Chain of Gold (19 page)

James swore and drew two more blades: they were arcs of silver
spinning from his hands. The demon screeched, a high and horrible noise, as the knives plunged into its torso. The creature spasmed—it seemed almost to be crumbling, its leathery seedpods pattering to the ground like rain. It gave a last choking hiss and vanished.

No longer held closed, the greenhouse door swung wide. Amid the shattered glass and the stench of demon blood, James ducked swiftly through the door, pulling Cordelia with him; together they tumbled out into the night.

They raced away from the greenhouse, through overgrown grass and tangled weeds. When they were some distance away, in a clearing near the entrance to what had once been the Italian gardens, James came up short.

Cordelia nearly stumbled into him. She was dizzy, her vision blurring. The pain in her leg had returned. She slid Cortana into its sheath at her back and sank to the ground.

They were in a small hollow of overgrowth; the greenhouse was a great dark star in the distance, capping a rise of garden. Dark trees leaned together overhead, their branches knotted. The air was clean and cool.

James went down on his knees, facing her in the grass. “Daisy, let me see.”

She nodded. James placed his hands lightly on her ankle, above her low leather boots, and began to raise the hem of her dress. The trim of her petticoat was soaked through with blood, and Cordelia couldn't hold back a small noise as her ankle was bared.

The skin looked as if it had been torn with a serrated knife. The top of her boot was drenched in blood.

“It looks bad,” James said gently, “but it's just a cut to the skin. There's no poison.” He drew his stele from his belt. With infinite care, he touched the tip to her calf—the horror, Cordelia thought,
that her mother would have experienced at the idea of a boy touching her daughter's leg—and traced the outlines of a healing rune.

It felt as if someone had poured cool water over her ankle. She watched as the injured flesh began to knit itself back together, slashed skin sealing up as if weeks of healing had been compressed into seconds.

“You look as if you've never seen what an
iratze
can do,” James said, a small quirk to the corner of his mouth. “Have you not been injured before?”

“Not this badly,” said Cordelia. “I know I should have—you must be thinking what a baby I've been. And that demon—ugh—I should
never
have let it knock me off my feet—”

“Stop that,” James said firmly. “Everyone gets pummeled by a demon now and again; if they didn't, we wouldn't need healing runes.” He smiled, that rare lovely smile that cut through the Mask and lit up his face. “I was thinking that you reminded me a bit of Catherine Earnshaw from
Wuthering Heights
. My mother has a favorite passage about how she was bitten by a bulldog:
‘She did not yell out—no! she would have scorned to do it, if she had been spitted on the horns of a mad cow.'   
”

Cordelia had not read
Wuthering Heights
in years, but she felt herself smile. Incredible that James could make her smile after what they'd just been through. “That was impressive,” she said. “To dispatch such a sizable demon with only throwing knives.”

James threw his head back with a low laugh. “Give the credit to Christopher,” he said. “He made these blades for me—he's spent years working on ways of developing new substances that can bear even the strongest runes. Most metals would shatter. It does mean there's hell to pay whenever I lose one, though,” he added, looking ruefully at the greenhouse.

“Oh, no,” Cordelia said firmly. “You
can't
go back in there.”

“I wouldn't leave you,” he said simply, melting her heart. “Daisy,
if I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone else?”

She could not have said no when he called her Daisy.

“You know that I can turn into a shadow,” he said. “That at first, I had little control over the change.”

She nodded; she would never forget the way he had reached out for her when he had the scalding fever, the way she had tried to hold his hand but it had turned into vapor.

“For years I have worked with your cousin Jem to learn to control it—the change, the visions.” He bit at his lower lip. “And yet tonight I entered the shadow realm under my own will. Once inside, it brought me here.”

“I don't understand,” Cordelia said. “Why here of all places?”

His eyes searched hers. “I saw a light within the shadows,” he said. “I followed it. I believe it was the light of Cortana.”

She fought the urge to reach back and touch the blade just to make sure it was still there. “It is a special sword,” she admitted. “My father always said that we did not know the extent of what it could do.”

“When I landed in the greenhouse, I'd no idea where I was,” he said. “I was choking on dust. White-gray dust, like burnt bones. I brought a handful of the stuff back from the other world—” He reached into his trouser pocket and brought out a pinch of what looked like ash. “I am going to bring it to Henry and Christopher. Perhaps they can test what is in it. I have never been able to bring anything back from the shadow realm before; perhaps it happened because I went into the realm willingly.”

“Do you think it's because I was fighting the demon—with Cortana—that you were drawn to this place?” she said. “Whatever kind of demon it was—”

James glanced again at the greenhouse. “It was a Cerberus demon. And it's probably been here for years.”

“I've seen pictures of Cerberus demons before.” Cordelia
wobbled to her feet. James rose and put his arm around her to steady her. She tensed at his nearness. “They don't look like that.”

“Benedict Lightwood was a great enthusiast for demons,” said James. “When they cleared this place out after he died, they found a dozen Cerberus demons. They're watchdog creatures; he'd placed them here to protect his family and property. I suppose they missed the one in the greenhouse.”

Cordelia moved away from James slightly, though it was the last thing she wanted to do. “And you think over the years, it changed? Became more a part of the place?”

“Have you read
On the Origin of Species
?” asked James. “It is all about how animals adapt to their environments through generations. Demons don't have generations—they don't die, unless we kill them. This one adapted to its surroundings.”

“Do you think there are more around?” The raw pain in Cordelia's ankle had faded to a manageable ache as she twisted around, looking up and down the garden for Lucie. “We could be in danger. Lucie—”

James went white. “Lucie?”

Cordelia's heart skipped a beat.
By the Angel.
“Lucie and I came here together.”

“Of all the foolish—” Suddenly he was worried. She could see it in his face, his eyes. “Why?”

“Lucie wanted to make sure Grace was all right, and she asked me to come with her,” lied Cordelia. “In fact, she went into the house, where Grace and Tatiana are. Rather foolishly, I wandered off to see the gardens.…”

An odd look of utter shock passed across James's face, as if he had just remembered something terribly important.

“Grace,” he said.

“I know you might wish to go see her,” said Cordelia. “But I must warn you that Tatiana is in a very bad mood.”

James continued to look silently stunned. There was a rustle of noise and Lucie burst out of the overgrowth.

“Cordelia!” she gasped, her face lighting with relief. “And Jamie!” Her face wrinkled up; she came to a dead stop. “Oh, dear. Jamie. What are you doing here?”

“As if you have a perfectly reasonable excuse for lurching about someone else's property in the dead of night?” James said, transforming from a worried young man into a towering older brother in a matter of seconds. “Papa and Mam are going to murder you.”

“Only if you tell them.” Lucie's eyes flashed. “How else are they going to find out?”

“Of course they will,” said James darkly. “The existence of a Cerberus demon in the greenhouse could hardly—”

Lucie's eyes rounded. “A what in the where?”

“Cerberus demon in the greenhouse,” James repeated, “where, incidentally, you sent your future
parabatai
completely alone—”

“Oh, no, it's all right, I went in on my own,” Cordelia said, and started. “I was going to move the carriage from the gates. If Tatiana looks out a window and sees it, she'll be furious.”

“We'd better go,” Lucie said. “James, will you be coming with us or going back the way you came?” She squinted. “What
is
the way you came?”

“Never you mind,” said James, with his crooked smile. “Go take the carriage. I'll follow along shortly and see you both at home.”

“I imagine James is staying because he wants to see Grace,” Lucie said in a low voice as she and Cordelia hurried back along the overgrown pathways of the Chiswick House gardens. They ducked through the gates and found the carriage exactly where it had been before, Xanthos seeming to stand guard. “Moon around under her window or whatever. I hope Tatiana doesn't bite off his head.”

“She certainly doesn't seem to
want
visitors,” said Cordelia as they clambered into the carriage. “I felt rather bad for Grace.”

“James used to feel pity for her,” said Lucie as the carriage started to move. “Then it seems that somehow he fell in love with her. Which is very odd, really. I've always thought of pity as the opposite of love—”

She broke off, her face going white. Light was visible through the tangled branches of trees. Figures were hurrying across the road, toward the manor house.

“It's Papa,” Lucie said, in a grim tone, as if she'd just seen another Cerberus demon. “In fact, it's
everyone
.”

Cordelia stared. The road was suddenly full of witchlight. It shone upon the dark gates of the house, upon the rows of beech trees on either side of the road, upon the ragged outline of the manor itself. Lucie might have exaggerated slightly in saying everyone was there, but certainly a large group of Shadowhunters on foot was bearing down on the Blackthorns' residence. Cordelia could see familiar faces—Gabriel and Cecily Lightwood, Charles Fairchild's red hair—and of course, Will Herondale.

“What are they doing here?” she wondered. “Should we go back—warn James to make himself scarce?”

But the carriage had already begun speeding up, Xanthos trotting them quickly away while the last of the Enclave members poured through the gates.

As the house receded in the distance, Lucie shook her head, looking grim. “He wouldn't thank us for it,” she said. She sighed. “He'd just be angry we let ourselves get in trouble too—besides, James is a boy; he won't be in the same sort of hot water if they do catch him wandering about the place. If they found us, you'd be in awful trouble with your mother. It isn't in the least fair, but it's the truth.”

Moonlight filtered into the greenhouse through shattered glass panes. The Nephilim were long gone, having made their examination of the place and their demands of the mistress of the house. It was finally quiet.

The seedpods the Cerberus demon had dropped in its death throes began to shake and tremble, like eggs about to hatch. Their leathery casings split as thorn-sharp teeth tore them open from within. Covered with a sticky film and hissing like cockroaches, the newborn demons tumbled to the packed-earth floor of the greenhouse, each no bigger than a child's hand.

But they would not remain that size for long.