Charmed (5 page)

I skip out of school after homeroom the next day. I’ve figured out that if I make it to roll call, then I won’t trigger the automated message to my house that I’ve missed class. Sure, someone will eventually call home personally and Aunt Penny will catch on that I haven’t really been going to school, but it buys me some time. And that’s all I need right now.

As I slip outside I try not to think about the mountains of homework I’m behind on and the upcoming math test that I’m going to epically fail. I have to shield my eyes from the glaring morning sun to scan the school property for Bishop. From literally a mile away, across the huge expanse of lawn,
I spot his Mustang, pulled up to the curb. It’s hard to miss, with the bright yellow racing stripe across the body of the cherry-red muscle car.

I make a dash across the lawn, lest someone notice I’m fleeing and try to stop me. Bishop guns the engine as I near. I make throat-cutting gestures at him, but that only makes him laugh. I swing open the door and fall into the bucket seat, ducking my head low while Bishop peels away.

He pumps a fist out the window. “See you in our dust, suckas!”

“Would you stop it? This is serious.” I can’t help but laugh as I sit up, though. Dude could make crocheting doilies fun.

“So where are we going?” I ask, looking out the window as we zip past the palm trees that line the road.

“Venice Beach.”

I scrunch up my face.

“It’s where the Black Market is,” Bishop says. “A street market for magic.”

“At the boardwalk?”

“Yep.” He turns up the volume on the radio so that an eighties punk-rock song blasts through the speakers. He sings along absently while we merge into the bumper-to-bumper traffic on the freeway.

It’s hotter than usual for so early in the morning, and the sun beats down through the windshield. By the time we get to Venice Beach and Bishop parks, my legs are stuck to the leather seats and it’s actually painful to get out of the car.

But Venice Beach doesn’t disappoint. The ocean is impossibly blue, and the beach stretches for miles, white-as-snow sand crammed with so many people that they look like ants converging on a three-day-old half-eaten cookie. The boardwalk itself is just as busy, swarming with people in various states of undress, skateboarders and cyclists darting through the foot traffic. Vibrant blue, green, and pink low-roofed shops and booths face the water, filling up every possible square inch of retail space. The guitar riffs and drumbeats of street performers filter down from the market, and seagulls caw and circle overhead, periodically diving low to snatch at food or crap on someone’s head. The scent of deep-fried food and suntan lotion hangs heavy in the air.

“This way,” Bishop says, hooking his arm through mine. We hike over to the boardwalk. Before long we’re dodging Jesus prophets and skateboarders, weaving through a crowd gathered around a guy swallowing fire and another walking on six-foot-high stilts. An outsider might be convinced this is a magic market, but not me.

I stop. A few beats later, Bishop notices I’m not following him and turns around.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

“I don’t see a magic market here.” I don’t worry that I said it out loud and people might have heard. It’d hardly make me the weirdest person here today.

“That’s right,” he says, grinning, so his eyes crinkle up
adorably at the corners. I get the distinct feeling I’m missing something. I look around, but the scene is the same as moments before.

Bishop comes up behind me and puts his hands on my shoulders. His chest presses into my back as he leans down to speak into my ear.

“What do you see?” he asks. His lips graze my skin and a flash of heat involuntarily shoots down into my stomach.

I clear my throat. “Uh, I see a man who probably shouldn’t be wearing a Speedo.” He says nothing, so I continue. “I see a lot of overpriced souvenirs, a lot of mindless commercialism…um, a lot of palm trees?”

“Close your eyes,” he says. I huff and do as he says. “Now repeat after me.
Videre, videre, videre
.”

“Videre, videre, videre,”
I repeat.

“Now look again. And this time,
really
look.”

I open my eyes. An entire row of booths has sprung up across from the existing, familiar ones, creating a narrow street market.

If I thought this place was weird before…

A woman walks past me, her hair so long it drags like a veil on the littered pavement. Four little people dressed in period clothing chant around a bonfire in the street that sends curls of smoke and dust into the sky. A bald man wearing absolutely not a stitch of clothing presses long needles into his stomach like no one’s watching—which they aren’t—and
a woman walks past with an owl perched on her shoulder, muttering to herself in a clipped accent. The smell of exotic spices and farm animals fills my nose.

“Come on,” Bishop says. He leads me farther into the land of the freaks.

I take a closer look at the booths—one has what appears to be raccoons hung from the rafters by their tails. A sign outside reads
SACRIFICES
. Another booth sells bottles and fluted vases in various sizes and colors, another one carries creepy porcelain dolls, and I don’t even want to know what the booth swathed in rich, black velvet with only a picture of a human skeleton on the outside sells. A rooster crows close by. I recoil as a flash of white feathers runs past chased by an irritated old woman in a beaded gown. If it weren’t for the fat guy in the Speedo, who walks past a fortune-teller’s booth without so much as a glance at the Morticia Addams look-alike calling to him, I’d swear we’d been transported to a market in the 1600s.

“No one can see this?” I ask, despite it being obvious. I myself couldn’t see it just moments before.

“Just us magical folk,” Bishop says. He keeps a brisk pace, and I hurry to keep close to his side.

“Cat bones!” a woman calls. “Ten for ten. Cheapest in town.” She leans out from her booth as we pass. “Won’t find cheaper anywhere. Ten for ten. Okay, ten for five. Cat bones. Ah, whatever.” She gives up on us and slumps back onto her stool.

I try not to make eye contact with any of the vendors after that, lest they think I’m interested in their wares. I stick close to Bishop, stopping myself from clinging to his arm only because it’s not the 1920s and feminism and whatnot.

He squints into the booths as we pass, mumbling.

“What are we looking for?” I ask.

“Irena,” he answers. “She’s a genius. If anyone knows anything about why the locating spell isn’t working, it’d be her.”

I shrug. I doubt Bishop’s friend is going to be able to help, but I can tell he feels like he failed me with the spell, so for him, I go along with it.

A nagging feeling that someone is watching me begins to tickle at my brain. I try to ignore it, but it’s too hard to resist casting a look around. My eyes catch on a woman three booths down. Her wrinkled skin is the palest I’ve ever seen on a living person, so fair I can see the blue river of veins beneath it. Her eyes are circled with dark shadows, as though she hasn’t slept in a century, and her gray hair is thinning to the point I might call her balding.

And she’s staring right at me.

A thousand people on the boardwalk, and she’s staring straight at me. I suck in a little breath, my heart hammering in my chest.

Bishop notices the focus of my attention and draws a protective arm around me, pulling me against him as he walks steadily through the crowd. I crane my neck to watch the
woman until we get too far away to see her clearly. A chill shudders through me.

“Finally,” Bishop says.

He pulls me up to a tent draped in dark purple beaded silk. A sign out front reads simply
IRENA
’
S
. Bishop draws back the curtain, and I almost have a coronary right there.

Based on what I’ve seen of the Black Market so far, I expected Irena to be a creepy old woman, possibly fat and goitered. Instead, I find a drop-dead-gorgeous girl whose pale blue eyes contrast sharply with smooth skin the color of a Werther’s Original. Her lips are red-stained and sensual, and a mane of shiny dark hair tumbles in thick waves over a chest busting out of her corset gown. She sits gracefully on a ruby-red cushion surrounded by candles, looking like an Egyptian princess. Of course this is Bishop’s friend.
Of course
.

“Bishop!” she purrs, climbing to her feet. I give him the side eye. He shrugs and sends me a look that distinctly says “What? Don’t blame me!” as she draws him into a warm hug. She seems to notice me for the first time over his shoulder, and dismisses me with a cool glance.

It’s not exactly like I fell out of the ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down, but next to Irena I can’t help feeling like my every flaw is on display—Afroed hair, practically no boobs, knobby knees. I have to wonder just what Bishop sees in me when he’s got girls like Irena and Jezebel fawning all over him. I can feel my bottom lip jutting out farther by the second.

“I heard the news about the Priory,” Irena says into his neck before finally releasing him from her clutches. “Everyone’s been talking about it.”

“Actually, that’s why we’re here,” Bishop says.

“Oh?”

“I have reason to believe—” He stops and grabs my hand, interlocking our fingers. I feel a burst of happiness and can’t help smiling as Irena looks down at our joined hands. I swear I can actually see her hormones snuff out.

“
We
have reason to believe our friend was kidnapped by the Priory before they were killed,” Bishop finishes.

“That
is
a problem,” she says disinterestedly. “So you want to find her?”

Duh. Genius, my ass.

“We’ve tried a locating spell and it didn’t work.”

“And you used a deeply personal possession?” she asks.

“Yes,” Bishop answers.

“And you’re sure it’s personal?” she asks, falling heavily back onto her cushion, like the pretty-pretty-princess act was only for when Bishop was available. “Because that’s important.”

“Yes, I’m sure,” I cut in, annoyed. Like I don’t know my best friend.

“And you did the spell correctly?” she asks.

“Yes,” Bishop says, matching my annoyed tone.

“Then there’s only one place she could be.” She locks eyes with me for the first time since we entered her tent. “And it’s not on earth.”

I
can’t breathe. Paige can’t be dead. She can’t be.

“What’s her problem?” Irena asks, looking at me as though I’m an animal behaving in a strange yet fascinating way.

“She thinks you’re saying her best friend is dead,” Bishop answers before turning to me to interpret. “That’s not what she meant.”

My head spins so fast I can’t form words.

Irena rolls her eyes. “Even if your friend were dead, you could summon her voice. If you can’t summon her at all it means she’s not on this earth, in this dimension.”

I try to grasp her words, but it’s like she’s speaking another language. What I do register is this: Paige isn’t dead. I
suck in a breath, feeling my lungs expand enough that I can finally take in a good breath.

“She doesn’t know about Los Demonios?” Irena asks Bishop.

“She only just had her two hundredth moon,” he says defensively. “And lots has happened since then.” He turns to me. “There’s another dimension.”

“Yeah, I got that,” I say, just to remind everyone that I’m not, in fact, an invalid. “Los Demonios. And you think Paige could be there?”

“That can’t be,” Bishop responds. “Why would the Priory bring her there? They kidnapped her for leverage. What would be the point if they couldn’t get her out after?”

Irena shrugs, playing with the ends of her hair. “I don’t pretend to understand sorcerers.”

“Wait a minute,” I say, stepping around Bishop. “What’s this about not getting her out?”

Irena looks at Bishop. I know instantly that whatever she’s going to say next isn’t going to be good.

“This other dimension—” she starts.

“Not just anyone can go there,” Bishop interrupts. “In fact, most people would never want to go there.”

“Why?” I ask, though I’m not sure I want to know. Nerves skitter in my stomach, making bile rise up my throat.

Bishop looks as though he’s searching for the right words.

“It’s a prison,” Irena blurts. “Los Demonios is an alternate dimension of Los Angeles where the most evil and
murderous witches and sorcerers are sent after they’ve been convicted for a crime.”

A dimension filled with evil paranormals? And Paige is there? To think that just moments before I thought it was good news when Irena said she wasn’t dead.

“Oh God, why?” I whine.

“Because they couldn’t be sent to regular jail,” Irena answers, with a dismissive flick of her hair, misinterpreting my lament as a question. “They’d just magic themselves free.”

Bishop drags a stool over and sits me down, and I put my head between my knees the way Mr. Johnson made the kid do when he almost fainted after we’d dissected a pig in Biology last year. It doesn’t help; my head spins so fast it makes me dizzy. It’s because of me that Paige is in Los Demonios. Because she’s my friend that she’s in unspeakable amounts of danger. She must be losing her mind with fear.

“How do we get her out?” I finally ask.

They’re both silent. The sounds of the boardwalk filter inside the tent.

“How do we get her out?” I yell.

“Indie,” Bishop says, and the way he says it is like an apology. “Los Demonios isn’t like prison here. There are no appeals, no time off for good behavior.”

“What is that supposed to mean? She’s not a criminal!”

Irena heaves an annoyed sigh. “The portal to LD goes only one way. Once you’re in, you’re in. And you’re not getting out unless someone from the outside lets you out.”

“We’ll let her out, then!”

“Indie, only top-level Family members know where the portal is. Even my uncle has no idea where it could be, and he’s been in the Family for two decades.”

“So we’ll talk to them. Once the Family realizes what happened…”

I trail off. I almost got slaughtered a couple of weeks ago because of the Family. Their sole concern in life is to protect
The Witch Hunter’s Bible
so they can continue to dominate the paranormal world. They aren’t going to suddenly grow hearts and give me access to a top-secret paranormal prison just because one human life is in danger.

“We’ll find out where the portal is, then,” I say.

“Good luck,” Irena says. “People have been searching for that thing for centuries. You’re not the first person to want to break someone out of the clink.”

I let out a strangled moan, despair and frustration breaking me down. “You can’t tell me there’s no way!”

Bishop pulls me against him, and I dissolve into tears.

I flip down the rearview mirror. Yep, just like I thought. I look like crap warmed over. My eyes are red-rimmed and puffy, and pretty much any makeup I had on when I left the house this morning has been washed away, revealing a nose and cheeks that would make an alcoholic jealous.

Sighing, I flip the mirror up and grab my bag from the passenger seat. If I get upstairs quickly and quietly enough, Aunt Penny won’t see my bedraggled appearance and start asking questions.

I climb the steps to the house, making as little noise as humanly—or witchly—possible. But when I open the door Aunt Penny is standing at the foot of the stairs, both hands squarely on her hips as she gives me the bored/exasperated expression that moms are famous for.

“Where have you been?” she asks.

Awesome.

“Did you practice that in front of the mirror?” I answer, stepping inside and pulling the door closed.

“Don’t change the subject. I got a call from the school today. You skipped out after homeroom.”

Damn. That was sooner than I expected. I mentally run through a few plausible excuses.

“I want the truth,” she says, as if reading my mind.

I toss my bag onto the stairs and look Aunt Penny straight in the eye. “I was searching for Paige. You know, my best friend who went missing?”

She pinches the bridge of her nose.

“But no worries,” I continue. “We found out where she is: Los Demonios. Ever heard of it?”

Her eyes widen.

“So as you can imagine, school isn’t really a big priority
right now. Every second Paige is in Los Demonios, she’s at risk.”

“Los Demonios? Wow. I mean, wow. I can’t believe it. That’s just…” Aunt Penny shakes her head, at a loss for words.

My shoulders relax a fraction at her unexpected response. Maybe she’s going to be reasonable about this after all. Maybe she can even help—she probably knows a lot about the place, having been a member of the Family in the past.

“So basically all afternoon we’ve been trying to come up with ways to infiltrate the place,” I say. “Nothing so far, but we will come up with something. Any ideas?”

Aunt Penny looks up quickly. “Infiltrate?”

“Well, yeah,” I answer, laughing dryly. “We’re not going to just leave Paige in a place full of murderers.”

“Indie,” she says, taking a step closer. “No one who’s gone into Los Demonios has ever come out.”

A chill passes through me hearing those damning words again, but I pretend her comment hasn’t ruffled me. “Maybe nobody’s tried hard enough. I mean, of course nobody wants to go there under
normal
circumstances.”

She closes the gap between us at such a clip I take a step back. She’s right in my face, looking at me with a fiery intensity in her eyes that I’ve never seen before. It’s a bit scary.

“You can’t go there,” she says, spittle flying out of her mouth. “You
won’t
go there.”

So much for the theory of Aunt Penny helping.

“I
can
go there,” I answer, meeting her gaze. “And I will.”

She throws her hands in the air and looks around, as if seeking support from the Mexican knickknacks littered across the living room. “You’ll get yourself killed!” she yells. “You don’t know this place. I do. The fact that you’re even thinking about going there is insane. You’ll die!”

And Paige is there. Rather than persuading me not to try, Aunt Penny’s comments only bolster my resolve to do anything necessary to get to Los Demonios.

“I knew you wouldn’t understand,” I say. “You were happy to stand back when your own family was in danger.”

It’s a low blow, and her lip wobbles like a toddler about to cry. But I was done feeling sorry for her a long time ago.

“I’m out of here,” I say, turning away before her tears have a chance to change my mind.

“Wait!” she calls to my back. I bound down the front steps toward my car, then peel out of the driveway.