“So,” Marshall said, “find out anything useful?”
“You knew we wouldn’t.” I paused. “How long have you been erasing their memories? And why are you doing it?”
Again that oddly familiar darkness stirred in his eyes. “It is not common practice.” He hesitated. “Although most of our current stock have experienced it at one time or another. I’m afraid it is easier to treat physical wounds than mental ones.”
“So you simply erase the memory of the physical trauma and push them back into the feeding pen?” I kept the anger out of my voice, but only barely.
Azriel rested his hand in the middle of my back. Energy flowed from it, somehow calming me.
“These people are junkies. They will do anything—agree to anything—in order to get their next fix. What we do, we do with consent.”
I wasn’t believing that. Not after what I’d seen in the room behind us. How could anyone who had no real idea what was going on from one hour to the next consent to anything? I glanced down the hall. “Can we talk to the person in the room second from the end?”
“If you want,” Marshall said.
Meaning we wouldn’t find anything different. And we didn’t. Like Amanda, the thickset man in room eighteen—who, oddly, possessed the same green-gray eyes as Amanda but otherwise looked nothing like her—had no immediate or past memories. Although he did have a games console rather than books.
Marshall glanced at his watch as we came back out. “The feeding rooms will be available if you’d like to view them now.”
I nodded, although I seriously doubted we’d find anything of interest there, either. We headed back to the elevators and up two levels. As the doors opened, the scent of antiseptic hit and my stomach began to churn again.
“God,” I said, blocking my nostrils with my hand but not really succeeding in blocking the smell. It clung to the back of my throat and burned into my lungs. “How bad do things get here that you have to wash the rooms down so completely?”
“It is not that bad,” Marshall said. “You just have an overly sensitive nose.”
That might be true, but it didn’t change the fact that the smell was hideously strong. He stepped out of the elevator and motioned to the long corridor before us. It was basically the same size and length as the one below, although the red and black color scheme had been replaced by basic metal walls, ceiling, and floors. Easier to wash down, I guessed.
“All the rooms are the same size and shape,” he said. “Do you want to inspect them all, or would you rather have a random viewing?”
I studied the closed metal doors ahead. I wasn’t exactly sure what I was hoping to find, and I was more than a little convinced that I’d actually find nothing. But my sense of trepidation was increasing, and I knew from long experience that generally meant my psychic radar had picked something up. Whether there actually was something here that would help our quest, or what I sensed was nothing more than extreme distaste over what happened here, I wasn’t exactly sure. Yet.
I glanced at Marshall. “Right now, I just need to walk down the corridor and get a feel for the place.”
He raised an eyebrow, but waved a hand to indicate I should go right ahead. With Azriel as my shadow, I walked slowly down the center of the hall, my footsteps echoing across the silence as I studied the rooms on either side. My senses—psychic and not—were on high alert, trying to find something—anything—out of the ordinary. Or rather, out of the ordinary for a place that catered to whore-addicted vampires.
There is much pain and sorrow in this place, Azriel commented as we passed the third set of doors. And much anger.
I can’t imagine that being so addicted to pleasure that you’d allow yourself to be treated like cattle would be a happy situation to find yourself in, I replied.
The whores have no memories, past or present, he said softly. What I sense does not come from the living who serve in these rooms.
We walked by the fourth set of doors, and something teased the edges of my awareness. It was a sensation of something not quite right. Something that existed in this world and yet not.
I frowned, my gaze searching the doorways ahead before settling on one that was set slightly apart from the others. Whatever it was, it was coming from there.
I stopped and half turned to look back at Marshall. “What’s that room down at the end? The one that’s separated from the others?”
“Just another feeding room.”
“Why is it not in line with the others?”
“It’s bigger, that’s all.” He shrugged, like it wasn’t important, but I had an odd sense that it was.
“Why is it bigger?”
He hesitated, and I knew that if I’d been closer, I would have seen that flash of darkness in his eyes again. “Sometimes our clients prefer joint feedings.”
I frowned. “I thought you said that vampires watching each other feed can get dangerous.”
“It can.”
I stared at him as the realization of what was happening in that room sank in. That’s why the antiseptic was so strong. They were cleaning, all right, only it wasn’t for the dirt, blood, and bugs that might come off their clients. It was the bloody remnants of humanity they were washing away.I turned my back on him, my fists clenched against the sudden rise of anger. I hated what this place was doing to people. Hated that I couldn’t do anything about it. Because of Hunter, because of the threat she represented—not just to me but to all those I cared for. And even to those I didn’t, like Jak.
Azriel touched my back again, but this time the surge of warmth failed to calm. I took a deep breath that did just as little, then walked toward that room.
The closer I got, the more my skin crawled.
I reached out and gripped the handle. The metal felt cold under my touch. Cold and somehow otherworldly.
There are ghosts within, Azriel said. Many, many ghosts.
I wasn’t afraid of ghosts. I never had been. Until now. I licked my lips and pushed the door open.
It hit me. Not the ghosts themselves, but rather their anger. The force of it was so strong it thrust me back into Azriel. He grabbed my waist, holding me upright as I battled to breathe against the sheer force of emotion that was battering us.
It wasn’t ordinary anger. It was murderous.
These ghosts were angry enough to kill.
And maybe even had.
Chapter 4
“Holy shit,” I muttered, staring into the room with wide eyes. The ghosts were filmy wisps, but there were so many of them that their presence made the room appear fog-bound. “Can you feel that?”
“They are not pleased about something,” Azriel agreed. His body was pressed against mine, an oddly comforting sensation.
“That is an understatement,” I muttered, knowing I should move and yet reluctant to do so. He didn’t seem inclined to move, either. “Can ghosts actually muster the energy to kill?”
“No. As many as there are here, they would never hold enough power to take one life, let alone five. Besides, the victims were poisoned and then eaten. That is not the behavior of ghosts.”
“Ghosts?” Marshall said, suddenly appearing beside us. He’d moved so silently I hadn’t even heard his approach.
I nodded toward the room. “There’s at least twenty in there, which suggests to me you’ve been understating what actually goes on in this room.”
“I haven’t understated anything. The joint feedings are dangerous. I told you that.” He peered into the room. “I can’t see any ghosts.”
“If you’re not psychic, you wouldn’t.” I somewhat reluctantly pulled away from the comfort of Azriel’s support. “Did any of our victims use this room?”
His gaze met mine. “Yes.”
“All of them?”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
Which meant this room—and these ghosts—was the connection. But why the depth of anger? I frowned at the swirling, ethereal mass. If I wanted answers, I really had no other option but to go in there and try to talk to them.
Whether they’d be willing to talk to me was another matter entirely. I wasn’t my mother, and talking to the souls of those who’d refused—or been unable—to move on from this world wasn’t something I’d ever tried before. My strength lay in talking to the souls of those who still lived but were close to the next world—the sick, the dying, the comatose.
Although Tao’s soul had remained elusive to even me.
I flexed my fingers, suddenly aware of Amaya’s hissing again. Her energy swarmed down my spine, pinpricks of power that tickled and burned. She wanted in that room. Maybe demons weren’t the only thing she liked to eat.
I shivered, though I wasn’t sure whether the cause was my sword’s apparently insatiable hunger or the waves of emotion continuing to roll out of the feeding room. I glanced Marshall’s way again. “I want a list of everyone who died in here.”
“That is not—”
“Do it for me, or do it for Hunter. Your choice.” And we both knew Hunter wouldn’t take no for an answer, so there really wasn’t any choice in the matter. “I don’t know if the dead in here are the connection, but it’s a possibility we need to follow.”
He nodded, though his expression suggested he was far from happy. Not that I really gave a damn about that. I took a deep, steadying breath, then stepped into the room. The energy of the ghosts crawled across my skin and the air felt like molasses with the intensity of their anger. Amaya’s hissing intensified, and the sound met the fury of the ghosts head-on and countered it. Enough that I could breathe a little more easily, anyway.
I studied the vaporous forms flitting around me. I could see them, feel them, and if I concentrated hard enough, I could hear them. But it was a very distant thunder, unclear but nevertheless threatening.
“Are you seeking revenge?” I asked them.
The rhythm of their murmuring neither increased nor decreased. Either they couldn’t hear me or they were simply ignoring me.