The Path to Hades - chp. 1

this is just a working title. my friend and I are writing this novel together. there are two main characters. nephina is written from my point of view, while samara is written from her POV. please don't take offense to anything said in this work. in no way are we hating on any religion/beliefs. it's meant to be sort of comical, its purpose is entertainment only. we just wanted something original to write about. let me know what you think!

Chapter 1: Nephina

“I thought I could make the perfect demons out of you two, but apparently you’ve both inherited too many of your insolent little mother’s attributes. It’s despicable!”

Blah blah blah. My father was droning on and on about the “mistake” my twin sister and I had made. He was lecturing us about the consequences of our actions and how we had acted contrary to the demon mantras and etc. In truth the speech was about how we were being banished from Hell (how ironic) to earth because we weren’t demonic enough. That probably had something to do with our mother being human.

In my own opinion I thought this boring speech was torture enough. But it was all just a big ceremony, result of the snooty, stuck-up King Paimon, who happened to be standing a few feet behind my dad to make sure everything went as planned. Demons liked to work together, yes, but deceiving each other was their favorite pastime.

“What you have done has shamed and insulted not only me but the entire populace of Hades!”

“Fuck Hades!” I hissed under my breath, catching the attention of my sister, Samara. She glared at me and then returned to pretending to pay attention to this ridiculous sermon that made my brain want to shrivel up and die.

“I can’t believe you two! Saving that good-for-nothing servant?! All the other demons want you dead! You’re damn lucky I’m your father and was able to bargain for your release!” Another enraged shout of complete bull.

“Holy Satan! Calm the fuck down!” I muttered, wishing I could roll my eyes, except he would see that and beat me to a bloody pulp.

“Would you just shut up?” Samara whispered at me frantically, elbowing me harshly as our father turned his back and roared some more about how we half-bloods disgusted him, how we were too weak and sympathetic, too similar to humans. King Paimon looked pleased with the way things were going. He clearly wanted us dead, so I guess I had to be slightly thankful that our dad, Abigor, was powerful enough to make a deal and get us off with only being banished to earth, rather than a horrible, torturous death by Charun in the Pit.

“Now girls, listen close: You may only take one bag. The bag I gave each of you for your birthday a few months ago?” His black eyes stared intently into mine and I was instantly alerted as I felt his mind probe mine and a scene materialized, visible only to me and him, and most probably my sister.

Samara and I were six. We were in my dad’s office, a place we were never allowed into except for this one moment. I stared up at a gigantic safe that was full of treasures, things that gleamed and twinkled like stars, rendering me speechless at the splendor of it all.

“These are magical, and dangerous. Do not ever touch these,” Abigor warned us, staring down sternly as he let the door shut with a heavy “whoosh.” On the outside of the safe was an insanely sophisticated keypad, the keypad my dad used to punch in the code to open the safe. He’d never told us what the code was.

Baine.

One word, that was all that remained in the forefront of my brain as the scene faded away. Okay cool, why did he say my last name? He’d mocked us for it before, saying how comical it was that our last name was almost identical to the word “bane,” which was what he thought of us as. And then it clicked. The passcode, duh! He was telling us the passcode to the safe. Why? I had no idea. Not yet at least.

“You’ve got to be out of here within twenty minutes. If I come and find you still in your rooms when this time is up you’ll be sent with my dear friend King Paimon to be escorted to the Pits. Once you’re done packing, find Xaphan. He’ll lead you to earth and teach you some of the things you’ve missed out on during your time in Hell. And if I discover you’ve taken any items from your chambers that aren’t naturally found on earth, you’ll be executed on the spot. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, father,” I mumbled monotonously, feeling quite zombie-like after sitting for the past hour listening to him bitch. I couldn’t be certain, but I got the feeling Abigor wanted Samara and I to go into that safe. I think he wanted us to take some of the things from in there. But, seeing as how he’d told us never to touch them I’d have to ask my twin what she thought. Together we could make a joint decision and hope that it was correct so our dad wouldn’t want us dead as well.

“Leave me,” my father ordered quietly, casting his eyes to the ground. It was the only time in my near fifteen years in Hell I’d seen him look so depressed. It was kind of pathetic, actually, such a mighty demon, the manager of 60 legions, crushed by something as simple as his two favorite daughters being banished to Earth. Funny that we were his favorite, considering we were half-demon and half-human, as opposed to all his other full-demon children. But whatever, I used it to my advantage whenever possible.

And right now it seemed like being the favorite was working to my advantage. But for as much as he angered me sometimes, I had to admit, he was a good father. Being a demon of war, someone who could provide military advice, see the future, and lead armies to seriously bloody victories, he’d trained us well in pretty much every type of warfare there was. So we were well prepared for Earth, but that didn’t mean we wanted to go there!

Without thinking both Samara and I had gotten to our feet. The arrogant Paimon glared at us and I tried not to laugh at his womanly face and his hairy camel standing outside, staring dull-wittedly at us through the window. Oh, forgive me, I do believe it’s called a dromedary. Whatever, either way it’s a stupid camel that spits in people’s faces.

I started to retreat from the den to my room, then turned around and had to grab Samara by the arm, dragging her away from our pitiful father. She swung a fist at me, attempting to hit me for this mess that wasn’t really my fault. What she really wanted to do was hit our father, I could tell. But I was pretty positive that wouldn’t help our case. So I just jerked her along and flung her into the doorway that led to her room.

Resisting the feeling of shock and horror that was trying to course through me, I stormed into my own room and slammed the door shut, my muscles tensed with disbelief. My life in Hell was ending.