Rampant (10 page)

Yet I remained where I was at Phil’s side.

Lino had unpacked half a dozen bows of different sizes and shapes, some featuring gears and levers and struts that made the contraptions look more like camouflage-pattern torture devices than the graceful—if gruesome—ancient bows on the wall downstairs.

“Who is the first?” Lino asked. “We must test your draw.” He pointed at Dorcas and held out a bow that looked like a picture frame made of carbon alloy with metal strings. She took the weapon gingerly in her hand and began to ape his positions and movements.

But she couldn’t draw the string back at all. He fiddled and adjusted, encouraging her all the way, until she managed to pull it about halfway back. After that, it seemed to be a bit easier, but she could hardly hold it for more than a second before setting the whole thing down and shaking out her arms.

“Ten kilos only,” Lino said sadly.

Jaeger and Neil exchanged looks.

As Lino repeated the process with the next hunter, I joined Cory and a few of the other girls by the table of weaponry. Along with a variety of bows, he’d laid out hunting knives of all shapes and sizes, as well as arrowheads barbed with movable bits of metal and wood and fiberglass arrows, fletched with different kinds of feathers or even tiny, paper-thin flecks of plastic. At one end of the table, nestled within protective foam cases as if made of fine china, lay several guns.

“What I don’t understand,” Melissende was saying, flipping an unlit cigarette around and around in her fingers, “is why we’re wasting time with bows and arrows. This isn’t ancient Rome. Can’t we just shoot unicorns with sniper rifles?”

“No,” Cory said. “They can’t be killed by bullets.”

Oh, here she went again. I’d personally gouged out a unicorn’s eye with my thumb. They weren’t made of titanium.

“Why not?” Melissende asked. She lit the cigarette, and Lino stiffened, marched over, whipped it out of her mouth, and stamped it out in the grass.

“You will stop that. The animal can smell it. And all of you, no more perfume, okay?”

We nodded, our eyes on the giant bow in his hands.

“We are very far from even using arrows, today,” Lino said. “You all must do many exercises to improve your arms.” He marched Ilesha off to test her draw.

The other hunters started playing with the various articles of camouflage and scent masks the instructor had brought along. Not that they’d be much use, considering how unicorns were drawn to us, no matter what we wore.

Cory began playing with one of the guns, picking it up and
screwing things on and off. “You really want to know why not?” she asked Melissende, who shrugged and moved on.

“I’m more interested in why we can’t use crossbows. They’re cooler than either guns or longbows.”

“It’s all the same reason,” Cory went on, but Melissende had lost all interest. “It’s because the bolt’s too short.” Melissende took out another cigarette and turned away. “I’ll show you!” Cory said in a rush.

“What do you know about guns?” I asked Cory, terrified that any second the thing would explode.

“A bit,” she said. “More rifles than handguns, though. My grandfather used to hunt quail and pheasant and other fowl on our estate. He took me out to shoot skeet with him when I was young.”

“So you have some hunting experience, then.”

She shrugged and collapsed the base of the handgun. It made a strange, echoing click.

“Though birds aren’t exactly unicorns,” I added, as she pulled a lever on the barrel.

She looked at me, gun pointed down at the ground. “I’ve killed more unicorns than you.” Then she lifted the gun and aimed it at Bonegrinder. I heard a pop, and the zhi staggered against the column.

Phil screamed.

Bonegrinder dropped to one knee, wheezing, as blood poured from her body in twin streams.

P
HIL RUSHED ACROSS TH
e courtyard toward the unicorn.

Lino had Cory’s gun in one hand, and Cory’s arms pinned behind her back with the other. He was shouting at her in Italian.

“Astrid!” Phil called to me. “Help me! She’s bleeding!”

I ran over to my cousin and the animal. Blood gushed from opposite sides of Bonegrinder’s torso. Phil placed her hands over the wounds, and blood spurted from between her fingers, dark and so hot it practically burned.

“Help me, oh, God, help me,” she begged. Bonegrinder calmly lifted her head and licked Phil’s face. Blood began to pool around the zhi’s white fur. So much blood. I pictured collapsed lungs, organs shredded within her body. The little unicorn didn’t have a chance.

From a distance, I heard Neil yelling at Cory.

“A towel!” I cried. “Someone get us a towel!”

A shadow fell across us. “She will be fine.” I looked up. Marten Jaeger stood over us, making sure his shiny leather shoes were
well away from the creeping pool of blood. “Take your hands away—you will see.”

“Don’t,” I said to Phil. “Keep the pressure on.”

But Phil lifted her soaked, red hands and peered down at one wound through blood-matted fur. “It’s closed up.”

Marten nodded, a soft smile on his face. “Cornelia is correct. Bullets will not harm a unicorn. Why do you think Clothilde used a sword even in the eighteen hundreds?”

Ilesha cleared her throat. “May I let go now?” she asked. Her arm shook, but she still held the string back at full draw. Lino’s jaw dropped and he released Cory.

Bonegrinder began to lick at the spot where the bullet had gone in. Rosamund joined us, her arms full of both wet and dry towels. She began mopping up the blood as Phil scrubbed at Bonegrinder’s fur.

“It’s healed,” Phil said, half in exultation, half in wonder. “It’s all healed. How is that?”

Marten shook his head. “I wish we knew. This is what my research is all about. Somehow, the regenerative power of the unicorn is embodied in the Remedy. Unless the wound is kept open, it heals almost instantaneously. But despite all the tests we have run on this particular animal, we cannot isolate this property.”

“You tested her?” Phil said angrily. No wonder Bonegrinder had been scared of the scriptorium.

“Of course. We had the zhi under our care until the Bartolis departed our facility to work on the Cloisters. We couldn’t keep the zhi without young Cory’s supervision, you see, and she was very eager to…look into the potential of reconstituting the Order. A shame, really.”

“Really,” Phil mocked.

“See that mark on her horn, on the right? We shaved off a bit for testing.” I looked and saw that one of Bonegrinder’s screw-shaped twists was a tad lopsided. “We took blood, urine, and stool samples. We tried various and sundry operations and poisons. Nothing had any effect.” He gestured at the zhi. “You can’t even see the scars from the vivisection.”

Phil was speechless with rage, and I was sure she was about to sic Bonegrinder on Marten. The zhi looked like she might enjoy it, too. Clearly, the smell of blood—even if it was her own—had whetted her hunger for flesh. And maybe I understood Bonegrinder’s angst, but at the same time, how many humans would Gordian Pharmaceuticals save if they discovered the key to the Remedy? Wasn’t that the whole point of hunting unicorns? Saving people?

“Sir,” I said quickly, “you promised to show me some of the papers you’d been working on.”

“Certainly,” Marten replied, but then he was distracted by a commotion in the courtyard. Neil and Cory were locked in a full-fledged screaming match.

“—discharge a firearm at such close range, with so many people around!”

“Look!” Cory pointed at Bonegrinder. “She’s fine. It was just a .22—”

“And what if you missed?”

“Grandfather trained us both, and I was always a far better shot than you!”

“Cornelia, this is unacceptable. We talked about this. We talked and talked—”

“Yes,” she said. “We talked plenty,
then,
didn’t we?”

Neil stiffened. “What do you mean by that?”

Cory crossed her arms.

Neil took a deep breath. “Go upstairs to your room. I shall speak to you at the end of the lesson.”

She lifted her chin. “So now we play you’re the don and I’m the hunter? How droll.”

Neil stared her down. “I
am
the don, Cornelia. And you
are
the hunter. Go. To. Your. Room.”

Everyone else became very concerned with the state of his or her shoes, and all was silent for a moment. Then Cory turned and walked off, as stately as a queen.

“An unfortunate spectacle,” Marten said with a little shake of his head, as Lino locked up the guns and moved back to the bows. Phil was cosseting Bonegrinder, who seemed no worse for wear. “Would you like to go next, Astrid? I am very curious to see your archery skills.”

“I have none,” I said. “I’m not much of a jock.”

“But you are a Llewelyn.”

I resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Were even the unicorn scientists nuts?

“And, what’s more, I heard that you single-handedly took on a kirin the other day.”

I didn’t know if that was something Neil should be bragging about. If anything, it showed how unprepared we really were. I tried to get back on topic. “Actually, I heard something very interesting yesterday about historical hunters.” Maybe Cory’s information could do some good after all. “Apparently some of them were experts in the Remedy rather than in hunting—”

“Yes, but not from your family.”

I was pretty sure there was no one named Llewelyn in ancient
Rome, so how would he know what family the vestal virgins were from?

“Look,” I said, hating the note of desperation in my voice, “I’ve been studying biology and chemistry my whole life. I’ve never wanted to be anything but a doctor.”

“That’s nice,” he said, watching the hunters struggle to draw their bows. Grace was doing pretty well, actually. Lino moved her on to nocking her bow with one of the arrows he’d brought, but her first shot went way wide, soaring over the roof of the aisle and clattering against the wall of the dormitory.

Of course Marten wasn’t impressed by me. He probably had a fleet of biochemistry Ph.D.s on his payroll. High school chemistry didn’t mean he was going to toss me a lab coat and tell me to have at it. My powers were only for hunting, not for wielding beakers and microscopes.

Now Zelda couldn’t even hold her bow up. So how much were these hunter powers of ours good for?

“So anyway,” I tried again, “I would love to see what you’re working on. If there’s anything I can do from here to help you with your research, just let me know.”

Now he looked at me sideways. “And what would that be?”

“Whatever you need. Any observations I notice when I’m…out in the field. Any kind of information I can give you.” Like what it felt like to squish a unicorn eyeball. “I just regret that we don’t have that sample of the Remedy from home. This whole process could have been so much simpler—”

He narrowed his eyes. “You were in possession of the Remedy?”

“A few traces, yes. My mom had this antique bottle with some residue inside. But we used the remainder on a…friend of
mine after he got gored by a zhi.”

“And it worked?” he pressed.

“I don’t know what it’s supposed to do, but he didn’t die.” Come on, Astrid, you can do better than that. You just finished telling him what a great scientist you are! “In fact, the symptoms of alicorn poisoning stopped almost immediately, and the wound closed like…” Like magic.

“Was it administered orally?”

“Mostly, but we also poured some directly onto the wound. My mother tried both, since she wasn’t sure how it was supposed to be used.”

“Did your friend give any description of the experience?”

“No. The next time we spoke, he broke up with me.”

“Ah,” Marten smiled knowingly. “Not a very good friend, then.” He regarded me. “A very foolish one, in fact. You saved his life. And you’re a hunter. Both are very admirable qualities.”

Ha. The quality Brandt had looked for most in me was not compatible with unicorn hunting. “Yeah, well…”

“What was this young fool’s name?”

“Why?” I asked. “Gonna track him down and beat him up?”

“No, but I would like to look into his recovery. He was cured by the Remedy. Who knows what sort of properties his immune system might now possess?”

Of course. How stupid of me. “Brandt. Brandt Ellison.”

“Excellent.” Marten folded his hands before him. “You may be a big help to my search after all, Astrid.”

I beamed.

“Look; it’s your cousin’s turn.” He turned back toward the courtyard. Phil was taking her place beside the table of bows. She’d wiped off most of Bonegrinder’s blood, but her clothes
were stained red, and bits of hair and gore stuck in the fleshy bits between her fingers and on the insides of her elbows. The sun had begun to burn through the clouds, and her hair shone golden in its light.

She picked up a bow and arrow, nocked it, drew back, and let go. The arrow pinged straight into the heart of the deer-shaped target.

“Lucky shot,” Grace whispered to Melissende.

But I knew it wasn’t. I’d been watching Phil play volleyball for years. Her serves were deadly. Phil proceeded to shoot three more arrows, each plunking into the target within inches of one another.

Marten Jaeger’s eyes practically sparkled. “Now
there’s
a hunter.”

Suffice it to say, I was not as good a shot as Philippa, but even I was surprised when I hit the target—in the knee, but at least I was close—twice in a row.

“The Llewelyn girls are by far the best of the group,” Lino reported to Neil and Marten.

“That surprises no one,” Marten said, peering at us. “How soon do you think they’ll be able to hold their own?”

“Against a stag or even a boar, like I hunt?” Lino asked. “I wouldn’t want them with me now—they’d take all the game; they are that good. But against an animal like the one here today, or the bigger ones”—he shook his head—“I don’t know. An animal that will hunt you even as you hunt it…. It is different.”

“But how soon?” Marten said, a note of anxiousness in his cultured tones. “In your opinion.”

“They will train very quickly,” Lino said. “They are natural born.”

I groaned. So much for my new scientific calling.

“And the others?”

“The red-haired girl is promising,” Lino said, “if she weren’t so concerned with hurting her hand.”

“My piano is my life,” Rosamund exclaimed in defense.

“The Indian girl as well.”

“Don’t we have names?” Phil hissed to me.

“And Grace has excellent form. The rest will need some work.”

“There,” I whispered back. “A name.”

Lino lowered his voice and whispered something to Neil, whose face turned grim.

“Yes, well, we know that about her,” he said, his jaw tight.

I bet they were talking about Cory and her fabulous aim.

I found the hunter in question lying on her bed in our room, reading yet another of her ancient diaries. I stripped off my blood-spattered clothes and gathered my shower things without speaking to her, and she didn’t look up. Then it was more of the same when I returned, dressed, and combed my hair.

So this was how it was. Just like after Neil had first told us about her mother. Last time, I hadn’t pressed. This time, I figured enough was enough.

“Cory,” I said. “What you did today—”

“Don’t you lecture me, Astrid Llewelyn. Don’t you
dare
lecture me.”

“I’m not.”

“Then what are you here to say?” She looked up from her pages. “That you’re leaving because I broke my promise? Fine!”

“What promise?” I was confused.

“That I wouldn’t hurt that—
thing
! That horrible, awful, wretched, bloodthirsty monster! That I wouldn’t do anything to your precious little man-eating beast. And you and your stupid cousin could pet it and snuggle with it and tie little pink bows around its neck, and all the while, it’s sizing up the people you love for lunch.”

I’d forgotten about our bargain. It seemed so long ago—before Phil, before the other hunters, before I knew the truth about Bonegrinder.

“And I promised I’d sit here and pretend that wasn’t so, pretend that every time I look at it, I’m not seeing…” She broke off.

I dropped to my knees by the side of her bed. She was clenching the sheets reflexively. “No,” I said. “I don’t care about the promise. I understand.”

“It’s all I see. It’s all I feel, the blood on my hands. Sometimes it’s like it’s still there. Little bits of blood and hair and skin and meat. Under my fingernails, all over my body.”

I put my hands over hers, held on tight until she stopped moving. “I know.” I could still feel the kirin, days later. And I hadn’t even killed it.

“There were three of them,” she said. “A family. A sow and a bull and then…her.”

It was the first time I’d ever heard Cory refer to Bonegrinder’s gender.

“And Neil said she was just a baby, like it
mattered.”
She dropped her face into the coverlet. “And he made us keep her. And feed her. And
name
her.” Her voice broke. “Actually, he was the one who named her. I was busy trying to find someone who would take her off my hands.”

How it must have rankled to see Phil caring for Bonegrinder all this time. I should have considered it. We both should have.

“And so I found Marten Jaeger, and Gordian. It’s terrible to say, but I liked the idea of her spending the rest of her miserable life in a cage, the subject of horrible medical tests. I used to fantasize about her all covered in little electrodes—oh Lord, I sound mad, don’t I?” She lifted her head, and her eyes were red and swollen with tears.

“A little,” I admitted. I hadn’t minded the thought of using Bonegrinder for medical testing, though even I had been appalled at the idea of vivisecting her and then—what, tossing her in the corner and seeing if she healed? But at the same time, I didn’t want to dwell on it.

But the unicorn hadn’t killed
my
mother.