Lady Midnight (The Dark Artifices #1)(31)

Livvy, ever dedicated to her sibling, had also taught herself to use it, with Ty’s help, once he’d familiarized himself with how it worked. Together they were a formidable team.

It looked like Ty, Dru, Livvy, and even Tavvy had been busy. Dru had spread maps all over the floor. Tavvy was standing by a whiteboard with a blue dry-erase marker, making possibly helpful notations, if they could ever be translated out of seven-year-old.

Ty was seated at the swivel chair in front of the computer, his fingers moving swiftly over the keyboard. Livvy was perched on the desk, as she often was; Ty worked around her, completely aware of where she was while at the same time focusing on the task at hand.

“So, you found something?” Julian said as they came in.

“Yes. Just a second.” Ty held up his hand imperiously. “You can talk to each other if you like.”

Julian grinned. “That’s very kind.”

Cristina came hurrying in, braiding her damp, dark hair. She’d clearly showered and re-dressed, in jeans and a flowered blouse. “Livvy told me—”

“Shh.” Emma put her finger to her lips and indicated Ty, staring intently at the computer’s blue screen. It lit up his delicate features. She loved the moments when Ty was playing detective; he so clearly fell into the part, into the dream of being Sherlock Holmes, who always had all the answers.

Cristina nodded and sat down on the overstuffed love seat beside Drusilla. Dru was nearly as tall as she was, despite being only thirteen. She was one of those girls whose body had grown up quickly: She had breasts and hips, was soft and curvy. It had led to some awkward moments with boys who thought she was seventeen or eighteen years old, and a few incidents where Emma had barely stopped Julian from murdering a mundane teenager.

Malcolm settled himself in a patched armchair. “Well, if we’re waiting,” he said, and began typing on his phone.

“What are you doing?” Emma asked.

“Ordering pizza from Nightshade’s,” said Malcolm. “There’s an app.”

“A what?” said Dru.

“Nightshade?” Livvy turned around. “The vampire?”

“He owns a pizza place. The sauce is divine,” Malcolm said, kissing his fingers.

“Aren’t you worried what’s in it?” said Livvy.

“You Nephilim are so paranoid,” said Malcolm, returning to his phone.

Ty cleared his throat, spinning his chair back around to face the room. Everyone had settled themselves on couches or chairs except Tavvy, who was sitting on the floor under the whiteboard. “I’ve found some stuff,” he said. “There definitely have been bodies that fit Emma’s description. Fingerprints sanded off, soaked in seawater, skin burned.” He pulled up the front page of a newspaper on-screen. “Mundanes think it’s satanic cult activity, because of the chalk markings found around the bodies.”

“Mundanes think everything is satanic cult activity,” said Malcolm. “Most cults are actually in service of completely different demons than Lucifer. He’s quite famous and very hard to reach. Rarely does favors for anyone. Really an unrewarding demon to worship.”

Emma and Julian exchanged looks of amusement. Ty clicked the computer mouse, and pictures flashed up on the screen. Faces—different ages, races, genders. All of them slack in death.

“There are only a few murders that match the profile,” said Ty. He seemed pleased to be using the word “profile.” “There’s been one every month for the past year. Twelve counting the one Emma found, like she said.”

Emma said, “But nothing before a year ago?”

Ty shook his head.

“So, there was a gap of four years since my parents were killed. Whoever it was—if it was the same person—stopped and started up again.”

“Is there anything that links all these people?” Julian asked. “Diana said some of the bodies were fey.”

“Well, this is all mundane news,” said Livvy. “They wouldn’t know, would they? They’d think the bodies were human, if they were gentry fey. As for anything linking them, none of them have been identified.”

“That’s weird,” said Dru. “What about blood? In movies they can identify people using blood and DTR.”

“DNA,” corrected Ty. “Well, according to the newspapers none of the bodies were identified. It could have been that whatever spells were done on them altered their blood. Or they could have decayed fast, like Emma’s parents did. That would have limited what the coroners could have found out.”

“There is something else, though,” Livvy said. “The stories all reported where the bodies were found, and we mapped them. They have one thing in common.”

Ty had taken one of his hand toys out of his pocket, a mass of intermingled pipe cleaners, and was untangling it. Ty had one of the fastest-working minds of anyone Emma knew, and it calmed him to have a way to use his hands to diffuse some of that quickness and intensity. “The bodies have all been dumped at ley lines. All of them,” he said, and Emma could hear the excitement in his voice.

“Ley lines?” Dru furrowed her brow.

“There’s a network, circling the world, of ancient magical pathways,” said Malcolm. “They amplify magic, so for centuries Downworlders have used them to create entrances into Faerie, that sort of thing. Alicante is built on a convergence of ley lines. They’re invisible, but some can train themselves to sense them.” He frowned, staring at the computer screen, where one of the images Cristina had taken of the dead body at the Sepulchre was displayed. “Can you do that thing?” he said. “You know, where you make the picture bigger?”