Ascendant (22 page)

The younger man translated, “We will need a new specimen.”

I shook my head. “Not without shooting or stabbing. I can’t get one otherwise.”

“We will provide you with another syringe.”

I switched back to French. “No. It doesn’t work!”

The scientist practically growled at me. “You will do as you are told.”

Oh, I would, would I? Not in these woods. I gave a nearly imperceptible shake of my head as unicorns coursed through my veins, wild and free even in this pitiful, dying little forest. I said nothing. I didn’t need to.

The scientist and I stared each other down while the assistant wrung his hands. Finally, the scientist cursed and walked off, and the assistant began to lug the corpse toward the gate.

“Hang on,” I said. “I’ll help you.” I leaned over, grabbed my alicorn knife from the puddle of einhorn blood, and wiped it off on the dying grass.

I was so fired.

After depositing the dead einhorn on the flatbed of the cart, I watched the assistant drive away, then limped back up to the château. The scientist had already gone inside, no doubt to tattle to Isabeau about what an intractable bitch I was.
Salope
.

Whatever. At least back at the Cloisters we only killed unicorns that were an immediate threat to ourselves or others.

With difficulty, I made it up the stairs to my room, my abdominal muscles screaming in pain with every step. Now that I was out of range of the einhorns, my superstrength had fled, and I could feel the full power of that kick. I’d be lucky if there was no internal bleeding.

It was the middle of the night back in New York, but I needed to talk to Giovanni right now. I felt hollow and faint, reeling with rage and pain and other feelings I was too scared to attempt to identify. I might wake him up, but he’d done it to me before, too, calling during his evenings, way after bedtime here in the quiet French countryside.

But Giovanni wasn’t in bed. Instead of his sleepy voice at the other end of the line, I heard pounding techno music. “Astrid!” Giovanni attempted to yell into the phone.

“Are you at a club?” I asked him. That was unlike him. Last summer, Giovanni had preferred museums to nightclubs and gelato to alcohol of any kind. Had he fallen off the wagon?

I did the math. It had to be after three
A.M
.
where he was.

“Astrid!” he shouted over the beat. “Now’s not the best time!”

“I’m hurt,” I sobbed into the phone. “I got kicked by a unicorn today.” And that wasn’t even the worst part.

“I can’t hear you!” he cried. “Can I call you back in the morning?”

I flicked the phone closed and squeezed my eyes shut. Who knew where I’d be by then?

In my posh golden bathroom, I stripped and assessed the damage. A dark bruise was already spreading across my entire torso. Maybe I was hemorrhaging. Maybe when Isabeau came in to fire me, I could ask her to call the hospital. In the meantime, I could enjoy this place while I still had it.

I washed off the blood and put on a loose-fitting dress that wouldn’t rub against my waistline, then called Lauren and canceled our lessons for the day. Obviously, if I lost my job I’d no longer enjoy the educational patronage that Gordian was providing. And anyway, I needed to lie down for a while.

I eased myself onto my bed, tugging gently at the hem of the bluish gray silk so my dress wouldn’t bunch up beneath me. I rested a hand on my stomach and my head on the lavender-scented feather pillow, and I let my eyes drift close.

I don’t know how long it was before there was a soft tap on the door.

“Come in,” I rasped without moving. Here it comes. I heard Isabeau’s voice, tried to sit up, then cried out as my bruised abdominal muscles activated.

“You’re hurt.” She rushed over to the bed. “What happened?”

“Got kicked by the einhorn …”

“Let me see.” I moved my hand and she pulled up the front of my dress. I winced as she softly palpated my stomach. “You need a cold compress for this. And some painkillers. And I will have a doctor come to look at it.”

“The same doctor I saw this morning?” I asked, suspicious.

Isabeau straightened. “That man is no longer in my employ.”

“What?” I shoved myself up on my elbows. “Why?”

She looked into my eyes. “Astrid, I am going to tell you something and you must listen very carefully. You are
never
to let a man lay a hand on you in anger. Do you understand?”

I bit my lip.

“Yes, I made sure I got a full report.”

I talked past the lump in my throat. “But it was my fault. I messed up; I ruined the unicorn—”

“Even if you had,” Isabeau said, her face hard as stone, “it would still not be a reason for him to touch you. Nothing would warrant that. But you did not mess up. You tried to follow our directions. There were complications that none of us could have foreseen, and you were faced with a loose unicorn, outside the boundary. It could have endangered everyone in the château, and you protected us. You did your
job
, Astrid.”

I gulped, but it was like there was a balloon in my chest, growing bigger and bigger with each of her words. “But what about your research?”

She shrugged. “We face a setback. Obviously we can’t risk losing more of the unicorns until we have perfected the euthanasia technique. So that experiment will be put on hold.”

“It worked,” I said. “At first. But then it’s like it came back to life. I was wondering if it had something to do with their rejuvenation ability. Like maybe the blood was neutralizing the poison, even after his heart and lungs had stopped, and … I don’t know, allowed it to start again… .” I trailed off, remembering what the scientist had said about my ignorance.

“It’s possible,” Isabeau agreed. “In fact, it is very likely that you are correct. We’ll have to keep working on the problem. But you must not blame yourself for what happened this morning. We gave you faulty equipment. It was our mistake, and it will not happen again.” She smoothed the edge of my dress. “We cannot risk the danger. You’re too valuable to us.”

I burst into tears, rolling onto my side as carefully as possible and curling my body into a tiny spiral.

“Astrid.” The bed dipped, and I felt Isabeau’s hand on my arm, the soft fall of her hair on my brow.
“Ne pleure pas, ma petite. Ma petite chère.”

I turned over and wrapped my arms around her waist, laying my head in her lap.

“Shhhhh,” she said, stroking my hair. “Don’t cry.”

But I wanted to cry. I wanted to cry and cry for poor Jumps, and for all the pain in my stomach, and for the fact that Isabeau believed me, that she stood by me, and that she thought I was more important than research that could turn her into a billionaire or even save the world.

After a few moments, the tears passed, but I didn’t move, and Isabeau didn’t stop caressing my hair.

“I suppose you shouldn’t go to your lessons today,” she said.

“I’ve already canceled them.” I sniffled.

“Is that so? Well. I will go get you a cold compress, tea, and perhaps some soup? Would you like me to bring you some books? Or maybe a magazine? I have some English ones. I think you should try to rest until we see the extent of the bruising.”

I agreed and Isabeau left, returning in short order with an ice pack, some herbal ointment, and a tea made of ginger and stinging nettles. I’d changed into loose pjs and climbed under the covers.

“You’ll like this,” she said, handing me the mug. I’d quickly learned that when she said that, it usually meant I would most emphatically hate it. Stinging nettles tasted about like you’d imagine—like dirt and leaves brewed in hot water—with the added kick of spice from the ginger.

“Honey?” I choked.

Isabeau laughed. “Drink quickly. It’ll help with the bruises. How is the compress?”

I patted it. “Cold. Feels nice.”

“You just rest. Here, I brought you something special.” She laid a large book on my lap.

“Hildegard of Bingen: Selected Writings,”
I read. “What happened to British
Vogue
?”

“You’ll like this better, Astrid. It’s about a medieval nun—”

“A hunter? “ I scowled.

“No, a scientist. And a composer and a writer. Hildegard of Bingen was one of the smartest women that ever lived, as a matter of fact. She wrote several books on diagnostics and medicine, including one that talks about unicorns. She ran her own monastery and served as an adviser to popes and kings.”

“She had skull-cracking visions and spoke in tongues,” I read from the back of the book.

Isabeau smiled. “Well, we don’t have a problem with magic around here. Especially magical nuns.”

“I’m not a nun,” I said.

There was another knock at the door and Brandt stuck his head in. His arms were filled with a video game console and controllers. “I heard we have an invalid?”

I tossed
Hildegard
aside as he entered, dragging a little cart with a TV perched on top.

“I’ve only got about ten games.” He handed me a controller and a stack of disks. “But I want to see if the unicorns have helped you get any better with first-person shooter.”

“The good news is,” I said, “I couldn’t get much worse.” Back home, Brandt used to tease me that I could play only the nonviolent games—the ones where I had to stack blocks or roll things into balls or race cars. But of course, that was before I’d killed anything. Times had changed.

Brandt plugged in the television, hooked up the console, then slipped in a disk. He hopped up beside me, jostling both the tea and the cold compress on my tummy. He fluffed a spare pillow behind his back and handed me a controller. “Okay, hunter. Care to wager?”

I pulled myself into a more upright position and arranged my pillows and compress. “Sure. Five euros?”

“That’s all you’ve got? Isabeau, are you ripping off this poor girl? She’s the one taking her life in her hands.”

Isabeau folded her arms. “No, you’re certainly not a nun Astrid.”

“Fine,” I said. “Ten.”

As Isabeau made her way to the door, Brandt clicked through to the start menu. “I say we take on some zombies first.”

That worked for me, too. After all, I’d already killed one today.

T
hat evening, Giovanni called back.

“Sorry about last night,” he said. “It was crazy around here.”

“Sounded like it.” Brandt was gone by now, and I was still resting in bed, having downed several more cups of Isabeau’s herbal remedies as well as a dish of beef stew. “What was going on?”

“It was awesome! Some of my friends organized this giant scavenger hunt. It took us all over the city. We were out all night.”

“Is that so?” I asked, skeptical.

He chuckled. “It wasn’t like that. The strongest thing I had to drink was espresso.”

“Good to hear.”

“Jeez, you sound like my mother. So what’s up?”

I hesitated, not eager to ruin his good time with tales of euthanasia and bruised ribs. “Nothing. I just miss you. I’m glad you had a good time.”

“It was the best. Or,” he corrected, “would have been if you’d been here.”

I rolled my eyes at that.

“Oh, there was even a unicorn clue. My team was giving me hell over that one. We could have gotten five hundred points for a unicorn bone.”

“Oh, that’s awful! I could have gotten you one so easily!”

“Yeah, they were furious I didn’t bring home any souvenirs from Rome.
Dead
unicorns are rare enough around here that they make the news anytime there is one.” He cleared his throat. “We, uh, really need some hunters over here.”

“I’m sure Phil and Neil are working on it.”

“And your mother. She was on TV again the other day. It’s so weird every time the topic comes up at school. We’re lucky in the city. To most everyone at school, the unicorns are something that is happening somewhere else, to someone else, but I can’t forget that day in the van. I don’t know anyone else who has even seen one.”

“You know a lot of us,” I said.

“Well, you know what I mean. Regular people.”

I swallowed. Regular people. Right.

“Are you okay, Astrid? Why did you call me in the middle of the night? Did something happen?”

“Sort of. I killed a unicorn today, and it was—awful. I’ve just gotten so used to
not
having to do that.”

“And I’ve gotten used to not worrying that I was going to get a call in the middle of the night saying you’d been gored.”

“I wasn’t gored,” I said. “Just kicked. Hard.”

“Oh no. Astrid …” He whispered a curse into the phone. “And you let me go on about a stupid scavenger hunt?”

I toyed with the lace edging my pillow. “It’s okay. Isabeau came and took care of me.”
And Brandt
, I almost added.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “That sucks, because you really seemed to like this job.”