Heaven's Angels

[Anna]

A thousand years ago, the Angel Raziel mixed his blood with the blood of men and created the race of the Nephilim. Human-angel hybrids, they walk among us, unseen but ever-present, our invisible protectors.

They call themselves Shadowhunters.

The Shadowhunters obey the laws set down in the Gray Book, given to them by the angel: their mandate is to protect our world from the inter-dimensional parasites they call demons, who travel from world to world, razing and destroying everything in their path. Theirs is also the task of keeping the peace among the warring Downworlders: the human-demon crossbreeds we know as warlocks, vampires, werewolves, and faeries.

In their duties they are aided by the mysterious Silent Brothers. Their lips and eyes sewn shut, the Silent Brothers rule over the City of Bones, the necropolis below the streets of Manhattan that holds the dead bodies of slain Shadowhunters. The Silent Brothers keep the archival records of every Shadowhunter ever born. They also watch over the Mortal Instruments, the three divine objects the Angel Raziel gave to his children. One is a sword. One is a mirror. And the last is a cup.

For a thousand years, the Nephilim have protected the Mortal Instruments. But that was before the Uprising, the civil war that almost tore the Shadowhunters' secret world apart. Though Valentine, the Shadowhunter who started the war, is long dead, the wounds it left behind have never healed.

It wasn't until a hundred years ago that the world of the shadowhunters changed. Clarissa Lightwood, nee Morgenstern, was credited for the events that changed this world. She, then only a teenager, uncovered the terrible secrets of the Nephilim and brought peace between the Shadowhunters and the Downworlders.

Now is the year of 2107, the efforts to bring a level of peace with the Downworlders has dwindled away. There are still many of those who distrust the Nephilim and refuse to accept that they have changed their ways. The situation is no different in Manhattan. Anna Lightwood, the descendent of Jace and Clarissa Lightwood, has made efforts to bring the relationship between the Shadowhunters and Downworlders to level ground.

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