We made a circuit of the theater, and found that security was far too tight for anything we might have tried. No dozing guard at the door to the backstage; no unattended uniforms we could suit up into and pretend we were a couple of the bad guys.
“I can try to destabilize them,” I said, when we reached the last possible access point that could have gotten us behind the scenes—and found five armed men and women standing in front of it. “You could show me something horrific, and then when they’re incapacitated by the emotions I project, we can rush in.”
“Too risky. We have no idea if it will work,” Ash said.
And still, somewhere behind one of those doors, up or down a staircase, Niv and Connor were being held.
“The only way out is through,” Ash said, and headed into the theater, so swiftly all I could do was follow.
The seats had been removed. People were packed together—thousands of them, easily. At the front, before a massive movie screen, a bonfire blazed. A smaller version of the Great Fire that would be burning across town, at Darkside Park, at the official Unmasking Day celebration, with half of the city in attendance.
Bright light lit up the back of the screen: a loading bay door that opened onto the alley behind the theater. A good potential escape route . . . except getting to it would involve fighting through a crowd full of people who hated us.
A priest appeared beside the bonfire, and blew through a parasaurolophus crest, signaling the start of the Unmasking Day ritual. A cheer went through the crowd.
We threaded our way through the press of people. A wandering holy man in burgundy robes, with chalk and ash and pigment streaked across his face, handed us each a mask, and waved incense smoke at us, and talked us through the familiar prayers for filling the mask with the parts of our selves we did not love. Bad memories, bad attitudes, weaknesses and sins and anger. It all went into the mask, which would be thrown into the flames at the end of the ceremony and destroyed.
That was the theory, anyway. I didn’t imagine my own bad parts would be so easily burned away.
Ash and I put on our masks. Children ran past us, little make-believe monsters.
“We pray,” said the holy man, and he led us in the Song of Burning.
And then the Shield appeared, and the crowd went wild. A sweet-faced old woman standing beside me had tears in her eyes, she was so happy. Nausea overtook me.
“Citizens of Darkside!” the Shield called. “Today is the day when we finally reveal the truth. The day we all take off our masks.”