The Ninth Nightmare

on in there, Xyrena?’

But he didn’t have to wait for long to find out. Mago Verde returned to the curtains at the back of the stage and cried out, ‘Now! The spectacle that you have all been waiting to see! The Arch-Dreamer himself! The creator of all of this unholy carnival! The Grand Freak, Brother Albrecht!’

FOURTEEN The Eighth Sacrifice

This time, with a thunderous drum-roll, all of the curtains were drawn back. Immediately, out poured a crowd of clowns, acrobats, dancers, jugglers, fire breathers and wildly assorted freaks.

Even though the Night Warriors were themselves dressed in bizarre costumes, suitable only for fighting in nightmares, they stared at Brother Albrecht’s circus performers in disbelief. A legless man in a scarlet satin costume turned backward flip-flaps all the way across the stage, while a one-legged woman in a ballet tutu spun around and around so fast that it was almost impossible to see her face — until she eventually stopped spinning, and they could see that she had the long narrow snout and the glassy yellow eyes of a timber wolf.

Crawling awkwardly around in the background was a whey-faced boy with a pudding-basin haircut and a black one-piece swimming-costume of the style worn by men in the nineteen-twenties. He had to crawl — or to lurch, rather — because both of his legs had been replaced by somebody else’s arms, and two more arms had been surgically attached to the sides of his body. He had six arms altogether, so that he looked like a human spider, and that was probably how Brother Albrecht billed him.

Xyrena stared at all of these monstrosities and shook her head. ‘Dom Magator, I think you need to get in here with that Absence Gun of yours and de-exist everything in here. I can’t believe what I’m looking at. This isn’t just revenge on God. This is revenge against everything that ever lived.’

Even as she spoke, a fire breather in a spangled costume tilted his head back and blew a fine haze of lamp oil into the air. The oil drifted back downward, and it was only then that he ignited it, so that for a few seconds his entire head was on fire, his eyes closed but his mouth wide open in a silent scream. He stepped back grinning in a cloud of smoke, his face blackened, with the tips of both ears still alight, so that he looked like a demon freshly arrived from hell. Almost immediately a woman appeared beside him in a bonnet decorated with crimson ostrich plumes, and a crimson crinoline dress. Her face was beautiful but mask-like, as if she were a porcelain doll rather than a human being. Her bodice was unlaced to expose what should have been her breasts, but her breasts had been removed and replaced with two breast-shaped birdcages with blue cockatiels perched inside. The cockatiels fluttered and squawked while the woman smiled serenely at the audience and gave them little Marie Antoinette waves.

Jemexxa gripped Jekkalon’s hand and said, ‘Look — look! It’s Mom!’

Sure enough, their mother Demi the Demi-Goddess was being wheeled on to the stage by Zachary. She was balanced on a small gilded cart with a black velvet cushion on it. She was staring unfocused at nothing at all.

‘We could snatch her,’ breathed Jekkalon. ‘We could run down there and snatch her and they wouldn’t even know what had hit them.’

‘No, you couldn’t,’ said Dom Magator, close to his ear. ‘You’d be caught before you got anywhere near her, and you’d fuck up this whole operation. So don’t even think about it, you hear?’

‘Yeah, OK. I know. Sorry. It’s just seeing her like that. It doesn’t matter what they’ve done to her, she’s still our mom.’

‘I know that. But concentrate, dude. Any sign of the Big Cheese yet?’

‘Not so far.’

But he had barely spoken when there was another flourish of trumpets, and out of the darkness at the back of the stage rolled a four-wheeled contraption about the size of a stagecoach, with huge spoked wheels. It was painted glossy black, with a domed canopy of black leather, which completely concealed its occupant.

It was being pushed forward by naked men and women, at least ten of them, every inch of whose bodies was decorated with tattoos, although the Night Warriors were too far away at the back of the big top to see what the designs were. But what they could see was that all of their legs had been amputated below the knee and replaced with much longer prosthetic legs with absurdly high heels, more like designer boots than feet, so that all of them, both men and women, stood well over six-and-a-half feet tall. Their heads had been shaved and fitted with crowns and antlers and bells. They jingled as they walked, and the wheels of the black contraption squeaked in accompaniment.

The black contraption was rolled right up to the chair where Maria Fortales was tied, and then it stopped. The naked men and women remained where they were, standing beside it, motionless. Xyrena could see now that their genitalia had been tied up tightly with elaborate cat’s-cradles of very thin twine, so that their flesh bulged in diamond-shaped patterns. Now Mago Verde came prancing forward, bowing and nodding his head.

‘Here it is, Brother Albrecht! The eighth offering! How close we are now, to the great day of glory! Only one more sacrifice to bring back to you after this one, and then you can cry out up stakes! and wagons roll! and return to the world where men can really be tortured and women can really be fondled!’

The ringmaster stepped up now, and took hold of the framework of the black canopy which covered the inside of the black contraption. ‘Ladies and gentlemen! And those undecided! I proudly present to you… the Grand Freak, Brother Albrecht!’

He was just about to raise the canopy, however, when Xyrena felt something wrench violently at her sleeve — something so strong that she was pulled right around in a semicircle and almost lost her balance. At the same time, she was half deafened by a screech and a chattering noise, and then a nasal voice shouting out, ‘Arresto! Parada! Ne soulevez pas la canopy! Wij hebben hier strangers! Arresto! Parado!’

Jekkalon and Jemexxa turned around, too. Tearing at Xyrena’s sleeve was the rat-creature that they had first encountered when they came looking for their mother. Now that they could see it close up, they realized that it was much more human than rat, and although it was so diminutive, and so hunched-up, it was more man than boy. It was wearing the same yellow tweed coat as before, and a strange pair of brown britches with buttoned-up spats.

‘Don’t open up the verriere!’ it screamed. ‘Questa gente — they are spies! Feinde! Enemies!’

‘Let go of me, you freak!’ Xyrena snapped at it, pulling her sleeve free. ‘We’re not spies! We just came to see the show!’

‘Ha! Ha! Vous say that?’ the rat-creature retorted. ‘This show is invitation only, for people who are dreaming Brother Albrecht’s dream. Are you dreaming Brother Albrecht’s dream, or etes vous poking in your nosepipe?’

On all sides, the audience were twisting around in their seats to see what the tussling was all about. From the stage, the ringmaster bellowed out, ‘Brown Jenkin! Bring them up here! Let’s see who they are, shall we, these spies of yours? Come on! Bring them up here!’

Xyrena said to Dom Magator, ‘They’ve caught us out, John.’

‘Yes, I get that. Just don’t panic.’

‘What shall we do? Zap ’em?’

‘No — not yet!’ Dom Magator cautioned her. ‘We need to take out this Grand Freak first. Without him, none of this would exist, so try to play along for now. An-Gryferai is airborne already, right above you, and me and Zebenjo’Yyx, we’re moving in to give you some close support. We won’t let you down, sweetheart, I promise you.’

‘I just don’t want them to cut my arms off or turn me into a schnauzer, that’s all.’

‘Trust me, Xyrena, not a chance of that.’

Five burly circus hands in gray coveralls had come around from the rear of the big top, cutting off any chance of escape. Not that they wanted to escape: first of all they wanted to confront Brother Albrecht. Brown Jenkin tugged at Xyrena’s cloak and said, ‘Come on, then, ma belle! Up on the stage, you lovely