Darkness Devours (Dark Angels 3)

“Can we see the feeding rooms? And talk to a couple of the whores?”

“Sure. But they have already been interviewed.”

“And Hunter sent me here to do it all again.”

He smiled. “And if one values life, one does not go against Hunter’s orders.”

“Precisely.”

He rose and headed for the door. I followed, Azriel at my back. As we headed left across the club floor, I noted that the scent of vampire and need seemed thicker than before. I edged a little closer to Marshall and said, “What time does this place start getting busy?”

“Usually not until the sun sets. Most of our clients are lower-rung vampires and, as such, cannot handle much sunlight.”

“Then why are there more vampires in here now than before?”

He glanced over his shoulder. His expression was curious. Wary. “And how can you tell that?”

“Werewolves tend to have sensitive noses.”

He said “Ah” in a way that suggested he hadn’t known I was part wolf. Which was unusual, because vamps usually had no trouble differentiating between a human and a were. But then, I was only half were, so maybe that was screwing with his internal radar. Especially if he didn’t have a great deal to do with werewolves in the first place.

He went through another door—one that led into a small foyer containing two elevators—before he answered the actual question. “The feeding rooms are flushed out after every session. The vampires within return to the bar when this happens.”

“Flushed out?”

He punched the DOWN button. “Cleaned and fumigated. If you are a wolf, you would have smelled the state of some of our customers. We may cater to the less fortunate among the vampire ranks, but that does not mean we can let our standards slip.”

And I was betting that the flushing had little to do with disease and pest control, and more to do with literal flushing. As in, the feedings often got a little more messy than what he was admitting.

The elevator doors opened with a soft ping, revealing a dark wood interior and minimal light. It was only thanks to the fact that Azriel remained steadfastly at my back that I walked inside it.

“I’ll take you down to the whores’ quarters first. By the time you’ve finished there, the cleanup will be done and you can look through the feeding rooms.”

I nodded, although I wasn’t looking forward to either prospect. The doors closed and the elevator ground into action. As I watched the numbers tick slowly down, I asked, “How many whores are there currently living here?”

“We keep a stock of about twenty in the rooms at all times.”

Stock. It was a word that suggested the whores were little more than cattle to these vampires. My anger swirled. No wonder Hunter wanted this kept hushed up. “I wouldn’t have thought that would be a sufficient number for a club this size.”

“It’s not. We rotate them every couple of days. We have about one hundred whores in all.”

That was a hell of a lot of whores, especially when this was not the only club catering to addicted vampires. Surely it wasn’t possible for that many whores to go missing and absolutely no one notice? “So where do you send them once they’ve finished their shifts here?”

He shrugged as the elevator came to a bouncing stop on level six and the doors opened. The smell of humanity and hopelessness was so strong, my stomach began to churn.

“They’re taken to the recovery wards.”

The color scheme in the hall was back to the black and red of the entrance, although the matting underfoot was thicker, and oddly spongy. I half expected water to come oozing out of it every time I took a step. Or something worse.

I crossed my arms and shoved my imagination back into its box. “I take it the recovery rooms are not in this building?”

Marshall glanced over his shoulder again. “What makes you say that?”

“The fact that I can’t smell a great mass of humans.” And the fact that Azriel had sensed only twenty of them.

“Ah,” Marshall said. Obviously I was guessing a whole lot more than he’d wanted me to. “No, they are not. But they can be accessed from various levels here.”

“Accessed how?”