“However long that takes,” Angelus muttered.

Darla and the Master ushered the group through the next set of double doors. Here was a much larger room, lit exclusively by candelabras and held up with columns made of the same rough stone as the antechamber. Burial niches pitted the walls like a dresser missing its drawers. Anya had only been inside a catacomb once before. In the eighteenth century, she had trapped a Wisher’s husband in a crypt full of chattering skeletons to punish him for asking his wife if she’d put on weight.

These catacombs had been transformed into a bedroom. A massive bed heaped in black silk sheets and fur blankets stood at the center of the room. The far wall was dominated by a gold-framed portrait of Darla and the Master in an alarmingly detailed nude embrace. The Master rendered in oil paint had more abs than Anya had ever seen on a person. Whether that was one of the benefits of immortality or simply artistic license was unclear.

An arm hung limp out of the niche closest to Willow, who craned her neck to get a closer look inside.

“Uh-uh,” Darla said, shaking a finger at the security officer. “Let him rest. He’s new.”

Anya looked up at the many rectangular holes that overlooked the single bed. “Your children sleep in here? With you?”

“Yes, we’re firm believers in co-sleeping with our newborns,” Darla said. “At least until they can find a home of their own. Not everyone dies with good credit—and the cemeteries are positively packed these days.”

Drusilla crawled inside a low niche, lying flat on her back and wiggling into the darkness.

“Is that black mold I smell?” She sounded muffled and far away. Just how deep were the niches? “Oh, Grandmother, I could sleep away an age in here.”

Angelus skirted the room, refusing to look directly at the gigantic mattress. He stopped short at the oil painting. Beneath the gold frame stood a stone coffin, lidless and full of dancing black flame. Anya wasn’t sure how she hadn’t noticed it before—and then found herself, once again, distracted by the Master’s portrait and its beefy pecs.

“You keep the flag of hell in a casket underground?” Angelus asked the Master. He prodded the corner of the stone coffin with the toe of his shoe. “Not exactly flying it proudly, eh? Worried you couldn’t protect it up where anyone could find it?”

“This is a place of utmost distinction,” the Master hissed. Salivary foam gathered at the corners of his mouth. “That sarcophagus was my home for centuries. It alone protected me from the sun and those who sought to kill me. Within its stone walls, my beloved Darla and I sailed away from the shores of the Virginia Colony and her wasted mortal life. Belowdecks on a state-of-the-art pinnacle ship, my love and I lay entwined for months—”

“We get it. You bone,” Spike groaned in disgust.

“That sarcophagus was my salvation,” the Master continued. “To imbue it with Hell’s Own Herald is the highest honor.”