Circle Of Death

Chapter Two

The door opened with a crash that rattled the empty soda cans and coffee mugs lining the bookcase to his right. Doyle Fitzgerald glanced up to watch his best friend and sometimes partner drip in.

"You're wet," he said, leaning back in his chair with a grin. Russell was more than just wet. He looked like the proverbial drowned rat—brown hair plastered to his face and accentuating his sharp features, nose and cheeks mottled red, clothes sodden and shoes squelching.

"No kidding?" Russ stripped off his coat and threw it roughly into the corner. "It is supposed to be summer here, isn't it?

They'd come here to Australia from the U.S. a week ago and had yet to see any real sunshine. Not that it really mattered, Doyle thought grimly. Most of their work was done at night. "The lady in the coffee shop down the road said you get all four seasons in one day here."

Russell snorted. "The only damn season we're getting at the moment is winter. The boss in?"

He glanced toward the interview room. It was dark except for the occasional flicker of warmth from the candle Camille had lit earlier. "Yeah. She's trying to do a reading."

"She'll want to see this." Russell undid the top few buttons of his shirt and dug out a manila folder.

Doyle groaned. "Tell me it's not another murder."

Russ's brown eyes were grim. "Two points down, three to go."

"Damn." They were here to supposedly stop the murders, but so far all they'd managed was to be three steps behind. "Who this time?"

"One Helen Smith and her boyfriend, Ross Gibson."

Camille had done a reading after the first murder and gathered a list of possible victims. Neither Smith nor Gibson were on it. Doyle scrubbed a hand across his eyes. He just didn't like the feel of this case.

"Camille was pretty certain her list was accurate."

"That doesn't mean it was." Russ shrugged. "Let's go see the boss. I'll be damned if I'm going to repeat everything."

He headed for the interview room. Doyle grabbed three mugs from the top of the bookcase and followed. Russ knocked softly on the door.

"Stop making all that damn noise and just come in," a raspy voice stated.

Russ cocked an eyebrow. "The old witch sounds in fine form tonight."

"The old witch has fine hearing, too, Russell, so watch your cheek and get in here."

Russ rolled his eyes and opened the door. Restraining his grin, Doyle walked through the candlelit darkness to the coffeepot.

"Another murder, is it?" Camille snatched the folder from Russell's hands. Pushing her blue rimmed glasses back up to the bridge of her nose, she slapped open the folder and peered at the contents with a frown.

Doyle filled the mugs, handing them out before sitting down at the table next to Russell. He sipped his coffee and watched Camille, an odd sort of trepidation filling his gut. The surprises hadn't ended with these two murders, of that he was certain.

"This can't be right." Camille picked up a photo and tossed it to him. "This girl isn't on the list. Why would she be targeted?"

He studied the photo of the murdered woman. Even though he'd seen a hell of a lot worse in his time with the Circle, anger still burned through him. These people hadn't just been killed, they'd been desecrated. There was nothing ritualistic about the destruction, either. The creatures behind it had done this for pleasure, nothing more.

"We don't know how accurate that list of yours really is," Russ said. "Especially given we don't know who's really behind these murders."

Doyle frowned. Whoever was behind the murders was obviously strong enough to control a manarei , the most dangerous of all shapeshifters. Though if they were that powerful, why would they risk using the manarei at all? It didn't make any sense.

"I did a reading off that bit of scale you found at the first murder scene. That list is accurate, all right."

Camille's blue eyes were sharp with anger, though he knew it was aimed more at herself than Russell or him. She didn't like being wrong, and she didn't like deaths happening as a result of her being wrong.

" Manareidon't usually make mistakes." He handed the photo back to her. "If he killed this woman, he did it because he was ordered to."

Camille nodded, silver hair gleaming in the flickering candlelight. "What we gotta do now is find out why.

Russell, you get a chance to look at the house?"

"Yeah. Got invited in with the forensic team. Same deal as the previous murder. Brains consumed, bodies pulled apart."

She frowned and tapped a gnarled finger on the photo. "Nothing else? Nothing out of the ordinary?"

Russell frowned. "Yeah. The damn living room looked as if the storm had stepped inside for a few seconds. The whole place was sodden."

Camille's gray eyebrows shot up. "What did the cops make of that?"

"Both the door and the window had been left open." Russ shrugged. "They figured it was probably that."

"But you don't?" Doyle asked.

Russ shook his head. "I'm not magi-sensitive like you, but the air felt… electric." He shrugged.

"Whatever happened, it still wasn't enough to protect them."

Doyle grimaced. The only thing that really stopped a Manarei was a silver bullet to the brain. But they weren't just powerful killers. They were hunters beyond compare, and they could assume the shape of anyone they'd consumed. Which made them damn hard to track down.

"Storm witch," Camille muttered. "Had to be. Why would the creature be going after someone like her?

She don't fit with the other murder."

"She does if the murderer is after nothing more than a certain look." Russell leaned forward in his chair and lightly tapped the photo of the dead woman. "She had dark hair and gray eyes, same as the other one."

Camille snorted. "And the triangles being carved around that circle on the door? That just there for decoration?"

Russ shrugged. "Could be."

Camille's beady gaze headed Doyle's way. "And you? What's your opinion on this?"

He didn't really have one yet, beyond the fact they were in over their heads and sinking fast. He reached for the folder. "I think we're missing something."

"Yeah, a motive." Russell's voice was dry. "And the name of the person pulling the Manarei's strings."

He grinned. "I meant specifically with this murder, moron. What do we know about this Helen Smith?"

"Not a lot. She moved into the Essendon area a month ago. Had a job as a chef at a local vegetarian restaurant. Shared the house with a girlfriend, one Kirby Brown. It was Kirby who found her, apparently."

"You get a chance to talk to this woman?" Camille asked, voice sharp.

"No. The cops were watching her pretty closely. They've got her under protection at a local motel."

Camille made a sound of disgust. Her dislike for police had its origins in the brief period she'd been one of them. She never talked about it much, but Doyle had gathered over the years that it wasn't so much the rules she disliked as the unwillingness of those in charge to see beyond the material aspects of a case in an attempt to solve it.

But the police force's loss was the Damask Circle's gain. Camille had been quickly pulled from the ranks of general investigators and now helped Seline Whiteshore run the huge organization. That Seline had sent her here with them spoke of the seriousness in which she viewed this situation.

"So the fools still think they've got themselves a plain old serial killer." Camille's voice held an edge of disbelief. "They never learn, do they?"

"They do their best, given the limited resources and expertise they have in these cases." Though Russell's voice was mild, there was a flash of annoyance in his brown eyes. He'd been a cop himself before he'd crossed the line between the living and the dead, and even now, he readily defended them.

"What do we know about this Kirby Brown?" Doyle asked, before Russ and Camille could get into yet another argument on the merits of the police force.

"Very little. She paints houses for a living and portraits for fun, and she has apparently known Helen most of her life."

"Photo?"

"Yeah, in the back of the folder. I took it from one of the bedrooms."

He shuffled through to find it. The two women could have passed for sisters. They had the same build and the same dusky-brown hair, only Kirby's was highlighted with streaks of pale gold. Their eyes differed, too. Helen Smith had the eyes of a storm witch—a smoldering, ethereal gray. Kirby's were a vibrant green. Even though it was only a photo, those eyes seemed to cut right through him and touch something deep in his soul.

Frowning, he slid the picture across to Camille. "Could be the Manarei went after the wrong woman."

Camille picked up the photo and studied it for several seconds. "She don't fit the profile, either. Look at her eyes. There's power in that gaze. She may not be a witch, but she's got abilities, and she's used them.

The first victim's powers were basically unwoken."

"The first victim might not have realized the potential that lies within her, but someone obviously did."

Russ grabbed the photo off Camille and considered it for a second. "Did you manage to get into the morgue?"

Camille grimaced. "Yeah. Had time enough to sneak in and do a reading. She'd had her powers ripped from her before she died. The manarei's little more than a cover for the true reason of death."

Doyle's frown deepened. "How can that be possible? How can you siphon someone's psychic abilities like it was nothing more than blood?"

Camille snorted. "Boy, there's things in this world that can suck the energy from a person until they're nothing more than a husk. There are even creatures that feed on souls. Why can't there be something that siphons psychic energy or abilities?"

He shrugged. Put like that, it almost seemed reasonable. "So, the real question is, why these particular girls?"

Camille nodded. "How you going with those background checks on the first victim?"

He grimaced. "Not good. Her parents were killed when she was six years old, and she was placed into the foster care system. She was eleven when she was sent to a government-run facility for troubled teenagers."

"No relatives?" Russell asked.

He shook his head. "None listed, though I dare say she has them somewhere."

Camille lightly tapped the table. "Do a check on Brown and Smith, and see what you come up with."

She glanced back to Russell. "You get anything personal from the house?"

Russ reached into his shirt and pulled out a plastic bag. Inside were two hair brushes.

Camille smiled. "Such a clever boy."

"Such a damn thief," Doyle muttered dryly.

Russ raised an eyebrow, his expression amused. "Now there's a case of the pot calling the kettle black if ever I heard one."

He grinned and didn't deny it.

Camille drew a hairbrush out of the bag. She unwound several strands of hair from the bristles, then closed her eyes and ran the lengths through her fingers. A shudder shook her slender frame. "This was Helen's," she said softly. "She was one with the storms, a friend to the wind. But she was the weaker of the two."

He shared a glance with Russell. Storm witches were pretty damn powerful. If she were the weaker, then what kind of power did this Kirby have?

"They've been on the run for years." Camille hesitated, frowning. "Running not from the past but the future."

"She obviously didn't see this future," Russ commented.

Camille's frown deepened. "I feel she did… but chose to accept her fate."

Another shudder rocked the old woman's frame. Sweat began to bead her forehead. The hair slipped from her fingers, falling softly to the desk. Camille leaned back in her chair and took a deep breath. "I can't read much further. There's some sort of force blocking me."

He reached across to touch the spider web of hair. Energy tingled across his fingertips, a muted echo of the power Helen Smith had controlled. The Manarei should not have been able to kill her. At the very least, she should have been able to keep it at bay 'til help arrived.

But she'd chosen to die. He wondered why.

Camille took another deep breath, then leaned forward and took the second brush from the bag.

"Kirby's," she said. "She is the key, the one that binds. She is…"

Her eyes flew open. "The Manarei is after her. Doyle, go. Go now. Or she'll die."

He rose so swiftly his chair toppled backwards. "Where?"

"Grice Street, Essendon. Hurry."

He was gone before she'd even finished speaking.