Circle of Death Read Online Free

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 wasnothing 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 leftopen.” Russ shrugged. “They figured it was probably that.”
    “But you don’t?” Doyle asked.
    Russ shook his head. “I’m not magic-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 the
manarei
weren’t just powerful killers. They were hunters beyond compare, and they could assume the shape of anyone they killed. Which made them damn hard to track down.
    “Storm witch,” Camille muttered. “Damn it, I wish I knew
why
these women are being hunted.”
    “There has to be
some
sort of connection between all four,” Russell said.
    “Obviously,” Camille snapped. “But
what
is the question.”
    Doyle reached for the folder. “We’re obviously missing something.”
    “Yeah, a motive.” Russell’s voice was dry. “And the name of the person pulling the
manarei
’s strings.”
    Doyle grinned. “I meant specifically with this murder, moron. What do we know about this Helen Smith?”
    “Not a lot. She was placed into the foster care system at the age of six when her adoptive parents were killed in a crash. She was eleven when she was sent to a government-run facility for troubled teenagers.”
    “No relatives?” Doyle asked.
    Russell shook his head. “None listed, though I dare say she has some somewhere.”
    “Anything else?”
    “Not much. She moved around a lot, from what I can gather. She’d just taken a job as a chef at a local vegetarian restaurant. Shared the house with a