The Madness Project (The Madness Method) (60 page)

Some time while I was out Jig and Anuk had got back to our
meeting spot, and somehow Coins got Jig to stay put until the dust settled back
by the mill.  Anuk he sent home to the Hole, because he’d wrenched his knee
back at the mill and was limping too bad to do anyone any good.  Soon as the
last coppers drove off in their black coaches, Jig and Coins were off like a
shot, barely waiting for me to limp along behind them.

We split up around the riverside, combing the streets and
circling our way slowly outward.  I picked east as my direction, because if I
knew Shade at all, I knew he would try to lead the coppers as far from the Hole
as he could.  For ages I wove in and out of alleys, peering through the growing
gloom and the mist that curtained the city, my heart racing with fear.  The
crow kept urging me to let her take over the hunt, because she could see
everything so much clearer than me, but I wouldn’t let her.  I wanted to find
Shade for myself.

I can sense him,
she said, sounding smug.

I drew up, breathless, and tuned all my senses to the
street.

Sense him?
I asked her. 
How?

I taste the scent of him on the wind.  His energy is
everywhere around us.  He’s close.  Keep going.

I swallowed hard and pushed forward, but soon as I rounded
the next corner I stopped dead.  The world reeled.  I couldn’t think, couldn’t
move.  Just stood and stared at Shade, lying face down in the street.

“Oh God,” I gasped. 

OhGodOhGodOhGod

He tried to pick himself up.  His hand slipped in the pool
of blood under him, blood that streamed like a flood from the gash that split
him from shoulder to wrist.  He lifted his head, or tried to.  It rolled to the
side and dropped back to the pavement.

“Help.”  His voice rasped through the rain, so quiet I could
hardly hear him.  “Get help.”

I froze.  All I wanted was to run to him, to try to bandage
him up…but I knew better.  There was too much wound.  Too much blood.  I
couldn’t do aught for him.  I didn’t know anyone who could except…

Rivano’s Blood.  I had to find the Blood.

“Dan’ move,” I said.

He gave a little cough that I realized was a laugh.  Then,
because I couldn’t just leave him like that, couldn’t leave him to bleed out in
the street, I ran to his side, but he didn’t move.  He didn’t look up and glare
at me, or tell me to stay away.  He just lay there, pale and bloody, white and
red as the Istian flag.

“Shade?” I whispered.

Nothing.

“
SHADE!
”

I dropped to my knees beside him, his blood soaking my
trousers.  I reached out, hesitant, biting my lip, and laid my hand on his
back.  My heart ricocheted around my chest.  Some little pulse of life warmed
under my fingers, the hum of the earth and the clouds in a storm, but already I
could feel it slipping away…

“Shade, dan’ you dare!” I shouted.

I staggered to my feet.  No way I could run all the way back
to the Hole, not fast enough to save him.  I bit my lip, and closed my eyes,
and stretched my arms to the wind.

I am weak, bruised, and my wings don’t want to
cooperate.  But they must, because below me I see Shade lying still in a pool
of black.  Everything about him is dark, and fading…but the glow of his tattoo,
and the trail of a tear on his cheek.  I see it all in one glance, then turn
and catch the wind.  I have somewhere I must go.  Something to find. 

What am I looking for?

My heart patters faster.  I know it is important.  I
know…I know I cannot fail.

I fly, and fly, and let the wind carry me and the rain
dance over me.  To escape, to escape…to fly away…free of the city, free of the
darkness…

But suddenly I slow, and check my flight, because I
remember Shade, lying in the rain.  How long ago did I see him?  How long have
I been flying?

Perhaps he is already dead.

My heart stutters, and suddenly I remember.

I love him.

“Hayli!”

I winced and tried to focus, while the ground rocked under
my feet.  Anuk had a grip on me, shaking me gently to wake me up.  It took me a
good long second to get my bearings.  Broken pavement under me, greasy light
soaking me, the Hole’s door standing wide open, waiting for me.

“Hayli,” Anuk said again, his hand fierce on my arm.  “You
all right?  The crow…she looked a bit hurt.”

My mind snapped to attention.

“I need the Blood!” I hollered, stumbling to my feet and
shoving past him.

“You need blood?”

I could hear Anuk’s heavy, uneven steps as he limped after
me.

“Rivano’s Blood.  God, Shade’s…Shade’s…he must’ve got hurt
at the riot…”

All that blood.  I kept seeing his hand in the sticky thick
mess of it, slipping under his weight.  Blood pouring down his arm…

Anuk wrapped an arm around my shoulders and turned down the
hall that led to the Clan’s wing.  I’d only come this far into the Hole one
time.  It was cleaner here than our side, and much, much brighter.  The
brightness startled me, even though I’d seen it plenty of times from a
distance.  There wasn’t a single gas lamp anywhere, but the hall was just
bright like the sun was shining in it.  It had to be magic.  Nothing else would
have explained it.  With all the snaky side passages, the hall felt like a
maze, but Anuk seemed to know just where to go.

“Doc!” he shouted.  “Doc, need you now!”

A door opened farther down the hall, and a spirit stepped
out in front of us.  At least, he looked like a spirit.  A shiver ran all the
way through me when I saw him.  He had long silver-white hair—even longer than
Kite’s—and the palest skin I’d ever seen, but he couldn’t have been more than
about thirty.

“Where is he?” he asked, moving toward us.  Didn’t even need
to ask what we wanted.

They both looked at me for an answer, but I just goggled at
them and swallowed, hard.  Pika knew the streets, not me.  I didn’t know any of
their names. 

“It’s east past the mill, maybe three or four streets out. 
It’s the street where the flock of pigeons always roost,” I whispered.  “The
one with the white pigeon…It’s all white.  It’s…” 

I sank down against the wall, hugging my knees, because I
knew I’d failed.  Come all this way, and I couldn’t even send help to Shade,
because all I could remember was a stupid white pigeon.

But Anuk snapped his fingers.  “I’ve seen that bird!  Nests
down on Greave Street, round by Tannery.”

That sounded vaguely familiar.  I gave a shuddering sigh and
nodded.

“Stay here,” Anuk said.  “You’re exhausted.  Doc and I will
find him.”

“But you’re hurt!” I protested.  “It’s so far…”

“Doc’ll fix me up.  Right, Doc?”

Doc nodded without a word, kneeling and taking Anuk’s ankle
in his hands.  He closed his eyes, and his skin got a clearish kind of look to
it, then he stood up all at once  and strode off down the hall.

“That’s it?” I asked.

Anuk rotated his ankle and nodded.  “It’ll do.”

“Hurry,” I said.

They took off running.  I bent my head, staring at my
hands.  I’d planted one of them straight in the pool of Shade’s blood.  It
looked painted, it was that red.  The other gleamed pale in that strange magic
light, clean and smooth.

It felt like hours had passed when I suddenly heard voices drifting
down the hall toward me.  I braced myself, waiting, expecting to see them
carrying Shade’s dead body back to me.  But then they rounded the corner and my
jaw fell open, because Shade walked all on his own between Anuk and the Blood. 
He still looked pale as glass, but I couldn’t see any mark on his arm.  No sign
that he’d been on the edge of death, except that blood had stained his white
shirt red.

They walked fast.  I couldn’t understand why they all looked
so tense, so alarmed.  Doc had healed him, hadn’t he?  That had to be something
to be happy about.

Shade flicked a glance at me as he passed me, but his face
was carefully neutral as always.  Didn’t he know how close he’d come to dying? 
Didn’t he remember that I’d been there?

I stared after them as they disappeared through the double
doors at the end of the hall, wondering where they were going.

A minute and I couldn’t bridle my curiosity, so I crept down
the corridor after them, crouching below the level of the glass windows.  The
doors didn’t shut very securely, and I got a good drift of their talk as I got
closer. 

“What’s this about?”

That was Derrin—but what was he doing here, deep in the
Clan’s turf?  Coins had told me once he wasn’t sure Derrin really worked for
Kantian.  Maybe he was right…

“Tell him,” Anuk said.

“Tell him what?” Shade cried, fear or fury in his voice. 
“I’ve got nothing to tell.”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Doc said, so soft and
lilting I almost couldn’t hear him.

“Would one of you please explain?” Derrin asked.

I held my breath.

“He healed himself,” Doc murmured.

What?

“How do you know?” Derrin asked.

“What—” Shade started.

“Hayli came to get us, because Shade had been injured.  We
got there, but as you see—Shade’s fine.”

I pressed my eye to the crack between the doors.  They stood
in a wide room, all dark paneled and lit with that weird blue light, out of
place among the Hole’s cement walls and gas lamps.  Derrin faced me, arms
crossed as he stared at Shade. 

“You’re sure Hayli wasn’t mistaken?” he asked.

“Not possible,” Doc said.  “She had enough blood on her—and
there was enough blood where we found him—to prove it.”

Derrin studied Shade a moment, frowning.  “You’re a Mask.”

I bit my lip.  If Shade had really healed himself, and if
he’d moved objects he wasn’t even touching…that meant he had four gifts. 
Four.  I didn’t even know that that was possible.  I just kept remembering what
Rivano had said about Aces, and the danger of so many gifts… And Aces only had
three.

“Yes,” Shade said.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

Shade folded his arms around himself, shoulders hunched.  It
was the first time I’d ever seen him look uncertain.

“Sorry,” he said.  “I’m just a Mask.  I played a mean trick
on Hayli, that’s all.  She thought it was real.  Don’t blame her.”

Derrin dropped his arms and turned away, swearing.  Doc had
a keen gaze fixed on Shade.  I hadn’t noticed before, but he had the uncanniest
eyes I’d ever seen.  Pale and translucent as green glass, sunk deep in his pale
skin, half-hidden by the streaks of long white hair that drifted over his
face.  He had them a bit narrowed now, sharp and disbelieving. 

Me, I was shaking with rage and confusion.  That couldn’t be
the truth, could it?  He hadn’t been playing a trick.  My mind flitted back to
the sight of his arm, the edges of the wound gaping so wide I could have laid
my fingers inside it.  I swallowed the bitterness in my throat.  Remembered his
hand, slipping in the blood.  Remembered the feel of his life, slipping away.

He was lying.  Oh stars, I knew he was lying.  I just
couldn’t figure why.

“This is nonsense,” Derrin said.

Shade shifted aside, and I imagined the shame that must be
written on his face.  But then he turned to glance at Derrin, and all I saw was
that cold indifference that he wore like a mask.

“Can I go now?”

“Yes,” Derrin said.  “Get out of here.”

I scrambled back from the door, running doubled-over back to
where I’d been sitting before.  I’d barely made myself look innocent when the
doors swung open and the three of them came spilling out into the hall.  Anuk
just met my gaze and strode right on past me, but Doc stopped outside his door
and grabbed Shade’s arm. 

I couldn’t hear a word they said, but I watched, curious, as
Shade listened intently to whatever Doc told him.  He didn’t flinch away from
him, but then, he only ever flinched away from me.  Doc seemed positively
excited, shaking Shade’s arm every few seconds as he tried to make some point. 
And still Shade just stood, watching him quietly, never even reacting. 

After a moment I realized Doc wasn’t excited.  He had a look
like terror or desperation on his face, like he was begging Shade about
something.  When he fell silent, finally, Shade turned his head aside,
murmuring something I couldn’t hear.  Doc stared at him a long moment, then he
threw his hands in the air and retreated into his room, slamming the door
behind him.

Shade shoved his hands in his pockets and swung toward us. 
I wanted to shake him myself, because for all Doc’s frenzy, he didn’t seem the
least bit unnerved.  It drove me crazy.

“Shade!” I called, willing him to come faster.

He glanced toward me under his lashes, almost bashful. 

“You fibbed him?” I asked, soon as he got close.

He grinned at me, a warm, honest grin that I didn’t expect
at all.  I blushed like a silly thing and clenched my hand to keep from
smacking him.

“Thought you might be listening,” he said.  He rubbed his
jaw and contemplated the blood on his shirt.  “Sorry, Hayli.”

“For what?  I know you weren’t pretending.  I thought…”

My voice clammed up on me, burning my throat with tears.

“I wasn’t pretending.”  He kicked his heel against his other
toe, chewing the inside of his cheek.  “Thanks for going for help.”

“What happened?”

He studied me a long while, so long that I could feel my
blush turn to fire.  Curse him.  He always knew how to unwind me.

“I don’t know,” he said.  “Wish I did.”  He shrugged
abruptly, the bewildered grief vanishing all in an instant, and backed a step
away from me.  “Well, that’s that.  Later, Hayli.”

He tipped his fingers to his temple and moved past me.

“Shade,
wait!
  Dan’ walk away.  Not this time.”