Unmarked (14 page)

J
ared and Lukas charged Andras as he let Maya’s body drop onto the concrete.

“No!” Alara let out a piercing scream so raw and guttural it made my skin crawl. She collapsed onto the floor sobbing, and I threw my arms around her.

Elle’s eyes went wide. “Oh my god. He killed her.”

Andras stepped away from the body, moving slower than before.

Jared knelt next to Maya’s body and reached out to close her eyes. When his hand touched her skin, it slipped right through her. Jared swept his arms over the spot where Maya’s body had fallen. Her faded silhouette remained for a moment and then vanished.

Alara stared at the chipped wall behind us, her
expression blank. I grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at me. “It wasn’t real. Andras created some kind of illusion. Maya was never here.”

“She’s right.” Priest pointed across the room. “There’s no body.”

It took a moment for the words to register before Alara stole a glance at the spot where Maya had fallen. She rubbed her swollen red eyes and looked again. “Where is she?”

Jared and Lukas rushed back to where we sat huddled on the floor. Bear chased after them.

“It wasn’t real,” I repeated.

“Somehow he manifested your fear,” Lukas said.

Alara stared at Lukas for a long moment. “How are we going to fight him?”

“If our physical weapons won’t work, let’s see how he handles a spiritual weapon.” Priest opened his journal and flipped through it. When he found the page he was looking for, he recited the words:

I recognized the Rite of Exorcism from
Rituale Romanum
. I’d seen it written in Priest’s journal once, and it was
the same passage Konstantin had recited in the entry from Faith’s notebook.

Priest kept reading:

The demon laughed. “I have shed blood on the sword of an angel and battled demons in the cages of hell. I do not fear you.”

Priest’s voice rose.

“I am the Author of Discords, and I have faced exorcists stronger than you. But in the cages of hell, they called me by another name. Maker of Nightmares,” Andras said. “Allow me to make yours, Owen Merriweather.”

Jared, Lukas, Alara, Elle, and I looked around. It took us all a moment to realize the demon was talking about Priest.

Andras raised his arms in the air, and a spray of black liquid the consistency of motor oil rose toward the ceiling. The liquid splashed against the rafters above our heads, twisting into thick ropes on its way back down.

Not ropes.

Snakes.

Another trick.

Priest looked up in time to see the writhing black mass coming at him. The journal slipped from his hands as the shower of snakes hit, their bodies draping over him like a net. I could tell from the terrified look on Priest’s face that he didn’t realize the snakes were an illusion.

“They’re not real!” I shouted.

Priest deflected the smaller serpents with his body and clutched frantically at the larger ones, hurling them away. “Get them off me! Get them off!”

I stumbled toward him and reached for a black snake draped over Priest’s shoulder. When I touched it, my hand slipped right through and the snakes disappeared.

“Priest. Look at me.” I grabbed his face in my hands. “The snakes aren’t real. Don’t you remember what Andras did to Maya?”

Priest stared back at me, his expression dazed. After a moment, the fog lifted. “Kennedy? Did you see them?”

“They were some kind of illusion,” I said, trying to reassure him.

Priest nodded. “I kept trying to tell myself that, but it
was like my mind wouldn’t listen. It was so real. I could feel them slithering all over me.” He shuddered.

Jared, Lukas, Alara, and Elle crowded around us, and the demon laughed. But Andras’ shoulders sagged and his movements were slower, as if manifesting Alara’s and Priest’s fears had drained him.

“Enough games,” the demon said.

“We can’t fight him,” Lukas said. “He’s too strong.”

Elle’s eyes darted to the door. “There’s no way to outrun him.”

I have to trust Faith.

“We can raise the barrier,” I said. “Maybe it will buy us some time.”

Lukas held out his hand. “It’s our only shot.”

“What about Elle?” I asked. “She can’t be part of the circle.”

Lukas stepped behind her. “Stay in the middle and hold Kennedy’s journal so the rest of us can see it.” By now, he knew I only needed to see something once to remember every detail.

Elle wrapped one arm around Bear. We joined hands and followed the instructions in my aunt’s journal.

I recited the words from memory, while the other Legion members read from the page:
“May the bonds of blood and the marks we bear protect us.”

Andras laughed, but our voices remained strong.

“As the wings of the black dove carry us.”

A surge of energy cracked against us and hurled our bodies across the floor. My cheek hit the concrete, and I struggled to push myself onto my knees.

The barrier didn’t work.

My friends lay scattered around the room, and Andras stood in the center of it all. His sadistic expression looked frighteningly human.

Faith was right. This is a fight we can’t win.

“From where I’m standing, these odds don’t look even,” a male voice that didn’t belong to Andras called out. “A marquis of hell preying on a bunch of kids? Times must be tough, Andras.”

A tall man I’d never seen before stood at the far end of the warehouse smoking a cigarette. His sandy-blond hair was neatly trimmed, and dark sunglasses covered his eyes. Between the cigarette hanging from his lips, his SWAT-style clothing, and the black tactical boots sticking out underneath his coat, he didn’t look like the kind of guy you wanted to mess with. He dropped a leather doctor’s bag and a red plastic container on the floor next to him.

Andras stared back at him through the dockworker’s eyes. “I am happy to prey on you first.”

A second man, dressed in matching sunglasses and tactical gear, stepped out from behind one of the metal shipping containers with a black canvas bag. Something
was looped around his other hand. His dark features and a few days’ worth of stubble made him look even more formidable than his partner.

He opened his hand, releasing what looked like a whip. He snapped the ivory-colored weapon, and it arced in the air, the individual sections clicking forward one at a time like links in a bike chain.

The whip—or whatever it was—struck Andras. The demon arched his back and roared in pain. He tried to pull it off, but the whip began to move without any help from the man wielding it. The ivory sections latched on to the demon’s back, pulsing and writhing like rats.

“It’s alive.” Priest watched in awe.

“What the hell is it?” Lukas asked.

Priest shook his head. “I don’t know, but I want to meet the guy who made it.”

The man guiding the whip flicked his wrist and retracted the weapon. Andras dropped to his knees as the individual parts of the whip ripped from his back.

Elle squinted at the jagged pieces of ivory. “Are those bones?”

Alara recoiled. “They look like vertebrae.”

The whip struck again, and Andras let out another enraged cry.

“You must’ve wasted a lot of energy on whatever you were doing before we got here,” the man holding the whip said.

I remembered how drained Andras looked after he manifested Maya. Then he brought Priest’s fear to life. Had the
Rituale Romanum
rite affected the demon, too? Did he have to fight it somehow?

The taller man in the long coat lifted the red plastic container and walked toward Andras.

A gas can.

“Do you think he’s gonna set Andras on fire?” Priest sounded hopeful.

“Not unless he wants to burn up the rest of us, too.” Lukas glanced at his brother. “I’m thinking it’s not gasoline.”

Jared nodded. “Makes sense.”

“Why does he have a gas can?” Elle’s eyes darted between Lukas and Jared. “Will someone tell me what’s happening?”

“Relax.” Lukas pulled her against his shoulder. “I’m guessing it’s holy water.”

“You’re
guessing
?”

The tall man hoisted the can in the air and dumped the contents over Andras. Clear, odorless liquid splashed onto the dockworker’s body. Steam rose from the areas where the liquid hit his skin, leaving behind red burns.

The guy with the whip rushed toward them, hooking the weapon through a loop on the back of his pants. The ivory bones, or whatever they were, coiled through the loop like a sleeping snake. He opened a black canvas
bag similar to the duffels Priest packed his gear in, and dragged out a heavy chain. The two men worked together, winding the chains around Andras’ neck, wrists, and feet in a strange configuration and securing them with a padlock.

“I will tear off your skin and strip your bones,” the demon said.

“That gives me something to look forward to,” the man with the whip said, hauling Andras to his feet and half-dragging him out of the room by the padlock. The demon bared his teeth, snapping at his captor like a rabid dog.

“Are you all right?” The tall stranger wiped the holy water off his hands with the edge of his black coat, then removed his sunglasses and tucked them in his jacket pocket.

“I think so,” I said.

Priest helped Alara up and examined her eyes. “You hit your head pretty hard. You might have a concussion.”

“I’m fine.” She swatted his hand away, sounding like herself for the first time since Andras brought her worst fear to life.

“Who are you guys?” Lukas asked.

The stranger raised an eyebrow. “A little appreciation would be nice. We did just save your lives.”

“How did you know we were in here?” Jared asked. “This place isn’t exactly on Boston’s Freedom Trail tour. Were you following us?”

“We were following Andras, but apparently he was following you.”

“How do you know about Andras?” Priest sounded shocked.

“I’ve spent the better part of my life monitoring Andras, though I never expected to come face-to-face with him.” He extended his hand to Priest. “My name is Dimitri, and that was my associate, Gabriel.”

Priest reached out to shake his hand.

Jared caught his arm. “Look at his ring.”

A heavy signet ring encircled Dimitri’s finger. A triangle with an eye on top, like the one on the back of a dollar bill, was engraved in the silver. Lines resembling sunbeams radiated from the eye. The ring looked exactly like the one Priest’s grandfather had described.

“He’s Illuminati,” Jared said.

Dimitri smiled. “The Eye of Providence is popular these days. I see it online all the time.”

“But you didn’t buy that ring online, did you? Or it wouldn’t have the Rays of Illumination on it,” Priest said.

“And you would’ve called the symbol the All-Seeing Eye,” Alara added. “Only Illuminati members refer to it as the Eye of Providence.”

Dimitri’s hazel eyes flickered with amusement, and he raised his hands in surrender. “Well played, Miss Sabatier.”

Alara stepped back, stunned. “How do you know my name?”

“I know all your names. Jared and Lukas Lockhart. Alara Sabatier. Kennedy Waters.” Dimitri ticked off our names until he reached Priest. “And you’re Owen Merriweather. But I understand you prefer to be called Priest.” He stopped in front of Elle. “Now, you I don’t know. Have they added a sixth member to the Legion?”

“No.” Elle swung her red hair over her shoulder and folded her arms. “And my mother told me never to talk to strange men.”

“Good advice for a young lady.” Dimitri didn’t sound condescending, but that didn’t stop Alara from being offended.

She took a roll of pennies out of her tool belt and curled her hand around them. “Strangers aren’t an issue for young ladies who hit hard enough.”

“I stand corrected.” Dimitri looked around the warehouse. “I’m surprised Andras followed you in here. In his weakened state, he needs a body at all times. I would’ve expected him to stay in crowded areas.”

I shuddered, remembering the way the demon had jumped from body to body while he’d chased us through the streets. “He has to possess someone all the time?”

“Don’t ask him questions,” Alara snapped. “He’s Illuminati. We can’t trust him.”

Dimitri studied Alara for a moment. “We’re on the same
side, Miss Sabatier. Whatever stories you’ve heard about the Illuminati are probably from hundreds of years ago.”

Priest turned to Dimitri. “Like the story my granddad told me about two guys wearing rings just like yours, who beat him up in college and stole a grimoire from a library at Yale? That wasn’t hundreds of years ago.”