Halo Goodbye, page 1
Halo Goodbye
Nazri Noor
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This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.
HALO GOODBYE
First edition. March 26, 2021.
Copyright © 2021 Nazri Noor.
All rights reserved.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Ex Nihilo
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Also by Nazri Noor
About the Author
1
“Ook.”
“Right. So I just dump the chocolate into the bowl?”
“Ook.”
And so I did, watching as chopped up chunks of milk chocolate tumbled into a slurry of pancake mix. Made from scratch by yours truly, Mason Albrecht, nephilim renegade and sous chef to the best culinary mind in all of Valero, or at least in our home dimension of Paradise.
“It’s looking great,” I said, giving the mix a couple of good stirs. “Thanks, Chef.”
Priscilla the gorilla gave me another “Ook,” then curled her lips back, favoring me with a genuinely pleased smile. I’d only very recently shown any interest in the kitchen, mainly because I wanted to learn how to make the stuff that I loved to eat. Plus there’s something oddly meditative about the whole process, you know? Cooking is so low pressure. You just follow instructions, whether that comes in the form of a recipe or a highly intelligent gorilla with exquisite culinary taste. And Priscilla, by the way, loved it when I called her “Chef.” Fucking loved it.
I was helping her throw together breakfast. Now, Priscilla’s the kind of lady who likes to whip up a nice spread of freshly-baked scones and clotted cream and sliced fruit, or maybe lightly fried Filipino rice with some crisp fish and runny eggs, or any of the many, many multicultural recipes she kept in that brilliant brain of hers. But I just wanted some pancakes. Specifically, chocolate pancakes, made with tons of milk chocolate chopped into delicious chunks. It was a wonder I didn’t end up eating half of it before we even started.
Of course, Chef Priscilla had her rules, the most important of which was food safety. She preferred her signature frilly pink apron, while I was made to wear something that must have been a gag gift, very likely from our shared employer and landlord, Artemis, goddess of the hunt and bearer of bad taste. My apron said “Fist the Chef,” in short, and the huge graphic of a fist might have suggested that the phrase was referring to getting a fist bump, but other, more vigorous activities tended to spring to mind.
In any case, cooking was a nice change of pace, seeing things slow down in the world around me. It felt like things had happened so fast, between discovering my true lineage, then actually meeting my father, Samyaza, former king of the fallen. Said former king of the fallen had moved into Paradise with the rest of us with Artemis’s blessing, living in a hut much like my own, which I built with my own two hands not far from what was beginning to look like Paradise’s residential area.
Dad – Samyaza, that is – apparently liked to sleep in, which was fine by everybody anyway. He’d only just regenerated his entire physical being, and we, all of us, needed to build our strength for the challenges to come. The biggest would be finally tracking down my mother. She was alive, they said, they being Azrael, the angel of death, and Lucifer Morningstar himself. Yes, that Lucifer.
And I knew that she was a captive of the demon prince Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies and the Prince of Gluttony. Fucking demon princes. I could never catch a break. The Seven, especially, as in the seven deadly sins, were the worst of them all, and five of them had already popped into my life in some capacity to harass me, try to throw me into a people zoo, or eat bits of my soul.
Beelzebub’s entire thing was eating too much of the finest and rarest delicacies. That was the part that bothered me. But things had been bizarrely quiet on the demon prince front, hardly good news because it only implied that the rat bastards were cooking up something truly sinister. I only hoped I was wrong.
“How much longer are those going to take?” Sterling said. He’d lowered his sunglasses, looking over the rim of them as he lounged in his hammock, the very picture of total laziness.
I was just about to say something snippy when Priscilla answered for us both, by snarling and shrieking at him. She shook a wooden spoon in the air for good measure, mimicking a motion that made it look like she would have no hesitation bashing Sterling’s head in.
“It was just a question,” Sterling said, slipping his sunglasses back on and grumbling to himself as he melted into the hammock and went back to scrolling on his phone.
Priscilla shook her head and gave me a conspiratorial look, the kind that said, “Can you believe this asshole?”
She never said anything, but I replied anyway. “I know, right? That’s just how he is. You get used to it.”
“Ook,” she grunted, giving the pot another stir.
It was nice having Sterling around, truth be told, and it was even nicer how he liked to bring Asher along whenever he visited. Asher Mayhew, professional necromancer and avid gamer, was swinging in his own hammock not far from Sterling, a split coconut balanced on his stomach, his forehead furrowed as he concentrated on a handheld video game. Florian was sprawled on the ground in a patch of green grass, sunning himself. Something about alraunes needing physical contact with nature, plus he seemed to benefit from receiving plenty of sunlight. I never did ask if he could sustain himself through photosynthesis.
I turned back to the counter and smiled to myself. Honestly, I didn’t even mind that they were just chilling out and not helping in the kitchen, but I did hope that what Priscilla and I were making would turn out nice. Man, I don’t know. You’d be pressed to get me to openly admit it, but I guess there’s a part of me that likes to make people happy, whether that’s achieved through making a stack of pancakes or running a sword through a demon’s face.
Maybe I was growing up.
“Can you believe these bozos?” Artemis said, thumbing over her shoulder, popping into the kitchen to poke her nose in among the pots and pans. “They just stroll in here and sun themselves like a bunch of stray cats. I should start charging per hammock. I should start charging per coconut. I’m not running a charity here. Ooh, Priscilla, that looks good.”
Artemis ran her finger through a pot of something, tasting it and making a quiet, excited squeal. Priscilla squinted at her, clearly on the verge of another angry gorilla lecture, but said nothing. In my heart I knew that Artemis’s health code violation was only excused because of the little compliment.
The faint scent of vanilla essence and the sweetness of pancakes cooking up to perfection swirled into my nostrils as I finished off the last of the batter. The stacks weren’t as uniformly round as I might have hoped, but hey, not bad at all for a first try. I held the plates up to Priscilla, beaming when she thrust out her chest and smiled at me.
She patted me gently on the back of the hand, then shooed me out of the kitchen area, turning the knobs on a little television that she kept by the counter. I narrowed my eyes at the screen. Excited as I was to dig into my pancakes, I was also a little curious about what Priscilla watched in private. She only ever watched her soap operas with Artemis. They maintained a very serious and sacred pact over that. One isn’t allowed to see new episodes without the other. I tilted my head, not entirely surprised to find that she was watching a cooking show, featuring a blond man with a large jaw and large hands. Priscilla leaned her chin into her open hands, planting her elbows onto the counter and sighing.
“Ooh,” I said. “Someone has a little crush.”
She grunted and waved me away. Artemis swept in to collect me, tugging me by the wrist out through to the dining area. “It’s cute, she’s a big fan. Some celebrity chef. Marcel Du-something? Something French, at least.”
I peered over my shoulder again, focusing on the man on the screen. “He’s not even that cute. Priscilla must really admire the guy.”
Artemis snorted. “Whatever, man, I’m starving. Pancake time.”
I set them down on a table, incidentally one that I’d also built myself out of a bunch of split logs. Florian had already kindly set it. Asher sprang from his hammock without needing to be asked, and Sterling sighed laboriously, as if having his breakfast cooked and served for him was the most exhausting th ing on his schedule. I rolled my eyes, piling my plate high with pancakes and drizzling on just the tiniest bit of syrup. I wanted to taste the chocolate, see?
And the first bite was just absolute perfection. Not to build myself up too much, but seriously, they were not bad at all for my first time. Fluffy and buttery, the chocolate bits nice and warmly melted on the inside. Asher and Florian nodded their approval. Artemis was too busy stuffing her face to comment, which I took as a positive sign. Sterling, though, was staring rapt at his cellphone and only absently nibbling at the edge of a pancake he was holding in one hand.
“Dude,” I said. “Can you not? Put that thing on a plate and put your phone away.”
He didn’t even look up at me, his eyes still glued to the screen. “Can’t do, Dad. You’re not the boss of me.”
Asher nudged him with his shoulder. “What’s so interesting on that thing, anyway? You’ve been scrolling all damn morning.”
“Dead bodies,” Sterling said, like it was nothing.
I wrinkled my nose. “Could you not? We’re trying to have a nice family meal, here.”
“You’re not my dad and you never will be,” Sterling said, barely interested. “And shush. This is research.”
“For what, exactly?”
Sterling finally put both the phone and the pancake down, sighing. “I don’t know how to tell you this, but I think we’ve got a lead on what Beelzebub might be up to.”
Florian shrugged. “This seems pretty normal, though. Dead bodies? People die every day.”
“Sure,” Sterling said, ripping at the pancake with his fangs. “But these have been turning up all over the place. Global, like. And you want to know the most interesting part?”
I dropped my knife and my fork, still hungry, but suddenly on the edge of my seat.
“They’re all missing their internal organs.”
2
“Bullshit,” I said. That was generally my response to everything unusual, but especially to something as incredulous as this.
“I’m serious,” Sterling said.
“Where are you even finding this information?” Asher said, pawing for Sterling’s phone. “It’s not like you’re conducting some huge investigation just on your phone.”
Sterling slapped his hand away. “That’s not polite, Mayhew. My phone. But if you must know, it’s my chat group. With other vampires.”
I rolled my eyes. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.”
Sterling bent across the table, stabbing a finger at my face. “Listen, pipsqueak. Just because we’re undead, doesn’t mean we aren’t chatty.” He leaned back, squirting a dollop of maple syrup on his mangled half of a pancake. “And anyway, it’s good business to keep tabs on your local vampire community. We might not all get along, but it’s convenient.”
I cocked an eyebrow. “Okay. So what’s your vampire chat room even called?”
Sterling grinned out of the corner of his mouth, his fangs gleaming in Paradise’s artificial sun. “‘This Place Sucks.’”
I chuckled. “Very cute.”
There was no sense really doubting Sterling, though. I never did delve very deep into vampire politics and etiquette, but I did know that maintaining ties with the local community was very important. It helped them govern themselves, in the sense of tracking and identifying vampires who might prove problematic for the local population. They were territorial creatures, and nobody wanted to go spooking and killing the neighborhood humans, not if they didn’t want supernatural authorities coming down on them. Hard.
But that begged the question. These killings were interesting enough for creatures as ancient and as bloodthirsty as vampires. If they were paying attention to these murders, then there was good reason for us to do so as well. Especially if they were – did he say they were missing organs?
“Very mummy-like,” Asher said. “You know, the whole removed organs thing? Except that was usually done to preserve the organs and bury them with the mummy in question anyway, at least in ancient Egypt. Canopic jars, they’re called, the vessels that you keep the organs in.”
Florian shook his head. “But that doesn’t make sense. Do you mean to say that someone’s going around collecting organs to preserve? What for?”
Asher shrugged. “I was just sharing. I don’t think they’re stealing organs for that purpose, whoever they are.”
Artemis paused chewing long enough to drag the back of her hand across her lips. “Yeah, okay,” she mumbled with her mouth still half full. “But what if they’re eating them?”
I blinked at her. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me.” She speared the last bit of pancake on her plate with the tip of a knife. “What if they’re eating those organs?”
Sterling snapped his fingers, cocked one at Artemis, then winked. “Bingo. Goddess of the hunt got it in one. That’s my whole point. Beelzebub is what again, the Prince of Gluttony? Who else would be nutty enough to go around extracting organs for personal pleasure? They’re delicacies, after all. Sweet breads and offal.”
Florian gagged. “I think it’s all awful, if you ask me.”
“Very cute,” Sterling said, nodding in approval as he reached for a cigarette. “That’s a good one, Florian.”
Asher shoved his last piece of pancake in his mouth, chasing the bite with a gulp of milk. “You know what? I’m gonna check this out. Now you’ve got me all curious.”
He rummaged through his backpack, and I tilted my head this way and that, trying to guess at what nifty magical artifact he was going to pull out and use to divine more details on the matter. He did, as a necromancer, frequently tap into the underworld, speaking to spirits to seek out information.
“Aha,” he said, pulling out his arcane implement. I parted my lips, prepared to give a delighted “Ooh,” when I saw that he was only retrieving a laptop.
“Huh,” I said. “And here I thought you were going to commune with the dead or something.”
He shook his head. “That’s casting too wide a net, especially if this has been happening in several places. Makes more sense to narrow things down a little.” He turned to Sterling expectantly. “Can I get some info? Dates, places, maybe names? I’ll need a head start.”
Sterling rolled his eyes, then handed Asher his phone. “Just don’t look at my recent photos. Actually, go ahead, you might find something to like.”
Asher reddened, then scoffed. “You guys have a pretty decent wifi connection in here,” he said, his eyes flitting between his laptop and Sterling’s phone.
I glanced around, still wondering where Artemis hid the router. “Yeah, about that. Where is the internet coming from?”
Artemis chugged the last of her milk, getting up from the table. “Don’t worry about it. I know a guy.”
I shrugged. Not my problem, as long as I still got to browse the web and watch videos. Uh, you know, about pancakes and stuff.
There was something soothing about the sound of Asher’s fingers rapidly typing away at the keyboard. I always forgot so readily how he really was just a regular kid, all his freaky death magic aside. He was a necromancer, and a gamer, and a computer nerd. Kind of like me, really, just some guy who happened to have bizarre powers.
And that was when it dawned on me. Did the victims have anything in common? Serial killers tended to have preferences, working in patterns. But this was some mass, concerted effort. Surely it wasn’t coincidence, Valero’s vampires all aflutter about organ theft and murder. Were the victims the same age, maybe? The same gender?
