"Emma!" Cristina gasped. "Emma, stop!"
Emma saw the familiar shape of the Institute, the drive ahead of them, the canyon and hills rising behind. There were shadows everywhere, a ring of them around the Institute, but only when the car crested the last rise and the headlights swept the building did Emma feel the shock of what she was seeing.
The Institute was surrounded.
Figures--dark, human-shaped--contained the Institute in a loose square. They stood shoulder to shoulder, absolutely silent and unmoving, like old drawings Emma had seen of Greek warriors.
Sterling yelled something incomprehensible. Emma slammed on the brakes as the headlights skittered across the trampled brush in front of the building. The figures were illuminated, lit up like daylight. Some were familiar. She recognized the curly-haired boy from the band at the Midnight Theater, his face set in a stony snarl. Beside him was a woman--dark hair, red lips--who raised a hand with a gun in it--
"Belinda!" Sterling sounded stupidly terrified. "She--"
Belinda's hand rocked back with the ricochet of the gun. An explosion of noise seared Emma's ears as the right front tire of the car exploded, torn in two by a bullet. The car slewed violently to the side and skidded into a ditch.
Darkness and the sound of shattering glass. The steering wheel slammed into Emma's chest, knocking the breath out of her; the headlights went out. She heard Cristina scream, and scrambling noises from the backseat. She wrenched at her seat belt, ripping it free, turning to reach for Cristina.
She was gone. The backseat was also empty. Emma bashed the door open and half-fell out onto the packed dirt. She struggled to her feet and whirled around.
The car was mashed nose down into a ditch, smoke rising from the burst tire. Diego was coming around from the passenger-side door, boots crunching on the dry earth. He was carrying Cristina, his left arm slung under her knees; one of her legs hung at an odd angle. She had a hand on his shoulder, her fingers bunched in the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
He looked very heroic in the moonlight. A bit like Superman. Perfect Diego. Emma kind of wanted to throw something at him but she was afraid of hitting Cristina. He jerked his manly chin toward the Institute. "Emma!"
Emma whirled. The figures surrounding the Institute had turned--they were facing toward her now, toward her and Diego and the wreckage of the car.
In the moonlight they looked eerie. Stark figures in black and gray, a blur of faces. Weres, half faeries, vampire darklings, and ifrits: the Followers.
"Emma!" Perfect Diego called again. He had his stele out and was inking a healing rune on Cristina's arm. "Sterling's on the move--he has your sword--"
Emma whirled as Sterling shot past her, moving with inhuman speed. He'd freed his wrists and ankles, but blood stained the hems of his trousers. "Belinda!" he shouted. "I'm here! Help me!" He held something up as he ran, something that glowed gold in the darkness.
Cortana.
Rage exploded inside Emma's chest. It shot through her veins like lit gunpowder and then she was running, slamming across the grass and dirt after Sterling. She leaped over rocks, shot past blurred figures. Sterling was fast, but she was just that much faster. She caught up to him nearly at the Institute steps. He had almost reached Belinda.
She crashed into him, grabbed his jacket, and swung him around. His face was dirty, blood-streaked, pale with terror. She seized the wrist that held Cortana. Her sword. Her father's sword. Her only connection to a family that seemed to have dissolved away into the past like powder in rain.
She heard a crack. Sterling shrieked and fell to his knees, Cortana dropping to the ground. She reached down to seize it up; by the time she straightened she was surrounded by a small group of Followers, led by Belinda.
"What have you told her, Sterling?" Belinda demanded, showing small white teeth behind her red lips.
"N-nothing." Sterling was clutching his wrist. It looked badly broken. "I took the sword to give to you--proof of good faith--"
"What would I want with a sword? Idiot." She turned to Emma. "We're here for him," she said, pointing at Sterling. "Let us take him and we'll go." She grinned at Emma. "If you're wondering how we knew to come here, the Guardian has eyes everywhere."
"Emma!" It was Cristina's voice; Emma whirled and saw Cristina on the outside of the circle, Perfect Diego beside her. To Emma's relief, Cristina was only limping a little bit.
"Let them in," Belinda said, and the crowd parted so that Perfect Diego and Cristina took their places on either side of Emma. The circle closed back up around them.
"What's going on?" Perfect Diego demanded. His gaze lit on Belinda. "Are you the Guardian?"
She burst out laughing. After a moment several of the other Followers, including the curly-haired boy, started to laugh alongside her. "Me? What a hoot you are, handsome." She winked at Perfect Diego as if acknowledging his perfectness. "I'm not the Guardian, but I know what the Guardian wants. I know what's necessary. Right now the Guardian needs Sterling. The Followers need him."
Sterling whimpered, his cry lost among the laughter of the crowd. Emma was looking around, gauging the distance to the front doors of the Institute; if they could get inside, the Followers couldn't come after them. But then they'd be trapped--and they couldn't call the Conclave for help.
Sterling curled a hand around Perfect Diego's ankle. Apparently he had decided Perfect Diego was his best bet for mercy in the circumstances. "Don't let them take me," he begged. "They'll kill me. I screwed up. They'll kill me."
"We can't let you have him," said Perfect Diego. Emma was mostly sure she was imagining the regret in his voice. "Our mandate is to protect mundanes unless they are posing a danger to our lives."
"I don't know," Emma said, thinking of the green-haired girl bleeding out her life. "This one seems killable."
Belinda gave them a red-lipped smile. "He's not a mundane. None of us are."
"Our mandate is to protect, either way," Perfect Diego said. Emma exchanged a glance with Cristina, but could tell Cristina agreed with Perfect Diego. Mercy was a quality the Angel expected Shadowhunters to have. Mercy was the Law. Sometimes Emma worried her capacity for mercy had been burned away in the Dark War.
"We need him for information," Cristina said quietly, but Belinda heard it, and her lips tightened.
"We need him more," she said. "Now hand him over and we'll go. There's three of you and three hundred of us. Think about it."
Emma threw Cortana.
It whipped out of her hand so quickly that Belinda had no chance to react; it spun around the circle of Followers like a needle around a compass, flickering and golden. She heard shouts, cries, half-pain and half-astonishment, and then the sword was back in her hand, thunking solidly into her palm.
Belinda looked around in genuine astonishment. The tip of Cortana had just grazed the shirtfronts of the circle of Followers; some were bleeding, some just had rips in their clothes. All were clutching at themselves, looking stunned and frightened.
Cristina seemed delighted. Perfect Diego just seemed thoughtful.
"Outnumbered isn't necessarily overmatched," said Emma.
"Kill her," Belinda said, raised her gun, and pulled the trigger.
Emma barely had time to brace herself before something flew across her field of vision--something bright and silver--and she heard a loud crack. A dagger dropped to the ground at her feet, a bullet lodged in the handle.
Perfect Diego was looking at her, his hand still open. He'd thrown the dagger, averted the bullet. Maybe not saved her life--gear repelled bullets--but definitely prevented her from being knocked to the ground, maybe killed with a second shot to the head.
She didn't have time to mouth a thanks. The other Followers lunged toward her, and this time the cold of battle shot through her veins. The world slowed down around her. The half-fey boy wi
th the curly hair launched himself into the air, hurtling toward her. Emma speared him before he could hit the ground, her blade shearing through his chest. Blood sprayed around her as she jerked the sword back, a slow, hot rain of red droplets.
The curly-haired boy crumpled to the ground. There was blood on Cortana's blade as Emma swung it again, and again, and the sword became a golden blur around her. She could hear screams. Sterling was cowering on the ground, his arms over his head.
She cut at legs and arms; she chopped guns out of hands. Diego and Cristina were doing the same, slicing out with their weapons. Cristina flung her butterfly knife; it slammed into Belinda's shoulder, knocking her backward. She swore and pulled the knife free, tossing it aside. Though there was a hole torn in her white sweater, there was no blood.
Emma backed up until she was standing in front of Sterling. "Get to the Institute!" she shouted at Cristina. "Get the others!"
Cristina nodded and darted toward the steps. She was halfway there when a gray-skinned, red-eyed darkling lunged toward her, sinking its teeth into her already injured leg.
Cristina screamed. Emma and Diego both turned as Cristina stabbed down with a dagger and the darkling fell away, choking on blood. There was a rip in the leg of Cristina's gear.
Diego tore across the grass toward her. The moment had cost Emma her concentration; she saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye and found Belinda hurtling toward her, her left hand outstretched. It fastened around Emma's throat.
She choked, grasping at Belinda's other arm. She yanked hard, and as Belinda staggered away from her, her glove slipped off.
Her right arm ended in a bare stump. Belinda's face contorted, and Emma heard Cristina exclaim. She had her dagger out, though the leg of her gear was soaked with blood. Diego stood beside her, a massive shadow against the shape of the Institute.
"Your hand's missing," Emma gasped, raising Cortana between her and Belinda. "Just like Ava's--"
The Institute doors slammed open. Light so bright it was blinding blazed up and Emma froze, bloody sword in hand. She looked up to see Julian in the doorway.
He stood with a seraph blade raised over his head and it burned with light like a star. It bleached the sky, the moon. The Followers actually fell back from it, as if it were the light of a crashing aircraft.
In that still moment, Emma looked directly at Jules and saw him look back at her. A fierce pride rose inside her. This was her Julian. A gentle boy with a gentle soul, but every soul contains its own opposite, and the opposite of gentleness was ruthlessness--the beautiful wreckage of mercy.