City of Lost Souls

and one silver-blond. Jace and Sebastian. Jace was wide-eyed; Sebastian looked pale. “Name of the Angel, Clary,” he breathed. “The adamas—”

“Oh, that stuff you wanted? It’s right here.” It had rolled partly under the counter. Clary held it up now, a luminous chunk of silver, smeared where her bloody hands had touched it.

Sebastian swore with relief and grabbed the adamas out of her hands as Jace vaulted over the counter in a single movement and landed beside Clary. He knelt down and pulled her close, running his hands over her, his eyes dark with concern. She caught at his wrists.

“I’m all right,” she said. Her heart was pounding, her blood still singing in her veins. He opened his mouth to say something, but she leaned forward and put her hands on either side of his face, her nails digging in. “I feel good.” She looked at him, rumpled and sweaty and bloody as he was, and wanted to kiss him. She wanted—

“All right, you two,” said Sebastian. Clary pulled away from Jace and glanced up at her brother. He was grinning down at them, lazily spinning the adamas in one hand. “Tomorrow we use this,” he said, nodding toward it. “But tonight — once we’re cleaned up a little — we celebrate.”

Simon padded barefoot out into the living room, Isabelle behind him, to find a surprising tableau. The circle and the pentagram in the center of the floor were shining with a bright silver light, like mercury. Smoke rose from the center of it, a tall black-red column, tipped with white. The whole room smelled of burning. Magnus and Alec stood outside the circle, and with them Jordan and Maia, who — given the coats and hats they were wearing — looked as if they had just arrived.

“What’s going on?” Isabelle asked, stretching her long limbs with a yawn. “Why is everyone watching the Pentagram Channel?”

“Just hang on a second,” Alec said grimly. “You’ll see.”

Isabelle shrugged and added her gaze to the others’. As everyone watched, the white smoke began to swirl, fast and then faster, a mini-tornado that tore across the center of the pentagram, leaving words behind it spelled out in scorch marks:

HAVE YOU MADE YOUR DECISION YET?

“Huh,” Simon said. “Has it been doing that all morning?”

Magnus threw his arms up. He was wearing leather pants and a shirt with a zigzag metallic lightning bolt on it. “All night, too.”

“Just asking the same question over and over?”

“No, it says different things. Sometimes it swears. Azazel appears to be having some fun.”

“Can it hear us?” Jordan cocked his head to the side. “Hey, there, demon guy.”

The fiery letters rearranged themselves. HELLO, WEREWOLF.

Jordan took a step back and looked at Magnus. “Is this… normal?”

Magnus seemed deeply unhappy. “It is most decidedly not normal. I have never called up a demon as powerful as Azazel, but even so — I’ve been through the literature, and I can’t find an example of this happening before. It’s getting out of control.”

“Azazel must be sent back,” Alec said. “Like, permanently sent back.” He shook his head. “Maybe Jocelyn was right. No good can come from summoning demons.”

“I’m pretty sure I came from someone summoning a demon,” Magnus noted. “Alec, I’ve done this hundreds of times. I don’t know why this time would be different.”

“Azazel can’t get out, can he?” said Isabelle. “Of the pentagram, I mean.”

“No,” said Magnus, “but he shouldn’t be able to be doing any of the other things he’s doing either.”

Jordan leaned forward, his hands on his blue-jeaned knees. “What’s it like being in Hell, dude?” he asked. “Hot or cold? I’ve heard both.”

There was no reply.

“Good job, Jordan,” said Maia. “I think you annoyed him.”

Jordan poked at the edge of the pentagram. “Can it tell the future? So, pentagram, is our band going to make it big?”

“It’s a demon from Hell, not a Magic Eight Ball, Jordan,” said Magnus irritably. “And stay away from the borders of the pentagram. Summon a demon and trap it in a pentagram, and it can’t get out to harm you. But step into the pentagram, and you’ve put yourself in the demon’s range of power—”

At that moment the pillar of smoke began to coalesce. Magnus’s head whipped up, and Alec stood, almost knocking over his chair, as the smoke took on the form of Azazel. His suit formed first — a gray and silver pinstripe, with elegant cuffs — and then he seemed to fill it out, his flame eyes the last thing to appear. He looked around him in evident pleasure. “The gang’s all here, I see,” he said. “So, have you come to a decision?”

“We have,” said Magnus. “I don’t believe we’ll be requiring your services. Thanks anyway.”

There was a silence.

“You can go now.” Magnus wiggled his fingers in a goodbye wave. “Ta.”

“I don’t think so,” Azazel said pleasantly, whipping out his handkerchief and buffing his nails with it. “I think I’ll stay. I like it here.”

Magnus sighed and said something to Alec, who went to the table and returned carrying a book, which he handed to the warlock. Magnus flipped it open and began to read. “Damned spirit, begone. Return thou to the realm of smoke and flame, of ash and—”

“That won’t work on me,” said the demon in a bored voice. “Go ahead and try, if you like. I’ll still be here.”

Magnus looked at him with eyes smoldering with rage. “You can’t force us to bargain with you.”

“I can try. It’s hardly as if I have anything better to occupy—”

Azazel broke off as a familiar shape streaked through the room. It was Chairman Meow, hot on the heels of what looked like a mouse. As everyone watched in surprise and horror, the small cat dashed through the outline of the pentagram — and Simon, acting on instinct rather than rational thought, jumped into the pentagram after him and scooped him up into his arms.

“Simon!” He knew without turning around that it was Isabelle, her cry reflexive. He turned to look at her as she clapped her hand over her mouth and looked at him with wide eyes. They were all staring. Izzy’s face was drained white with horror, and even Magnus looked unsettled.

Summon a demon and trap it in a pentagram, and it can’t get out to harm you. But step into the pentagram, and you’ve put yourself in the demon’s range of power.

Simon felt a tap on his shoulder. He dropped Chairman Meow as he turned, and the small cat streaked out of the pentagram and across the room to hide under a sofa. Simon looked up. The massive face of Azazel loomed over him. This close, he could see the cracks in the demon’s skin, like cracks in marble, and the flames deep in Azazel’s pitted eyes. When Azazel smiled, Simon saw that each of his teeth was tipped with a needle of iron.

Azazel exhaled. A cloud of hot sulfur spread around Simon. He was dimly aware of Magnus’s voice, rising and falling in a chant, and Isabelle screaming something as the demon’s hands clamped around his arms. Azazel lifted Simon off the ground so his feet were dangling in the air — and threw him.

Or tried to. His hands slipped off Simon; Simon dropped to the ground in a crouch as Azazel shot backward and seemed to hit an invisible barrier. There was a sound like stone shattering. Azazel slid to his knees, then painfully rose to his feet. He looked up with a roar, teeth flashing, and stalked toward Simon — who, realizing belatedly what was going on, reached up with a shaking hand and pushed the hair back from his forehead.

Azazel stopped in his tracks. His hands, the nails tipped with the same sharp iron as his teeth, curled in toward his sides. “Wanderer,” he breathed. “Is it you?”

Simon stayed frozen. Magnus was still chanting softly in the background, but everyone else was silent. Simon was afraid to look around, to catch the eye of any of his friends. Clary and Jace, he thought, had already seen the work of the Mark, its blazing fire. No one else had. No wonder they were wordless.

“No,” Azazel said, his fiery eyes narrowing. “No, you are too young, and the world too old. But who would dare place Heaven’s mark on a vampire? And why?”

Simon lowered his hand. “Touch me again and find out,” he said.

Azazel gave a rumbling sound — half laughter, half disgust. “I think not,” he said. “If you have been dabbling in bending the will of Heaven, even my freedom is not worth gambling for by allying my fate with yours.” He glanced around the room. “You are all madmen. Good luck, human children. You will need it.”