Surrender to Darkness Read online

  “My father would never have condoned my sacrifice of a dark relic to save him.”

  “He wouldn’t have condoned you breaking the onmyōji code, either,” Lena sneered. “Yet you did.”

  To Murdoch’s utter amazement, Kiyoko lost her cool. She shoved Lena with both hands. The taller woman flew back onto the leather sofa, which slid a few feet on the hardwood floor and knocked Rachel Lewis, Emily’s mom, off balance.

  Balance for an eight-month-pregnant woman is a tenuous thing. Rachel’s hands windmilled, one foot shot out, and she went down. Several Gatherers dove for her, frantically trying to interrupt her descent to the hardwood floor, but it was a collision of body parts, and in the end, Rachel met the floor with an audible thump.

  For a stunned moment, both Kiyoko and Lena fell silent, horrified. Then they leapt to assist. Emily reached her mother first, sliding across the floor and falling to her knees.

  “Mom, are you okay?”

  Rachel grimaced. “No. I think my water just broke.”

  Murdoch’s gaze found that of Brian Webster, who had just entered the room from the office. “I’ll go get MacGregor,” Murdoch said, straightening his shoulders.

  The other Gatherer nodded.

  The next few minutes were some of the longest in Murdoch’s lengthy existence. Telling MacGregor about his wife’s fall, watching the man cradle his sobbing wife in his lap, and seeing the family off in the Audi, were all painful. Emily and Tyrone Bale, their resident medic, went with them.

  “The baby is fine,” Sora murmured quietly as they watched the car speed down the drive. “And the woman is only bruised.”

  “I hope to God you’re right,” Murdoch said. He intercepted a sharp gesture from Webster. Inside, the thumb said. “Though I have a suspicion nothing will save my ass from a thorough tanning.”

  He followed Webster into the house and down the hall to the library. Anticipating a dressing-down, he closed the door behind him.

  “Why the hell didn’t you tell me they hated each other?” Webster demanded, rounding on him the moment the door clicked shut. “I could have had them meet in the arena.”

  “I forgot.”

  “You forgot?”

  As excuses went, forgetfulness had no legs. Murdoch knew that. But it was the truth, and he never shrank from the truth, no matter how ugly it was. “A lot has happened since Kiyoko mentioned she and Lena didn’t get along.”

  “I seem to recall you saying the Japanese were reserved and dignified. But your girl obviously attacked Lena. Why?”

  Excellent question. “Lena hit a nerve.”

  “What nerve?”

  “I don’t know,” Murdoch admitted. “I’ve never seen Kiyoko this angry.”

  “Not even when you took the Veil away from her?”

  Murdoch resisted the urge to fidget. Real men don’t shy from criticism. “I haven’t got the Veil.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know exactly where it is.”

  “You—” Webster swallowed whatever he was going to say, then turned and strode to his big campaign desk by the window. “So … you spent two whole weeks with her and learned nothing. Congratulations.”

  “She wears it somewhere on her body.”

  Webster’s brows lifted. “And you, the king of the one-night stand, failed to find it? Oh, my God. Tell me it’s not so.”

  The sarcasm stirred his berserker. Just a bit.

  “My relationship with Kiyoko is complicated.”

  “Of course it is.” Webster sighed heavily and shook his head. “You know, I don’t really care what your damned excuse is, Murdoch. No doubt you did your usual bull-in-a-china-shop thing and pissed her off. Doesn’t matter. Just get the Veil and send her on her way. I don’t need any more hassles right now.”

  “I brought her here to meet with Stefan.”

  “Yeah, well, good luck with that. He’s been acting weird ever since I told him the Temple Veil was real. Barely comes out of his trailer.”

  “So, you’re okay if I introduce them?”

  “Yeah. Just make it quick.”

  Webster turned his back and stared out the window into the night, effectively ending the meeting. But as Murdoch reached the door, he added a few quiet words. “If something happens to Rachel or the baby …”

  Murdoch hung his head. What could he say to that?

  Then he left.

  After an understandably subdued meal with her hosts, Kiyoko retreated to the room assigned to her. Sinking onto the king-sized bed, she hugged a pillow to her chest and let the tears fall. She had injured another person. An innocent person who had done nothing more sinister than be in the same room. And all because she’d lost control of her emotions, swamped by guilt. That was her greatest flaw, going too far. If she could take back that thoughtless second, she would.

  Her father would have been severely disappointed.

  The baby’s auras had been healthy, and the mother’s auras only slightly distressed, but that did not lessen her crime. She hadn’t expected Lena to know about the onmyōji code, and the reminder of her breach had sliced deeper than she expected. But giving in to the urge to strike Lena had been a monumental failure of self-discipline, an obvious sign that she was not ready to transcend, no matter what Sora said.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  Kiyoko hurriedly wiped her tears away.

  “Come in.”

  The door opened. Murdoch. Looking more handsome than any man had the right to.

  “I’ll be staying in the bunkhouse for the duration of your visit, so I’ve come to collect a few things,” he said, pointing at the closet door. His gaze trailed over her face, then studied her hold on the pillow. “Are you well?”

  So this was his bedroom. “No.”

  He frowned. “Your ribs are bothering you?”

  “No, my conscience.”

  “You couldn’t have known what would happen.”

  She grimaced. Actually, had she done a divination, she could have known. But that opportunity had passed. “Have you heard anything from the hospital?”

  “The bairn is fine. Rachel is in the throes of bringing him into the world as we speak.”

  “It’s a boy?”

  Murdoch frowned. “Of course. Why wouldn’t it be?”

  She snorted. According to the baby’s auras, it was a girl. “You haven’t learned as much as you’d like to think in seven hundred years, Murdoch. You still possess a medieval mind-set—boys are a greater prize than girls.”

  He stiffened. “I—”

  “Don’t bother to deny it. I see similar attitudes among many elder Japanese. Thankfully, my father and Sora did not view my sex as a limitation.”

  He smiled wryly. “I’ve nothing against girls. The world would be a sorry place without them. Had you let me finish, I would have explained that MacGregor already has a fine daughter in Emily, and a son would give him a matched set.”

  “Excellent recovery.”

  His smile broadened. “Thank you.”

  “You’re still a chauvinist.”

  “But I’m trying very hard not to be,” he said softly.

  Kiyoko shook her head. The man was as charming as he was outdated. But she wasn’t in the mood to be swayed. “Please collect your belongings. I wish to be alone to meditate.”

  “Are you truly set on that notion?” He crossed to the closet. Tugging open a built-in drawer, he scooped up several pairs of socks and boxer shorts. Another drawer held T-shirts, and yet another jeans. “I thought we’d pay a visit to Stefan this evening.”

  “The mage?”

  Logic said Murdoch’s mage was unlikely to present a solution that other esteemed mystics had not considered, but logic couldn’t tame the swell of hope in her chest. She wanted to be well.

  “Aye,” Murdoch said. “I’ll just drop my belongings at the bunkhouse and then we’ll knock on his door.”

  He stuffed his clothing in a small canvas bag with a drawstring and grabbed a rec
tangular wooden box off the table under the window.

  “You play chess?” she asked, nodding at the box.

  His eyes lit with interest. “Aye. Do you?”

  “Yes.”

  He replaced the box. “Excellent. Perhaps we’ll play a game later. Come on.”

  Kiyoko followed Murdoch down the lovely wooden stairway to the front door. None of the wood was painted, only stained, and she enjoyed the natural feel of the home. “Is this your house?’

  “No, Webster’s.”

  He didn’t add to that. Just waved to the group of Gatherers seated around the stone fireplace in the main room and escorted her out the door.

  “Wasn’t that rude? Not greeting them?”

  “No, we’re a rather informal bunch. People come and go and they please.” He left the paved driveway and headed across the grass toward two buildings, one very large and brightly lit, the other a single-story cedar-roofed structure with more windows.

  Kiyoko could not see a perimeter fence. Of course, her ability to note anything was hampered by the slow heat building in her veins. There was something strangely thrilling about walking side by side with Murdoch in the dark, under a silvery half-moon, their bodies close but not touching.

  “This is a very large compound.”

  “Over thirty acres,” Murdoch agreed. “But the main buildings are grouped close together. That’s the training arena.” He pointed to the largest structure. “Was originally for horses, but MacGregor now tutors the Gatherers there.”

  She frowned. “That does not seem nearly enough. How many Gatherers are there?”

  “Thousands.” The stone path took them to the multi-windowed building. “This is the bunkhouse.” He opened the door and entered the large living space. Dozens of chairs were grouped around low tables and brightly colored rugs. People—mostly men and a few women—sat, stood, or leaned on every available surface. Drinking, playing cards, watching television. The room was loud with chatter when they walked in but fell silent when Murdoch closed the door.

  “Kiyoko Ashida, meet the current group of trainees, affectionately nicknamed Batch Four.”

  The room erupted into a noisy protest, from which one prominent voice bellowed, “Batch Four, my arse. We’re called the Wrath of Conn, ya bloody bugger.”

  Murdoch grinned. “Touchy bunch.”

  “The Wrath of Conn?” she asked.

  He raised his brows. “What? You’re not a Star Trek fan? It’s a twist on the name of a very old movie”—another chorus of protest—“that attempts to accommodate the ego of the loudest man among them.”

  “Not the loudest,” disputed a short, stocky man with drab brown hair and a crooked smile, as he stepped forward and offered Kiyoko his hand. “The firmest on his feet after a long night in the pub. Conn Quinn.”

  “Don’t believe a word he says. He’s Irish,” Murdoch said. “Soul Gatherers can’t get drunk.”

  Quinn laughed, unoffended.

  Kiyoko shook his hand. “A pleasure, Mr. Quinn.”

  “Stay here while I put my belongings away,” Murdoch said to her. Then he eyed Quinn. “Afford her every courtesy. Annoy her and I’ll cut off your drinking hand.” Then he abandoned her in a room of unfamiliar faces.

  “Can I get ya a pint?” Quinn asked, holding up a long-necked brown bottle.

  “No, thank you.” Kiyoko let her gaze drift around the room. “How long does each of you train with MacGregor?”

  “Three months.”

  “Thirty new warriors every three months?” She shook her head. Developing fine skills was not something you could rush, and three months was not a great deal of time. But… “He’ll barely make a dent in the numbers at that rate.”

  Quinn sipped his beer. “It’s a hopeless goal, true enough. But not as dismal as you imagine. MacGregor promotes the best warriors in each group to the rank of lieutenant. A lieutenant is qualified to train others, and each group sends at least a dozen out into the world. We’re slowly building an army.”

  Kiyoko stared down the hallway Murdoch had vanished into. “Is Murdoch a lieutenant?”

  “The best.” Quinn grinned. “Except for me, of course.”

  She smiled. “Of course.”

  “What’s a lovely lady like yerself doing with an old dog like him anyway? Stamina decreases with age, you know.”

  “But skill improves.”

  The Irishman grinned. Tossing an arm over her shoulders, he leaned in to whisper, “Well, then, my girl, you should know that I’ve spent the last seventy-nine years perfecting my—”

  “Quinn.” Murdoch reappeared at her side. “Be careful, lad. You’re in danger of losing that hand. If not from me, then from her. Did I neglect to mention that she owns a katana and knows how to use it?”

  The warning didn’t dent Quinn’s smile. But it did encourage him to step away. “Good to know.”

  Murdoch lightly touched the small of Kiyoko’s back. “Let’s go.”

  The layers of her clothing seemed to melt away under the heat of his hand. Although subtle, his touch was intimate, and she knew its purpose—to warn Quinn off. Such an obvious territorial statement would normally have annoyed her, but not today. Today, she wished the claim were true.

  Murdoch dropped his hand the moment they left the bunkhouse.

  Kiyoko sighed. There were times when she wished she were an ordinary woman with an ordinary life. Times when she wished she could act on the impulses that made her heart beat faster and her palms go damp. Murdoch was everything she wanted in a man—confident, competent, and honorable. But he was outside her grasp. In more ways than one.

  They did not take the path back to the main house as Kiyoko expected. Instead, he led her through the small copse of trees behind the bunkhouse.

  “Does the mage not live with you?”

  “No, Stefan and his wife live over by the fishpond. Nice enough couple, but rather private.”

  “So, his wife is not a Gatherer?”

  Murdoch held a tree branch up so Kiyoko could pass easily. “No, Dika is a human woman much like any other. I believe they’re both from Romania.”

  They circled an outbuilding with a wide, barnlike door and trod a flower-lined pathway to the metal door of a trailer. At least Kiyoko thought it was a trailer. No wheels were visible.

  Murdoch rapped sharply on the door.

  A slim, dark-eyed, dark-haired woman answered, wiping her hands on a towel. She glanced at Kiyoko, then smiled at Murdoch. “Sorry, Jamie. He’s not seeing visitors today,” she said.

  Jamie? Kiyoko tilted her head. Was that his given name?

  Murdoch sniffed the air. “Are you making cabbage rolls? My favorite dish in the whole world?”

  “You know I am.”

  “Without inviting me in for a sample? Dika, you’re a heartless lass.” Murdoch smiled deeply at the mage’s wife, and Kiyoko’s heart thudded. Near impossible to deny a man anything when he smiled with such genuine warmth.

  Dika was a stronger woman than she. She shrugged. “Any other day and you’d be welcome. Today, you go without.”

  “Tell him it’s an emergency,” Murdoch said.

  The smile faded from the other woman’s face. “He knows why you’re here.”

  “Then he knows there’s a life at stake.” Murdoch tugged the door out of Dika’s hands, opening it wide. “I understand he’s upset about the Veil, but I refuse to stand out here—”

  A plump man with inky black locks falling over his eyes pushed past Dika, blocking Murdoch’s entrance. “Upset? You think I’m just throwing a tantrum? You have no idea what you’re dealing with. Bringing her here was a huge mistake.”

  Murdoch sighed. “Of all the people I know, you’re the only one who might be able to save her, Stefan. Where else would I go?”

  “Send her back to Japan. Bury her under the fishpond. I don’t care what you do with her, just get her out of here.” With that, he yanked the door free and slammed it shut.

  Stunned silence ensue
d.

  A silence that quickly turned awkward.

  “Perhaps I offended him somehow,” Kiyoko said.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Murdoch said slowly. He stared at the door with a frown. “He must be ill or something. The man’s always been a bit strange, but he’s basically a good soul. Quick to offer his help, creative in his solutions, willing to risk his life.”

  “Until now.”

  Murdoch turned the frown on Kiyoko. “Aye, until now.”

  “A shame we didn’t call him before making this rather long journey,” Kiyoko said, trying to disguise her fierce disappointment with a lighthearted smile. “I was hoping to see a bit of California before returning home.”

  Murdoch didn’t answer immediately. His gaze remained steady, holding hers.

  Finally he said, “I can’t let you go.”

  The words should have been thrilling. Instead, they were chilling. Her heartbeat slowed to match the painful throb in her chest. She knew precisely what he meant, and it wasn’t that he couldn’t bear to live without her.

  “Unless I leave without the Veil,” she said.

  His expression tightened. “You’ll stay until I say you can leave, and that won’t be until you can safely leave without it.”

  Her fingers trembled. Kiyoko tucked her hands into the folds of her skirt and focused on her breathing, ruthlessly settling her thoughts. He had been honest about his goal from the start. Succumbing to the lure of his crooked smile had been her mistake, not his. “Until you say I can leave? Would you rather see me die here, far away from my home, far from all I know and love, than give me the freedom to choose my own fate?”

  A riot of emotions played over his face, but for once the berserker did not surface. It was Murdoch alone who answered, his auras a steady pulse of periwinkle blue.

  “I will not let you die.”

  Azazel extended his left wing toward the wall of his castle chamber, twisting it slightly to catch the candlelight. He smiled. From his marginal coverts, across his downy alulars, and clear down to the tips of his long sweeping primaries, all was a glossy sea of black. The only gray feathers remaining on his left side were two scapulars up near his shoulder.