Clockwork Princess (22 page)

Silent Brothers, Tessa saw with a frozen shock, bled as red as any mortal man did.

She heard Charlotte shout out orders, and then Henry was tearing down the stairs, racing for the first carriage. He yanked the door open, and Jessamine tumbled out into his arms. Her body was limp, her eyes half-closed. She wore the ragged white dress Tessa had seen her in when she had visited her in the Silent City, and her lovely blond hair was shorn close to her skull like a fever patient’s. “Henry,” she sobbed audibly, clutching at his lapels. “Help me, Henry. Get me inside the Institute,
please—
”

Henry rose, turning, with Jessamine in his arms, just as the doors of the second carriage burst open and automatons poured out, joining the first one. They seemed to be unfolding themselves as they stepped out, like children’s paper toys—one, two, three, and then Tessa lost count as the Shadowhunters around her seized weapons from their belts. She saw the flash of the metal that shot from the tip of Jem’s sword-cane, heard the murmur of Latin as seraph blades blazed up around her like a circle of holy fire.

And the automatons charged. One of them raced toward Henry and Jessamine, while the others darted for the steps. She heard Jem call her name, and realized she had no weapon. She had not planned to train today. She looked around wildly, for anything, for a heavy rock, or even a stick. Inside the entryway there were weapons hung on the walls—as adornment, but a weapon was a weapon. She dashed inside and seized a sword from its peg on the wall before spinning about and racing back outside.

The scene that met her eyes was chaos. Jessamine was on the ground, crouched against a wheel of her carriage, her arms up over her face. Henry stood before her, a seraph blade slashing back and forth in his hands as he fended off the automaton trying to get by him, its spiked hands reaching for Jessamine. The rest of the clockwork creatures had spread out across the steps and were locked in combat with individual Shadowhunters.

As Tessa lifted the sword in her hands, her eyes darted about the courtyard. These automatons were different from those she had seen before. They moved more swiftly, with less jerking to their steps, their copper joints folding and unfolding smoothly.

On the lowest step both Gideon and Gabriel were battling furiously with a ten-foot mechanical monster, its spiked hands swinging down at them like maces. Gabriel already had a wide slash across his shoulder that was pouring blood, but he and his brother were harrying the creature, one from the front, one from the back. Jem rose from a crouch to drive his sword-cane through the head of another automaton. Its arms spasmed and it tried to jerk back, but the sword was buried in its metal skull. Jem tugged his blade free, and when the automaton came at him again, he sliced at its legs, taking one out from under the creature. It lurched to the side, toppling to the cobblestones.

Closer to Tessa, Charlotte’s whip flashed through the air like lightning, slicing the crossbow arm from the first automaton. It did not even slow the creature down. As it reached for her with its second, spatulate and taloned arm, Tessa darted between them and swung her sword the way Gideon had taught her to, using her whole body to drive the force and striking from above to add the power of gravity to her strike.

The blade fell, shearing away the creature’s second arm. This time blackish fluid jetted from the wound. The automaton kept its course, bending to butt at Charlotte with the crown of its head, from which a short, sharp blade protruded. She cried out as it struck her upper arm. Then she flashed forth with her whip, the silver-gold electrum winding about the creature’s throat and pulling tight. Charlotte yanked her wrist back, and the head, sheared away, fell to the side; finally the creature toppled, dark fluid pulsing sluggishly from the gashes in its metal chassis.

Tessa gasped and tossed her head back; sweat was sticking her hair to her forehead and temples, but she needed both hands for the heavy sword and couldn’t push it away. Through stinging eyes she saw that Gabriel and Gideon had their automaton on the ground and were hacking at it; behind them Henry ducked just in time to miss a swing from the creature that had him cornered against the carriage. Its clublike hand punched through the carriage window, and glass rained down on Jessamine, who screamed and covered her head. Henry drove his seraph blade up, burying it in the automaton’s torso. Tessa was used to seeing seraph blades burn through demons, reducing them to nothing, but the automaton only staggered back and then came on again, the blade buried in its chest burning like a torch.

With a cry Charlotte began to dart down the stairs toward her husband. Tessa glanced around—and did not see Jem. Her heart lurched. She took a step forward—

And a dark figure rose up in front of her, robed all in black. Black gloves covered its hands and black boots its feet. Tessa could see nothing but a snow-white face surrounded by the folds of a black hood, as familiar and horrible as a recurring nightmare.

“Hello, Miss Gray,” said Mrs. Black.

Despite ducking his head into every room he could think of, Will had not been able to find Cyril. He was irritable about it, and his irritable mood had not been helped by his encounter with Tessa on the stairs. After two months of being so careful around her that it had felt like walking a knife’s edge, he had spilled what he was feeling like blood from an open wound, and only Charlotte’s call had prevented his foolishness from turning into disaster.

And still, her response nagged at him as he made his way down the corridor and past the kitchen.
They say you cannot divide your heart, and yet—

And yet what? What had she been about to say?

Bridget’s voice trilled out from the dining room, where she and Sophie were doing the cleaning up.

“‘Oh, Mother, Mother, make my bed
Make it soft and narrow.
My William died for love of me,
And I shall die of sorrow.’

“They buried her in the old churchyard.
Sweet William’s grave was nigh hers
And from his grave grew a red, red rose
And from her grave a briar
.

“They grew and grew up the old church spire
Until they could grow no higher
And there they twined, in a true love knot,
The red, red rose and the briar.”

Will was wondering idly how Sophie refrained from hitting Bridget over the head with a plate, when a shock went through him as if he had been struck in the chest. He stumbled back against the wall with a short gasp, his hand going to his throat. He could feel something beating there, like a second heart against his own. The chain of the pendant Magnus had given him was cold to the touch, and he drew it hastily from his shirt and stared as the pendant that dangled there was revealed—deep red and pulsing with a scarlet light like the center of a flame.

Dimly he was aware that Bridget had stopped singing, and that both girls had crowded into the doorway of the dining room, staring at him in owlish astonishment. He released the pendant, letting it fall against his chest.

“What is it, Master Will?” Sophie said. She had stopped calling him Mr. Herondale since the truth of his curse had come out, though he still wondered sometimes if she liked him very much. “Are you well?”

“It is not I,” he said. “We must go downstairs, quickly. Something has gone terribly wrong.”

“But you’re dead,” Tessa gasped, backing up a step. “I saw you die—”

She broke off with a shriek as long metal arms snaked around from behind her like bands, jerking her off her feet. Her sword clattered to the ground as an automaton’s grip tightened about her, and Mrs. Black smiled her terrible cold smile.

“Now, now, Miss Gray. Aren’t you at least a little glad to see me? After all, I was the first to welcome you to England. Though you’ve made yourself quite at home since, I daresay.”

“Let me go!” Tessa kicked out hard, but the automaton only slammed its head into hers, making her bite down hard on her lip. She choked and spit: saliva and blood spattered Mrs. Black’s still white face. “I’d rather die than go with you—”

The Dark Sister wiped away the fluid with a glove and a scowl of distaste. “Unfortunately, that cannot be arranged. Mortmain wants you alive.” She snapped her fingers at the automaton. “Take her to the carriage.”

The automaton took a step forward, Tessa in its arms—and collapsed forward. Tessa barely had time to throw her arms out to break her fall as they hit the ground, the clockwork creature on top of her. Agony shot through her right wrist, but she pushed against it anyway, a scream ripping free of her throat as she tore herself sideways and slid down several steps, Mrs. Black’s shriek of frustration echoing in her ears.

She looked up dizzily. Mrs. Black was gone. The automaton that had been holding Tessa listed sideways on the steps, part of its metal body sheared away. Tessa caught a quick glimpse of what was inside it as it turned: gears and mechanisms and clear tubes pumping brackish fluid. Jem stood behind and above it, breathing hard, splattered with the automaton’s oily black blood. His face was white and set. He glanced at her quickly, a swift check to assess that she was all right, and sprang down the stairs, slicing again at the automaton, severing one of its legs from its torso. It spasmed like a dying snake, and its remaining arm shot out and seized Jem by the ankle and yanked hard.

Jem’s feet went out from under him, and he clattered to the ground, rolling over and over down the steps, clutched in an awful embrace with the metal monster. The noise as the automaton skidded down, of metal being dragged along stone, was awful. As they hit the ground together, the force of the fall knocked them apart. Tessa stared in horror as Jem staggered dizzily to his feet, his own red blood mixing with the black fluid staining his clothes. His sword-cane was gone—lying on one of the stone steps where he had dropped it as he’d fallen.

“Jem,”
she whispered, and hauled herself to her knees. She tried to crawl forward, but her wrist gave way; she dropped to her elbows and reached for the cane—

Just as arms came around her, jerking her upright, and she heard Mrs. Black’s hissing voice in her ear. “Don’t struggle, Miss Gray, or it’ll go very badly for you, very badly indeed.” Tessa tried to twist away, but something soft came down over her mouth and nose. She smelled a sickly sweet stench, and then blackness came down over her vision and carried her away into unconsciousness.

Seraph blade in hand, Will bolted out of the open door of the Institute and into a scene of chaos.

He looked automatically for Tessa first, but she was nowhere to be seen—thank God. She must have had the sense to hide herself away. A black carriage was drawn up at the foot of the steps. Slumped against one of the wheels, amid a pile of broken glass, was Jessamine. On either side of her were Henry and Charlotte: Henry with his sword and Charlotte with her whip, fending off three long-legged metal automatons with bladed arms and smooth, blank heads. Jem’s sword-cane lay on the steps, which were everywhere slippery with oily black fluid. Near the doors Gabriel and Gideon Lightwood were fighting another two automatons with the practiced competence of two warriors who had trained together for years. Cecily was kneeling by the body of a Silent Brother, his robes stained scarlet with blood.

The Institute gates were open, and through them was pounding a second black carriage, hurtling away from the Institute at top speed. But Will barely spared it a thought, for at the foot of the stairs was Jem. As pale as paper but upright, he was backing away as another automaton advanced on him. It was staggering, almost drunkenly, half its side and an arm sheared away, but Jem was unarmed.

The cold sharpness of battle came over Will, and everything seemed to slow down around him. He was aware that Sophie and Bridget, both armed, had fanned out on either side of him—that Sophie had run to Cecily’s side, and that Bridget, a whirl of red hair and slashing blades, was busy reducing a surprisingly enormous automaton to scrap metal with a ferocity that would in other cases have astonished him. But his world had narrowed, narrowed to the automatons and to Jem, who, looking up, saw him and reached out a hand.

Leaping down four steps and skidding sideways, Will seized up Jem’s sword-cane and threw it. Jem caught it out of the air just as the automaton lunged for him, and Jem carved it cleanly in two. The top half fell away, though the legs and lower torso, now pumping an excess of disgusting black and greenish fluids, continued lurching toward him. Jem whirled to the side and swung his sword again, cutting the thing off at the knees. It fell finally, its disparate bits still twitching.

Jem turned his head and looked up at Will. Their eyes met for a moment, and Will offered a smile—but Jem did not smile back; he was as white as salt, and Will could not read his eyes. Was he injured? He was covered in so much oil and fluid that Will could not tell if he was bleeding. Anxiety spearing through him, Will began to move down the stairs toward Jem—but before he could go more than a few steps, Jem had whirled around and run for the gates. As Will stared, Jem disappeared through them, vanishing into the streets of London beyond.

Will broke into a run—and was brought up short at the foot of the steps when an automaton slid in front of him, moving as quickly and gracefully as water, to block his pathway. Its arms ended in long scissors; Will ducked as one slashed at his face, and Will drove his seraph blade into its chest.

There was the spitting noise of melting metal, but the creature only staggered back a foot and then lunged again. Will ducked under its bladed arms, seizing a dagger from his belt. He whirled back, slashing out with the blade—only to see the automaton suddenly come apart in ribbons before him, great slices of metal peeling back like the skin of an orange. Black fluid boiled up and splashed across his face as the thing went down in crumpled pieces.