The Mortal Instruments - Complete Collection (27 page)

Shrugging off her pack, she found a hiding place for the small brown rat that had once been Simon, nestled between her rolled-up sweater and her sketchpad. He curled up atop her wallet, looking reproachful. “I’m sorry,” she said miserably.

“Don’t bother,” Jace said. “Why mundanes always insist on taking responsibility for things that aren’t their fault is a mystery to me. You didn’t force that cocktail down his idiotic throat.”

“If it weren’t for me, he wouldn’t have been here at all,” Clary said in a small voice.

“Don’t flatter yourself. He came because of Isabelle.”

Angrily Clary jerked the top of the bag closed and stood up. “Let’s get out of here. I’m sick of this place.”

The tight knot of shouting people by the door turned out to be more vampires, easily recognizable by the pallor of their skin and the dead blackness of their hair.
They must dye it
, Clary thought. They couldn’t possibly all be naturally dark-haired; and besides, some of them had blond eyebrows. They were loudly complaining about their vandalized motorbikes and the fact that some of their friends were missing and unaccounted for.

“They’re probably drunk and passed out somewhere,” Magnus said, waving long white fingers in a bored manner. “You know how you lot tend to turn into bats and piles of dust when you’ve downed a few too many Bloody Marys.”

“They mix their vodka with real blood,” Jace said in Clary’s ear.

The pressure of his breath made her shiver. “Yes, I got that, thanks.”

“We can’t go around picking up every pile of dust in the place just in case it turns out to be Gregor in the morning,” said a girl with a sulky mouth and painted-on eyebrows.

“Gregor will be fine. I rarely sweep,” soothed Magnus. “I’m happy to send any stragglers back to the hotel come tomorrow—in a car with blacked-out windows, of course.”

“But what about our motorbikes?” said a thin boy whose blond roots showed under his bad dye job. A gold earring in the shape of a stake hung from his left earlobe. “It’ll take hours to fix them.”

“You’ve got until sunrise,” said Magnus, temper visibly fraying. “I suggest you get started.” He raised his voice. “All right, that’s IT! Party’s over! Everybody out!” He waved his arms, shedding glitter.

With a single loud twang the band ceased playing. A drone of loud complaint rose from the partygoers, but they moved obediently toward the doorway. None of them stopped to thank Magnus for the party.

“Come on.” Jace pushed Clary toward the exit. The crowd was dense. She held her backpack in front of her, hands wrapped protectively around it. Someone bumped her shoulder, hard, and she yelped and moved sideways, away from Jace. A hand brushed her backpack. She looked up and saw the vampire with the stake earring grinning at her. “Hey, pretty thing,” he said. “What’s in the bag?”

“Holy water,” said Jace, reappearing beside her as if he’d been conjured up like a genie. A sarcastic blond genie with a bad attitude.

“Oooh, a
Shadowhunter
,” said the vampire. “Scary.” With a wink he melted back into the crowd.

“Vampires are
such
prima donnas,” Magnus sighed from the doorway. “Honestly, I don’t know why I have these parties.”

“Because of your cat,” Clary reminded him.

Magnus perked up. “That’s true. Chairman Meow deserves my every effort.” He glanced at her and the tight knot of Shadowhunters just behind her. “You on your way out?”

Jace nodded. “Don’t want to overstay our welcome.”

“What welcome?” Magnus asked. “I’d say it was a pleasure to meet you, but it wasn’t. Not that you aren’t all fairly charming, and as for you—” He dropped a glittery wink at Alec, who looked astounded. “Call me?”

Alec blushed and stuttered and probably would have stood there all night if Jace hadn’t grasped his elbow and hauled him toward the door, Isabelle at their heels. Clary was about to follow when she felt a light tap on her arm; it was Magnus. “I have a message for you,” he said. “From your mother.”

Clary was so surprised she nearly dropped the pack. “From my mother? You mean, she asked you to tell me something?”

“Not exactly,” Magnus said. His feline eyes, slit by their single vertical pupils like fissures in a green-gold wall, were serious for once. “But I knew her in a way that you didn’t. She did what she did to keep you out of a world that she hated. Her whole existence, the running, the hiding—the lies, as you called them—were to keep you safe. Don’t waste her sacrifices by risking your life. She wouldn’t want that.”

“She wouldn’t want me to save her?”

“Not if it meant putting yourself in danger.”

“But I’m the only person who cares what happens to her—”

“No,” Magnus said. “You aren’t.”

Clary blinked. “I don’t understand. Is there—Magnus, if you know something—”

He cut her off with brutal precision. “And one last thing.” His eyes flicked toward the door, through which Jace, Alec, and Isabelle had disappeared. “Keep in mind that when your mother fled from the Shadow World, it wasn’t the monsters she was hiding from. Not the warlocks, the wolf-men, the Fair Folk, not even the demons themselves. It was
them
. It was the Shadowhunters.”

They were waiting for her outside the warehouse. Jace, hands in pockets, was leaning against the stairway railing and watching as the vampires stalked around their broken motorcycles, cursing and swearing. He had a faint smile on his face. Alec and Isabelle stood a little way off. Isabelle was wiping at her eyes, and Clary felt a wave of irrational anger—Isabelle barely knew Simon. This wasn’t
her
disaster. Clary was the one who had the right to be carrying on, not the Shadowhunter girl.

Jace unhitched himself from the railing as Clary emerged. He fell into step beside her, not speaking. He seemed lost in thought. Isabelle and Alec, hurrying ahead, sounded like they were arguing with each other. Clary stepped up her pace a little, craning her neck to hear them better.

“It’s not your fault,” Alec was saying. He sounded weary, as if he’d been through this sort of thing with his sister before. Clary wondered how many boyfriends she’d turned into rats by accident. “But it ought to teach you not to go to so many Downworld parties,” he added. “They’re always more trouble than they’re worth.”

Isabelle sniffed loudly. “If anything had happened to him, I—I don’t know what I would have done.”

“Probably whatever it is you did before,” said Alec in a bored voice. “It’s not like you knew him all that well.”

“That doesn’t mean that I don’t—”

“What? Love him?” Alec scoffed, raising his voice. “You need to
know
someone to love them.”

“But that’s not all it is.” Isabelle sounded almost sad. “Didn’t you have any fun at the party, Alec?”

“No.”

“I thought you might like Magnus. He’s nice, isn’t he?”

“Nice?” Alec looked at her as if she were insane. “Kittens are nice. Warlocks are—” He hesitated. “Not,” he finished, lamely.

“I thought you might hit it off.” Isabelle’s eye makeup glittered as bright as tears as she glanced over at her brother. “Get to be friends.”

“I have friends,” Alec said, and looked over his shoulder, almost as if he couldn’t help it, at Jace.

But Jace, his golden head down, lost in thought, didn’t notice.

On impulse Clary reached to open the pack and glance into it—and frowned. The pack was open. She flashed back to the party—she’d lifted the pack, pulled the zipper closed. She was sure of it. She yanked the bag open, her heart pounding.

She remembered the time she’d had her wallet stolen on the subway. She remembered opening her bag, not seeing it there, her mouth drying up in surprise—
Did I drop it? Have I lost it?
And realizing:
It’s gone
. This was like that, only a thousand times worse. Mouth dry as bone, Clary pawed through the pack, shoving aside clothes and sketchpad, her fingernails scraping the bottom. Nothing.

She’d stopped walking. Jace was hovering just ahead of her, looking impatient, Alec and Isabelle already a block ahead. “What’s wrong?” Jace asked, and she could tell he was about to add something sarcastic. He must have seen the look on her face, though, because he didn’t. “Clary?”

“He’s gone,” she whispered. “Simon. He was in my backpack—”

“Did he climb out?”

It wasn’t an unreasonable question, but Clary, exhausted and panic-stricken, reacted unreasonably.
“Of course he didn’t!”
she screamed. “What, you think he wants to get smashed under someone’s car, killed by a cat—”

“Clary—”

“Shut up!” she screamed, swinging the pack at him. “You were the one who said not to bother changing him back—”

Deftly he caught the pack as she swung it. Taking it out of her hand, he examined it. “The zipper’s torn,” he said. “From the outside. Someone ripped this bag open.”

Shaking her head numbly, Clary could only whisper, “I didn’t …”

“I know.” His voice was gentle. He cupped his hands around his mouth. “Alec! Isabelle! You go on ahead! We’ll catch up.”

The two figures, already far ahead, paused; Alec hesitated, but his sister caught hold of his arm and pushed him firmly toward the subway entrance. Something pressed against Clary’s back: It was Jace’s hand, turning her gently around. She let him lead her forward, stumbling over the cracks in the sidewalk, until they were back in the entryway of Magnus’s building. The stench of stale alcohol and the sweet, uncanny smell Clary had come to associate with Downworlders filled the tiny space. Taking his hand away from her back, Jace pressed the buzzer over Magnus’s name.

“Jace,” she said.

He looked down at her. “What?”

She searched for words. “Do you think he’s all right?”

“Simon?” He hesitated then, and she thought of Isabelle’s words:
Don’t ask him a question unless you know you can stand the answer.
Instead of saying anything, he pressed the buzzer again, harder this time.

This time Magnus answered it, his voice booming through the tiny entryway. “WHO DARES DISTURB MY REST?”

Jace looked almost nervous. “Jace Wayland. Remember? I’m from the Clave.”

“Oh, yes.” Magnus seemed to have perked up. “Are you the one with the blue eyes?”

“He means Alec,” Clary said helpfully.

“No. My eyes are usually described as golden,” Jace told the intercom. “And luminous.”

“Oh, you’re
that
one.” Magnus sounded disappointed. If Clary hadn’t been so upset, she would have laughed. “I suppose you’d better come up.”

The warlock answered his door wearing a silk kimono printed with dragons, a gold turban, and an expression of barely controlled annoyance.

“I was sleeping,” he said loftily.

Jace looked as if he were about to say something rude, possibly about the turban, so Clary interrupted him. “Sorry to bother you—”

Something small and white peered around the warlock’s ankles. It had zigzag gray stripes and tufted pink ears that made it look more like a large mouse than a small cat.

“Chairman Meow?” Clary guessed.

Magnus nodded. “He has returned.”

Jace regarded the small tabby kitten with some scorn. “That’s not a cat,” he observed. “It’s the size of a hamster.”

“I am kindly going to forget you said that,” said Magnus, using his foot to nudge Chairman Meow behind him. “Now, exactly what did you come here for?”

Clary held out the torn pack. “It’s Simon. He’s missing.”

“Ah,” said Magnus, delicately, “missing what, exactly?”

“Missing,”
Jace repeated, “as in gone, absent, notable for his lack of presence, disappeared.”

“Maybe he’s gone and hidden under something,” Magnus suggested. “It can’t be easy getting used to being a rat, especially for someone so dim-witted in the first place.”

“Simon’s not dim-witted,” Clary protested angrily.

“It’s true,” Jace agreed. “He just
looks
dim-witted. Really his intelligence is quite average.” His tone was light but his shoulders were tense as he turned to Magnus. “When we were leaving, one of your guests brushed up against Clary. I think he tore her bag open and took the rat. Simon, I mean.”

Magnus looked at him. “And?”

“And I need to find out who it was,” said Jace steadily. “I’m guessing you know. You
are
the High Warlock of Brooklyn. I’m thinking not much happens in your own apartment that you don’t know about.”

Magnus inspected a glittery nail. “You’re not wrong.”

“Please tell us,” Clary said. Jace’s hand tightened on her wrist. She knew he wanted her to be quiet, but that was impossible. “Please.”

Magnus dropped his hand with a sigh. “Fine. I saw one of the vampire bike kids from the uptown lair leave with a brown rat in his hands. Honestly, I figured it was one of their own. Sometimes the Night Children turn into rats or bats when they get drunk.”

Clary’s hands were shaking. “But now you think it was
Simon
?”

“It’s just a guess, but it seems likely.”

“There’s one more thing.” Jace spoke calmly enough, but he was on alert now, the way he had been in the apartment before they’d found the Forsaken. “Where’s their lair?”

“Their what?”

“The vampires’ lair. That’s where they went, isn’t it?”

“I would imagine so.” Magnus looked as if he’d rather be anywhere else.

“I need you to tell me where it is.”

Magnus shook his turbaned head. “I’m not setting myself on the bad side of the Night Children for a mundane I don’t even know.”

“Wait,” Clary interrupted. “What would they want with Simon? I thought they weren’t allowed to hurt people …”

“My guess?” said Magnus, not unkindly. “They assumed he was a tame rat and thought it would be funny to kill a Shadowhunter’s pet. They don’t like you much, whatever the Accords might say—and there’s nothing in the Covenant about not killing animals.”

“They’re going to kill him?” Clary said, staring.

“Not necessarily,” said Magnus hastily. “They might have thought he was one of their own.”

“In which case, what’ll happen to him?” Clary said.

“Well, when he turns back into a human, they’ll
still
kill him. But you might have a few more hours.”