City of Heavenly Fire
Page 103

“Asmodei,” echoed Clary. “I’ve heard that before. It was something Lilith said, about Sebastian. Before he was born. ‘The child born with this blood in him will exceed in power the Greater Demons of the abysses between the worlds. He will be more mighty than the asmodei.’”
“Asmodeus is one of the Greater Demons of the abysses between worlds,” said Jace, meeting Clary’s gaze. She knew he remembered Lilith’s speech as well as she did. He had shared the same vision, shown to them by the angel Ithuriel.
“Like Abbadon?” Simon inquired. “He was a Greater Demon.”
“Far more powerful than that. Asmodeus is a Prince of Hell—there are nine of them. The Fati. Shadowhunters cannot hope to defeat them. They can destroy angels in combat. They can remake worlds,” said Jace.
“The asmodei are Asmodeus’s children. Powerful demons. They drained this world dry and then left it for other, weaker demons to scavenge.” Alec sounded sick. “This isn’t the Accords Hall anymore. It’s a tomb. A tomb for the life of this world.”
“But is this our world?” Isabelle’s voice rose. “Did we go forward in time? If the Queen tricked us—”
“She didn’t. At least, not about where we are,” said Jace. “We didn’t go forward in time; we went sideways. This is a mirror dimension of our world. A place where history went slightly differently.” He hooked his thumbs into his belt and glanced around. “A world with no Shadowhunters.”
“It’s like Planet of the Apes,” said Simon. “Except that was the future.”
“Yeah, well, this could be our future, if Sebastian gets what he wants,” Jace said. He tapped the panel of the woman holding up the burning skeptron, and frowned, then pushed hard on the door.
It swung open with a shriek of hinges that cut the air like a knife. Clary winced. Jace drew his sword and peered cautiously through the gap in the door. There was a room beyond, filled with a grayish light. He shouldered the door open farther and slipped through the gap, gesturing for the others to wait.
Isabelle, Alec, Clary, and Simon exchanged glances, and without a word spoken, went after him immediately. Alec went first, bow drawn; then Isabelle with her whip, Clary with her sword, and Simon, eyes gleaming like a cat’s in the dimness.
The inside of the Accords Hall was both familiar and unfamiliar. The floor was marble, cracked and broken. In many places great black blots spread across the stone, the remnants of ancient bloodstains. The roof above, which in their Alicante was glass, was long gone, only shards remaining, like clear knives against the sky.
The room itself was empty, save for a statue in the center. The place was filled with sickly yellow-gray light. Jace, standing facing the statue, whirled as they approached.
“I told you to wait,” he snapped at Alec. “Don’t you ever do anything I tell you to?”
“Technically you didn’t actually say anything,” Clary said. “You just gestured.”
“Gesturing counts,” Jace said. “I gesture very expressively.”
“You’re not in charge,” Alec said, lowering his bow. Some of the tension had gone out of his posture. There were clearly no demons hiding in the shadows: Nothing blocked their view of the corroded walls, and nothing but the statue remained standing in the room. “You don’t need to protect us.”
Isabelle rolled her eyes at both of them and stepped closer to the statue, craning her head back. It was the statue of a man in armor; his feet, in mail boots, rested on a golden plinth. He wore an intricate hauberk of linked stone circlets, decorated with a motif of angel wings across the chest. In his hand he carried an iron replica of a skeptron, tipped by a circular metal ornament, into which a red jewel had been set.
Whoever had carved the statue had been skilled. The face was handsome, square-jawed, with a distant, clear gaze. But they had captured more than good looks: There was a certain harshness to the set of his eyes and jaw, a twist to his mouth that spoke of selfishness and cruelty.
There were words written on the plinth, and though they were not in English, Clary could read them.
JONATHAN SHADOWHUNTER. FIRST AND LAST OF THE NEPHILIM.
“First and last,” Isabelle whispered. “This place is a tomb.”
Alec crouched down. There were more words on the plinth, under Jonathan Shadowhunter’s name. He read them out:
“‘And he who overcomes, and he who keeps my deeds until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations; and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, and I will give him the Morning Star.’”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Simon asked.
“I think Jonathan Shadowhunter got cocky,” said Alec. “I think he thought this skeptron thing would not just save them, but it would let him rule over the world.”
“‘And I will give him the Morning Star,’” said Clary. “That’s from the Bible. Our Bible. And ‘Morgenstern’ means ‘morning star.’”
“‘The morning star’ means a lot of things,” said Alec. “It can mean ‘the brightest star in the sky,’ or it can mean ‘heavenly fire,’ or it can mean ‘the fire that falls with angels when they’re cast down out of Heaven.’ It’s also the name of Lucifer, the light-bringer, the demon of pride.” He straightened up.
“Either way, it means that thing the statue is holding is a real weapon,” said Jace. “Like in the door engravings. You said the skeptron is what they developed here, instead of seraph blades, to hold off the demons. Look at the marks on the handle. It’s been in battle.”
Isabelle tapped the pendant around her throat. “And the red stone. It looks like it’s made from the same stuff as my necklace.”
Jace nodded. “I think it is the same stone.” Clary knew what he was going to say next before he said it. “That weapon. I want it.”
“Well, you can’t have it,” Alec said. “It’s attached to the statue.”
“It’s not.” Jace pointed. “Look, the statue’s gripping it, but they’re actually two totally separate pieces. They carved the statue and then they put the scepter into its hands. It’s supposed to be removable.”
“I’m not sure that’s exactly true—” Clary began, but Jace was already putting a foot up onto the plinth, preparing to climb. He had the glint in his eye she both loved and dreaded, the one that said, I do what I want, and damn the consequences.
“Wait!” Simon darted to block Jace from climbing farther. “I’m sorry, but does anyone else see what’s going on here?”
“Nooo,” Jace drawled. “Why don’t you tell us all about it? I mean, we’ve got nothing but time.”
Simon crossed his arms over his chest. “I’ve been in a lot of campaigns—”
“Campaigns?” Isabelle echoed, bewildered.
“He means Dungeons and Dragons games,” Clary explained.
“Games?” Alec echoed in disbelief. “In case you haven’t noticed, this is no game.”
“That’s not the point,” Simon said. “The point is that when you’re playing D&D and your group comes across a heap of treasure, or a big sparkly gem, or a magical golden skull, you should never take it. It’s always a trap.” He uncrossed his arms and waved them wildly. “This is a trap.”