Surrender to Darkness (40 page)
Read Surrender to Darkness Online
Authors: Annette McCleave
Everyone upstairs was safe. Murdoch’s pulse ratcheted down a notch as his berserker receded. But he still had no idea what the hell they were dealing with. “I’ve got two dead Gatherers and no sign of any demons.”
He explained what he’d found.
“Boneless?” asked Emily, from her bedroom door. “Did you say they were boneless? As in attacked by bone-sappers?”
“Lord, I hope not,” muttered Lena. “To be safe, we should turn on all the lights. Right now. Every one of them.”
“Hold on,” Murdoch said. “Let’s not panic. Bone-sappers feed off spirit bones, not real ones.”
Lena nodded. “True. But Gatherers are spirits. A rather meaty form of spirit, perhaps, but we’re definitely culled from the primal energy field.”
“If we assume that it’s bone-sappers,” Webster said, “how did they get here? Are we dealing with an open portal somewhere?”
“Absolutely. They have to be escaping somehow.”
“No.” Emily spoke firmly. “I don’t think it’s an open portal. I think it’s Azazel. He’s sending them here.”
“What do you mean
sending them
?” Lena asked.
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.”
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
S
he’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.
he’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.”
Murdoch 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.
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