The Night Parade

and Myrmeen suddenly felt weak. As her knees turned to liquid and she fell, Myrmeen was vaguely aware of Krystin and Ord also succumbing to the lure of the strangely beautiful music, a lullaby more irresistible than any they had ever heard before.

Tamara snatched up the blade that Myrmeen had dropped. The music was not harming her. She slashed Myrmeen's palm, then her own. Pressing her wounded hand against Myrmeen's, Tamara threw her head back and repeated a phrase in an ancient language that humans could never speak. As their blood mixed, Myrmeen's eyes fluttered and suddenly she pulled away from Tamara, scrambling back in fear and distrust.

'Bellophat's music cannot harm you now,' Tamara said. 'You will not be another human cow to be slaughtered. My blood has touched yours, as yours touched mine, long ago.'

Myrmeen did not have time to ask Tamara to explain her cryptic statement. 'Protect the others, too.'

'As you wish,' Tamara said, taking Krystin's and Ord's palms and sharing blood with them. As Krystin and the last Harper shook off the sudden, numbing effects of sleep, they dragged themselves to their feet and stood beside Myrmeen, whose hand was outstretched to catch the rain.

Krystin touched Myrmeen's arm. 'The Devlaines.'

'Don't bother,' Tamara said. 'The Devlaines are dead. Doppelgangers have taken their place.'

Somehow, Krystin was not surprised to learn that Lord Sixx had lied and that he had murdered her adopted parents. What shocked her, however, was her own lack of emotion at the news that they were dead. She felt very little for these people, her memories of them hazy and indistinct. It would strike her later, she was certain of that. For now, her mind seemed willing to protect her from the shock.

'Bellophat,' Myrmeen said absently.

Vizier Bellophat promised us sustenance.

She had heard those words on the black ship that had been smuggling inhuman cargo into the city's port. She remembered the monstrosity that could twist its body into instruments and produce sounds she had never heard before.

'We killed Bellophat,' Myrmeen said, 'drowned him.'

'Not all of our kind need air to breathe,' Tamara said. 'You inconvenienced us, that's all.'

'The children,' Krystin said insistently.

'Yes,' Tamara agreed, 'they are the most vulnerable. The only chance you have to save them is by killing Bellophat. If you silence his music, the people will wake and take arms against my kind. It is the only chance humans have this night. The festival is overdue, and Calimport will be gutted much worse than during the last storm.'

'Which had not been a storm,' Myrmeen said, wondering if the rain she felt also was an illusion. Thunder clapped and lightning crackled over the water.

'I still don't understand,' Myrmeen said as she heard the music grow even louder. 'Why are you helping us?'

'For selfish reasons,' Tamara said. With those words she turned and leapt toward a nearby wall, which she scaled and vanished over before Myrmeen could ask her question a second time.

Myrmeen looked at the child who might have been her daughter had circumstances been different, and the young man who had been thrust into a life he had not chosen for himself, and said, 'We have to end this if we can.'

Krystin and Ord nodded in agreement, and together they ran toward the music, the sounds of the storm and the encompassing fingers of rain closing over them as they disappeared into the night.

Twenty-One

'That you are my son disgusts me.'

Alden McGregor tried to keep his own revulsion at bay as he stared at the red-skinned man who had spoken. The man's flesh appeared to have been flayed, leaving only bare muscle and tissue. Alden could tell that the man before him in the darkened chamber once had been a beautiful physical specimen that had literally been turned inside out and stitched back together. He wore a black leather tunic, stitched up the front, his arms and legs exposed. Rubies adorned his waist sash and the bands around his arms and thighs. His eyes were sky blue.

He was Magistrate Dymas, he explained, Lord of the Dance. When he performed, his motions could cause even the casual observer to experience vertigo and lose all motor functions. The nightmares he could provoke began with the fulfillment of fantasies and ended with the most humiliating of disappointments. The feeling of loss after even one such dream could drive a person to suicide. The elegance of his movements were balanced by the crudeness of his appearance, speech, and manner. Although he was intelligent and educated, his speech often lapsed into the gutter slang of his youth. He was like an animal who fiercely labored to maintain a civilized appearance. Alden loathed him.

'These is my powers,' Dymas said. 'What's yours? You're a dog. You hunt and sniff and follow the scent of blood. You ain't one of us. You're fodder. I weren't happy when your mother died, but at least she didn't see the wretch you are!'

Holding back his tears, Alden looked away from the man who claimed to be his father. Dymas moved with unbelievable speed and agility, leaping to his son's side and kneeling beside the boy as Alden recovered from the slight dizziness he felt after watching Dymas in motion.

'I want to see Pieraccinni,' Alden said firmly.

'That old woman has hawked you enough. Don't you mention his name.'

Furiously whirling on the flayed man, Alden shouted, 'Pieraccinni was there for me. Where were you?'

Dymas laughed. 'You call yourself his, but you ratted on the pig when you knew he was one of us. I bet you weren't pleased none to learn you wasn't exactly much better.' He frowned. 'Come on now, boy. Admit it. Ain't you happier knowing your blood ain't tainted with humanity?'

To the night people, humans were monsters, Alden knew.

Dymas's features softened. 'Ah. You never seen the lands of your people. Our kingdoms make this world look like nothing. If I could take you there, you wouldn't act like this at the thought of your true sire. %u'd be happy with what you are. You would, you know.'

Raising his misshapen hands before him, Alden found he no longer could hold back his tears. His gentle hands, which had caressed the soft flanks of a dozen women, now would tear bloody gashes in their skin. He was becoming more of an animal with every hour.

'If it was such a paradise, why leave?' Alden asked.

'We didn't have no choice,' Dymas said ruefully. 'The prey we had ate for as long as we could remember was dying off. All we could do was eat off each other or find new worlds with new prey. There was somethin' of a war. All this energy was released. The sages said our reality was torn. Doors opened, gateways to other realms, like this one. Most of us fought the new order. I mean, it would've bred the hunter from us, would've made us less than we are. We left our homes for these new worlds. We've been quiet, secret like, you know, but we've grown. Don't fool yourself, we've-'

'What is the apparatus?' Alden said, interrupting.

Dymas smiled. 'That you'll know tonight.'

Alden thought of the scene he had witnessed at the cavernous retreat, the plans Tamara and Zeal had made to betray Lord Sixx. He had kept his silence. Staring into the flayed man's deceptively soft eyes, Alden said, 'I look forward to that, father. I do.'

'Maybe there's hope for you,' Dymas said as he took the young man in an embrace that startled Alden.

'Yes,' Alden said as he looked out over his father's shoulder, his red eyes blazing, his sharp teeth grinding. 'Perhaps there is, after all.'

From outside he heard the sound of thunder and the siren's call of Bellophat's music, which raised a longing in his heart that sickened him. A familiar scent came to him suddenly, one that he had not expected to breathe ever again.

Krystin was nearby.

The proximity of her blood made him tremble. Overwhelmed by new and terrible desires, he clutched at his