“We’re supposed to go into that?” I asked, aghast.
Ian glanced at us and grinned. “Puts a whole new spin on entering freely and of your own free will, doesn’t it?”
Chapter 11
I barely registered that Ian had just quoted a line from Bram Stoker’s most famous novel. Instead, I continued to stare at the huge mouth at the bottom of the building.
Go on, walk into the maw from Hell, my inner voice mocked, breaking its weeks-long silence. What could possibly go wrong?
For once, I had to agree with my hated internal voice. Facing a bunch of sorcerers was one thing, but doing so in a structure that was designed to literally eat us was another. I found myself digging my heels in when Ian attempted to propel me into the macabre entrance.
Vlad either felt my resistance or saw the look on my face because he stopped, too. “What is this building made of, Mia?” he asked, somehow managing to sound unconcerned.
“Teeth,” I responded promptly. Okay, not the entire building, but the entrance was, and those teeth were almost twice as long as I was tall!
“Glass,” Vlad countered, and his smooth tone deepened. “What can I do to glass, Mia?”
It was so strange to hear him call me by another name; it took a moment for his meaning to penetrate. Right, Vlad could burn glass into a molten puddle. Failing that, he could blow a hole right through the center of the building. Granted, either would out him as Vlad the Impaler, but he was right. As frightening as this toothy entrance was, it was nothing he couldn’t handle.
For that matter, it was nothing I couldn’t handle, either, even if some childish fear of monsters had come roaring to the surface at the sight of that cavernous magical mouth. I pushed that fear back and gave the shiny black exterior a more calculated look. What happens when thousands of volts of electricity shoot into glass? I reminded myself. It shatters.
“Let’s do this,” I said in a far more confident tone.
Ian, Vlad, and I walked into that fanged, gaping maw. I even managed not to flinch when I heard it snap shut behind us. For a moment, the tunnel—or throat?—was bathed in the kind of darkness I hadn’t seen since before I became a vampire. Vlad’s emotions were locked behind the same impenetrable shields that tamped his aura down to barely detectable levels, but his hand snaked around Ian’s back to brush mine. Then that disorienting darkness was broken when orbs of light began to appear at the end of the tunnel, their glow beckoning us forward.
We crossed another invisible barrier before we reached the end of the tunnel. The magic we passed through was a sharp crackle that thrummed along my nerves before dissipating, leaving only a faint tingle behind. It reminded me of electricity, and I found myself fighting a sudden urge to empty the nearest light socket of all its voltage. That would amp up the power in my right hand to its maximum level; a benefit if we needed to fight our way out of here, but plunging the entire structure into darkness wasn’t any way to blend in.
We took a right at the end of the tunnel, then stepped into a . . . well, I didn’t know what to call it. Room was too paltry a word. Wonderland was closer, but still didn’t seem sufficient.
Water shot out from the base perimeter of the room with such force, it covered all the walls and the ceiling. Walking inside felt like being in the underbelly of an enormous tidal wave. Due to the flow’s incredible power, we weren’t getting wet. Instead, only a faint mist came down from the whirring canopy. In the center of the ceiling, the geyserlike flow disappeared into a large hole as if being sucked up by a vortex.
If the amazing aquatic walls weren’t enough, lots of people lounged in pools that dotted the expansive space. For those who wanted to stay dry, there were also chairs and couches that looked to be made out of flowering trees. A long, curved bar drew my attention when what I thought were butterfly decorations suddenly flew away. The butterflies circled in the air a few times, resembling a cloud of brightly colored petals, before they returned to the bar and covered it with the living tapestry of their bodies again.
“This section of the hotel is called Atlantis,” Ian said. “Too whimsical for my taste, though newcomers seem to love it.”
I stared at the people frolicking in one of pools that towered at least thirty feet above us. The bottom was clear glass, revealing the unusual-looking swimmers inside.
“Are those real mermaids?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
Ian snorted. “No. That’s merely glamour, but now you know how rumors of those creatures got started.”
“Let’s get to what we came for,” Vlad said, his brusque tone reminding Ian that he wasn’t a fan of sightseeing.
Ian sighed. “Always straight to business. How you stand it, poppet, I’ll never know, but I suspect that fiery tongue has something to do with it. Ah, he’s giving me that I’ll-kill-you glare again. How many times must I tell you not to kill anyone tonight? It’s like a sickness with you, isn’t it? Have you ever gone a whole day without committing murder?”
“Has anyone who’s spent their whole day with you?” I muttered.
Ian clucked his tongue. “You’ll come to love me before this is over, promise. Now, let’s get our drinks and start the search, before your adoring husband combusts on the spot.”
We went over to the butterfly bar, and I tried not to notice how dozens of wings tickled my legs as we sat down. Ian ordered a round of drinks from the bartender, who was wearing nothing except glitter and her own strategically placed waist-length blond hair. She placed empty glasses in front of us, and I wasn’t surprised when they filled all on their own.