WHEN IT CAME to size, huge could be an understatement. I stood on a narrow ledge. A cavernous chamber lay open in front of me, molded together from the walls and stones of a hundred different buildings. Shaped like an egg set on its wide end, it stretched up and down for at least a hundred feet. A narrow spire of concrete blocks, chunks of brickwork, and steel beams, cemented together by hardened soil, sprouted from the center of the chamber. An identical but inverted spire stretched from the ceiling. They met in the center, clamping between them a rectangular box of solid rock about the size of a large two-story house. A narrow doorway allowed a glimpse inside the room. Whatever was in there glowed with pale purple, as if the room were a geode containing a treasure within.

A metal breezeway circled the rectangular box. A metal bridge led from the ledge where I stood to the breezeway. I could see a large door in the opposite wall, slightly to the left. Another bridge led from that door to the breezeway. But it fell short, the last two-thirds of it retracted.

“Too far to jump,” Robert assessed.

“What about down?” Andrea asked.

I looked down. Steam slunk along the bottom of the chamber. Odd shapes protruded from it. I looked closer. Vampire bones, half sunken in the reddish goo. As I watched, a bloodsucker moved slowly through the goo, oblivious to us.

“That would be a very bad idea,” Ghastek said.

No shit.

“There’s a wheel inside the room,” Naeemah said. “If we turn the wheel, the far bridge will extend and we can cross.”

“So what’s the problem?” Curran asked. “We go in and turn the wheel.”

“Try it,” Thomas told him.

Curran started down the bridge. A third of the way down, he stopped and gripped the rails. The muscles on his arms bulged. His face changed, reshaping itself into a leonine muzzle. His hair stood on end. He snarled, like a pissed-off cat.

“Honey?” I called out.

“Well, he got farther than I did,” Thomas said.

Curran’s body shook. He was straining but making no progress.

“Curran!” I called.

He turned around and shook himself. His face reshaped itself back into a human. He spat a single word out. “Magic.”

“Alright,” Ghastek said. “My turn.”

The ancient vampire with the scar scuttled forward onto the bridge. Curran leaned to one side, letting the bloodsucker pass. The vampire made it about six feet past Curran and stopped. Ghastek planted his feet, his eyes fixed on the room, and slowly extended his right arm forward. The vampire shivered and hugged the bridge. A vein on the side of Ghastek’s face pulsed. The vampire didn’t move an inch.

“If your head explodes, can I have your stuff?” I asked.

“My head won’t explode,” Ghastek said, his voice dry, and strode toward the bridge. “May I pass, please?”