Circle of Death (Damask Circle 2)

They’d come 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 dow

n the road said you could get all four seasons in one day here.”

Russell snorted. “The only season we’re getting at the moment is winter. Is 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 another reading.”

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

Doyle groaned. “Don’t tell me our murderer has finally found one of his marks.”

Russ’s brown eyes were grim. “Yep. One point down, three to go.”

“Damn.” They’d been sent here to stop these murders, but so far they’d had little success in tracking down the victims, let alone the killer. “Who did he get?”

“One Helen Smith and her boyfriend, Ross Gibson.”

Camille had done a reading the moment they’d arrived here and confirmed the list of possible victims they’d been given. Smith had been on it, but not Gibson. Doyle scrubbed a hand across his eyes. Was it simply a matter of Gibson being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or was the list inaccurate? And if it was, where the hell did that leave them? “Where did it happen?”

“Essendon. They rented the place two weeks ago, but hadn’t got around to notifying anyone about their change of address.” Russ’s voice was grim. “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 ordered.

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

“The old witch has fine hearing, too, Russell, so mind your tongue and get in here.”

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

“That the police file?” Camille asked.

“It’s as much information as I could get—which isn’t much, given the murder only happened a few hours ago.”

“First impressions are better than nothing.” Camille snatched the folder from Russell’s hands and, after pushing her blue-rimmed glasses back up to the bridge of her nose, opened it 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.

“Damn it, this is the one thing we didn’t need.” Camille threw the file on the table, her voice filled with frustration. “Now that the killings have begun, they’ll proceed quickly. We’ve got forty-eight hours, if that, to save the remaining three women.”

Forty-eight hours to do what they hadn’t been able to in a week, Doyle thought grimly. He picked up one of the crime scene photos and studied it. 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, despite the fact that Camille had foreseen that that was the method by which these women would die. This death was fury, pure and simple. But why? What had Helen Smith done that had angered their killer so greatly?

“If we want to save some time,” Doyle said, “it might be worth trying to capture the manarei so we can pull whatever information we can from its mind.”

“It’s doubtful a manarei would be given anything more than the necessary information to get the job done,” Russ said. “Although the point has to be made—if the person behind these murders is powerful enough to control one of the most dangerous shapeshifters around, why would that person risk using it in the first place?”

Camille shook her head, her silver hair gleaming in the flickering candlelight. “It’s hard to understand motives when we have no idea who our killer is. Russell, did you get a chance to look at the house?”

“Yeah, I got invited in with the forensic team. Brains consumed, bodies dismembered, although there was no obvious pattern to the destruction and certainly no sign of a ritual circle, despite the marking on the door. If I had to guess, I’d say it was done in anger.”

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

Russell frowned. “Yeah. The living room looked as if the storm had raged inside for a moment. 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.”