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.
I frowned, but tried again. "Are you responsible for the deaths of five addicted vampires?"
Still nothing in the way of any discernible response. Frustrated, I glanced at Azriel, but he merely shrugged. "As I have said before, I am neither able nor allowed to communicate with the lost ones."
Which left us with little more than we'd already had. I glanced around the metal emptiness of the room, trying not to visualize how they'd all died, then spun on my heel and walked out. To say Amaya was unhappy with this was another one of those understatements. And her pissed-off hissing was giving me a damn headache.
As the door slammed shut behind me and the sound echoed down the long hall, I said to Marshall, "I suggest you stop using that room. It wouldn't be wise to introduce any more anger into it."