Callie caught Johnny T’s gaze, and dropped one of the twenties into his tip jar. She shoved the other two in her pocket. Forty bucks wasn’t exactly good money for collecting souls, but bringing something back to the Soul Charmer was always better than nothing.
She hurried out of the bar before her bravado evaporated. She hopped over the ice collected in the center of the sidewalk outside. The uneven concrete had made a perfect pool to ruin her day. Inside her car, she cranked the engine and then the heater. Her phone buzzed in her pocket. Please be Nate. Please be Nate, she thought. As much as she hated the guy, she needed him to call her back.
It was Derek, though, which was infinitely better. She answered.
“Hey,” the chill in her voice melted for him.
“Hey, doll. What’s your ETA?”
Callie glanced at the clock on the dash. It was already after eight, which meant sliding into peak time for the Soul Charmer’s emporium. By nine o’clock customers would be bustling in every few minutes to get their taste of carte blanche sinning and the freedom it afforded. “I got Benton’s soul back, but I wanted to make another stop.”
She couldn’t say she’d gotten a lead on Nate. Not on the phone, but Derek could read her voice well. “I wish I could say that was a good idea. He’s upping wards for the back room here. If you aren’t back in ten, I expect he’s going to be a hot one.”
Hot one. That was a nice way of saying she was going to have a ton of souls thrown her direction, and her arms were going to char like a winter log in a chiminea. She swore.
“I’ll find us a way to get out to your next stop later tonight. I’d rather go with you.”
She’d rather he went with her, too. “I’ll be there in ten.”
“Thank you.” The affection and promise in those two words had Callie putting the car into Drive. He was worried about her. It was still weird to be okay with that, but for now she could let it ride.
First she’d deal with the Soul Charmer, and then she’d work on finding Nate. Both would help her find her mom. The question was who could get her to Zara first.
Whatever it took, she’d do it. Family came first.
It always came first.
CHAPTER TWO
The dilapidated door at the Soul Charmer’s front entrance was recessed between the brick-and-adobe mishmash of the alleyway. Customers never complained about the jaunt from the street or the three burned-out light bulbs making the entrance dim. Maybe they were ashamed to be renting a soul. It’s not like they didn’t know what kind of morally corrupt thing they were going to do once another’s soul was popped into their body. You didn’t get to this place on accident.
Callie certainly hadn’t. Mobster Ford had forced her into this very shop by taking her brother. Blackmail was bullshit. Callie shook off the memory, and entered the shop.
A heavy shoulder crashed into Callie’s. She reeled to the right. Her knee met the corner of a table. She hissed, but before she could complain ice shot frigid and fast up her forearm. Her fingers froze in a wide “fuck, my knee” pain pose, but it was the biting beneath her skin that had her staggering back a few extra steps and not the inevitable bruise on her leg.
“Sorry. Forgot about...” said Beck, another of the Soul Charmer’s collections guys. He backed up. The icy charge up her arm retreated with each retreating step Beck took. He continued, “Well, I forgot about that.”
She wriggled feeling back into her fingers. “You drop off?”
“Brought back the cash, and Genna.” He wasn’t meeting her gaze. She used to avoid his. He knew she could work soul magic now, and he didn’t bother hiding his fear. Score one for being scary.
Callie nodded. She mentally flipped through the regular customers she’d met. Genna wasn’t tripping any memories for her. She hadn’t been at this long enough to be jaded about the clientele, but she had experienced enough frozen fingers to be irritated every time she discovered a person nearby had bartered with her boss in the past. Ripping that rented soul back out? No one mentioned it came with a smidge of the renter’s soul, too. Just her luck, her magic wanted her to feel it. Too little soul, and she was cold. Three or more souls, and flame on. She was the Goldilocks of souls, and fucking nothing was just right.
“Callie?” a deep, familiar voice pulled her back into the moment.
She turned toward the counter at the rear of the storefront. Derek filled the doorway to the back office. His head almost touched the top of the frame.
“Present,” she said, and started toward him. Beck booked it out the door.
Derek closed his eyes for a moment, and then offered a small smile. He grunted a thank you, low and steady. Callie had been dating him long enough to know that tone meant more than appreciation. He was tired, too, and worried, and he wouldn’t have called her here if it weren’t necessary. She took his hand in hers and squeezed. I know.
“You got a lead?” Derek asked under his breath. He couldn’t dare say Nate’s name here.
She wouldn’t risk saying anything. “Later.”
His stiff nod was solid agreement. “Charmer’s in a mood.”
Join the club, man. Callie squeezed his hand again. “Might as well get it over with.”
She’d been saying that a lot since she started working full-time, on the books for the Soul Charmer. It paid stupidly better than her old job cooking at a retirement home, but the asks there never made your skin pinch and twist. Her days at the home never scared her. She could not say the same
