Charmed (10 page)

“Bishop.” I push at his chest, panting for air. “I was doing something, you know.”

“More interesting than this?” he says, his voice husky. He nips at my earlobe, which is so not fair because he knows what that does to me. I almost give in and magic the door shut. But instead I climb off his lap, fighting the dizziness his kiss brought on.

“Yes. No. I mean, I was practicing my magic.”

He seems to sense the change in me and sits up straighter. “Something wrong?”

“No.” I pace over to the computer desk, then spin around to face him. “Well, yeah, actually, there is.”

His brow creases with concern.

“It’s just…I hate not being able to protect myself.”

“Oh,” he says. “What brought this on?”

I shake my head. “Nothing, really. I’ve just been thinking.”

He crosses the room in two long strides, drawing his arm around my shoulders. I can’t help melting into his touch, resting my head against his warm shoulder.

“Indie, you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

“Yeah? Well,
The Witch Hunter’s Bible
is still out there somewhere,” I say.

“Which isn’t a big deal because the Priory is decimated, remember?” He tucks my hair behind my ear. “No one’s going to come after you. Everything’s okay now.”

Anger flashes hot in my stomach, and I almost ruin my whole plan by yelling that everything is not okay—Paige is still missing.

“I know that,” I say instead. “But I just feel uncomfortable. Like, what if they come back. What if their numbers swell, or what if some lone sorcerer wants revenge on the witch who killed his people? I think…well, I think I’d just feel better if I knew how to defend myself.” I glance up at him. The way he looks at me is like I’m the most important thing in his world.

“This is really bothering you, isn’t it?” he says.

I bury my face in his chest. Guilt twists my stomach for manipulating him. This is Bishop—the guy who’s been there for me through thick and thin, through losing Mom and losing Paige, who held me all those nights while I cried myself to sleep. I must be seriously deranged to abuse his trust like this.

I consider ending the act right now—spilling everything about my trip to Los Demonios and the real reason that I want his help. Maybe hearing my theory will tip the balance in my favor? But terror that he’ll refuse to help me after he
knows what I plan to do with my new skills, or worse, that he’ll tell Aunt Penny, who will ship me off to witch boarding school, keeps my lips firmly sealed.

“Okay,” he says. “We’ll practice.”

I let myself smile then, guilt giving way to excitement.

“We can even start right now. What do you want to learn first?”

“How about throwing fireballs?” I answer too quickly.

Bishop gapes at me, and blood rushes to my face. I let out a nervous laugh. “Or we can start with conjuring objects. You know, in case I don’t have a weapon handy during an attack.”

“Conjuring is a good idea,” he says, once the shock has worn off. “It’s next on the list anyway.”

I give him what I hope looks like an innocent smile.

“Okay,” he says. “What’s been the most important principle you’ve learned so far about magic?”

“I didn’t know there’d be a test,” I say.

He grins. “Come on, you know this.”

I sigh. “Um, something about energy? That it can’t be created, just manipulated?”

“Exactly! So when moving objects you manipulate energy that already exists, and when flying you manipulate the air currents that already exist. When you conjure an object, you aren’t creating energy, but borrowing existing energy and using it to take the shape of the item you want. It’s pretty hard, but once you learn an object it’s easier each time to
make it appear again. I’m good at money.” He winks at me. “So what do you want to try?”

I blow out a breath, thinking of what could best fend off another Bat Boy attack in Los Demonios. “I don’t know. How about a gun?”

His nose scrunches up. “You don’t want to do that.”

“Why not? The purpose is to protect myself,” I reason.

“Because using a gun against a sorcerer more skilled than you is the surest way to get yourself killed. They’d just reverse the bullet direction and you’d shoot yourself. And anyway, that’s too complicated for your first attempt. A knife is smarter.”

“Well, a knife isn’t going to help me much. I’d have to get too close to use it. And plus, I feel kind of weird using a knife. After, you know…”

I don’t say the words aloud—that Mom was killed with a knife. But I don’t have to.

“Sorry, I didn’t think of that,” he says. “But we have lots of time to work up to something bigger. Let’s start simple.”

A memory flashes into my head. “I know! What about a shield? The day Frederick took my mom, he trapped me in some sort of invisible box so that I couldn’t try to go after them. Isn’t there something I can learn that works the same way, except keeps anything from coming in?”

“Easy, Tiger. You’re talking about top-level skills here.”

I sigh, my shoulders slumping.

“Relax,” Bishop says, shaking me lightly. “You don’t pick
up a guitar and right away play like Jimi Hendrix. You’ve got to start somewhere. Try a candle.”

I roll my eyes. What the hell can I do with a candle in Los Demonios? Cast some unflattering light on my enemies? But Bishop won’t take no for an answer, pulling my hands up in front of me. He turns me around so that his chest presses into my back, and speaks into my ear.

“Instead of pushing the energy down, away from you, like when you fly, feel around for it with your mind and bring it in front of you. The word for ‘candle’ is
candela
.”

I clear my head and stare at the middle distance. Since I’ve gotten better at flying, I’m more aware of the earth’s energy moving all around me. I can feel it in the warmth of the sun, hot and intense, and in the air, fast and thrumming. I can even feel it in inanimate objects—this dull, still presence. I focus on the energy in the room and try to pull it into me.

“Candela,”
I whisper.

But instead of a candle appearing, my bedroom attacks me. The clothes strewn across my floor, the papers and bottles of nail polish scattered all over my desk, the duvet on my bed, and even the curtains around my window fling themselves at me all at once. I have to cover my face as I’m pelted with my own stuff. I release the energy, and they fall to the carpet.

Bishop’s laughing.

“It’s not funny!” I cry, slapping his chest.

“And back to the violence,” he says through his laughter.

I cross my arms.

“Oh, don’t be so mad,” he says, trying his best to sober up. “Try it again.”

But my heart isn’t in making a stupid candle. I want to learn something helpful. I tap my foot, thinking.

“I’ve got it,” I say suddenly. “What about wind? Like I used that day on Jezebel. Say someone tries to attack me with an arrow or a bullet or anything that flies—I can knock it back with force.”

“Deadly wind,” he says. “Awesome, if we could figure out how you did it. Controlling the natural elements—the sun, the wind, et cetera—that’s not something we’re supposed to be able to do. I’ve researched this in everything I can get my hands on, but I can’t find anything to explain what you did. Hey, are you sure you didn’t do something else? Maybe Jezebel flew backward and you thought you pushed her with the wind?”

I glare at him.

“Okay, okay,” he says, hands held up defensively. “I believe you. I just don’t know how to help you with that. Maybe just try to simulate the situation. What were you feeling when it happened?”

“Anger,” I say, remembering that night. “But fear mostly. That she was going to hurt me.”

“Okay, so let’s try that.”

Except I’ve already tried. If I couldn’t summon it when a
massive bat was attacking me, I’m not sure anything Bishop could try on me now would help.

I dig my fingers into my scalp and pace around the room. I’m fully aware of how impatient and unreasonable I must appear to him, but Paige doesn’t have time for me to slowly improve. I need to get better, fast.

I can feel Bishop watching me. Finally, I turn to him again.

“Isn’t there some other way?” Desperation clings to my voice.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

I throw my hands up. “I don’t know. That I could learn faster?”

“You tried for like, two seconds,” he says. “You need to relax—”

“Don’t tell me to relax!” I yell. I feel guilty as soon as the words are out of my mouth, but seriously—who has ever actually relaxed when someone has said that?

“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just that since the moment I found out I was a witch I’ve been hunted. And my mom…I just want to get good at this fast. I don’t want to practice for weeks or months or years.”

I take a shaky breath. When I look at him, I know he sees the naked desperation in my eyes, and it makes me feel so exposed. I pace to the window and look out at Paige’s room. The curtains are up, and I can see the yellow paint on her walls. I wonder how long her parents will keep her room this way. When they’ll realize she’s not coming back. Whether
her room is going to become some shrine to the daughter they once had.

“This is really important to you?” Bishop asks.

I don’t answer. I can feel tears hot in my throat, and I don’t want to cry right now.

“There is something we can try,” Bishop finally says. His voice is dark, hinting at something dangerous.

I turn around.

He glances at the door as if to confirm Aunt Penny isn’t listening in, and then crosses over to me. “There’s this spell,” he whispers. “I heard my uncle talking about it once.”

I nod, urging him to continue.

“You know how scientists say that humans use only ten percent of their brain’s capacity at any given moment? Well, it’s the same thing for us. Even the most powerful witches and warlocks on the planet use only a small portion of the power that’s available to them. The rest is there, but you can’t access it all at the same time.”

“And this spell gives you access?” I ask, hope blooming in my chest.

“For a short time, if you can do it.”

“So why didn’t you teach this to me ages ago?” I ask. “It’s not like we’ve been short on occasions where it would have been helpful.”

“Well, mostly because I like my girlfriends alive,” he says. “I mean, I may not have been too discriminating in the past, but I do draw the line at necrophilia.”

I shake my head. “What are you even talking about?”

“It’s dangerous,” he says. “Like,
very
dangerous. We’re talking about black magic, Ind.”

A shiver moves down my spine. “Dangerous? How so?”

“Because black magic comes with a price.”

“Well, that’s vague,” I answer.

“All that power can be too”—he waves a hand absently, as if searching for a way to explain—“too overwhelming for your brain, I guess. It can put you out of your mind. It’s just ugly, okay? Let’s stop talking about it. It was a bad idea. Are you hungry? I could really go for—”

“Wait a minute,” I interrupt. “How do you know about all this?”

“From the
So You’re a Warlock
pamphlet the Family gave me on my sixteenth birthday.” I kick him in the shin. “My uncle’s friend tried it,” he amends. “He was a warlock with twenty years of practice under his belt, and he ended up setting himself on fire. Don’t ask me how. Another guy got himself admitted to a mental hospital.”

“Really?” I ask, disbelieving.

“Opening those pathways in your brain is dangerous. But that’s not the worst part. There’s a price you pay when you do black magic. It could be big, it could be small, but the point is, you don’t know what it will be, or how badly it will affect you. Most people just know better than to try. It’s not worth the risk.”

I chew the inside of my cheek as I consider. I’m willing
to try anything, but I have to admit that becoming a burn victim or mental patient does give me a bit of pause.

“But you said it’s for only a short time, right?” I ask.

“A couple of hours,” he says.

“And you’d be there helping me. I mean, you wouldn’t let me do anything stupid. Your uncle’s friend was probably alone when he tried the spell—you wouldn’t let me burn. You’d help me.”

“Listen, I shouldn’t have mentioned it—” he starts.

“Don’t be like that,” I interrupt. “When I met you, you were fun and spontaneous. Aren’t you even curious about it?”

It’s a low blow, and I feel a pang of guilt.

He looks at me for a long time, fingering the chunky silver ring engraved with the Roman numeral one that’s on his middle finger. I wish I could erase the look on his face—like he’s considering doing something he really doesn’t want to do just to make me happy. But I need this. I can feel how close he is to agreeing.

He keeps twisting the ring around. The ring that, given to Bishop by his mother on her deathbed, gave him extra lives and saved him from dying in the swamp after Leo stabbed him not long ago. Now it’s just a chunk of useless metal. I wonder why he still wears it.

“Fine,” he finally says. But when he smiles, it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’ll ask my uncle about it tonight.”

I smile back. “Or how about right now?”

B
ishop drums his hands on the steering wheel to a punk-rock song blasting from the speakers. His leather jacket is pushed up to his elbows, revealing part of the sleeve of colorful tattoos on his right arm. The setting sun glints off his aviator sunglasses and makes the dark hair around his jaw shine copper.

I smile at my sexy boyfriend. In fact, if I weren’t on my way to try out black magic that could set me on fire if it doesn’t send me to a mental hospital first, I’d probably tell him to pull over right now so we could make out.

Cars whiz past on the freeway. Houses and shops slowly give way to desert the farther we get from L.A.
I had to lie to Aunt Penny and say I had cheerleading practice to score myself a few hours of free time after school. If she weren’t so overwhelmed by the influx of Halloween shoppers down at the Black Cat, I’m sure she would have noticed that it was a Wednesday, and we only practice on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And, ya know, that I’m not a cheerleader anymore.

Double score that the shop has extended hours and doesn’t close until ten tonight, giving me a bit of extra time before I have to be home.

“So where are we going anyway, Antarctica?” I ask.

Bishop grins. “We’re almost there.”

A noise from the backseat makes me jump. I swing around. An old army-green canvas backpack I didn’t notice before lies across the faded red leather seat. I can distinctly make out the shape of a box inside the backpack.

“What’s in there?” I ask.

“You’ll see.”

The backpack shakes, and I nearly leap out of my skin. “It moved!” I shriek.

Bishop glances at me, his eyebrows pinched together. “If you’re that scared when it’s inside the bag, I’m not sure how you’re going to do this spell.”

I want to demand that he tell me what the hell is in the bag already, but I’m determined to prove that I’m not a wuss, so I pointedly turn around and don’t look back even when the bag rocks so violently I have to bite down on my lip to keep from yelping.

A half hour ticks by on the dashboard clock. Soon, we come to a massive mountain range topped with bright green trees that go on for as far as the eye can see. A big sign that reads
ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST
passes by on the left.

Bishop turns off onto a dirt road.

“Isn’t this a popular area for hikers?” I ask. “I thought the point was privacy.”

“Yeah, it’s popular,” he answers. “But haven’t you heard of all the dead bodies they find dumped here?”

Um. What the hell do dead bodies have to do with our excursion?

Bishop catches the apprehension on my face and explains. “Some of the places in these mountains are so remote you’re unlikely to ever pass another human, unless they wandered off the paths or got lost or something.”

Joy. Glad we cleared that up.

Bishop pulls into a small lot in front of a little white information building. He reaches into the backseat and pulls out a pair of knee-high rubber boots. “Put these on,” he says. “I’ll just be a minute.”

“Shouldn’t I be wearing hiking boots?” I ask as he climbs out of the car.

“You need these,” he says.

He closes the door before I can protest further, leaving me alone in the car with the mystery bag and a lot of questions. I can’t get out of there fast enough.

Outside, a cool breeze makes goose bumps rise on my bare
arms. It’s at least a few degrees cooler than when we left the house an hour ago. The scent of turned soil and pine trees fills the air, and insects chirp loudly within the thick tree cover. I kick off my wedge sandals and slip into the rain boots.

Bishop’s back in a moment, carrying two hiking passes on lanyards. He reaches into the backseat and pulls out the backpack, then slips the straps over his shoulders. He links arms with me, and we set off into the forest.

We walk for a while on a wide path dotted with educational signs about the flora of the Angeles National Forest, but it’s not long before Bishop pulls us off the path and the easy hike ends. Trees press in on either side of us, branches clawing at my bare skin as we climb over exposed tree roots and boulders. The boots are a half size too big, and they chafe against my heels as they slip up and down. It’s slow and exhausting work.

“How far do we have to go?” I ask.

“Not much farther. We didn’t see anyone on the trail, so I think we’re pretty safe.”

Finally, Bishop stops in a little clearing.

“Dear God, tell me we’re here,” I pant.

“This is good enough,” he answers.

The sun is low enough now that what little light penetrates through the trees casts ominous shadows and makes the tree trunks look like skeletons in a graveyard.

Bishop shrugs out of his backpack, then starts walking around with his head down, kicking aside fallen leaves.

“What are you looking for?”

“A stick,” he answers. He picks up a thick, ropy branch from the forest floor. Before I can ask what he needs it for, he starts carving a pattern into the dirt. The carving starts to take the shape of a large circle with seemingly random lines inside it—though I’m sure they’re anything but random. I watch quietly as he works, my arms wrapped around myself to fend off the cold.

He stands up finally, a layer of sweat on his forehead. Satisfied, he tosses the branch aside, then crosses back to the bag. My heart is in my throat as he reaches around inside the backpack, but he only pulls out an intricately carved black candle.

“Here,” he says, passing it to me. I take it, inspecting the swirling design in the cold wax.

“And this,” he says.

I look down to see the hilt of an athame—a ceremonial dagger, like the ones sold at the Black Cat—held out to me. My stomach does a nervous flip, but I try not to let it show as I grab the handle. The dagger is much heavier than I expected, the ruby-encrusted gold hilt and five-inch blade glinting in the fading light.

Bishop reaches into the bag again and pulls out a small burlap satchel, tied at the top with twine. He returns to the circle drawn in the dirt.

“Salt,” he explains as he opens the burlap bag. He does
a slow walk around the circle, the bag tipped over so that white crystals fall in a steady stream over the lines in the dirt.

When the bag is empty, Bishop crumples it up and stuffs it into his pocket. He kneels by the backpack, then pauses to look up at me. There are deep lines in his forehead, and his dark eyes are tense with worry.

“You sure you want to do this?” he asks. “Remember, black magic comes with a price.”

I shiver at his words, but I’m willing to do anything to help Paige. “I have to try it,” I say.

He sighs, like he was really hoping I would change my mind. “You can stop anytime,” he says. I don’t breathe as he pulls the canvas down around the base of a small glass tank. A flash of movement inside the tank makes me take an involuntary step back. Bishop pulls on a pair of gardening gloves, which does nothing to dispel the fear rippling through me, and then opens the lid of the tank. He plunges his hands inside, then pulls out a two-foot-long snake.

“Holy crap!” I scramble away from him. “What the hell is that for?”

He stands carefully, the snake wriggling in his grasp. Its scales are the deep blue color of the sky at midnight, so dark they almost look wet. Red eyes glow from the snake’s triangular head; a forked tongue hisses from a jaw full of spiked teeth. I haven’t had many run-ins with snakes in the
past, but the ones I’ve seen didn’t look like this. I doubt he picked it up at the local pet shop.

“Where’d you get that?” I ask, not taking my eyes from the snake’s liquid scales.

“Irena hooked me up,” he says.

Oh, just his insanely beautiful friend. Hooking him up.

“When you’re ready, get inside the circle,” he says.

Fear courses through me, but I hop into the circle. I expect to feel different being inside its lines, but I don’t.

Bishop steps closer. His wary eyes never leave the snake as he holds it as far from his body as possible. The snake, for its part, looks like it doesn’t want to be close to him either, recoiling like Bishop is the predator and not the other way around.

“The Bloodhound can smell the supernatural in our blood,” Bishop explains, as if reading my mind. “They’re more scared of us than we are of them.”

Speak for yourself, buddy.

“But that doesn’t mean they’re not dangerous,” he continues. “One bite from this sucker can knock you out for hours, if not days. But it won’t try to attack you unless it feels threatened.”

My heart races as Bishop approaches with the squirming blue-black mass. “So what do I do to make it feel unthreatened?” I ask.

He glances up at me, an eyebrow arched high.

“What?” The dagger feels heavy in my hand all of a sudden. “No, Bishop….” I back up.

“I said you can stop anytime,” he says.

“You want me to kill it?” I croak, like saying it out loud will make it untrue somehow.

“Blood sacrifice is the foundation of black magic,” he explains.

“Kill an animal? That’s so wrong.” My voice sounds thick, my stomach abruptly uneasy.

“I never said it would be pleasant. Listen, Indie, I can put it away. Don’t think just because we came out here that you have to go through with this. We can go home right now. I’ll help you practice every day after school and all day on weekends. There isn’t a rush.”

The offer is tempting. I don’t think I can kill a living creature, and I definitely don’t want to. But as soon as that thought crosses my mind, I think of Paige. Of her unflinching loyalty and crazy-confident smile. She’s in that place, facing down demons a million times worse than a snake. I need to do this for her.

“What do I do?” I ask, impressed that my voice comes out so sure, not at all the way I feel inside.

“You need to cut its head clean off.”

I feel like I’m going to hurl, but I give a minute shake of my head before Bishop gets any more ideas that I want to stop.
I can do this
, I tell myself. I can kill this mother-effing snake.

“When I put it inside the circle, it’ll be trapped by the salt,” he explains. “The trick is to kill it before it gets a chance to bite you.”

The circle, which had felt so large to me when Bishop was digging it, feels unbearably small now.

“You remember the words we practiced in the car?” he asks.

I nod.

“Okay,” he says, bending down carefully. He looks at my left hand, which clutches the candle, and a flame bursts to life at the end of the wick. He leans into the circle, still firmly gripping the snake, then looks up at me for confirmation.

And then he lets go.

The snake slithers frantically over the leaves. I let out a yelp and jump back, my heels pressed up against the white lines behind me. The snake zips straight for the opposite side of the circle, but when it hits the salt, it lets out a hiss and its scales smoke as if burned. It’s even more panicked now than before, darting around randomly desperate for a way out. I brace myself, trying to match its movements. I super wish I didn’t have a massive bandage hindering my knife-wielding arm right now, making it hard to bend. Sweat slicks my palms, the knife cold in my grasp. My chest is so tight with terror I can’t get a good breath.

“One firm hit,” Bishop calls. “That’s your best bet.”

I leap out of the way as the snake darts past me.

Just do it, Indie. Do it for Paige
.

I grip the knife tighter and focus on the snake flashing around the circle. I raise the knife over my head, then bring it down with all my might. It
thunks
into something solid, which sends a painful vibration through my injured arm. At first I think I’ve done it, but when I look down I see the knife is lodged in the earth. A hiss sounds behind me.

“Behind you!” Bishop yells.

I yank the knife out of the ground and spin around, holding the blade out in front of me. The snake has used the strength of its long tail to rise up. Its red eyes glow fiercely, its jaw opened wide to reveal sharp fangs and a flicking forked tongue.

It is pissed. Off.

It lunges at me. I duck just quick enough to avoid getting bit but not to avoid its scales from brushing against my arm. I let out a cry.