CHAPTER TWO
"What do you think happened?" Benjamin asked for the fifth time since they had left Taki's. His fingertips tapped restlessly against his thigh. "I mean, three Nephilim killed... by a demon, do you think?"
Bailey checked her phone again. There were no new messages. She bit her lip, digging her teeth into her skin. "Clary didn't say that demons had killed them. And would they really be at the Silent City if demons had killed them? Shadowhunters die all the time, but if it's this important..." Bailey broke off. They all knew what she was thinking. The air inside of the taxi cab was strained and tense.
Bailey scrolled through her messages, just to have something to do. There was one from two weeks ago- from Magnus, reporting to them all that Elaine Penhallow had died from an unknown source. At that time, Bailey had just thought that it was a demon. But now, the two were eerily linked... Bailey swallowed and looked down at the knuckles of her left hand. She could taste fear, growing in the back of her throat, coppery and metal.
Luckily, the cab ride was short. Bailey nearly jumped out, followed by the others, to see Clary Fray and Simon Lewis, standing shoulder to shoulder, both looking pale and worried.
"Dad! What happened?" Nora ran to her father. Simon rubbed his fingertips under his glasses. He looked terrible, Bailey thought- shadows under his strained eyes, his skin pale, his lips bitten and chapped, his dark hair already beginning to be shot through with strands of silver.
"There were three Nephilim killed this morning... unknown source. All that we know is that it isn't a demon, or a Greater Demon," Simon said wearily. Clary's lips tightened- she ran one hand over her ponytail. Her dark red hair was scraped back severely, her mouth twisted into a tight knot. "The Silent Brothers are doing examinations on the bodies."
"Who were they?" Lucy had hung back in the initial moment- now she stepped up, her golden eyes flashing.
"Jeanne Blackthorn and Charlie and Maya Goldwalker." Simon splayed his fingers out and examined his nails.
Goldwalker. Bailey's mind flashed. "Jonah!" she exclaimed. Clary looked at her in obvious confusion, her eyebrows drawing together. "Excuse me?"
"Jonah is a Goldwalker. Don't they have faerie blood in their ancestry?" Bailey said. Her mind was lighting up. She tightened her fingers behind her back nd started pacing up and down.
"And so do the Blackthorns," Benjamin said slowly.
"And Elaine Penhallow- her sister married a Blackthorn. All of them have something in common to the faeries," Bailey added excitedly. "Does this mean that the- well, whatever keeps killing the Nephilim- are against faerie blood?"
Clary pursed her lips together. "I don't know," she said carefully. "We might as well go see what the Silent Brothers have said." She turned and led them down the intricate maze of hallways, twisting and winding together. The darkness pressed down on Bailey- she shivered, digging her witchlight out of her pocket. It glowed through her fingers, illuminating the hallway.
We have done the examinations. The eerie words of a Silent Brother echoed in Bailey's head- she spun around to see Brother Jeremiah, his parchment hood over his face, features cast into shadow in the half-darkness.
"Really?" Clary's eyebrows shuffled together. "And what happened?"
We found this. Brother Jeremiah held up a small, silver dagger with blood rusting on the handle. We found a non-Clave-approved faerie weapon.
"What do you mean, faerie weapon?" Bailey asked, heart racing, palms beading with sweat.
The faeries are using weapons to kill Nephilim. Brother Jeremiah's face shifted- Bailey could see his lips, bound with thin black string. Why? We do not know.