Son of the Dawn (Ghosts of the Shadow Market 1)

New York City, 2000

Every world contains other worlds within it. People wander through all the worlds they can find, searching for their homes.

Some humans thought their world was the only world there was. Little did they know of other worlds as close to their own as a room, or the demons trying to find a door through to them, and the Shadowhunters who barred those doors. Still less did they know of the Downworld, the community of magical creatures who shared their world and carved out their own little space therein.

Every community needs a heart. There had to be a common area where everyone could gather, to trade for goods and secrets, to find love and riches. There were Shadow Markets, where Downworlders and those with the Sight met, all over the world. Usually they were held outside.

Even magic was a little different in New York.

The abandoned theater on Canal Street had stood since the 1920s, silent witness to but not part of the blaze of activity that was the city. Humans who did not have the Sight passed by its terracotta facade in a hurry about their own affairs. If they spared the theater a look, they thought it as dark and still as ever.

They could not see the haze of faerie light that turned the gutted amphitheater and bare concrete halls to gold. Brother Zachariah could.

He walked, a creature of silence and darkness, through halls with sunshine yellow tiles, panels of gold and red blazing on the ceiling above him. There were busts grimy with age set in alcoves along the walls, but for tonight faeries had coaxed flowers and ivy to twine around them. Werewolves had set little twinkling charms depicting the moon and stars in the boarded windows, lending brightness to the decayed red curtains still hanging in the arched frames. There were lamps with casements that reminded Brother Zachariah of a time long ago, when he and all the world had been different. In one vast echoing theater room there hung a chandelier that had not worked in years, but tonight warlock magic had encompassed each bulb with a different-colored flame. Like burning jewels, amethyst and ruby, sapphire and opal, their light created a private world that seemed both new and old, and restored the theater to all its former glory. Some worlds only lasted one night.

If the Market had the power to lend him warmth and illumination for only a night, Brother Zachariah would have taken it.

A persistent faerie woman had tried to sell him a love charm four times. Zachariah wished such a charm would work on him. Creatures as inhuman as he did not sleep, but sometimes he lay down and rested, hoping for something like peace. It never came. He spent his long nights feeling love slip through his fingers, more a memory by now than a feeling.

Brother Zachariah did not belong to the Downworld. He was a Shadowhunter, and not only a Shadowhunter but one of the cloaked and hooded brotherhood dedicated to arcane secrets and the dead, sworn and runed to silence and withdrawal from any world. Even his own kind often feared the Silent Brothers, and Downworlders usually avoided any Shadowhunter, but the Downworlders were used to the presence of this particular Shadowhunter at Markets now. Brother Zachariah had been coming to Shadow Markets for a hundred years, on a long quest that even he had begun to believe would be fruitless. Yet he continued searching. Brother Zachariah had little enough, but one thing he did have was time, and he had always tried to be patient.

Tonight, though, he had already been disappointed. The warlock Ragnor Fell had no word for him. None of his few other contacts, painstakingly gathered over the decades, had attended this Market. He was lingering not because he was enjoying this Shadow Market, but because he remembered enjoying Markets once.

They had felt like an escape, but Brother Zachariah hardly remembered the wish to escape from the City of Bones, where he belonged. Always in the back of his mind, cold as a tide waiting to wash all other things away, were the voices of his brothers.

They were urging him home.

Brother Zachariah turned under the glitter of diamond-paned windows. He was leaving the Market, making his way through the laughing, bargaining crowd, when he heard a woman's voice saying his name.

"Tell me again why we want this Brother Za

chariah. The normal Nephilim are bad enough. Angel in the veins, stick up the butts, and I bet with Silent Brothers it's a whole staff. We definitely can't take him out for karaoke."

The woman was speaking in English, but a boy's voice replied to her in Spanish: "Quiet. I see him."

It was a pair of vampires, and as he turned, the boy lifted a hand to attract Zachariah's attention. The vampire with his hand up looked fifteen years old at most, and the other like a young woman about nineteen, but that told Zachariah nothing. Zachariah still looked young too.

It was unusual for a strange Downworlder to want his attention.

"Brother Zachariah?" asked the boy. "I came here to meet you."

The woman whistled. "Now I see why we might want him. Helloooo, Brother Mackariah."

Did you? Brother Zachariah asked the boy. He felt what would once have been surprise, and now was at least intrigue. Can I be of any use to you?

"I certainly hope so," said the vampire. "I am Raphael Santiago, second in command of the New York clan, and I dislike useless people."

The woman waved her hand. "I'm Lily Chen. He's always this way."

Brother Zachariah studied the pair with new interest. The woman had hair streaked neon yellow and wore a scarlet qipao that suited her, and despite her own remark she was smiling at her companion's words. The boy's hair was curly, his face sweet, and his air disdainful. There was a burn scar at the base of his throat, where a cross might lie.

I believe we have a mutual friend, said Brother Zachariah.

"I don't think so," said Raphael Santiago. "I don't have friends."

"Oh, thank you very much," said the woman at his side.

"You, Lily," said Raphael coldly, "are my subordinate." He turned back to Brother Zachariah. "I assume you refer to the warlock Magnus Bane. He is a colleague who always has more dealings with Shadowhunters than I approve of."

Zachariah wondered if Lily spoke Mandarin. The Silent Brothers, speaking mind to mind, had no need for language, but sometimes Zachariah missed his. There had been nights--in the Silent City it was always night--when he could not remember his own name, but he could remember the sound of his mother or his father or his betrothed speaking Mandarin. His betrothed had learned some of the language for him, in the time when he had thought he would live to marry her. He would not have minded talking with Lily longer, but he did not particularly like her companion's attitude.

Since you do not appear to care for Shadowhunters, and you have little interest in our mutual connection, Brother Zachariah observed, why approach me?

"I wished to talk to a Shadowhunter," said Raphael.

Why not go to your Institute?

Raphael's lips curled back from his fangs in a sneer. Nobody sneered like a vampire, and this vampire was particularly adept. "My Institute, as you call it, belongs to people who are ... how do I put this tactfully ... bigots and murderers."

A faerie selling ribbons with glamour twined in them passed by, trailing blue and purple banners.

The way you put that was not particularly tactful, Brother Zachariah felt bound to point out.

"No," said Raphael thoughtfully. "I am not gifted in that arena. New York has always been a place of heightened Downworlder activity. The lights of this city work on people as if we are all werewolves howling for an electric moon. A warlock tried to destroy the world here once, before my time. The leader of my clan made a disastrous experiment with drugs here, against my advice, and made the city her slaughter ground. The werewolves' fatal struggles for leadership are far more frequent in New York than anywhere else. The Whitelaws of the New York Institute understood us, and we them. The Whitelaws died defending Downworlders from the people who now occupy their Institute. Of course the Clave did not consult us when they made us the punishment of the Lightwoods. We do not have any dealings with the New York Institute now."

Raphael's voice was uncompromising, and Brother Zachariah thought he should be concerned. He had fought in the Uprising when a band of renegade youths rose up against their own leaders, and against peace with the Downworld. He had been told the story of Valentine's Circle hunting werewolves in New York City, and the Whitelaws getting in their way, resulting in a tragedy that even that group of angry Downworlder-hating youths had not intended. He had not approved of the Lightwoods and Hodge Starkweather being banished to the New York Institute, but the word was that the Lightwoods had settled down with their three children and were truly remorseful for their past actions.

The pain and power struggles of the world seemed very far away, in the Silent City.

It had not occurred to Zachariah that the Downworlders would resent the Lightwoods so much they might decline their aid even when Shadowhunter help was truly needed. Perhaps it should have.

Downworlders and Shadowhunters have a long, complicated history full of pain, and much of the pain has been the fault of the Nephilim, Brother Zachariah admitted. Yet through the ages, they have found a way to work together. I know that when they followed Valentine Morgenstern, the Lightwoods did terrible things, but if they are truly repentant, could you not forgive them?

"Being a damned soul, I have no moral objection to the Lightwoods," said Raphael in deeply moralistic tones. "I do have strong objections to my head being cut off. Given the least excuse, the Lightwoods would lay waste to my clan."

The only woman Zachariah had ever loved was a warlock. He had seen her weep over the Circle and its effects. Brother Zachariah had no reason to support the Lightwoods, but everyone deserved a second chance if they wanted that chance enough.

And one of Robert Lightwood's ancestors had been a woman called Cecily Herondale.

Say they would not, suggested Brother Zachariah. Would it not be preferable to reestablish relations with the Institute rather than hope to catch a Silent Brother at the Shadow Market?

"Of course it would," said Raphael. "I fully recognize this is not an ideal situation. This is not the first stratagem I have been forced to employ when I required an audience with Shadowhunters. Five years ago I had coffee with a visiting Ashdown."

He and his companion shared a shudder of distaste.

"I absolutely hate the Ashdowns," remarked Lily. "They are so tedious. I believe that if I fed on one of them I would nod off halfway through."

Raphael gave her a warning look.

"Not that I would ever dream of nonconsensually drinking the blood of any Shadowhunter, because it would violate the Accords!" Lily informed Brother Zachariah in a loud voice. "The Accords are deeply important to me."

Raphael shut his eyes, a briefly pained expression crossing his face, but after an instant he opened them and nodded.

"So how about it, Brother Lipsmackariah, will you help us out?" Lily asked brightly.

A cold weight of disapproval made itself known from his silent brethren, like stones being pressed against his mind. Zachariah was allowed a great deal of latitude for a Silent Brother, but his frequent visits to the Shadow Markets and his annual meeting with a lady on Blackfriars Bridge were already testing the limits of what could be allowed.

If he began consorting with Downworlders on issues that could be handled perfectly well by an Institute, Brother Zachariah's privileges were in danger of being suspended.

He could not risk missing that meeting. Anything but that.

The Silent Brothers are forbidden to interfere with the affairs of the outside world. Whatever your problem is, said Brother Zachariah, I strongly urge you to consult with your Institute.

He bowed his head and began to turn away.

"My problem is werewolves smuggling yin fen into New York," Raphael called after him. "Ever heard of yin fen?"

The bells and songs of the Shadow Market seemed to go quiet.

Brother Zachariah turned sharply back to the two vampires. Raphael Santiago stared at him with glittering eyes which left Brother Zachariah in no doubt that Raphael knew a good deal about Zachariah's own history.

"Ah," said the vampire. "I see you

have."

Zachariah usually tried to preserve memories of his mortal life, but now he had to make an effort to banish the intruding horror of waking up as a child with all he loved dead, and silver fire burning in his veins.

Where did you hear about the yin fen?

"I don't intend to tell you," said Raphael. "Nor do I intend to let that stuff be freely available in my city. A large quantity of yin fen is on its way to the city, on board a ship carrying cargo from Shanghai, Ho Chi Minh, Vienna, and Idris itself. The ship unloads at the New York Passenger Ship Terminal. Will you help me or not?"

Raphael had already mentioned the leader of his clan performing disastrous experiments with drugs. Zachariah's guess was that many potential customers among the Downworld were talking about the shipment of yin fen at the Market. The fact a Downworlder with conservative views had heard about it was sheer luck.

I will help you, said Brother Zachariah. But we must consult with the New York Institute. If you wish I can go with you to the Institute and explain matters. The Lightwoods will appreciate the information, and you offering it. This is an opportunity to improve relations between the Institute and all the Downworlders in New York.

Raphael did not look convinced, but after a moment he nodded.

"You will go with me?" he asked. "You will not fail? They would not listen to a vampire, but I suppose it is possible they will listen to a Silent Brother."

I will do whatever I can, said Brother Zachariah.

Cunning crept into Raphael's voice. "And if they don't help me. If they or even the Clave refuse to believe me, then what will you do?"

Then I will still help you, said Brother Zachariah, ignoring the chill howl of his brethren in his mind and thinking of Tessa's clear eyes.

He dreaded missing a meeting with Tessa, but when he did meet her, he wanted to face her with no stain upon him. He could not let any child suffer what he had suffered, not if he could prevent it.

Zachariah was not able to feel all he had felt when he was mortal, but Tessa could still feel. He could not let her be disappointed in him. She was the last star he had to steer by.

"I'll come to the Institute with you," Lily volunteered.

"You will do no such thing," snapped Raphael. "It is not safe. Remember, the Circle attacked Magnus Bane."

The ice in Raphael's voice could have laid the whole of New York City under frost for a week in midsummer. He eyed Brother Zachariah with disfavor.