The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (34 page)

“How many mages are in Kantian’s group?”

“Besides little Hayli, you mean?” 

“You know Hayli’s a mage?” I asked.  “Thought she seemed to
be keeping it a bit hushed.”

“Nobody keeps secrets from Coins,” he said with a huge
grin.  “Well, let me think…” He drew his brows together dramatically, arching
one to a severe point.  “Think the new kid’s a mage.  Third class though,
nothing special, right?  Doubt he’ll ever get Rivano’s eye.”

“And that’s it?  You’d think Kantian would want others.”

“Eh, Rivano gets the pickings.”

“Not Hayli?”

“She’s too new.  Not
new
, but, y’know. 
Inexperienced.  Rivano’s got an eye on her, though.  Gift like that?  Oh, yes,
he’s watching.”  He whistled.

“What about Rivano’s mages?  Has he got any Ghosts on his
crew?”

He jutted his lip.  “Not that I know of.  I’ve heard of
Ghosts, but I’ve never seen one, right?  Never saw a Mask either till you
popped up.”

Strange.  Maybe the Ghost had nothing to do with Rivano
,
I thought. 
But if not him, then who?
 

I hadn’t met Rivano yet, but I didn’t like the notion that
he’d been behind my father’s assassination attempt.  Zip had called him a mean man,
but so far I hadn’t seen anything about the way the Hole operated that made me
want to believe it.  Maybe he didn’t take care of all of the city’s poor, but
the Hole certainly kept some of the kids alive.

“Well,” I said, tucking my hands in my pockets.  “Thanks for
not attacking me, but I’ve got to head on.”

“Looking for the Bricks’ supplier?”

I’d started to turn away; at that I stopped and slanted him
a glance over my shoulder.  He took a few steps back and just watched me, then
finally he threw his hands in the air and beckoned me energetically.  I
realized almost too late that the growing noise in my ears came from a freight
train bearing down on the rail yard, and I jumped clear of the track just in
time to avoid being flattened.

“How’d you know?” I asked, above the roar and squealing of
the train.

He grinned.  “Heard Derrin ask you, that’s how.”

“I didn’t see you there…”

“That’s what they all say,” he said, tapping his finger to
his forehead.  “So listen, there’s this fellow named Bolin, right?  He’s got a
crew runs east of Coolie’s, deep in the thick with Trip and the sweets
smugglers.  He’s had this vendetta against Coolie for ages and ages, and
finally got paid a whopper for some dirt he passed on to Vanek Meed, know him? 
So Vanek’s itching to get the Bricks turned out, but here’s the problem. 
He’s
got a debt big as your head to guess who?  Yup.  Coolie’s supplier.  Now
everyone knows that if a supplier’s mad at you, then he can do whatever he
wants to you.  No holds barred, right?  Because even Vanek Meed bows to that
lot.”

I stared at him.  I thought I’d understood about three of
every ten words he said, but strung together, I couldn’t glean an ounce of
sense from it.

“So…” I said, frowning.  “What’d you just say, and how the
hell do you know all that?”

He looped his thumbs through his belt and tossed his head. 
“It’s what I do,” he said.  “That and, y’know, look fine for the ladies to
admire.”

“Seriously?” I asked, skeptical.

“Well, some of them.  Well, I think Kite thinks I’m fine. 
Well…maybe she just thinks I’m funny.”

I just stared at him for a long moment, then I turned and
said, “So Bolin ratted out Coolie to Vanek Meed.  And Meed wants to bring the
coppers down on Coolie, but can’t because Coolie’s supplier would have his head
if he did.”

“Right?  The supplier isn’t calling in Vanek’s debt in
exchange for Vanek not calling the buttons down on the Bricks. 
Get it?
”

Buttons?
  I thought. 
Brass buttons…police. 
Right.

“Got it,” I said.  “But, that really doesn’t help me figure
out who the supplier is.”

“Oy!” Coins said, flicking his fingers above his head.  “I
give you all that, and you say,
that doesn’t help!
  Ungrateful cad.” 
But he grinned as he said it, baffling me.  “So I see.  You don’t play this
game yet.  Fresh out of Istia, right?  Up there you prob’ly just bump off
enough of a fellow’s family to make him sing, right?  Well, we do it with
finesse here.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but figured it would do me no
good.  Hayli and Jig were bad enough, but listening to Coins was making me
dizzy.

“Now,” Coins went on, “now you just got to think.  What do
you do with all that noodle, right?”

God, if he says,
right?
one more time, I will
strangle him,
I thought, but I just said, “Noodle?”

“Facts and figures, mate.  Facts and figures.”

Kor wanted me to hide in the shadows, to wait and listen and
play the careful, patient game of making myself invisible.  Maybe that was
Tarik’s way, but it wasn’t Shade’s.  If I were Shade, I would…

I’d know exactly what to do.

“I have to go see Vanek.”

Coins whooped.  “Atta way to use the think steak!”

“
Think steak?
” I echoed, stifling a snort.  “You made
that up.”

“Aw, hell, I knew it’d never catch on.  But you like it,
right?  Think steak, right?”

“It’s…uh, it’s swell.”

“Fantastic!  Well.  This way, then.”

He grabbed my elbow and pointed north, but when he lifted
one long leg to strike out, I shook him off.

“What’re you doing?”

“We’re going to see Vanek Meed!”

“I think…I think I’d better go alone.”

“Never a smart plan.  Look, mate, safety in numbers.  You
don’t want to face any of these chums single-handed.  Big mistake.  They’ll
dice you up for snacky bits.”

In the end I gave up and let him lead the way, since at
least he seemed to know where to go.  We headed north across the tracks, and I
spotted the Troyce & Fallon factory away to my left after a little while. 
Then we switched directions and headed east, weaving well clear of the Bricks’
building and avoiding the sweet shop where I’d tangled with Anuk and Jig. 
After about ten minutes of brisk walking, we emerged onto Front Street, a wide
avenue lined by slightly less dilapidated buildings than the ones a few streets
south.  Coins stopped in front of a tall iron gate and shoved his hands in his
pockets. 

I walked a few more steps forward and took hold of the bars,
peering through at the monstrous building beyond.  Somehow I didn’t think it
had been intended for a house.  It looked more like an abandoned sanatorium. 
Three stories of dirty brick and smashed windows stood under a steeply pitched
slate roof, its walls strung with veins of ivy, dead and bare in the winter
cold.  The only beautiful thing about the place was the last fading gold of the
autumn oaks scattered across the lawn.

Under my hands, the gate squealed and shifted in its lock.

“This is the place?” I asked Coins.  “You’re sure?”

“Sure as sugar,” he said.  I arched a brow.  “Sugar?  No? 
Aw, hell, I liked it.”

A shadow shifted near the dark gate house, and a moment
later a man in a black coat and coach hat came striding toward us. 

“Beat it!” he shouted, his voice a terrifying bass.  “No
trespassing.”

“Not interested in trespassing,” I said, letting go of the
bars and lifting my chin.  “I’m here to see Vanek Meed.”

He was good; he didn’t even blink.  Didn’t even hesitate. 
He just said, “You’ve got the wrong place.  Scram,” and turned to walk away.

“I’ve got information for him.”

Coins shifted behind me, like he was trying to catch my
attention.  When the man kept walking, I turned to face him.

“What?”

“Seems he’ll only answer to a passcode,” Coins said,
frowning.  “Forgot about that.  You won’t get past him, no matter what you
say.”

“And you don’t know what it is?”

He laughed, self-conscious.  “Yeah, not exactly.  Look, I’ve
tried to get close to hear what goes on at the gate before.  But I’m not a damn
Cloak and even I couldn’t get close enough without being seen.”

“You’re not.”  I grinned.  “But I am.”

“But I thought you were…I thought…”

“Yeah,” I said, dragging out the word.  “Just between us,
right?”

Stars, now I’m starting to sound like him.

“Right.”  He tapped his forehead, then grabbed my arm and
hauled me a little way down the street, under the tangled bare branches of a
sweet gum tree.  “So look.  Someone will be along pretty soon.  Vanek gets
visitors every night around the dinner hour, just like clockwork, and they all
go through that gate.  So.  I’m thinking, you go plant yourself next to the
gate and turn all invisible like you do, and then just…hang tight and listen
for that word.”

I hesitated.  I’d Cloaked out of desperation just twice before,
and I still wasn’t quite confident I knew how I’d done it.  If I lost my
concentration…if I forgot I was trying to hide…I could be found out, and I had
no idea what that would mean.  But for all that, it was our best option.  Maybe
Shade was wearing off on me, but I couldn’t imagine sitting around and waiting
for the right information to stumble over me.

“What about you?” I asked Coins.

“I’ll be up there,” he said, and nodded toward a narrow
second-story balcony on the building facing the sanatorium.  “No one’ll
notice.  Soon as you get that word, you signal me, and we’ll crash his party.”

I grinned.  “Sounds like my kind of night.”  He turned to
go, but I grabbed his arm.  “Do me a favor?  When I Cloak, can you whistle
three times?  I can’t see myself as Cloaked and I’m still learning…”

“Sure thing, mate.  Whistle three times.  Good luck!”

He sauntered across the street, then without any warning he
took one swift step and ran five feet up the wall to grab an outcrop of brick. 
Like an acrobat he launched himself up to a window sill, and never stopping,
twisted and leapt to the balcony rail. 

I had half a mind to applaud when I saw him vault over the
rail to land inside the balcony, but instead I just caught his eye and tipped
my fingers to my temple.  He grinned and held up both thumbs.  I assumed he
meant the sign of acknowledgment I’d seen Griff and the other aviators use from
their cockpits, and not the obscene gesture I’d heard they used in Istia.  But
because I was supposedly Istian, I flung both my hands out in mock anger, and
mimicked the gesture.  He froze, and his eyes widened, then he threw back his
head and laughed.

I wandered back toward the iron gate, waiting for a dawdling
pedestrian to stroll past.  When she’d gone and I was sure that the gate guard
wasn’t watching, I sank down on the base of the gate post and concentrated on
not being seen.  I slowed down my breathing and closed my eyes, and thought
about the bricks behind my back, the cobblestones under my boots, the tickle of
a fern on my arm.  And still no whistle from Coins.

I opened my eyes and looked for Coins on the balcony.  He
was leaning over the rail, staring at me, but when he met my gaze he just shook
his head.  A little shred of panic tangled in my thoughts.  What if I couldn’t
do it?  What if I wasn’t a Cloak after all, only rather talented at hiding?

All of a sudden Coins straightened up, his gaze shifting to
glance behind me, and I heard the grinding of boots in the loose shale of the
sanatorium drive.  The fear of discovery was all I needed.  I flinched and
closed my eyes, and immediately I heard Coins whistle, softly, three times. 
The gate guard’s footsteps ground louder and louder behind me, stopped, and
then shifted away again.  I breathed a sigh of relief and opened my eyes. 
Coins still stood draped over the railing, but his eyes were shifting,
uncertain, scanning the area all around me but never quite fixing on my face. 
I was invisible.

And I sat there for what felt like an hour, never moving,
barely breathing, while my muscles turned cold and my head pounded with
thirst.  When I was beginning to think Coins had guessed wrong about Vanek’s
dinner guests, a pair of gentlemen strolled up to the gate, finely dressed in
tailored suits and hats and silk scarves that looked utterly out of place in
the south streets.  One of them lifted his cane and knocked it a few times
against the gate, not in any particular pattern, just a three-beat rap.

The gate guard came crunching across the drive.  “Beat it! 
No trespassers!” he shouted.

“But we are welcome,” the man said.

The guard didn’t even slow down, but swept up to the gate
and slid back the bolt, and let the two men in.  My impulse was to leap out as
soon as the men had wandered up the drive, but I waited.  Others might be coming,
and I wanted to verify that what I’d heard was in fact some kind of pass code. 
I was rewarded a few moments later when a lady wrapped in a tawny fur
approached the gate, and the guard admitted her to the same words.

My muscles were too cramped to wait any longer.  As soon as
she’d disappeared into the shadows and the gate guard had returned to his post,
I scrambled away from the gate and took a few steps down the street.  Coins
vaulted over the balcony rail and dropped in two stages down the wall. 

“Everything jake?” he asked, sauntering across the street
toward me.

“Got it.  It’s…really, it’s hardly a passcode.”

“Excellent!  Now, how do we get him to let us in if he
remembers us from before?” Coins asked.

“I can do that,” I said, “but I’m not too sure about you. 
I’ve got an idea.  Lend me your coat?”

Coins glared at me in mock anger but handed it over.  I
wrapped myself in it and did up the front buttons, though it was so long it
almost fell to my ankles.  Then, closing my eyes, I focused my mind and my
energy.  I should be in my thirties, possibly forty.  Slicked-back black hair. 
Blue eyes.  Smart mustachio.  Maybe a bit of a scar at the corner of my lip…