Mortal Instruments 4 - City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

Author:Cassandra Clare [Clare, Cassandra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781406335385
Publisher: Walker Books Ltd
Published: 2011-04-05T05:00:00+00:00

11

OUR KIND

The demon lunged for Clary, and she stopped screaming abruptly and flung herself backward, over the altar—a perfect flip, and for one bizarre moment she wished Jace had been there to see it. She hit the ground in a crouch, just as something struck the altar hard, making the stone vibrate.

A howl sounded through the church. Clary scrambled to her knees and peered over the edge of the altar. The demon wasn’t as big as she’d first thought, but it wasn’t small, either—about the size of a refrigerator, with three heads on swaying stalks. The heads were blind, with enormous gaping jaws from which ropes of greenish drool hung. The demon seemed to have smacked its leftmost head on the altar when it grabbed for her, because it was shaking the head back and forth as if trying to clear it.

Clary glanced up wildly, but the tracksuited figures were still where they had been before. None of them had moved. They seemed to be watching what was going on with a detached interest. She spun and looked behind her, but there appeared to be no exits from the church besides the door she’d come through, and the demon was currently blocking her path back to it. Realizing she was wasting precious seconds, she scrambled to her feet and grabbed for the athame. She yanked it off the altar and ducked back down just as the demon came for her again. She rolled to the side as a head, swaying on a thick stalk of neck, darted over the altar, its thick black tongue flicking out, searching for her. With a scream she jammed the athame into the creature’s neck once, then jerked it free, scrambling backward and out of the way.

The thing screamed, its head rearing back, black blood spraying from the wound she’d made. But it wasn’t a killing blow. Even as Clary watched, the wound began to heal slowly, the demon’s blackish green flesh knitting together like fabric being sewed up. Her heart sank. Of course. The whole reason Shadowhunters used runed weapons was that the runes prevented demons from healing.

She reached for the stele in her belt with her left hand, and yanked it free just as the demon came for her again. She leaped to the side and threw herself painfully down the stairs, rolling until she fetched up against the first row of pews. The demon turned, lumbering a bit as it moved, and made for her again. Realizing she was still clutching both the stele and the dagger—in fact, the dagger had cut her as she had rolled, and blood was quickly staining the front of her jacket—she transferred the dagger to her left hand, the stele to her right, and with a desperate swiftness, cut an enkeli rune into the athame’s hilt.

The other symbols on the hilt began to melt and run as the rune of angelic power took hold. Clary looked up; the demon was almost on her, its three heads reaching, their mouths gaping.

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