City of Fallen Angels (23 page)

Property of the Church of Talto. 232 Riverside Drive.

A hum of excitement went through her. It was a clue, a real clue. And she’d found it herself, without any help from anyone else.

232 Riverside Drive. That was on the Upper West Side, she thought, by Riverside Park, just across the water from New Jersey. Not that long a trip at all. The Church of Talto. Clary set the stele down with a worried frown. Whatever that was, it sounded like bad news. She scooted her chair over to Luke’s old desktop computer and pulled up the Internet. She couldn’t say she was surprised that typing in “Church of Talto” produced no comprehensible results. Whatever had been written there on the corner of the cloth had been in Purgatic, or Cthonian, or some other demon language.

One thing she was sure of: Whatever the Church of Talto was, it was secret, and probably bad. If it was mixed up with turning human babies into
things
with claws for hands, it wasn’t any kind of a real religion. Clary wondered if the mother who’d dumped her baby near the hospital was a member of the church, and if she knew what she’d gotten herself into before her baby was born.

She felt cold all over as she reached for her phone—and paused with it in hand. She had been about to call her mother, but she couldn’t call Jocelyn about this. Jocelyn had only just stopped crying and agreed to go out, with Luke, to look at rings. And while Clary thought her mother was strong enough to handle whatever the truth turned out to be, she’d doubtless get in massive trouble with the Clave for having taken her investigation this far without informing them.

Luke. But Luke was with her mother. She couldn’t call him.

Maryse, maybe. The mere idea of calling her seemed alien and intimidating. Plus, Clary knew—without quite wanting to admit to herself that it was a factor—that if she let the Clave take this over, she’d be benched. Pushed off to the sidelines of a mystery that seemed intensely personal. Not to mention that it felt like betraying her mother to the Clave.

But to go running off on her own, not knowing what she’d find… Well, she had training, but not
that
much training. And she knew she had a tendency to act first, think later. Reluctantly she pulled the phone toward her, hesitated a moment—and sent a quick text:
232 RIVERSIDE DRIVE. YOU NEED TO MEET ME THERE RIGHT AWAY. IT’S IMPORTANT
. She hit the send button and sat for a moment until the screen lit up with an answering buzz:
OK
.

With a sigh Clary set down the phone, and went to get her weapons.

“I loved Maia,” Jordan said. He was sitting on the futon now, having finally managed to make coffee, though he hadn’t drunk any of it. He was just holding the mug in his hands, turning it around and around as he talked. “You have to know that, before I tell you anything else. We both came from this dismal hellhole of a town in New Jersey, and she got endless crap because her dad was black and her mom was white. She had a brother, too, who was a total psychopath. I don’t know if she told you about him. Daniel.”

“Not much,” Simon said.

“With all that, her life was pretty hellish, but she didn’t let it get her down. I met her in a music store, buying old records. Vinyl, right. We got to talking, and I realized she was basically the coolest girl for miles around. Beautiful, too. And sweet.” Jordan’s eyes were distant. “We went out, and it was fantastic. We were totally in love. The way you are when you’re sixteen. Then I got bit. I was in a fight one night, at a club. I used to get into fights a lot. I was used to getting kicked and punched, but bitten? I thought the guy who’d done it was crazy, but whatever. I went to the hospital, got stitched up, forgot about it.

“About three weeks later it started to hit. Waves of uncontrollable rage and anger. My vision would just black out, and I wouldn’t know what was happening. I punched my hand through my kitchen window because a drawer was stuck shut. I was crazy jealous about Maia, convinced she was looking at other guys, convinced … I don’t even know what I thought. I just know I snapped. I hit her. I want to say I don’t remember doing it, but I do. And then she broke up with me…” His voice trailed off. He took a swallow of coffee; he looked sick, Simon thought. He must not have told this story much before. Or ever. “A couple nights later I went to a party and she was there. Dancing with another guy. Kissing him like she wanted to prove to me it was over. It was a bad night for her to choose, not that she could have known that. It was the first full moon since I’d been bitten.” His knuckles were white where he gripped the cup. “The first time I ever Changed. The transformation ripped through my body and tore my bones and skin apart. I was in agony, and not just because of that. I wanted her, wanted her to come back, wanted to explain, but all I could do was howl. I took off running through the streets, and that was when I saw her, crossing the park near her house. She was going home…”

“And you attacked her,” Simon said. “You bit her.”

“Yeah.” Jordan stared blindly into the past. “When I woke up the next morning, I knew what I’d done. I tried to go to her house, to explain. I was halfway there when a big guy stepped into my path and stared me down. He knew who I was, knew everything about me. He explained he was a member of the Praetor Lupus and he’d been assigned to me. He wasn’t too happy that he’d gotten there too late, that I’d already bitten someone. He wouldn’t let me go anywhere near her. He said I’d just make it worse. He promised the Wolf Guard would be watching over her. He told me that since I’d bitten a human already, which was strictly forbidden, the only way I’d evade punishment was to join the Guard and get trained to control myself.

“I wouldn’t have done it. I would have spit on him and taken whatever punishment they wanted to hand out. I hated myself that much. But when he explained that I’d be able to help other people like me, maybe stop what had happened to me and Maia from happening again, it was like I saw a light in the darkness, way off in the future. Like maybe it was a chance to fix what I’d done.”

“Okay,” Simon said slowly. “But isn’t it kind of a weird coincidence that you wound up assigned to me? A guy who was dating the girl you once bit and turned into a werewolf?”

“No coincidence,” Jordan said. “Your file was one of a bunch I got handed. I picked you
because
Maia was mentioned in the notes. A werewolf and a vampire dating. You know, it’s kind of a big deal. It was the first time I realized she’d become a werewolf after I—after what I did.”

“You never checked up to find out? That seems kind of—”

“I tried. The Praetor didn’t want me to, but I did what I could to find out what happened to her. I knew she ran away from home, but she had a crappy home life anyway, so that didn’t tell me anything. And it’s not like there’s some national registry of werewolves where I could look her up. I just … hoped she hadn’t Turned.”

“So you took my assignment because of Maia?”

Jordan flushed. “I thought maybe if I met you, I could find out what happened to her. If she was okay.”

“That’s why you told me off for two-timing her,” said Simon, thinking back. “You were being protective.”

Jordan glared at him over the rim of the coffee cup. “Yeah, well, it was a jerk move.”

“And you’re the one who shoved the flyer for the band performance under her door. Aren’t you?” Simon shook his head. “So, was messing with my love life part of the assignment, or just your personal extra touch?”

“I screwed her over,” Jordan said. “I didn’t want to see her screwed over by someone else.”

“And it didn’t occur to you that if she showed up at our performance she’d try to rip your face off? If she hadn’t been late, maybe she even would have done it while you were onstage. That would have been an exciting extra for the audience.”

“I didn’t know,” Jordan said. “I didn’t realize she hated me so much. I mean, I don’t hate the guy who Turned me; I kind of understand that he might not have been in control of himself.”

“Yeah,” said Simon, “but you never
loved
that guy. You never had a relationship with him. Maia loved you. She thinks you bit her and then you ditched and never thought about her again. She’s going to hate you as much as she loved you once.”

Before Jordan could reply, the doorbell rang—not the buzzer that would have sounded if someone had been downstairs, calling up, but the one that could be rung only if the visitor was standing in the hallway outside their door. The boys exchanged baffled looks. “Are you expecting someone?” Simon asked.

Jordan shook his head and put the coffee cup down. Together they went into the small entryway. Jordan gestured for Simon to stand behind him before he swung the door open.

There was no one there. Instead there was a folded piece of paper on the welcome mat, weighed down by a solid-looking hunk of rock. Jordan bent to free the paper and straightened up with a frown.

“It’s for you,” he said, handing it to Simon.

Puzzled, Simon unfolded the paper. Printed across the center, in childish block letters, was the message:

“It’s a joke,” Simon said, staring numbly at the paper. “It has to be.”

Without a word Jordan grabbed Simon’s arm and hauled him into the living room. Letting go of him, he rooted around for the cordless phone until he found it. “Call her,” he said, slapping the phone against Simon’s chest. “Call Maia and make sure she’s all right.”

“But it might not be her.” Simon stared down at the phone as the full horror of the situation buzzed around his brain like a ghoul buzzing around the outside of a house, begging to be let in.
Focus
, he told himself.
Don’t panic
. “It might be Isabelle.”

“Oh, Jesus.” Jordan glowered at him. “Do you have any other girlfriends? Do we have to make a list of names to call?”

Simon yanked the phone away from him and turned away, punching in the number.

Maia answered on the second ring. “Hello?”

“Maia—it’s Simon.”

The friendliness went out of her voice. “Oh. What do you want?”

“I just wanted to check that you were okay,” he said.

“I’m fine.” She spoke stiffly. “It’s not like what was going on with us was all that serious. I’m not happy, but I’ll live. You’re still an ass, though.”

“No,” Simon said. “I mean I wanted to check that you were
okay.”

“Is this about Jordan?” He could hear the tense anger when she said his name. “Right. You guys went off together, didn’t you? You’re friends or something, right? Well, you can tell him to stay away from me. In fact, that goes for both of you.”

She hung up. The dial tone buzzed down the phone like an angry bee.

Simon looked at Jordan. “She’s fine. She hates us both, but it really didn’t sound like anything else was wrong.”

“Fine,” Jordan said tightly. “Call Isabelle.”

It took two tries before Izzy picked up; Simon was nearly in a panic by the time her voice came down the line, sounding distracted and annoyed. “Whoever this is, it had better be good.”

Relief poured through his veins. “Isabelle. It’s Simon.”

“Oh, for God’s sake. What do
you
want?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were okay—”

“Oh, what, I’m supposed to be devastated because you’re a cheating, lying, two-timing son of a—”

“No.” This was really starting to wear on Simon’s nerves. “I meant, are you all right? You haven’t been kidnapped or anything?”

There was a long silence. “Simon,” Isabelle said finally. “This is really, seriously, the stupidest excuse for a whiny makeup call that I have ever, ever heard. What’s
wrong
with you?”

“I’m not sure,” Simon said, and hung up before she could hang up on him. He handed the phone to Jordan. “She’s fine too.”

“I don’t get it.” Jordan looked bewildered. “Who makes a threat like that if it’s totally empty? I mean, it’s so easy to check and find out it’s a lie.”

“They must think I’m stupid,” Simon began, and then paused, a horrible thought dawning on him. He snatched the phone back from Jordan and started to dial with numb fingers.

“Who is it?” Jordan said. “Who are you calling?”

Clary’s phone rang just as she turned the corner of Ninety-sixth Street onto Riverside Drive. The rain seemed to have washed away the city’s usual dirt; the sun shone down from a brilliant sky onto the bright green strip of the park running alongside the river, whose water looked nearly blue today.

She dug into her bag for her phone, found it, and flipped it open. “Hello?”

Simon’s voice came down the line. “Oh, thank—” He broke off. “Are you all right? You’re not kidnapped or anything?”

“Kidnapped?”
Clary peered up at the numbers of the buildings as she walked uptown. 220, 224. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for. Would it
look
like a church? Something else, glamoured to look like an abandoned lot? “Are you drunk or something?”

“It’s a little early for that.” The relief in his voice was plain. “No, I just—I got a weird note. Someone threatening to go after my girlfriend.”

“Which one?”

“Har de har.” Simon did not sound amused. “I called Maia and Isabelle already, and they’re both fine. Then I thought of you—I mean, we spend a lot of time together. Someone might get the wrong idea. But now I don’t know what to think.”

“I dunno.” 232 Riverside Drive loomed up in front of Clary suddenly, a big square stone building with a pointed roof. It
could
have been a church at one point, she thought, though it didn’t look much like one now.

“Maia and Isabelle found out about each other last night, by the way. It wasn’t pretty,” Simon added. “You were right about the playing-with-fire bit.”

Clary examined the facade of number 232. Most of the edifices lining the drive were expensive apartment buildings, with doormen in livery waiting inside. This one, though, had only a set of tall wooden doors with curved tops, and old-fashioned-looking metal handles instead of doorknobs. “Ooh, ouch. Sorry, Simon. Are either of them speaking to you?”