Poison Tree Read Online Free PDF Page A

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 said. “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.

C HAPTER 4
    S ARIK 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 Tristeself-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