Borrowed Souls (Soul Charmer #1)
Chelsea Mueller
For my parents
(Sorry for all the swearing.)
—— CHAPTER ONE ——
Callie Delgado needed a soul.
Her brother had been kidnapped, his captors were blackmailing her, and here she was, outside one of the most unusual pawn shops in all of Gem City, about to rent one. She just needed to force herself to walk the twenty steps to the Soul Charmer’s front door. The one wedged in a dirty, rundown building on a dirty, rundown street in the dirty, rundown part of town. It was the last place she wanted to be, but the one place she had to go.
Fate was kind of a dick like that.
Downtown Gem City rolled up by 6 p.m.; she was alone with her thoughts. She batted an empty soda can with the tip of her shoe. It skittered along the concrete, banging into a nearby dumpster overflowing with the rotting remnants of life. The kind of life her brother would cease to have if she didn’t walk in that door and let the Soul Charmer put another person’s soul into her body.
What was she doing here? She knew the answer, of course, but pride—well, that and a healthy dose of fear—swelled at the base of her skull anyway. What she was about to do was something she’d sworn she never would. It was dangerous, morally corrupt, and maybe worst of all, made her feel like if she went through with it, she wouldn’t be any better than the junkies and criminals she’d spent her entire life trying to run away from. The thought made her queasy, like she was covered in a coating of grease she’d never scrub away.
But Josh needed her, and family came first. So Callie walked up the steps to the front door of the shop. A faded, gold “Charmer” was painted at eye-level. Flecks of peeling black paint stuck to her damp palm as she pushed the door open. The musk of rotting wood found its way to her nose, along with the warm decay of day-old fast food and cheap beer.
It didn’t smell any better inside the tiny shop. The Nag Champa burning in a glass tray near the door couldn’t cover the stench. It was a reminder of what happened here—dirty, dank things, ones she’d been avoiding all of her life.
The thin carpet squelched beneath her boots. The sound sidled along her skin to spiral up her spine. It was almost enough to make her turn back, walk out the door, and hope everything with her brother turned out for the best on its own.
Dark wood beams peeked out from between tapestries, their gold and burgundy threads muted by the years. If a seedy pawnshop were to set up in a bankrupt church, it would probably look a lot like this, she thought. All that was missing was the “CA$H 4 SOULS” sign. She stepped up to the front counter, which was as dilapidated as everything else in the room. The only thing on it was a small, tarnished bell.
Callie clamped her teeth on her tongue as she reached out. A flash of pain centered her. She had to do this. She had no choice. The bell chimed out loudly when she hit it.
Almost immediately a tiny man, barely five feet tall, emerged from a rear doorway covered in heavy velvet. Words like filthy, dangerous, and wicked rumbled in the back of Callie’s mind. She’d heard plenty of warnings about this man. His eyes narrowed upon seeing her, then lit up like lights on a Christmas tree. He looked like the type of man who would lie about his height, claiming he’d shrunken over the years. Just like everyone said: the Soul Charmer was a sketchy fuck.
“What can I do for you, sweetheart?” His grandfatherly looks—the guy wore green pajamas—didn’t disguise the prurient way his mouth cradled the pet name.
Telling him off and storming out of the store sounded damn appealing, but Callie knew she needed what he was selling a whole lot more than he needed her business. So she swallowed her retort and replied: “A soul.”
He laughed, and it made her stomach pitch. She swallowed the fear-and-bile cocktail. She knew the shame of what she was doing would come later. “You’re going to have to be more specific.”
Moving her weight to her right foot didn’t make the words come any faster than shifting back to the left did. She opened her mouth, only to close it again. Her good sense held the reply hostage. “I need one for just a day or two.”
She needed to sound confident, like this was no big deal, a business transaction she did every day, even if the opposite were true. That would be a good start, right?
“A short timer, yes. Not a problem.” His lips parted, revealing two shiny silver teeth in the front. The rest were missing. “The question is: Do you want something pure?”
The way his tongue curled around the word made her skin crawl. Every individual sin weighed a soul down, if you believed the Cortean Catholic church—and there were a lot of believers in Gem City. If a pure soul had been pawned to the Charmer, it meant horrible things for its original owner. Callie wasn’t about to pile on extra shit for that person to shovel. No, she didn’t want to taint a clean soul, even if it was a borrowed one. She was after the non-celestial perks anyway. “Purity isn’t an issue.”
He cocked his head to the side until his ear nearly grazed his shoulder, staring at her. The shop was quiet, long enough to make her think she’d blown her shot at a soul already. “Purity is always an issue. Your soul, for example, would fetch a nice purse. I could arrange—”
“I’m not here to sell.”
He lifted his hands in faux supplication. “I meant no harm.”