Ghost Thorns Read Online Free Page A

down the stairs will die. But while the Ghosts and the family of the Kindred are foes, this need not end in unnecessary bloodshed. Hand over Halaam, and we shall go our separate ways.”
    Halaam turned a pleading look in Caina’s direction.
    “Why don’t you tell me how you’ve planned to kill Septimus Rhazion?” said Caina.
    The assassin laughed again. “I have no idea. Orian merely contracted with us to provide the poison. What he does with it is his own affair. As is how the Kindred handle disloyalty. Now. Hand over the traitor…”
    “Or what?” said Caina. “You’ll come up and get us? The first one to go down those stairs dies, but the same thing applies to the first man to come up.”
    “No,” said the assassin. “There are quite a few flammable substances in here. I’ll simply set the building on fire and wait for you to come out.” 
    That would work.
    “Very well,” said Caina. “We’ll negotiate.”
    Halaam gaped at her.
    Caina leaned forward and put her lips against Corvalis’s cowl.
    “Stall,” she hissed.
    He nodded and stepped forward, keeping away from the stairs.
    “So!” Corvalis boomed. “If we give you the apothecary, what will you offer in return?”
    “Your lives,” said the assassin. 
    Caina hurried across the room, climbed onto the bed, and pushed open the shutters of the window. She saw no trace of any other Kindred in the gloomy alley below.
    “And how do we know you won’t betray us?” bellowed Corvalis, glancing at Caina.
    “Simplicity itself,” said the assassin. “Send the traitor down the stairs. I shall shoot him, and go on my way before you catch me. Let the urban praetor and the civic militia puzzle over one dead rat of an apothecary. Certainly it is no concern of the Ghosts.”
    Caina swung out the window and hung by her fingertips from the sill, and then dropped into the alley. It was not a long drop, but she still made more noise than she liked. Fortunately, Corvalis was shouting, and had the assassin’s attention. Caina saw the Kindred standing just within the back door, wearing the clothes of a common laborer, a crossbow cradled in his arms.
    She glided up behind him, drawing the daggers from her boots.
    “Very well,” said the assassin. “Tie him up and push him down the stairs. Then I will…”
    His offer ended in a strangled gurgle as Caina buried one of her daggers in his back. The assassin stumbled forward, his crossbow going off. The bolt buried itself in the stairs, and the man started to turn. Caina seized his hair, yanked back his head, and ripped her remaining dagger across his throat. He went rigid, and she planted a boot into his back and shoved. 
    The assassin toppled forward, bounced off the stairs, and went still, his blood pooling around him.
    Caina let out a long breath, trying to ignore the flicker of guilt. She had been a Ghost nightfighter for over four years now, and the killing had gotten easier. Much easier. That troubled her. It shouldn’t be easy. 
    On the other hand, the assassin would have killed her without hesitation, and he had undoubtedly killed innocents. The world was better off without him.
    Yet Corvalis had once been an assassin of the Kindred…
    Caina pushed aside the thought.
    Corvalis descended the stairs, sword and dagger in hand, and Halaam followed.
    “By the Living Flame,” the apothecary moaned, “there is a corpse in my shop…”
    “Would you rather that the corpse was yours?” said Caina. “Go fetch me a vial of the lionroot extract.”
    “What?” said Halaam. “Now?”
    “Yes, now,” said Caina, pointing at him with a bloody dagger.
    Halaam swallowed and vanished into the main room of his shop. Caina wrenched her dagger free from the assassin’s back, cleaned it, and slid the weapons into their sheaths in her boots. Halaam returned with a small vial filled with a yellowish fluid.
    “Here,” he said.
    Caina took it, pulled the stopper free, and took a sniff.
    It smelled exactly the same