Poison Tree

by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes

  Lynzi must have sensed the awkwardness Alysia felt, because she turned away and set her hand on the windowpane as she remarked, “We should make sure all your belongings are inside and get your keys back from Sarik, before the storm breaks.”

  CHAPTER 3

  THE SLEET SLAPPING against the windows had woken Jason well before sunrise, two hours after he had fallen asleep at midnight. He slipped out of bed and away from Sarik, who muttered an incoherent protest, grabbed his pillow, and continued to sleep.

  Sarik had been anxious the entire day before, so he was grateful that she slept now. She had asked for a meeting with Diana, only to be denied when an emergency came up at another Haven. The only thing she had confided to him was that Alysia looked familiar.

  Alysia had admitted that she had been no angel before she came to SingleEarth, and everyone knew her file was full of unaccounted-for time. Alysia was a stranger to Jason, though, and unlike Sarik, he had a vampire’s regrettably perfect photographic memory to call upon as he looked at the newest member of SingleEarth Haven #4.

  Still, Sarik’s anxiety had rubbed off on him, and now he felt restless.

  He crossed soundlessly into the living room and left the bedroom door open a crack so Sarik would know he was still nearby if she woke. It had been a long time since the night terrors had broken her sleep, but the way she tossed and turned before succumbing tonight warned him that they were a possibility now.

  Normally, work helped him focus and calm himself, but tonight he was frustrated by an impossibly slow network that continually dropped signal and interrupted even the simplest Web page or download.

  Footsteps in the hallway drew him out. He discovered Alysia, bundled up and apparently about to brave the winter weather in the predawn darkness.

  “Is the network always this bad in a storm?” she asked the moment his door opened, before she added, “I mean, hello. Is it good evening or morning?”

  “Might as well be good morning, and no, the weather doesn’t normally affect it.”

  “I figured I would head over to the admin building and see if I could figure out what’s going on.”

  “I already called,” Jason said. “Mary has a tech support guy on the way.”

  “I am tech support,” Alysia protested, “or I was two days ago. I might as well try.”

  “I get that, but you’re human, and it’s nasty out there,” Jason replied.

  Alysia didn’t flinch at the reference to her species, like many SingleEarth members did. Jason filed that information away in the mental list he kept of what soothed or upset the people around him. He had already figured out that Alysia spoke diplomatically when she thought the situation demanded it but preferred bluntness from those around her.

  “Let me leave a note for Sarik, and then I’ll check in the admin office to see what’s going on.”

  Alysia nodded reluctantly. The spark in her eyes said she wanted to work out her frustration by fixing the problem herself, but she was trying to be reasonable.

  The Haven guarded its land in a way that made it impossible to appear or disappear inside any of the secure buildings, but Jason only had to cross the threshold to the porch before he could will himself to the atrium of the administration building.

  He found Mary still in the office. She had been there all night, trying to deal with the network issues, but now she was happily flirting with some twentyish guy, who was almost on her lap as he tapped at her keyboard.

  “Problem, Jason?” Mary asked, lifting a slightly exasperated gaze that said, Do you mind?

  “I just wanted to check on the status of tech support,” he answered, trying to find a way to back out gracefully.

  “Tech support accounted for, though this might take me a while,” the guy at the computer answered.

  “This is Ben,” Mary added.

  “Let me show you—” Ben said, starting to speak to Mary before looking up at Jason dismissively. “We’re good here. Go get a coffee or something.”

  Jason nodded and retreated to the records room, which was run by a shapeshifter named Israel. She looked up at him as he entered, blinking in a way that suggested she had fallen asleep at her desk. The admin building ran twenty-four hours a day to accommodate the number of members whose schedules tended toward the nocturnal, but sometimes the routine took its toll, especially when it was cold and dark outside.

  From the next room, Jason continued to hear Mary’s flirty giggle, until she stopped and called, “Jason, could you come in here?” He heard her add to Ben, “That’s more of a mediator issue.”

  “You’ve got a virus,” Ben said when Jason returned to the front office. “A nasty one. I thought at first that sweet Mary had downloaded too many bootleg naughty movies.” Mary flushed bright red at the allegation. “But now I’d say this is intentional. Not surprising, since your whole security system sucks. I can fix it, but first, do you have a place I can crash for a couple? I’ve been up thirty-six.”

  Are you speaking English? Jason wondered. Maybe it was the fatigue talking. “We have some extra space in the residential building,” he said.

  “Residential as in people live there, right?” Ben asked cautiously. “Not residential as in check in and lock down.”

  “We don’t have any locked wards at Number Four,” Jason confirmed.

  “Great, then!” Ben smiled warmly, though he turned the expression instantly on Mary. “I’ll look you up tomorrow, babe.”

  Israel poked her head out of the back room. “If you two are heading over to residential, do you mind if I walk with you? I was supposed to be out of here hours ago, and I would rather have company in this weather.”

  “Don’t you need a jacket?” Ben asked Jason as he pulled on an oversized black leather jacket weighed down by whatever gadgets were in its pockets.

  Jason shook his head. Despite the absence of pulse or respiration, a vampire’s body burned at just above a human’s normal body temperature regardless of the environment.

  His eyes, unfortunately, could make out little through the icy sleet falling from the sky, so it was a good thing that he knew these paths blind. Israel gripped his arm, and Ben seemed to be using him to block the wind.

  The pain came from nowhere, like a bolt of lightning, followed by the searing agony of lava flowing through his veins, into his heart and brain. As he fell, the sleet became needles of ice striking his skin.

  He could hear the others shouting as he struggled to open his eyes. Through a red haze he saw that Israel and Ben were both on the ground, Israel dreadfully still and Ben on his knees with a hand pressed over a wound on his leg as he cussed in what sounded like six different languages.

  Ben’s teeth were chattering as he coughed and said, “We need a—” He broke off, looked up, and shouted, “Alysia!” His whole body shuddered. His voice seemed to get farther and farther away as he continued to shout. “Alysia, you—” He broke off and leaned forward to retch into the snow.

  Jason’s body was going numb, and his vision was starting to dim. He was only vaguely aware of Alysia hoisting his arm, shouting for Mary as she dragged them inside. The movement seemed to make things in his body stir, and the pain became brilliant once more.

  In the light of the admin building atrium, he managed to open his eyes long enough to see that there was something slender and black protruding from his stomach. He wanted to cry out “No, don’t!” as he saw Alysia reach for it, but she didn’t hesitate before she ripped the weapon from his flesh.

  Darkness.

  He woke in a dark cellar, body aching, veins burning. Maya had told him that she would leave him this way for as long as it took. As long as what took?

  No light, no way to judge the passage of time, only the pain, which turned to madness, to fury and mindless, soul-shattering agony. Even when she came and let him drink from her veins, the pain lessened only a little.

  He couldn’t remember his own name. Couldn’t remember–

  “He needs blood,” someone sai
d. “I pulled the firestone from his system, but I can’t replace the power he lost.”

  He hissed at the mention of firestone. Nasty poison. Made by Tristes. One of the few materials that could really harm a vampire.

  “Alysia, didn’t you hear me?” the voice asked. “He needs blood.”

  “Yeah.” Her voice sounded hoarse, reluctant, but she leaned down and pulled him close to her throat, and that was all that mattered. His fangs sliced into her flesh, and then he felt a sweet bliss as the pain finally faded.

  Alysia. And that must be Lynzi. I’m still at SingleEarth.

  He pulled away with a jolt. Alysia recoiled, though he had taken barely more than she would have lost for a standard blood test.

  “You need more,” Lynzi said, looking up from tending to Ben, who was mumble-singing something about … a llama? … under his breath while she worked on a gaping wound in his leg.

  Jason shook his head. “I’m fine,” he said.

  Alysia couldn’t know what she had just risked. Had no idea of the nightmare Jason had been reliving in the darkness of pain left by the firestone in his blood. No idea that that slow torture Maya had put him through had ended with a half-dozen corpses on the floor when she had finally tossed human prey into the cellar with him.

  CHAPTER 4

  SARIK STARED AT the note left next to her bed: Going to check the network. Be right back. Since finding it, she had showered and dressed and was now just waiting anxiously, listening to the sound of her own pulse and the sleet battering the window.

  He’s a mediator. He could have been delayed for a million reasons. There is no good reason to go looking for him.

  But I know something is wrong.

  She was sure of that, even before the sound of her cell phone ringing made her heart leap into her throat.

  “Yes?”

  “Sarik, this is Lynzi. I’m calling the Table together, immediately.” Her voice was brisk but not strained. Damn Triste self-control. It was impossible for Sarik to know how bad it was by Lynzi’s tone.

  On the other hand, in the eight months Sarik had been part of the mediator’s table, Lynzi had never called an emergency session. That gave her an excuse to ask, “Is everyone okay?”

  Lynzi hesitated long enough that Sarik’s heart threatened to do the same. “Everyone will be. I’ll explain everything once the meeting begins—in my room. Don’t go outside.”

  “I’m on my way.”

  She shoved her feet into the first pair of shoes she could find, then grabbed a pair of hair-sticks from the dresser top and pinned her hair up as she hurried down the hall.

  Lynzi had said “everyone will be” all right, not “everyone is.” People were hurt, very hurt.

  Lynzi’s apartment was one of the largest in the building. The living room was full of porcelain vases, crystals, and fine sculptures. Sarik did not know what any of them did, but she suspected they were more than just decorative; after all, they belonged to a thousand-year-old witch who maintained these rooms as her ritual space.

  Normally, just being in this room made Sarik feel better. Today, the air felt hot and dry; she fought the impulse to rub her arms, as if to brush away a swarm of gnats.

  The sectional had been pulled apart to make distinct seats around the coffee table, but only Lynzi and Jason were sitting.

  Lynzi was curled up on one of the corner seats with her knees pulled to her chest, so she looked even younger than normal. Her dark hair had come loose from the scarf she wore, and it fell around her sweet-looking face, casting shadows over her eyes. Jason was pale, with dark circles under his eyes. When Sarik ran to his side, he flinched away before saying, “Sorry,” and reaching up to grasp her hand. The chill in his skin told her that he still desperately needed to feed.

  “You need blood,” she said.

  He shook his head sharply. “Later.”

  “What happened?”

  Lynzi said, “We were attacked. Just outside the admin building. Jason, Israel, and a technician named Ben were all hit with some kind of arrow—”

  “Bolt,” Alysia interjected. The human stood to the side of the window, wearing worn jeans, boots, and a long-sleeved turtleneck with a vivid blotch of blood at the cuff.

  “Bolt, arrow, whatever,” Sarik responded. “Who attacked you?”

  “We don’t know that yet,” Alysia answered. “Judging by the angle, whoever it was must have been on the balcony of the recreation hall. Lynzi says some witches might have been able to determine identity through auras or something, but I doubt even someone with a vampire’s sight could have made out more than general shapes given the weather, and Jason doesn’t see how anyone could have predicted exactly who would be in that spot at that moment. So the targets were probably random.”

  “What’s the difference between a bolt and an arrow?” Lynzi asked. “You said it as if it’s important, Alysia.”

  “It is important,” Alysia answered. “Arrows are shot by something like a longbow or a shortbow. Modern variations exist, but you might as well think Robin Hood. These were shot from a crossbow.”

  As she spoke, Alysia stepped forward and unrolled a bundle of fabric that had been on Lynzi’s coffee table, revealing three deceptively simple-looking black bolts. The shaft was a little fatter than a pencil, and the feathery pieces on the back were mostly black with gold detail. Each bolt’s tip was different: one was solid metal, one had a nasty-looking barbed tip, and one had the distinctive red sheen of firestone. Alysia picked up one of the bolts. Sarik noted that the human did not cringe, even though these had surely been inside someone’s flesh not long ago. She twirled it until the light glinted on a phrase written down the side in gold: One of the former.

  “Who here is familiar with Onyx?” Alysia asked.

  Lynzi said, “I’ve heard of them. They tried to recruit me, around the turn of the century—the last one, I mean. They’re assassins.”

  “Assassins and mercenaries,” Jason added. He paused, trying to decide how much Lynzi needed to know. “I wasn’t exactly a saint before I came here. I wasn’t personally associated with Onyx, but the woman I … who I worked for made sure we knew the important names in the game.”

  “And Onyx is a pretty important name,” Alysia said. “They’re one of an elite trio of mercenary groups called the Bruja guilds. The phrase on these bolts is a reference to Bruja’s motto, and the crossbow is Onyx’s signature weapon.”

  “You seem pretty familiar with them,” Sarik remarked. Her own voice startled her. How did it sound so calm? Habit, she supposed. For now, she needed to say the right things, ask the right questions. She could think it through and fall apart later. “Can you theorize why they would attack us?”

  “If they’re mercenaries, then the only reason to attack is because they’re paid to,” Lynzi answered. “So the question is, who would hire them to attack us? And why?”

  “Given the visibility and the wind, the fact that all three shots connected with their targets suggests an expert,” Alysia said. “And all three victims are still alive—that suggests that the attacker was very careful not to kill.”

  “That seems like a stretch,” Jason objected, his hand instinctively going to a spot low on his stomach. “You saw the bolt that hit me—you were the one who took it out of me. It had firestone in it.”

  “And we had a Triste in the next building,” Alysia replied. “Anyone from Onyx planning an attack would have done research first. They would know what we can take. Jason was hit in the lower abdomen, Ben was hit in the leg, and Israel’s worst injury was to her hand, which was at her side next to her leg. I refuse to believe this archer could hit all three targets yet somehow aimed too low to connect with any vital organs.”

  “The stomach is pretty vital, as is the femoral artery,” Jason replied.

  “Not like the heart, or lung, or aorta,” Alysia argued, “and not with the kinds of healers we have on staff.”

  “You were there?” Sarik asked as Alysia’s words sank in.


  Alysia nodded, and then seemed to pause. She looked at Sarik, and Sarik could see in the human’s eyes the exact moment when she realized that her presence on the scene looked suspicious.

  “I went to see if I could do anything about the network issue,” Alysia answered.

  Before dawn, in sleet and freezing wind, after tech support had already been called? Sarik bit her tongue to hold back the question.

  Lynzi frowned and then rubbed her temple. Especially in her own ritual space, Sarik knew, the Triste could probably feel every spike of emotion around her, no matter how carefully someone tried to conceal feelings. On the other hand, with so many strong emotions piled on top of the exhaustion she must have been coping with after healing Jason, Israel, and Ben, Sarik would have been surprised if Lynzi could read anything specific.

  Jason squeezed Sarik’s hand. He said, “Alysia ran forward when Ben shouted for her. She helped get us under cover, pulled the firestone out of me, and kept Ben from bleeding to death before Mary could get Lynzi. And she donated blood.”

  Sarik nodded, taking in the information. Jason was right; Alysia’s reaction wasn’t what she expected of a mercenary.

  Lynzi swallowed and said, “I think we need to send someone to Onyx. I’m sure they see us as a bunch of tree-hugging peaceniks, but SingleEarth is one of the wealthiest and most influential organizations in the world. We need to make it clear that there is a value to not crossing us.”

  Sarik shuddered at the notion and then turned and stared when Alysia said, “I can go and try to set up a meeting. Immediately, unless someone has a good reason to wait.” She glanced up at the clock on Lynzi’s wall. “The Hall is about four hours away. I can get there and back by evening.”

  What are you thinking, Alysia? Sarik wished she could read the human’s mind. Alysia’s knowledge of Onyx made it obvious that she had some kind of history with them. It was possible that she was in SingleEarth because she had run away from that guild, but if so, why would she volunteer to go back there?