Charmed, page 4
“Wanna make out first?” he says into my ear in a corny soap-actor voice. I give him a playful punch on the shoulder that almost knocks him over. “Right. Later, then. The goal of the ceremony is to invoke the energy of the person we’re trying to locate. The personal item allows the magic to focus on the correct person.”
“Did you get that from your cue card?” I ask.
“I thought we were being serious,” he answers.
I motion that I’m zipping my lips.
“According to my cue card,” he continues, “the witch or warlock should put their hands to the cauldron and summon all their magic inside it while chanting the spell. If done correctly, an image should appear inside the cauldron of the location of the missing person.” He looks at me, going off script. “You could probably do it by yourself, but I figured you might need the boost since you’re new. I hope you don’t mind.”
I smile at my boyfriend; he could be doing anything in the world right now, and he chooses to be with me, doing everything in his power to help me find my best friend. I interlock my fingers with his. He gives me a small smile, and we put our hands onto the cold metal of the cauldron.
“I feel like a real witch,” I whisper.
Bishop hisses at me to be quiet, suddenly all business.
I call the heat. Maybe it’s the candles—which Bishop says are like an energy drink for witches—but my magic bursts to life inside my stomach almost before it’s a thought in my head, burning like a hot oven in my body, making me delirious. A thrill passes through my veins as the heat surges down to my fingertips. The sound of busy Melrose Avenue traffic becomes muted by the thumping heartbeat in my ears.
And then I close my eyes and concentrate, because moving my magic outside of my body has always been the trickiest part.
“Inveniere Paige Abernathy,” Bishop says, his voice loud in the quiet shop.
I join in.
“Inveniere Paige Abernathy. Inveniere Paige Abernathy.” Our voices sync, and beneath my hands I feel the cauldron vibrate slightly with our combined force. It’s working!
Bishop shifts beside me. I open my eyes to find him kneeling over the cauldron. I follow his lead and peer inside.
Nothing but the swirling black sludge.
“What happened?” I ask. “It seemed like it was working.”
Bishop pulls out his note and scans the directions. “We didn’t miss anything.” He shoves the paper back in his pocket and grabs hold of the sides of the cauldron again. “Come on,” he says, nodding me into action.
We repeat the words. Just like last time, the cauldron hums to life under our touch. And just like last time, the spell doesn’t work.
“I don’t get it,” Bishop says.
I slump back onto my butt, disappointment weighting my heart. “Maybe we did it wrong,” I say listlessly. “Maybe that was a bunk mushroom.”
“The mushroom was fine. We did it right.” His tone leaves no room for argument, but still, he scans the directions again.
“Maybe it’s the violin,” he says. “Can you think of anything more personal to Paige?”
“This is her prized possession. There’s nothing better in the world.”
“Then I don’t get it,” he says. “It doesn’t make sense.” He continues to examine his note and mumble to himself, while I sit in silence, feeling dead inside. We’re back to square one. The realization that we might not ever find Paige makes tears prick my eyes. I should never have gotten Paige involved. Never asked for her help. It was selfish. Unbelievably selfish and awful and—
“I know someone we can talk to,” Bishop finally says.
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.”
5
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.
