7th Sin: The Sequel to the #1 Hard Boiled Mystery, 9th Circle (Book 2 of the Darc Murders Series) Read online

  From the #1 bestselling author in Hard Boiled Mysteries and Police Procedurals, Carolyn McCray, comes 7th Sin, the sequel to the blockbuster mystery suspense thriller, 9th Circle.

  Praise for 7th Sin...

  “McCray creates a fabulous mixture of fright and suspense that makes it impossible to put down. As Trey and Darc embark on an investigation into the latest string of murders, they have no idea just how uncanny this killer can be. McCray's knowledge of crime and law enforcement shines! She creates eerie crime scenes, sensational dialogue, and an extraordinary sense of terror. Until the very end, she will keep you guessing!!”

  Lacinda Jaynes

  Amazon Reviewer

  “Another amazing and exciting chapter in the Darc murder mystery series. This book contained all the necessary ingredients for a successful sequel; the trademark gore and shocking horror, the mystery element as to the identity of the killer and the riveting, page-turning pace. It was also nice to see the evolving character development for each of the main characters including more of Trey's wit and humor and Darc's struggles with his emotions. If that was not enough, then there was the ending!”

  Romano Robusto

  Amazon Reviewer

  “Ms. McCray has a knack for drawing the reader in by having characters that quickly become friends... and not so friendly. Engaging and wonderful company for the beach or a comfy weekend (ok, I was so enthralled it took me only a day). For those who have not read the prequels, it is a fine stand alone book; however, I recommend that you do so in order to appreciate the depth of plot, characters, and the world of the Darc Murder series.”

  Oy Ve

  Amazon Reviewer

  “Imaginative and clever, "7th Sin" is a novel that will pull you directly into the action and suspense of a thrilling murder mystery adventure. This is a definite page turner, and witty besides. Although I have not had the chance to read the first installment of the series, the vibrancy of the characters and the writing swept me along instantly. It is a joy to read such a compelling, intelligently written piece of literature, and I highly recommend it!”

  AR2

  Amazon Reviewer

  If you are a fan of characters such as Alex Cross and Hannibal or movies like “7” and Saw, 7th Sin is sure to shock and satisfy.

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  Table of Contents

  About the Authors

  Afterword

  Other Works by Carolyn McCray

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  Copyright

  PROLOGUE

  A sense of anticipation surged through the Lord’s servant like an electric current. The feeling was akin to sexual excitement, but it was so much more than that. More full. More refined. More exalted.

  The Lord’s work remained for the servant to fulfill.

  Not like that other. The man who had claimed the same divine origins for his cleansing, but who had taken the lives of innocents. And he was now dead. A clear sign of his failure before the Almighty.

  Martyrs died too, of course, but always with a strengthening of their designs. There was nothing like that happening in the Emerald City. It still reeked of depravity and decay. It still swam with the murky runoff of a million evil acts.

  It was a city ripening for a dark harvest.

  And here was the one who was the worker in the vineyard, preparing to do the work of the Master.

  The servant’s hands trembled with the urgency of the task before them. There would be much for them to do. Hands washed clean in the blood of the Lamb. Hands made ready. Made holy.

  The servant of the Lord watched as the subject of his observation primped and preened. Visions of the “changeable suits of apparel, and the mantles, and the wimples, and the crisping pins” of Isaiah washed before the servant’s eyes. Isaiah. Indeed, Isaiah had been a man of God.

  The figure came back into sharp focus.

  As the servant moved through the silence and peace of the deadly darkness, the continued sayings of the prophet walked alongside. The servant listened and smiled as the soul filled with the eternal light of the words from on high.

  And it shall come to pass, that instead of sweet smell there shall be stink; and instead of a girdle a rent; and instead of well set hair baldness; and instead of a stomacher a girding of sackcloth; and burning instead of beauty.

  Fitting words for the task at hand.

  CHAPTER 1

  Janey!

  Dr. Mala Charan’s eyes shot open.

  She was nestled in her bed, safe within her bedroom, the light from her alarm clock casting a soft green glow across the pattern of her blue and white bedcover. The display indicated that it was 2:37 am. Everything was in its place, familiar and comforting.

  This was dreadfully wrong.

  She shouldn’t be here. The last memory she had was of the priest lashing out with horrid and violent precision to slit the throat of the guard in Janey’s hospital room. He had turned to face Janey, moving toward the bed, as Mala had broken from her stupor and rushed to guard the mute little girl, her heart pounding in her throat.

  A hand had held a pungent cloth to her mouth, the odor fruity and sweet. And then there was nothing. Nothingness.

  Until now.

  Mala turned on the bedside lamp, whipped the covers off of her body and pushed herself to her feet, noticing in passing that she was dressed in her purple satin pajamas. What was going on here? If she hadn’t been sure of her own memories and experiences, she would be questioning whether the whole thing had been some horrific nightmare.

  But that had definitely happened. Father John had killed the guard. The memory was far too distinct and clear and connected to other events from the last few days to have just been some elaborate subconscious concoction.

  Moving around the room, Mala found nothing out of order. Things were just as she had left them before she headed back to the hospital room to stay with Janey. She’d made just a quick stop-off for a change of clothes… and glancing to her right, there they were, hanging over the chair of the desk that sat against the wall opposite the bathroom.

  There was something off about all of this. Something other than the fact that she couldn’t account for how she had gotten back to her apartment. She couldn’t put her finger on it, but the… feel… of the room was wrong.

  Mala strode into the bathroom, looking in the mirrored cabinet, under the sink, behind the shower curtain that covered the bathtub. Looking for… what? What was she trying to find? Something that would explain her sensation of wrongness, maybe?

  But nothing was wrong. Nothing had been disturbed. Even the box of tampons under the sink had the same number that had been there before. Everything looked completely and utterly normal.

  So why did she feel so jumpy?

  It was time to stop running around and figure this out. How would Darc do this? Mala had never seen anyone analyze available information better than Detective Robi Darcmel. His cognitive abilities surpassed any that she had ever seen.

  And while the savant aspect of his intellect was clearly beyond her, Mala knew herself to be a capable and intelligent woman. Time to demonstrate it.

  Time to do a little detective work.

  Everything around her looked normal, but Mala could not get away from her sensation of oddness. Okay, perhaps she should go with that. All looked like it was in order. How did it feel? Running her fingers over her pajamas and the bedcover, something did indeed seem not quite right, but she couldn’t quite identify w
hat that was.

  Smell? There was the scent of the potpourri that she kept in the bathroom, cinnamon and clove and orange. But that was it.

  Wait.

  No it wasn’t. There was a faint odor of something else. Something rawer, which she hadn’t noticed due to the more familiar smell of the spices in the air.

  Paint. Glue. Something chemical that had recently dried.

  It had been at least a year since she’d had anything painted or had carpet installed. Nothing should smell like that in her apartment. Mala felt her pulse in her temples as she tried to quiet her harsh breathing. She kept her face as neutral as she could. If what she was beginning to suspect was true…

  Slowing her breathing down to the point that she could hear the ambient noise in the room, Mala’s fears were confirmed. Her heater had always had a slight metallic whir. Now, air was moving through the vents, but no whir was present.

  So unless her furnace repair guy had broken into her place to fix her heater—doubtful, since he was a lazy ass—this was not her apartment. Looking around, it seemed impossible. The placement of all of the objects in the room were so exact in their replication of her own living space.

  Brushing her hand over her pajamas, she realized what had bothered her before. The fabric wasn’t worn enough. She’d had them for at least a year and a half, and the cloth had broken down a bit. But these were new.

  Tiny details. Ones that would be easily overlooked. Mala continued to keep her face a still mask, showing nothing to the outside world. She refused to move to the door of her bedroom, as much as her body was screaming at her to do so. There was no need. It was almost certainly locked from the outside. Because she had realized something else as she had been examining the room.

  Mala had been staring right at the priest when the cloth had been placed over her mouth and nose. It hadn’t been him. There was someone else helping Father John.

  And whoever that person was had imprisoned her here. In this carbon copy of her own domicile. In a prison that suggested that her captor had an intimate knowledge of her.

  Her body wanted to shake with shock and fear, but Mala suppressed the response. She would continue to show nothing as she figured out what kind of person could have done this. Once she knew with whom she was dealing, she would get herself out of here.

  She hoped.

  *

  “Mala. She is alive.”

  Detective Trey Keane felt his heart rate soar. He had thought that it couldn’t get much higher than it had been a moment ago when he had opened his eyes from a deep sleep to see his partner, Detective Robi Darcmel, looming over his bed—and then looked to Darc’s side to see little Janey, who should be in a group home sleeping off her multiple traumas right about now.

  But here they were in the living room, and Darc was telling him that the woman whose head they had seen bobbing around in a cauldron filled with boiling blood… was alive. Trey battled between the surge of hope he felt swell up in his chest and the reality of what his eyes had seen.

  “Dude, we saw her…” Trey glanced down at Janey, who was looking up at him with big eyes. Trey looked at his partner and mouthed the word head. “Separated from her body, man. There’s no way she made it out of that hospital room alive.”

  Darc shook his head, one sharp shake to negate what Trey was saying. “It was wax. Just like the priest’s.”

  Trey sat down. Hard. He hadn’t chosen to sit down, really. It was just a reaction to way too much information coming his way. Unfortunately, there hadn’t been a chair in his immediate vicinity, so Trey was now on the ground, looking up at his partner and the little girl. Maybe he’d stay here for a minute or two. Yeah, that seemed like a good idea.

  “Mala’s… alive?” Trey pulled his knees into his chest and wrapped his arms around them. “That’s… I mean that’s… Wait. How do you know that she’s alive?”

  “Janey drew a picture,” Darc responded, holding down a piece of paper. Trey grabbed it and held it close to his face. He couldn’t make anything out. Perhaps that was because it was the middle of the night and the only light was coming from the street outside. Trey switched on the lamp next to the couch and winced as his eyes adjusted.

  “Just for the record, I’m okay with you coming to visit me during normal daytime hours,” Trey complained as he studied the picture in front of him. There was a lot of red, which was typical of Janey’s pictures, and a sad commentary on what she’d been put through at such a young age. There were also several figures standing around, with Janey in the bed. Trey squinted at the drawing, his eyes going a bit crossed in the process. “I don’t get what I’m supposed to be looking at here. All I see is people and what looks like a whole lot of blood.”

  Darc pointed at each of the figures in the picture. “That is the guard who was watching over Janey. This is Father John. Here is Mala—”

  “Wait. Then who is this other one behind the doc? The one that looks like he’s in a nurse’s mask?” Trey gestured to the person standing behind Mala.

  “That is the person Janey saw abduct Dr. Charan.”

  “Hold the phone. You said the priest was over there.” Trey shifted his focus to the part of the drawing Darc had indicated earlier. This was confusing.

  “Yes,” Darc replied. “That is the priest, in the process of killing the guard. This individual is the one who abducted Mala.”

  “Oh! Gotcha.” Trey had it now. He was just a little slow on the uptake at one o’clock in the morning. “That’s the Henry guy from the slaughterhouse, right?”

  “Not according to Janey. She had seen Henry in the underground chapel, but when I asked her if that was who had taken Mala, she shook her head in negation.”

  Okay. It was maybe time to get off the floor. Trey pushed himself up to his feet and slumped onto the sofa. This was a lot to process at the best of times.

  “So… the priest had two helpers?” Darc gave Trey the beginnings of a frown, his typical expression when Trey was testing his patience. Not fair in this particular set of circumstances, but it was true that Trey wasn’t on his A-game right now. Or even B or C. Trey rubbed at his forehead, staving off the beginnings of a headache. “Right. Moving on. But just because Father John didn’t take her doesn’t mean she’s not dead.”

  Darc moved into the pool of light cast by the lamp. “That is correct, but my assessment is that if she were to be killed, it would have happened immediately, as it did the guard. I believe she is being held.” Janey stirred at his side, nodding her head, her eyes bright.

  And there was a whole different set of problems. “Fine. But Janey can’t come, Darc.”

  “We need her. She is the only one who has seen the kidnapper.”

  “Yeah, I know,” Trey muttered. “And he’s six-foot-two, has a shaved head and an annoying habit of showing up in the wee hours of the morning.”

  Darc’s brow furrowed. “Your description does not fit the drawing Janey made.”

  “No,” Trey shot back. “But it does fit the guy standing in front of me. Dude. You kidnapped a little girl. I’m not even going to talk about the fact that it’s way past her bedtime.”

  “It was not a kidnapping. The worst charge that would be made against me would be that of custodial interference in the second degree. A misdemeanor. The likelihood is that I would never be prosecuted.”

  Damn that Darc and his superior knowledge of the statues of Washington state. Still. This was not going to go well when the people from the group home woke up and found Janey missing.

  “All right, all right.” Trey held up his hands. “I don’t have any other choice. I’m going to have to call the Captain. Then we’ll get Mala.”

  Captain Merle would know what to do. Sorting through the politics of a situation was his job, right? And he wouldn’t be that pissed off at having to wake up at this hour, right? It wasn’t like he already had issues with Trey’s performance as a detective.

  Trey sighed.

  Somehow, he was less than confident
as he picked up the receiver and dialed.

  *

  Darc traced through the patterns of glowing logic that swirled through his mind as one small part of his consciousness paid attention to Trey’s side of the conversation with the Captain. It did not sound as though it were going well.

  From what Darc could hear of the Captain’s bass voice, it seemed louder than what should be heard over a phone, and in a much higher register. Indicative of shouting, perhaps. Or gaiety. Although that seemed unlikely. Captain Merle had not seemed overly attached to Dr. Charan.

  The overwhelming majority of Darc’s cognitive powers were engaged in the search for Mala. From the moment Janey had drawn the picture, Darc had known that the doctor was alive. There was something odd about the knowledge, however. The logic lines confirmed that the head inside the cauldron was more than likely not Mala’s. The probability there was 83%. Enough for a statement of cautious optimism.

  But as to whether or not the doctor remained alive, there was no logical consensus whatsoever. While Darc’s argument that Mala would have been killed at the hospital were she one of the targets was accurate, it did not take into account everything that had occurred afterwards.

  Darc’s defeat of the priest could have sent the associate into a panic, causing him or her to purge everything related to the man, including Mala. That was a strong possibility, as Darc well knew. Mala was also intelligent and strong. She was unlikely to remain a willing captive. If she were to attempt to escape, that attempt could prompt the helper to kill her as a prophylactic measure.

  And yet, something inside of Darc insisted that Mala was alive. There was no definitive line that Darc could trace to reassure himself, and yet the feeling persisted. Mala was alive.

  This was a gray area that was beginning to intrude on Darc’s process more and more lately. He was not sure exactly how to proceed. These gray flashes seemed to dismiss, ignore, or openly challenge the findings of the bands of light and swirls of glowing symbols on which Darc had relied his entire life.