The Mortal Instruments (Book 1-3)

15. Children of Moon and Night

The wolves crouched, low and snarling, and the vampires, looking stunned, backed away. Only Raphael held his ground. He still clutched his wounded arm, his shirt a smeared mess of blood and dirt. "Los Niños de la Luna." He hissed. Daphne's Spanish was bearly passable, but she could understand his words well enough: The Moon's Children—werewolves.

"I thought they hated each other." Clary whispered fearfully. "Vampires and werewolves."

"They do. They never come to each other's lairs. Never. The Covenant forbids it." Daphne clenched her teeth. "Something must have happened. This is bad. Very bad."

"How can it be worse than it was before?"

"Because," Jace said, "we're about to be in the middle of a war."

"HOW DARE YOU ENTER OUR PLACE?" Raphael screamed. His face was scarlet, suffused with blood.

The largest of the wolves, a brindled gray monster with teeth like a shark's, gave a panting doglike chuckle. As he moved forward, between one step and the next he seemed to shift and change like a wave rising and curling. Now he was a tall, heavily muscled man with long hair that hung in gray ropelike tangles. He wore jeans and a thick leather jacket, and there was still something wolfish in the cast of his lean, weathered face. "We didn't come for a blooding," He said. "We came for the girl."

Raphael managed to look furious and astounded at once. "Who?"

"The human girl." The werewolf flung out an arm, pointing at Clary.

Clary was too shocked to move. Simon, who had been squirming in her grasp, went still. Behind her Jace muttered something that sounded distinctly blasphemous. "You didn't tell me you knew any werewolves." Daphne could hear the slight catch under his flat tone—he was as surprised as everyone else was.

"I don't." Clary said, eyes wide.

"This is bad," said Jace.

"You said that before."

"It seemed worth repeating."

"Well, it wasn't." Clary shrank back against Daphne and Jace. "Guys. They're all looking at me."

Every face was turned to her; most looked astonished. Raphael's eyes were narrowed. He turned back to the werewolf, slowly. "You can't have her," he said. "She trespassed on our ground; therefore she's ours."

The werewolf laughed. "I'm so glad you said that." He said, and launched himself forward. In midair his body rippled, and he was again a wolf, coat bristling, jaws gaping, ready to tear. He struck Raphael square in the chest, and the two went over in a writhing, snarling tangle. With answering howls of rage, the vampires charged the werewolves, who met them head-on in the center of the ballroom.

Even for Daphne, who had heard and witnessed a thousand hellish sights, could say that the noise was unlike anything she had ever heard before. If Bosch's paintings of Hell had come with a soundtrack, they would have sounded like this. 

She whistled. "Raphael is really having an exceptionally bad night."

"So what?" Clary had no sympathy for the vampire. "What are we going to do?"

Daphne glanced around. They were pinned in a corner by the churning mass of bodies; though they were being ignored for now, it wouldn't be for long. Suddenly, Simon suddenly squirmed violently free of Clary's grasp and leaped to the floor. "Simon!" The girl screamed as he dashed for the corner and a moldering pile of rotted velvet drapes. "Simon, stop!"

Jace's eyebrows made quizzical peaks. "What is he—" He grabbed for her arm, jerking her back. "Clary, don't chase the rat. He's fleeing. That's what rats do."