Rampant

by Diana Peterfreund

  “This place is nice,” I said, feeling more stupid by the second.

  “Do you know what they call it?” His voice floated out of the gathering darkness. “Collina degli innamorati. Lover’s Hill.”

  “Oh.” He didn’t say anything else, though, and the awkwardness spread faster than the night.

  At last he spoke. “I’m probably going to regret asking this, but what have you been up to for the last week?”

  “I was sent on a trip. Out of town.”

  “Really.”

  “Yeah.”

  “No more detail than that?”

  I spent most nights in a tree, I was stampeded by a herd of sheep, I stabbed a unicorn in the neck, I hated the whole thing, and I dreamed of you every night. “We were in Tuscany. On a farm,” I managed to say.

  “What kind of farm?”

  “Sheep.”

  “Huh.” Another minute passed, in which there was nothing but city lights twinkling in the distance and the sound of the wind in the tree branches arcing over our heads. And then, “I’m not really sure what either of us is doing here. Well, me, I’m a sucker for punishment, but I don’t get you. Seth told me that you didn’t want to come out tonight.”

  “Is that what he told you?” I said. Is that what Phil had said to him? I recalled what I’d told her about Giovanni’s test, and began to feel sick. “That’s not true. I thought you had to study!”

  “Is that why you haven’t called me in a week? Didn’t tell me you were leaving town? And when I see you, it has to be because Seth and Phil plan it?”

  “No—”

  “What’s your story, really?” Now he sounded angry. “Seth tells me one thing, and you tell me something totally different. I have no idea what to believe.”

  Believe me. But of course, he couldn’t. I was the one who’d disappeared. I was the one who’d lied to him about the unicorn. I was the one who’d tried to seduce him, then had barely touched him since. I was the one who hadn’t called for a week. No wonder he was angry.

  “First he said you were joining a convent. And you say you’re supposed to, but you don’t want to. Fine. But you also say you grew up over your uncle’s garage, and now I hear you and Phil are heiresses that are being shoved into a convent so you can’t claim your fortune. I didn’t even know that was allowed. Is it true?”

  I snorted. “Where the hell did Seth get that idea? Phil would never lie like that!”

  “To be perfectly honest, I’m beginning to think this whole thing is a huge scam.”

  “What whole thing?”

  He looked out over the city so I couldn’t read his eyes. “You. Phil. All of it.”

  The tiramisu in my stomach turned into rock. I studied his profile, deep in shadow but clear enough to read his expression. Anger. Distrust. I was afraid to open my mouth, afraid what might come spilling out if I did. But looking at him there, I knew I’d lost him already.

  “No. We’re not heiresses, but we are stuck here, and my mom wants me—at least—to stay. I just want to go home. More than anything, I want to leave. And if I act like I don’t want to see you, it’s only because I don’t want to get confused about leaving. Because, Giovanni, you’re the only good thing about being in Rome.”

  Before I could draw breath to go on, he was kissing me, cradling my face in his hands, his heartbeat pounding beneath my fingertips, which had somehow found their way to his temples. For a few exquisite moments, there was nothing beyond that—our breath, our mouths, our hands in each other’s hair—and the cells in my body sang with it. Forget the jitters I’d felt after the unicorn hunt; this was the only high I ever wanted.

  Make that the only great thing about being in Rome.

  Giovanni pulled away and his eyes were laughing, and for a second I thought I’d spoken that thought aloud. But then he cocked his head behind me. I looked, and back on the patio of the restaurant, the waiter putting chairs up on tables for the night was giving us both dirty looks.

  Collina degli innamorati, indeed.

  “Vieni con me,” Giovanni said, tugging my hand. Come with me.

  We escaped into the surrounding park, and as the trees closed in behind us, Giovanni’s hand slipped to the small of my back.

  “I’m sorry. I should have asked you. But you didn’t call….”

  “It’s been hard,” I said. Now that I’d started confessing, I wanted to tell him everything. Where to start? “You know all those news stories about wild animal attacks recently?”

  “I think we’ll be safe in a city park,” he said, and swung me around until my back was against a tree.

  “That’s not what I meant—”

  “Let me get this out.” One of his hands was braced on my waist, the other on the tree near my head. “I have been just as unfair. If everything works out at my program, and I can go back to school, what then? Maybe that’s why I assumed the worst when you didn’t call.”

  I leaned my head against his hand. “Don’t listen to Seth anymore.”

  “If I hadn’t listened to him tonight, I might not have seen you again.”

  I lifted my head. “But he’s making it up. Phil doesn’t have to lie to make boys interested in her.”

  “You don’t, either.” I could feel his breath against my throat. Was that true? He smelled so good. I closed my eyes, remembering those nights in the tree in Tuscany, my back against the same rough bark, my arms aching in equal part from hanging on to the platform and because I couldn’t reach forward and put them around the guy I was picturing in my mind. And here he was, right in front of me. I hugged him close and thrilled.

  “I’m glad,” I said, “because there is something I need to tell you.”

  “Tell me anything. Tell me something so I don’t have to listen to anyone else.” His hand traced the hem of my shirt, and he pressed his palm flat against my stomach. I could barely remember what I was saying.

  “So you know how, a long time ago, there were crusader monks? Religious orders who taught their members to be warriors and stuff?”

  “Like the Knights Templar?” He brushed my hair off my neck with his other hand and cupped my jaw.

  “Yes. Well that convent of mine, it’s one of those.”

  “Right. Those kick-ass nuns of yours.” He began to kiss my neck. “Good thing there are no more crusades.”

  “Oh, but there are.”

  He paused, then lifted his face. “Are you telling me you’re training to be a soldier, Astrid the Warrior?”

  I nodded. “More like a…hunter, though.”

  “Like an assassin?” The space between his eyebrows crinkled up. A Giovanni frown.

  If only it were as easy as sitting on a rooftop and shooting at unicorns with sniper rifles. “No.” Maybe I should backtrack. “You’ve probably seen stuff in the news about the wild animal attacks?”

  He looked confused. “Not really. I’ve been doing so much studying, I haven’t really been watching the news.”

  This may make things a bit more difficult. “Well, there have been these wild animal attacks. And we’re supposed to stop them.”

  “Wildlife Control Nuns?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And your mother is forcing you to quit school and do this?”

  “Yeah.”

  He laughed. “I agree, Astrid. You need to get out of there. That’s the craziest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  And I hadn’t even gotten to the nutty part yet. The part about the unicorns and the magic and the panacea that would cure everything if we only found out how to make it. I mean, if Gordian found out. We were Wildlife Control Nuns sponsored by a drug company. It got weirder by the second.

  Giovanni kissed me then, and I pushed those other thoughts away. I couldn’t tell him the truly crazy stuff. And every time I started talking he stopped kissing me and listened. Who wanted that?

  He pressed into the tree and me, and my hair tangled against the bark, but I didn’t care at all. I was barely standing on my own, supported in
his arms and against the thigh he’d somehow wedged between my legs. Heavenly, butterfly-light touches of his fingertips on the skin of my stomach battled with heavy, hard kisses. He was holding himself back, but my heart was beating so fast, I thought my veins might pop. “More,” I whispered, and he sighed, a near moan.

  “Astrid.” He rested his forehead against mine, breathing hard. “Ti voglio bene.”

  I caught his hand against my heart. “No fair using Italian I don’t know. What does that mean?”

  He shook his head. “I’ll never tell.” But from the expression in his eyes, I got a pretty good idea. My skin turned to fire under his gaze, and every hair on my body stood at attention when he kissed me again. Our hands were still clasped between us, through my shirt, but then his slid from my grasp and pressed, palm flat against my sternum, fingers splayed wide across my breasts.

  Giovanni didn’t even cop a feel like other boys. I couldn’t catch my breath, couldn’t think. I sensed everything too much—the whispers of the leaves, Giovanni’s heartbeat, the sound of our cloth-covered thighs rubbing against each other, the soft touch of his mouth on mine, each infinitesimal shift of his hand as his fingertips slipped beneath the edge of my bra. My blood seemed to vibrate with a strange and terrible chord. This rush, this careening, amazing feeling. I loved it. I loved it all—

  No.

  I stilled within his arms. This hyperawareness, I knew it. It wasn’t me and Giovanni. It was a unicorn.

  “No,” I said aloud, and he pulled away. I bit my lip to keep from crying out, half from loss, half from fear. Several unicorns. Here. Close. And me without a weapon. Without backup. Could Phil sense them? Where was she?

  “Astrid?” Giovanni said. “You okay?”

  No, I wasn’t. Because something else, something new, had started, as if some accelerant in my blood had ignited. It burned, it stung. My eyes watered and my nostrils and throat clogged. I stared down at my arms, almost expecting to see the skin crack and peel. What was this? I tried to list the symptoms, but my mind was too focused on the position of the unicorns.

  “Damn!” Giovanni rubbed his eyes. “What the—it’s like mace. Let’s get out of here.” He started pulling me back the way we came, but I shook my head.

  “No. Not…that way.” Just opposite the unicorns. They were moving fast.

  We stumbled on, deeper into the park, and then we saw Phil and Seth. The latter seemed to be having trouble breathing. Both were disheveled. I noted that Phil’s shirt was on backwards and inside out.

  “Did you see them?” Phil asked.

  I shook my head. “You?”

  “No. What was that—”

  “Burning?” I finished. “No idea. Is Seth all right?”

  “I think he got a big lungful of whatever it was,” Giovanni said. Seth was sitting with his back to a tree. I hoped he’d be able to run if he had to. The unicorns were fading now, but the burning lingered.

  “Should we follow?” Phil asked.

  “I think we should run. We’re not prepared.”

  Giovanni was watching both of us. “Ladies, we should get Seth back to the restaurant. He’s having some kind of allergic reaction.”

  “Won’t they come for us, though?” Phil asked.

  “That yearling didn’t, but he was outnumbered.” The unicorns were nearly gone, and I could breathe clearly again. “I think they decided against it.”

  Seth had started coughing, a phlegm-filled hacking that clearly gave Phil the willies. Giovanni helped him to his feet, and I tugged on the shirt tag underneath Phil’s chin.

  “Who needs a chaperone now?” I asked.

  She brushed me off. “It’s not what it looks like.”

  “Better not be. Two unarmed hunters alone in the woods is bad enough. But one?”

  “I wouldn’t abandon you, Asteroid.” She squeezed my hand, then went to help Seth.

  Giovanni joined me on the path back out. “I got pepper-sprayed once in high school. A canister went off in this girl’s purse in the middle of math class. This felt like that.”

  “Really.” I looked around but could see little in the dark. Of course, who needed eyes when you could sense the unicorns?

  “I’ve heard muggers sometimes use them to disarm their victims. Do you think someone was trying to rob us?”

  Frankly, muggers had been the least of my concerns. Losing another purse would be nothing compared to a unicorn attack. That was it: no more making out with boys in the woods. It always ended badly.

  “Astrid, guardami.” He took me by the shoulders. “Look at me. Are you all right?”

  His expression was full of concern, but I saw it only for a moment. For beyond him, at the edge of the woods, lay a pile of bodies.

  At least, they may have been bodies. Kirin, once, from the look of the mangled bits of bone and hide that lay strewn around. My eyes burned again, looking at them.

  “Oh, God,” I whispered.

  He turned around. “What the hell?”

  One lay slit from tail to throat, guts spilling out over the grass. Another was in pieces, a thick coating of dark blood obscuring its brindled coat. If I hadn’t spent time staring at a kirin corpse recently, I never would have recognized the species.

  Before I could stop myself, I was standing in the middle of the massacre, circling the bodies in disgust and fascination.

  Phil appeared beside me. “Who could have done this?” Her voice trembled. “No one at the Cloisters…”

  The burning. I knew it. It was alicorn venom. I looked down at the drained white irises of the kirin corpse at my feet. “The third unicorn,” I said, softly enough so the boys couldn’t hear. “There was a third.” We needed to call someone. We needed to figure this out. “Hunters are the only people who can kill a unicorn.”

  I raised my head to the path. Giovanni stared back at me, and there was nothing in his eyes but horror.

  “But they can also kill each other.”

  15

  WHEREIN ASTRID STRIKES A CHORD

  THE SOUND OF METAL against stone resounded through the Cloisters, adding to the vibrations emanating from the wall and increasing my budding migraine. I’d begun building up my resistance to the chapter house, but this situation with the metal spikes and the sledgehammer was not ideal.

  Neil gave the metal spike on the right another wallop, then lowered the hammer and stepped back. “Philippa,” he said, practically bowing out of the way.

  My cousin stepped forward, a kirin horn cradled in her hands, and laid it across the two protruding spikes in the wall. In the side of the alicorn, she’d carved her name in crude, triangular letters.

  PHILIPPA LLEWELYN

  “Is it fair,” Cory said at my side, “that I have nothing on the Wall of First Kills?”

  “If you’d like,” I replied, “I can clean out Bonegrinder’s grooming brush and you can hang up one of her hairballs. You’ve killed her plenty of times.”

  Cory snorted, Phil curtseyed and grinned, and even Neil failed to hide his smile. When Phil noticed that, she twirled her arms in the air and presented the horn again like she was a game show host. Grace whispered something I’m pretty sure was snide to Melissende, who took everything in and didn’t change her expression at all. Rosamund looked longingly at the piano.

  Another day at the Cloisters.

  It had taken more than two weeks for Gordian to return the horn of the kirin to us so that Phil could post her entry on the Wall of First Kills. I still didn’t know what kind of tests they did on the animals, but there was some part of me glad that they’d switched their focus to corpses rather than live specimens like Bonegrinder.

  I’d called Gordian about the killing in the park on Monte Mario, and they sent out a team to collect the remains, but the alicorn venom was too overwhelming for non-hunters to approach, and in the end, they just torched the entire area and called it a fire. This was the story that we heard on the news the following day—a fire. No dead unicorns at all. I didn’t know what
the benefit was of keeping the situation under wraps, but when I tried to bring up the subject with Cory, she seemed mostly interested in the idea of fire. She wondered if napalm might be an effective weapon against unicorns.

  I wondered why unicorns would turn on each other like that.

  After the ceremony at the wall, such as it was, we were granted a bit of downtime. Melissende and Grace were icing their bowstring arms after a grueling day spent at the targets—the former was determined to join the hunter ranks on our next outing, and the latter was still in major guilt mode for her failed shots. They huddled in the corner by the weapons, heads bent close together, gossiping.

  Ilesha and Ursula, who had actually hit it off, decided to play chess on the chapter house’s board, which was, as you may have guessed, made of unicorn. In the chess board’s case, it was white re’em and dark kirin bones carved into playing pieces and inlaid in squares on the board.

  I plopped down on the couch farthest from the Chair and the Wall of First Kills, and debated whether it would be worth it to go upstairs for a cool cloth to put over my eyes. How could the others stand it in here? Rosamund spent half her time in this gloomy, cavernous space, plonking away at the piano keys, totally ignoring the ambient vibrations in the wall, which I’m sure clashed terribly with whatever piece she was trying to play.

  Cory went back to Neil’s office, no doubt armed with yet another sheaf of yellowed archives, trying to track down more hapless victims of Alexander the Great’s promiscuity to bring into our hunting fold. Maybe I’d join her in a bit and try to find some more information about unicorn behavior.

  Valerija was sitting in a chair, staring into the middle distance. Dorcas was parked on the other couch, braiding Zelda’s hair. Rosamund played on. Her choice today reminded me of springtime and dancing, like the painting Giovanni had shown me of Diana and her huntresses, laughing and gathered together to celebrate a successful hunt.

  Maybe in earlier times, the huntresses here were like that. I tried to picture the girls around me partying post hunt. Nothing.