City of Fallen Angels

Clary made fun of him about his new look; but, then, Clary found everything about Simon’s love life borderline hilarious. She couldn’t believe he was dating Isabelle in any serious way. Of course, she also couldn’t believe he was also dating Maia Roberts, a friend of theirs who happened to be a werewolf, in an equally serious way. And she really couldn’t believe that Simon hadn’t yet told either of them about the other.

Simon wasn’t really sure how it had happened. Maia liked to come to his house and use his Xbox—they didn’t have one at the abandoned police station where the werewolf pack lived—and it wasn’t until the third or fourth time she’d come over that she’d leaned over and kissed him good-bye before she’d left. He’d been pleased, and then had called up Clary to ask her if he needed to tell Isabelle. “Figure out what’s going on with you and Isabelle,” she said. “Then tell her.”

This had turned out to be bad advice. It had been a month, and he still wasn’t sure what was going on with him and Isabelle, so he hadn’t said anything. And the more time that passed, the more awkward the idea of saying something grew. So far he’d made it work. Isabelle and Maia weren’t really friends, and rarely saw each other. Unfortunately for him, that was about to change. Clary’s mother and her longtime friend, Luke, were getting married in a few weeks, and both Isabelle and Maia were invited to the wedding, a prospect Simon found more terrifying than the idea of being chased through the streets of New York by an angry mob of vampire hunters.

“So,” Isabelle said, snapping him out of his reverie. “Why here and not Taki’s? They’d serve you blood there.”

Simon winced at her volume. Isabelle was nothing if not unsubtle. Fortunately, no one seemed to be listening in, not even the waitress who returned, banged down a cup of coffee in front of Simon, eyed Izzy, and left without taking her order.

“I like it here,” he said. “Clary and I used to come here back when she was taking classes at Tisch. They have great borscht and blintzes—they’re like sweet cheese dumplings—plus it’s open all night.”

Isabelle, however, was ignoring him. She was staring past his shoulder. “What is that?”

Simon followed her glance. “That’s Count Blintzula.”

“Count Blintzula?”

Simon shrugged. “It’s a Halloween decoration. Count Blintzula is for kids. It’s like Count Chocula, or the Count on Sesame Street.” He grinned at her blank look. “You know. He teaches kids how to count.”

Isabelle was shaking her head. “There’s a TV show where children are taught how to count by a vampire?”

“It would make sense if you’d seen it,” Simon muttered.

“There is some mythological basis for such a construction,” Isabelle said, lapsing into lecturey Shadowhunter mode. “Some legends do assert that vampires are obsessed with counting, and that if you spill grains of rice in front of them, they’ll have to stop what they’re doing and count each one. There’s no truth in it, of course, any more than that business about garlic. And vampires have no business teaching children. Vampires are terrifying.”

“Thank you,” Simon said. “It’s a joke, Isabelle. He’s the Count. He likes counting. You know. ‘What did the Count eat today, children? One chocolate chip cookie, two chocolate chip cookies, three chocolate chip cookies…’”

There was a rush of cold air as the door of the restaurant opened, letting in another customer. Isabelle shivered and reached for her black silk scarf. “It’s not realistic.”

“What would you prefer? ‘What did the Count eat today, children? One helpless villager, two helpless villagers, three helpless villagers…’”

“Shh.” Isabelle finished knotting her scarf around her throat and leaned forward, putting her hand on Simon’s wrist. Her big dark eyes were alive suddenly, the way they only ever came alive when she was either hunting demons or thinking about hunting demons. “Look over there.”

Simon followed her gaze. There were two men standing over by the glass-fronted case that held bakery items: thickly frosted cakes, plates of rugelach, and cream-filled Danishes. Neither of the men looked as if they were interested in food, though. Both were short and painfully gaunt, so much so that their cheekbones jutted from their colorless faces like knives. Both had thin gray hair and pale gray eyes, and wore belted slate-colored coats that reached the floor.

“Now,” Isabelle said, “what do you suppose they are?”

Simon squinted at them. They both stared back at him, their lashless eyes like empty holes. “They kind of look like evil lawn gnomes.”

“They’re human subjugates,” Isabelle hissed. “They belong to a vampire.”

“‘Belong’ as in…?”

She made an impatient noise. “By the Angel, you don’t know anything about your kind, do you? Do you even really know how vampires are made?”

“Well, when a mommy vampire and a daddy vampire love each other very much…”

Isabelle made a face at him. “Fine, you know that vampires don’t need to have sex to reproduce, but I bet you don’t really know how it works.”