Sнadow Girl ▹ Jace Wayland (editing)

15.

The lower floor of the hotel was filled with maze like corridors leading to empty storage rooms, a deserted laundry, a ghostly kitchen and a whole other random assortment of rooms. Almost all the staircases leading upstairs had been chopped right off except for a small set tucked away behind the laundry, Apparently i needed to add stairs to the list of things vampires were scared of.

The thick layer of dust on the stairs flew up in the air as we walked up causing clary to cough rather loudly. "Shh," Raphael hissed. "They will hear you. We are close to where they sleep."

I eyed him suspiciously. "How do you know?" Clary whispered back.

"I can feel it." He explained eye twitching just the slightest. "Can't you?"

No i couldn't, i couldn't feel a dam thing. I tried to express her concerns to jace when there eyes briefly meet, but he didn't notice the urgency in my eyes and looked away. We reached a door that read lobby underneath the layers of caked on dirt. Jace pushed it open with his free hand and it sprayed out flakes of rust everywhere.

The room beyond was empty, once a grand staircase would of laid in the middle of the room, now only the higher steps remained leading off into the darkness.

"What do vampires have against stairs?" Clary asked clearly confused by it all.

"Nothing." Jace answered. "They just don't need to use them."

"It is a way of showing that is place is one of theirs." Raphael explained eyes shinning brightly, looking almost excited.

"Have you ever actually seen a vampire, Raphael?" Jace asked.

Raphael glanced at him absently. "I know what they look like. They are paler, thinner than human beings, but very strong. They walk like cats and spring with the swiftness of serpents. They are beautiful and terrible. Like this hotel." He rambled on eyes glazing over.

"Terrible, sure. Beautiful, not so much." I mutter.

"You think it's beautiful?" Clary asks, surprised.

"You can see where it was, years ago. Like an old woman who was once beautiful, but this time has taken her beauty away. You must imagine this staircase the way it was once, with the gas lamps burning all the way up and down the steps, like fireflies in the dark, and the balconies full of people. Not the way it is now, so—" He broke off, searching for the right word.

"Truncated." Jace suggested dryly.

Raphael look started, before let out a shaky laugh and turning away. I sent jace a warning look that this time he returned, something wasn't right about all of this.

"Where are they, anyway? The vampires, i mean?" Clary asked.

Standing right in front of you, i thought. There was something suspicious about Raphael and that was the only logical explanation. If so then why would he lead us down here knowing the destruction we could inflict upon his people.

"Upstairs, probably. They like to be high up when they sleep, like bats. And it's nearly sunrise." Raphael explained calmly, again saying something no mundane should know.

"I think we should go back to the servants' stairs," Clary whispered. "I feel too exposed out here."

Jace nodded. "You realise, once we get there, you'll have to call out for simon and hope he can hear you?"