Halo Goodbye by Nazri Noor (first ebook reader .TXT) 📗

He grinned, his teeth blinding white, his smile as bright as the sun. “Mason, it’s good to see you again.” Then he turned to Artemis and somehow smiled even harder. “And you as well, sister.”

8

I bashed my hammer down again, the shaft almost slipping from my grasp, my palm and my fingers so sweaty. It felt like Paradise was reflecting the temperament of its newest visitor, Apollo himself, the god of the sun and twin brother to Artemis.

Or was he really just a visitor? Artemis had barked orders at me the night before to build him his own hut in the morning. It sounded like the two had barely slept, keeping each other up with gossip and tittering through the night, maybe braiding each other’s hair. I barely slept myself, partly because of the noise of the twins’ impromptu slumber party, but also because of my damn halo.

Sadriel didn’t leave instructions about how to turn the stupid thing off. I’d have been happier if it at least had some sort of dimmer function, but the thing kept blasting golden light all over my hut all through the night. I had to sleep with a pillow smushed over my eyes. I was lucky I didn’t smother myself to death, though considering the rickety state of my body after barely catching any Zs, maybe I was better off smothered.

We had a little history, Apollo and I. He was the first god of the earth I’d ever met, the way that Beelzebub and Raziel were my first devil and angel. It was way back in my shitty hometown of Humpuck, what I also liked to call Bumfuck, the rotted hemorrhoid of California. Despite dressing and behaving like a frat boy who’d bought both a yacht and a perfect set of teeth with his trust fund, Apollo had always shown me nothing but kindness. That in itself I’d always found very slightly suspicious, but he had also, in ways, nudged me towards befriending Artemis. I owed the twins a lot, in short.

“Ook,” Priscilla said, offering me a split coconut with both hands, a sympathetic smile on her lips. I hadn’t notice her amble up to me. She’d known Artemis, and by extension, the twins far longer than any of us. She probably had to sit through her own share of late night bacchanals.

I accepted the coconut, chugging down its cool, sweet water eagerly, hardly caring that it was spilling down my jaw and my throat. It was just too damn hot. I blubbered something to her that might have passed for “Thank you,” and Priscilla loped off after waving me a silent goodbye, heading back to her kitchens.

Maybe she was whipping up something extra fancy for lunch, especially since we had a special guest over. I was really hoping for something substantial, lots of protein to give me back my strength. The heat has a way of sapping the energy right through your skin. Even working stripped down to my waist I was practically a melted puddle of sweaty nephilim. I mean, even my shorts were soaked. That bad.

I called out to thin air, unsure of where the twins were even hanging out. “Could one of you turn down the heat? There is no reason for the world to be this hot right now. I thought this place was called Paradise.”

From somewhere among the trees came Artemis’s voice. “Pssh. Lightweight.”

I grumbled to myself, glaring accusingly at the trees as I heard both her and Apollo giggling to each other. Damn entities always having their way, and then there was me, hammering piles of wood together when we should have been out in Valero working on tracking down the murderers. Or Marcel. Possibly both.

Ugh. That’d necessitate convincing my friends to help me, of course, and it didn’t improve matters that one of them had become a Marcel Dubois super-fan overnight. Where the hell was Florian, anyway? He was supposed to put the finishing touches on all of the structures in Paradise. I mean, not that it ever offended me, but we all knew that my skills at carpentry and masonry were rudimentary at best. Florian’s final dash of vines and moss and whatever on top of every hut and building wasn’t just for decoration. It helped hold everything together.

“Penny for your thoughts?”

Samyaza grinned at me as he sauntered up, reaching for another hammer from the pile of tools I pretended I knew how to use.

“Just glad that someone around here still cares enough to help,” I said glumly.

He laughed, getting to work on the other side of the wooden skeleton that would eventually become Apollo’s hut. “The twins are catching up. I say we let them. And Florian appears to be taking a shine to Apollo, so that’s happening, too.”

I scowled. “That boy needs to get out more. First Marcel, now Apollo.”

“I don’t blame him,” Samyaza said, banging away at the wood. “Florian’s an alraune, and that basically makes him half plant. It makes a weird kind of sense for him to be so friendly with a sun god, you know?”

My hand swept across my forehead, catching a bead of sweat that was threatening to slip into my eye. “I guess.”

I looked again over at the trees where I’d heard all the giggling. Florian and the twins were in clear view now, talking animatedly to each other. Florian had his hand held out, green light coursing from his fingers as he nonchalantly grew a sapling out of the ground. It rushed up and outward, forming branches, then leaves, then finally, perfect apples that gleamed like red jewels. He plucked one and offered it to Apollo, who clapped in delight before biting in. I could hear it crunch from all that way. I licked my lips.

“The more important thing for us to be concerned about is this Marcel person,” Samyaza said, prying my attention away from Apollo and the apples. “I don’t know what Sadriel’s department is up to, but if you ask me,