Chapter 1

There is nothing neither simple nor easy about being the daughter of the Grim Reaper: a descendent of death. My father is a terrifying son of a bitch with a penchant for pain that is out of this world. I should know, he trained me in everything that I know. Growing up in the pits of hell was never pleasant. You get to see horrific shit that you don’t want to see and come to understand truths that will rip into the very fabric of your soul. Humans are stupid. I have come to understand that as well, especially the ones who refuse to believe in the concepts of both Heaven and Hell. I have been to Heaven, once with my father. He asked me to accompany him on his tour through the pearly gates. Of course, being what we are, we were only allowed into the first realm before quickly being escorted out by the Warrior Angels. I was told by a messenger angel once that once the war was over, when humans were set free of the spiritual chains that sent them to my father’s doorstep, we would be allowed entry. But until then, Hell is where it is.

My name is Sin and I am named after the curse inflicted upon mankind for his disobedience. My father is the Grim Reaper, also known as the Angel of Death, and the most feared and revered of all of the spiritual entities that hide behind the veil that separates the living from the dead. As of right now, I play many roles on my father’s behalf and one of those roles is that similar to what humans call a bounty hunter. For instance, every once and a while some schmo attempts to cheat my father of his due by going to a strong witch and after paying a hefty fee (his soul usually) she turns him into a thing of the night: zombie, vampire, etc… When that happens, my job along with a few other trained killers is to come up and bring that entity down where he belongs: in hell. I also go after witches, warlocks, and anyone else that tries to tamper with the natural order of things. Occasionally, I am sent up as a hired assassin by my father. Sometimes humans get a little beside themselves and decide that it is a great idea to use science to eradicate the entire human populations or a select group emerges from the cesspool of science and tries to play God by tampering with DNA in hopes of creating something that would ultimately destroy the human race. I am what one would consider the last resort before God decides to move his hand, and trust me, He is pretty close to doing it again. Of course, He did send His Son a couple of thousand years ago, which ultimately stalled out everything out, but the Big War is coming and what I do is try to keep humans from inadvertently starting it at least before the pregame show.

In human years, I am around thirty years old. I am actually half human. My father was roaming the earth as usual; seeking out those whose number had been called and had not been allowed entrance into Heaven when he stumbled upon my mother, who was a successful lounge singer at the time. And so the story unfolds in the same manner as any story where a nonhuman entity falls for a human: he disguised himself as a human, seduced her and nine months later I was born. She did not survive the birth however, and my father in a rare moment of guilt did not send her to hell. He placed her in a realm that is neither Heaven nor Hell where she would remain comfortably until the end of the Big War. As for me, he took me away from human hands and raised me in Hell where I have remained ever since. I do not get to see my mother much because good old Grim thinks that would activate my human side too strongly and he needed me to free from human emotions.

Thanks dad. You are the absolute greatest…not!

I spend most of my days sparring with demons who envy me with a passion. They are at the command of a being I really want nothing to do with while I maintain my free will…oh and it does hurt their feelings a little bit that I have an actual physical body. They have to utilize abilities such as possession and even soul snatching in order to manifest fully among the living. There are very few of them that managed to maintain their original solid forms, but those who were capable were of stronger angelic breeding prior to the fall. Most of the time, outside of the sparring, they don’t bother me. Every once in a blue moon do I encounter one whose attitude needs an adjustment, but other than that I have no worries.

Being the daughter of the Grim Reaper has its perks as well as its downside. My father can be a real prick sometimes with his rules and zero tolerance for disobedience. For instance when I was sixteen, I decided to sneak out through a half opened portal that one of the lesser demons left behind in hopes of creating a path of my own. I had barely stepped out of the veil and into a small town in southern Mississippi when good old dad comes charging out of night sky on a chariot made completely of brimstone and fire. Not only did he destroy the entire town with a level five tornado but he snatched me by my robing with his cold, bony hand and dragged my ass back to hell and locked me deep in the Abaddon pits (which is the deepest, darkest pit in all of hell and where pure evil thrives) for an entire year. For 365 days I had to fight for survival using every technique I had learned from daddy’s private lessons. By the time Grim had remembered where he had placed his black and beating heart and released me, I was half starved, gravelly wounded and longing for revenge.

I still owe him one for that.

There was also the time when I turned 21 and I had fallen for one of his demon warriors. The guy was well over six feet, built like a brick house with massive black wings that extended to a full eight feet when spread. Long raven dark hair fell in waves across his shoulders, while his eyes burned with a red hot heat that I simply could not resist. We had been on several missions together and one night temptation reared its ugly head and I gave up my maidenhood to one of my father’s best men, thankfully not in Hell but on an island somewhere inside the Bermuda Triangle. It was the best night of my life, but I should have known better. I have lived in a realm where someone is always watching, and being that I am daughter of the Grim Reaper did not leave me the exception. I am willing to bet it was one of those holier than thou angels that take their guardianship over the humans a little too seriously because not even 24 hours after I cried out to the heavens (multiple times) word had gotten back to my father and he had his best warrior executed. The poor guy is still being tormented somewhere in one of the many levels of Hell. As for me? I was banished from visiting the earth realm; stripped entirely of my position as head bounty hunter, and left to wander around the various levels until I either went mad from pure boredom or died from the mundanity of it all.

Of course Grim came to his senses after six months when one of the Hell Hounds broke loose and I am the only one capable of bringing them back without having to harm them. And then shortly after that, a small civil war broke out between succubae and the harpies and who has the diplomacy to work that out? You guessed it, me. And then not even a month later, a very brave soul of a former rapist and serial killer managed to escape his chains and stole Grim’s Scythe before returning to the human world to wreak pure havoc. Again it was me whom my father sent to go after the bastard and clean up whatever mess he made. The founder and creator of Hell showed absolutely no gratitude whatsoever, he just blew me off without so much as a thank you, but dad was pretty happy. Well, as happy as an Angel of Death could possibly be. I was fully reinstated back to head bounty hunter and was given my freedom and now here I am.

Hell is in an uproar again. Humans are still being stupid and my father has gotten himself into a world of trouble. A human has gotten ahold of the first seal of the Apocalypse and the Warrior Angels think it is my father who is responsible. My father’s fate rests solely in my hands as does the rest of the world, so I have been released into the earth realm to not only find the seal and return it to the powers that be and drag the foolish soul down to hell where he belongs. My name is Sin, and I am the Grim Reaper’s daughter, and this is my story.