Dreamless

getting thicker as they made their way to the front, and Matt and Claire stumbled blindly out onto the street. They paused as their eyes adjusted to the fog-like darkness left by the Shadowmaster. Coming down the street was a mob of people in costume, led by a tall woman. As the gloom dissipated, Matt instinctively cringed.
    “That has to be Eris,” he said in a lowered voice to Claire.
    “Then who’s that?” she asked, facing the opposing street. She was pointing at a tall, skinny boy who seemed to be made up of spare parts. His arms were too long for his body, and he walked with a bandy-legged stride, even as he hunched his rounded shoulders. Despite his towering height, he seemed to creep rather than walk. Still pointing in mute fear, Claire backed up against Matt. He could feel her entire body trembling, and the gasping breaths she took threatened to turn into screams in her throat.
    Matt had known her since kindergarten, and if there was one thing he was absolutely sure of, it was that Claire Aoki did not scare easy. Looking around at the behavior of the crowd, Matt could see people running around, frightened far beyond any normal measure. It was as if each person were being chased by his or her own worst nightmare.
    “It has to be another god, like Eris.” His voice shook as he spoke. “Think, Claire! Eris is Ares’ sister, and she is the personification of chaos—she makes people feel like creating havoc. So what do we feel when we look at that creepy kid?”
    “Panic?” Claire wheezed, trying not to hyperventilate. “But I thought the god Pan was a goat!”
    “No, no, it’s not the damn satyr! There was another,” Matt groused, digging thorough his memory. The convoluted, inbred family tree of the gods popped into his mind. “Ares, the god of war, walks with Eris, the goddess of discord, and with them is his son, Terror. That freaky kid has got to be Terror.”
    “Matt,” Claire gasped, using one arm to point one way and the other arm to point another. “The two mobs are headed right toward each other!”
    Matt’s heart sank. Eris and her nephew were herding their crazed groups down adjacent streets that met at a large intersection kitty-corner to the News Store.
    With every step, the horrible gods drew their helpless followers closer to an inevitable clash. Even Matt and Claire, who were making a conscious effort to control their reactions, felt more crazed as the gods drew near. Finally, like a cork blasting out of a shaken champagne bottle, the group surrounding Terror met with the bedlam around Eris, and a full-blown stampede began. In the midst of it all, Matt saw Eris laughing and her misshapen nephew sneering with satisfaction at her side.
    Terrified people clashed with rioters in costumes, tearing each other apart in a frenzy of destruction and fear. There was nothing Matt and Claire could do but get out of the way. Gripping Claire’s hand tightly, Matt pulled her behind a parked car, ducked down, and used his body to shield her from the flying glass and debris.
    The two of them held on to each other, trying to control their emotions so that they didn’t join in the fray. The air stank with the smell of rotten milk and burning plastic, and Matt noticed that the scents seemed to play on people’s emotions—the more intense the scent, the greater the swell of feeling both in himself and in the crowd.
    The glow from the streetlight above them dimmed and then disappeared as a dark pall fell over the intersection. Matt found he couldn’t see more than two feet in front of his face.
    “What are you two doing here?” growled a voice from inside the nexus of darkness.
    Lucas’s voice , Matt realized with a jolt.
    “Come on,” Lucas said, holding his hand out to them from the billowing folds of his cloak of shadows, motioning for them to follow him. “I’ll hide you in here until I can get you someplace safe.”
    Matt and Claire hesitated, neither of them wanting to go near him. As they balked, the shadows broke up and moved away from Lucas. There was something menacing about the sound of his voice and the way the tattered ends of darkness clung to him. His blue eyes were black and he seemed so angry .
    “Ah, Lucas?” Claire asked in an uncharacteristically timid way. “Are you, like, a Shadowmaster?”
    Lucas’s face fell and he nodded sadly.
    “Just how many secrets have you been keeping from the rest of us?” Matt asked, stunned to a hush.
    Lucas opened his mouth and