Surrender to Darkness Page 4

  Nine was much more of a fair fight than two.

  3

  Unfortunately, killing nine of her men would not endear him to Kiyoko Ashida. And she was all that mattered right now. Murdoch’s gaze roamed the faces of the men, seeking the leader. It took a moment to identify the lad in the sea of stoic expressions, but the firmness of one man’s stare gave him away.

  “Is this an invitation?” he asked pleasantly.

  The warrior nodded. “Ashida-san requests your presence.”

  “Really? So that grand exit she made a couple of hours ago was just for show?”

  The young warrior responded with silence. A clearly disapproving silence.

  “And where will this meeting take place?” Murdoch asked.

  More silence.

  Not the chatty sort, apparently. And too arrogant by half. Good thing for this bunch that going along for the ride served his purpose, else he might have been tempted to pummel a few heads just to soothe his pride.

  Murdoch brushed past the lead warrior and strode to the bed. Unzipping his heavy canvas backpack, he dug for some clean clothes. White T-shirt, black jeans. Same as always. He whipped off the towel with a complete lack of modesty and proceeded to dress. With the last buckle on his boots fastened and his shoulders encased in his bomber jacket, he snatched his sword off the bed. Daring his new friends to object, he waved a hand at the door.

  “All right, lads. Let’s find out what Miss Ashida has in store for me, shall we?”

  Although it was only a routine demon roust, Emily followed Brian’s instructions to the letter. Trouble could happen in San Francisco as easily as anywhere else. She waited until her watch said 2:15, then entered the deserted warehouse through the side door. Lafleur and Hill were on her heels.

  The dark ooze of demons swallowed her almost immediately. Not a literal ooze, of course. A mental one. After a year and a half of battling demons, her senses had become attuned to their creepy essence, and she could find them even with her eyes closed.

  But when entering a nest of havoc demons, it was best to keep your eyes open. Avoiding the broken glass and metal bits littering the floor, Emily slid silently along a partition wall and under the sagging pipes of an old duct system, her sword in her hand. The nest was in the furnace room in the basement, but a havoc demon could pop upstairs at any moment and blow the place sky-high.

  Forming a nest allowed the demons to pool their energy and remain on the middle plane indefinitely. Using the nest like a staging area, the hellspawn could launch much longer and more vicious attacks. Which was why destroying them was a high priority.

  Em reached the door to the basement at the same time Brian arrived from the front of the building. He wore his usual demon-hunting attire—designer jeans, a T-shirt, and a pair of badly scuffed Nike sneakers. His girlfriend, Lena, stood behind him, looking fierce with her tightly bound hair and vigilant stance.

  Twelve, Em mouthed to Brian. An even dozen demons.

  He nodded, then tugged the door open and skipped down the stairs, two at a time. The rest of them followed.

  The rectangular room was dimly lit. Only one sputtering candle stood in the center of the pentagram painted on the floor. Stuffing-challenged cushions and piles of fast-food wrappers rimmed the outer circle, crediting the summoning to juvenile delinquents.

  Emily rolled her eyes. Giving teens everywhere a bad name.

  Empty crates and a collection of old janitorial supplies were stacked against the longest wall. In the far west corner of the room, where the shadows were deeper and darker, a gray knot of writhing limbs obscured the unpainted cement and rickety shelving.

  The nest.

  Taking the lead, Brian dove at the softly humming dark mass, his blade slicing through the air with ruthless intent. He cut through the shield around the demons, creating a long, thin rift in the protective bubble and exposing them to the open atmosphere. Immediately, the babble escalated into a crescendo of howls and twelve demons swooped out into the room, their agile, winged bodies diving at the Soul Gatherers.

  Em ducked.

  The trick to defeating a havoc is never to let it grab you.

  Which wasn’t as easy as it sounded. Havocs were almost invisible. Only a faint outline of their bodies showed up, and even that appeared as a shimmery, transparent flicker. If you weren’t quick, they had a nasty habit of digging their claws into your clothing, increasing their hum to a fever pitch, and exploding. All in the space of a few seconds.

  Em closed her eyes and let her senses find the demons.

  In her mind, she swiftly identified the twelve patches of putrid ooze that represented the demons, separating them from the brilliant white light pulsing at the core of each Gatherer. Then she attacked.

  Her sword was short and light, specially designed to suit her teenaged body. She let instinct guide its swing, and with a soft swoosh of air, struck one of the havocs accurately in the throat, killing it instantly. As demon gore slid down the blade, the steel brightened with green luminescence and vibrated with the pent-up energy of a demon blood enhancement spell.

  Em dodged an incoming demon, pivoted smoothly, and thrust the blade into the belly of another of the creatures. The move took her a shade too close to the tip of Brian’s sword, and she felt the cold steel slice into her arm.

  He swore.

  She ignored the wound and dove at yet another prey.

  With six Gatherers fighting alongside her, each of them a seasoned warrior with immortal strength and dazzling speed, the battle did not last long. In no time at all, twelve bodies were heaped atop the pentagram and sprinkled with holy water from Lena’s purse.

  “Time to call in the cleanup crew,” Em said with a satisfied grin.

  Brian lifted his gaze from the demon carcasses. “You take too many risks, Emily. Do you really need to fight with your eyes closed?”

  “Sorry. I know it sounds weird, but closing my eyes helps me see them. I didn’t mean to spin so close to you.” Glancing at the bleeding wound on her arm, she willed it to mend. The flesh instantly knitted, leaving only healthy pink skin. “All better.”

  “All will only be better when I don’t have to send a fifteen-year-old into a nest of demons,” he said grimly.

  “I’m going to be sixteen in a couple of weeks. Practically an adult. I’ll be able to get my driver’s license.”

  He grunted. “Don’t remind me.”

  A flash of blue electricity forked through the attic, grounding against a folded metal chair and the blades of a rusty fan. The air dried and the sharp scent of lemons filled Em’s nose. A second later there was a pop, and a handsome young man with long brown curls and a loose skater-boy outfit appeared out of nowhere.

  “Uriel,” Em greeted with a smile.

  The archangel smiled faintly in return, then nodded to Brian. “Great job. No one was hurt?”

  Brian sent a pointed glare at Em, then said, “No, we’re all good. How did the Virginia miracle go?”

  “Excellent.” The young man raked a hand through his hair and grinned. “The virtue angels are quite impressive. They chose a firefighter who was already admired for his bravery and had a habit of kissing his Saint Christopher medallion before entering a burning building. With their divine help, the fellow guided his team to the exact locations of eight trapped people and pulled all of them out of the structure before it collapsed. It made the late-night news and will be all over the Richmond papers in the morning.”

  “Gotta love good news,” Brian responded, sheathing his sword in the leather baldric at his side. His broad hand reached for Lena’s, and he tugged her close. “Speaking of which, we heard from Murdoch. The sixth Ignoble might be more than a rumor after all. He says he’s got a solid lead.”

  Uriel pointed at the stack of demon carcasses. “Let me take care of this, and then you can tell me what he found.”

  Brian nodded. “Meet you back at the ranch house. Okay, folks, let’s vacate the premises. We don’t want to be here when o
ur little band of Satanists returns.”

  He and Lena led the Gatherer group up the stairs.

  Em stayed behind.

  She watched Uriel rub his hands together, admiring the fat globs of white sparkles dripping to the floor. A look of intense concentration briefly overwhelmed his glowing beauty, then a flash of brilliance exploded into the room and the havoc bodies dissolved into a pile of pale gray dust. He murmured several indiscernible words and the painted pentagram faded, sinking into the cement.

  “Uriel?”

  He glanced up at her. “Is something wrong, Emily?”

  “Not exactly.” She drew in a deep breath and mustered her courage. “There’s a plan for me, right? It’s pretty obvious the Trinity Soul is expected to fix this whole mess with Satan and the relics. Well, it would be really helpful to know how. And when.”

  His brown eyes gentled.

  “The situation is very fluid, Emily. We can sense the momentum building, but at this point we cannot see what shape the final confrontation will take. A lot depends on our actions over the next few months.”

  She frowned. “Doesn’t God know everything?”

  Uriel shook his head. “The future has not been written, only loosely sketched. There are still many possible outcomes.”

  “But how do I know I’m learning the right stuff? How do I know there’s not some special tool I’m supposed to have that I know nothing about?”

  “There is no special tool, Emily. You are the tool.”

  “Makes sense,” Em grumbled. “I sure feel like a tool.”

  He frowned, confusion in his eyes.

  “Tool is another word for moron.” She sighed. “Look. Here’s the problem: The Gatherers have a job to do. I don’t. I’m not responsible for anything. Since no one knows what I’ll be called upon to do in the Apocalypse, they make me study everything. But that just makes me a master of nothing. It would be nice to have a task I can focus on.”

  “I understand that you’re frustrated. But you must be patient, Emily. Everything will become clear in time. Just continue to study, and learn as much as you can.”

  “I have been learning. Lots. Ask Lachlan,” she said. “I can pop wherever I want, whenever I want. I can recite forty-plus spells from memory, and I’m getting pretty darned good with a sword. That’s not the point. With focus, I could become an expert at something. Maybe I’m supposed to spend some time with you and the angels? See the job from a different perspective?”

  “No. The lessons you must learn are here, among your own kind.”

  “My own kind? As far as I know, I’m the only one of my kind in existence. Unless there’s some other Trinity Soul you forgot to mention?”

  He cut through her sarcasm with a reproving stare. “You’re still a human, Emily.”

  “Barely.”

  “The middle plane already offers you a unique perspective, one that neither Our Lord nor Satan possesses. You see things we do not. Use it to your advantage.”

  “I don’t actually see them. More like hear them.”

  His brow arched. “Them?”

  “The creatures from the between. That’s what you meant when you said I could see things you guys couldn’t, right? Because the barriers God erected between the planes don’t work on me?”

  “Not exactly,” he responded drily. “I only meant that you could see into all three planes. What noises do you hear from the between?”

  “Lately? Screams and wails and moans. Like someone’s torturing them. Makes it kinda hard to sleep. Thank goodness it’s not every night.”

  “Can you make out any words?”

  She shook her head. “No, but they repeat one sound a lot: say-sell. Or something like that.”

  Uriel’s face lost all expression. “Azazel?”

  “Yeah,” she said slowly, “I guess it could be Azazel. Why? Does that mean something?”

  He nodded. “Azazel was the leader of the Watchers, a group of fallen angels generally credited with large-scale corruption of the human race.”

  “Was?”

  “He perished in the Great Flood.”

  “Oh.” Em hadn’t actually listened that closely to the moans. In fact, she’d done everything she could to shut them out, including pulling the pillows around her ears. “Maybe I was wrong about the sound.”

  “Perhaps.” Uriel raked his hand through his curls once more. “Or perhaps the reports of Azazel’s demise were exaggerated. Perhaps he survived in some lesser form.”

  “That would be a bad thing, right?”

  He nodded. “He was once the most powerful of all the fallen angels. His might exceeded that of Lucifer. Even as a lesser being, he could be a formidable opponent.”

  “What would he be doing with the creatures of the between?”

  Uriel grimaced. “I have no idea. I need you to listen to the sounds again, Emily. Try to verify whether they are indeed naming Azazel. The likelihood that he survived is slim, given that we’ve not heard from him in all this time, but it pays to be careful.”

  “And if I’m convinced they’re saying his name?”

  “Call me immediately.”

  “Then what?”

  He frowned. “Nothing. Just call me. Michael and I will sort it out.”

  Of course. Teenage immortals who find clues to the coming Apocalypse should immediately hand them over and stop thinking about them. But she’d already said her piece about getting more involved and frankly, this fight was getting old. She had exams to worry about.

  “You got it.”

  Kiyoko rolled out of her futon just before dawn.

  There seemed to be no point in remaining in bed when sleep continued to elude her. If she was going to see Murdoch’s face every time she closed her eyes, she might as well go down to the training compound and face him in person. As she wrapped her black belt around her white dōgi, a knock rattled the partition.

  “Yes?”

  The door to the main living area slid open, revealing a kneeling Umiko. “Breakfast is ready, Ashida-san.”

  “Is Yamashita-sensei already up?”

  Umiko gave a quick nod. “As always.” She stood and backed away.

  Sweeping her hair up in a quick ponytail, Kiyoko padded across the tatami mat and joined Sora in the lantern-lit tea room. The table was spread with an assortment of dishes, including rice and broiled salmon, but Kiyoko chose only tea. Her stomach would not handle food right now.

  Sora looked up from his miso soup. “Not hungry?”

  “I’m anxious to get down to the dojo.”

  “Eager to train, or to see Mr. Murdoch?”

  “Both.”

  The sensei carefully scooped up the last of his soup with his spoon. “You insult Umiko-san by failing to eat.”

  She chose not to respond. Eating simply wasn’t possible until she saw Murdoch and confronted the strange feelings that refused to let her go. Besides, the poor man had been waiting for hours. She had intended to greet him when he arrived, but her energy levels were not what they used to be and she’d fallen asleep around one a.m.

  Her teacher sighed. “We will go, then.”

  After making their apologies to Umiko, they donned sandals in the entranceway and took the short path along the cliffs to the back gate of the compound.

  Mr. Murdoch stood just inside the door in the main hall, looking less than thrilled. Judging by the various cuts and bruises on the nine men who surrounded him, the wait had been unbearable.

  “About bloody time,” he grumbled, as she and Sora entered.

  Sora studied the guards with a critical eye. Although none of them flinched, Kiyoko could sense their shame. “Did you object to our invitation, Mr. Murdoch?”

  “No,” the big man said, his voice a dry rumble of Scottish brogue. “We simply had a miscommunication.”

  He looked at her while he spoke, his gaze trailing over her face in leisurely detail before slipping lower to study her clothing. Considering that he stood five feet away, it was an amazin
gly intimate experience. Kiyoko’s heartbeat sped up and goose bumps rose on the back of her neck. She felt claimed.

  “Over what?” she asked.

  “My boots.”

  She glanced at his feet, which were bare.

  “Aye,” Murdoch said drily. “I removed them. But it would have saved everyone a lot of grief if they had asked instead of demanding. My collection of possessions is small, but what I own, I keep.”

  Sora nodded. “We shall endeavor to better explain our requests. Have you anticipated why we insisted on your presence here today, Mr. Murdoch?”

  “You want to talk about what happened yesterday.”

  “Yes,” Sora agreed. “But I also wish to know more about what you are. You are clearly no ordinary man.”

  Murdoch shrugged. “I’m a large fellow with an anger-management problem.”

  The master turned and, with a quick word, dismissed the warriors.

  Kiyoko frowned as the senshi bowed as a unit and stepped away. Respect for her mentor demanded that she remain quiet about any misgivings, but a ripple of alarm ran down her spine. Murdoch had already proven himself a very dangerous man.

  “I wish you to speak freely,” Sora said gravely. “Kiyoko-san and I will keep your confidence, Mr. Murdoch, I assure you. But you must be open and honest if we are to truly understand what occurred.”

  “What can I say? I grew up in a rough neighborhood.”

  The note of amusement in his voice was faint, but Kiyoko caught it. He was toying with them, assuming them uneducated. “I am aware that Lena Sharpe is a Soul Gatherer, Mr. Murdoch. That she is a disciple of Death tasked with protecting the souls of the dead from demons.”

  His brown gaze found hers once more. “Lena Sharpe has a big mouth.”

  Kiyoko shook her head. “I can accuse her of many things, but not of compromising secrets. I tracked a demon to a bridge overpass one night and stumbled upon her battling the creature.”

  His brow furrowed. “You tracked a demon?”

  She waved a hand at the loosely knit groups of warriors eating breakfast at the collection of tables behind them. “That’s what we do. We are disciples of the great onmyōji wizard Abe no Seimei. Since the last days of the Heian Period, we have blended the divination and calendar arts with the way of the warrior, slaying demons by whatever means we can. Our purpose is to right the balance of the world.”