Authors: Annette McCleave

Surrender to Darkness (21 page)

BOOK: Surrender to Darkness

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She glanced up at Sora, who shrugged.

“It would seem Mr. Murdoch returned earlier than expected. I’m not certain even his berserker can triumph over twenty demons, but I would say that our odds of survival just improved dramatically. Go, Kiyoko-san.”

“But—”

“Your duty is to protect the Veil.”

“But—”

“And
our
duty is to protect you. Go, Kiyoko-san.” The pleasant tone had disappeared, replaced by firm command. “Now.”

Kiyoko entered the tunnel.

Ryuji followed her in, then Sora, and finally Yoshio. When all four of them were in the passage, Yoshio pulled the wooden panel over the opening and slid the metal door shut, leaving them in total darkness.

It took a moment for their eyes to adjust, then the glow of luminescent meter marks on the walls appeared out of the gloom, subtly lighting the curve ahead. Amazing how reassuring a series of small green dots could feel. Especially when the rough walls on either side pressed against their outstretched palms and the roof nearly grazed their heads.

She moved swiftly down the tunnel.

Murdoch was strong, smart, and a seasoned demon fighter. He would survive. No other outcome was worthy of consideration. When the conflict was over, he would greet her with that arrogant, lopsided grin and applaud her for keeping the Veil safe. He would.

“The door opens to a narrow ledge on the cliff,” Sora reminded her, as they rounded the third and final bend in the tunnel. “After that, we must climb.”

“I remember.”

When she was younger, her father had insisted on random practice escapes. The worst had been a drill enacted in the pitch-black of midnight. Scrambling up the cliff face in the dark, unable to see the small steps carved in the rock and occasionally losing her footing, had given her nightmares for weeks afterward. Fortunately, today’s climb would be made in broad daylight.

Just as they reached the final curve in the tunnel, Kiyoko’s big toe connected with something thin and hard. The item skittered across the rock floor, hit the wall, and shattered.

“What was that?” Ryuji asked.

“I’m not certain,” said Kiyoko, sliding her feet cautiously in the direction of the broken item.

Sora glanced over his shoulder. “You’ll only injure yourself. We must keep going.”

“It could be something important.”

“Nothing is more important than getting you and the Veil to safety,” he said firmly. His hands felt along the rock face for the recessed door latch.

Kiyoko bent and picked up the item, shaking it loose from broken glass. The outer edge was a wooden rectangle, carved with an intricate design that stopped her heart. She didn’t need to see the rendering to recognize the many bumps and sharp points. She’d run her fingers over this wood too many times not to know what it was. The lovely maple-leaf picture frame that held her parents’ wedding photo.

Umiko would never have left it here.

Not willingly.

“Wait! Don’t—”

The tunnel door slid open with the smooth rumble of well-oiled gears.

T
he house was a total loss.

As the berserker rage slowly retreated from his veins and his sense of self returned, Murdoch sighed over the damage. Walls gone, floors smashed, and ceilings collapsed. What hadn’t been already destroyed would soon be consumed by the flames licking up numerous posts and beams. Kiyoko would be devastated.

On the positive side, the demons were dead.

Between his raving berserker, several very useful Romany spells, and the skill of the young
onmyōji
warriors, they’d managed to take down all twenty of the wretched hellspawn. It hadn’t hurt that the demons had been oddly distracted. Swatting at the air about their heads, pitching random fireballs into the night, roaring with rage for no obvious reason. Whatever the cause, he and the others had benefited. They had suffered only one casualty—a young man who fell to a barrage of fireballs before Murdoch arrived.

He frowned.

One casualty, assuming Kiyoko had gotten out before the demons reached the house. He hadn’t found any sign of her in the wreckage, so it was a fair assumption.

Just not a sure bet.

Call him a Nervous Nellie, but Death’s warning was still ringing in his ears.
If you don’t turn around, you might lose the Veil.
If Kiyoko had made an easy escape before all this started, why would there be any risk to the Veil?

There wouldn’t.

Murdoch pointed his sword at the young
onmyōji
who had rallied the others to fight at his side. The warrior had taken a fireball to the left shoulder during the battle, yet he stood tall and straight. “You. How would the others have escaped the house? Is there a planned escape route?”

The blank stare he got in return had him biting his tongue. The lad clearly didn’t speak English.

“Kiyoko? Sora-san? Umiko?” He spun around, pointing at various places around the demolished house. “Where did they go?”

The young man’s eyes lit up, and a rush of syllables poured from his lips. He leapt over a burning post and headed for the back of the house. Kicking aside pieces of broken pottery and splintered ceiling panels, he cleared the floor in what used to be the kitchen. He pushed a carved wooden square near the wall and the floor panel popped up on one side. The young man lifted the panel and pointed to the metal door beneath.

Murdoch slid the metal door to one side and peered into the dark cavity. A tunnel.

He rubbed his chest.

Two obvious options, then. Drop into the tunnel and follow, or determine where the exit was and head overland. With his enhanced Gatherer speed and ability to see in the dark, the direct route through the tunnel was the obvious choice. Claustrophobia shouldn’t enter into his decision at all. The air in the tunnel wouldn’t actually disappear the moment he stepped inside, nor would the walls actually close in on him. The fear was all in his head.

He jumped into the tunnel.

Being a coward wouldn’t save the lass. He glanced up at the young
onmyōji
and with no hope of being understood said, “Go around. Meet me at the other side.”

Then he took a deep breath, bent forward so the roof wouldn’t touch his head, and jogged into the gloom.

Kiyoko’s warning came a moment too late. The tunnel door slid open to reveal a huge red
oni
demon pitching fireballs. Reacting swifter than she thought possible, Sora threw himself against the rock wall and miraculously dodged the first hellish orb. Kiyoko yanked Ryuji behind her, stepped back, and muttered the incantation required to raise a shield around them both.

A ripple of fear ran through her. There were four additional hulking outlines posed against the bright sky, and they were challenging opponents. The heavily muscled, seven-foot-tall beasts oozed a deadly poison from their thick red hides and wielded massive clubs capable of crushing rock—clubs they were currently using to expand the opening of the tunnel with ground-trembling force.

“What
are
those things?” asked Ryuji, his voice hoarse in her ear.

Kiyoko didn’t answer. Pulling him down, she avoided the swift slice of Yoshio’s blade as he leapt past them to enter the fight. Without a weapon, all she had to offer was magic. But she could do better than a simple blind spell now. Her ki had gained more strength during the trek through the tunnel.

Still, she had to choose wisely.

There was little hope that Umiko had survived an ambush, but if she had, and if she lay wounded outside the mouth of the tunnel, a spell like rock shower would finish her. Recalling her
shikigami
was also out of the question, because they might still be aiding Murdoch and the others. No, a two-pronged attack made the most sense: a culling spell to siphon off the battle fervor of their opponents and feed it to the team at the house, and a dragon conjure.

The winged snake dragon would be best.

From experience, she knew that if she blended her mystic abilities with Sora’s, the resulting dragon would be almost undefeatable. But the sensei was engaged in a desperate fight for his life against one of the
oni
and disturbing him—even briefly—would be a mistake.

She would have to conjure this dragon on her own.

The ground shook, the walls trembled, and a hail of rock and dust pelted his upper body. Murdoch flattened himself against one wall and sucked in a sharp breath, his heart ricocheting in his chest.
That
sure as bloody hell wasn’t in his head. The walls
were
closing in on him.

His mouth dried.

What a horrific finish that would be—lying trapped under a ton of rock, pressed tightly on all sides, unable to breathe for the rest of his immortal term with Death. Two hundred and fifty-six years of his worst nightmare come true.

Ah, Christ.
He needed to see light.

And he needed to see it
now
.

Hands chilled with a cold sweat, he put everything he had into a dash for the end of the tunnel.

Kiyoko smiled through her exhaustion.

The dragon was a sight to behold.

A sixty-foot wingspan kept it aloft, a long, powerful tail whipped from side to side, and shimmering blue-green scales covered its huge body from head to tail tip. It not only breathed great gusts of fire at the
oni
demons on the ledge but it swallowed every fireball they tossed at it with a gleam of satisfaction in its black eyes.

Three of the five demons turned to face it, leaving two
oni
to combat Yoshio and Sora. Improved odds, to be sure, but Sora was injured. Although summoning the dragon had drained Kiyoko’s ki to the point where her limbs felt numb, withdrawing from the battle was not an option. Not until it was won. Drawing deep on her remaining power, she strengthened the shields around the two men and tossed small irritation spells at the demons.

The dragon’s tail swept one of the
oni
off the ledge. But the acidic poison leeching from the
oni
’s skin drew a pained roar from the mighty beast, and it sank several feet beneath the ledge before regaining its altitude. Its tail was now safely tucked away.

Kiyoko bit her lip.

It would have been far better if the dragon had lashed out in fury, knocking the others off the cliff as well. They had five minutes—ten if they were really lucky—before the poison clawed its way through the dragon’s body to its heart. Given the desperate edge to Sora’s and Yoshio’s battles, that wasn’t promising.

Kiyoko tossed an ease-pain spell at the dragon.

Her own ribs were beginning to throb, but the spell was better spent elsewhere. A truth proven moments later when the dragon used the forceful beat of its wings to blow another of the
oni
off the ledge. She shared a triumphant smile with Ryuji, who was plastered against the wall, pale-faced.

But her satisfaction didn’t last long.

The third demon howled in rage and threw its powerful club at the winged beast’s snout. In a regrettably accurate shot, the dragon took a blow to the head, briefly dazing it. It managed only one more blast of fire before the poison reached its heart and it collapsed, plummeting out of view and down the cliff to the rocky terrain below. The now clubless
oni
was badly burned, but alive.

The odds were still three to two in favor of the demons.

Worse, both Sora and Yoshio displayed obvious signs of tiring—shorter leaps to escape the pounding of the clubs, near misses with fireballs, white lips, and ragged breathing. If Kiyoko didn’t act, and act quickly, they would all be dead and the Veil would be lost.

But what could she do?

Fresh air. Blessed, sweet-tasting air from the outside world.

Murdoch closed his eyes as the cool wash of damp fall air hit the back of his throat. Then he frowned. Not so sweet tasting as it ought to be, though. This air was marked with the sharply bitter scent of brimstone.

His berserker hummed beneath his skin.

Brimstone could mean only one thing. He rounded the last corner of the tunnel to the bright light of day and a small but fiercely fought battle. His fingers tightened around the leather-wrapped hilt of his sword. More demons.

His gaze quickly found Kiyoko and Watanabe a few feet back from the fighting. Watanabe hugged the stone wall, trying to stay as small as possible, but Kiyoko stood pale and proud, her hands spread wide, using whatever strength she had to wield magic. Sora and Yoshio were valiantly holding back the demons—three great red brutes, two of them armed with stone-pulverizing clubs.

His blood hummed and his muscles thickened.

Let me loose,
his berserker howled.

BOOK: Surrender to Darkness

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