—— CHAPTER THREE ——
What did one do to prepare for the first day as a soul collector? Pray? Drink? Sacrifice javelina? There wasn’t a guidebook for things like this. Callie had convinced herself that her work for the Soul Charmer was essentially blackmail. He might not be the source of her woes, but he’d taken advantage of her need. Close enough.
She’d changed out the maroon scrubs she’d worn to work, showered to blight the remnants of kitchen work from her skin, and swiped her chestnut hair up into a simple plait. Everything needed to be casual. Pretending this was any other afternoon would help get her through day one. The jeans, black tee, and pair of Chucks she wore should have been comfortable, but even the rubber soles pressed against her feet as though they wanted to squeeze blood from her. Just another payment she’d make for family.
The phone call to Josh the night before had gone as expected: shitty. He’d been elated to hear she was coming through. The joy hadn’t lasted long.
“Two weeks, sis? Two goddamn weeks?” The jubilation from moments before had been smashed into a hiss. At least he hadn’t called their mom. She’d tried to pawn her furniture for Josh the last time he got in over his head.
“Sorry, but I don’t have a stockpile of money to bail you out again.” Callie had liquidated her savings account for him just nine months earlier. The smashed furniture in his apartment hadn’t elicited much sympathy from her (it wasn’t that out of the ordinary at that point), but the deep, wallowing welts on his forearms had convinced her to hand over the funds. She’d paid his drug debt, and drove him directly to Blue Dove Rehabilitation Center. Four-fucking-thousand-dollars later she was broke, and her brother had somehow gotten himself even deeper in danger.
“I thought I could count on you,” he’d said, resorting to a familiar tactic.
The jab would have hurt last year. This wasn’t the first time he’d thrown it, though. She had to remember: The highs and lows of the conversation weren’t due to his fear or the stress of the situation. He was high, and twenty grand in debt to a drug dealer. He’d paid for oblivion. Must be nice. “I’m doing what I can, Josh.” It was all Callie could offer.
Ford had snatched the phone at that point. “Did I hear I’m keeping this asshole for two weeks?”
Ugh. Even just a few words from Ford left Callie feeling like she was covered in thick tar. She’d fought through the viscous fear. “Yes, and you’re supposed to keep him safe, not high.”
His laugh had unsettled her. “He’s safest around here when he’s not in his own mind.” There had been too much knowledge in those words. A threat had been buried in there, too.
She’d wrapped her hair around her hand and lifted it into a makeshift bun. It hadn’t cooled the heat blossoming at the base of her neck.
“I need a couple weeks to get the soul secured for your job.” She’d rushed the words. The sooner the conversation was done, the better.
“The Charmer running low on stock?”
“I’m low on cash, unless you’ve changed your mind about fronting the money.” Getting the soul might cover her ass when she did a job for Ford, but that didn’t make any of this okay.
“I’ve fronted enough cash. That’s the problem.”
“I know,” she’d muttered, swallowing again and again as her brain had fought to keep the idiocy inside. “One of your men would be better at getting the information from—”
“Don’t say that shit on the phone,” he’d cut her off. Her cheeks burned from the verbal slap. She should have known better. Even a criminal rube like her knew talking about breaking into police records on the phone was dumb. “Your brother made an agreement. In my world we honor our word. You’re holding up his end of the deal. No renegotiating the terms. Two weeks is enough of a change in plans.”
Arguing the finer points of her involvement with a mob boss would only get her snuggled into the dirt. That much she knew. “Right.”
“I expect results.” Ford’s teasing tone had then disappeared. “I’ll keep your bro whole for now. He’s come in handy in the past. You drag this out, though, and we’ll be doing this exchange in pieces. You get me?”
She’d gotten him.
Callie shivered at the memory of her only face-to-face with Ford.
From the outside, Ford’s house was like any other rich asshole’s. A single-level adobe wonder sprawled in a private slip of desert. The mature juniper bushes surrounding the home made it blend into the skyline at night, but Callie doubted Ford had ever spent too much time enjoying the clear skies.
The entrance was where the peaceful façade disappeared. The family portraits inside depicted men Callie had only ever seen in courtroom reports on the ten o’clock news. The henchman who escorted her to Ford’s office was short and wiry. The gun strapped to his hip was hard to miss. With each stutter-step she took, her shoes clomping against the tile, the exposed wooden beams above her seemed to drop, inch by inch, like she was living a video game from the eighties. The burnt-orange accent wall in Ford’s office was a welcome distraction.
“You’re Josh’s sister?” Ford’s back was to her. She’d seen him on the news, but in real life he was shorter, probably five-foot-seven. He wore blue jeans and a red polo shirt. His short hair was freshly cut, making it look like he was still in junior high.
“Yeah,” her voice shook in a the-guy-behind-me-has-a-gun kind of way.
“You sure he’s worth all this?” Ford turned as he spoke. He had a baby face—cherubic with dimples and gentle eyes. In another context, he might have struck her as the sweet boy down the street who’d offer to help the elderly woman rescue her cat. He wasn’t that boy, though. She’d never convince herself Ford was so harmless when there were three severed fingers resting atop a white sheet of paper on the desk next to his hip.
Her brain shorted at the sight, as if ceiling beams had crashed down on her neck. When she came to, they were in another room and she was agreeing to whatever Ford asked. She didn’t argue when he told her a different soul would be required to commit the robbery. Overlaying a second soul onto your own muddled DNA and fingerprints—the cops knew it, but the legal system hadn’t yet caught up to making it illegal. That made soul renting attractive to guys like Ford.
Callie’s mind returned to the present. Despite everything she’d gotten herself into over the past few days, she couldn’t undo the past. What was done was done, and she had to focus on moving forward if she had any chance of getting herself and her brother out alive. Working for the Soul Charmer couldn’t be that awful if it meant Josh wouldn’t be returned in brown butcher paper.
She made a turkey sandwich, but it wasn’t any more appealing than the chicken she’d served at the retirement home. She ate half, and then wrapped the remainder in plastic. Day-old sandwiches weren’t exactly the peak of leftover cuisine, but she’d at least save a few, much-needed bucks.
The air had turned crisp while she was inside. Snow would be capping the mountains in the distance soon. She stepped out and locked the door. An autumn breeze whipped through the exposed staircase at her apartment building. It didn’t cut through her hoodie, thankfully, but the blast cooled the nape of her neck and did nothing for her nerves. Better cold wind than a clammy palm on her neck, she tried to convince herself, but in that moment it was hard to tell the difference.
The drive to the Soul Charmer’s storefront only took about ten minutes. Halfway there, street lamps became sparse enough that clusters of transients could take shelter against the crumbling, graffiti-tagged adobe buildings without drawing the attention of passing vehicles. Her mother had told her she’d get mugged living in a neighborhood “like that.” But her mom’s place wasn’t any nicer. She’d just lived there long enough to know all the neighbors.
Callie debated how close to park. She didn’t know how they’d be finding those who reneged on their deal with the Charmer, and even though renting souls was technically legal, the cops undoubtedly did drive-bys of the place. She didn’t blame them. Criminals used rented souls. She would know; she was on her way to being one of them.
As Ford explained it to her, the first step toward making soul renting illegal was convincing local legislators that borrowing a soul was directly related to criminal activity. Even though it was assumed most congressmen were like everyone else, and enjoyed a little taste of sin without suffering the eternal consequences. Rented souls obscured the proof of the crime, and that made it easy to pass the buck. Once concrete evidence eventually emerged, the truth would be out, and it would be near impossible to change public opinion. The lawmakers would have to fall in line.
Ford had said he had it on good authority that Gem City Police were close to linking the two. They had enough hard data to bury soul renting once and for all, and making soul magic illegal would make criminal activity in the city that much harder. That couldn’t be allowed to happen, he’d said, and that’s where Callie would come in. Once she got her rented soul, she’d be the one stealing their research. Ford said he would take care of the researcher. She didn’t want to know how. She was already too deep in this shit.
In the end, she’d opted for parking beneath a street lamp two blocks away. Far enough that she hoped she would avoid police attention—her inspection sticker was four months out of date—but not so buried in the bad part of town as to have her tires stolen. Fingers crossed.
“You’re late.”
Callie involuntarily stepped backward at the gruff voice. There was so much debris on this street, and so much on her mind, she hadn’t looked up once as she walked to the Soul Charmer’s shop. Something else to add to her long list of recent mistakes.
She corrected her gaze now to assess the new threat. He stood at least six feet tall, and the black leather of his motorcycle jacket helped amplify the width of his shoulders. Her petite form barely equaled half his muscled frame.
“And that would make you …?” She didn’t bother with formalities, or even to point out that she was actually two minutes early, since it mattered so much to him.
He scratched along the harsh edge of his jaw. He had a handful of years on her, making him maybe twenty-eight or twenty-nine. Old scars crisscrossed his knuckles. That bulk beneath the leather and denim wasn’t borne of the gym, then.
“Derek.” He said his name like he hated it. Or her. What a great way to start a working relationship. But really, what had she expected from a person shady enough to work for the Soul Charmer?
“Oh.” She swallowed the ‘you don’t have to be a dick’ lingering on the tip of her tongue, and collected herself. “Then I guess I’m your temporary partner.”
She watched as he took her in, from the ponytail right down to the Chucks on her feet. She’d concealed her figure beneath the hoodie, but she’d been ogled enough times at bars to know he wasn’t assessing her like that. She shifted her weight, unsure what to say next, and glanced around her. The alleyway they were in smelled terrible. Was he going to say something, or were they going to just stand there all day?
Derek narrowed his eyes.
“You bring the flask?” He was all business, she thought. Was that a good thing?
“Yeah.” She’d tucked the onyx in her pocket earlier, and it was still chilly to the touch. Even now she could feel it through the denim of her jeans.
“Let’s see it.” Did he not believe her? No one said tests were part of this gig.
Then again, maybe he was as much in the dark as she was. She sighed and pulled it out. “See? All ready to go.”
He grunted. Callie’s gut twisted. Derek was nearly impossible to read, which meant two weeks of working together would probably be a total fucking delight. Apparently finished with the small talk, he turned his back to her and stalked down the street with silent footfalls that belied his size. She slid the flask into the pocket of her sweatshirt. The extra layers muted the icy sensation of the stone.
“You coming?” He didn’t bother looking back. The Soul Charmer must have told him how desperate she was. Or maybe he’d recognized the guilt hiding behind the deep brown of her eyes when he’d given her that visual dressing down.
Callie took a few long strides to catch up to him. He stopped next to a well-loved, old motorcycle. He held out a matte black helmet for her, but she didn’t take it.
“Just put the helmet on.” Did he think he was talking to a toddler? Callie wasn’t going to survive fourteen days of stilted orders.
“My car is just down the street.” She jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “I can drive.”
“I drive.”
“Congrats, that makes two of us. I’ll follow you.”
“Doesn’t work that way, cupcake.” He watched as Callie stared dubiously at the twin chrome exhaust pipes. “Don’t look at the bike that way. Jobs like this require nimble rides. This is it.”
“Seems like a car would be better for, you know, collecting things.” It was a last-ditch argument. Even Callie heard how silly the words sounded aloud.
“The flask in your pocket doesn’t require a whole lot of cargo space,” he pointed out.
She wasn’t about to give him the satisfaction of admitting defeat out loud. Callie snatched the helmet from him and strapped it on her head.
“Thank you,” he mumbled as he swung a leg over the machine. He leaned forward enough to make sure there was enough room for her.
Callie climbed on behind him. It had been a long time since she’d been on a bike. Only once her legs were pressed against the outside of his did she realize what she’d inadvertently signed up for. No doubt that she would be getting damn cozy with Derek in the weeks to come. He’d made it clear he was as excited about her involvement in his day as she was, and now she was pressing her chest against his back. A meet cute, it was not.
“Hold on tight.” His words rumbled in echo of the engine firing beneath them.
Derek’s muscles were hard and unforgiving, but as he drove them down the street, the wind whipped at her face, and she welcomed his warmth. A few turns later, and Callie found herself leaning toward the simple and clean scent of soap escaping over the edge of his jacket. He took a quick right and her nose grazed his neck. He stiffened in her arms, but didn’t say anything. Though, she wasn’t sure if she would be able to hear a grunt of displeasure over the roar of engine.
They weren’t on the bike for long.
After five minutes of dodging Gem City’s famous potholes, Derek pulled the rumbling motorcycle up to the curb and killed the engine. She wasn’t struck by silence after the roar died—the street they were on had enough locals on stoops and kids yelling from the basic playground at the corner to fill the void—but Callie was surprised to find the cold stole her breath as she leaned away from Derek’s solid frame.
She bristled at the thought, and climbed off the bike in a hurry, only to find she had nowhere to go. She didn’t know the plan, and wasn’t ballsy enough to ask what it was. She shoved her hands in the front pockets of her sweatshirt, her fingers finding the flask, and stared with faux purpose at the boys riding too-small bicycles up the street, doing her best impression of a tough, relaxed woman who did this shit all the time.
She had only herself to blame for the discomfort. She’d put herself in this situation. Blaming Josh would have been nice, but it was her own damn fault for lending him money. She’d never said no to him. He’d been the cool older brother who took her to concerts and introduced her to pot. But where she’d only dabbled, Josh had taken the whole gateway drug thing as a challenge. He fell deeper and deeper into heavier and heavier narcotics and amphetamines each year. When he’d come to her door, skinny as a rail and saying he didn’t have money for food, she took care of him. She fed him and slapped a couple twenties in his palm. Then she did it again, and again, and again, until she lost count. And she’d lie to herself, telling herself that he was using the money she gave him for bread and meat.
But now her eyes were open, and she was done with all that. Callie put herself on the Soul Charmer’s doorstep, and she had no choice but to follow through. Even if the process made her as uncomfortable as a punk rocker at a country line-dancing bar.
Derek bent forward to stow his gear, and she couldn’t resist picturing him kicking up hay at a hoedown. She snickered into her fist, and it made her feel a little better.
He led her toward the street corner. His legs were much longer than hers, and as he neared the intersection with Eighth Street, he leveraged his ample stride to put a small bit of distance between them. He didn’t look back once to see if she followed. His shoulders remained rounded forward, muscles tight. It was as if he could sense her behind him.
The door handle to The Fall disappeared in Derek’s grip. The bar was unmarked on the street. The faint echo of the street number—a seven and, possibly, a one—were hazy on the door’s window. The lone window—if one could call it that—had the look of antique brass. But she wasn’t in some steampunk den, and it wasn’t for looks. Time and neglect had filled the glass with green and brown fog. The picture frames at the Soul Charmer’s shop, she remembered, had the same ghastly visual, and both came with a steady, unsettling sense of danger. A shiver snaked around her spine and Callie jerked forward involuntarily.
Derek, waiting just outside the doorway, caught her shoulder. His hand lingered after she’d steadied herself. “You been here before?” His rough tone softened.
She gave him a quick shake of her head. She didn’t trust her voice to be steady. Worries were piling above her head, and acknowledging any of them would trigger an avalanche she wasn’t prepared to deal with. At least not now. On a street corner in front of a sketchy bar. With him.
He grunted. Callie thought he sounded pleased, but she didn’t speak Neanderthal. Were they going to communicate in grunts and shrugs like this for the next two weeks?
“Try not to make eye contact inside.” He jerked his head toward the door. He still clutched its handle. “It’ll start trouble.”
Callie was trying to recover, to ignore the twist in her gut. “Do I look like trouble?”
The corner of his mouth quirked up. “Actually, yeah. You do.”
The compliment washed over her, warming her a little. “Hey man, I’m just along for the ride.”
“Right. You could wait—” He trailed off, his dark gaze fixed on two guys walking near his bike. When they moved past, any hint of comradery had been snuffed, and he continued with his stereotypically deep rumble. “Well, I’m not in the mood to fight.”
She doubted that. The boots on his feet were made for kicking ass, and she’d bet a soul rental that he had at least one weapon hidden under all that denim and leather. She wasn’t about to call him on it, though. “Kay.”
He opened the door, stepping inside, and Callie followed, dropping into The Fall with him.
She hadn’t been lying about never stepping foot in The Fall, but that didn’t mean she was unfamiliar with the bar. Its reputation was whispered about at the places she frequented. In Gem City, there were a few different kinds of places to grab a drink. First were the “dive bars,” where rich kids went to blow their parents’ money and line bartenders’ pockets with $2 tips on $1 Pabst Blue Ribbons. Then, there were shitty watering holes where actual poor people went. The dimly lit establishments served the same drinks as the dives, but the music was better and there sure weren’t any Bentleys parked around the corner. They were places you went for cheap drinks. Callie liked those kinds of bars. It wasn’t just that she didn’t have money—though, that was definitely a factor—she genuinely liked the people. The patrons at her kind of bars were respectful if you didn’t want to talk. They were fine if you refused a drink. They also wouldn’t hesitate to warn you that there were much safer places to go than The Fall.
Callie wasn’t surprised to see brick red stains on the concrete floor. The Fall was the kind of bar you went to for a fight. The blood splatters had lost their vibrant color with age, and it’s not like they would be sticky, but she still did her best to avoid stepping on them, like some fucked up version of avoiding the cracks in the sidewalk. A year ago, would she have ever thought she’d be in this situation right now? She clung to the pious belief she was only here for Josh. Family was all you had sometimes, through thick and thin. This was definitely the thin.
Callie stayed close to Derek as he moved through the room. He was big enough to silently command people to step aside for him, and she took advantage of his wake. He led them to a booth pressed against the far wall, far away from the bar itself, which was fine by her. She wouldn’t put a beer bottle from The Fall to her lips if she had a gun to her head. Even the cheap plastic cups she saw littering tables looked suspect. This was the kind of place where the bartender would drug you himself, and you’d wake in the alley without your wallet, or your kidney. No. Thank you.
“So, what now?” Callie did her damnedest to focus on Derek, and not the way the cushion beneath her sagged to the left.
“We wait.” He had a knack for short answers. Lovely.
“For?”
He’d been glaring at the entrance, but he cut a look her way that about sliced her in half. “Too many ears,” was all he said. It was enough.
She decided his silence was keeping her as safe as possible in a shithole like this. So, instead of bothering him with more questions or counting the minutes, she surveyed the room. She wasn’t the only one skipping church services that night. Most people were clustered at the bar. The conversations were physical. Sharp nods, harsh elbows, fists slamming down. Callie drew in a deep breath before glancing up at the dirty ventilation system in the ceiling and shuddering. She couldn’t afford to catch whatever plague simmered in here.
Derek’s fingers wrapped around the edge of the table. His knuckles turned white, but he didn’t move. A short, skinny guy had walked in the door a few moments earlier, and Derek watched him with an intensity that would turn most to dust. The guy sidled up to the bar, rested one elbow on the dark surface, and ordered a shot.
Callie opened her mouth to ask who he was, but Derek was on his feet. He took one step in the man’s direction, and then looked over his shoulder at her. He’d forgotten she was there; the conflict in his eyes told her as much. “Stay here.” The words cut through gnashed teeth. She wasn’t going to argue.
Derek stalked to the bar. The recognition on the skinny guy’s face was obvious. He began to fidget, tucking his hair behind his ear over and over, the length not long enough to stay put. Derek’s bulk cast the type of shadow that could force someone to forget how long their own hair was.
A voice yanked her attention away from Derek. “You’re new.”
Callie turned, intending to let whomever it was know what a piss-poor pickup line he’d used, until she saw the man who had spat it at her. He drove his knuckles into the table, her table, and leaned close. His scraggly beard couldn’t hide the worn lines on his face, or the caustic smell of three-day whiskey breath.
“You here for a good time or somethin’?” He leered even closer. Callie tried not to breathe, but the necrotic air surrounding him still found its way into her nostrils. “Why don’t you have a drink, girl?”
She bolted. Callie had spent her high school years slipping under chain link fences for a variety of bad reasons, but the skill paid off now. She slid past the man, squeezing her abs tight enough to turn them to stone to make sure her tummy didn’t graze any part of his body. She did a stiff run-walk directly to Derek.
“Give me McCabe’s new address and we can be done, Mike. It’s that easy.” Callie barreled into Derek right as he laid into the guy bellied up to the bar. She’d meant to stop sooner, but the threat of the filthy asshole behind her overrode her brain. Derek, surprised, nevertheless turned and caught her with solid strength. He curled his fingers to cup her shoulders and held her until she steadied.
“One sec, Mike,” he said, without looking back. Mike didn’t move a muscle. Derek frowned, and started to open his mouth. He was pissed she hadn’t stayed put, she knew, and he was about to tell her so. But then he looked over her shoulder, his eyes narrowing to slits as he noticed the man who’d accosted her. “We’ll deal with him in a second.” The growl in his voice was unmistakable. Mike heard it too; he twitched.
“Um, hey, gimme a pen,” Mike said to the bartender. Once it was delivered, he scratched an address onto a cocktail napkin—the first Callie had seen in this place. He passed it to Derek. “We good?”
Derek held up the napkin to read it, then grunted at him. Mike must have understood its meaning because, faster than Callie thought was humanly possible, he’d slipped away from the bar and ducked out the front door.
Derek stuffed the napkin in his jacket pocket. What other secrets lined that leather? Mafia addresses? Soul IOUs? Dirty secrets about every snitch in town? In that moment, it all seemed plausible. Derek stepped around her, taking a step away, and when she didn’t immediately follow, he murmured, “This will just take a sec.”
He crossed the decrepit floor in four long strides. His speed startled the bearded cretin, who wagged a beer bottle in Callie’s direction as she turned back to their table and caught the man’s gaze. Derek didn’t bother with niceties—not that Callie would have heard them over the din in the bar anyway. Derek jerked a thumb over his shoulder, presumably toward her. The biker shrugged. All’s not fair in The Fall, though. Nothing is harmless or without consequence. Derek’s fist shot up and out so fast, Callie wasn’t completely sure she’d even seen the punch. But the biker stumbled backward to plant his ass on the table, hands cradling his nose. Derek took a half step toward him, and the biker nodded fervently.
Derek lifted his chin in response and returned to Callie’s side. He took hold of her upper arm, and spoke into her ear. “Now’s probably a good time to bail.”
She shook her head in agreement, distracted both by the sudden violence and by how giant Derek’s hand was wrapped around her upper arm. She wasn’t a fragile thing, normally. But with a hand the size of Texas—one that’d just put a large, nasty man in his place—holding her steady and guiding her out of the bar, she was starting to reconsider her frailty.