“What the fuck?” Derek stared at the brittle briquettes of black on the ground.
“You can see them?” This was more than some nighthawk bullshit. The flames on her arms were always visible, but the power protecting doorways and the heavy pressures had always been just for her. Derek had never seen them.
The bits of coal disintegrated quickly until only smudges remained.
“Fuck yes I saw them.” He turned his attention back to Callie. His hands tightening on her hips. “Are you all right?”
She could tell he wanted to give her a once over, but when it came to magic they were both at a loss.
“No damage done.” Probably.
“Has that happened before?” Worry sharpened his question.
“That? No, but…”
His hands eased until they were more comfort than confinement at her waist. “You got an idea, doll, I want to hear it.”
It was a guess. “It felt like a warning.”
“What kind of warning?”
A bad fucking one. Not that she could tell Derek that. Not after she’d broken down in the car and dumped so much of her baggage in his hands. “The kind that says we should watch our steps. We need to find out what’s happening.” At least that wasn’t a lie.
Derek nodded once, the movement final. “Right. I go in first. Anything goes wrong, you’re going to fucking run, right?”
And leave him? Not likely. She pushed up onto her toes and lightly pressed her lips to his cheek. The scruff tickled, and reminded her there was more to the future than simply magic and murder. “No heroes over here.”
He didn’t push about bypassing the agreement. Instead he stepped toward the front door. He licked his lips quickly, unnecessarily. “Let’s get this over with.”
Mildew and patchouli assaulted Callie’s nose. She coughed and sputtered, but stepped fully into the Soul Charmer’s client space.
“Who the—oh hey.” A tall, broad woman greeted them. The black pistol in her hand was tilted toward the floor, but Callie wondered how quickly the woman could raise it. How quickly could the threat become a promise? Callie struggled to swallow, but held steady.
“Savannah.” Derek’s tone wasn’t soft.
“Hey. You Callie?” Savannah asked.
A nod and an awkward, fake smile later, introductions were over, and the three of them were alone.
“Where’s the Charmer?” Derek asked.
“That’s the question, man,” Savannah said. “Beck and Miguel are in back.”
Callie wasn’t about to trust this new woman to hand her information now anyway. Too much was on the line. Soot still clung to her clothing. Even the Charmer wouldn’t want her talking magic with his other employees. Derek must have agreed, because he took Callie’s hand again and moved toward the back.
The nighthawk mark began to simmer as she stepped close to the gateway to the back office. She started pushing her magic forward and out, following Derek through the doorway without a misstep.
It was in the back room where it all started to go wrong.
Her foot caught on something low and blunt jutting from the edge of the doorway. Callie still held her magic out in front of her. She whipped her hands up to block her fall, and the magic offered a pillow for her face. Her knees and shins, though? They smacked hard against the tile. The crack reverberated in the tiled room. She pushed herself up from the floor. Blood smeared beneath her. A slice of smoky grey glass was wedged into her palm. She plucked it, thankful the puncture wasn’t deep. She pulled a wad of gauze from her coat pocket, one of the few pieces she hadn’t used on Zara, and pressed it against her hand. Her right hand was bloody, too, though. She skimmed her thumb over the pad of the palm, but there were no cuts. Just blood.
“Callie.” Derek had clearly said her name more than once. He stood a couple steps ahead of her in a pool of dark red liquid.
She got her feet beneath her, every intention focused on running to him. He held up a single hand. The faded pink ridge of an old scar rose beneath the flashes of light from a flickering fluorescent bulb.
“Pretty sure you need to stay back, doll.” The words were casual, the tightening of his lips was not.
She remained near the door, but scraped her gaze over every inch of him: the splatters of red readying to disappear against the black of his boots, the edges of his phone creating an extra crease from within his jeans’ pocket, the forced stretch of his fingers locking them into rigor mortis level stiffness, and his jaw clenched tight beneath skin two tones too pale. He wasn’t bleeding. Her brain urged her to rush him, to touch, to confirm, to protect, but she had to trust him. If he said she needed to stay back, she did.
She swallowed the fear clawing into her mouth. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
His mirthless laugh did nothing for her worry. “None of this is okay, doll, but I’m positive you need to stay back from that.” Derek pointed to the far wall. She hadn’t even considered looking at anything else here. The blood on the floor, her boyfriend adrift in it, the glass in her palm.
Oh.
Oh, fuck.
The far wall held all the storage for the Charmer’s souls. At least within this shop. Two of the bookcases-turned-soul-cases had black steel shutters locked over the front of them. Callie hadn’t seen them before, or even known there was a locking mechanism for the soul cases. There were handles at the bottom of the heavy duty and rugged material. But it wasn’t those barricades that had her cursing. It was the third section. It wasn’t blocked off, and it was nearly barren. Slivers of obsidian littered the fourth shelf. A silver metal lid sat lonely
