Keri Arthur: Circle Of Death

Australia, Present Day Death had come calling on a windblown, wintry evening. It smashed past the deadbolts lining the front door, and with unparalleled glee, grabbed the living, sucking the life from them until there was nothing left but husks. Then it tore the remains apart, as if determined to erase any evidence of humanity.

Kirby wasn't home at the time.

But her best friend was.

Kirby stood on the edge of the porch, in the wind and the rain, and felt nothing. No pain. No anger. Not even the chill from the wild storm that had shattered the warm Australian summer.

It was as if part of her sat in a vacuum, waiting… but for what, she wasn't sure.

"Miss Brown? Did you hear my question?"

The voice held an edge of impatience. She turned, vaguely recognizing the red-haired police officer who stood before her. "Sorry. My mind was elsewhere."

On the blood scattered like paint across the walls. Or the dismembered parts of Helen and Ross, strewn like forgotten toys through the house.

She swallowed heavily, then crossed her arms and licked the rain from her lips. It tasted salty, like tears.

"I asked why you were late home tonight." His blue eyes studied her closely. Not suspicious, not exactly. Just a cop being a cop, and asking questions.

"There was an accident on the West Gate Bridge. Held up traffic for hours. I was supposed to have been home by six."

If she'd been on time, death would have caught her, too. Fate had stepped in and saved her life. She wondered why.

"What time did you get home, then?"

"Eight-thirty. I stopped at the KFC down the road and got something to eat." It had been her turn to cook, but because of the late hour, she'd decided to pike out and just grab takeaway for everyone. The chicken still sat in its box, just inside the door where she'd dropped it. She wondered if she'd ever be able to eat KFC again.

But the constable knew all that. He'd been there earlier, taking notes, when the other detectives had questioned her. She wondered what it was he didn't believe.

He checked his notes. "And you saw nothing, heard nothing, as you walked up to the house?"

She shook her head. "Everything was dark. I didn't even notice the door was open until I neared it."

He raised an eyebrow. "And you didn't think that unusual?"

In all honesty, she hadn't. She'd merely grinned, thinking that perhaps Helen and Ross had been too involved with each other to worry about mundane things like locking the front door. "Helen had only known Ross for a week. They were still at the 'fucking like rabbits' stage, I'm afraid."

She wasn't entirely sure why she'd said that. She wasn't usually the swearing type. Maybe it was simply the need to shock the half-smug smile from the young officer's lips.

A faint hint of red crept across his cheeks. He cleared his throat softly. "Yes, well, that would no doubt explain why the victims had no clothes on."

"No doubt," she mimicked, voice remote.

She stared past the emergency vehicles' swirling red and blue lights, a cold sense of dread enveloping her. She rubbed her arms and wished she had a whisky or a scotch. Even a beer would do.

Something—anything—to drown the knowledge that death stood out there, watching and waiting.

"Do you have any place to go, Miss Brown?"

Her gaze jumped back to the police officer. "Go?"

He nodded. "You can't stay here. It's a crime scene."

"Oh." She hadn't thought of that. Hadn't thought of anything, really, once she'd stepped through that door.

"Have you got parents nearby?"

She shook her head. No use explaining that for as long as she could remember, she hadn't had parents.

Helen had been the one permanent fixture in her life. They'd journeyed through government care and an endless series of foster homes together. Now Helen was gone, and she was alone.

She raised her face and let the rain wash the heat from her eyes. Don't cry for me, Helen would have said. Just find the answers .

"No friends you can bunk with for the night?" the officer continued.

Again she shook her head. They'd only moved into the Essendon area a month ago. She'd barely had time to unpack, let alone make new friends. She'd always been slower than Helen that way.

"Perhaps we can book you a hotel room for the next couple of nights."

She nodded, though she didn't really care one way or another. The young officer studied her for a moment longer, then walked away. Her gaze fell on the door. A symbol had been carved deep into the wood—two star points around the outside of a circle. The three remaining points were missing. She wondered if this were deliberate, or if perhaps the intruder had been interrupted before he'd finished his design. Instinct said it was the former, though she had no idea why she was so certain of this.

The police had asked her several times about it. Perhaps they'd seen similar symbols, maybe even similar murders. It was a possibility, if the looks the detectives had given each other when they first walked through the door were anything to go by.

Crossing her arms again, she turned her back on the house. The chill night wind picked up the wet strands of her hair, flinging them across her face. Absently, she tucked them back behind her ear and listened to the wind sigh through the old birches lining the front yard. It was a mournful sound, as if the wind cried for the dead.

Helen would have called it the wind of change. Normally, she would have sat under the old trees, letting the cold fingers of air wrap around her, communing with forces Kirby could never see. She would have read their futures in the nuances of the breeze, and planned a path around it.

If she had talked to the wind tonight, she might still be alive.

Tears tracked heat down Kirby's cheeks. She raised her face to the sky again, letting the rain chill her skin. Don't cry for Helen, she thought. Find the answers. Make sense of her death.

But where to start?

Footsteps sounded behind her. She turned slightly, watching the young police officer approach. Just for an instant, her vision blurred, and instead of the policeman, it was a gnarled, twisted being with red hair and malevolent yellow eyes. It reached out to grasp her soul, to kill, as it had killed Helen and Ross. Fear squeezed her throat tight, making it suddenly difficult to breathe. She stepped back, half-turning, ready to run, but the being became the young officer again. He dropped his hand, a surprised look on his face.

"I didn't mean to startle you, Miss Brown."

"You didn't. I just…" she hesitated, then shrugged.

He nodded, as if understanding. "Arrangements have been made for you to spend the night at the motor inn down the road—if that's okay with you."

"Yeah, sure." Where she was didn't really matter right now. It wasn't as if she'd be able to sleep.

He frowned slightly, as if her attitude bothered him in some way. "Would you like to collect some clothes or toiletries before you go?"

"I'm allowed inside?" she asked, surprised.

He nodded. "Only upstairs. The kitchen and living rooms are still out of bounds, I'm afraid."

And would be for some time—for her, at least. It was doubtful whether she'd ever be able to even enter the house without remembering. She rubbed her arms, suddenly chilled. Though she was wet through to the skin, she knew it wasn't that. It was more the sense that death was out there—and that it had made a major mistake. That it wasn't Helen who should be dead, but her.

"Ready when you are, Miss Brown," the young officer prompted when she didn't move.

Her hand brushed his as she headed for the door. His skin was cold, colder even than hers. As cold as the dead. She shivered and shoved her imagination back in its box. It was natural for his hands to be cold. The night was bitter, and he'd spent a good amount of his time out on the veranda, watching her.