The Ember Protocol
Mara Voss has logged hundreds of bodies at the Harrow & Harrow mortuary, and none of them have ever breathed back. That changes on a graveyard shift when a routine cremation releases something impossible, a sentient smoke that whispers, watches, and hungers. The entity is not new. It is the Voss family secret her grandfather Elias spent a lifetime containing, and the ledger he left behind details only half the ritual meant to end it: the Ember Protocol. As ash figures crawl from cold rooms and coworkers like Supervisor Burke vanish behind sealed doors, Mara watches her younger brother Julian slip closer to possession, his eyes turning the color of cooling cinders. Detective Reuben Hale, the only outsider chasing the pattern, disappears mid-investigation and returns suspended between life and the smoke. Every attempt to sever the entity feeds it instead, until Mara realizes her grandfather never designed the protocol to destroy the fire. He designed it to keep it fed. To stop the spread now, Mara must complete the half her grandfather never dared write, surrendering the last Voss bloodline to the ash, or burn the binding out from the inside and risk losing Julian forever.