Unbreakable

The impact punched the air out of my lungs. A sickening sensation gripped me, like something was crawling through my body and fighting its way out the other side. I felt the dybbuk twisting and writhing like hundreds of snakes trapped under my flesh.

I threw my weight against the back of the box, and the wall sprang open.

My cheek hit the concrete and I clawed at the floor, dragging myself away from the box. I rolled over and realized it didn’t matter.

The dybbuk was trapped, its limbs jerking back each time it tried to reach outside the boundaries of the box. “What have you done, ugly soul?”

Alara ran toward me, her long legs vaulting over upended stage props that paled in the presence of real magic. She dug through her pockets and pulled out a disposable lighter, holding it against the rotted wood. The flame fluttered, then caught and climbed up the edge of the box.

“We have to get out of here,” she said, shoving me toward the door.

Ash flaked in the air like peeled skin as the side of the cabinet burned, and the fire leapt from the box to the wall behind it.

“Go.” Alara pushed me ahead of her.

The alley door was only a few feet away when a spirit stepped out of the shadows, blocking our path.

Deep claw marks covered the dead magician’s face and neck, as if a wild animal had attacked him. Whole sections of flesh had been peeled from his broken body, but a tired velvet suit hid the worst of the damage.

The skin straining over the dybbuk’s bones flashed through my mind—the way it looked like it didn’t quite fit. My stomach convulsed.

Alara shook her head in disbelief.

“I tried to keep it safe,” he said. “That was the only place I thought no one would find it. I never wanted it to get out.” The spirit glanced at the cabinet that was burning up and vanishing without its magician. His arm shot out toward us. “May—”

I ripped the nail gun from my waistband and squeezed the trigger, sending a spray of cold-iron nails into his body. The magician exploded, sending tiny bits of purple velvet floating down over us.

23. MARKED

The black smoke rose from the building and sirens screamed in the distance as the van sped down the alley. Jared was stretched out on his back with his head in my lap. He rolled toward me, his arm falling around my waist. I brushed the hair away from his bruised face.

His eyelids fluttered.

He winced and pulled me closer, clutching the back of my shirt as his fingers trailed across my bare skin.

Jared blinked a few times before his blue eyes stared up at me, glassy and unfocused.

“Kennedy?” he mumbled, struggling to sit up. “What happened?”

Priest lifted one of the headphones away from his ear. “You got your butt kicked, that’s what.”

Lukas guided the van into a deserted gas station and climbed in the back with the rest of us. “You all right?” He held up three fingers. “How many do you see?”

“Nine.” Jared swatted his hand away. “Now tell me what happened.”

Alara started talking before anyone else had a chance. “Kennedy drew the Wall in the cabinet and bound the dybbuk inside.”

“How did you know what it looked like?” Jared asked.

Alara answered for me. “She saw it in my journal.”

“And you remembered it?”

Telling people for the first time was the worst part. My memory had always set me apart from other people, creating a boundary I couldn’t cross. “I have eidetic memory—”

“It means photographic.” Alara rushed on. “She can remember anything she sees and—”

“Not anything,” I corrected. “Images and numbers mostly.”

“Whatever.” Alara waved off my denial. “You basically took out that thing alone. I singed it with a little holy water, but you did the rest.”

I listened, barely registering the fact that Alara was talking about me. “She’s exaggerating, but I did get these.”

I opened my hand and revealed the green glass disks.

Alara smiled. “Like I said, I was just along for the ride.”

It was strange to hear her bragging about me. Climbing in the well to help Priest had earned me a level of respect, but that was something anyone could’ve done. Drawing the Wall was different. It required skill and proved I finally had something to offer.

Priest reached for the disks and held them up to the light. “You found two?”

“It was dark and they looked exactly the same, so I grabbed them both.”

“I’m not sure they’ll do us much good,” Lukas said. “The clue to finding the next piece is probably ash by now.”

Priest closed his hand around the disks. “He’s right. We found the other clues near the disks.”

“Not all of them. The diagram of the Shift and the word Lilburn were in your journal, and parts of mine are encrypted. There has to be something—” Alara winced and pulled up her sleeve. “Oh my god.”

Thin lines carved themselves into her skin, the same way Priest’s mark had manifested after he destroyed Millicent’s spirit. The impressions curved and one peaked into a triangle like the devil’s tail from Andras’ seal.

The fire Alara set must have burned through the cabinet and destroyed the dybbuk by now.

She reached in her pocket and rubbed her wrist with salt. Slowly, black lines filled the indentations. The guys pulled up their own sleeves, and Alara rubbed the crystals over their arms. The salt acted like the glass disks, illuminating a code invisible to the naked eye. The four of them positioned their wrists to form the seal, leaving only one small section missing.

I’m about to get my mark.

I hadn’t realized how badly I wanted it—to be part of their secret world, and my mother’s. To be one of them.

When did it change?

At Lilburn when Lukas saved my life, or in the well when Priest and I saved each other? When Alara trusted me to draw the Wall from memory? Or was it before that? When they lost almost everything they owned because of my mistake and still didn’t turn their backs on me?

Maybe it was all of those moments layered between the White Stripes, a blue string, a voodoo medal, and the weight of Jared’s eyes when he looked at me.

I inched my sleeve up slowly.

Will it hurt?

“Let’s see it,” Lukas said, the four of them still holding their arms together, waiting for the last Black Dove. I turned over my wrist so I could see the lines magically cutting themselves into my skin.

It was unmarked.

Confusion registered on their faces, mirroring my own.

“Wait,” Priest said. “Alara’s mark only showed up a second ago, and you shot the spirit on the way out. That had to be at least a few minutes after the fire destroyed the dybbuk. Give it some time.”

Alara raised her eyes to meet mine. There was no way the fire could’ve burned through the box and destroyed the dybbuk before I shot the magician and we made it out of the building.

“I’m not one of you.” I yanked my sleeve back down.

“What are you talking about?” Lukas sounded confused.

“Kennedy destroyed the vengeance spirit first.” Alara’s eyes dropped to the floor as though it was somehow her fault.