Excerpt of Circle of Death by Keri Arthur

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 take-away 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 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.

She kept her eyes averted from the living room as she ran up the stairs. Her bedroom was the first on the left, Helen's on the right. Helen's door was open and the bed still made. They'd obviously been making out on the sofa again.

Swallowing heavily, she headed for her wardrobe and grabbed a backpack. She shoved into it whatever came to hand—sweaters, jeans and a couple of t-shirts—then headed over to the dressing table to collect underclothing. And saw, on the top of the dresser, a small, gift-wrapped package.

She stared at it for several seconds without moving. Helen had known, she thought. Or at least had sensed that she might not be around for Kirby’s birthday, due in two days. Tears blurred her vision, and a sob caught at her throat. She grabbed the present, shoving it into the pack, then opened the drawer and grabbed a handful of underclothing, adding them as well.

She turned and found the young officer standing in the doorway, watching her closely. Though his stance was casual, there was a coldness in his eyes that sent another chill down her spine.

"Ready to go?" he asked, pushing away from the doorframe.

She hesitated, and felt stupid for doing so. He was here to help her, not hurt her. She bit her lip and walked toward him. He didn't move, forcing her to brush past him again. Once more her vision seemed to blur, and it was leathery, scaly skin she was brushing past, not the uniformed presence of the young police officer.

"Want me to carry that backpack for you?" he asked, reaching for it.

She stepped away quickly. "No. I'm okay."

He frowned again, then shrugged. "This way then, Miss Brown."

He led the way down the stairs. Another officer, a blond- haired man in his mid-forties, joined him at the base. "Constable John Ryan," he said to her, his voice as kind as his brown eyes. "Constable Dicks and I have been assigned to keep an eye on you for the night."

Fear stirred anew. "You think the murderer might be after me as well?" She knew he was, but it was not something she wanted to hear out loud. It was as if by voicing her fears she would invite the presence of death to step further into her life.

"Just precautionary measures, that's all."

His smile never touched his eyes, and she knew he was lying. He motioned her to follow the young officer. They stepped into the wind and rain and sloshed their way across to the nearest squad car. Constable Ryan held open the back door and ushered her inside.

"Won't be long," he said. "Then you can finally relax."

Relax? Knowing death was out there, waiting for her? But she forced a smile, knowing he meant well.

Constable Dicks climbed into the driver’s side and started the car. It only took five minutes to get to the motor inn. Dicks stopped near the front office, while Constable Ryan climbed out and collected the key.

The motel was L-shaped, the rooms all single-story. Their room was number thirteen. Unlucky for some, she thought, though up until now she had never considered it so. Dicks parked the car in the room's allotted space and Ryan got out, quickly opening the door and inspecting the room. He came back moments later and opened the squad car’s back door. Kirby grabbed her pack and climbed out.

The room was basically a small unit—there were two beds in the main room, along with a kitchenette and TV. A second bedroom lay to her right, the bathroom next to it.

She headed for the bathroom. She needed a shower, needed to wash the smell of death from her skin. She wished she could do the same with her memories.

"Need anything to eat, Miss Brown?" Constable Ryan asked, picking up the phone. "I'm going to order some pizza."

The thought made her stomach turn. She shook her head then closed the bathroom door. Leaning her forehead against the wood for a second, she took a deep, long breath. She wanted—needed—to be alone.

But she wasn't, so she couldn't let go just yet. Couldn't allow herself to feel the pain. A bad habit, Helen had once told her.

She dumped her backpack on the edge of the bathtub and reached into the shower, turning on the tap. The water was icy, so she let it run, and hunted around for the little sachets of soap and shampoo. She found several of both in the cupboard under the sink, and she shoved a couple in the shower. Out of habit, she put the rest into her pack. Never waste anything had been their motto for as long as she could remember.

From the living room came an odd sound—a gurgling sort of cry that was quickly cut off. Goose bumps chased their way up her arm. There had been fear in that cry, and the recognition of death.

Swallowing heavily, she opened the bathroom door and peered out. Constable Ryan sat in one of the two armchairs, his blonde hair just visible above the headrest. Dicks stood just behind him, but turned as she opened the door.

"Something wrong, Miss Brown?"

The coldness was deeper in his eyes, almost inhuman. A chill crawled over her skin. She clenched a fist, resisting the impulse to slam the door shut. "Did you call out? I thought I heard someone call my name."

The lie tasted lame on her tongue, and amusement gleamed briefly in Dicks' blue eyes.

"Maybe you heard the TV."

And maybe it was all in her imagination. Maybe she was finally going mad, as one of her many foster parents had insisted she would. But they'd been devout Catholics and had believed magic to be the devil's work. She still found it amazing that she and Helen had lasted three months under their care.

But as she stared at Dicks, she knew it wasn't imagination nor madness. Something odd was happening in the room. The feel of magic was in the air.

"I'll just go have my shower, then," she said, closing the door.

There were no locks on the door. She bit her bottom lip and looked quickly around. There was a towel rack on the wall next to the door. Better than nothing, she supposed. She grabbed a sweater out of her pack and roped it between the handle and the towel rack, knotting the arms as tightly as she could. It wouldn’t hold for more than the time it took to scream, but for some reason, she felt a little safer.

She stripped off her jacket and thrust a hand through her wet hair. What she needed was a drink. If nothing else, it would calm her nerves and perhaps help her forget, if only for a few hours—another bad habit of hers, according to Helen.

But to get a drink, she'd have to leave the bathroom, and instinct warned her that might not be a good move right now. Over the years, she'd learned to trust that inner voice, and in doing so, she had saved both hers and Helen’s lives more than once.

She wished it had spoken up earlier tonight and saved Helen for her.

Tears stung her eyes. She wiped them away with the heel of her hand and noticed the steam was beginning to fog the room. She frowned and flicked the fan switch up and down a couple of times. It didn't seem to help.

In the other room, the doorbell rang. Constable Ryan's pizzas had obviously arrived. Her stomach turned, and she wondered how he could eat, especially after what he'd seen at her house. Maybe a lead-lined gut was a prerequisite for a copper. She walked across to open the window.

Kirby, get out. Leave, while you still can.

The voice sounded so close, the warmth of the speaker’s breath seemed to brush past her ear. Her heart leapt to the vicinity of her throat, and she spun, fists clenched against the sudden rush of electricity across her fingertips. But there was no one in the room with her.

Now she was hearing things, on top of imagining them. Great. Just great. She took a deep breath, then reached up and opened the window.

As she did, the screaming began.