Lost Souls

by Chelsea Mueller

  “Sorry,” she muttered. She meant it, but also too many problems were vying for attention in her mind that she couldn’t promise not to drift again.

  His short, low grunt was his acceptance of her apology. She almost smiled. At least she could count on him to get her.

  “We need to find Nate,” she said.

  Before she could even tense a muscle to move out of the booth, he said, “We do, but you need to eat first.”

  “I’m good,” she lied.

  He glared at her. His hair was the longest she’d seen it, and had started to curl at the ends.

  “Fine. I’ll have something.” A solid drink would be good.

  “Beer doesn’t count.” Fucking mind reader.

  “I’ll get soup.” It was about all she could keep down. Worry had her gut churning, and much more than liquid was going to get evicted.

  The sharp creases at the corners of his eyes smoothed, though the dark marks below them lingered. She wasn’t the only one foregoing sleep.

  “Do you want to tell me what you saw in that hallway?” The question sounded like it was asked for her benefit. Maybe it was. Maybe he wanted her to unburden. She’d had too many demands this week to take it as such, though.

  “Do you want to tell me why you didn’t tell me the cops were looking for you?”

  He pulled away for a moment, but eased back toward her just as quickly.

  Callie cupped her hand over her mouth until she’d locked down her frustration, and then she spoke. “I’m being the asshole again. Sorry. I need to get her back, Derek.”

  “I know,” the words were soft brush against her cheek.

  “You saw the fingers.” The hum of the nearby heater almost erased her shaky words.

  The fucking fingers. Her mom’s fingers. Delivered on a platter—a literal platter—next to Nate’s little serial killer handwritten note. He wanted his soul back. He’d taken her mom. Leverage like that fucking worked. Callie was goddamn eager to return his shitty soul. She knew where it was and would have forked it over in seconds if she could find the bastard.

  Derek stretched his hand out to her, and she took it. His palm was the warm comfort of cocoa and blankets. She siphoned the softness for a long moment.

  “We will get her back.” His confidence rang with a steel core of sincerity. Callie couldn’t even fake that, but that was the point. Derek didn’t falter when it came to her. Thank God.

  “If we can go find the corner guy on El Paseo, we can find him.” Even to her ears, she sounded convinced.

  “Where on El Paseo?”

  “Near the Cathedral.”

  Derek stared at their joined hands, but he didn’t react when she squeezed his fingers.

  “I don’t like it,” he said.

  Callie let go. “None of this is particularly likeable. It’s where Benton said the guy was.”

  “Okay. Benton’s probably reliable.”

  Callie lifted her chin, but managed not to throw out a See?!

  “He also doesn’t know which guy it is. We’re talking third-hand gossip at best. Could be Dougie or Fiona or Adam.”

  Callie leaned in, surprised how much she needed this plan. “He said corner guy. So not Fiona.”

  Derek nodded.

  Their waitress stopped at the table to take their orders. Callie followed through on her tortilla soup promise, but also requested a cold beer in a longneck bottle. Derek slid out of the booth for a quick run to the restroom. Though it was only 10:30 p.m. and Dott’s was far from empty, Callie was alone. The temptation to run and continue searching for Nate wasn’t as strong as before, but it wriggled in the back of her mind.

  She’d been so close to safety. She’d gotten Josh back. He was sober. Derek was willing to skip town with her. Running wouldn’t solve her problems any more than drinking cured a sour stomach. She still had her boyfriend, but keeping her big brother on the straight-and-narrow and dealing with this mess with their mom and Nate was tricky.

  She pulled her phone from her pocket, and texted Josh. She simply asked, “Any word?” because like her he was worked up searching for Zara.

  If one wanted to point fingers, they could point at him. He was the reason that Callie even knew who Nate was. It was Josh’s meth addiction that had pulled Callie into this world. She’d been blackmailed by Nate’s boss Ford. She’d entered the soul magic world because of them. She’d done it because she loved her brother, because he’d bailed her out when she was kid. It’s what Delgados do. Family first. Always.

  Only these days Callie was beginning to feel like it was family first for the others when it was convenient. Yes, it was her fault Nate was after them. It was Callie who ripped Nate’s soul from his body. She’d done it because he’d gotten a kid murdered. She’d been wrapped up in the need for justice or vengeance or something. She hadn’t thought about Zara. Her mom wasn’t great, but she was hers, and she sure as shit didn’t deserve to be kidnapped or to have her fingers cut off and sent to her daughter. Literally no one deserves that.

  Josh, though, was happy to keep telling Callie how it was all her fault the few times he texted back. He’d avoided all twenty-seven of her calls and was never home when she went by their mom’s place. He hadn’t said he blamed her, but he hinted fucking hard. Josh messaged back, “No. You find Nate?”

  “Not yet. Have a lead.” She didn’t want to get his hopes up, but he needed to know she was trying.

  “K.”

  “Has anyone you know seen Nate?” She hated to ask. She wasn’t tossing blame, but the fact was Josh knew these dealers. He knew Nate. He knew where they used to be holed up. He knew their faces, their names, which pockets they hid the good stuff in. He also was several weeks sober and she wasn’t trying to wreck that for him. A kidnapped mom already put him on edge, and Callie wasn’t sure he hadn’t hit the needle again.

  “I’m working more now. Lots of construction jobs. They need me. Pays good.” He hadn’t answered her question.

  “I’m glad the job is working out.” Callie didn’t trust anyone who would hire her brother for manual labor, and the last time she’d talked with Josh about the gig he’d said he was supervising. Junkies don’t make the most reliable employees, and you don’t put someone with zero experience in charge. Something was up with the job, but now wasn’t the time to bring it up.

  “Almost have enough cash for a P.I. to find her.”

  “You don’t need to do that. I’m on it,” she messaged back.

  “P.I. is better than the cops.”

  She was better, too. Derek even more so. She didn’t bother telling him so. At least he was focused. At this point, she’d take the wins when she could get them.

  “Keep me posted. Love you.” She didn’t use to text her family love, but when one’s mom gets kidnapped, you start making sure the loved ones know how you feel.

  Derek slid back into the booth. His movements were lithe, but that muscle in his jaw was ticking again.

  “You okay?” She so rarely was the person asking that question these days.

  He parted his lips, and then closed them again. Flummoxed Derek was a special sight. He filled more than half of the seat across from her. His elbows rested on the table, and if he’d leaned his weight into it he could have tilted the thing. Unease, though, permeated his hesitant motions. He pulled his phone from the inside pocket of his leather jacket, and looked at the small device in his hand. “My brother just called.”

  “Father Henry?” Callie had met the priest only recently, and he’d been mostly kind to her. Less so to his brother. While he and Derek got along better than she and some of her family, the dynamic of priest and enforcer for a soul magician was, well, complicated.

  Derek rolled his eyes. “Can we drop the Father stuff?”

  She wouldn’t much care for hearing Josh get an honorific title either. “Sure. What did Henry want? Is everyone in your family okay?”

  Derek’s smile was slow to form, but genuine.

  “What?”r />
  “Just thinking about whether he’d asked about family. I suppose he did.”

  It was Callie’s turn to look confused.

  “He asked about you.”

  “Oh.”

  “Oh?” His smile widened. “Calm down, doll.”

  She shook off the warm fuzzies attempting to rise in her tummy. “So what did he want to know about me?”

  “He was worried.”

  “What?”

  “He’s concerned.” The way Derek teased the word suggested he didn’t need his little brother worrying over his girlfriend. “He said he wanted to make sure you were okay after your last visit to the cathedral.”

  Callie resisted the urge to ask what for a third time. “That’s…weird.”

  “My brother is weird. Who wants to sign up for a lifetime of rules, rituals, and zero quality time with hot women like you?”

  Derek started to chuckle before Callie felt the heat rise in her cheeks.

  “I meant why does he want to know?” It was a safer question than ‘how much does he know?’

  The last time Callie had been to the Cortean Catholic cathedral she’d been with the Soul Charmer. She’d been to the basement. She’d learned how much the church knew about the soul rental gig, and that they were key in keeping the Charmer in business. Souls needed redemption, needed back into our world, and the Charmer had to free them from the well to do so. She’d done it that night. The Charmer had not taken her back to the church again. She was fine with that. The less she had to see that well, to hear those souls, to be a part of the bargain with purgatory the better.

  “My brother knows something. He thinks he’s too honorable to tell, but the fact he called means something is up and it’s probably tied to the Soul Charmer.” Derek was almost successful in keeping the apprehension from rattling his voice.

  Cops asking about Ford’s death. Zara kidnapped and injured. Nate was missing. Josh hustling work for cash. Stumbling with pulling souls at the Charmer’s. Now Henry was worried about her enough to make Derek worried.

  Callie didn’t bother hiding her fear. She was stretched too thin to be able to conceal much anyway. “Isn’t it always? The Charmer’s exhausted right now. He isn’t invested in Nate, but having that asshole disappear now doesn’t make sense. There’s just too much bad coming at us all at once.”

  Nate shouldn’t be gone. His boss was gone, the empire for the taking. He had the power to make them bend over by taking Zara. What was the point of making threats if you couldn’t cash in the rewards? Which meant either he was fucking with them—possible—or someone even viler was out there. Whoever it was, Callie was ready to plow through them to save her mother. She had to.

  Family first.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Cortean Catholic cathedral was remarkable during the day. Stained glass windows depicting saints rising to Heaven warmed and shimmered beneath the high desert sun. At night the jutting peaks of the enormous building became imposing. Artificial light left the whitewashed exterior stark and foreboding. The centerpiece of the faith’s stake in Gem City loomed above the squat buildings in the plaza. The city had a firm two-stories-max policy for buildings. Except for the church. Its cathedral’s peaks could block the skyline and no one made a peep. You could do that when you held even the mayor’s fear of the afterlife in your hands.

  For once Callie could relate. Nate held her mother’s life in his greasy hands, and that meant Callie was damned in a tangible way. Guilt clamped her insides, and she could picture basic black zip ties—the same kind she’d used to hold Nate—and with each passing second she could almost hear them clicking one notch tighter. Any more and she would go morally septic.

  Her car whined when she cranked the wheel to parallel park a block down the road from the church.

  “You need to let me look at the power steering in this thing,” Derek said.

  Her sigh said ‘not now’ nicer than she could have aloud. “I let you do the spark plugs.”

  He gave her knee a quick squeeze. “That you did, doll.”

  She’d let him fix the leak in her kitchen sink because the super never would. The spark plug thing apparently was a big deal, and she’d finally acquiesced when she realized she had enough money to cover all her bills with money to spare for the first time ever. The Charmer paid well, but that didn’t mean she needed to go throwing cash out of her pocket. Now was the time to stockpile and rebuild her savings, because eventually shit would hit the fan and she’d need a very green safety net.

  She pulled the car away from the halo of the low, hazy streetlamps. That light could keep her car from being jacked, but she and Derek were staying inside. From this darkened side of the street, they could see the three main corners where hustlers shilled their wares on the El Paseo. All of them had worked for Ford, and now Callie needed at least one of them to have stayed loyal to Nate after his boss’s untimely demise.

  “Hey,” Derek whispered. When she turned, he took her face in his hands. His palms were rough, but familiar on her cheeks. “I’ve got you.”

  “I know.” Her voice was barely a breath.

  “We will get through this together. We’ll find her. I won’t let Nate get away with this.” His vengeance slashed the air with the ferocity of coyote teeth.

  He refused to say it, but she could tell he thought Zara was dead. She wouldn’t be, though. Callie’s aunt had always said Zara was as stubborn as stone. It was more, though, something bright and sharp dug behind her heart at the thought of Zara being dead. Maybe it was a Delgado thing or maybe it was magic or maybe it was God doing her a solid. Whatever it was, Callie believed Zara was alive. What she didn’t know was for how long.

  “One of these guys has to know where he is,” she said.

  Derek slid his thumb across Callie’s lower lip. “Nate forgot who he was fucking with.”

  She scoffed with the force of a sucker punch. “He knows the Soul Charmer fine.”

  “Not the old man. Not even me. He should not have fucked with you, and that asshole is going to find out why.”

  Callie leaned into Derek’s palm. He pulled her forward to meet his kiss. His lips were soft, but the force behind them wasn’t gentle. He licked at her lips, and she parted them. Energy snapped between them. Sweet ozone—electricity on the air—wrapped around them. The desire to be closer, to refocus all her fears and worry into something positive and forgiving, had Callie leaning into him. She nipped the corner of his mouth. He groaned, and the sound shot through her belly. The tightness, the earlier pain receded. Derek’s fingers slid into her hair at the nape of her neck. Callie shivered.

  He pulled back. “I need to remind you that you’re a badass more often.”

  “Mhm.” She leaned back in for another kiss that ended too soon.

  “Looks like Dougie has a customer, doll.” At least he sounded as disappointed as she was.

  He let go of her, and she tried to ignore the creeping sense of loss as her skin cooled. “Should we move on them now?”

  “Nah. Let’s watch both dealers for a bit, and see if either has the good stuff.”

  “I was kind of hoping we could punch our way to answers today.” She hadn’t meant to sound so sullen.

  The roguish smile he offered her was almost as good as another kiss. “I’ve been telling you since the day we met, I only punch when it’s necessary.”

  “This situation doesn’t count?” Humor laced the words.

  His shrug was tight enough his leather jacket should have creaked. “Too important to fuck it up by breaking someone useful.”

  He’d been right, though. The longer they watched the two dealers, the more they learned. Dougie wasn’t smooth. His buyers wore loafers and button downs. They tugged gaping coats shut, but didn’t bother zipping up because their car was idling across the street. The cars were nicer than Callie’s by a fucking mile.

  Adam was on the far corner across the street from the cathedral. He was far enough away that the crisp floodlig
hts illuminating the statues of saints Antonio, Catalina, and Michael didn’t show more than the dark profile of his face. Most of Adam’s clients so far had been rail thin and in coats that were two sizes too big. They’d rocked on their heels and their hands jerked with need as they reached to accept a packet from the corner dealer. Callie would have recognized the tweakers hitting up Adam even if she were a dozen blocks away. Her shifts at the ER a lifetime ago had been filled with oxy addicts and meth heads looking for a fix in between hits. She didn’t want to compare them to Josh, but she could have done that, too.

  A woman in knee-high designer boots, and a long, belted trench coat approached Adam. He shrugged her off. Her hands were flying wide. Even from this distance, it was plain the lady was pissed. Adam pointed her toward Dougie, and she headed toward the other dealer with a huff. Adam offered another, one-finger suggestion once the woman’s back was turned.

  “I think we have our man,” Derek said.

  “Why?” Callie didn’t take her eyes off the pretentious woman. She drew attention in front of the church, even stopping to give a quick curtsey and make the sign of the cross. She was buying drugs, and had no shame. “Is she a renter?”

  “Huh?”

  “The woman there. Does she rent from the Charmer?”

  Derek paused, and Callie didn’t mind that the woman wasn’t memorable to him. “I don’t think so. Why?”

  Now wasn’t the time for her to unload her feelings about the people who partook in their boss’s services, but Callie could offer a partial answer. “She likes attention, and doesn’t seem to be bothered that the priests inside the church might see her buying whatever. That cockiness is usually reserved for the people we make pay double.”

  He nodded slowly. “Sure enough, doll.”

  “So who’s our man?”

  “Adam.”

  “Why? I mean, he’s an asshole. So that makes sense for being Team Nate, but both of them are hawking at a pretty regular rate.”

  “They’ve got the same number of customers, but Adam over there has pulled in ten times the cash. He’s been pulling packets from every pocket. He’s carrying a selection.”