Ascendant (23 page)

“I still do,” I replied. “I’ve just been spoiled. Today was a bad day—but a bad day here is like every hunting day at the Cloisters.” My voice broke.

“Astrid …” Giovanni said softly. “Shhh, it’s okay. I wish I could hold you.”

Him and me both.

“It’s just that—” I began. How could I say this to him? Giovanni, who called me Astrid the Warrior and said I was the bravest person he’d ever known. What else could this confession be but cowardice? “It’s just that I don’t think I’m cut out for killing things.”

“I know,” came Giovanni’s voice, kind and strong and true. “I wouldn’t love you if you were.”

I turned my face into the pillow and squealed. No wonky Italian this time; the actual L-word. Except, he hadn’t said it in a way that would make it easy to respond. I wouldn’t love him if … if what? I couldn’t imagine the scenario.

So maybe I should just say it. For the first time. On the phone.

No. Not on the phone.

“Astrid?” came his voice. Did he even know what he’d just said? “Still there?”

“Yes.” My voice sounded breathless. “I—”

“I have to go.”

“Oh.” My mind raced. “I’ll, um, send you an alicorn. You know, if you ever need it for a scavenger hunt again.”

He laughed. “Unicorn hunters give the best gifts. Take care, Astrid the Warrior.
Ti voglio bene.”

And then he was gone.

After several days of Isabeau’s doctor-mandated TLC and Brandt’s video games (I am happy to relate that I now positively rocked at first-person shooter), the bruise had mostly stopped hurting, and the mark on my belly had faded to a sickly greenish purple. I celebrated my first day back on the job with an extra long walk through the einhorn enclosure, and though I sensed the unicorns enough to do a head count—seventeen and counting—I didn’t see a single one.

On my way out of the forest, I swung around the far side of the enclosure—the end that bordered the edge of the Jaeger property and the beginning of the public land. The protesters remained, their tents looking all the more bright and cheery beside the dying greenery. Clotheslines, bikes, folding chairs and tables, and other camping accoutrements lay scattered about the grounds, and the scent of burned meat hung in the misty air. If I could smell it from here, I marveled that the unicorns didn’t risk life and limb to burst through both electrified boundary and barbed wire. And I could see, sticking out of the back of one of the protesters’ trucks, the piles of signs they wielded every day at the entrance to the château. Though the words were in French, the images were not: gory color photos of the horrible things that happen to animals in laboratories. At one time, they might have made me wince. But I’d seen enough blood and pain by this point that they didn’t really bother me, and I doubted they bothered the scientists who committed these acts, either. So who were the signs supposed to affect?

Perhaps they served as some sort of perverse encouragement to the protesters who wielded them. They were certainly devout, leaving family and friends and job to come here and camp day in and day out for the sake of their beliefs.

As I turned to go, I spotted movement from one of the tents. A tall black man slid out and straightened, stretching in the gray dawn light before he spotted me.

I steeled myself for an assault of words I probably wouldn’t understand, but instead he raised his hand and waved, cocking his head to the side as if curious.

I waved back.

As he seemed to have no interest in coming closer or shouting to me across the campground, after a moment, I turned away and walked back into the woods.

After my lessons were over that morning, I called the Cloisters.

“Astrid?” Phil answered on the first ring.

“I’m fine.” This had become our standard greeting ever since I’d left the Cloisters. No amount of argument about the relative gentleness of the einhorns would sway Phil into believing it was safe for me to be here alone.

“I thought you were our lawyer calling back.” Phil’s tone brightened. “Yesterday was the most amazing day. One of my letters has actually gotten some attention!”

“We can afford a lawyer?”

“The unicorns can!” Phil said. “She works for the Center for Biological Diversity. It’s an environmental foundation devoted to protecting endangered species. They’re funded by grants or something. Anyway, she’s interested in taking on unicorns.”

“Oh,” I said. “Great.”

“It
is
great,” Phil said. “This woman, she’s worked with polar bears, she’s worked with tigers; she’s one of the preeminent lobbyists for wild predators. And that’s the great thing about our petition to have unicorns recognized as an endangered species!” You could practically hear Phil beaming all the way from Rome. “Apparently, it’s pretty much impossible to get an animal listed as endangered without years and years of scientific research to show they are—especially if they’re some random thing like a rock lichen or a clam. It’s way easier if it’s a big, beautiful animal like a bear or a tiger … or a unicorn.”

“Even if they’ll eat you?” I asked.

“As long as they can put its picture on T-shirts or turn its likeness into stuffed animals, you can get the public on your side. That’s what the lawyer said, anyway. And we’re in luck, because unicorns have always been so popular. Maybe even more popular than bears!”

“That’s … great. Really.”

“So anyway, she’s going to draft a petition to send to the Department of the Interior to add unicorns to the list of endangered species in the United States. Things are really bad over there, especially out west. There was this whole story in the news a few weeks back about some state government getting so worried about a herd of kirin in some canyon somewhere that they dropped napalm on them. Can you believe it?”

Yes. But I wasn’t about to say that to Phil.

“And it gets even better. She’s also going to put me in touch with people who can do the same with petitioning CITES—”

“Who?”

Phil sighed. “Sorry, you haven’t been around. You’ve missed so much. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. It’s basically the committee that decides on worldwide endangered status for wild animals and plants. I want to make the capture, trade, and cruel treatment of unicorns illegal all over the world.”

“Lofty goal,” I said.

Phil paused for breath. “And how are you?”

“Oh, you know,” I said. “Killing unicorns for pharmaceutical testing.”

She laughed. “Well, not much longer if I have my way. Meanwhile, everyone around here is engaged in the same activity, so don’t feel too bad.”

Far easier said than done. Only, where was I supposed to draw the line? How could it be okay to kill an entire pack of kirin, but not the single zhi we had living in the Cloisters? And maybe I saw the point the protesters were trying to make. Why was it okay to imprison and half starve this herd of einhorns until we were ready to kill them in the name of scientific testing? If Phil got her way, did that mean we wouldn’t be allowed to kill any unicorns, even the ones who were about to eat people? Who
had
eaten people?

For all that Isabeau and I liked to imagine that the nobler side of being a unicorn hunter involved the production of the Remedy, I couldn’t seem to move past the inscription on Clothilde’s sword.
TO VANQUISH THE SAVAGE UNICORN
. If Phil didn’t get things changed soon, we’d vanquish them right back into oblivion.

I needed to stop thinking about this, so I asked, “How’s Neil?”

A pause. “Fine. He didn’t get that hunter, you know. The American one? And then a week ago, he tried to contact a few more in Sweden and was totally given the brush-off. He’s a little down about recruitment at the moment.”

Of course, that wasn’t what I was asking and Phil knew it.

“And how are you and Neil?” I spelled out.

“We’re friends and colleagues,” Phil said. “As we’ve always been.”

“And that’s all?”

“It’s actually quite a lot.”

“But is it enough?”

“Drop it, Astroturf.” After a moment, her tone returned to normal. “So how are your classes? Are you learning lots?”

We talked about school for a while. Phil remained undecided about whether she planned to return to college the following semester or risk losing her scholarship and take the entire year off for her Save the Unicorn crusade. She’d also decided to switch her major from Media Studies to Biology and Public Policy. “If I do manage to pull off any movement on the unicorn front, I’ll probably be able to score an academic scholarship or grant, so Dad won’t kill me for getting kicked off the team.”

“But Phil,” I said, “don’t you want to play volleyball anymore?”

“Of course I do,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean there aren’t more important things for me to be doing right now. Come on, Asterisk, you know that better than anyone.”

I said nothing.

“So how are things there other than classes? Isn’t it lonely?”

“Well, I don’t have to share a bathroom with ten other girls, if that’s what you mean.”

“There are seven hunters left here, Astrid. And that’s when no one’s out with an injury, too. Not exactly a full lineup.”

Was she asking me to come back?

“Who do you hang out with over there?” she asked. “Brandt Ellison?”

“Sometimes,” I said. Actually, pretty regularly the last few days.

“Is he any less of a cretin than he was back home?”

“Well, I never thought he was a cretin, remember?” I replied. “I was dating him.”

“If I recall correctly, you were simultaneously dating him
and
thinking he was a cretin. The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“Well, he’s decidedly less cretinous when your relationship is utterly platonic,” I said. “Like the other day, I was hurt and he was really sweet, bringing me some video games and—”

“Wait. Asteroid, you were hurt? What happened? Why didn’t you call me?”

I explained what had happened when I’d tried to euthanize the einhorn.

“I don’t like this. Not at all. I’m really sketched out by the idea that you don’t have any backup out there. I would never send a hunter out alone.”

“Honestly, aside from this one instance, it’s the most boring job in the world.”

“One instance could have meant your life. What if, instead of kicking you, that unicorn had bitten off your hand? Or your head?”

“Einhorns aren’t big enough to bite off my head.”

“Not the point, Astroturf.” Phil was quiet for a moment. “I’m going to talk to Neil. We might have to call this Jaeger woman and see if we can send another hunter out there to assist you.”

“You were just complaining how few you have left at the Cloisters!” I cried. “And you want to reduce the numbers even further?”

“I want to keep you safe, yes,” was Phil’s only response. “However that comes about.”

“I
am
safe,” I argued. “The other day was an anomaly, and Isabeau has assured me that nothing like that will happen again. Phil, you have no idea how easy it is here. I don’t need backup. These unicorns—they’re utterly trapped. Between the electric collars and the fences, they’re practically domesticated. They’re actually pathetic in a lot of ways—skin and bones. They don’t look healthy enough to escape even if there weren’t barriers.”

“Really?” Phil asked. “That’s terrible. Do you think you could take some pictures? I know the lawyer would love to see exactly what kind of cruelty the unicorns are facing.”

I was pretty sure that would be a breach of my contract with Gordian. “They aren’t being cruel! There’s plenty of food, and the enclosure’s very nice. Unicorns just don’t take well to captivity, that’s all.”

“Bonegrinder’s doing fine,” Phil said.

I grimaced. That was my argument. “Einhorn are different.”

“What does the vet say?”

“Vets are a tricky prospect with unicorns, given the danger and their inherent resistance to sedatives. Still, I think I can help a vet with getting them diagnosed and if he has to give them shots.”

“You haven’t yet?” Phil exclaimed. “Where is my wannabe doctor cousin! Asteroid, I’m shocked.”

And perhaps she was right to be. Most of the unicorns I knew were wild, and if any suffered from health issues, it hadn’t mattered. After all, the point was for me to kill them. Bonegrinder seemed healthy enough—she’d never been to a vet or received any kind of vaccination, but then again, there weren’t any laws regarding the licensing of a pet unicorn, either.

But there must be laws regarding the welfare of animals used in scientific testing. The captors needed to be held accountable that none of the creatures under their care suffered needlessly. I would bring that up with Isabeau the next time I saw her.

Except her secretary, Jean-Jacques, informed me that Isabeau was away on business until the following morning. In the afternoon, I did my homework, checked on the unicorns again, and in a fit of entirely unexpected homesickness for Rome, made spaghetti for dinner.

No, I didn’t miss the Cloisters. But I missed Lucia’s cooking, and I missed Cory, and I really, really missed Phil.

Without Isabeau around, and with Brandt on his usual nightly excursions to who knew where, the château turned into a ghost town, haunted by the two pale wraiths of Gog and Magog, who wandered, graceful as einhorns, from room to room in search of their mistress. I watched them skulk around while I ate my dinner. A few times, they gave me a perfunctory sniff, as if making sure that I wasn’t hiding Isabeau under my shirt along with her herbal, bruise-reducing ointments. Though the dogs had never been particularly unfriendly to me, they cared about no one and nothing except for Isabeau. Not exactly hornless Bonegrinders, despite their shaggy white fur and long legs.

I missed Bonegrinder, too. It would likely take a while for the einhorns to trust me after the euthanasia disaster. If they ever deigned to come near me again, that was.

After dinner, I headed back into my room and tried to decide how best to entertain myself for the evening. There was that Hildegard book, which I’d cracked, read the part where she recommends that you travel faster with shoes made from unicorn hide, and tossed it aside. Brandt had left me with his video games, which might help pass the time. Or I could call Giovanni. Again.