Poison Tree (14 page)

She shouldn’t stand up. If she did, she would faint, and she couldn’t afford to faint. She used her hands to get closer to the door and reached up to test the knob. Raising her arm so far above her head brought the black patches back to her vision, but it was worth it when she found the door unlocked.

As hell-bent as Kral was on tracking down Sahara, he probably wouldn’t stop to worry that a mere human might have the fortitude to escape. He hadn’t bothered to lock the door. He probably hadn’t taken the time to replace the guard Ravyn had incapacitated, either.

Alysia opened the door a crack. The Onyx Hall was kept dark, which would work in her favor, but she still needed to get outside so she could get to a car and a phone.

Unfortunately, she needed to stand first, which she did very carefully and incrementally with the help of a red oak bo staff someone had been kind enough to leave lying about. She debated grabbing some of the other weapons that had been left along the back wall, but if she ended up trying to use them, she would only fall over anyway.

Besides, she was a member of Frost. The staff was deadly enough, if she could manage to lift it.

She had to pause to catch her breath once she was outside, but then she circled the building until she found a beat-up old Jeep that looked like it had gone off-roading and possibly rolled down a mountain at least once. She wasn’t the first to check out its electrical guts, either; the panel was already missing.

Getting in the seat left her panting and sweating, but she managed. Once she was a little farther away, she would find a phone and call a hospital … and possibly SingleEarth, since they would help with her injuries even if they believed that she was a coldhearted killer.

Shock and adrenaline kept Alysia going as she eased out of the parking lot, grateful that the Jeep had an automatic transmission. Her body did not have any energy to support fear or anger, but she was vaguely aware that if this was Sarik’s fault, the tiger would have to pay in some slow and painful manner.

A car horn blared at her and she jumped. She had zoned out and drifted into the opposite lane. She wasn’t going to get far this way.

Just get me to civilization. Even an exploding gas station would be a relief
.

L
YNZI HAD NO
idea what she was asking of him.

Jason knew that was his fault. He had told Lynzi that he had worked for Maya, but he had never explained what that meant. Maya didn’t have
employees
, she had slaves.

According to vampiric law, Jason belonged to her, but Maya didn’t value her “possessions” more highly than cash. She wouldn’t refuse to negotiate with SingleEarth. It was only habit that made it seem to him that she would try to snatch him back, when rationally he knew that she would consider giving up one pawn a small price to pay for SingleEarth’s favor. Maya was practical.

He had to keep telling himself that as he picked up his phone. He didn’t know a direct number for her these days,
but he was confident that he could find her. After all, what use was a mercenary if no one could reach her to hire her?

Alysia would have been the natural choice for this job. She had a history in Bruja; she knew how to speak the language of payout that piqued a mercenary’s interest. But she was in the hospital now, collateral damage of the current conflict.

He dialed, knowing there was no chance that Maya herself would pick up. He spoke to “florists” and “jewelers” and “caterers,” always leaving the same message:
“Tell Maya to call Jason at SingleEarth Haven Number Four.”

Some of the numbers probably were those of legitimate businesses that had never heard of Maya. It had been six years, after all. But he was sure that some of the contact places he knew were still taking messages. She would hear.

It has been six years
, he thought, but the number wasn’t much of a comfort. He had been thirteen when she had picked him up. Seventeen when she had changed him. He wasn’t sure how many years had passed after that before he met Sarik. Not many, he thought, but time spent with Maya was a haze of trying never to think. Trying to survive the day.

He left messages, grateful that he did not have to hear her voice just yet, and then returned to the residential building. He needed to rest. No, he needed Sarik. He needed her to remind him that he wasn’t the creature Maya had tried to make him.

When he reached their room, though, Sarik wasn’t there. Instead, he found a note scrawled in her handwriting on a piece of SingleEarth stationery. The pen still lay nearby.

He stared at the note. Picked it up. Read it again. Saw in the black ink a telltale wavering that said her hand had been shaking while she’d written these words.

The only thing missing from the room, beyond Sarik herself, was the bag in which she stored her identification, cash, and credit cards—items she never needed at the Haven but that she kept handy for when she needed to go out into the world.

Where are you, Sarik?

He sent himself to the cubs’ enclosure, where his sudden appearance made Mark jump nearly out of his skin and exclaim, “Don’t do that!”

“Sorry. Do you know where Sarik is?”

He could already tell that the cubs were gone. Even if they had been sleeping inside, he would have been able to hear their heartbeats.

“She said she was taking the boys on a field trip,” Mark answered. “It seemed like a good idea to me.”

It would have been, if she’d been planning to come back.

If she had taken the cubs with her, she could only be going
one place: back to her father, the abusive bastard who had so completely terrified and dominated her for sixteen years that even now, the merest mention of him made her freeze like a squirrel facing an oncoming car.

Please don’t look for me
, her note had said.

I’m sorry, love, but that’s one request I am never going to grant
.

How many Mistari tribes were there in the United States? It couldn’t be that hard to track down the one she—

Jason’s cell phone rang, and this time it was his turn to feel like a small animal staring into the bright glare of headlights.

He stepped away from Mark before he answered the phone.

“Hello?”

“It is you!” The voice on the other side was light, cheerful even. One of the first thoughts he had ever had about Maya, when she had found him homeless on the streets, was that she had a lovely voice. “When my Paulo told me I had a message from Jason, I was sure it had to be someone else. It’s such a common name. But now that I’m sure—”

He let out a yelp as she appeared in front of him, ending the call as she met his gaze with her own black one.

“I am so looking forward to hearing your explanation. How’re you doing, darling?”

Words fled.

As usual, Maya was dressed to the nines, which today meant designer jeans, a scarlet kimono-style blouse, three throwing daggers on her left wrist, and a katana in an elaborate sheath at her left hip. Though she originally hailed from Cape Verde, sometime in the last half decade she had apparently developed
a taste for Japanese fashion, which meant her thick brown hair was pinned up on top of her head in a style Jason associated with high school girls fascinated with anime.

On the other hand, the adorable pink rhinestone hair-stick he could see was probably sharpened to a deadly point treated with poison.

Jason noticed three hunters creeping closer and held up a hand, indicating that they should pause. He said to Maya, “I work here now. I called you for a business meeting that you might find profitable. Are you going to be professional, or are you just here to play?”

She grinned. “You know I could take out your hunters before they could blink an eye, don’t you?”

“I don’t know that,” he replied, “and neither do you. Do you want to work or not?”

He was certain she wouldn’t risk a fight unless she was pushed to it—she was a businesswoman, after all—but that didn’t mean she wouldn’t try to push his buttons. He didn’t know how long he could keep up this confident façade if she decided to test him.

Instead, she sighed. “I suppose I can see what you have to offer before I decide what I want. Let’s go somewhere comfortable and you can get me some tea. Then we’ll talk about how you killed Liam and now want to make amends.”

The words took him aback just long enough that she was able to lead the way toward the administration building. As he hurried after her, one of the hunters increased his pace to catch up.

“Is there a problem?” the hunter asked.

“Not yet,” Jason answered, “but if you’re willing to stay close, that would be good.”

Did Maya know she wouldn’t be able to simply disappear from inside any of these buildings? She might not. He wasn’t sure what kind of advantage that might give him, but it was good to know anyway.

“Mary, can you get us some green tea?” he asked as they passed the secretary’s desk. “We’ll be in conference room one.”

Maya glanced back just long enough to see which door he gestured to and to say “Good boy” in response to his choice of beverage.

Given her current fashion choices, green tea hadn’t been a deductive stretch. The only other possibility had been bubble tea, but he was pretty sure Mary didn’t keep that on hand.

Maya sat herself at the head of the conference table, leaned back to put her feet up, and then said, “So, Jason. What happened to Liam?”

“He tried to either kill or abduct a SingleEarth mediator,” Jason answered.

“Correction. He tried to abduct a third-ranked member of Frost, Onyx,
and
Crimson,” she replied as she fiddled absently with one of six buckles on her knee-high boot. “Said member is guilty of just about every crime written by human
or
witch authorities, and therefore not eligible for sanctuary in SingleEarth.”

“It isn’t about what she used to be.”

“No, it’s about who she is,” Maya retorted. “She’s a killer and a thief. Not that I’m judging, but SingleEarth does. And you’re asking all the wrong questions.”

“Then what should I be asking?”

She raised one brow and waited.

“You were hired to go after Alysia,” he said.

Maya nodded. “It was a public posting.”
Public
meant she had no reason to withhold the information, since it had no value.

“Who hired you?”

“That part isn’t public.”

He made a mental note and moved on.

“Do you know anything about the job that resulted in me and two others being shot here recently?”

“You were shot? Poor baby,” she replied. “I had no idea. But if I were you, I would ask one of the two highly ranked members of Onyx who have been here in the last week. Maybe the one whose sister you murdered.”

She was volunteering information, which meant she was trying to hurt him, but he couldn’t immediately guess what she was implying. He was sure he had murdered
somebody’s
sister during his time with Maya, but how was he supposed to know that anyone here at Haven #4 was a survivor of one of those kills?

Alysia could be. If she had recognized him as the monster who had killed someone in her family, she might have been swift to take revenge, even if she
had
otherwise reformed. That would explain the timing of the attack but not why someone had hired Maya to capture Alysia.

“Wait for it,” Maya said, leaning forward with a slight smile, at the same moment that all the puzzle pieces came together in his head.

“Sarik,” he said.

Sarik, who was so terrified of her father, who had made him into some kind of godlike figure in her mind, one even SingleEarth couldn’t stand up to. Who had blanched when Jason had mentioned Kral. He had thought the reaction was because she was afraid the leader of Onyx would mention her to her father, but …

“No,” he said, standing up.

“Darling,” Maya said sweetly, “has your lover been less than honest with you?”

Sarik had told him that she had ended up in Maya’s care because she had stupidly knocked on the door looking for help because she had run away from home and become lost. She hadn’t been lost. She had been looking for Cori, the girl Maya had been hired to kidnap.

Maya stood up and came to his side. She patted his shoulder and leaned against his side to say, “Love hurts, darling. And I don’t think you have any deal worth offering me, so I’m going to head out. I’ll look you up next time I need something.”

She walked away, just in time for Mary to arrive with her tea. Mary looked bewildered that the meeting was already over. Jason followed Maya, only to make sure the hunters would let her go. No one here wanted a fight.

As soon as Maya had disappeared, Jason collapsed in one of the chairs in the reception room. He didn’t know what to do next. Where to go next.

“Jason?” Mary asked. “Is everything all right?”

He shook his head.

When Lynzi got home, he would tell her.

Tell her
what
, exactly?

He could tell her what she wanted to know, he decided: that SingleEarth wasn’t at risk for further attacks. After all, Alysia and Sarik—

Sahara
. He knew her name as well as he knew Christian’s and Kral’s.

Alysia and Sahara were gone.

Sarik was gone.

C
HRISTIAN DRIFTED IN
and out of consciousness for a while. Each time he came close to the surface, he tried to grab on to reality enough to focus, but it was hard.

Once, he heard someone say to someone else near him, “The woman they found was the cashier working at the station. She says she doesn’t remember seeing Alysia.”

Christian tried to ask a question on that topic, but the effort caused the world to slip away again.

The next time he woke, he could feel someone funneling power into him. It wasn’t Pandora, but it had to be another of his own kind.