“I can’t lose you now,” was all she could manage to say soft enough for only him. It was all she could manage without tears. A little louder, “Beck could help us.”
Beck took his cue, and infused it with earnestness. “It’ll be a short run, but I can make sure no one tails us and no one tries anything handsy.”
Handsy was the least of their problems, but he didn’t need to know that. Derek must have agreed on that front. “All right, Beck. You go with her. Stay close to her, and if she comes back with so much as a bruise, what happens to you is tenfold.”
Derek clapped him on the back, and Callie tried to ignore the fact they were praising one another over taking care of a woman. Derek wasn’t that guy. He was thanking someone else for helping him, he was not doubting her. Magic skills were good, but when it’s five on one, an extra set of hands matters.
A broken, tired chuckle was all Beck could muster, but he nodded his agreement.
They had a plan.
Get one soul from the Anonymous crew, and hope it led to more. If they were lucky, they might even get the Soul Charmer back. Lord help her. Since when did anyone want that asshole back?
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Beck promised to be back at five thirty to go with Callie to grab a soul from the Anonymous folk. He, Miguel, and Savannah left. It was still early in the afternoon, and that left Callie and Derek alone in the Soul Charmer’s shop.
The throaty rumble of a muscle car faded away slowly. When it was quiet, Callie asked, “What now?”
Those two basic words bore the weight of a massive question. She wasn’t asking how to kill the time.
“It’s an out.” His gravelly whisper was the kind of sound reserved for back seats of cars. While better when the conversation was dirty, the intimacy was not lost on Callie.
Stretching her neck for long seconds to the right, and then the left didn’t loosen the muscles bracketing her spine. “Maybe,” she said finally. “It can’t be this easy. We can’t just walk out.”
He turned meaningfully to the door. Their escape. Their answer. “Why not? That’s the plan, right?”
Did he doubt that she wanted him, wanted out of this? “Of course it’s the plan. We can’t let him hold us here, let him keep ladling on the fucking guilt like hot fudge on a Friday night.”
“You worried about rising to Heaven now, doll?” His eyes held no humor.
“I didn’t used to worry about sin, but now I’m bearing more and more. His and Josh’s and Zara’s and it’s a lot.”
“Hey.” Heavy arms and soft leather wrapped around her.
“I’m not worried about Heaven, Derek. I’m worried about here.”
He tightened his arms around her. “I’m good. I’ve got you.”
“I need to keep you.” Why did honesty always catch in her throat?
“Not going anywhere, doll. Unless you want to book it, and then we go together.”
God, she wished it were really an option. The plan to ditch this place was in its infancy, but that hadn’t made it less real. Derek was willing to do it. The realization hit her hard behind the knees. His embrace held her steady now, but even he couldn’t stop the Soul Charmer’s wrath if they bailed on this. If hellfire was real, the Soul Charmer could wield it.
“I wish we could.” Callie shot a furtive look around the barren room. The tapestries wavered when the furnace kicked on, but otherwise only her and Derek’s energy filled the center of the space. “This whole thing is off, though. He puts magic walls up over everything.”
“Yeah. I know, but you said they’re gone. He’s gone, so maybe that makes sense?” Derek kissed the top of her head.
“But they aren’t actually gone. Not all of them. It’s changed, and I don’t know how to explain it, but there’s more at play here. You saw the coal.” It wasn’t a question, but part of her needed the validation she wasn’t alone.
His thumb worried in a small circle at her shoulder.
“Right?” she prodded. Tell me I’m not losing my shit.
“I saw the coal, if that was what the black stuff was. I saw it melt into the ground or disappear or I don’t know what that was, but yeah, Callie, I saw it.” A man that size shouldn’t sound reedy. She didn’t care. The truth was there between them, and if he could at least see that much magic, it might be okay.
“Okay. Well, that coal was his magic. Only…”
“Only what?”
It wasn’t? It left a tang pinching her taste buds and pressure in her ears, and neither of those things was tangible when it came to explanations. “I don’t know…it was his magic, only messed up.”
Derek rocked his weight back into his heels, and Callie swayed with him. His voice was sturdy, his words stronger. “If his magic has rotted, all the more reason to leave Gem City.”
“If his magic can turn, so can mine.” She hated the soft squeak of her voice.
Derek took her face in his hands. His grey eyes met hers with steely resolve. “You are beautiful and strong. He’s a shit stain, and so his magic is ugly and wrong. That isn’t you. I know it isn’t.”
In a flash his lips were against hers, warm and fervent. Callie tried to take in his ardent belief that she was so much better than the Soul Charmer, that her magic wasn’t tainted. That nasty voice in the back her mind—one that sounded too much like her mother after a half dozen whiskey shooters—reminded her she’d ripped a soul out of man’s body, that she’d burned the flesh off a woman, that when push came to shove, she wasn’t afraid to get ugly
