—— CHAPTER EIGHT ——
Callie regretted teaching her mother how to send text messages.
Her phone buzzed against her kitchen counter. The rattle was loud enough to make Callie wonder if the countertop would crack. Doubtful. The material was cut-rate, but not that cheap. Besides, her lazy super would probably throw a roll of duct tape at her and wish her Godspeed.
Two years ago, showing Zara how to text message had seemed like a brilliant idea. Josh had been crashing with Callie at the time, and her mom had wanted to touch base. Unfortunately, she thought six in the morning was the absolute best time to talk. Josh might have been up then, but Callie was a firm believer in only rising before nine if you were getting paid to do so. Her mom hadn’t offered any cash, so the texts became the preferred way to communicate. She could leave a message, and Callie would get back when she was available.
Fast-forward to today, and Zara had forgotten about the waiting part of the equation. She’d sent six messages while Callie was out with Derek last night.
Where are you?
Where’s your brother?
Tell Josh to call me.
Tell me you got this.
Calliope! Call me!!
You do this on purpose.
Callie had read each one surreptitiously while walking from one target to another. They’d collected two more souls last night, and talked with another three people who had seen Tess, but couldn’t tell them how to find her. The last one of the night had been a banker who lived on the northern outskirts of Gem City. The fabric of his navy blue starched shirt strained against his belly. He wasn’t subsisting on barebones sandwiches. He’d even fessed up that it was his wife who brought Tess into their lives. While the husband rented semi-regularly from the Soul Charmer, his better half sought absolution through Tess’s chakra massage. He was trying to get right with more than the Lord, and had produced a new flyer for Tess.
After some not-so-gentle prodding from Derek.
Working magic was exhausting. She didn’t have to control the energy within the flask, but Callie’s muscles had ached by the time Derek dropped her off at home. She didn’t let him walk her to the door—it hadn’t been a date—but he stayed on his bike out front until she waved to him from the front window nevertheless.
A scalding shower hadn’t been able to singe the phantom tingle of magic skittering beneath her skin, but it had relaxed her enough to sleep. Calling her mother would have undone all the work from the steam. So she’d left it for the morning.
To say Zara was mad as a bull the next day would only disparage bovines.
She’d started with the next round of messages around 6:30 a.m. When Callie finally admitted to herself that she wouldn’t be sleeping in, it was 7:15, and the messages hadn’t said anything new. Zara worried over Josh and stockpiled all her anger for Callie. It’d only been in the last year Callie understood that was weird. She was the youngest, the little sister. Why was she deigned her brother’s keeper? In the last couple years, she’d certainly taken care of him, but their mother had been the one to put them in those roles so long ago. Callie’d been fifteen when Josh had moved out. From that point on, Zara had expected her to know where he was and keep his room ready in case he came back.
“It’s not like he’s shipped off with the navy,” Callie had told her mom.
Her cheek had stung at the fast crack of her mom’s hand against it. “Don’t you say things like that. You’ll jinx him.”
Callie had known better than to roll her eyes, but the idea Josh would enlist was asinine to the extreme. She’d mumbled an apology and hid in her room for the rest of the night. She’d eaten three Little Debbie’s snacks from the stash behind her bed in lieu of dinner with her mom that night.
At 7:40 a.m., Callie stopped avoiding Zara. More than an hour of buzzing texts and missed calls—no voicemails—had worn her resolve. This was where Josh got his tenacity. It might also explain why she’d agreed to work for the Charmer. Dealing with the mafia and magic were easier than enduring familial responsibilities.
“Hi, Mom,” Callie answered the phone. She settled at the end of the couch, pulling her knees against her chest. Fetal position couldn’t save her from the spackle of guilt Zara was about to apply, but it was better than nothing.
“I was about to call the police.” Zara gasped and wheezed, but Callie wasn’t about to let it worry her. Not her first rodeo.
“Why would you call the cops?” Drama queen.
“I’ve been leaving you messages since yesterday. You could have been dead.”
“I’m not dead.”
“I didn’t know that.” Pots clanged in the background.
“Yes, you did.”
“With an attitude like that you’re never going to be light enough to rise to heaven. How a child of mine gets such pleasure out of worrying her mother—”
“I don’t get pleasure from you worrying, but you weren’t worrying about me.”
The muffled kitchen sounds on the other end of the line quelled. “Of course I was. Now I’m a liar?”
Callie swore. This was going downhill fast. “What are you making, Mom?”
“Making?” she asked, a little dazed. Zara’s voice flitted to the soft, curious tone she used with everyone except Callie. She continued, no longer out of breath, “Oh, blondies for the new girl in 4A. She brings me my paper now.”
Zara hadn’t baked anything for Callie since she was eight. Those double-chocolate cupcakes with a creamy ganache icing were phenomenal. She’d hated sharing them. She didn’t bring Zara the paper, though. There was the inherent dig. It didn’t matter what Callie did, it wasn’t ever going to be seen as selfless. She could only hear, “This doesn’t change things,” and “You’re doing that for Josh, not me,” so many times before she’d quit wishing for simple thanks.
It was too damn early for a jog to those emotional scars. Callie smoothed a palm across her face. “What did you need, Mom?”
“Can’t I want to check on my daughter?”
“Your messages weren’t about me,” Callie muttered.
“What?”
“Nothing. I’m fine.”
“You sound tired.”
“It’s early,” Callie drew out the word, hoping if she said it slow enough her mom would get it.
She didn’t. “Have you seen Josh?”
He wasn’t being sent to her in tiny bits, so no. Callie drew in a long breath. Patience was key. “Not recently, but I talked to him on the phone earlier this week. He’s fine.”
“Fine? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means fine. As in you don’t need to worry.”
“Not worry? The two of you are trying to kill me.”
Tempting, but no. The less Zara knew, the safer everyone would be. Callie changed the subject. “How’s Frankie?”
“He’s the happiest cat. That catnip Josh got me for my birthday is Frankie’s favorite.”
Callie had bought the catnip. She’d bought all the gifts for her mom’s birthday, and the cards. Josh couldn’t remember the favored feline’s name. Whatever. It no longer mattered. She could have handed the present to her mom directly and she’d still give Josh the credit. Callie’s boss Louisa told her she didn’t have a favorite of her kids, but it’d only made her feel worse. Not everyone suffered from being the least favorite. If such things built character, then she should be the goddamn paragon of character. Erect temples in her name. After twenty-two years of being the lesser child, Callie was fucking done.
She squeezed the couch’s arm until the wood beneath the fabric pressed back against her fingers. Deep breaths. “That’s good. I’ve got to go soon.”
“No you don’t.” Zara’s over confidence squeezed through the phone receiver like a sneer. What? Callie couldn’t make plans on her own? She couldn’t change the script?
“I’ve got work this afternoon, and still need to run errands.” Not even a lie.
“That retirement home is running you ragged.” Concern? From Zara? Nope, she continued, “That’s why you’ll never force me into one of those places. If they have enough money to be paying time and a half, then they’re bleeding those people dry. You work for heathens.”
Would knowing she worked a second job change anything? Unlikely. Besides, she didn’t want Zara involved in this whole business with Josh and Ford and the Soul Charmer. If there was one person who needed to be kept out of the loop here, it was Zara. Josh might be her favorite, but that didn’t mean their mother was street smart enough to keep her nose out of this. Nothing would complicate their lives further than Zara trying to track down Ford to negotiate. Though, at this point, all she had was her apartment, her cat, and the television Callie had sprung for last Christmas—right before Josh had liquidated all her funds, again.
“Yeah, Mom. Well, I still have to go.”
“Tell Josh to call me.”
“I will.” Right after I pay off his most recent drug debt.
Zara hung up before Callie had the chance. She set her phone on the couch cushion beside her, and imagined how it would feel to have her mother worry about her the way she did for Josh. Would it fill her chest with warmth? She shook her head to erase the idiotic idea.
She liked to think her mom hadn’t always been like this. Zara had been fun once, back when road trips to Aunt Lily’s were an adventure instead of an excuse to ditch the kids. Callie had turned seven just a few weeks before the event and was over-the-moon when her mother had bought her a new swimsuit and hot pink flip-flops. She’d clomped up and down the sidewalk while her mom loaded the car for the drive down to the low desert.
The July sun cranked the outdoor heat to a wicked 107 degrees Fahrenheit, but it didn’t matter, as someone—probably Uncle Joe—had crafted an over-sized, homemade Slip ‘N Slide in Aunt Lily’s backyard. The hill it rested on was subtle, but Callie had been scared once she’d seen it. Josh’s pre-teen bragging about how “wild” the slide was had not helped her fears. Zara, though, wouldn’t allow Callie to shy away. Her mother had borrowed an oversized shirt from a cousin and took a monumental run at the slide. She’d screamed in delight on her first run. The second time, she’d lifted Callie on to her back. Callie rode down the slide with her mom, bound together by fun.
Zara wasn’t a something-for-nothing kind of woman. These days, every word she gave to Callie was in exchange for something else. As riled as she pretended to be over Cedar Retirement working Callie, she was a hustler.
When they visited Aunt Lily’s a couple weeks later, though, Zara had spent the entire day on the phone. Her underlings in a pyramid scheme involving five-dollar bills and tarot decks were dropping like flies. Money was short and Zara’s temper more so. That was the way of their relationship. The bright spots had become fewer and fewer as Callie aged. She had watched her mother con people year after year. It had just taken a couple decades to realize she was part of a long con herself.
Derek arrived at Callie’s apartment at seven on her fifth night as a strong-armed soul collector. It was later than their normal meeting, but she’d liked the change. Not only did it mean fewer hours involved on the darker side of Gem City, but it also allowed her to bypass a visit to the Soul Charmer. The man had already turned her into a human treasure detector. She wasn’t particularly game to discover what else he could do to her. That whole humans-to-toads deal sounded fake, but when your hands went Icelandic out of the blue, you started believing in the outlandish.
When she’d encountered soul magic in the retirement home, she should have expected it everywhere else. Her afternoon trip to the grocery store, her first time in a crowd since her quality time with the Charmer, had underscored just how many people dabbled with soul rental. Kristi had done it, sure, but that was one family member, and she was the only soul renter Callie actually knew. But her hands had damn near fused to the cart in every other aisle, passing person after person with either too much or too little soul. At least the flask was with Derek, instead of burning a hole in her pocket. It was irritating, but illuminating. At this rate, borrowing souls had to be close to the norm in Gem City.
Plus, the inability to tell a difference between the freezing cold of a renter in between souls and the wicked chill of those who’d hawked their souls bothered her. If she was stuck with this skill, it’d be nice to know which people were doubling down on souls and which ones had said fuck it—for money or a high or whatever else a rented soul was used for—and pawned their own to the Charmer. She’d never be that hard up for cash. Hawk a television or bicycle to help cover rent? Sure. She’d been there. There was a reason she nodded along when her coworkers talked about their favorite reality show. She caught glimpses of shows playing in the dining area at work, but that had been it for a long time. She was okay with that. Give her a stack of paperbacks borrowed from the library to read, and she was a happy woman.
Which is exactly what she was doing when Derek knocked. He’d offered to pick her up tonight, and taken the filled flask to the Soul Charmer the night before. She didn’t get his protective streak, but also wasn’t going to bitch about it. She up-ended a glass of water to wash away the sticky remnants of the PB&J she’d just inhaled before opening the door. He didn’t need to know she ate like a four-year-old.
His knock had shaken the two framed photos hanging on the wall. Her grandmother’s grin in the top photo suggested she was fine with a little jostling. She’d been a strong lady. Callie opened the door without checking the peephole. Even after just a few days, she recognized Derek’s knock. She pulled the door open with one hand and snagged her coat with the other. “Hey.”
He stepped into the apartment, into her space, thwarting her attempt to bolt out the door. His hulking frame towering over her bumped her heart rate up a few notches.
Three, maybe four, inches separated Derek’s barrel chest from Callie’s chin. That canal of air grew charged. She tilted her head back to meet his gaze. His locked jaw and slight sneer would have frightened her days earlier, but the air between them was sparking now. Beneath her too-thin shirt her skin tingled, begging for contact to soothe the static sensation.
His hard stare could turn others into simpering puddles of fear. Yes, she was liquid, too, but it was borne more of lust and intrigue. Which did he want from her? She pulled in a harsh, deep breath. He was wearing cologne—a first—and the heady masculine scent had her reeling. She took a half step backward, only to reach for his shoulder to steady herself. The leather of his jacket was supple beneath her fingers. Not bad, though his skin would be better.
“You letting me in, or what?” Amusement laced Derek’s husky tone.
He steered her into her apartment, as though he was taking home a drunken coworker. Might as well have been. That brought her to her senses. She shook her head, unable to hide her embarrassment. “Yes, of course.”
He gave her one of his pleased grunts. “I liked where that was going and all, doll, but it’s gonna be a busy work night and … ” he trailed off and turned his focus to her bare coffee table. She hadn’t been the only one caught up in the moment. Thank. God.
“Yeah.” Her tongue had gone thick. She hadn’t tipped full-body flush over a guy since she was fifteen. Whether it was all Derek, or maybe a little magic from the Charmer, she was far too in touch with her emotions right now. Locking that shit up was the only way to protect oneself. A few days of stress and magic working alongside a hot dude were fucking with her.
Derek wandered around her living room, searching every thread and hairline crack as if it meant something other than she wasn’t flush with cash. He was too big in the small, spartan space. He stood between her chipped coffee table and the equally barren, but better cared for, dinette set. It was a gem of a thrift store find. Loved by many homes. Josh had stained it for her to hide the gouges from late-night bills and after-school homework. She had three chairs, but never used them all. If her mom ever came over, she’d need to pull the table away from the wall to free the third mission-style chair.
“You move a lot?” The question would have been less conspicuous if Callie hadn’t witnessed Derek’s slow analysis of her furniture. He’d lingered on the uneven couch cushions like he thought she’d stuffed her secrets inside them.
“More than my mother.” A little evasion was for the best.
Her stomach didn’t sink at his disappointed grunt. He didn’t mean it. He turned after realizing he didn’t have anything else to take in. He inclined his head toward the coffee table. “You need a book there or a plant.”
“You overestimate its sturdiness.” She shrugged. She kept her books in the bedroom, but she wasn’t about to share that detail. She needed to stop this blurring of lines and focus on business. “If you’re done judging my apartment, we should probably get to work. What’s the plan?”
“You eat?”
Callie felt a prickling sensation at the nape of her neck, as she realized that he’d shifted back inside his shell, barely talking. But that wasn’t her problem, right? “I had a little something,” she said.
Another grunt.
“Did you, um, eat?” she added two seconds too late when he didn’t say more. “I don’t have much in the kitchen, but there might be enough for a sandwich.” She still had two or three slices of turkey in the refrigerator, but she’d been saving those for tomorrow.
Harsh lines between his eyes—ones she should have paid more attention to before—eased and faded. “Thanks, doll, but I’m good. We’ll be out for a while tonight. Didn’t want you starving.”
A flush of heat began to rush from her chest toward her face at his thoughtfulness. She bit the inside of her cheek to stop it. He was a colleague. Hell, not even that. He worked for the bad guy. She needed to remember that.
“That your brother?”
She might have yelped, but convinced herself she hadn’t. Derek didn’t react, but then he was busy running his finger along the picture frame on the wall next to him, near the doorway. She sucked in a quick breath before replying. “Yep. That’s him. Josh. I’m about five there.”
“Cute dress.” She’d worn vibrant purple all the time; that’s what little girls did. Now she couldn’t remember the last time she wore anything bright or bold.
Pithy responses evaded her, and her initial thought—kids are always cute—conjured a nasty taste in her mouth. She shrugged, and it explained her discomfort and wistfulness and necessary secrets better than her words ever could. Derek nodded in response, and shoved his hands in his pockets, as if he was keeping away from her limited possessions now to avoid prying. No, she was reading too much into this. Into him. Into whatever weird magic mojo flowed between them that made her run her hand down the back of his arm. He watched her fingers glide along the black leather of his jacket, but said nothing.
She grazed her fingertips on the exposed skin of his wrist, delighting in the zing of electricity dashing into her hand. The rush of his deep inhale shook her. She should be setting boundaries. She blinked a few times and she stepped away. The pang in her chest was embarrassment, not disappointment. Mostly. “Should we get going?” she asked with the same false confidence she’d mustered when meeting the Soul Charmer the first time.
He cleared his throat twice before his voice became steady enough to reply. “Yeah. Bring a scarf, if you’ve got one. It’s fucking windy.”