Lost Souls

by Chelsea Mueller

  Derek flipped the knife in his hand, and then plunged it into Nate’s carotid. He left the blade in long enough to meet Nate’s panicked gaze.

  “I won’t let you hurt her again,” Derek said, and then yanked the knife back out.

  Nate’s death was swifter than the deserved, but he would never find a way out of Hell if she had anything to say about it.

  Callie pulled the rogue souls from the corners of the room, from the flimsy containers, and from the pallets, and pushed them all at Nate’s bleeding body. She shoved the dark ones in him. The tainted and corrupt. Every filthy soul he’d slapped in a tin can and planned to shill to unsuspecting citizens found a new home inside the mobster. His chest glowed a fierce red.

  “Doll?” Derek ambled to her side.

  She pushed more magic and more souls into Nate until his back bowed and his torso stretched. Callie released the magic she’d clung to for protection, too, and thrust it at Nate’s convulsing form. Blue flames ignited his clothing, his skin underneath puckered immediately. A moment later this corpse was pure pyre, and the cries of freedom from the burning souls rose bright behind the flames.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Callie’s apartment had the good medical supplies. Her skin had regrown, but Henry continued to peer at her with his one eye like he expected to see something magnificent happen. She was all out of tricks. Derek lumbered to the couch with his brother’s arm over his shoulders. He deposited the priest on the sofa, and then turned back to Callie.

  “I’ll need a minute to find the right supplies,” she called out.

  She bent to retrieve the hydrogen peroxide and first aid kit from beneath the bathroom sink. When she rose, Derek was behind her. She squeaked, and then lightly smacked his arm. “I told you I’d be out in a second. I’m not prepared for surprises right now.”

  He skimmed his fingertips over her temple, and brushed a loose strand of hair back behind her ear. “I needed to confirm you’re whole.”

  She sat the supplies on the edge of the sink. “That flame doesn’t really touch me. Everything comes back. You know that.”

  His hands skimmed her upper arms, and then her shoulders. Like he was rediscovering her. “That’s not what I meant.” His touch was gentle when he ran his hand over her collarbone. “He bruised your neck. How sore are you?”

  So the skin grew back with the bruises? That was a flaw in this magic shit. She pulled his hand away from her chest, and lifted it to her mouth. She pressed a tender kiss to his knuckles. “I’ll be fine. I’m whole. The souls are safely moving on to another place. We got your brother back. Those are the things that matter.”

  “You matter.” A storm churned those grey eyes.

  “We’re together. That’s what I need. You’re bleeding, too, you know.” She thought it was Nate’s blood smudged at his nose and in a stripe across his thigh, but both had grown since they’d left the warehouse.

  “I’m fine.” He didn’t budge. “I needed to know he couldn’t come after you again.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know the goal wasn’t to kill him, and after what happened at Ford’s we weren’t going to do that shit anymore. No one even asked me to do this—”

  Oh. Derek didn’t hang onto guilt the way Callie did. He didn’t squirrel it away for lonely nights and handles of vodka. That was a Delgado way of dealing with life, and while he was hers, he wasn’t a Delgado. He wouldn’t let it fester, which was great, but this guilt wasn’t even warranted.

  “He deserved to die,” Callie said plainly.

  Derek was quiet for a moment. “You’re okay with what I did? For real?”

  “What we did. You weren’t the one who lit his ass on fire.”

  Derek’s smile widened a little more with each passing second, like his brain was catching up with the moment. “So we’re good?”

  “We’re wounded, but yes, you’re still stuck with me.” She found more comfort in those words than she expected. The consistency was nice. Her family was supposed to be that rock for her. They were supposed to come running when shit got bad. Lord knew she did. Derek was better for her, though. He was solid and steady and was purely motivated by protecting her in those dark moments.

  “I’m a lucky bastard. You know that, doll?”

  “Careful now. The Charmer would take credit for that shit if he could.”

  “One more reason I don’t mind him being missing.”

  “Paychecks would be good.”

  “Beck handles all that shit for the Charmer. I’ll make sure he cuts the cash for us.”

  “Great, but can we first tend to your brother? Or did you forget what he went through?” A playful tone could only get her so far. The truth was they’d pulled another innocent person into their mess.

  “I didn’t forget, but I doubt he will either. He knows you saved him, and he understood the risks in helping us.”

  “We saved him,” she corrected. “Now let me get the rest of this shit together. You go pull some frozen peas from the freezer for his face.”

  “You have to ice your neck, too.”

  She made a shooing motion, and he cleared out of the bathroom. Callie re-gathered the first-aid gear, and studiously avoided the mirror. Tending to the cuts and bruises wasn’t as bad as she’d feared. Henry had been worked over, and the bruising was extensive. He could swallow, though, so she gave him some anti-inflammatories and a quality painkiller. She and Derek convinced him to stretch out on the couch and packed frozen vegetables over all the worst bruises.

  “I can’t apologize enough,” Callie said as he snuggled a package of vegetable medley against his ribs.

  “You stopped someone perverting our faith. That man was an affront to God. It was not his place to torture souls, and there is no question in my mind that is what he was doing.” Even with a busted lip and a puffed face Father Henry brought the serious talk.

  “Yeah, well, we couldn’t let him hurt you.” She paused and realized her words. “Hurt you more, I guess. We thought we’d get there before all this.”

  “We all have trials.” He closed his good eye.

  “Rest. I’ll come back for the ice packs in twenty minutes.”

  “Thanks, and Callie? I’m glad he has you.”

  “Me, too.”

  The Soul Charmer’s shop was welcoming for Callie these days. It’d been two weeks since she and Derek had extinguished Nate and his Anonymous Souls gig. The drivers disappeared and the number was now disconnected. Callie had tried calling a few times, but it was never reinstated.

  Miguel had left the day after Nate’s death determined to find Vega and get more answers. He’d sent customers back to the shop for their returns, but otherwise had remained mostly radio silent. Beck, however had his feet up on the Charmer’s desk again when she walked in.

  “Don’t you have work to do?” she asked.

  “Not until you pick a new boss lady name.”

  “I don’t need a boss lady name. Just go to work.”

  There had been no word from the Soul Charmer, but also no news of his death. Callie wasn’t sure what to make of it, but Father Giles had called her to the well twice already. Until the other soul magician returned, she was stuck.

  “How about queen of hearts?”

  “That doesn’t even make sense.” Callie didn’t have time for his ridiculousness, but she didn’t totally hate it.

  “All your new jars have hearts on them.”

  She’d shifted the Soul Charmer’s fraction notations to a five heart system. Each new soul she brought in she’d draw five hearts in chalk on the jar. After each rental, she’d erase half a heart. When it was empty, it was time to put them in the do not rent pile.

  “That measures how many times they’ve been rented. They’re still souls.”

  “I’ll come up with something you like.”

  Derek entered the room. “That’s my job.”

  Callie hid her smile. She picked up Beck’s flask and tossed it at him. “Bri
ng me back something nice.”

  He groused, but took the tool and headed out of the room.

  “You’re settling in,” Derek said.

  She shrugged. “This is it for now. How are things outside?”

  They’d had some increased foot traffic in the alleyway, which Derek was convinced was a result of Anonymous Souls crew poking around for jobs. “It’s quiet for now.”

  The front bell rang the warning before Beck blasted back past the curtain. Callie needed to figure out how to make a barrier like the Charmer had if this continued.

  “Someone left this for you.” He held a cream parchment. It was folded in half. The paper shook in his hand.

  “Is it addressed to Soul Charmer 2.0, because then I know it was from you.”

  He didn’t laugh.

  She accepted the sheet. The front of the card had her name in blocky letters. The ink bled out from each line. She opened the page, and would have stumbled backward if Derek hadn’t propped her up.

  “We aren’t done.” Her words were hollow. Sand coating her tongue would have been more comfortable that the liquid dread filling her mouth.

  The same block letters carried the interior message:

  Lower on the page drips ran down from the signature.

  The script in the rich red of blood was legible:

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Charmer Crew, y’all are the best. A huge thank you to everyone who has read, reviewed, and handed a copy of a Soul Charmer book to a friend. It’s a joy to get to share Callie’s journey with you. These books are packed with all the things I love, which means you have excellent tastes. #BookTwins.

  I have to give extra love to Amanda Bonilla and Megan Frampton for giving good advice and replying to my texts. Additional thanks to Amanda Bouchet, Melissa Marr, Rachel Vincent, Cathlin Shahriary, and Joanna Hoskinson for being great friends and creative sounding boards. You should all come to Texas.

  Thank you to Patricia Schmitt for the beautiful cover art.

  Finally, thank you to my family for both the support and enduring my plotting rambles.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Chelsea Mueller writes gritty contemporary fantasy. She founded the speculative fiction website Vampire Book Club and blogs about TV and genre fiction for numerous websites. She loves bad cover songs, dramatic movies, and TV vampires. Chelsea lives in Texas, and has been known to say y’all.

  For the latest updates, join her email list at ChelseaMueller.net or follow @ChelseaVBC on Twitter and Instagram.