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?”