The Mortal Instruments - Complete Collection (208 page)
Read The Mortal Instruments - Complete Collection Online
Authors: Cassandra Clare
Tags: #Young Adult, #Fantasy, #Vampires, #Romance
CASSANDRA CLARE
is the #1
New York Times
bestselling author of the Mortal Instruments series and the Infernal Devices trilogy. She was born overseas and spent her early years traveling around the world with her family and several trunks of books. Cassandra lives in western Massachusetts with her husband, their cats, and these days, even more books. Visit her online at
cassandraclare.com
.
JACKET DESIGN BY RUSSELL GORDON
JACKET PHOTO-ILLUSTRATION COPYRIGHT
© 2012 BY CLIFF NIELSEN
Margaret K. McElderry Books
SIMON & SCHUSTER * NEW YORK
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Also by Cassandra Clare
THE MORTAL INSTRUMENTS
City of Bones
City of Ashes
City of Glass
City of Fallen Angels
THE INFERNAL DEVICES
Clockwork Angel
Clockwork Prince
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MARGARET K. M
C
ELDERRY BOOKS
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Cassandra Claire LLC
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
M
ARGARET
K. M
C
E
LDERRY
B
OOKS
is a trademark of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
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Book design by Mike Rosamilia
The text for this book is set in Dolly.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Clare, Cassandra.
City of lost souls / Cassandra Clare.—1st ed.
p. cm.—(The mortal instruments ; bk. 5)
Summary: When Jace vanishes with Sebastian, Clary and the Shadowhunters struggle to piece together their shattered world and Clary infiltrates the group planning the world’s destruction.
ISBN 978-1-4424-1686-4 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4424-1688-8 (eBook)
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Demonology—Fiction. 3. Magic—Fiction. 4. Vampires—Fiction. 5. New York (N.Y.)—Fiction. 6. Horror stories.] I. Title.
PZ7.C5265Ckl 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2011042547
For Nao,
Tim, David,
and Ben
No man chooses evil because it is evil.
He only mistakes it for happiness, the good he seeks.
—Mary Wollstonecraft
Chapter 6 : No Weapon in this World
Chapter 12: The Stuff of Heaven
Chapter 13: The Bone Chandelier
Chapter 16: Brothers and Sisters
Chapter 20: A Door into the Dark
ROLOGUE
Simon stood and
stared numbly at the front door of his house.
He’d never known another home. This was the place his parents had brought him back to when he was born. He had grown up within the walls of the Brooklyn row house. He’d played on the street under the leafy shade of the trees in the summer, and had made improvised sleds out of garbage can lids in the winter. In this house his family had sat shivah after his father had died. Here he had kissed Clary for the first time.
He had never imagined a day when the door of the house would be closed to him. The last time he had seen his mother, she had called him a monster and prayed at him that he would go away. He had made her forget that he was a vampire, using
glamour, but he had not known how long the glamour would last. As he stood in the cold autumn air, staring in front of him, he knew it had not lasted long enough.
The door was covered with signs—Stars of David splashed on in paint, the incised shape of the symbol for
Chai
, life. Tefillin were bound to the doorknob and knocker. A
hamsa
, the Hand of God, covered the peephole.
Numbly he put his hand to the metal mezuzah affixed to the right side of the doorway. He saw the smoke rise from the place where his hand touched the holy object, but he felt nothing. No pain. Only a terrible empty blankness, rising slowly into cold rage.
He kicked the bottom of the door and heard the echo through the house. “Mom!” he shouted. “Mom, it’s me!”
There was no reply—only the sound of the bolts being turned on the door. His sensitized hearing had recognized his mother’s footsteps, her breathing, but she said nothing. He could smell acrid fear and panic even through the wood. “Mom!” His voice broke. “Mom, this is ridiculous! Let me in! It’s
me
, Simon!”
The door juddered, as if she had kicked it. “Go away!” Her voice was rough, unrecognizable with terror. “Murderer!”
“I don’t kill people.” Simon leaned his head against the door. He knew he could probably kick it down, but what would be the point? “I told you. I drink animal blood.”
“You killed my son,” she said. “You killed him and put a monster in his place.”
“I
am
your son—”
“You wear his face and speak with his voice, but you are not him! You’re not Simon!” Her voice rose to almost a scream.
“Get away from my house before I kill you, monster!”
“Becky,” he said. His face was wet; he put his hands up to touch it, and they came away stained: His tears were bloody. “What have you told Becky?”
“Stay away from your sister.”
Simon heard a clattering from inside the house, as if something had been knocked over.
“Mom,” he said again, but this time his voice wouldn’t rise. It came out as a hoarse whisper. His hand had begun to throb. “I need to know—is Becky there? Mom, open the door. Please—”
“Stay away from Becky!”
She was backing away from the door; he could hear it. Then came the unmistakeable squeal of the kitchen door swinging open, the creak of the linoleum as she walked on it. The sound of a drawer being opened. Suddenly he imagined his mother grabbing for one of the knives.
Before I kill you, monster.
The thought rocked him back on his heels. If she struck out at him, the Mark would rise. It would destroy her as it had destroyed Lilith.
He dropped his hand and backed up slowly, stumbling down the steps and across the sidewalk, fetching up against the trunk of one of the big trees that shaded the block. He stood where he was, staring at the front door of his house, marked and disfigured with the symbols of his mother’s hate for him.
No, he reminded himself. She didn’t hate him. She thought he was dead. What she hated was something that didn’t exist.
I am not what she says I am.