“I sent him away because of Jesse,” Lucie said. “And because—I heard you talking to that demon, Grace. It was threatening you about some spell. The Clave—”
Grace had gone an awful sort of color. In books, when people went pale, it was dramatic. In this moment, the sight made Lucie feel a little sick. “Do not even say their name,” she said. “Yes, my mother invoked black magic to try to bring my brother back, and with black magic came demons—demons with whom she made bargains, demons with demands, exacting promises. I wish to the Angel she had not done any of it. I tried to keep the worst of it from Jesse, but I—he is all I have, and I cannot lose him. If the Clave learned of my mother’s doings —”
“I know,” Lucie said, trying for a calming tone. “I understand that no one can know Jesse is here, that you’re hiding him because if the Nephilim found his body, they’d destroy it. But he must be hidden, protected? The Enclave didn’t find him when they searched the grounds here—”
“Mama kept Jesse’s coffin in her bedroom, and the Enclave did not enter there,” said Grace in a near-whisper. “I moved him, after she became ill. I couldn’t bear to go in there. And I couldn’t bear for him to have to wake there every sunset.”
“That’s awful—” Lucie began, then she gave a cry of surprise as Jesse reappeared. Grace, clearly more used to Jesse’s ghostly comings and goings, looked unruffled.
“Did you find him?” Lucie asked immediately. “Did you see James?”
Jesse hesitated. “I did not see him, but I did see Matthew and Cordelia. James was—missing.”
“That’s all? James was missing?” Lucie demanded. “Matthew and Cordelia would not leave him.”
“I think he left them, if he even chose to go,” said Jesse slowly. “There were… remnants of dark magic there.”
Lucie’s stomach clenched. “We must get to them. Now.”
“You could take our trap, as I suggested,” Grace said, though Lucie noticed she did not offer to come with her.
“No. Thank you, but—” Lucie turned to Jesse. “Please, can you take me with you? The way you travel?”
Jesse was taken aback. “The way ghosts travel?” he said. “I’ve no idea if it would work, Lucie. I’ve never brought anyone with me.”
Lucie put her hand out. Jesse was standing close to her, and she could rest her palm upon his chest. He was solid, his skin soft where her fingers brushed against his collarbone. But there was no heartbeat beneath her hand.
She looked into his eyes. He might never forgive her for this, she knew, but she had no choice.
“Jesse Blackthorn,” she said. “I command you to bring me with you to my brother. Take me to Highgate Cemetery.”
He stiffened. “Lucie. No.”
Grace took a step toward them, looking puzzled. She began to reach out her hand toward Jesse.
“I command it,” Lucie said fiercely. With a look of fury on his face, Jesse pulled her into his arms, and the ground disappeared beneath her feet.
20 LESS THAN GODS
Desperate revenge, and battle dangerous
To less than gods. On the other side up rose
Belial, in act more graceful and humane.
A fairer person lost not Heaven; he seemed
For dignity composed, and high exploit.
—John Milton, Paradise Lost
“The rope is still slack,” Matthew said, after some interminable amount of time had gone by in the graveyard. He was very pale; Cordelia was worried about him. James’s passage into the other world seemed to be sapping his strength.
Cordelia had come as close to the archway as she could. She’d thought perhaps she could glimpse James through it, but she saw only a view of dead ground and broken trees, and a red moon rising.
“What if something’s happened to him?” Matthew asked.
“You told James to yank on the rope if he needed to get out,” said Cordelia. “He knows what to do.” She glanced down; she could see where his faint footprints led up to the archway and abruptly vanished. She reached out to touch the space below the arch, experimentally—maybe there was a weak spot in the barrier?
There was not. It was as unyielding as granite. Through it, she could see individual grains of sand stirred by the wind of another world. It seemed so close.
There was a crack as the rope pulled taut. Cordelia whirled as Matthew shouted out, the rope whiplashing forward, yanking him off his feet. He hit the ground hard on his back, struggling as he was dragged toward the archway.
He scrabbled at the earth, trying to slow his progress, his clothes catching and ripping on roots protruding from the ground. He slammed into the archway, hard, just before the rope went slack—he rolled away, groaning, as Cordelia ran toward him, unsheathing Cortana.
She dropped to her knees beside Matthew. There was dirt and blood in his hair. She caught at the rope, raising her blade.
“No,” Matthew rasped. “James—”
He didn’t want her to cut the connection to James, she knew. But being repeatedly slammed into the barrier between this world and the next would kill Matthew. Cordelia knew that, too; even if Matthew didn’t care, she did.
She brought Cortana down, cutting the rope around Matthew’s waist. Matthew rolled onto his stomach, struggling to his knees, just as Cordelia seized the severed end of the rope, wrapping a loose coil around her wrist and gripping as tightly as she could.
“Cordelia—” Matthew reached for her.
The rope jerked taut again. The force was incredible—it yanked Cordelia sideways, nearly impaling her on her own sword. She cried out as she was dragged toward the archway. She saw the barrier getting close as the rope was pulled through it. The space below the arch shimmered. She rolled, twisting her body around, raising Cortana in her hand; she was moving faster and faster.
She remembered the way the sword had embedded itself in the granite of Tower Bridge. And she heard her father’s voice, a painful sound, in her ears. This is a blade that can cut through anything.
She felt the hilt pulse against her palm—she heard Matthew shout—and she whipped Cortana forward, angled toward the archway as if it were so much paper she could slice through.
There was the sound of something shattering as Cortana drove through the barrier between this world and the next. Cordelia screamed as shards like plates of glass flew past her, each containing an image—she saw a beach and a bleeding moon, an underground cave, a citadel on a hill, a demon rising up before a watchtower.
The shards skimmed past and vanished. The rope went slack, leaving Cordelia’s wrist and hand burning. She rolled over, choking and gasping.
She was in the shadow realm: the sky above her was riven with gray clouds, hanging heavy like blocks of granite. Everywhere stretched dunes of ash and sand. The whitened bones of strange animals, long dead, protruded from the earth.
“Daisy?” said a familiar voice.
The rope fell from her hand as she struggled to sit up. Kneeling in the sand beside her was James. He was white-faced, the shadows under his eyes like bruises, his cheekbones streaked with dirt. “How are you here?” he whispered. “How are you possibly here?”
“Cortana. The blade—it cut through the archway—”
“Daisy,” he breathed, and caught her in his arms.
She had not expected it, and she let go of the hilt of Cortana in surprise—which was fortunate, as she might otherwise have stabbed one or both of them. His cheek pressed against hers; she could feel his heart pounding. “I thought I would never see you again,” he murmured. “Daisy, angel—”
She wrapped her arms around his neck. “James.”
It was likely only a few seconds that she was in James’s arms, but it felt like all time and no time at all. She pressed her lips against his soft hair, just as a sound like a crack of thunder echoed overhead. James bolted to his feet, drawing Cordelia up with him.
“Go back, Daisy,” he said, gazing down into her face. “You’ve got to cut your way back. Get out of here.”
The sound like thunder came again, closer now. “James, no. I won’t leave you.”
James turned her loose with a groan. He caught up Cortana, pressing the hilt into her hand. Her fingers closed automatically around the grip. “I know what Belial wants now. I promise, there’s nothing you can do—”
Her hand tightened on Cortana. “Only if you come back with me,” she said stubbornly. The sound came again; it was not thunder, but it seemed to echo through the earth.
“I can’t,” he said. The wind from the desert had risen, blowing his black-silk hair across his forehead. “I must destroy it. It is the only way to end this.” He touched her face. “Go back, my Daisy. Tell Matthew—”
A roar split the night, shaking the earth beneath them. Cordelia gasped as the dunes all around them suddenly blew apart. Sand exploded upward, blotting out the stars; the earth broke open, and something clawed its way free, roaring like thunder.
Cordelia raised her hand to cover her face. When she lowered it, her skin and hair gritty with sand, she blinked and stared. Where before there had been empty desert, the Mandikhor demon, three times the size it had appeared on the bridge, loomed above her and James, its bulk dividing the sky.
* * *
The Consul’s mansion in Grosvenor Square had been built in the style of Georgian times, pale stucco swathing brick to create a pillared facade reminiscent of ancient Rome. It was a big house: the tops of trees brushed against the windows on the fourth floor. For Thomas, it had been a place he had played with his friends since he was very young, long devoid of the ability to impress or alarm.
Or so he’d thought. As he descended from the carriage and began to climb the broad steps to the front door, anxiety settled in the pit of his stomach. He and Lucie had broken every rule in the Codex, and now he had fled straight to the Consul’s house. He must be mad.
He thought of James, of Lucie and Matthew. Of Cordelia. None of them would have a moment’s hesitation about walking straight up to the front door. He thought of Christopher, dying in the Silent City. Alone in the darkness, without his friends, the poison burning through his veins. Christopher, Thomas’s cousin, and the brother of his heart.
Thomas bolted up the stairs and hammered at the front door. “Charles!” he called. “Charles, it’s Thomas Lightwood, let me in!”
As if Charles had been waiting by the entryway, the door opened immediately.
Charles wore a crisp black suit, his red hair slicked back. Thomas felt a mix of hurt and anger, as he always did in Charles’s presence these days. Once Charles had only been Matthew’s annoying older brother, rarely thought about. Now Thomas saw the way Alastair looked at Charles, and felt a dull pain.
“If this is about Christopher, I know no more than you do,” said Charles, looking impatient. “He’s at the Silent City. I believe Matthew has gone to the Institute to be with James. I suggest you do the same.”
He started to shut the door. Without thinking, Thomas jammed his considerable shoulder in the gap between the door and the frame. “I already know about Christopher,” he said. “I need to use the laboratory downstairs. Christopher can’t, so I will.”
“No,” said Charles. “Don’t be ridiculous. People are dying. This isn’t the time for playing about—”
“Charles.” Alastair appeared in the entryway. He was in trousers and shirtsleeves, and was jacketless. His bare forearms were lightly muscled, his chin lifted in that arrogant tilt he affected, even when no one was looking at him. “Let Thomas in.”
Charles rolled his eyes but stepped back from the door. Thomas half stumbled into the entryway.
“What is it that you want to do?” Alastair said. He was looking at Thomas, his dark brows knotted.
Thomas explained Christopher’s idea for an antidote quickly, skipping, of course, all the bits that involved illegal visits to greenhouses. “I just need the laboratory to see if it will work,” he finished. “Alastair—”
“Thomas, honestly,” said Charles. “Perhaps you mean well, but this isn’t the time to be doing rash and silly experiments. I’m on my way to meet with the Enclave. I don’t have time to stay here and make sure you don’t blow up the house.”
Thomas thought of Christopher—shy, clever Christopher—and the years and years of quiet determination that had made him an expert at what he did, respected by Henry, far more capable than he was ever given credit for.
Thomas clutched the box that held the malos root to his chest with determination.
“My sister and my cousin have both been struck down by this thing—this demon poison,” Thomas said. “My sister is dead. Christopher is dying. How can you think I am not being serious about this? That this is rash or silly? Creating an antidote is the only way that we can save those who are still living.”
“The Enclave—” Charles began, buttoning his jacket.
“Even if the Enclave locates and kills the Mandikhor demon, that won’t help those who are ill,” said Thomas. “It won’t help Ariadne.”
Charles’s mouth flattened into an irritated line, and for a moment Thomas had the bizarre feeling that he was going to say that he didn’t care about Ariadne. He saw Alastair give Charles a dark sort of look—almost as if the same thought had occurred to him.
Thomas cleared his throat. “Someone once told me that we need to stand back and let people do what they’re good at, and Christopher is good at this. I have faith in him. This antidote will work.”
Charles merely looked puzzled, but Thomas hadn’t said it for Charles. He looked at Alastair, who had been putting on a pair of gloves. Alastair glanced up casually, without looking at Thomas, and said, “Charles, let him use the lab. I will remain and make sure he doesn’t burn down the house.”
Charles looked flabbergasted. “You’d do that?”
“It seems the best course of action, and you know I have no interest in another Enclave meeting.”
“I suppose not,” said Charles, a little reluctantly. “All right. Come when you can, then.” He reached out a hand toward Alastair, as if it were habit, then dropped it quickly. He and Alastair regarded each other with an awkwardness that felt like a pinch at Thomas’s heart.
Charles started down the steps. Halfway to the bottom, he turned and glared. “Destroy nothing,” he said to Thomas, stalked to the foot of the steps, and vanished round the corner.
“We had best get to the lab—” Thomas began, starting toward the main part of the house.
“Stop,” Alastair said. Thomas froze, more surprised than anything else. Alastair’s eyes were chips of black ice. “I don’t care a whit about the lab,” he said. “I want to know where my sister is in all this madness. Where’s she gone?”
“Highgate Cemetery,” said Thomas. “Entrance to the Silent City.”
“Bloody hell,” said Alastair. “Why? You know what, never mind why. It’ll only make me angry.”
“I’m sorry,” Thomas said. “Not that she’s there—if there were danger, and I don’t think there will be, Cordelia could defend herself admirably—but that all of this is happening. It’s none of our fault, but I’m just—sorry.”
Alastair’s gaze softened, and for a moment, Thomas felt himself back in Paris, hands in his pockets, talking in a low voice to Alastair Carstairs as if it were only the two of them in all the world. “I am sorry as well,” he said. “About your sister. I had not gotten a chance to tell you before.”
Thomas’s breath caught. “Thank you.”
“Do you really think this antidote will work?” Alastair asked.
“I know it will.”
Alastair held Thomas’s gaze for a long moment, then nodded. “And how long will it take to make it?”
“Twenty minutes, if everything goes right.”
Alastair exhaled. “All right,” he said. “Twenty minutes it is. After that, I’m going to find Cordelia.” At Thomas’s puzzled look, he gestured impatiently toward the steps that went down to the laboratory. “I’ll help you,” he said.
“Let’s get to work.”
* * *
The Mandikhor was massive. It rose over them like the smoke of a bonfire. There was no mistaking it: though it had grown tremendously in size, it had the same scaled, lion-shaped body, the same triple row of fanged jaws. There was something else about it that was new too—here in the shadow realm, its body was marked with a thousand kinds of disease. As it moved toward them, its claws tearing the sand, Cordelia felt herself gag. Demons as a group were often disgusting; one trained oneself to cope with the horror. But there was something visceral about the markers of death that covered this creature—the ugly buboes of the Black Death decorated its arms, while its torso was bumped with smallpox, its chest cracked and runnelled with leprosy. Patches of its skin were eaten away with acidic rot, while others were red with scarlet fever. Black ichor dripped from its ears and mouth.
James backed up, pulling Cordelia with him, but sand and dirt had piled up all around them in sheer-sided dunes. There was no real way to retreat.
A sharp laugh rang out. Standing atop one of the dunes of sand was a man with pale gray hair and eyes. He looked young, and startlingly beautiful, but there was a dark edge to his beauty—it was like the loveliness of blood in snow, or the gleam of white bone through shadow.
He resembled James. Not in any specific way, but the shape of his eyes, perhaps, the bones in his face, the curve of his mouth. She had to remind herself: This is Belial, Prince of Hell. If he reminds you of James, that is deliberate on his part. In his true form, he may look nothing like this.
As the dust settled around them, he held out a hand toward the Mandikhor demon. The demon seemed to freeze in place as Belial turned to regard Cordelia with a cold gaze. “Tsk-tsk, James,” he said. “Bringing in reinforcements like this is cheating. What of the rules of fair play?”
James drew a gleaming shortsword from his weapons belt. He was breathing hard, and very pale: streaked with dirt and sand, he no longer looked like a young Edwardian gentleman, but something more primal than that. “Let her go back to our world,” he said. “Just leave her be. I’m the one you have business with—”
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