Chain of Iron
Though, whispered a treacherous voice in the back of his mind, it was not relaxation he was feeling when he let his gaze roam over Daisy as she sat before the fire. He noticed everything about her as if he had been given a divine mathematical assignment intended to total up her charms: the shape of her mouth, the smooth skin of her throat and forearms, the curve of her neck, the soft swell of her breasts under her nightgown. She had been stunning tonight; he had caught quite a few men staring at her, at her curves poured into that green dress, at the graceful tilt of her head when she danced, at his gold pendant glimmering against her skin….
A sharp pain twinged behind his eyes. He’d been having bad headaches lately. Maybe due to lack of sleep. He rubbed at his temples. He would certainly not get any rest sitting here, staring into the fire. As he rose to his feet, he recalled that he’d intended to look for a pocketknife earlier. Perhaps it could undo the latch of his bracelet. But he was too tired to venture down to the study, and by the time he climbed into bed, he no longer remembered what he had meant to do.
LONDON: FINCH LANE
Fog came stealthily in the small hours, settling in every doorway and alley of Bishopsgate and obscuring the outlines of buildings and trees. As dawn approached, the costermongers were the first to break the silence, the fog muffling the sounds of their carts as they wheeled them into the streets to display their wares. A faint red glow between the buildings heralded a weak sun just as the Shadowhunter patrols trudged through the backstreets on their way home, invisible to the mundane merchants they passed.
And on Threadneedle Street, a killer went in search of a victim.
He moved like a wraith, slipping soundlessly from the cover of one awning to the next, nearly invisible in a dark cloak that blended with the soot-covered stone. He darted past the statue of the Duke of Wellington and behind the white columns of the Bank of England. All around him, well-dressed bankers and brokers on their way to work took no note of him as they streamed through the doors of London’s financial institutions like fish spawning up a stream. The killer mused that those pathetic mortals might as well be fish, they were so weak, so mindless, driven by no more noble pursuit than the exchange of currency.
But the killer’s quarry was not just any mortal. He had more potent prey in mind.
There—that figure in black, gray-haired, exhaustion showing in the sag of his shoulders as he stepped off the main thoroughfare onto Finch Lane, the kind of quiet side street no one takes any note of as they hurry past. The killer followed a few paces behind his quarry, marveling that this was the best the Nephilim had to offer, this weary hunter who didn’t even realize that he was the one who was being hunted now.
He wondered if the demons were disappointed in their prey; surely over the past thousand years they had grown used to the Nephilim putting up a better fight. This one, for example, didn’t even notice the killer gaining on him. Didn’t notice the blade until its cold edge was pressed against his throat. Adamas to flesh, the razor edge the work of the Iron Sisters at their forges, working adamas into killing tools.
He sliced again and again, blood sluicing over his blade and drenching his fist, falling onto the stones beneath their feet, pooling in the crevices. Rage rose within him and soon he was stabbing harder, bringing down the knife over and over again, his other gloved hand over his victim’s mouth, muffling the screams until they were no more than bubbling gasps.
When there was nothing left of the Shadowhunter but limp flesh, the killer loosened his grasp. The body slid to the cobblestones. He knelt and carefully, almost tenderly, rolled up the dying man’s sleeve and held his own bare arm close to the Shadowhunter’s.
The killer produced an object from his jacket, a slim metal shaft that did not reflect the light, its surface crisscrossed with etched lines. He ran his fingers over his victim’s Swiftness rune, tracing the marks on the dead man’s flesh, feeling the energy just below the surface, the power of the rune itself.
The killer smiled.
The rune was his now. He had earned it.
8
TO BRING A FIRE
I have come to bring fire on the earth, and how I wish it
were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo,
and what constraint I am under until it is completed!
Do you think I came to bring peace on earth?
No, I tell you, but division.
—Luke 12:49–51
After waking late the next morning, Cordelia dressed in a warm wool skirt and white high-necked blouse and made her way downstairs and into the dining room, where she found James seated at the table with an open copy of Housman’s poems at his left elbow and a breakfast plate at his right.
He offered her a tired smile. He didn’t look much better than she felt—there were crescent moons of darkness under his eyes. As she sat down across from him, she couldn’t help but notice his poetry book was upside down.
Risa bustled in with tea and breakfast for her. James stayed silent, his face closed, his eyes half-lidded. As soon as she was gone, he said, “Daisy, there’s something I’ve been wanting to tell you. It’s about what happened the night before our wedding.”
Cordelia attacked her boiled egg with vigor. She wasn’t sure she wanted to know what had gone on at the Devil. “I … believe I heard something about a reverse mermaid?”
“Ah,” said James, sitting back in his chair. “That was Matthew’s fault, and truly one of the strangest things I’ve ever seen. Anyway, it seems Claribella has found true love in the arms of a gin-soaked kelpie, so I suppose no one was harmed too badly.”
“Really?” Cordelia was amused, but James went on, his expression darkening.
“It’s not that. All I’d really wanted was to spend some time with the Merry Thieves that night. But I’d only just got to our quarters when—I found myself in that other world.” His left hand, with its long, elegant fingers, played with the fork by his plate. He’d eaten very little. “Belial’s world.”
The name seemed to fall between them like a shadow. Belial. When Cordelia had seen him, he had taken the form of a beautiful man, icy-pale. It had been hard to look upon him and imagine him as anyone’s grandfather, much less Lucie and James’s.
“But—that’s not possible,” Cordelia said. “Belial’s realm was destroyed. We saw him shatter and vanish—Jem said it would take a hundred years for him to regain enough strength to return!”
James shrugged unhappily. “And yet … it was so real. I felt it, Cordelia—I felt his presence. I may not be able to explain it, but—”
“Did you say anything to Jem?”
“Yes. I sent him a message this morning. Or at least, I tried.” James released the fork. He had bent several of the tines. “It seems he’s still in the Spiral Labyrinth with Magnus; I cannot get through. I’ll try again, but meanwhile, we must do everything we can to understand what’s going on, how it’s possible that I could be sensing Belial nearby when he could not possibly be there.”
A look flickered at the back of James’s eyes—a look that made Cordelia sit up straight, suddenly very worried indeed. But before she could respond, they heard the doorbell ring.