“And when he wakes up?” Michael asked.
“When it wakes up, Robert and I will question it on the subject of its crimes, and what it knows about the crimes of its fellows,” Valentine said. “Once we’ve secured its confession, we’ll deliver it to the Clave for its punishment. Does that satisfy you, Michael?”
He didn’t sound like he much cared about the answer, and Michael didn’t give him one.
“So now we wait?” Robert asked, once they were alone.
Valentine smiled.
When he wanted it to, Valentine’s smile could worm its way into the most well-fortified heart, melt it from the inside out.
This one wasn’t designed for heat. This was a cold smile, and it chilled Robert to the core.
“I’m tired of waiting,” Valentine said, and drew out a dagger. Moonlight glinted off the pure silver.
Before Robert could say anything, Valentine pressed the flat side of the blade against the old man’s bare chest. There was a sizzle of flesh, then a howl, as the prisoner woke to agony.
“I wouldn’t,” Valentine said calmly, as the old man’s features began to take on a wolfish cast, fur sprouting across his naked body. “I’m going to hurt you, yes. But change back into a wolf, and I promise, I will kill you.”
The transformation stopped as abruptly as it had begun.
The old man issued a series of racking coughs that shook his skinny body from head to toe. He was skinny, so skinny that ribs protruded from pale flesh. There were hollows beneath his eyes and only a few sorry strands of gray hair crossing his liver-spotted skull. It had never occurred to Robert that a werewolf could go bald. Under other circumstances, the thought of it might have amused him.
But there was nothing amusing about the sound the man made as Valentine traced the dagger’s tip from jutting collarbone to belly button.
“Valentine, he’s just an old man,” Robert said hesitantly. “Maybe we should—”
“Listen to your friend,” the old man said in a pleading, warbling voice. “I could be your own grandfather.”
Valentine struck him across the face with the hilt of the dagger.
“It’s not any kind of man,” he told Robert. “It’s a monster. And it’s been doing things it shouldn’t be doing, isn’t that true?”
The werewolf, apparently concluding that playing aged and weak wouldn’t get him out of this one, drew himself up straight and bared sharp teeth. His voice, when he spoke, had lost its tremble. “Who are you, Shadowhunter, to tell me what I should and shouldn’t be doing?”
“So you admit it, then,” Robert said eagerly. “You’ve violated the Accords.”
If he confessed this easily, they could be done with this whole sordid affair, turn the prisoner in to the Clave, go home.
“I don’t give my accord to killers and weaklings,” the werewolf spat.
“Fortunately, I don’t need your accord,” Valentine said. “I need only information. You tell me what I need to know, and we’ll let you go.”
This wasn’t what they’d discussed, but Robert held his tongue.
“Two months ago, a pack of werewolves killed a Shadowhunter at the western edge of these woods. Where can I find them?”
“And exactly how would I know that?”
Valentine’s icy smile returned. “You better hope that you do, because otherwise you’ll be of no use to me.”
“Well then, on second thought, maybe I have heard tell of this dead Shadowhunter you’re talking about.” The wolf barked a laugh. “Wish I could have been there to see him die. To taste of his sweet flesh. It’s the fear that gives the meat its taste, you know. Best of all when they cry first, a little salty with the sweet. And rumor has it your doomed Shadowhunter wept buckets. Cowardly, that one was.”
“Robert, hold its mouth open.” Valentine’s voice was steady, but Robert knew Valentine well enough to sense the fury roiling beneath.
“Maybe we should take a moment to—”
“Hold its mouth open.”
Robert gripped the man’s feeble jaws and pried them open.
Valentine pressed the flat side of the dagger to the man’s tongue and held it there as the man’s shriek turned into a howl, as his scrawny muscles bulged and fur bloomed across his flesh, as the tongue bubbled and blistered, and then, just as the fully transformed wolf snapped its bindings, Valentine sliced off its tongue. As its mouth gushed blood, Valentine slashed a sharp line across the wolf’s midsection. The cut was sure and deep, and the wolf dropped to the ground, intestines spilling from its wound.
Valentine leaped upon the writhing creature, stabbing and slicing, tearing through its hide, flaying flesh to pearly bone, even as the creature flailed and spasmed helplessly beneath him, even as the fight drained out of it, even as its gaze went flat, even as its broken body reclaimed human form, lay still on bloody earth, an old man’s face bled pale and turned lifelessly to the night sky.
“That’s enough,” Robert kept saying, quietly, uselessly. “Valentine, that’s enough.”
But he did nothing to stop it.
And when his friends returned from their patrol to find Valentine and Robert standing over the disemboweled corpse, he didn’t counter Valentine’s version of events: The werewolf had slipped free of its bonds and tried to escape. They had endured a fierce battle, killed in self-defense.
The outline of this story was, technically, true.
Stephen clapped Valentine on the back, commiserating with him that he’d lost the potential lead to his father’s killer. Michael locked eyes with Robert, his question clear as if he’d spoken it aloud. What really happened?
What did you let happen?
Robert looked away.
Isabelle was avoiding him. Beatriz was fuming at him. Everyone else was buzzing with too much excitement about the previous night’s adventure and the secret one to come. Julie and Marisol only echoed George’s cryptic promise—that something good was on the horizon, and if Simon wanted to know about it, he would have to join them.
“I don’t think Isabelle would want me there,” he told Sunil as they picked warily through the steamed heap of vaguely vegetable-shaped objects that passed for lunch.
Sunil shook his head and grinned. The smile fit his face poorly; Sunil with a grin was like a Klingon in a tutu. He was an unusually somber boy who seemed to consider good cheer as a sign of unseriousness, and treated people accordingly. “She told us to convince you to show up. She said ‘whatever it takes.’ So, you tell me, Simon.” The unsettling smile grew. “What’s it going to take?”
“You don’t even know her,” Simon pointed out. “Why are you suddenly so willing to do whatever she tells you to do?”
“We are talking about the same girl here, yes? Isabelle Lightwood?”
“Yes.”
Sunil shook his head in wonder. “And you even have to ask?”
So that was the new order: the cult of Isabelle Lightwood. Simon had to admit, he could completely understand how a roomful of otherwise rational people could fall completely under her spell and give themselves to her entirely.
But why would she want them to?
He decided he was going to have to see this for himself. Simply to understand what was going on and make sure it was all on the up-and-up.
Not at all because he desperately wanted to be near her. Or impress her. Or please her.
Come to think of it, maybe Simon understood the cult of Isabelle better than he wanted to admit.
Maybe he’d been its charter member.
“You intend to do what?” On the last word, Simon’s voice jumped two octaves above normal.
Jon Cartwright snickered. “Simmer down, Mom. You heard her.”
Simon looked around the lounge at his friends (and Jon). Over the past year, he’d come to know them inside and out, or at least, he thought that he did. Julie bit her nails bloody when she was nervous. Marisol slept with a sword under her pillow, just in case. George talked in his sleep, usually about sheep-
shearing techniques. Sunil had four pet rabbits that he talked about constantly, always worried that little Ringo was getting picked on by his bigger, fluffier brothers. Jon had covered one wall of his room with his little cousin’s finger paintings, and wrote her a letter every week. They’d all pledged themselves to the Shadowhunter cause; they’d gone through hell to prove themselves to their instructors and one another. They’d almost finished out the year without a single fatal injury or vampire bite . . . and now this?
“Ha-ha, very funny,” Simon said, hoping he was doing an acceptable job of keeping the desperation out of his tone. “Nice joke on me, get me back for wussing out last night. Utterly hilarious. What’s next? You want to convince me they’re making another crap Last Airbender movie? You want to see me freak out, there are easier ways.”
Isabelle rolled her eyes. “No one wants to see you freak out, Simon. Frankly, I could take or leave seeing you at all.”
“So this is serious,” Simon said. “You’re seriously, not at all jokingly, actually, for real planning to summon a demon? Here, in the middle of the Shadowhunter Academy? In the middle of the end-of-year party? Because you think it will be . . . fun?”
“We’re obviously not going to summon it in the middle of the party,” Isabelle said. “That would be rather foolish.”
“Oh, of course,” Simon drawled. “That would be foolish.”
“We’re going to summon it here in the lounge,” Isabelle clarified. “Then bring it to the party.”
“Then kill it, of course,” Julie put in.
“Of course,” Simon echoed. He wondered if maybe he was having a stroke.
“You’re making it sound like a bigger deal than it is,” George said.
“Yeah, it’s just an imp demon,” Sunil said. “No biggie.”
“Uh-huh.” Simon groaned. “Totally. No biggie.”
“Imagine the look on everyone’s faces when they see what we can do!” Marisol was nearly glowing at the thought of it.
Beatriz wasn’t there. If she had been, maybe she could have talked some reason into them. Or helped Simon tie them up and stuff them in the closet until the end of the semester had safely passed and Isabelle was back in New York where she belonged.
“What if something goes wrong?” Simon pointed out. “You’ve never faced off against a demon in combat conditions, not without the teachers watching your back. You don’t know—”
“Neither do you,” Isabelle snapped. “At least, you don’t remember, isn’t that right?”
Simon said nothing.
“Whereas I took down my first imp when I was six years old,” Isabelle said. “Like I told your friends, it’s no big deal. And they trust me.”
I trust you—that’s what he was meant to say. He knew she was waiting for it. They all were.
He couldn’t.
“I can’t talk you out of this?” he asked instead.
Isabelle shrugged. “You can keep trying, but you’d be wasting all our time.”
“Then I’ll have to find another way to stop you,” Simon said.
“You gonna tell on us?” Jon sneered. “You gonna go be a crybaby and tattle to your favorite warlock?” He snorted. “Once a teacher’s pet, always a teacher’s pet.”
“Shut up, Jon.” Isabelle whacked him softly on the arm. Simon probably should have been pleased, but whacking still required touching, and he preferred that Isabelle and Jon never come into physical contact of any sort. “You could try to tell on us, Simon. But I’ll deny it. And then who will they believe—someone like me, or someone like you? Some mundane.”
She said “mundane” exactly like Jon always did. Like it was a synonym for “nothing.”
“This isn’t you, Isabelle. This isn’t what you’re like.” He wasn’t sure whether he was trying to convince her or himself.
“You don’t know what I’m like, remember?”
“I know enough.”
“Then you know that you should trust me. But if you don’t, go ahead. Tell,” she said. “Then everyone will know what you’re like. What kind of friend you are.”
He tried.
He knew it was the right thing to do.
At least, he thought it was the right thing to do.
The next morning, before the lecture, he went to Catarina Loss’s office—Jon was right, she was his favorite warlock and his favorite faculty member, and the only one he would trust with something like this.
She welcomed him in, offered him a seat and a mug of something whose steam was an alarming shade of blue. He passed.
“So, Daylighter, I take it you have something to tell me?”
Catarina intimidated him somewhat less than she had at the beginning of the year—which was a bit like saying Jar Jar Binks was “somewhat less” annoying in Star Wars: Episode II than he’d been in Star Wars: Episode I.
“It’s possible I know something that . . .” Simon cleared his throat. “I mean, if something were happening that . . .”
He hadn’t let himself think through what would happen once the words were out. What would happen to his friends? What would happen to Isabelle, their ringleader? She couldn’t exactly get expelled from an Academy where she wasn’t enrolled . . . but Simon had learned enough about the Clave by now to know there were far worse punishments than getting expelled. Was summoning a minor demon to use as a party trick a violation of the Law? Was he about to ruin Isabelle’s life?
Catarina Loss wasn’t a Shadowhunter; she had her own secrets from the Clave. Maybe she’d be willing to keep one more, if it meant helping Simon and protecting Isabelle from punishment?
As his mind spun through dark possibilities, the office door swung open and Dean Penhallow poked her blond head in. “Catarina, Robert Lightwood was hoping to chat with you before his session—oh, sorry! Didn’t realize you were in the middle of something?”
“Join us,” Catarina said. “Simon was just about to tell me something interesting.”
The dean stepped into the office, furrowing her brow at Simon. “You look so serious,” she told him. “Go ahead, spit it out. You’ll feel better. It’s like throwing up.”
“What’s like throwing up?” he asked, confused.
“You know, when you’re feeling ill? Sometimes it just helps to get everything out.”
Somehow, Simon didn’t think vomiting up his confession straight to the dean would make him feel any better.
Hadn’t Isabelle proven herself enough—not just to him, but to the Clave, to everyone? She had, after all, pretty much saved the world. How much more evidence would anyone need that she was one of the good guys?
How much evidence did he need?
Simon stood up and said the first thing that popped into his mind. “I just wanted to tell you that we all really enjoyed that beet stew they served for dinner. You should serve that again.”
Dean Penhallow gave him an odd look. “Those weren’t beets, Simon.”
This didn’t surprise him, as the stew had had an oddly grainy consistency and a taste reminiscent of dung.
“Well . . . whatever it was, it was delicious,” he said quickly. “I better get going. I don’t want to miss the beginning of Inquisitor Lightwood’s final lecture. They’ve been so interesting.”
“Indeed,” Catarina said dryly. “They’ve been almost as delicious as the stew.”
1984
For most of his time at the Academy, Robert had watched Valentine from a distance. Even though Robert was older, he looked up to Valentine, who was everything Robert wanted to be. Valentine excelled at his training without visible effort. He could best anyone with any weapon. He was careless with his affection, or at least seemed to be, and he was beloved. Not many people noticed how few he truly loved back. But Robert noticed, because when you’re watching from the sidelines, invisible, it’s easy to see clearly.
It never occurred to him that Valentine was watching him, too.
Not until the day, toward the beginning of this year, that Valentine caught h
im alone in one of the Academy’s dark, underground corridors and said quietly, “I know your secret.”
Robert’s secret, that he told nobody, not even Michael: He was still afraid of the Marks.
Every time he drew a rune on himself, he had to hold his breath, force his fingers not to tremble. He always hesitated. In class, it was barely noticeable. In battle, it could be the split-second difference between life and death, and Robert knew it. Which made him hesitate even more, at everything. He was strong, smart, talented; he was a Lightwood. He should have been among the best. But he couldn’t let himself go and act on instinct. He couldn’t stop his mind from racing toward potential consequences. He couldn’t stop being afraid—and he knew, eventually, it would be the end of him.
“I can help you,” Valentine said then. “I can teach you what to do with the fear.” As if it were as simple as that—and under Valentine’s careful instruction, it was.
Valentine had taught him to retreat to a place in his mind that the fear couldn’t touch. To separate himself from the Robert Lightwood who knew how to be afraid—and then to tame that weaker, loathed version of himself. “Your weakness makes you furious, as it should,” Valentine had told him. “Use the fury to master it—and then everything else.”
In a way Valentine had saved Robert’s life. Or at least, the only part of his life that mattered.
He owed Valentine everything.
He at least owed Valentine the truth.
“You don’t agree with what I did,” Valentine said quietly as the sun crept above the horizon. Michael and Stephen were still asleep. Robert had passed the hours of darkness staring at the sky, sifting through what had happened, and what he should do next.
“You think I was out of control,” Valentine added.
“That wasn’t self-defense,” Robert said. “That was torture. Murder.”
Robert was seated on one of the logs around the remains of their campfire. Valentine lowered himself beside him.
“You heard the things it said. You understand why it had to be silenced,” Valentine said. “It had to be taught its lesson, and the Clave couldn’t have mustered the will. I know the others wouldn’t understand. Not even Lucian. But you . . . we understand each other, you and I. You’re the only one I can really trust. I need you to keep this to yourself.”
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy Page 26
