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.