Rogue souls, p.16
Rogue Souls, page 16
part #2 of Soul Charmer Series
“Callie?” His voice rasped. Maybe they’d been more vocal than she’d realized. None of her neighbors had banged on the walls at least.
She didn’t lift her head. “Hmm?”
“You good, doll?”
“Yeah. I’m actually pretty damn good right now.”
His chuckle jostled her, but not enough for her to move off his chest.
“How about you?” she asked, because this wasn’t only about her.
His chest paused beneath her, but a moment later he answered. “Better. I . . .”
The real world was about to crash into them. It wasn’t fair to make him hold the dam against it by himself so she could nap naked on his chest for a few more minutes. Even if she really wanted to be that selfish. She told herself to relax. She ran her hand up and over Derek’s chest. “What?” It was more a prompt than a question.
He shrugged beneath her. It reminded her how small she was, but also about how this was her chance to help him. Earning his trust wasn’t easy, and she wasn’t about to backslide.
She answered for him, because she understood. “You won’t feel better until this is over. Until we know there won’t be another body waiting for us the next time we go to drop off the flask.”
His arms closed around her. “Pretty much. Ford’s been a problem, but he isn’t as easily handled as Tess was.”
Callie flashed back to Tess bound to a metal chair in the basement beneath the Soul Charmer’s shop, her skin melting as Callie’s magic reacted to the woman’s stockpile of souls. “I don’t remember that as easy.”
“She was one person. The people who worked for her weren’t loyal. They didn’t protect her.”
“She wouldn’t have let them.”
“No, and Ford will use his minions like a wall against the Charmer.”
“What does he even want with poking at our creeper of a boss? What does he think he’ll gain from that?”
Another big sigh from Derek. He held her close, and she had the distinct feeling he didn’t want her to look at him right now. “Nate said he was going to church.”
“And? Who doesn’t go to Church around here?” She’d only been twice in the last six weeks, and only when Louisa dragged her along. Keeping face with the boss was worth the awkwardness for her.
“It’s more than that. He mentioned wanting you to do work for him.”
Callie’s stomach bottomed out, and it had zero to do with being naked in bed with Derek. “He did.”
“You want to elaborate, doll?”
Not really. “He wanted me to spy on the Soul Charmer.”
Derek stilled.
“I obviously said no. I didn’t think the two were related.” She did now. “Fuck. I messed up, didn’t I?”
Derek moved Callie off his chest and rolled to his side to face her. “No. Ford doesn’t do soul magic. Why would you think it was anything more than him trying to get something on you again?”
“Last time he had Josh, not me.”
“Having Josh is having you.”
Callie face flushed hot.
Derek quickly recovered. “He knows how to needle you. Makes sense, but he might actually be after something. I just don’t know how much he knows or what he thinks he can do.”
“Didn’t that douchebag dealer say the knife was hollow?” The visual of the beer bottle exploding after she stuffed her mom’s rented soul in it blasted her brain. The white band around her wrist was still there. She tucked her hand under the sheets behind her.
“Yeah. I don’t know how that guy could be capable of taking a soul, though.”
Shit shit shit. “We need to talk to the Charmer.”
“He ain’t going to be pleased with no action. We need to bring Nate in at least.”
“No. I need to know why that knife worked and Little D didn’t absorb the extra soul.”
“What do you mean?”
“Every time I’ve run into a soul this week that wasn’t in one of the Charmer’s jars, a person, or my flask, it’s been seeking the first open body—usually mine.”
Derek’s eyes widened like he was replaying the last few days over again with a new light. “Oh,” was all he said, but those two little letters packed a whole lot of understanding.
She nodded. “I guess this means we have to get dressed, doesn’t it?”
He kissed her forehead. “Yeah, but I won’t bring up how we talked about the Charmer in bed again.”
Callie squeezed her eyes shut in attempt to get that image out of her head. When she thought she’d succeeded, she opened her eyes to coat her corneas with the view of the hard planes of Derek’s torso.
She spoke with the kind of hope she typically reserved for Josh’s check-in day at rehab. “The sooner we do this, the sooner we can put this shit behind us.”
She prayed she was right.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Downtown Gem City was littered with pockets of darkness as the night waned. The low light, the men and women huddled in the alcoves in front of the closed shops for warmth, the sharp sting of wind cutting through narrow alleyways and up cobbled streets. All the splendor of the architecture and the vibrancy of the inlaid artwork on each building were scrubbed away.
Going to the Soul Charmer’s storefront was never a pleasant experience but added with the whirl of ominous energy of the 2 a.m. darkness it was legitimately creepy. They’d parked nearby, but Callie’s stomach fell a little farther with each step they took toward the door. Icy gusts battered her face. She yanked the collar of her coat higher.
“Almost there,” Derek said and stepped in front of her to act as a windbreak.
Almost done, she thought.
The chipped and peeling paint on the Charmer’s door was barely noticeable. Derek pulled it open and held it wide for her to enter first. Touching the decrepit wood was the least of her worries right now, but she appreciated the gentlemanly act for what it was. Lamps offered small domes of light in two of the corners of the room. The incense tray on the counter was heaped with ashes, but the Charmer had burned the same Nag Champa for ages and so the stale scent clung to the walls. The same burgundy tapestries covered the windows as usual, but somehow everything looked older than before. Like the night had leeched the bits of life this room had held.
Derek rang the tarnished bell atop the counter. Callie quirked a brow at him. They never had called out like customers. Not together anyway. She’d only done it the once, and that was more than enough.
“He doesn’t like late-night surprises.” Derek’s explanation did nothing for the heavy stone settling in Callie’s stomach.
“Then he’s going to love seeing us now without a flask full of his property,” she said in a vehement whisper that told more of her fear than of the fake anger she was projecting.
Derek gave her a half smile. “I meant there’s protection on the doors into his office.”
Callie wasn’t going to touch that one. She was here to talk about how souls could be contained outside of the body. That was far enough out on the fucking ridiculous scale.
“And what can I do for . . . oh, it’s you.” The Soul Charmer appeared through the heavy velvet drapes behind the counter with old-Hollywood gusto. He dropped the act as soon as he glimpsed Callie and Derek.
“You get a lot of late-night business that needs the full show?” Callie asked. The Charmer wore a purple smoking jacket like he thought he was playing host to pinups and not hawking souls to those slumming it.
“One doesn’t command a market without always putting his best foot forward. Something to learn, Calliope.” He flourished a hand toward her. He was probably pointing out that her jeans, Chucks, and a five-year-old winter coat were not peak style, but she was distracted by the way the glow from the banker’s lamp on the counter refracted off the chunky gold rings on her reluctant mentor’s fingers.
“You busy tonight?” Derek asked.
They needed privacy for the conversation they were about to have, but Callie appreciated the reprieve from banal talk with the Charmer. It was going to be hard enough to explain her concerns without mentioning that she’d worked for Ford and that he, you know, was trying to get her to spy on the Charmer. Callie didn’t know the Soul Charmer that well. He was a guarded, volatile man. But in the short period she’d worked for him she’d learned one important thing: He considered theft—of property or secrets—a murderous offense.
“I have time for you.” The Soul Charmer answered the real question, which was helpful and unnerving at the same time.
“We’ve got a lead,” Derek said.
“Must be a good one for you to be here now.” The Charmer barely moved his mouth as he spoke. An invisible brick smacked into Callie’s chest. Whatever he was up to in the wee hours was eerie and should probably remain a secret. From Callie. Forever.
“She’s got questions,” Derek said like it’d kick start the conversation.
“Do you have the flask?” The Charmer hissed?
Always. “Yes, but that’s not why we’re here.”
The Soul Charmer nodded slowly. His beady eyes darkened as he stared at her. Something twitched beneath her sternum. She clapped a hand against it. Whatever was inside was hers, and he didn’t need to be digging in there. His gaze narrowed on her wrist.
Her ribs vibrated against her hand when she spoke. “You’ve looked at my soul before. That’s enough.”
His responding smile did nothing to ease the twist beneath her rib cage. “You could feel that? Excellent.”
If feeling sick to her stomach made him happy, he should prepare himself for a joy overload. “Can you stop? We . . . I . . . I need information to help us get the guy who is leaving you early, gross Christmas gifts outside.”
Her fear was hardening to that delicious ire she could funnel into confidence. She could get through this if she could cling to her frustration and force it into action. Her problems were stacked blocks upon blocks reaching for the sky. She couldn’t fix them as they continued to grow, but she could try to take this one tower out at the base.
The twitching quiver beneath her sternum stopped, but that rush of rage behind her eyes held steady.
“Derek already brought me the boy who left the first gift out there. What more information do you need from me that couldn’t be extracted from him?”
Callie dropped her hand from her stomach and forced herself to keep her hands open at her side. Like she wasn’t scared of what came next. Derek took a step closer to her, and the leather of his jacket covered the stale musk in the room. She wasn’t alone. He wouldn’t let this go awry.
She didn’t take the Little D bait. “How does the flask work?”
The Soul Charmer keened his head to the right, and his gaze sharpened on her again. She almost expected to see a second set of eyelids nictate like a deep-sea creature. He wasn’t peering at her soul this time. This was a completely different assessment. Probably not a good thing, but at least she didn’t think she would puke anytime soon.
“You’ve been using it for some time now. You know how it works.”
“I know how to use it to pull a soul out of another person. I don’t know why it works, though.”
“You know full well it’s tempered with soul magic. You can connect with the energy.” The Charmer couldn’t have been less impressed if she’d told him the sky was blue. Asshole.
“We think the person who hired Little D gave him a device to pull the soul from that kid outside.” Derek played the mediator once again. She was going to have to make him breakfast one of these days as a thank you. Not pancakes.
“That drug dealer you brought here? You think he could pull souls? Interesting.” The Charmer’s eyes skittered right and left, like he was reading some invisible script on the wall behind them.
“Look, I know not every device can hold a soul.”
There was that knowing, prurient smile she associated with a pleased Soul Charmer. “Do tell. How do you know this?”
Lying would be awesome now. Telling him that she picked it up because of the way the flask grew warm under her touch and the way it diffused the heat and cold her hands suffered when near soul renters. The problem was lying wouldn’t get her answers. Plus, the fucker could see her soul and for all she knew that made him a human lie detector. That stuck her with honesty. The question was how much did he need to know?
For Cullen and for Derek, she pulled together her courage, tucked away her unease, and told him the truth. “My mom was renting again. Which I really hope you weren’t giving her souls, but—” Callie shook her head as though to jostle the tangent out of her train of thought “—that’s for another time. Anyway, some shit went down, and I yanked the bonus soul out of her and shoved it in a beer bottle.”
Callie stared at her feet. The dark carpet creeping up the sides of the white rubber on her sneakers. She swallowed a few times. Trying to pull herself together to tell him more.
Derek tried to help her. He hand was on her back. “The bottle broke, though.”
The Charmer slammed a hand down on the counter. The clang of metal against glass snapped through the room until the tapestries swallowed it. “Of course it broke. It was made for beer, not celestial objects.”
Why did he have to hoard knowledge like this? Wasn’t part of being an apprentice that you got to know what was going on and how shit worked? Callie fixed her gaze on him, not backing down when the twin onyx blades within his pupils threatened to slash her.
“So, what makes other objects capable of containing souls? Your jars are glass, and they don’t shatter.” She pointed toward the back room like he wouldn’t know where the fucking souls were. She instantly regretted it, because she didn’t want to go back there. She didn’t want to be in a room full of souls that he could release at any time as part of his disturbed twist on the Socratic method.
“These are good questions.” Surprise grazed his words and a smile softened his reptilian visage.
Callie and Derek shared a concerned look.
The Charmer laughed. It was a hiss and roar—otherworldly. The twitch beneath Callie’s breastbone now had nothing to do with the Soul Charmer testing her soul and everything to do with her heart reminding her she was alive, and it wanted to stay that way.
“I made the jars strong enough to contain the souls,” he said finally.
“How?” The question bubbled to Callie’s lips immediately. Just as quickly she regretted her eagerness, because there was no way the Charmer wouldn’t use it against her.
“Not just yet.” He parted his lips and his silver teeth flashed at her in a reminder of a threat. “First, dear Calliope, you’re going to tell me what you did with this ‘bonus’ soul you took from your mother.”
Callie tried not to roll her eyes but failed. “It’s in the flask,” she muttered.
He held a hand out toward her and motioned her to give it over. She sat the flask into his waiting palm but made sure her skin didn’t touch his. She didn’t know why this fear still lingered, but her brain continued to warn her from making physical contact with the Soul Charmer. The white band of skin around her wrist was less stark in this lighting, and the Charmer didn’t say anything when she tugged her sleeve down to cover it again.
He uncapped the flask and held the opening beneath his nose. He took a loud, long breath, which might have been for show.
“Mine, but not mine,” he said a moment later, and then capped the flask again.
“What does that mean?” Derek asked. He remained resolute at Callie’s side.
“This soul was mine. One I harvested, that is. But someone else put it in Callie’s mother.”
“Probably the same person trying to send us a message.” A hint of concern laced Derek’s words.
“That’s likely,” the Charmer said. He turned his attention back to Callie. “Now, how did you get the soul into the flask if it was already outside of your mother?”
“I told it to go there.” This was an oversimplification, but Callie couldn’t think of another way to describe it.
The Charmer nodded, so it must have been the right answer. He turned and walked toward the curtains. Callie and Derek followed. They’d passed some test and now had to find out if their princess was in another castle.
As they moved through the hallway, Callie prepared herself for the thick layer of magic coating the entrance to the back office. Every time she’d moved through it, it had gotten heavier. For minutes afterward she’d swear the oily substance was still coating her. Sure enough it was there again, thick and viscous. This time, though, Callie picked up the energy. That’s what it was. A layer of heat and power and unspoken command. She pressed outward with her mind, imagining widening her own energy to an inch outside her body. The sticky sensation still lingered when she moved into the room, but she hadn’t fallen face-first on the floor and she wasn’t gasping for air. Both major improvements.
The Charmer watched her out of the corner of his eye but didn’t say anything. For not the first time, she wished she could get a read on him. You don’t grow up in a house with a con artist without learning how to read a room. Callie was good at picking up on emotional cues. She could spot the crier in every set of girls out at a bar. She could tell when a punch was going to get thrown. She could pinpoint the moment when a quick drink turned into five shots. She knew when to hide, when to run, and when to suggest that five-shot person buy her one, too, so they wouldn’t have to celebrate alone. She’d learned all this to keep herself safe—and sometimes tipsy on a budget—but it did jack-all in this room. The Charmer was more reptile than human. Maybe his cold-blooded style made him unreadable. Maybe it was the magic. Maybe he was simply better at this shit than she was. She worked for the man and was trying to help him get answers and retribution, but she wasn’t sure if he saw her on his side.
Fear sizzled in her veins with enough energy she did a cursory search of the room for any rogue souls or open containers. There were none. This discomfort was all her. She pulled off her coat and laid it over one of the nearby stools. The room was heated, but the sudden warmth of her body had more to do with her emotions than anything inside this space.
