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FOR HER HOUSE INCLINETH UNTO DEATH,

AND HER PATHS UNTO THE DEAD

NONE THAT GO UNTO HER RETURN AGAIN,

NEITHER TAKE THEY HOLD OF THE PATHS OF LIFE

Clary blinked She wasn't too fa like Jace's near-perfect recall of large passages of it-but while that sounded religious, it was also an odd bit of text to feature in a church She shivered, and drew closer to the altar, where a large closed book had been left out One of the pages seemed to be marked; when Clary reached to open the book, she realized that what she'd thought was a booker carved with occult symbols She'd seen pictures of these before in her textbooks It was an atha rituals

Her stoe anyway, deter-only to discover that it ritten in a cramped, stylized hand that would have been hard to decipher had the book been in English It wasn't; it was in a sharp, spiky-looking alphabet that she was sure she'd never seen before The words were below an illustration of what Clary recognized as a suround before they enacted spells The circles were ical power This one, splashed across the page in green ink, looked like two concentric circles, with a square in the center of them In the space between the circles, runes were scrawled Clary didn't recognize thee of the runes in her bones, and it made her shiver Death and blood

She turned the page hastily, and caroup of illustrations that ression of pictures that started with the ie of a woman with a bird perched on her left shoulder The bird, possibly a raven, looked sinister and cunning In the second picture the bird was gone, and the woe the wo on an altar not unlike the one Clary was standing in front of now A robed figure was standing in front of her, a jarringly e was full of dark red liquid The woman clearly knew she was about to be injected with it, because she was screa with a baby on her lap The baby looked almost normal, except that its eyes were entirely black, without whites at all The wo down at her child with a look of terror

Clary felt the hairs on the back of her neck prickle Herto make more babies like Jonathan In fact, they already had

She stepped back fro that there was so with this place She didn't think she could spend another second here; better to go outside and wait there for the cavalry to arrive She ht have discovered this clue on her own, but the result ay more than she could handle on her own

It was then that she heard the sound

A soft susurration, like a slow tide pulling back, that seeripped firallery stood rows of silent figures They hat looked like gray tracksuits-sneakers, dull gray sweats, and zip-up tops with hoods pulled down over their faces They were utterlydown at her At least, she assu Their faces were hidden entirely in shadow; she couldn't even tell if they were male or female

"II'm sorry," she said Her voice echoed loudly in the stone room "I didn't mean to intrude, or"

There was no answer but silence Silence like a weight Clary's heart began to beat faster

"I'll just go, then," she said, sing hard She stepped forward, laid the athaht the scent on the air then, a split second before she turned-the fae Between her and the door, rising up like a wall, was a night claws

For the past seven weeks Clary had trained to face down a demon in battle, even a , all she could do was scream

Chapter 11

OUR KIND

The de abruptly and flung herself backward, over the altar-a perfect flip, and for one bizarre round in a crouch, just as so the stone vibrate

A howl sounded through the church Clary scrae of the altar The deht, but it wasn't serator, with three heads on swaying stalks The heads were blind, with enor The demon seerabbed for her, because it was shaking the head back and forth as if trying to clear it

Clary glanced up wildly, but the tracksuited figures were still where they had been before None of the on with a detached interest She spun and looked behind her, but there appeared to be no exits froh, and the de she asting precious seconds, she scrarabbed for the athame She yanked it off the altar and ducked back down just as the deain She rolled to the side as a head, swaying on a thick stalk of neck, darted over the altar, its thick black tongue flicking out, searching for her With a scream she jammed the athame into the creature's neck once, then jerked it free, scra screa fro blow Even as Clary watched, the wound began to heal slowly, the de sewed up Her heart sank Of course The whole reason Shadowhunters used runed weapons was that the runes prevented de

She reached for the stele in her belt with her left hand, and yanked it free just as the deain She leaped to the side and threw herself painfully down the stairs, rolling until she fetched up against the first row of pews The deain Realizing she was still clutching both the stele and the dagger-in fact, the dagger had cut her as she had rolled, and blood was quickly staining the front of her jacket-she transferred the dagger to her left hand, the stele to her right, and with a desperate swiftness, cut an enkeli rune into the athaan to elic power took hold Clary looked up; the de, theirherself to her feet, she drew her arreat surprise, it struck thein up to the hilt The head thrashed as the demon screamed-Clary's heart lifted-and then the head si thud The de the now-dead head on its limp neck after it as it moved toward Clary

The sound of many footsteps caone, the gallery e a wild tango in her chest, Clary turned and ran for the front door, but the derunt of effort it launched itself over her and landed in front of the doors, blocking her way out Making a hissing noise, it , stretching to their full length in order to strike at her-

Soold The de to a screa that encircled theht, and with a spray of blackish blood, its re two heads sheared away Clary rolled out of the way as flying blood splattered her, searing her skin Then she ducked her head as the headless body swayed, fell toward her-

And was gone As it was collapsing, the demon vanished, sucked back to its home dimension Clary raised her head cautiously The front doors of the church were open, and in the entranceway stood Isabelle, in boots and a black dress, her electru it back slowly around her wrist, glancing around the church as she did so, her dark eyebrows drawn together in a curious frown As her gaze fell on Clary, she grinned