Unmarked (20 page)

Within a few moments, random letters caught my attention, arranging and rearranging themselves in my mind’s eye. Then the first letter of each girl’s last name jumped out at me.

A. T. E. R. S.

No.

R. O. S. E. W. A. T. E. R. S.

My stomach lurched.

K. E. N. N. E. D. Y. R. O. S. E. W. A. T. E. R. S.

“Why?” I barely got the word out.

Andras looked right at me. “I wanted to know how it would feel to be inside your skin. The other girls were substitutes. Souls to tide me over until I found yours. The one that set me free.”

My knees buckled and I hit the floor, icy water seeping through my jeans. Tiny pinpricks stabbed at the wet skin
underneath, but I didn’t move. I wanted the numbness to spread until I couldn’t feel anything.

“Let’s get you out of here.” Gabriel pulled me up.

A familiar melody floated through the tunnel as Gabriel led me away. I recognized the lyrics. “Cry Little Sister,” Jared’s favorite song.

“Kennedy? Are you listening to me?” Gabriel grabbed my shoulders. “That wasn’t Jared. Demons prey on your insecurities. The things you feel guilty about.”

But he knew other things, like details about my relationship with Jared. How could he know those things unless Jared was thinking them?

When we reached the door, Jared’s voice drifted up the stairs, singing “Cry Little Sister.”

T
he maze of steel hallways in the warehouse all looked the same, and within three turns, I was lost. For once, I didn’t care. I had been lost for so long now—running from memories I couldn’t escape, wounds I couldn’t heal, and mistakes I couldn’t erase. It had started the night my mom died and led right up to the moment Andras confirmed my worst fears a few minutes ago.

I’d ditched Gabriel the second we made it back upstairs, and retreated to my room. But I wasn’t ready to face Alara or Elle. Instead, I had grabbed Faith’s journal and taken off, and now I was lost.

Technically, I wasn’t alone. Bear had followed me, unwilling to stay cooped up in our room any longer. I reached down and scratched between his ears.

My mind kept replaying the demon’s words.

Friends who don’t trust you… and a boy who doesn’t love you.

All the doors in the hallway were identical sheets of reflective steel.

Except one.

At the end of the corridor, an intricately carved wooden door dwarfed the metal ones. Symbols were etched into every inch—a Gothic cross, the Devil’s Trap, a Celtic knot, a pentagram, the evil eye, and others I didn’t recognize. The Eye of Providence stared back from the center of the triangular brass knob.

Bear sat in front of the door, watching me.

If it’s unlocked, I’ll go in.

I turned the knob, and the hinges creaked. A soft light spilled into the hall from inside. It was probably a study.

Or Dimitri’s or Gabriel’s room.

The thought stopped me cold. As I started to turn around, Bear slipped through the door.

Guess I’m going in.

Inside, endless rows of books lined the walls of the circular room. The shelves were lit from behind, illuminating the books like the stars glowing on the ceiling above me. A huge opalescent sphere on a crazy-looking metal stand projected dozens of constellations onto the black ceiling, like a planetarium. Protective symbols and summoning circles like the ones from the journals covered the pale stone floors.

Six identical glass-front bookcases cut through the center of the shelves. It was difficult to see inside them, and I stepped closer to one. Instead of books, the case held a disturbing collection of objects: pristine vertebrae and bones suspended in apothecary jars; silver dishes filled with skeleton keys; a Venus flytrap inside a terrarium; exotic butterfly wings housed in individual glass bottles; a framed black widow spider; and stranger things I couldn’t identify.

Bear barked at a fluffy taxidermied chick with two heads, on the bottom shelf. Next to the chick, less identifiable creatures floated in containers of formaldehyde like carnival oddities.

I drifted past the case, examining the cracked spines of the older books:
The Book of Secrets
,
Le Dragon Rouge
,
The Grand Grimoire
,
Heptameron of Darkness
, and
The Sketchbooks of Leonardo da Vinci
. I slid one of the smaller books off the shelf and leafed through pages of architectural drawings depicting tunnels and passageways with hidden entrances and concealed chambers.

Would Dimitri let us read them? Maybe there was information in one of those books that could help Jared.

Bear raced past the sphere-shaped projector and through an archway, across the room.

Perfect. It probably leads to another dungeon.

I was relieved to find a spiral staircase that led up, not down.

Bear peered at me from the top, where the black railing enclosed a second level of the circular room that blended perfectly into the dark walls. As I climbed the steps, the entire room was spread out below me. An inscription ran along the circumference of the room, the words alternating in Latin and English.

“The Creed of Chaos,” someone said from behind me.

I jumped, even though I recognized Dimitri’s voice.

“I didn’t mean to startle you.” He rose from a threadbare armchair tucked into an alcove.

“You didn’t. It’s fine.” I stepped back, hoping to put a little distance between us, and my shoulder bumped into something hard. Another glass-front bookcase—filled with severed doll heads.

Cracked porcelain and shiny plastic faces peered out from behind the glass. “I don’t know what you guys are into, but these are even weirder than the little alien embryos downstairs.”

Dimitri pointed at the mountain of heads and lit a cigarette. “Charity work. Every one of those dolls was haunted. Gabriel and I exorcised the spirits.”

“So they’re souvenirs?”

“Gabriel likes to keep an eye on them.” The more I learned about Gabriel, the stranger he seemed.

“That’s not creepy or anything.”

Dimitri studied the dolls for a moment and smiled. “I see your point.”

“Do you guys live at the safe house?” I asked.

“Our work takes us all over the world, so we don’t have permanent residences. This is the closest thing we have to a home.”

I couldn’t imagine living in one of the impersonal rooms I’d seen earlier. At least doll heads and a mummy gave this weird museum-library hybrid some character. “So what is this place?”

“An athenaeum,” Dimitri said. “In addition to some of Gabriel’s collections, this room houses our library and Illuminati records.”

“Records of what, exactly?” I asked.

“Anecdotes, case studies, observations—”

“Your spy diaries?”

Dimitri frowned. “We’re not the Order. We don’t employ spies in the way you’re suggesting.”

Which means they employ them in some other way.

“The Illuminati has a long history of observing and recording paranormal and unexplained phenomena. You’d be shocked if you knew how many of the world’s greatest thinkers were members of the Illuminati.”

I pointed at the linen-wrapped mummy. “Like him?”

Dimitri laughed without even looking. He obviously knew every inch of this place by heart. He glanced up at the stars on the ceiling. “How about Galileo?”

“And you know this because?”

“Like I said, we keep great records.” Dimitri switched on a crystal floor lamp, illuminating the alcove. It gave me a clearer view of the mummified guy—who I hoped wasn’t a former Illuminati member they were preserving. A broken piece of a Renaissance-style fresco was mounted on the wall behind the mummy.

Dimitri pointed at the fresco. “The missing section of Raphael Santi’s
La disputa del sacremento
, Disputation of the Sacrament. Painted inside the Vatican and commissioned by the pope himself. Of course, Raphael was only one of many Renaissance painters who were members of the Illuminati.”

Dimitri made the Illuminati sound like an average, run-of-the-mill organization, like the Red Cross.

I turned around and caught a glimpse of another canvas. But I recognized this one. “That can’t be what I think it is.…”

Dimitri walked over to the surrealistic painting of an enormous polar bear hanging over the bow of a ship as it sailed over a building. “Of course. I forgot your mother was a fan of Chris Berens.”

“That’s an understatement,” I said, stepping closer
to the canvas. “I know the name of every piece he’s ever painted.”

Dimitri ran his hand down the frame. “Except this one. It’s untitled, but they call it—”

“
The Lost Painting.
Some people don’t even believe it exists.” I could hardly believe I was standing in front of it.

“Well, those people would be wrong.” Dimitri smiled. “You know, he painted it for us.”

“Us?”

“The Illuminati. Chris Berens heads the Order of the White Bear in Amsterdam. He’s a curator, responsible for hiding and protecting the irreplaceable Illuminati works of art.” Dimitri pointed at the section of
La disputa
. “Which is exactly how we ended up with a piece of Santi’s fresco. I hope as you learn more about the Illuminati, you’ll see that we aren’t the enemy.”

I nodded. “Maybe.”

He gestured at the silver-plated journal under my arm. “Were you looking for a place to read?”

I shrugged. “More like a place to be alone.”

“We don’t generally allow anyone in here, but I can make an exception.” He patted Bear on the head. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“I didn’t mean—”

“I’m not offended,” he said. “I come here to be alone, too.” He glanced up at the ceiling. “And to look at the stars.”

T
HE
L
OST
P
AINTING
BY
C
HRIS
B
ERENS

Once Dimitri left, I settled into the armchair farthest from the mummy, with Bear curled up at my feet. I had skimmed Faith’s journal this morning, but I didn’t have time to read it carefully. Maybe I missed something that could help Jared. I read the first few pages again.

Anarel’s words still gave me the chills:
Soon enough, the sins of man will rival those of the demons in hell.… There are no innocents among you.

I flipped past pages filled with drawings of summoning circles and demon seals, exorcism rites and ciphers, until I reached an incantation I hadn’t paid much attention to before.

The Vessel—that’s how Faith had referred to the Shift.

Did we give up looking for it too easily? What if the answer had been right in front of us all along, but we’d missed it because we were so busy looking for another one?

A prison to hold a demon.

The Shift was the one thing we needed to save Jared, and we had lost it.

Lukas opened the door to the room he and Priest shared, holding a slice of pizza. An open box lay on his bed next to his journal and laptop. “Hey. I’m reading everything I can find on demonic possession and exorcism. I can access source documents from libraries all over Europe.”

“Did you find anything?”

He finished the slice and wiped his hands on his jeans. “Not yet.”

“I need to show you something.” I ducked under his arm impatiently and sat down on the end of the bed across from him. I’d rushed to their room straight from the athenaeum, hoping to find them both. “Where’s Priest?”

“I think he’s in the mech room. It’s a metal shop on steroids. If everything didn’t completely suck right now, he’d be having the time of his life.” He gestured at the half-eaten pizza. “Want a slice? I was so hungry I couldn’t think straight. I conned Gabriel into picking it up when he went on a supply run. He almost had a heart attack when I suggested delivery.”

“No, thanks.” I handed Lukas my aunt’s journal and pointed at the page. “Remember when Faith mentioned the Vessel? There’s something about it in here.” I rambled on without giving him time to read. “Faith said the Vessel
is the only prison that can hold Andras. This is how we’re going to save Jared.”

Lukas held up his hand. “Back up. I think I missed something.”

“We can use the Shift to trap Andras.” I waited while he read the passage.

“That would require actually knowing where to find it. Not to mention the part about an angel’s blood, a demon’s bone, and a dragon stone—whatever that means.”

“Maybe the Shift is still at the penitentiary.”

He shook his head and handed me the journal. “We already searched what was left of that place.”

“Like your brother’s life depended on it?”

Lukas grabbed a hoodie and pulled it on over his T-shirt. “Let’s track down Priest and Alara.”

I knew this was a long shot. Even if we found the Shift, how did the angel’s blood, demon’s bone, and dragon stone fit in? Gabriel and Dimitri probably knew, but I didn’t trust them enough to put Jared’s life in their hands.

But those details didn’t matter unless we found the Shift.

Still, this was the first time it felt like there was a real chance to save Jared—one that didn’t involve trying to persuade a demon to leave his body and take up residence in someone else’s. And that possibility changed everything. It stirred something in the deepest part of me—a feeling I’d almost forgotten.

Hope.