Page 3 of Death Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Not nothing as in safe. Nothing as in blank. Like someone had scrubbed the scene clean and left the horror behind.

My skin prickled. The hairs on my arms rose. My magic pressed against my ribs as if it wanted to run away.

I took another step, angling to keep myself between the zombie and the man.

“Get up,” I snapped at him. “Run. Now.”

He stared at me, shock freezing his features.

I grabbed his sleeve and yanked. That did it. He stumbled upright and bolted down the sidewalk.

The zombie followed.

Of course it did.

It dragged one foot, the shoe half off, leather flapping with every step. Its jacket had a name tag pinned to it, like it worked somewhere. I couldn’t read the letters. The tag was smeared with blood.

A fresh wound split the skin at its temple. Something had hit it. Maybe a bat. Maybe a brick. The wound should have made it stop. It didn’t even slow.

I raised my hand again, then hesitated.

If I threw more power at it, I risked drawing attention. I risked the wrong kind of attention.

Because there was a second sensation now, faint but real. A thread, like the tug of a fishing line. It ran from the zombie into the dark, stretched taut and hungry.

It wasn’t attached to the body.

It was attached to the idea of the body.

Someone was pulling it.

Necromancy.

My stomach rolled. It wasn’t my spell. It wasn’t my signature. But it was my nightmare, walking in the street as if it owned the place.

The zombie lunged again, faster than it should have been able to move.

I acted on instinct.

I stepped into its path and slammed my palm against its sternum.

Cold. So cold I felt it in my teeth.

For a split second, my senses sharpened. The street, the air, the heartbeat of the town. I saw the necromantic thread clearly then, dark and slick, like oil on water.

Then the cold surged, trying to climb up my arm.

I jerked back as if it had burned me, and the zombie stumbled, arms windmilling, almost falling. Almost. It caught itself and snapped its jaw, teeth clicking.

“Not today,” I muttered.

My phone vibrated in my hand.

The screen flashed a name I didn’t want to see right now.

Lucinda.

Of course.