Lost Souls (Soul Charmer Book 3)

by Chelsea Mueller

  “I didn’t see a quill,” he said.

  Derek wasn’t about to let them lose time. He stepped around Callie and gave Lexi a quick pat down. The brilliant blue quill had been tucked next to her calf inside her pant leg.

  “Kind of inconvenient location,” Callie said. “Like how do you pull that out all smooth on a street?”

  “I’ve got a van,” Lexi sneered.

  Derek started to bring the quill back to the Soul Charmer team side of the room. The sensation of steel sliding over her skin ground on Callie’s nerves again. Metal and magic and malevolence assaulted her. A soul magic artifact. Hell. Another ancient item like this, a knife, had been used to steal and store souls before. Nate had put that into motion. That couldn’t be a coincidence. She barely shook her head, but Derek saw it. He moved to stand behind Lexi. He was at a safe distance so the magic couldn’t gnaw at her, and he could keep the Anonymous Souls dealer in check.

  “How did you get the souls that were in the van?” Callie asked.

  “I’m just a delivery driver.” Rehearsed words from a foot soldier.

  Callie pushed on the woman’s soul again. She heard the scream but knowing there was a tool in the room that could allow almost anyone to steal a soul put Callie a bit on edge. “No, you’re not. How did you get the souls?”

  “Boss brought them in.”

  “When?” Derek asked.

  “I don’t know when he collects souls.” Lexi’s own soul seconded that statement.

  “Fair enough. Has your van always been that stocked?”

  “We get fresh stuff in all the time.” Lexi was looking at Beck’s shins like they had the answers.

  Callie’s tone was sharper this time. “That wasn’t my question.”

  “There’s some new shit out. Sure. Fine.”

  They could check the goods. Now that she could feel the souls more clearly, she could probably identify the damaged ones. She’d have to go through them. Or maybe the Charmer could return and do that shit. A faint rasp hissed nearby, and it took Callie a moment to realize she was wheezing. Her hands were shaking. Holding onto this soul was draining.

  “What’s your boss’s name?” Callie asked.

  Lexi looked down like she was preparing to melt into the earth.

  Callie chest ached. She took a shot. “Lexi, do you know a man named Nate?”

  Lexi’s head snapped up. Her shoulders banged against the back of the chair hard enough to scuff it back a centimeter with a hard honk. Her eyes were wide now and her nostrils flaring. Callie couldn’t have gotten a more panicked response if she’d slammed a needle of ephedrine into the woman’s vein.

  “I don’t want to talk about Nate.” Lexi’s words slurred together. Callie wasn’t slamming pressure into the other woman’s soul, though. This wasn’t some sort of symptom of injury. This panic had nothing to do with Callie, Derek, Beck, or the Soul Charmer.

  Callie doubled down. “So you know him?”

  Sweat began to bead at Lexi’s brow. “I’m not talking about him, and you shouldn’t either.”

  “You know who our boss is, right?” Beck asked.

  “The Soul Charmer won’t accept your secrets,” Derek added.

  The men were so ominous that Callie shuddered. Lexi, however, did not. What had Nate done to have this woman so terrified of him that she had zero fear of the Soul Charmer?

  “Your magic man is gone, and Nate controls this city now. You shouldn’t speak of him either,” the captive dealer said.

  Derek ambled to Lexi’s side. Callie took steps away in equal measure. Now wasn’t a time to get gutted by the weird ass magic of a damn quill.

  Derek leaned close to Lexi, like he would be able to smell a lie. “Who says the Soul Charmer is gone?”

  “V-V-Vega said your man is gone,” she stammered.

  Gone, but not dead.

  Gone, but not captured.

  Just gone. Well, what the fuck did that mean?

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  A clean jingle drew Callie’s thoughts from worrying over the Soul Charmer’s whereabouts.

  “Customer.” Derek pointed a finger toward the ceiling.

  Even if the shop owned a “Closed” sign, Callie couldn’t have used it. No one could know the Soul Charmer had disappeared on them. If Vega and Lexi knew the Charmer was missing, who else knew? What did that mean for Callie, Derek, and the others? Had the Soul Charmer run off for a Vegas weekend? Unlikely. Wherever he was, Callie was convinced he wasn’t dead.

  If the Soul Charmer was alive, then he’d come back and force her into immolation lockdown if she didn’t keep this damn business afloat.

  “Let her sleep,” Callie told Beck.

  “But she hasn’t told us…” Beck stopped, and then nodded.

  “Watch her for now, please. We’re going to go deal with that.” Callie left the room, and Derek followed. He remained at the doorway until she was at the stairs. Once the interrogation room door was closed, he held the quill aloft. “What do you want me to do with this?”

  Throwing it away was out of the question. “Is there somewhere safe we can store it until I can focus on it?”

  “You sure you want to do that?”

  “Want to? Hardly, but if Nate is giving his delivery drivers Cortean relics to let them yank souls, I want to understand them.”

  Derek closed his eyes tight as if readying for some unknown blow. “We could ask Henry to help.”

  His brother wasn’t the boogeyman, but sometimes holding the sheets over your head really could make you feel better.

  Callie understood. “With hiding it or with figuring it out?”

  Derek met her gaze.

  “Both. I can probably get him to store it in the church, but I think he’s been reading more journals. I lent him the St. Petro one.” There was an inherent apology in his voice.

  “If he’s studied it, that could help.” Hopefully. “I was thinking we needed to read it again.”

  “He’s read it. Probably has notes, too.” Resignation rumbled with the memory of being second best, and Callie related to that, too.

  She’d rather have Derek’s thoughts, but his brother could help now. “Can you call him to get the quill, and then see if he can meet us later tonight at your place?”

  Derek nodded, and then pulled a metal shelf away from the wall on his right. A small, metal safe was revealed. He flipped the dial to the right and left and right again. The door opened with ease, and he placed the quill inside. Once it was secure, he joined Callie at the stairs.

  “I hate pulling him into this.” Derek’s soft words shook her.

  His hand was on the bannister, and Callie rested hers atop his. “I don’t want this for him either, but I think he’s the right person to help.”

  “Because of the church’s involvement?”

  “Because he’s your brother.”

  His hand was warm beneath hers. The muscle in Derek’s jaw twitched, but he nodded slowly.

  Two teenagers were inside the shop when Callie and Derek finally emerged from the basement.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  A tall guy shoved a slim brunette woman forward. “You tell her, Brin.”

  Brin elbowed him, but was also the kind of teenager who had the confidence to demand shit from adults. That was the kind of attitude safety earned you. Brin’s parents would call the cops for her. Callie’s mom was more the “if the cops show up here, I pretend I don’t know you” style.

  “How much does it cost to rent a soul for a night?” Brin asked.

  Callie finally understood why the Charmer charged extra for overnight rentals. The collection was going to be a pain, and the work so close together made for busier days than required and fucking kids.

  “How many do you need?” Callie replied.

  “The price changes based on how many I want? Don’t you have a menu or something?” Oh, Brin. Callie had asked the same thing the first time she’d visited the Soul Charmer’s shop. Bartering
for a borrowed soul wasn’t black and white, though, and that meant no price lists.

  The tall guy elbowed her again. “Buy more, save more.”

  “Business major,” Brin said as way of excuse for the interruption.

  Callie needed to move this along. “Do you need two souls or just one for you?”

  “Two. We’re going to a rave tonight, and it’s going to be insane.”

  Callie tried to remember the last time she purposefully had a crazy night out. One without blood or souls or brandished weapons. She and Derek deserved a wild night with a matching hell-worthy hangover. She’d suggest it to him if they ever got out from under the boulder of obligations with the Soul Charmer. For now, though, he was missing, and she needed to sell these college kids souls to have a debauched night. She almost wanted to double charge them for the reminder of how carefree her life could have been, but then she’d have to admit that her life never could have been as easy as theirs.

  Brin didn’t argue at the high price Callie threw out. The Charmer charged more for overnight rentals, and Callie decided the policy should also include a fee for the high probably of getting hammered and forgetting to show up to return the soul tomorrow.

  Now was the part she really hadn’t done, picking out the soul for each of these people. They were paying pure soul prices, which was good because that’s all they really had in stock right now. She knew the purest one should be able to be safe with people who weren’t planning to commit murder. Brin and the tall guy were going to get high, dance, and probably screw in the sand. It was a rave, not an occult ritual.

  The back room was pristine again. The glass had been swept up, and the wooden picture frames were disposed of. The tile floor had been bleached until the blood was obliterated. Touching the Charmer’s souls without him here sent a spike of dread to the depths of her belly nonetheless.

  She’d have to do this sometime, but maybe it didn’t have to be right now. Callie went to the back of the desk and found the drawer with spare soul containers. She pulled a trio of jars from the bin, and set them on the desk. Her flask had two souls from the well, and one from Barbara. She uncapped the flask, and whispered for the soft and sweet soul she’d pulled from the well to come forth. She lifted one of the waiting jars into her palm, and the glass quickly warmed to body temperature. The black of her flask pressed against the rich grey of the jar. The soul slipped out of one container and into the next like a flash of lightning on a cloudy night. She capped the jar, and repeated the process two more times.

  Even Barbara’s rented soul wasn’t difficult. Given how many greedy, demanding souls had pulled on hers today alone, she wasn’t sure she could have gone another couple minutes fighting the damn things. Her ribs ached and her stomach growled. If they could get these customers out the door, maybe they could sneak off for food.

  When the Soul Charmer placed a soul in a host, he made extravagant motions. He waved his hands and he whispered gibberish that almost sounded like Latin. He anointed certain people like he was a priest. He might have this weird stranglehold relationship with the Cortean Church, but he wasn’t holy. A direct line to purgatory was not the same as a direct line to God. Not that Callie was going to inform anyone of those facts. Callie did not play the put upon priest for the customers, but this time she tried to hold back her hostility. Brin and her boyfriend weren’t determined to ruin anyone’s lives. They’d been indoctrinated in fear of the afterlife, and wanted to make sure they weren’t going to lose their tickets to Heaven with a single night of revelry. Callie wouldn’t chide them for that.

  She was gentle when she pressed the jars to each of their chests. The words she offered were real ones, though she barely moved her lips. “Go on now. I’ll see you tomorrow.” She did not care that she spoke to these souls like they were toddlers. She’d taken them from purgatory, and she was going to do her best to keep them intact. Besides, maybe that would keep them from going off the rails and fighting the match.

  Brin called the experience “transcendental” and Callie didn’t even giggle. Derek was in her periphery, sentinel over the act. He smirked.

  Derek took the teenagers’ cash. “Be back here tomorrow by seven,” he intoned.

  Brin nodded solemnly, but the tall guy asked, “What if we need more time?”

  “Then you should hand over more money now,” Callie answered.

  “Or we come to collect.” Derek snarled. The tall guy shrunk an inch under the soul collector’s unyielding gaze.

  The two ravers walked out the door, and Derek dropped a heavy sigh in the room.

  “Do I even want to know?” Callie asked even though she knew damn well she had no interest in whatever new bullshit was rolling their way.

  “Savannah messaged. The first two people she went to say they’d already turned the souls in.”

  “People lie about that shit all the time.” That’s the whole reason they had people big enough to squish the renters show up to demand they come in.

  “She believed them. Said they thought it was cool that the Soul Charmer’s guys were now doing more pickups on site.”

  “Ask her what he looked like, how’d he do it?” Who the hell was taking these souls?

  “No. I’m telling her to drag their asses in here.”

  “You want to question them yourself?” Where would they put them? Lexi needed to stay sequestered.

  “I want to know if they’re lying.” His even tone didn’t fool her. His gut—like hers—was certain they were telling the truth, and rankled at the realization that Anonymous Souls was likely snatching up the Charmer’s souls. If Lexi and Vega knew the Soul Charmer was missing, others in their organization likely did, too. They weren’t scared of the Soul Charmer now, and that was a big fucking problem.

  Derek was tapping out a message on his phone back to Savannah when Callie’s phone began to buzz. Please don’t be Josh. She wasn’t ready for more bad news on the Delgado side. They were all clawing out of a cold cavern, and bloody and broken hands couldn’t make that climb again soon.

  Well, it wasn’t Josh. “Why is your brother calling me?”

  Derek slipped his phone into his pocket. “Henry’s calling you?”

  Callie proffered her phone out between them. The screen asked for a decision to accept or decline. “It says Cortean Catholic Cathedral on the caller ID.”

  “I hadn’t messaged him yet about the quill.” Derek’s brow drew tighter with each passing moment until he stared at the device in her palm like it was a blood-drenched dagger and not a mobile phone.

  “We need to talk to him anyway.” Callie tapped the “accept” button before the call could kick over to voicemail. She then tapped the speakerphone button because if Derek was wound any tighter something was going to get punched.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “Hello. Is this…” there was a long pause and a rustling of papers “…is this Miss Delgado?”

  The voice was gruff, razed, and one hundred percent not Henry’s. Derek was going to strain himself giving her an emphatic no with tight, fervent jerks of his head.

  “May I ask who is calling?” Her customer service voice shot forward. Stupid nerves.

  “This is Father Giles. I have an urgent matter I need to speak with her about.”

  The priest’s voice was familiar, but it was his somber urgency that made her reply. “What can I do for you, Father Giles?”

  “Oh. Miss Delgado. It’s a complicated matter.” In the background a door latched.

  “I can keep up.”

  “It may be best we speak in person.” His breath hit the phone line in uneven bursts.

  A panicked priest was not something she was eager to take on. “Do you want to be seen at the Soul Charmer’s shop?”

  Only the awkward cadence of his breathing filled the line.

  “Didn’t think so. I’ve got a bit on my plate, so just tell me what’s going on.” It’s not like the cops were tapping the priest’s line. The Church probably had so
me sort of secret, secure red phone to them.

  Father Giles stammered for only a moment before regaining the composure of one of the highest-ranking clergy members in Gem City. “Your employer has not been to visit me in some time.”

  “He’s a busy man.” It would have bothered her to lie to a man of the cloth before, but something in his tone told her he’d understand the evasion.

  “Well, he does have obligations at our cathedral. It is vital that someone with his skills attend…our private services.”

  Oh no. No. No. No. How could she not step in this? The soul well had been billowing when she’d visited. What happened if it was ignored? Could it spill over? What would that even mean? She was no theologian, and was still struggling to wrap her brain around the concept that she had snatched souls from purgatory to do some penance in other people’s bodies with a celestial signoff. That was a huge load to take, and now she was supposed to think about what would happen if one didn’t maintain the balance between there and here.

  Now her voice shook, too. “What happens if he is unable to attend?”

  “Souls only find salvation through penance and prayer.” The words weren’t new. That phrase is what drove people to rent souls. It was a way around the penance part of the whole equation, a shortcut to Heaven. She doubted Father Giles was talking about confession with her.

  “I don’t think the Soul Charmer is available to assist in services at this time.”

  “I suspected as much. He has not returned my calls.”

  The muscle in Derek’s temple was ticking. He glared at the phone like he intended to fight it, but stayed steady and warm at her side in the meantime. Callie needed to wrap this up before anyone else entered the room.

  Father Giles’s dry cough didn’t dislodge anyone’s discomfort. “Would you be able to assist me tonight?”

  She opened her mouth to answer, but her voice failed her. How did she explain this to him? How could she tell him why it was a bad idea? Why she wasn’t ready and why stepping away from the Soul Charmer’s shop was dangerous for her? Why she didn’t want to leave a hostage in the basement with only a single guard? She couldn’t tell him any of those things. He hadn’t contacted her as her priest. He’d called as a warden needing to prevent a riot.