Tanda had the torch, so I went to the wall and pushed where the secret panel was supposed to be and surprise, surprise, the wall opened. I slid through. At first I thought there was nothing on the other side of the panel, that the map had lied to us. Then I realized that the secret door was pushing out a massive drape or tapestry of some type.
I ducked to the right under the cloth and out into the open, with Tanda and the torch right behind me.
At the moment we didn’t need the light. The room had massive, two-story-high windows along one side that let in the natural sunlight. The hills in the distance were like old friends calling to me. I so much wanted to be out there instead of in here. The sun, from what I could tell, was within an hour of setting on the other side of the castle. We needed to pick up speed if we were going to find the golden cow before it became the golden vampire.
“Wow,” Tanda said, looking around at the gold-inlaid panels and golden ceilings of the massive ballroom.
The floor was a highly polished white stone with streaks of gold running through it. In my wildest imaginings I could have never come up with a ballroom as fancy or beautiful as this one.
Aahz and Glenda stopped beside us in the huge room. I bet at least five hundred people could’ve danced in this room without even bumping into one another.
“I remember being in this room last night,” Glenda said softly.
The thought of her being here with a bunch of naked vampires chewing on her neck made me shudder.