Half Veiled: Half Mortal Book One (Half Mortal Series 1) Read online

  HALF

  VEILED

  Half Mortal Book One

  Rachel Reese

  Thank you to my loving and supportive family.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  www.RachelReese.weebly.com

  © 2017 Rachel Reese. All rights reserved.

  Chapter 1

  I was looking down at an arm.

  I think it is important to note it was not my arm nor was it attached to another person. It was just an arm, severed very neatly at the shoulder socket. As far as arms go, I suppose it was an attractive arm. It definitely had once been connected to someone of the female persuasion. It had a delicate and slender wrist. The wrist was connected to a hand decorated with manicured and nicely sculpted nails. I’m nearly certain the original owner had a great hand-lotion routine and wore gloves when she washed dishes.

  I was also surprised by the lack of gore. Not that I spent a lot of time daydreaming about receiving body parts in the mail, but I guess I always thought there would be a blood soaked box with a very ugly, sawed-off looking limb inside. This arm came in a very nice, neat, blood free box. In fact, you could mistake this arm for a mannequin arm, because the cut was so clean and the box it arrived in so tidy.

  But I digress. It was definitely a human arm. Nothing can quite mimic that strange pallor of disembodied flesh.

  “Hey, Al, somebody sent us an arm,” I shouted over my shoulder to my partner as I stared down at the object.

  Alastair and I have worked together for a very long time. In fact, it’s hard to remember a time without him. You could say he is my guardian angel, of sorts. Mostly he is the muscle of our operation; but he is a bottomless pit of information, too. He can also open pickle jars, which I find to be very useful.

  Oh, and of course he is gorgeous. He radiates a healthy mix of Thor and David Beckham, all demi-god and rippling abs with flowing blonde hair. It is disgusting. It makes me feel like his toad-ish female friend, pitied for being a seven who could never catch the ten.

  I guess “toad” might be taking it a little far. I’m much too tall to be compared to a toad and a little too thin. Perhaps a salamander? But I’m a little curvier than a salamander, so I am not really sure what amphibian would best compare. In stark contrast to Al’s Gaelic godliness, I have dark, curly and unruly hair that bounces at will a little past my shoulders. I have dark eyebrows and lashes that frame huge green eyes. When I say “huge,” I mean it. They don’t pop out quite like frogeyes, but they are a little inhuman in size nonetheless and are reminiscent of ridiculous Japanese anime. Al has told me I look exotic. I have always thought that was the polite way of telling someone they look weird, in a high fashion kind of way. But with my amphibian body and anime eyes, I seem to fit right in at comic book conventions.

  “Huh, you’re right, that’s an arm,” Al had ambled up beside me and looked down into the box with curiosity. “That’s a new one. Who did you piss off?”

  “Who did I piss off? What about you?” It irked me that Al automatically assumed I had been the guilty party in irritating somebody to the point of being sent a severed limb in the mail. He was probably right, however. That certainly did not dampen my indignation. The assumption just seemed rude.

  “Helen, don’t be like that. You only piss off people who really deserve pissing off. You should probably call Carl, though.” Al gave me a kiss on the forehead and a shoulder squeeze by means of apology and then went back to studying the arm.

  “Yeah, I should probably call Carl. Hey, don’t touch that.” I slapped Al’s hand out of the way as he reached to move the arm. “We need to leave everything as it is. Besides, you don’t know what kind of arm that is. Could be dangerous.”

  “You’re right, but I can’t say I’ve ever come across an arm that proved dangerous without the body.”

  “Well, have you ever been sent an arm in the mail without explanation? We don’t even know if the owner of this arm is alive or dead. We don’t know if they were an Other. This could be an invitation or a threat. I don’t like it, Al. This is weird, even for us.” I gave my head a little shake as I pulled out my phone. I coupled my small speech with the most severe don’t-joke-around-Al look I could manage. It had taken years to master, but with my dark features and brilliant green eyes, I could make small children cry with but a glance. It was a point of pride, really. I considered it one of my super powers.

  Al just rolled his eyes and withdrew his hand from its precarious hovering above the box. He took out his phone as well and began taking pictures of the limb from various angles. Satisfied the limb was no longer in danger of being meddled with, I navigated to Carl’s number on my phone’s contact list and pushed “call.”

  Detective Carl Alvaro was an invaluable asset to our business; which was most easily described as a “referral only” consulting firm. I helped people with issues outside the realm of normal and Carl investigated the shitty, unsolvable cases that tended to reside in the same realm. Normal is such a relative term. Carl frequently wished my version of “outside the realm of normal” played by more “normal” rules, but that is why he was willing to work with me…he really did not have any other choice. I’m getting ahead of myself, though. Needless to say, our paths have crossed on multiple occasions.

  The good news is I get paid more than Carl. The bad news is he ultimately has the power to make my life very difficult. A fact that I believe he relishes.

  For the most part, Al and I try to keep everything above board. We find it is much easier to work if most of our operations are legal. These operations have a wide berth, though, ranging from investigation, locating missing persons, beastly apprehension and/or extermination and simple counseling on matters outside, well, normal. It’s a delicate job that requires the maintenance and sometimes cooperation of local law enforcement. This genial, mostly truthful, relationship really comes in handy when we slip up and lob the head off a hunger demon or some other such nonsense.

  The phone connected. “Hey Carl!” I tried to sound as cheerful as possible; it was a little early in the morning to be dropping this in Carl’s lap. He wasn’t going to like it.

  “Oh God. What did you do?” was his accusing greeting.

  “I did not do anything but open my mail,” I said defensively. Really, Carl, you too? Why was it always something I did? I could have been calling to report a crime that had nothing to do with me. I will have to try that some time.

  “Well, I appreciate you calling me to tell me you got mail Cupcake, but I am a little busy.” My plan of staying cheerful and positive was quickly crumbling away; now I was bordering on full-blown rankled. Cupcake? Really? Not that it was ever okay, but it is certainly not in the modern approved vernacular when referring to a woman.

  “As much as you would like to think I would call you up just to hear your voice, Sugar-buns, someone sent me an arm. Seeing as that it is not really in my purview to deal with dismembered limbs, and I’m pretty sure it’s against postal code to send them commercially, I thought I’d call you. So, instead of insulting me, perhaps you could do your job and investigate.” A little more acid had crept into the conversation than I had wanted. I blame Carl.

  “Sugar-buns, eh? I’ll be there in ten. Do not touch anything.” He disconnected without giving me a chance to retaliate. I slammed my phone down on the table and fumed. I’m pretty sure a little steam might have escaped from my ears, but perhaps I imagined it.

  “So, how’s Carl?” Al asked, amu
sed. He had taken a momentary break from his photo-shoot with the arm to grin at me stupidly.

  “Shut-up, Al. I’m going to get us some coffee. Carl will be here in ten.” I needed to clear my head. Though it had not really sunk in yet, I was a little rattled that an arm was in a box and that the box was in my office. I was displacing this emotion onto Carl; it was far easier to feel affronted by him than scared by an arm.

  I huffily grabbed my fuchsia purse and a gauzy blue scarf as I headed out the door to the stairwell. Our office shared a building with a law office that never seemed to be open, a Weight Watchers, and, thank our lucky stars, a cute little coffee shop on the bottom floor. The guy who owned the coffee shop was a wizard. I mean that literally. His name was Hal and he was pretty nice. He could also make pictures in coffee foam that belonged in museums. Tragically, however, I do not know of a museum that showcases coffee foam…yet.

  Ten minutes later, I had my little cardboard drink tray in hand and was heading back up the stairs. Whoever invented the cardboard drink tray was a genius. I mused on this genius as I put one foot in front of the other up the stairs until I could hear Carl and Al talking. It brought me back to the situation that waited for me behind my office door. My heart sank a little bit. The person who invented the cardboard drink-holding tray was still a genius, but I could no longer spare them brain space. I took a deep breath and opened the door.

  “I have drinks for all,” I merrily sang as I stepped inside. Feigning cheerfulness is an excellent coping mechanism. I had quickly forgotten my previous irritation with Carl as I flung my purse on the table by the door and handed Al his green tea and Carl one of those disgusting energy drinks in the colorful and shiny aluminum cans. I then plucked my own hot chocolate out of the tray. It turns out I don’t actually get coffee on coffee runs. I like to pretend to be a grown up and feel hot chocolate could fool someone at a distance. Al likes healthy things, yuck, and Carl…I don’t know what his excuse is, maybe he just likes things in cans.

  “You seem awfully chipper for someone who just opened a box with an arm in it,” Carl said in greeting as I handed him his beverage. Uhg, can’t people just say thank you? Carl was standing about two feet from the offending package, one hand in his pocket, the other now holding his drink.

  I’d say Carl is in his early-thirties and if you could overlook some pretty serious personality flaws (like biting his nails and calling me Cupcake), he is a handsome man. He is not handsome like Al; I had a hard time believing anyone can be that handsome, but he is handsome in a more real way. He has almond colored skin, a square jaw that is always shadowed with a little stubble, thick dark brown hair and deep, searching brown eyes. I think he has commitment issues and probably an overbearing mother, but that is pure speculation.

  He even does a fairly decent job pulling off the detective uniform, although I can’t imagine that his closet was very interesting to look at. His closet probably only contains a couple pairs of the same trousers with multiple versions of the same button down shirt. It likely also has only two ties. His outfits never really change from day to day. His tie choice oscillating between today’s blue tie and the occasional green tie. I think he choses at random, but it warrants further study. Maybe it is an indicator of his mood. Both the green and the blue ties seem very similar to each other, though. If I were going to have two mood ties, I would pick bright red and maybe an interesting purple color. That’s just me, though.

  “Well, if I let silly things like that get me down, I’d be a drag to hang out with, wouldn’t I?” I smiled sweetly.

  “Whatever. When did you get the package? Was it delivered by hand or waiting when you arrived? Were there markings on the exterior of the package that seemed odd to you?” Carl was going in to he detective mode. This was fine. He was less irritating when he was working, but he was also less fun. I sighed.

  “The package was here when I arrived this morning, outside the door. That is usually where the packages are left by either UPS or FedEx. They always seem to come after hours. The package seemed fairly normal; it was wrapped in brown paper, and addressed to me. The return address seems like it would likely be bogus now that I know there is an arm in the box. But I haven’t touched anything, so I haven’t gotten a chance to look.”

  As I said this I decided to peer around to the far side of the box to try and see the address that was adhered to the underside of the brown paper. I tilted my head pretty far forward and a little upside down, trying not to disturb the paper but still see the writing. I was so focused on not touching the paper I didn’t even notice that my beautiful gauzy blue scarf had draped across the hand in the box like a colorful shroud. Then, a whole lot of things happened at once, none of them normal.

  The arm moved, and it moved quickly. In my experience, severed limbs don’t typically reanimate, so to say it took me by surprise is an understatement. The arm popped up to the edge of the box, supported by its fingers, and scurried over the side in the same fashion as the Thing from The Addams Family. It didn’t have far to go before it lunged at none other than yours truly. Instinctively, I threw my hot chocolate at the oncoming projectile, missed completely (no great surprise there) and was knocked on the floor. Once on the floor, the surprisingly strong fingers of a dismembered arm quickly found my neck and began a concerted effort to strangle me.

  Now, I don’t want to assume anything, you know what they say about assumptions, but I doubt many people have been strangled by just an arm. When being attacked, my knee-jerk reaction is to fight. It’s never pretty, but it’s usually fierce. However, I was having a very hard time finding something to fight. There was no body to kick and no larger mass to try to roll away from. There was just an arm with a hand that was firmly connected to my throat. As I thrashed, I could feel the urgent and pressing need for air that was being denied me. Stars began to twinkle in my field of vision and I heard a loud rushing noise in my ears. I was about two second away from total panic.

  Then, Al was there. I’m pretty sure he sat on me, but really, the details are a bit blurry. Maybe because I was being strangled and sat on, but who knows. However, I do remember hearing a definite snapping sound as Al broke the thumb backward on the hand around my neck and the grip loosened. It wasn’t hard for Al to then pry the wily limb from my neck and fling it across the room.

  It proved to be a persistent arm. After hitting the far wall, it bounced once and quickly righted itself to scurry mode once again. Not that it wasn’t freaky before, but now the damn thing had a broken thumb sticking out at a weird angle and was nevertheless creepy crawling its way back to where I still lay on the floor gasping for breath. There were two loud bangs and the arm slumped to its side, twitched a little, then lay motionless. Carl was standing with his gun drawn, still pointing it at the arm he had just shot.

  “Jesus Christ,” was all Carl could say as what color was left drained from his face. I’m sure my face didn’t look much better as I sucked in large gulps of air. My throat burned which made my eyes water. I certainly was not crying.

  “Helen, are you alright?” Al was no longer sitting on me and had lifted me up to a half sitting position. I nodded my head in affirmation that I was pretty sure I’d live. I took another deep breath, and then spoke in a raspy voice I hardly recognized as my own.

  “You were right, I’m pretty sure I pissed somebody off.”

  Chapter 2

  Al took care of the arm. He used a pencil to pry out the remaining bullet from the bicep (the other bullet was a clean through-and-through and was now lodged in our baseboard) and handed the bullet to Carl. We give thoughtful gifts. Al was very careful to handle the arm as little as possible, but it really seemed to be dead this time. Nonetheless, with great care, he placed the arm back in the box and shut the lid for good measure.

  “It’s never a dull moment with you. Next time I see it’s you calling, I think I won’t pick up.” Carl rubbed his forehead and I’m pretty sure I noticed a little twitch in his eye.

  “I’m
sorry Carl, I didn’t know the arm was going to spring to life and try to kill me. I will try to consider your feelings more next time,” I looked in the mirror over the tiny sink in the bathroom in the back corner of the office. My neck looked a mess. An angry bruise bloomed over the front of my throat that was red, purple and blue. It made me think of a triple berry cake. Subsequently, it made me think that it was past my morning snack time.

  The door was open behind me and in the mirror I saw Carl peering over at me. His face softened considerably when he took in the damage. Although, as soon as I turned around to face him, his features went back to their mildly interested and mostly annoyed configuration. Maybe it was a trick of the mirror that gave him a look of caring.

  “So, I think you should put your scarf back on, Helen. We don’t want the police asking too many questions about where you got those bruises if we are just calling them to take away this benign package that contains an arm. And maybe we should put a rug over these stains,” Al had gone in to damage control mode. He was right, of course. I wasn’t sure a small rug was going to be the answer, but it was worth a try. There was a combination of hot chocolate, neon yellow energy drink, green tea and blood spilled haphazardly around the room. However, the police did not know they would be looking at a crime scene, so they would not be peaking under rugs. Al had cleaned most of the hot chocolate off the wall, but quite a bit of it was still on the carpet. I had really hurled my beverage with fervor. But there was also a considerable amount of everything else on the floor, too. It made me feel a little warm and fuzzy inside that everyone had abandoned their drinks in such a hurry to save me from a renegade arm.

  I think I need to get out more.

  “You know, you talk about the police as if I’m not one of them. The police are here. I’m watching you conceal evidence,” Carl sounded a little tired and a lot peevish.