City of Bones by Cassandra Clare Page A

and her head and shoulders slammed against the floor. She twisted to the side, but it was too heavy. It was on top of her, an oppressive, slimy weight that made her want to gag.
“To eat, to eat,”
it moaned.
“But it is not allowed, to swallow, to savor.”
    The hot breath in her face stank of blood. She couldn’t breathe. Her ribs felt like they might shatter. Her arm was pinned between her body and the monster’s, the Sensor digging into her palm. She twisted, trying to work her hand free.
“Valentine will never know. He said nothing about a girl. Valentine will not be angry.”
Its lipless mouth twitched as its jaws opened, slowly, a wave of stinking breath hot in her face.
    Clary’s hand came free. With a scream she hit out at the thing, wanting to smash it, to blind it. She had almost forgotten the Sensor. As the creature lunged for her face, jaws wide, she jammed the Sensor between its teeth and felt hot, acidic drool coat her wrist and spill in burning drops onto the bare skin of her face and throat. As if from a distance, she could hear herself screaming.
    Looking almost surprised, the creature jerked back, the Sensor lodged between two teeth. It growled, a thick angry buzz, and threw its head back. Clary saw it swallow, saw the movement of its throat. I
’m next
, she thought, panicked.
I’m—
    Suddenly the thing began to twitch. Spasming uncontrollably, it rolled off Clary and onto its back, multiple legs churning the air. Black fluid poured from its mouth.
    Gasping for air, Clary rolled over and started to scramble away from the thing. She’d nearly reached the door when she heard something whistle through the air next to her head. She tried to duck, but it was too late. An object slammed heavily into the back of her skull, and she collapsed forward into blackness.
    Light stabbed through her eyelids, blue, white, and red. There was a high wailing noise, rising in pitch like the scream of a terrified child. Clary gagged and opened her eyes.
    She was lying on cold damp grass. The night sky rippled overhead, the pewter gleam of stars washed out by city lights. Jace knelt beside her, the silver cuffs on his wrists throwing off sparks of light as he tore the piece of cloth he was holding into strips. “Don’t move.”
    The wailing threatened to split her ears in half. Clary turned her head to the side, disobediently, and was rewarded with a razoring stab of pain that shot down her back. She was lying on a patch of grass behind Jocelyn’s carefully tended rosebushes. The foliage partially hid her view of the street, where a police car, its blue-and-white light bar flashing, was pulled up to the curb, siren wailing. Already a small knot of neighbors had gathered, staring as the car door opened and two blue-uniformed officers emerged.
    The
police
. She tried to sit up, and gagged again, fingers spasming into the damp earth.
    “I told you not to move,” Jace hissed. “That Ravener demon got you in the back of the neck. It was half-dead so it wasn’t much of a sting, but we have to get you to the Institute. Hold still.”
    “That thing—the monster—it
talked.
” Clary was shuddering uncontrollably.
    “You’ve heard a demon talk before.” Jace’s hands were gentle as he slipped the strip of knotted cloth under her neck, and tied it. It was smeared with something waxy, like the gardener’s salve her mother used to keep her paint- and turpentine-abused hands soft.
    “The demon in Pandemonium—it looked like a person.”
    “It was an Eidolon demon. A shape-changer. Raveners look like they look. Not very attractive, but they’re too stupid to care.”
    “It said it was going to eat me.”
    “But it didn’t. You killed it.” Jace finished the knot and sat back.
    To Clary’s relief the pain in the back of her neck had faded. She hauled herself into a sitting position. “The police are here.” Her voice came out like a frog’s croak. “We should—”
    “There’s nothing they can do.