Borrowed Souls (Soul Charmer #1)(11)
“How long until McCabe shows up?”
She noticed for the first time that fine stubble had grown in along his jaw since they’d first met. He rubbed his fingers across it, and Callie’s fingers curled into a fist in asinine and unbidden jealousy. “Not sure when he’ll get here, to be honest. If I knew, we wouldn’t be sitting in his shitty apartment, would we?”
Callie shot him a dirty look.
“But I have it on good authority a girl he wants to sleep with is going to be at the bar around the corner in an hour and this jackass is going to want a shower first. I expect he’ll be here in the next twenty or so.”
“You’re banking on a shower?”
“Even dirtbags know a lady likes it when they smell nice.”
Derek smelled nice. The thought popped into Callie’s head before she could stop it, and she sat up straight, clearing her thoughts. Dwelling on the clean scent of Derek’s skin didn’t change the fact she barely knew him. What the hell was going on with her? “Well, I could probably survive another twenty minutes. Provided I don’t touch anything.”
“Heaven forbid.” He held his hands up in mock horror, and she let herself smile. Just once.
“That’s more like it,” he said, punctuating it with a grunt.
“Can I ask you a question?” They had time to kill. It wouldn’t hurt to try to find out a little something about the guy she’d be spending the new two weeks working with. What’s the worst he could say? No?
He smirked, and she thought he was going to ignore her. Then he said, “Fine. Ask away.”
“Can you do magic, too?”
“No. That’s the Charmer’s deal.”
“You see ads for it all the time … ” She trailed off.
He picked up the thread. Thank God. “Most of that shit is fake. Magic is an apprentice trade.”
He didn’t elaborate, but Callie was good with that. It was okay with her if the details of a soul magic tutorial forever remained unknown to her. Especially if it didn’t have anything to do with Derek.
“Okay, my turn.” He shifted gears so smoothly. He had charisma. She’d give him that. “What’s Callie short for?”
She groaned internally and looked around the apartment for a window she could jump out of. Of all the questions he could have asked … quickly, and as concealed by her breath as possible, she whispered, “Calliope.”
“Calliope?” His belly laugh could have woken the dead. Or at least disturbed the neighbors.
“What’s so goddamn funny? Maybe I should ask for your middle name and start mocking it.”
“Go ahead; it’s Alexander. Next?”
“No, really, why did you alert everyone in a two-mile radius to our presence over my name?” She’d been mocked for it since she was old enough for kids to talk. She’d grown up, embraced the nickname. She would be damned if some biker thug was going to make her feel bad about it now.
“Not laughing at you. Just too appropriate.” He smiled, and even though the initial wave of defensiveness still hadn’t worn off completely, she realized that there wasn’t a hint of maliciousness in his tone. “It’s been business as usual for six solid months. No fuck-ups. No difficult runners. The last couple weeks have been busy. You show up, and now the circus is coming to town.”
“You can hardly blame me for that.” Her shrug hinted at chagrin. Since he hadn’t clued her in as to what they were actually doing, how was she supposed to know what was normal and what wasn’t in the soul retrieval biz?
“True. And I don’t. Not really.” He paused, his gaze flitting to the door. After a moment he shook it off and continued. “Something’s been coming. Charmer’s been loaning more than usual lately.”
“Really? I’d figured business would be pretty steady by now.” Callie had always figured the draw of guilt-free sinning had to be irresistible to a certain percentage of the Gem City population, and the fact that there was always crime and shady shit to do meant there would be perpetual interest in his services. So why would business be any busier than usual?
“It is. It ebbs and flows like any other gig. Gets weird around full moons. You’d think the place was an emergency room the way the lobby packs up with people trying to snag a soul for the night.”
“Are they good about returning the souls they rent? The full moon ones, I mean.”
“Not really. It’s like they’re coeds on spring break, and the high they get from the freedom hooks ‘em fast. They get their soul and then fully let go. I spend full-moon nights trying to keep the line of people that’s gathered outside in order. Then a few days later I’m seeing them again when I’m retrieving.” He said “retrieving” like it was a noble profession. Callie didn’t know anyone who would think that kind of work would be honorable, but she wondered if they were in the dark about the truth. Was she in the dark?
“You like your job?”
He nodded. “People don’t realize what housing someone else’s soul inside you does. There are consequences. It’s fighting with your own soul the whole time. It’s wicked and leaves the host scarred, you know, in here.” He tapped two fingers against his breastbone. “Do it too long and you’ll go crazy.”