The Book of Demons

Chapter 1

"Where did you find that,?" the old man said, he put his glasses on from where they hung around his neck. He stared at the dirty, beat up cover of the book Clary had put on the counter. "I've never seen this before."

Clary had come across this bookstore when she decided to walk a different way home from her art classes. It was hidden between large, brick apartment buildings. She would have almost missed it, if she hadn't been paying attention. She didn't have much homework, so she went in to see if she could find something to try and read later.

The shelves were packed to the brim with old books. Clary picked a random book off the shelf with a faded brown leather with crinkled pages that makes it look like it had been underwater. There's no title or author on the cover, just a tie wrapped around it to hold it together.

"Someone must have left it on the shelf accidentally. You can take it. It's not mine to sell." The man handed her the book. "Thanks," Clary responded.

Clary walked back to her apartment she shared with her best friend, Simon. She opened the door to find him lying on the couch eating pizza from the box balanced on his knees.

"What's up," Simon said as he shoved half a piece of pizza in his mouth. "Nothing much. I'm just tired. I think I'm gonna steal some of your pizza and go to bed." Clary said and she took two pieces of pizza out of the box.

"So you're not gonna stay up super late watching Criminal Minds with me like you promised?"

"Nope." Clary mumbled with her mouth full of pizza.

"Ugh. Fine." Simon said as he turned on Netflix. "But you're gonna have to catch up to where I am on your own."

"I think I'll live." Clary yelled back at him while walking to her room.

Clary was happy to finally be alone. She just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up for at least 9 hours. She climbed onto her bed after changing into her sweatpants and pulled her new book out of her backpack.

Clary opened the book and started reading, hoping it would help her fall asleep. She never opened the book in the bookstore. She only looked at the cover and decided it was creepy looking enough to be interesting. She had no idea what she would find inside.

Clary opened the book to find all the words were all handwritten in black ink along the old pages. At first, she couldn't make out what the text was saying, but then the words faded into English. Clary thought it was her tired eyes playing a trick on her, so she started to read.

What she found inside the leather bound covers of the book scared her more than she had expected. It seemed to be a giant instruction manual on how to kill demons, mainly large amounts of them. How to use a so-called "seraph blade" to quickly defend yourself against them. Clary couldn't stop herself from reading. She had no idea how to process the information she was learning. 

At some point, the book ended up being thrown across the room to land in the corner. Clary didn't dare go to pick it back up. She turned off her light and went to bed. She hoped the book would be gone by the next morning.