Clockwork Angel (The Infernal Devices #1)

The only illumination in the room was Will’s glowing stone, its light sunk down now to an ember between his fingers. It lit him in the darkness, like limelight on a stage, as he reached around her to slam the bolt home on the door. The bolt was heavy and flaking with rust, and, standing as close to him as she was, she could feel the tension in his body as he dragged it home and let it fall into place.

“Miss Gray?” He was leaning against her, her back against the closed doors. She could feel the driving rhythm of his heart—or was it her heart? The odd white illumination cast by the stone shimmered against the sharp angle of his cheeks, the faint sheen of sweat on his collarbones. There were marks there, too, she saw, rising from the unbuttoned collar of his shirt—like the mark on his hand, thick and black, as if someone had inked designs onto his skin.

“Where are we?” she whispered. “Are we safe?”

Without answering he drew away, raising his right hand. As he lifted it, the light blazed up higher, illuminating the room.

They were in a sort of cell, though it was very large. The walls, floor, and ceiling were stone, sloping down to a large drain in the middle of the floor. There was only one window, very high up in the wall. There were no doors save the ones they had come through. But none of that was what made Tessa draw in her breath.

The place was a slaughterhouse. There were long wooden tables running the length of the room. Bodies lay on one of them—human bodies, stripped and pale. Each had a black incision in the shape of a Y marking its chest, and each head dangled back over the edge of the table, the hair of the women sweeping the floor like brooms. On the center table were piles of bloodstained knives and machinery—copper cogs and brass gears and sharp-toothed silver hacksaws.

Tessa crammed a hand into her mouth, stifling a scream. She tasted blood as she bit down on her own fingers. Will didn’t seem to notice; he was white-faced as he looked around, mouthing something under his breath that Tessa couldn’t make out.

There was a crashing noise and the metal doors shuddered, as if something heavy had flung itself against them. Tessa lowered her bleeding hand and cried out, “Mr. Herondale!”

He turned, as the doors shuddered again. A voice echoed from the other side of them: “Miss Gray! Come out now, and we won’t hurt you!”

“They’re lying,” Tessa said quickly.

“Oh, do you really think so?” Having packed as much sarcasm into the question as was humanly possible, Will pocketed his glowing witchlight and leaped onto the center table, the one covered in bloodied machinery. He bent down and caught up a heavy-looking brass cog, and weighed it in his hand. With a grunt of effort he hurled it toward the high window; the glass shattered, and Will raised his voice. “Henry! Some assistance, please! Henry!”

“Who’s Henry?” Tessa demanded, but at that moment the doors shuddered a third time, and thin cracks appeared in the metal. Clearly, they weren’t going to hold much longer. Tessa dashed to the table and seized a weapon, almost at random—this one was a ragged-toothed metal hacksaw, the kind butchers used to cut through bone. She whirled around, clutching it, as the doors burst open.

The Dark Sisters stood in the doorway—Mrs. Dark, as tall and bony as a rake in her shining lime green gown, and Mrs. Black, red-faced, her eyes narrowed to slits. A bright corona of blue sparks surrounded them, like tiny fireworks. Their gazes slid over Will—who, still standing on the table, had drawn one of his icy blades from his belt—and came to rest on Tessa. Mrs. Black’s mouth, a red slash in her pale face, stretched into a grin. “Little Miss Gray,” she said. “You ought to know better than to run. We told you what would happen if you ran again. . . .”

“Then do it! Whip me bloody. Kill me. I don’t care!” Tessa shouted, and was gratified to see that the Dark Sisters looked at least a little taken aback by her outburst; she’d been too terrified to raise her voice to them before. “I won’t let you give me to the Magister! I’d rather die!”

“What an unexpectedly sharp tongue you have, Miss Gray, my dear,” said Mrs. Black. With great deliberation she reached to draw the glove from her right hand, and for the first time, Tessa saw her bare hand. The skin was gray and thick, like an elephant’s hide, her nails long dark talons. They looked as sharp as knives. Mrs. Black gave Tessa a fixed grin. “Perhaps if we cut it out of your head, you’d learn to mind your manners.”

She moved toward Tessa—and was blocked by Will leaping down from the table to put himself between them. “Malik,” he said, and his ice-white blade blazed up like a star.

“Get out of my way, little Nephilim warrior,” said Mrs. Black. “And take your seraph blades with you. This is not your battle.”

“You’re wrong about that.” Will narrowed his eyes. “I’ve heard some things about you, my lady. Whispers that run through Downworld like a river of black poison. I’ve been told you and your sister will pay handsomely for the bodies of dead humans, and you don’t much mind how they get that way.”

“Such a fuss over a few mundanes.” Mrs. Dark chuckled and moved to stand beside her sister, so that Will, with his blazing sword, was between Tessa and both ladies. “We have no quarrel with you, Shadowhunter, unless you choose to pick one. You have invaded our territory and broken Covenant Law in doing so. We could report you to the Clave—”

“While the Clave disapproves of trespassers, oddly they take an even darker view of beheading and skinning people. They’re peculiar that way,” Will said.

“People?” Mrs. Dark spat. “Mundanes. You care no more about them than we do.” She looked toward Tessa then. “Has he told you what he really is? He isn’t human—”

“You’re one to talk,” Tessa said in a trembling voice.

“And has she told you what she is?” Mrs. Black demanded of Will. “About her talent? What she can do?”

“If I were to venture a guess,” Will replied, “I would say it has something to do with the Magister.”

Mrs. Dark looked suspicious. “You know of the Magister?” She glanced at Tessa. “Ah, I see. Only what she has told you. The Magister, little boy angel, is more dangerous than you could ever imagine. And he has waited a long time for someone with Tessa’s ability. You might even say he is the one who caused her to be born—”

Her words were swallowed up in a colossal crash as the whole east wall of the room suddenly caved in. It was like the walls of Jericho tumbling down in Tessa’s old Bible stories picture book. One moment the wall was there, and the next it wasn’t; there was a huge gaping rectangular hole instead, steaming with choking swirls of plaster dust.

Mrs. Dark gave a thin scream and seized her skirts with her bony hands. Clearly she hadn’t expected the wall to collapse, any more than Tessa had.

Will caught hold of Tessa’s hand and pulled her toward him, blocking her with his body as chunks of stone and plaster rained down on them. As his arms went around her, she could hear Mrs. Black screaming.

Tessa twisted in Will’s grip, trying to see what was happening. Mrs. Dark stood, pointing with one gloved, trembling finger toward the dark hole in the wall. The dust was beginning to settle, barely—enough so that the figures moving toward them through the wreckage slowly began to take shape. The shadowy outlines of two human figures became visible; each was holding a blade, and each blade shone with the same blue-white light as Will’s. Angels, Tessa thought, wondering, but she didn’t say it. That light, so bright—what else could they be?