Page 27 of Death Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

As we drove, I saw clusters of mundanes standing on corners, phones raised, faces lit by their screens. Their expressions were a mix of terror and excitement, which made me want to scream. I understood fear. I understood shock. I did not understand the part of the human brain that saw danger and thought, content.

Faith cut through side streets, avoiding congestion. Her hands stayed on the wheel. Her eyes did not.

“You good?” I asked, because Faith rarely admitted weakness, but I could see the tension in her shoulders.

“I’m fine,” she answered automatically.

I stared at her.

Eve leaned forward from the back seat, phone in hand, reading updates. “Hunter says the undead are faster this time.”

My stomach tightened. “Faster than what?”

“Faster than the first wave,” Eve said. “They’re not just lunging. They’re running.”

Tegan’s voice went tight. “That’s not possible.”

I glanced at her. “Tonight has been a long series of impossible.”

Faith turned quickly at an intersection, the SUV rocking. “What about Victor?”

Eve glanced down. “Victor’s on scene with SNPD officers. He’s trying to contain the crowd, but people won’t stop filming.”

Of course Victor was there. Chief Thornwood did not hide when things got messy. He walked into it as if it owed him answers.

The downtown lights appeared ahead, brighter and busier than the quiet streets near my basement suite. Neon signs. Street lamps. Shop windows reflecting the chaos back at itself.

Then we heard the screaming.

It wasn’t one scream. It was many, layered, overlapping, breaking into sobs and yelling.

Faith slammed on the brakes, then maneuvered around a police cruiser parked at an angle, lights flashing.

“Stay close,” she snapped.

“Yes, Mom,” I muttered, then immediately regretted it when she shot me a look that could turn water to ice.

We piled out of the SUV.

The air downtown smelled like exhaust and cold pavement, but underneath that was something worse.

Blood.

Not the copper hint you got from a nosebleed. This was thicker. Heavy. It made the back of my throat taste like pennies.

Mundanes crowded the sidewalks behind a line of officers trying to hold them back. Phones were raised above heads like tiny glowing torches. Someone was shouting into their camera, voice high with adrenaline.

“It’s real! It’s real! Look at this!”

I pushed forward, weaving through bodies, trying not to shove anyone unless I had to. Faith moved beside me like a shadow, shoulders squared, scanning.

Eve and Tegan followed, and I could feel Nishi’s presence somewhere to our right, moving fast, already coordinating hunters into positions.

Then I saw the first body.

A man sprawled on the pavement near a café patio, his jacket twisted under him. His eyes were open, glassy. Blood pooled beneath his head, dark on the concrete.

I stopped short, breath catching.