Poison Tree

There was anger in her voice as well, though Christian suspected she was upset for different reasons than her cohort.

“Whoever attacked us used these bolts to send a message they didn’t have the courage to present directly. The coward isn’t going to get away with it. Understand?”

Alysia kept the words vague, but Christian took the meaning: she didn’t know what it was yet, but she was sure that this message had been intended for her.

Us. She had used the word “us.” Whoever attacked us —her and SingleEarth.

If the message is meant for her, then let her deal with it, Christian thought.

“If someone has a contract out against SingleEarth, I haven’t heard about it,” he said, “so you might as well be on your way.”

“Christian—”

“You might want to leave quickly,” he suggested. He pocketed the packet of bolts, noting the way Alysia’s gaze followed the movement. “Before someone here decides your intentions might not be in our best interest.”

If Alysia really wanted to talk to him, she was going to have to do it at a time and place of his choosing, and it wasn’t going to include an audience.

For now, Alysia looked from him to the sunlit doorway and then at him again. She started to speak, but then she shook her head and left with her SingleEarth friend. Given the glare of the morning sunlight, it was impossible for him to know whether she looked back.

CHAPTER 6

THERE WERE PLENTY of ways to find anonymous, willing blood donors in SingleEarth, and that was what Jason preferred. He didn’t have “regulars,” he never accepted blood from friends, and he never bled Sarik no matter how many times she o ered. He knew his refusals bothered her, but there was no way he could make her understand.

After he fed, there was work to do. Lynzi was still resting, so it was up to Jason to greet the hunters who were arriving from less peaceful Havens. Thankfully, the weather had subsided to a fine drizzle as he showed their new security force around the campus.

“Is this the only video surveillance?” one of the hunters asked, examining the camera in the lobby of the administration building.

“Yes. It’s there mostly to give the secretary a heads-up,” Jason explained, aware that the angle was ill designed for security.

The door opened to admit another hunter, who shook drops of water from her hair before she announced, “I cannot imagine anyone making the shots you’ve described.”

Though she seemed to be speaking to Jason, she walked past him without looking at him and then spoke to the rst hunter. “There are trees close to the recreation building. The weather would have made it hard to climb them, but not impossible.”

One problem with SingleEarth hunters was that they tended to start out as vampire hunters, so no matter how long they spent in SingleEarth, they rarely regarded one of

Jason’s kind as a serious ally.

So no one objected when he left to work on his own investigation.

Of the three victims, only one had a good, predictable reason to have been outside at the time of the attack. Jason was normally sleeping at that hour, and given the weather and the vampiric ability to travel place to place instantly, no one would have expected him to be outside. Israel would usually have left hours earlier, and while it was possible that someone had waited on the icy roof of the recreation building for that long—a vampire or

Triste could have managed it—it seemed like an unnecessary, uncomfortable risk for someone to take.

That left Ben, the tech support guy who had showed up in response to a service request generated by a cyber attack. Ben had asked Jason where he could get some sleep, but he couldn’t have known that Jason would show up in the rst place, so it was more likely that

Ben was a target than a conspirator.

Jason wasn’t entirely dismissing the possibility that Ben was involved, though, for one good reason: Jason had crossed Onyx in the past. If they had found him, he couldn’t predict what they would do. Depending on what Alysia and Sarik learned at Onyx, he would decide what the others needed to know about all that.

A look in Ben’s le revealed nothing obviously strange. He had been in SingleEarth for years, working mostly with computers and usually frequenting the more urban-style Havens and wards. There was nothing to indicate he had enemies, but such things didn’t always make it into the record.

Two birds, one stone, Jason thought as he knocked on the door of the room where Ben was staying.

Lynzi answered.

“I thought you healed him,” he said, concerned.

“I didn’t have time or energy to fully heal him earlier,” she answered. “I was able to stop the bleeding, but then I had to move on to others. There is still work to be done now to avoid long-term damage.”

Lynzi stepped into the hall and gently shut the door behind her. “He’s sleeping now, though it was a hard battle for me to get him there. He is understandably anxious and wants to get back to Central as soon as he can. He feels safer there. He keeps muttering that this place reminds him of somewhere called Crystal Lake. Have you had any word from Sarik and Alysia?”

“Sarik called when they were leaving Onyx to let me know they were safe. That was almost five hours ago, so they should be back any minute.”

Lynzi nodded. “Diana called to check in, too. She’s swamped following up with that co ee shop event, but she gave me the authority to sign for any resources we need and assured me that if we need her here personally, she’ll be on the next plane.”

“Do you think anyone from Alysia’s coffee shop could be involved in this?” Jason asked.

“Diana thinks not,” Lynzi answered, sounding slightly hesitant. “She says the survivors are mostly coping well, thanks to Alysia’s swift intervention, but she has been elding calls left and right from the media.”

Jason’s phone rang; he moved farther down the hall, away from Ben’s door, to answer.

“Hi, we’re back,” Sarik said. “Do you know where Lynzi is? Her phone went straight to voice mail.”

“She’s been with Ben,” Jason answered.

“Sarik?” Lynzi guessed. When Jason nodded, Lynzi suggested, “Tell them to meet us in the conference room.”

Jason relayed the message, and soon after, they all gathered in their regular meeting room. The cherry- paneled walls and other rustic accents seemed a good deal less peaceful now that Jason had taken a bolt to the guts on the steps of this very building.

“Alysia was looking pretty ragged by the time we got back, so I suggested she lie down,”

Sarik said.

Lynzi nodded. “Did you learn anything?”

Sarik nodded and chewed on her lower lip, a habit she had when she was nervous. “We met someone at the Hall. His name is Christian. I gather he and Alysia have a history of some sort. He seemed happy to see her at rst, but then he more or less told us to go to hell.”

“Christian Denmark?” Jason asked.

Sarik shrugged. “Alysia only used his rst name. It seemed like the kind of group where asking last names might be a bad idea.”

Lynzi nodded, and asked Jason, “You know him?”

“I’ve heard of him,” Jason said. “Christian is kind of like a foster son to the leader of the

Onyx guild. It would probably be for the best if he didn’t see any more of Sarik.”

“Excuse me?” Sarik asked. “Not that I want to make friends with a mercenary, but why me