Circle of Death (Damask Circle 2)

DEATH HAD COME CALLING ON A WINDBLOWN, WINTRY evening. It smashed past the dead bolts lining the front door and grabbed the living with unparalleled glee, sucking the life from them until there was nothing left but husks. Then it tore the remains apart, as if determined to erase any evidence of humanity.

Kirby hadn’t been home at the time—but her best friend had been.

Kirby stood on the edge of the porch, in the wind and the rain, and felt nothing. No pain. No anger. Not even the chill from the wild storm that had shattered the warm Australian summer.

It was as if part of her sat in a vacuum, waiting … but for what, she wasn’t sure.

“Miss Brown? Did you hear my question?”

The voice held an edge of impatience. She turned, vaguely recognizing the red-haired police officer who stood before her. “Sorry. My mind was elsewhere.”

On walking into the kitchen and seeing the blood spattered like paint across the walls. Or the dismembered parts of Helen and Ross, strewn like forgotten toys throughout the house.

She swallowed heavily, then crossed her arms and licked the rain from her lips. It tasted salty, like tears.

“I asked why you were late coming home tonight.” His blue eyes studied her closely. Not with suspicion, not exactly. He was just a cop being a cop, asking questions.

“There was an accident on the West Gate Bridge. It held up traffic for hours. I was supposed to have been home by six.”

If she’d been on time, death would have caught her, too. But fate had stepped in and saved her life. She wondered why.

“What time did you get home, then?”

“Eight thirty. I stopped at the KFC down the road and got something to eat.” It had been her turn to cook, but because of the late hour, she’d decided to wimp out and just grab takeout for everyone. The chicken still sat in its box, just inside the door where she’d dropped it. She wondered if she’d ever be able to eat KFC again. “I called in the murder not long after that.”

But the constable knew all that. He’d been there earlier, taking notes, when the other detectives had questioned her. She wondered what it was he didn’t believe.

He checked his notes. “And you saw nothing, heard nothing, as you walked up to the house?”

She shook her head. “Everything was dark. I didn’t even notice the door was open until I got close.”

He raised an eyebrow. “And you didn’t find that unusual?”

In all honesty, she hadn’t. She’d merely grinned, thinking that perhaps Helen and Ross had been too involved with each other to worry about mundane things like locking the front door. “Helen had only known Ross for a week. They were still at the ‘fucking like rabbits’ stage, I’m afraid.”

She wasn’t entirely sure why she’d said that. She wasn’t usually the swearing type. Maybe it was simply the need to shock the half-smug smile from the young officer’s lips.

A faint hint of red crept across his cheeks and he cleared his throat softly. “Yes, well, that would no doubt explain why the victims had no clothes on.”

“No doubt,” she mimicked, voice remote.

She stared past the emergency vehicles’ swirling red and blue lights, a cold sense of dread enveloping her. She rubbed her arms and wished she had a whisky or a scotch. Even a beer would do. Something—anything—to drown the knowledge that death stood out there, watching and waiting.

“Do you have anyplace to go, Miss Brown?”

Her gaze jumped back to the police officer. “Go?”

He nodded. “You can’t stay here. It’s a crime scene.”

“Oh.” She hadn’t thought of that. Hadn’t thought of anything, really, once she’d stepped through that door.

“Have you got parents nearby?”

She shook her head. No use explaining that she didn’t have parents at all. None that she remembered, anyway, and certainly none she wanted to find. As near as she knew, she’d been a ward of the state since birth, and she’d spent her formative years being bounced from one foster home to another. Helen had been the one permanent fixture in her life. They shared everything, even down to a birthday. They’d met in a government facility at the age of eleven, and had run away after it burned down and they’d been faced with separation again. Now Helen was gone, and Kirby was alone. Again.

She raised her face and let the rain wash the heat from her eyes. Don’t cry for me, Helen would have said. Just find the answers.

“No friends you can bunk with for the night?” the officer continued.

Again she shook her head. They’d moved into the Essendon area only a few weeks ago. She’d barely had time to unpack, let alone make new friends. And she’d always been slower than Helen in that department anyway.

“Perhaps we can book you a hotel room for the next couple of nights.”

She nodded, though she didn’t really care one way or another. The young officer studied her for a moment longer, then walked away. Her gaze fell on the door. A symbol had been carved deep into the wood—a star point sitting at the top of a circle. If there were meant to be other star points, then they were missing. She wondered if this were deliberate, or if perhaps the intruder had been interrupted before he’d finished his design. Instinct said it was the former, though she had no idea why she was so certain of this.

The police had asked her several times about it. She had a feeling they were as perplexed by its presence as she was.

She crossed her arms again and turned her back on the house. The chill night wind picked up the wet strands of her hair, flinging them across her face. Absently, she tucked them back behind her ear and listened to the wind sigh through the old birches lining the front yard. It was a mournful sound, as if the wind cried for the dead.

Helen would have called it the wind of change. Normally, she would have sat under the old trees, letting the cold fingers of air wrap around her, communing with forces Kirby could feel but never see. She would have read their futures in the nuances of the breeze and planned a path around them.