Keri Arthur - Circle Of Death

"He wasn't." Doyle frowned and remembered the look in Kirby's bright gaze when she'd finally turned to look at him. She'd thought him a killer—a monster. And in many respects, maybe he was. He'd certainly killed the vamp without a second thought. But if he hadn't, it might have been Kirby he'd left lifeless on the pavement.

"Where have you holed up?" Russell asked.

"A motel on Bulla Road. Hopefully, we'll be left alone for a while."

"I wouldn't bank on that, bro."

Doyle smiled grimly. "I'm not." He dug a pen out of his pocket. "You got those addresses?"

Russell read them out. "Camille said to expect a call from her around dawn."

Doyle finished writing the last address on the back of the breakfast menu card, then tucked it and the pen back into his coat pocket. "I'll be awake."

Russell snorted softly. "So will I. No one warned me when I took this job that sleep deprivation was one of the requirements."

"Plenty of time to sleep when you're dead, you know."

"I am dead."

"I mean totally dead, not vampire dead." Doyle grinned. "Be careful when you're breaking into the building. Whoever's behind this might be expecting such a move."

"Yeah, but will they be expecting a vamp to be doing the breaking and entering? It gives me a slight advantage."

But not against magic, and Russ knew that. "Talk to you later."

He hung up and settled back against the sofa. The wind rattled the window frames and howled under the door. The rain pelted down against the roof, so loud it sounded like stones hitting, not water. It was certainly one hell of a storm. He was glad they weren't still in it.

He glanced across at Kirby. Her hair flowed over the pillow like wet brown silk, and in sleep her face was serene. The impish quality that was so evident when she was awake had slipped away, leaving only beauty.

He'd lied to her earlier. She was very much the sort of woman he was attracted to. Not that anything was likely to happen between them. Gaining her trust enough so that she'd lower her prickly barriers would probably take longer than he had here in Australia.

Though he couldn't help wishing he did have the time. He had a feeling the effort would be worth it—not so much physically as emotionally. He frowned at the thought and crossed his arms, looking away. Any sort of relationship was nothing short of impossible right now. Damn it, he loved his job, and he wouldn't quit. But by the same token, his work was the reason he was also alone. Experience had taught him that few women could cope with the fact that he was absent for weeks, sometimes months, at a time.

And why was he even thinking such things when he barely knew her? While he knew from her thoughts that the attraction was definitely mutual, they'd also told him that she wouldn't act on that attraction. Not with someone she considered little more than a killer.

He leaned back and closed his eyes. Time passed. The wind howled through the night, an eerie, almost forlorn, cry. Evil enjoyed nights like this, he thought. Yet the night remained free of evil's taint, and he drifted off to sleep. The phone vibrating against his side woke him some hours later.

He looked around quickly. Everything was as it should be, and Kirby was still curled up asleep in the bed. Lucky, he thought, and scrubbed a hand across his eyes. Maybe jet lag was finally catching up with him. He dug out his phone and answered it.

"Hey shapechanger, didn't wake you, did I?" Delight ran through Camille's sharp voice.

"No, just sitting here watching the sunrise." He bit back his yawn and glanced at the clock. It was barely five.

Camille chuckled. "You never were a very good liar. How's Kirby?"

He glanced across at her. She hadn't shifted any, but she was no longer asleep. Odd how attuned he was to her. "Awake and listening."

She flipped the covers away from her face at his words and regarded him warily. Still not trusting him, despite everything.

"Paid a visit to her friend's remains last night," Camille said.

"Russ told me you were going to do that. What did you find?"

Camille sniffed. "What I found surprised the hell out of me."

Doyle raised his eyebrows. It had to be damned bad if Camille was surprised. She'd been around long enough to see the worst this world could throw up. "What?"

"Helen Smith died before the manarei got to her. She killed herself."

"She what ?" Suicide was an unusual step for a witch to take. Most believed that if you took your own life, you prevented your soul from moving on, dooming it to roam the confines of Earth for time eternal.

"Why would she do something like that?"

"I'm not really sure. I didn't have enough time to do a full reading on her remains, but I suspect she performed a spell of some sort. Her magic was gone, Doyle, but unlike the first victim, it wasn't ripped from her."

"But if she was able to get rid of her powers, why kill herself?"

"Better a self-inflicted death than being torn apart by the manarei ."

True. The bastards liked their prey alive and wriggling, so they tended to work from the bottom up—ripping off toes and fingers before getting to the limbs. Shock and death would be a welcome relief in that sort of situation. "No idea why their names didn't appear when you did the reading on the scale?"

"None. And it's damn frustrating. I've got a feeling if we discover the reason for that, we'll discover the reason for these murders."

"Well, there's obviously some connection back to the facility they were all placed in when they were eleven. You heard back from Russ yet?"

"Not yet."

Doyle frowned. It wasn't like Russ not to report in. "You tried calling him?"

"Yeah, but there's no answer."

"If you don't hear from him by six, give me a call." Russ was only young in vampire years—forty, to be exact—and his immunity to sunlight was almost nonexistent. If it got much later than seven, he'd be in trouble.

"Will do. In the meantime, I want you to be careful. I can see some pretty bad shit headed your way."

"Thanks. I needed to know that."

She snorted. "Better to be prepared, my boy."

"Yeah, right." He glanced across at Kirby as she sat up. Though she had the sheet pulled up around her, he could see the outline of her body quite clearly. He'd thought last night that she was little more than skin and bone. He was wrong. He cleared his throat slightly and looked away.

"Are you listening to me, Doyle?"

"You were talking?"

"To myself, apparently. Are you planning to hole up in that motel?"

"No. We'll be harder targets to hit if we keep moving. Besides, I told Russ I'd check out the whereabouts of the next woman on your list."

"Do that. And keep in touch."

He shoved the phone back into his pocket, then glanced at Kirby again. "You interested in breakfast?"

She shook her head. "I think I'll throw up if I eat right now."

He wasn't entirely surprised. Not after she'd walked into her home and found her friend ripped to shreds. "What about a shower?"

She raised a dark eyebrow. "You trust me to take a shower?"

He shrugged. "Believe me, I have very good hearing. You try to get out of that window, and I'll know."

"Oh."

She didn't move toward the bathroom, just continued to study him warily. Her green eyes gleamed as bright as a cat's in the light flickering past the curtains. He frowned and glanced at them. Why were the curtains moving?

"What were you talking about on the phone? Who killed themselves?" She hesitated, then added, voice lowered. "What's wrong?"

"I'm not sure." He rose and stepped toward the window. Magic burned across his skin, its touch so sharp it felt as if he'd walked into a hornet's nest.

"Kirby, get dressed."

She didn't argue, simply scrambled out of bed and ran for her clothes. He narrowed his gaze, trying to concentrate on the flow of power. It condensed near the window, finding form, finding shape.