The Mortal Instruments City Of Bones novel Chapter 6

Clary crossed her arms over her chest. “What if I don’t want to see him?”

“That’s your problem. You can come either willingly or unwillingly.”

Clary couldn’t believe her ears. “Are you threatening to kidnap me?”

“If you want to look at it that way,” Jace said, “yes.”

Clary opened her mouth to protest angrily, but was interrupted by a strident buzzing noise. Her phone was ringing again.

“Go ahead and answer that if you like,” Jace said generously.

The phone stopped ringing, then started up again, loud and insistent. Clary frowned—her mom must really be freaking out. She half-turned away from Jace and began digging in her bag. By the time she unearthed the phone, it was on its third set of rings. She raised it to her ear. “Mom?”

“Oh, Clary. Oh, thank God.” A sharp prickle of alarm ran up Clary’s spine. Her mother sounded panicked. “Listen to me—”

“It’s all right, Mom. I’m fine. I’m on my way home—”

“No!” Terror scraped Jocelyn’s voice raw. “Don’t come home! Do you understand me, Clary? Don’t you dare come home. Go to Simon’s. Go straight to Simon’s house and stay there until I can—” A noise in the background interrupted her: the sound of something falling, shattering, something heavy striking the floor—

“Mom!” Clary shouted into the phone. “Mom, are you all right?”

A loud buzzing noise came from the phone. Clary’s mother’s voice cut through the static: “Just promise me you won’t come home. Go to Simon’s and call Luke—tell him that he’s found me—” Her words were drowned out by a heavy crash like splintering wood.

“Who’s found you? Mom, did you call the police? Did you—”

Her frantic question was cut off by a noise Clary would never forget—a harsh, slithering noise, followed by a thump. Clary heard her mother draw in a sharp breath before speaking, her voice eerily calm: “I love you, Clary.”

The phone went dead.

“Mom!” Clary shrieked into the phone. “Mom, are you there?” CALL ENDED, the screen said. But why would her mother have hung up like that?

“Clary,” Jace said. It was the first time she’d ever heard him say her name. “What’s going on?”

Clary ignored him. Feverishly she hit the button that dialed her home number. There was no answer except a double-tone busy signal.

Clary’s hands had begun to shake uncontrollably. When she tried to redial, the phone slipped out of her shaking grasp and hit the pavement hard. She dropped to her knees to retrieve it, but it was dead, a long crack visible across the front. “Dammit!” Almost in tears, she threw the phone down.

“Stop that.” Jace hauled her to her feet, his hand gripping her wrist. “Has something happened?”

“Give me your phone,” Clary said, grabbing the black metal oblong out of his shirt pocket. “I have to—”

“It’s not a phone,” Jace said, making no move to get it back. “It’s a Sensor. You won’t be able to use it.”

“But I need to call the police!”

“Tell me what happened first.” She tried to yank her wrist back, but his grip was incredibly strong. “I can help you.”

Rage flooded through Clary, a hot tide through her veins. Without even thinking about it, she struck out at his face, her nails raking his cheek. He jerked back in surprise. Tearing herself free, Clary ran toward the lights of Seventh Avenue.

When she reached the street, she spun around, half-expecting to see Jace at her heels. But the alley was empty. For a moment she stared uncertainly into the shadows. Nothing moved inside them. She spun on her heel and ran for home.

4

RAVENER

THE NIGHT HAD GOTTEN EVEN HOTTER, AND RUNNING HOME felt like swimming as fast as she could through boiling soup. At the corner of her block Clary got trapped at a DON’T WALK sign. She jittered up and down impatiently on the balls of her feet while traffic whizzed by in a blur of headlights. She tried to call home again, but Jace hadn’t been lying; his phone wasn’t a phone. At least, it didn’t look like any phone Clary had ever seen before. The Sensor’s buttons didn’t have numbers on them, just more of those bizarre symbols, and there was no screen.

Jogging up the street toward her house, she saw that the second-floor windows were lit, the usual sign that her mother was home. Okay, she told herself. Everything’s fine. But her stomach tightened the moment she stepped into the entryway. The overhead light had burned out, and the foyer was in darkness. The shadows seemed full of secret movement. Shivering, she started upstairs.

“And just where do you think you’re going?” said a voice.

Clary whirled. “What—”

She broke off. Her eyes were adjusting to the dimness, and she could see the shape of a large armchair, drawn up in front of Madame Dorothea’s closed door. The old woman was wedged into it like an overstuffed cushion. In the dimness Clary could see only the round shape of her powdered face, the white lace fan in her hand, the dark, yawning gap of her mouth when she spoke. “Your mother,” Dorothea said, “has been making a god-awful racket up there. What’s she doing? Moving furniture?”

“I don’t think—”