Before any of them had time to take a good look around a shriek came from behind them. "Monsters! Help!"

Aidan spun around to see a young woman standing in the middle of the street and pointing right at them. Behind her the glow of an open door led into a dim tavern. Already half a dozen men had poured out of the door and were advancing towards the little group of… Aidan did a double take as he looked at his fellow Clan members. They didn't exactly look like they had only moments ago. But there was no time to analyze what had happened, because the group of men had swelled into a mob, and they were advancing on the Clan members with grim determination.

"Run! Scatter and run!" shouted Brianna, and they ran.

Aidan spun around and dashed down an alley, and the other five went every which way, scattering down the dark streets of the town. He ran for what seemed like hours. At first the mob, or part of it at least, was right behind him, but it wasn't long before he shook them for a few moments, and as soon as they were out of sight he took to the air. Before long the town was a tiny collection of toy houses below. He could see the searching mobs as little swarms of firefly torches. He only hoped that they hadn't caught any of the others. He continued to circle, watching the town below, and eventually the mobs began to break up. He'd seen no sign that they'd found any of the other Clan members, but now he needed to find them. He suddenly saw a flicker of fire on a hilltop a mile or so from town. Hoping it was friends rather than foes he headed for it. He landed some distance away, settling gracefully to the ground at the base of the hill.

He paused for a moment to catch his breath... and realized he didn't need to. Huh? I've been flying for more than an hour, he thought, and running like nuts before that. I should be out of breath. But I'm not. With a kind of bizarre curiosity he held his breath... and kept holding it, and holding it. At last he gave up. For some reason he didn't seem to need to breathe. That's downright weird. What kind of world is this if I don't need to breathe here? And what kind of world is it, he added to himself, suddenly noticing something else, that puts me in this ridiculous outfit? He surveyed himself and found himself dressed from head to toe in formal eveningwear. A tuxedo? That's just bizarre.

Shrugging off the weirdness he made his way silently and cautiously up the hill. Before long he could make out the murmur of voices. I must be nearly to the top, he thought. But after another good fifteen minutes of climbing he still hadn't reached the summit. He had, however, recognized the voices. It was Brianna and Lavasida. Why aren't they keeping their voices down? Don't they know how loud they sound? He hurried the rest of the way to the top to find Brianna, Lon, Lavasida, Seymore, and Flame Song already there.

"Brianna," he said softly, or tried to say softly, but somehow it came out too loud. He had a sudden suspicion that it wasn't that people were speaking loudly, but that his ears were more sensitive.

"Aidan. Thank heavens. Now we're all here."

"Huh? What about Belak?"

"I'm right here, lad," said a voice out of thin air. Aidan jumped and spun around, but there was nothing there. "Seems I've become invisible," came the voice again. "Most of us seem a wee bit changed lad, yourself included."

Aidan surveyed the group and realized that Belak was right. They seemed to have become a collection of things out of old Hollywood horror movies, an odd assortment of ghouls and goblins. Well, the goblin was nothing new. Seymore looked just like his usual greenish self, and Lavasida, vampire that he was, was unchanged. But the others... Belak was, of course, nowhere to be seen. Brianna though was very visible, and she looked decidedly unhealthy. Her skin was dull, lifeless, as though she was dead. Some kind of zombie, I guess, thought Aidan. Lon, standing behind her, was a shaggy wolfish creature. While he had always been half were-wolf, it had never shown like this. But now he had hair everywhere there was to have hair. Flame Song looked a lot like she usually did in human form, her wavy red hair loose about her shoulders, her fair skin dusted with a bare handful of freckles, her green eyes sparkling in the moonlight, but she had acquired a new outfit. She had on a brightly colored, layered dress instead of her usual sensible trousers. It made her look like a gypsy. Aidan didn't care what she looked like though, he just went up to her and hugged her. She hugged him back tightly.

"What's going on?" he asked when he finally let Flame go.

"Apparently this world insists we fit in," said Brianna "We might have expected it if we'd thought. Mysteria changes people when they come there."

"Yeah, but not right away, and not complete with wardrobe," said Aidan. "And why Hollywood monsters?"

"What monsters?" asked Flame Song

"Hollywood. It's one of those Earth things," said Brianna, who, like Aidan, had once lived on Earth.

"Oh," said Flame.

"This is," said Aidan, "more than a little bit weird. A vampire and a goblin are normal, but on top of that we've got a zombie, an invisible spook, a gypsy, a wolf-man, and a... er... what do I look like?"

Brianna grinned. "Like Count Dracula, only shorter, and with wings."

"Like who?!" yelped Aidan.

"Count Dracula. Evening wear, fangs and all."

"You mean I'm a vampire?"

Lavasida laughed, his own sharp fangs showing clearly in the moonlight. "You say that like it's a bad thing."

"Well, er," Aidan spluttered, "I mean you... you're supposed to be one... I mean you're the Dark Lord! I'm not... I don't want to be... This is ridiculous! Me as a vampire?"

"No stranger than myself as a zombie, Aidan," said Brianna. "We're just going to have to deal with this. We need to find the shard as soon as possible and then go after the second one." She touched the pendant around her neck and closed her eyes for a moment. "I can't quite sense where..."

A howl cut her off. She turned around to find Lon crouching, his head thrown back. He howled again and then suddenly his body seemed to sort of twist and fold inward. A moment later a shaggy brown wolf dashed off down the hill.

"That idiot!" said Lavasida with a growl, and just as suddenly the vampire ran off after the retreating werewolf.

Brianna sighed. "What next? I guess we had better stay here until they get back. Without any sense of which direction the shard is in there's no reason to go tearing off without everyone here."