Daemon Gates Trilogy by Black Library

loading cargo onto wagons and unloading other wares onto pallets, or counting bales and barrels, or haggling with one another over prices. The warehouses were uniformly large, solid, and drab, built from stone and wood weathered by the spray from the river. Horses clattered past, some pulling carts and wagons, and others carrying riders, and boys raced past on errands,
    or simply enjoying the challenge of weaving between so many obstacles. It was a crowded, dirty, noisy place, filled with activity.
    Alaric was enjoying it immensely.
    Anything?' Dietz asked softly, reminding him why they were standing there. Alaric quickly collected his thoughts, and scrutinised everything more closely.
    At first he saw nothing. Then a strange shadow crept across the scene, distorting the world and casting a dull red sheen upon everything. The warehouses seemed to crowd in, their walls and roofs shifting to take on strange angles, their doors and windows contorting to resemble strange squared eyes and gaping mouths. The cobblestones began to resemble scales, as if they were walking up the back of some enormous beast, and the lamps hanging here and there became small burning creatures with narrow, pinched faces and nasty grins.
    Nor were the people unaffected by this sudden change. Boys transformed into imps, their eyes alight with mischief, their mouths revealing needle-sharp teeth, their hands becoming elongated claws whose barbed tips dripped with fresh blood. Merchants grew ratlike, their features extending, and their eyes growing small and shifty, their fine coats turn­ing into thin, oily fur. The labourers grew more oafish, their features slackening and growing coarse, thick hair sprouting from every patch of skin, their eyes glazing red.
    It was a scene from a nightmare, and Alaric started as it washed over him. Only he and Dietz seemed unchanged, and his friend was still glancing around without apparent concern.
    I am imagining this, Alaric thought; the after-effects of that fever, and of obsessing over the mask and those bloody marks for so many days already. My mind is play­ing tricks upon me, that is all.
    But somehow he could not quite believe that. What he was seeing was too real. He could hear the whickers and
    grunts from the labourers, the hissing and chittering of the merchants, the cackles of the boys, the hiss and pop of the flames. He could feel an oily residue upon his skin from the air, and the hard sharp edges of the stones beneath his feet. The air that filled his lungs was smoky and oily, and tinged with the coppery smell of blood and the too-sweet smell of decay.
    This was real. Dietz couldn't see it, but it was real, and he was in it.
    He told himself firmly that it didn't matter. He was look­ing for something, for that mask, and for the cultists who had taken it. He was looking for those smears. The rest was not his concern. He needed to focus.
    He studied the horrible scene before him, searching for any sign of the marks that had led them to the city. At first, it was impossible to make out any fine detail amid the general may­hem, but his eyes gradually grew accustomed to the nightmare, and he began to pick out specifics: a torn shirt there, a claw here, a jagged tooth over there, a rotting corpse back behind those bales... he forced himself to look at every­thing, watching for any hint of the cultists or their path.
    At last he found one.
    There! The edge of one building bore a handprint, lower than most men would rest their palms, and the mark was a brilliant red, almost a light against the grey and black of the building. Somehow, Alaric knew it was linked to the blood smears he had seen before.
    'Over there,' he told Dietz softly, and together they approached the spot.
    'Looks like blood,' his friend commented after they had reached the warehouse in question, and Alaric glanced over at him, surprised.
    'You can see it?' His heart gave a lurch. Perhaps he was not mad after all!
    Dietz nodded. 'Someone had