“I know how it sounds,” he snapped. He yanked at the collar of his shirt. No fang marks, but Joey did have three small slash marks at the center of his chest, in the hollow below his neck. The edges were ragged. He wasn’t bleeding, but he would probably need liquid stitches to keep from scarring.
“I believe you,” she said, mostly to herself.
Joey leaned close, voice dropped low, “She told me she’d be back the next time I rented, but I won’t give her more souls. I swear.”
Like the Charmer would continue renting souls to a guy who gave them to the competition.
“You’ll tell the Charmer then? Explain everything?” Joey continued. The hope welling against his lower eyelids was almost enough to fell her.
Almost. “You want respect from the Charmer, go there yourself and tell him.”
Joey gawked at her, despite the lack of a second head suddenly sprouting from her body. “I can’t.”
“You’ll be safe. It’s the best option.” She didn’t know if that was the truth, but she wasn’t about to walk into the Soul Charmer’s store and tell this story secondhand. No fucking way. This was the price Joey paid for dabbling in soul magic, instead of helping his kid with algebra.
Besides, she had a cat to rescue.
Zara talked a gang of shit about safety, but the screen door of her ground-level apartment was unlocked, and the dilapidated white door behind it left ajar. The neighbors’ ones along the row of the complex she lived in were all damn near barricaded. Not that the fifty-year-old construction would withstand a solid foot thrust near the knob. Callie pressed in when her mom didn’t answer the doorbell. “Mom?”
“In the back. Frankie needs me.” Zara’s voice floated, placating and melodic, from the back of the house.
All the damn cat needed was for Zara to quit pussing out and climb the stepladder to get him out. Sure enough, Callie’s mom was sitting at the dinette sipping tea. “Your texts said it was an emergency,” she said.
Zara pulled her purple robe closed over her exposed thigh. Like Callie cared about seeing her mom’s leg. “He’s frightened.”
Frankie, a ginger fluff ball, was purring so loudly Callie could hear him when she’d passed through the living room. There was no point in arguing with her mom. No matter how many times he’d leapt from shelf to refrigerator to cabinet, Zara hadn’t picked up on Frankie’s obvious attempt at solace. Callie wouldn’t be able to leave until the cat was “rescued” from his favorite hiding spot.
She glanced around the kitchen, but didn’t spot the two-step ladder. She only saw three tabloids with recent dates and a tower of empty take-out containers. So much for hoping Zara would learn to solve her own problems. “Where did you put the step stool?”
“Pantry closet.” Zara’s bored tone rankled Callie more than the dismissive gesture toward the door on her right.
Sure enough, there was the black stool shoved next to the extra laundry detergent on the floor of the closet. Callie’d taken a single step toward Zara when the ice hit her.
God, no. Her, too? Seriously? If their family already had a soul magic hook-up, Josh could have mentioned it. He could have told her what Zara was into. Callie’s gut grew heavier the more her brain battered the idea of her mom renting souls. Her fingers grew stiff against the miniature ladder she held. Thankfully, she’d sprung for the pricier wood version.
There were a lot of situations Callie could handle. She had somehow balanced her real job and her dubious night gig, up until earlier that morning. She’d been dealing with a mob boss and his magical counterpart, and was on the whole still in one piece. But accepting her mother used soul magic? Nope. That was one more what-the-fuck on the disaster cake, and Callie was not going to bite.
Frankie chose that moment to start meowing. Callie had no idea if cats could sense magic, but then she hadn’t exactly thought people could sense it either. Shit changed, and the fluffy guy knew it.
“Why are you just standing there? Josh doesn’t ever take this long. Get him down.” Zara’s rushed criticisms usually cut deeper. Maybe the numbing sensation crawling through Callie’s veins wasn’t such a bad addition to her visits to Mom.
She managed to keep walking past Zara and over to the far wall. Focusing on the cat kept Callie afloat, despite the rotting pit of disappointment in her gut. She kneaded her fingers as subtly as she could, and as she moved farther away from Zara, they eased enough she was able to put down the stool, which, while helpful for the task at hand, rather solidified the whole “Mom Uses Souls” front. Frankie was curled in the small cabinet above the refrigerator. Zara kept the door closed, but Frankie had batted it open, like he always did. He was a clever cat; Callie probably would have liked him more if she didn’t have to come over and “save him.” He didn’t scratch her when she pulled him out, but he did flee to Zara the instant his paws touched the floor. Either cats couldn’t sense soul magic, or Frankie put family first too. Just like the other Delgados.
“You need anything else while I’m here?” The ingrained need to give and give wouldn’t let Callie leave without offering. Not exactly a habit of a highly successful person. Why couldn’t Zara be the mom Callie remembered from when she was little? It was a pointless wish, but Callie longed for her mother to go legit. She mentally slapped herself. Josh had a chance to change. He’d already hit rock bottom. Zara still had too far to fall.
Her mom scooped Frankie into her arms, and as she lazily stroked the cat the natural nastiness she exuded softened. “I wouldn’t have called, but Josh hasn’t come by.”
Twinges of guilt overrode Callie’s jealousy and nerves. Mostly. Her mom was clearly worried. She wasn’t out to make the lady suffer, but telling her anything would only make everyone’s lives more complicated. “I’m sure he’ll be by as soon as he can.”
Zara’s gaze darted to her daughter. Her vision too sharp for her own good. “Why are you standing all the way over there? I don’t smell.”
“Patchouli counts as a smell, Mom.” Deflection was better than letting the edge of her mother’s words cut her. The distant look in her mother’s eyes couldn’t be a side effect of using magic. Right?
“Calliope.” Only Zara said her name like a curse.
“Yeah, Mom?” Fatigue sacked her. Years of dealing with family bullshit took its toll. Typically Callie could compartmentalize it into safe, easy to manage pains. She could hide the compacted balls of sorrow between her ribs like a squirrel planning for a guilt-filled winter. But now—after night after night of saving face in front of Ford and managing not to crumple in the same room as the Soul Charmer and slamming face-first into a world teeming with wicked magic—she didn’t have the energy to detach and manage her emotions.
“I know you know something about Josh. Sit down and we’ll talk.” Zara looked to the open seat on the other side of the kitchen table, and then back at her daughter.
Callie took a single step toward her mother before her frost began to overtake her fingers. “I can’t.”
Zara’s upper chest was exposed. No hash marks. At least no one was stealing souls from her mother. Whatever concern Callie had for Zara disappeared. “You don’t have anywhere to be that’s more important than talking about your brother.”
“Like you would know.” Even as her brain flashed warning lights, Callie couldn’t hold back the words. Or regret saying them.
“You know where Josh is. You’re just keeping it from me because you don’t want me to help him.” Zara folded her arms in front of her chest, locking Callie out.
“Yeah, that’s me. Never helping Josh.”
Sarcasm was lost on her mother. “You’re so busy with your schedule and work that you’ve forgotten about what really matters.”
Her willingness to save Josh yet again had demolished her schedule. What had Zara been doing while Callie had been putting crime first, in the name of family? Renting souls. And for what? To ease the guilt from screwing over her kids? She wasn’t showing junkie signs, so it wasn’t dru
gs. Had she picked up a married dude? Whatever it was, it sure hadn’t been making her or Josh a priority. Classy, Zara, as always.
“You’re aware I’ve given over my savings to my big brother multiple times? That I was the one who got him in the treatment program? The one he bailed on? And I was the one who paid your gas bill when you’d given him every last penny so he could get high for a weekend?”
Zara brushed away the truth with a flippant hand gesture. “Helping family out once in a while—”
Pressure throbbed against Callie’s temples. Spontaneous combustion wasn’t real, but exploding from your mother’s asinine version of crazy? Legit. “More than once a year cannot be classified as once in a while.”
“Come,” her mother beckoned, sweetness oozing all over the room. “You wouldn’t be this upset if Josh were okay. Tell me what’s going on.”
Even when Josh wasn’t around, he managed to be the center of attention. Zara’s gentle gestures to sit weren’t out of concern for Callie. She was merely a means to an end. Per usual. “I’m not coming over there.”
Zara lifted one eyebrow, no doubt upset about her daughter’s petulance. Too damn bad. “Sit down. You’re going to tell me what’s going on.”
“How about instead you tell me why you’ve been renting souls?” Well-honed daggers couldn’t have cut her mother down as efficiently. Shame tugged her throat, but she batted it away with a swallow.
Zara opened and closed her mouth over and over eking squeaks each time before she finally collected herself enough to speak. “What are you talking about?”
“I know.” Those two little words hung between them for seconds or, maybe, years. The truth might not help Callie, but at least it bought her time and space. The sooner she was out of here, the better. Or was it? Was going back to hunting a mysterious woman who possessed the magic to control souls a better option than talking to her mom?
Zara spun a silver ring around her index finger. The light streaming in through the multicolored sheet hung over the kitchen window didn’t glint off the metal. Everything here was tarnished.
“We all need an escape,” her mom murmured.
Callie had steered the conversation, and now it was careening toward a cliff at ninety miles per hour. Hitting the brakes might be worse, but there was no way she was sticking around for the inevitable plummet. She’d hit her limit. If she didn’t leave now, she’d be liable to spill secrets she couldn’t claim ownership of, and Lord knew she wouldn’t survive the fallout.
She slammed the door behind her, cutting off her mother’s platitudes about making herself light enough to rise to Heaven. Arguing with Zara had never worked, and explaining that any deity who was concerned about beating the point spread was a shitty god wasn’t going to improve her day one bit.
Theological differences aside, she’d give it to Zara. Maybe she’d picked the right side. At the rate Callie was tanking, there was no one benevolent watching over her.
That might include Derek.
—— CHAPTER FIFTEEN ——
Callie had thirty-seven dollars in her bank account and only half a tank of gas in her car, despite this morning’s fill up, but after the visit she’d had with Zara, she needed some goddamn pie.
Familiarity in Dott’s was a warm blanket. The mismatched chairs in the seven-table deli afforded a smidge of comfort. As the waitress placed the double-portion slice of coconut cream in front of her, Callie tried to pretend her life was full of similar moments of frivolity. Margaritaville? Pssh. Eating pie for lunch was the peak of a worry-free life. The first decadent bite sealed the deal; best four dollars she’d ever spent.
Unfortunately, even homemade pie couldn’t stop the what-if scenarios from whirring in her mind. Her mother was a soul user. She might not have been renting while Callie was around—she could have either done it once a decade ago, or yesterday, and Callie’s icy hands wouldn’t have known the difference—but did it matter? Soul renters didn’t need to be strung out and skinny. The more time she spent in this world, the better she understood renting a soul wasn’t for those who had hit rock bottom. One needed to care enough to want to protect their soul. That explained the drug addict contingent. Soul rental was a couple steps above rock bottom. Fuck if she knew about rationalizing choices like that.
“How’s the pie?” asked a lilting voice that couldn’t belong to the waitress.
Callie had been completely lost in the pie-thinking zone. She looked over to see the woman seated beside her. The woman had long, sandy blonde hair, and her pastel bohemian blouse was almost invisible behind the shiny tresses. Callie recognized her immediately, and a knot formed fast and firm in her stomach. “Um, good.”
She didn’t make eye contact with the woman for more than a moment. It didn’t matter. Goddamn extroverts. “Was that the coconut?”
“Yep.” Why was Tess making casual conversation? If only Callie’s phone would buzz. An excuse to avoid conversation was never around when you needed it.
The uninvited guest reminded Callie too much of her mom. A free-spirit vibe and spacey softness in casual conversation.
“You’re Callie, are you not?”
Time stilled as she slowly lifted her head to take in this woman. Her dark eyebrows were pinched together and raised. Great. The lady bro equivalent of “come at me.” A shiver spiked down Callie’s spine when she met the woman’s gaze. Her hazel irises were ringed in coal. Callie whispered her name. “Tess.”
She nodded and then waved over the waitress. “A slice of the coconut cream.” Tess paused, and inclined her head toward Callie. “Do you want another piece?”
Patronization must be a bonus skill when you gain the ability to snatch and sell people’s souls.
Callie shook her head no, not trusting her voice to conceal her fear. She’d wanted to meet Tess before the Charmer’s magic had turned her into a weapon. Doing so without Derek had even held appeal before she’d seared the skin on Bianca. Bartering with the other soul magician in town—the one who didn’t look like a reanimated reptile—had seemed smart. Only now she knew too much about this world. The sweet, forty-something-year-old woman next to her was a front. She’d ripped a soul from Joey—a dope, but a fairly harmless one—and left him in a well of regret and need. Anyone who secretly snatched bits of people’s souls to fuel themselves was shady with a capital S. The Charmer was heavy handed and creepy as fuck, but there was no secret what you were getting with him. He didn’t hide his power.
Callie looked at her hands. She was next to another person who could wield soul magic, steal it, and yet her hands weren’t going inferno. They weren’t doing anything.
Tess’s laugh was like wind chimes. Unreal. “Don’t worry, I dampened my magic. No need to have you burning down your favorite restaurant.”
For a woman who was supposed to be livid with her for lighting up her underling, Tess was being oddly chill. That—combined with her knowledge of Callie’s habits and haunts—only served to make her scarier by the second. This would have been the ideal time for Derek to stride in and do his save-the-day thing.
He didn’t.
“Thanks,” was all she could think of to say. Being polite was Callie’s default when she was uncomfortable, and Tess had thrown her too far out of her realm. She searched her insides for reserves of confidence, but they eluded her. Standing near the Soul Charmer had skyrocketed Callie’s magic, not the other way around. Was Tess more powerful or was the Charmer able to do the same thing, but hadn’t because he was an asshole? Fuck if it were both.
“Of course. I’m not much for fiery dramatics.” Was she dismissing Bianca’s injuries? Were they cool just like that?
Trusting this woman wasn’t going to happen, but Callie sensed a truce. Good pie could do that. “What can I do for you?”
Tess’s smile revealed she had all her teeth. One up on the Charmer there. Not that it stopped the sensation of creatures skittering over her skin. “Oh, no. My goal is to help others, and I’m here to help you, ch
ild.”
“Help me?” Callie had heard a lot of pitches in her life for assistance. Three different priests, her aunts, her case worker from CPS. Ninety-eight of every one hundred were self-serving. Any woman the Charmer called competition and who colluded with Ford wasn’t out for Callie’s best interest. Nothing helped Callie tap into her fake strength like being underestimated.
“Well, I doubt your recent decision to work with certain people was out of anything other than necessity. You must have been in quite a tight spot.”
Callie bit her lip. She could spot a too-good-to-be-true flag from fifty paces. “It’s a temporary gig.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“You don’t know me well.” Bitch. Stalking didn’t count.
“Perhaps, but nothing to do with souls is temporary, and you don’t know the man you’re working for very well either. Do you honestly expect that the changes to your … hands will go away?”
Yes, she had. The Charmer would want his magic back, right? She was only his indentured servant for a couple more days. She’d be done then, wouldn’t she? “That’s the deal,” she said, as though her confidence hadn’t just been rocked by C4.
“It doesn’t really work that way.” Tess patted Callie’s forearm.
She didn’t need mothering. That ship sailed long ago, and if she did want a new maternal figure, it wasn’t going to be anyone teeming with magic and sowing seeds of sedition. “Can you see the future?”
“No.” Her chiming voice cut hard.
“Then you don’t know he won’t take it back.”
Tess zapped Callie’s arm. Sparks skated up and down, the skin singeing and smoldering in their wake. The desire to slap at the pain and yelp reared, but the room was too full. She corralled the sensation and hissed in agony. Great. Not only could Tess snipe souls, she could also shock people. It edged her up a level on the villain scale.
Tess heaved in a breath, the action full of drama. She knew she was being watched. The sparks dissipated. She exhaled, and then when she spoke her voice was full of charm again.
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