“I told you,” Barbara cried. “The demon clawed at his throat—” She broke off, staring toward the far edge of the grassy area, where trees bordered the lake.

James followed her gaze and stiffened in horror. The park was a gray landscape through which the wind rushed: the lake was black, and the boats on it twisted and sagged strangely. Clouds the color of bruises scudded across a steel-colored sky. The only brightness he could see was a clear golden light in the distance, but it was trapped among the crowd of Nephilim like a firefly trapped in a jar; he couldn’t identify what it was.

The boughs of the trees whipped back and forth in the rising wind. They were full of shapes—ragged and black, just as Barbara had said. Clawed shadows torn from a greater darkness. How many, James couldn’t tell. Dozens, at least.

Matthew was staring, his face white. He can see what I see, James realized. He can see them too.

Springing down from the trees, the demons rushed at them.

The demons raced like hellhounds across the grass, leaping and surging, utterly silent. Their skin was rough and corrugated, the color of onyx; their eyes flaming black. They tore through the park under the dark, cloud-blackened sky.

Beside Cordelia, Alastair ripped a seraph blade from the pocket of his jacket and held it up. “Micah!” he cried—every seraph blade needed to be given an angel’s name to be activated.

The low gleam of the blade became a bonfire. There was a sudden riot of illumination as seraph blades blazed up everywhere; Cordelia could hear the names of angels being called, but the Shadowhunters’ voices were slow with astonishment. It had been a long time of relative peace, and no one expected demonic activity during the day.

Yet it was here. The demons surged like a wave and crashed down upon the Nephilim.

Cordelia had never expected to find herself in the middle of a battle. To slay a few demons here and there on patrol was something she had hoped for, but this—this was chaos. Two demons with feral, doglike faces flung themselves at Charles and Ariadne; he stepped in front of her and was knocked aside. Cordelia heard someone call out Charles’s name: a moment later the second demon was upon Ariadne. Its jaws closed on her shoulder and it began to drag her body across the grass as she kicked and struggled.