River of the Dead: A Shadowhunter Fanfic

Chapter 1

*Five Years Later*

The blade whistled through the air like a dart, and hit directly in the center target.

"Hah! How's that? I'd certainly love to see you try!" Autumn laughed, retrieving her blade from the target and placing it in her brother's hand.

Tyler Lightwood, their deceased father, had taught Autumn how to angle your blade so that you wouldn't miss at all.

"Oh, you just watch!" River said. His eyes narrowed as he eyed his target carefully before thrusting the blade backwards with much force, and releasing. It soared through the room faster than Autumn's did, but it struck the wall, far from the target.

Autumn stiffled a laugh. River sighed, exasperated. "Auttieee," he whined. "Do-overs. I failed that time.. I wasn't ready."

She shook her head. "You said that six other times before. Also, it wasn't that bad. You used a lot of energy and force.. just practice aiming a little more." Autumn paused. "You could certainly kill a demon with that much force, really, but does it help if totally miss your objective?"

"You suck," he snapped, just as their tutor, Christopher came in, followed by Jake and Drew, the other kids at the Institute. Jake was sixteen, like Autumn and River with dark hair and eyes. Drew was fifteen with golden blond curly hair and hazel eyes. Christopher was pale blond with green eyes, and he was twenty-four. He raised an eyebrow.

"That's not a way to greet your tutor," he said. "But hello to you, too, River."

Autumn grinned as River gave her a brotherly shove. "Hey, Chris," she said.

Chris cast her a friendly smile. "Before we begin our training," he said, eyeing the twins. "I would like to inform you that we will be getting another member here at the Institute tomorrow. Emilia has told me that her name is Irene Hunter from Oregon, and I believe she's sixteen. And I want you all to be on your best behavior," he said, and paused to glare at Jake, who was often a troublemaker. "That means you, Jake."

Jake grinned. "We'll see," he said with a smirk. Chris rolled his eyes.

"Is she hot?" Drew asked. Jake and River laughed.

"Oh, shut up, Drew," Autumn said. "Be nice."

Christopher nodded in agreement to Autumn's remark. "Anyway, today we're going to be reading more about demonolgies and the different types of demons," he said, and pulled a stack of five thick textbooks from the closet, each a dark purple labeled, "Hell's Demons: For Young Shadowhunters".

"We did this last week," groaned River.

Chris looked impatient. "We'll be wrapping up this section soon," he said. "Then we'll be learning about Heaven's wars."

River brightened. "We should do that now," he said eagerly.

"You have to have the basic concept of demons and angels to understand it, River," Chris sighed. Autumn shot a sympathetic glance at Chris. He shrugged back.

Just as Autumn opened her book, the door flew open, and demons--too many to count--flew in. They were all flying demons with ugly dark wings and spiky bodies and bared teeth.

She heard River curse under his breath. "I thought you couldn't get into the Institute unless you had Nephilim blood," he said to Autumn, reaching to a bow and arrow.

Autumn grabbed the closest weapon to her, which were blades. "Gabriel," she whispered, naming her blade. It glowed like fire. She whipped around to see a demon flying straight towards her, but Autumn was faster, and jammed the blade into the demon's forehead. She pulled it out just as the demon collapsed and faded away, leaving black blood on her blade.

And now she was fighting off two demons at a time, her blade slicing the throat of one. The other gained the upper hand, and Autumn was soon pinned on the ground.

Autumn shrieked. Only then did she realize that the demon spoke, not to her, but to the demon on his left side. "This is the girl?" the demon hissed, its voice the sound of a sizzling frying pan.

But then a moment later, the demon collapsed on top of her before fading, revealing Drew with a sword in hand.

"Thanks," she said to him, although she was confused. The demons were here looking for her?

Distracted by her thoughts, a demon flew down from above and pierced it's razor sharp claws into her shoulders, pulling her up. She screeched in pain, and managed to raise her blade and stab it into the demon's leg, causing it to fall, but not die.

Autumn stood over the fallen demon and stabbed it's chest. It let out a strange choking noise. "You, you're the demon girl the master wants!" he hissed. "You're the demon girl..."

"What? What do you mean 'demon girl?'" Autumn demanded, but the demon had already faded, leaving behind no mark of black blood.

Autumn looked around the room. There were only a few demons left, as the other boys were fighting them off. She rushed to Chris's side, who was in battle with the demon using a sword. Autumn stood behind the demon with his back turned, and plunged the blade into it's back, the blade protruding out of it's chest as it turned to face Autumn.

"It's the demon girl!" he screeched, and collapsed.

"Demon girl?" Chris asked, his breaths heavy and his face covered in red and black blood.

"Demon girl?" Autumn heard River's voice beside her. Clearly all of the demons were gone.

"I don't know.. the other demons said that to me, too," she admitted.

River raised and eyebrow and pulled hus stele out of his pocket. He was bloody and scratched, but he didn't seem very injured. He reached out and placed the tip of his stele on her shoulder, tracing an iratze on it.

She didn't even realize the huge bleding gash on her shoulder where the demon had pierced her. She looked down, but the iratze had faded.

Suddenly her vision went blurred. Autumn felt her feet give up beneath her as she collapsed to the floor. The room was spinning, and she could see River kneeling over her, pulling her into his arms. "She must have gotten injected with demon blood, or lost too much of her own," she heard River's faint voice as he called the rest of the boys over. His voice seemed far away and distant.

"Get your stele..."

"Inform Brother Enoch..."

"Losing blood fast..."

Autumn could hear the commotion going on in the room slowly fading until she could hear nothing at all, and everything went black.