Borrowed Souls: A Soul Charmer Novel Read online

  Callie reached for it, but he pulled it back at the last moment, out of her reach.

  “Press the open mouth of the jar to the person’s sternum, nice and low.” He tapped two fingers against his own. “That will transfer the soul to the vessel. Then all you have to do is return it to me.”

  “So where’s the ‘on’ button?” she asked sarcastically.

  He ignored her.

  “Fine, but does it have to be a flask?” She wasn’t averse to booze, but it was a little closer to alcoholic territory than she cared to venture.

  “This one. Yes.”

  “Why again do you need me to do this? I mean, I’m not reneging on the deal, but couldn’t your normal guy touch a flask to peoples’ stomachs just fine?”

  “No.”

  Callie waited for him to elaborate, but the Charmer clearly didn’t want to divulge more. She reached out her hand again. “Fine, then.”

  This time he obliged. Her fingers slid over the obsidian inlay on the front of the container. The cool stone didn’t heat with her touch, but her fingertips tingled all the same.

  The Charmer smiled, flashing silver. “Yes, you’ll do. Derek will meet you at your home tomorrow afternoon.”

  “I’ll meet him here.”

  The Charmer glared, but didn’t argue. “4 p.m. Don’t be late.”

  Did she really have a choice?

  —— CHAPTER TWO ——

  Callie cranked the car key in the ignition for the third time, her shaking hands more to blame for the car not starting than the vehicle itself. She tapped the gas pedal and the engine finally turned over. The lemon on wheels was running, and she still had $200 in her bank account. It was almost enough to convince her this evening had been a success.

  The Soul Charmer’s store was less than a ten-minute drive from her apartment, but she wasn’t ready to head home yet. She needed time to accept what she’d done. Time to understand what she was about to do over the next two weeks. Being cooped up in her bare-bones apartment with scant furnishings would only amplify her anxiety like a Feng Shui echo. Her extended family was reliable, but she couldn’t call any of them to visit. The closest cousin was sixty miles away and her brother … well, he was obviously unavailable as well. Wallowing and recounting her mistakes was simply safer outside of her one-bedroom. She hooked a left on Agua Fria and headed toward the Plaza.

  Under the midday sun, Gem City’s Plaza lived up to the town’s name. The vibrant jewel tones of painted tiles set into the walls of each storefront sparkled under natural light. But the sun had set hours ago. Tourists were tucked back away into their hotels with their authentic chimineas lit in every room to counter the cool desert night air. The sparse streetlights made it difficult for the uninitiated to spot when dusk shifted to pitch black in the empty spaces. Transient men and women meandered the streets. Those who were truly homeless tucked in by store entrances to make camp for the night.

  Callie drove the unreasonably slow speed limit, but still had to slam her brakes as a twenty-something woman ran out into the street. The woman’s braided pigtails bounced against the woven poncho she wore, the kind sold at every rural roadside stand within a two-hundred-mile radius. She yelled out to another unseen hitchhiker friend, and then stashed the screwdriver she held in her hand in her right pocket. The hitchhiker—Callie could spot them a mile away—was why Gem City couldn’t have nice things. Callie didn’t need to spot the missing tile in front of Gem Jewelers to know the poncho girl had pilfered it. She might be destined to be a thief, but she wasn’t about to go advertising it.

  At least they didn’t touch the Basilica. The church kept their grounds covered in lush, green lawn. The city didn’t enforce water restrictions when it came to the Cortean Catholic church. Callie hit the adjacent stoplight, and spent the next minute and a half next to the bronze statue of Saint Catalina. Three LED spotlights revealed her soft cheekbones and flowing skirt. Others in town might have looked at the statue and thought of Catalina’s story, of her martyrdom, of her quiet strength. But Callie remembered the time Josh tried to convince Father Duncan he wanted to pick Catalina as his saint name. The priest had taken on all the attributes of a turnip, vaguely purple and puffed out at the sides. A few years later Callie chose Catalina as her own saint name, in Josh’s honor.

  A couple blocks from home, she pulled into a convenience store parking lot. All the chaos of the day had blocked out her mundane responsibilities. She had laundry to do, but no detergent to make that happen. Her building hadn’t stocked the soap vending machine in seven months. She didn’t have quarters anyway. She stepped out of the car and onto a scrap of yellow police tape with the standard “DO NOT CROSS” verbiage. It fluttered in the cool October breeze.

  The shop’s cashier, Callie remembered from the newspaper headlines, had found a severed arm around the side of the store two days earlier. The matching body had been discovered seven blocks over, behind a street taco shop. No arrests, but the whispers that Ford was behind it were growing louder.

  They hadn’t bothered to remove the tape yet. Callie shouldn’t have been surprised. Chalk outlines only disappeared when it rained or snowed. The locals didn’t often bring out a hose to wash it away.

  So much for calming her nerves before going home. She thought about popping a Xanax when she got home, about how nice it would be to blank her anxiety for a few hours. But that was something Josh would do, and she wasn’t like him. Not like that. Besides, if she was going to save her brother, she needed to keep her own shit together.

  Even if that meant a night of laundry, followed by tossing and turning.

  Callie had been serving breakfast and lunch to the elderly at Cedar Retirement Home for eight months, and she mostly didn’t hate it.

  The people were all right, if you didn’t mind cynical reminiscing over lifetimes of bad decisions, along with a whole lot of gallows humor. Both had been standard operating procedure for Callie since the age of nine.

  Unfortunately, keeping busy chopping vegetables to help Louisa with food preparation wasn’t enough to keep her mind off the deal she’d made with the Soul Charmer. She’d woken up with a wicked case of regret. Just what had Josh gotten her into?

  Louisa broke into Callie’s thoughts. “Father Domingo asked about you.”

  Her distraction must have been obvious, because Louisa didn’t usually mention church so early in the morning. Callie’s boss’s grey hair was wound in a sharp bun, letting light catch her gold cross pendant.

  “Nice of him,” Callie muttered. New Mexico had become Cortean Catholicism’s strongest foothold in North America more than a century ago, and now the faith had unyielding public devotion throughout Gem City. In the church’s eyes, purity and piety were equal, and keeping one’s soul light enough—not weighed down by sin—to “rise to Heaven” was the paramount goal of any regular churchgoer. Callie attended services with Lou once a month. It kept the general judgment levels of those around her low—she wasn’t a bad person, but she wasn’t a true believer either—and it made Louisa happy. Callie did what she could to make Lou happy.

  “I told him you’ve been taking your mom to service elsewhere, and he said he hoped you were finding time for confession.”

  She hadn’t confessed to a cleric in five years. The Charmer had said her soul was still pure, so she guessed she hadn’t done anything to fuck things up too royally. Watching Josh sink to dismal depths had Callie less worried about her own afterlife than others in Gem City. Not that she’d ever admit it. “The church near my house is growing on me,” she lied.

  Dropping in on Father Gonzales hadn’t been on her to-do list. Off the books, he encouraged his congregation to leverage soul magic. Soul magic was real, he acknowledged, which was rare enough for any cleric to say publicly. Confessing the use of magic was required, he clarified each time, but whenever she took her mom to his services, Father Gonzales preached reaching heaven by any means necessary. It made sense, then, that all but a handful of people in their stat
e subscribed to a religion founded by a conquistador.

  Callie wasn’t too superior to say she didn’t know people who had used the Charmer’s services before, and she wasn’t classy enough to pretend she’d never been in that neighborhood. However, in the decade since the Soul Charmer had set up shop and soul magic became known outside the back alley crowd, she’d never once thought she’d find herself using his services, let alone working for the snake. No matter what loophole Father Gonzales gave his congregation, it was no secret that bad things happened to people who borrowed souls.

  Besides, a pristine soul didn’t wash away consequences. Her cousin Kristi was proof enough.

  She shook her head at the memory and almost sliced into her index finger with the bulky chef’s knife. Kristi had a nasty husband. No bones to be made about it. She’d also had a sense of finality about marriage: once you’re in it, you’re in it, and there’s no getting out. Callie thought it was a rather fatalistic way to look at a union that’s supposed to be born of love. Then again, Callie was twenty-two and had no intention of getting married.

  Callie’s cousin, though, took the shit seriously. Well, the part about never leaving. She yearned for romance (or, more specifically, good sex), and when she realized she wasn’t ever going to get it from her husband, she took matters into her own hands, and rented a soul to cheat on him. It wasn’t staining their relationship, she’d argued. Yes, God cared about her soul and yes, she should avoid sinning, but if she committed adultery using someone else’s soul, she was golden, right?

  Callie had never seen the logic, but how could she argue when Father Gonzales basically condoned it? As far as reasons to rent out someone else’s soul, Kristi’s purpose was mild. From stories, Callie knew most people used rented souls for exacting revenge, violence, and murder. Still, it always ended badly. Even if one was out just to get laid.

  The idea of a swapped soul might have spared Kristi the wrath of God—though Callie wasn’t quite buying that, regardless of the Church’s stance—but it hadn’t done a damn thing to stop her husband from shattering both her orbital bones and literally caving in Kristi’s face when he caught her in the act. She swore the adultery was on someone else’s soul. While it assuaged her guilt, it was more than a year before the surgeons had her back solid. They didn’t have the money for full reconstruction, though. Kristi had blown all her savings on souls from the rental service she’d spotted in the back pages of a free newspaper: the Soul Charmer.

  Real world consequences followed soul rental. Callie’s slices into the onion became forceful chops. The clack of the blade against the wooden board grew louder as she focused on making each movement a prayer she’d stay whole. Her eyes began to water from her sloppy style with the onion.

  That’s what she told herself.

  —— CHAPTER THREE ——

  What did one do to prepare for the first day as a soul collector? Pray? Drink? Sacrifice javelina? There wasn’t a guidebook for things like this. Callie had convinced herself that her work for the Soul Charmer was essentially blackmail. He might not be the source of her woes, but he’d taken advantage of her need. Close enough.

  She’d changed out the maroon scrubs she’d worn to work, showered to blight the remnants of kitchen work from her skin, and swiped her chestnut hair up into a simple plait. Everything needed to be casual. Pretending this was any other afternoon would help get her through day one. The jeans, black tee, and pair of Chucks she wore should have been comfortable, but even the rubber soles pressed against her feet as though they wanted to squeeze blood from her. Just another payment she’d make for family.

  The phone call to Josh the night before had gone as expected: shitty. He’d been elated to hear she was coming through. The joy hadn’t lasted long.

  “Two weeks, sis? Two goddamn weeks?” The jubilation from moments before had been smashed into a hiss. At least he hadn’t called their mom. She’d tried to pawn her furniture for Josh the last time he got in over his head.

  “Sorry, but I don’t have a stockpile of money to bail you out again.” Callie had liquidated her savings account for him just nine months earlier. The smashed furniture in his apartment hadn’t elicited much sympathy from her (it wasn’t that out of the ordinary at that point), but the deep, wallowing welts on his forearms had convinced her to hand over the funds. She’d paid his drug debt, and drove him directly to Blue Dove Rehabilitation Center. Four-fucking-thousand-dollars later she was broke, and her brother had somehow gotten himself even deeper in danger.

  “I thought I could count on you,” he’d said, resorting to a familiar tactic.

  The jab would have hurt last year. This wasn’t the first time he’d thrown it, though. She had to remember: The highs and lows of the conversation weren’t due to his fear or the stress of the situation. He was high, and twenty grand in debt to a drug dealer. He’d paid for oblivion. Must be nice. “I’m doing what I can, Josh.” It was all Callie could offer.

  Ford had snatched the phone at that point. “Did I hear I’m keeping this asshole for two weeks?”

  Ugh. Even just a few words from Ford left Callie feeling like she was covered in thick tar. She’d fought through the viscous fear. “Yes, and you’re supposed to keep him safe, not high.”

  His laugh had unsettled her. “He’s safest around here when he’s not in his own mind.” There had been too much knowledge in those words. A threat had been buried in there, too.

  She’d wrapped her hair around her hand and lifted it into a makeshift bun. It hadn’t cooled the heat blossoming at the base of her neck.

  “I need a couple weeks to get the soul secured for your job.” She’d rushed the words. The sooner the conversation was done, the better.

  “The Charmer running low on stock?”

  “I’m low on cash, unless you’ve changed your mind about fronting the money.” Getting the soul might cover her ass when she did a job for Ford, but that didn’t make any of this okay.

  “I’ve fronted enough cash. That’s the problem.”

  “I know,” she’d muttered, swallowing again and again as her brain had fought to keep the idiocy inside. “One of your men would be better at getting the information from—”

  “Don’t say that shit on the phone,” he’d cut her off. Her cheeks burned from the verbal slap. She should have known better. Even a criminal rube like her knew talking about breaking into police records on the phone was dumb. “Your brother made an agreement. In my world we honor our word. You’re holding up his end of the deal. No renegotiating the terms. Two weeks is enough of a change in plans.”

  Arguing the finer points of her involvement with a mob boss would only get her snuggled into the dirt. That much she knew. “Right.”

  “I expect results.” Ford’s teasing tone had then disappeared. “I’ll keep your bro whole for now. He’s come in handy in the past. You drag this out, though, and we’ll be doing this exchange in pieces. You get me?”

  She’d gotten him.

  Callie shivered at the memory of her only face-to-face with Ford.

  From the outside, Ford’s house was like any other rich asshole’s. A single-level adobe wonder sprawled in a private slip of desert. The mature juniper bushes surrounding the home made it blend into the skyline at night, but Callie doubted Ford had ever spent too much time enjoying the clear skies.

  The entrance was where the peaceful façade disappeared. The family portraits inside depicted men Callie had only ever seen in courtroom reports on the ten o’clock news. The henchman who escorted her to Ford’s office was short and wiry. The gun strapped to his hip was hard to miss. With each stutter-step she took, her shoes clomping against the tile, the exposed wooden beams above her seemed to drop, inch by inch, like she was living a video game from the eighties. The burnt-orange accent wall in Ford’s office was a welcome distraction.

  “You’re Josh’s sister?” Ford’s back was to her. She’d seen him on the news, but in real life he was shorter, probably five-foot-seven. He wo
re blue jeans and a red polo shirt. His short hair was freshly cut, making it look like he was still in junior high.

  “Yeah,” her voice shook in a the-guy-behind-me-has-a-gun kind of way.

  “You sure he’s worth all this?” Ford turned as he spoke. He had a baby face—cherubic with dimples and gentle eyes. In another context, he might have struck her as the sweet boy down the street who’d offer to help the elderly woman rescue her cat. He wasn’t that boy, though. She’d never convince herself Ford was so harmless when there were three severed fingers resting atop a white sheet of paper on the desk next to his hip.

  Her brain shorted at the sight, as if ceiling beams had crashed down on her neck. When she came to, they were in another room and she was agreeing to whatever Ford asked. She didn’t argue when he told her a different soul would be required to commit the robbery. Overlaying a second soul onto your own muddled DNA and fingerprints—the cops knew it, but the legal system hadn’t yet caught up to making it illegal. That made soul renting attractive to guys like Ford.

  Callie’s mind returned to the present. Despite everything she’d gotten herself into over the past few days, she couldn’t undo the past. What was done was done, and she had to focus on moving forward if she had any chance of getting herself and her brother out alive. Working for the Soul Charmer couldn’t be that awful if it meant Josh wouldn’t be returned in brown butcher paper.

  She made a turkey sandwich, but it wasn’t any more appealing than the chicken she’d served at the retirement home. She ate half, and then wrapped the remainder in plastic. Day-old sandwiches weren’t exactly the peak of leftover cuisine, but she’d at least save a few, much-needed bucks.

  The air had turned crisp while she was inside. Snow would be capping the mountains in the distance soon. She stepped out and locked the door. An autumn breeze whipped through the exposed staircase at her apartment building. It didn’t cut through her hoodie, thankfully, but the blast cooled the nape of her neck and did nothing for her nerves. Better cold wind than a clammy palm on her neck, she tried to convince herself, but in that moment it was hard to tell the difference.