Rampant

by Diana Peterfreund

  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 ar
row, 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.

  “However, it was much worse than I imagined. And I couldn’t leave. If I wasn’t present, she escaped. No matter how many cages, no matter how many restraints. And I couldn’t watch them do those things to her. Even after what she did.” She swallowed thickly, then said, “I know you don’t believe me.”

  It was, in fact, very hard to imagine Cory doing anything other than relishing the experience of watching Bonegrinder suffer. She’d thrown the zhi off a balcony just to watch her squish. She’d shot her in the gut today with nary a thought.

  “So I left. And she came with us, our ‘house zhi.’” She let out a little sob. “And I hate myself for not killing her, for not being strong enough to do it myself, strong enough to let them do it by inches. And I hate her because she couldn’t figure it out. She didn’t know I wished her dead every second. She loved me, and I hated her, and I hurt her, and she still loved me. She wouldn’t go away!”

  And now the tears did flow. “But you know what I hate most of all? That it’s not true. She doesn’t love me. She loves hunters—it could be you or Phil or anyone. A hunter. And if not a hunter, then meat. They can’t help it. She didn’t murder my mother. None of them did. It was just meat, like wolves after a hare. Like my grandfather and a pheasant.”

  Part of me wanted to agree with her, but the other part remembered how the kirin had taunted me, shown me a vision of Giovanni’s gory death. Giovanni wasn’t “just meat” to that unicorn. He was something that belonged to a hunter. But that was a kirin. Maybe the zhi were simpler, as well as tame.

  And I didn’t know what to say to comfort Cory, either. In the end, did it make a difference whether her mother was killed by simple wild animals or by magical monsters that knew they were attacking something important to their only known predator? Either way, Sybil Bartoli was dead. Either way, Cory was stuck caring for her killers’ colt.

  “So now she doesn’t even love me anymore. I guess I drove her away after all. And she’s not the only one.”

  There was a knock on the door. I answered it, and Neil brushed in. He went straight to Cory and enfolded her in his arms, saying nothing at all.

  I left the room and closed the door behind me.

  We all sat together for dinner that evening. Marten Jaeger had left, citing urgent business, and Lino had packed up his bows and departed. Bonegrinder had completely recovered and was lying at the foot of Phil’s chair, her forelegs curled protectively around what looked like an elephant vertebrae. Cory and Neil had arrived late to the table, both mildly red-eyed but with pasted-on smiles and hearty appetites. Neil joined the discussion about the afternoon’s archery lesson and Cory remained quiet, though I caught her looking at me enough that I wondered if I should propose a joint trip to the ladies’ room to finish our conversa
tion. In fact, I’d opened my mouth to do so when there was a huge slamming sound against the bronze doors of the rotunda.

  “Bloody hell,” Neil grumbled, ripping the napkin off of his lap. “We need to get a lock on that door. Someone grab the beast, then.”

  Bonegrinder was already on her feet and shivering. Phil looped a rope around the zhi’s neck, and we all rushed out toward the rotunda.

  “Wait!” Dorcas cried as we went. “That’s a big sound. You don’t think a unicorn would actually try to come inside, do you?”

  By this time, Phil and Bonegrinder had made it into the rotunda. I was right behind them, and practically tripped over Phil, who had stopped dead.

  Just inside the door stood a grungy-looking girl. There were dark, baggy circles under her eyes, her hair was chopped in rough chunks colored a variety of faded-out shades (but mostly black), there were few spots on her face that didn’t sport piercings, and the leather cuffs at her neck, wrists, and waist all had metal spikes sticking out. She was wearing about fourteen layers, torn fishnet stockings, and combat boots. She stood there, pigeon-toed, face downturned, dragging a rucksack with one hand and a half-filled military-issue duffel with the other.

  “Prego?” Neil asked.

  She looked up from between her rough bangs at the gaggle of figures in front of her and smirked. “They said you feed me.” Her eyes were bloodshot and her pupils were dilated so much you almost couldn’t tell the color of her irises.

  “Oh dear,” Cory said, stepping forward. She still held her fork. “You must be mistaken. We’re not that kind of nunnery. There’s a soup kitchen a few blocks from—”

  “No!” the girl shouted. “They said you feed me!”

  I held out my hands, palms up, and moved toward her. “Hi,” I said gently. “What’s your name? I’m Astrid.”

  “Val. Valerija Raz.” She glared at me. “I’m hungry.”

  “Who, ah—” Neil searched for the right tone. “Who told you to come here?”

  She shrugged. “Dunno.”

  Cory tried again. “We’d like to help you, but really, there’s some sort of error. We don’t deal with…” she trailed off. I saw her mouth move in question at Neil. Urchins?