The Infernal Devices 01 - Clockwork Angel (49 page)

Jem raised his voice. “Will?” he called. “Will, can you hear me?” When there was no answer, he leaped down from the driver’s seat of the carriage and reached up to pull his jade-headed cane down after him. He held it lightly, balancing the weight. His wrists had begun to ache, which concerned him. Usually withdrawal from the demon powder began as pain in his joints, a dull ache that spread slowly until his whole body burned like fire. But he could not afford that pain now. There was Will to think about, and Tessa. He could not rid himself of the image of her on the steps, looking down at him as he spoke the ancient words. She had looked so worried, and the thought that she might have been worried about him had given him an unexpected pleasure.

He turned to start up the steps, and paused. Someone was already coming down them. More than one person—a crowd. They were backlit by the light of the Institute, and for a moment he blinked at them, seeing only silhouettes. A few seemed strangely misshapen.

“Jem!” The voice was high, desperate. Familiar.

Jessamine.

Galvanized, Jem darted up the stairs, and then paused. In front of him stood Nathaniel Gray, his clothes torn and spotted with blood. A makeshift bandage was wound around his head and was soaked with blood by his right temple. His expression was grim.

On either side of him moved clockwork automatons, like obedient servants. One flanked his right side, one his left. Behind were two more. One held a struggling Jessamine; the other a limp, half-insensible Sophie.

“Jem!” Jessamine shrieked. “Nate’s a liar. He was helping
Mortmain all this time—Mortmain’s the Magister, not de Quincey—”

Nathaniel whirled. “Silence her,” he barked at the clockwork creature behind him. Its metal arms tightened around Jessamine, who choked and fell silent, her face white with pain. Her eyes darted toward the automaton on Nathaniel’s right. Following her gaze, Jem saw that the creature held the familiar golden square of the Pyxis in its hands.

At the look on his face, Nate smiled. “None but a Shadowhunter can touch it,” he said. “No
living creature
, that is. But an automaton is not alive.”

“That is what all this was about?” Jem demanded, astounded. “The Pyxis? What possible use could it be to you?”

“My master wants demon energies, and demon energies he shall have,” said Nate pompously. “Nor will he forget that I am the one who provided them for him.”

Jem shook his head. “And what will he give you then? What did he give you to betray your sister? Thirty pieces of silver?”

Nate’s face twisted, and for a moment Jem thought he could see through the blandly handsome mask to what was really underneath—something malignant and repellent that made Jem want to turn away and retch. “That thing,” he said, “is not my sister.”

“It is hard to believe, isn’t it,” said Jem, making no effort to hide his loathing, “that you and Tessa share anything at all, even a single drop of blood. She is so much finer than you.”

Nathaniel’s eyes narrowed. “She is not my concern. She belongs to Mortmain.”

“I don’t know what Mortmain has promised you,” Jem said, “but I can promise you that if you hurt Jessamine or Sophie—and
if you take the Pyxis from these premises—the Clave will hunt you. And find you. And kill you.”

Nathaniel shook his head slowly. “You don’t understand,” he said. “None of the Nephilim understand. The most you can offer is to let me live. But the Magister can promise me that
I won’t ever die.
” He turned to the clockwork creature on his left, the one not holding the Pyxis. “Kill him,” he said.

The automaton sprang toward Jem. It was faster by far than the creatures Jem had faced on Blackfriars Bridge. He barely had time to flip the catch that released the blade at the end of his cane and raise it, before the thing was on him. The creature squealed like a braking train when Jem drove the blade directly into its chest and sawed it from side to side, tearing the metal wide open. The creature spun away, spraying a Catherine wheel of red sparks.

Nate, caught by the spray of fire, yelled and jumped back, beating at the sparks burning holes into his clothes. Jem took the opportunity to leap up two of the steps and slam Nate across the back with the flat of his blade, knocking him to his knees. Nate twisted around to look for his clockwork protector, but it was staggering from side to side across the steps, sparks fountaining from its chest; it seemed evident that Jem had severed one of its central mechanisms. The automaton holding the Pyxis stood stock-still; clearly Nate was not its first priority.

“Drop them!” Nate cried to the clockwork creatures holding Sophie and Jessamine. “Kill the Shadowhunter! Kill him, do you hear?”

Jessamine and Sophie, released, tumbled to the ground, both gasping but clearly still alive. Jem’s relief was short-lived,
though, as the second pair of automatons lurched toward him, moving with incredible speed. He slashed out at one with his cane. It leaped back, out of range, and the other raised a hand—not a hand, really, more a square block of metal, its side edged with ragged teeth like a saw—

A yell came from behind Jem, and Henry charged past him, wielding a massive broadsword. He swung it hard, slashing through the automaton’s raised arm and sending its hand flying. It skidded across the cobblestones, sparking and hissing, before bursting into flames.

“Jem!” It was Charlotte’s voice, raised in warning. Jem spun, and saw the other automaton reaching for him from behind. He drove his blade into the creature’s throat, sawing at the copper tubes inside, while Charlotte slashed at its knees with her whip. With a high whine, it collapsed to the ground, legs severed. Charlotte, her pale face set, brought the whip down again, while Jem turned to see that Henry, his ginger hair pasted to his forehead with sweat, was lowering his broadsword. The automaton he had attacked was now a heap of scrap metal on the ground.

In fact, bits of clockwork were scattered across the courtyard, some of it still burning, like a field of fallen stars. Jessamine and Sophie were clinging to each other; Jessamine supporting the other girl, whose throat was necklaced with dark bruises. Jessamine met Jem’s eyes across the steps. He thought it might have been the first time she’d really ever looked like she was glad to see him.

“He’s gone,” she said. “Nathaniel. He vanished with that creature—and the Pyxis.”

“I don’t understand.” Charlotte’s bloodied face was a mask of shock. “Tessa’s brother …”

“Everything he said to us was a lie,” said Jessamine. “The whole business with sending you off after the vampires was a diversion.”

“Dear God,” said Charlotte. “So de Quincey wasn’t lying—” She shook her head, as if to clear it of cobwebs. “When we reached his house in Chelsea, we found him there with just a few vampires, no more than six or seven—certainly not the hundred Nathaniel had warned about, and no clockwork creatures that anyone could find. Benedict slew de Quincey, but not before the vampire laughed at us for calling him the Magister—said we had let Mortmain make fools of us.
Mortmain.
And I’d thought he was just—just a mundane.”

Henry sank down on the top step, his broad sword clanking. “This is a disaster.”

“Will,” Charlotte said dazedly, as if in a dream. “And Tessa. Where are they?”

“Tessa’s in the Sanctuary. With Mortmain. Will—” Jessamine shook her head. “I didn’t realize he was here.”

“He’s inside,” Jem said, raising his gaze to the Institute. He remembered his poison-racked dream—the Institute in flames, a haze of smoke over London, and great clockwork creatures striding to and fro among the buildings like monstrous spiders. “He would have gone after Tessa.”

Mortmain’s face had drained of blood. “What are you doing?” he demanded, striding toward her.

Tessa set the tip of the blade to her chest and pushed. The pain was sharp, sudden. Blood bloomed on the bosom of her dress. “Don’t come any closer.”

Mortmain stopped, his face contorted with fury. “What
makes you think I care if you live or die, Miss Gray?”

“As you said, you made me,” said Tessa. “For whatever reason, you desired that I exist. You valued me enough that you would not have wanted the Dark Sisters to harm me in any permanent way. Somehow, I am significant to you. Oh, not my
self
, of course. My power. That is what matters to you.” She could feel blood, warm and wet, trickling down her skin, but the pain was nothing compared to her satisfaction at seeing the look of fear on Mortmain’s face.

He spoke through gritted teeth. “What is it you want from me?”

“No. What is it you want from
me
? Tell me. Tell me why you created me. Tell me who my true parents are. Was my mother really my mother? My father, my father?”

Mortmain’s smile was twisted. “You are asking the wrong questions, Miss Gray.”

“Why am I … what I am, and Nate is only human? Why is he not like me?”

“Nathaniel is only your half brother. He is nothing more than a human being, and not a very good example of that. Do not mourn that you are not more like him.”

“Then …” Tessa paused. Her heart was racing. “My mother could not have been a demon,” she said quietly. “Or anything supernatural, because Aunt Harriet was her sister, and she was only human. So it must have been my father. My father was a demon?”

Mortmain grinned, a sudden ugly grin. “Put down the knife and I will give you your answers. Perhaps we can even summon up the thing that fathered you, if you are so desperate to meet him—or should I say ‘it’?”

“Then I am a warlock,” Tessa said. Her throat felt tight. “That is what you are saying.”

Mortmain’s pale eyes were full of scorn. “If you insist,” he said, “I suppose that is the best word for what you are.”

Tessa heard Magnus Bane’s clear voice in her head:
Oh, you’re a warlock. Depend on it
. And yet—

“I don’t believe any of this,” Tessa said. “My mother, she would never have—not with a demon.”

“She had no idea.” Mortmain sounded almost pitying. “No idea that she was being unfaithful to your father.”

Tessa’s stomach lurched. This was nothing she hadn’t thought might be possible, nothing she hadn’t wondered about. Still, to hear it spoken aloud was something else. “If the man I thought was my father, was not my father, and my true father was a demon,” she said, “then why am I not marked like a warlock is marked?”

Mortmain’s eyes sparkled with malevolence. “Indeed, why are you not? Perhaps because your mother had no idea what she was, any more than you do.”

“What do you mean? My mother was human!”

Mortmain shook his head. “Miss Gray, you continue to ask the wrong questions. What you must understand is that much was planned so that you would someday come to be. The planning began even before me—and I carried it forward, knowing I was overseeing the creation of something unique in the world. Something unique that would belong to me. I knew that I would one day marry you, and you would be mine forever.”

Tessa looked at him in horror. “But why? You don’t
love
me. You don’t know me. You didn’t even know what I looked like! I could have been hideous!”

“It would not have mattered. You can appear as hideous or as beautiful as you like. The face you wear now is only one of a thousand possible faces. When will you learn that there is no
real
Tessa Gray?”

“Get out,” Tessa said.

Mortmain looked at her with his pale eyes. “What did you say to me?”

“Get out. Leave the Institute. Take your monsters with you. Or I will stab myself in the heart.”

For a moment he hesitated, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. This must have been what he was like when forced to make a lightning-swift business decision—to buy or to sell? To invest or to expand? He was a man used to sizing up the situation in an instant, Tessa thought. And she was only a girl. What chance did she have to outmaneuver him?

Slowly he shook his head. “I don’t believe you’ll do it. You may be a warlock, but you’re still a young girl. A delicate female.” He took a step toward her. “Violence is not in your nature.”

Tessa gripped the handle of the knife tightly. She could feel everything—the hard slick surface under her fingers, the pain where it pierced her skin, the beat of her own heart. “Don’t come a step closer,” she said in a shaking voice, “or I’ll do it. I’ll drive the knife in.”

The tremble in her voice seemed to give him conviction; his jaw firmed, and he moved toward her with a confident stride. “No, you won’t.”

Tessa heard Will’s voice in her head.
She took poison rather than let herself be captured by the Romans. She was braver than any man.

“Yes,” she said. “I will.”

Something in her face must have changed, for the confidence went from his expression and he lunged toward her, his arrogance gone, reaching desperately for the knife. Tessa spun away from Mortmain, turning to face the fountain. The last thing she saw was the silvery water splashing high above her as she drove the knife toward her chest.

Will was breathless as he approached the doors of the Sanctuary. He had fought two of the clockwork automatons in the stairwell and had thought he was done for, until the first one—having been run through several times with Thomas’s sword—began to malfunction and pushed the second creature out a window before collapsing and crashing down the stairs in a whirlwind of crumpling metal and shooting sparks.

Will had cuts on his hands and arms from the creatures’ jagged metal hides, but he had not slowed down for an
iratze.
He drew out his stele as he ran, and hit the Sanctuary doors at a dead run. He slashed the stele across the doors’ surface, creating the fastest Open rune of his life.

The doors’ lock slid back. Will took a split second of time to switch his stele for one of the seraph blades on his belt. “
Jerahmeel
,” he whispered, and as the blade blazed up with white fire, he kicked the Sanctuary doors open.

And froze in horror. Tessa lay crumpled by the fountain, whose water was stained with red. The front of her blue and white dress was a sheet of scarlet, and blood spread from beneath her body in a widening pool. A knife lay by her limp right hand, its hilt smeared with blood. Her eyes were closed.