Unmarked by Kami García Page 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 growlturned 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