Borrowed Souls (Soul Charmer #1)(69)

Smiling was out of the question, but it was oh so tempting. “The boring guy we retrieved a soul from the other night. The one who was freaked his wife would see us.”

“I know Joey.” His shoulders relaxed. “What about him?”

“Tess stripped him of another soul.” That was the nice way to put it. Derek sputtered for a moment, but eventually let her explain the encounter.

“And there were cuts on his chest?” His questions were focused. He knew what to ask, but didn’t explain why.

“Yes.”

“Did Joey give her the soul?”

“He said he refused to give her permission, but she took the rented one he had inside him anyway. How is that possible? To straight up rob someone of a soul?”

“It’s possible, but not good.”

“Obviously. Joey looked like one of those corner tweakers, ready to start rocking.”

“There’s that, but the cuts and the theft sure sounds like she’s pulling the souls into her body instead of collecting them safely.” Oh, fuck. So what Tess had done wasn’t weird because of the whole stealing business, but because she didn’t put it in a goddamn jar in the process?

Her incredulity couldn’t be contained. “So it’s cool she robbed him?”

He flopped on to his back, shaking the bed. “Of course not. It’s just when you extract a soul without tools—like your flask—it’s dangerous.”

She imagined the Charmer’s creepy claws at her neck, ready to snatch her soul, and she shuddered.

“We’ll take care of this. Of Tess. She’s probably batshit because of all the souls she’s holding in her body, but if she doesn’t have the power to create her own tools, it means she’s weaker than we originally anticipated. The Charmer can take her out. Easy.”

She’d believed all but that last word. There was nothing easy about this. Tess knew too much about Callie and her relationship to the Soul Charmer already. “Tess is on to him.” She winced as she spoke.

She didn’t scrimp on the details of her awkward meeting with Tess, though she left out the size of the pie slice she’d devoured. It wasn’t the time to talk frivolity, or coconut.

When she was done, Derek raked his fingers through his hair and rolled onto his back again. “She wants you to work for her?”

“That’s what she was after. Though, I’d trust her about as far as I could throw her.”

“You believed her about the magic thing, though?” Perhaps it was easier to insert his foot in his mouth when he wasn’t wearing his boots.

“I believed—and still do—that the Charmer is a liar.”

He pursed his lips before agreeing. “Fair enough.”

“She puts on a better face than he does, but she still made my skin crawl. There’s something not right about her.”

“Feeding off souls will do that to a person.” No matter how causally he said it, the truth rang clear and hollow.

“Feeding off souls?”

“She’s doing more than siphoning energy at this point. It’s like she’s hoarding souls to create an internal armor. The more souls squished in a single body, the crazier the person becomes.”

“She talked about saving the city. Pretty sure the lady has a god complex, and enough information to freak people out with what she knows.” Callie totally meant herself.

“She has power. That’s normal. She wanted to meet you, though, and that means we know where to find her.”

“I really don’t want to see her again.” Especially now that it was clear to Callie the soul vampire business was an everyday thing for that lady. “But I know you’re right. The longer she’s out there, the bigger threat she’s going to become.”

“Agreed. The sooner we bring her to the Charmer, the sooner you’re done with both of them.”

“Do you think we can talk him into going himself? Like give him the information, and let him handle the rest? What else could you or I possibly do at this point?”

“You were in the same meeting I was. He wants this done by us. That’s not going to change.”

“That was before we knew she could nullify her magic around me.”

Derek’s sullen smile made Callie’s stomach sink. “He probably knows. I bet with the right motivation you’ll still be able to bring the heat, though.”

Motivation? She had more than enough threats and life-or-death balance shit in her life. “I think I’m full up on motivation.”

“Well, then, it’ll go fine.”

“You’re bad at this pep talk thing.”

He kissed her. “Nah, you just haven’t been properly pepped before. It can be hard to recognize. You’ll do fine once we’re there.”





—— CHAPTER SEVENTEEN ——

The desert had a way of swallowing construction. During the day, the Desert Outlet Mall stood out like a shimmering mirage amid the sand and rogue juniper bushes. At night, though, without sunlight to cast the squat adobe buildings’ shadows, the entrance to the frontage road leading to the shopping cluster was practically invisible. On the third try, Derek managed to spot the cutover. “Would a streetlight kill them?”