Qebhet had tended to Hecate's body with the same care she would a member of her own family. Last Friday, as the sickle-edge of the waning moon casting its dying glow over the city, long after the last of the funeral home's mortal staff had left for the evening, she had laid out the goddess's corpse on her embalming table. She had burned sweet-smelling kapet, and, after some consideration, an offering bowl of dried yew needles, for she remembered reading the tree was sacred to Hecate. With her own blessed water, she'd bathed the body, washing away gritty residue of the street and the dark flaking blood and the clinging chemical scent of the morgue; and when she was done, she'd anointed it with fragrant oils and dressed it in soft clean clothing and brushed out the hair, gently and patiently teasing out each knot and tangle till it lay smooth.
Since that night, Hecate's body had lain on a mortuary trolley in the cool room, covered with a thin shroud of undid linen and keeping company with a half dozen mortal dead awaiting their final journey. Its presence hadn't gone unnoticed by the other mortuary staff, but a dead body in a funeral home was not particularly suspicious, at least when you had the requisite paperwork – which, thanks to Luna, Qebhet did.
She was making herself a cup of tea in the break room when she felt the flare of a divine presence, bright and sudden as a torch blazing to life. Hecate. Qebhet made for the cool room at a jog, wrenched open the heavy door, and stopped at the threshold.
There, lying prone on the floor, shaky as a newborn foal but breathing nonetheless, was Hecate, returned to life. A knot of tension in Qebhet's chest unravelled and she swiftly closed the small distance between them, stepping lightly around the snakes and kneeling beside her friend.
"Hecate?" She kept her voice pitched soft, stretched out a hand but made no move to touch, not wishing to overwhelm the goddess's freshly reawakened senses. "It's alright, you're safe. You're in my funeral home."