Author's Note: Bonjour, bonjour! Welcome to my first ever posted fanfiction, though certainly not my first written. Since I don't have anything of importance to say: comment, offer ideas, review, and as always, let me know if anything is incorrect and needs to be fixed.

Disclaimer: I do not, sadly, own the Infernal Devices series. *Dramatic tear.* Maybe that's for the best, though, since Jem would end up married to Tessa within, say, five minutes of me owning it. I do, however, own my (bad mouthed) OC—Anjel—and the plot.

Onwards with the story!

Chapter 1: Meet History

Anjel hoisted her bag over her shoulder with a grunt and slammed her locker closed with her hip—seeing as her hands, too, were filled to brimming with books. The unspoken rule of no Friday homework was apparently abolished as soon as Anjel hit high school. She was in 11th grade, and knew better by now than to hope for that rare Friday with no homework.

"You coming over?" Roe, Anjel's closest (and practically only) friend, asked. Roe threw one book from her locker into her bag before shutting it. Roe didn't have nearly the good worth ethic that Anjel had.

"Not now. I'm not feeling so great." Anjel felt perfectly fine, physically, anyway.

"Well let me know if you change your mind." Roe waggled her black and red painted finger nails at Anjel. "Feel better. Ciao!"

Anjel gave a fake smile (the last one she would have to give today she hoped, because her face was starting to hurt from all of the false smiles) and waved goodbye.

~.~.~

Anjel was your perfectly average 17 year old girl, if you called being emo yet going against the entire stereotype normal. She looked the part, no one could deny her that. She had short, layered black hair, about neck length, that looked like the feathers from an angel's wings. She wore excessive amounts of make-up-mascara applied so thickly that it almost dripped off of her eyelashes, black eyeliner above and below her eyes, black lipstick, heck, she even managed to find some black blush. She had plenty of piercings-the tops and bottoms of both her ears, nose, lip, tongue, and two snakebites under her chin. She wore a lot of black, which contrasted well with her paper-pale skin and electric green eyes.

The stereotype was only skin deep, though. On the inside, Anjel was just an injured, afraid girl that had hardened her outer shell to protect that frightened girl from getting hurt again. She buried herself in books and her studies as another front between her and the outside world. Her favorite subject was history; she loved how you could wash away all of the fancy clothes and gadgets of the ages and see how humanity itself was exactly the same in every time period. She especially loved the myths and fairytales that surrounded every era, every country, and were passed down generation to generation. Anjel wanted to be in one of those fairy tales, fighting evil back to back with a handsome gentleman in the face of danger. Anjel was absolutely no one of the people who sat by and watched in fights; she was not a damsel in distress.

"You're late!" growled Anjel's father as she tried—and failed—to enter the house unnoticed.

Anjel smelled the unmistakably disgusting smell of alcohol lingering freshly off of her father. "Sorry." she muttered, knowing better than to agitate him in this state. He couldn't have drank too much if he was talking rather coherently and with only a slight slur.

"You're damn right yer sorry! Yer a downright sorry excuse for a person you illegitimate-" her father's southern accent was always intensified after he had been drinking.

Anjel moved to go around her father and ignore him all together, but he grabbed her roughly by the wrist and flung her against the wall. "Where d'you think yer goin'?"

Anjel didn't so much as flinch as her head made contact with the wall. "I have school work." her voice was cold and dead sounding.

"Ain't notin' important 'bout school! You should be workin' and givin' back to me!"

"Give back to you? You haven't done shit except waste my mother's hard earned money on your damn drugs and alcohol and cigarettes! I don't owe you anything." Anjel had a bad habit of firing off her mouth without thinking, and it most unanimously got her beat by her father every time.

"What'd ya say?" her father grabbed her by her shirt and tugged her close to him, close enough to smell the rancid scent of cigarettes on his breath.

"You heard me." Anjel tried to take shallow breaths to avoid inhaling the terrible smell.

Her father smacked her across the face. "You don't deserve to live."

Anjel would love to smack her father right back, but she was small and thin and wouldn't be able to defend herself well against him. "Then kill me."

Anjel's eyes widened as her father actually pulled out a knife. "With pleasure." and having said that, Anjel's father stabbed her in the stomach.

Anjel clutched at the knife lodged in her stomach, trying to pull it out, but it was wedged deeply and would not come out without bringing a sea of blood with it. She ran up the stairs to her room while clutching her stomach to stop the bleeding as best she could.

Anjel grabbed a large duffle bag and haphazardly threw some of her things—clothes, make-up, items of personal significance, favorite books, and her cell phone—into it, then slung it over her shoulder with a wince.

Anjel knew jumping out if the window was both extreme and dangerous considering her wound, but there were no other ways out of the house besides the windows and the front door, and she did not want to risk going back downstairs with her father. Roe's house was only 10 minutes away, so even if he did make her injury worse, she should be fine (Roe's father was a doctor).

Anjel opened the window and felt the cool November night air ruffle her hair. She ducked under and sat on the window sill, then slid off of it without looking down.

Anjel landed on her feet, much to her surprise. She took off running down the pavement, so quickly she didn't notice anyone was around until she bumped into a tall man in a dark hooded coat.

"Excuse m-" the man knocked his head against hers with bone crushing force. She crumpled onto the ground, barely conscious.

Anjel felt the man's fingers roaming about in her wound, and she almost retched at the feeling. "Raziel's blood..." she heard him whisper and watched him withdraw his bloody fingers from her. This time she /did/ retch; her body was racked with the effort of dispelling more blood. She willingly welcomed the darkness that followed, be it the darkness of death or otherwise.

~.~.~

"I think Gabriel would look absolutely charming in a dress, don't yo-" Anjel heard a voice, male, saying animatedly.

"Will, look." another voice cut off the first, sounding more serious. "It's a boy."

Anjel heard a sound that was a mix between a laugh and a snort. "That's a girl Jem." the first male that spoke-Will-said. Anjel wished they would shut up and let her enjoy her death in peace.

"No, look, he's wearing trousers." Wait, was Anjel really dead? She tried to wiggle her toes and felt them moving in her shoes. She must not be dead then, she guessed.

"Even so, 'he' has some rather ah...distinguishably feminine features."

Anjel was tired of these two strange people discussing her gender. "I'm a fucking girl!" Anjel growled, using her scary voice, and sat up. She saw two boys, looking somewhere in their teens, standing side by side.

"A girl with a knife in her stomach." Will had curly black hair that fell about his face in an unruly fashion. His eyes were a mystifying color of blue, one she had never seen before.

Anjel looked down and saw that the knife was still there. The blood on her shirt had, for the most part, dried. The time between her running to Roe's house and arriving here was a blur.

"Will." Jem, the boy with the more serious sounding voice, was all light, soft colors in comparison to Will. His skin was pale, his hair and eyes a silver that was seemed to shimmer in the moonlight overhead.

"Oh." Will said after a moment, as if a huge, obvious discovery just dawned on him. "She can see us."

That was the discovery? "Damn well I can. I've got eyes don't I?" Anjel adjusted her duffle bag on her shoulder. "I don't have time for this, I have to go."

Anjel started down the narrow road, surprised that neither of them had tried to stop her. Hardly a minute into walking did Anjel realize that this street, these buildings, everything, seemed out of place. The buildings looked like they had come straight out of her Victorian England architecture books. And wait-did those boys back there have British accents?

Anjel stormed back to the boys in a rage, and grabbed Will by his shirt collar. "Where the hell am I?"

He snickered and whispered to Jem, "Told you she'd be back." to which he merely replied with an indifferent shake of his head.

Jem spoke up this time. "You are in London, England, and the year is 1878."

Anjel-cliché as it sounded-did not believe her ears. "Let's just say for a minute that I do believe you. What's with this whole 'she can see us?' thing?"

Jem sighed, and it was then that Anjel noticed how thin he was. "It is not a brief explanation, perhaps it would be best for you to come with us for the time being. We would be able to treat your wounds also, and judging by your...circumstances, I assume you have nowhere else to stay."

All of what Jem said made sense. But that didn't make Anjel anymore willing to trust people, let alone strangers from another time period entirely. "No thanks, I'll get home by mysel-"

"In all seriousness, simply your being here may very well be putting your life in danger. I offer my utmost word when I say that we will cause no harm to you." Anjel searched Jem's eyes; they were sincere and kind.

Anjel was tired and she was hungry, and for the sole reason of not feeling like fighting, she told herself, she agreed.

"My name is James Carstairs," Jem said and offered Anjel an arm, the one that wasn't holding his cane, "but please, call me Jem-everyone does."

Will fell in step on Anjel's left side, and he, too, offered her his arm. "William Herondale, though I'm sure you've heard of my name and all its majesty."

Anjel snorted. "Never." she heard Jem hide a chuckle in a cough beside her. "Anjel Valloise."

Anjel was only faintly aware that someone was talking to her; her head felt light like someone had filled it with helium, and she was starting to get dizzy and off balance.

"Miss Valloise!" Anjel's head fell against something soft but firm, and she closed her eyes again, hoping that when she woke she would be back home again, away from this strangely wonderful dream.

~.~.~

Anjel wrenched her eyes open with effort, afraid of what she would see this time when she awoke.

A lot of beds was what she saw, rows and rows of them in one large room. How odd, she thought, but there is still hope that I could be back home! She looked down and saw that she was in a pink nightdress, and, upon not seeing the knife protruding from her stomach, she searched for it. It was on a bedside table next to her bed, the blood sticking out in bright relief against the cold silver. She, to her relief, still had on her jeans underneath the dress, and she slipped the knife into the pocket of them, just in case.

Anjel slunk out of the room, and was met with hallways and doors in every direction. The floor was rug but had hardwood underneath which squeaked under her shoeless feet. Anjel had no idea where she was going, and could now not tell how to get back to the room with the beds, and so she decided to wander about until she found anyone in this huge, weird place.

Finally she did happen upon someone, a girl sitting in one of the many bedrooms she had come across.

"Sorry, I didn't know anyone was here." she apologized as the girl looked up, startled.

"Who are you?" As far as first impressions went, Anjel thought this girl sounded annoying.

"Anjel Valloise." If that was indeed the case, she would keep this conversation as short as possible.

"Oh, you're that girl Jem and Will found on the streets. I'm Jessamine." she smiled, though it looked sour and clearly forced.

"Where are they?" Anjel made herself comfortable in one of the chairs by Jessamine's bed.

"There was an outbreak of demons or something they had to take care of." Jessamine sounded disinterested in both the subject and the boys' whereabouts.

"Demons?" This dream just got a lot weirder, Anjel thought with a sigh.

"Yes, demons. You're weird."

"Not shit Sherlock, if you went to the 21st century people's say you're weird too." Anjel definitely did not like this girl.

"You aren't very lady like. Or pretty. What's wrong with your face?"

Anjel leaped from her chair and was wrestling Jessamine to the ground. "The same thing that's about to be wrong with yours!" Anjel punched the girl in the face, and heard bone cracking as her fist connected with Jessamine's nose. She punched her over and over, her hand coming back with more and more blood each time.

"Bloody hell!" Anjel heard a voice say, and was finally dragged off of Jessamine by strong arms after much flailing and kicking.

The person who had gotten her off of Jessamine was Will, and he practically had to carry her into the hall due to her struggles. Jem was standing with two adults in the hall waiting.

"I wouldn't advise going in there." Will let her go once they were in the hall, safely away from Jessamine. "You may want to call the Silent Brothers for Jessamine."

The woman scurried into Jessamine's room and shut the door behind her. The man stood awkwardly, looking confused.

"By the Angel, Miss Valloise, what did you do?" Jem said finally, after recovering from his moment of shock. "We returned to screaming and shouting, and Will drags you out of Jessamine's room covered in blood!" Will was standing next to Anjel snickering at the appalled look on Jem's face.

Anjel hesitated for a moment before answering, "She called me unladylike." Will burst into a loud cachinnate and fell to the floor, clutching his stomach in laughter.

"I think that just proves it!" Will said after he had recovered himself.

Jem shook his head and his hair shook a bit out of place in the action. Anjel could see, though, that he too was smiling like Will. "It is late, and I am quite sure we have all had enough entertainment," he looked at Will and Anjel as he said this, "for one night. Miss Valloise, seeing as you are in much better health, I will show you to your room. Your things have already been moved in." Jem offered her his arm again, and she thanked him after glancing back at the hallway in front of Jessamine's door once more. Will was heading to his own room Anjel supposed, and the awkward man had disappeared sometime during the confusion.

Jem coughed lightly. "It is rather improper for a lady to be wandering about in only her nightclothes."

"21st century American, remember?" Anjel reminded him.

"The future seems...peculiar."

"I could say the same about this entire time period." Anjel gestured with a sweep of her hands.

Jem ducked out of the way as she almost hit him with her hands, and he waved off her apology with a chuckle. "Yes, I suppose you could." Jem stopped in front of a door and released Anjel's arm. "This is your room; I am right across the hall if you need anything. I imagine you'll have a lot of questions tomorrow, so do try to get your rest. Good night, Miss Valloise."

"Anjel." she corrected, "Call me Anjel."

"Good night then, Anjel." Jem smiled before going across the hall to his own room.

Anjel settled into her bed-the thought of sleeping in a bed from the 1800s excited her. Of course it wasn't nearly as comfortable as her own, but there was something...cool about sleeping in a bed that was part of history itself.

Jem was right, she would have a lot of questions come tomorrow.

Author's Note: This was a rather short chapter, but I didn't want to start on the next day lest it be a huge monster chapter. Anjel's got a horrible mouth, I know, but it does get fixed! …Eventually. Comment, offer ideas, review, you know the drill by now. Chapter updates will be a little bit slow (maybe a chapter or two a weekend) since it's research paper season at school, and I'll be rather busy. See you next chapter!