Poison Flower Read Online Free PDF

to find his way to you."
    Harry raised an eyebrow and stared at her for a couple of seconds. Then he said, "Every time we meet I have to listen to the same apology. Forget it. If he hadn't collected on the contract on me, there would have been a car crash or a microbe or a blood clot. When you're dead, the way death got you is just one thing that happened among thousands. You don't care more about that day than any of the others, just because it was the last day. You'll see."
    "Are you telling me I'm dying"
    He frowned. "At the moment you are. You're losing blood, and you're in the hands of enemies."
    "Is there any way I can save myself"
    Harry held up his hands and shrugged. "How do I know what you can do or can't do You're the only one who has any way to guess. These things aren't determined ahead of time. The grandsons of Sky Woman fight. That's all we know. The left-handed twin Hanegoategeh raises his arm to strike, but the right-handed twin Hawenneyu reaches up with his right, like the image in a mirror, to block it. Creator and Destroyer, life giver and killer, they struggle, and their constant fighting is what makes the world we pass through into a battlefield. Sooner or later, everyone is a casualty. Every-body sheds his blood, like me. And like you."
    She followed his eyes downward, and looked at her leg. The big white bandage that was wrapped around the wound was bright scarlet, and the blood in the snow was pooling. She raised her eyes again. "I've lost blood before," she said. "I want to do better than to lie on that couch waiting to die so the pain will end. What can I do"
    Harry sighed. "You know I love you, but you made your choice a long time ago-day over night, life over death. You think you're on the side of the good twin, the Creator twin. If he made you, then he must have made you what you are for his own purposes. We can't know the scheme, because he's trying to fool his brother, and the left-handed twin might read our minds."
    "But that doesn't tell me what to do."
    "If you're Hawenneyu's creature, be exactly what he made you, because you have a part to play in the fight. If he made you a fox, he must need a fox, so be the fox he made. Don't think you're smart enough to improve his strategy."
    "And if I die"
    "You will die. You know that."
    "I meant-"
    "I know. Gather your strength now. Your biggest trials are coming soon. Remember the Grandfathers, the ones who chose to stand and fight to block the trail while their friends escaped."
    Jane awoke. She was in the big, dimly lit room on the couch, covered with a sheet. She was sweating, and she was very conscious of the tight bandage wrapped around her leg. Her white blouse and vest had been replaced by a man's shirt. She was terribly hot. She wondered if she had a fever and if it meant that the wound was infected.
    Her eyes moved, following the weak, dim light to the source, a reading lamp on a small desk far off on the other end of the room. It seemed to flicker, and she realized there was also a laptop computer on the desk. A movie was playing on its screen. Jane hoped it was an online version, and not just a DVD playing. In less than a minute she could use a computer to e-mail her husband Carey or the local police. There were a pair of earphones on the desk, but nobody was visible.
    Jane welcomed the extra light because it illuminated her surroundings, and gave her a chance to explore without moving. There were six windows in a row about fifteen feet from the floor, but they looked like immovable glass installed to let daylight into the building but not to open. They had been covered with blackout fabric taped to the glass so no light could pass in or out-had they simply been painted black They had no latches. The right side of the big room had a wall with four doors, but the wall seemed to extend only to the acoustic tile ceiling.
    She heard a door open, and when it did, she heard water, like a toilet tank refilling. The door closed again and a woman