Page 44 of Death Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

“No,” Eve said, voice flat with mother authority. “You did your part. Stay. Keep the story alive. Do not follow us.”

Mina opened her mouth.

Eve lifted an eyebrow.

Mina’s mouth closed. She exhaled hard. “Fine. But text me if you find anything cool, because I want to build the narrative around it.”

Faith muttered, “I’ll text you a picture of my middle finger.”

Mina’s grin returned, quick and fearless. “That’s on brand for you, Saber.”

Faith looked as if she regretted existing.

Nishi swung into the driver’s seat. Faith took shotgun without being asked. I slid into the back next to Eve, and Tegan climbed in on the other side of her.

The engine roared, and we pulled away from downtown, leaving Victor, Delia, Spencer, and the vampires to hold the line and clean up the minds of a crowd that would keep trying to remember.

As we drove, I watched the city lights blur past the window. Neon and streetlamps and holiday decorations that suddenly felt obscene. Someone had put up a plastic snowman on a storefront, and it smiled cheerfully at the chaos like it didn’t know the dead were sprinting around the streets.

Faith kept her gaze forward. “So the cemetery is the source. What does that mean?”

“It means the undead are not random,” Nishi said. “It means someone’s working from an anchor point.”

“And it means,” Tegan added, voice tight, “they’re using a place that already has thin walls between life and death.”

Eve’s fingers touched her necklace again. “That’s why they feel wrong.”

I swallowed, tasting smoke and old blood in my mouth. “Or it’s why I can’t get a clean hold on them.”

Faith glanced back at me briefly. “You still feeling the pushback?”

“Yes,” I said. “Like someone’s gripping the same thread.”

Silence filled the SUV for a moment, heavy.

Then Eve spoke, voice quieter. “If someone is contesting you, they’re strong.”

I stared out at the dark trees sliding past. “Or they’re not alone.”

Nishi turned off the main road onto a narrower street, the kind lined with older houses and heavier shadows. The city lights faded behind us, replaced by streetlamps that cast pale pools on wet pavement. The air looked misty here, as if the night had thickened.

“Hunters are already on site,” Nishi said. “They found markings.”

Tegan’s head snapped toward her. “Markings where?”

“On graves,” Nishi answered. “On headstones. On ground plates.”

My skin prickled. “Carved.”

“Yes.”

Faith exhaled, low and controlled. “That’s deliberate.”

The cemetery came into view, tucked behind a row of cedars and a low iron fence. It wasn’t the big memorial park with manicured lawns and family plots that people visited on Sundays. This place was older, smaller, with uneven ground and stones that leaned like tired teeth. A few headstones were so weathered they looked as if decades of rain and salt air had sanded them down.

Nishi parked near the gate.

A hunter waited for us, hood up, flashlight in hand. She looked young, but her stance was professional, and her eyes were intense when she spoke.