Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices 1)

Emma, not wanting to acknowledge that he had a point, shoved him harder against the wall. "Do you know who I am now?"

The corner of his mouth quirked up. "Oh, indeed, Emma Carstairs."

"So you know I could rip all your internal organs out at once, thread some string through them, and turn them into Christmas tree decorations without batting an eyelash?"

His eyes flashed. "You could try."

"Stop it, both of you," said Cristina. "We don't have time for this. We have to find Sterling."

"She's right," said Diego. "Now either let go of me or kill me, because we are wasting time. I know where Sterling will be. He has a meeting with a witch from the Shadow Market. We must get there soon--he is fast, as half wolves are."

"Is the witch going to kill him?" Emma let go of Diego, who went to gather up his crossbow. Cristina's butterfly knife had stuck point-down into the side of it. Diego snorted and pulled it free. He handed it to her. She took it silently.

Diego whirled around and began striding down the alley. "If that is a joke, it's not funny."

"It's not a joke," said Cristina. "We have been trying to protect him."

"What?" Diego turned the corner into a blind alley, where a chain-link fence closed them off from the street beyond. He climbed it expertly, dropping lightly to the ground on the other side. Emma scrambled up after, and Cristina next. Diego appeared to be fiddling with his weapons belt, but Emma could tell he was watching Cristina out of the corner of his eye, making sure she landed safely. "Why would you protect a murderer?"

"He's not a murderer," Cristina said. "He is a victim. And he's very unpleasant, but this is our job."

They had turned onto a dead-end street lined with houses. Crabgrass and cactus grew on overgrown lawns. Diego moved with purpose toward the end of the street.

"Didn't you understand?" Diego shook his head, his dark hair flying. "Why everyone must stay away from him? I can't believe this. I can't believe--everything you've done--you saw him get the number? At the Lottery? You saw him chosen?"

"Yes," said Emma, a cold feeling beginning to spread through her veins. "Yes, that's how we knew we needed to protect him--"

A sudden, blinding flare of light shot like fireworks from the far end of the street. A swirl of green-and-blue fire, edged with red. Cristina's eyes were wide, the flaring sparks touching her hair with scarlet.

Diego swore and took off running. After a split second, Emma and Cristina followed.

Emma had never met a Shadowhunter she couldn't keep up with, but Diego was fast. Really fast. She was breathing hard by the time they skidded to a stop at the end of the street.

The cul-de-sac ended in a row of abandoned houses. Sterling's car had slammed into a dead streetlamp, the hood crumpled, the driver's side door hanging open. One of the air bags had exploded, but Sterling was unharmed.

He was in the middle of the road, struggling with someone--the girl with green hair Emma had seen earlier, on the street in front of the bar. She was pulling to get away from him; he had a hand fisted in the back of her coat, and the look on his face was half-maniacal.

"Let her go!" Diego shouted. The three of them began to run, Emma reaching for Cortana. Sterling, seeing them, began to drag the girl around to the other side of his car. Emma, hurtling toward the Jeep, leaped onto the hood, scrambled over the roof, and dropped down on the other side.

To be met with a sheet of blue-green fire. Sterling was standing behind it, still clasping the green-haired girl. Her eyes met Emma's. She had a slight, elfin face--a recollection of seeing her at the Midnight Theater touched the edge of Emma's memory.

Emma leaped forward. The blue-green fire blasted upward, knocking her back several steps. Sterling raised his hand. Something glittered in his grasp--a knife.

"Stop him!" Diego shouted. He and Cristina had appeared on the other side of the wall of blue fire. Emma pushed forward--though it was like walking against a typhoon--just as Sterling brought the knife down, plunging it into the girl's chest.

Cristina screamed.

No, Emma thought, shocked through with horror. No, no, no. It was a Shadowhunter's job to save people, to protect them. Sterling couldn't harm the girl, he couldn't--

For a moment she saw a darkness within the fire--caught a glimpse of the inside of the convergence cave, carved all over with poetry and symbols--and then hands reached from the darkness and snatched the girl from Sterling's grip. Emma glimpsed them only briefly, amid the flame and confusion, but they seemed to be long white hands--oddly crooked, as if they had been stripped to bones--

Choking on blood, limp and dying, the girl was dragged into the darkness. Sterling turned and grinned at Emma. His shirt was marked with bloody handprints, and the blade of his knife was scarlet.

"You're too late!" he shouted. "Too late, Nephilim! She was the thirteenth--the last!"

Diego cursed and threw himself forward, but the wall of fire flared up, and he staggered back, knocked to his knees. Gritting his teeth, he rose again to his feet and advanced.

Sterling had stopped grinning. Fear flashed in his sallow eyes. He flung out an arm, and the skeletal hand reached from the fire to clasp his and drag him after the girl.

"No!" Emma sprang and rolled under the wave of fire, as if she were ducking under a wave at the beach. She caught at Sterling's leg, digging her hands into his calf.

"Let me go!" he yelled. "Let me go, let me go. Guardian, take me, take me away from here--"

The skeletal hand pulled at Sterling's. Emma felt herself losing her grip. She looked up, her eyes stinging and burning, just in time to see Cristina fling her butterfly knife. It struck the clawlike hand; the bones cracked and the hand withdrew hastily, releasing Sterling, who fell heavily to the ground.

"No!" Sterling rose to his knees, his arms held out, as the fire faded and disappeared. "Please! Take me with you--"

The three Shadowhunters descended on him, Diego grabbing hold of Sterling unceremoniously and hauling him to his feet. Sterling laughed painfully. "You couldn't stop me," he said. "You stupid girls, following me around, protecting me--"

Diego shoved him, hard, but Emma was shaking her head. "When you were picked in the Lottery," she said to Sterling through a dry throat, asking the question though she already knew the answer, "you weren't being picked to be killed. You were being picked to do the killing?"

"Oh, Raziel," Cristina whispered. Her hand was at her throat, clutching her pendant; she looked at a loss.

Sterling spat on the ground. "That's right," he said. "You get your number picked, you kill or be killed. Just like you, Wren didn't know how it worked. She agreed to meet me here. Stupid bitch." His eyes were half-wild. "I killed her, and the Guardian took her, and now I'll live forever. As soon as the Guardian finds me again. I'll get riches, immortality, anything I want."

"You killed for that?" Cristina demanded. "You made yourself a murderer?"

"I was a murderer from the second they picked my name in the Lottery," said Sterling. "I had no choice."

The sound of police sirens started up in the distance.

"We need to get out of here," said Cristina, glancing toward Sterling's wrecked car, the blood on the street. Emma raised Cortana, and was rewarded with a look of quivering fear on Sterling's face.

"No," he whimpered. "Don't--"

"We can't kill him," Diego protested. "We need him. I've never cau

ght one of them alive before. We must question him."

"Relax, Perfect Diego," Emma said, and slammed the handle of Cortana into Sterling's temple. He dropped like a rock, out cold.

Carrying Sterling back to the car was awkward, since he wasn't glamoured; they slung one of his arms over Diego's shoulder, and he did his best to look as if he was helping a drunk friend home. Once they reached the Toyota, they tied Sterling's wrists and ankles with electrum wire before bundling him into the back of the car, his head lolling, his body limp.

They'd discussed whether to race straight to the convergence, but decided to head to the Institute first to pick up more weapons and consult with the others. Emma especially was eager to talk to Julian--she'd called several times, but he hadn't picked up. She told herself he was probably busy with the kids, but faint worry rankled at the back of her mind as she slid into the driver's seat, Cristina beside her. Perfect Diego clambered in beside Sterling, his dagger out, pressed to Sterling's throat.

Emma took off with a vicious screech of tires. She was filled with rage, at least half of it directed at herself. How could she not have figured out that Sterling wasn't a victim, but a killer? How could they all not have known?

"It's not your fault," Perfect Diego said from the back of the car, as if he'd read her mind. "It made sense to assume that the Lottery was choosing victims, not killers."

"And Johnny Rook lied to us," Emma snarled. "Or at least--he let us believe it. That we were protecting someone."

"We were protecting a killer," said Cristina. She looked miserable, her hand clamped around her pendant.

"Don't blame yourself," said Perfect Diego, being perfect. "You've been investigating with no information. No help from the Silent Brothers or--anyone else."

Cristina looked over her shoulder at him and glared. "How do you know all this?"

"What makes you think we've been investigating?" Emma demanded. "Just because you saw me and Julian at Wells's place?"

"That was my first clue," Perfect Diego said. "After that I asked around. Talked to a guy at the Shadow Market--"

"Johnny Rook again," Emma said in disgust. "Is there anyone that guy won't blab to?"

"He told me everything," Perfect Diego said. "That you were looking into the murders without the Clave knowing. That it was a secret. I was scared for you, Cristina."