Cristina snorted without turning around.
"Tina," Perfect Diego said, and his voice was filled with longing. "Tina, please."
Emma looked awkwardly out the windshield. They were almost in view of the ocean. She tried to concentrate on that and not the tension between the two other conscious occupants of the car.
Cristina clenched her medallion tighter, but said nothing.
"Rook said you were investigating because you believed the murders were tied to your parents' death," Perfect Diego said to Emma. "For what it is worth, I am sorry for your loss."
"That was a long time ago." Emma could see Perfect Diego in the rearview mirror. He had a delicate chain of runes that circled his neck, like a torque. His hair curled, not Julian's waves but ringlets that fell over the tops of his ears.
He was hot. And he seemed nice. And he had some serious badass moves. He really was Perfect Diego, she thought wryly. No wonder Cristina had been so hurt.
"What are you doing here?" Cristina demanded. "Emma has a reason to be investigating the murders, but you?"
"You know I was at the Scholomance," Perfect Diego said. "And you know Centurions are often sent to investigate matters that don't fall strictly under Shadowhunter mandate--"
There was a hoarse yell. Sterling had jerked awake and was flailing in the backseat. Perfect Diego's knife flashed in the darkness. Cars honked as Emma jerked the wheel to the right and they careened onto Ocean Avenue.
"Let me go!" Sterling jerked and flailed against the wire wrapping his wrists. "Let me go!"
He yelped in pain as Perfect Diego flung him hard against the backseat of the car, pressing the knife against his jugular. "Get off me," Sterling yelled. "Goddammit, get off me--"
Sterling shrieked as Perfect Diego dug his knee into his thigh. "Settle," Diego said in a flat, deadly voice, "down."
They were still hurtling down Ocean. Palm trees fringed either side of the street like eyelashes. Emma cut wildly in front of the left-hand turn lane and shot down the ramp to the coast highway amid a furious chorus of blaring horns.
"Jesus Christ!" Sterling shouted. "Where'd you learn to drive?"
"Nobody asked you for commentary!" Emma yelled back as they hurtled into the moving traffic. Luckily it was late and the lanes were mostly empty.
"I don't want to die on the Pacific Coast Highway!" Sterling wailed.
"Oh, I'm sorry." Emma's voice dripped acid. "Is there a different highway you'd like to die on? BECAUSE WE CAN ARRANGE THAT."
"Bitch," Sterling hissed.
Cristina whirled around in her seat. There was a cracking sound like a gunshot; a second later, as they hurtled past a group of surfers walking along the highway's edge, Emma realized she'd slapped Sterling across the face.
"Don't you call my friend a bitch," Cristina said. "You understand?"
Sterling rubbed his jaw. His eyes were slits. "You've got no right to touch me." There was a whine in his voice. "Nephilim only deal with issues that break the Accords."
"Wrong," Perfect Diego said. "We deal with any issues we feel like."
"But Belinda told us--"
"Yeah, about that," Cristina said. "How did you end up joining that cult or whatever it is at the Midnight Theater?"
Sterling exhaled a shaky breath. "We're sworn to secrecy," he said finally. "If I tell you everything I know, are you going to protect me?"
"Maybe," said Emma. "But you're tied up and we're all heavily armed. You really fancy your chances if you don't tell?"
Sterling glanced at Perfect Diego, who was holding the dagger idly, as if it were a pen. Nevertheless, there was a sense of coiled power about him, as if he could explode into action in under a second. If Sterling had any brains he'd be terrified. "I got into it through a producer friend of mine. He said he'd found a way to guarantee that everything you touched turned to gold. Not literally," Sterling hastened to add.
"No one thought you meant literally, idiot," said Emma.
Sterling made an angry noise, cut off quickly by Diego pressing the knife tighter against his throat.
"Who's the Guardian?" Cristina demanded. "Who leads the Followers at the theater?"
"I've got no idea," Sterling said sulkily. "Nobody knows. Not even Belinda."
"I saw Belinda at the Shadow Market, shilling for your little cult," Emma said. "I'm guessing they promised money and luck if you came to their meetings. You just had to risk the lotteries. Am I right?"
"They didn't seem like that big a risk," said Sterling. "They were only once in a while. If you got picked, no one could touch you. No one could interfere until you took a life."
Cristina's face twisted in disgust. "And those who took lives? What happened to them?"
"They got whatever they wanted," Sterling said. "To be rich. Beautiful. After a sacrifice, everyone gets stronger, but the one who performs the sacrifice gets stronger than the rest."
"How do you know?" said Cristina. "Had any of the people at the theater been picked in the Lottery before?"
"Belinda," said Sterling promptly. "She was the first. Most of the others didn't stick around. They're probably off somewhere, living it up. Well, except Ava."
"Ava Leigh was a Lottery winner?" asked Emma. "The one who lived with Stanley Wells?"
Perfect Diego jammed his knife harder against Sterling's throat. "What did you know about Ava?"
Sterling winced away from the knife. "Yeah, she was a Lottery winner. Look, it didn't matter who winners picked to kill--no Downworlders except faeries, that was the only rule. Some of the Lottery winners chose people they knew. Ava decided to kill her sugar-daddy boyfriend. She was tired of him. But it freaked her out. She killed herself after. Drowned herself in his pool. It was stupid of her. She could have had anything she wanted."
"She didn't commit suicide," Emma said. "She was murdered."
He shrugged. "Nah, she offed herself. That's what everyone said."
Cristina looked as if she was struggling to stay calm. "You knew her," she said. "Don't you care? Do you feel anything? What about guilt over the girl you killed?"
"Some girl from the Shadow Market," said Sterling with a shrug. "Used to sell jewelry there. I told her I could get her designs into department stores. Make her rich, if she'd just meet me." He snorted. "Everyone's greedy."
They had passed the initial highway clutter and reached a stretch of beach, dotted with blue lifeguard towers.
"That blue fire," Emma said, thinking out loud. "The Guardian was in it. They took the body to the convergence. You stabbed her, but the Guardian grabbed her before she died. So the deaths happen at the convergence, and everything else too--the burning, submerging the body in seawater, carving the runes, the whole ritual?"
"Yeah. And I was supposed to be taken to the convergence too," Sterling said, resentment coloring his voice. "It's where the Guardian would have thanked me--given me anything I wanted. I could have seen the ritual. One death strengthens us all."
Emma and Cristina exchanged looks. Sterling wasn't clearing things up; he was making them more confusing.
"You said she was the last," said Diego. "What happens after this? What's the payoff?"
Sterling grunted. "No idea. I didn't get where I am in life by asking questions I don't need the answers to."
"Get where you are in life?" Emma snorted. "You mean tied up in the back of a car?"
Emma could see the lights of the Malibu Pier up ahead. They shone against the dark water. "None of that matters. The Guardian will find me," Sterling said.
"I wouldn't count on it," said Perfect Diego in his low voice.
Emma turned off the highway onto their familiar road. She could see the lights of the Institute in the distance, illuminating the rutted track under her wheels. "And when he does find you?" she said. "The Guardian? What do you think he'll do, just welcome you back after you told us all this? You don't think he'll make you pay?"
"There's one more thing I have to give him," Sterling said. "Belinda did. And even Ava
did. One last, last thing. And then--"
Sterling broke off with a yowl of terror. The Institute loomed up in front of them. Perfect Diego swore.
"Emma!" Cristina gasped. "Emma, stop!"
Emma saw the familiar shape of the Institute, the drive ahead of them, the canyon and hills rising behind. There were shadows everywhere, a ring of them around the Institute, but only when the car crested the last rise and the headlights swept the building did Emma feel the shock of what she was seeing.
The Institute was surrounded.
Figures--dark, human-shaped--contained the Institute in a loose square. They stood shoulder to shoulder, absolutely silent and unmoving, like old drawings Emma had seen of Greek warriors.
Sterling yelled something incomprehensible. Emma slammed on the brakes as the headlights skittered across the trampled brush in front of the building. The figures were illuminated, lit up like daylight. Some were familiar. She recognized the curly-haired boy from the band at the Midnight Theater, his face set in a stony snarl. Beside him was a woman--dark hair, red lips--who raised a hand with a gun in it--
"Belinda!" Sterling sounded stupidly terrified. "She--"
Belinda's hand rocked back with the ricochet of the gun. An explosion of noise seared Emma's ears as the right front tire of the car exploded, torn in two by a bullet. The car slewed violently to the side and skidded into a ditch.
Darkness and the sound of shattering glass. The steering wheel slammed into Emma's chest, knocking the breath out of her; the headlights went out. She heard Cristina scream, and scrambling noises from the backseat. She wrenched at her seat belt, ripping it free, turning to reach for Cristina.
She was gone. The backseat was also empty. Emma bashed the door open and half-fell out onto the packed dirt. She struggled to her feet and whirled around.
The car was mashed nose down into a ditch, smoke rising from the burst tire. Diego was coming around from the passenger-side door, boots crunching on the dry earth. He was carrying Cristina, his left arm slung under her knees; one of her legs hung at an odd angle. She had a hand on his shoulder, her fingers bunched in the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
He looked very heroic in the moonlight. A bit like Superman. Perfect Diego. Emma kind of wanted to throw something at him but she was afraid of hitting Cristina. He jerked his manly chin toward the Institute. "Emma!"
Emma whirled. The figures surrounding the Institute had turned--they were facing toward her now, toward her and Diego and the wreckage of the car.
In the moonlight they looked eerie. Stark figures in black and gray, a blur of faces. Weres, half faeries, vampire darklings, and ifrits: the Followers.
"Emma!" Perfect Diego called again. He had his stele out and was inking a healing rune on Cristina's arm. "Sterling's on the move--he has your sword--"
Emma whirled as Sterling shot past her, moving with inhuman speed. He'd freed his wrists and ankles, but blood stained the hems of his trousers. "Belinda!" he shouted. "I'm here! Help me!" He held something up as he ran, something that glowed gold in the darkness.
Cortana.
Rage exploded inside Emma's chest. It shot through her veins like lit gunpowder and then she was running, slamming across the grass and dirt after Sterling. She leaped over rocks, shot past blurred figures. Sterling was fast, but she was just that much faster. She caught up to him nearly at the Institute steps. He had almost reached Belinda.
She crashed into him, grabbed his jacket, and swung him around. His face was dirty, blood-streaked, pale with terror. She seized the wrist that held Cortana. Her sword. Her father's sword. Her only connection to a family that seemed to have dissolved away into the past like powder in rain.
She heard a crack. Sterling shrieked and fell to his knees, Cortana dropping to the ground. She reached down to seize it up; by the time she straightened she was surrounded by a small group of Followers, led by Belinda.
"What have you told her, Sterling?" Belinda demanded, showing small white teeth behind her red lips.
"N-nothing." Sterling was clutching his wrist. It looked badly broken. "I took the sword to give to you--proof of good faith--"
"What would I want with a sword? Idiot." She turned to Emma. "We're here for him," she said, pointing at Sterling. "Let us take him and we'll go." She grinned at Emma. "If you're wondering how we knew to come here, the Guardian has eyes everywhere."
"Emma!" It was Cristina's voice; Emma whirled and saw Cristina on the outside of the circle, Perfect Diego beside her. To Emma's relief, Cristina was only limping a little bit.
"Let them in," Belinda said, and the crowd parted so that Perfect Diego and Cristina took their places on either side of Emma. The circle closed back up around them.
"What's going on?" Perfect Diego demanded. His gaze lit on Belinda. "Are you the Guardian?"
She burst out laughing. After a moment several of the other Followers, including the curly-haired boy, started to laugh alongside her. "Me? What a hoot you are, handsome." She winked at Perfect Diego as if acknowledging his perfectness. "I'm not the Guardian, but I know what the Guardian wants. I know what's necessary. Right now the Guardian needs Sterling. The Followers need him."
Sterling whimpered, his cry lost among the laughter of the crowd. Emma was looking around, gauging the distance to the front doors of the Institute; if they could get inside, the Followers couldn't come after them. But then they'd be trapped--and they couldn't call the Conclave for help.
Sterling curled a hand around Perfect Diego's ankle. Apparently he had decided Perfect Diego was his best bet for mercy in the circumstances. "Don't let them take me," he begged. "They'll kill me. I screwed up. They'll kill me."
"We can't let you have him," said Perfect Diego. Emma was mostly sure she was imagining the regret in his voice. "Our mandate is to protect mundanes unless they are posing a danger to our lives."
"I don't know," Emma said, thinking of the green-haired girl bleeding out her life. "This one seems killable."
Belinda gave them a red-lipped smile. "He's not a mundane. None of us are."
"Our mandate is to protect, either way," Perfect Diego said. Emma exchanged a glance with Cristina, but could tell Cristina agreed with Perfect Diego. Mercy was a quality the Angel expected Shadowhunters to have. Mercy was the Law. Sometimes Emma worried her capacity for mercy had been burned away in the Dark War.
"We need him for information," Cristina said quietly, but Belinda heard it, and her lips tightened.
"We need him more," she said. "Now hand him over and we'll go. There's three of you and three hundred of us. Think about it."
Emma threw Cortana.
It whipped out of her hand so quickly that Belinda had no chance to react; it spun around the circle of Followers like a needle around a compass, flickering and golden. She heard shouts, cries, half-pain and half-astonishment, and then the sword was back in her hand, thunking solidly into her palm.
Belinda looked around in genuine astonishment. The tip of Cortana had just grazed the shirtfronts of the circle of Followers; some were bleeding, some just had rips in their clothes. All were clutching at themselves, looking stunned and frightened.
Cristina seemed delighted. Perfect Diego just seemed thoughtful.
"Outnumbered isn't necessarily overmatched," said Emma.
"Kill her," Belinda said, raised her gun, and pulled the trigger.
Emma barely had time to brace herself before something flew across her field of vision--something bright and silver--and she heard a loud crack. A dagger dropped to the ground at her feet, a bullet lodged in the handle.
Perfect Diego was looking at her, his hand still open. He'd thrown the dagger, averted the bullet. Maybe not saved her life--gear repelled bullets--but definitely prevented her from being knocked to the ground, maybe killed with a second shot to the head.
She didn't have time to mouth a thanks. The other Followers lunged toward her, and this time the cold of battle shot through her veins. The world slowed down around her. The half-fey boy wi
th the curly hair launched himself into the air, hurtling toward her. Emma speared him before he could hit the ground, her blade shearing through his chest. Blood sprayed around her as she jerked the sword back, a slow, hot rain of red droplets.
The curly-haired boy crumpled to the ground. There was blood on Cortana's blade as Emma swung it again, and again, and the sword became a golden blur around her. She could hear screams. Sterling was cowering on the ground, his arms over his head.
She cut at legs and arms; she chopped guns out of hands. Diego and Cristina were doing the same, slicing out with their weapons. Cristina flung her butterfly knife; it slammed into Belinda's shoulder, knocking her backward. She swore and pulled the knife free, tossing it aside. Though there was a hole torn in her white sweater, there was no blood.
Emma backed up until she was standing in front of Sterling. "Get to the Institute!" she shouted at Cristina. "Get the others!"
Cristina nodded and darted toward the steps. She was halfway there when a gray-skinned, red-eyed darkling lunged toward her, sinking its teeth into her already injured leg.
Cristina screamed. Emma and Diego both turned as Cristina stabbed down with a dagger and the darkling fell away, choking on blood. There was a rip in the leg of Cristina's gear.
Diego tore across the grass toward her. The moment had cost Emma her concentration; she saw a flicker of movement out of the corner of her eye and found Belinda hurtling toward her, her left hand outstretched. It fastened around Emma's throat.
She choked, grasping at Belinda's other arm. She yanked hard, and as Belinda staggered away from her, her glove slipped off.
Her right arm ended in a bare stump. Belinda's face contorted, and Emma heard Cristina exclaim. She had her dagger out, though the leg of her gear was soaked with blood. Diego stood beside her, a massive shadow against the shape of the Institute.
"Your hand's missing," Emma gasped, raising Cortana between her and Belinda. "Just like Ava's--"
The Institute doors slammed open. Light so bright it was blinding blazed up and Emma froze, bloody sword in hand. She looked up to see Julian in the doorway.
He stood with a seraph blade raised over his head and it burned with light like a star. It bleached the sky, the moon. The Followers actually fell back from it, as if it were the light of a crashing aircraft.
In that still moment, Emma looked directly at Jules and saw him look back at her. A fierce pride rose inside her. This was her Julian. A gentle boy with a gentle soul, but every soul contains its own opposite, and the opposite of gentleness was ruthlessness--the beautiful wreckage of mercy.