She paused to steady herself. Derek held at her side, too, and she appreciated not being left alone. The thick wet smack of meat against meat filled the air. Each slap was followed by a harsh oof. Lexi continued forward without them.
“What the fuck you doing here?”
Terror punched down Callie’s throat and sunk its talons into her stomach. Nate was here.
Lexi was already on the verge of hyperventilating when she said, “Picking up souls, Mr. Nate. Sorry.”
Nate was hidden by the wall on the right, but Lexi was only fifteen feet ahead. Tears tracked the beautiful woman’s face. Whatever move Nate made, Lexi’s eyes widened and she darted toward Callie.
Ca-click.
Pow.
The single gunshot rang in Callie’s ears.
Lexi stumbled forward to face plant on the painted concrete. Blood poured from the hole in the middle of her back. The stunning curls covered the woman’s face. Her fingers twitched.
Callie’s magic flared. There was no calm collection of energy this time. Another person who didn’t deserve to die lay shot damn near at her feet, and Callie was fucking done. She was done hiding. Nate needed to know he couldn’t do this. He needed her too much to shoot her anyway. Probably. Derek had oozed volatility before. Maybe owning rage was power. Callie walked forward and did her damnedest to project nothing but menace.
Nate held a black pistol at his side. His finger was still in the trigger guard. The bomber jacket he’d worn before was thrown in a heap a few feet away, but the lanky asshole was wearing a basic white tee and trying damn hard to convince people he was a gangster from a bygone era. He was a thug and a psychopath and she was fucking done with him.
“Only an idiot would kill his own people.” She was seething and needed to see him unsettled.
“She wasn’t fucking mine if she brought you here, but it doesn’t matter.” Nate snapped his fingers, and three men in the corner looked up. “Take care of the big one. Callie girl and I need to have a conversation.”
The trio of men also dressed like they’d recently discovered vintage clothing broke away from their huddle to charge at Derek. What they left behind was a battered Henry. Callie ignored the gut-punch visual as much as she could, but her heart wept. He was bound to a chair in almost the same fashion they’d secured Lexi, but unlike their hostage Henry wasn’t healthy. His right eye was swollen shut, and his entire face was mottled in blacks and purples. His shirt was torn open, and blood smeared his skin. Nate’s men bypassed her and jumped at her boyfriend.
Derek’s muffled, “I got this,” kept her on track.
She tore her gaze from the injured priest. Nate’s lips pulled back in a rictus grin, revealing yellowing teeth.
“You going to shoot me, too, Nate?” The pure taunt bought her time to push her magic shield a little farther out.
He dropped the magazine from the gun, and cleared the chamber. “You saying you want my hands on that little body, Callie girl?” He tossed the gun and ejected magazine onto his jacket. “Because that can be arranged.”
Pallets behind her rattled, but she couldn’t risk looking away from Nate. Derek had to have this. There wasn’t another option. The mob boss pulled a small glass pipe from his pocket and pressed it to his lips.
Callie’s soul magic shield shook, and a flash of fire streaked before her. “Who taught you to store souls? This place is a fucking mess.”
The dig hit bone. “I wasn’t given shit. The Soul Charmer—” he sang the name like it was a mythical children’s character “—tapped you with magic. I had to work for it. I had to learn. You didn’t have to gather souls or figure out how to get them in and out of people. You had tools and a teacher.”
Callie took three more steps toward him. Pressure built on all sides. Her head throbbed, and her limbs bloated. She was the closed can of beer tossed into a bonfire. “Who said you were meant to touch souls?”
His fingers fluttered against the small pipe. He hadn’t repacked the one-hitter, but he puffed on the pipe again. The drilling whine ground against her pelvis. Every step was wrong, painful, but she couldn’t stop. If she could grasp his soul, she could stop him. She only needed to get close enough.
“You don’t get to decide that shit, girl. You’re going to work for me or you ain’t going to work at all.”
The fuck she was. “Working is overrated.”
Nate shoved his pipe into his front pocket, and then barreled at her. Her shield had held back the flames, but it wasn’t meant to block a 190 lb. man from tackling her. Callie’s shoulders smacked the floor first, but it was the back of her skull that offered a solid crack against the concrete. The barrier she’d erected to hold back the sizzling energy of the souls shuttered and vanished. Nate followed her to the ground, his knee wedged between her legs. Wrongness fused with her bone marrow until her very insides were crawling. She slammed a knee in to Nate’s side, but it didn’t so much as knock the wind out of him. Searing heat ate at her toes, her fingers.
Nate’s hands clamped around Callie’s throat. “I’m going to take your fucking soul next.”
He dropped his weight onto her neck, and she bucked hard. He jostled, but didn’t budge. He brought his face close to hers, and gnashed his teeth together. Heat licked up her arms and legs. Nate squirmed and squeezed her throat. Callie coughed and began
