Poison Tree Read Online Free PDF

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 variationsexist, 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, askthe 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