Circle of Death (Damask Circle 2)

Kirby Brown wasn’t. And yet, looking at that picture, at those eyes, he couldn’t escape the notion that she was the key they were searching for. “But what if the cops were right? What if the only reason Kirby Brown isn’t also dead is the fact that she’d arrived home late?”

Camille picked up the photo and studied it for several seconds. “Well, it’s possible. There’s certainly power in her gaze, and our killer might be after something as simple as that.”

Doyle frowned. “Meaning what?”

Camille looked at him, her expression surprised. “You mean to say you’ve been around magic more than half your life, and you didn’t know it’s possible to siphon powers?”

“I certainly didn’t.” He frowned. “How is something like that even possible? How can you siphon someone’s psychic abilities like they’re nothing more than blood?”

Camille snorted. “Boy, there are 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 wouldn’t it be possible to siphon psychic energy or abilities?”

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

“Until we uncover what the link is between the women on the list—and there is one, have no doubt of that—then we won’t know.” She glanced back at Russell. “Did you get anything personal from the house?”

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

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.”

Doyle grinned and didn’t deny it.

Camille drew one of the brushes 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 could call to the storms, was a friend to the wind, and one with the air. But she was the weaker of the two.”

He shared a glance with Russell. Storm witches were pretty damn powerful. If she was the weaker, then what kind of power did 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 farther. There’s some sort of force blocking me.”

Doyle reached across to touch the spiderweb 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 until 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 a part of this, even if her name is missing from our list. She is the key to all of them, 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 backward. “Where?”

“Grice Street, Essendon. Hurry.”

He was gone before she’d even finished speaking.

THE SCREAM CUT THROUGH THE NIGHT, A HIGH-PITCHED wail of distress. The hair along the nape of Kirby’s neck stood on end, and for a minute she froze. The screamer was male, but the voice was too high, too young, to be Constable Ryan’s. More than likely the screamer was the delivery boy. The sound cut off as suddenly as it had begun, and in the silence she could hear movement—gentle thumps, as if something soft were being thrown around in the next room.

Move, instinct said. Move, before it comes for you.

She thrust her coat into her pack and threw it out the window. It dropped with a splat into a puddle, and brown water splashed upward.

The sounds from the living room ceased. She froze again, listening, as she knew the thing in that room was listening. Her heart was beating so hard it was all she could hear.