Rogue Souls Page 5

  Lou’s hips twisted and rocked to her own lyric-less version of “Lord of Love.” Callie had heard the song at least three times a week growing up. The Cortean Catholic Church nearest her mom’s place still had it in regular rotation.

  “Eggs, as requested.” Callie strived to keep amusement from tainting her words. It wasn’t that the song was particularly amusing, but the sight of her fifty-something supervisor rocking out to a church hymn was likely to be the best sight she’d see all day. She wanted the kind of joy that burst from you in dance and song in her life, too. Maybe once she was done with the Charmer. When she was back to being Callie, and Josh was sober, and she and Derek could hang out without having the Soul Charmer and their respective connections to him dangling above them.

  “Callie?” Louisa said her name like she’d already said it more than once.

  “Sorry. Didn’t get enough sleep last night.”

  Lou must have been able to tell she meant the apology. She smiled. “Can you go ahead and beat the eggs for me?”

  “Sure, how many do we need today?” Callie asked, already turning to the smaller of the home’s two industrial mixers.

  “Twelve dozen should do it. Don’t know why you use that thing.”

  Callie’s laugh was real, and it made the weight on her chest much more manageable. “Yes, you do. My arms would ache, and it would take infinitely longer if I did it your way.”

  ‘Her way’ was to do everything by hand. Louisa continued to work a wooden spoon through a thickening pancake batter. Her seventh batch of batter this morning. “Hard work builds character. Plus, you could have guns like these.”

  Lou flashed an arm muscle in a classic body builder pose. Callie had to admit, the muscle was legit. “Well, then you’d expect me to carry even more boxes.”

  “You have to carry boxes anyway.”

  Callie shrugged, and started cracking eggs into the mixing bowl.

  The radio played the oldies station at a level-two volume in the background, and Callie and Louisa worked quietly.

  “Your brother keeping you up?” Lou spoke so softly that Callie almost didn’t hear her.

  Callie’s chest tightened as though the threat against her brother was imminent again. As though someone would show up at her doorstop with a knife or a gun and demand her big brother.

  Josh’s kidnapping by mobster Ford was an entirely secret affair. Callie’s family had plenty of those—those dark truths that wouldn’t be understood by those who weren’t blood. Ford must have felt the same way, because no one had mentioned Josh’s time with the goons to anyone. The only non-family member in the loop was Derek, and each day he was moving a little closer to being considered family. At the very least, Callie found herself sharing more with him. Her fears and secrets had started seeping out in the soft moments with him. Maybe her brain lacked filter during the wee hours in bed, or maybe it was simply nice to have someone to trust. Either way, as much as Callie loved Lou, she wouldn’t share Josh’s secret.

  Lou knew Josh was a junkie, though. It was more common in these parts that any governmental official would admit. If they acknowledged the issue, they’d have to allocate funds for mental health care. Un-fucking-likely. Her boss’s kid was in the same boat, and Callie had been able to share the frustrations of trying to keep a loved one from rock bottom and failing—repeatedly—with Louisa.

  The immediate truth was fair to share, though. “He’s sleeping all the time.”

  “He clean?” Lou asked. She dropped a pat of butter into the bowl, and kept her gaze locked on the mix.

  Callie turned back to her own work. It was easier to watch the mundane act before her, than catch any pity in Louisa’s eyes. “I think so. Hope so. It’s just I don’t think he should be sleeping so much . . .”

  “When Michael detoxed last time, he slept a lot.”

  “Really?”

  “He had to get past the shakes and the sweating and the hours of heaving in my favorite mixing bowl, but then he was asleep for a day or two. I think their bodies have to rest and recover after the trauma that stuff put them through.”

  Neither woman ever said methamphetamines. They didn’t need to. The bathtub drug lingered over the conversation, unspoken and abrasive.

  Callie opened her mouth to say Josh hadn’t done the puking thing and wasn’t crusting up his pillowcases with sweat every night, but she didn’t want to break the spell. It was too much like admitting her brother hadn’t hit rock bottom. That he hadn’t gone cold turkey. That he was still using.

  “I’m sure you’re right, Lou.”

  He probably went through the gross battery of detox at Ford’s place. He’d only been high at the beginning of the two weeks the mobster had kept him. A drug kingpin known for chopping his enemies into tiny pieces wouldn’t have funneled free drugs to a guy so in debt his baby sister was working for a thug. Right? A heavy stone settled in her stomach, but she swore she wasn’t lying to herself. It didn’t matter, because she he was done with Ford.

  She’d stolen the documents he’d needed. He’d wanted to know how close the police were to linking fingerprints and DNA from criminals using rented souls back to the original ones. So far renting souls from her other boss The Soul Charmer wasn’t illegal, but the fact that sticking a bonus soul in your body altered your DNA and fingerprints—the best options for forensics to catch a criminal—meant The Powers That Be needed to figure out how to fix that. They needed to prove it was a problem, they needed to undo the changes, and they needed to make it illegal. Which would seriously suck for Ford.

  She’d gotten him the information. She chose not to think about what he had done with it—or what he might still be doing with it. As much as she wanted to protect everyone, she had to prioritize. Josh, her mom, all the Delgados, and Derek came before worrying over who else Ford might target. As long as the jerk wasn’t banging on her door right now, she could move forward. She could get back to distancing herself from the shit side of town. She could get her raise—just another four weeks—and renew her lease and be on track to getting her life back together.

  Other than the magic coursing through her veins. Thanks, Soul Charmer.

  She’d almost been able to forget, because Louisa—bless her—refused to ever partake in soul magic. The kitchen at Cedar Retirement was a safe space, and Callie was going to take it.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The safety of Cedar Retirement Home did not extend to the parking lot. At least not today.

  Ford’s favorite goon was leaned back against an aging SUV in the parking lot. The vehicle didn’t belong to Nate. He had parked a douche-y sports car outside her apartment on more than one occasion that was all Nate. He was a spindly man with smears of black beneath the too-thin skin atop is cheekbones and a mouth perpetually set in a sneer.

  Callie kept her eyes trained on her beat-up sedan. Nate and his causally crossed ankles were next to her car. She supposed she could be happy he wasn’t up against her vehicle, but she didn’t think the two feet between the man and her car were going to stop him from hassling her.

  “Hey, sugar, how’s about—”

  “Not in the mood, jackass.” She kept walking, her hand held up to block her view of him.

  “Now is that anyway to greet a friend?”

  She dropped her hand. He’d pushed off the car, and now stood next to her driver’s side door. She stopped with a few feet between them—enough to keep out of his arm’s reach.

  “We aren’t friends.” Her voice sliced sharp. She didn’t sound scared, but her stomach tried to roll beneath her ribcage anyway.

  “We could be.” He waggled his brows, and she wished she could punch his smug face. Derek would. Derek would pop that fucker so fast.

  “Well, we’re not. I’m full up on friends.”

  “That’s a shame. Are you saying Ford isn’t your friend?”

  Callie opened her mouth to launch a snappy comeback about how people who blackmailed you were never categorized as friends, but t
hen remembered the time she’d seen severed fingers at Ford’s home and decided to fold her arms across her chest and glare instead. Silent malevolence was the way to go here. Probably.

  Nate’s grin sent the same snap of tightness across Callie’s nape that a haunted house clown would. “Well Ford considers you a friend and was hoping you might be interested in doing him a favor.”

  She’d thought she was done with these people.

  “I don’t have time. Tell him I’m sorry, but I can’t.”

  “What’s got you so busy that you don’t have time for Gem City’s favorite son?”

  Ford was more than a mobster. He was also the son of one of the most successful and wealthy men in Gem City . . . who was probably also a mobster. The family owned slaughterhouses, and Ford let word spread he was familiar with blades and a bone saw. Callie doubted that common thread was a coincidence.

  “I’m helping my brother sober up, for one, but also working two jobs.”

  “Yeah, we heard you’re now working for the Soul Charmer. Ford wouldn’t have sent you his way if he’d known you were going to align with him.”

  “I didn’t see it coming either,” she said more to herself.

  Nate took a step toward Callie, and she mirrored his movement in the opposite direction. She wasn’t about to let him get close enough to lay hands on her. That wouldn’t end well for anyone.

  “Ford would like to know more about the soul rental business. He thinks you could be a real asset to our team.”

  Callie’s stomach sank to the soles of her feet. She shuffled to the right a smidge to be sure she could still move. “I already have too many jobs. Sorry.”

  “You’d keep doing whatever it is you’re doing for the Soul Charmer, but just fill us in. No big.” The light behind Nate’s eyes said it sure as shit was big, and while a little part of her wanted to know why, a bigger part blasted that bad news warning to her brain like a powerful thunderstorm moving into her cerebellum.

  Maybe it was the mental jolt or maybe she was simply over being everybody’s pawn, but Callie balled her fingers into fists and took three hurried steps toward her car. She shoulder-checked Nate to get past and to her car door. An icy bolt shot down her arm so sharp and fast she’d almost believe it was God striking her for her repeated bad decisions—if she thought the Big Man really would smite people, which she didn’t.

  She’d reached the car and her escape, but her balled hands couldn’t open to grip the handle. She struggled to unclench her fists, but Nate crept closer behind her. In another circumstance she would have felt him hovering over her shoulder. She would have thought about jabbing her elbow back hard into his gut and running. Touching him wasn’t going to solve his situation. Running wouldn’t either. If there was anything she’d learned from her family it was running from your problems didn’t solve shit. It merely delayed the inevitable.

  She turned to face Nate. He didn’t acknowledge her struggle to open her hands. Even if the tendons and muscles in her forearms were screaming, at least she wasn’t visibly straining. She angled one arm closer to him though it ached from the prolonged freeze. She edged the tips of her fingers on the other hand outward a smidge.

  He leered down at her. Why did this guy have such a hang up with her? Maybe he was a douche nozzle with every woman in his presence, but there was something that reared that red-light warning in her belly when he stood mere inches from her, and it didn’t have fuckall to do with the magic locking her in ice or the fact he was missing tiny pieces of his soul. But maybe it could buy her time? Get her space? Get her out of there without more pain?

  Callie lifted her chin in far more of a “don’t even try it, asshole” act than in order to meet his gaze. Though, the move achieved both. “If your boss wants to know about renting souls, why don’t you just answer his questions?”

  The lurid glaze over Nate’s dark eyes evaporated. His black eyebrows knitted together tight enough to edge into uni-brow territory. “I ain’t working for the Soul Charmer, cupcake,” he said, but the illicit tone he’d leveraged before had fallen limp. Like a teenager bragging about having sex when he hadn’t even kissed a girl.

  “You rent them, don’t you? You can tell him about the process.” Callie kept her voice even. She slipped her left hand behind her, and while her fingers remained cold she was able to extend them completely. It hurt, but she moved them enough to be confident she could grip the door when the moment struck.

  This time Nate took a full step back from her. “Charmer tell you that?”

  A tiny tendril of glee tickled Callie’s throat. Nate was unnerved, and it was fucking fantastic. About time someone else was put on edge. She was pretty goddamn done with being the only one teetering on the cliff. “Does it matter how I know?”

  She took a half step backward, too, so her body grazed the side of her car and she now had breathing room between she and the mob henchman.

  “It matters,” he said under his breath. He turned to look away, but continued to speak, “Thought your man kept people’s secrets.”

  “He’s not my man, and I can’t speak to his secrets. Why would your boss care?” She’d adapted to avoiding Ford’s name. It helped her pretend she wasn’t talking to mobsters who had no compunction about disposing of bodies.

  Nate shrugged. Callie fingered the door handle. It wasn’t locked. The one time running late and not having anything worth stealing paid off. She could move enough to lift the handle now.

  “Doesn’t most of your team, crew, whatever, use rented souls? That’s kind of the point of them, right? No fingerprints, no DNA, no problems with the boys in blue.” The parking lot was empty of people and light on cars, but Callie pitched her voice low. It would make Nate feel like she cared about his privacy and would keep any of her coworkers from checking up on her if they heard her voice out here. Empty parking lots were like caverns at the right time of the day. Sound carried.

  Nate grumbled unintelligibly for a moment. His shoulders were pulled tight, like he ached to fold his arms and pout. Instead he rocked back onto his heels. “Yeah. Well, he has questions about how it works.”

  Callie took his moment of distraction to pivot. She quickly lifted the door handle, opened it, and slipped inside the safety of her car.

  Nate rushed to the door, too, but didn’t move to open it. Small favors. He rapped a single knuckle against the glass.

  She lowered the window an inch.

  “I have to get home. I have obligations,” Callie said with the full punch of the truth.

  “I’ll give you a couple days to think over Ford’s offer.”

  Callie was tempted to notify him saying “give me information” was not exactly an offer but wasn’t about to find herself negotiating with a guy who scared the shit out of her. She did that once before, and how her hands went into an icy death grip when she was standing by a heavy soul magic user. So, hard pass.

  Nate must be taking his vitamins, because it was like he read her mind. He gave her car a dramatic sidelong look. “Ford pays better than the Charmer. Keep that in mind.”

  He tapped twice on the top of her car with an open palm and walked away. He hadn’t really threatened her, but it still took her three tries to start the car. It had nothing to do with the POS engine.

  Callie rolled out of the parking lot without a destination. She should be going home. She should be checking in on Josh or at least finishing the paperback mystery she’d checked out from the library. Feeding both her and Josh left zero room for library fines, and she would not be okay until the book’s crime was solved and she knew who had done it.

  They needed groceries, too. The store wouldn’t be too crazy now, but she wasn’t in the mood for the mental math required to mete out the proper goods to feed them both and not kill her bank account. There was still cereal and milk in house, and she and Josh had existed on less for longer than a day when they were kids.

  Callie headed north. She could almost call it the long way home, if you consider
ed looping out near the airport so you could take dirt roads and avoid other cars and streetlights a way home. She needed to quit kidding herself. She had a few hours until she was due at the Charmer’s again, and she wanted to avoid people. All people. Those she liked, those she didn’t, those who would turn her hands icy and those who would threaten to chop them off if they didn’t get their ways. Not that Nate had even insinuated there would be slicing or dicing if she didn’t get Ford the information about the Charmer. She’d been to Ford’s house, though. He hadn’t been coy or ashamed by the severed fingers resting in the inbox pile on his desk. He’d wanted her to see them, and this was why. His henchman asked for a favor and she immediately assumed if she didn’t comply he’d take a digit or two.

  Nonverbal threats were the most effective for her anyway. Callie’s brain would sputter and whirl and spin the most terrifying scenarios. Whatever her mind could conjure would be the most detailed horror. More than whatever Nate could cobble together with a tenth-grade education.

  The sky was a pure, soft blue above her, but smudges of grey hovered above the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Callie dialed the car’s heat up a notch, as though she could already feel the ice and snow storming near Taos. Like she knew it would come down the mountain for her. Her hands already carried the weekend blizzard, but the storm that darkened the horizon chilled her core in an inescapable way. Whatever was coming was going to hurt.

  So Callie splurged on some hot chocolate from the McDonald’s drive-thru and drove twenty-five miles per hour along the gravel roads at the edges of Gem City while she drank it. Thirty minutes later she gave up and returned home and to her real life.

  Josh was still sleeping—or maybe sleeping again—when Callie got home. She flipped the deadbolt behind her and let out a long sigh of relief. She was home where zero gangsters were going to pop up and block her path to the refrigerator.