Hi there!

I was quite surprised that this story had so much support after only one chapter.
Here's the second chapter; Secrets and Lies.
Enjoy!

Disclaimer: I don't own The Mortal Instruments of the song Demons; all the Copyrights go to Cassandra Clare and Imagine Dragons.

"So you climbed out of the window?" Eric asked disbelievingly.

Jace just strummed an accord on his guitar. "It wasn't my fault that there'd been a traffic jam so it was totally unjustified of her to ground me. So..." He looked at their disbelieving faces. "Do you want to play anything or do you want to change the name of the band again?"

"The Window-Climbers" Eric suggested. "We'll sound like some sort of perverts." Jace protested.

But the other band members agreed so Jace couldn't do anything than sigh and shake his head on their antics.

"You wanna sing anything?" he asked again and began playing. "How about 'Demons' of Imagine Dragons?"

Just moments later the Window-Climbers were all lost in their music. But Jace just couldn't concentrate. And that wasn't because Eric always lost the tact on his drum set and Kirk's singing voice was horrible.

It were the lyrics that made memories rise to the surface.

When you feel my heat
Look into my eyes
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide
Don't get too close
It's dark inside
It's where my demons hide
It's where my demons hide

He had to think about red-haired Clary and the blue-haired demon-boy whose corpse had vanished just after Clary had stabbed him with her dagger. Somehow, he thought, it was also possible that not the blue-haired but Clary had been the demon that had been born to kill human. And why hadn't the security-dude been able to see them?

The song was coming to an end and Jace put his guitar away.

"I think we should play this one at out next gig." Simon suggested. Everybody nodded excitedly. Jace was still deep in thoughts when his phone buzzed.

He lazily glanced at the display – and flinched. "Damn it!" he swore while frantically searching for an excuse why he wasn't at home anymore. "Hi mum!" he answered the phone and noticed that he sounded quite guilty. This wasn't about to end well.

"Hello Jason Fray." 'Crap. She addressed me by my full name... This isn't about to end well.' Jace thought.

"I just wondered where you are." She still sounded calm. Dangerously calm.

"Well, I... I- I was bored so I- I went to the library." 'Damn it, why am I so bad at acting?'

"Jason Fray, you're a horrible liar. You forget that you're not grounded. There's no need to climb out of the window."

"I'm not?" he asked surprised. His band colleagues frantically whispered some excuses that he could use; some of them were just as bad as his first one but other ones were way better so he decided to remember some of them in case he needed them in some point in his life. He waved them off and mouthed 'It's okay.' "I'm over at Eric's for a band rehearsal. That reminds me, I promised to give some moral backup for the poetry evening tonight."

She hesitated. Jace could hear it. "It's just a poetry evening."

"I'd rather talk to you about this in person." She chose her words carefully. Jace wondered why. "Would you please come home now?"

Jace understood less by the second. Why was his mother behaving that strangely? "Why so?" "Would you please just come home?" This time she seemed on edge. Jace thought for a second. "Okay." he answered and ended the phone call.

"Sorry guys, 'gotta run." He put his guitar in its case and grabbed his jacket. "Trouble?" Kirk asked. Jace shook his head. "I'm not sure. She sounded a bit off." "Don't forget the poetry evening tonight!" Eric shouted after him and Jace waved back before he got onto his bike and drove off.

When Jace opened the door of the retro-style house he and his mother lived in he could already hear voices. The first one was his mother, the second one sounded a bit like Luke, his mum's best friend.

As silent as he could he snuck up the stairs until he could hear their conversation.

"...Bane." his mother said. They hadn't closed the door; probably because Luke had just arrived. "I'm trying to reach him for three weeks now. His answer machine says he's in Tanzania. What shall I do now?"
Bane?
"Jocelyn." Jace could literally hear him shaking his head. "You can't run after him for the rest of your life."
"But Jace..." Jace tensed. This conversation was about him?
"...is not Jonathan." Luke hissed. Jonathan? Was this about his father? "You've changed a lot after it had happened. You've never been the same, but Jace's not Jonathan."
Jocelyn sighed. "Of course not. Jonathan was a demon. Sometimes I wonder if his soul had been just as black as his eyes."
"You know that Jace's different." Luke answered soothingly. "You've lost two children and I'm still very sorry for little Clarissa, she was so angel-like. But you've got a wonderful son now, Jocelyn."
Jace could hear his mother sigh.
"I still don't know if he's really as normal as he seems. I bet that Valentine did some experimenting on him; otherwise he hadn't ordered me to get him."
Demon? Two children? Clarissa? Valentine, experimenting, get him? What was this all about? The demon at pandemonium had spoken about some Valentine and the red-haired girl's name had been Clary. Could it be...?
"But I can't lock him into the apartment. He'll just climb out of the window again. He needs his freedom."
"Of course!" Luke sounded furious. "He's not a pet; he's a teenager. He's nearly fully grown up now!"
"What if we leave the city..."
"You've got to talk to him. I'm serious." Jace could see that Luke was about to leave so he stomped up the stairs with as much noise as possible and shouted: "I'm home!"

Both of them flinched. "Oh my god!" Luke gasped.

"It's just me." Jace answered smiling. "Even though some people told me we're quite similar."

Jocelyn shot him an irritated look. "Did you eavesdrop?" Jace grinned. "No, I've just walked through the door. Why? Were the two of you kissing or something of sorts?" Luke went the shade of Jocelyn's hair; Jocelyn kept silent and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.

"So, you wanted to talk to me?" Jace asked and leant against the wall. "What's so important that you couldn't even tell me over the phone?" His mother scratched her ear obviously searching for the right words.

Jace frowned. "Please don't tell me you're pregnant; and if you are, please don't tell me Luke's the father. I wouldn't get the pictures out of my head." "

Jace!" Luke scolded. This time Jocelyn went crimson red.

"No, it's not that..." she began. Jace sighed in relief. "Thank god." He went past them to enter the apartment without looking at the adult's red faces.

Something was different. Jace frowned again. "What are the cardboard boxes for?"

Jocelyn obviously wanted to evade the issue so she glanced at Luke for support. "We're going on vacation." Luke answered for her. Jace's frown deepened. "I don't understand. You're going on vacation. What are you so anxious about?" Jace asked his mother.

She shook her head. "You don't understand. When I said that we're going on vacation I mean the three of us, you, Luke and I. We're going to the country-house."

"Oh." Jace deadpanned. Luke's face was drained of emotions and his jaw clenched. Why was he so upset about this? "Just for my schedule, how long are we gonna stay?"

"For the rest of the summer." Jocelyn answered. "I bought those boxes in case you want to take anything with you. You know, books, music sheets for your guitar..."

"Wait a second." Jace interrupted. "The whole rest of the summer? Why did you plan this without asking me first? I also have some plans for this holiday. We'll have some gigs with our band..."

"I'm sorry but I think your friends will understand. I need to get away from all of this and we're running out of money... It will be nice, I promise! As I remember you've always loved our country house!"

"Mom, I'm not four anymore. Can't I stay here or something? I can get a job and I bet we'll get a lot of money at our gigs." Jocelyn just shook her head.

"No. I don't know if something will happen when we're away..."

Something inside Jace snapped. "Would you please stop acting like I'm a toddler!" he snarled. Jocelyn flinched.

Luke scowled at him. "Jace!"

"And your 'to-be-or-not-to-be-romance' is a pain in the ass too! Be a couple or stop acting like one!" the teenager shouted enraged and stormed right past the shocked adults.

"Where are you going?" his mother asked weakly. Jace groaned. "Mom, I'm nearly seventeen! You don't need to baby me!" She looked down. "Feel free to make plans without me while I'm out." he added nastily and stormed down the staircase.

There was another woman living in the ground floor. 'MADAME DOROTHEA; SEER AND FORTUNETELLER' the sign at the door said. Normally Jace didn't mind the old lady at all but today he nearly choked at the smell of joss sticks coming from the door. It just pissed him off. An old, gloomy lady with a lot of jewellery on her that always smelled of joss sticks – he just wanted to kick in her door.

Just when he was about to set his plan into motion the door opened and a man left the apartment. Tall, tanned skin, catlike gold and green eyes and tousled black hair. The man frowned; then he smiled at him so Jace could see his sharp, white teeth.

Suddenly Jace stumbled backwards and nearly fell. He caught himself in time though and frowned. What just happened? There was a fuzzy feeling inside his head as if someone had messed around with it. He blinked. There had been someone – something coming out of Madame Dorothea's door.

"Probably the cat." Jace mumbled to himself. He decided to go and get something to drink to get rid of the headache he had suddenly become.

Jace paid for his lemonade, sat down and stared out of the window. All of a sudden his usually boring life was full of unsolved mysteries.

He asked for a pen and started writing Jocelyn, Valentine, Clarissa, Jonathan, demon, experiments and get him onto a napkin. There wasn't any sense in it.

His mobile started buzzing. He glanced at the display and groaned when he saw that it was his mother calling. With one move of his hand he switched the devise off and pocketed it.

The Valentine had ordered me to get him almost sounded as if he was adopted or something like that. Did his mother have children before him? And why did she never speak of them? Come to think about it – his mother never talked about her past. It was as if her life had begun when she got him.

And then there were these moments when he looked at something and seemed to have forgotten about it the moment he looked away. Just like this strange incident with Madame Dorothea's cat. Wait – Madame Dorothea didn't own a cat.

Jace frowned – he didn't know how often he had done so today – this was getting stranger by the second. Just now he realised that Clary very much resembled his mother. Could this be a coincidence? But Jocelyn had talked about some Girl called Clarissa...

And who was Bane? The name did ring a bell but he couldn't put his finger on it. He had to think about a cat.

There were too many cats in this.

Jace took a sip of his lemonade. It seemed to be that damn obvious that it had to jump into his face but he couldn't capture it. Anyways, he'd be late for the poetry reading.

With a sigh Jace put down the empty glass and stood up.

Maybe he had a fever. Everywhere around him strange things happened. A woman with bright blue skin walked past him. A little girl hugged a fairy doll with golden wings that seemed to move.

Jace hastily looked somewhere else. What was happening to him?

Hm, I guess I let Jace overreact a bit, didn't I?

I'm sorry that this chapter's so much shorter than the prologue.

Oh well. Please tell me what you think about it and if there are any mistakes in it. My grammar-checker's still not working like it should.

R&R!