Page 29 of Death Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Eve hurled it toward the second undead, the man in work boots.

The fire struck him and he ignited instantly, flames crawling over rotted clothes. He staggered, arms flailing, still moving forward for two steps before collapsing in a burning heap.

The smell was horrific. Burned hair, burned meat, something sour underneath.

I gagged and forced myself to breathe through my mouth.

Tegan moved beside me, eyes wide but focused. She held something in her hand, a small relic, its surface etched with symbols that shimmered.

“Stay behind me,” she snapped, not to me, but to a pair of mundanes who had stumbled into the street near her.

They stared at her as if she were insane.

“Now,” she demanded, voice loud enough to slash through their shock.

They moved.

The third undead, the one with the torn throat, charged toward us.

I lifted my hands, pulling power up from the ground, from my own core, from the part of me that never fully relaxed anymore.

A wave of force slammed into it.

It skidded, boots scraping. It didn’t fall. It recovered too quickly, snapping its head toward me as if it could smell my magic.

That tether sensation brushed my senses again. Thin. Tight. Like a line under tension.

I shoved again, harder, and the corpse slammed into a parked car, denting the door.

Faith fired, bullet cracking into its skull. It dropped.

I exhaled, shaking.

Then more emerged.

Two from the alley. One from behind a parked truck. Another staggering from the sidewalk, as if it had been hiding among mundanes before deciding it was time.

“They’re multiplying,” Eve hissed, voice tight.

Victor’s shadow stretched again, and for half a second the light around him seemed to dim, as if the darkness was listening to him. A tendril of shadow flicked out toward a corpse, wrapping around its ankle, tripping it hard.

It went down, limbs twisting, and an officer dragged a mundane away before it could lunge again.

Victor didn’t look like he was casting anything. He just looked like a man who had decided the night would obey him.

Nishi appeared at my left, moving fast, phone already away. She had two hunters behind her, faces set, weapons drawn.

“Teams are sweeping blocks,” she said. “But this keeps popping up like someone’s opening doors.”

Faith didn’t stop firing. “Then find the doors.”

“I’m trying,” Nishi snapped, and there it was, the crack in her control. Not panic. Pressure.

Eve’s hellfire roared again, throwing heat across the street. Two undead went down in flames, but before the fire could finish eating them, another one sprinted in, faster than the last.

It leaped.

Not stumbled. Not lunged.