Chain of Gold (The Last Hours #1) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,179

its head, sheened with black and gray scales. “You should never have betrayed the oaths your mother swore to those far more powerful than she. Some enchantments are not yours to remove. Do you understand?”

“It had already begun to fade,” Grace gasped. “It was not working—”

She must be talking about the enchantments placed on Jesse, Lucie thought. Maybe something had happened to them when Tatiana had succumbed to the poison?

“You will do as you are told. Put the enchantment back where it was; I, Namtar, will see to its strengthening.” Its voice was like gravel. “Otherwise, when our master finds out it was removed, his wrath will be beyond your imagining. Remember, all you care for can be destroyed with one word from him. With one flick of his wrist.”

Its free hand shot out toward the coffin containing Jesse. Grace cried out. And Lucie flung herself from the wall, landing hard on the demon’s back, her arms about its neck.

With a roar of surprise, the demon staggered back, releasing Grace. She landed hard, her eyes feral, her fair hair straggling about her face. The demon snarled and ducked its head as if to sink its teeth into Lucie’s hands; she let go, dropping to the ground, and seized Grace by the wrist.

Grace stared at her in frozen astonishment. “What are you doing here?”

This did not seem to Lucie to be the most pressing issue at hand. She gritted her teeth and yanked Grace toward the door. “Run, Grace!”

At the sound of her name, Grace snapped free of her paralysis. She began to run, tugging Lucie after her; they burst through the door and into the garden. Grace let go of Lucie and swung around to slam the door shut behind them, but the demon had already seized it from the other side. There was a shriek of metal as the door was torn from its hinges and flung aside.

The demon advanced on the two girls. Lucie had half expected Grace to bolt for the house, but she was standing her ground. Lucie tugged a seraph blade free of her belt just as Grace bent, seized up a rock, and flung it at the demon. Lucie had to give her points for enterprise, at least.

The rock bounced off the demon’s leathery chest. It grinned with both mouths and seized Lucie around the torso, sending her seraph blade flying. She was lifted off her feet as the demon’s black gaze raked her up and down. Its eyes narrowed. “I know you,” it snarled. It sounded almost surprised. “You are the second one.”

Lucie kicked out, her feet connecting hard with the demon’s torso. It grunted and she shrieked in pain as its grip tightened. Its lower mouth opened; she saw the glint of fangs, and then a flood of black as ichor poured forth. Staggering, it released Lucie; she fell to the ground and rolled aside as the demon’s body arched backward. The blade of a sword emerged from its chest, smeared with green-black ichor. It looked down incredulously at the steel protruding from its torso, snarled, and vanished.

Standing just behind where the demon had been was Jesse.

He held the sword that had hung on the wall in the tiny coffin-room. Though there was ichor on the blade and spattered on the ground at his feet, there were no stains on his clothes, or on his bare hands. The sky was black above: his green eyes glittered as he slowly lowered the sword.

“Jesse,” Lucie breathed. “I—”

She broke off as Grace took a staggering step forward. Her gaze darted from Lucie to Jesse and back again, her expression incredulous. “But I don’t understand,” she said, gripping one hand with the other. “How can you see Jesse?”

* * *

James had thought Matthew and Cordelia still might try to prevent him, but after he explained—the words echoing in his own ears as he told them how he had put the pieces of it all together—he knew that they would not. Both stared at him with drained, pale faces, but neither made a move to stand between him and the gateway.

Matthew—disheveled, dirty, still with his incongruous spats on—drew himself up, his chin high. “Then, if you must go, I will go with you,” he said.

James’s heart broke. How could he do this to Matthew? How could he contemplate dying in a place Matthew could never follow him to?

And yet.

“It won’t work,” he said softly. “No one can follow me into the shadows, Math. Not even you.”

Matthew walked