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But it was over, and I’d been proven right. The odds hadn’t been insurmountable.
More than sixteen vampires lay dead or near dead in the small room, and there were at least another three or four out in the corridor if the bits I could see were any indication. Blood and gore and body parts lay everywhere, and suddenly I was shaking. But it was anger, not fear, not reaction.
Azriel stepped over the bodies and came toward me. “Are you all right?”
“No, I’m fucking not.” My fists were clenched so tight that Amaya’s hilt cut into my hand. I glanced at the ceiling, looking for the cameras I couldn’t see but had no doubt were there. “Enough! Do you hear me? Enough! No more fucking tests. Either use me or kill me, but stop this stupid waste of life.”
“Impressive,” Marshall said from the doorway. “I don’t believe the council expected you to win so easily.”
My fury suddenly had a focus point, and I took a step forward. Azriel threw out a hand and stopped me from going any farther.
It would not be wise to kill him at this time, came his soft warning into my thoughts. This is not his doing.
I gave Azriel a somewhat dark glance, then returned my gaze to Marshall. “I hope they realize this circus might well have caused us to miss the arrival of the Rakshasa—and wasn’t killing her our actual reason for being here?”
“It is the reason you are in this club, yes,” Marshall agreed, “but not the reason you are on this floor. And trust me, I am no more happy about this waste than you are.”
“Then why the fuck didn’t you do something to stop it? You run the damn place.”
His expression darkened. “I may run it, but that doesn’t mean I have free rein to do as I wish. And I am beholden to the council for certain supplies.”
The blood whores, I thought wearily, and scrubbed a bloody hand across my face.
Marshall added, “And the Rakshasa would not have made an appearance as yet, simply because there has been no killing in that room.”
I stared at him for a moment, his words echoing through my brain. “Meaning you know exactly when someone is going to be killed?”
He seemed surprised by the question. “Of course.”
“So you send men and women in there to feed the vampires, knowing they’re going to die?” I said it flatly, without emotion, even though anger boiled through me, a silent scream of anger that reminded me of Amaya.
“The blood whores in our employ know and understand the risks—and sign a document stating as much.” He shrugged. “We do not, however, waste valuable stock. Only the older ones who are reaching the point where it is not economically feasible to keep repairing them.”
Economically feasible. God, they really were treating the whores like cattle.
And that whole document-signing thing was a farce, because we weren’t talking about regular blood whores here, but people who’d been born and bred for this life. I very much doubted they’d have any understanding at all of what they’d signed.
The fury continued to build in me, and Amaya’s kill chant began inside my head again. The urge to do just that was so strong that my legs quivered with the need to move. I didn’t, but it was such a close-run thing that it scared the hell out of me.
“I won’t stay in this room,” I said, through gritted teeth. “Give me another—preferably one with a sink so I can clean up.”
He nodded and stepped back, waving us into the hall. I stepped over the bodies and various body parts, noting that the few vampires who were alive were quiet, and showing little of their previous almost insane hunger. Suggesting, perhaps, that it had been ramped up for the occasion by an outside force—either some sort of drug or another vampire.
Again fury swept me, but I somehow kept my sword by my side as I walked past Marshall.
“Take the second door on the right,” he said, his expression wary, suggesting he knew exactly what was going through my mind—although I guess that wouldn’t have been hard given the expression I was no doubt wearing. It certainly felt dark from my side of things.
I walked into the indicated room. It was much the same as the first one, only this one had a small sink area, a medical kit, and a couple of towels sitting to one side of it. Obviously, he’d had this room prepared for us.
I swung around as he came into the room behind us. “Have we your guarantee that this is the end of the tests?”
“There will be no more tests, no more disturbances in this place,” he said. “I guarantee it.”
“What about the dead? Won’t that cause problems given the highly charged atmosphere in the main bar?”
His smile was cool, almost arrogant. “There will be no further trouble from any vampire in this place.”
Meaning he could have stopped the onslaught if he’d so desired. Which also meant he was far more powerful than I’d been suspecting. But then, if he was Hunter’s creature, I shouldn’t have expected anything else.
