Clary Fray goes to a club with her best friend, Simon Lewis, where she sees a blue haired boy and a black haired girl sneak into a storeroom, pursued by two other boys; one armed with what appears to be a knife. She sends Simon for help and she follows the group into the storeroom, where she witnesses the blue haired "boy" being killed; he then vanishes from the room, with the explanation that demons "return to their home dimensions when they die." Simon enters the storeroom with the bouncer in tow and questions why she is there alone; and realizing no one else can see the others, she mumbles and apologizes. When she returns home, her mother, Jocelyn, scolds her for staying out so late. The next day, Jocelyn announces that they are moving from New York …show more content…
Simon mentions seeing thin, white scars on Jocelyn's back and shoulders, but Clary dismisses this. They go to a poetry reading where Clary sees Jace, one of the boys she saw, who privately tells Clary about demon-hunters, called Shadowhunters or Nephilim, and claims Clary is not a mundane (ordinary human). Clary answers a call from Jocelyn, who frantically warns her not to come home and to tell Luke that "he" has found her. The call ends abruptly. After failure to call back, Clary returns to her house and finds it in disarray, with her mother gone. She is attacked by another demon, which she kills with Jace's sensor; and Jace brings Clary to the "institute": the local headquarters of the Shadowhunters, where she is introduced to two other hunters, Isabelle and Alec, and the tutor, Hodge. Jace and Clary return to Clary's house and meet her neighbor, who has a teleportation portal. To find her mother, Clary, followed by Jace, rushes through the portal, and they land at Luke's bookstore and find Simon, in search of Clary. The three hide inside the store. Luke returns with two men, Pangborn and Blackwell, whom Valentine sent to interrogate Luke about the