Borrowed Souls (Soul Charmer #1)(70)
Callie shrugged. “Just because it’s outside the city doesn’t mean they don’t have the same light pollution ordinances.”
Riding as a passenger in her own car was weird. The vehicle took on new tones from the other seat. The rattle of the muffler wasn’t as bad here. The gouges in the dash Josh had sworn were there before he’d last borrowed the car weren’t nearly as deep.
“It makes even less sense out here.”
“I would have thought you’d like it.”
“Why? Is all this dark and mysterious doing it for you?” He waggled his eyebrows. He’d been playful most of the afternoon and evening. It had to be a guise to calm her nerves, but it had worked, for the most part. He’d even agreed taking the motorcycle to a meeting with Tess was a bad decision. The only problem was, that left her riding bitch in her own car.
She cast him a side eye glare, but softened it with a sweet smile. “No, but isn’t it easier to do business in the dark?”
Derek stiffened his spine. The comment wasn’t meant as a jab, but she’d put him on high alert. Needling at unknown touchy issues shouldn’t count against her, right?
“I didn’t mean—” she started to apologize.
“Oh, no, that’s fine. Though you do keep forgetting I do a lot of my job by talking to people. I’m starting to get the impression you think I’m far more nasty than I actually am.” He grinned at her before she could get self-conscious over that comment, too. Her neuroses placated, he continued. “Tess was smart to pick this place. Yeah, it’s dark like everywhere else, but these buildings have a lot more space between them. More alleys mean more hiding places.”
“Hiding places work for your half of the plan.” Callie injected as much enthusiasm into her words as she could muster.
“We could have waited until tomorrow,” he muttered. An extra twenty-four hours worth of planning might have been nice, if Derek was right, but Callie couldn’t handle another day of worry. He eventually acquiesced, and anyway, his mere presence had been enough to calm the tense situations they’d been in so far. Callie didn’t have that same talent. Being fast and hiding her emotions were basically her top skills. And neither was particularly useful in this situation.
What she really needed was a healthy dose of fake confidence, but Tess had knocked Callie off her game. Placing all bets without knowing the odds was just asking for someone to take your cash. Derek’s money was on mental agility. He thrived there. She’d witnessed the way he could assess a room and leverage his lethal grace. She didn’t pack a stash of secret weapons.
“No need to wait,” she finally told him. Fear of the unknown shadowed her words.
He nodded. “You know the plan.”
Ah. The plan. “Yeah, but it’s too simple. How do you know it will work?”
“Just don’t let her touch you first.” The plan—if they had to call it such—consisted of keeping Callie’s magic in play until Derek could take action. But she’d demanded to rush the timeline, which meant they were mostly banking on luck.
“What am I going to do if she dampens my magic again? If I need to defend myself, I’ll be screwed.”
“Kick her in the bits.”
Derek laughed at her you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me stare.
“You’ve never been kicked there,” he added. It wasn’t a question.
“You’re aware I don’t have balls to crush, right?”
“Intimately. Still, if you’d been kicked there, you’d know: it’s a fucking vicious thing, regardless of your parts.”
“I’ll trust you on that one.” She’d rather not find out if he was telling the truth.
Derek parked the car outside of a furniture store. Before he cut the engine he asked, “You’re sure the tarot spot is on the other side?”
“Positive.” After racking her brain as to why the address Tess had given her seemed so familiar, she finally realized: her boss Louisa actually frequented the place. Her stomach tightened until a pang forced her jaw to clench. Lou’d had a rough life, and Callie wouldn’t accept Tess mooching energy from her friend.
She unlocked her phone. Five minutes past midnight. Hell. This was happening. Forcing herself out of the car was so much harder than she wanted to admit. Walking into the Soul Charmer’s shop nearly two weeks ago and bartering for use of a soul had been the lowest she thought she’d ever sink. She couldn’t say the same anymore. The steel in her spine had held resilient that day because, in the end, she was there to protect her brother. “Family first” carried her through nearly every shit situation. The guiding forces of guilt and loyalty kept her moving forward even when she’d been petrified. Pretending seeing Tess was the same thing as stepping through the Soul Charmer’s door the first time was such a bitter lie she couldn’t accept it. God knew she wanted to.
The walk across the cracked concrete toward the neon TAROT sign with its burned-out T would have been a hell of a lot easier if it were for the greater good. If the final act would absolve her of past sins. If it were about keeping her brother whole. If it could make her mother give a shit about her. Meeting with Tess again wouldn’t do any of those things. It pleased the Soul Charmer, but he was going to give her that soul tomorrow regardless of whether she helped capture Tess.