In addition to Lon and me, Dare had stationed a small army of plainclothes armed guards to walk in front and on either side. Everyone riding the float was dressed in white long-sleeved T-shirts, white jeans, and white gloves. Weird and creepy. The entire company must be drinking the Kool-Aid. Because of this, Mark Dare was easy to spot. He was standing on a platform at the foot of the sparkling waterfall wearing blue jeans—not white—and his T-shirt was the only one with printing. The front read, in Frankie Goes to Hollywood–style block letters, CLEAN AND LEAN. The back read, WE DARE TO POWER YOUR FUTURE. What a tool.

After a quarter of an hour, everyone was in place. The Grand Marshal announced the official start of the parade over the loudspeakers, and the crowd broke out into even louder cheering, whoops, and whistles. Lon and I could see both sides of the float from our vantage point in back. We followed at a close distance, scanning the crowds on the sidelines for Merrin or anyone suspicious. Earlier in the day, Dare had made public announcements concerning the participation of junior high students on the float, spreading the word on TV, radio, and online. “We will not be bullied into hiding” was his catchphrase. If Merrin and/or Duke Chora were monitoring the children’s whereabouts—and someone had to be, in order to pull off the kidnappings so flawlessly—they knew the kids were here.

Nothing remarkable happened along the parade route for the first thirty minutes, but somewhere along the route’s halfway mark, the floats in front of us came to slow halt. We waited anxiously for several minutes, then overheard policemen along the sidewalks saying that some Halloween protesters had jumped the barricades a few blocks up and were standing in front of one of the floats with signs.

A few more minutes passed. Dare’s twinkling float waited in front of us, and while Lon watched the left side, I continued to survey the right, a couple of yards away from him. My eyes tracked Mark Dare again. He was shrugging on a dark jacket. At first I thought the cold must’ve gotten the better of him, but then he slipped around to the back of the float’s flatbed, glancing over his shoulder. In a series of quick movements, he jumped down to the road, squeezed through a gap in the barricade, and disappeared into the crowd.

Not exactly the behavior you’d expect from someone who was helping to watch the kids on the float. It crossed my mind that Mark had been present at one of the kidnapping scenes—the Halloween carnival at Brentano Gardens amusement park. He was alone when he talked to us in line that day. Said his wife and kid were elsewhere in the park. Later that night, another kid went missing there.

But that was crazy, right? I mean, Mark Dare was an asshole, sure, but what reason would he have to be involved in the snatchings? Still, I couldn’t help wondering why he jumped off the float in the middle of all this.

I glanced at Lon. He was still patiently watching to the left side of the float. I tried to catch his attention. He finally looked my way, but before I could get close enough to tell him about Mark’s odd behavior, a bass-heavy rumble up the road drew everyone’s attention.

Boom!

A column of fire shot straight up into the sky, flaming up past the second stories of the buildings that flanked the street. It was coming from the Little Red Riding Hood float: Grandmother’s cottage was on fire.

An anxious roar fanned through the crowd as the police reacted quickly, helping people off the flaming float and herding them into the shocked crowd. Dare’s plainclothes guards crowded closer to our float, all on full alert. Once Lon saw that they were in place, he ran to my side.

“What the hell?” he said.

“Electrical fire?” I suggested, craning my neck to see.

“Isn’t it close to where the protesters were breaking through the barricades?”

People near the fiery float were struggling to retreat. A tower of flames rocketed into the sky. So strange, the way it burned in a neat, round column.

I squinted. Blue-white light fizzled where the column of fire met the float’s cottage roof.

“Whoa!”

“What?” Lon demanded.

“Heka! That fire was set with magick.”

His green eyes darkened with panic. We stared at each other, neither of us knowing what to do for several moments. Good news was, magical fire doesn’t technically burn; it’s a parlor trick. That meant the people on Red Riding Hood were likely unharmed.

Lon glanced back at the flaming float and the thousands of people who were watching it burn. “A diversion.”

That’s exactly what it was. A diversion set by a magician.

Lon informed one of the guards that we were going to the fire, then the two of us plunged into the rankled crowd and headed toward Red Riding Hood.

The column of magical fire might not have been real, but the heat it emitted sure felt believable. It toasted my skin with a preternatural warmth as we neared the barricade a few feet behind the float. No way we’d be able to get any closer. We fought the crowd just to stay in place and not be rolled along with the tide of people who were following police instruction to abandon the area. I spotted an empty sidewalk bench, the back of which advertised a demon-friendly restaurant near Tambuku.

“Up there!” I shouted to Lon.

We scrambled to the bench and stood on the seat to survey things from a better vantage point. Most of the crowd had thinned on the opposite side of the road, where the sidewalk was narrow. But on our side, where all the vendors were stationed and an empty parking lot made room for hundreds, it was still chaotic. Heads and halos bobbed in a sea of people moving in all directions as police and parade security did their best to herd them while also directing the nearby floats to move aside and make way for a fire truck that wailed in the distance.