Unmarked by Kami García

often the case when the devil’s soldiers are involved—the demon consumes their soul.”
    I thought about the Boy Scouts leader who had killed his troop and the fireman who set his neighbors’ homes on fire. In the past nineteen days, most of the mass murderers ended up killing themselves.
    Faith glanced at the canvases in the next room. “If Andras opens the gates of hell, the people whose souls the demons don’t consume, or whose bodies they don’t use astemporary housing, will be enslaved or tortured for their amusement.”
    I pictured my nightmares and the images in Faith’s paintings. “Our world will become the new hell.”
    Jared’s expression hardened. “I’m not okay with that.”
    “Unless you have a magic wand or the Vessel, you won’t have a say in the matter,” Faith said. “The Vessel is the only prison that can hold Andras.”
    “Where do we find this Vessel?” I asked.
    No one had ever mentioned it before, which seemed strange. Jared, Lukas, Priest, and Alara listened, waiting for her answer.
    My aunt stared at us like we were idiots. “No idea. You’re the ones who lost it.”
    “She’s talking about the Shift,” Priest said.
    Faith nodded. “And without it, there’s no way to stop Andras.”
    Lukas stepped in front of Faith before she could start pacing again. “How do we keep him from opening the gates?”
    She stared at him for a long moment, sadness passing over the green eyes that looked so much like my father’s. “Once he gets strong enough, you can’t.”

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