Circle of Death Read Online Free Page B

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. Sheunwound 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 nameis 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.

T HE 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.
    Sweat trickled down her face. She clenched her fists and fought the urge to move. If she ran, it would come after her. She had to wait until it was distracted, otherwise she’d die. As the others in that room had died.
    Time seemed to stretch, sawing against her nerves. Sweat dripped off her chin and splashed to the floor near her feet. For an instant, her vision blurred, and she saw blood instead of sweat pooling at her right foot.
    A shiver stole across her. She blinked, but otherwise remained still. In the other room, the noise began again, this time accompanied by a soft, slurping sound.
    Drinking the life of its victim
, she thought, and knew that didn’t mean blood.
    Swallowing heavily, she stepped onto the rim of the tub. The window was on the small side and, even though she was small herself, it was a tight fit. She went out sideways, twisting as she fell so that she landed on her back rather than her head. There she lay for several seconds, gasping for breath and seeing stars.
    Something thumped against the bathroom door. The creature she’d known as Dicks was