Chain of Iron

“So would you rather I was more like Charles, then?” Matthew demanded. “He wants everyone to know how very important and capable he is. And yet Will and Tessa have had to rush off to Paris to smooth over his latest catastrophe. And if they are successful in preventing war from breaking out over the mess he made, he’ll have to hurry back to his loveless alliance with Grace Blackthorn—”

“Don’t try to change the subject, Matthew.” Charlotte was clearly struggling to stay calm. “We weren’t talking about Charles. We were talking about you—”

James could stand it no more; he cleared his throat and took a few steps into the room. Matthew made a show of sitting up in surprise. “Look who’s here, Mother—James has come for a visit.”

Charlotte gave James a strained smile. “Hello, darling.”

“Mother and I were just discussing why your parents have had to hurry off to France.”

“Don’t let me interrupt.” James made a face at Matthew in response to his glare; he felt a parabatai’s duties ended where arguments with one’s mother began. “I thought I would say hello before I go down to the lab to see what Christopher is up to.”

Matthew collapsed back onto the cushions. James could hear his voice, and Charlotte’s, too, rising as he descended the stone spiral staircase to the cellar. It had been dubbed “the Dungeon” when Henry first took it over as a place to conduct his experiments many years earlier. James was struck, as always, by a vague smell of rotten eggs emanating from the collection of stoppered tubes, sample jars, and labeled boxes.

The lab was brightly lit with witchlight, but Henry’s workbench was empty save for a neat stack of notes. In the fireplace, which had long ago stopped working, was propped a straw dummy covered in stains and tears: the victim of countless past experiments.

Christopher’s corner was piled with its usual research in progress and piles of books with scrawls in the margins. An alabaster statue of Raziel, upon whose nose someone had placed a pair of spectacles, looked on benignly from the mantel as Thomas, seated on a stool beside Christopher, examined something in his hands.

As James drew closer, he saw that the object Thomas held was a nickel-plated handgun. Shadowhunters couldn’t use firearms; weapons had to be runed to be any use against demons, but runes also prevented gunpowder from igniting. Christopher had been long convinced that there must be some way to fix this problem, and this particular gun had been in the lab for some time; the plating was covered in runes. Christopher had never been able to make it work.

“Hullo, James,” Christopher said brightly. “You’re just in time.”

“What’s the idea, Kit?” James asked. “Have you made a breakthrough?”

“Not quite—but I had an idea for some adjustments I could make to the revolver. After what happened to poor Basil Pounceby, I decided to set aside my message-sending project and turn my attentions back to the firearm. Think how useful it could be! If one were able to develop a runed gun that would work on demons and other creatures alike, they could be issued to everyone who goes on patrol. It could be an invaluable tool for defeating Knife Face—or whoever the killer turns out to be.”

James couldn’t help smiling at Christopher’s enthusiasm. His cousin’s violet eyes were shining, his hair was sticking up, and he was gesturing wildly as he spoke. Thomas was also smiling, though he looked a little skeptical.

“So I wanted help from you, James,” Christopher went on. “Obviously I’ve never fired a gun, and neither has Thomas, but you have. We want to make sure we’re doing it right. It is loaded,” he added, rather as an afterthought.

James went over to Thomas. “It isn’t hard,” he said. “You push down the hammer, like this, and sight down along your arm. Aim and pull the trigger.”

With an intense look of concentration, Thomas followed James’s directions, the hammer clicking as he cocked the gun and aimed at the statue of Raziel. James hurriedly backed away as Thomas clamped down on the trigger.

There was a loud click. Christopher’s face fell. Thomas gave the gun a shake, as though it were a cart whose wheels had gotten stuck in snow.

“Don’t wave it about, Tom, even if it isn’t working,” James warned, and Thomas handed the revolver quickly to James. James examined it, taking care to keep the muzzle pointed at the wall, away from the others. The gun was heavier than he had expected, its river-gray barrel etched with the inscription LUKE 12:49.

“Where did you get that thing, anyway?” said Thomas.

“It’s from America,” Christopher said, looking discouraged by the failure of his experiment. “Henry acquired it years ago. It’s a Colt Single Action Army revolver. Mundanes call it a ‘Peacemaker.’”

James wrapped his hand around the grip, finding it fit his hand comfortably. Experimentally he pushed down the hammer with his thumb. He squinted down the barrel, lining up the dusty alabaster statue with the sight. “But runes prevent it from firing.”

Christopher sighed. “They do. Only I thought I’d found a way around the problem. I tried different mixes for the gunpowder, different runes, I even said the protection spell over the gun—you know, ‘Sanvi to the right of me, Semangelaf behind me—’”

“That’s part of the protection spells they say over Shadowhunters when they’re born,” said James. “It’s a gun, not a baby, Kit. And besides,” he added, resting his finger on the trigger experimentally, “it doesn’t—”

The gun bucked in James’s hand. A deafening crack echoed in the small room, followed by a muffled explosion. In the stunned silence that followed, the three of them watched a small cloud of blue smoke drift away from the gun.

The statue of Raziel was now deprived of its left wing. Bits of alabaster skittered off the mantel onto the worktable below.

James looked down at the gun in his hands with wonderment and not a little apprehension.

“Mundanes call that a Peacemaker, you say?” Thomas asked indignantly. “Mundanes are even odder than I thought.”

But Christopher gave a triumphant crow. “By the Angel, James, this is tremendous. Tremendous! You’ve made it work! Let me see.”

James held the gun out to Christopher, grip first. “It’s all yours.” He listened for hurried footsteps above, but none came. Henry had mentioned that he was improving the soundproofing of the laboratory—or maybe it was just that the residents were so accustomed to occasional explosions that they no longer batted an eyelash.

Christopher cocked the hammer with more assurance than James would have expected and pointed the gun at the dummy in the fireplace. James and Thomas both hastily covered their ears, but when Christopher pulled the trigger, there was only the click of the hammer returning to its starting position, and the cylinder revolving. Christopher tried twice more, then shook his head in frustration.

“Maybe it was just a fluke that it fired that one time,” he said, his disappointment evident.

“May I?” James took the gun back from Christopher. “I wonder …”

This time he aimed at the straw dummy in the fireplace, and this time he was ready for the gun’s strong recoil. With another almighty bang it jumped in James’s hand, and the dummy’s chest burst, straw exploding in all directions. Thomas inhaled a stray bit and fell into a coughing fit. James set down the revolver carefully on its side and knelt in the fireplace, searching for the slug, which he found embedded in a neat hole in the mortar.