Hell Raisers

Chapter 1: Teenage Rebellion

Xandra looked down angrily, avoiding the eyes of her pseudo-father.  Or she would be, if he had eyes. Covered head to toe in a loose black cloak, the lack of skin or fat wasn’t obvious unless one looked at the Reapers head, where his cloak could only hide most of his skeleton. His bare bones made sharp indents in the shoulders of the cloak and the tips of his skeletal hands peeked out of his sleeves. Most people didn’t notice these things; the general aura of danger and death the Repear gave off was enough to drive most creatures, dead and alive, away. Teeth grinding together, she looked up angrily, her eyes attempting to glare at the spot where his eyeballs should’ve been. 

“You don’t own me, Grim. Never have. Never will.” Most of the time, Xandra believed that she was the stupid type. She was surprised to find that she didn’t particularly mind. She was one of those innocent souls trapped forever in hell, courtesy of the Grim Reaper himself.  A number of souls that was increasing by the day. Xandra felt and dismissed the shiver of disgust as in rose in her. 

It was pleasant in the weirdest of ways. The Reaper had been a sort of mentor to her since he dragged her to hell. Training her to fight demons and hordes of the undead. His training style was the “throw the baby into the ocean with sharks” method. It was irritating; no one enjoyed getting ripped apart, hung, drowned, or getting eaten alive. But it had been a learning experience. She would never have the balls to do what she was thinking about doing if she was afraid of pain. The alleviation gave her a calmness that felt almost like relief, a weird pleasantness. 

“You will do as you’re told. He has earned his right as Satan. It is not your place to intervene.”  Grim sounded almost bored. Like the armored, highly trained, slightly insane teenage girl in front of him was asking to go somewhere far away for spring break against her father’s wishes, instead of informing him that she was going to dethrone the new Satan. 

In an attempt not to telegraph her movements, Xandra loosened her muscles in a gesture that was meant to convey something like relief. This should have alerted the Reaper, but he didn’t pay enough attention to Xandra to notice the oddness of her fake surrender. She knew he wouldn’t.

The two of the Reaper’s guard that were present, on the other hand, knew it was strange. The guard had been put in place recently, and part of their training was, as the Reaper so nicely put it, to accompany her on some “demon-slaying errands.” (This really irked her because demons couldn’t be slain; the most she could do was cut them up into little pieces and burn them. The Reaper knew all of this, so correct terminology shouldn‘t have been that hard.) 

The idea of the Reaper actually needing a guard scared the hell out of her, so she ended up scaring them in some sick idea of retribution. The guard knew her as the insane warrior who singularly took out the Eater of Souls. (It didn’t actually eat souls, but demons had a tendency to exaggerate their power and lose grasp on what they could actually do.) She proceeded to make their poor, practically-innocent souls cut up it’s body before she turned it to ashes. She’d called it a “hellish hazing”. A submissive Xandra was new and disturbing to them. She smiled at that. It was more of a smirk; only the right side of her mouth actually showed teeth. Maybe it was all hellions who were in the habit of buying their own press.  

It was a quick practiced movement; she reached her customary axe. It was a heavy, sharp thing that she had a natural sort of affinity for. In the millisecond when she took a step forward, the Reaper’s eyeless head turned toward her. She swung, her large muscular arms and abs flexing as she twisted. It happened fast, and neither of the guards got a chance to step between. She was human, so she couldn’t ever hope to be as fast as a lot of hellions, but, as she told the guards on their “training excursions”, it was all in the reflexes. And the wrists. A lot of it was in the wrists.

Thunder erupted throughout the room as the Reaper parried with his scythe. Silence immediately followed, and everyone pretty much froze. Xandra may have felt a twinge of fear in her lower abdomen, but promptly traded it for fury that lit a fire in her chest. It was like she was going to apologize. He had done much worse to her.

 She was a lot  shorter than the Reaper, who passed six foot like a NASCAR driver. She was of average height; he was the overtly tall skeleton who levitated.

“Xandra. Enough. I am aware of your aversion. We have already discussed this. You will not interfere.” She hadn’t expected him to sound startled or anything. Still, he spoke that he was chiding a misbehaving child. In a gentle, patient, slow and downright irritating voice. Maybe he thought that him being the only guardian in her life made her a acolyte.  Maybe her brain was making stuff up to justify her next actions.

She took out her gun with her left hand, moving it from her axe to her shoulder holster, and shot upwards through the mouth on an angle, shattering his skull. Because of his habit of levitation, his body fell to the ground rather dramatically. She almost laughed. A mix between a first taste of freedom freedom and adrenaline send a giddy feeling rushing from her heart, through her arteries, and back up through her veins. 

That was when the guards decided it was time to act. In retrospect, she probably should’ve picked up her axe, but there was something incredibly empowering about using the Reaper’s scythe. Plus, she couldn’t take the minor hell spawn newbie guard too seriously. There were only two in the smallish tent where she had angrily called Grim when she had heard the news about the new Satan. She was supposed to be his apprentice, so why would the Reaper need his guard?

They charged at her from both sides. They had been either pretending to be statues or following orders to stay out of her way. She didn’t particularly care because even though she assumed they were trying to rush, their armor was hindering them. It was the expensive armor that particularly generous half-demons gave their spawn to protect their heirs from getting demolished by all the horrors of hell. (Full blooded demons usually didn’t care about their spawn.) 

The one that got to her first was a bulky blue creature with white horns and a mace. Tufts of fur stuck out of his heavy, cliché black armor. He was in mid swing and was roaring while he charged. Being human, Xandra didn’t have the pleasure of being able to just throw herself around, no matter how much she wished she could. She checked her grip on her scythe because she figured she had the time, and as soon as the guard was within her range, she swung. 

The blade cut him in half like he was butter. Xandra was genuinely impressed and a little terrified. She spun with the momentum of her swing, feeling a bit like she was kicking puppies, but she needed a clean escape. Plus, they were in hell, it wasn’t like they were going anywhere. She paused in the typical athletic stance, automatically tightening her grip on the scythe and evaluating her new opponent. 

Whatever it was, it wasn’t moving. A thick black cloak with a large hood covered it head to toe. Xandra narrowed her eyes; she usually loved surprises, but this was a delicate situation. The figure raised his hands in surrender. She raised an eyebrow.

“What’re you supposed to be?” Xandra wasn’t paranoid by nature, but this guy probably bred suspicion of himself in others.

“I want to help.” The figure’s voice was boyish, but high pitched. If it was a human, she’d guess twelve year old boy, but she’d seen enough hellions disguise themselves as children that she wasn’t the least bit inclined to let her guard down.

“Help what?” Xandra didn’t relax her stance, but she did loosen her face in a casual “you don’t impress me” type look.

“You. Dethroning Phobian? The demon that killed your family? Ring a bell?” She was slowly becoming more and more convinced that he was actually an annoying twelve year old that somehow made it onto the guard. Had she really not noticed him in her adventures in guard training? There was no way. He must be a new recruit.   

“Don’t sass me kid.” Moping wasn’t her thing, but mentions of her less than pleasant past made her a bit bitter.  

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First story here on Wattpad. Thank you all for reading. :D