Unbreakable (10 page)

“Heads up, Luke.” Jared tossed his brother the crossbow followed by a ripped cardboard box. Lukas opened the box without a word and examined the pointed projectiles. They looked more like long bullets than like arrows.

“Cool, huh?” Priest said. “Cold-iron bolts. I made them a few days ago.”

“Why does the iron need to be cold?” I asked.

“That’s what they call it when you hammer iron into shape without heating it.” Priest opened a box of nails and
loaded a nail gun. “Spirits hate the stuff. It destroys them or burns like hell, depending on how strong they are.”

“Got it.” I pointed at the nails scattered around him. “Cold iron?”

“You’re catching on.”

Lukas loaded the remaining bolts and filled one of his pockets with salt. His cuff slid up and a thin layer of salt dusted his wrist. There was a black design on his skin.

“Is that a tattoo?” I asked.

Priest glanced at Lukas.

Lukas followed my eyes to his wrist and pulled down his sleeve. “It’s nothing.”

“So what’s the plan?” Priest asked as he handed Jared the nail gun.

Jared dumped a handful of nails into the pocket of his army jacket. “Lukas and Alara can check out the house. We’ll take the tower.”

“Let me guess? I can monitor the paranormal activity.” Priest sounded disappointed.

Jared checked the trigger on the weapon. “It’s an important job.”

Priest shoved a handheld device that looked like a radio into one of his back pockets and tucked a calculator in the other.

“Planning to do your math homework in the haunted house?” I teased.

Priest perked up. “I wouldn’t need one for my homework, but they’re good for lots of other stuff.” He walked over and stood beside Jared. Lukas and Alara were already standing together.

“Who am I going with?” I asked.

The four of them looked at one another. No one reacted except Priest, who immediately put on his headphones.

“Nobody,” Jared finally answered. “You’re staying here.”

Andras was responsible for my mother’s death. If there was a weapon capable of destroying him, I wanted to help them find it. “I’m going with you.”

Jared pushed past me without a word and disappeared around the side of the van.

I was right on his heels. “You think if you ignore me, I’ll just wait out here? I don’t care—”

He whipped around. “I’m not letting you go in that house.”

“It’s not your decision to make.”

Jared’s eyes clouded over and met mine. “It is if there’s a vengeance spirit in there.…”

“You’ve been trying to convince me that this is my destiny or my duty, or whatever your parents told you guys to make you trade a normal life for
this
.” I yanked on the pocket of his jacket, the nails rattling inside. “If I’m really one of you, shouldn’t I see what I’m up against?”

Anger flickered in his eyes. “My
parents
didn’t tell me
anything. My mom died ten minutes after she gave birth to us. And my dad told me the truth. Can you say the same thing?”

I bit the inside of my cheek.

Jared’s voice dropped. “You don’t get to judge my father or my life. What we do is important. It means something.”

I wanted to fire back with a comment that would hurt him the way he’d tried to hurt me, but I couldn’t. No matter how different we were, Jared and I shared a common denominator as uncommon as they came.

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—” My hands were shaking.

Jared noticed and his expression softened. “I didn’t mean to yell at you. Why do you really want to go in?”

Because I wasn’t just hunting vengeance spirits. If the four of them were right, I was following the path my mom left behind, the one she hid from me for reasons I might never know. I had so many questions I needed to answer.

Was she really a member of the Legion?

And the question I didn’t even want to ask myself.

Am I?

J
ared’s eyes searched mine, and it felt like he could see the fears I was fighting so hard to hide.

“You have to do exactly what I tell you in there.”

I nodded, too nervous to say anything.

When we came back around the side of the van, everyone was waiting. I knew they had probably overheard our entire conversation. Priest tried to act busy for my benefit, but Alara looked right at me.

You okay?
Lukas mouthed.

I smiled weakly.

“Are we going to hang out here all day or what?” Alara stalked over to Priest’s duffel bag. She pulled out the heavy leather glove with the cold-iron spikes and slipped it on.

“Let’s go.” Lukas slung the crossbow over his shoulder.

I reached for the nail gun.

“No,” they said practically in unison.

“I can’t go in empty-handed. That can’t be safe.”

“You’re right.” Jared climbed into the van and came out with something I actually recognized.

“You want me to wear a bulletproof vest? Are the ghosts going to shoot me?”

“It won’t stop bullets, just vengeance spirits. Priest rigged it.” Jared handed it to me, and my shoulder almost jerked out of the socket when he let go.

“Are you serious? This thing must weigh fifty pounds.”

“I replaced the Kevlar fibers with cold-iron pellets.” Priest shrugged. “They weigh a little more. I’m still working out the kinks.”

I dropped the vest in the dirt.

“I’m good,” I said, wishing it were true.

Priest took Lilburn’s front steps two at a time and waved the handheld device around the door. “I’ve got nothing out here.”

“Did he make that thing?” I asked Alara.

“It’s an electromagnetic field meter,” she answered. “He didn’t make it, but I’m sure he tweaked it. Priest doesn’t trust anything he didn’t design.” She pulled out one of her own, a rectangular device with a band of numbers running
along the top and a needle at the end. “Spirits give off electromagnetic energy we can’t sense. EMFs measure it.”

“I probably need one, too.”

Alara handed me a flashlight from her tool belt, with a smug smile. “Rule number one: only carry things you know how to use.”

Even if I had to walk inside with nothing but a plastic flashlight and the knowledge I’d picked up from watching bad horror movies, I was still going in, whether Alara liked it or not.

I turned away, and she caught my arm.

“It was a joke.” She sighed and handed me the EMF. “If that needle starts moving, there’s a good chance a spirit is nearby. Consider yourself trained.”

Priest leaned back, examining the upper stories. “This place is a lot bigger than it looked in the picture. You really think we can find the Shift?”

“It might not even be in there,” Jared said.

Lukas walked closer to the house. “It’s here. We just have to find it.”

Jared waved Priest down from the porch and glanced in my direction. “Kennedy, you can check out the tower with me and Priest.”

“She’s coming with us,” Lukas said forcefully.

Jared started to say something, then stopped. “I was trying to do you a favor, Luke. You’re gonna have to babysit her in there.”

My cheeks burned, and I stared at the scratches on the boots my mom had given me the night she died. How long before they were completely ruined?

Lukas nudged me with his shoulder. Something inside me relaxed, and a smile tugged at the corners of my mouth. “Ignore him. Jared always leaves behind a pretty high body count.”

Was he talking about girls?

My smile vanished. “It’s no big deal.”

He touched my arm lightly when we reached the door. “Stay close, and if I tell you to get out of the house, you go. No arguments and no looking back. Understand?”

I nodded, every nerve in my body on edge.

Lukas cracked the lock with the butt of his crossbow.

The door swung open. Light poured into the entryway, dust glittering in the stagnant air. I stepped into the hallway, heart pounding. My eyes followed the worn crimson carpet up the staircase.

The front door slammed behind us, and I spun around.

A shadow blackened the marble floor.

Lukas and Alara inched toward it slowly. I waited for a vengeance spirit to lunge at them.

The shadow didn’t move.

Alara edged closer and looked up, her eyes resting on a huge crystal chandelier. “I think we’re okay.”

“Sorry.” I felt like an idiot.

Lukas kicked one of the half-packed boxes scattered
around a velvet sofa in the living room. “Better safe than sorry, right?”

Alara rolled her eyes and ran a finger along the dusty banister. “Reminds me of my house. Minus the dirt.” She zeroed in on the stained rose-colored sofa. “And the pink.”

I navigated between the boxes, watching the needle on my EMF. A mirror in a gilded frame hung above the sofa, the warped glass making the room appear off kilter.

The needle didn’t move as I followed them into the musty library on the other side of the staircase. Lukas stopped in the doorway.

“If I needed to hide something, this is where I’d put it.”

We searched the shelves crammed with books and stranger things—beetles and butterflies in shadow boxes, dozens of clocks stopped at exactly the same time, and brass bookends depicting characters from
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
. The Cheshire Cat smiled down from a tall shelf.

Alara lifted the Mad Hatter clutching a broken teapot. “This isn’t creepy or anything.”

I didn’t know what was more unsettling—the perfect replica of Lilburn Mansion drowning in the thickened glitter of an old snow globe, or the image of a terrified Mad Hatter holding a broken piece of Wonderland.

“Maybe it’s somewhere less obvious,” I offered.

Alara glanced into the hall. “We should check upstairs. That’s where all the activity was reported.”

Lukas not so subtly stepped in front of me. “I’m right behind you.”

The staircase rose sharply. I imagined someone reaching the last step and being pushed backward by an invisible hand. My hand tightened around the railing. When Lukas made it to the top, he grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the landing.

Six doors flanked each side of the narrow hallway. Oil portraits of women bound in layers of fabric and girls in pressed dresses, all wearing the same hopeless expression, lined the walls between them.

The EMF detector pinged.

“You got something?” The red light on Lucas’ EMF blinked erratically as the needle jerked back and forth.

“Where is it?” I looked around, but didn’t see anything.

“It might not be a paranormal entity,” he said. “Other things can set them off—appliances, electrical wires, even water pipes in the walls. And these readings are all over the place.”

Alara stopped, and we almost plowed into her. “I don’t think it’s an electrical wire.”

I followed her eyes to the end of the hall.

A little girl in a yellow chiffon dress sat on the carpet playing with a porcelain doll. Its tangled blond hair spilled onto the floor.

As the girl rose, her body flickered like static on an old television set. She walked toward us, dragging the doll
behind her by one arm. With her smooth, flushed skin, she looked nothing like the dead girl floating in my bedroom.

“Did you come to play?” The child’s eyes lit up, bright and curious.

Lukas tried to push me behind him again, but my feet were rooted to the floor.

“Sure,” Alara answered carefully. “What kind of games do you like?”

The child studied Lukas, her blue eyes lingering on his wrist. She acted as if she saw something more than his bare skin. The hem of her yellow dress fluttered in a nonexistent wind.

The little girl’s body flickered, revealing another face beneath her own. An old woman’s empty eyes leered at us, her face slack and covered in scratches. Matted gray hair hung limp at her shoulders where the child’s shiny blond strands had hung a moment ago.

She lifted the doll off the ground, its head dangling from the cord holding the toy together.

The old woman’s scratched face flashed in front of the child’s as she raised the broken doll higher. “I like the kind of games where people like
you
end up like
this
.”

T
he wind increased and the girl’s hair whipped around her. She stepped forward one shiny patent-leather Mary Jane at a time, dragging the mangled doll. The child pointed at Lukas, the rage in her voice at odds with her innocent features. “I know what you want.”

Air swirled around the child, tangled blond hair lashing her face.

“We don’t want anything.” Lukas backed away, matching Alara step for step. “Kennedy, get out of here.”

I heard the words, but my body didn’t react. What if I moved and it made the spirit angrier?

“You can’t have my doll!” she shrieked.

“We aren’t trying to take your doll,” Alara promised, clutching the silver medal around her neck.

“Liar!” the child screamed. “I know who you are. He told me you’d come.”

Lukas raised the crossbow and aimed it over Alara’s shoulder.

“Go!” he barked at me.

I stumbled back a few steps.

The child’s face twisted into a wicked smile and her form flickered again, exposing the old woman lurking inside her.

Paintings flew off the walls, heavy frames splintering against Lukas’ back. He dropped to his knees, covering his head, and the crossbow slipped out of his hand.

Carpet nails ripped out of the floor, pelting us like knives.

“Hey.” Alara pointed the spiked glove at the girl. “Screw you and your doll.”

The vengeance spirit’s eyes widened, the yellow dress twisting in the whirlwind encircling her.

Lukas staggered to his feet and grabbed the crossbow, raising it again. The bolt flew through the air and hit the spirit square in the shoulder.

The doll slipped from her grasp and hit the floor, smashing to pieces.

The spirit’s eyes darted to the broken shards of the doll. She opened her mouth and let out an inhuman wail.

A wooden side table pushed itself away from the wall and careened toward me. Time skipped as images flashed in front of me in a surreal sort of stop-motion.