Page 238

I start searching through the drawers, but don’t find anything unusual. Vae follows me in and begins rummaging through the dresser.

A moment later, Silas joins us and heads straight for the ensuite bathroom on the left.

“Jack shit,” I groan after ten minutes of searching.

“Doesn’t surprise me,” Vae replies, bouncing onto the bed like he doesn’t care who’s been sleeping in it for the last decade. “Albertson clearly left a while ago. There’s dust on everything, no clothes in the drawers, no food in the fridge. What did you expect?”

“A murder board?” Silas calls out from the walk-in closet.

“Don’t touch anything until we’ve verified there’s no asbestos, yeah?” Vae shouts back, snatching the Doctor’s pillows and throwing them on the floor for fuck knows what reason.

There’s a beat of silence from Silas, followed by a far too casual, “Too late.”

I pinch the bridge of my nose and blow out an annoyed breath.

Then, Silas adds, “Also, it’s a real murder board with red string and thumbtacks and everything. You’re gonna stroke out, Dax. You love this kind of shit.”

Vae and I share a long look, then stalk into the closet.

“You better not be joking, Silas. If you just drew a bunch of dicks on the wall to piss me off, you’re walking home.”

I follow Vae into the closest and find Silas bent over, nose three inches from the wall, squinting at a journal entry tacked to a corkboard.

”Hollyyyyy fuck,” Vae whistles. “It really is a murder board.”

“Told ya,” Silas replies, looking far too smug.

Stepping up beside them, I scan the wall. It’s packed with photos, journal entries, newspaper clippings, old Vampire House crests crudely sketched on paper, and photocopies ripped from old ledgers and books.

Directly in the center, tacked up and written in thick black marker, is a single sheet of paper with one word:

Elydrien.

All the strings start there and work their way out.

“This is unreal,” I murmur.

“We should take pictures, just in case.” Silas whips out his phone and begins cataloging while Vae and I try to make sense of the chaos.

I’m usually the composed one in these situations. Then again, I usually stay behind at HQ. Sometimes I forget how different things are in the field, how much harder the weight hits when it’s not filtered through a screen, or crackling in your ear over comms.

“Gods, look at this shit,” Vae points at a row of blurry Polaroids of random women, all obviously photographed without their knowledge.

Multiple bright red strings stretch from the center sheet—Elydrien—and fork off toward the photos. I crouch down, noticing a delicate script scrawled along the edges. It looks almost like a label.

“What’s that say?” I tilt my head, squinting to make out the tiny handwriting. “AIR.” Silas points at two strings that split off from the center. They were originally twinned together under Elydrien, but veer off in separate directions toward different photos. He points again. “WATER.” Then gestures to four more threads. “EARTH and FIRE. And these black ones are labeled “ALL.” He taps them gently, gesturing toward the two photos they’re connected to.

Two more women. Two more of Varenthrall’s victims.

“Holy fuck, is that Daniella?” Vae whispers. I follow his gaze and swear under my breath.

“Yeah, and that’s Calla next to her. They’re both tagged under FIRE.”

I trace the strings to where they disappear beneath the photos. Under them is another sheet. It’s rough and aged, with a sketch that looks like a gnarled tree trunk.

“This is a family tree,” I point at the lines branching from the central trunk. Again, that same word is scrawled across the bottom. ELYDRIEN.

Silas waves a hand toward the sketch with a grimace. “That’s not a family tree. That’s a family autopsy.”