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"One of the Five. There's no English word – no Earth word – which fits what they call thefour who support the Core, so they use North, South, East and West. The four quarters. The South and the North are watchingtogether," she added to Fisher, who paused, frowning, then briskly resumedhis taping efforts.
"We'll need greater numbers before we go up, then,"he said. "But first the leechBlues. Any obstacles?"
"One guard, at the begi
"I'm not sure how many of these I can do in a row,"she said, as she knelt over the fallen Blue. "I'll be okay for a handful more, but..."
"No, you need to rest for when we go for Noi. With this third freed Blue, we can safelytake all but the strongest without you, and punching duty can pass on to eachnew Blue to limit exhaustion."
"Have you posted how to free people?" Sarah askedfrom the door. "We need to getsomething out there, tell the world how to do this."
"Is right..." The man lying on the floor beside Madeleine groaned, then tried to leverhimself too quickly upright. "Can'tdelay–!"
"We'll prepare a time-delayed post after we have theleech Blues," Fisher said shortly. "Failure insurance. But wecan't go public yet. Not everything's inplace."
He too was thinking in terms of dominos. Of course he would, following the memory ofThéoden's plans, and that idea started to bring too much to the surface, soMadeleine turned to help the newly freed Blue to his feet. He wobbled unsteadily, told her to call himKiwi Joe, then gathered her up in a huge hug. Since he was a big, solidly built man, this was more than a littleoverwhelming, but then he, like Sarah, took himself in hand, producing the keysto the makeshift prisons, asking Fisher questions about what next.
They shared out keys, unlocked the screens, and thenMadeleine jumped back with a stifled squeak as Nash ca
"Not possessed!" she said hastily, but he'd alreadyworked that out, probably because Moths weren't given to squeaking.
"The others–?" he asked.
"Soon," Madeleine said, but suddenly Nash wasn'tlooking at her, was staring past her down the hall, the tense determinationvanishing from his face, replaced by stu
"Leina?"
Madeleine had known, had seen him on the monitors, but stillthat husky, once-familiar voice broke something in her, and she whirled andflung herself into a startled Tyler's arms.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Tyler's soothing, barely audible hum took Madeleine back tothe summer when she was five, an inconstant moon in Tyler's orbit as hestrolled the back pastures of a neighbouring farm. She would dart off to follow a butterfly,examine a flower, bring back a seed pod to offer him. At twelve he had seemed impossibly tall anddistant, holding his sun hat against the wind. But when there were nettles, scrapes, bruised knees, he would drop downto her height, open his arms, and hum just as he did now as he gave her a tinysqueeze.
"Are you rescuing me, or am I rescuing you?" heasked, as completely self-possessed as Tyler always managed to be.
"Both?" Madeleine gave a shaky little laugh and made herself let him go. "I think it's supposed to be more we'remustering forces to save the world."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Another of the leech Blues stepped forward, ashort, ivory-ski
"Let's not discuss this in a corridor," Fishersaid, and herded them back to the security room, where they could talk whilekeeping an eye on the monitors – and the Greens who had inched across the floorand were trying to lever themselves in reach of a desk phone. The question of Greens bothered Madeleineimmensely, since there wasn't a Moth to remove to make them themselves again.
Ten people and a jellyfish corpse made for an extremelycrowded room. Madeleine and Tyler tuckedthemselves onto a corner of the wrap-around desk, and since Sarah was partiallyshielding her, Madeleine took the opportunity to let herself look at Fisher,who was giving them all a survey in return, betraying a hint of impatience.
"In a little over four hours, the Core and two others ofthe Ul-naa Five will return from the Buenos AiresChallenge," he said. "Anddiscover that Blues have been freed and revived, which is the most forbiddenact among their people. Freed Bluesretain the information they experienced. Not a lifetime's memories, but everything including the Moth's thoughtsduring the period of possession. This issuch a serious thing that the clans will unite with a single purpose: to killus."
The redhead looked doubtful. "What do you know that's so important?"
"Isn't knowing how to kill Moths, and free and reviveBlues enough?" Joe asked.
"After what happened because of Washington? Shit no." The last leech Blue, an Asian teen with animpressive collection of piercings, moved restlessly, limited by the crowdedspace. "Not that I'm sorry youbusted me out, but unless you found a way to stop them dusting any more cities,you got to be ready to kill a lot of people to save a few Blues."
"Are you volunteering to be locked back up?" Fisherleavened the question with a tired hint of smile. "I don't have enough information,yet. What I need to do is free a Bluepossessed by one of the Ul-naa Five, gambling thatone of the Reborn – one of the Fives – will know of a way for us to bring downthe Spire. If there isn't..." He hesitated.
"I will not turn my back on the possibility of riddingourselves of the Moths," Nash said firmly. "And for the moment, we ca
"Hear hear," Tyler said,his voice soft, but carrying effortlessly. Nash immediately lost his poise, his glance at the cramped corneruncertain.
"But how do wefight?" the redhead asked. "They feed us just enough to stay upright. It's all I can do to stand here so close toyou lot, not draining you dry."
Madeleine couldn't see the woman's expression as Nashexplained the Rover fight, but her stance shifted enough to be a response initself.
"All right," the woman said. "I can't say I want to do this. And I can't say that I'll go willingly backto that room, threats of more dust or not. But I'll help to a point."
"Until we know more," the Asian boy conceded.
Fisher simply nodded, already focusing on the next step. "We have just over four hours."
ooOoo
"Your remodelling job on my bathroom wasimpressive."
The words were only teasing, but Madeleine still shifted inembarrassment and glanced across at the redhead, Claire, who was watching themonitors for progress of the 'collection team' Fisher had led off to freereinforcements.