Queen of Air and Darkness
Page 86

“Just after the Dark War,” said Livvy. “When Sebastian won.”
“So he still attacked all the Institutes?” Emma asked. She hadn’t wanted to think about it, hadn’t wanted to court even the tiny possibility that her parents might be alive in this world, but she couldn’t help the catch of hope in her voice. “Los Angeles, too?”
“Yes,” said Livvy. Her voice was flat. “Your parents were killed. Our father was Endarkened.”
Emma flinched. She’d known there was no real hope, but it still hurt. And Julian must have wondered about his father, she knew. She wanted to reach out a hand to him, but the memory of the emotionless Julian of the past week held her back.
“In our world, those things happened too,” said Julian, after a long pause. “But we won the war.”
“Sebastian died,” said Emma. “Clary killed him.”
“Clary Fairchild?” said Cameron. His voice was thick with doubt. “She was murdered by the demon Lilith at the Battle of the Burren.”
“No,” said Emma stubbornly. “Clary and her friends won at the Battle of the Burren. There are paintings of it. She rescued Jace with the sword Glorious and they tracked Sebastian down in Edom; he never won—”
Livvy tapped her short fingernails on the barrel of her gun. “Nice story. So you’re claiming you come from a place where Sebastian is dead, demons aren’t roaming the streets, and Shadowhunters still have angelic power?”
“Yes,” Emma said.
Livvy turned to look at her. The scar that cut across her eye was an angry red in the scarlet moonlight. “Well, if it’s so great there, what are you doing here?”
“It wasn’t a planned vacation. Not everything in our world is perfect,” Emma said. “Far from it, really.”
She glanced at Julian and to her surprise found him looking back at her, matching her searching glance with his own. An echo of their old instant communication flared—Should we tell Livvy that she’s dead in our world?
Emma shook her head slightly. Livvy didn’t believe them about anything yet. That piece of information wouldn’t help.
“Gotta get off,” said Cameron. There were a few lights out here, illuminating patches of highway, and Emma could see the occasional illumination dotting the flat plain of the city beyond. It didn’t look anything like Los Angeles at night, though. The diamond chains of white light were gone, replaced by irregular spots of brightness. A fire burned somewhere on a distant hill.
In front of them, a massive crack divided the highway, as if someone had sliced neatly through the concrete. Cameron swung away from the rift, taking the nearest off-ramp. He dimmed the headlights as they hit the streets, and cruised at a slow speed through a residential neighborhood.
It was an unremarkable L.A. street lined with one-level ranch houses. Most of them were boarded up, the curtains pulled, only tiny glimpses of light visible within. Many were completely dark, and a few of those showed signs of forced entry—doors torn off at the hinges, bloodstains smearing the white stucco walls. Along the curb were a few abandoned cars with their trunks still open as though the people who owned them had been . . . taken away . . . while trying to make a break for it.
Saddest of all were the signs that children had once lived here: a torn-apart jungle gym, a bent tricycle lying in the middle of a driveway. A ghostly swing set pushed by the breeze.
A curve in the road loomed in front of them. As Cameron swung the car around, the headlights picked out a strange sight. A family—two parents and two children, a boy and a girl—were sitting at a picnic table on their lawn. They were eating in silence from plates of grilled meat, coleslaw, and potato salad. They were all deathly pale.
Emma swung around to stare as they receded into the distance. “What is going on with them?”
“Forsworn,” said Livvy, curling her lip with distaste. “They’re mundanes who are loyal to Sebastian. He runs the Institutes now and protects mundanes who swear allegiance to him. Half the remaining mundanes in the world are Forsworn.”
“What about the other half?” said Julian.
“Rebels. Freedom fighters. You can either be one or the other.”
“You’re rebels?” Emma said.
Cameron laughed and looked fondly at Livvy. “Livia isn’t just a rebel. She’s the baddest badass rebel of them all.”
He stroked the back of Livvy’s neck gently. Emma hoped Julian’s head wouldn’t blow right off. Livvy clearly wasn’t fifteen anymore, but she was still Julian’s little sister, sort of. Hastily, Emma said, “Shadowhunters and mundanes are united as a rebellion? What about Downworlders?”
“There are no Shadowhunters anymore,” Livvy said. She held up her right hand. There was no Voyance rune on the back. If Emma squinted, she thought she could glimpse the faint scar where it had once been: a shadow of a shadow. “The power of the Angel is broken. Steles don’t work, runes fade like ghosts. Sebastian Morgenstern went from Institute to Institute and killed everyone who wouldn’t pledge their loyalty to him. He opened the world to demons and they salted the earth with demon poisons and shattered the glass towers. Idris was overrun and the Adamant Citadel was destroyed. Angelic magic doesn’t work. Demonic magic is the only magic there is.” She tightened her hands on her shotgun. “Most of those who were once Shadowhunters are Endarkened now.”
A world without Shadowhunters. A world without angels. They had left the residential neighborhood behind and were rolling down what Emma guessed might be Sunset Boulevard. It was hard to tell with the street signs gone. There were other cars on the road, finally, and even a slight slowdown in traffic. Emma glanced to the side and saw a pallid vampire behind the wheel of a Subaru in the next lane. He glanced at her and winked.
“We’re coming to a checkpoint,” Cameron said.
“Let us handle this,” said Livvy. “Don’t talk.”
The car slowed to a crawl; up ahead Emma could see striped barriers. Most of the buildings along the boulevard were ruined shells. They had drawn up alongside one whose crumbling walls circled a mostly intact courtyard that had clearly once been the lobby of an office building. Demons were clustered everywhere: on piles of overturned furniture, clambering on the shattered walls, feeding from metal troughs of dark sticky stuff that might be blood. In the center of the room was a pole with a woman in a white dress tied to it, blood seeping through her dress. Her head lolled to the side as if she’d fainted.
Emma started to undo her seat belt. “We have to do something.”
“No!” Livvy said sharply. “You’ll get killed, and you’ll get us killed too. We can’t protect the world like that anymore.”
“I’m not afraid,” Emma said.
Livvy shot her a white-hot look of anger. “You should be.”
“Checkpoint,” snapped Cameron, and the car shot forward and stopped at the barriers. Cam lowered the driver’s-side window, and Emma nearly jumped out of her seat as an eyeless demon with a wrinkled head like an old grape leaned into the car. It wore a high-collared gray uniform, and though it had no nose or eyes, it did have a mouth that stretched across its face.
“Credentials,” it hissed.
Cameron jerked down his sleeve and stuck out his left hand, baring his wrist. Emma caught a glimpse of a mark on his inner wrist, above his pulse point, just as the demon extruded a gray raspy tongue that looked like a long, dead worm and licked Cameron’s wrist.
Please, Emma thought, do not let me puke in the back of this car. I remember this car. I made out with Cameron in the back of this car. Oh God, that demon licked his wrist. The whole car stinks like demon flesh.
Something covered her hand, something warm and reassuring. She blinked. Julian had wrapped his fingers around hers. The surprise brought her back to herself sharply.
“Ah, Mr. Ashdown,” the demon said. “I didn’t realize. Have a pleasant evening.” It drew back, and Cameron hit the gas. They had driven several blocks before anyone spoke.
“What was that thing with—” Julian began.
“The tongue! I know!” Emma said. “What the hell?”