Ascendant (12 page)

Clothilde stood in frozen, well-dressed splendor, forever holding her fake sword up to the karkadann’s fake horn. Her real claymore would remain here in the Cloisters’s armory, since it wasn’t feasible to take it with me. However, Cory and I had packed alicorn arrowheads to fit onto shafts in England, and the alicorn knife was nestled into my checked luggage. I probably shouldn’t be taking that, either, but I couldn’t bear to part with both it and the claymore at once, and only one was small enough to sneak into my bags.

Cory waved at me from the door. “He’s here. Ready?”

I loitered in the courtyard. Was Phil so mad she really wouldn’t say good-bye?

After another thirty seconds, I decided she must be. I was climbing into the car when I heard “Asteroid,” and felt her hand covering the alicorn scar on my back. I launched myself at her, and we wrapped around each other so tight I thought for a moment our skin would melt together.

I love you!
I shouted at her inside my head.
I love you so much it’ll be a miracle if I don’t kill Seth the second I set eyes on him
.

“I’ll miss you,” I said aloud.

“You take care of yourself,” she whispered into my braid. “Don’t you dare die on me. You do and I’ll kill you, I swear.”

“You, too,” I said. “You keep that ring on at all times, you hear? I don’t care about Neil.”

She pulled back and met my eyes. “Well, I do.”

Sometimes you don’t get to have what you want, whether it’s medical school or a life without violence or a person who means more to you than they should. I knew that now. What I failed to understand is how we could know our duty took precedence and still ache so hard for the things we sacrificed?

Phil took a deep breath and bit her lip as if she were about to say more, then averted her gaze and pushed away. “Go on.”

I felt my way to the car, blinded by tears, and we drove away in silence.

The flight was extraordinary. Safe within the little tub of recycled air, thousands of feet away from the nearest unicorn, I found myself feeling almost drunk with freedom. I would have started laughing maniacally, but my seatmate was already looking nervous about my bloodstained cargo pants.

I wondered what would happen if I explained to her that I was a unicorn hunter. Would she give me a bye, or get angry that our organization hadn’t quelled the unicorn menace in her particular hometown? I’d seen the hate mail directed at the Cloisters, though Phil and Neil had done their best to hide it from the other hunters.

One benefit of hunter magic I’d never realized is how easily I could feel the alicorn knife and arrowheads tucked away in my luggage, now that I was beyond the net of unicorn artifacts in the Cloisters. I knew without a shadow of a doubt that my luggage had made the flight along with me.

When we landed in Limoges two hours later, I retrieved my knife from my suitcase and stored the luggage with the airline, then headed off to the hotel the private investigator had listed. Apparently, there was a blond American teenage boy with a Gordian Pharmaceuticals credit card checked into that hotel under the name Brad Jaeger.

I held tight to the handle of my alicorn knife through the canvas fabric of my purse as the cab zipped through the streets on the way to the Hotel Lion d’Or: the Golden Lion. How appropriate.

Do not kill the bastard, do not kill the bastard, do not kill the bastard… .

All I had to do was find him then phone the police. I was shocked to feel excitement rushing through me, as strong as any magic. Hunting unicorns was fine, I supposed, but tracking down the boy who’d hurt my cousin was infinitely more gratifying.

Unfortunately, when I got to the hotel and asked if they could connect me to his room, it turned out that “Brad Jaeger” had checked out.

I didn’t realize what a mess I was until I burst into tears at the counter. The concierge looked embarrassed, and the bellhop standing by the luggage carts seemed even more concerned. And though their English was way better than my French, I doubt I managed to convey the exact reason for my dismay, since when I was waiting out by the taxi stand to head back to the airport, I felt a tap on my shoulder.

“Mademoiselle?”
It was one of the girls from the counter. “Your boyfriend, he goes to the shop?” She cast about for the word.
“Il a besoin de faire réparer sa moto.”
She mimed handlebars and climbing on a bike, then pointed down the street.

I started running.

The man at the motorcycle shop nodded when I asked in halting French if he’d seen an
“Américain avec cheveux jaunes,”
and pointed me toward the café around the corner. I had to force myself to leave my knife in my purse. I approached the café, heart practically beating through my shirt. My alicorn scars tingled, and for a moment, I felt as if unicorn magic was going to break loose on this quiet French street. It had been too long since I felt adrenaline over anything other than a hunt. The world seemed incredibly fast, blurring in real time as I approached prey that didn’t make me feel like a superhero. That had made one of my own feel very small and powerless indeed.

The alicorn knife sang to me from the confines of my purse, and I crushed my fingers into fists to keep myself from grabbing it. There was the café, with a smattering of metal and plastic tables outside on the sidewalk. And there was a blond boy sitting, sipping a Coke from a slender glass bottle.

My breath hitched in my throat. It wasn’t Seth. Not even close.

His blue eyes widened as he saw me, and he started to stand. I remembered the forest floor, the screams, the blood. I remembered the way he’d humiliated me in front of everyone I knew in the lunchroom the day after. I remembered exactly the way his hands felt on my body.

“Astrid!” said Brandt Ellison. “How did you find me?”

I
t was over six months since I’d considered sleeping with my boyfriend, Brandt, to secure my social standing in our high school pecking order. It was over six months since we’d been making out in the woods when a zhi attacked us and speared him in the leg. It was over six months since my mother had saved his life by giving him the last known dose of the Remedy.

I stood on the Limousin street and stared at my ex-boyfriend, struck dumb.

“I can’t believe it’s you!” he added, smiling. Brandt had a fantastic smile—the most devastating smile in our high school class, if I remembered correctly. It beamed upon me, making it even harder to talk. “You look … amazing.”

That helped break the spell a little. Amazing? In my bloodstained hunter pants and a faded T-shirt that probably still had some of Bonegrinder’s fur clinging to it?

“It’s the hunting,” he said. “Must keep you in excellent shape.”

I hugged myself, suddenly self-conscious of my bare, muscled arms. The last time I’d spoken to Brandt, he’d thought unicorns were crazy talk. I tried to keep that in mind.

“Say
something.”
He shook his head, still staring at me. “You’re starting to scare me.”

“What are you doing here?” I managed.

“Waiting for them to patch up my tire.” He nodded toward the motorcycle shop. “Such a pain.”

“I mean—in France.”

His smile broadened. “Ah, that’s a bit more complicated.” He pulled out the chair next to his. “Probably won’t believe me if I said working on my French.”

I stepped forward and sank into the offered chair. “You’d need something drastic.” Brandt had failed intermediate French in high school.

He laughed. “There’s the Astrid I remember.” He waved at the shopkeeper inside the café and signaled for two more Cokes. “I suppose I deserve it, too. But I
am
working on my French, among other things.” As the man brought out our sodas, I reached for my purse, but Brandt put his hand on my arm. “Nah, I got it.”

He’d paid for everything back when we were dating, too. I’d tallied up every soda, every latte, every slice of pizza on some giant internal scoreboard.
If he spends this much money, you have to let him get to first base. If he spends this much, second. If he takes you to prom, you really should go all the way
.

That person, that Astrid—I didn’t even recognize her thought processes anymore. I wasn’t sure if that made me more rational or less.

“First of all,” he said, handing me my drink, “I owe you and your mother a huge apology. You saved my life and I treated you horribly.”

I took a gulp of soda. This was true.

“Can you forgive me? I was such a jerk to you, Astrid. Even before that thing with the ‘mad goat.’“ Brandt leaned over the table and his blue eyes stared me down.

Brandt. Brad
. The Bartolis’ private investigator had never been following Seth. They had the wrong blond American guy, the wrong ex-boyfriend, all along.

Sometime after Phil and I had come to Rome, Lilith had heard that Brandt Ellison had run away from home. No one knew where he’d gone or why. But now I remembered I’d told Marten Jaeger of Gordian Pharmaceuticals the name of my wicked ex-boyfriend, the one who’d so cruelly dumped me even after my mother saved his life with the Remedy.

“You didn’t run away from home,” I whispered.

“Well, in a manner of speaking.” He sat back in his seat.

The puzzle pieces began to fall into place. “You’re … working for Gordian?”

“Also, in a manner of speaking.” He took a swig from his soda. “I’m the only person alive who’s actually gotten a dose of this stuff they’re trying to reinvent. So they tested me, trying to see if they could, I don’t know, get antibodies or whatever out of me.”

“Could they?” I asked, recalling Marten Jaeger’s last words.
I know the secret
.

“Nope.” Brandt set down his bottle. “But they paid me anyway. And it was better than sitting around our little school and waiting for a swimming scholarship to State that was never going to come. When they offered me a more permanent position at Gordian, I booked out. I’m underage, so I guess, technically, I
did
run away from home. They could take me back if they knew where to find me, so I use a fake name.” He eyed me and his lips quirked a little—a shadow of their full potential. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“What question?”

“Can you ever forgive me?”

I was saved from answering by a whistle. We turned to look up the alley and saw the man from the motorcycle shop waving.

“Great.” Brandt threw back the last of his soda and pointed at mine. “Finished with that?”

I’d barely touched it but took it with me as we walked up the hill. “Couldn’t Gordian get in trouble for, I don’t know, hiring you without your parents’ permission?” Among other things, like ordering Phil’s rape, blackmailing Valerija, and hiding a herd of murderous kirin.

You know, for starters.

“Gonna tell on me?” Brandt asked as we entered the shop.

Brandt and the shopkeeper conversed a bit in French and kicked the tires of a gleaming silver motorcycle. Brandt’s language skills had, I could tell, improved enormously. He handed the repairman a credit card and leaned against the counter.

“So on to more questions you haven’t answered,” he said.

“I haven’t answered any of them,” I replied, joining him and placing my soda bottle near his elbow.

“True.” He reached for the end of my braid and flicked it, the way he used to back home. “I’ve been way more forthcoming. Here’s one back—what are
you
doing here?”

“I’m looking for someone,” I said. “Maybe you know him. Seth Gavriel?”

His expression turned serious. “Yeah, or at least I know of him. I know what he did, and I’m really sorry. Phil was always nice to me. She deserved way better than that. How is she?”

I stiffened. “Wait, you know? Do you know where Seth’s been hiding?”

Brandt looked away. “That’s also pretty complicated.”

“Now who isn’t answering questions!” I hissed. The shopkeeper returned with Brandt’s receipt. “If you know where Seth—”

“I shouldn’t be the one to tell you this stuff, Astrid. Look, maybe you can come with me, talk to my boss. I don’t know everything, anyway.”

“Come with you?” I said. “Where?”

“Gordian’s got a facility about a half hour ride from here. Come with me and you can get all the answers you need.”

“No way!” Walk into Gordian Pharmaceuticals after everything they put me and the other hunters through? After they abandoned us? After they set the kirin on us?

After I let the head of their company be killed by a unicorn?

I stepped back. “If you know so much, then you’ll understand why there’s no way I’m going to any Gordian facility. That company doesn’t mix well with unicorn hunters.”

“That company,” said Brandt, “is chock-full of them.”

I stared at him.

He shook his head, smiling at me indulgently. “I really think you’re owed an explanation, Astrid. Come on. We’ve known each other forever. I know I was awful to you last year—but other than that … you can trust me, right?” He held out his hand.