Ascendant (21 page)

I
sabeau found me in the greenhouse, still gasping for breath, face buried in a chamomile plant, though I doubted anything would drown out the images of the unicorns fighting over the sausages as I laughed in the woods.

“Astrid! Whatever is the matter?” She came striding down the aisle, her steps long and sure despite her short stature and the tottering height of her heels. Gog and Magog trotted behind her, their ears perked, their eyes as dark and piercing as any einhorn’s. “Why did you run away from me?”

“I—I was just taken aback, that’s all.”

“By what?”

“I didn’t realize I was being asked to kill one of them.”

She stopped then, and her expression was one of confusion.
“Je ne comprends pas
. You are regularly asked to kill unicorns. You killed one in your first hour here. Why should this request cause you to flee?”

“I—” She had a point. “I was just surprised. I didn’t realize … that this would be part of my duties.”

Her confusion gave way to amused bafflement. “But you’re a unicorn hunter. You’re the only one who can kill them.”

“Right, but—” There was no point explaining. Yes, I killed unicorns. All the time, with rarely any thought. I, who could see right into their hearts, who could taste their terror as my arrows pierced their chests—I’d still killed dozens.

Though perhaps my favorite part of this job was that until now, I hadn’t had to kill anything.

“Why do you need it?” I asked.

“For our experiments. We use the parts of the unicorn in our attempts to re-create the Remedy. This is the reason we keep the animals here to begin with.”

“Yes.” I nodded miserably. I knew that, too. They were not just captives there for my amusement. They were lab rats. I needed to snap out of this shock.

“This way, the anesthetic, it is quick. Humane. And painless. So much better than one of your weapons.” Isabeau handed me the syringe I’d dropped in the hall. “This is part of your job, just as killing one that escaped would be.”

I swallowed. My job was to be a unicorn hunter, not a unicorn executioner. I’d never killed one that wasn’t either actively or about to attack something. And yet I couldn’t argue with Isa-beau’s point. I couldn’t get squeamish over a gentle euthanasia when I seemed to have no problem with the prolonged, painful death of a mis-shot arrow.

Though it had been quite some time since I’d hit a unicorn anywhere that didn’t bring a quick death.

“I need sausages or some other meat. To tempt him over to me.”

Isabeau’s eyes narrowed. “I thought they found your hunter wiles temptation enough.”

“Please,” I croaked, then hated myself for it. “I can give him a last meal.”

Her face softened. “Yes,
chère
. That is only fair.”

I headed into the enclosure armed with my knife, a packet of meat, the deadly syringe, and a jaw filled with firmly gritted teeth. This was my job, my duty. And how was giving one unicorn a peaceful, painless death any worse than stabbing one in the neck from ten feet away?

Perhaps it had been a bad idea to name the unicorns that followed me through the forest every day.

I let myself through the gate, then marched across the no-man’s-land and past the electric barrier, chin held high, telling myself to just stick the first young male unicorn who wandered by. I was not going to play favorites with the lab rats.

Please don’t let Stretch come first. Please don’t let Stretch come first
.

The forest was still and quiet that morning, the thoughts of the einhorns as dim and insubstantial as the mist coating the ground at the base of the trees. They must be asleep, dreaming of food or freedom or whatever lay in the hearts of captive monsters. Fine, I would wait. I was good at waiting. How many sleepless nights had I spent up on the cramped and vertigo-inducing quarters of a tree stand? At least here I could be on the ground.

I sat down a few yards into the wood, my back against the trunk of a tree, and removed the meat from my bag. The combination of hunter and fresh food should provide an irresistible combination to any nearby unicorns.

It didn’t take long. Within minutes, one approached. I could taste its thoughts. Driven by a hunger that seemed to consume the creature from the inside out, the unicorn moved toward me. I tensed. This was not any of the einhorns I’d known. He was wary, angry, and did not trust me. Fury burned in his belly in the place of food, and for the first time since coming to France, an einhorn reminded me less of a zhi than of a kirin and its endless rage. He’d kill me if it meant more food.

I reached into my bag for the syringe, and the unicorn took off. I leaped to my feet, scattering food, and had already rushed in the direction of the fleeing unicorn before I remembered that I wasn’t hunting. I didn’t need to chase after this one unicorn. Another would come.

Even if this was the only one I’d met whose life I felt comfortable ending.

I plopped back onto the ground and dug the heels of my hands into my forehead. No. I wasn’t going to play favorites. Any of these unicorns would do—the ones I knew, the angry one who’d almost attacked me—it didn’t matter. Their lives were all forfeit for the good of whatever people Gordian would be helping once they were able to formulate the Remedy. I’d killed dozens of unicorns to save the lives of people and livestock. Surely it was no different to kill a few more, even if the people I was saving didn’t even know it yet.

Slowly, the presence of more unicorns invaded my senses. I looked up. Blotchy and Jumps stood a few trees away, watching.

Okay, boys, which of you is it going to be?

But they couldn’t understand me, and if they could, I doubt they’d be waiting there, drooling over meat I intended to use to lure one of them to his death.

I rose to my feet and began walking back toward the electric boundary, dropping lumps of meat as I went. My plan was to bring the unlucky unicorn as close as possible to the edge of the enclosure before inserting the needle into its vein. I knew how to give injections, but I would need to distract the unicorn long enough to perform the procedure. Even with my magic-enhanced speed, it might be tricky to keep the animal still once I stuck a needle through its thick hide. Unicorns were pretty quick, too.

I cast a glance behind me. Both unicorns followed, snarling at each other as they rushed from one bread crumb of meat to the next. I felt other unicorns emerging around us, drawn in by the scent of food. I grimaced. Great, an audience.

Jumps realized that if he let Blotchy claim the rearmost sausage and ran straight to the next one, by dint of his longer legs, he could jump the line and get most of the food I dropped. He started gaining on me.

Whoever wins loses.

Jumps drew closer and closer. I waited for him near the boundary and when he reached me, I palmed the syringe in one hand and held out a huge lump of meat in the other.

“Here boy,” I whispered, tamping down my fear and projecting nothing but comfort on the slim chance that he could feel some of the turmoil in my mind. He leaned in to take the meat from my hand and I closed my fingers around it—hoping he wouldn’t choose to overcome that barrier by just biting them off—and slipped my other hand around his neck. He tensed up for a moment, but remained intent on the meat.

As Jumps pulled the last bit of sausage from between my clenched fingers, I slid my pinky through his mane, searching for a vein in his neck. I had to do this quickly. Even now, Blotchy was catching up to us, nose still buried in the leaves, looking for any forgotten meat.

There. The needle slid in and I tightened my grip on the unicorn as I depressed the plunger.

The einhorn jolted once, and I held on, using the force of his jerks to draw us closer to the line. The unicorn gasped.

Respiratory failure followed by cardiac arrest
.

I knew what was happening now. Jumps stumbled to his knees and I followed, holding on with both hands.

“Shhh …” I whispered as he twitched then went still. His terror faded like an echo inside my head.

I took a deep breath and straightened. There. Done.

At the edge of the woods, a line of unicorns gathered and watched me, their fathomless eyes filled with reproach.

“I had to,” I said to them, and began to drag the body across the line. As I pulled Jumps over the boundary, a shock jolted through us both and I dropped his hooves and fell back onto the ground.

“Ow!”

The other unicorns didn’t move, just watched me with interest.

Okay, next time, I’d need to think this through. Rubber gloves, maybe, or simply release the collar before I pull the corpse over the—

Jumps’s chest began to rise and fall.

No. That was my imagination. Or maybe some sort of leftover muscle spasm.

He lifted his head, then struggled to push himself to his feet.

“Oh my God,” I whispered, still splayed out on the ground.

Jumps took a few staggering steps, horrific choking noises coming from his mouth. His eyes were wide now, rolling in his head so I could see the red sinews that held his eyeballs in place.

But his mind—oh, his mind! Inside his head was nothing at all. No fear, no pain, no thoughts, just a vast black chasm. “No!” I cried, reeling in horror.

He fixed me with his bloody stare and, gasping, collapsed once more.

As one, the unicorns at the edge of the woods turned from their fallen friend to me.

What had just happened? The unicorn was dead; I could have sworn to it. I saw it die; I felt our link break. Had it been the electric shock, somehow reanimating its heart and nerves?

And yet, the way it had glared at me… .

Breathing hard, I crawled toward the body and placed my hands on his neck, searching for a pulse. Nothing. My fingers in front of his nostrils found no breath. And, most of all, the chasm had closed.

My shoulders shuddered and I bowed my head.

Jumps’s hoof shot out and kicked me in the stomach. I flew backward and my head slammed hard against the earth. I wheezed and covered my belly with my hands, squeezing my eyes shut in pain.

Just a nerve response. That’s all.

And then I heard the worst sound of all, a unicorn scream. It seared through my ears, shrill and desolate, then straight into my brain, where it echoed from a place beyond memory, into instinct no cell in my body could ignore.
Make it stop
.

I rolled to my feet, clutching my aching stomach with one hand and reaching for my knife with the other.

I staggered toward the body of Jumps, which was flailing and grunting, trying to push itself to its feet. It was dying. Again.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and slit the unicorn’s throat. Blood poured from the wound to soak the leaves around our feet, and the unicorn fixed me once more with its gaze, as black and deep as the void fading from both our minds.

Jumps went limp and I kneeled near his head, burying my face in my bloody hands.

Sometime later, I heard a motor and looked up to see some of the Gordian staffers pulling up outside the fences with a small truck. They stared through the links in horror, speaking to one another in French.

I rose, letting my hair hang in front of my face so they couldn’t see the streaks of blood, so I didn’t have to look at them. My eyes burned like alicorn venom, but no tears fell. The men came through the outer ring of fences, and the surviving unicorns sprinted back into the woods.

I waited, head bowed over the corpse, until I realized the angry string of French emanating from the one in the white coat was aimed at
me
.

“Salope Américaine!
“ He grabbed my arm, and the unicorns were close enough so that when I shook him off, I knocked him from his feet.

His jaw was slack with shock as he looked up from his spot in the dirt, but I didn’t change my expression, just stared at him grimly from beneath my fall of hair, like the blood-spattered girl at the end of a horror film.

He grunted, stood, and started speaking to his companion.

“Mademoiselle, pardon.”

I turned my baleful glare to the assistant.

“He says the specimen is ruined. The blood, it was important to keep inside. That is why you were instructed to use the syringe.”

“I used the syringe,” I snapped. “It didn’t work.”

As the assistant translated, the scientist snorted and flicked a blood-soaked leaf off his leg.

“It didn’t!” I exclaimed in French, turning on him. “He went down, but he kept coming back to life.”

The scientist rolled his eyes.

“They have amazing healing powers. You know this,” I argued straight at the head scientist. I knew enough French to manage that. “And also, the famous purification ability. Don’t you see? I gave him the poison.” My French failed here. “He was neutralizing it.”

The scientist laughed. This time he didn’t go through his assistant but spoke to me in English. “I do not listen to an ignorant child. You know nothing of medicine. Just magic.”

The blow hit harder than the unicorn’s hoof. I gulped, seeking some sort of response, as the scientist continued his conversation with his assistant.