Surrender to Darkness Read Free Page A

she’d thought him capable of. She’d seen him stiffen at Ryuji’s dismissal. Didn’t Western men typically use intimidation to gain their desires? The aggressive cant of his shoulders and the jut of his square chin suggested he knew he held the physical advantage and was tempted to use his size to gain his desire. Instead, he’d walked away. Why?
    A soft knock at the office door lifted her gaze from the video screen. Standing serenely at the door waiting for permission to enter was an elderly man with snow-white hair and long, flowing black robes. Sora Yamashita, her mentor.
    “Come in, Sora-sensei,” she greeted.
    He entered slowly, but with the supple ease of a man many years his junior. “This office looks precisely the same as when your father occupied it. Did Watanabe-san not move in?”
    Kiyoko’s eyes trailed around the room, lingering briefly on the impressive collection of first-edition paper currencies hanging on the far wall. A significant part of Tatsu Ashida’s life was honored here. A part she did not know very well. “He chose the office next door.”
    “Hmmm.” Sora ran a finger through the light layer of dust on a nearby bookshelf. “Your father’s assistant tells me there is an American downstairs seeking your attention.”
    The elder’s face was placid, but Kiyoko sensed a great deal of contemplation behind those dark brown eyes. The American interested him.
    “A friend of someone I despise,” she explained, watching for a reaction. And getting none. “What brings you into the city, sensei?”
    “Today was an auspicious day to visit. So here I am.”
    An appropriate response from a wizened old onmyōji skilled in the calendar arts, but with Sora, nothing was as simple as it seemed on the surface. Nor, for that matter, as simple as the tranquil blue of his auras. Her innate ability to read the colorful life force emanations of human beings offered no advantage with her mentor. “Is this the forceful man you foresaw influencing my future, sensei?”
    “Possibly,” he said. “My divination said he would be a stranger.”
    “That would be unfortunate. I’ve sent him away.”
    The sensei shrugged. “If you were successful in turning him away, then he is not the right man.”
    Her gaze returned to the TV screen, which now showed an empty lobby. If he was not the man Sora had predicted would arrive, then why did she feel a sense of loss now that he was gone?
     
    Azazel tugged at the constricting knot of his tie as he shut Watanabe’s office door and locked it. What a very enlightening handshake that had been. He flicked a switch next to the floor-to-ceiling windows and they instantly became opaque.
    Murdoch had no soul.
    Very curious. The only soulless beings walking the middle plane were the immortal warriors Death tasked with collecting the souls of the dead. Many things had changed in the two thousand years he had spent trapped in the morass of the between, but not that fact. He’d bet his wing feathers on it. But in his day, Soul Gatherers did not travel the world in search of dark relics.
    He murmured a succinct spell and in a blink, without a single telltale spark of red, returned to his private chamber in the shadowy castle his minions had built for him. Travel to and from the between did not have the same restrictions as travel from hell. He wasn’t entirely certain why, but logic suggested it was because the between existed within the barrier itself. Not that he cared one way or another. All that mattered was that as his strength returned, he gained the ability to leave his prison and enter the middle plane at will.
    “Find me a soul to consume,” he said to the nebulous black shape hovering in the shadows near the door.
    Once it scurried off, he conjured a bottle of rich red wine. He yanked out the stopper and poured a generous quantity down his throat to wash away the taste of green tea.
    One thing was certain: Murdoch was seeking the Temple Veil, just as he was. He’d