Chapter 3
Hunter broke the silence the way he did most things. With blunt force and no patience for anyone’s feelings.
“Faith should go with Salima,” he said, voice low, carrying that pack alpha weight that made the air feel tighter. “I’ll pick up Aurora. She can help me with containment. The rest of you track the source. That’s the priority. We don’t know what you’ll run into.”
Lucinda’s gaze snapped to him. She did not like being told what should happen in her own chambers. Nobody did, but Lucinda treated it like a personal insult.
Faith shifted beside me.
I understood the logic, though. I did not like it, but I understood it.
The streets were chaos. The undead were spreading. Mundanes were filming, calling, posting, and panicking in real-time. The council could argue about blame later, but right now the clock was ticking, and Hunter had always been practical.
Lucinda didn’t respond right away. She let the words hang there, as if the pause alone could remind Hunter who he was speaking to.
Hunter met her stare without flinching.
Carnell, leaning with irritating ease like he didn’t have two thousand years of bad decisions under his belt, smiled. “I do enjoy a decisive plan. Especially one that includes my granddaughter not dying.”
Faith shot him a look that could have melted metal. “I’m standing right here.”
“I know,” Carnell said, pleased. “That’s my favorite part.”
Faith made a sound in her throat that might have been disgust. It also might have been affection trying to escape and getting strangled on the way out.
Lucinda finally spoke, voice clipped. “Fine. Containment and source. Hunter, take Aurora. Faith goes with Salima.”
Faith opened her mouth, but Lucinda lifted a hand before she could speak. “This is not about your pride.”
“No,” Faith said, eyes narrowed, “it’s about me not being used as bait.”
Hunter’s mouth tightened. “You’re not bait. You’re backup.”
“Comforting,” I muttered.
Faith’s eyes flicked to me. “You always pick the worst moments to be sarcastic.”
“It’s a gift,” I said. “Also a coping mechanism.”
Eve stepped closer, fingers brushing her amethyst necklace. She looked tense, but not panicked. Eve did panic sometimes, quietly, internally, but she had been through enough with Caton that the undead in the streets probably felt like just another unpleasant surprise.
“What do we know so far?” she asked, voice steady. “Besides the obvious.”
“That the obvious is bad,” I said.
Lucinda’s expression did not soften. “We know the dead are moving. We know it isn’t contained. We know someone is either raising them, controlling them, or both. And we know we cannot wait.”
Caton’s facial twitch fired. He stood too still, which was always a sign he was angry. “We should send hunters to the graveyards.”
Nishi’s eyes narrowed, and her fingers twisted her ring once. “Already done. My teams are sweeping them. The reports are not concentrated near burial sites.”
That, right there, should have made everyone colder.
Because if the dead weren’t rising from graves, then we were dealing with a different pipeline.
Bodies came from somewhere.
Alex, who had been quiet for the past minute in the way someone got when their brain was juggling three disasters at once, looked up. His lavender eyes were focused. “Tracking the source means tracking the spell. Salima says she felt it masked.”
Lucinda’s gaze slid to me again, as if she were forced to acknowledge I existed.
I hated that my stomach tightened every time she looked at me. I hated it even more because it suggested she had power over me.
“I didn’t sense the casting,” I repeated, because we were all still circling that ugly gap. “I felt something when it moved. A tether maybe.”
“And you’re sure it was necromancy?” Caton said, voice flat.
I met his stare. “Unless someone invented a new hobby where they animate corpses for fun without death magic involved, yes.”
Carnell hummed thoughtfully. “That sounds like a hobby for someone who needs more friends.”
Faith muttered, “Or less freedom.”
Hunter glanced toward the board, then back to Lucinda. “If we’re splitting, we do it now.”
Lucinda’s jaw tightened. She looked like she wanted to snap something, maybe a person, maybe a spine. Instead, she nodded once.
“Fine,” she said. “Tracking team. Salima, Faith, Eve, Nishi. Carnell, you’re with them.”
Carnell’s brows lifted, amused. “I’m always with them. In spirit. But I must check that there is no demon involvement.”
“Then go now,” Lucinda snapped. “If this is an artifact or a masked working, your connections might be useful.”
Carnell’s smile widened. “See, granddaughter. I am useful.”
Faith didn’t look at him. “Try not to let it go to your head.”
“That ship sailed,” I said under my breath.
Eve’s gaze flicked to me, and there was a flash of something like gratitude in it. Or maybe she just enjoyed watching someone else poke Carnell.
Hunter pointed a thick finger toward the doors. “I’m moving. Aurora first. Then I start locking down routes.”
Lucinda nodded. “Go.”
Hunter left with the kind of speed that made it clear he was already planning ten steps ahead. His footsteps faded fast.
The room shifted again, the air changing when one large presence disappeared.
Faith crossed her arms. “Where should we start?”
I exhaled slowly, because that question landed on my shoulders like a weight.
What did you do when the dead rose and you couldn’t feel the magic that raised them?
You started with the people who knew death magic best.
“We talk to any other necromancers in the coven,” I said. “I don’t know who they are, but Lucinda does.”
Lucinda’s expression tightened. The slightest flare of irritation crossed her face, and I realized she didn’t like the implication that her coven might include someone capable of this.
Eve answered before Lucinda could. “I only know of one.”
My gaze snapped to her. “One?”
Eve nodded. “Andel.”
Lucinda’s lips pressed together. “Andel is the only one.”
Nishi’s brows drew together. “He’s stayed quiet.”
“He stays quiet on purpose,” Eve said. “He keeps his head down. He does his work. He does not get involved unless someone drags him.”
I rubbed my forehead, trying to keep my thoughts in a straight line. “If this is necromancy, Andel is our best lead. Either he knows something, or someone is using his knowledge, or someone is framing him.”
Caton’s twitch jumped again. “Convenient to suggest we question a coven member instead of looking inward.”
I stared at him. “That was the most backward sentence I’ve heard all night.”
Lucinda’s eyes flashed. “Enough. We will speak with Andel.”
Relief flickered in me. Not because I thought Andel would fix this. Because at least we were moving.
“And,” I added quickly, before Lucinda could redirect the plan into something that ended with me locked in a room for questioning, “we pick up Tegan.”
Nishi’s gaze brightened. “I will text her. I was hoping to give her the night off.”
“I know,” I said. “But if it’s an artifact, she is our best bet.”
Lucinda’s expression tightened. “Tegan seems to avoid council matters.”
“Most sane people do,” I muttered.
Carnell’s head tilted. “Why wasn’t she called anyway?”
Nishi’s eyes narrowed. “Because Kacey is sick. But Spencer can stay with her since this is important.”
Eve’s fingers brushed her necklace again. “If Kacey is sick, Tegan might not want to leave.”
“She will,” Lucinda said, voice hard. “If the town is threatened, her daughter is threatened. She will understand that.”
I didn’t love the way Lucinda spoke about people. As if they were pieces on a board she could move by force.
Then again, sometimes force was the only thing that got anyone to act before it was too late.
Nishi shifted, decisive. “I can pick up Tegan.”
Faith glanced at her. “You sure?”
Nishi’s eyes narrowed. “My teams are deployed. They can handle initial lockdown. I can do more by moving. We need answers fast.”
I nodded, grateful. “Lucinda can send you the address for Andel’s place. We will meet there.”
Nishi’s gaze flicked to me, then to Lucinda, then back. “Send it now.”
I almost smiled, then remembered the undead were chewing through town and my sense of humor did not actually count as a weapon.
Lucinda gestured toward the portal. “Go. Carnell, take them through your home portal. I want them off the roads.”
Carnell’s smile was taunting. “With pleasure.”
Faith muttered, “Of course, with pleasure.”
We moved as a unit toward the shimmering archway.
Portals always felt like stepping into a decision you couldn’t undo. The air in front of them was wrong in a way my skin noticed first. Like a thin layer of reality had been peeled back, revealing something slick underneath.
Carnell went first, because he always went first, because he was the kind of person who treated danger like a flirtation. Faith followed, because she trusted Carnell in the way people trusted the most reckless family member. Not because they were safe, but because they were predictable.
Eve stepped in next, shoulders squared. I followed her.
The world folded.
It was not pain. It was pressure, like my ribs were being squeezed by invisible hands. My stomach rolled, and my breath caught for half a second as the chambers vanished.
Then we were somewhere else.
Carnell’s suite.
Calling it a suite was like calling the council chambers a meeting room. It was technically accurate and wildly misleading.
The air smelled like cedar and expensive cologne. The lighting was low, warm. The carpet under my boots was thick enough to swallow sound. Somewhere nearby, music pulsed softly, something slow and lazy, as if Carnell believed even his emergency exits should have mood lighting.
I took in one glance of the living space and immediately regretted having eyes.
Leopard print. Faux fur. A marble-topped minibar that looked like it was ready to serve drinks to a room full of royalty. Art on the walls that could politely be described as sensual and more accurately be described as porn with a frame.
Faith’s gaze swept the room, stopping on a new, massive nude portrait of Carnell. “You have no shame.”