The urge to preen was unfamiliar and awkward in this room, but the delicate shimmer in Callie’s chest wasn’t unwelcome. She stifled it. “The walls he puts up around this place are jacked. It feels wrong.”
Explaining the way the walls should steal from her—sapping her energy and requiring her focus—wasn’t a skill she had. She had never been in for the woo-woo shit, and that made it damn hard to tell others it was real. The vocabulary for emotions was tricky enough, but layering on the pulling and the prodding and the focus and the fear was not a task she was up for.
Unfortunately, Miguel wanted that. He was an average guy; not too tall, not too skinny. Simple haircut. Basic, black clothes. He’d cultivated an appearance to blend in, but when he spoke something skidded beneath the soles of Callie’s Chuck Taylors. “Explain. How does it feel?”
Callie grappled for the right phrases. Her senses snapped out throughout the room combing for energy, but nothing raked back against her nerves. No wall halting her reach. “Overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time,” was the best she could muster.
Miguel’s boot heel clapped against the concrete floor. Dust kicked into the air and when it fell, he was a half step closer to Callie. The chilly swirls streaming from Miguel put metal in Callie’s mouth. The bitter sensation only crept outward when she forced the magic close to him. Her skin didn’t ice, but his soul was lacking enough pieces for its bitterness to bite at her. His soul didn’t sing over the room, and she didn’t try to call it forward, but her magic roiled unchecked.
“Why does that make you think the Soul Charmer is not here?” he asked.
It might have been the right question to ask if one was on the other side of the conversation. Callie didn’t know shit about what was going on, and she doubted the guys did either. The problem wasn’t Miguel’s question. It was the entitled underscore. The pressure on her to perform, to explain, to appease. She gnashed her teeth together, and started to imagine using whatever souls were nearby to build her protection. That wasn’t the answer. She unspooled the coil of fuck you in her chest, but kept hold of the end. She was the only one in this room who could snatch souls. That shit mattered.
“Doesn’t matter why. Where is he?” she asked.
“Doesn’t matter—” Beck sputtered.
“She’s right. Tell us what happened.” Derek stepped forward, and a broken block of dark glass popped and pulverized beneath his steel-toed boots.
The two other soul collectors looked to one another, but didn’t bother hiding their defeat. Neither was ready to push Derek. They should have been more concerned about pushing her. Being underestimated didn’t chafe when she could craft her secrets into a shield.
Beck spoke first. “We don’t really know.”
The defeat in his voice helped Callie ratchet down her anger. These two had information she needed. “Let’s start at the beginning. When did you both get here?”
“I was only fifteen minutes away when I got the all-hands call.” Miguel shoved his hands in his pockets. The edges of his wallet and phone disappeared. “Place was empty when I got here.”
“Same here,” Beck said. “Charmer wasn’t here. He didn’t answer when I called him.”
“Was everything busted already?” Derek gave a pointed look at the bits of broken furniture scattered around the room.
A hint of pink dappled Beck’s cheeks, but his lanky limbs remained loose. No apologies. “This door,” he pointed at the one Derek and Callie now blocked, “was smashed to shit, but otherwise the basement was clear.”
As if a broken door was their biggest concern. Did they not understand the implication of missing souls? Did they not see the trashed storeroom? The Soul Charmer’s souls had been stolen. They may have been broken out of their holding jars. The consequences were monumental, and these assholes were down here throwing shit and whining about an empty room?
“And upstairs?” she prodded. Holding back the fire was getting fucking old. An echo of the Charmer’s magic nipped at her spine in slow waves. She ignored it.
“Back room was smashed,” Miguel said, and then quirked his lips.
“That shit?” Callie pointed overhead. “It’s not funny. Do you understand what happened upstairs?”
Miguel began to amble toward Callie. “You didn’t want to explain how you knew he wasn’t here, and now you’re telling us you know what happened? Charmer’s Pet better start talking.”
Miguel shot a hand out to grab Callie’s upper arm. The layers she wore did nothing against the harsh grind of his fingers. Derek’s arm snapped out and up. A wet crack slapsnap later Miguel staggered back on unstable legs. He toppled to the floor. Blood slipped from the corner of his mouth, and the deep raspberry building along his jawline said the meeting with Derek’s uppercut was going to turn black and swell to holy hell in the next few hours. Violence shouldn’t have been attractive. She’d spent years escaping the fight till you die mentality, but right now that didn’t matter. If she weren’t terrified the Soul Charmer was ready to call her on giving away his souls, if the threat of the missing souls on her wasn’t a legit worry, and if her entire body hadn’t been locked in constant red-alert status, she would have tackled him. Her chest tightened for a moment, and her belly warmed, but she let both reactions fade.
Beck helped Miguel into a sitting position. “You didn’t have to punch him.”
“We’ll have to disagree,” Derek muttered. He slid a hand around Callie’s waist and pulled her close.
She needed the steadying buoy. “I don’t know what happened here, but I can tell you it isn’t fucking good. Several shelves of his soul stores are gone. Some were broken, but more were taken. That should fucking concern you. Not how his or my magic works.”
She didn’t tell them about the
