It's dark for once in New York. Every light on the street out, for no reason that would be apparent for those who resign there, but no one seems to care too much. There's not much you could do about it anyways. Call the Electric Department, listen to them tell you someone will be on it, hang up, and repeat. A light fog is setting in on the city as rain begins to drizzle; slowly, at first, but before Anna knows it, it's pouring down rain.

Anna's walked nearly eighteen blocks now; with a dead cell phone, it was hard to call your family for them to pick you up. She figured it wouldn't be a big deal anyways. She didn't know when she left that half the city would be out of power and that a storm was brewing. Still, she knew it was her own fault as she strolled down the street, careful to watch her surroundings as her mom had always warned her. She'd beckoned with her mother many times to let her walk to and from work on her own. Her mother had never allowed it, and now that Anna had unfortunately gained the experience by accident, she didn't enjoy it. It wasn't nearly as fun, nor beautiful, as it had looked from inside the car. It had looked like a cinderbrick playground from inside the Prius; but now, it was just a bunch of shady men begging for change. The thought put a quick in her step.

Anna was just wishing she was back in Seattle instead of New York when a figure caught her eye; a shadow, more like it. She felt her heart beat quicken, and she tried herself to go fast, but it was too late. The figure in front of her was dark and black, even though hadn't the slightest idea what it was. She drew in a rigid breath, and turned to run, only to nearly run into one of the things. The shape of a man, but you couldn't tell his face in the darkness; Anna felt the deepness of a knife slide not across her chest, but into it. She fell to her knees as she listened to one of the men laugh, slipping his hand into her coat pocket as she fell.

"Easy," one laughed, as he fingered through the cash with a grin, before hearing the nearby sound of a taxi rushing through the muddy street puddles. They fled then, but relief didn't touch Anna. The black splotches invaded her vision, leaving firework effects bleeding into her vision. She gasped for breath; she wasn't too sure if she was actually beginning to suffocate or hyperventilate. She felt blood gush through her fingers and bleed through her polo shirt. The feeling made her ghastly and sick, as she felt bile rise up the back of her throat. She heaved a heavy amount of blood onto the sidewalk, collapsing to the ground with a loud crack.

Anna felt someone touch her back, and she jumped, sitting straight up from where she lay. She wasn't where she should've been, she knew that. She was neither in a hospital bed nor home, and that worried her more than anything. She stared at a boy with blazing dark green eyes, who looked especially normal; a blue flannel shirt, sitting at her bedside with water in his hands. But as she tried to muster some bravery to speak, she pressed her hand to her chest, pressed through her shirt. She could feel the deep indention where the bullet should've went through, but now was just that. Like it hadn't broke the skin.

She gasped, suddenly angry and confused, and nearly any other feeling you could fill in. "Where am I!" she screamed furiously, flinging the covers off where she lay in a casual, little day bed, to let her feet fall to the… She looked down in deep desperation when she realized there was no ground. She looked all around as she realized there was no ground. Nothing. Just the boy, his seat, the bed, and herself. Besides that it was all white.

She'd been to church more than a few times in her life. She'd read the book, she knew how it went. This seemed like Heaven if she'd ever seen it. As if the boy could read her mind, and maybe he could, she thought, he spread out the two most beautiful wings she had ever seen on man or bird, with a gorgeous smile to match. Maybe he wasn't such a boy, but more of the ranks of young man. He shoved black hair out of his face, acting bashful like.

"Heaven," the boy assured her, and even though Anna had suspected it, she hadn't really thought she was right. She inspected his white wings, looking so feathery and gentle, like the wings of a dove. She couldn't help but smiling. This is what she'd worked for her whole life. A place in this holy land.

The boy held up finger to her, and her smile slowly faded once again as she looked at his concerned face. He reached out in front of him, at first to grab Anna's shoulders, she thought, but reached around her instead to her back. Slowly, he extended her new, long, beautiful pair of wings. Even though she couldn't see them extremely well, she could see enough. Her wings looked more aerodynamic than his, built more skinny and angular, stretching out for a wingspan of at lest fifteen feet. Now that the boy had stretched them out for her, she could now feel the muscles that controlled them. She tried at them, stretching them higher towards the sky, watching them catch the light in the clouds and turn a pale purple. She felt herself grinning again, as well as the boy, who gave a sly smile of approval as he stepped back.

"Tell me, how do they feel?" he smiled at her, sitting back into his chair and crossing his legs in a mature manner. Anna couldn't believe what was happening. She quickly, almost recklessly, flapped her wings up and down, feeling the feathers separate and the wind glide through. She watched the purple and silver reflect off the downy white feathers.

"Excellent!" Anna almost yelled, before biting her tongue about how abrupt that probably sounded. He laughed at her, and Anna swallowed, promising herself to be more modest. To at least act like she knew what she was doing. "They're beautiful."

The boy nodded in alike agreement at her, stretching out his hand. "Robert. Robert A. Small, the Director of Angels. I know all angels that come in and out of Heaven." He looked a bit proud of himself Anna thought, and wondered how long he'd waited to be able to say that. "Meanwhile, we haven't auditioned for a new angel in over five hundred years. You… Well, you seem perfect for the job."

Anna stared at him a second, taking in what he was saying. She analyzed over every word, careful to make no mistakes, as she's read many books, books like this, and didn't want to be made a fool of. "Auditioned?" she asked almost hesitantly, a little scared of what the answer just may be.

"Yes, honey, of course," the boy, Robert, grinned, his voice as pure as sugar. "You don't get to keep those wings just yet. Not everyone becomes an angel, you know, it's quite the honor," he said, and then glanced at his watch. He almost winced before looking back up to her. "I'm running late, so here you go. You complete a mission for the angels, you get a place in the most honorable section of Heaven, understand?"

Anna nodded quickly, unsure of what to do. It all seemed fake, like this wasn't happening in real time. Like a dream she'd never had before.

"I'm sending you on a mission in a place you already know, New York City." He waved his hand, and among the fluffy background of clouds, a fuzzy screen like picture appeared in thin air. When it focused, she realized it was a video of New York's skyrise. "But more particularly, this place." He stood up, and reached out, like touching the screen, and it zoomed in once, twice, and again. To a cathedral, Anna had seen everyday since she lived in New York. It wasn't too far from her house really, and she had to ride past it nearly everyday to school and work both.

"Inside this building, there lives a family, and the traveling strangers who pass them by," Robert continued, and appeared a couple; a man and a woman, probably parents, who wore strange clothing and locked arms with each other. "Maryse and Robert Lightwood," Robert said, and then the screen changed again. This time, four children, possibly a tiny bit older than Anna, stood in a circle, facing each other, knifes and whips in hand. They were all laughing and seemed to be playing around, but they were all tattooed in dark marks.

Robert said the boy with the dark black hair and long lanky body was Alec, and indicated him on the screen. Jace was the boy with the fresh, blonde golden locks, with the bad attitude. Clary was the girl with the streaming red hair, something Anna had always envied for. And the last one, the most gorgeous one of all, Isabelle; a girl with the straightest black hair she'd ever seen, with gorgeous blue eyes.

"They live in the Cathedral," Robert explained. "These peoples are called Shadowhunters. I'm sure they'll teach you more about their culture when you arrive, but here's a run down. A couple thousands of years ago, an angel gave his blood to man. This turned this into a Shadowhunter, or Nephilium, which is half man half angel. These peoples are trained to fight demons and keep them from killing everyone on the face of the Earth. And with Heaven's grace they do so."

As Robert talked on, he kept talking faster and faster, and almost in a boring way, and she knew he was completely uninterested in her, and obviously had a better place to be. "Uh, got it?"

"What am I suppose to do though?" Anna asked, concerned that if he almost left out her mission, so there may be more he was keeping her from.

"Oh yeah," Robert said quickly, "Uhhh… First convince them you're a real angel. How you do so, I do not care, but they must be convinced. Second, make them celebrate Christmas. Third, have one of them or one of their associates who have not loved well fall in love. Got it now?" Robert said quickly, and even though Anna opened her mouth to speak, he interrupted her.

"Shhh," he hissed, before digging into his pocket and pulling out a phone. He gave it to her. "So I can contact you." He gave a small smile now, "May your journey be worth living, and the best of luck to you. If these tasks are not completed by the 25th, I think we all know what happens. Now go, young child."

Robert kicked at Anna in a way that she flinched rolling herself up into a ball. She felt the bed move, but expected to move with it, but instead, it scooted right out from under her. She flailed desperately, trying to grab the bed or Robert one, but no one was in sight. And then, the feeling of pure nothingness. She felt herself tumbling through the clouds, the wind ripping and pulling at her wings. She screamed out, for the pain and terror was too much to bear. She watched for the ground, which was approaching soon enough; she could already see the green of the ground and whites of buildings. The feathers from her wings were being pulled off in globs of feathers now, and then the most horrifying thing of all. She watched her wings catch fire.

The pain was tearing at her worse that she'd ever felt in her life, and she cried out desperately, but there was no one to listen. She closed her eyes, feeling the tears fly up her face. This was it. She'd just made it to Heaven, and she was /really going to die now/.

She'd just passed out when she crashed right through 32nd's streets cathedral, home to the one and only, the Institute.