Lady Midnight (34 page)

Emma’s heart ached with memory. The machine whirred more quickly, then more quickly still, and spit out a red ball. It shot down the chute and fell into the tray.

Belinda picked it up delicately. A tense stillness had fallen over the crowd. It was the stillness of cats poised to spring.

“Blue,” she said, her voice ringing in the silence. “Blue 304.”

The moment hung, frozen and suspended. It was broken by a man rising to his feet. He moved warily, like a statue brought to sudden and reluctant life.

It was the man Cristina had danced with, the one in the herringbone suit. He was very pale now, and the woman in the silver dress was edging away from him.

“Mr. Sterling,” said Belinda, and let the ball fall back into the tray with a clink. “The Lottery has chosen you.”

Emma couldn’t help but look around, trying not to seem as if she was staring. The audience sat stonily, most expressionless. Some wore looks of relief. The man in the herringbone suit—Sterling—seemed dazed, as if he’d been punched in the solar plexus and was about to gasp in air.

“You know the rules,” Belinda said. “Mr. Sterling has two days of freedom before the hunt begins. No one may help him. No one may interfere with the hunt.” Her eyes searched the audience. “May Those Who Are Older grant us all good fortune.”

The music started up again. Everyone began to rise to their feet, the room filling with the buzz of low conversation. Emma was on her feet like a shot, but Julian’s hand closed around her arm before she could bolt out of the room. He was smiling; it looked clearly fake to her but would probably convince anyone who didn’t know him.

“They’re going to kill him,” Emma whispered urgently. “Everything she said—the
hunt—
”

“We don’t know that,” Julian said without moving his lips.

“Emma is right,” Mark said. They were hurrying forward, pushed
toward the exits by the mass of the crowd. The band was playing “As Time Goes By” from
Casablanca
, the sweet melody completely incongruous with the sense of anxiety whipping through the room. “A hunt means death.”

“We have to offer him help,” Cristina said. Her tone was flat.

“Even if he is a pervert,” Emma confirmed. “It’s what we do—”

“You heard the rules,” Jules said. “No interfering.”

Emma spun around, stopping dead. Her eyes met Julian’s. “Those rules,” she said, and took his hand, her fingers moving over his skin.
T-H-E-Y D-O-N-T A-P-P-L-Y T-O U-S.

Darkness blossomed in the blue-green irises she knew so well: an admission of defeat. “Go,” he said. “Take Cristina.” Emma caught Cristina’s hand and the two of them were shoving through the crowd, Emma using her elbows and boots—stomping viciously on several feet—to push past the other theatergoers. They reached the central aisle. She was aware of Cristina asking her in a hissed whisper how they were going to find Mark and Julian again.

“At the car,” said Emma. She saw Cristina’s puzzled look but didn’t bother saying that she knew the plan the way she always knew Julian’s plans. She knew them because she knew him.

“There he is.” Cristina pointed with her free hand. They had made it to the lobby. Emma followed her indication and saw a flash of the red soles of shoes. Mr. Sterling, slipping out the door. The woman he’d come with was nowhere to be seen.

They bolted after him, darting around the crowd. Emma crashed into a girl with rainbow-dyed hair who made a surprised “Oof!” sound.

“Sorry!” Emma yelled just as she and Cristina escaped through the small circle of people standing around the theater entrance.

The Hollywood sign twinkled, brilliant, above them. Where the street curved, Emma could see Sterling disappearing around a corner. Emma broke into a flat-out run, Cristina on her heels.

This was why she ran every day on the beach. So she could fly over pavement without feeling it, so that her breath didn’t catch and running felt like flying. Cristina was just behind her. Her dark hair had come down out of its careful bun and flew behind her like a dark flag.

They turned the corner. They were on a side street; bungalow houses lined the road, most of their windows dark. Sterling was standing just beside a massive, expensive-looking silver Jeep, his hand still on the remote key. He stared at them in total astonishment as they skidded to a halt in front of him.

“What—?” he sputtered. Up close it was possible to see how shaken he looked. He was pale and sweating, his throat working convulsively. “What are you doing?”

His eyes flashed yellow-green in the light from the streetlamps. Half-werewolf he might be, Emma thought, but he looked like a scared mundane.

“We can help you,” she said.

His throat worked again. “What are you talking about?” he demanded, so savagely that Emma heard a snicking sound to her left and realized Cristina had flipped open her butterfly knife. She hadn’t moved, but it shone in her hand, a silent threat should Sterling take one step toward Emma.

“The Lottery,” Emma said. “You got picked.”

“Yeah, I know. You think I don’t know?” Sterling snarled. “You shouldn’t even be talking to me.” He ran his hands through his hair distractedly. His key ring fell from his grip and rattled to the ground. Emma took a step forward, reaching for it. She held it out to him. “No!” he shouted hoarsely and skittered backward, like a crab. “Don’t touch me! Don’t come near me!”

Emma tossed the keys at his feet and held her hands up, palms open. She was aware of where all her own weapons were, the daggers in her boots, under the hem of her dress.

She missed Cortana, though.

“We don’t want to hurt you,” she said. “We want to help, that’s all.”

He bent down and warily grabbed his keys. “You can’t help me. No one can help me.”

“Your lack of trust is very hurtful,” said Emma.

“You have no idea what’s going on here.” He laughed a sharp, unnatural laugh. “Don’t you get it?
No one can help me
, especially not some stupid kids—” He paused then, looking at Emma. At her arm, specifically. She glanced down and cursed under her breath. The makeup that covered her
parabatai
rune was smeared—probably from when she had bumped into that girl in the lobby—and the Mark was clearly visible.

Sterling looked the opposite of thrilled. “Nephilim,” he snarled. “Jesus, just what I need.”

“We know Belinda said not to interfere,” Emma began hastily. “But since we
are
Nephilim—”

“That’s not even her name.” He spat into the gutter. “You don’t know anything, do you? Goddamn Shadowhunters, thinking they’re the kings of Downworld, messing everything up. Belinda should never have allowed you in.”

“You could be a little more polite.” Emma felt an edge creep into her voice. “Considering we’re trying to help you. And that you felt Cristina up.”

“I didn’t,” he said, his eyes flicking between them.

“You did,” Cristina said. “It was very disgusting.”

“Then why are you trying to help me?” Sterling asked.

“Because nobody deserves to die,” Emma said. “And to be honest, there’re things we want to know. What’s the point of the Lottery? How does it make you all stronger?”

He stared at them, shaking his head. “You’re insane.” He slammed his thumb down on his key remote; the Jeep’s headlights flashed as it unlocked. “Stay away from me. Like Belinda said. No interfering.”

He jerked the door open and hurled himself into the car. A second later the Jeep was screeching away down the street, leaving black tire marks on the asphalt.

Emma expelled a breath. “Kind of hard to stay desperately concerned about his well-being, isn’t it?”

Cristina looked after the Jeep. “It is a test,” she said. Her knife had disappeared, slipped back under her collar. “The Angel would say we were put here to save not only those we like but also the unpleasant and disagreeable.”

“You said your mother would have stabbed him.”

“Yes, well,” said Cristina. “We don’t always agree about everything.”

Before Emma could reply, the Institute’s Toyota pulled up in front of them. Mark leaned out the back window. Even with everything that was happening, Emma felt a spark of happiness that Jules had saved the seat next to him for her. “Your chariot, fair ones,” Mark said. “Enter and hie we away before we are followed.”

“Was that English?” Cristina demanded, climbing in beside him. Emma darted to the car to slide into the front seat.

Julian looked over at her. “That looked like a pretty dramatic conversation.” The car slid forward, away from the odd street, the peculiar theater. They passed over the tire tracks the Jeep had made on the road.

“He didn’t want our help,” said Emma.

“But he’s getting it anyway,” Julian said. “Isn’t he?”

“If we can track him down,” said Emma. “They could all have been using assumed names.” She put her feet up on the dashboard. “It might be worth asking Johnny Rook. Since they were advertising at the Shadow Market and he knows everything that happens there.”

“Didn’t Diana tell you to stay away from Johnny Rook?” said Julian.

“Isn’t Diana kind of far away right now?” Emma said sweetly.

Julian looked resigned but also amused. “Fine. I trust you. If you think there’s a reason, we’ll go ask Rook.”

They were turning onto La Cienega. The lights and clamor and traffic of Los Angeles exploded all around them. Emma clapped her hands. “And that’s why I love you.”

The words slipped out without her thinking. Neither Cristina nor Mark seemed to notice—they were arguing about whether “hie” was a word—but Julian’s cheeks turned a dull brick red and his hands tightened on the wheel.

*   *   *

When they reached the Institute, a storm was building out over the ocean—a roil of blue-black clouds spiked with lightning. Lights were on inside the building. Cristina began mounting the steps wearily. She was used to late nights of hunting, but something about the experience at the theater had tired her soul.

“Cristina.”

It was Mark, on the step below her. One of the first things Cristina had noticed about the Institute was that depending on which direction the wind was blowing from, it smelled either of ocean water or of the desert. Of sea salt or of sage. Tonight it was sage. The wind blew through Mark’s hair: Blackthorn curls bleached of all their color, silvery as the moon on the water.

“You dropped these outside the theater,” he said, and held out his hand. She looked down and past him for a moment, to where Julian and Emma were standing by the foot of the steps. Julian had pulled the car up and was lifting Cortana out of the trunk. It caught the light and shimmered like Emma’s hair. She reached for it, glancing down to run her hand along the scabbarded blade, and Cristina saw Julian glance involuntarily at the curve of her neck. As if he couldn’t help it.

Cold fear weighted down Cristina’s stomach; she felt as if she
were watching trains hurtling toward each other on the same track, with no way of stopping either one.

“Cristina?” Mark said again, a question rising in his voice. Something glittered in his open palm. Two somethings. The gold earrings that had fallen out while she was running, that she had assumed were lost somewhere on a Los Angeles square of pavement.

“Oh!” She took them from him, slipping them into the pocket of her coat. He watched her, his mismatched eyes curious. “They were a gift,” she said. “From someone—from an old friend.”

She remembered Diego putting them into her hand, and there had been nervousness in his dark eyes, a wondering if she would like them. But she had, because he had given them to her.

“They’re pretty,” Mark said. “Especially against your hair. It looks like black silk.”

Cristina exhaled. Emma was looking up at Julian, smiling. There was uncertainty on her face, uncertainty that cut at Cristina’s heart. Emma reminded her of herself, she thought, just before she turned that corner in the garden where she’d heard Jaime and Diego talking. Before everything had fallen apart.

“You shouldn’t say those sort of things to me,” she said to Mark.

The wind blew his hair across his face; he pushed it back. “I thought mortal women liked compliments.” He sounded honestly puzzled.

“Do faerie women like them?”

“I don’t know many,” he said. “The Seelie Queen does enjoy a compliment. But there were no women in the Hunt.”

“But there was Kieran,” she said. “And what would he say if he knew you were telling me I was pretty? Because the way he looks at you . . .”

A look of shock passed over Mark’s face. He glanced down quickly at Julian, but his brother was absorbed in Emma. “How do you—?”

“I saw you,” she said. “In the parking lot. And when you disap
peared today at the theater, I would guess that was because of him as well?”

“Please tell no one, Cristina.” The look of fear on his face broke her heart. “They would punish him, and me as well. We both swore we would not reveal our relationship to any Shadowhunters, lest they think I would be too loyal to Faerie and too likely to return to it, and not agree to our bargain. Also, Kieran is forbidden to see me now that I am out of the Hunt.”

“I will tell no one,” said Cristina. “I have not mentioned it, not to Emma, not to anyone.”

“You are as kind as you are lovely,” he said, but the words sounded rehearsed.

“I know you think you can’t trust mortals. But I will not betray you.”

There was nothing rehearsed about the look he gave her then. “I meant it when I said you were beautiful. I want you, and Kieran would not mind—”

“You
want
me?”

“Yes,” Mark said simply, and Cristina looked away, suddenly very aware of how close his body was to hers. Of the shape of his shoulders under his jacket. He was lovely as faeries were lovely, with a sort of unearthliness, as quicksilver as moonlight on water. He didn’t seem quite touchable, but she had seen him kiss Kieran and knew better. “You do not want to be wanted?”

In another time, the time before, Cristina would have blushed. “It is not the sort of compliment mortal women enjoy.”

“But why not?” said Mark.

“Because it makes it sound like I am a thing you want to use. And when you say Kieran would not mind, you make it sound as if he would not mind because I do not matter.”