Lost Souls

by Chelsea Mueller

  Yellow light spilled from the open doorway.

  “This is bullshit,” a male voice said. His words were followed by a spectacular crash. A wide shard of wood shot through the doorway and clapped against the wall behind them.

  Callie paused and simply looked at Derek. What the fuck are we getting into? His subtle nod said he got her.

  Derek eased around the corner first, and paused inside. He blocked the light, shuttering the hallway into shadow. Callie took a moment to ground herself. She shoved at her senses, and stretched her magic forward into the room. Derek straightened his spine, and his hair almost grazed the top of the doorframe. Callie wasn’t sure if it was the magic bypassing him or what laid beyond, but she pulled the magic back. Power wasn’t rippling from the room.

  That couldn’t be right. The Charmer never dropped his wards.

  “Derek,” Callie said his name softly, but the wariness in her voice rattled the syllables. He didn’t acknowledge her. She rested her palm on his back. The leather between them was cool. She said his name again. He took in a big breath, and his muscles moved and tightened beneath her hand. This was off. Derek was listening, but not moving. Power wasn’t throbbing through the basement. Derek was blocking her view on purpose. He was protecting her, as always. The regret in her belly shoved back until it knocked her spine. She bent her knees and hoped she could hold steady a little longer.

  With only enough volume to reach Derek’s ears she asked the big question, “The Charmer isn’t here, is he?”

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Beck picked up a shard of wood—what had once been the leg of a stool—and smacked it against the wall. The brittle wood, already fractured, splintered. Pocks of white dotted his reddening face as the wood flakes fluttered to the floor in a blast of furious snow. “How the fuck does she know the Charmer isn’t here?”

  Good question. Callie pushed forward past Derek. He didn’t stop her, but he didn’t make the task easy either. The nine by nine room was littered with broken bits of furniture. Even the lone metal folding chair in the corner had dents warping the back and the seat, and the legs were akimbo.

  Beck glowered. His ire wasn’t focused. His nostrils flared, readying to pick up the scent of war. Callie wasn’t about to step into that path. Derek stayed close at her back. Given the disheveled room and its occupants she wasn’t about to complain. The other man in the room hardened his gaze on Callie, though. He slowly opened his mouth until a resounding pop echoed. It was a stretch of the jaw, a move she’d witnessed before in others. Here, though? Now? It was ominous. It was the snap of broken things, a threat of separation, and a warning in a lone, jarring act.

  “Better question is where the fuck is the Charmer.” Derek’s voice was a slap of cheap whiskey against a sore throat.

  Beck blustered up to Callie. Derek leaned forward until his nose was level with the other man’s eye. “No. I get she’s your girl now, but we ain’t skipping over how the fuck she knows.”

  “The room is fucking empty. She’s smart.” Derek’s closed fist whacked out to his side and against the drywall. The wall coughed dust.

  The urge to preen was unfamiliar and awkward in this room, but the delicate shimmer in Callie’s chest wasn’t unwelcome. She stifled it. “The walls he puts up around this place are jacked. It feels wrong.”

  Explaining the way the walls should steal from her—sapping her energy and requiring her focus—wasn’t a skill she had. She had never been in for the woo-woo shit, and that made it damn hard to tell others it was real. The vocabulary for emotions was tricky enough, but layering on the pulling and the prodding and the focus and the fear was not a task she was up for.

  Unfortunately, Miguel wanted that. He was an average guy; not too tall, not too skinny. Simple haircut. Basic, black clothes. He’d cultivated an appearance to blend in, but when he spoke something skidded beneath the soles of Callie’s Chuck Taylors. “Explain. How does it feel?”

  Callie grappled for the right phrases. Her senses snapped out throughout the room combing for energy, but nothing raked back against her nerves. No wall halting her reach. “Overwhelming and underwhelming at the same time,” was the best she could muster.

  Miguel’s boot heel clapped against the concrete floor. Dust kicked into the air and when it fell, he was a half step closer to Callie. The chilly swirls streaming from Miguel put metal in Callie’s mouth. The bitter sensation only crept outward when she forced the magic close to him. Her skin didn’t ice, but his soul was lacking enough pieces for its bitterness to bite at her. His soul didn’t sing over the room, and she didn’t try to call it forward, but her magic roiled unchecked.

  “Why does that make you think the Soul Charmer is not here?” he asked.

  It might have been the right question to ask if one was on the other side of the conversation. Callie didn’t know shit about what was going on, and she doubted the guys did either. The problem wasn’t Miguel’s question. It was the entitled underscore. The pressure on her to perform, to explain, to appease. She gnashed her teeth together, and started to imagine using whatever souls were nearby to build her protection. That wasn’t the answer. She unspooled the coil of fuck you in her chest, but kept hold of the end. She was the only one in this room who could snatch souls. That shit mattered.

  “Doesn’t matter why. Where is he?” she asked.

  “Doesn’t matter—” Beck sputtered.

  “She’s right. Tell us what happened.” Derek stepped forward, and a broken block of dark glass popped and pulverized beneath his steel-toed boots.

  The two other soul collectors looked to one another, but didn’t bother hiding their defeat. Neither was ready to push Derek. They should have been more concerned about pushing her. Being underestimated didn’t chafe when she could craft her secrets into a shield.

  Beck spoke first. “We don’t really know.”

  The defeat in his voice helped Callie ratchet down her anger. These two had information she needed. “Let’s start at the beginning. When did you both get here?”

  “I was only fifteen minutes away when I got the all-hands call.” Miguel shoved his hands in his pockets. The edges of his wallet and phone disappeared. “Place was empty when I got here.”

  “Same here,” Beck said. “Charmer wasn’t here. He didn’t answer when I called him.”

  “Was everything busted already?” Derek gave a pointed look at the bits of broken furniture scattered around the room.

  A hint of pink dappled Beck’s cheeks, but his lanky limbs remained loose. No apologies. “This door,” he pointed at the one Derek and Callie now blocked, “was smashed to shit, but otherwise the basement was clear.”

  As if a broken door was their biggest concern. Did they not understand the implication of missing souls? Did they not see the trashed storeroom? The Soul Charmer’s souls had been stolen. They may have been broken out of their holding jars. The consequences were monumental, and these assholes were down here throwing shit and whining about an empty room?

  “And upstairs?” she prodded. Holding back the fire was getting fucking old. An echo of the Charmer’s magic nipped at her spine in slow waves. She ignored it.

  “Back room was smashed,” Miguel said, and then quirked his lips.

  “That shit?” Callie pointed overhead. “It’s not funny. Do you understand what happened upstairs?”

  Miguel began to amble toward Callie. “You didn’t want to explain how you knew he wasn’t here, and now you’re telling us you know what happened? Charmer’s Pet better start talking.”

  Miguel shot a hand out to grab Callie’s upper arm. The layers she wore did nothing against the harsh grind of his fingers. Derek’s arm snapped out and up. A wet crack slap snap later Miguel staggered back on unstable legs. He toppled to the floor. Blood slipped from the corner of his mouth, and the deep raspberry building along his jawline said the meeting with Derek’s uppercut was going to turn black and swell to holy hell in the next few hours. Violence shouldn’t have been attract
ive. She’d spent years escaping the fight till you die mentality, but right now that didn’t matter. If she weren’t terrified the Soul Charmer was ready to call her on giving away his souls, if the threat of the missing souls on her wasn’t a legit worry, and if her entire body hadn’t been locked in constant red-alert status, she would have tackled him. Her chest tightened for a moment, and her belly warmed, but she let both reactions fade.

  Beck helped Miguel into a sitting position. “You didn’t have to punch him.”

  “We’ll have to disagree,” Derek muttered. He slid a hand around Callie’s waist and pulled her close.

  She needed the steadying buoy. “I don’t know what happened here, but I can tell you it isn’t fucking good. Several shelves of his soul stores are gone. Some were broken, but more were taken. That should fucking concern you. Not how his or my magic works.”

  She didn’t tell them about the rotten souls. She didn’t tell them that people could be hurt. The Soul Charmer hadn’t hired these guys for their empathy skills. They weren’t about to be motivated by the threat of souls in the wrong hands. They did, however, report to the same man she did. The Soul Charmer might be able to hold magic over Callie’s head, but he had something else on these guys. She didn’t know what, but she did know he could steal their souls. If nothing else, that had to keep them goddamn scared.

  “Charmer wouldn’t let anyone take those souls.” Beck’s shoes didn’t move, but he leaned back. If only escaping this was so easy.

  “No, he wouldn’t.” Derek agreed.

  “So where is the boss?” A raspy whistle accompanied Miguel’s s’s.

  Callie almost flipped him off. Instead, she said, “Exactly.”

  Beck and Miguel both avoided eye contact with her. Derek let their awkwardness settle before asking, “Neither of you saw The Soul Charmer since he called, right?”

  Both guys shook their heads no.

  “Did he say anything on the phone?” Callie didn’t have much to go on, which is why she’d thought this was about Nate. The Charmer hadn’t said shit to Derek, but maybe that was because his anger was going to be focused on Callie.

  Derek’s hand tightened on her waist. “He said all hands to me.”

  Beck sucked in his lower lip. When he released it, he spoke. “He had a guy down here.”

  Callie hadn’t expected that. She hadn’t expected them to know more, but now her mind snapped through the scene they’d arrived to. The shattered glass, the missing soul…. “And the blood upstairs?”

  “I figured it was from the guy he had downstairs,” Miguel said. He cradled his jaw for a moment, and then added, “Maybe it wasn’t.”

  “Hold up. Who did he have down here?” Derek’s fingers pressed harder against her hip. It was her turn to steady him. He’d been the Charmer’s go-to guy. So why didn’t he know someone was in the building for interrogation? Callie wasn’t about to pose that question in this company.

  “Charmer had me drag in a guy trying to sling souls outside of that Thai food place near the industrial park.” Beck offered a single-shoulder shrug. “Guy was easy to find, and didn’t put up a fight. He was a hundred pounds soaking wet. Can’t see that string bean taking out the door.”

  “Or getting the drop on the Soul Charmer,” Callie said. Their boss was too clever and too powerful for one guy to take him out. If it’d been that easy, Ford would have forced the Charmer to give him souls long before Derek bombed the mobster’s house.

  “He had you bring in a corner guy? Why not just put some fear into the kid?” Derek’s hardened gaze settled on Beck. The other soul collector looked at the far wall, and then the floor, and then Miguel. Anywhere other than Derek.

  “I just did what he asked,” Beck said.

  Callie brushed the tip of her shoe across the floor in front of her. It knocked the bits of glass and wood shards away, and brushed the top layer of dust clear. Aside from the debris, the floor was clean. “Where’s the blood here?”

  “What do you mean?” Beck asked.

  “Had you already questioned the guy?” she asked.

  “Not yet. I brought him in, and bound him like normal.”

  Like normal. Bile burned in her belly. She rubbed her hands against her pant legs. The memory of searing flesh and sharp screams in this room suddenly too vivid to contain. She choked back the sickness, and curled her fingers around the flask inside her pocket. “There’s no blood in here. All the fighting happened upstairs.”

  “Maybe not all of it.” Derek turned to examine the battered door. “This was definitely hit from inside the room, and it’d been bolted. It’s not an easy latch to power through.”

  It was like her boyfriend was a forensics investigator merging the clinical and the plausible. Callie half expected him to ask who had installed the bolt.

  “Did you use zip ties or rope,” he asked Beck.

  “Zip ties.” The of course was unspoken between the colleagues, but the familiarity rankled Callie.

  “Where are they? We need to know if he was cut free.”

  If he hadn’t been, then they had a bigger problem. Had he slipped the bindings, had he hidden a tool on him, or had he been set free?

  Everyone began skimming the floor. Miguel found the black bindings quickly. They’d been cleanly cut. The men began to talk about the cable ties as if they held all the clues. Fucking plastic wasn’t going to solve this.

  An edge of black peeked from beneath the seat of one of the wooden stools. Callie tossed the wood to the side, and picked up the three by two card. The glossy sheen had been scuffed, but she couldn’t forget the slogan etched in delicate gold swirls: Be Anonymous with a New Soul.

  “Guys,” she called.

  “He used a piece of glass,” Miguel said, ignoring Callie.

  “Glass would leave blood. No blood.” Derek answered Miguel.

  Damn it. The card was cool in her hand. “Derek,” she said his name with the force only a lover could leverage.

  His attention snapped to her. He held one of the cut cable ties in his hand, but dropped it to his side, and walked to her. “Everything cool, doll?” he said quiet enough for only her ears.

  She lifted the card. “I found this. Adam had one of these in his coat.”

  Derek hand out a hand. “Can I?”

  She passed him the card.

  “This makes more sense,” he said only to Callie. “The Charmer doesn’t use this room unless it’s something big.”

  “Tess level big?”

  Derek nodded. “If the mob crew is carrying these anonymous soul cards around, it means whoever is behind it is gunning for the Charmer.”

  “Business cards and shit? That’s a lot of organization for a little time.”

  “You’re not wrong.” Derek shot a sharp look over his shoulder. The two other men were still arguing about the zip ties. “At least this means this isn’t about you.”

  No, this might be worse. The Soul Charmer had another rival. One brazen enough to drum up business with key criminals, one willing to steal directly from the Charmer’s stores, and one with the means to escape this interrogation room.

  “You two going to share with the class?” Beck asked, already moving toward them.

  Derek held the card aloft. “We’ve got a fucking problem.”

  The group climbed the rickety basement stairs together, and walked single file back to the storefront. Savannah had hopped onto the glass counter while they were gone. A bead of sweat slithered down Callie’s lower back—from the stairs or the stress, she wasn’t certain. Savannah wasn’t even goddamn dewy.

  “Any customers show up?” Derek asked.

  “Nah.” Savannah swung her legs enough to let her heels bang against the counter at an easy cadence.

  How could she be so casual? Next time they shouldn’t pick her as the lookout. She wasn’t on alert. Maybe she hadn’t ventured past the curtained doorway into the back room. Maybe she didn’t know the place had the tornado-level wreckage of a three-day weeken
d kegger. Maybe Savannah was good at her normal gig for the Charmer. Maybe she coaxed people back into the building efficiently. Didn’t matter now.

  “Do you know anything about the guy they had downstairs?” Callie didn’t bother faking casual.

  Savannah looked to Beck and then Miguel. When the latter nodded, she said, “Just another troublemaker. You know how it is. The Charmer points, we shoot.”

  The other woman had muscle. There was no denying she could probably stop a runner from the store, but right now Callie simply didn’t believe her. The words were true enough. Callie and Derek had been on the other side of that equation.

  “I picked him up solo,” Miguel clarified.

  Savannah scowled for a half second before flashing back to basic and bored.

  “What do we know about him?” Derek asked. The soft flick, flick, flicka-flick of his thumb against the business card didn’t register with the others, but Callie understood. Derek was planning.

  “Everyone I talked to called him Vega.” Miguel was all business. Thank God. He paused, and pulled a small spiral notebook from his pocket. He flipped back a few pages. “Almost everyone up in Green Heights knew him. Only around the last few weeks, but making the rounds.”

  Beck sidled around the back of the counter until he was closer to Callie and Derek than Miguel and Savannah.

  “Anyone renting from him?” Beck asked.

  Miguel shrugged. “No one copped to it, but if that many people knew him, there had to be a problem.”

  Derek could have extracted the truth from them, but pointing it out would only complicate things. If Derek didn’t need to avoid the police right now, the Soul Charmer would have sent Derek. For the first time ever having the scrutiny of the Gem City PD was working out in their favor. How the hell had that become her reality?

  Derek lifted the Anonymous Souls card for all to see. “Did anyone try this number?”

  The low-wattage bulbs peering from worn shades at the corners of the room couldn’t reach the black surface. Lighting was unnecessary.