The Madness Project (The Madness Method)

by Bralick, J. Leigh

  Gein fumbled at his belt for his ring of keys.

  Yes, I thought. That’s right. Open the door.

  Finally he got the key in the lock and the door swung open, and the younger guard paced into the cell, his baton poised ready to strike.

  “Search that cell,” Gein said. “I’m going to check down the hall.”

  He turned and strode away, muttering under his breath, and I watched the younger guard creeping toward the back of the cell like he expected me to jump out in front of him.

  I waited until he turned away, and jumped out behind him.

  He never even saw me before my elbow slammed into the back of his head. He reeled away and crashed against the wall, then slumped to the ground in a heap. I let out all my breath. Now, to escape. I poked my head out into the corridor, but Gein had disappeared down the steps to the second level, so I took my chances and exchanged my prison grubs for the ginger guard’s uniform. For a few moments I sat on the edge of the cot, staring down at his face.

  I’d sworn, once, that I would never take a living man’s face. There seemed to be something so wrong about stealing a real identity; it felt like the worst theft imaginable. But necessity had its spurs to me. I had to take the chance. Just this once.

  “I’m sorry,” I murmured, as if it made any difference.

  And then I became the ginger guard. When my face matched his, I dragged his body behind the cot, where no one would see it until they came into the cell again. That should give me enough time to get free. My stomach twisted. There was a risk the other prisoners might remember seeing the ginger guard walk past, when he would claim he’d been knocked out in my cell the whole time. But it couldn’t be helped. Their testimony would make no difference, anyway.

  I slipped out of the cell, locking it behind me, and as I strode down the walkway, I tried to match the slightly ungainly way the guard moved. When Gein appeared coming up the steps again, I tried not to panic. Kept right on walking, setting my face in a furious scowl, while my heart raced like mad.

  “Nothing?” Gein asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, hoping I could mimic the guard’s voice for a few brief words.

  “I checked down to the second level. Can’t think where he’s gone. It’s just impossible.”

  “Bloody impossible,” I said. “I’ll alert the gate guards.”

  “Right. I’ll keep searching up here.”

  I pressed on past him, trying not to rush too quickly down the steps. On the lower level of the prison, I met a knot of guards on patrol, but they only nodded smartly to me as they passed me by. When I reached the prison entrance, I thought about walking straight out through the door without a word to anyone, but then I caught the gate guard’s eye and realized I would have to make some account for why I was walking out in the middle of my duty.

  “Put the prison on lockdown,” I said, stopping by his desk. “We think a prisoner might have escaped.”

  “Escaped? Is that even possible?” the guard asked.

  “That’s what I thought. I doubt he’s gotten far, but I’m going to check the yard to make sure he hasn’t made it outside. I’ll be back in a moment.”

  The guard nodded and turned away to crank the alarm. In a moment the siren wailed out into the prison, and I could hear the flurry of activity as the prison guards rushed to secure their floors. I turned and walked out the door.

  As soon as I’d gotten to the old roads around the palace, I shed the guard’s uniform jacket and pulled the suspenders off my shoulders, and stomped through as many mud puddles as I could find to muck up the boots and pants. I looked like a street rat, now, but it was the best I could do. I only hoped it wouldn’t be enough to get me arrested.

  Chapter 11 — Tarik

  I Masked to Shade once I got onto the streets, and headed straight for the Hole. When I arrived, I found the lads standing in a knot by the trough, deliberating with Derrin. Coins caught sight of me first and hollered at me, startling the others into silence.

  “Shade!” Derrin called, waving me toward them. “Did you get what you went for?”

  I drew in a sharp breath, because the adrenaline and panic of my prison break had made me forget, for the moment, about Zagger’s betrayal.

  “No,” I said. “Least, I got something else. They’re going to kill them. I don’t know how they’ll justify it, but they’re going to kill the mages.”

  “Shade,” Jig said, and something about the way he said it made me stop and turn to him. “They copped Hayli.”

  “What?”

  He moved aside a little, and I realized that Zip had been there the whole time, hiding in Jig’s shadow. His face was streaked with tears.

  “Zip,” I said. “What’s bothering?”

  “She gave herself up, Shade,” he whispered. “They wanted the mages so she said she was the mage. Think she was trying to get the slip for the rest of the folks, like maybe if they got her they’d leave us alone. And it div’n even work. Coppers took everyone. Mages, regular folks. I snuck out, though. They never even saw me.”

  I crouched down in front of him, clasping his arms. He knew more than that, I was certain, so I just held my tongue and waited for him to finish.

  “They drug ‘em all off to the Station. Heard ‘em say they were ganna bring in cattle cars for the beasts. There’s some kind of boffin-y place outside Brinmark, I guess. Think that’s where they’re headed.”

  I glanced up at Derrin.

  “This doesn’t concern you lot. You could get arrested or killed for coming with me. Stay here and try to get as many folks to safety as you can before those coppers come here.” I met Coins’s gaze. “Because if I know what Kantian has been up to lately, he ratted all of you out to the guards. They’ll be here soon. You lot had better not be.”

  “We’re not leaving you, right? You don’t have to do this all alone,” Coins said.

  I gritted my teeth and stood up, staring him straight in the eye. “I don’t want anyone else to die on account of me.”

  “Listen to him,” Derrin said. “We’ve all got jobs to do. Go get the skitters out of here.”

  “You didn’t send them off yet?” I asked, frowning.

  “Rivano and his lot are gone,” Derrin said, like I should have known better. “But this sounds like these guards make no account of who’s who. We just need to clear out the rest of the Hole rats.”

  “What about you?” Jig asked.

  “I’m going with Shade. Now scram.”

  “Here,” Jig said, tossing me the black bundle he’d been holding in his arms. “Figured you might want this back.”

  Zagger’s coat. I held it a moment, closing my eyes and trying to make sense of the impossibility of Zagger’s betrayal. It violated every rule of my reality. But given how my reality was fracturing all around, perhaps it shouldn’t have surprised me.

  Finally I sighed and pulled it on, while one by one the lads turned away, muttering to each other, but none of them had gotten more than a few steps from me when a voice behind me said,

  “Where do you lot think you’re going?”

  “Kantian,” I said, and faced him.

  He stared at me, face haggard as though he hadn’t slept in days. His suit hung from his shoulders in rumpled folds, and in his right hand he held a revolver close to his leg.

  “Why don’t you just give up?” I asked him. “Why are you still here?”

  “Why are you?” He smiled, swallowing a laugh. “They’re coming. Don’t you know that?”

  “I’m not surprised you do,” I said. “Since you told Dr. Kippler the location of the Clan. You sentenced them to death, do you realize that? They can’t fight back. Not against the weapons those guards have got. So, fine job you did.”

  “What is it with you, Shade?” he asked, shuffling forward a step. “Why get involved here in Cavnal? Why do you care about any of us?”

  “Because no one else will.”

  “Hah,” he cried. “I care. That’s what this is all a
bout! Couldn’t you tell?”

  I could sense the lads gathering behind me without even turning to look. The air around me hummed with tension.

  “No,” I said flatly. “All I could tell was that you have more ambition than sense.”

  He snorted. “And you speak far too well to be an Istian street rat.”

  I hadn’t planned on playing this card, but the retort was on my tongue before I could choke it back. “What makes you so sure I was ever a street rat?”

  Derrin shot me a strange glance, and I could hear Coins muttering under his breath. I just prayed he would keep his thoughts to himself, if he was as smart as I thought he might be and had put the pieces together. For a minute Kantian just stared at me, eyes narrowed, jaw tight.

  “Who are you, then?” he asked at last.

  “Someone who knows enough to see exactly what you’re doing, and just how terribly you’re about to fail.”

  He didn’t speak but his hand flashed up, pointing the revolver at me. I rolled my eyes and Pulled it from his hand, letting it clatter to the ground at my feet. Kantian stared at it, then me, eyes wide.

  “You know it’s too late,” he hissed. “Maybe you’re right and you’re all going to die. You should have cooperated with me when you had the chance. I’m going to win. This regime is primed to fall, and I’ll be the one to topple it. You can’t stop me.”

  I swept the revolver from the ground and aimed it straight at the shock on his face. Beside me Derrin shifted, but he didn’t move to stop me, and he didn’t say a word. My finger hovered over the trigger guard.

  “Do it!” Kantian cried, his face terribly pale. “It doesn’t matter. Everything is already in motion. Killing me won’t change anything.”

  I hesitated, then shifted my finger to rest against the cylinder. “I’d rather you live to see your failure,” I said, and tossed the gun aside. “Because you will fail.”

  I folded my hands into my pockets and strode past him, ignoring how he stared after me agog and speechless. But I’d barely gone ten feet when the air behind me shattered in a gunshot.

  I ducked instinctively and spun around, just in time to see Kantian crumple to the ground. And there he lay, still, dead pale, a shell where a moment ago there had been an enemy.

  Jig lowered the revolver slowly, his gaze meeting mine across Kantian’s body.

  “You killed him!” I cried. “Why the hell did you do that?”

  “He was a traitor,” Jig said, but the way his face was so frozen, so pale, I knew he couldn’t believe what he’d just done.

  Derrin pulled the gun from his fingers without a word and tucked it into his waistband. The other kids just stood and stared at Kantian, fixated by the blood pooling under his chest. Some of them stared at Jig.

  I held his gaze a moment longer, then turned and walked away. For all I tried, I couldn’t think of a single thing to say to him. Maybe he thought he’d done right, but he’d executed a man in cold blood. And though the thought made my stomach churn, somehow I wasn’t sure I thought he’d done wrong, and that confounded me more than anything.

  When I reached the gate I realized that Derrin was there on my heels, following me doggedly. The other lads had all vanished, even Jig. The voice in the back corner of my mind hoped that he would forgive himself, because I knew how dangerous a person could be without that forgiveness.

  “What’re you doing, Derrin?” I asked, stopping at the gate to look at him.

  He shrugged. “Coming with you.”

  “Look, I told you, this isn’t your fight. Go with them. They need you right now. Especially Jig.”

  “Jig needs to cool down.”

  “He needs someone to stand by him while he does,” I said. “And I can’t be that person for him right now.”

  “Coins and Anuk are with him,” Derrin said, folding his arms.

  “He just killed a man,” I snapped. “He just killed the man who’s been watching over him and leading him for years now. He needs more than Coins and Anuk. He needs you.”

  I reached out to shove him away, but I’d barely touched him when a surge of static chased up my arm. I jerked my hand back.

  “What the hell?” I rubbed my palm with my other hand, staring at him, stunned. “Derrin, you?”

  Derrin didn’t move or glance away, but he winced as if I’d physically pained him. “It is my fight,” he said softly.

  “You’re a mage! But how in blazes did you keep that a secret from everyone?”

  Keeping it a secret in the Court was one thing, but here on the street, when anyone could be a mage of one sort or another? That was impressive.

  “It’s not terribly hard when you act aloof,” he said, frowning. “Keeping your distance. But I expect you understand that. I’m just not sure I know why.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Don’t be daft, Shade. I’ve seen how you look at Hayli. Hell, I’ve seen how she looks at you. But I’ve also seen how you never touch her. I know you want to. You’ve got to be stronger than most lads, I expect, to keep your distance as you do. I’m just trying to figure out why you’ve bothered.”

  “I’ve got reasons,” I said, my face foolishly hot. “But Derrin. Does Rivano know you’re a mage?”

  “Why do you think I’ve been working for him? But everyone in the Hole had to believe I was ordinary, or I’d never have been able to get close to Kantian, to see what he was up to. Fat lot of good that did, in the end,” he said, with a pointed glance at Kantian’s body.

  I let out a breath and strode through the gate, waving him along with me. A moment later I heard his steps chasing me down.

  “All right, so, you’re a mage,” I said as we walked. “But that was a pretty strong charge. What’s your gift?”

  “Wasn’t anywhere near as strong as the shock you gave me, I’m sure. What are you, Shade?”

  I flicked a glance at him, amused because he wouldn’t answer me, and because I wasn’t about to answer him. He met my gaze and nodded.

  “Fair enough,” he muttered. “So, what are you planning on doing? We can’t just march into Brinmark Station and attack all the coppers and guards they’ve got.”

  “Making it up as I go,” I said.

  Derrin gave me dangerous glare. I knew he didn’t like walking in blind, but I hadn’t asked him to come with me. If he wanted to stick around, he would have to do things my way.

  “Look,” I said. “All I know is I’ve got to find Hayli.”

  “Whatever secret you’re keeping from her, you should just tell her.”

  I snorted. “If only it were that simple.”

  “Why can’t it be?” he asked. “Why does it have to be complicated?”

  “Because it isn’t about me,” I said. I sighed and added, “Sometimes you have to accept that you’ll lose so that others can live.”

  He shook his head, his breath hissing out, smoking on the cold air. The street was eerily empty, even more than usual. A deadness hung around us, waiting, watching. I half expected coppers to come spilling out of the surrounding buildings at any moment, but they never did. All alone and silent we walked, hearing nothing but the sound of our boots on the street cobbles and the harsh jarring of a flock of rooks in a nearby tree.

  But nothing could have prepared me for what we found when we got closer to the Station. The whole place swarmed with police and guards in uniforms I’d never seen before, and temporary fences had apparently gone up overnight to corral the crowds of south-streeters. Even as we watched, a long police wagon drew up and spilled some twenty more people onto the street, only to be rounded up and herded into the nearest enclosure.

  “Good God,” I said, stopping where I was. “Look—those people with the cuffs, those are probably mages. But what about the rest of these folk? They’re rounding up everyone. Everyone from the south streets, not just the mages.”

  “This is madness,” Derrin hissed. “Doesn’t anyone know what’s going on here?”

  I hesitated. For a momen
t I contemplated rushing back to the palace and demanding to see the King, but I knew what would happen if I did. If I returned as Tarik, the palace guards would arrest me again. If I returned as Shade, they would shoot on sight. Using my gifts I could probably evade capture for a time, but I couldn’t fight and try to seek diplomacy at the same time. And even if I did manage to get an audience with Trabin, by the time I finished Hayli might be gone…or dead.

  “Come on,” I said.

  “Shade, hang on. As soon as we get close, they’re going to bag us. We’ve got to be smart about this.”

  I met his gaze. “Well,” I said. “You’re assuming I don’t want to get bagged.”

  “You’re grobbing insane,” he said. “What good can we do from inside those fences?”

  “A lot more than I can do from out here. Stay if you like.”

  Without waiting for his answer, I turned and strode straight for the barricades, a knot in the pit of my stomach as I considered how these coppers might be primed to shoot me on sight too. I considered changing my face to get inside, but before I could make up my mind, I caught sight of a familiar figure moving through the crowds.

  Kor.

  I stopped where I was, feeling sick—not just because of him, but for him. When I’d first met him, I would never have recognized the pain in his eyes, but now, even from my distance I could see it in his face and the way he moved.

  He left a knot of prisoners, wiping his hands again and again on the front of his coat, and just as he passed in front of the barricade, he turned and caught sight of us standing there. His hands dropped to his sides, and all the color bled from his face. I could see his lips part, and I knew the word he breathed: No.

  “Look smart!” one of the coppers called, and suddenly we had five rifles trained on us from behind the barricade. “It’s the Zealot!”

  Zealot? I thought. I’m not a zealot.

  “Ready!” cried a man in a sergeant’s uniform.

  Not my sergeant. I swallowed the bitter grief and held up my hands.

  “Wait!” Kor shouted, striding toward them and shoving one of the rifles aside. “Bring that one in. His Majesty has other plans for him than a bullet.”