Beside Reisz, the second member of the Night Parade who had not yet abandoned his human skin, a tall man with a wild mane of yellow hair, grabbed hold of the warrior’s arm. Reisz screamed as the man’s flesh bubbled and cut through the heavy leather padding on his arms as if it were concentrated acid. He released the scimitar, which was quickly expelled by the first creature’s rubbery flesh, then tried to pull away from the second man’s burning grip.
Varina grabbed hold of Reisz’s body and yanked hard. The swarthy-skinned Harper clenched his jaws as he saw a long pink-and-red glob stretch away from his arm as it adhered to the blond-haired man’s hand. He could not feel the skin and muscle that tore away from his arm; the wound had been cauterized instantly by the man’s touch. Finally the bond between them snapped and Reisz looked down in shock at the smoldering black mass on his upper arm. Varina turned as she heard the shadow-man’s singsong voice from the other side of the group, where Myrmeen, weaponless, stood between Burke and Ord, whose swords were drawn and crossed before the woman they had sworn to protect.
Nevertheless, Burke’s anxious face was turned in his wife’s direction as she dragged Reisz away from the grotesque, bony monstrosity that chattered and giggled as it slowly advanced with its companion. The handsome man with the touch of death winked at her, then raised his fingers and wiggled them in her direction. She realized suddenly that her attack on the nightmare people and their retaliation had only taken a few seconds. Soon her back was inches from Myrmeen’s and there was nowhere left to go.
“Humans are such easy prey,” the lord of the shadows said as he bent low and picked up a large rock. The stone was instantly coated with an impenetrable layer of darkness, and he tossed the rock to Ord in a friendly, underhanded motion. “Catch!”
Myrmeen saw Ord’s hand go up instinctively, and she recalled the murder of Kracauer with the ebon-coated, lightning-shaped blades. Seconds before the stone would have fallen gently into Ord’s unprotected hand, Myrmeen grabbed the teenager and twisted him out of the way. The rock struck the wall behind them and sizzled as it made contact, a deep black cloud rising from where it hit.
The two creatures before Varina and Reisz backed up. The man with the corrosive touch said, “Take them, Roderik.”
The shadow lord smiled and sank into a crouch, his hand reaching toward the pavement. Myrmeen understood what would happen. He would touch the ground and his lethal shadows would snake across the distance separating him from the Harpers, engulfing them from their boots to their vulnerable flesh. The shadows would kill the humans upon contact. She had to stop him. Snatching one of the truncheons from the belt at Ord’s waist, Myrmeen ducked below the crossed swords that were meant to protect her and hurled the weapon at the man’s head. It struck him in the forehead with a sharp crack, causing him to bound to his feet, his arms pinwheeling in the air as he tried to regain his balance. Myrmeen gasped. The second he fell, his hand would touch the ground.
From the end of the alley came the sound of thunder. A blinding bluish red bolt of lightning snaked through the air and struck the shadow lord. The arcane fires hit him between his shoulder blades and emerged from where his heart had been an instant before. Then they crackled and dissipated. Through the hole that had been created in the shadow-creature’s chest, Myrmeen saw Lucius Cardoc’s sweaty, worried face. Buckling at the knees, the lord of shadows fell back. His hand struck the ground, but his power had vanished with his life.
Cardoc raised his hands again, his lips forming words that she could not hear at such a distance.
“Get down,” Myrmeen shouted, and the Harpers dropped to the hard pavement as a second stream of mystical energy snapped across the alley and struck the chattering creature with the skeleton made of shape-changing steel. The monster was lifted from its feet by the powerful energies. Its torso was ripped apart by the initial blast, its twisting bones fused in a spiderweb of intricate designs that quickly melted and cooled into a shapeless mass.
The blond man with the deadly touch backed away in fear, then broke into a dead run toward the opposite end of the alley, where the shadows quickly swallowed him whole.
Inside the swirling black cloud of shadows and smoke, the handsome, almost human creature ran a few more paces, then stopped suddenly as he heard the familiar sound of inhuman legs scampering down a wall and saw a fiery-haired man leap down to stand before him.
“Imperator Zeal,” the man said, his heart leaping into his throat.
“Callistraon, is it not?” the red-haired man said. His hair was tightly curled and his skin was hot, his body drenched in sweat. He wore a loose-fitting white frock with the sleeves rolled up, a simple yellow sash tied around his waist. His feet were bare, and the patch of tight, curly red hair that grew on his perfectly honed chest glistened with beads of moisture. He frowned in confusion. “You have a mission, do you not?”
“Imperator, they have a mage that killed two of the other Inextinguishables. They—”
Zeal pointed at the heavy curtain of shadows at the man’s back. “You are supposed to be back there, killing them, disposing of the humans. Am I wrong in this, or are you not one of those I assigned to the task?”
From the wall where Zeal had descended came a rough sound, like leather brushing leather, followed by a piercing shriek that was not unlike the sound of two heavy blades scraping together. Zeal angled his head toward the sounds. “It’s the wife. She wants to get on with it.”
“Get on with what?” Callistraon asked in a small voice.
“Punishing you for your cowardice,” Zeal said as he raised his hand to reveal a fiery, yearning abyss within his palm that seemed to reach into the depths of some hellish dimension.
Moments before, at the middle of the alley, the Harpers had tried to regain their bearing. Cardoc stumbled forward. Myrmeen realized for the first time that he had been hurt. His flesh was crisscrossed with burns that appeared to have been lashed into his flesh with a whip. The channeling of the tremendous forces that he had called upon also had served to drain him.
Ord had crossed to where the black-skinned corpse had lain and had knelt beside the creature, curious about its inhuman nature. The monster’s blackened arms had retreated into its chest and a new covering of soft pink flesh was sewing itself over the creature’s leathery black skin. The dark man suddenly came to life, snatching Myrmeen’s blade from its throat with one hand while it grasped Ord’s wrist in the other. He dragged the boy into the ink-black shadows near the wall. They were smothered by the gathering darkness.
“Ord!” Burke screamed.
At that moment, a massive tongue of flames reached out from the mouth of the alley where the blond-haired man had vanished. A fireball rolled in their direction, instantly consuming the blond man, who stood in its path. The great sphere of flame unraveled long before it reached the Harpers, exploding against both walls of the alley, leaving a blackened, charred carpet on the pavement to mark its path.
The flames had burned away the darkness, and Myrmeen was able to see the red-haired man whose right hand sweltered with flames. She had seen him before, in a dream when she was only six years old, a dream that she had only been able to recall in flashes until now. Suddenly the dream was before her, its image burned into her mind. She would not forget it this time. To do so would be deadly, she realized. Twice already she had made the mistake of underestimating her enemy. She would not do so again.
Standing behind the man was a tall, lithe woman with creamy skin and long, shiny black hair. Wrapping her arms around him from behind, one arm around his ribs, the other over his right shoulder, she nuzzled at his neck. Then her hands reached into his shirt and caressed the rock-hard landscape of his chest. The woman whispered something in his ear. Whatever she was saying had caused the fire lord to hesitate and not simply turn his power against the humans.
Suddenly, from the shadows where Ord and the black-skinned man had vanished, the tall, lanky teenager appeared. He seemed dazed as he cried, “My face! He wa
s trying to take my face!”
Another figure burst from the darkness, a young man who might have been Ord’s twin. This boy’s face was contorted in a mask of rage, and he launched himself at the wobbly-kneed teenager with undisguised hatred. The first Ord turned and drew his sword at the sight of the advancing doppleganger.
The entire party’s attention was drawn to Ord and his duplicate. Varina was the first to respond. Without hesitation she released a set of blades hidden on her right arm, then she drew her hand back and propelled the center spike toward the back of the teenager who had first emerged from the smoky mist. The sharp blade burst through the soft leathers of his back, piercing his heart from behind. An inhuman scream filled the alley as the true Ord snatched his sword away from the duplicate, who had fallen to his knees in agony. Ord cleaved the creature’s head in two, his sword sinking down to the monster’s collarbones. Blood as dark as ink sprayed from the creature as it fell in a heap, twitching and convulsing.
Ord backed away, trembling. “How did you know?”
“His face,” Varina said. “It was fresh and new. Your old scars had not appeared.”
Cardoc glanced down at the corpse, which had not stopped moving. The two sections of its head were merging, healing. “This one is still alive. We may get some answers from it.”
“By the gods,” Ord muttered, “what does it take to kill these things so they stay dead?”
The mage felt a sudden chill in the air, the same sensation he had experienced an instant before the red-haired man’s fires had erupted seconds earlier. He gestured quickly, casting a sphere of protection around the adventurers.
The red-haired man stood at the end of the alley, a separate spear of fire bursting from each of his hands and mouth. Each of the three ragged tongues of flame struck the walls and were deflected perfectly to incinerate the bodies of the monsters downed by the Harpers. The flames never approached the obsidian sphere hiding the adventurers.
Seconds later, it was over. The corpses were nothing but ash that was quickly dispersed by the heavy winds that followed the arcane fires. At the end of the alley, the deep shadows once again congealed around the spot where the red-haired man and dark-haired woman had stood. They were nowhere to be seen.
Cardoc released the sphere of protection and surveyed the area for further threats. Burke finally spoke. “Where in the fiery hells of Cyric were you?”
“Ord closed the door in my face. I cannot walk though walls. I had to go around the long way. Those shadows” the mage shuddered—“were alive and tried to stop me.”
Myrmeen moved past the others, then ran toward the end of the alley. Cardoc and the Harpers followed. The man and woman were gone, and the shadows were quickly dissipating. All evidence of the Night Parade’s presence was vanishing before her, along with all hope of ever finding her daughter.
Ord pointed upward. “Look!”
The Harpers trained their gazes at the rooftops. “I see nothing,” Burke said. “What was it?”
Ord shook his head. “The leg of a spider, I’m certain. It scampered over the edge of that rooftop.”
“The spider would have to be the size of a man for you to be able to see it at this distance,” Reisz said.
“Yes,” Ord said as he took a few tentative steps forward, “I know.”
On the rooftop, Imperator Zeal glanced down at the humans, the fires within his breast continuing to rage.
“Tamara,” he said, his voice distant, the call of the fire surging within him like a drug. The beautiful, lean, muscled woman approached him, a dangerous smile upon her exotic features. She appeared in her mid-twenties, and her hair was a very dark brunette, almost black. Zeal turned and ran his hand through her gorgeous, shining hair, which was long and given to curls, then he stared into her fine, dark eyes flecked with crimson. Only the most delicate traces of lines could be seen beneath her eyes and around her mouth. Her complexion was soft and light. She had a small bust, generous hips, and long legs. There was an elegant flow to the lines of her body. She wore a black-and-red shift that would fall away quickly when she made the change. Sandals protected her feet and a waist sash carried her valuables.
“My love,” she whispered as she leaned close and kissed him, her tongue snaking into his mouth to taste the intense heat within him. She pulled away and caressed his face.
“You know why I didn’t help the others.”
“Of course,” she said with a knowing laugh. “No man may command Imperator Zeal, save for Lord Sixx.”
“And yet a woman can bend me to her will,” he snapped.
“He humiliates you and you take it. He treats you like a buffoon, a servant, and yet you give him nothing but love and loyalty. Perhaps he is justified in his treatment of you.
“He’s jealous of you,” Tamara said for perhaps the hundredth time. “He fears you. He does not understand that every time his words lash you in public, he merely strengthens the love of the people for you.”
“Even if that is true, his fears are not warranted,” Zeal responded. “I am not an ambitious man. What would I do with the power of the Night Parade at my command, if that is what you are urging me to take?”
Tamara gave no answer. Imperator Zeal suspected she had another motive for wanting him to depose Lord Sixx, as wealth and power had never especially interested her. In his heart he prayed that his beloved and trusted friend would not force him to choose between them.
She touched his lips with her finger. “I love you, husband. If you wish me to keep my opinions to myself, I will do so.”
Zeal shook his head. He knew that was a lie, and even if it were true, he valued her counsel and the audacious fire that burned within her. Glancing at the alley once more, he saw that the humans were leaving. The assassins that Zeal had sent against the humans had been his Inextinguishables, the elite of his enforcers. Many of his kind could be killed with a simple knife thrust; they were as vulnerable as any human. How would it look if he allowed the killers of the Night Parade’s finest to go free?
“We should kill them,” he said. “It would be a simple matter for us. Even the mage—”
“Let them live,” she urged. “The edicts of our kind tell us that we are to avoid direct confrontation whenever possible. This scene will draw attention.”
“They will not stop,” he said.
“They must. There is nowhere left for them to turn.”
Zeal’s hands bunched into fists. “They know we exist.”
“Who would believe them?” she said as she kissed his throat and licked a single bead of sweat that descended along the hard, glistening muscles of his neck. Below, the humans on the street were quickly out of view.
“You are certain they will stop?” he asked.
“Of course,” Tamara said as she turned the red-haired man to face her. “What choice do they have?”
With a passionate cry, she threw her arms around her husband, kissing him full on the mouth. He returned the kiss greedily, roughly caressing her hard, trim flesh. The call of the flames rose up within his body.
As they kissed, small piles of trash burst into flame on the rooftop.
Five
Temples with healers who were not above taking a healthy contribution to the church in return for treating heathens were not difficult to find in the financial district. Reisz’s wound appeared worse than it actually had been and when the healer was finished with him, a new layer of bright pink skin had appeared on his arm and he had regained the limb’s full use. Several of Ord’s minor cuts and bruises were removed by the healer before they left the temple and walked back toward the stables.
Burke admonished Cardoc for his independent ways, ordering him to stay visible at all times and keep close to the party. The Night Parade would be most worried about him, and his visible presence might cause them to stay away rather than move in for a second attack. Reisz eyed everyone on the street with suspicion. The Night Parade’s members had expertise in disguising themselves as human an
d he stood ready to attack anyone who made the slightest move in his direction.
Varina had stayed close to her husband, who was overcome with shame. He had done nothing in the fight, and his wife had almost been killed. The incident had weighed more heavily on the strongly built warrior than on his lover, who was grateful that they had made it out of the ambush alive.
At the stables, Myrmeen found the stable boy once more. He gazed at her with distress, but respected her privacy and did not ask what had happened. He led her to the small office, where she changed back into her warrior’s attire. She emerged to hand the boy the remains of her dress with a straightforward command: “Burn this.”
Myrmeen returned to the others, who were gathered near Cardoc’s sleek black mount. Burke had been severely shaken. He looked at Myrmeen with a tired, haunted expression. “Last night I dreamt that if we didn’t leave this city by nightfall tonight, we would all die here. My dream nearly came true this day.”
“When I was little, the other children said that the Night Parade could make you have strange dreams,” Myrmeen said. “Some would come true. Others would not.”
Burke shook his head. “We’ve taken a vote. The consensus is that we should take what we’ve learned to the local authorities then flee this nightmare-infested city.”
“There are five of you,” Myrmeen said quietly. “Did anyone vote to remain?”
“My wife and the mage.”
“You didn’t ask me,” she said, angered at the thought of being forced to give up on the child she had never seen.
“We’re asking now.”
“I can’t go back,” Myrmeen said. “I picture the girl in my mind. I wonder what her first words were. I need to know what they did to her, Burke.”
Reisz cleared his throat. “I have something to say to Myrmeen in private, if that’s all right.”
The Night Parade Page 6