City of Fallen Ang

279 Pages·2011·0.86 MB·English

by  Clare Cassandra

The City of Fallen Angels
(Mortal Instruments 4)
Cassandra Clare
*****
Going to see Jace? Simon thought, but he didn’t press the point. If she didn’t
want to talk about it, he wasn’t going to make her. “Here we are.” He opened the
diner door for her, and a blast of warm souvlaki-smelling air hit them.
They found a booth over by one of the big flat-screen TVs that lined the walls.
They crowded into it as Jocelyn and Luke chattered animatedly with each other
about wedding plans. Luke’s pack, it seemed, felt insulted that they hadn’t been
invited to the ceremony—even though the guest list was tiny—and were
insisting on holding their own celebration in a renovated factory in Queens.
Clary listened, not saying anything; the waitress came around, handing out
menus so stiffly laminated they could have been used as weapons. Simon set his
own on the table and stared out the window. There was a gym across the street,
and he could see people through the plate glass that fronted it, running on
treadmills, arms pumping, headphones clamped to their ears. All that running
and getting nowhere, he thought. Story of my life.
He tried to force his thoughts away from dark places, and almost succeeded.
This was one of the most familiar scenes in his life, he thought—a corner booth
in a diner, himself and Clary and her family. Luke had always been family, even
when he hadn’t been about to marry Clary’s mom. Simon ought to feel at home.
He tried to force a smile, only to realize that Clary’s mother had just asked him
something and he hadn’t heard her.
Everyone at the table was staring at him expectantly.
“Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t—What did you say?”
Jocelyn smiled patiently. “Clary told me you’ve added a new member to your
band?”
Simon knew she was just being polite. Well, polite in that way parents were
when they pretended to take your hobbies seriously. Still, she’d come to several
of his gigs before, just to help fill up the room. She did care about him; she
always had. In the very dark, tucked-away places of his mind, Simon suspected
she had always known how he felt about Clary, and he wondered if she wouldn’t
have wanted her daughter to make a different choice, had it been something she
could control. He knew she didn’t entirely like Jace. It was clear even in the way
she said his name.
“Yeah,” he said. “Kyle. He’s kind of a weird guy, but supernice.” Invited, by
“Yeah,” he said. “Kyle. He’s kind of a weird guy, but supernice.” Invited, by
Luke, to expand on the topic of Kyle’s weirdness, Simon told them about Kyle’s
apartment—
careful to leave out the detail that it was now his apartment too—his bike
messenger job, and his ancient, beat-up pickup truck. “And he grows these weird
plants on the balcony,”
he added. “Not pot—I checked. They have sort of silvery leaves—”
Luke frowned, but before he could say anything, the waitress arrived, carrying a
big silver coffee pitcher. She was young, with bleached pale hair tied into two
braids. As she bent to fill Simon’s coffee cup, one of them brushed his arm. He
could smell sweat on her, and under that, blood. Human blood, the sweetest
smell of all. He felt a familiar tightening in his stomach. Coldness spread
through him. He was hungry, and all he had back at Kyle’s place was room-
temperature blood that was already beginning to separate—a sickening prospect,
even for a vampire.
You have never fed on a human, have you? You will. And when you do, you
will not forget it .
He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, the waitress was gone and
Clary was staring at him curiously across the table. “Is everything okay?”
“Fine.” He closed his hand around his coffee cup. It was shaking. Above them
the TV
was still blaring the nightly news.
“Ugh,” Clary said, looking up at the screen. “Are you listening to this?”

Simon followed her gaze. The news anchor was wearing that expression news
anchors tended to wear when they were reporting on something especially grim.
“No one has come forward to identify an infant boy found abandoned in an alley
behind Beth Israel hospital several days ago,” he was saying. “The infant is
white, weighs six pounds and eight ounces, and is otherwise healthy. He was
discovered strapped to an infant car seat behind a Dumpster in the alley,” the
anchor went on. “Most disturbing, a handwritten note tucked into the child’s
anchor went on. “Most disturbing, a handwritten note tucked into the child’s
blanket begged hospital authorities to euthanize the child because ‘I don’t have
the strength to do it myself.’ Police say it is likely that the child’s mother was
mentally ill, and claim they have ‘promising leads.’ Anyone with information
about this child should call Crime Stoppers at—”
“That’s so horrible,” Clary said, turning away from the TV with a shudder. “I
can’t understand how people just dump their babies off like they’re trash—”
“Jocelyn,” Luke said, his voice sharp with concern. Simon looked toward
Clary’s mother.
She was as white as a sheet and looked as if she were about to throw up. She
pushed her plate away abruptly, stood up from the table, and hurried toward the
bathroom. After a moment Luke dropped his napkin and went after her.
“Oh, crap.” Clary put her hand over her mouth. “I can’t believe I said that. I’m
so stupid.”
Simon was thoroughly perplexed. “What’s going on?”
Clary slunk down in her seat. “She was thinking about Sebastian,” she said. “I
mean Jonathan. My brother. I assume you remember him.”
She was being sarcastic. None of them was likely to forget Sebastian, whose real
name was Jonathan and who had murdered Hodge and Max and had nearly
succeeded in helping Valentine win a war that would have seen the destruction
of all Shadowhunters.
Jonathan, who had had burning black eyes and a smile like a razor blade.
Jonathan, whose blood had tasted like battery acid when Simon had bitten him
once. Not that he regretted it.
“But your mom didn’t abandon him,” Simon said. “She stuck with raising him
even though she knew there was something horribly wrong with him.”
“She hated him, though,” Clary said. “I don’t think she’s ever gotten over that.
Imagine hating your own baby. She used to take out a box that had his baby
things in it and cry over it every year on his birthday. I think she was crying over
the son she would have had—you know, if Valentine hadn’t done what he had.”
“And you would have had a brother,” said Simon. “Like, an actual one. Not a
murdering psychopath.”
Looking close to tears, Clary pushed her plate away. “I feel sick now,” she said.
“You know that feeling like you’re hungry but you can’t bring yourself to eat?”
Simon looked over at the bleached-haired waitress, who was leaning against the
diner counter. “Yeah,” he said. “I know.”

Luke returned to the table eventually, but only to tell Clary and Simon that he
was taking Jocelyn home. He left some money, which they used to pay the bill
before wandering out of the diner and over to Galaxy Comics on Seventh
Avenue. Neither of them could concentrate enough to enjoy themselves, though,
so they split up, with a promise to see each other the next day.
Simon rode into the city with his hood pulled up and his iPod on, blasting music
into his ears. Music had always been his way of blocking everything out. By the
time he got out at Second Avenue and headed down Houston, a light rain had
started to fall, and his stomach was in knots.
He cut over to First Street, which was mostly deserted, a strip of darkness
between the bright lights of First Avenue and Avenue A. Because he had his
iPod on, he didn’t hear them coming up behind him until they were nearly on
him. The first intimation he had that something was wrong was a long shadow
that fell across the sidewalk, overlapping his own. Another shadow joined it, this
one on his other side. He turned—
And saw two men behind him. Both were dressed exactly like the mugger who
had attacked him the other night— gray tracksuits, gray hoods pulled up to hide
their faces.
They were close enough to touch him.
Simon leaped back, with a force that surprised him. Because his vampire
strength was so new, it still had the power to shock him. When, a moment later,
he found himself perched on the stoop of a brownstone, several feet away from
the muggers, he was so astonished to be there that he froze.
The muggers advanced on him. They were speaking the same guttural language
The muggers advanced on him. They were speaking the same guttural language
as the first mugger—who, Simon was beginning to suspect, had not been a
mugger at all.
Muggers, as far as he knew, didn’t work in gangs, and it was unlikely that the
first mugger had criminal friends who had decided to take revenge on him for
their comrade’s demise. Something else was clearly going on here.
They had reached the stoop, effectively trapping him on the steps. Simon tore his
iPod headphones from his ears and hastily held his hands up. “Look,” he said, “I
don’t know what this is about, but you really want to leave me alone.”
The muggers just looked at him. Or at least he thought they were looking at him.
Under the shadows of their hoods, it was impossible to see their faces.
“I’m getting the feeling someone sent you after me,” he said. “But it’s a suicide
mission.
Seriously. I don’t know what they’re paying you, but it’s not enough.”
One of the tracksuited figures laughed. The other had reached into his pocket
and drawn something out.
Something that shone black under the streetlights.
A gun.
“Oh, man,” Simon said. “You really, really don’t want to do that. I’m not
kidding.” He took a step back, up one of the stairs. Maybe if he got enough
height, he could actually jump over them, or past them. Anything but let them
attack him. He didn’t think he could face what that meant. Not again.
The man with the gun raised it. There was a click as he pulled the hammer back.
Simon bit his lip. In his panic his fangs had come out. Pain shot through him as
they sank into his skin. “Don’t—”
A dark object fell from the sky. At first Simon thought something had merely
tumbled from one of the upper windows—an air conditioner ripping loose, or
someone too lazy to drag their trash downstairs. But the falling thing, he saw,
was a person—falling with direction, purpose, and grace. The person landed on
the mugger, knocking him flat. The gun skittered out of his hand, and he
the mugger, knocking him flat. The gun skittered out of his hand, and he
screamed, a thin, high sound. windows—an air conditioner ripping loose, or
someone too lazy to drag their trash downstairs. But the falling thing, he saw,
was a person—falling with direction, purpose, and grace. The person landed on
the mugger, knocking him flat. The gun skittered out of his hand, and he
screamed, a thin, high sound.
The second mugger bent and seized the gun. Before Simon could react, the guy
had raised it and pulled the trigger. A spark of flame appeared at the gun’s
muzzle.
And the gun blew apart. It blew apart, and the mugger blew apart along with it,
too fast to even scream. He had intended a quick death for Simon, and an even
quicker death was what he got in return. He shattered apart like glass, like the
outward-flying colors in a kaleidoscope. There was a soft explosion—the sound
of displaced air— and then nothing but a soft drizzle of salt, falling onto the
pavement like solidified rain.
Simon’s vision blurred, and he sank down onto the steps. He was aware of a
loud humming in his ears, and then someone grabbed him roughly by the wrists
and shook him, hard. “Simon. Simon!”
He looked up. The person grabbing him and shaking him was Jace. The other
boy wasn’t in gear, but was still wearing his jeans and the jacket he’d taken back
from Clary. He was disheveled, his clothes and face streaked with dirt and soot.
His hair was wet from the rain.
“What the hell was that?” Jace asked.
Simon looked up and down the street. It was still deserted. The asphalt shone,
black and wet and empty. The second mugger was gone.
“You,” he said, a little groggily. “You jumped the muggers—”
“Those weren’t muggers. They were following you since you got off the
subway.
Someone sent those guys.” Jace spoke with complete surety.
“The other one,” Simon said. “What happened to him?”
“He just vanished.” Jace snapped his fingers. “He saw what happened to his
friend, and he was gone, like that. I don’t know what they were, exactly. Not
demons, but not exactly human, either.”

“Yeah, I figured that part out, thanks.”
Jace looked at him more closely. “That—what happened to the mugger—that
was you, wasn’t it? Your Mark, here.” He pointed at his forehead. “I saw it burn
white before that guy just . . . dissolved.”
Simon said nothing.
“I’ve seen a lot,” Jace said. There was no sarcasm in his voice, for a change, or
any mockery. “But I’ve never seen anything like that.”
“I didn’t do it,” Simon said softly. “I didn’t do anything.”
“Youdidn’t have to,” said Jace. His goldeneyes burned inhis soot-streaked face.
“‘For itis written, Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.’”
WAKE THE DEAD
Jace’s room was as neat as ever—bed made perfectly, the books that lined the
shelves arranged in alphabetical order, notes and textbooks stacked carefully on
the desk. Even his weapons were lined up along the wall in order of size, from a
massive broadsword to a set of small daggers.
Clary, standing in the doorway, held back a sigh. The neatness was all very well.
She was used to it. It was, she had always thought, Jace’s way of exerting
control over the elements of a life that otherwise might seem overwhelmed with
chaos. He had lived so long not knowing who—or even what—he really was,
she could hardly begrudge him the careful alphabetization of his poetry
collection.
She could, however—and did—begrudge the fact that he wasn’t there. If he
hadn’t gone back home after leaving the bridal shop, where had he gone? As she
looked around the room, a feeling of unreality came over her. It wasn’t possible
that any of this was happening, was it? She knew how breakups went from
that any of this was happening, was it? She knew how breakups went from
hearing other girls complain about them. First the pulling away, the gradual
refusal to return notes or phone calls. The vague messages saying nothing was
wrong, that the other person just wanted a little space. Then the speech about
how “It’s not you, it’s me.” Then the crying part.
She’d never thought any of that would ever apply to her and Jace. What they had
wasn’t ordinary, or subject to the ordinary rules of relationships and breakups.
They belonged to each other totally, and always would, and that was that.
But maybe everyone felt that way? Until the moment they realized they were
just like everyone else, and everything they’d thought was real shattered apart.
Something that glittered silver across the room caught her eye. It was the
boxAmatis had given Jace, withits delicate design of birds around the sides. She
knew he had been working his way through it, reading the letters slowly, going
through the notes and photos. He hadn’t said much about it to her, and she
hadn’t wanted to pry. His feelings about his biological father were something he
was going to have to come to terms with on his own.

She found herself drawn to the box now, though. She remembered him sitting on
the front steps of the Accords Hall in Idris, holding the box in his lap. As if I
could stop loving you, he’d said. She touched the lid of the box, and her fingers
found the clasp, which sprung open easily. Inside were scattered papers, old
photographs. She drew one out, and stared at it, fascinated. There were two
people in the photograph, a young woman and a young man.
She recognized the woman immediately as Luke’s sister, Amatis. She was
gazing up at the young man with all the radiance of first love. He was handsome,
tall and blond, though his eyes were blue, not gold, and his features less angular
than Jace’s . . . and yet still, knowing who he was—Jace’s father—was enough
to make her stomach tighten.
She set the photo of Stephen Herondale down hastily, and nearly cut her finger
on the blade of a slim hunting dagger that lay crosswise in the box. Birds were
carved along the handle. The blade of it was stained with rust, or what looked
like rust. It must not have been cleaned properly. She shut the box quickly, and
turned away, guilt like a weight on her shoulders.