The woman keened her head to the right and smiled. “You could use a massage.” It wasn’t a question.
Her fake laugh didn’t fool the massage lady.
“I could balance your energy. It would only take a moment.” She took a step toward Callie.
She stepped back to maintain the distance between them. “No time. Sorry. People are waiting on lunch. I’ll see you around.” Her stomach twisted.
“Thanks.” The other woman’s gentle smile didn’t falter, but relief washed over Callie as she departed.
Callie buzzed herself and the large rack of meals through both sets of doors, but stopped immediately inside the ward. It wasn’t the beeps of medical machines or the soft voices that made her uneasy. Those were normal. It wasn’t the too-white walls, either.
Her fingers were frozen. Not. Normal.
This was no case of shitty circulation, or someone screwing with the thermostat. She tried to let go of the cart, but her fingers barely moved. Her dark blue nail polish was chipped and peeling, but the fact her skin was beginning to take on a similar hue was more concerning. She pried a hand from the cart and lifted it closer to inspect. Her skin was turning a cool grey color. Great. She was locked in a facility with the dying, while her skin took on its own ghastly shade. That had to be a bad sign. About right for this week. Brother abducted. Shanghaied into the service of the mafia, and then blackmailed into working for the goddamn Soul Charmer. And now her fingers were turning necrotic and would probably fall off any second. Could she bail on the deal with Ford if she didn’t have fingers? There was a fucked-up silver lining.
“Girl!” The shout shook Callie from her spiraling stress. She looked to find one of the residents, face red as he hollered to get her attention. Maybe he’d been at it awhile. How long had he been right next to her?
“Yes?” She did her best to bite back the nasty instinct clawing at her throat.
“You gonna stand there all day?” As he finished speaking, an orderly rushed up and corralled him.
“Sorry about Mr. Beck. He’s been in a mood lately,” the orderly said.
As the moody Mr. Beck moved away, Callie’s fingers began to regain their dexterity, and the color lost the undead sheen. What the hell had that been all about? “Sure, thanks,” she muttered, trying to hold it together.
The orderly gave her a genuine smile, and went back to his duties. Callie did the same. She tried to stay focused on getting to the end of the hallway, on finishing the task she’d come here to do. The local news was playing on a television mounted in the far corner. She’d start at the end, and work her way back to the way she came in, toward the door and her escape.
She took a deep breath, and started down the corridor, barely taking more than a few steps before her hands went AWOL, turning frigidly cold again. Callie’s head was spinning. She told herself to keep moving. Another few steps, and the cold almost immediately thawed, and her hands returned to a normal temperature. A few more steps and they were back to freezing again.
The sensory overload was overwhelming, almost too much to handle. She didn’t know what was setting her off, but the sooner she got out of the ward, the better.
She passed the small lounge area on the right. Usually family members joined the patients to play cards here. No one was visiting now. She glanced at the TV blaring from its corner mount in the nook, and damn near skidded to a stop when she saw Ford on the screen. He was playing up his teenage looks in a blue and white button-up shirt, even though he was nearly thirty. His blue eyes glinted as camera flashes lit the scene. He was speaking with a reporter. The ticker below read MOB BOSS’S SON IMPLICATED IN NARCOTICS RING. The time stamp said the clip was from the day before, but Callie could feel Ford in the room with her. He flaunted that genial, nice-guy charm as he spoke past the reporter and directly into the camera. “My father made mistakes. No one denies that. His Alzheimer’s puts him at no risk to anyone, though. I’m just trying to keep Ford Aluminum—the business he bled to build—up and running while taking care of my family.”
A shiver spiked down Callie’s spine. Great. Clenching the tray did little to alleviate her anxiety. She spared another look at the screen. The camera had refocused on the reporter, but in the background, fidgeting with her overly long braid, was the massage therapist Callie had met in the hallway moments ago. She was positive it was her. Did the masseuse know Ford? Did she work for him?
The blood drained from her face as realization dawned on her. Had she been sent to check up on Callie?
This world was officially too fucking small.
Mundane work would have to be her savior. She would simply have to focus on completing one task at a time instead of letting her mind wander. She brought the first tray in. Her hands didn’t freeze. Normal hands. The resident was sleeping, so that probably helped. She ducked in and out of room after room, avoiding eye contact and moving as fast as possible without sending food flying to the floor. In three of the rooms, though, she had difficulty letting go of the tray. Her icicle fingers flipped on and off faster than the residents skipped through the game show channels. Was she having some kind of a weird allergic reaction to some of the patients? Delivering food had never been so difficult before.
She’d been right last night. The Soul Charmer had done something to her. Derek might be quiet, and bigger than a Mack truck, but she was going to make him talk tonight. Or she’d let her icy fingers break his beloved motorcycle, piece by piece, until he did.
Hard gusts of wind shoved Callie toward her apartment building. After the frigid hands issue earlier, she was kicking herself exceptionally hard for foregoing her winter coat that morning. She tugged her sweater closer and charged up the stairs, only to be blocked from entering by Derek’s hulking form.
His heavy shoulder pressed against her door. No disguising he’d been waiting. Of course he has, her mind growled. She’d spent half her day practicing the way she’d rail on him, and how she’d storm up to him outside the Soul Charmer’s store. She would have moved with lethal grace, like she knew what the hell she was doing. She would have kicked his stupid bike if he grunted at her. She had been preparing to become someone he wouldn’t deny answers to.
And he’d ruined it with his impromptu visit. Heat rushed to Callie’s face. She was still angry about yesterday, and Lord knew she wanted immediate answers about her fingers going into lockdown mode in the psych ward, but right now, teetering halfway up the stairs to her apartment, her ire was singular. She was livid he’d stolen her control. Now she was cold, off balance, and—with an audible gurgle from her stomach to remind her—hungry. He was probably going to want her to make him a sandwich, too. Well, she was out of turkey for jackasses.
“You’re early.” His low rumble was too husky for anything other than straight from bed. Lucky bastard.
“Actually, you’re the one who’s early.” Callie resumed walking to her apartment. “We aren’t supposed to meet for another couple hours.”
He shrugged, but didn’t call out that she specifically hadn’t made plans.
Control was slipping through her fingers, and that was not acceptable. “Look. Jobs have start times and end times. And some of us have more than one job.”
He didn’t reply, nor did he move when she arrived at her door.
She sighed. First Ford sent someone to covertly check on her. Now Derek had demolished her chance at even a momentary respite before whatever soul magic bullshit he had on the agenda for that night. “I can’t open the door with you draping yourself on it.”
“You inviting me in?”
“No.”
He pushed himself off the door. Callie half expected a dent to mark the center. An unsigned Derek was Here. “Thought you’d want to talk, that’s all.”
She did want to talk, but this wasn’t how it was supposed to happen. “You’re going to answer my questions?” Her disbelief was blatant, but what was the point of hiding it now? Kind of hard to act aloof and badass when she’d stumbled at th
e sight of him moments earlier.
His tone softened. “That was the idea. Yeah.”
She unlocked the door.
Derek loomed behind her.
She dropped her purse between her feet. He gave it a curious gaze when the bag made a soft thunk. His mind probably conjured images of weaponry. Good. He didn’t need to know she’d stuffed a paperback romance novel in there for her lunchtime read. She edged her apartment door open six inches, just enough to reach around the corner to the coat hook. She snatched her grey wool coat, closed the door, and then slipped her arms inside.
“We can talk. Just not here.”
Derek glanced at the closed door. His jaw flexed and Callie could tell he’d hoped to poke around her pad. No such luck. He watched her as she began buttoning up. “Where should we go, then?” He threw a silky tone over the words, like he wanted her to think of hotel rooms and not flop houses. How nice. She was a master when it came to bullshit, though. She’d reclaimed control, and somebody wasn’t too pleased.
“Dott’s.” She named her favorite greasy spoon. The food was cheap, good, and they slathered pretty much everything in butter, including the burgers.
Tension ebbed from his face. Callie’s muscles ached for him, constantly clenching and releasing. She could see trust wouldn’t come easily with him, but she recognized a little too much of herself when he lowered the internal weapons. He wanted to trust her. She shouldn’t have liked it or cared, but she did. On both counts. “Good choice.”
“Glad you think so, because you’re buying.” She picked her purse up from the floor, and started down the stairs. Derek’s thunderous steps followed closely behind.
He insisted on taking the motorcycle to the diner. Callie didn’t bother telling him it was only a five-minute walk. He probably didn’t want to leave his bike unattended outside her apartment building, and admittedly, it wasn’t like her complex was going to be getting any of those renters’ top picks awards or a safety seal from the city.
They commandeered a large booth at the back of the restaurant, adjacent to the Dia de los Muertos altar the diner had already begun to fill with candles and ceramic butterflies. The din of the place was more than enough to conceal their conversation, but Derek wanted the extra security. Callie hadn’t argued there, either. “Pick your battles” was her motto today.
Once his coffee and her Coke arrived, and they’d both placed orders for suitably unhealthy meals, it was time to talk. Derek leaned back against the cherry vinyl upholstery and rested his hands on the table. Nothing-to-hide posture didn’t sell Callie these days. Her brother had once turned out his pockets to prove he wasn’t carrying meth on him. Turned out he’d hidden it in his shoe. His fucking shoe. Derek wasn’t her brother, but simply not being a junkie didn’t mean he was Mr. Truthful.
“Where do you want to start?” he asked.
Starting at the beginning would have been smart. Dominoes falling in a line, and all would be clear if she followed that path. Being smart would have been a whole lot easier if her fingers hadn’t locked up and turned straight-up Icelandic this morning. “I want to know what the fuck that asshole did to me.”
Derek arched a brow. The sugar skulls in the painting above his head may have given her the side-eye, too. Perhaps she could have been a little less accusatory.
“My hands.” She lifted them, palms toward him.
His grunt said he understood. Derek closed his eyes as he hauled in a deep breath. With every Zen move he made, the volcanic rage simmering inside her edged one notch closer to exploding. She was about to slam her hands against the table when he finally spoke. “He made it so you can sense when a person has too much or too little of a soul.”
She was not goddamn Goldilocks. “You’re going to have to do better than that.”
“You’re able to sense soul magic.” At her exasperated look, he held up a hand and took a hearty swig from his coffee mug. “You know people rent souls, right?”
“Yes.”
“Those souls have to come from somewhere. So from time to time, people barter theirs out in exchange for money or other goods.”
“Sure,” her tone soured. She remembered the Charmer’s original offer. No clerics winked and nodded in tacit approval at that part of business, as far as she knew. “The Charmer’s souls have to come from more places than just people who want to hawk them, though, right?”
Derek’s nostrils flared, but he replied, “I can’t tell you where he gets the other souls from, and he sure as shit ain’t going to tell you.”
“What can you tell me then?”
He ignored the acid sprinkled atop her words. “Well, now you have the ability to sense those who have been a part of soul magic. Two souls were never meant to inhabit a single body. If someone’s renting a soul, the two will fight against each other. They both want a home, and they both want dominance over the other. It’s why we have so many crazies here. The longer you keep the borrowed soul in you, the more damaged yours becomes. Anyway, when your hands get hot, it means you’re close to someone carrying multiple souls.”
“Hot?” She remembered the burning sensation back at the Charmer’s shop when he’d grabbed her hand and held it to the jar of souls. So she’d been sensing those extra souls? That still didn’t explain her morning in the ward. “Okay, except this morning, when I went into a few of the patients’ rooms, my fingers locked and froze at work. I know these people couldn’t be harboring bonus souls. They’re in a secured facility, and no one is letting the Soul Charmer into that ward.”
He winced. That couldn’t be a good sign. “That’s the other side of the spectrum. Remember I said too little? People who have used soul magic and have a less-than-whole soul will make your hands cold. It’s the most common reaction, and the strongest, which is why you can feel it from farther away.”
“Less-than-whole?”
“Shit. I don’t suppose you’d forget I said that?”
His wince worked on her. Callie replied, “Explain it, and then maybe I can promise not to share.”
His grunt of appeasement pleased her. “Souls like to fuse to the same spot, right?”
She nodded, despite not knowing what he meant.
“They also, kind of, fuse to each other. So when we extract a borrowed soul from someone after they’re finished with it, a little bit—really, it doesn’t make a difference to the person we’re taking it from, they’d never know—of their own soul, the one they were trying to keep pure, comes with it.”
“He takes part of people’s souls? Takes souls that haven’t been pawned or whatever?”
He wasn’t meeting her gaze. “It’s not the same. They still have a soul. It just has a little more character.”
Callie’s thoughts collided like synchronized swimmers with no rhythm. People were giving away slivers of themselves to the Soul Charmer and had no idea. He’d have part of her forever. Fuck if she knew what he did with these bonus bits of soul. Fear and distrust of soul magic was legit, even if people didn’t understand the real reason it was sketchy. Local priests quietly embraced soul renting—for them, upping the tally of heaven-bound souls was clearly the greater priority—but they must not have known about this. Could mangled souls even rise to heaven? Callie had never wanted to have another person’s soul in her body, but she’d agreed to do it for Josh. He had no idea how much saving him would cost her. It was no longer simply working for the bad guys. It wasn’t only committing a crime, which, admittedly, was bad enough. She would have to let the Charmer own a tiny piece of her.
“Close your mouth, Callie. People are starting to stare.”
Her teeth clacked together and she pressed her fingers against her lips. They kept her fears from bubbling out. The metallic tang of blood hit her tongue. She parted her teeth, freeing the inside of her cheek. Licking the wound wouldn’t make it better.
“What happens to the souls people rent? Do they never move on to heaven, hell, wherever?” she asked, trying to focus on the souls instead
of what was happening to her.
“The magic eventually destroys them. The Charmer says they don’t move on to anywhere, but I don’t know if that’s the truth.”
Callie nodded. The Charmer was certainly the secretive type. Why would anyone give up their soul then? “How can someone live without a soul?” she asked, thinking back to years and years of Cortean Catholic classes. The importance of pure souls, so one could rise to heaven was paramount. No soul, no heaven. Could renting souls keep you out of heaven? Callie didn’t know how to feel about that possibility, but she already had enough worries on her plate without celestial concerns.
“They don’t live well. Technically, they have a tiny piece left. Enough to spark life, but that’s it.”
“Why would someone do that?” She hadn’t given the Charmer’s proposition for hers a second’s thought, but others clearly had. “How much is a soul worth, exactly?”
He scrubbed his palm against his chin before answering, “What it’s worth depends on the soul, and only the Charmer can say there. It’s always at least a couple grand.”
Two thousand dollars would make a difference in more than her bank account, but not that big of one. “Doesn’t seem worth it.”
He shrugged. “I don’t pretend to know their lives, but yeah, it’s usually a shitty situation. People can live without them, though. Whether they sell it outright or they keep their rented souls too long and the process mangles their soul, or—” he took another big swig of coffee before finishing “—it’s stolen.”
She sputtered and coughed as the fact caught in her throat. “Whoa. We’ll get back to my fucked up fingers in a second—so don’t think I’m forgetting. People can jack another person’s soul?”
“Not normal people.”
“The Soul Charmer?”
“He can, but he doesn’t.”
She didn’t believe that. Her memories from last night sparked with new meaning. She remembered the woman McCabe had mentioned. “He’s not the only one who does soul magic, is he?”
Borrowed Souls: A Soul Charmer Novel Page 7