Valentine struck him across the face with the hilt of the dagger.
"It's not any kind of man," he told Robert. "It's a monster. And it's been doing things it shouldn't be doing, isn't that true?"
The werewolf, apparently concluding that playing aged and weak wouldn't get him out of this one, drew himself up straight and bared sharp teeth. His voice, when he spoke, had lost its tremble. "Who are you, Shadowhunter, to tell me what I should and shouldn't be doing?"
"So you admit it, then," Robert said eagerly. "You've violated the Accords."
If he confessed this easily, they could be done with this whole sordid affair, turn the prisoner in to the Clave, go home.
"I don't give my accord to killers and weaklings," the werewolf spat.
"Fortunately, I don't need your accord," Valentine said. "I need only information. You tell me what I need to know, and we'll let you go."
This wasn't what they'd discussed, but Robert held his tongue.
"Two months ago, a pack of werewolves killed a Shadowhunter at the western edge of these woods. Where can I find them?"
"And exactly how would I know that?"
Valentine's icy smile returned. "You better hope that you do, because otherwise you'll be of no use to me."
"Well then, on second thought, maybe I have heard tell of this dead Shadowhunter you're talking about." The wolf barked a laugh. "Wish I could have been there to see him die. To taste of his sweet flesh. It's the fear that gives the meat its taste, you know. Best of all when they cry first, a little salty with the sweet. And rumor has it your doomed Shadowhunter wept buckets. Cowardly, that one was."
"Robert, hold its mouth open." Valentine's voice was steady, but Robert knew Valentine well enough to sense the fury roiling beneath.
"Maybe we should take a moment to--"
"Hold its mouth open."
Robert gripped the man's feeble jaws and pried them open.
Valentine pressed the flat side of the dagger to the man's tongue and held it there as the man's shriek turned into a howl, as his scrawny muscles bulged and fur bloomed across his flesh, as the tongue bubbled and blistered, and then, just as the fully transformed wolf snapped its bindings, Valentine sliced off its tongue. As its mouth gushed blood, Valentine slashed a sharp line across the wolf's midsection. The cut was sure and deep, and the wolf dropped to the ground, intestines spilling from its wound.
Valentine leaped upon the writhing creature, stabbing and slicing, tearing through its hide, flaying flesh to pearly bone, even as the creature flailed and spasmed helplessly beneath him, even as the fight drained out of it, even as its gaze went flat, even as its broken body reclaimed human form, lay still on bloody earth, an old man's face bled pale and turned lifelessly to the night sky.
"That's enough," Robert kept saying, quietly, uselessly. "Valentine, that's enough."
But he did nothing to stop it.
And when his friends returned from their patrol to find Valentine and Robert standing over the disemboweled corpse, he didn't counter Valentine's version of events: The werewolf had slipped free of its bonds and tried to escape. They had endured a fierce battle, killed in self-defense.
The outline of this story was, technically, true.
Stephen clapped Valentine on the back, commiserating with him that he'd lost the potential lead to his father's killer. Michael locked eyes with Robert, his question clear as if he'd spoken it aloud. What really happened?
What did you let happen?
Robert looked away.
*
Isabelle was avoiding him. Beatriz was fuming at him. Everyone else was buzzing with too much excitement about the previous night's adventure and the secret one to come. Julie and Marisol only echoed George's cryptic promise--that something good was on the horizon, and if Simon wanted to know about it, he would have to join them.
"I don't think Isabelle would want me there," he told Sunil as they picked warily through the steamed heap of vaguely vegetable-shaped objects that passed for lunch.
Sunil shook his head and grinned. The smile fit his face poorly; Sunil with a grin was like a Klingon in a tutu. He was an unusually somber boy who seemed to consider good cheer as a sign of unseriousness, and treated people accordingly. "She told us to convince you to show up. She said 'whatever it takes.' So, you tell me, Simon." The unsettling smile grew. "What's it going to take?"
"You don't even know her," Simon pointed out. "Why are you suddenly so willing to do whatever she tells you to do?"
"We are talking about the same girl here, yes? Isabelle Lightwood?"
"Yes."
Sunil shook his head in wonder. "And you even have to ask?"
So that was the new order: the cult of Isabelle Lightwood. Simon had to admit, he could completely understand how a roomful of otherwise rational people could fall completely under her spell and give themselves to her entirely.
But why would she want them to?
He decided he was going to have to see this for himself. Simply to understand what was going on and make sure it was all on the up-and-up.
Not at all because he desperately wanted to be near her. Or impress her. Or please her.
Come to think of it, maybe Simon understood the cult of Isabelle better than he wanted to admit.
Maybe he'd been its charter member.
*
"You intend to do what?" On the last word, Simon's voice jumped two octaves above normal.
Jon Cartwright snickered. "Simmer down, Mom. You heard her."
Simon looked around the lounge at his friends (and Jon). Over the past year, he'd come to know them inside and out, or at least, he thought that he did. Julie bit her nails bloody when she was nervous. Marisol slept with a sword under her pillow, just in case. George talked in his sleep, usually about sheep-shearing techniques. Sunil had four pet rabbits that he talked about constantly, always worried that little Ringo was getting picked on by his bigger, fluffier brothers. Jon had covered one wall of his room with his little cousin's finger paintings, and wrote her a letter every week. They'd all pledged themselves to the Shadowhunter cause; they'd gone through hell to prove themselves to their instructors and one another. They'd almost finished out the year
without a single fatal injury or vampire bite . . . and now this?
"Ha-ha, very funny," Simon said, hoping he was doing an acceptable job of keeping the desperation out of his tone. "Nice joke on me, get me back for wussing out last night. Utterly hilarious. What's next? You want to convince me they're making another crap Last Airbender movie? You want to see me freak out, there are easier ways."
Isabelle rolled her eyes. "No one wants to see you freak out, Simon. Frankly, I could take or leave seeing you at all."
"So this is serious," Simon said. "You're seriously, not at all jokingly, actually, for real planning to summon a demon? Here, in the middle of the Shadowhunter Academy? In the middle of the end-of-year party? Because you think it will be . . . fun?"
"We're obviously not going to summon it in the middle of the party," Isabelle said. "That would be rather foolish."
"Oh, of course," Simon drawled. "That would be foolish."
"We're going to summon it here in the lounge," Isabelle clarified. "Then bring it to the party."
"Then kill it, of course," Julie put in.
"Of course," Simon echoed. He wondered if maybe he was having a stroke.
"You're making it sound like a bigger deal than it is," George said.
"Yeah, it's just an imp demon," Sunil said. "No biggie."
"Uh-huh." Simon groaned. "Totally. No biggie."
"Imagine the look on everyone's faces when they see what we can do!" Marisol was nearly glowing at the thought of it.
Beatriz wasn't there. If she had been, maybe she could have talked some reason into them. Or helped Simon tie them up and stuff them in the closet until the end of the semester had safely passed and Isabelle was back in New York where she belonged.
"What if something goes wrong?" Simon pointed out. "You've never faced off against a demon in combat conditions, not without the teachers watching your back. You don't know--"
"Neither do you," Isabelle snapped. "At least, you don't remember, isn't that right?"
Simon said nothing.
"Whereas I took down my first imp when I was six years old," Isabelle said. "Like I told your friends, it's no big deal. And they trust me."
I trust you--that's what he was meant to say. He knew she was waiting for it. They all were.
He couldn't.
"I can't talk you out of this?" he asked instead.
Isabelle shrugged. "You can keep trying, but you'd be wasting all our time."