The City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments 4)(36)

“No, I mean it. You don’t look good.”

“This from a guy who has all the sex appeal of a penguin. Look, I realize you may be jealous that the good Lord didn’t deal you the same chiseled hand he dealt me, but that’s no reason to—”

“I am not trying to insult you,” Simon snapped. “I mean you look sick. When was the last time you ate anything?”

Jace looked thoughtful. “Yesterday?”

“You ate something yesterday. You’re sure?”

Jace shrugged.“Well, Iwouldn’t swear ona stack ofBibles.Ithink itwas yesterday, though.”

Simon had investigated the contents of Kyle’s fridge earlier when he’d been searching the place, and there hadn’t been much to find. A withered-up old lime, some soda cans, a pound of ground beef, and, inexplicably, a single Pop-Tart in the freezer. He grabbed his keys off the kitchen counter. “Come on,” he said. “There’s a supermarket on the corner.

Let’s get you some food.”

Jace looked as if he were in the mood to object, then shrugged. “Fine,” he said, in the tone of someone who didn’t much care where they went or what they did there. “Let’s go.”



Outside on the front steps Simon locked the door behind them with the keys he was still getting used to, while Jace examined the list of names next to the apartment doorbell buzzers. “That one’s yours, huh?” he asked, pointing to 3A. “How come it just says

‘Kyle’? Doesn’t he have a last name?”

“Kyle wants to be a rock star,” Simon said, heading down the stairs. “I think he’s working the one-name thing. Like Rihanna.”

Jace followed him, hunching his shoulders slightly against the wind, though he made no move to zip up the suede jacket he’d retrieved from Clary earlier that day. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I’m sure you don’t.”

As they rounded the corner onto Avenue B, Simon looked at Jace sideways. “So,” he said. “Were you following me? Or is it just an amazing coincidence that you happened to be on the roof of a building I was walking by when I got attacked?”

Jace stopped at the corner, waiting for the light to turn. Apparently even Shadowhunters had to obey traffic laws. “I was following you.”

“Is this the part where you tell me you’re secretly in love with me? Vampire mojo strikes again.”

“There’s no such thing as vampire mojo,” said Jace, rather eerily echoing Clary’s earlier comment. “And I was following Clary, but then she got into a cab, and I can’t follow a cab. So I doubled back and followed you instead.

Mostly for something to do.”

“You were following Clary?” Simon echoed. “Here’s a hot tip: Most girls don’t like being stalked.”

“She left her phone in the pocket of my jacket,” Jace said, patting his right side, where, presumably, the phone was stashed. “I thought if I could figure out where she was going, I could leave it where she’d find it.”

“Or,” Simon said, “you could call her at home and tell her you had her phone, and she could come and get it from you.”

Jace said nothing. The light changed, and they headed across the street toward the C-Town supermarket. It was still open. Markets in Manhattan never closed, Simon thought, which was a nice change from Brooklyn. Manhattan was a good place to be a vampire.

You could do all your shopping at midnight and no one would think it was weird.

“You’re avoiding Clary,” Simon observed. “I don’t suppose you want to tell me why?”

“No, I don’t,” Jace said. “Just count yourself lucky I was following you, or—”

“Or what? Another mugger would be dead?” Simon could hear the bitterness in his own voice. “You saw what happened.”



“Yes. And I saw the look on your face when it did.” Jace’s tone was neutral. “That wasn’t the first time you’ve seen that happen, was it?”

Simon found himself telling Jace about the tracksuited figure who had attacked him in Williamsburg, and how he had assumed it was just a mugger. “After he died, he turned into salt,” he finished. “Just like the second guy. I guess it’s a biblical thing. Pillars of salt. Like Lot’s wife.”

They had reached the supermarket; Jace shoved the door open, and Simon followed him in, grabbing a miniature wheeled silver cart from the line near the front door. He started to push it down one of the aisles, and Jace followed him, clearly lost in thought. “So I guess the question is,” Jace said, “do you have any idea who might want to kill you?”

Simon shrugged. The sight of all the food around him was making his stomach twist, reminding him how hungry he was, though not for anything they sold here. “Maybe Raphael. He seems to hate me. And he wanted me dead before—”

“It’s not Raphael,” said Jace.

“How can you be so sure?”

“Because Raphael knows about your Mark and wouldn’t be stupid enough to strike at you directly like that. He’d know exactly what would happen. Whoever’s after you, it’s someone who knows enough about you to know where you’re likely to be, but they don’t know about the Mark.”