Page 50 of Death Makes the Heart Grow Fonder

Tegan’s eyes widened. “Take it. Are you sure?”

Nishi’s gaze didn’t waver. “We can’t leave it. If it’s the knot, it goes with us. We can contain it, study it, break it somewhere controlled.”

Eve looked at me. “Can you handle it?”

My mouth went dry. “I can try.”

Faith shifted closer, hammer still in hand, weapon ready. “And if it bites?”

“I don’t think it has teeth,” I said.

Eve gave me a look. “Everything has teeth tonight.”

I crouched slowly, keeping my hands steady, and reached toward the disk.

The cold hit me before I touched it, as if my fingers were nearing ice.

Under that cold, I felt something else.

A pulse.

Not a heartbeat. Not life.

A signal.

Something calling into the ground, into the dead, into the places where bodies waited.

I swallowed and wrapped my fingers around the edge, bracing for resistance.

The moment I lifted it, the tether sensation snapped tight, as if the line had realized it was being moved.

My vision blurred for a half second.

Then the air around us shifted, and from somewhere deeper in the cemetery, a low sound rose.

Not a scream.

Not a groan.

A breath.

Like the earth exhaled.

Eve’s hellfire flared brighter.

Faith’s grip tightened on her weapon.

Nishi’s voice went rose into her phone. “We’re moving. Hold the funeral home until we arrive.”

And as we sprinted back toward the SUV, the disk cold in my hand and the cemetery behind us waking up, I had one clear thought that felt like a curse.

If the cemetery was the source, the funeral home was the pantry.

CHAPTER 7

Nishi pulled the SUV into the lot with a turn that made the tires hiss on the wet pavement. A glowing sign out front read Cedar and Ninth Funeral Services in soft, comforting letters, which felt optimistic considering there were bodies inside doing their best to become mobile again.

Faith checked her weapon before her boots even hit the ground. Her posture had that familiar coiled readiness, like she was a spring that didn’t believe in rest.