“We should take his dealer from the basement as leverage,” he said.
“He does hostages, we don’t.” Bringing people in for questioning was bad enough. She wasn’t going to trade the woman. She wasn’t going to be that person.
“Fine, then barter with her if it makes you feel better. That woman is our best way to get inside the building and force Nate’s hand.”
“Nate doesn’t value her.”
“How do you know that?”
Because if he said half the shit he’d said to Callie to that woman, she wasn’t going to be running to him for safety. “Gut feeling.”
The muscle at Derek’s temple twitched. “She knows the building, Callie. She can get us inside.”
She was loath to bring more people into this clusterfuck, but he had a point. Still… “I don’t know about trusting her with your brother’s life.”
“You haven’t seen her recently, Callie. She’s not in a state to do damage.” He’s lucky she loved him, because that hard slap of words wasn’t welcome. She’d freaked when Zara was taken, too, though. This was what family did to us.
Callie headed downstairs to see Lexi. If Derek was right and she wouldn’t risk Henry’s life, this might be okay. She pushed open the interrogation room door to find the chillest ambiance that room had ever held. Miguel had one leg folded with his ankle over his knee. He had a tattered copy of One Hundred Years of Solitude open in his right hand. He lifted his head to acknowledge them, but then went back to reading.
The soul dealer didn’t stir at first. Callie squatted near the woman until their faces were level. “Lexi?” she said softly.
Her only response was a groggy denial. This woman better not be hemorrhaging somewhere. Callie reached forward to lift one of Lexi’s eyelids. She wanted to see pupil response, but got Lexi reeling back instead. “What the fuck you doing?”
“Making sure you’re not dying.”
The other woman’s eyes were wide now, and her pupils were a little dilated due to the dimness of the room, but exactly as expected.
“How do you feel?” Callie asked.
Lexi sucked her teeth. “Like I’ve been tied to a chair for too long.”
She had set herself up for that one. “Want to change that?”
The Anonymous Souls worker narrowed her eyes. Callie watched the woman’s hands, though. She expected them to be fiddling the with zip ties. Hers would have been. Instead the skin had shifted sallow and plumped, and she began to understand Derek’s assessment. Lexi was weakened, and did need real medical attention. Callie pushed quickly with her magic, and found the other woman’s soul humming along just fine.
If nothing else, she hadn’t broken this person.
“You’re not going to kill me?” The wariness in Lexi’s tone, the confidence that this ordeal was going to end everything for her reminded Callie of how different she was than the Soul Charmer. He didn’t see anything but enemies and tools when he looked around a room, and delighted in doing so. Callie had to use this woman, but she wasn’t going to enjoy it.
“If we wanted you dead, you’d be dead,” Derek intoned from somewhere behind her.
“Let’s make a deal, Lexi.”
“What kind of deal? I’m keeping my soul.” Her words rushed together.
Callie didn’t bother telling the woman that if someone with the skill wanted her soul, it was going either way. That wasn’t useful. “I don’t want your soul. I want your help.”
Lexi was agreeable, but then she’d been bound to a chair and offered an out. Callie promised that if the dealer could get them inside the warehouse without a problem, they’d let her go. While the suggestion she should get out of the soul delivery business was obvious, Callie said it anyway.
Miguel took care of releasing Lexi and keeping an eye on her. Derek and Callie returned to the tiled office upstairs.
“Souls are ordered,” Beck said. “My guys already saw two cars out on the street from here pull away.”
“Not bad. Thanks.” Callie was impressed he could mobilize people so quickly. She wondered how long the collector had worked here. She’d been doing soul pickups for weeks. Had he been doing it for years? It hadn’t even occurred to her that the job would require contacts. She wasn’t out there to make friends. She’d picked up souls to keep the Charmer off her back.
“Doll.” Derek touched her back.
He had contacts. She should have realized he had made this whole thing so much easier. She wouldn’t let him lose his brother. Wouldn’t let Nate hurt Henry. This needed to stop now, or everyone they loved was at risk.
Callie leaned close to Derek.
He pressed a heavy folded knife into her hand. “I want you to carry this.”
“It’s massive.” The knife weighed more than the purse she carried sometimes, and there was a reason she rarely took it with her.
“It’s effective.” He closed her fingers around it. “You used one like this before?”
“Did you really just ask me if I’ve ever used a pocket knife?”
“This is a defense weapon, doll. Sure, it works for cutting boxes, but that little hole there?” He took the knife back, and pointed to the hole at the edge of blade. “That’s your quick release option. Slip your thumb into it, and lift.”
He demonstrated and the sharp, shiny blade zing-ed out of the metal sheath. He depressed the back of the knife, and then folded the blade back into hiding.
“I don’t know about this.” The blade was almost four inches long. The knife was bigger than her hand.
“I can’t do this without knowing you have a weapon.” His brow drew tight.
“We’ve never needed me armed like this before.”
“You want me to save Henry. I do, too, but I can’t do that if you aren’t ready to cut that bastard Nate.”
“I didn’t say I wasn’t willing to cut him…”
“This is not a joke, Callie. I can’t lose either of you.” There was a tenuous relationship between
