Circle of Death

  “Then give me the addresses. I’ll check them out once Kirby gets some rest.”

  “Is that wise?” Russell’s voice held a hint of doubt. “I mean, you might lead the killer directly to Rachel Grant. Maybe that’s exactly what he wants.”

  “I doubt it. The killer didn’t seem to have any trouble finding Helen. I don’t think he’s sitting back waiting for us to lead him to Rachel.”

  “Maybe, but you might just drag Kirby into the middle of an attack.”

  “A risk we’ll have to take. Besides, Camille was right about her being tracked. About ten minutes after the manarei died, a vamp was on her tail.”

  “I’m gathering you’ve looked for the tracker?”

  “Yeah. If it’s under a spell of some kind, I’m not feeling it.”

  “What about the vamp? Did you manage to question him?”

  “Didn’t have the time. But I’m thinking he was a last-minute recruit or something. He was pretty scrawny—hadn’t been out of the fledgling bloodlust stage that long, by the look of him.”

  “Not much of a problem, then.”

  “No.” Doyle frowned and remembered the look in Kirby’s bright gaze when she’d finally turned to look at him. She’d thought him a killer, a monster. And in many respects, maybe he was. He’d certainly killed the vamp without a second thought. But if he hadn’t, it might have been Kirby he’d left lifeless on the pavement.

  “Where have you holed up?” Russell asked.

  “A motel on Bulla Road. Hopefully, we’ll be left alone for a while.”

  “I wouldn’t bank on that, bro.”

  Doyle smiled grimly. “I’m not.” He dug a pen out of his pocket. “You got those addresses?”

  Russell read them out. “Camille said to expect a call from her around dawn.”

  Doyle finished writing the last address on the back of the breakfast menu card, then tucked it and the pen back into his coat pocket. “I’ll be awake.”

  Russell snorted softly. “So will I. No one warned me when I took this job that sleep deprivation was one of the requirements.”

  “Plenty of time to sleep when you’re dead, you know.”

  “I am dead.”

  “I mean totally dead, not vampire dead.” Doyle grinned. “Be careful when you’re breaking into the building. Whoever’s behind this might be expecting such a move.”

  “Yeah, but will they be expecting a vamp to be doing the breaking and entering? It gives me a slight advantage.”

  But not against magic, and Russ knew that. “Talk to you later.” Doyle hung up and settled back against the sofa. The wind rattled the window frames and howled under the door. The rain pelted down against the roof, so loud it sounded like stones hitting, not water. It was certainly one hell of a storm. He was glad they weren’t still in it.

  He glanced across at Kirby. Her hair flowed over the pillow like wet brown silk, and in sleep her face was serene. The impish quality that was so evident when she was awake had slipped away, leaving only beauty.

  He’d lied to her earlier. She was very much the sort of woman he was attracted to—not that anything was likely to happen between them. Gaining her trust enough so that she’d lower her prickly barriers would probably take longer than he had here in Australia.

  Though he couldn’t help wishing he did have the time. He had a feeling the effort would be worth it—not so much physically as emotionally. He frowned at the thought and crossed his arms, looking away. Any sort of relationship was nothing short of impossible right now. Damn it, he loved his job, and he wouldn’t quit. But by the same token, his work was the reason he was alone. Experience had taught him that few women could cope with the fact that he was absent for weeks, sometimes months, at a time.

  And why was he even thinking such things when he barely knew her? While he knew from her thoughts that the attraction was definitely mutual, they’d also told him that she wouldn’t act on that attraction. Not with someone she considered little more than a killer.

  He leaned back and closed his eyes. Time passed. The wind howled through the night, an eerie, almost forlorn cry. Evil enjoyed nights like this, he thought. Yet the night remained free of evil’s taint, and he drifted off to sleep.

  The phone vibrating against his side woke him some hours later.

  He looked around quickly. Everything was as it should be, and Kirby was still curled up asleep in the bed. Lucky, he thought, and scrubbed a hand across his eyes. Maybe jet lag was finally catching up with him. He dug out his phone and answered it.

  “Hey, shapeshifter, didn’t wake you, did I?” Delight ran through Camille’s sharp voice.

  “No, just sitting here watching the sunrise.” He bit back his yawn and glanced at the clock. It was barely five.

  Camille chuckled. “You never were a very good liar. How’s Kirby?”

  He glanced across at her. She hadn’t shifted any, but she was no longer asleep. Odd how attuned he was to her. “Awake and listening.”

  She flipped the covers away from her face at his words and regarded him warily. Still not trusting him, despite everything.

  “I paid a visit to her friend’s remains last night,” Camille said.

  “Russ told me you were going to do that. What did you find?”

  Camille sniffed. “What I found surprised the hell out of me.”

  Doyle raised his eyebrows. It had to be bad if Camille was surprised. She’d been around long enough to see the worst this world could offer. “What?”

  “Helen Smith died before the manarei got to her. She killed herself.”

  “She what?” Suicide was an unusual step for a witch to take. Most witches believed that if you took your own life, you prevented your soul from moving on, dooming it to roam the confines of Earth for time eternal. “Why would she do something like that?”

  “I’m not really sure. I didn’t have enough time to do a full reading on her remains, but I suspect she performed a spell of some sort. Her magic was gone, Doyle, but it wasn’t ripped from her.”

  “But if she was able to get rid of her powers, why kill herself?”

  “Better a self-inflicted death than being torn apart by the manarei.”

  True. The bastards liked their prey alive and wriggling, so they tended to work from the bottom up—ripping off toes and fingers before getting to the limbs. Shock and death would be a welcome relief in that sort of situation. “You heard back from Russ yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  Doyle frowned. It wasn’t like Russ not to report in. “You tried calling him?”

  “Yeah, but there was no answer.”

  “If you don’t hear from him by six, give me a call.” Russ was still young in vampire years—forty, to be exact—and his immunity to sunlight was almost nonexistent. If it got much later than seven, he’d be in trouble.

  “Will do. In the meantime, I want you to be careful. I can see some pretty bad shit headed your way in the next few hours, especially now that our killer has had time to regain some strength.”

  “Thanks. I needed to know that.”

  She snorted. “Better to be prepared, my boy.”

  “Yeah, right.” He glanced across at Kirby as she sat up. Though she had the sheet pulled up around her, he could see the outline of her body quite clearly. He’d thought last night that she was little more than skin and bone. He was wrong. He cleared his throat slightly and looked away.

  “Are you listening to me, Doyle?”

  “You were talking?”

  “To myself, apparently. Are you planning to hole up in that motel?”

  “No. We’ll be harder targets to hit if we keep moving. Besides, I told Russ I’d check out the whereabouts of the next woman on your list.”

  “Do that. And keep in touch.”

  He shoved the phone back into his pocket, then glanced at Kirby again. “You interested in breakfast?”

  She shook her head. “I think I’ll throw up if I eat right now.”

  He wasn’t entirely surpri
sed. Not after she’d walked into her home and found her friend ripped to shreds. “What about a shower?”

  She raised a dark eyebrow. “You trust me to take a shower?”

  He shrugged. “Believe me, I have very good hearing. You try to get out of that window, and I’ll know.”

  “Oh.”

  She didn’t move toward the bathroom, just continued to study him warily. Her green eyes gleamed as bright as a cat’s in the light flickering past the curtains. He frowned and glanced at them. Why were the curtains moving?

  “What were you talking about on the phone? Who killed themselves?” She hesitated, then added, voice lowered, “What’s wrong?”

  “I’m not sure.” He rose and stepped toward the window. Magic stirred, its touch so sharp it felt as if he’d walked into a hornet’s nest.

  “Kirby, get dressed.”

  She didn’t argue, simply scrambled out of bed and ran for her clothes. He narrowed his gaze, trying to concentrate on the flow of power. It condensed near the window, finding form, finding shape. And became the biggest damn wolf he’d ever seen.

  KIRBY FROZE AND STARED AT THE CREATURE THAT had suddenly appeared before them. It was big, with a shaggy gray coat and wild yellow eyes that were somehow almost human. It looked like a wolf. It even snarled like a wolf. But wolves didn’t exist in Australia—not outside the confines of zoos, anyway. Maybe this one had escaped, though that didn’t explain how it had gotten past the locked door and windows and into their room.

  The wolf took a pace forward. It snarled again, teeth gleaming brightly. She reached for the energy of the approaching dawn, drawing it in swiftly.

  “Don’t,” Doyle said softly. “Wait.”

  “Are you crazy?” But she clenched her fists, holding the power that flowed warmly across her fingers in check.

  He continued to stare at the wolf. After a moment, the animal stopped snarling, but its head was still lowered, and it looked ready to attack.

  “You are under a light glamour,” Doyle said softly to the wolf. “I can feel its restraints on you.”

  Kirby frowned. A glamour was some kind of spell. She knew that much from Helen. But why would he think the wolf was under one? And why would he think a wolf would even understand or care?

  “If you attack, you will die,” he continued. “You know what I am, and you know I am faster and stronger than you.”

  The wolf didn’t move, just continued to stare at Doyle with an odd sort of intelligence in its eyes. It was almost as if it could understand what Doyle was saying, which meant it was a good two steps ahead of her.

  “I can open the door and let you leave, or you can die. The choice is yours, wolf.”

  No one moved—not Doyle, not the wolf, not her. Energy burned across her fists, flickering wild fingers of light across the ceiling. She continued holding her power in check, even though she doubted the sanity of doing so. After several seconds, the wolf sat back on its haunches.

  “Wise move,” Doyle said and opened the door.

  The wolf glanced at her a final time, then padded out.

  Doyle locked the door and swung around. “Move. I don’t think we have much time before another attack comes.”

  “How did that thing get in here?” She grabbed a pair of jeans out of her bag and pulled them on. She didn’t bother with socks, just slipped on her still damp running shoes over her bare feet.

  He’d stripped off his coat and was pulling on his shirt. He had the body of an athlete—a runner. Trim, taut and well tanned. Very nice, even with the white ring of bandages around his ribs.

  He glanced at her, amusement glimmering in his eyes. Heat stole across her cheeks. “Stop reading my thoughts and just answer my damn questions,” she snapped.

  “I have no idea why I’m catching your thoughts so clearly, so I can’t exactly stop it.” He put his coat back on and swept up her bag. “And to answer your question, that wolf was sent here by whoever is after you.”

  She frowned. “Sent here how?”

  “By magic. Whoever is behind all this has obviously recovered from their exertions last night, and that means trouble for us. You ready to go?”

  “Yes.” The sooner they got moving, and the sooner she got away from this craziness, the better. “Where are we going?”

  “To find a woman named Rachel Grant.” He ushered her through the door, then grabbed her arm and walked her down to reception.

  Not taking a chance on her running, she thought with amusement. Which she would, if he made one wrong move. “Why are we trying to find this woman?”

  He hesitated, his gaze considering her for several seconds. Judging her, she thought, and she wondered why it suddenly seemed so important she pass his test.

  “We believe she’s the next victim.” He opened the reception door and motioned her through.

  A chill ran through her. “Have you told the police?”

  “I doubt the police will place a great deal of importance on the words of an old witch.”

  Another guy wandered in, his presence stopping her from asking any more questions. Doyle settled their account and chatted cheerfully with the manager. It was hard to imagine his easy grin hid a killer’s instincts.

  He flashed her an annoyed look, and she bit her lip, glancing away. Killer or not, he had saved her life. And she’d have to remember to watch what she was thinking when she was around him.

  They headed back to his car and climbed in. “The cops will pull you over with a windshield like that,” she commented.

  “Then that’s a risk we’ll have to take. I don’t have the time to grab another one right now.” He started the car, then reached into his pocket and handed her the breakfast menu and his phone. On the menu were three addresses. Rachel’s was the first one. “You navigate.”

  She punched their location and destination into Google Maps, then started giving directions as he sped off. The wind whipped in through the hole in the windshield, its touch forceful and icy. She zipped up her coat and fleetingly wished she had gloves. Her hands were so cold her fingers were aching.

  “Here,” Doyle said, producing a pair of black leather gloves from his pockets. “Wear these. They’ll be too big, but they will at least keep you warm.”

  She accepted the gloves with a smile of thanks and pulled them on. “What don’t you keep in those pockets of yours?” Like him, she had to raise her voice to be heard above the wind.

  “Lots of things,” he said. “Like answers. Did you or Helen ever try to find out who your parents were?”

  Helen certainly had, but now she’d never get the chance. Kirby blinked away the sudden sting of tears and looked out the side window. “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Because we thought that was a possible connection between Helen and the other women on the list. That maybe by searching for their past, they brought themselves to the attention of our killer.”

  “This list?” she said, waving the breakfast menu.

  “Yes. And before you ask, an old witch named Seline did a reading and came up with those names. Helen was the first name on it.”

  And now Helen was dead. “But why would searching for her parents have brought such destruction down on her?”

  Helen had spoken to the wind many times, but she’d never seen her murder. Kirby crossed her arms and shivered. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. They were supposed to die together in a car crash years from now. Why had fate stepped in and snatched Helen away long before her time? And did the fact that it had now mean she wouldn’t die in a car crash? Or did death still lay in her future, just in a different form?

  “We don’t know,” he said. “All we have is four names, and a suspicion these murders have their origin somewhere in the past.”

  Bile rose in her throat and she swallowed against it. She didn’t want Helen connected in any way to these other women, and she didn’t know why. “Why in hell would someone want to do something like that for something that happened in the past?”

  He
shrugged. “If we knew the reason, we would probably have been able to prevent it.”

  She looked at him. His profile was a painter’s dream, classic and stunning. “What do you mean, ‘we’? Who else is working on this with you?”

  He hesitated. “I work for an organization called the Damask Circle. There are three of us currently in Melbourne, trying to solve these murders.”

  She frowned. “But Helen only died yesterday. You were already here in Melbourne.”

  “Yes, because Seline, the lady in charge of the Circle, did a reading and sent us out here in advance of the first murder. She said something big was going down.”

  “Reading? What is she? Some sort of psychic or witch?”

  “Witch,” he said. “But not the witch I referred to earlier. That’s Camille, who’s here with me and Russell.”

  Russell was obviously the man she’d heard him talking to earlier. She had a feeling there was a whole lot more about his companions—and himself—that he wasn’t telling. “So you have no idea who is behind all this?”

  “None whatsoever.” He glanced at her, eyes gleaming in the darkness. “But whoever it is seems to want you dead pretty badly. Remember that the next time you decide to run.”

  What could she say? She certainly couldn’t deny there would be a next time, because she did have every intention of running. Eventually. If there was one lesson she and Helen had learned well over the years, it was to depend on no one but themselves.

  She blinked back tears and looked out the side window. The rain fell in a mist, muting the glow of the streetlights and filling the silent streets with a curtain of gray. Anything could be out there, she thought. Anything at all.

  She shivered again. She felt so cold it seemed to be seeping deep into her bones. Death, reaching out for her.

  “He won’t get you while I’m here,” Doyle said softly.

  She didn’t look at him. Couldn’t. She didn’t want him to see her tears. “I’m not afraid of death.” Just of being alone. Of never finding anyone who would care for her as much as Helen had cared.

  Of never finding that one person who could love her as she was rather than being terrified of what she could do.