The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (45 page)

“So, what’s the plan?” Coins asked.

“I don’t have one.”

I snorted.  Shade shot me a surprised glance, which at least
got me feeling a bit smug.  When we got to the Bricks’ door we found it closed
up tight, and I couldn’t even get a sense if anyone was inside.  For a while
Shade paced back and forth, but when I thought he’d finally give up and go
home, he stalked up the steps and pounded on the door.

Nothing happened for a tick, then I caught a bit of
shuffling inside and a voice called, “Pass?”

Drat
, I thought, but Shade smiled.

“Straw,” he said.

Silence.  Then something rasped inside the door, probably a
bolt being drawn back, and the door swung open to pitch darkness.

“Shade!  You!” the voice cried.  “Get in here.  Who’re
they?  Oh, well, bring them in too.”

“Hullo, Tam,” Shade said, which explained why the voice
sounded familiar.  “What’s going on?”

We all piled into the building, and soon as the door settled
shut, Tam flicked on a torch.  He stood all alone in the entry there, and I
couldn’t hear anyone else moving about in the shadows.  I wondered if all the
other Bricks had gone, and if they had, where?

Tam smiled and clasped Shade’s hand, but his eyes narrowed
when his torchlight flashed over me.

“You again,” he said, and sighed.  “Fine.”  He rubbed his
hand over the back of his head.  “You better not be wanting aught from us.  We
can’t give it.”

“Is everything jake with you lot?” Shade asked.

Tam muttered and turned away, waving us after him.  We’d
barely moved to follow him when someone shouted down the hall, and a noise like
shattering glass ricocheted through the emptiness.

Tam flinched.  “Dan’ make a sound.  Coolie’s swacked again,
I reckon.  He’ll zotz us all if he sees you here.”

“Because?”

“You’re not one of us,” Tam said, and shrugged, like that
made all the sense in the world.  “Stars, it’s been hell around here.”

“What happened?”

I wondered if Coins or Tam could hear the tightness in
Shade’s voice.

“Div’n you hear?  Our supplier kicked.”

“He died?” Shade asked, sounding surprised.  “What does that
mean, for you?  Do you all need anything?”

Stars
, I thought. 
He’s good.
 

And the notion made me hesitate. 

Lying comes so easily to him, doesn’t it?  So why do I
trust aught he says or does?  For all I know, every single thing he says to me
could be a lie…

“You dan’ get it,” Tam was saying.  “He wasn’t that kind of
supplier.”

“Are you in some kind of trouble, then?”

“See for yourself, and you tell me,” Tam said.

He pushed open a warped door and held it for all of us to
enter.  A wide, half-broken window let in the heavy wind and the sporadic
flashes of lightning which, along with the brightness of Tam’s torch, showed us
a couple other shapes in the empty room—one sitting in the middle of the floor,
the other stretched in front of him.

Shade stared in silence at the two figures, but I couldn’t
stop staring at Shade.  His face was torn with pain, his hands knotted at his
sides, and as long as I watched him, I didn’t see him draw a single breath. 
Finally I shifted my gaze to the two figures.  The one crouched on the floor
was the little boy I’d met with Tam, but the other one was a girl, deathly pale
and thin as a reed.  I swallowed and crept a step closer.  My eyes hadn’t
tricked me.  Her throat and arms were mottled with livid bruises, and under her
thin shift, her hollow chest never moved.

“Oh stars,” I whispered.  “She’s…”

“They did this to her,” Tam said.  “
They
did.”

“Liza,” Shade said, and knelt down across from the little
boy.  He placed his fingers against the girl’s throat, but he had to know she’d
been long dead.  “Who did it?”

“Y’know what she was.”  Tam’s voice caught in his throat. 
“It drove her mad, when the boys scattered and the supplies dried up.  She went
straight to the sugar dealers begging for sweets.”  He shook his head, dragging
the backs of his fingers across his mouth.  “And they’d kill every one of us if
it suited them.”

“I’m so sorry,” Shade murmured, standing up.

Last night the crow had heard Shade’s bravado, talking to
Kantian about taking care of Joren.  Now all I heard was sadness and the sting
of regret. 

“Yeah, well,” Tam said.  “What’s it to you?”

“You took me in when I had nowhere to go,” Shade said.  “I
don’t forget a kindness.”

“Saying you’re sorry is fine, but sorry dan’ buy apples.”

Shade hesitated.  I knew I should let him get it sorted, but
he couldn’t say aught about Joren without making Tam think he knew a whole lot
more than he was letting on.  And even though the little voice in my head told
me that was his problem and he should figure it out himself, I just couldn’t do
that to him.  Not when I could see that desolation in his eyes.

“Well,” I said.  “Let me see if I can figure this out.  Alby
Durb was your supplier, wasn’t he?  There’s been rumor all over the streets about
how he turned up dead.”

I caught Shade staring at me, but I couldn’t let myself
glance his way.  Tam studied me, suspicious, but the little boy wiped his
cheeks and nodded.

“That was him,” he said.

“Zip, shut it,” Tam snapped.

And Coins—I wanted to hug him for being such a clever
eavesdropping nosy-beak—pitched in, “Alby Durb?  Heard some talk about him
myself.  He bossed it over a fellow named Joren, right?  Stuffed suit who runs
the buyers’ ring?”

“How the hell’d you know
that?
” Tam asked, wide-eyed. 
“
I
div’n even know that…”

Coins grinned, looking insufferably pleased with himself. 
“I know!” he exclaimed.  “I impress myself too, sometimes.”

Tam muttered a curse and paced a few steps.  “But what does
it matter?” he asked.  “Coolie’s scared white by that crew, so bad he can’t
sober up to face it.  He’s good as abandoned the rest of us.  Half of us have
scattered or gone missing.  Some of us…”  He turned his head to stare at the
girl, and the little boy sniffled quietly.  “Some div’n make it.  So what’re
you planning on doing about it?”

“Said his name was Joren?” Shade asked.  His voice sent a
prickle all through me, because I’d never heard him that angry before. 
“Suppose I’ll be paying him a visit.”

“You’re not serious?” Tam asked, but the laugh died on his
lips when he realized no one else was smiling.

Shade took two steps toward him, face like flint, eyes
blazing.  “Don’t ever ask me that again.”

He bent over the girl’s body, placing his hand on her
forehead, then reached over and gripped Zip’s shoulder.  I barely heard him
murmur,

“I’ll set this right.”

Then he spun and stalked out of the room.  We all gaped
after him, until Coins caught my gaze and jerked his head toward the door.  I
sighed and nodded, and set off to chase Shade down.  Remembering what Tam had
said about Coolie, I didn’t try shouting after Shade, but it didn’t matter.  A
door down the side corridor slammed open, and a wash of torchlight flooded over
me.  I blinked and shielded my eyes.

“Who th’ell are you?” someone bellowed from behind the
light, words slurring.  “Wha’re y’doing?”

Shade froze by the door, staring back at me.

“Hayli!” he hissed.

I waved my hand at him, trying to make him leave, but the
dundering idiot wouldn’t go.  The man with the torch was barreling toward me,
boots thundering in the empty corridor.

“Hayli, c’mon!” Shade called.  “
Run!
”

“Don’move,” the man shouted, and then he was in front of me,
torch in one hand, revolver in the other, its muzzle wavering somewhere in
front of my head.

All my blood washed away in a rush of cold.  The man was
dead skunk drunk.  He couldn’t know what he was doing.  I swallowed hard and
held up my hands, as if that would make any difference, watching from the
corner of my eye as Shade came storming back toward us.

“Don’you come—” the drunk man started, but he choked on the
words because all of a sudden Shade was right there in front of him, with the
biggest rifle I’d ever seen aimed straight at his chest.

“Drop the gun, Coolie.”

“You!” the man cried, squinting at Shade through the shadows,
forgetting he had a torch to see with.  “Whaddyou want?  Get outta here,
scram…”

“I said, drop the gun,” Shade growled, pulling back the
rifle’s bolt.  “Now.”

The man stared at him for what felt like ages, then he
muttered and shoved the revolver into the holster at his belt.

“Hayli,” Shade said, never taking his eyes from the other
man’s face.  “Get out, now.”

Something about his tone launched me into motion.  I shifted
around behind him, then rabbited for the door.  From the front steps I watched
Shade take down the rifle and throw the parts on the ground, while the drunk
man gaped at him all in a stupor.  For a few seconds they just glared at each
other, then the man turned and slunk back down the hall.  Soon as he’d
disappeared, Shade came striding back toward me.  But he didn’t even glance at
me, and didn’t slow down a jot, but just pushed through the door and out into
the street. 

He seemed to know the minute I started following him,
because he held up his hand and called, “Go back to the Hole, Hayli.  Don’t
even think about following me.”

“Why not?” I shouted, running to catch up, shielding my eyes
from the biting wind.

He turned so sudden-like I stumbled a step back.  Somehow I
could’ve sworn I saw his white tattoo gleaming, like it was all lit up by the
rage inside him.

“Don’t question me.”  His jaw tightened, he gritted his
teeth.  “I don’t want to be…” he started, and failed.  “If anything happened…”

Failed again.  For just a tick he wavered there, his gaze
locked on mine, then he shook his head and turned away.

“I won’t follow you,” I whispered to the night.  “But I’m
still with you.”

Chapter 2 — Tarik

I’d taken refuge on the front stoop of an abandoned shop,
waiting for the sound of following footsteps that I knew were coming.  But when
I finally heard them, I could tell even from my distance that they weren’t
Hayli’s.  And even though I’d been so sharp with her, I felt only a keen
disappointment that she’d actually done what I’d asked.  I’d told her not to
follow me; all I’d wanted was for her to ignore me.

After a few moments Coins sauntered into view, passing under
a street lamp and taking the opportunity to stop and peer around.  He caught
sight of me almost at once and strolled over to lean against the wall beside
me, thumbs hooked in his belt loops.

“So,” he said.  “What’d you do to Hayli?”

I sighed and tilted my head back.  “I sent her back to the
Hole.”

“Why?”

I let out my breath; I couldn’t find my voice.  Coins
watched me patiently for a bit, but when I still didn’t answer, he slid down to
crouch beside me.

“You’re blaming yourself for the girl, aren’t you,” he
said.  “Think she’s dead because of you.”

How could I not?  I turned away to stare down the midnight
street.

“It’s true, isn’t it?” I asked.  “And Coolie…”

But I couldn’t finish the sentence.  I just remembered
seeing him with a gun trained on Hayli, and how I’d almost killed him.  How I
would have killed him.

“That girl, Liza?” Coins said, surprising me that he knew
her name.  “She was dead a long time before you met her.  It was just a bit of
time, right?”

“I don’t accept that,” I said.

“Well.”  He pulled out a half-burned cigo and fumbled in his
pockets for a matchbook.  “Got a light?”

I hesitated.  I had Dr. Baisell’s ferrosteel lighter in my
pocket as always, but I couldn’t lend him that.  Stars, I couldn’t imagine how
curious he’d be about it.  So I just shrugged and shook my head.

“Oh well,” he said, and threw the stub into a puddle. 
“Can’t stand the things anyway.”

I gave him a look.

“They’re beastly hard to ignore though, right?” he said,
flinging up his hands.  “Well, so, Joren.  Don’t suppose you’ve got the first
idea what to do about seeing him, eh?”

“Not really.  But you’ll come with me.”

He laughed.  “Suppose I will.”

“I’ll get a few of us together.  Just have to get word to
him somehow that he needs to see me.”  I chewed on one of my nails while I
thought that over.  “Not sure how I’ll do that.”

“Is that a not-so-subtle request for my help?” Coins asked.

“Will you do it?”

He gave me the two thumbs up sign with a wicked grin.  I
reached over and punched him in the shoulder, hard.

“Ow,” he said.  “Sorry, couldn’t resist.  Listen, Shade. 
About Hayli.”

I sighed and dropped my head in my arms.  How could I
explain to him that Hayli was an impossibility for me?  That I could never be
the person for her that…that I wanted to be?  I didn’t even know if she wanted
me to be anything to her.  She seemed to like me well enough, but I’d be damned
if I knew how to read how she treated me.  Girls were an enigma.