Page 21 of The Cruelest Undead

Jacques nodded.

Yes. It’s another of Rinnon’s trinkets, but I didn’t see it coming into play until much later. If Rinnon accidentally did this, clearly, Fate has changed the timeline. We can’t let just anyone raise the dead. I can necromance only because it’s part of my job. I kill and I can raise the dead. You cannot.

Well, this proved to be a problem.

Because she clearly had.

The proof was standing before them.

And those really are Flynn’s parents?Jolie asked, glancing over at the couple hugging each other.

He was honest.

That really is them, but when you raise the dead, they don’t have a soul. They are missing what made them human, so they can be…off.

She was confused.

Few things didn’t have a soul. Mostly, it was all of the monsters.

So vampyres? Or?

Rinnon handled this since he was eavesdropping on the whole conversation.

In a way, yes. They aren’t human anymore, but that will still be them as Flynn knew them. It’s clear that they don’t have their memories. That might be what didn’t come back with them. That could be what is ‘off’, as Death has mentioned. They could be a clean slate.

AND THEIR SOULS!Death added, in case he’d forgotten that very important part. That was also what was going to be missing.

Well, and that. Don’t be touchy. I was trying to keep us safe,he offered again.

Jolie was curious.

Well, then, what are they if they’re ‘kinda’ like vampyres?

They both answered at once.

They might be zombies.

At the mention of that one word, Jolie’s eyes went huge, and that gave her all kinds of visuals that she didn’t like. Zombies wereNOTa good thing.

How could they be?

Didn’t they eat people?

Maybe she’d seen too many scary movies, or TV shows, but that never bode well for anyone who was walking the streets with them.

Jacques and Jolie stared at each other.

Yeah, it’s that damn bad,he admitted.We don’t know if they’ll go bad, or if they’ll have a long shelf life.

They aren’t cans of soup, Jacques. We can’t turn them over and look for that expiry date. It’ll bite us in the ass before we figure it out.

Oh, he was aware.

This was absolutely going to bite them in the ass. How did they know?

It always did.

This was their fate.

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