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T
he closet door slammed behind Faith, and within seconds, the doors upstairs began slamming one by one, like falling dominoes.

Bear crouched at the base of the steps, snarling.

Faith raced to the windows and checked the salt lines. When she turned around, the blood had drained from her face. “None of them are broken.”

Lukas yanked a paintball gun from the waistband of his jeans. Instead of paint, the casings were filled with Alara’s holy-water cocktail. “I’ll check upstairs.”

Alara followed him, taking the steps two at a time.

Faith pointed at the second landing. “Bear. Search.”

The Doberman vaulted up the steps.

“How can I get a dog like that?” Priest asked.

“Spend five years putting one through combat training.” Faith hit a button on the wall with the side of her fist. The fire sprinklers above us hissed, and salt water rained down from the ceiling.

The lights flickered, and the dead bolts on the front door unlocked themselves from top to bottom, in rapid succession, and then locked again in reverse order.

“None of the salt lines are broken up here, either,” Alara called from the upstairs landing.

My aunt kicked back the corner of the braided rug on the floor and worked one of the floorboards free. A modified assault weapon, right out of a video game, was hidden inside. When she flipped a switch near the trigger, green lights illuminated across the top of the barrel.

Priest’s eyes widened. “That’s a masterpiece of badassery.”

“It’s a crowd-control—” Faith started.

“A semiautomatic air-burst crowd-control weapon, with a laser range finder,” Priest finished. “In the military, they call it the Punisher.”

Jared wiped his eyes with his sleeve. “I don’t care what they call it, as long as it works.”

Salt water continued to hiss from the sprinklers, flooding the first floor and coating everything in a sticky film.

“There’s nothing up here.” Lukas headed back down the stairs with Alara.

Bear leapt ahead of them. When the dog reached the bottom stair, he froze, and Lukas almost tripped over him. Bear stared up at the ceiling, transfixed, a low growl rumbling in his throat.

“He probably doesn’t like the sprinklers,” Alara said.

Faith followed the dog’s gaze and raised her weapon. “That’s not it.”

Every light in the house switched on simultaneously.

I waited for the lights to flicker. Instead, they changed from a dingy yellow to a deep crimson.

“What’s happening?” Elle whirled around, her skin bathed in the same bloody tint as the rest of the room.

Red bursts bled into my peripheral vision like a strip of film that had been removed from the darkroom too soon. Cherry-stained streaks ran down the walls like blood. My stomach lurched, and I stumbled back.

Priest caught my elbow.

“Is it a poltergeist?” I remembered the way my house had come to life a few months ago.

“No.” Alara shook her head without tearing her eyes away from the walls. “A visual haunting.”

The room seemed to tilt, and Faith gripped the banister. “This house was clean before the six of you showed up. What did you bring in here?”

“Nothing,” I said.

The sprinklers spluttered as the last of the salt water choked its way out.

“A vengeance spirit couldn’t make it through my door unless it attached itself to one of you.” The words had barely left my aunt’s lips when a clock chimed upstairs. A second later, an oven timer went off in the kitchen and the doorbell started ringing over and over.

“Did you come straight here from the museum?” Faith shouted over the noise.

Lukas pressed the heels of his hands against his eyelids. “Yes.”

“What about inside? Did you touch anything?”

Jared backed away from the bleeding wall. “Of course we did. How do you think we found the map?”

My aunt splashed through the ankle-deep water in the hallway. “The map can’t be haunted. I made it. Anything else?”

Priest shrugged. “A giant bottle cap, and I might’ve touched a few of those dead squirrels with the swords.”

“But you didn’t take anything from inside?”

“No.” Priest sounded annoyed.

“Um…” Elle stalled. “I didn’t
take
anything. But I did
find
something on the floor.” She pulled up her sleeve. A gold art deco cuff clung to her wrist.

“Take it off.” Faith held out her hand, and Elle complied.

All at once, the doorbell stopped ringing and the room fell silent. The color flashes subsided and the red hue blanketing the rooms faded, working its way down from the ceiling.

Elle let out a long breath. “It’s over.”

Jared, Lukas, Alara, and Faith scanned the room, less convinced.

“You never remove crap from a place like that,” Alara said. “Museums are almost as bad as yard sales. I bet half the junk people buy at those things is haunted.”

I didn’t realize objects could be haunted, which meant Elle definitely had no idea. My experience was limited to dybbuks—demonic entities trapped in sealed containers—the real-life version of Pandora’s box.

By now, the ceiling and upper two-thirds of the walls were white again, and the crimson stain filtered toward the floor. Bear growled, his gaze fixed on the waterline along the baseboards. As the stain seeped into the water, the flooded hallway turned into the Red Sea. The stain spread across the surface like an oil spill, moving unnaturally fast.

Jared sloshed down the hall. “We need to burn the bracelet. It might not be enough to destroy the spirit, but maybe it will banish it.” He found a steel bowl full of batteries and emptied it.

Faith stumbled back, looking terrified. “The windows are salted, and there’s a salt circle around the house. The spirit is trapped in here with us. We need to get out of the house.”

A crack snaked its way down the wall next to the front door the moment she spoke the words, and Bear’s growl
turned feral. Drywall exploded and a thick black wire ripped itself out of the wall.

“Get out of the water!” Lukas yelled.

Priest caught Elle around the waist and hurled his body against the steps, taking her with him.

Jared stood in the hallway and scanned the room, his muscles tense, until he saw me standing safely on the staircase. He jumped and caught the banister, letting his body hang over the side of the staircase.

Faith splashed toward us.

“Take my hand.” Alara reached for her.

Just as their fingertips touched and my aunt’s boot hit the step, the wire reared back like a viper. It struck the water and a spray of sparks erupted from the point of contact.

Electricity splintered through the water, the salt acting as the ultimate conduit.

The force threw Faith forward and her body slammed against the wooden staircase. She moaned and rolled onto her side, cradling her wrist.

Alara knelt down and helped her sit up. “We have to get that bracelet out of the house.”

The wire hovered over the water, then struck again.

“I need your pouch. Can you empty it?” Faith pointed at the bag of salt tucked in Alara’s tool belt.

Alara dumped out the salt and handed it to her. “What are you going to do?”

“I’m not even sure it will work.” My aunt dropped the gold cuff from the museum into the bag and tied it closed with her uninjured hand. “Bear. Come.”

The Doberman darted to her side, awaiting my aunt’s next command.

Faith pointed at the window covered in trash bags. “We need to shoot out the glass.”

Alara slid a paintball gun from the waist of her cargo pants. “Done.”

My aunt turned to me. “Are you a good shot?”

“I can hit the window, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“Give Kennedy the Punisher,” she said to Priest.

He lifted the heavy weapon. “I’ve got it. This thing’s gonna have some hard-core kickback.”

Faith threw him a hard stare. “My mother used to say that girls should be seen and not heard. I say we should be seen and
feared
. Give Kennedy the gun.”

Priest handed me the weapon, and my aunt explained the basics. The ammo was packed with holy water and rock salt. To ensure an accurate shot, I had to lie on my stomach sniper-style and fire from the landing.

The wire jabbed at the water again, a few feet from the staircase.

“On three,” Alara said, as we aimed together. “One. Two. Three.”

I squeezed the trigger. The butt of the Punisher rammed against my shoulder, round after round. Glass
exploded from the panes, sending sheets of black plastic fluttering into the air.

“That’s enough,” Faith called out.

Even after I stopped firing, my muscles kept vibrating and the sound from the shots echoed in my ears.

Lukas grabbed the back of Jared’s jacket and hauled him over the railing.

Faith bent down and offered Bear the pouch. The dog took it in his mouth and waited. She slid a small metal flashlight out of her pocket and shined the light on the bench in the hallway. Bear snapped to attention, his eyes locked on Faith.

“Jump,” she said.

The Doberman leapt from the stairs. He landed on the bench and turned toward Faith, awaiting the next command.

This time, she shined the flashlight on the dining room table, in front of the window we had just destroyed. “Jump.”

The dog crouched and focused on the pale circle of light in the center of the table. I held my breath as he sprang. Bear’s paws hit the wood, and he skidded across the table.

My aunt didn’t waste any time. She pointed the beam through the bay window and into the yard beyond it.

One of the dining room walls cracked, and another wire began to work itself free.

Faith didn’t hesitate. “Take it outside, Bear.”

The dog focused on the circle of light and catapulted himself toward the glass jutting from the frame. Bear’s lithe body sailed through the glass jaws, and he disappeared into the darkness.

The electrical wires twisted in the air. By now, every inch of the floor was soaked—including the staircase we standing on. The wires reared back, their black plastic coating pulsing like a paranormal heartbeat inside them.

I held my breath.

The wires dropped into the red water like stones, and the pigment began to fade.

“Bear must’ve crossed the salt circle,” Faith said. “He’ll take the bag into the woods and leave it there, the way I trained him.” She leaned against the wall and exhaled slowly. “You’re lucky a random vengeance spirit attached itself to that bracelet, and not Andras, or this would’ve been a lot worse.”

Jared looked at the water on the floor. “Think it’s safe?” he asked Priest.

Priest tossed a cold-iron round into the flooded hallway. When nothing happened, he jumped down, his green Nikes splashing in the water. “We’re good.” He opened the basement door and a rush of clear water ran down the stairs.

“You okay?” Jared stood in front of me with damp hair and anxious eyes.

I only nodded, watching as he knelt next to Faith and examined her wrist.

“I’m fine,” she said, snatching her hand away. “There are towels upstairs, second door on the left.”

My aunt walked down the stairs and waded through the water until she reached her survival closet. Faith unearthed an emergency splint buried underneath a stash of first-aid supplies, including dental extraction instruments and a suturing field kit. She reached for a box of ammo, and the box slipped from her fingers, sending the rounds clattering to the floor. One hit the edge of my boot, and I picked up the shell.

The shell in my palm wasn’t a salt round.

It was a bullet.

“Bullets won’t stop a demon.” Alara picked up another shell and handed it to Faith. “You’re better off with salt rounds.”

“Thanks for the tip,” Faith said. “But I’m not planning to use them on a demon.”

Goose bumps pricked my arms.

From the wind chimes and the salt ring to the stockpiled supplies and apocalyptic paintings, Faith’s paranoia marked every inch of the property and her every action. But until now, she had seemed sane.

Maybe she isn’t.

“Are you saying you’re going to shoot someone, Faith?” I asked, afraid of her answer. She was my only
connection to the Legion and my father—no matter how much I hated him. Eccentric and antisocial and paranoid I could handle, as long as she wasn’t crazy.

My aunt finished winding a strip of tape around the splint and headed for the kitchen. She paused in the doorway.

“The demon isn’t the only one hunting me.”

W
e should give her a little space,” I said after my aunt retreated into the kitchen. “She seems more stressed out than when we first got here.”

“If by
stressed out
, you mean
crazy
, then I agree.” Alara sat down on the steps.

“She’s been on the run, moving from house to house, for more than a decade,” Priest said. “Cut her some slack.”

Jared shook his head. “It’s more than that. She was loading her gun with bullets.”

Bear poked his head through the broken bay window. Alara whistled, and the dog jumped over the jagged pieces of glass and trotted over to her. He sat down next to Alara, and she scratched his head.

Elle glanced at the door. “Maybe we should leave. I don’t think she wants us here.”

“We can’t.” Lukas appeared at the top of the stairs and dropped a few towels over the side of the railing. “She’s still the fifth member of the Legion. Even if she won’t help us, we need to find out what else she knows about Andras.” He ran a faded gray towel over his wet hair. “And what Faith is hiding from.”

Elle wadded up her towel and threw it at him. “The demon. Even I know that.”

He caught it with one hand and smiled at her. “Andras has been free for less than a month. Kennedy’s aunt has been in hiding for years.”

“So we hang tight and wait until she comes back out,” Priest said, a towel still draped over his blond hair.

All of a sudden, a loud bang came from the kitchen, like someone had smashed two heavy pots together.

“Or not,” I said.

Priest walked into the kitchen first and almost slipped. The floor was covered with black trash bags, with at least a dozen bear traps scattered on top of them.

“Be careful.” Faith stood by the sink, wearing a welder’s apron and a yellow dishwashing glove on her uninjured hand.

The floral scent I’d noticed earlier was overpowering in here.

“Is that wintersweet?” Alara asked.

My aunt carried a soup can over to one of the traps and painted the teeth with a sticky pink substance that looked like raspberry preserves. “You’re a smart girl. Most people wouldn’t recognize it.”

Alara held out her arm so none of us could get any closer. “Faith, people call that stuff ‘bushman’s poison’ for a reason. If it spills, the sap will kill you.”

My aunt dipped the brush in the can and painted another trap. “Then I guess I’d better be careful.”

Elle pushed up on her toes to get a better look. “What are you gonna do with those anyway?”

“Protect us.” Faith wrapped one of the traps in a plastic tarp and carried it outside, before returning for the others one by one.

We watched as she positioned the traps around the perimeter of the house. Jared offered to help, but Faith refused. I held my breath each time she unwrapped a poison-tainted trap.

When she came back inside, Priest didn’t waste any time. “Bullets and bear traps? None of this stuff will protect you from a demon. Who are you really hiding from, Faith?”

When she realized we were all waiting for the answer, her irritation turned to shock. “You really don’t know.”

“So tell us,” Alara said.

“The Illuminati.”

Priest staggered back a few steps. “Are you sure, Faith?” he asked. “Because I think my granddad was the
last Legion member to see any of them, and that was over forty years ago.”

My aunt pressed her lips together and swallowed hard, steeling herself. “If they kidnap me again, I’ll ask for identification. But they interrogated me for three days, so I think I’m qualified to make that call.”

For a moment no one moved or said a word.

“Why did they kidnap you? What did they want to know?” Alara finally asked.

“Something they didn’t find out. Something I’ll take to the grave. But when I go, I’m taking a few of those bastards with me.”

“If Andras opens the gates, I’m pretty sure he’ll kill them all for you,” Lukas said. “I know it’s a long shot, but if you help us, maybe we can stop him.”

“I’m not going to help you kill yourselves.” Faith’s stoic expression and her rigid posture made it clear she wasn’t going to change her mind.

“I’ll take your place,” I said automatically.

Faith spun around. “It doesn’t work that way, Kennedy. The duty rests with me until I die or pass it down to a successor.”

“Then pass it down to me.” If anyone warranted a life sentence of defending the world from demons and spirits, it was me.

My aunt’s face turned ashen. “Your father would never want you to be part of this.”

Rage exploded inside me. “My father left me. He didn’t even bother to show up after my mom died. I don’t care what he’d want, and I’m already part of this.”

Faith stared at me, speechless. “He made mistakes, Kennedy. But there are things you don’t know. I will not put his only child in harm’s way.”

“And letting Andras get strong enough to open the gates isn’t putting me in harm’s way?”

Faith peeled off the yellow glove and tossed it in the sink, then shouldered past me without a word.

When my aunt reached the doorway, she stopped. “Your father isn’t the man you think he is, and even if the sky came crashing down around me, I would
never
pass this godforsaken curse on to you.”

I stood in front of Faith’s bedroom door, summoning my courage. There were so many things I wanted to ask her, so many questions she might be able to answer.

As I raised my hand to knock, the door opened.

My aunt stood on the other side wearing jeans and a flannel shirt, her hair braided down her back. One look around her bedroom convinced me the outfit was probably Faith’s version of pajamas.

The Eye of Ever was painted on the ceiling above a four-poster bed, sandwiched between rows of overflowing metal shelves—with everything from plastic milk jugs of
holy water and mason jars packed with rock salt to dog-eared road atlases and enormous crucifixes that looked like they belonged above church altars.

On the lower shelves, she had enough weapons to arm a small village. I couldn’t look at them without wondering how many of those guns were loaded with bullets instead of salt rounds. Bear slept beneath the shelves, his bed wedged between cases of ammo and stacks of unfinished paintings.

“Do you need something?” Faith asked.

“I wanted to ask you a few things. If that’s okay.”

Bear lifted his head from the dog bed, as if he was waiting to see if she would invite me in. She glanced over her shoulder, frowning.

“My room is a little—”

“My room is messy, too,” I blurted out. “At least, it used to be.”

Faith stepped back and opened the door. “I was going to say
private
.”

This is going well.

“I can go.” I started to turn around.

“It’s fine.” My aunt opened the door wider and gestured for me to come inside. “You must have a lot of questions. I never thought your mother would wait this long to tell you the truth.” She looked away.

“I guess she never got the chance. Now you’re the only
family I have left, except for my mom’s sister, and she and my mother weren’t close.”

Faith crossed the room and leaned against one of the shelves. “I remember Diane. Bitchy and annoying.”

I laughed, and a smile tugged at the corner of Faith’s mouth.

“Diane isn’t your only family,” she said.

“Don’t.” I raised my hand to stop her. She was talking about my father. “Please.”

Faith busied herself in front of the shelves, checking the labels on the containers to make sure they were all facing the same direction.

“I was wondering about the kidnapping. You went into hiding after that, right?” I couldn’t ask her what I really wanted to know—if her kidnapping was the reason my dad left.

She took a deep breath. “I went into hiding for other reasons.”

And my dad left for other reasons.

Faith stopped turning the jars. “My life wasn’t always like this. Everything changed when I met Archer. He was handsome and charming, and I was young and stupid. Your parents had been married for about a year, and your mom disliked him right away. She told me you couldn’t trust a man who didn’t like dogs.”

Bear’s ears perked up.

“But I was already falling in love with him by then, and I didn’t listen.” She looked back at me. “I should have.”

“So she was right about him?”

“I met Archer at the farmers’ market, but it wasn’t an accident. He knew I’d be there, just like he knew I loved chocolate chip cookies and disaster movies—and that I was part of the Legion. He was a member of the Illuminati, a sleeper.” She paused, as if the subject was too painful to talk about. “His assignment was to earn my trust and find out everything he could about the Legion. And my dreams.”

“Your dreams?”

“I have what are called prophetic dreams. I see things, and some of them end up happening.” She rubbed her eyes, the shadows beneath them even darker than mine.

I remembered what she said when we saw her paintings.

I hope your dreams are nothing like mine.

“Your paintings.”

She nodded. “After we learned the truth about Archer, Alex sent me into hiding. I didn’t want anything else to do with the Legion.”

My chest tightened at the mention of my father’s name.

“Unfortunately, the Illuminati caught up with me. But only once.”

“What gave Archer away?” I asked.

“Your mother was the one who finally put it all
together. I should have realized then—” Faith stopped and blinked back tears. “Some bones should stay buried.”

“Thanks for telling me what happened.” As much as I wanted to know more, it didn’t seem fair to ask any more questions after I had dredged up such painful memories.

“Good night, Kennedy Rose.”

I stopped, my hand on the doorknob. Hearing her say my middle name—the one my father had chosen—made me wonder what else she knew.

“Why did my dad leave?” I kept my hand on the knob and my back to her. Asking the question out loud was hard enough.

“It’s complicated, and it’s not really my story to tell. But if it makes you feel any better, he didn’t want to go.”

I pushed open the door. “It doesn’t.”