Darkness Devours (17 page)

The dual fire of the swords peeled back the darkness and provided glimpses of Hunter ahead. Amaya was hissing again, the sound a constant static in the background of my mind. She didn’t like this place any more than I did.

The heavy door at the end of the corridor swung open as we approached—Hunter and Azriel silently, me with more of a clatter—and Brett Marshall himself appeared to greet us. Or rather, to greet Hunter.

“Mistress,” he said softly, kneeling before her, head bowed. “All is ready.”

I blinked. Mistress? Was Marshall one of Hunter’s fledglings? It would certainly explain their similar mannerisms. And why he’d been trusted to run an establishment like this.

Then the rest of his words registered.
All is ready?
What the hell did that mean?

I didn’t know, and I suddenly had a bad feeling that I
didn’t
want to find out.

Hunter touched Marshall’s head lightly as she swept past him, and he shuddered in what almost looked like orgasmic pleasure. Then he was up and following her,
not even bothering to look at us. In the scheme of things, I guess we were not that important.

The woman at the desk looked almost identical to the woman who’d been there earlier. Only her shoes were different—red instead of black. I wondered if they were twins, or whether Marshall simply preferred a certain look.

The next set of doors opened and the stink of vampire, booze, and lust hit like a hammer, snatching my breath and sending me stumbling. Azriel caught me again, his grip gentle yet strong, filled with a heat that leapt from his skin to mine. It chased away the fear, chased away the aches, and this time I didn’t immediately pull away from the sensation. I very much suspected I’d need that inflow of strength if I was going to make it through the hours ahead.

We moved deeper into the club, heading not toward Marshall’s office but rather toward the elevators. The blue and purple fire of the swords pierced the shadows, briefly illuminating the gaunt faces and haunted, glowing eyes of the vampires closest to us. Hunger was rife in the room, so thick I could have carved it with a knife. I edged a little closer to Azriel and wondered why Hunter had chosen this place, of all damn places, to meet. She was the one who’d warned it would be dangerous for me to be here at night, and yet here she was, risking the life of someone she supposedly valued.

It is merely another form of warning,
Azriel said.

I glanced at him.
Of what? Behave, or you’ll be vampire meat?

Yes.
His gaze met mine.
She does not like your offhand manner in dealing with her
.

I snorted softly.
She can read my thoughts—she has to know I’m scared shitless by her, and that my manner is nothing more than false bravado
.

She can read some thoughts, but not all
. He half shrugged.
She has been alive a very long time. It becomes very easy for the old ones not only to lose humanity, but to expect certain levels of deference
.

Subservience, you mean
.

If she expected subservience, you would be dead
.

I half smiled—an expression that quickly died as I followed Hunter and Marshall into the elevator. Being stuck in a small metal box with those two and going down into the bowels of what had become little more than an abattoir was not my idea of a good time. But if I edged any closer to Azriel, I’d be crawling into his pockets.
What did you mean, some thoughts, not all?

Just that.

So the nano cells are working?
I knew they were, but I still needed reassurance—at least when it came to Hunter.

Yes. She is only picking up minor bits and pieces.

My gaze searched his for a moment.
How the hell do you know this? I mean, Hunter’s no slouch when it comes to telepathy, and I can’t imagine you’d have easy access into her mind.

I’m a reaper. The human—and non-human—mind is open to us in all its chaotic glory.

So what can you tell me about Marshall’s comment?

We go to meet others.

The elevator doors opened, revealing the basic metal corridor of the feeding rooms.
Others?
I asked silently, then glanced at Hunter. “Why the hell are we here?”

“I wish to see this room of ghosts,” she said, as she stepped out of the elevator. “And it is as good a place as any to discuss what you need to know.”

The others wait in that room. There are three—all vampires.

I hardly expected them to be anything else, given the place we were in, but the point was, why the hell were they there?

They are there to see you. To talk to you
.

Oh god
, I thought with sudden clarity.
It’s the council. Or part of the council
.

Was it a trap? It couldn’t be. Hunter wanted to use me; she didn’t want me dead.

But Hunter wasn’t the council. She didn’t control it. Not yet.

I licked my lips and reluctantly trailed after her.

“Going to that room isn’t a good idea.” In more ways than one. And yet I couldn’t retreat, couldn’t run. Hunter might be striding purposefully toward the feeding room, but there was a coiled readiness in every moment. She would react—fast and brutally—if I ran. “The fact that they’re ghosts doesn’t mean they’re incapable of understanding everything that goes on in that room. If we discuss anything there, they might just pass the information on to whatever is causing this.”

She glanced over her shoulder at me. “I know.”

I blinked. That wasn’t exactly the answer I’d been expecting. “Maybe I’m a little slow, but wouldn’t the ghosts passing on the information mean the killer may run?”

“If it is a Rakshasa, as your reaper suspects, then I
doubt it. They are creatures drawn to the dark energies of death, despair, and revenge, and there are few places in Melbourne that hold those in great abundance. It will continue to be drawn here while it is in its feeding stage, regardless of the threat we pose.”

I studied her curiously as we stopped near the doors to the bigger feeding room and the three people who waited inside. “You’ve come across them before?”

She looked down her nose at me—no mean feat when she was actually shorter than me. “I have lived a very long time, and I’ve hunted far greater nightmares than a Rakshasa.”

And
she’d
be right at the top of any sane person’s nightmare list,
I thought grimly, and saw her green eyes flash dangerously. With the way my luck had been running of late, it was no surprise she caught
that
particular thought.

Marshall opened the door for us. The room was the same sterile, ghost-filled place it had been before, only this time the smell of antiseptic wasn’t as strong. Marshall
had
stopped the use of this room.

But this time the ghosts were not the only beings in the room.

All three were long, thin strips of humanity. There were two men and one woman, different in looks and nationalities, but all sharing two common traits—a fierce, cold-blooded glow in their eyes and a cruel twist to their mouths.

I’d thought Hunter was the most dangerous person on earth. Seemed I was wrong.

“Marshall, close the door, please,” Hunter commanded. As he obeyed, she joined the three in the center
of the room, then swung around to face me. If she sensed the ghosts, she had no reaction to them.

“I have the list of those who have died in this room,” she said without preamble. “But the Cazadors will chase that avenue. What else do you want to know?”

She made no effort to introduce her companions, and they remained silent, studying me with cold intent. Chills raced up and down my spine, and Amaya hissed in useless fury. I flexed my fingers, and tried to concentrate on the business at hand. I had a bad feeling that I would find out what was going on soon enough.

“In other words, you have no intention of telling me how many died in this room.” I took one step closer to her and the ghosts, then stopped. The bitter, bloody anger that surged around me struck as sharply as any whip. My flesh shuddered under the impact of it, and I half wondered if my already battered body would gain yet another rainbow of bruises to add to its collection.

“That is not something you need to know.”

My gaze flicked to the vampires on either side of her. The energy that poured off them felt dark and coiled. I licked my lips and said, “What about the autopsy reports? Can I see them?”

“There is nothing in those reports that disagrees with what you already know. All five victims were torn apart and half consumed, and the poison used could not be identified.”

Frustration and fear swirled through me. “I wanted to see the reports so I can read them myself. If I’d simply needed questions answered, I would have asked them.”

Step warily, Risa
, Azriel warned.
I do not think it wise to be too antagonistic toward Hunter in front of her peers.

Once again my gaze flicked across the three, and I had the sudden sensation of snakes about to strike. I shivered.

“There are no files, Risa. Every report comes to me verbally. As I’ve said, I will not risk this investigation—or these clubs—becoming a matter of public knowledge.”

I crossed my arms, but resisted the urge to rub the chill from them. “Okay, did all five victims come from a similar social and economic background?”

“No.”

I waited, but she wasn’t forthcoming with any further information. Which was damn annoying given that they supposedly wanted this case solved, and wanted my help to do it.

A slight smile teased her lips. The bitch might not be reading my mind, but she was certainly reading my reactions to this whole situation
and
enjoying them. And while she wanted my help to find the keys and—to a lesser extent, it seemed—to hunt down this killer, she was also very much a cat toying with a mouse it might yet decide to eat.

If
the three council members didn’t devour me first.

“The first two victims had high-profile jobs in the advertising industry,” she drawled eventually. “The third was little more than a pen pusher in the local government’s vampire affairs department. The last two were living off charity.”

“If the first two victims were high profile, why did
they come to a place like this? You’ve inferred this is not one of your more up-market blood whore clubs.”

“It isn’t,” Marshall said. “But there are some who do not wish their addiction to be known in the wider vampire community, and so they attend clubs that they would otherwise consider beneath them.”

Vamps like the first two victims might not want their addiction known, but in coming to
this
particular club, they’d served that information up to Hunter on a silver platter. And I had no doubt that she would use it to her own advantage. “How long has each of the victims been addicted?”

“All five were long-term addictives.”

“Define ‘long-term.’”

“Centuries rather than years.”

That raised my eyebrows. For some reason I’d been thinking blood whores were a modern phenomenon, but I guess it made sense that they’d been around almost as long as vampires. After all, addictions had been alive as long as humanity—it was just the substances that had changed over time.

“Meaning the Rakshasa could be specifically targeting those who have caused the most suffering.”

“It is a possibility.” Her tone suggested it was one they’d already thought of.

“So maybe all you have to do is tell longtime addictives to avoid the club until this thing is either caught or goes away.”

“That,” she said heavily, “is extremely naive thinking.”

“Yeah, well, that’s what you get when you expect a restaurateur to become a hunter.”

Her green eyes flashed again, and Amaya’s hissing suddenly sharpened—one bitch wanting to taste another’s blood.

I shivered again, suddenly realizing I was beginning to understand the static language of my demon sword.
That
was almost as scary as the four people who stood so elegantly in front of me.

“You are far more than just a restaurateur, Risa, and we both know it. Although your current level of questioning is more than a little disappointing.”

I wasn’t so worried about disappointing
her
right now—which was probably proof of my insanity—but rather the three silent council members. The tightly coiled energy radiating off them seemed to be getting stronger—even the ghosts were reacting to it. The moaning and wailing had sharpened to a continuous shriek that vibrated through every part of my being. Between it and Amaya, I felt like I was being torn apart by sound.

I took a deep breath and tried to ignore the assault on my senses, tried to think more like Aunt Riley. There
had
to be some similarities in all five murders besides this room and the manner of their deaths. If there was one thing I’d gleaned over the years from hanging around two guardians, it was the fact that most killings had a particular pattern, even if it wasn’t immediately evident.

“Okay, then, what about the times of their deaths?”

Hunter paused. “All between the hours of two and three. An exact time of death could not be determined due to the extensive damage done to the bodies.”

I frowned. “Does that mean you also have no idea
when the inhibitor was introduced via the scratches? Or where it was applied?”

Marshall said, “I checked the security footage. All the victims bore scratches when they left this club, but this is not entirely unusual.”

They had good cameras installed if they could pick up minor scratches. “No, but in this situation, it’s definitely another link. What time did they all leave the club?”

“All five left at different times.”

I frowned. “So had they been here feeding beforehand for very long?”

“Yes,” Marshall said. “As has been noted, they were long-term addictives. Unfortunately, the longer the term, the greater the need.”

That wasn’t unusual when it came to any sort of addiction, but we weren’t talking about an inanimate substance here; we were talking about human life. I couldn’t help asking, “But surely there comes a time when such an addiction becomes too dangerous for both the abuser and the vampire population in general?”