Surrender to Darkness Read online

  The dojo was silent.

  Indeed, the entire compound had an air of quiet purpose.

  And there was an arrow protruding from Murdoch’s right shoulder. An arrow fletched with the black wing feathers of a golden eagle—feathers Sora had painstakingly collected from a nest at the summit of a mountain aerie.

  Murdoch drew his sword with a silky rasp of steel. Lost to his ancient and primal berserker, he presented his back to her with no regard for her ability to deal him damage. Rather, his stance was protective, his body forming a sizable barrier, ready to stop any and all intruders.

  Kiyoko was not insulted.

  There was something oddly sweet about his determination to keep her from harm. But she couldn’t dwell on it. His impenetrable wall of self-control was gone, and the savage pulse of his berserker lay right on the surface, unrestrained. It would require a large outlay of energy, but this was an opportunity that might not soon come again. There was no better time to steal into his auras.

  She cupped her hands in meditative repose, stared at the twin rows of silver rivets on Murdoch’s black leather belt, and ruthlessly tamed her ragged breaths into an even flow. Spurred by the tentative nature of the opportunity, she quickly settled into deep meditation—intensely aware of the brewing battle in the courtyard, yet neither frightened nor roused to anger by it.

  His auras were a sight to behold.

  A moil of red so dark it was almost black, surrounded by a thin shell of glowing gold.

  Even though she’d been blessed with an ability to see auras from birth, Kiyoko had never seen the like of these. Most people’s auras were a blend of colors, with the most dominant hue suggesting an overall state of being. Murdoch’s were uniquely focused. They brought to mind a red and black dragon spitting golden fire. A fanciful thought, perhaps, but a surprisingly effective description.

  And the image caused her to hesitate.

  But only for a moment.

  She extended her auras slowly toward Murdoch, the throb of power emanating from his body so intense it lifted the hairs on her arms. That feeling was familiar. But the stinging burn she experienced as she drew closer was not. Unfettered, his energy radiated outward with the strength of a thousand bonfires, frying the fringes of her auras. As the berserker gained more control, the wall around Murdoch’s inner thoughts weakened and then crumbled. She caught flashes of memories—glimpses of battles he’d fought, lives he’d saved, and promises he’d upheld. Even as he scorched her, he won her admiration.

  Flatten yourself upon the ground, Kiyoko-san.

  The silent message from Sora entered her mind at the precise moment the thirty-two warriors in the courtyard shifted their stances. From readiness to attack.

  Alarm tore through her.

  And Murdoch reacted to her fear as if he could feel it. He released a savage roar that shook the wall at her back and reverberated in her chest like a clap of thunder. His sword arm swung, the blade whistled, and Sora bled.

  “No!”

  Panicked, Kiyoko tried to dive under Murdoch’s arm and rush to her mentor’s side. But the berserker-possessed Soul Gatherer would have none of it. His elbow plowed into her gut, sending her flying back against the ceremonial hall. She hit hard, slumping to her knees, dazed and bruised.

  Another threatening roar rattled the buildings in the compound, this one aimed as much at her as at the warriors surrounding him, an underscoring of his primitive claim. What was it Murdoch had once said? What I own, I keep.

  “You don’t own me, you dim-witted bear,” she muttered, rising to her feet. “And you’re about to learn that you shouldn’t turn your back on me.”

  She tugged her katana free of its scabbard.

  But she never got a chance to wield it. Murdoch took a large lurching step back and slammed her against the wall again, knocking the weapon from her grasp. At first she thought it was a strategic if somewhat frustrating move on his part, but as the weight of his body settled upon her with increasing force, doubt formed. The crush of his rock-hard body on her chest prevented her from breathing. And when he stumbled and fell on her, she knew for certain it was unintentional. Even as a berserker, he would never purposely hurt her.

  Awareness of her predicament came too late for her to raise a protective shield. The sudden collapse of his full weight atop her and the subsequent three-foot drop to the ground broke ribs. She heard them snap. Felt them snap.

  Biting her lip against the sharp pain, she pushed at his huge body, trying to free herself. But he was completely limp, and she, crammed awkwardly against the building, was unable to shift him. His muscles were larger as a berserker. Was his weight increased, too? It certainly seemed so.

  One small miracle—they hadn’t landed on her katana . The sword had rolled to the left when it hit the ground, but she couldn’t see it. She couldn’t see much of anything, truth be told. Except Murdoch’s hair, his bloodstained T-shirt, and increasing numbers of black spots.

  It would be rather unfortunate to die suffocated beneath Murdoch’s body. Not quite the illustrious future Sora had hoped she would enjoy.

  Sora. Was he alive?

  Kiyoko’s chest burned, her lungs demanding air. She opened her mouth and sucked hard, but got nothing. The black spots threatened to overwhelm her vision. Using her last tendrils of consciousness, she extended her auras, searching for the old sensei. She found Murdoch, his auras slowly returning to a calmer violet. Reaching farther, she found Yoshio and several other warriors, all pale blue. But no Sora.

  She withdrew, drained and dizzy.

  If he was gone, the blame would lie with her. She had taunted Murdoch to the brink of his self-control, blatantly encouraging his berserker to surface.

  The black was a swirling sea now.

  Kiyoko fought to stay conscious, hoping that at any moment Yoshio and the others would pull Murdoch off and save her. But the battle proved difficult. Her limbs grew cold and heavy. Weariness filled every muscle, and her eyes drifted shut.

  If she didn’t do something swiftly, she would die.

  A pointless, pathetic death.

  She weakly extended her auras once again, not far this time. Just to the edges of Murdoch’s gently pulsing energy. With her last conscious thought, she sent a silent whisper into his being.

  Roll over. Please.

  Then the sea picked her up and swept her into the darkness.

  10

  Murdoch woke up with his face mashed into the grass, a mouthful of dirt coating his tongue. The most excruciating headache he’d ever had the misfortune to endure throbbed inside his skull, and spitting out the dirt only made the pain worse.

  He actually felt queasy.

  Sitting up, he rubbed his shoulder, which also throbbed.

  His shirt was hard and crusty beneath his fingers, and a thick scab had formed on the skin below it. Narrowing his eyes to filter out the annoyingly bright sunlight, he spied an arrow on the ground.

  Someone had shot him.

  Who, he couldn’t recall.

  He picked up the arrow and studied it. Had to be a mystically enhanced arrow—nothing else could have pierced his skin, not while he was in berserker mode. And he had been in berserker mode, that much he knew. Because he remembered every one of those last moments before the beast swallowed him up—the incredible feel of Kiyoko in his arms and the sweet press of her lips against his.

  He glanced at the wall of the ceremonial hall.

  She was gone. In fact, the courtyard was completely empty … except for her discarded katana, lying a few feet away on the gravel.

  He frowned.

  Kiyoko, like anyone who bet her life on the quality of her blade, usually took great care of her weapons. Leaving her prized blade exposed to the elements was out of character. Such carelessness implied distraction. But what sort of distraction? If she had drawn her weapon to fend him off, which seemed logical, what would make her toss it aside? The quantity of scuff marks in the gravel around him suggested the confrontation
had expanded to include at least a dozen of her young onmyōjō warriors. Had he … ?

  A heavy lump settled in Murdoch’s belly as he peered at his hands. Yes, there were dark red speckles on the back and fingers of his right hand. Dried blood. He’d injured someone. Perhaps slain someone.

  Memories stirred, and the hairs on his neck lifted.

  Dear Lord, had he injured Kiyoko?

  No. He shot to his feet, the pain in his head a mere inconvenience now. He would not have hurt her. Not on purpose, at any rate. But by accident? It had happened before. It could certainly have happened again.

  He spun in a circle. Anyone injured would have been taken to the doctor. But where the hell was the bloody infirmary? Most of the buildings in the compound were familiar, but there were a few he had yet to enter. The one at the far northeast corner was the forge, and the four smaller huts near the main gate were housing for the senior warriors like Yoshio.

  But there was a slightly larger pagoda near the entrance as well. And the doctor had taken the wounded warrior in that direction.

  He ran down the gravel path.

  His guess about the infirmary proved correct. Inside the building he found a small treatment room, a two-bed ward, a lab, and a large closet filled with medical supplies. But no doctor, and no Kiyoko.

  Which only increased his sense of dread.

  If they were at the house, then it was almost certainly Kiyoko who was injured. And if they were off to the hospital, the injuries were grave. Steeling himself for the worst, Murdoch exited the compound between the two frowning niou and made his way to Kiyoko’s front door, where he politely knocked.

  Umiko slid the partition open.

  The scathing look on the old woman’s face when she spied him soured his mouth. So, it was true. He was officially scum of the earth. He had injured Kiyoko.

  “May I come in?”

  Umiko glared and refused to step aside.

  “I need to see her,” he said quietly.

  She responded with a few terse words of Japanese that he didn’t understand. Not that he needed an interpreter—her meaning was very clear. Over my dead body.

  Murdoch was debating how hard he should push when an authoritative male voice spoke from the shadowed interior of the house. More Japanese. More words he didn’t understand. But the rancor left Umiko’s eyes and she nodded. She shuffled back a few feet and bowed, inviting Murdoch inside.

  He swiftly unbuckled his boots, kicked them off, and stepped into the house.

  Sora stood in the center of the main room, looking decidedly his age. He had droplets of dried blood on his pale chin, and white cotton bandages peeked from the neckline of his black robes.

  When he saw Murdoch’s gaze linger on the bandages, he said ruefully, “You are exceptionally fast. I leapt, but the tip of your blade caught me nonetheless.”

  Murdoch raked his hair back from his face. “My apologies, Sora-san. Demons open a portal the moment they think they’re losing, and they often try to make an escape. My berserker has become quite adept at making a last-minute bid for the killing slice.”

  Sora’s eyebrows lifted. “I’m grateful that, in this case at least, you failed.”

  “I, too. I’m hoping that everyone survived?”

  “Only Kiyoko and I were injured.”

  Murdoch’s gaze drifted over the sensei’s shoulder to the partitioned room where Kiyoko had previously dressed. The sliding door was shut, but he could see the shadow of a person moving inside. “How is she?”

  “Not well.”

  “Did I—” Murdoch’s throat tightened to such a degree that he couldn’t get the word out. Not on the first try. “Did I cut her?”

  “No.” The old man shook his head. “The blame for her injury lies with me, not you. I did not fully anticipate what might happen after I shot you.”

  “The arrow in my shoulder? That was you?”

  He nodded. “I prepared the arrow with a great deal of care. Not only did I place a very powerful shield pierce spell upon it, I added a sleep spell.”

  Murdoch snorted. “You knocked me out.”

  “Quite effectively.”

  “But … ?”

  Sora smiled faintly. “You are correct. There is a but. You went down as I predicted, but you fell upon Kiyoko and crushed her. Broke two ribs, the doctor says. Yoshio attempted to pull you off, but in your last moments of consciousness, you created a repel shield that prevented him from reaching you. The weight of your body nearly killed her.”

  The chill of narrowly averted disaster claimed him.

  “Indeed,” Sora added. “Were it not for your spontaneous roll to one side, I think the outcome would have been summarily grim.”

  “May I see her? I must make my apologies.”

  “Not just yet,” the old man said. “She still needs a great deal of rest.”

  Murdoch frowned. “For broken ribs?”

  “Her injury is more complicated than a few broken bones. She overextended herself while she was trapped, and her efforts exacerbated a previous injury.”

  Umiko appeared with a tea service, which she laid out on the table next to the inset hearth. No ale today. Only green tea and spiced rice balls.

  Murdoch waited for her to leave, then asked, “What previous injury?”

  “Three months ago, Kiyoko interrupted the fatal demon attack on her father and took a significant blow to the chest.”

  “She’s shown no sign of weakness during training.”

  Sora lowered himself stiffly to one of the cushions around the table. “The physical healing was swift. Like many young people, she was back on her feet in a matter of days. It was her ki that suffered the critical damage.” He reached for the teapot, and winced.

  Murdoch strode to the table, picked up the ceramic pot, and poured the old man a cup of tea. As he replaced the pot on the table, he slid the bowl of rice balls a few inches closer.

  “Her ki?” he prompted.

  The old man cupped his tea in two thin hands and brought the steaming liquid to his lips for a slow sip. “Her spiritual energy. Kiyoko is a gifted mystic, and she draws on her ki to perform her spells. As one might expect with a beloved parent, she went to extraordinary lengths in her attempts to heal her father that day. Unfortunately, in so doing, she drained her ki to such a low level, it was unable to regenerate. Were it not for the Veil, she would have died.”

  Of course. The goddamned Veil.

  Murdoch dropped to the cushion opposite the old man. “The Veil gave her some kind of energy infusion?”

  “Not precisely.” Sora sipped his tea again, taking obvious comfort from the warm drink. “Think of it more as a pilot light. As long as it is lit, she can use it to create her own energy. But if the pilot light goes out …”

  Murdoch stared at the parchmentlike texture of the old man’s closed eyelids. “You’re suggesting that if I take the Veil away, I’ll kill her.”

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t believe it. Kiyoko’s face is quite expressive. She’s been tempted to give it to me on more than one occasion. If she depended on it to keep her alive, I doubt giving it up would even cross her mind.”

  Sora opened his eyes. “Thinking about giving it up and actually doing so are two different things, Mr. Murdoch. Her desire to do the honorable thing constantly battles her selfish need to hold on to the Veil. That’s only natural for a person of Kiyoko’s character. But she knows the consequences.”

  He set his cup down.

  “I fear it is your well-motivated demand for the Veil and the nag of her conscience that are causing the current crisis.”

  “You mean her weariness?”

  Sora rose to his feet, already looking more hale and hearty. There was some color in his cheeks now. “It’s more than weariness. She has again drained her ki to a dangerous level, and this time her recovery rate is concerning. The Veil’s power remains strong, but Kiyoko is not responding to it as she once did.”

  “But she will recover.
”

  “I believe so, yes. The doctor assures me she is steadily improving.”

  Murdoch regained his feet with one forceful push. He had to see her. Mostly to reassure himself that he hadn’t slain her in his berserker rage, but also to see firsthand the effect of her diminished ki. Otherwise, he wasn’t sure he could accept Sora’s bizarre tale. “I want to see her.”

  Sora waved a hand toward the back of the house. “A quick look will do no harm. But if you wake her, I will be most displeased.”

  At Murdoch’s gentle knock, the partition slid open. The doctor nodded politely to him, then stepped aside to give him a proper view of the futon and the woman who lay under the sheets, still and fragile.

  Murdoch was shocked. Kiyoko’s chest slowly rose and fell with regular, life-sustaining breaths, but her face had a hollow look he knew only too well—the look of a soul ready to depart. Her shoulders were bare and thin, her black hair stark against the pillow. Reconciling this image with the vibrant, purposeful woman he’d kissed in the courtyard only a few short hours ago was a struggle.

  He had done this to her.

  With his uncontrollable berserker rage and his ridiculous urge to possess her.

  “As hard as it may be to believe,” Sora said quietly from behind him, “she should be back to normal by the evening meal, except for the broken ribs. Her vital signs are all strong, and her ki is improving minute by minute.”

  “Was that intended to ease my guilt?” Murdoch asked. “If so, it was ineffective.”

  “Pointing fingers to lay blame is rarely productive,” Sora replied. “Looking for the lesson is a better use of your time. I wonder, for example, why Kiyoko did not cast a shield spell upon herself. The broken bones could have been averted.”

  Murdoch glanced over his shoulder. “The same could be said for you, old man.”

  The sensei smiled. “My error was not in failing to raise a shield, but in failing to raise a strong enough one. Your sword has a superior shield-piercing capability.”

  “Thank Stefan Wahlberg for that.”

  Sora lifted a brow.

  “The Romany mage who supports our efforts,” Murdoch explained. He backed out of Kiyoko’s room and invited the doctor to slide the partition shut once more. “A very talented fellow.”