5th Pentagram: The sequel to the #1 Hard Boiled Mystery, 9th Circle (Book 3 of the Darc Murders Trilogy) (Book 3 of the Darc Murder Series)

by Hopkin, Ben

  From the #1 bestselling authors in Hard Boiled Mysteries and Police Procedurals, Carolyn McCray and Ben Hopkin, comes 5th Pentagram, the stunning conclusion to the Darc Murders Trilogy.

  **Warning: This book contains graphic/disturbing violence that can give you nightmares. This book is NOT for the faint of heart. Please do not purchase this book unless you are prepared for some sleepless nights!

  Praise for 5th Pentagram...

  "The third chapter in the Darc murder mystery series was definitely worth the wait. As one as come to expect from McCray and Hopkins, the writing was superb. The intricately-woven plot kept you flipping the pages in order to discover the identity of the serial killer. More importantly, I appreciated how each of the main characters and their relationships seemed to grow and develop with each instalment of this series. In 5th Pentagram, they literally seemed to jump off the page especially with Darc, Janey and their special bond. You truly felt what they felt. Darc’s continuing struggles with the emotional spectrum reached epic proportions. Let’s not forget the witty and humorous dialogue which helped maintain a good balance with the gory murder scenes. The entire series was a joy to read and I was happy to have been able to share in their adventure."

  Romano Robusto

  Amazon Reviewer

  “OMG! Seriously awesome conclusion to an amazing series. Normally I can guess who the bad guy is about part way through most thriller type mysteries, but this series constantly had me guessing and second guessing. In 5th Pentagram, I was seriously surprised at who the bad guy was. And it was great. I love being surprised. As much as I loved this series, I was sad to finish this book knowing it was the conclusion to this series. I loved the Characters. Especially Darc and Janie. Their relationship and how they both grew as characters over the series was so fun to see. I do hope that this isn't the last we hear from this group of characters. I am sure they have plenty more stories waiting to be told.”

  dreamsgate

  Amazon Reviewer

  Praise for The Darc Murders Collection…

  “WOW, just WOW! I don't think I've ever come across such a gruesome series of crime scenes! Further knowing each of the scenes were booby trapped, had me cringing and then to read the full spectre of the carnage, left me in equal parts awe and queasiness of the macabre imaginings of the writers! They pulled out the big guns! There was gore galore! Luckily, I like that in a thriller, it makes the suspense that much higher and the take down of the bad guy that much more satisfying. What I didn't expect was to be so enchanted by the characters. I loved the eclectic mix, from the brilliant but emotionally challenged Detective with Aspergers to his laid back empathetic partner plus the razor sharp mind of the child psychologist consultant and the adorable and brave sole survivor, little Janey. All these nuances and traits give a rich tapestry to the book and endear you to the clever writing of… Ben.”

  Kizzle79

  Amazon Reviewer

  “I definitely recommend the Darc Murders Collection. The character development is phenomenal, story development is superb-- I thoroughly enjoyed reading both 9th Circle and 7th Sin; the story telling entwined with the characteristics of Darc's aspergers is incredibly entertaining. Not for the faint of heart, lots of gore and suspense, great mystery series. ”

  Tetch

  Amazon Reviewer

  If you are a fan of characters such as Alex Cross and Hannibal or movies like “7” and “Saw,” 5th Pentagram is sure to shock and satisfy.

  Main Menu

  Start Reading

  About the Authors

  Afterword

  Other Works by Carolyn McCray and Ben Hopkin

  Copyright

  5th Pentagram — The sequel to the #1 hard boiled mystery 9th Circle

  PROLOGUE

  Seattle City Councilman Kenneth Hughes yawned and stretched out his legs under his chair. It was late, much later than he wanted it to be. His wife Sandy had called three times since five o’clock that afternoon, and he was waiting for the fourth. It should come any time now.

  If he could manage to get out of here before it came, there was still a chance that he might get some tonight. Not that the “some” he was getting was what it used to be. Let’s just say that there was more of the woman to love now, not only in added poundage but also in sagging flesh and deepening wrinkles.

  There had been a time that Ken had possessed other… options. But ever since Sandy had caught him with that yappy little tart of an intern, Ken had been forced to keep his playing online. Thank the Gods of adult entertainment for Google incognito windows. No nasty history searches to trip him up any longer. Plenty of free porn to get him revved up and then adult chat rooms to get him off. Especially now that webcams came standard in most laptops.

  Problem was, it was getting harder and harder to snag the young hotties on those sites. Ken kept himself fit… mostly. More than his nag of a wife, that’s for sure. But Daddy issues only went so far, it seemed. When competing with the bulging biceps and washboard stomachs of the younger generation, his own not-quite-so-firm appendages were becoming less and less appealing by the day.

  Besides, even with pert breasts and navel rings galore to choose from, every once in a while he needed the real thing. And if he wanted to keep the freedom that Sandy’s bank account afforded him, he wasn’t about to risk a real-world affair.

  Well, not again.

  He exited out of the document he was perusing. This was the reason for his later-than-usual stay at the office. There was a vote coming up on a rezoning issue.

  His vote, of course, had been purchased. Ken suspected that such was the case for all of the rest of the members of the council. Or at least the majority. It wouldn’t make sense to buy off one or two of them.

  There was no way of knowing for sure which of the other members were on the take, but to be honest, Ken didn’t care. He cared that his own payments arrived in an anonymous and discrete fashion. It didn’t even matter to him from whom they originated. Money meant freedom from the cloying trap of his wife’s inheritance.

  Money also meant more power. More power meant more money. It was a beautiful spiral staircase pointing up to the sky, and once you were on it, there was no getting off. Barring death or disgrace, of course.

  Those Occupy Wall Street bastards had it right. There was a system, the system was corrupt and only a small percentage of people benefitted from it.

  Where they got it wrong was in trying to tear it down. You break the structure and all that happens is that a new structure takes its place. The brutal First French Republic to replace the stagnating French monarchy. The opulent Roman Catholic Church to replace the flagging Roman Empire. They wanted a level playing field? A level playing field was just another way for a different select few to take advantage.

  No, the fight against Wall Street just demonstrated stupidity. Stupidity and jealousy. Don’t change the system. Enter it. Embrace it. Benefit from it.

  Morons. All of them.

  Speaking of morons…

  When it came to his wife, well, screw her. Not literally, of course. Chances were, she’d just make up some excuse anyway. I’ve got a headache. Or I’m too tired tonight. Anything to keep her from pleasuring her husband. At least she couldn’t use the I’m having my monthly visitor excuse any more. That river had dried up some time ago.

  Whatever. She didn’t like sex? Better to just take care of himself, anyway. Take off some p
ressure before he got home. He could always pop a Viagra if it turned out she was in the mood. He chuckled. Pharmaceuticals. Saving his ass, one tiny blue pill at a time.

  Ken clicked on the most promising thumbnail in the search. It was a clip that appeared to be more than twenty minutes long. There would be some build to the inevitable screaming climax. Sometimes he liked the wham, bam, thank you ma’am approach to porn, but tonight he was feeling sexy.

  As the video loaded up, Ken heard a noise out in the hall. Shit. Just his luck that some janitor would be lurking around, ruining a perfectly good bit of adult fun.

  “Hello?” he called out, listening for a response. Maybe it was his secretary, coming back in for some reason. “Olivia? Is that you?”

  Nothing.

  Maybe it had just been his imagination. Getting caught was a real threat in today’s straight-to-the-internet era of reporting news. It was also part of the thrill. Nothing quite matched that rush of adrenaline that came from doing something he wasn’t supposed to. There had been so little of that since his affair had ended.

  There was also the fantasy of getting caught by someone young, beautiful and feminine, who just happened to have a thing for older men watching porn. But Ken was realistic enough to understand that never happened in real life. Well, almost never.

  He groaned and hid the browser before standing up and moving out into the hallway. All of the office lights were off except for his, but the hallway was still illuminated. Glancing left and right, Ken could see that there was no one there. Unless there actually was a janitor around. But if that was the case, there would be lights on in one of the offices.

  Must’ve just been the building settling. Or even his overactive imagination. Nothing like stirring up some fear to get the juices flowing, right?

  Speaking of juices…

  Ken scurried back to his desk, the anticipation of the moment heightened by his recent fear of discovery. He pulled back up the browser, noting with pleasure that the clip was almost fully loaded now. There would be no stopping this train once it pulled out of the station.

  He felt a stirring below and a flush of blood to his face. Loosening his tie, Ken settled in, leaning back in his chair. Every once in a while, some religious nut group tried to get the council riled up about the evils of pornography. Ken would bet his left ball that they’d never tried it, or even more accurately, that they were just putting up a good front for their prudish wives.

  Sliding his hand down his chest, Ken teased himself a bit. He would make this one last for longer than the minute and a half that his wife seemed to prefer.

  As his hand reached his waistband, he stopped for a moment, trying to decide how to proceed. The noise from before had left him justifiably spooked.

  The decision was taken from him as a flash of metal moved before his eyes and a band of liquid heat slashed across his throat. His cry of surprise came out as a gurgle of blood and air that hissed through the new hole created in his esophagus.

  He clutched at his throat, the blood welling up through his fingers. Panic surged up from his gut, replacing the lust that had occupied a site just lower only moments before. His vision doubled as the puddle of his life’s blood pooled in front of him.

  The phone rang, a strident clarion call that echoed in his ears. A possible way out of the destruction that stalked him from behind. He grabbed for the receiver with hands slicked with red.

  “Honey, are you still at the office?” the voice on the other end yammered. “You promised me you were leaving in five minutes a full half-hour ago.”

  Ken tried to answer, but got nothing more than another bubbling gush of blood out. His sight was narrowing, coming down to a pinpoint of light that kept him connected to the call.

  “Ken? Are you there? What’s going on?” The phone slipped from his weakening grasp, rattling against the desktop as the voice droned on, the pitch becoming higher and more frantic. “Ken? Stop it! You’re scaring me!”

  As the final pinpoint of light that was his fading vision dipped to black, Ken thought how fitting it was that his wife’s voice was the last sound that he would hear. The rolls and lumps of flesh had lost their importance for some reason.

  Instead of leaving this life with someone holding his penis, as had been his plan since puberty, Ken left wishing he’d been less of one.

  CHAPTER 1

  Detective Trey Keane ran through the husk of the partially built ship with something growling at his heels. His partner, Detective Robi Darcmel, was in front of him, as usual, and right about now Trey was getting pretty sick and tired of staring at the back of the tall man’s bald head.

  “Darc!” he yelled up ahead of him. “I don’t know what the hell this is, but it’s getting closer!”

  They sped through what would at some point become a hallway, the growls getting louder and more menacing by the moment. Trey wasn’t sure if it was his imagination or not, but he would’ve sworn on a stack of Bibles that whatever the beast behind him was, it was breathing hot steam down his neck.

  Bursting out of the genesis of the ship, Trey sprinted after Darc, trying to make for the next ship being built in the shipyard. Or at least that’s what Trey thought they were doing.

  Darc wasn’t much of a sharer.

  Slamming open a door that then careened off to one side, as it had only been attached on one of its hinges, Darc was swallowed up into the shadows of this new hall of horrors.

  Seriously, whose idea was it to chase down bad guys in the middle of the night, out in a shipyard on Harbor Island?

  Oh. Right. It had been Darc’s.

  The man was a sadist.

  “Darc! Dude! I’m telling you… this thing’s about to eat me!”

  And then they burst into what looked like the beginnings of a conference room.

  Two things stood out to Trey. One was the bloody mess of what once must have been a human being bolted spread eagle on the metal wall in front of them.

  The other was the fact that there was no exit.

  Shit.

  Trey screeched to a halt, almost running into his partner’s back. Darc, of course, was staring up at the wall in front of them, examining the corpse and the symbols painted there in what looked to be the victim’s blood.

  “Hey, no problem, Darc. We just have some ravenous beast on our tails.”

  Right at that point, a form flew into the room. Trey’s heart leapt into his mouth as he watched the form… not quite as big as he would have thought, or as snarly… race right past them toward some sheets of metal that were propped up against the wall.

  Then, from behind the metal, came a yowl and a hiss, and a grey streak shot out from the shadows and sped out through the open door behind them.

  It was a cat.

  The form of the ravenous beast turned and gave chase. As it passed by, it got close enough to the beam of Trey’s flashlight that he could see that it was a dog.

  A Corgi, to be precise.

  Okay, so maybe not the scariest of animals to walk on four feet. Maybe next time Trey would check what was chasing behind them before he started running. But wait just a minute…

  He turned to Darc. “Did you know it was just a little dog?”

  Darc nodded.

  “Then why the hell did you run?”

  His partner turned to look at him. “I thought you needed the exercise.”

  * * *

  Janey was having a problem.

  It was a hard one, but it wasn’t something she could talk to Mala about. She loved Mala, so much, but Mala was really worried right now, and Janey didn’t want to make her more worried.

  Darc would understand. So would Trey, probably, and even if he didn’t he would smile and joke with her and make her feel better.

  But she hadn’t seen them in a while.

  Popeye said something rude about how they didn’t want to see her, but she just stuck her tongue out at him. What did he know? He was such a naughty bear.

  Janey was in school now. She
had been really excited to go that first day. The new clothes, the school supplies… she especially loved how her erasers smelled.

  But after that first day, things had not been so great.

  She was making friends, though. Sort of. Some of the kids had thought she was really weird at first, because she didn’t talk. Some of them still did.

  But there were two girls and a boy in her class who had seen her drawing pictures and really liked them. So now they would sit together at lunch and sometimes draw things before they went out to play at recess.

  It had also been a little strange because Mala had been arguing with the teachers before school started. Mala wanted her to be in a may-stream class, or something silly like that. But the teachers had said that wasn’t a good idea.

  Janey had heard them talking about it, even though they stopped every time Janey got close enough for them to notice. So it wasn’t something they wanted her to know about.

  Popeye said it was because she smelled funny. Janey didn’t even answer that, since the only one who smelled funny was him and she didn’t think it would be polite to tell him. He could be so sensitive.

  But now she had this problem and no one to talk to about it.

  There had been something good, though. The lines of color in her mind that sometimes told her stuff about people were helping. They would twist and turn and make shapes that meant things. And they were helping her come up with a plan.

  It was a plan that was going to get her in trouble, but it would be worth it.

  She hoped.

  * * *

  It was many hours later and the sun had just made an appearance through the clouds. Trey looked down at the body in front of him in disgust and a certain amount of pity. It was arrayed just as that first victim had been, spread eagled inside a pentagram painted with the victim’s own blood. The Vitruvian Man, but as what’s-his-bucket had never intended. Da Vinci. The Mona Lisa guy.

  And, of course, the symbols. Couldn’t forget the effing symbols.

  “Are they all going to like, the same serial killer night school or something?” Trey asked his partner, Detective Robi Darcmel, rotating his shoulder as he spoke. He’d broken his collarbone during a case involving the last Assistant Prosecuting Attorney, of all people.