment pages had words written on them that glowed like fire. “Ah,” he said, “here.” He looked up, tapping the page with a sharp fingernail. Alec leaned forward. “You won’t be able to read it,” Magnus warned him. “It’s written in a demon language. Purgatic.”

“I can recognize the drawing, though. That’s Maellartach. I’ve seen it before in books.” Alec pointed at an illustration of a silver sword, familiar to Clary—it was the one she’d noticed was missing from the wall of the Silent City.

“The Ritual of Infernal Conversion,” Magnus said. “That’s what Valentine’s trying to do.”

“The what of what?” Clary frowned.

“Every magical object has an alliance,” Magnus explained. “The alliance of the Soul-Sword is seraphic—like those angel knives you Shadowhunters use, but a thousand times more so, because its power was drawn from the Angel himself, not simply from the invocation of an angelic name. What Valentine wants to do is reverse its alliance—make it an object of demonic rather than angelic power.”

“Lawful good to lawful evil!” said Simon, pleased.

“He’s quoting Dungeons and Dragons,” said Clary. “Ignore him.”

“As the Angel’s Sword, Maellartach’s use to Valentine would be limited,” said Magnus. “But as a sword whose demonic power is equal to the angelic power it once possessed—well, there is much it could offer him. Power over demons, for one. Not just the limited protection the Cup might offer, but power
to call demons to him, to force them to do his bidding.”

“A demon army?” said Alec.

“This guy is big on armies,” observed Simon.

“Power even to bring them into Idris, perhaps,” Magnus finished.

“I don’t know why he’d want to go there,” Simon said. “That’s where all the demon hunters are, aren’t they? Wouldn’t they just
annihilate
the demon guys?”

“Demons come from other dimensions,” said Jace. “We don’t know how many of them there are. Their numbers could be infinite. The wardings keep most of them back, but if they all came through at once . . .”

Infinite,
Clary thought. She remembered the Greater Demon, Abbadon, and tried to imagine hundreds more of it. Or thousands. Her skin felt cold and exposed.

“I don’t get it,” said Alec. “What does the ritual have to do with dead Downworlders?”

“To perform the Ritual of Conversion, you need to seethe the Sword until it’s red-hot, then cool it four times, each time in the blood of a Downworld child. Once in the blood of a child of Lilith, once in the blood of a child of the moon, once in the blood of a child of the night, and once in the blood of a child of faerie,” Magnus explained.

“Oh my God,” said Clary. “So he’s not done killing? There’s still one more child to go?”

“Two more. He didn’t succeed with the werewolf child. He was interrupted before he could get all the blood he needed.” Magnus shut the book, dust puffing out from its pages. “Whatever Valentine’s ultimate goal is, he’s already more than halfway to reversing the Sword. He’s probably able to garner
some power from it already. He could already be calling on demons—”

“But you’d think if he were doing that, there’d be reports of disturbances, excess demon activity,” Jace said. “But the Inquisitor said the opposite is true—that everything’s been quiet.”

“And so it might be,” said Magnus, “if Valentine were calling
all the demons to him.
No wonder it’s quiet.”

The group stared at one another. Before anyone could think of a single thing to say, a sharp noise cut through the room, making Clary start. Hot coffee spilled onto her wrist and she gasped at the sudden pain.

“It’s my mother,” said Alec, checking his phone. “I’ll be right back.” He went over to the window, head down, voice too low to overhear.

“Let me see,” said Simon, taking Clary’s hand. There was an angry red blotch on her wrist where the hot liquid had scalded her.

“It’s okay,” she said. “No big deal.”

Simon lifted her hand and kissed the injury. “All better now.”

Clary made a startled noise. He had never done anything like that before. Then again, that was the sort of thing boyfriends did, didn’t they? Drawing her wrist back, she looked across the table and saw Jace staring at them, his golden eyes blazing. “You’re a Shadowhunter,” he said. “You know how to deal with injuries.” He slid his stele across the table toward her. “Use it.”

“No,” Clary said, and pushed the stele back across the table at him.

Jace slammed his hand down on the stele. “Clary—”

“She said she doesn’t want it,” said Simon. “Ha-ha.”

“Ha-ha?” Jace looked incredulous.
“That’s
your comeback?”

Alec, folding his phone, approached the table with a puzzled look. “What’s going on?”

“We seem to be trapped in an episode of
One Life to Waste,”
Magnus observed. “It’s all very dull.”

Alec flicked a strand of hair out of his eyes. “I told my mother about the Infernal Conversion.”

“Let me guess,” said Jace. “She didn’t believe you. Plus, she blamed everything on me.”

Alec frowned. “Not exactly. She said she’d bring it up with the Conclave, but that she didn’t have the Inquisitor’s ear right now. I get the feeling the Inquisitor has pushed Mom out of the way and taken over. She sounded angry.” The phone in his hand rang again. He held up a finger. “Sorry. It’s Isabelle. One sec.” He wandered to the window, phone in hand.

Jace glanced over at Magnus. “I think you’re right about the werewolf at the Hunter’s Moon. The guy who found his body said someone else was in the alley with him. Someone who ran off.”

Magnus nodded. “It sounds to me like Valentine was interrupted in the middle of doing whatever it is he does to get the blood he needs. He’ll probably try again with a different lycanthrope child.”

“I ought to warn Luke,” Clary said, half-rising out of her chair.

“Wait.” Alec was back, phone in hand, a peculiar expression on his face.