Surrender to Darkness Page 28

  “What do you mean sending them?” Lena asked.

  “I think he’s figured out how to use them on the middle plane. That’s why he’s been stirring them up.”

  “But you’ve been checking for Azazel every hour or so,” Webster pointed out. “If it was him, wouldn’t you have known?”

  “I was checking for him, not for bone-sappers,” she said, hugging her pillow to her chest. Her skin had a taken on a greenish cast and her eyes were dark. “I’m sorry. I don’t even know what a sapper feels like.”

  Everyone was silent.

  Then Kiyoko said, “I felt something in my room, just before I went to sleep. Something eerie. I thought it was just my imagination.”

  “Eerie?” asked Emily. “Like something was watching you?”

  Kiyoko nodded. “From the shadows. But there was nothing there.”

  Murdoch tried not to think about the possibility that the creature that had turned Carter into mush had been in Kiyoko’s room without him being aware. He glanced at Emily. “You felt something similar. Earlier, when we were practicing.”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  Webster grabbed his pants off the end of his bed and thrust a leg in. “Let’s pull ourselves together here, people. We need to account for everyone, see how much damage these things have done.”

  “Should we gather in the arena?” Lena asked, as she, too, threw on clothes. “We’ve got a couple of hours yet before dawn, and the lights in there are pretty bright.”

  Webster nodded. “Sounds like a plan.”

  He and Lena dashed for the stairs.

  Murdoch studied Emily’s face for a moment, thinking. “Once you feel an entity, you can find it, right?”

  She looked up. “Yes.”

  “Do it. Scan the ranch.”

  Tossing the pillow aside, she shook out her body and closed her eyes. A few moments later, she opened them again, relief shining in her eyes. “It’s not here. The creepy feeling is gone.”

  Murdoch smiled at her. “Great job, lass.”

  Then the light left her eyes. “One small problem, though.”

  “What?”

  “Gradiors. They live in the between, too.”

  He felt the earth shift a little under his shoes. Gradiors were reanimated dead bodies, and they attacked living people, not just the dead. “Excellent point. I’ll remind the others. Now go get dressed. We might as well join the others in the arena. I doubt anyone will be able to sleep.”

  “Okay.”

  He turned to Kiyoko.

  There were so many things he wanted to say to her. How bloody ecstatic he was that she was alive, how his heart had practically ripped out of his chest when he let his fear imagine her dead, how utterly bleak his life would be if she were gone. But none of them were appropriate for the moment.

  “Bring your katana.”

  20

  She’d worn it right in front of him, brazen as can be. The black belt. Quite ingenious, hiding it in plain sight. It made perfect sense. The Veil was cloth, the belt was cloth. Rather annoying it hadn’t occurred to him earlier, though. He could have saved himself a great deal of effort.

  But no matter.

  His plan could move forward.

  Azazel conjured a feast to his tabletop—braised mutton, candied sweet potatoes, fresh rolls, and plenty of red wine. Orchestrating the death of two Gatherers had blackened another wing feather, and his powers continued to grow.

  He would wait a few days—until the exhaustion of remaining alert wrung them into limp rags and their vigilance faltered—then he’d slip in and steal the Veil. He wouldn’t have much time to get in and get out, but a well-executed plan did not depend on time.

  The question was who to masquerade as.

  He slathered butter onto a chunk of bread and stuffed it in his mouth. Butter was one of Satan’s better creations. Sinful as hell.

  The old man? She trusted Sora explicitly and would open her door to him without pause. But his serenity was difficult to mimic, and the likelihood of her noting a lack of knowledge was high. Murdoch? The problem there was the berserker. She would notice immediately if the colors of his auras were off. None of the other Gatherers would get him close enough, so there was really only one option left.

  Yoshio.

  Loyal, competent, and willing to bend the rules.

  Yes, he would do perfectly.

  “’Night, Murdoch.”

  He glanced up as the last two trainees departed the arena with a good-bye wave. Both men were smiling. “Good night.”

  Tensions were finally on the wane.

  But the jury was out on whether that was a good thing.

  For the first three nights, no one had slept a wink, and tales of how Kowalski had died had circulated endlessly among the Gatherers, becoming more lurid with each telling. On Wednesday, Murdoch had to break up a brawl in the weight room that began because one trainee had failed to wipe down the decline bench after taking his turn.

  And it got worse at night. Despite the floodlights installed along every major footpath and the watch posted from dusk to dawn, no one voluntarily stepped outside after dark.

  Murdoch grimaced as he checked each of the training swords for serious nicks and scratches.

  Azazel had turned a group of powerful warriors into lily-livered shirkers. Even the more seasoned warriors like Hill and Lafleur had been unnerved. Carter had been well liked and one of the most highly skilled among them. If he could be taken down …

  Yet there hadn’t been a single incident since the night Carter and Kowalski died. Not even a stubbed toe. And during training today, everyone had been noticeably calmer. Shoulders were less tight, faces less strained, disagreements less heated.

  All of which certainly made it easier to round up volunteers for guard duty. But complacency was their enemy, not their friend. Case in point: The blanket spell had been removed yesterday to permit the magic they would ultimately need to defeat Azazel. Most of the Gatherers saw the disarming as a plus, because it provided them with more ammunition in the event of a fight. They acknowledged that it also unlocked the door for their enemy, but as time wore on and the demons failed to materialize, their concern faded. He’d urged everyone to be more vigilant than ever, but he knew it was a futile effort. Maintaining high alert was too wearing on the psyche for most. Only the Gatherers with battle experience understood.

  “Murdoch?”

  He spun around to face Webster, who stood just inside the door of the arena. “Aye?”

  “She’s coming unglued. You’ve got to do something.”

  He sighed. Emily was the biggest casualty of the past few days. Her sixteenth birthday had come and gone with little fanfare. She barely even acknowledged the gift Lachlan had left for her—a brand-new lime green Ford Fiesta. She refused to sleep more than a few hours at a time, sweeping the ranch for signs of Azazel or the bone-sappers at regular intervals. Despite everyone’s assurances to the contrary, she clearly felt responsible for the deaths of the two Gatherers.

  “Can we drug her?” he asked.

  “Maybe,” Webster said slowly. “But it’ll be dark in another hour or so.”

  Valid point. Not a good time to be without their best weapon. “Talk to Sora. He might be able to help her reach a meditative state. Next best thing to sleeping.”

  “Really?”

  Murdoch shrugged. “According to Kiyoko, it is. Frankly, I never had much luck with it myself.”

  The other man nodded and turned to leave. Then changed his mind. “You and Kiyoko have a fight?”

  “No.”

  “Hmmm. Call me crazy, but not talking to each other usually means someone’s pissed off.”

  Murdoch fastened the padlock that held the swords to the wall and tucked the key into his pocket. “Emily isn’t the only one who feels guilty about Carter and Kowalski. Kiyoko thinks she brought Azazel down on us.”

  “Can’t argue with that,” Webster said drily. “She has a point.”

  M
urdoch spun around, his chest burning with indignation. “No, she doesn’t. If I had taken the Veil from her in Japan, she’d be dead right now and Azazel would still be on our asses. Don’t you dare blame her.”

  Webster folded his arms over his chest. “Okay. That still doesn’t explain why you’re not talking.”

  “She has a solution for severing her connection to the Veil and remaining alive. I think the idea is absolutely asinine.”

  “Ah.” A faint smile hovered on Webster’s lips.

  Smug bastard. Thought he knew everything there was to know about relationships. Based on one experience. “It involves completely unleashing the berserker.”

  “Oh.” The smile vanished.

  “Exactly.”

  “I’ll leave you two to work it out, then.”

  “Good idea.”

  Webster left, and Murdoch glanced at his watch. He had every intention of making it work. In fact, he’d arranged a date of sorts with Kiyoko in a half hour. In theory, it was just to play chess, but he was planning to break down a few walls. Explain how he felt. Lay everything out and see what happened.

  But first he needed a shower and a fresh shirt.

  When dusk fell over San Jose, Azazel sent in the troops. A dozen bone-sappers to pick off the low-hanging fruit and a handful of gradiors to deal with the peskier, more seasoned Gatherers. The Gatherers had conveniently removed the blanket spell, so they were able to surface in the woods next to the bunkhouse instead of making their way down the hill.

  The guard outside the bunkhouse door was a little more trouble than expected. Not only was he a seasoned warrior, he possessed a stronger than normal shield and the gradior assigned to take care of him was decapitated before it could break through.

  Azazel swept the Gatherer’s shield away with a wave of his hand, and called up another gradior to take the broken one’s place. Learning his lesson, he enhanced the shield pierce charm on all of the gradiors’ claws.

  While the undead brain-eater engaged the guard, the bone-sappers skirted the brightly lit areas and slipped into the bunkhouse through every shadowy hole, big or small. Azazel used the front door, placing a barrier spell around the bunkhouse as he entered. It was very kind of them to huddle together in one spot. Made their destruction so much easier.

  And this way, Yoshio couldn’t escape out the side door.

  A truncated scream came from the back of the building just as he strode into the common room, wings boldly displayed. While a few of the Gatherers lounging about stared at him with no recognition in their eyes, most immediately understood they were doomed.

  Azazel covered the building in a muffle spell and smiled.

  He loved the smell of fear in the evening.

  Murdoch shoved the sopping masses of his hair back from his face and turned off the water. As the drips from the showerhead slowed, he caught the tail end of a sound that could have been a strangled scream.

  He glanced at the glass brick window.

  The sky was dark purple.

  Christ. Bloody short days.

  Knotting a towel around his hips, he skated out of the shower on wet tiles and snatched up his sword. Then he yanked open the door to his room. The hallway was completely dark, only a few shiny shards glinting from the carpet. Consistent with all the bulbs being smashed.

  There was no time to don boots. He stepped into the glass, sword aloft.

  His berserker took care of the pain. As adrenaline sped through his veins in response to danger, so did the familiar red rage. His body heat soared, his muscles swelled, and the urge to flay and maim overtook his usual caution.

  He sensed them before he saw them.

  Like a cool finger running over his hot skin.

  Pushing open the door closest to him, he saw one hovered over the body of a trainee, silently sucking. The trainee’s eyes were wide-open, but he appeared to be paralyzed with fear. He lay quiet as the sapper hungrily drew his bones from his flesh. Another sapper hung from the ceiling, cloaked in shade, waiting on a victim of its own.

  “Die, ya bloody buggers,” Murdoch yelled.

  Then he charged.

  Today was not one of the five remaining most auspicious days. Those were lucky from beginning to end and pretty much guaranteed success. Today was the next best thing, though. Lucky all day except for noon.

  Not perfect, but still a good day to ascend.

  Sometimes the opportune moment was better than the perfect moment.

  Kiyoko carefully washed her arms and her legs, her feet and her hands. She tied her hair back and removed all traces of makeup from her face. Once she was completely clean, she donned a pair of black silk tank-top pajamas and sat in front of the fireplace to wait for Murdoch.

  It was the last waiting she intended to do.

  Having endured several painful and heated discussions over the last few days, she was ready to admit defeat. Murdoch would never change his mind. He was convinced that he could not control his berserker. So, tonight when he came to play chess, she was going to attempt the transcendence, whether he was willing or not. Two Gatherers had already paid the price of her desire to make him a partner in the process. Enough was enough.

  “Kiyoko-san?”

  She glanced at the bedroom door and bit back a groan. Yoshio stood politely outside, waiting for an invitation to enter. She still had not entirely forgiven the young onmyōji warrior for contacting his North American brethren behind her back. But turning him away would be rude. “Come in, Yoshio-san. What can I do for you?”

  He slipped inside the room and closed the door.

  She frowned. “I’m expecting Murdoch to arrive at any moment.”

  Ignoring her, he crossed to the bed and lifted her pillow. “Where is it?” he asked.

  Kiyoko gained her feet, her heart thudding. There was only one thing he could be referring to. Yet she had never mentioned the Veil to Yoshio, nor shown him where she put it while she slept. Which suggested this was not Yoshio at all, but …

  Azazel.

  Her hand itched for her sword.

  It lay on the bed, much closer to her foe than to her. But Murdoch had enjoyed no success using a sword against the fallen angel, so perhaps the distance didn’t matter.

  He spun to face her. “Where is it?”

  Magic was the key to survival. She raised a shield, summoned her shikigami, and leapt for the Veil, which lay on the table behind her.

  As she rolled behind the flimsy protection of the armchair, she caught a glimpse of the band around Yoshio’s ankle and felt a tiny flicker of hope. Azazel had made an error in choosing Yoshio as his mask. The moment he’d left the bunkhouse/arena area, alarms would have begun to ring. Help would come.

  The demon growled and swatted at the shikigami.

  “This is stupid,” he said. “You can’t hope to win. Give me the Veil now, and you might survive.”

  She used his distraction to toss a binding spell.

  Which he swatted away as easily as he hurled her valiant tiny imps against the wall. “Are you counting on a rescue?” he asked, grunting as one of the shikigami plowed into his chest. “Don’t. My former brethren from heaven are currently responding to a series of large-scale demon attacks around the globe. Orchestrated by me. Murdoch is at this very moment locked in a building full of bone-sappers, and Webster is battling gradiors in the front yard. You’re on your own.”

  She tossed an exotic variation of the poison cloud hex at him, hoping the mustard yellow mist would seep through his shield.

  He was wrong. He had to be. There were plenty of Gatherers on the ranch. Guards placed at strategic spots for defense. And even now, the ankle bracelet was sending a signal to Carter’s …

  Her follow-up blind spell faltered.

  How had she forgotten? Carter was dead. Which meant there was a very good chance no one was listening to the alarm. She really was on her own.

  Emily’s eyes popped open, her gaze locked on the unfamiliar stucco ceiling.

  Wher
e was she?

  Her gaze darted around the room and then she sighed with relief. Her surroundings weren’t completely foreign. This was the guest bedroom in Brian’s house. Way to panic for nothing.

  Stretching, she rolled off the bed.

  The meditation thing had worked. Sort of. Sora had encouraged her not to lose awareness of her surroundings, but after only a minute in the lotus position, her forty-pound eyelids had slid closed. She’d fallen asleep. On the plus side, she felt relaxed for the first time in days, ready to tackle anything.

  Leaving her room, she skipped down the stairs to the kitchen and dug through the cupboards for the potato chips she knew would be there. If Brian and Lena weren’t immortal, they’d be candidates for a heart attack. Swear to God. She poured herself a glass of milk, stuffed a few barbecue-flavored chips in her mouth, then closed her eyes and did a sweep of the ranch.

  Chip bits spewed from her mouth.

  Holy fucking shit.

  They were everywhere. Dark, creeping shadows, hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. Inky black ooze, filling every corner and slowly swallowing up the bright pulses of energy that represented each Gatherer. Snuffing them.

  Her gaze darted to the patio doors. The porch light was out. Oh, God. A wave of dizziness hit her.

  Okay, don’t panic. Think, Emily. What was the best thing to do? Save the screaming trainees in the bunkhouse? Help Brian with the zombies in the front yard? Or tackle Azazel upstairs? Shit, who was she kidding? Could she really help any of them?

  She swallowed the sour lump in her throat.

  Not without help, that was for sure.

  Uriel? Squeezing her eyes shut, she prayed with all her might. But there was no flash of blue sparks, no hint that he was on his way. She couldn’t wait. Her stomach heaved with every terrified scream echoing in her head. Gatherers were dying. Lots of them.

  She had to do something. Now.

  Sora was upstairs napping. Stefan was in his trailer. It was a toss-up, really. One mystic or another. But experience put the best odds of success with Stefan. She’d seen him kick serious demon ass. And he was younger. That had to count for something.