Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices 3)

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.

MAY GOD HAVE MERCY ON OUR SOULS.

The worm lunged--and Will dived forward into a roll, narrowly missing its snapping jaws. He came up into a crouch, then to his feet, and raced along the length of the creature until he reached its thrashing tail. He whirled around and saw the demon looming like a cobra over Gideon and Gabriel--though, to his surprise, it seemed to have frozen, hissing but not attacking. Did it recognize its children? Feel anything for them? It was impossible to tell.

Cecily was halfway up the yew tree, clinging to a branch. Hoping that she would see sense and stay there, Will spun toward Jem and held up a hand so his parabatai could see him. They had long ago worked out a series of gestures they used to communicate what they needed in the midst of battle, in case they could not hear each other's voices. Jem's eyes lit with understanding, and he tossed his cane toward Will. In a perfect throw it sailed end over end till Will caught it in one hand and clicked the handle. The blade shot out, and Will brought it down swift and hard, cleaving straight through the creature's thick skin. The worm jerked back and howled as Will struck again, parting its tail from its body. Benedict thrashed at both ends, and ichor gushed forth in a sticky blast, coating Will. He ducked away with a shout, his skin burning.

"Will!" Jem darted toward him. Gideon and Gabriel were slashing at the worm's head, doing their best to keep its attention focused on them. As Will wiped burning ichor from his eyes with his free hand, Cecily dropped from the yew tree and landed squarely on the worm's back.

Will dropped the sword-cane in shock. He had never done that before, never dropped a weapon in the middle of a battle, but there was his little sister, clinging with grim determination to the back of a massive demon worm, like a tiny flea clinging to the fur of a dog. As he stared in horror, Cecily yanked a dagger from her belt and drove it viciously into the demon's flesh.

What does she think she's doing? As if that tiny dagger could kill a thing that size! "Will, Will," Jem was saying in his ear, his voice urgent, and Will realized he had spoken aloud, and, name of the Angel, the worm's head was swinging around toward Cecily, its mouth open and vast and lined with teeth--

Cecily let go of the dagger's handle and rolled sideways, off the body of the worm. Its jaws missed her by a hairsbreadth and snapped viciously shut on its own body. Black ichor gushed and the worm jerked its head back, a howl like the wail of a banshee erupting from its throat. A massive wound gaped in its side, and gobbets of its own flesh hung from its jaws. As Will stared, Gabriel raised his bow and let an arrow fly.

It sang home to its target and buried itself in one of the worm's lidless black eyes. The creature reared back--and then its head sagged forward and it crumpled in on itself, folding up, disappearing as demons did when the life left them.

Gabriel's bow fell to the ground with a clatter that Will barely heard. The trampled ground was soaked with blood from the worm's savaged body. In the midst of it all, Cecy was rising slowly to her feet, wincing, her right wrist twisted at an odd angle.

Will did not even feel himself begin to run toward her--he realized it only when he was brought up short by Jem's restraining hand. He turned on his parabatai wildly. "My sister--"

"Your face," replied Jem, with remarkable calm, considering the situation. "You are covered in demon blood, William, and it is burning you. I must give you an iratze before the damage cannot be undone."

"Let me go," Will insisted, and tried to pull away, but Jem's cool hand was cupping the back of his neck, and then there was the burn of a stele on his wrist, and the pain he had not even known he was feeling began to ebb. Jem let go of him with a small hiss of pain of his own; he had gotten some of the ichor on his fingers. Will paused, irresolute--but Jem waved him away, already applying his own stele to his hand.

It was only a

moment's delay, but by the time Will reached his sister's side, Gabriel had gotten there first. Gabriel had his hand under her chin, his green eyes flicking over her face. She was looking up at him with astonishment, when Will arrived and caught her by the shoulder.

"Get away from my sister," he barked, and Gabriel stepped back, his mouth thinning into a hard line. Gideon was hard on his heels, and they swarmed around Cecily as Will held her fast with one hand, drawing his stele with the other. She looked at him with flashing blue eyes as he carved a black iratze against one side of her throat, and a mendelin on the other. Her black hair had escaped from its braid, and she looked like the wild girl he remembered, fierce and unafraid of anything.

"Are you hurt, cariad?" The word slipped out before he could stop it--a childhood endearment he had almost forgotten.

"Cariad?" she echoed, her eyes flashing disbelief. "I am quite unhurt."

"Not quite," Will said, indicating her injured wrist and gashes on her face and hands, which had begun to close up as the iratze did its work. Anger swirled up inside him, so much that he did not hear Jem, behind him, begin to cough--usually a sound that would have lit him to action like a spark thrown into dry tinder. "Cecily, what could you possibly have been--"

"That was one of the bravest things I've seen a Shadowhunter do," interrupted Gabriel. He was not looking at Will but at Cecily, with a mixture of surprise and something else in his expression. There was mud and blood in his hair, as there was on all of them, but his green eyes were very bright.

Cecily flushed. "I was only--"

She broke off, her eyes widening as she looked past Will. Jem coughed again, and this time Will heard it; he turned just in time to see his parabatai slump to his knees on the ground.

3

TO THE LAST HOUR

Not, I'll not, carrion comfort, Despair, not feast on thee;

Not untwist--slack they may be--these last strands of man

In me or, most weary, cry I can no more. I can;

Can something, hope, wish day come, not choose not to be.

--Gerard Manley Hopkins, "Carrion Comfort"