They came to the bottom of the stairs, where there was a door with a breakaway bar that looked as if it must lead into an alley. A horrible thought crossed his mind. “I’m not getting the boot, here, I hope?”

She opened the door. There was a tiny chamber entirely made of mirrors. When he went in, there were Pauls staring at him from every direction, all of them disappearing into an infinity of repetitions. It was a sort of visual echo. “Hey, this is—”

“Have a fabulous time.” She slammed the door, and he found himself alone in the small space. He turned around immediately, but saw only more mirrors and could not find the door.

Above all things, he hated confinement. But this was a place of pleasure. He was getting the ride of a lifetime for a poor bastard like him. He was not going to ruin it by freaking out.

So he wouldn’t freak out, but the guy looking back at him out of all these mirrors, he looked like he would. Look at the eyes, look at all that pain. Then he thought he saw another face. He saw—Jesus God, he’d been a fool to come here! It was one of them, watching him through the damn mirror. He went for the gun that wasn’t there, then lashed out. His fist smashed into the mirror. The room shook, he felt a blast of pain up his hurt arm . . . but the mirror did not crack.

There was a voice then, very soft, “Turn right and walk toward me.”

He turned right. There was nobody to walk toward but his own reflection.

“Come on.”

He took a step, feeling ahead—and felt air. This mirror was another one of the veils.

Was he walking into whatever had swallowed Ellen Wunderling? Some kind of damn superexclusive vampire lair? Oh, hell, if he was, he’d at least take a few with him.

He stepped into the most palatial bedroom he had ever seen. On the bed sat Miriam. She was playing the flute, and doing it with exquisite skill. He gaped at her, at the tall bed she was in, at the phenomenal tapestries on the walls.

There was a window, and outside he could see smiling green fields with people working in them, men with brown tunics and caps. A horseman rode along a path, a man dressed in the fabulous clothes of the distant past.

She stopped playing long enough to say, “It’s a TV screen.”

But it was very well done. The image was so clear that it looked more like a window than a window.