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Elle’s head shot up. “What was that?”

Within seconds, another heavy object hit the front of the house. Bear bounded down the stairs and crouched below the shattered bay window, growling. Two more loud bangs followed, in rapid succession.

“It sounds like rocks,” Alara said.

Jared bolted for Faith’s supply closet and returned carrying an armload of crossbows and semiautomatic weapons. He dropped a few boxes of salt rounds on the steps. “Check them and make sure they aren’t loaded with live rounds.”

Every few seconds, the house took another hit. Lukas shoved a handful of ammo in his jacket pocket and walked toward the window, where the dog’s bark had turned feral.

Priest made it to the window first. “Guys, we have a serious problem.”

A brown blur sailed through the broken window.

“Watch out!” I grabbed Alara’s sleeve and yanked her out of the way just before it hit the floor.

Elle skidded to a stop. “Is that—?”

“A brick.” Alara kicked it across the room.

Outside the window, dozens of reddish-brown bricks littered the yard. Beyond the salt circle, a crowd had gathered—an old woman wearing an apron, with her slippers on and curlers still in her hair; a burly guy wearing denim overalls and a checkered hunting cap; a thin woman in a dingy dress, surrounded by four children, each one skinnier and dirtier than the next; an elderly lady leaning on a gnarled walking stick.

Each person had a pile of bricks at his or her feet.

In the distance, more people with bricks wove their way through the trees, as if Faith’s house was calling them.

“They must be your aunt’s neighbors, or whatever you call the other people living out here in the woods,” Alara said.

The old woman in curlers hurled a brick, and it whacked against the front door.

Lukas peered out the window. “Whatever they
were
, I don’t think they’re her neighbors anymore.”

A child, who looked about five or six, took a step forward with her eyes glued to the ground. Her hair hung in frayed braids and her tattered dress was ripped in more
places than I could count. She carried a brick in one hand as she trudged methodically through the snow, like she was in a trance.

The little girl walked to the edge of the salt ring and bent down, dipping a finger in the white crystals. As she stood up, she raised her head.

Her eyes were as black as tar.

Elle staggered back. “What’s wrong with her eyes?”

“She’s possessed.” Alara sounded terrified. “I think they all are.”

The child stared at us through unblinking eyes. She tilted her head to the side and licked the salt off her finger. Then a slow, menacing smile spread across her face as she stepped over the salt line.

O
ne by one, my aunt’s neighbors stepped over the salt line, their movements rigid and awkward.

“We have to get out of here now.” Alara grabbed Elle by the arm.

Lukas dumped out a box of salt rounds and loaded his paintball gun. “Priest, get the gear. You’ve got four minutes. Then go out the back door.”

“It’s already packed.” Priest ran for the hallway.

The black-eyed girl raised the brick and hurled it through the broken window. It smashed on the floor, sending bits of clay and mortar chasing after Priest. My aunt’s possessed neighbors raised their bricks without breaking stride.

“Jared! Are you waiting for an invite?” Lukas yelled at his brother, who was still staring at the child.

Jared tore his attention away from the girl and grabbed his paintball rifle.

“Kennedy, go!” Lukas shouted, aiming his gun.

Lukas had said those words to me once before, inside Lilburn Mansion. But this time, I listened. Bear ran behind me, barking if I slowed down for a second.

Salt rounds exploding replaced the sound of bricks smashing against the house.

When I reached the hallway, Priest was on the landing, tossing bags down the staircase. He gathered up our coats and leaned over the railing. “Catch. I’m gonna grab the Punisher. Weapons are in the bag with the duct-taped handle.”

I dug through the duffels and found a paintball gun, then shoved the coats inside. Bear barked, urging me to keep moving. As I ran through the great room, the walls vibrated from the hailstorm of bricks pelting the house.

They’re still out there.

How many? A dozen?

I caught a glimpse of Alara and Elle before they ducked into the kitchen. Bear stayed behind me, herding me toward the back door. As we cut through the kitchen, the lingering smell of wintersweet made my stomach turn.

Bear darted in front of me and slid to a stop at the door, snarling.

“Move, Bear.” I squeezed in front of him and threw open the door. Icy air hit my lungs and I gasped.

Empty black eyes stared back at me from every direction—a gray-haired woman with an ax balanced on her shoulder; a girl not much older than me, wearing jeans and a stained apron, holding a brick in one hand and a black-eyed toddler’s overall strap in the other; a guy in mechanics’ coveralls brandishing a wrench; old men carrying bricks as they hobbled on canes through the falling snow.

Alara and Elle stood only a few feet away from the pack working to surround them. Bear darted in front of the two of them, snapping.

The toddler lunged at Bear, hissing like a feral cat and straining against his mother’s hold.

“Keep moving!” Priest yelled from somewhere behind me.

I heard his sneakers skid across the linoleum as Alara raised her paintball gun and fired.

Elle screamed and covered her ears.

The salt round hit the toddler’s mom right between the eyes. Her head snapped back and her feet slid out from under her.

Alara kept firing round after round, but my eyes were glued to the woman lying in the snow—the one she had shot.

The one who was sitting up now.

“Look.”

A white mark was branded in the center of the mother’s forehead, between her glassy black eyes.

Andras’ seal.

“Get out of the way.” Priest dropped onto his stomach, lining the Punisher up in front of him.

Alara grabbed Elle and dove to the side. Bear ran after them, circling the spot where they lay huddled in the snow. Elle had stopped screaming, her frightened expression replaced by a thousand-yard stare.

Priest unleashed the crowd-control weapon on my aunt’s possessed neighbors, hitting them with a hailstorm of nonlethal ammo that sent them flying. But after a few moments they rose, one at a time, with Andras’ seal branded on their foreheads.

Lukas barreled through the kitchen door. “We need to move.”

I waited for a glimpse of Jared’s green army jacket, but it never came. “Where’s Jared?”

“I thought he was ahead of me.” Lukas reloaded and turned to go back inside, when the door flew open.

Jared stumbled out, sweaty and gasping.

Lukas grabbed his brother’s arm. “Where were you?”

Priest fired off another flurry of ammo, drowning out their voices. Not to be outdone, Jared and Lukas raised their own weapons, sending liquid-salt rounds rocketing at the few people still standing.

People.

Somewhere trapped inside those zombies, they were still people. Weren’t they?

“Run!” Priest shouted.

Alara dragged Elle to her feet, and Bear took off in front of them, paving the way through the ash-covered snow.

Jared gunned the engine, and the Jeep slid across the ice and onto the road.

I leaned back against the seat and shoved my frozen hands into my coat pockets. My fingers brushed against a scrap of paper and I reached over to stuff it in the seat pocket, already overflowing with Priest’s candy wrappers. But it wasn’t trash.

The tight square of paper was folded too carefully, like the notes Elle and I used to pass each other during class. I unfolded it, revealing messy script. My mind cataloged every curve, including the ones that were almost illegible.

Jared glanced at me in the rearview mirror. “What are you reading?”

“I think it’s a note from my aunt.”

Priest hooked his headphones around his neck. “What does it say?”

“It’s really messy, but I think it says ‘A story buried. A shoelace tarried. A King Jane page’—”

Priest leaned closer and pointed at the word. “It’s
James
. Like the Bible.”

“Right.” I held up the note so everyone could see it.

“What does it say at the bottom?” Elle asked.

“ ‘May the black dove always carry you.’ ” I squinted at the smudged ink. “ ‘And the angle’—no, that’s probably ‘angel’—‘guide you.’ ”

“I hope there’s a translation,” Elle said.

“It’s a riddle. ‘A story buried…’ ” Alara leaned closer.

Priest studied the page. “A shoelace tarried. A King James page. A halfpenny wage. They’re all things from the taxidermy museum. John Hancock’s shoelace. The page from Joseph Warren’s Bible—”

“It was Paul Revere’s Bible,” Jared said.

“Okay, Paul Revere’s Bible and Joseph Warren’s halfpenny. Maybe we need to go back to the museum and get all that stuff.”

It didn’t make sense. If we led the demon to Faith’s house, there was no way to predict how long he’d been following us—something Faith would know. “Faith wouldn’t send us back there. She was too paranoid.”

“I don’t think we need the actual items.” Lukas spun his silver coin between his fingers, still working it out. “Priest, what do those three things have in common?”

“A shoelace, an old Bible page, and a halfpenny?” Priest shrugged. “Is it a trick question?”

“Not the items themselves,” Lukas said.

“They all belonged to patriots,” I offered.

“And Freemasons,” Alara added.

“Three Revolutionary War patriots who were all members of the Sons of Liberty.” Jared glanced at us in the rearview mirror. “Guess I learned more from the Philadelphia public school system than I thought.”

“What about the next part?” Alara asked. “ ‘Something more precious in the stone is at rest.’ ”

“Based on Faith’s trusting personality,” Lukas said, “I’m guessing she hid something, and she wanted Kennedy to find it.”

“Why does everything have to be a poem or a riddle?” Elle rubbed her face, looking exhausted. “Couldn’t she just tell us whatever insane thing we’re supposed to do?”

“Writing things down is dangerous,” Lukas said. “Vengeance spirits, demons, and—if Faith was right—the Illuminati could use the information to find us.” He
exchanged a glance with his brother, but no one else seemed to notice.

Alara stretched her legs across the third row, leaving room for Bear. “So where do we start?”

“Places related to Paul Revere, John Hancock, and Joseph Warren.” Lukas took out his cell phone. “The Sons of Liberty held meetings and votes at the Old South Meeting House. And it looks like they were all buried in the same cemetery in Boston.”

Recognition flickered in Priest’s eyes. “Granary Burying Ground.”

“Graveyards are definitely full of stones,” I said.

Priest grinned. “We need to check it out.”

Alara threw her arm over her eyes and sighed. “Of course we do.”

I
want to see John Hancock’s grave before we leave,” Elle said, stomping through the mud-streaked snow of Granary Burying Ground.

“You did enough sightseeing on the way here,” Alara snapped, zipping her jacket to ward off the cold.

Boston was only an hour and a half from my aunt’s house, but it felt like it had taken forever to get to the cemetery. The streets were blocked off for a festival, and we’d sat in traffic for forty-five minutes before we finally gave up and parked. We ended up walking for over an hour in the snow, and Alara’s mood had gone downhill fast.

Once we passed through the cemetery gates, Alara
stayed on the main path, even though it meant braving the icy pavement. She didn’t want to risk stepping on one of the overgrown plots.

Jared glanced at a tour guide dressed in Revolutionary War–period costume. “I think we might be on the wrong track. I can’t picture Faith hiding anything here. This place seems like it gets a lot of traffic.”

It was the second guide we’d seen in fifteen minutes.

“Whose grave are we looking for?” Alara asked as Bear trotted alongside her.

“Paul Revere was the only one of the three who was a Freemason and a member of the Illuminati,” Priest said.

Elle stopped. “It’s gonna be a quick search.”

A modest marker covered with rocks and pennies jutted out of the snow. Next to it, a small footstone was flanked by two American flags. Someone had left three stuffed bears in front of the grave marker, each one dressed in Revolutionary War garb and carrying a tiny drum. The oxidized plaque on the rectangular tomb read:

Jared knelt in front of the mound. “Unless your aunt left you something in one of these bears, this doesn’t look good.”

“Think she buried it?” Priest slipped off his headphones, Nine Inch Nails’ “Head Like a Hole” still blaring.

Alara looked disgusted. “Go ahead and find out, but I’m not digging in a cemetery. That’s the definition of bad luck.”

I stared down at the soggy stuffed bears. I’d known my aunt for all of twenty-four hours. I had no idea what we were looking for, or why she wanted me to have it.

This is a dead end.

Lukas studied the map again. “Revere has a family tomb.” He pointed at a row of tombs, shrouded by evergreens. “Back there.”

Everyone followed Lukas across the graveyard—except Alara, who lagged behind with Bear.

Priest elbowed me and nodded in her direction. “She’s on the phone again.”

“Who do you think she’s talking to? Her sister?” I asked.

“No one calls their sister that much,” Elle said. “I told you, it’s a guy.”

When we reached the family tomb, Jared cleared the fresh snow off the stone with his sleeve.
REVERE
was etched across the top. “This is it.”

The corners were chipped and weathered, and a tangle
of tree roots had wrapped themselves around the tomb. Only a few tiny cracks cut across the stone.

Lukas bent down and checked the base. “There’s nowhere to hide anything here.”

Priest opened his mouth to say something, but I held up my hand to stop him. “Forget it. We’re not looking inside.”

“It would be pointless anyway,” Elle said. “Based on the width of these roots, they’ve been wrapped around this thing for decades. So unless your aunt hid this mystery item over twenty years ago, it’s not in there.”

“Where did that come from?” Jared asked.

Elle stared at him from beneath the furry hood of her faux-leopard jacket. “Botany, which I took after AP Biology and Geology. Not all pretty girls are stupid.”

“She’s right on both counts.” Priest turned on his EMF and circled the tomb.

“You’re testing for spirits in a graveyard?” I wasn’t sure how that worked.

“Just this tomb,” he said, turning off the device. “The needle barely moved.”

Alara made her way toward us, navigating between the snow-covered grave markers. According to the cemetery map, there were a little over two thousand tombs and markers in the graveyard, but closer to five thousand bodies were actually buried here. I didn’t have the heart to tell Alara that she’d probably stepped on more than a few of them already.

“Talking to your boyfriend again?” Lukas teased, once she was in earshot.

Her expression was somber. “Another girl disappeared this morning.”

My stomach twisted and I pictured the row of photos in my dorm room. “What was her name?”

Alara gave me a strange look. “Lucy Klein. Why?”

“Just wondering.” I added her name to my mental list. I’d look up her photo later and sketch her portrait in my notebook.

“Maybe they’re alive somewhere,” Elle offered.

I waited for someone to agree, but there was only silence.

Priest was sure that Faith had hidden whatever I was supposed to find at the Old South Meeting House, and he tried to convince the rest of us on the way there.

“The Sons of Liberty held public debates and votes at the meeting house,” he said. “It’s also the place where they gave the signal that started the Boston Tea Party. The Sons of Liberty marched out of there and led colonists straight to the wharf.”

By the time we reached the brick building, with its towering steeple and a door painted the color of a redcoat’s uniform, the snow had turned to cold rain.

A group of tourists stood out front, huddled under their
umbrellas. A tour guide dressed like Paul Revere, complete with a brown tricorn hat, gestured at the red door.

Alara rolled her eyes. “Seriously? Another one? Who goes on a tour in this weather?”

“I wonder if they get a discount on those hats,” Priest whispered as we walked by.

“The cornerstone was an important symbol to Freemasons like Paul Revere and John Hancock.” The tour guide’s voice carried over the rain.

Priest stopped on the front steps. “Hold on a sec.”

The guide pointed at a gray weathered stone that stood out from the surrounding red brick, and the tourists craned their necks. “For early masons, the cornerstone was the first stone set into the foundation, and it was often inscribed with the date and initials of the builder,” he continued. “Freemasons considered the stone a symbolic element and continued the tradition, but they usually added it to the outside of their buildings.
Unless
you were patriot and Freemason Benjamin Franklin.”

Alara stood in the doorway. “Maybe you can take the tour later, Priest. I’d rather watch paint dry.”

“Now this is for all you
Jeopardy!
fans,” the guide rambled on. “Benjamin Franklin cared more about what was
inside
the cornerstone than what was inscribed on the outside. In his diaries, Franklin revealed that he hid important documents related to the Sons of Liberty behind the cornerstone of his house.”

A pudgy guy wearing a plastic poncho raised his hand like he was in elementary school. “If the documents were so important, why’d he write down where he hid them?”

“An excellent question, sir.” The guide jumped at the opportunity to elaborate. “Freemasons were known for their flawless and
seamless
workmanship and often hid valuables inside the things they constructed. Those items could only be accessed by leveraging a specific angle—just like the cornerstone of Franklin’s house.”

Lukas turned to me. “Let me see the note again.”

Priest scanned the scrap of paper in my hand and turned to Lukas. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Lukas flashed him a crooked smile. “Maybe.”

Elle squeezed between them, trying to avoid the rain. “Can we think about whatever it is
inside
?”

Priest flipped up his hood. “We need to go back to the cemetery.”

Alara groaned. “We didn’t find anything there.”

Lukas grabbed her elbow and steered her down the stairs. “That’s because we were looking in the wrong place.”

“So what do the numbers mean?” Jared asked, falling into step next to Lukas.

“I think they’re angles,” his brother said.

I pictured Faith’s handwriting on the note she’d left in my coat pocket.

It said
angle
all along, not
angel
.

Priest looked around. “We need to find a drugstore.”

Alara stopped walking and stood in the middle of the sidewalk with her arms crossed. Bear sat down next to her.

“What are you doing?” Priest asked.

“Waiting for someone to tell me what’s going on,” she said.

Priest pointed at the drugstore at the end of the street. “How about we explain inside, where it’s dry?”

Alara stalked past him and headed in the direction of the store.

That was a yes.

The five of us stood in the school supply aisle of the drugstore, scanning the shelves and dripping all over the cheap carpet, while Jared waited out front with Bear.

Priest found a compass and a ruler and opened them, while Lukas unfolded the note. “If I’m right—”

“If
we’re
right,” Priest said.

Lukas pointed at the bottom of the page. “If we’re right, these two numbers are angles.”

“And you know that how?” I asked.

“The tour guide said Ben Franklin’s cornerstone could only be moved if someone leveraged a specific angle.”
Lukas tapped the numbers on the note. “But there are two numbers here. I think the intersection of these two angles is the spot that opens the cornerstone where Faith hid whatever you’re supposed to find.”

Elle opened a roll of paper towels she’d nabbed on our way down the aisle and wiped her face. “Back up. How do you know Faith didn’t hide this mystery item behind the cornerstone at the Old South Meeting House?”

Lukas shrugged. “I don’t. But the meeting house is in the middle of a busy street. I can’t see Faith climbing over the fence and prying stones out of a historic building without anyone noticing. Granary Burying Ground seems like an easier place to hide something.”

“If he’s wrong, we’ll have to wait until it gets dark to go back to the meeting house anyway,” Priest said.

Elle wiped off the smudged black eyeliner under her eyes. “You guys really know how to show a girl a good time.”

Lukas slung his arm around Elle’s neck. “How do you feel about breaking into a tomb?”