The Curse Servant (The Dark Choir Book 2) by J.P. Sloan Page B

age women whispered with each other and started scanning the book racks. Gillette exhaled and turned back to me.
    “I don’t want to know about your problems, Mister Lake.”
    This conversation was getting tiresome. “Well, you know what? You gave me little option but to fly out here on a short notice, so maybe you could spare me fifteen God damn minutes of your attention?”
    She glared at me for a long moment before laying her reader down gently on the table. She cradled her mug and repositioned herself to face me full-on.
    “Didn’t mean to get your tampon in a twist,” she grunted before taking a long sip of coffee. “Go ahead. Bore me.”
    “As I said, I have a particular problem. I signed my soul into a contract with a soul monger.”
    “Stupid.”
    “I had reasons.”
    “Your reasons were stupid.”
    “Anyway, before I could buy it back, he destroyed the contract.”
    “How do you know he destroyed it?”
    “He burned it in front of me. Out of spite.”
    Gillette smirked. “Sounds like a real son of a bitch.”
    “I’ve known more than a few. So, here I am. My soul’s been released into the ether, and I’m starting to see things. Moving shadows. Things haunting me in the corner of my vision. Same thing happened to my mentor, just before the shadows tore him limb from literal limb.”
    “Was that recent? I hadn’t heard about that.”
    “No. It was more than a decade ago.” I didn’t want to drop Emil’s name in front of this woman. There was a better than average chance she had heard about Emil at some point. “But the point is you lost a part of your soul once. And you found it again. At least that’s what I hear.”
    The door creek-jingled again. Gillette turned to watch as the college girls exited in a fit of conversation.
    “So you think you can apply my method to finding your soul? That’s what this is about?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Well, you would be correct.”
    I sat stunned for a moment. The confirmation came so quickly and matter-of-factly that I almost missed it.
    “I would?”
    “The laws of conservation are still in play at the interstitial plane.”
    “Interstitial?”
    “The void where ancient malevolence, daydreams and nightmares, and yes even misplaced souls abide. Your soul should be intact as long as it hasn’t been re-captured or consumed by something on the other side.”
    “Funny you should mention that.”
    “I figured as much.” She set down her now empty coffee cup and leaned back in her chair. “So what are you proposing?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “I know what you want. You want my method. My notes, perhaps. A deeply personal, but still not entirely un-embarrassing view into my struggles with soul magic. What are you offering in exchange?”
    I wilted in my chair. For whatever reason, I hadn’t thought to prepare to negotiate. I was expecting a more or less cooperative conversation. Instead, I was met with this mercenary frontier mentality, and I really should have known better.
    “I’m a hex and charm crafter by trade.”
    She snickered and shook her head. “Fuck me. You’re really going to try and impress me with charms and hexes? If I need to make a pretzel out of my own karma, I’m qualified to do it myself. So thank you, but what else you got?”
    I balked. The cedar fumes were getting to me. Either that, or I was so close to a real way to find my soul that I was getting desperate. I didn’t want to beg.
    “What did you have in mind?”
    She shook her finger at me. “You’re presenting yourself as weak. Bad idea. It would have been wiser to start with Curses, but if you want to bury your lead―”
    “Curses?”
    “You are a Curse Merchant, aren’t you?”
    “I―”
    “You took out Osterhaus with a simple and particularly nasty curse. A sly bit of Netherwork that pancaked him in so many tons of iron and cement. Not entirely uncalled for, considering he torched your soul contract, but still.”
    “I never told you his