The Lost Book of the White (The Eldest Curses #2) - Cassandra Clare Page 0,67

Tian?”

They all looked around. Tian had definitely been in the smithy with them, but he was gone. Alec realized he hadn’t seen the young Shadowhunter since before they had taken the swords.

There was a burst of light from the sky above the central Market square. A purple afterimage flashed in Alec’s eyes, and he blinked, trying to clear it. Not far away, someone began to scream.

* * *

THEY WERE BARELY ARMED. THEY weren’t wearing gear. They hadn’t applied combat runes. Magnus had one of their two swords, and he hadn’t swung a sword in decades. In fact, he could barely figure out how to untangle it from the complicated shoulder harness Mo Ye had strapped to his back.

But they all ran toward the Market square anyway.

The place was chaos. Downworlders ran helter-skelter in all directions, looking for refuge or escape. Market stall grates and shutters slammed closed. Silhouettes scattered in the dim light; Magnus could hardly tell what was happening on the ground. Far above them, a blackish glow throbbed, like a circle cut out of the sky. It was almost the size of the square itself. And out of the circle came demons.

“It’s a Portal,” said Isabelle, her black hair whipping in the wind.

“A dimensional Portal,” yelled Clary, over the sound of chaos. “Not a normal one—this one goes to another world—”

Diyu. They all knew it without saying the word, even before Ragnor and Shinyun stepped free of the Portal and hovered in the air before them, their arms raised and red magic crackling between them. It was the same color that Magnus’s magic had become.

Magnus looked up at the Portal. He could see nothing through it, only clouds so dark they were almost black. Long silken threads were emerging from points within it, and down those threads slid dark gray spheres the size of large dogs. As they descended, they unfolded to reveal themselves to be—no surprise, given the day he’d had—huge spiders.

He shot Alec a glance. Alec wasn’t the biggest fan of spiders, and Magnus had grown entertained by his unwillingness to deal with even small ones that showed up in their loft, despite also being a heavily armed angelic warrior.

Now Alec drew Black Impermanence and gritted his teeth. “Let’s see how well this god-key works as a plain old sword.”

Magnus began gathering magic between his hands, disturbed that it was the same color as their enemies’. He was distracted by Ragnor’s deep voice, carrying above the chaos. “The host of Diyu is upon you! The courts have judged you unworthy, and you will suffer the tortures of the dead!”

Simon was frozen, gazing in horror at the spiders descending. Behind them, streams of fog announced the arrival of Ala demons, who swooped down, screaming, to chase Downworlders through the narrow passages of the Market. A pack of hellhounds had appeared and cornered a pixie family. Magnus was about to call out for Simon when Jace ran past him, carrying two of the curved-head pikes from the fence outside the smithy, one in each hand.

“Heads up, Lewis! Sorry, Lovelace!” he yelled, and Simon jerked out of his daze just in time to catch one of the spears. He appeared to take a moment to gather himself, and then he and Jace rushed the hellhounds together. One hellhound let a child fall from its jaws as Jace’s spear bit into its side. The demonic dog yelped and crashed to the ground; the rest of the hounds turned to face them, eyes red and jaws open, baring rows of jagged fangs.

The lead hellhound went down, felled by Simon. Another hound roared and leaped for Jace, who neatly ducked and used the spear handle and the hound’s own momentum to send it crashing through a window.

Xiangliu began to swarm toward Jace and Simon, but Clary quickly appeared to cover them. She lashed out with a glowing seraph blade, whirling around, a blur of light in the fog. In a moment of pause she caught Magnus’s eye, then looked up at the warlocks above. Magnus understood her meaning—he had to fly up there and engage with them, just as he had in front of the Institute. In this fight, though, nobody had a bow, and he would be exposed in the air, protected only by his own magic.

Isabelle, meanwhile, had gotten pushed back toward a striped canvas tent by a group of the spider demons. She had only a single seraph blade and no parabatai to keep an eye on her. The