Sammael laughed heartily. “What a question! No, this gentleman and I hadn’t met before earlier today. I noticed him coming through the temporary Portal my warlocks opened at the Sunlit Market and had him brought here. Because, you see, I know of him. I know a lot about him. We’re just getting started knowing each other now.”
Clary called out, “Simon, are you all right?”
Without changing his tone, Sammael said, “Simon, if you answer her, I will put out your eye.”
Simon, wisely, remained silent, and Magnus realized that Sammael really was just getting started. Cutting Simon up a little, threatening him with whirling magic knives, wasn’t Sammael’s torture. It was an appetizer. An amuse-bouche. This was Diyu. He could cut Simon up for a good long while before he moved on to worse things.
Sammael scowled at Simon, and Magnus was surprised by the look of real, pure hatred that crossed Sammael’s face. Magnus had begun to wonder if Sammael was so removed from being a person that he was more like Raziel—a force of will beyond understanding, incapable of human emotions like pettiness or spite. He had thought that maybe Sammael was less like a demon and more like a weather pattern, or a god, too monumental and too unearthly to be comprehended.
But now he realized he had been wrong. Sammael was in every way capable of human hatred. In every facet of his expression, he hated Simon.
“I know that he was not always of the Nephilim,” said Sammael. “I know that he was born a mere mundane, but that he then became one of the Night’s Children. And in that form, he committed the greatest of crimes.
“He struck down Lilith, First of All Demons, Lady of Edom, and the only love I have ever known in all my long existence.”
Clary gasped. Alec said, “Oh,” very quietly.
With a flourish, one of the blades drew a red line across Simon’s stomach. Clary winced violently. Magnus was horribly impressed with Simon’s ability not to cry out. In his position, Magnus was pretty sure he would be screaming.
“I don’t know how a mere vampire could have prevailed over her,” Sammael went on. “If I had heard the tale from anyone but the Lady herself, I would never have credited it. But it was she herself who told me. I was so close, so close to returning. I was drawing myself free of the Void. I had been searching for one who might find me a realm I could rule. And then, cutting across the worlds, I heard my beloved’s scream of rage. Her fury could have powered a universe.” He sounded admiring. “She cried out that she had been struck down. She was fading. She would be gone from the world for eons. The force of her rage revived me, sent me whirling back from the Void into these material realms, where things have form and meaning. I again had a living embodiment, and I vowed two vows.”
Magnus was listening, but he was watching Simon, who was following Sammael with his eyes.
“It was pain and rage that drove me from the darkness,” Sammael went on. “All I wanted was to be with Lilith again, but, irony of ironies, it was by her own passing that I was able to return.”
“I don’t think you’re using ‘irony’ correctly,” said Magnus. “Well, maybe it’s situational irony.”
Alec flashed him a look. But Sammael was on a roll and wasn’t paying any attention to them.
“My first vow was to finish what I started; to rain fire and poison upon Earth, to lead the armies of demons to whom this universe truly belongs by right. My second was to see the murderer of Lilith conquered, and to see him suffer for what he did.”
Simon spoke thickly. “It wasn’t my intention—”
Sammael interrupted. “I’m not surprised this one would try to talk his way out of his just punishment, but honestly, I really thought he would come up with something better than ‘I didn’t mean to defeat the mother of all demons, it was an accident.’ I suppose,” he said, “she tripped and her heart fell directly onto the end of your blade.”
“Something like that, actually,” said Clary. “It wasn’t Simon’s fault. It was my fault, if it was anyone’s.”
Sammael rolled his eyes. Before he could speak again, Shinyun interrupted. “My Lord Sammael,” she said. “I respect your need for closure, but this seems like too small a task for someone of your stature and importance. We have a war to plan, troops to muster.”
“Plenty of time for all that,” Sammael said, waving his hand dismissively. “Once I have had my fill of satisfaction from this creature’s pain.”
“You won’t be satisfied,” Simon said. “Eventually you’ll have mashed me into paste and then what? You still won’t have your girlfriend back.”
“Why can’t you just leave him to be crushed to powder with the rest, when our hordes flood Earth in blood?” Shinyun said. She sounded frustrated. “If you want to punish everyone individually who’s done something bad to someone you know, that’s going to take a very long time. Time we don’t have.”
Sammael sighed. “Shinyun, you know I hold you in high regard. You’re very good at organizing demonic forces, and you brought me Ragnor Fell. You have a great work ethic, and you seem to truly enjoy your job. But you don’t understand. You can’t understand. Only Lilith, perhaps, would understand, and I hope that somewhere, somehow, she sees what’s happening here and smiles.” His expression turned dreamy. “I do so miss her smile. And those snakes she has for eyes. They always liked me.”
“Yes, my master. I will try to understand.” Shinyun closed her eyes in acquiescence, but she did not seem happy.
“Now,” said Sammael, “neutralize Magnus until I’m ready for him, and give these others to the courts of Diyu for processing.”
“I thought you were going to let us wander around until we starved,” said Alec.
“I was,” said Sammael, “but apparently members of my staff have decided to arrange meetings for us during your period of starving and wandering. I was looking forward to thinking of you all sometimes, dying alone on a featureless rock in a world with no stars. It takes a lot of the pleasure out of it if I have to actually talk to you.” He shrugged. “So let Diyu decide where you end up. Have some torture for your troubles. They’re very good at it here, when you can get them to show up for work.”
Shinyun turned around to look at Magnus and the Shadowhunters. She gave a small shrug.
“What exactly was your plan here?” Alec hissed at Shinyun. “I assumed you had something better than just trying to talk him out of it. If he wouldn’t listen to you, why would he listen to us?”
Shinyun hesitated. “I thought he would be embarrassed.”
“I don’t think he embarrasses easily,” Magnus said. “Have you seen his hat?”
“Are you going to take us back to the courts?” said Jace, and Shinyun looked uncertain, but whatever she would have said, it was lost in a sudden tumult: the buzz of hellish magic, like a swarm of bees, and the roaring of water.
Before Magnus could see what had caused the ruckus, a long tongue of orange flame, straight as an arrow’s flight, appeared and sliced cleanly through the iron chains binding Simon’s ankles. Sammael looked up, unpleasant surprise blooming on his face. The knives stopped whirling and hung in the air, waiting.
The tongue of flame reappeared, cutting Simon’s arms free, and Simon fell with a nasty thump to the ground. He rolled over as best he could, considering that his hands were still shackled, and Magnus was relieved to note that he was still conscious.
Clary and Jace were running toward Simon, and Magnus was gathering his magic—he didn’t even yet know for what purpose—but Alec was standing dumbstruck, looking up with an expression of complete astonishment.
Through a Portal of storm clouds and rain had come Isabelle. She carried a blazing whip in one hand, and was riding on the back of a tiger. A very large tiger, even by tiger standards.
Magnus had to admit that even he was surprised.
The orange flame had been Isabelle’s: as Magnus watched, she reared back and struck again with the whip, whose length burst with fire.
Isabelle whooped a warrior’s cry
as the gigantic tiger landed in the clearing and gave a roar that shook the very foundations of the cave. She dismounted from the tiger and ran toward the spot where Simon knelt, Clary beside him. She immediately joined Clary in trying to free Simon’s wrists and ankles from their shackles.
Then another figure came leaping through the Portal, and while Magnus would have guessed that “Isabelle Lightwood riding a giant tiger” would be the most surprising thing he would see that day, he had to admit that this was a close second.
Drenched to the bone, his hair and clothes matted to his body, Ke Yi Tian landed in a crouch on the ground. He straightened and ran directly for Shinyun, swinging the diamond blade of his rope dart in a tight circle as he ran. The glitter of adamas was a strange sight in this murky place, but Magnus found it oddly uplifting, even if he didn’t yet understand what was going on.
Shinyun raised her hands at almost the last moment, and Tian’s dart was deflected away, bouncing off a barrier visible only as a crimson smoke whose color Magnus was becoming familiar with.
Sammael had stepped back. Magnus had assumed he would soon start fighting, but he continued to hesitate. He was watching the tiger, Magnus noticed. Sammael turned to say something to Shinyun, and then with one finger drew a Portal in the air. It glimmered darkly, as though absorbing all the light from around it, very different from the Portals Magnus was used to seeing opened by warlocks. With a last look at the tiger, Sammael went through the Portal, but it didn’t close behind him. Instead, a stream of Baigujing skeleton warrior demons began spilling out of it.
Clary and Isabelle were unprepared to immediately start fighting, as they were busy freeing Simon, but the rest of them responded instinctively, pulling out weapons and readying themselves for battle. Jace clambered onto a nearby rock, his spear out, and leaped off it, directly onto the nearest of the skeletons. They both collapsed on the ground and rolled around, but Magnus couldn’t focus on what was happening there. Tian had begun striking the skeletons with his rope dart, and Alec had engaged too, his sword flashing.
A new skeleton was still emerging from the Portal every few seconds, so Magnus ran toward it, drawing red sigils in the air with his fingers as he went. He reached the Portal and began frantically to dismantle it.
Luckily, a Portal made by Sammael seemed not all that different from a Portal made by anyone else. Within a minute or so, he’d folded up the magic and closed it off.
Between Tian, Alec, and Jace, the last few skeletons were quickly dispatched. The tiger even took a swipe at a few, when they got close enough, but mostly it seemed content to let everyone else do the work.
When the last of the skeletons was gone, silence fell in the strange cave. Only Shinyun still remained, with her hands raised, keeping a magic barrier between her and the rest of them. Tian stalked toward her, spinning the dart at his side with murder in his eyes.
“Tian,” Alec said, approaching him, “she isn’t going to attack us.”
“I’m not,” confirmed Shinyun. “For the moment I have enough other problems.” She kept the barrier up, though.
Clary and Isabelle had succeeded in getting Simon free from the remainder of his bonds, but that didn’t mean he was in good shape. Blood was seeping sluggishly from Simon’s wounds. None seemed deep, but there were many. Isabelle was cradling his head in her lap, stroking his hair as Clary drew iratze after iratze. Alec was helping Jace up; one of the Baigujing had gotten in a good blow before Jace dispatched it, and his shoulder was bloody. He winced as he stood.
“Okay, Tian,” Magnus said, coming to join them. “So are you in league with Sammael, or not? I’m starting to get confused.”
“I’m not.” Tian shook his head. “And now he knows it. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to act on the knowledge I’ve gained, pretending to ally with him.” He nodded at Simon. “I knew that if you ended up in Diyu, Simon would be taken. And when Isabelle also went… it seemed the right time.”
“You knew Simon would be taken? And you let it happen?” Clary wasn’t looking very forgiving.
“You must have known what Sammael would do to him.” Isabelle didn’t sound too pleased either.
“I also have a lot of questions for Tian,” Alec said. “But maybe we should leave this particular hell first?”
“I’d like that,” said Simon. Isabelle and Clary were helping him upright. Many of his wounds were closing up, but he was still pale and shocked-looking. “It’s been a day.”
“It’s not over,” Jace said grimly, leaning against Alec’s shoulder. “I think my foot is broken.”
Alec took his stele out.
Shinyun said abruptly, “I am summoned. I go to speak with my master, who I am going to try to get back on track.” She looked around at all of them. “Why do you make everything so complicated?” she said, as if to herself, and then she vanished into the dark of the cave.
Alec, having runed Jace—the break was a bad one, pushing against the force of his iratzes like an insistent hand—put his stele away and glanced around. “Okay,” he said. “What’s with the tiger?” The tiger, who didn’t seem all that interested in anything going on now that Sammael and his demons had departed, had lain down and was licking its front paw with a massive pink tongue.
“Oh!” Tian went back over to the tiger and leaned down. “Thank you, Hu Shen,” he said in Mandarin. “The Nephilim of Shanghai owe you a favor.”
Hu Shen yawned and stretched, then stood up. He lay one enormous paw on Tian’s shoulder and gazed at him for a moment. Then he trotted away, disappearing into the depths of the cave beyond where they could see.
“A great faerie of legend, Hu Shen,” Tian said as they watched him go. “A guide for lost travelers. Sometimes it is useful to be on good terms with the fey.”
“Will he be all right?” Clary said.
Tian looked in the direction Hu Shen had gone. “Faeries aren’t bound by the same rules as the rest of us. And he’s been around much longer than any of us. Even you,” he added, nodding in Magnus’s direction.
Clary had gone over to Jace and was talking to him in a low voice, clearly concerned. Jace was standing on one foot, looking irritated, and using his longspear as a kind of crutch. “I really am fine,” he said, “but it might be a while before it’s healed. I won’t be too speedy until then.”
“No more wrestling skeletons today,” Alec said. “I hope.”
“I’ll be fine in a few hours,” repeated Jace. Magnus was entertained to see how annoyed he was at having suffered an injury, and how quick he was to change the subject. “What was that weapon you were using?” Jace asked Isabelle.
“Flame whip,” Isabelle said happily. Jace reached out a hand and she slapped it away. “Well, don’t touch it,” she scolded. “It’s hot.”
“I think we could all use a bit of time to catch up and heal our broken feet. And exchange information,” Magnus said. “Especially information about what game you’ve been playing, Tian.”
Tian had the courtesy to look chagrined. “I am sorry. I will explain.”
“Hey, guys?” said Simon. “Time to go? I’d really like to not be here anymore. You know, in the torture cave.”
Magnus thought that was an excellent idea. “I’ll bring us back to the cathedral,” he said, wiggling his fingers.
Tian’s eyebrows went up. “Xujiahui? I wondered if you’d get there.”
Magnus nodded and, with a wave of his hands, opened a Portal. It glimmered blackly, with the same uncanny light as the one Sammael himself had opened earlier. Magnus exchanged a look with Alec.
“That doesn’t look right,” said Clary, and Simon looked hesitant. But they could all see the interior of the cathedral through the Portal’s aperture, and none of them wanted to stay in the cave. There was nothing for it but to step through, and hope that Diyu and its masters would give them a moment’s rest. They all, Magnus could see, desperately needed it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN The Phoenix Feather
THEY FOUND TH
E CATHEDRAL UNTOUCHED, and they set up camp in the apse, where the altar would have been in the real building. Here, of course, there was no altar, just an expanse of cracked white marble. Simon, Isabelle, Clary, and Jace perched on the marble steps that led down toward the pews, while Tian sat in the first row and Magnus leaned casually against a pillar.
Alec paced back and forth across the apse, restless and worried. Magnus had summoned some nourishment for them, which he had promised was safe—plain bowls of rice in broth, and capped thermoses of water. They didn’t taste like much, but everyone had wolfed them down anyway.
Though Alec would have liked it if Magnus could have been convinced to take more than a few bites. Instead, he was gazing at Tian, a shimmer of concentration in his gold-green eyes. “So, Ke Yi Tian,” he said. “What’s the story? With you and Sammael?”
With a sigh, Tian put aside his empty bowl, nodded once, and told his tale.
* * *
I WAS FIRST APPROACHED BY Jung Shinyun and Ragnor Fell in the Sunlit Market, months ago. Already there had been mutterings in the Downworlder Concession about these two warlocks, neither of them locals, who had come from nowhere and instantly became regulars. The Shanghai Conclave took an interest, and since I knew the concession well, I began keeping an eye on them. What vendors were they visiting? What were they buying? Did they meet with anyone?
In retrospect, I think that they were surveying the Market itself, learning how well and in what ways it was surveilled and defended. So all my careful recordings of their purchases of bird entrails and quartz crystals were probably irrelevant. But at the time, they were only persons of interest, newcomers to keep an eye on.
Unfortunately, as it turned out, Jung and Fell were keeping an eye on me. And I’ve grown… incautious about my relationship with Jinfeng. I’m lucky enough to live in a place where Downworlders and Shadowhunters are on good terms, and Jinfeng and I are lucky enough that both our families approve of us. So where I should have been vigilant, I was unguarded. Vulnerable.
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