Circle of Death (25 page)

Doyle stood, tucking the note into his jeans pocket. “Keep an eye out, you two. The wicked witch from the west hasn’t had much trouble finding us so far.”

“Don’t you be telling
this
old witch her business. Get out of here, before I’m tempted to box your ears.”

He grinned and glanced toward the interview room. Kirby was as safe here as she would be anywhere. Even so, he had an odd feeling that he didn’t dare leave her side long or all hell
would
break loose and claim her. He headed quickly out the door.

K
IRBY STARED AT
T
RINA FOR SEVERAL SECONDS
. She’d killed? Was that why she’d locked those memories so far away?

Just for an instant, the fog stirred. Once again she felt the thrum of power flooding through her, through the room, until the whole world seemed to be buzzing with energy. She saw the earth itself rise, dancing around Trina’s feet, as if in exultation. Heard the clash of thunder and the icy thrust of rain lashing through walls, through
them
—right through them, as if they were beings of energy, not flesh. But the daggers of ice and water cut the others. Cut the caretaker. Then the buildings began to collapse, trapping the very people they were trying to save …

Tears stung her eyes. She raised a hand against the horror, and the memories momentarily fled. “It was an accident,” she whispered hoarsely, her stomach churning. “I didn’t mean for her to die. I just wanted to stop
him.
”

Trina edged farther away. “You forced us to join hands. You and that other one—Helen. You did something to us, made us feel the power, the energy. Made the earth tremble at my feet.”

“No, that was all of us.” She’d never had the power
to stir the earth or call to the rain and the storms. It had come from the circle itself, from the power of the five of them. “It wasn’t me.”

It was fate that had loaded the weapon and placed them all in that one place. All she’d done was aim the gun and pull the trigger. Did that make her a murderer? She didn’t
know
, and it scared the hell out of her.

“You killed her,” Trina continued, her soft voice edging closer to hysteria. “It’s your fault, not mine. I didn’t want any part of it.”

“Would you have rather suffered the attentions of the caretaker night after night?” she snapped back, suddenly angry. “It was you and the others who pleaded with me and Helen to do something—to somehow stop him.”

“Kill
him
, not the others. I saw her, you know. Saw her squashed, saw the blood …”

Trina’s voice faded. Kirby closed her eyes, but there was no escaping the images now. The old dormitory walls hadn’t been built to withstand the force they’d summoned that night, and a good half of the building had collapsed, trapping many children still in their beds. Felicity had been one of them.

Felicity, who’d been Mariel’s best friend and coconspirator.

“
You
killed her, not me!” Trina intoned shrilly into the silence.

You killed …
The words seemed to echo through the silence. Guilt washed through Kirby—guilt that was both old and new—and yet surely she couldn’t bear the entire burden herself. She may have been the one who called the power into being, but she was still only one
of five. She opened her eyes, staring at Trina’s fear-stricken face. Saw the haunted look in her gray eyes, the edge of madness lurking close.

They’d all been terrified that night. They’d raised a power that shook the very world around them, and because of that, a child had died and many more had been injured.

She’d
coped by wiping out the memory of that place and pushing the pain, the guilt and the images of destruction so far back into the recesses of her mind that even now, when it mattered most, she still couldn’t remember everything that had happened. And she’d retreated, not so much mentally as physically, afraid of taking a chance lest she hurt anyone else.

Helen, who’d also been a part of that circle, had reacted completely the opposite. She became a wild child, afraid of nothing, willing to push the limits in all that she did.

Trina, it seemed, had spent her years seeking someone else to take the burden of her guilt, and if the look in her eyes was anything to go by, she hadn’t been all that successful. She wondered how intimately Trina knew the local psychiatric wards. She had a feeling the answer might be very.

“It was an accident,” she murmured softly, firmly. They hadn’t meant to kill anyone but the caretaker, and had failed even in that. But they did stop him and, in the end, maybe that was the one fact they all had to cling to.

“How many lives did we save that night, Trina? I can remember you saying that you’d rather kill yourself than have that man touch you again. How many of the others felt like that, do you think?” Helen had,
which was what had moved Kirby into action in the first place.

“We killed—
you
killed,” Trina whispered hoarsely. “That power … it ate me, you know. Swept through me like I wasn’t even there, like I wasn’t even real. It was horrible
 … horrible.
And it was you who did that to me. You and her.”

The madness was brighter in her gaze. Her eyes were wide, staring, as if she was seeing the past rather than the present. Maybe Kirby’s sudden reappearance, combined with the
manarei
’s attack, had snapped whatever tenuous hold Trina had on sanity.

Camille swept into the room and moved toward Trina. “Now, don’t go making a fuss,” she said, her normally edgy tones gentle, almost calming. “I just got that arm of yours all neatly fixed.”

“Who are you?” Trina thrust away from Camille’s hand, sliding down to the far end of the table. For the first time, she seemed to take in her surroundings. Her face went white, and her fear became something Kirby could almost smell. “Why am I here? Who are you people?”

“Trina, calm down,” Kirby said.

Trina made a violent chopping motion with her hand. “
You
calm down! Better yet, you go to
hell.
I want to know what’s going on!”

“Need some help?” Russell said, his large frame filling the doorway.

Camille sighed. “Afraid so. Calm her down. Better yet, put her to sleep.”

“Don’t you touch me!” Trina cried. She teetered on the edge of the table, watching Russell with wide, frightened eyes.

Russell didn’t move, just narrowed his gaze slightly. Trina gasped, then her gaze went blank, and she slumped to the table. Camille caught her before she could hit her head, and she made sure her injured arm wasn’t taking the weight of her body.

Kirby glanced uneasily at Russell. “You did that? How?”

“Mind control. It’s an ability most vamps have, in varying degrees of strength. I merely calmed her fears and put her into a trance. She’ll remain that way now, until I suggest otherwise.”

She eyed him warily. “You did promise to keep out of my mind, you know.”

He grinned. It was oddly boyish and very charming. “And I always keep my word. Especially when that someone is a friend of someone I care about.”

“Good,” she muttered and rubbed her eyes, wondering again at the sanity of trusting a vampire. “Where is Doyle, by the way?”

“Gone shopping,” Camille said, voice sharp enough to nail wood to a wall. “That headache still bad?”

She nodded, though in truth, it had ebbed a little. Camille muttered something under her breath, then walked across the room to the urn and filled a mug with hot water. Into this, she tipped what looked like dried-up leaves.

“Drink this tea. It’ll ease the immediate effects of the headache. I’ll make up some more that you can take with you.”

Kirby accepted the offered cup and sniffed it warily. It smelled faintly of lemongrass and lime, but there were other scents mingled among those two that she
knew but couldn’t name. Helen had used them sometimes in the past.

Camille sat opposite her. “Did Trina say anything? Did she remember anything that might help us?”

Kirby sipped the tea, finding the taste wasn’t as bad as she’d expected. “Not really. But she did shake loose some of my memories. It can’t be the real Felicity Barnes who’s working for the government. Felicity died that night we formed the circle.”

Camille raised an eyebrow. “So you can remember that now?”

She nodded. “Part of it. I have no idea who Marline is. She certainly wasn’t one of the five. There was a Mariel, though.”

“Marline and Mariel are awfully similar names,” Russell commented. “Maybe when you did the reading you just got the spelling wrong.”

“Possible,” Camille muttered. “Quite possible. Anything else?”

Kirby took another sip of tea, considering all the bits and pieces that had floated through the fog in the last day or so. “Mariel was a witch. She could make dead things come to life.”

“What?”

She nodded. “Both Helen and I saw her do it on several occasions. She used to kill bugs, then bring them back to life.” And make the dead things chase them. She shuddered, remembering again the horror of it all. But in many respects, if it weren’t for those bugs, neither she nor Helen would have discovered the full potential of their abilities. “It wasn’t a trick, either.”

Camille and Russell shared a glance. “At least that explains the zombies,” Russell said.

“Yeah, but it’s an ability that usually runs in families and has to be taught. These kids were all orphans.”

“Helen and I figured out how to use our abilities,” she said. “Why couldn’t Mariel?”

“She could have taught herself to raise small things like bugs easily enough. There’s not much skill needed for that. But raising anything larger requires finesse. It can sometimes take half a lifetime to refine the skills needed to raise something as large as a human.”

“I hear a
but
in all that,” she said, when Camille hesitated.

“That’s because there
is
a second option. It involves invoking the spirit of the dead and drawing them into your body—making them a part of your world, and you a part of theirs.”

A chill ran through her, and her hands began to shake. She set the tea down and clasped her fingers under the table. It didn’t stop the growing feeling of dread, however. “Felicity Barnes, the girl who died in the quake that hit the night we raised the circle? She was Mariel’s best friend. Mariel swore she’d get her back, no matter what it took or how long it took.”

Camille cursed. “Did you ever see her do it?”

“No. We were all separated for a few months after the quake, shifted to various other homes or into foster care. Helen and I only remained together because we ran away.”

“Damn.” Camille looked at Russell. “Try doing a search for Mariel Thomas and see what you come up
with. I’ve got a feeling she and Felicity Barnes might now be one and the same.”

Russell nodded and moved back into the other room. Kirby stared at Camille incredulously. “Meaning Felicity’s spirit might be living in Mariel?”

Camille nodded. “If she’s only recently performed the summoning, it would certainly explain the sudden need for revenge.”

“But …” Her voice faded. She swallowed some tea to ease the dryness in her throat and tried again. “How is something like that possible? Felicity died eighteen years ago! Don’t try to tell me her spirit has been hanging about all that time waiting to be resurrected.”

“It depends. Some spirits move on and get reborn. Some remain on this Earth, compelled to right some wrong. And a very few are swept into a void some might call hell, destined to remain there for eternity unless recalled by the forces of darkness.” Camille hesitated, her blue eyes sympathetic. “Where do you think the legends of demons come from? They are merely twisted souls who have been in that void for a very long time.”

Kirby rubbed her head. She was having a very hard time taking all this in. Witches she could cope with. After all, Helen had been one. Vampires and shapeshifters she could learn to handle. But a void containing dead spirits who became demons was going a little too far beyond comprehension. “I don’t think I can handle all this right now.”

“You might have no choice,” Camille said, her voice still sympathetic and yet holding a hint of steel.

“You have to know what you’re facing in case the rest of us fail.”

She closed her eyes. She didn’t want to think about them failing. Didn’t want to think about Doyle dying while trying to protect her. She’d sworn eighteen years ago to never be the cause of another death. If it came down to a choice between his life and hers, there would be no contest.

She sipped her tea, but all it was doing now was agitating her stomach. She put it back on the table half-finished. “Why would anyone in their right mind raise the spirit of a person who’d been dead for eighteen years?”

“She may not have been in her right mind, and if Felicity’s spirit is in her, she sure as hell won’t be now.”

She stared at Camille for a second, a chill chasing down her spine. “What do you mean?”

“I mean it’s pretty obvious that this woman is not just after the power of the circle. She wants you all to suffer, as Felicity must have suffered when she was crushed all those years ago. All you have to do is look at the way she killed Helen and the way she attempted to kill Trina. And remember, Felicity’s spirit has had eighteen years in hell to plot its revenge.”

“Oh great, so I have two nuts after me rather than one. They’re just neatly packaged together.”

“I’m afraid so.”

Kirby rubbed her arms. “What about Rachel?”

Camille frowned. “What about her?”

“Well, a
manarei
wasn’t sent after her, was it? So why not?”

Camille hesitated, then half shrugged. “It is possible she’s more violent with those she holds responsible
for her death. Helen and you were the ones who formed the circle, and it was Trina’s power that killed Felicity.”

Awareness flowed through her. Doyle had entered the other room. She turned and watched him approach.

His gaze met hers, and relief flicked through his thoughts. He’d been worried about leaving her, she realized then, even if she was with his friends. The thought made her heart do an odd little dance.