My Beautiful One

44. Burning bright

By the time Emma and I reached the Empire State building, rain was pelting down hard and lightning cracked across the sky with a force that seemed to shake the pavement. Rain mixed with the blood from the battle that was raging around us, washing rivers of blood down the gutter, and the air was pierced by screams.

The door was just metres away, but I stopped when I heard Emma speak. She was standing, rooted to the spot, looking lost and forlorn as she stared at the bodies of two people.

"It's her." She said, her voice slightly choked. "And him. They're Clary's friends... Jordan and Maya. They were nice to me, they-"

"They're at peace now." I interrupted, trying to sound gentle, but probably just coming across as somewhere between desperate and insensitive. We'd been moving fast and stealthily, keeping in the shadows, and so far I'd only had to kill one demon since the Elapid. I knew that stopping would attract attention, and even though it felt like a fist was closing around my heart as I watched both Emma's expression and the two dead teenagers on the pavement, I patted the Shadowhunter girl's shoulder before taking a fist of her t-shirt and dragging her after me.

We burst through the doors and didn't stop running until we were onto the first floor. Our blood-slicked boots squeaked against the tasteful marble, which was already covered with muddy footprints from the roughly thirty Shadowhunters that were crowded into the Art Deco corridor. A scary-looking guy with a killer glare who resembled a black-clad mountain drew his sword and leveled it at us.

"Name yourselves." He barked. "And if you are Eidolon, don't even both lying. Admit it and I will kill you quickly."

The right thing to do would probably have been to stammer out my name and look as human (well, Nephilim/faerie) as possible, but no. Thanks to my spectacularly annoying short temper, my knee jerk reaction was to narrow my eyes and snap at him.

"Back the hell off or I'll kill you." I snapped. "And I promise it won't be quick."

If looks could kill, that man-mountain's stare would have incinerated me on the sport. "Why you little-"

I cut him off, my voice rising to a shout. I wasn't even that angry at him, it's just that a whole lot of crap had happened that day, and it all seemed to be rushing out.

"By the Angel! This girl-" I stabbed a finger in Emma's direction,"has just seen her father die and two of her friends dead, and if you won't let me get her to her friends, then for god's sake you don't deserve to win this war!"

Practically growling, the huge Shadowhunter started towards me with his sword held high, and I was just about to whip out one of my katanas and give him a piece of my extremely-pissed-off mind when I heard a voice.

"Amari!"

The man-mountain and I both stopped and turned to see Isabelle Lightwood rushing towards us, her black hair flying behind her. "Stop, Darius," she said to the man. "I know them. Emma Carstairs is with the Blackthorns, and Amari Silverdown..." Isabelle gave me a strange look, and I realised with a flicker of amusement that until now, she had thought I was dead. "She's with us. They can both be trusted."

"Are you sure?" The guy who was apparently called Darius was still glaring at Emma and I as if he expected us to grow devil horns and start cackling demonically.

"Yes, I'm sure." Replied Isabelle irritably, taking us by the arm and marching us quickly away. She seemed to be bristling with un-asked questions, her lips pressed into a hard line as if to stop words escaping her as we walked down the corridor and into a Nephilim-commandeered coffee shop. Sitting at a table in the far right corner was a huge family, all with the same chocolate-brown hair and blue-green eyes but for two women, who had very light blond hair. One of them was Helen Blackthorn, the cousin of mine who looked eerily like me, and the other blond must have been her mother, my aunt.