Lost Souls (Soul Charmer Book 3)

by Chelsea Mueller

  His stiff nod was solid agreement. “Charmer’s in a mood.”

  Join the club, man. Callie squeezed his hand again. “Might as well get it over with.”

  She’d been saying that a lot since she started working full-time, on the books for the Soul Charmer. It paid stupidly better than her old job cooking at a retirement home, but the asks there never made your skin pinch and twist. Her days at the home never scared her. She could not say the same about working here.

  The Soul Charmer of Gem City’s standard mode was ‘creepy dude.’ He moved too fast. He was too flexible. There was the whole ‘could steal your soul’ thing. He shouldn’t have been able to get any more terrifying.

  Shouldn’t was a word Callie needed to drop from her vocabulary.

  The seventy-something year-old man scuttled out from behind his desk. His wisps of white hair swirled in a flurry to rival the snow outside. His fingers—normally weighed down with garish gold rings—were bare except for a lone signet ring on his index finger. He’d been wearing the same burgundy pajama set the last four times she’s been in the shop. At least three days in a row. Pungent sweat slithered beneath the sharp astringent of the soul storage space and workroom.

  “Calliope. Finally.” The Soul Charmer’s tone was as cutting as ever.

  She pulled the flask from her pocket and placed it on the oak desk. “Benton’s soul, as promised. What was the rush?”

  “Every soul that belongs to me is essential.”

  “Since when,” she muttered.

  The Charmer stepped close. She hated when he did this. His nose was inches from hers. Backing away wasn’t an option. Not with the man who imbued her with the soul magic ability. Not with the man who was supposed to be teaching her to harness the magic. Not with the man who always had plans A, B, and C, and most of them involved fire. Up close, though, Callie could see the changes. The sharpening of his cheeks. The darkening of the delicate skin beneath his eyes. She’d been tormented over her missing mother and Nate’s disappearance with her for days now. The Soul Charmer wasn’t suffering over Zara, but Callie recognized the look. Desperation was the one look that could make the Soul Charmer downright horrifying.

  Callie dug an incisor into her cheek. Steady. Focus. Appease him. Don’t burn. Get out. Find Nate. Get Mom. She repeated the mantra to herself over and over. The Charmer remained too close. He didn’t speak, but Callie could swear he was digging those beady eyes into her brain or her soul or something. Whatever he was doing, it was unnerving as hell. Callie peeked over his shoulder. Derek fidgeted in the corner. The strain of letting her fight her own battles pulled his jaw tight.

  “Where did you put that 1420 jar?” The accusation was almost worse than his breath.

  “On the far case.” She pointed to the corner of the room.

  The Charmer didn’t so much step back as pop a few feet away. She had no idea how the old man was so nimble. Magic, probably. He went to the bookshelf in question and began pushing jars left and right. Each jar was crafted from smoky black glass, and was only three inches in diameter. If she had never heard of soul renting, she might be able to pretend they were tins of artisanal tea.

  “I can’t find it,” he huffed.

  Derek stepped forward ready to run interference for her. She barely shook her head no, but he got the message. She stepped next to the Soul Charmer. A jar with 1420/2000 written in tiny, perfect script on the front was just to the right of his hand. Callie didn’t bother telling him, and simply reached over his hand to pick it up. She was mindful to keep her fingers away from the chalk marking the contents. The last thing she needed was to have to try to prove the soul was the one he was looking for.

  “Here.”

  “Oh. Why did you put it here? The upper-middle range should go on that shelf.” He screwed off the lid and peered inside at the gossamer tendrils swirling inside.

  Callie bit back the urge to tell him she’d done as he asked. He was too mercurial for that to matter, though.

  “Can you explain the measurement system again?” Might as well try to extract a little helpful information while he was in this addled state.

  “Purity scores. If you don’t already know that, I don’t know why I waste time with you.” He tilted the jar to let the overhead florescent lights hit the contents fully. The white-silver strands maintained their natural glow. Must be nice.

  “Of course. The closer to two thousand, the more pure the soul. I remember.” She repeated his words from weeks ago. She could have guessed as much. This apprentice thing worked so much better with a mentor who wanted to teach. That was not the Soul Charmer.

  “Then don’t ask stupid questions.”

  A sharp, clean bell rang through the room. The Charmer’s gaze fixed on Callie, and the hardened black in his eyes held her in place.

  Derek cleared his throat a couple times. The heavy grit of his deep rumble scraped through the room. “I’ll see what they want,” he said, and then disappeared past the curtain.

  The Charmer cupped the 1420 jar in his hand, and closed his eyes. The soul didn’t leap from its container, and Callie was far enough away to avoid the sizzling effects of the open lid, but the needling sense that something was happening pushed against her chest.

  “How do you know what the score should be?” Her voice was barely a whisper, but the sterile room laid everything bare, even her need for any kind of win today.

  The Charmer was eerily still. His chest barely flexing with his slow inhalations. But he answered her. “The taste. The scent. The way it feels against you when it begs.”

  To an outsider that had to sound batshit, but Callie understood. She’d heard the souls beg for a host, for a home. Her boss had let an oddly sexual undertone float beneath the description, but Callie didn’t take any pleasure from the souls’ needs.

  She’d only experienced this a few times. The first couple times were accidents. The others were deep beneath the Cortean Catholic cathedral. Calling souls from a well owned by priests had felt eight kinds of wrong, but it also didn’t give her enough experience to follow his words. “Are the pleas different for purer souls?”

  His fingertips skimmed against the lip of the jar. His eyes were still closed, and from the deep noise in the back of his throat, she was thankful he wasn’t looking at her. Moments passed. Finally, he said, “The darker ones cling to your tongue. The bitter burn of bad decisions coating them. The purer ones light your sinuses with that perfect pepper prickle.”

  Callie struggled to remember a time when the Soul Charmer had shared so much or been so direct. Maybe sleep deprivation was good for their master-apprentice relationship.

  Callie struggled to remember any taste or smell to the souls she’d encountered. The aching fire and the subtle pleas were all she could recall. “Can you taste them only in the jar?”

  The clean chime of the storefront’s bell charged through the conversation. The Charmer’s eyes shot open, and his surly tone returned. “I wouldn’t be very good at my job if that were the case. Now get out there and help the customer. I need to handle this.”

  He still cradled the 1420 jar, but Callie wasn’t going to bother asking what he needed that specific soul for. The Soul Charmer wasn’t much for sharing plans, and whatever he was getting up to wasn’t going to be a good time. It never was.

  She edged through the passage to the front. A clump of ashes filled the incense trays on the counter. She was probably supposed to swap them out, but her nasal cavities could use a break from the potent patchouli. Derek’s hands were at his side, but his fingers twitched like they wanted to go for the folded knife in his right pocket. He wasn’t looking at her, which meant she was going to have to actually deal with a customer. Was it wrong to hope Derek had sent them away?

  A stocky woman stood on the other side of the counter. Her eyes were too close together, but shot daggers all the same. “Where’s the Soul Charmer?”

  “He’s busy.” Derek injected peak menace into the words, his body,
everything. If Callie hadn’t known him, she’d have hauled ass out of the room.

  She did, though, and she also was obligated to talk to the woman. Because magic and money. “I can help you.”

  “You?” the woman sneered. A white crust caked the corners of the woman’s mouth, and her pupils had absorbed a milky white film. Double junkie: drugs and souls.

  Callie put on her best customer service voice. It sounded like the end of her shift, but still minimally bitchy. “What do you need?”

  “Soul Charmer knows me.”

  So much for hospitality. “That’s nice.”

  After half a minute of hard stares from both Callie and Derek, the woman said, “Fine. I’m here to pawn. Need some cash for the weekend.” She brushed a scab off her forearm.

  “Okay. How much do you need?” Callie had listened to the Charmer do this negotiation a few times, and could at least get things going.

  The Charmer didn’t do too much pawn business. Technically, people could choose to pawn their soul to him for cash. The catch of course was he would rent their soul out until they returned for it. So you’d probably get back a soul more saturated with sin upon pick up. The kind of person who was okay with pawning their souls tended to be more concerned with their next high than any celestial repercussions. Who cared about rising to Heaven when you could get high now?

  “A grand.”

  Callie almost laughed in the woman’s face. She couldn’t feel souls the way the Charmer did, but it didn’t take any magical ability to know this lady’s soul was bargain-basement quality. “Are you willing to part with it for three months?”

  “What? The Soul Charmer doesn’t ask that. Get him out here.”

  Derek’s hand found Callie’s behind the counter. It was warm and soft, and the squeeze he gave her told her good things lay ahead. “Donna. We both know the Charmer isn’t going to give you more than five hundred bucks.”

  “She don’t know that,” the woman—Donna’s—conspiratorial whisper was loud enough the Charmer had probably heard it.

  “She does,” Callie deadpanned.

  Donna’s lips pulled into such a tight pout they were liable to crack. “Fine. What’ll you give me?”

  Callie stepped around the counter, and discovered the real reason the Charmer kept the incense burning. Whatever was beneath this woman’s jacket may have died. Callie stepped backward for the air space, and then folded her arms across her chest. She pretended to appraise the woman. She could hear the woman’s soul asking for help—though she suspected it’d be happy for the reprieve—and all she could see was the smudge of blood at the collar of the woman’s shirt and a darker substance smeared across the green cargo pants she wore. Neither told her shit about the woman’s soul or its value. Normally this would be the time to call the Soul Charmer up front, but he’d just flap his hands at her and tell her to do it anyway. Might as well avoid it.

  “I can do $300 for seven days or $400 for ten.” That sounded realistic, especially given that the woman had clearly done this before.

  Derek gave her the most infinitesimal nod. A tiny tangle of worry in her belly eased. She hadn’t completely borked it yet.

  Donna huffed, but it was all for show. “Ten days for $400?”

  “Yep. Pawning isn’t a way to make a living.”

  “I didn’t come here for your judgment.”

  Callie almost laughed. Literally everyone came here to escape judgment. Escaping judgment is what kept the Soul Charmer in business. “That’s nice. You taking the deal?”

  Callie flexed her arms. When Derek did it, he looked bigger and more menacing. She probably looked like she was hugging herself.

  “Fine. Give me the money.”

  Callie resisted the urge to tell the lady to fork over the soul first. The Soul Charmer would have done this with style, but she wasn’t a real soul magician. The magic simmering inside her wasn’t wholly hers, and she barely knew the basics of how to manage it. The latter was what made her incline her head toward the back office. “Do you mind getting him for the extraction?” she asked Derek.

  He made a dark sound deep in his throat. Donna jumped. Callie said, “Thank you.”

  A moment later he returned. “Boss says you can handle it.”

  If she could have swallowed her own tongue, she might have. “Are you sure?” she asked for the sake of the customer. She let her fear flush her cheeks.

  Derek nodded. It was a somber motion. Slow and understanding.

  While Callie had a couple months of practice taking rented souls out of hosts, she’d only ripped the real soul out of a person once. Nate. He’d tried to kill her, he’d tried to kill Derek, he’d angered the Soul Charmer, and the threats that trickled from his bloodied mouth had forced her hand. Or maybe she’d just been too fucking angry. She’d thought about that night in the old airplane hangar a hundred times in the days since, and she still couldn’t say what made her take his soul. She had taken it, though, and now it rested in a tiny jar in the back corner of the Soul Charmer’s storage shelves. Her fingers began to quake and chill, but she had enough distance from Donna to know it wasn’t the woman’s soul-renting past that was freezing her. It was worry. It was regret. It was being a goddamn asshole to her mom.

  Zara.

  Callie had taken Nate’s soul, and he’d taken her mother. Now the bastard was missing, and Callie was supposed to just—what—rip another person’s soul out like it was nothing? Like the last time hadn’t cost her mother fingers? Like it wasn’t still costing her? Unshed tears welled at her eyelids. She gritted her teeth and forced them to hold the tight line.

  Callie fought to keep her tone even, to hold back the guilt grinding against the back of her throat. “Now’s not a great time.”

  An icy storm raged in Derek’s eyes. His ire at the Charmer was her beacon. It was her redemption. It was all she had right now. He lifted a hand to proffer an empty jar. She took it, and managed not to swear. The glass warmed her palm. The smoky black finish beckoned her attention. It was just a container in the same way a gas station was just a small grocery store. This jar was made to hold those souls detached from a body. Other objects worked, too, but her flask and these jars were some of the best. If you trusted the Soul Charmer, which she did when it came to magic shit.

  The Charmer put on a show when delivering souls to renters. He faked like he could anoint them. He spoke words of power that had nothing to do with the soul’s movement and everything to do with making his client feel like they were partaking in something powerful. They were, Callie supposed, but not in the way they imagined. She blinked, and the image of souls vying for escape from the Cortean well flashed behind her lids. Not now. Callie knocked her chin a little higher, and then stepped toward Donna. A chill bit at her fingertips. She touched the jar’s glass, and it muted the frigid effect on one hand. Callie shoved her other hand in her pocket. The fleece inside her pocket clung to her skin. Donna’s soul was missing enough pieces to kick her magic into gear. What was going to happen when she was full-on soulless?

  Callie bit the inside of her cheek. Might as well find out.

  She rolled the jar in her palm until it had Donna’s full attention. The woman strove to stand still. Her need for a fix made her forearms and cheek twitch. Her feet stayed glued to the borderline gooey carpeting.

  “Are you ready?” Callie asked loud enough to pretend she was asking Donna and not herself.

  Donna closed her eyes, and flung her arms wide. The Soul Charmer wasn’t the only one for dramatics, apparently. “Just take it.”

  At least Derek was the only person who would witness this. Callie’s heart pounded loud enough to thrum in her temples. She looked to Derek. Could he read the panic in her eyes?. He held Callie’s gaze for a moment, and everything slowed. Her breathing, her heart, her fear, her guilt. It’s funny how that tiny quirk of his lips, and the softening scar on the bridge of his nose, and the kindness in those grey eyes could offer respite, but they did. He did. He nodded onc
e more.

  You can do this, she reminded herself. It sounded like a lie even in her head, but the fact was she was going to do this. Fake it till you make it or some shit.

  She pressed the open mouth of the jar to Donna’s chest. Callie locked her elbow in close to her ribs before her arm could start shaking from the cold. She stared at the other woman’s sternum like the soul would give her a little wave. It did not. Donna started to lower her arms. Callie needed to think. This wasn’t about Donna. This was about magic. About souls. About homes. She focused on the warmth in her belly, on the cold creeping over her arm. She focused on the magic reacting to Donna and marshaled it toward the jar. The jar appeared to soften to a cloudy grey. Callie pushed the magic further until it touched Donna. It stung, but Callie kept pushing, ignoring the bite. Come to me, she called to Donna’s soul. When it didn’t budge she tried again. This was about home. Couldn’t you use a break from the battering she’s given you? Let me give you a safe home. A breath away. That did it. Only it was too quick, too much.

  Donna’s soul leapt from its safe body into the jar, and Callie rocked back on her heels from the force. Heat flashed against her palm. No, her hand was burning. The jar slipped from her grip. Flames danced along her fingers. No, no, no. She yelled for the soul to return to the jar, to the vessel, but it clung to her skin. It begged for a home within her body, and she denied it. The ache of its exposure pressed against her, and she could relate to the blatant need, but she wasn’t taking this junkie’s soul into her body. Pepper burned her nostrils. She squeezed her hand closed into a fist. She ordered the soul away. It began to edge toward the discarded jar.

  “Calliope, what are you doing?” The Charmer’s voice sounded meters away.

  A moment later the fire was gone and the Soul Charmer of Gem City was glaring at her. He held the lidded jar. “Next time, maybe cap the jar if you can’t control it,” he snapped.

  She took the jar from him, and backed away without another word. Derek handed over the woman’s money. No one else needed her in this room. Fine with her. She needed out. She needed to get a lead on Nate. She needed to save her mother.