A huge room spread before me. Above, an ornate yellow ceiling, beautiful and gilded, soared in elegant arches, as if someone had opened a portal in time and Renaissance glamour spilled out. The golden swirls glowed, bright enough to bathe the entire chamber in soothing light. An enormous dusty chandelier hung from the circular recess in the ceiling, like a collection of crystals suspended from the roof of a cave. The remnants of red curtains sagged on both sides of me. Beyond them the room widened, its bottom flooded with emerald-green water. Plants covered the water’s surface. Cream and ivory lotuses, the tips of their petals touched with pink, floated next to larger bright yellow lotus blossoms. Star-shaped lilies bloomed among wide leaves, some lavender, some scarlet, some with petals of light orange darkening to copper-red near the center. Ten feet above the water a balcony, cushioned in greenery, dripped vermilion and moss-green vines.

What the hell?

Curran swam up next to me.

“Are you seeing this?” I asked.

“Yep.”

“So I’m not hallucinating?”

“Nope.”

“Think if we crawl on that balcony, those plants will eat us?”

“If they try, I’ll eat them first.”

Naeemah climbed up the side wall and jumped onto the balcony, disappearing behind the plant growth. Thomas and Robert followed.

“We’re in the Orpheum Theater,” Ghastek said behind me.

“You’ve been here?” I asked.

“No, but I’ve seen the photographs, when I studied for my trip to Mishmar. This is Slosburg Hall, one of Omaha’s historic buildings. It was among the structures Roland had bought.”

I swam through the water. It was so warm and I was so tired.

“Are you okay?” Curran asked.

“If I pass out face down in this water, will you fish me out?”

“Will you promise to call me Your Majesty?”

“Hell no.”

“Then I’ll have to think about it.”

Ghastek and his trio of vampires swam past us. This water would never end. The place was getting hazy, and I knew I’d run myself dry. My body had nothing left.

My fingers touched the wall. I gripped the gouge in the stone, trying to pull myself up, and then Curran put his hand under my foot and lifted me up, out of the water. I climbed the wall, grabbed Robert’s hand, and made it onto the ledge. The balcony rose in terraces, each terrace filled with soil. Here and there, the tops of red chairs poked through the moist ground. Flowers filled the terraces: roses, tulips, poppies, daisies, and odd but strikingly beautiful blossoms that looked like a cluster of inverted tulips hanging in an umbrella arrangement from a single purplish stem. Breathtaking . . . A strange serenity came over me.

“Safe here,” Naeemah said. “Vampires do not come here.”

I sank to the ground and closed my eyes, and the world disappeared.

• • •

“WHAT THE FUCK were you thinking?” Curran growled.