city of heavenly fire - cassandra clare

too swift to see, and sprang like a cat. The Endarkened man went down with a gasp of terror, andClary saw Simon rear up over him and strike like a snake. There was a sound like tearing paper.They all looked away. After a few long moments Simon rose from the still body and came downthe hill toward them. There was blood on his shirt, and blood on his hands and face. He turned hisface to the side, coughed, and spat, looking sick.“Bitter,” he said. “The blood. It tastes like Sebastian’s.”Isabelle looked ill, in a way she hadn’t when she’d been cutting the Dark Shadowhunter’s throat.“I hate him,” she said suddenly. “Sebastian. What he’s done to them, it’s worse than murder. They’renot even people anymore. When they die, they can’t be buried in the Silent City. And no one willmourn for them. They’ve already been mourned for. If I loved someone and they were Turned like this—I’d be happy if they were dead.”She was breathing hard; no one said anything. Finally Jace looked up at the sky, gold eyesgleaming in his dirt-smudged face. “We’d better get moving—the sun’s going down, and besides,someone might have heard us.” They stripped the gear from the bodies, silently and quickly. Therewas something sickening about the work, something that hadn’t seemed quite so horrible when Simonhad described the strategy but that now seemed very horrible. She had killed—demons and Forsaken;she would have killed Sebastian, if she had been able to do it without harming Jace. But there wassomething grim and butcher-like about stripping the clothes from the dead bodies of Shadowhunters,even those Marked with the runes of death and Hell. She couldn’t stop herself from looking at the faceof one of the dead Shadowhunters, a man with brown hair, and wondering if he could be Julian’sfather.She put on the gear jacket and trousers of the smaller of the women, but they were still too big.Some quick work with her knife shortened the sleeves and hems, and her weapons belt held the pantsup. There wasn’t much Alec could do: He’d wound up with the largest of the Shadowhunters’ jackets,and it bulked on him. Simon’s sleeves were too short and tight; he cut the seams at the shoulders toallow himself more movement. Jace and Isabelle both managed to wind up with clothes that fit them,though Isabelle’s were spotted with drying blood. Jace managed to look handsome in the dark red,which was nothing short of annoying.They hid the bodies behind the rock cairn and started their way back up the hill. Jace had beenright, the sun was going down, bathing the realm in the colors of fire and blood. They fell into stepwith one another as they drew closer and closer to the great silhouette of the Dark Gard.The upward slope suddenly leveled out, and they were there, on a plateau in front of the fortress. Itwas like looking at one photo negative overlapping another. Clary could see in her mind’s eye theGard as it was in her world, the hill covered in trees and greenery, the gardens surrounding the keep,the glow of witchlight illuminating the whole place. The sun shining down on it during the day, andthe stars at night.Here the top of the hill was barren and swept with wind cold enough to cut through the material ofClary’s stolen jacket. The horizon was a red line like a slit throat. Everything was bathed in thatbloody light, from the crowd of Endarkened who milled around the plateau, to the Dark Gard itself.Now that they were close, they could see the wall that surrounded it, and the sturdy gates.“You’d better pull your hood up,” Jace said from behind her, taking hold of the item in questionand drawing it up and over her head. “Your hair’s recognizable.”“To the Endarkened?” said Simon, who looked incredibly strange to Clary in his red gear. She hadnever imagined Simon in gear.“To Sebastian,” said Jace shortly, and drew his own hood up. They had taken their weapons out: