The Madness Project (The Madness Method)

by Bralick, J. Leigh

  I remembered how, when I first arrived, not a single skitter in the group had been older than about thirteen. That was Derrin, the oldest. He still ruled the roost. Then Jig and Anuk and Red a couple years younger than him, and Gem, Kite and Coins who were all a year older than me. Vim and Link had showed up the same year as me, and now I thought about it, no kids older than us had ever joined up after. All the new recruits seemed to come straight from the foundling house. Most were about seven years old like I’d been when I finally joined up, like that kid Whip who cowered close behind me now.

  Maybe that’s why Derrin didn’t even think twice about accepting Shade. He didn’t fit the mold.

  The last few skitters straggled into the mess, grabbing plates of food and squeezing onto the benches. I went more slowly, because it didn’t matter. Nobody would shove over for me anyway.

  “Hayli!” Pika called, seeing me standing with my plate by the wall.

  She sat on the edge of her bench, but she waved me over anyway. I smiled. Of course, Pika would try.

  “There’s no room, Pika,” Red said, spreading his elbows out. “Only room if you’ve earned it.” He shot me a nasty look. “Gan away and stand with Jig. You’re both in the crab trap anyway.”

  I scanned the wall and spotted Jig sulking at the back of the room. His face almost blended with the wall behind him, he was that pale—all but the start of a bruise blossoming under his eye and a swollen red lip. He had his arms all wrapped up around himself like he’d fall apart otherwise. I winced, wondering what kind of trouble he’d got into. Me and Jig didn’t always get on, but I didn’t like seeing him hurt.

  He met my gaze briefly and looked away, dark and angry and about as inviting as a viper pit. I didn’t have time to make up my mind about talking to him, though, because just then Derrin walked into the mess. Some of the skitters stopped talking, sending a hush over the group, and everybody just goggled at his bloody knuckles as he claimed a plate of food. No one said a word to him, though. You knew better than to ask him stupid questions when he looked like that.

  Soon as he’d got his food, he tracked straight toward me. Some of the lads muttered smart comments about how I was sure to get whupped on account of Shade. I swallowed and pretended not to see him, but I couldn’t ignore him when he stopped right in front of me.

  “Finish up, Hayli,” he said. “Kantian wants a word.”

  Red smirked, the way that always made his fine face turn a mite ugly. “Now you’ve done it.”

  “Red, I’ll have a word with you if you keep it up,” Derrin said, so dead calm that Red got terribly pale and everyone else got terribly quiet.

  I caught Anuk’s gaze and thought he seemed almost concerned, which got me feeling a bit odd, but I just shoveled in the rest of my taters quick as I could and escaped before anyone else could volunteer more nasty remarks. Derrin followed me, to my surprise, but he didn’t say a word the whole way except to tell me that I’d find Kantian in his quarters.

  When I got there, Kantian was thumbing through some papers—wanted notices from the looks. He didn’t even glance up at me.

  “You wanted to see me, Boss?” I asked.

  “Heard rumor you were trying to do a bit of recruiting,” he said. “Is that true?”

  I shot an anxious glance at Derrin, but he just shook his head, ever so slightly. I gritted my teeth. What was that even supposed to mean?

  “I met a mage,” I said. “Thought he might be useful.”

  “Useful…?” He glanced up at me finally, arching a brow. “I thought Rivano already knew all the mages in the city, and had recruited the ones who would listen.”

  “Except Shade’s not from Brinmark. He’s from Istia.”

  Both brows shot up at that. “Really. Is he a powerful mage? Who are his family?”

  “That div’n quite come up.” I bit my lip and added, “He got turned away.”

  Kantian chuckled, coming over to stand in front of me. “I’m not surprised. Well, little Moth, how is your Shifting coming?”

  “A’right, I suppose.” I shuffled my feet. “I Shifted by accident the other night. Thought I saw someone looking at me, but that’s all I really remember.”

  “By accident, you say? How peculiar.”

  I blushed, but didn’t tell him what I’d told Rivano.

  “Listen,” Kantian said. “I’m interested in this Shade character. I want to know why he’s here. What he’s looking for. Can we trust him? Is he working for anyone? I want you to track him down and find out what you can, and bring me any information you can get.” He took my chin, sending a flash of cold down my back. “Understood?”

  “Should we let him stay here?” I asked.

  “That’s up to Derrin,” he said, surprising me. “Now scram.”

  I followed Derrin out into the barracks, still muddling over what Kantian had said—and how he hadn’t whupped me—when Derrin stopped and turned to me.

  “Did you get those boots to your friend?” he asked.

  I swallowed. He had a knowing kind of light in his eye, the sort that made me think twice about lying.

  “He got them,” I said.

  “Lucky you didn’t have to hunt too far for him.” I scowled and he said, “Come on, Hayli. I know he was still here. He had those boots on when Jig just about killed him out in the enclosure.”

  “Jig did what?” My face burned, prickling with little angry flames. “That—”

  Derrin held up his hands. “Calm down. He’s been dealt with.”

  I stared at his knuckles, and thought of the purple bruise framing Jig’s eye. “I see,” I said.

  Derrin baffled me sometimes. He had tried to protect Jig from Kantian’s punishments, but now he’d gone and walloped him hard for picking an unfair fight with Shade. I reckoned he lived by some kind of code of justice. I just hadn’t quite figured it out yet.

  “Don’t think Jig’s too keen on Shade,” Derrin remarked, studying me.

  “Who is?” I asked, sullen. “Guess it’s a good thing you drove him off. I’m sure Jig thanks you.”

  Derrin didn’t react, not that I’d expected him to. He just gave me a long look and walked away.

  A few steps later he stopped, but didn’t turn around. “I gave him a job,” he said.

  And then he was gone.

  I stared after him, the voice spooked clean out of me. I couldn’t even holler to call him back. He gave Shade a job? I couldn’t get a job out of Derrin no matter what I did, even though he’d said he would take me on and train me.

  I was still standing there frozen and fish-mouthed when Pika popped up beside me, her red hair all in a tangle and hanging in her eyes.

  “You jake, Hayli? Kantian div’n wallop you, did he?”

  “No,” I said. I scowled down at her, resting my hands on my hips. “Pika! What’d Shade ever do to you? Why’d you gan ganging up on him with Jig and Vim? He’s my friend.”

  “He ain’t your friend,” Pika said, hands on hips—my little mimic.

  “Well,” I sputtered, because I supposed she was right about that. “He’s sure not my enemy.”

  “That still dan’ make him a friend.”

  Before I could think of a retort to that, I caught a goggle of Link sitting at his cot, nursing a scraped elbow. I narrowed my eyes and stormed past Pika, and without even thinking I threw myself into him. We both crashed onto the cot, and then I was up on the bed with my knee on his chest and both hands balled up in knots.

  “Hey!” he cried, staring up at me all egg-eyed and flushed. “What gives, Hayli?”

  “Were you there? Helping Jig ‘cause Jig’s not man enough to take on Shade alone? Is that what happened?”

  Vim chuckled from somewhere behind me, then popped into view, leaning against the stone pillar. “Not interrupting, am I? I had no idea—”

  “Shut it, Vim, or you’re next!” I hissed.

  “Whenever you’re ready,” he said with a slow smile.

  My face caught fire, and I sn
apped. I dug my knee into Link’s chest as I climbed over him, and, standing on the bed like a mad thing, I punched Vim hard as I could in the face. Pain shattered through my arm, and before I could shut my mouth I yelped in surprise. Vim reeled back, holding his jaw and laughing.

  “What’s so—ow!” I clutched my hand to my chest. “You boys do that for fun?”

  Link picked himself off the bed, joining his brother’s laughter. My cheeks burned redder than ever as I climbed down from the cot.

  “Sorry, Hayli,” Vim said, the voice muffled behind his hand. “I was just slagging you.”

  Vim apologized…?

  “Well, it wasn’t funny.”

  Link snorted. “You should’ve seen your face.”

  I spun on him. “You! I’m not finished with you!”

  “Oh, come off it, Li. We just taught him a little lesson. No harm done.”

  “Jig’s face says otherwise.”

  “I’d wager it does,” he said, smirking. “He’s been skulking like a cat since Derrin took him out back.” The smile faded and he said, “Listen, I dan’ got much against Shade. He fights a’right. Takes a punch without whining. But. He’s not one of us.”

  “Maybe he could be if you lot div’n keep driving him off,” I said, marking the last word by shoving him in the chest.

  I stalked back to my own cot, my little haven, ignoring Pika staring after me like I’d sprouted wings. I curled up on the thin mattress and tugged my curtain round, trying to block out the noise and chatter and all the light. But I couldn’t sleep. I kept worrying about Shade, worrying what Jig and Link had done to him. Maybe he was too hurt to find shelter. Maybe he’d never left at all, but had pulled his hiding trick and was waiting till we all went to sleep so he could come in and kill us all, because maybe Derrin was right and Shade had it in for all of us and…

  Maybe…

  I sat up and brushed hair out of my eyes. I must have drifted off at some point, because no light seeped from the gas lamps now and I couldn’t see a thing. My back itched something fierce, all up and down the knobbly bones, till I figured maybe it was the prickly straw poking through the bed sheet. I stretched and my fingertips twitched like they wanted to turn feathered. To fly…to fly…

  Flyawayflyawayflyaway…

  It burned like hunger, that yearning to fly. I slipped under my curtain quiet as I could and cleared out of the Hole to stand under the dark wet sky. My skin prickled and my eyes focused, unfocused, focused. My heart pattered a wild fast beat, wild as a bird’s…and the world gleamed in black and glowing color.

  The rain turns the world violet. Wind lifts me, lowers me, guides me through the currents of warmth and cold. I stretch my wings, finding balance, finding peace. The city spreads below, dull and dark, threaded with glimmering light shining off the wet streets. From my height humans are no more than insects, bundles of coats and hats trundling snail-like through the storm. Lightning dances above me, glaring with the brightness of a hundred suns. I blink and swerve. The after-image of the flash makes a tangle of the world below. A gust of wind buffets me. Still blinded, I thrash. My wings lose their grasp of the air, beating at emptiness as I spin toward the earth.

  The ground screams toward me.

  I can see the broken cracks of pavement when I catch a draft, and drift to safety on a porch rail. Rust, wet and cold and sharp, scrapes the soft skin under my toes. I announce to the world that I have landed, and call it out again when no one listens. No one but the boy in the rain, who huddles under an awning and watches me like he knows me. The white lines around his eye shine ghost-like, their edges blurring into a violet glow. He moves—he will capture me. I cry a warning and jump back, my claws scraping flecks of rust from the rail. For a moment we watch each other, waiting, calculating. Then he slumps back. I have conquered. I have won.

  The wind stirs my feathers, and I take to the air.

  Chapter 7 — Tarik

  “Hey, mister!”

  I snapped awake, one hand instinctively shielding my bruised side. For a moment I couldn’t see anything at all, but then, as my eyes adjusted to the night, I saw a small silhouette crouched beside me, gapped teeth flashing in the light from a distant streetlamp.

  “Zip?”

  “Yup,” he said. “You’re ganna get sick as a dog out here, mister.”

  I straightened my cramped limbs and dashed rainwater from my face. I must have drifted to sleep after I’d seen the bird—the strange crow that reminded me so much of Hayli.

  Could it have been her? I wondered. Could she have found me?

  I shook my head and flexed my hands. My arms were numb, and my head felt as if a train had run shot over it, twice. The pain made my stomach churn. I bit my lip, desperate to fight off the nausea.

  “You got in a fight with the Meats, div’n you?” Zip breathed, his face close to mine as he peered at me. “You look bad. But they div’n kill you!”

  “They won’t bother me again,” I muttered, and hoped it was true.

  Zip whistled through the gap in his teeth. “You better come with me. Yup. My Pop wants to say thanks anyhow.”

  He grabbed my arm and tugged, so insistent that I gave up without more than a groan of complaint. I followed him blindly through the alleys and rutted streets, until we reached a ramshackle brick building with shattered windows and a lone broken fire ladder. I frowned. It had only been a few decades since my grandfather had mandated the use of fire escapes. I couldn’t imagine they’d existed long enough to fall into rust and ruin.

  For a few moments I stood staring up at the building, musing. It captured everything I’d ever imagined about South Brinmark. At one time I’d decided my mental image had to be an exaggeration, fueled by high society’s smug disdain and vicious rumors. I’d thought no buildings could actually look that bad. Not in my city.

  My city.

  I laughed at myself as I thought it, as I stood in the rain like a beggar or a thief.

  “C’mon!” Zip said, and pulled on my arm again.

  He had his other hand on the front door, his little palm half-covering a painted circle with one line slashed through it. The rest of the door had been covered with layers and layers of paint, until it was impossible to tell what the original designs had been. I expected the door to creak and groan as he opened it, but it swung in silently.

  I started to step forward until I realized Zip hadn’t budged.

  “It’s me!” he said. Then, straightening up like a little soldier, he shouted, “Zip, reporting in!”

  “Pass?” a young voice called from the darkness.

  “Mud! And…straw.”

  “Straw?” A pause. I heard a murmur from the shadows, then the voice called, “A’right. Bring ‘em in.”

  A torch flicked on in the darkness, flaring into my eyes as I stepped inside. A pair of hands gripped my arms, rough and uncompromising.

  “What is this?” I cried, trying to twist free.

  “It’s jake!” Zip said, anxious. “They do this to everyone. Just wait!”

  My captors shoved me forward, and I stumbled on a broken floorboard, dizzy suddenly. Winced as they jerked up on my arms to keep me upright. We headed up a dusty staircase and down a hall into the interior of the building, where the only light gleamed in a thin line from beneath a door up ahead. The interior room made sense—no windows meant that no signs of life would be visible to the street below.

  Zip pushed open the door and I blinked a few times. A mixture of gas and candle light, strangely bright, lit up the faces of a handful of people inside the narrow room. One kid about my age perched on a wooden desk, staring at me through a fringe of pale hair. An older man wearing a once-nice suit and a woman in a ratty wool coat sat in threadbare chairs near a cold fireplace, and Zip’s father stretched on the remains of a couch by the far wall.

  I jerked my arms free of my captors’ grip and turned to glare at them. They looked rather like twins, both bearded and shaggy-haired and somewhere in their thirties. I fixed the
m each with a stare and tugged my shirt straight, and then shifted back to face the others.

  Zip rushed over to his father, plopping down on the couch by the man’s knees. “Pop! ‘Member the mage who sent his trompers to you? That’s him!”

  All the eyes that had been studying me idly before suddenly snapped to fierce focus on my face—curious, cautious. The suit stood up from his chair and circled around to stand in front of me. For a few seconds he just surveyed me quietly, head to toe. I took the chance to do the same. He had a hardness about him, not cruel but cold and calculating. His head was bald as Kor’s, his skin pocked and uneven, blue eyes sharp as glass. He didn’t stand much taller than me, and I had a fair notion I could beat him in a fistfight, but he carried a submachine gun he must have nabbed from one of my policemen (my policemen). The barrel balanced on his shoulder, a silent threat.

  “Who’re you?” he asked. He had a thick accent, eastern, maybe Ceruvay. “What’s your intent in being here?”

  “I brought him,” Zip said, popping up from the couch and planting his fists on his hips. For such a tiny thing, he had no fear at all. “He beat up the Meats, and I found him in the rain.”

  “Beat up the Meats, did you?” He squinted at me, his gaze drifting over my swollen lip to what I imagined was a gruesome black-and-blue eye. “What for?”

  “We didn’t agree,” I said.

  The kid sitting on the desk smirked. “Tell me you got a good punch in on Jig,” he said.

  I couldn’t resist a grin. “Oh yes.”

  “I like this one,” he laughed. “Can we keep him?”

  “Shut it, Tam,” the older man said. “Let me get a look at him.”

  I didn’t fidget, even though he’d been getting a look at me for what felt like ages already. He tapped the barrel of his gun on his shoulder.

  “We don’t take in strays,” he said, pondering the words as they came out.

  “Not asking for any favors. Just want a place to stay dry for the night.”