Disclaimer: I DO NOT own The Mortal Instruments. Sadface.

1

Bound for the Books

Today started as ordinary as possible, but would ultimately lead to becoming the strangest I ever had.

I was just reading a book, chewing on some gum and had my iPod speakers blasting Coldplay songs as loud as I dared.

Then the mysterious noise came along. Saying it was like nothing I'd heard before was an understatement.

It was somewhere between a growl and a squeak and came from my wardrobe.

Yes, the cliché of the mysterious noise in the wardrobe was now a reality.

Now that that's one cliché down, only a million more to go, I thought to myself, unaware of how crazy this was becoming. I spat the gum into the bin and walked over to the wardrobe.

I opened it, suspecting it was just a harmless prank my brother Baxter had decided to pull, but it wasn't.

Inside my wardrobe was some kind of monster.

Something about it looked familiar, like I'd seen it before, but I couldn't place it. But that inability to remember might have been due to the fact that I was suddenly face to face with the ugliest creature on earth.

I would have screamed, but seeing as I wasn't really bothered to become involved in yet another cliché, I grabbed the nearest object, which happened to be a juggling beanbag, and chucked it at the monster thing.

It made a creepy howling noise, but I chucked another beanbag at it, trying to get it to get it to crawl back to wherever it had come from. But somehow I'd only made it angry, so it crawled out of the wardrobe instead.

I took a step back, trying to look for some kind of weapon, or at least something I could use as one.

The closest I got was a rather pointy giant pencil. So I grabbed at that and tried to stab the creature with it.

It wasn't an easy task.

But being me, I prevailed, determined to ignore my flight reaction and fight it out.

The monster thing hissed at me, its eyes then fixed on the pencil and it hissed a bit more.

I got bored of the hissing, so I stabbed it, stabbed the thing good and hard.

It wasn't one of my finer moments, I'll admit, but it wasn't like there was much of a choice.

The thing just made a noise that sounded like a yell and got back up, the giant pencil sticking out of its side.

I swore. So it wasn't dead.

That only left one option:

Run.

000

Running took me to the garage, aka the place with all the sharp objects I could actually kill the thing with.

But then I felt bad about thinking about killing it, so I grabbed a rake and hoped I could just knock it out and drag it back to where it came from.

I then wondered where I'd seen something like this before.

Then it hit me, right at the moment it burst through the door, hissing at me.

This looked exactly like the demon, Ravener I think it was, out of City of Bones, one of my favourite books.

But what exactly it was going here, I had no idea, so I just threw my rake at it and hoped for the best.

The rake hit the demon thing head-on and it made a rather satisfying thud as the ravener fell to the ground.

I then proceeded to celebrate this minor victory via a small cheer. I had no kind of shadowhunter training or any sort of proper fighting skills yet I still managed to bring down a demon.

As I looked at the knocked out demon, I decided I needed to kill it, because then I wouldn't have to explain the demon to my parents which wouldn't have been an easy job. So to avoid it, I grabbed the whipper-snipper from the shelf and turned it on and gave the demon a pretty decent stab.

There was a lot of black gunk, which I assumed to be demon blood and guts.

I put the machine away, making a not to clean it up as soon as I had a chance.

I turned to look back at the demon, which had started to curl in on itself like some kind of crazy origami thing and then was gone.

I stared at the spot where it was, amazed at what I had just done.

I'd freaking killed a demon.

I, Ingrid Donna Elaine Connell, had killed a demon with a whipper-snipper.

Unable to help myself, I let out a victorious whoop.

After a long and boring moment, I decided to get the hell back up to my room and investigate the wardrobe further.

000

Finally reaching my room, I walked right up to the wardrobe, and peered in.

Inside it, there was no shining portal or a cool light, but a sort of Narnia-esque thing where facing me was a scene from an apartment instead of a lamppost in a snowy forest. The apartment looked really smashed up, like someone had gone a little hammer happy and ripped up everything.

I wondered if it could be Clary's apartment. That got me curious, so I did the only thing I could think of. I walked out of the wardrobe, grabbed all the Mortal Instruments books off my shelf, stuffed them in a bag and walked into the apartment.

The funny thing was that not even for a second did I think it was crazy. I didn't even assume I was losing it; I just went with it, enjoying the insanity while it lasted.

One thing was for sure, it looked like a pretty decent apartment, despite the ripped furniture and broken appliances.

I wandered around a bit, just looking, going from room to room. I did feel kind of crazy stalker like, but I concluded that it didn't really matter here.

I could just make something up if anyone ever saw me. It wasn't like they had to know I was nothing more than a slightly crazy fifteen year old with the boring name of Ingrid.

Yes I had two middle names, but other than that, there was little else unusual about me. I had plain pale brown hair and lightly tanned skin, with boring brown eyes and of average height.

So I might not have looked special, but after killing that demon, I sure as hell felt like I deserved to be awesome.

But still my plain looks usually worked to my advantage anyway, helping me blend into the background and observe everything.

As I moved around the apartment, I decided to get the hell out of here and go seek out the New York Institute, even though I had no idea where it was.

I don't quite know why I wanted to look for them so badly, but wouldn't anyone do the same in my position?

I mean if you had the chance to wander through the world of your favourite fandom, naturally you'd try and seek out the characters.

But before I got to step outside, I head the frantic steps of someone from the stairs.

I guessed it might be Clary, so I somewhat panicked and moved a little to the side and curled up in a ball, clutching the bag of books for dear life.

The reasoning behind this was that if I looked crazy, maybe she wouldn't freak out as much.

But more to the point, I had no idea how to get back home, so for now I just had to suck it up and deal with whatever came my way.

Clary came barrelling in, her face streaked with tears. She looked a little shorter than I imagined, with a heart shaped face and vivid red curls that made it halfway down her back.

"Mom?" she shrieked. I resisted the urge to cover my ears. "Where are you Mommy?"

She sobbed a bit, looking around at the apartment franticly. I moved back a little, not wanting to disturb her any further.

I then realised that one important element was missing from this scene.

The Ravener demon, the one that was supposed to attack her so Jace could come in and gallantly save her.

Which then lead me to the realisation that I'd just screwed up the plot of the Mortal Instruments.

Ah well, no one's perfect, I thought to myself, staying as still as I possibly could.

Clary then started to run around the apartment, looking everywhere for her mum, while calling out in a semi-pathetic shriek.

After a long moment of sitting around in this crazy-girl position, I got bored and went to approach her.

"Your mum is gone." I said and made my way toward her like I was approaching a startled animal.

She turned and looked at me, her eyes feral.

"You-" she began but I cut her off.

"I did nothing. I just got here after he took her. I couldn't stop it, but I killed the demon."

"What?" she looked perplexed, not quite understanding me.

"There was this demon thing here, I killed it."

"Killed it?"

"Is that really so hard to believe?" I asked, putting my hands on my hips.

Clary didn't answer.

"Well is it?" I demanded.

She opened her mouth to speak but was cut off by something golden that came through the door.

Jace Herondale. Or Wayland, as I recalled he went by in this part of the series.

Before I had time to say anything, he barrelled right up to me, seraph blade in hand.

"What are you doing here, Demon?" he spat the words, glaring at me with his freaky golden eyes.

"I'm not a demon, asshat," I said, glaring right back at him. My glare might not have been impressive, but at least I tried.

"Then what are you?"

I paused for a moment, wondering what I should say. Then an idea hit me. "I'm a prophet, I see the future."

"So you're a warlock?" Jace asked.

"No, I'm not Jace." I said, smirking when I saw his eyes widen at the use of his name.

"How do you know my name?"

"I told you, I see the future, so therefore I saw you telling me your name, Wayland."

His eyes went wide with shock again. God, this was fun.

I wanted to say some more, just to piss him off, but I was cut off by Clary.

"Do you know where my mother is?" Clary asked me, her green eyes filled with tears.

"No…" I lied, wondering how much I should give away. Or if I should say anything of importance at all.

"Then you're not much of a prophet then," Jace commented.

"I'm not that psychic…" I muttered. "These things come and go, I can't tell you everything."

"Well then- what did you say your name was?" he asked me.

"I didn't. But to stop you from trying to kill me again, call me Ingrid."

I didn't bother with the rest of my names. It just wasn't going to work otherwise.

Besides, I was in a whole new world; I think I had a right to drop the rest of my names for the moment.

"Now what do we do?" Clary asked.

"We go to the institute, Hodge wanted to see you Clary, and I'm sure he'd be very interested in Ingrid here, if that is you're real name."

I just glared at him as we walked out the door.

000

After the longest taxi ride ever, we finally made it to the Institute.

I looked up at it, expecting to see its run-down façade, but instead saw the shiny new church-like thing it really was.

"You live there? It's horrible." Clary commented, obviously not seeing the church

"You only think it looks like that, it's just a Glamour," Jace explained, walking right up to the door.

"Oh, like the thing you were wearing when I first met you?" she questioned and looked right at him, quite clearly checking him out.

"Yeah, but on a bigger scale, so it'll take a bit more concentration to see through," he replied as the doors swung open. "Now you two will be the first Mundanes to walk in here for centuries, feel honoured."

"I am," I replied sarcastically. Clary gave me a small smile; Jace however just raised an eyebrow and walked in. I was really only pretending to be indifferent, inside I was a mess of excitement. I mean I was going to see the freaking inside of the freaking Institute.

Inside, it was impressive, the décor was old, but tastefully so.

"Nice…" I muttered, looking around. Nice wasn't the word I would have normally used, but I wanted to try and keep my calm, so I just used nice. Well that and I couldn't think of anything better to say.

"Of course I am," Jace replied, smirking.

I rolled my eyes.

"Now where do we go from here?" Clary asked, looking around the room.

"To the library, I think Hodge is there, well he always is," Jace explained. "Hey church, care to take us to Hodge?" I looked over to who he was talking to.

It was a fat blue Persian cat. Church the freaking immortal blue cat.

Needless to say I tried to stop my jaw from falling open. Clary had the exact same expression on her face.

"I-Its blue," she stated, looking right at Church with her mouth open wide.

"I know…it's so weird…" I muttered. It was one thing to imagine said blue cat, but as to seeing it in real life? That was whole other story.

Looking back, I really wish I looked a little calmer. I mean I did say I was a prophet, so I might as well have try and look unsurprised by everything. But at the time all I could think was that there was a blue cat in front of me; an immortal, blue Persian cat.

Then it started to walk ahead and Jace followed on, but when we didn't move, he turned back. "You know you're supposed to follow the cat."

"Yeah, I do, but it's a blue cat. Who is immortal."

"Immortal?"

"Yeah…" I'd completely forgotten about the fact that it might have been a good idea to keep my mouth shut about these sorts of things.

"This day is just getting weirder and weirder…" Clary muttered as we made our way to the library, following the immortal blue cat called Church.

000

So...first fanfic on here…wow.

It feels weird. 0.O

So…Press that button below to review. You know you want to.

It turns purple after you press it. (;

One last thing: This is a Clace fic. Ingrid is just there to cause trouble with the original COB plot…maybe more. Anyway, I'm not really a fan of Jace/OC.

Also: a shout-out to Frizzyhead101 for encouraging me to go and start this fic. Thank you! ^^

-Flymetothatmoon

PS. YESCHURCH IS IMMORTAL. Go ask Cassandra Clare if you don't believe me.