Ascendant

by Diana Peterfreund

  I was really good at waiting.

  25

  WHEREIN ASTRID COMMITS A CRIME

  That night, I waited for a text message from René that everything was in place. Then I entered the einhorn enclosure using the keypad and deactivated the electric boundary. Unfortunately, that was the easy part.

  Five minutes of sitting on the ground, meditating and projecting soothing and attractive thoughts toward the unicorns achieved nothing. Not a single one approached me from the woods, and my vision of leading them, Pied Piperlike, in a single-file line toward freedom began to evaporate into the moonless night.

  Where were the unicorns that had once circled me in submission? Had I lost their trust when I left them here alone to kill one another? Were they beyond reaching?

  I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to identify each animal in the woods, to pinpoint their minds like the blinking lights on their collars had so recently marked out their locations. Ten little unicorns, scared as could be. Ten little unicorns, scared … of me.

  Once upon a time, I’d been able to make them do as I willed, merely by thinking it. When I met Wen at the Cloisters, I learned that her control of Flayer worked on a similar principle. Their bond was so great that he knew exactly how she wanted him to behave and obeyed.

  The re’em could read our thoughts, as the one who’d almost killed me had. These einhorns could read mine if I wanted them to. And if I wanted them to do something badly enough, I could place the compulsion right into their minds. I could make them come to me.

  I took a deep breath and called to them. I showed them freedom, and mercy, and endless open ranges. Safety and surcease of pain. Nights without chemical sleep, days without the madness of captivity.

  Come to me.

  Ah, here they were, drawing near at last. My hand tightened on the hilt of my knife.

  Ten little, nine little, eight little unicorns …

  These were okay. Fats, and Breaker, and a juvenile female I vaguely remembered. They were terrified, but I sensed no violence from them.

  Seven little, six little, five little unicorns …

  Not so with these new ones. Stretch was there, and the thread of his thoughts made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. What had happened to my playful friend, the one I’d saved from death? He watched me warily, but with eyes that gleamed with bloodlust. I caught my breath. I did not want to kill Stretch, no matter what he’d become. But if he was too dangerous, too far gone … I couldn’t risk it.

  The other two were with Stretch. They waited for him to make a move. Little thugs, both of them, but if I took Stretch out, then they’d fall in line.

  Four little, three little, two little unicorns …

  More einhorns on the edge of madness. Some of these had killed others, eaten others. Fats and the little girl shied away. I clenched my teeth and concentrated harder. Soothing thoughts, warning ones, containing ones above all. Just stay here and stay still… .

  One little unicorn boy.

  There he was, the last of the einhorns. The angry one. The one who had spread his poison of rage through the others. It was Gordian who was to blame for his captive lunacy, but that didn’t change the facts. A junkyard dog was mean because of the abuse and neglect it had suffered, but it still needed to be put down.

  Stay still, I thought to the unicorns as I hurled my knife through the angry one’s eye.

  He crumpled to the ground, and the seething pulsation of his thoughts vanished with a pop. The unicorns stood frozen, some crouched in fear, prepared for flight.

  Stay.

  Run run fly run escape charge run run run dart jump no death run.

  Stay. Calm. Done.

  And in my mind, I saw Bucephalus killing the head of the rogue kirin. I’d culled the mad unicorn from this pack. I hoped it would be enough.

  Another few heartbeats as I retrieved my knife and wiped it off on the grass. The unicorns waited for me.

  Okay. Come. Calm.

  One by one I led them through the double gates of the fence. They jostled together, snuffling and grunting—one even squealing when another jabbed it in the butt with its horn.

  Calm. Slow.

  Simple emotions worked best with the einhorns. They didn’t have the communication ability of, say, Bucephalus. I led them around the side of the enclosure, skirting close to the fence though there was little point in trying to hide; their white coats stood out like beacons in the night. We went past the remains of the campsite—most of the protesters had quietly packed up and left—and onto the public lands, where Thierry and René were supposed to be waiting with the truck.

  But when I arrived, nine little unicorns in thrall and in tow, only Thierry stood there, his face set in grim lines.

  “Where is René?” I asked.

  “Detained.” Curtly. “Keep them back while I open the hatch.”

  I hesitated. “What happened to him?” Where would René be detained at this late date? He’d been the one to text me only a few minutes ago. Hadn’t he?

  “It doesn’t matter,” Thierry grunted. “We just go forward.”

  The truck was the kind normally used to transport cattle. We’d mapped out a route that didn’t require tolls all the way to the French Alps. If the re’em who’d attacked me in Italy could survive in the mountains with her offspring, maybe a small herd of einhorns could as well. As long as wherever we dropped them off was remote enough that they kept away from villages, the move might work.

  Thierry went to open the back hatch of the truck. The unicorns’ thoughts turned ravenous. Mine turned violent until they settled down. Once Thierry was out of the way, I began to herd them as gently as possible into the truck.

  Gently, it turned out, wasn’t particularly possible.

  Captivity on a few acres of wooded land was hard enough on these creatures. Walking blindly into a dark cage? Not happening. The unicorns bucked and reared, skittered off the ramp and pranced in terrified circles nearby, too afraid of me and my mental threats to run off outright, yet not going anywhere near that dark, cavernous space that smelled strongly of farm animals and slaughterhouses.

  Thierry dove underneath the truck chassis. Yes, and they’d been planning to simply let the unicorns run loose. Morons. Who was the one with brain damage?

  As soon as I coaxed one unicorn inside the truck, another would bound free. Perhaps I should have stolen Gordian’s mysterious sedatives, as well.

  “We have to go!” Thierry shouted from underneath the truck chassis. “What are you doing? I thought you said you could control them!”

  “I’d be happy to see you give it a shot,” I grumbled, shoving a unicorn up the ramp.

  “We have to go now!” he said. I heard his cell phone go off, and he cursed.

  Seconds later, the château exploded.

  At the sound of the blast, the unicorns scattered—or at least, the three still outside the truck did. I slammed the hatch down on the others and leaped from the ramp.

  “You liar!” I screamed at Thierry. “You promised me!”

  “We were supposed to be gone! Get in the truck.”

  “You liar!” I repeated, and swung at him, my blow strengthened by hunter magic.

  Miraculously, he swerved, then grabbed my arm. “I said get in the truck. We don’t have time for this.”

  I wrenched free of his grip, turned, and ran back toward the château. Isabeau! The dogs! The other employees!

  Angel.

  I ran faster.

  As I neared the building, I saw that the blast had been aimed at the laboratory wing. The house itself seemed untouched, though the fire spreading through the lab had destroyed the dome of the greenhouse and was licking its way toward the roof.

  As I stood there, Isabeau came tearing out of the back of the house, Gog and Magog trailing close behind. Her hair streamed out behind her, for once wild and unkempt. Her feet were bare, her eyes brimming with tears that flashed in the firelight.

  “Astrid!” she cried. “Yo
u’re all right. Were you over to see the—” She took in my black clothes and the glisten of unicorn blood, and her eyes widened. “The unicorns.”

  I felt them a second before they rushed past me, three loose unicorns, each charging full tilt at the fresh meat I’d led them to.

  “No!” I shouted, aloud and in my head, to no avail.

  Gog was the first to scream as an einhorn speared the dog in the back, near his hips. From the corner of my eye, I saw another chasing down Magog, who’d fled on long white legs so very like a unicorn’s, but all my focus was on the third unicorn, the one bearing down on Isabeau.

  I’d messed up with Marten—Marten who’d gotten Phil raped, who’d tried to have me killed, who’d plotted behind our backs. But I wouldn’t let a unicorn harm Isabeau.

  The einhorn lowered his head to charge.

  Stretch. I threw my knife, wishing I’d thought to bring my bow.

  I wasn’t fast enough.

  Stretch fell, the knife in his throat, but he brought Isabeau with him. She cried out as she was flung from her feet, an alicorn embedded deep in her side. I rushed forward, dragging the head of the dead unicorn off her. Blood soaked her from shoulder to knee, though how much was hers and how much was Stretch’s I couldn’t tell.

  Isabeau clutched her hands over the wound, shuddering and gasping for breath.

  “It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay,” I babbled, kneeling at her side. “I’ll go—I’ll go find you some Remedy. I’ll fix this. There’s time.”

  Isabeau barked a short, stuttering laugh. “Et tu, Brute? What did you think would happen if you let them loose?”

  “Not this. I—had a plan. I had … help …” Blood burbled up out of the wound. Oh God, just like with Brandt.

  I heard growling behind me and turned just in time to see Gog leap upon the einhorn who’d attacked him and sink his long jaws into the monster’s throat. My jaw dropped.

  The einhorn bucked, but Gog’s grip remained firm, and he dragged the unicorn down with him and shook until the creature’s neck snapped and his terrified mind grew dim.

  I glanced at the dog’s hindquarters, at the alicorn wound that was even now knitting together.

  And then I looked back at Isabeau, who was pushing herself up on her elbows. There was no trace of alicorn poisoning in her face.

  “Astrid—” she began.

  “You took the Remedy.”

  “Of course I did,” she replied. “With the number of unicorns on my property? It’s a fundamental precaution.”

  “And you gave it … to your dogs,” I spat out.

  “They have to live here, too.” She coughed, and clutched her wound. “Doesn’t heal as quickly as I’d want, eh? Help me up; we have to call emergency services.”

  Instead I rose to my feet and backed away. “Your dogs?”

  She sighed. “It was an experiment, to see if it was as effective on other species as it was on humans. The results were fascinating, as a matter of fact. But now is not the time to have this discussion. Even now, our research is burning to the ground! Help me. This will heal, eventually, but meanwhile it hurts like hell.”

  I turned away from her, toward the lab, where the fire burned ever more furiously. “Everything’s destroyed,” I said. “The Remedy, all your records.”

  “I take it that wasn’t part of your plan, Astrid?” Isabeau clucked her tongue. “You should know better than to try to make decisions on this level. In your state of mind? No wonder you were taken advantage of.”

  “When?” I cried. “When was I taken advantage of? When I trusted you, though all along you knew the secret of the Remedy? When behind my back you were sending Brandt all around Europe to seduce every unicorn hunter you could find?”

  “Behind your back?” she scoffed. The wound was almost completely closed now. “How is what a complete stranger does with her life of her own free will any of your business?”

  “If they’d trained to be hunters like they should have,” I said, “this never would have happened to me. There would be more hunters. We’d be protected.”

  “So it could happen to them,” Isabeau said. “How very selfish of you. Do not take your choice, your sacrifice, and try to thrust it upon some other woman, Astrid. That’s hardly fair.”

  “You lied to me!” But the accusation sounded hollow in my throat. Her lies were nothing compared to everything else she’d given me. A life, a home, her care and affection. A possible cure to this horrible fog.

  And Isabeau knew it, too.

  “A lie that hurt you not at all,” she said calmly. “And in return, you have ruined my life’s work, endangered everyone around us, and almost got me killed. Who is winning?”

  The windows of the lab burst, shattering shards of glittering glass onto the lawn.

  “And your precious little baby unicorn is burning to death,” she added. “Unless, of course, you arranged an ill-conceived escape route for him as well?”

  I took off.

  “Astrid!” she cried as the roar of the fire got louder. “Don’t! Astrid!”

  A moment later I plunged into the flames.

  Fire safety tips came back to me along with the rush of unicorn magic. Angel was here, and still alive. I could feel his terror like it was my own as I dropped to the floor and pulled the neck of my shirt up over my face. Smoke and heat burned my eyes as I slithered toward him. I passed desks, tables, locked office doors, empty lab cages, and some that weren’t so empty.

  Angel. Just get Angel.

  The speed of unicorn magic came in handy here. I flashed by rooms in nanoseconds, my eyes and brain clear despite the billows of smoke. I came upon Isabeau’s office, the place where she’d offered me a dose of the Remedy. Angel was only a few doors away. I could feel him scrabbling desperately at the bars of his cage. And yet, for a heartbeat, I paused.

  In her desk were the files about the Remedy. Files that would be destroyed if I didn’t do something right right right now.

  Like steal them.

  I’m coming, Angel.

  I grabbed a canvas bag hanging on a hook behind the door and yanked open the drawers, spilling anything that looked remotely interesting inside the bag. File after file, binder after binder, wasting precious seconds.

  I had to get out of here. The heat was extraordinary, and I crouched to the ground, where the air remained hazy and cooler.

  And then I peeked into the tiny refrigerator. Inside was a tray, and on the tray lay more than a dozen tiny little vials. Each vial was marked with a name—the name of a woman.

  The Remedy.

  The refrigerator was locked, of course. So I smashed the glass panel on the front, grabbed the tray, wrapped the vials haphazardly in a sweater hanging on the back of Isabeau’s chair, and stuffed the bundle in the bag as well. Another five seconds down.

  Okay, now, Angel.

  The fire sounded closer now, and when I opened the door to the lab where they were keeping Angel a blast of heat hit my face. Though the room itself wasn’t burning, there must have been an ocean of flames beyond the far wall.

  One second to get to Angel’s cage and see him within.

  One second to gape in shock. They’d cut off his alicorn. His limbs were twisted and emaciated from disuse inside the cramped cage.

  Two seconds to open the cage, another two to rip him from his restraints, heedless of the IV tubes and needles projecting from his skin.

  Six seconds. Six seconds too many.

  The wall behind us erupted in fire.

  I was thrown from my feet, and Angel bounced from my arms and slid across the floor. The little unicorn whimpered, then went still.

  I choked, gagging as the heat burned my lungs and throat.

  No. I was not going to die here, in a fire. I’d survived countless unicorns, with the scars to prove it. I’d fought back death from poison, from blood loss, from brain damage. Some nasty little fire wasn’t going to get me.

  And I wouldn’t let it get Angel, either. I’d ki
lled Jumps, and the angry one, and Stretch. I’d killed so many. This einhorn would survive.

  No matter what.

  I looked through the smoke until I found Angel’s glazed, half-closed eyes. Give me your magic.

  Shoving myself to my knees, I swung the handles of the bag back onto my shoulders, heaved the limp unicorn—all fifty pounds of him—into my arms, and hurled us both through the door. Down the hall, past the offices, lungs screaming for air, eyes burning and half blind, nothing but unicorn magic propelling us both until I burst through the back door and onto the lawn.

  Here, too, the fire had spread, until it engulfed half of the greenhouse. I kept running back toward the park where Thierry and his truck waited for us.

  But when I arrived, lungs screaming for relief, eyes streaming, and the pain of what must be burned skin stinging on my back and shoulders, I found that the truck was gone and Thierry with it.

  I fell to my knees. I laid an unconscious Angel on the earth. I breathed deeply.

  Angel was still alive. I felt his magic, our connection, in every shared breath, in my continued ability to think clearly.

  I needed to get out of here. Police would arrive any minute, and I doubted Isabeau’s goodwill would extend toward protecting me, even though I’d had nothing to do with the fire. How could Thierry have left me here? And what had happened to René? Had he known they were planning to destroy the lab? Had he discovered that and Thierry kept him somehow from warning me?

  I needed to get out of here. I needed to get Angel to safety.

  But where? Where in the world would be safe for a baby unicorn with no horn? I stared down at the maimed creature, watching it draw shuddering breath after shuddering breath into its atrophied lungs. I wondered if it could walk on those emaciated legs. I wondered if its horn would ever grow back. I wondered if it would be best of all to simply put this animal out of the misery that had comprised the entirety of his short, wretched life.