Near dawn, Patrick and Troy stopped at a small brick building in the middle of nowhere. Troy motioned Patrick out of the car and to the door, where a vampire stood just inside. Patrick cringed back from his hard eyes, but Troy sneered and breezed past him to a door at the far end. A set of stairs descended into darkness and Patrick hesitated. He'd escaped one black subterranean hell, only to land in another.
He stumbled his way down the stairs and Troy pulled him through an empty space, then a doorway. A distant light illuminated a tunnel, and Patrick shuffled down it. His heart beat in his ears and his dry tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. The soda he'd drank in the car seemed a world away.
They ducked into a long room, lit by an overhead chandelier. The glittering crystal was out
