Ascendant (25 page)

“Does he know—what it’s like?” he whispered.

Yes. I tell him. At least, I try
. I nodded, weakly.

“He can’t. How can he know what it feels like, to have that poison in your veins? To taste death in your mouth, to come so close, and then the Remedy—the magic—comes burning through, and everything”—he lifted his head and met my eyes—”everything becomes completely clear.”

I shivered.

“Astrid,” he murmured, closing his hands at the ledge behind my head. “Please.” His cheek rested against mine, his breath hot on my throat.

Except “please” was what I wanted to say, too.
Please, move away. Please, this is very confusing. Please, touch me some more
.

Sensations flooded through me: the sound of water all around us, the currents tangling our legs together beneath the surface, Brandt’s jaw sliding against my face, the rush of the blood in my ears, and the beat of his heart against my sternum, and over it all, the strong scent of chlorine, stronger than any chamomile, a cloud so thick no unicorn could penetrate it.

But a siren could. Alarms rang out from every corner of the room, echoing off the tiles and shuddering over the surface of the water.

“What’s that?” I said.

“It’s a breach.” Brandt’s face turned hard. “The electronic barrier around the einhorns is down.”

I ducked under his arm and pulled myself onto the ledge. Water poured off me in rivulets as I sprinted for my shoes. My short white cover-up clung to my wet form as I wrapped it around my body and headed out the door.

Brandt hurried behind me, but he wasn’t as good at running in his flip-flops. I dashed up the stairs and out the back door, pausing only for a moment to grab my alicorn knife from its holster near the door.

“Be careful!” He puffed.

“Stay back!” I cried, and slammed the door in his face. Immunity or not, I didn’t need him out here if there were loose unicorns about.

The alarms were even louder out here, an air raid siren set to full blast. As I raced around the edge of the greenhouse, my damp feet sliding in my unlaced sneakers, I could feel the einhorns. The sirens had scared them, and they were flitting around inside the woods, still contained by the fences, but for how long?

The full moon shone brightly on the misty grass, which was slick and silver with an early dew. At the edge of the lawn lay the fence, and as my unicorn senses expanded, I could make out every link in the chain, its shadowed diamonds fragmenting the forest beyond. I skidded to a stop by the gate and gasped. Someone had smashed the lockbox and yanked out the wires. The electric boundary was down, all right, and so was the lock on the gate.

Brandt came running up now, and behind him, panting and lugging a toolbox, was Isabeau’s secretary, Jean-Jacques.

I whirled to face them, and the unicorn magic made them seem sluggish. I saw their mouths drop open in slow motion as they noticed my speed. Brandt was still wearing his wet bathing suit, but he’d pulled on both a shirt and his leather jacket to protect him from the cold night air. I couldn’t even feel the temperature beneath the rush of fire in my veins.

“I said stay inside!”

Jean-Jacques set the box on the ground and flipped open the lid. He pulled out a giant flashlight and spoke to Brandt.

“He’s here to fix the electronic boundary,” Brandt translated.

“He’s taking his life in his hands,” I said. “As are you. Now, help me get over the fence.”

“The fence?” Brandt raised his eyebrows. “The one with all the barbed wire on top?” He glanced down at my wrap, which ended mid-thigh. “You sure?”

“Yes.” I tugged on his sleeve. “Take this off. I’ll throw it over the wire.”

He glanced at the top of the fence, almost fifteen feet above our heads. “What if you miss?” I fixed him with a glare.

“Right. Superpowers.” He slid off his jacket and handed it to me. “Try not to get too many holes in it.”

“At the moment,” I said, tossing the jacket over the fence, where it landed perfectly, “I’m trying not to get too many holes in you. Boost me up.”

“Boost you all the way up there?” Brandt shook his head. “Impossible.”

“Boost me,” I repeated. “Then get out of here.”

He shrugged. “Fine.” He interlaced his fingers and knelt, holding his hands out to me.

I stepped in his palms, and as he stood, pushing me up, I leaped.

As it turned out, we didn’t need the jacket after all. The bottom of my sneakers touched lightly on the leather as I vaulted the fence then landed softly on the grass on the other side.

The sense of unicorns roaring through my veins, I glanced back at the men. Jean-Jacques had paused in his work to gape at me in awe. Brandt wore a similar expression.

“It
is
different with a trained hunter,” I heard him whisper as I ran off.

The unicorns sensed my presence and began zigzagging through the forest, jumping and racing over roots and branches, only half aware that their world had just gotten ever so slightly bigger. If they dared to test the boundaries, I was done for. If I could jump over the fence, it would never hold a unicorn.

I raced around the side of the woods, sticking close to the tiny plastic flags marking the electric boundary and watching for any signs that a unicorn had broken past. Inside the woods, they were moving too swiftly to get a head count. Here and there I felt the familiar thoughts of the ones I knew—Fats and Stretch, Tongue and Blotchy—each running, awoken by the sirens and unsure of their meaning. My presence was doing nothing to calm them down.

My wrap flapped against the top of my thighs as I sprinted through the edge of the forest, leaping over fallen branches and ducking under tree limbs. My damp hair whipped against my face and I wondered if this was what it felt like to be a real huntress of Diana, running wild beneath the moonlight in a little white toga, weapon in hand, prey loose in the woods.

Though it was doubtful that ancient, mythological hunting parties wore sneakers.

On the other side of the fence, the protesters’ camp came into view. With my unicorn-hunting senses at full tilt, the people running from tent to tent with their flashlights looked like sleepwalkers—ridiculously slow and clumsy.

It must have been one of them who’d sneaked onto the property and destroyed the electronics.

“You morons!” I shouted, though I doubted any of them spoke English. “You’re going to get yourselves killed!”

One of the men turned, and I recognized him from that morning. He stared at me, and unlike all the others, he did not seem awed by my speed, by the magic coursing through my body. He regarded me steadily, without curiosity, without surprise. Was this the idiot who’d smashed the power box?

“Did you hear me? “ I screamed.

“Behind you,” he replied calmly.

I whirled to see a unicorn charging out of the woods and straight at me, its movements masked by the jumble of the others’ terrified emotions. Its feet flew in slow motion—one step, two—galloping toward the boundary with no fear and no hesitation. It knew there’d be no resistance, no shock. And then it would leap over the fence and freedom, sweet freedom… .

I drew my knife.
Stop
, I commanded the unicorn in my head.

It rushed forward.

I pulled back my arm to throw.
Stop!

It lowered its head, horn aimed at me, still running.

The knife flew from my hands.

The unicorn reared back on two legs, screaming, the knife stuck hard in her foreleg.

“Shhh,” I said, running to meet the wounded unicorn. It wasn’t a fatal blow, but an incision with an alicorn knife wouldn’t heal the way a regular wound would.
Shhh
, I repeated into her mind.

Miracle of miracles, the unicorn quieted and stopped rearing. She limped a few feet toward me, grunting softly, and I put my hand on her neck, patting softly to distract her as I pulled the knife from her flesh.

Her pain rocketed through both of us and we staggered together. I put my hand over the wound to try to stem the flow of blood. Had it been a mistake to remove the knife? Would she die of blood loss? I’d purposely tried to miss any vital parts.

There was a soft thump behind me and I spun around. The protester stood on the other side of the fence, pointing to a spot in the grass. I looked down.

A small plastic case with a red cross on the cover. A first aid kit. I raised my eyes to the protester, who touched his fingers to his brow, then turned and walked away.

I snatched up the case and returned to the einhorn, who was limping around on her bad leg.

“Hold still,” I said, and yanked out some absorbent pads and an elastic bandage. Now I was patching up a unicorn!

The unicorn stopped stumbling and remained calm.

“Ah, so now you listen like a zhi, huh? Is that all I have to do, threaten you with death?”

The unicorn looked at me with terror-filled eyes, but didn’t flinch when I touched her leg. Her thoughts radiated fear and pain and a sort of bafflement that, despite the fact I’d just stabbed her, I meant her no real harm.

“This is what happens when you try to make a break for it,” I explained to my little man-eating friend. Breaker nudged me with her nose.

I put pressure on the wound until the blood flow slowed, then got some gauze pads and packed them against the incision, wrapping tightly around the unicorn’s leg with the bandage. Short of stitches, this would be the best I could do. I fastened the bandage with metal clips, then put my hands lightly on the unicorn’s leg, bending and moving it to make sure that she couldn’t dislodge the bandage while running.

It was then that I felt them. Awe, rising like a giant bubble, growing to push out every other emotion: all the pain and the fear, and the curiosity, and the excitement engendered by the alarms. I raised my head and saw we were surrounded by a circle of unicorns. There were Stretch and Blotchy and Tongue and Fats, there was the angry one I’d seen the day I killed Jumps, and some other unicorns I had caught only glimpses of—old, young, healthy, starving, standing around me like pale ghosts in the moonlight, staring at me with their fathomless black eyes, their white bodies sleek and solid but for the dark, dead collars at each of their throats. Breaker’s blood felt sticky between my fingers and I balled my hands into fists at my side. The unicorns didn’t move, just stared at me as a group, as one. I felt tiny points of pressure at the edge of my mind, as if they were leaning into it, separated from actually hearing me, from actually communicating with me, by the thinnest membrane of misunderstanding and mistrust.

I took a deep breath and thought of everything soothing. Full bellies and quiet glades, grass cooled by evening dew and large shadowy dens beneath the roots of great trees. A moon that lit up the sky and meat still warm with the blood of a beating heart.

The unicorns came closer. They
listened
.

A mother’s fur, the scent of fire and flood, a caress from the hand of a hunter, her softly shadowed thoughts pushing all the fear from your brain …

As one, the unicorns bowed before me, touching their horns to the earth, and I released my hands. I was a goddess. I was Diana, the Huntress, the Mistress of the Animals.

One by one, the lights on their collars blinked back to life.

I
spent the night in the enclosure, just to make sure there were no unexpected occurrences. Brandt brought me dry clothes and blankets and I huddled inside them, knees drawn up to my chest, staring across the electric boundary at the château and wondering what in the world had happened that night.

Who was I? Was I a unicorn hunter? Was I some kind of magical unicorn homing signal? Was I a horrible, faithless girl who was about to make out with my ex-boyfriend while my current boyfriend left messages on my voice mail? And if I was this last one, how was I planning to crawl my way back? Was I supposed to tell Giovanni what had happened—though nothing had, actually, happened? Was I supposed to just push it all out of my head? Was I supposed to never get near Brandt again? These were the types of things I’d probably know if I had any real experience with boys; if I hadn’t been living in a convent; if my only two relationships hadn’t been with boys whose lives I’d saved from the vicious killer unicorns
I
was responsible for drawing in to begin with.

Last night, Brandt had almost made sense to me. Being with him in my room, in the pool, it almost felt like the old days. Neither of us could ever go back, but he knew me well, an Astrid who’d never been a warrior, and he’d liked that girl enough to date her back home. And now that he knew me this way, he still seemed to like me. And he was up to his neck in my new world as well, graced with the same scars, working toward the same goal, in whatever weird way Gordian managed to find a use for him. Whenever I was lucky enough to get Giovanni on the phone, I listened to him talk about his life in New York: his classes and his friends and his all-night scavenger hunts. It seemed so alien from my world. And how could I bring up unicorns in that context?