Cassandra Clare - Clockwork Princess

She looked toward him angrily, her black hair blowing across her face. She opened her mouth to answer, but before she could speak, there was a sound like an earthquake, and the folly burst apart in shards of plaster. The worm hurtled forth, heading straight toward them with the terrifying speed of an out-of-control train.

By the time they reached the front courtyard of Lightwood House, Tessa’s neck and back were aching. She was tightly laced into her corset beneath the heavy wedding dress, and the weight of the sobbing Tatiana dragged down her left shoulder painfully.

She was relieved to see the carriages come into view—relieved, and also startled. The scene in the courtyard was so peaceful—the carriages where they had left them, the horses cropping grass, the facade of the house undisturbed. After half-carrying, half-dragging Tatiana to the first carriage, Tessa wrenched the door open and helped her in, wincing when the other girl’s sharp nails dug into her shoulders as she heaved herself and her skirts into the space inside.

“Oh, God,” Tatiana moaned. “The shame of it, the terrible shame. That the Clave might know of what has befallen my father. For pity’s sake, could he not have thought of me, even for a moment?”

Tessa blinked. “That thing ,” she said. “I do not think it was capable of thinking of anyone, Mrs. Blackthorn.”

Tatiana looked at her dizzily, and for a moment Tessa was ashamed of the resentment she had felt toward the other girl. She had not liked being sent away from the gardens, where she might perhaps have helped—but Tatiana had just seen her husband torn to pieces before her eyes by her own father. She was deserving of more sympathy than Tessa had been feeling.

Tessa made her voice more gentle. “I know you have had a bad shock. If you would lie down—”

“You are very tall,” Tatiana said. “Do gentlemen complain of it?”

Tessa stared.

“And you are dressed as a bride,” said Tatiana. “Is that not very odd? Would not gear suit the task better? I understand it is unflattering, and needs must as the devil drives, but—”

There was a sudden loud crash. Tessa detached herself from the carriage and glanced about; the sound had come from inside the house. Henry, Tessa thought. Henry had gone into the house, alone. Of course, the creature was out in the gardens, but nevertheless—it was Benedict’s house. She thought of the ballroom, full of demons the last time Tessa had been there, and she gathered up her skirts in both hands. “Remain here, Mrs. Blackthorn,” she said. “I must discover the cause of that noise.”

“No!” Tatiana sat bolt upright. “Do not leave me!”

“I am sorry.” Tessa backed away, shaking her head. “I must. Please stay inside the carriage!”

Tatiana cried something after her, but Tessa had already turned to dash up the steps. She pushed her way through the front doors and emerged in a grand entryway floored with alternating squares of black and white marble, like a checkerboard. A massive chandelier hung from the ceiling, though none of its tapers were lit; the only light in the place came from the daylight flooding in through the high windows. A curving staircase of great grandeur wound its way upward. “Henry!” Tessa cried. “Henry, where are you?”

An answering cry and another crash came from the floor above. Tessa dashed up the stairs, stumbling as her foot caught on the hem of her dress and ripped a seam wide open. She switched the skirt out of the way impatiently and continued running, down a long corridor whose walls were painted powder blue and were hung with dozens of gilt-framed etchings, through a pair of doors, and into another room.

It was most assuredly a man’s room, a library or an office: the curtains a heavy dark fabric, oil paintings of great ships of war hung on the walls. Rich green wallpaper covered the walls, though it appeared to be mottled with odd dark stains. There was a strange smell to the place—a smell like the one down by the banks of the Thames, where odd things rotted in the weak daylight. And laid over that, the coppery tang of blood. A bookcase had tipped over, a welter of smashed glass and broken wood, and on the Persian rug beside it was Henry, locked in a wrestling match with a thing with gray skin and an unnerving number of arms. Henry was yelling and kicking out with his long legs, and the thing—a demon, no doubt—was tearing at his gear with claws, it’s wolflike snout snapping at his face.

Tessa looked around wildly, seized up the poker that lay by the dormant fireplace, and charged. She tried to keep her training in mind—all those hours of Gideon’s careful talk of calibration and speed and grip—but in the end it seemed pure instinct to drive the long steel rod into the creature’s torso, where there would have been a rib cage if it had been a real, earthly animal.

She heard something crunch as the weapon went in. The demon gave a howl like a baying dog and rolled off Henry, and the poker clattered to the floor. Black ichor sprayed, filling the room with the stench of smoke and rot. Tessa stumbled back, her heel catching on the torn edge of her gown. She fell to the ground just as Henry heaved himself over and, with a muttered curse, slashed the demon across the throat with a daggerlike blade that glowed with runes. The demon gave a gurgling cry and folded up like paper.

Henry lurched to his feet, his gingery hair matted with blood and ichor. His gear was torn at the shoulder, scarlet fluid leaking from the wound. “Tessa,” he exclaimed, and then he was beside her, helping her to her feet. “By the Angel, we’re a pair,” he said in his rueful Henry way, looking at her worriedly. “You’re not hurt, are you?”

She glanced down at herself and saw what he meant: Her dress was soaked with a spray of ichor, and there was an ugly cut on her forearm where she had fallen on the broken glass. It didn’t hurt much, yet, but there was blood. “I am quite all right,” she said. “What happened, Henry? What was that thing and why was it in here?”

“A guardian demon. I was searching Benedict’s desk, and I must have moved or touched something that awoke it. A black smoke poured from the drawer, and became that . It lunged at me—”

“And clawed you,” Tessa said in concern. “You’re bleeding—”

“No, I did that myself. Fell on my dagger,” Henry said sheepishly, drawing a stele from his belt. “Don’t tell Charlotte.”

Tessa almost smiled; then, remembering, she dashed across the room and tugged open the curtains across one of the tall windows. She could see out across the gardens, but not, frustratingly, the Italian garden; they were on the wrong side of the house for that. Green box hedges and flat grass, beginning to brown with winter, stretched out before her. “I must go,” she said. “Will and Jem and Cecily—they were battling the creature. It has killed Tatiana Blackthorn’s husband. I had to convey her back to the carriage as she was near fainting.”

There was a silence. Then: “Tessa,” Henry said in an odd voice, and she turned to see him, arrested in the act of applying an iratze to his inner arm. He was staring at the wall across from him—the wall Tessa had thought earlier was oddly mottled and splotched with stains. She saw now that they were no accidental mess. Letters a foot tall each stretched across the wallpaper, written in what looked like dried black blood.

THE INFERNAL DEVICES ARE WITHOUT PITY.

THE INFERNAL DEVICES ARE WITHOUT REGRET.

THE INFERNAL DEVICES ARE WITHOUT NUMBER.

THE INFERNAL DEVICES WILL NEVER STOP COMING.

And there, beneath the scrawls, a last sentence, barely readable, as if whoever had written it had been losing the use of his hands. She pictured Benedict locked in this room, going slowly mad as he transformed, smearing the words on the wall with his own ichor-ridden blood.