Chapter 5
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She nced up at Simon, who was looking at her, his
eyes dark with concern. His face was so familiar she
could have traced its lines in her sleep. She thought of
the lonely weeks that stretched ahead without him,
and shoved the phone back into her bag. “Come on,”
she said. “We’re going to bete for the show.”
3
SHADOWHUNTER
BY THE TIME THEY GOT TO JAVA JONES, ERIC
WAS ALREADY onstage, swaying back and forth in
front of the microphone with his eyes squinched shut.
He’d dyed the tips of his hair pink for the asion.
Behind him, Matt, looking stoned, was beating
irregrly on a djembe.
“This is going to suck so hard,” ry predicted. She
grabbed Simon’s sleeve and tugged him toward the
doorway. “If we make a run for it, we can still get
away.”
He shook his head determinedly. “I’m nothing if not a
man of my word.” He squared his shoulders. “I’ll get
the coffee if you find us a seat. What do you want?”
“Just coffee. ck—like my soul.”
Simon headed off toward the coffee bar, muttering
under his breath something to the effect that it was a
far, far better thing he did now than he had ever done
before. ry went to find them a seat.
The coffee shop was crowded for a Monday; most of
the threadbare-looking couches and armchairs were
taken up with teenagers enjoying a free weeknight.
The smell of coffee and clove cigarettes was
overwhelming. Finally ry found an unupied love
seat in a darkened corner toward the back. The only
other person nearby was a blond girl in an orange
tank top, absorbed in ying with her iPod. Good,
ry thought, Eric won’t be able to find us back here
after the show to ask how his poetry was.
The blond girl leaned over the side of her chair and
tapped ry on the shoulder. “Excuse me.” ry
looked up in surprise. “Is that your boyfriend?” the girl
asked.
ry followed the line of the girl’s gaze, already
prepared to say, No, I don’t know him, when she
realized the girl meant Simon. He was headed toward
them, face scrunched up in concentration as he tried
not to drop either of his Styrofoam cups. “Uh, no,”
ry said. “He’s a friend of mine.”
The girl beamed. “He’s cute. Does he have a
girlfriend?”
ry hesitated a second too long before replying.
“No.”
The girl looked suspicious. “Is he gay?”
ry was spared responding to this by Simon’s
return. The blond girl sat back hastily as he set the
cups on the table and threw himself down next to
ry. “I hate it when they run out of mugs. Those
things are hot.” He blew on his fingers and scowled.
ry tried to hide a smile as she watched him.
Normally she never thought about whether Simon was
good-looking or not. He had pretty dark eyes, she
supposed, and he’d filled out well over the past year
or so. With the right haircut—
“You’re staring at me,” Simon said. “Why are you
staring at me? Have I got something on my face?”
I should tell him, she thought, though some part of her
was strangely reluctant. I’d be a bad friend if I didn’t.
“Don’t look now, but that blond girl over there thinks
you’re cute,” she whispered.
Simon’s eyes flicked sideways to stare at the girl, who
was industriously studying an issue of Shonen Jump.
“The girl in the orange top?” ry nodded. Simon
looked dubious. “What makes you think so?”
Tell him. Go on, tell him. ry opened her mouth to
reply, and was interrupted by a burst of feedback. She
winced and covered her ears as Eric, onstage,
wrestled with his microphone.
“Sorry about that, guys!” he yelled. “All right. I’m Eric,
and this is my homeboy Matt on the drums. My first
poem is called ‘Untitled.’” He screwed up his face as if
in pain, and wailed into the mike. “‘Come, my faux
juggernaut, my nefarious loins! ther every
protuberance with arid zeal!’”
Simon slid down in his seat. “Please don’t tell anyone
I know him.”
ry giggled. “Who uses the word ‘loins’?”
“Eric,” Simon said grimly. “All his poems have loins in
them.”
“‘Turgid is my torment!’” Eric wailed. “‘Agony swells
within!’”
“You bet it does,” ry said. She slid down in the seat
next to Simon. “Anyway, about that girl who thinks
you’re cute—”
“Never mind that for a second,” Simon said. ry
blinked at him in surprise. “There’s something I
wanted to talk to you about.”
“Furious Mole is not a good name for a band,” ry
said immediately.
“Not that,” Simon said. “It’s about what we were
talking about before. About me not having a
girlfriend.”
“Oh.” ry lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Oh, I don’t
know. Ask Jaida Jones out,” she suggested, naming
one of the few girls at St. Xavier’s she actually liked.
“She’s nice, and she likes you.”
“I don’t want to ask Jaida Jones out.”
“Why not?” ry found herself seized with a sudden,
unspecific resentment. “You don’t like smart girls? Still
seeking a rockin’ bod?”
“Neither,” said Simon, who seemed agitated. “I don’t
want to ask her out because it wouldn’t really be fair
to her if I did….”
He trailed off. ry leaned forward. From the corner
of her eye she could see the blond girl leaning forward
too, inly eavesdropping. “Why not?”
“Because I like someone else,” Simon said.
“Okay.” Simon looked faintly greenish, the way he had
once when he’d broken his ankle ying ser in the
park and had had to limp home on it. She wondered
what on earth about liking someone could possibly
have him wound up to such a pitch of anxiety. “You’re
not gay, are you?”
Simon’s greenish color deepened. “If I were, I would
dress better.”
“So, who is it, then?” ry asked. She was about to
add that if he were in love with She Barbarino, Eric
would kick his ass, when she heard someone cough
loudly behind her. It was a derisive sort of cough, the
kind of noise someone might make who was trying not
tough out loud.
She turned around.
Sitting on a faded green sofa a few feet away from her
was Jace. He was wearing the same dark clothes
he’d had on the night before in the club. His arms
were bare and covered with faint white lines like old
scars. His wrists bore wide metal cuffs; she could see
the bone handle of a knife protruding from the left
one. He was looking right at her, the side of his
narrow mouth quirked in amusement. Worse than the
feeling of beingughed at was ry’s absolute
conviction that he hadn’t been sitting there five
minutes ago.
“What is it?” Simon had followed her gaze, but it was
obvious from the nk expression on his face that he
couldn’t see Jace.
But I see you. She stared at Jace as she thought it,
and he raised his left hand to wave at her. A ring
glittered on a slim finger. He got to his feet and began
walking, unhurriedly, toward the door. ry’s lips
parted in surprise. He was leaving, just like that.
She felt Simon’s hand on her arm. He was saying her
name, asking her if something was wrong. She barely
heard him. “I’ll be right back,” she heard herself say,
as she sprang off the couch, almost forgetting to set
her coffee cup down. She raced toward the door,
leaving Simon staring after her.
ry burst through the doors, terrified that Jace
would have vanished into the alley shadows like a
ghost. But he was there, slouched against the wall.
He had just taken something out of his pocket and
was punching buttons on it. He looked up in surprise
as the door of the coffee shop fell shut behind her.
In the rapidly falling twilight, his hair looked coppery
gold. “Your friend’s poetry is terrible,” he said.
ry blinked, caught momentarily off guard. “What?”
“I said his poetry was terrible. It sounds like he ate a
dictionary and started vomiting up words at random.”
“I don’t care about Eric’s poetry.” ry was furious. “I
want to know why you’re following me.”
“Who said I was following you?”
“Nice try. And you were eavesdropping, too. Do you
want to tell me what this is about, or should I just call
the police?”
“And tell them what?” Jace said witheringly. “That
invisible people are bothering you? Trust me, little girl,
the police aren’t going to arrest someone they can’t
see.”
“I told you before, my name is not ‘little girl,’” she said
through her teeth. “It’s ry.”
“I know,” he said. “Pretty name. Like the herb, ry
sage. In the old days people thought eating the seeds
would let you see the Fair Folk. Did you know that?”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“You don’t know much, do you?” he said. There was a
lazy contempt in his gold eyes. “You seem to be a
mundane like any other mundane, yet you can see
me. It’s a conundrum.”
“What’s a mundane?”
“Someone of the human world. Someone like you.”
“But you’re human,” ry said.
“I am,” he said. “But I’m not like you.” There was no
defensiveness in his tone. He sounded like he didn’t
care if she believed him or not.
“You think you’re better. That’s why you wereughing
at us.”
“I wasughing at you because derations of love
amuse me, especially when unrequited,” he said.
“And because your Simon is one of the most
mundane mundanes I’ve ever encountered. And
because Hodge thought you might be dangerous, but
if you are, you certainly don’t know it.”
“I’m dangerous?” ry echoed in astonishment. “I
saw you kill someonest night. I saw you drive a
knife up under his ribs, and—” And I saw him sh at
you with fingers like razor des. I saw you cut and
bleeding, and now you look as if nothing ever touched
you.
“I may be a killer,” Jace said, “but I know what I am.
Can you say the same?”
“I’m an ordinary human being, just like you said.
Who’s Hodge?”
“My tutor. And I wouldn’t be so quick to brand myself
as ordinary, if I were you.” He leaned forward. “Let me
see your right hand.”
“My right hand?” ry echoed. He nodded. “If I show
you my hand, will you leave me alone?”
“Certainly.” His voice was edged with amusement.
She held out her right hand grudgingly. It looked pale
in the half-light spilling from the windows, the knuckles
dotted with a light dusting of freckles. Somehow she
felt as exposed as if she were pulling up her shirt and
showing him her naked chest. He took her hand in his
and turned it over. “Nothing.” He sounded almost
disappointed. “You’re not left-handed, are you?”
“No. Why?”
He released her hand with a shrug. “Most
Shadowhunter children get Marked on their right
hands—or left, if they’re left-handed like I am—when
they’re still young. It’s a permanent rune that lends an
extra skill with weapons.” He showed her the back of
his left hand; it looked perfectly normal to her.
“I don’t see anything,” she said.
“Let your mind rx,” he suggested. “Wait for it to
come to you. Like waiting for something to rise to the
surface of water.”
“You’re crazy.” But she rxed, gazing at his hand,
seeing the tiny lines across the knuckles, the long
joints of the fingers—
It jumped out at her suddenly, shing like a DON’T
WALK sign. A ck design like an eye across the
back of his hand. She blinked, and it vanished. “A
tattoo?”
He smiled smugly and lowered his hand. “I thought
you could do it. And it’s not a tattoo—it’s a Mark.
They’re runes, burned into our skin.”
“They make you handle weapons better?” ry found
this hard to believe, though perhaps no more hard to
believe than the existence of zombies.
“Different Marks do different things. Some are
permanent but the majority vanish when they’ve been
used.”
“That’s why your arms aren’t all inked up today?” she
asked. “Even when I concentrate?”
“That’s exactly why.” He sounded pleased with
himself. “I knew you had the Sight, at least.” He
nced up at the sky. “It’s nearly full dark. We should
go.”
“We? I thought you were going to leave me alone.”
“I lied,” Jace said without a shred of embarrassment.
“Hodge said I have to bring you to the Institute with
me. He wants to talk to you.”
“Why would he want to talk to me?”
“Because you know the truth now,” Jace said. “There
hasn’t been a mundane who knew about us for at
least a hundred years.”
“About us?” she echoed. “You mean people like you.
People who believe in demons.”
“People who kill them,” said Jace. “We’re called
Shadowhunters. At least, that’s what we call
ourselves. The Downworlders have less
complimentary names for us.”
“Downworlders?”
“The Night Children. Warlocks. The fey. The magical
folk of this dimension.”
ry shook her head. “Don’t stop there. I suppose
there are also, what, vampires and werewolves and
zombies?”
“Of course there are,” Jace informed her. “Although
you mostly find zombies farther south, where the
voudun priests are.”
“What about mummies? Do they only hang around
Egypt?”
Content ? N?velDrama.Org 2024.
“Don’t be ridiculous. No one believes in mummies.”
“They don’t?”
“Of course not,” Jace said. “Look, Hodge will exin
all this to you when you see him.”
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