I dropped into the hole. He caught me and lowered me to the floor. “Good?”

“Good.”

“Necro in the hole,” Jim called from above. I looked up in time to see Ghastek falling out of the ceiling. Curran caught him.

“This is ridiculous,” Ghastek said.

Jim jumped down. Curran handed Ghastek off and we were on our way. The room we were in now was wide and stretched for hundreds of feet. It resembled a hotel lobby: tall gray columns of natural stone, textured ceiling, steps with some glossy black finish, dusty elaborate chandeliers that had somehow survived the disaster . . .

The magic rolled over us like a viscous invisible wave.

Black stalks spiraled out of the ground.

Curran and I moved at the same time. He scooped me up just as I jumped in his arms and then he sprinted across the room like a bat out of hell. When a magic wave hits and something weird pops out of the ground, you don’t wait to find out what it is. You put some distance between you and whatever the hell that thing is.

Behind us, Andrea barked. “Run, Christopher!”

All around us the stalks split, their offshoots widening into triangular leaves.

Curran flew across the room. Ahead of us a wall loomed, with a wide stone staircase leading upward. The steps were flower-free. Nasrin was already there, waving.

The stalks sprouted fat black bulbs.

Undead magic smeared my mind. I glanced back over Curran’s shoulder. Andrea had locked Christopher’s arm in a death grip and was pulling him across the floor. Behind them a vampire fell through the hole in the ceiling and charged after us.

Curran leaped and landed on the stairs. Jim with Ghastek was only a step behind.

The flowers opened, releasing a dense corona of thin filaments glowing with pale purple, as if someone had taken the fringes from several passionflowers and strung them together on the same stem.

Andrea reached the stairs, dragged Christopher a few steps up, and let him go. He collapsed.

The vampire glided among the blossoms, silent and quick.

“Don’t kill it,” Ghastek murmured. “I need a ride.”

The flowers shivered. A cream-colored shimmering mist rose from their petals. The vampire stumbled, reared back in complete silence, and collapsed.

“Damn it,” Ghastek swore.

The stalks rustled. Black hairy roots stretched over to the bloodsucker’s body.

“Beautiful,” Christopher whispered. “Mortem germinabit.”

“Come on, Christopher. We have to go.” Andrea hauled him upright and we climbed the stairs.

“I know we’ve been following our own scent trail, but I don’t remember any of this,” Jim said.

“That’s because we didn’t come this way,” Robert said.

“But I remember the two holes we climbed out of on the way up,” Andrea said. “I smelled us. This lobby or whatever it is wasn’t supposed to be here. This should have been a hallway. Are you saying the room moved?”