Cassandra Clare - City of Glass

Reluctantly, Simon allowed the Inquisitor to push him along the corridor, the word “retribution” still ringing in his ears. The reminder of that night on the ship was cold, unpleasant. When they reached a door carved with a single stark black rune, the Inquisitor produced a key and unlocked it, ushering Simon inside with a broad gesture of welcome.

The room beyond was bare, decorated with a single tapestry that showed an angel rising out of a lake, clutching a sword in one hand and a cup in the other. The fact that he’d seen both the Cup and the Sword before momentarily distracted Simon. It wasn’t until he heard the click of a lock sliding home that he realized the Inquisitor had bolted the door behind him, locking them both in.

Simon glanced around. There was no furniture in the room besides a bench with a low table beside it. A decorative silver bell rested on the table. “The Portal…It’s in here?” he asked uncertainly.

“Simon, Simon.” Aldertree rubbed his hands together as if anticipating a birthday party or some other delightful event. “Are you really in such a hurry to leave? There are a few questions I had so hoped to ask you first….”

“Okay.” Simon shrugged uncomfortably. “Ask me whatever you want, I guess.”

“How very cooperative of you! How delightful!” Aldertree beamed. “So, how long is it exactly that you’ve been a vampire?”

“About two weeks.”

“And how did it happen? Were you attacked on the street, or perhaps in your bed at night? Do you know who it was who Turned you?”

“Well—not exactly.”

“But, my boy!” Aldertree cried. “How could you not know something like that?” The look he bent on Simon was open and curious. He seemed so harmless, Simon thought. Like someone’s grandfather or funny old uncle. Simon must have imagined the bitter smell.

“It really wasn’t that simple,” said Simon, and went on to explain about his two trips to the Dumort, one as a rat and the second under a compulsion so strong it had felt like a giant set of pincers holding him in their grasp and marching him exactly where they wanted him to go. “And so you see,” he finished, “the moment I walked in the door of the hotel, I was attacked—I don’t know which of them it was who Turned me, or if it was all of them somehow.”

The Inquisitor clucked. “Oh dear, oh dear. That’s not good at all. That’s very upsetting.”

“I certainly thought so,” Simon agreed.

“The Clave won’t be pleased.”

“What?” Simon was baffled. “What does the Clave care how I became a vampire?”

“Well, it would be one thing if you were attacked,” Aldertree said apologetically. “But you just walked out there and, well, gave yourself up to the vampires, you see? It looks a bit as if you wanted to be one.”

“I didn’t want to be one! That’s not why I went to the hotel!”

“Of course, of course.” Aldertree’s voice was soothing. “Let’s move to another topic, shall we?” Without waiting for a response, he went on. “How is it that the vampires let you survive to rise again, young Simon? Considering that you trespassed on their territory, their normal procedure would have been to feed until you died, and then burn your body to prevent you from rising.”

Simon opened his mouth to reply, to tell the Inquisitor how Raphael had taken him to the Institute, and how Clary and Jace and Isabelle had brought him to the cemetery and watched over him as he’d dug his way out of his own grave. Then he hesitated. He had only the vaguest idea how the Law worked, but he doubted somehow that it was standard Shadowhunter procedure to watch over vampires as they rose, or to provide them with blood for their first feeding. “I don’t know,” he said. “I have no idea why they Turned me instead of killing me.”

“But one of them must have let you drink his blood, or you wouldn’t be…well, what you are today. Are you saying you don’t know who your vampire sire was?”

My vampire sire? Simon had never thought of it that way—he’d gotten Raphael’s blood in his mouth almost by accident. And it was hard to think of the vampire boy as a sire of any sort. Raphael looked younger than Simon did. “I’m afraid not.”

“Oh, dear.” The Inquisitor sighed. “Most unfortunate.”

“What’s unfortunate?”

“Well, that you’re lying to me, my boy.” Aldertree shook his head. “And I had so hoped you’d cooperate. This is terrible, just terrible. You wouldn’t consider telling me the truth? Just as a favor?”

“I am telling you the truth!”

The Inquisitor drooped like an unwatered flower. “Such a shame.” He sighed again. “Such a shame.” He crossed the room then and rapped sharply on the door, still shaking his head.

“What’s going on?” Alarm and confusion tinged Simon’s voice. “What about the Portal?”

“The Portal?” Aldertree giggled. “You didn’t really think I was just going to let you go , did you?”

Before Simon could say a word in reply, the door burst open and Shadowhunters in black gear poured into the room, seizing hold of him. He struggled as strong hands clamped themselves around each of his arms. A hood was tugged down over his head, blinding him. He kicked out at the darkness; his foot connected, and he heard someone swear.

He was jerked backward viciously; a hot voice snarled in his ear. “Do that again, vampire, and I’ll pour holy water down your throat and watch you die puking blood.”

“That’s enough!” The Inquisitor’s thin, worried voice rose like a balloon. “There will be no more threats! I’m just trying to teach our guest a lesson.” He must have moved forward, because Simon smelled the strange, bitter smell again, muffled through the hood. “Simon, Simon,” Aldertree said. “I did so enjoy meeting you. I hope a night in the cells of the Gard will have the desired effect and in the morning you’ll be a bit more cooperative. I do still see such a bright future for us, once we get over this little hiccup.” His hand came down on Simon’s shoulder. “Take him downstairs, Nephilim.”

Simon yelled aloud, but his cries were muffled by the hood. The Shadowhunters dragged him from the room and propelled him down what felt like an endless series of mazelike corridors, twisting and turning. Eventually they reached a set of stairs and he was shoved down it by main force, his feet slipping on the steps. He couldn’t tell anything about where they were—except that there was a close, dark smell around them, like wet stone, and that the air was growing wetter and colder as they descended.

At last they paused. There was a scraping sound, like iron dragging over stone, and Simon was thrown forward to land on his hands and knees on hard ground. There was a loud, metallic clang, as of a door being slammed shut, and the sound of retreating footsteps, the echo of boots on stone growing fainter as Simon staggered to his feet. He dragged the hood from his head and threw it to the ground. The close, hot, suffocating feeling around his face vanished, and he fought the urge to gasp for breath—breath he didn’t need. He knew it was just a reflex, but his chest ached as if he’d really been deprived of air.

He was in a square barren stone room, with just a single barred window set into the wall above the small, hard-looking bed. Through a low door Simon could see a tiny bathroom with a sink and toilet. The west wall of the room was also barred—thick, iron-looking bars running from floor to ceiling, sunk deeply into the floor. A hinged iron door, made of bars itself, was set into the wall; it was fitted with a brass knob, which was carved across its face with a dense black rune. In fact, all the bars were carved with runes; even the window bars were wrapped with spidery lines of them.