Cassandra Clare - City of Ashes

The three of them were silent as they passed under the wrought iron arch and into the Marble Cemetery. The last time Clary had been in this small courtyard she had been hurrying along after Brother Jeremiah. Now, for the first time, she noticed the names carved into the walls: Youngblood, Fairchild, Thrushcross, Nightwine, Ravenscar . There were runes beside them. In Shadowhunter culture each family had their own symbol: The Waylands' was a blacksmith's hammer, the Lightwoods' a torch, and Valentine's a star.

The grass grew tangled over the feet of the Angel statue in the courtyard's center. The Angel's eyes were closed, his slim hands closed over the stem of a stone goblet, a reproduction of the Mortal Cup. His stone face was impassive, streaked with dirt and grime.

Clary said, "Last time I was here, Brother Jeremiah used a rune on the statue to open the door to the City."

"I wouldn't want to use one of the Silent Brothers' runes," Alec said. His face was grim. "They should have sensed our presence before we got this far. Now I'm starting to worry." He took a dagger from his belt and drew the blade of it across his bare palm. Blood welled from the shallow gash. Making a fist over the stone Cup, he let the blood drip into it. "Blood of the Nephilim," he said. "It should work as a key."

The stone Angel's eyelids flew open. For a moment Clary almost expected to see eyes glaring at her from between the folds of stone, but there was only more granite. A second later, the grass at the Angel's feet began to split. A crooked black line, rippling like the back of a snake, curved away from the statue, and Clary jumped back hastily as a dark hole opened at her feet.

She peered down into it. Stairs led away into shadow. Last time she had been here, the darkness had been lit at intervals by torches, illuminating the steps. Now there was only blackness.

"Something's wrong," Clary said. Neither Isabelle nor Alec seemed inclined to argue. Clary took the witchlight stone Jace had given her out of her pocket and raised it overhead. Light burst from it, raying out through her spread fingers. "Let's go."

Alec stepped in front of her. "I'll go first, then you follow me. Isabelle, bring up the rear."

They clambered down slowly, Clary's damp boots slipping on the age-rounded steps. At the foot of the stairs was a short tunnel that opened out into an enormous hall, a stone orchard of white arches inset with semiprecious stones. Rows of mausoleums huddled in the shadows like toadstool houses in a fairy story. The more distant of them disappeared into shadow; the witchlight was not strong enough to light the whole hall.

Alec looked somberly down the rows. "I never thought I would enter the Silent City," he said. "Not even in death."

"I wouldn't sound so sad about it," Clary said. "Brother Jeremiah told me what they do to your dead. They burn them up and use most of the ashes to make the City's marble." The blood and bone of demon slayers is itself a powerful protection against evil. Even in death, the Clave serves the Cause .

"Hmph," said Isabelle. "It's considered an honor. Besides, it's not like you mundies don't burn your dead."

That doesn't make it not creepy , Clary thought. The smell of ashes and smoke hung heavy on the air, familiar to her from the last time she was here—but there was something else underlying those smells, a heavier, thicker stench, like rotting fruit.

Frowning as if he smelled it too, Alec took one of his angel blades out of his weapons belt. " Arathiel ," he whispered, and its glow joined the illumination of Clary's witchlight as they found the second staircase and descended into even denser gloom. The witchlight pulsed in Clary's hand like a dying star—she wondered if they ever ran out of power, witchlight stones, like flashlights ran out of batteries. She hoped not. The idea of being plunged into sightless darkness in this creepy place filled her with a visceral terror.

The smell of rotting fruit grew stronger as they reached the end of the stairs and found themselves in another long tunnel. This one opened out into a pavilion surrounded by spires of carved bone—a pavilion Clary remembered very well. Inlaid silver stars sprinkled the floor like precious confetti. In the center of the pavilion was a black table. Dark fluid had pooled on its slick surface and trickled across the floor in rivulets.

When Clary had stood before the Council of Brothers, there had been a heavy silver sword hanging on the wall behind the table. The Sword was gone now, and in its place, smeared across the wall, was a great fan of scarlet.

"Is that blood ?" Isabelle whispered. She didn't sound afraid, just stunned.

"Looks like it." Alec's eyes scanned the room. The shadows were as thick as paint, and seemed full of movement. His grip was tight on his seraph blade.

"What could have happened?" Isabelle said. "The Silent Brothers—I thought they were indestructible… "

Her voice trailed off as Clary turned, the witchlight in her hand catching strange shadows among the spires. One was more strangely shaped than the others. She willed the witchlight to burn brighter and it did, sending a lancing bolt of brightness into the distance.

Impaled on one of the spires, like a worm on a hook, was the dead body of a Silent Brother. Hands, ribboned in blood, dangled just above the marble floor. His neck looked broken. Blood had pooled beneath him, clotted and black in the witchlight.

Isabelle gasped. "Alec. Do you see—"

"I see." Alec's voice was grim. "And I've seen worse. It's Jace I'm worried about."

Isabelle went forward and touched the black basalt table, her fingers skimming the surface. "This blood is almost fresh. Whatever happened, it happened not long ago."

Alec moved toward the Brother's impaled corpse. Smeared marks led away from the blood pool on the floor. "Footprints," he said. "Someone running." Alec indicated with a curled hand that the girls should follow him. They did, Isabelle pausing only to wipe her bloody hands off on her soft leather leg guards.

The path of footprints led from the pavilion and down a narrow tunnel, disappearing into darkness. When Alec stopped, looking around him, Clary pushed past him impatiently, letting the witchlight blaze a silvery-white path of light ahead of them. She could see a set of double doors at the end of the tunnel; they were ajar.

Jace. Somehow she sensed him, that he was close. She took off at a half run, her boots clacking loudly against the hard floor. She heard Isabelle call after her, and then Alec and Isabelle were also running, hard on her heels. She burst through the doors at the end of the hall and found herself in a large stone-bound room bisected by a row of metal bars sunk deep into the ground. Clary could just make out a slumped shape on the other side of the bars. Just outside the cell sprawled the limp form of a Silent Brother.

Clary knew immediately that he was dead. It was the way he was lying, like a doll whose joints had been twisted the wrong way until they broke. His parchment-colored robes were half-torn off. His scarred face, contorted into a look of utter terror, was still recognizable. It was Brother Jeremiah.

She pushed past his body to the door of the cell. It was made of bars spaced close together and hinged on one side. There seemed to be no lock or knob that she could pull. She heard Alec, behind her, say her name, but her attention wasn't on him: It was on the door. Of course there was no visible way to open it, she realized; the Brothers didn't deal in what was visible, but rather what wasn't. Holding the witchlight in one hand, she scrabbled for her mother's stele with the other.

From the other side of the bars came a noise. A sort of muffled gasp or whisper; she wasn't sure which, but she recognized the source. Jace . She slashed at the cell door with the tip of her stele, trying to hold the rune for Open in her mind even as it appeared, black and jagged against the hard metal. The electrum sizzled where the stele touched it. Open , she willed the door, open, open, OPEN !