Ascendant (13 page)

I backed up farther. “Not as far as I can throw you.”

“With
a unicorn around or without one?” He winked. “Yeah, I know all about your special powers now, too. Blows my mind. I’d love to see them in action.”

I hugged my arms again, wishing I’d remembered to bring a cardigan or something. I felt naked under Brandt’s blue gaze. “I can’t. I have to go to London. I’m on assignment. This was just supposed to be a little detour… .”

“And this will be another one. What did you come here for if not answers?”

What, indeed?

Brandt insisted on buying me a helmet. He looked at the selection on the shop wall. “What color do you want? “ “Anything that’s not camouflage.”

He laughed and pulled down a ridiculous purple and black, tiger-striped one. “Kinda like a kirin, huh?”

I shot him a look. “You’ve seen kirin?”

“Dead ones.” He plopped the helmet on my head and toyed with the straps. “It’s totally you. Like wearing the skin of the beast you’ve slain.”

“This is tiger-striped,” I said. “Nothing like a kirin. And I think you’re talking constantly about unicorns to make up for the fact that you scoffed at me last spring.”

He closed the clear visor over my face. “You’re a smart girl, Astrid. Way too smart for me. That’s precisely what I’m doing.” He gave a thumbs-up to the shopkeeper, who went to print out another receipt.

I reached for my purse again.

He waved me off. “Stop it. Seriously. Gordian is rolling in it. The least they can do after everything they’ve put you through is buy you some safety gear.”

“It’s not my money, either,” I said. “It belongs to my friend Cory.”

“All the more reason.” Brandt snatched up the new receipt and wheeled his bike out of the shop. “Ready?” He picked up his own helmet, which was just as silver as the motorcycle, and strapped it on.

“You promise this will only take a few hours?”

“Absolutely.” He examined the sky, which had turned slate gray. “Uh-oh.” He slipped off his jacket and handed it to me. “Put this on or you’ll get cold.”

“What about you?” I slipped my arms into the sleeves. The leather creaked at my elbows and I smelled Brandt. Back home, he’d sometimes let me wear his letter jacket. It smelled like this, too. His deodorant, his skin, his sweat. No fire, not even a hint of flood.

“If one of us is going to get cold, I’d prefer it be me.” He swung his leg over the bike. “Okay, hop on.”

He hadn’t had a motorcycle back home, either. I climbed on behind him and put my arms around his waist. My seat was higher than his, forcing me to lean forward and rest the chin of my helmet against his shoulder.

“We won’t be able to hear each other well once we’re going,” he said, and I suddenly wondered how he knew this. “So if you need anything, just give me a squeeze.”

The first bump in the road threw me hard against his back. Our thighs pressed together. I squeezed, mainly from nerves, and even over the wind and through our helmets, I could hear him laugh.

I closed my eyes. This morning, I was a nun chaperoning another girl back to London. Now, I was riding through the French countryside in purple tiger stripes, clinging to the back of a motorcycle, pressed up against a boy I’d once almost slept with.

If Phil knew, would she kill me, or cheer?

The Gordian “facility” looked more like a mansion, with high walls made of yellow stone and dozens of windows. Beyond the building, I could see the top of a huge greenhouse in the rear and the front lines of what appeared to be woods.

“This doesn’t look like a lab,” I said after we’d motored up the endless driveway and stopped in front. I slid from the back of Brandt’s bike, arms and legs still vibrating to the speed of the engine. I pulled off my helmet and tried to smooth my hair; I stretched my calves and flexed my thigh muscles until they stopped shaking. Forget about Phil. Father Guillermo would probably have a heart attack.

“Looks can be deceiving,” he said. “It’s also a home. Actually, it was once some sort of sanitarium.”

“Like an insane asylum?” I stared up at the windows and around at the manicured lawn.

He set his helmet down on the seat of his bike. “More like a spa for rich, sick people to test out miracle cures.” He shook his hair out, and it looked even better than it had back in the city. “Hasn’t really changed all that much, now that I think about it. Let’s go.”

Brandt led me into a well-lit marble entrance hall, furnished with antique end tables and vases that overflowed with flowers in autumn colors. A broad, sweeping staircase curved up to a landing ringed by an elaborate wrought iron railing featuring lions’ heads and fleurs-de-lis.

A young man emerged from a side room, dressed in an impeccable suit with a lavender shirt and a deep purple tie. He looked me up and down.
“Qui est-ce?”

“Je vous présente
Astrid Llewelyn,” said Brandt.
“Elle est un chasseur de licorne.”

“Bien sûr.”
His gaze turned appreciative.
“Bienvenue, Mademoiselle. Je m’appelle Jean-Jacques… .”
He went on in French. Apparently, he was some sort of secretary.

“Bonjour,”
I said.

“Come on,” said Brandt. “Let’s go meet the boss lady.”

He led me into a sitting room lined with ice blue wallpaper and furnished in cream silk and dark wood. Feathery golden flowers exploded from the tops of vases half as tall as me, and a petite, dark-haired woman sat at a spacious antique desk and looked up as we entered.

She stood, and as she did, I saw two massive white shapes move from underneath the desk and come to stand on either side of her. For a moment, I thought they were unicorns, then realized they were dogs—enormous white-coated dogs whose heads were practically at chest height. She moved around the side of the desk and the dogs came with her like snowy sentinels.

“Astrid Llewelyn,” said Brandt, “I’d like to introduce you to Isabeau Jaeger, the current head of Gordian Pharmaceuticals.”

The woman extended her manicured and bejeweled hand to me. “Astrid,” she said pleasantly, her French-accented voice lilting over the syllables and making my name sound like
Astreedt
. “I believe you knew my husband.”

The thing about a unicorn is, when they come at you, you can just shoot them. I’m far less capable of dealing when it’s a human bearing down on me with a very sharp weapon. And a mention of Marten Jaeger was one of the sharpest I could imagine.

I stared at Mrs. Jaeger and wondered how quickly I could run without a unicorn chasing me.

“Yes,” I stammered. I knew him. I hated him. I watched him die.

Her hand, slim and fine and cool as spring, slipped into mine. Her eyes were silver blue, just like the walls of the room and the moonstone necklace she wore, and shiny black hair fell in waves to just above her shoulders. “I’m sorry,
ma chère
, does this trouble you? I know the way he died was most horrible.”

“I’m so sorry for your loss.” The words shook from my lips, and I prayed they did not sound quite as hollow to her.

“Merci beaucoup,”
said Isabeau Jaeger. “We were quite shocked to hear of it. You see, it had been many, many months since I’d last spoken to him.” She turned her back to me and moved toward the desk, her giant dogs trailing in her wake, their noses practically reaching her shoulders, when she stopped. “We were estranged, Astrid. I could not support his policies. Not the ones about our company, not the ones about the kirin, and most certainly not his thoughts regarding the young ladies in your monastery.”

I stood dumbfounded. No one had ever mentioned Marten’s wife. Was their “estrangement” why?

Isabeau gestured to the armchairs near her desk. “Please have a seat. I am very glad to have the opportunity to speak to you. I am ashamed to admit I’ve felt far too uncomfortable to approach the Order of the Lioness these past few months. I should have contacted you at once, but I had no idea what reception to expect. You’d be justified in slamming the door in my face.”

I sat down on the chair—plopped, really.

“Can I get you something to drink? Perrier, perhaps? Or chamomile tea?”

I shook my head, and watched as she scratched one of her dogs behind an ear. Its lips parted and I saw a flash of white fangs even longer than Bonegrinder’s.

“Do you like dogs, Astrid?” Isabeau asked. “These are Great Pyrénées. They are sheepherding dogs from our French Alps. As beautiful as einhorns, no?”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. “I’ve never seen an einhorn.”

She beamed. “We must do our best to correct that. They are the loveliest of all unicorns.” Her smile faded as she continued to caress the dog’s neck. “At one time, I had hoped a sheepherding dog could do the same for unicorns. I was mistaken.”

How many dogs had they lost before that became clear? I folded my idle hands in my lap. “What are their names?”

“The male is Gog,” she said, pointing. “And the female Magog. It was a joke of my husband’s. Some Alexander story about giants who guard the gates of hell.” She pursed her lips. “He had it wrong, of course. The giants were the monsters trapped
beyond
the gates.”

Brandt slumped into a seat beside me and started scarfing brightly colored candies from a nearby crystal dish.

I sat forward in my seat. “Madame, I have to tell you, I tried so hard to stop the unicorn that killed your husband. I couldn’t—”

“I believe you, Astrid,” Isabeau said, and sat behind her desk again. She kept her face down for a moment and when she did speak, there was a catch in her voice. “Marten reaped what he sowed. He was very hard and very greedy, and I could not bear to live with him like that. We went our separate ways, but I did not supervise him. And so, I feel like I must apologize to you. I did not know how twisted his ideas had become. Had I any notion of his behavior to the women in your Order, or the way he would withdraw and give support at a whim, or his evil dealings with the kirin unicorns or those boys, I would have stopped him. It was shameful. It was criminal. Had he not died, I would be working now to see him justly punished for his actions.”

Her expression was somber, but not devastated. Certainly not as wrecked as I’d be if I found out my husband was a scumbag like Marten, though I supposed she’d had several months to adjust to the idea, and several more to come to terms with the fact that he’d been killed by a unicorn.

I cleared my throat. “That’s actually why I’m here. I’ve been looking for Seth Gavriel—”

“You and the authorities, no?”

I looked at Brandt, who was still involved in his candies. “Brandt said you might know where he is?”

Isabeau gazed at me sadly. “If I did, I would certainly inform the police, just as they have asked. All I know is that Seth was under the protection of my husband. Marten gave him money, set him on the run. If he should use his company credit card, we’d be able to trace him. He’s either too clever to use it or so stupid he’s lost it. But trust me, Astrid, should we ever have an inkling of what has happened to that young man, we shall contact the authorities.”

And yet, all this time, the Bartolis’ investigator had been chasing the wrong card! “If you know what credit card Seth has, why didn’t you tell us at the Cloisters?”

Isabeau looked confused. “The Cloisters? I have given the information to the police,” she said. “Who are most likely to track such things. I didn’t think it would be useful to you, and we are tracking it as well, but I can give it to you if you wish. I will do whatever I can to help. It’s such a terrible thing.”

My shoulders relaxed like the limbs of a bow at rest as Isabeau spoke.

“We all want to find the secret to the Remedy,” she went on. “It could be the most important medical breakthrough of this century. Yet it will not be had at the price Marten sought to pay.”

The phone on the desk rang twice, then Jean-Jacques poked his head into the room and aimed a stream of rapid French at Isabeau.

“Forgive me, Astrid,” she said. “I must accept this call. We can talk more in a few minutes, yes? And in the meantime, maybe Brandt can show you our herd. I understand you were friends in the States.”

Their herd? I looked at Brandt, who rolled to his feet, then pulled me to mine.

He kept his hand on mine all the way out of the room and down the hall, and I was pretty much grateful for it, as my mind was busy spinning the information it had just received.

All this time I’d been terrified by the idea of resumed contact between Gordian and the Cloisters. Would they be furious over what we’d done to the kirin? Over what we’d let happen to Marten? I’d never expected a reception like the one I’d just received. I’d never thought that Gordian was anything other than utterly under Marten Jaeger’s thumb. I never thought that anyone there would consider what we’d done to be justified.

Especially since I hadn’t reached a conclusion on that myself.

Brandt seemed oblivious to my inner turmoil, chatting about our hometown as we walked through the corridor.

“Hold on,” he said as we reached the back of the house. He ducked into a side room and emerged with a small paper sack. “You okay, Astrid? You look like you did that time you got a B on your chemistry test.”

I swallowed. “It was a C. A C-minus.” I’d completely screwed up my orbital calculations and spent the next week on makeup extra credit.

“How traumatizing,” he joked.

I turned my face toward my feet, trying to remember a time when a C-minus on a test was the most traumatizing event in my life.

“You still want to be a doctor?” he asked as we exited the house.

“Yeah. But it’s hard lately. I haven’t been in school, even.”

“The hunter people didn’t put you in school in Rome?”

“They tried,” I said with a shrug. “But we’d missed the application cutoff. It was disappointing.”

“For you, I’m sure!”

The back of the château featured a large stone patio that ran the entire length of the building and spilled down toward the lawn in a series of shallow terraces. Beyond that, the dome of the greenhouse rose above our heads, glinting in the intermittent sunlight breaking through the persistent clouds.