Page 47 of Death Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

There was a pull here, slight but real. The same tug I’d felt on the undead, but stronger, closer to the source. The tether was like a rope that disappeared beneath the earth, threaded through stone and bone, anchored in something deeper.

I exhaled, slow.

“I feel it,” I said quietly.

Faith’s eyes narrowed. “Can you sever it?”

I hesitated. “Maybe.”

Eve stared at the symbols, voice low. “Drathar wouldn’t build an array like this without a purpose.”

“And if someone is copying him,” Tegan added, “they’re trying to harness that purpose.”

Nishi’s gaze shifted to Tegan. “What purpose?”

Tegan’s lips pressed together. “Resurrection magic is not just raising bodies. It’s binding. Returning. Sometimes it’s designed to summon something back that doesn’t belong here.”

My stomach sank. “Like a person.”

Eve’s eyes darkened. “Or a demon.”

Faith made a sound that was half disgust, half disbelief. “Great. Zombies were the warm-up.”

“That’s what it felt like,” I said, because the idea had been sitting in my gut since downtown. “Like a machine warming up.”

Nishi’s phone buzzed.

She answered immediately, voice controlled. “Yeah.”

Her face changed as she listened. Not panic, but the quiet tightening of someone receiving more bad news than one night should contain.

“What?” Faith demanded again, impatient.

Nishi lowered the phone slightly, eyes on us. “Another outbreak.”

My stomach clenched. “Where?”

“Funeral home,” Nishi said, and the words sounded like a curse. “Reports of movement inside. Staff screaming. A few bodies already on the street.”

Eve’s eyes widened. “Which funeral home?”

Nishi listened to her phone for a beat, then answered. “They didn’t specify the name yet. Just the location on Cedar and Ninth.”

Tegan’s face went pale. “That’s near Grim Vale Morgue where Maryam works.”

Faith stared at her. “Maryam.”

Tegan nodded quickly, throat tight. “Maryam Potts. Supernatural mortician. If she’s there, she’s in danger.”

Eve swore softly, something vicious and heartfelt. “Of course it’s a funeral home.”

I stared at the carved stones, then at the dark path leading out of the cemetery. My mind tried to hold both problems at once and failed. The array here felt like the root. The outbreak at the funeral home felt like the next wave.

“We can’t be in two places,” I said.

Nishi’s eyes stayed alert. “We don’t have to be. We have hunters. We have Victor and his officers. We have vampires.”

Faith crossed her arms. “And we have a cemetery full of ancient resurrection glyphs.”