Rampant

by Diana Peterfreund

  “Poachers,” Cory corrected, “are hunters who steal game from other people’s lands. Unicorns are not game, and we were invited onto that farm. Ergo, not poaching.”

  “We’re something, then, and it’s not good.” Phil crossed her arms and looked at Neil. “No opinion at all?”

  “Poaching,” he said, “can also be defined as hunting a species it is illegal to hunt according to law.”

  Phil glowered, then turned away from the Bartolis altogether and tried to win me. “Marten Jaeger’s also a jerk, Astroturf, because he doesn’t give you enough credit. I’ve seen the way he blows you off every time you try to talk to him about his research.”

  “What should he be giving me credit for? The fact that I come to the same conclusions that his staff did months ago?” I was lucky he was encouraging me at all.

  “Well, you told him about Brandt, didn’t you? The only living human to have received a dose of the Remedy?”

  True. I wondered if Marten had ever tracked him down and tested him, or if my ex had run away from home before he’d gotten the chance. I doubted Brandt would be an eager volunteer. And maybe the Remedy worked like standard anti-venom, and was metabolized by the body after use along with the venom it “soaked up.” I sighed. I didn’t know enough about any of these topics to really make myself useful to someone who had an entire pharmaceutical company at his beck and call. I wasn’t good for much more than my aim and my unicorn proximity radar. Since I hadn’t brought down a unicorn of my own yet, and my first instinct when I sensed a unicorn was to run in the other direction, I wasn’t even good for those.

  Satisfied she’d made her point, Phil turned back to the subject at hand. “The hunters need to get out of here for a few hours. This isn’t good for anyone.”

  “How many of the girls speak enough Italian to understand a film?” Cory asked.

  “An action movie, then, so dialogue doesn’t matter.” She glared at Cory. “Or just wander around a piazza for a few hours. Get away from the whole hunting scene for a bit. No wonder they feel competitive and pressured. This is all they’ve been doing for weeks.” She caught herself. “All we’ve been doing.”

  If Neil noticed the slip, he gave no indication of it.

  “And we’ll be in a group,” Phil was arguing now. “We can even carry weapons, if that will make you happy.”

  “Oh,” Cory said. “Very inconspicuous, climbing the Spanish Steps with a longbow strapped to your back?”

  “Then what do you suggest?” Phil asked. “You know all the history. What did hunters of yore do?”

  “Stayed inside where they belonged,” Cory replied.

  “Well I don’t belong locked up in here.” Phil lifted her chin. “None of us do.”

  My cousin pouted to beat the band, and Neil called her “Pippa” no fewer than four times, and in the end, Cory, Phil, and I were charged with escorting the other girls to a movie and a gelato parlor, then straight back to the Cloisters before ten. Alone.

  The first thing Phil did was call Seth and ask if he wanted to join us. We were standing in the courtyard at the time, watching Bonegrinder tear a shank of pork to pieces while the afternoon sun slanted down and made the twisting marble columns glow white. I marveled at the zhi’s enthusiasm for her dinner. She was acting awfully ferocious, considering the meat was already dead. How different, I wondered, was Bonegrinder’s behavior from that of a zhi raised in the wild? If food were scarce, would she cannibalize her own kind? Was that what we’d seen that night in the park? But why would a unicorn attack another unicorn when there were loads of unarmed, tasty people about?

  Phil shoved her phone at me. “Giovanni wants to talk to you.”

  “Astrid the Warrior,” he drawled when I picked up. “How’s life in the Wildlife Control Nun business?”

  “Frustrating.” At least he was joking about it. He’d seemed a bit shell-shocked after seeing those corpses a few days ago.

  “I thought we talked about this habit you have of waiting for Phil to make plans before you’ll see me.”

  Phil, leaning close enough to hear both sides of the conversation, raised her eyebrows at me.

  “What can I say?” I replied. “I don’t have my own phone.”

  “I think you like playing hard to get.”

  “Ouch.” Hard to get? I’d thrown myself at him!

  He went on in that same mocking tone, “So, you’re deigning to see me tonight, I hear?”

  I turned away from Phil and walked a few columns down. “I want to see you tonight. I’m sorry I didn’t call myself, but I’ve—”

  “Been busy with those wild animals. I get it.”

  My throat started to burn again, but it had nothing to do with alicorn venom. I’d never heard him like this before. “What are you talking about? Giovanni—”

  “—not wild enough for you,” he was saying, as if I wasn’t even there. I looked over at Phil, who was staring back, every bit as clueless as I was. “Baby, you’ve got no idea.”

  “Are you drunk?” I asked, and Phil’s eyebrows shot skyward again.

  Seth came on the line. “So, we’ll see you both at Piazza Navona tonight?”

  “No,” I said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea.” The last thing I wanted was for Giovanni and I to get into a fight in front of the other hunters. I’d lived through one public breakup. I didn’t need another.

  “Nonsense, mini Phil!” he said with a laugh that set my teeth on edge. “We’ll have a blast. Bring all your little friends, too.” He hung up.

  I looked up at Phil. “This was a mistake. Let’s not meet them.”

  “Stand them up? Is that how I raised you? Come on. Seth knows all the best places. It will be better for showing the girls a good time.”

  I shook my head. “No, something’s weird. I’ve never heard Giovanni talking that way. He sounded…mean.”

  Phil’s brow furrowed. “I hope he doesn’t end up being a jerk to you, Astrid. I’d hate to have to feed him to a unicorn. Boys can be such losers sometimes.”

  Out in the yard, Bonegrinder was happily gnawing away at her latest bloody conquest. Weird as it sounded, I thought I’d rather spend the evening with her.

  In the end, we didn’t bring longbows with us, but I did retrieve the dagger from inside the Clothilde figure’s skirts and stuck it in my purse. Though I didn’t want to calculate our chances against a kirin without ranged weapons like bows and arrows, I felt better knowing that I had something more than my fists if we did run into a unicorn.

  Ilesha, Ursula, Zelda, Dorcas, and Rosamund joined us, but Valerija declined after hearing that we’d be meeting up with some boys, and Melissende had slammed the door in Phil’s face as soon as she and Grace saw my cousin on the other side. Frankly, I was happy to avoid their company for a few hours.

  Piazza Navona was packed, as always, and I kept my purse slung across my body, doubly determined not to lose it because of the ancient—no doubt priceless—weapon I’d hidden inside. We got our gelatos, then stationed ourselves by the huge Bernini fountain of the Four Rivers, eating ice cream, shouting over the rush of water, and people watching as the crowds passed by. Ilesha and Ursula seemed to have completely recovered from the trauma of the afternoon; and even though Dorcas was trying to act as cool as Zelda, who’d only gotten a small cup of lemon sorbet, she couldn’t stop staring at the towering piles of multicolored gelato on top of Ursula’s cone.

  Cory was telling Rosamund about a small portfolio of sheet music she’d come across, and they were discussing old-fashioned methods for transcribing melodies, and how that might affect Rosamund’s ability to play them. Phil was trying to decipher movie listings in an Italian newspaper and becoming increasingly frustrated that the titles weren’t direct translations of the English films.

  “Just pick something with a martial arts star in it,” I said at last. “You’ll be golden.”

  “There you are!” Phil was swept up off the edge of the fountain, and her paper and gelato cup slid
to the ground. Seth spun her around and smacked his lips against her mouth. “Mmmmm, you taste like a cherry.”

  “Enjoy it while it lasts,” Phil said. “That was all of it.”

  “Oh, I will.” He turned toward the other hunters and pretended to doff a cap. “Ladies. Good evening. Seth Gavriel, at your service.”

  While the hunters introduced themselves, I looked behind Seth, but I didn’t see Giovanni.

  “You have a boyfriend, Phil?” Dorcas asked, eyes wide. “Does Neil know?”

  “Ah, the famous chaperone!” Seth grinned at his audience. “Too bad he’s off duty tonight, huh?”

  “Why ‘too bad’?” Cory asked, oblivious to Seth’s charms.

  “Because I’d like to get a look at this guy you all spend so much time with. See what the big deal is.”

  Was that a note of jealousy in his voice? I wondered briefly how much Phil talked about Neil.

  “Hey, mini Phil,” Seth hissed at me. “Don’t bother looking for your boy. He was too much of a wuss to show.”

  I bit my lip and pretended I hadn’t been craning my neck to peer into the crowd.

  “So,” Seth said. “I have the perfect plan for the evening. There’s a big outdoor concert in the Baths of Caracalla.”

  Cory looked up from where she was trying to wipe gelato off the newspaper. “That’s all the way across town near the Cloisters.”

  “Why did we come out here to turn around and go back?” Ilesha asked.

  Zelda shrugged. “I’m up for a concert. I don’t even care who’s playing.” She stood, then brushed imaginary dust off her skirt. Rosamund was so excited, she bounced on her heels.

  So to the Baths of Caracalla we went. On the bus, Cory justified it to herself by saying that at least it would make for an easy walk home after the concert, and the youngsters seemed excited that their night out would include more than ice cream cones. I did my best to hide my disappointment about being stood up. I wished I could talk to Phil about the situation, but she spent most of the ride with Seth’s tongue down her throat, so I never got a chance.

  The Baths of Caracalla, it turned out, were the enormous brick ruins near the Circus Maximus. Though little remained now aside from a few crumbling walls, arches, and vaults, it was still impressive. Massive, hundred-foot walls lit by amber spotlights soared above our heads, forming an imposing backdrop for the concert. The audience had assembled on a grassy hill in front of the ruins, lounging on blankets or in lawn chairs, while vendors walked among them and food and drink carts lined the street beyond.

  I traced the outline of the dagger through my purse. Another Roman park? Perfect. The baths themselves seemed abandoned, but I wondered how secure they were. Would a quiet, dark little corner make a good hiding space for a kirin? The unicorns had to sleep somewhere, didn’t they?

  “This will be perfect,” Seth said. He reached into his backpack and pulled out a folded tarp. “Not too close to the crowds, nice and dark…” He pinched Phil’s side, but rather than yelping or giggling, she gave him an incredulous look.

  “Is he always such a git?” Cory said to me under her breath as she helped me smooth out the tarp.

  “I don’t know what that means,” I whispered back, “but he is usually nicer than this.” And so was his friend. Where was Giovanni? He’d love something like this. I bet he’d be midway through a whole lecture on the architecture of the baths. I felt torn between relief that he hadn’t shown up in his bad mood and depression that I was snuggling up with Cory to listen to the concert rather than with Giovanni.

  The girls spread out on the tarp, armed with sodas, snacks, and glowing bracelets and necklaces they’d bought from one of the vendors. Chatter filled the warm evening air, and I began to relax. Perhaps Phil was right. Boys were jerks sometimes, and I shouldn’t let it ruin my night. The weather was beautiful; I was out of the Cloisters, hanging out with friends, about to listen to music on a hillside in Rome…things were great.

  A young couple in front of us had their dog on the blanket with them. The family next door sent their toddler over with a treat, and the dog rolled over, showing its belly to be rubbed. The move reminded me of Bonegrinder and her bottomless need for the hunters’ attentions.

  Cory noticed me watching and translated. “They’re talking to the other family about all the dogs gone missing recently. Apparently, the baths are usually home to many strays. All gone in the past few months.”

  Bile rose in my throat as I thought of this cute pooch as a meal for a kirin. “I know you don’t have any papers on this, and Gordian doesn’t seem the least bit interested, but I can’t help but think we’d be doing a lot better if we started researching their behavior. Feeding patterns, mating cycles, group or family structure, where they sleep, preferred diet—”

  “Body language when they attack and when they feint,” Cory finished. “I agree. If you want to gen up with me, I’m all for it, Astrid. I could use the help.” She smiled. “That is, if you can spare the time off being one of the great Llewelyns.”

  But this time, I knew she was joking, and tossed a blade of grass at her. “Why is everyone so hung up on the families? You’ve been, too, you know you have.”

  Cory took a drink of her soda. “Makes sense, doesn’t it? Did to me, at least. Leandruses were supposed to be whizzes at admin, and we are. My mum had all sorts of brilliant books and such. Your family were all the ace hunters, and Clothilde Llewelyn killed the karkadann.”

  “But now what do you think?”

  “Dunno, really. Phil’s best at targets, but Grace did just as well shooting that kirin in Tuscany, and Valerija took one single-handed. Melissende is a Temerin, beastly through and through, but her sister and Rosamund are dolls. And you—”

  “Not as good a hunter as you and Marten think I ought to be?”

  “You’re better than I am.”

  “But not as good as you wish I were.”

  Cory said nothing. The concert began, and our conversation ended. I leaned back on my elbows and closed my eyes, letting the music wash over me. Unlike Rosamund’s playing, there was nothing here that held the slightest stench of unicorn. Pure beats and rhythms, without that chord in the Cloisters wall or the twang of bowstrings. I breathed, and smelled nothing but grass and people and snack food. The crowd around me whispered and rustled. I let my eyelids flutter open. Rosamund tapped her fingertips on the blanket, silently playing along. Dorcas and Zelda danced at the edge of the group, twirling, their hands open to the stars that had begun to sprout in the pale blue evening sky.

  I joined them, weaving in and out between them, spinning to the beat of the drums on the stage, clasping hands with Dorcas to create an arch for Zelda to shimmy through, dipping and swirling with the other girls and then back to twirling, letting the skirt I’d borrowed from Phil ruffle around me, a little wheel of color that flapped and rippled in the wind.

  We danced for several songs; and Cory, Ursula, and Ilesha joined us in turn, whirling and leaping and undulating to the beat as the night closed overhead and the field turned violet, then midnight, then black save the amber spotlights and the hundreds of tiny, neon glowsticks. Sometimes I forgot about Giovanni altogether for several bars. I didn’t notice when Phil and Seth wandered off.

  I did, however, notice when she came back. “Time to go,” she said, appearing beside me, still as a rock in the river of music.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked. “Where’s Seth?”

  “Sent him away. He was being a jerk.” She looked at the tarp. “Guess we have to lug this back with us.”

  “Come on,” I said. “Stay for a few songs more. Dance with us.”

  She shook her head. “It’s getting late. We promised Neil.”

  “Since when are you so worried about the rules?” I took her hands and tried to pull her into the dance, but she shook me off.

  “Astrid, stop being so childish. Time to go home.”

  I stopped dancing, and the world jolted back into place. “The Clois
ters isn’t my home.”

  She bent over and started yanking up the tarp, dislodging empty soda bottles and candy wrappers. “Yeah. Keep telling yourself that.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “That Aunt Lilith dumped you here and all your fantasies about going home are just that. Fantasies.”

  I reeled back as if slapped. Phil’s face fell.

  “Oh, Asterisk, I’m sorry.” She reached for me, but I shied away. “Don’t listen to me. I’m tired and frustrated. I didn’t mean it.”

  “Doesn’t matter if you meant it,” I said dumbly. “It’s true.”

  “No, sweetie…”

  I grabbed the other end of the tarp and started folding it. “Gather up the girls.”

  Just because we’d left the baths didn’t mean the dancing had stopped. The other hunters twirled their way back through the park and over the Celian hill toward the Colosseum and the Cloisters of Ctesias. Their songs ricocheted off the marble walls of churches and echoed through empty archways of ruins and apartment houses fronted by gated courtyards. Rosamund’s clear soprano rang above the others, broken only by occasional giggles as the girls chased one another through the streets. Even Cory seemed to be having a good time.

  Phil was the only one who remained silent. I walked beside her. “What’s going on?” I asked, slipping my hand around her shoulder.

  She hugged the tarp to her chest, but leaned into me nonetheless. “You were right. We shouldn’t have met Seth tonight.”

  “What happened?”

  She pursed her lips and studied our feet. “He was being a loser.”

  I squeezed her shoulder.

  “You know how our folks are always like, ‘They’re only interested in one thing?’ She gave a tiny, mirthless laugh. “Sometimes I wonder if that’s true.”

  “I think sometimes it is,” I said. “That’s what it was like with Brandt. Every time we went out was like some complicated game. What he’d try, when he’d try it, and how I’d stop him without making him mad or doing something I didn’t want to do. That’s the only thing I thought about every time we were together. Not about the movie we were watching or what we were talking about. Just waiting for him to make a move. It wasn’t dating; it was preparing for battle.” Maybe that’s what we really needed combat training for.