Rachel Golden and the Retriever of Sin (10 page)

THE GIRLS WERE ABOUT RACHEL’S AGE, POSSIBLY SLIGHTLY OLDER, and were dressed for combat. The smaller one, with the bow and arrow, was wearing camouflaged cargo pants, a black tank top, and black combat boots. Her friend, the bigger one with the Taser, was slightly less combat-y in jeans and a Metallica T-shirt. They were both wild-eyed strung out looking. The smaller one didn’t know where to point her bow, and moved it from the unicorns to Rachel and Kel then back again.

‘What’s going on here?’ She asked, finally, when she’d decided no one was going to move after all.

The first person of the hero party to speak was Kel, and what he said was a surprise to everyone. ‘
Caroline
?’ he asked, rhetorically and in amazement, and got to his feet. The girl holding the Taser let it fall to her side.

‘Kelsey?’ she said, in the same shocked tone, and ran forward to hug the Safeguarder. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘We’re on a mission,’ he replied, still hugging the girl (Caroline apparently) tightly to him. The two obviously knew each other, and quite well from the look of it. When they finally let go they introduced everyone. Caroline’s partner was named Rain, and she shook everyone’s hand (even AC’s, which was a little sticky. She surreptitiously wiped her own hand on her pants afterward).

With the introductions out of the way the two girls sat down and joined the party in their lunch. Rain kept looking nervously at the two unicorns that were tethered nearby. ‘What’s the deal with the ’corns?’ she asked, nodding over to the beasts. ‘You catch ‘em or something?’

‘Sort of,’ Rachel said, and briefly explained how they’d come by the animals.

‘Are you gonna kill ‘em?’ the other girl asked.

Rachel looked shocked. ‘No! Why would we kill them? They’re perfectly nice creatures if you show them a little kindness. Rain looked at her like she was crazy.

‘Anyway,’ Ros said loudly (Kel and Caroline were deep in their own excited conversation), ‘how do you two know each other?’ Kel managed to tear his attention away from Caroline enough to go ‘huh?’ in response.

Rachel, who’d been eyeing them suspiciously, spoke up. ‘Yes do tell us how you two know each other, Kelsey.’ Her face was blank but there was an edge to her voice. Kel’s cheeks flushed.

‘Um, well, Caroline and I met in training. She’s a Safeguarder too.’ Rachel didn’t like how close the two of them were sitting, and narrowed her eyes.

‘Oh really? So Caroline’s a trainee Safeguarder as well, is she?’ She smiled sweetly and put a little emphasis on the word ‘trainee’.

Kel’s cheeks got even redder, but it was Caroline who answered. ‘No, actually. I got my license last year. We were in basic training together, but some of us just get our first missions sooner. Depends on the strength of the Hero, I suppose.’ She looked over at Rain with a grin, then back at Rachel with a look of withering scorn. Now it was Rachel’s turn to blush. Ros was carefully looking elsewhere, and Assorted Colors was rolling around on the floor giggling. For someone as supposedly, uh, ‘not-so-bright’ as AC, he certainly noticed a lot.

Rachel sat fuming in silence while the others talked. She hated the way that Caroline kept touching Kel’s arm as she spoke, and giggling and flicking her hair. Just what had gone on with those two during training? From the way Caroline was making eyes at Kel, she’d say they were more than just friends. As soon as they were gone Kel was a dead man.

Whoa, whoa, whoa. She checked herself. Where was this all coming from? She didn’t even like Kel. Like
like
like him. Did she…? He was more like a brother to her than anything else. Or a best friend. She’d never even thought of him like… like
that
. Then why the hell was she getting so jealous of this other Safeguarder? She shook herself. No. It couldn’t be jealousy. It must be the blood-loss. She was just light headed, that’s all. She decided to join in the conversation to take her mind off it.

‘So Caroline, you and Rain probably want to get going, right?’ Argh! Stupid stupid stupid. Rachel spat out her foot and quickly went on, ‘Uh, sorry, I mean are you on a schedule? What are you guys doing here in Altworld?’

Everyone was staring at Rachel in disbelief and she felt her cheeks get hot again. ‘Well,’ Caroline said slowly, ‘as I was just saying to the others, we’re headed for the portal you just came through. We’re just using this Altworld as a stepping stone to get to our mission. It’s in your world.’

‘My world?’ Rachel asked, shocked. ‘What’s happening in my—’ she stopped and looked at Kel, ‘—
our
world?’ If something bad was happening in her world she wanted to know about it. Was her mom safe? And why hadn’t she and Kel been given that mission?

‘We don’t know yet,’ Rain said. ‘All we know is that a crack has opened up, and that it’s getting bigger. We were emergency dispatched. We need to get back to your portal while the temporal memory of it’s still fresh. There was no time to set up new portals. That’s why we’re kind of jumping around here. This is the third Altworld we’ve been in today.’

Rachel thought back to the crack they’d seen earlier, and the sinkhole looking thing. ‘I think we saw it,’ she said, and told them about the scene with the frozen cars on the freeway.

‘Yeah,’ Caroline said, ‘the council put an emergency freeze on your world to stop people getting hurt. If it was just a normal sinkhole we wouldn’t even be involved. But this is something to do with you guys coming across, and your mission. The rip between worlds was directly caused by something happening here, in this Altworld.’ Then she added under her breath, ‘Probably something you screwed up. Trainees…’

Rachel lost it and jumped to her feet. ‘The __CK did you just say?’ she shouted, but immediately winced in pain from the movement and felt light headed. She’d forgotten about the wound on her back. She reached out to a tree trunk to steady herself before she fell over. Her vision was swimming.

The others sprang to their feet and ran to help her. Kel explained about the pig attack as Rain lifted Rachel’s shirt to examine the wound. She made a face when she saw how red and swollen it was. ‘Yep. It’s infected alright. Caroline, do you have any antibiotics?’ The other girl nodded and went to fetch her pack. Rain held out her hand for the hypodermic, but Caroline said that she’d do it.

Kel looked away as Rachel lowered her jeans and underwear and Caroline stuck her in the butt with a vicious looking needle. Rachel gasped and sucked air in through clenched teeth. Caroline snickered. ‘Oh sorry! Think I accidentally went in a little deep there.’ Rain gave her a warning look.

‘Bitch,’ Rachel muttered as she fastened her jeans, but then gave them a reluctant ‘thanks’. They
had
literally just saved her ass. Who knows what would have happened if she hadn’t got a shot? Just as Kel was told it was safe to turn around, Ros’s ears pricked up at something. A few seconds later the others heard it too. A quiet rhythmic squeaking sound was approaching through the sparse undergrowth.

Rain, Caroline and AC grabbed their weapons. Rachel and Kel looked at each other awkwardly as if to say ‘why didn’t we think to bring weapons?’ then got into a combat-ready stance. The source of the noise was a surprise.

A fat little cat in an old-fashioned three piece suit entered the clearing, pulling a turtle in a red cart behind him. He was also eating a cheeseburger. ‘What ho, Heroes!’ he said cheerfully, with his mouth full. Nobody knew what to do. They were absolutely nonplussed. There they were, poised for attack, only to be confronted by… by
this
. Assorted Colors broke the tension by dropping to floor and rolling around in a fit of laughter.

‘Um, hello,’ Ros said. AC’s laughter was infectious, and pretty soon all of them were having a damned good laugh. When they’d calmed down, Ros asked the unlikely pair if they could help them.

The cat, who’d waited patiently eating his burger, was licking ketchup off his paw. He flashed them a charming smile. ‘Why yes,’ he said. ‘Which one of you is—’ he fished an envelope from his inside jacket pocket and read the name on it, ‘—Rachel Golden?’ He looked from face to face expectantly.

All eyes automatically turned to Rachel. ‘Uh, I guess that would be me,’ she said, raising her hand.

‘
Ex
cellent,’ the cat beamed. He held out the envelope and Rachel bent down to take it, slightly stunned to be getting mail from a talking cat in the middle of the Altworld. McKitten cleared his throat dramatically. ‘Rachel Golden, you have been served.’

‘Uh… What?’ was all she could think of to say, but the cat was already turning to leave.

‘Exactly as I said, my dear girl. Good day to you all.’ He tipped an imaginary hat to the others. ‘Come along, Turtle. A job well done. Lunch at the club I think, don’t you?’ And with that the pair squeaked and wheeled out of the clearing.

Rachel stared at the envelope in her hand, and the ornate handwriting on it. Well, it certainly was her name. She looked around at the others, but they seemed to be as confused as her. She gingerly slit open the envelope with a finger, not sure what to expect. Inside was a single sheet of blood red paper, completely blank on both sides. Just as she was about to speak again, she felt a hot tingling sensation in her fingertips where she was holding it.

Panicking, she tried to drop the paper, then shake it off, but it was stuck to her as if with glue. ‘Hey guys…’ she said, fear rising in her voice, and they watched in horrified fascination as the paper began to turn white around its edges.

‘Rachel!’ Kel gasped. ‘Your hand!’ He was pointing a shaking finger at Rachel’s hand, and the red that was spreading to it from the paper.

The heat was intense now, painful, and Rachel screamed as she watched her entire hand turning bright red. She desperately flapped her arm trying to get it off. The others snapped out of their stupor and lunged forward to try to wrestle the paper off her, but too late: It fell away by itself, now pure white in color as it drifted to the ground. Rachel held up her trembling hand and stared at it in horror. It looked like it had been dipped in blood.

***

It had been surprisingly easy for Toby and his gang to escape. In the end. After about an hour of struggling against their bonds, more urgently as the day got later (they did
not
want to be tied up in the dark of Altworld), it was finally Pig-face who broke free. ‘’Sno good,’ he moaned, grunting and snorting. ‘Never get loose.’ He took a deep breath to sigh, and that’s when his ropes had just snapped, much to everyone’s surprise.

When Toby was free he stared down at Ratboy in disgust. ‘I should just leave you there, you know that?’ he snapped. ‘Falling asleep on your watch. All of this is
your
fault.’

Ratboy looked like he was going to cry. HIS watch?? Butbutbut Toby had said that
he’d
take first watch. He was playing with the Retriever of Sin, and… Oh, what was the use? He let his head fall dejectedly.

‘Oh for god’s sake,’ Toby said. ‘Untie him, Pig-face. I can’t bear to look at him. He looks like he’s about to start bawling. Get up, you sniveling idiot. You can redeem yourself by sniffing out the Golden girl for us.’

Ratboy got gratefully to his feet, rubbing himself where the ropes had cut into him. He hated Toby so much. And it was Toby that looked like he was going to cry, earlier, when Ratboy had pointed out that it was getting late. One of these days he’d get his revenge… But for now he might as well try to look like he was helping. ‘Do you think the lawyers found them yet?’ he asked.

Toby was rubbing at his own rope marks, and spat in disgust. ‘Of course they did, you idiot. McKitten and Turtle are like bloodhounds. God knows how they do it. But they always get their man.’ He sighed and paced the clearing, running his hands through his hair and trying to think. What would El do once the girl had been served? Who would he send after them? ‘Probably,’ he said, thinking out loud, ‘there are already unicorns on their way.’

Pig-face looked [more] confused [than usual]. ‘But…’ He squinted with the effort of thinking, ‘I thought there were already unicorns with them? They took the ones we had.’

Toby drew back his hand to slap Pig-face, but held it in the air, shaking with anger. He sighed, and dropped his hand. No, it wasn’t Pig’s fault he was stupid. Plus, the guy was frickin’
huge
. Toby had no problem bullying Ratboy, but Pig-face was a different matter. He might fight back. ‘Yes,’ he said, slowly through gritted teeth, ‘I
know
they took our unicorns. I was there. I’m talking about
different
unicorns.’

Ratboy risked asking a question. ‘Why would they send more unicorns? The party is on its way to the castle anyway. I mean, I think. Where else would they go? They asked where we were taking them.’

Toby pulled thoughtfully at his lower lip. True, the Hero party
was
on its way to the castle. But he didn’t think El knew that yet. Ugh, this had all gotten so messy. Why couldn’t he have just met them at the portal? The longer this whole thing dragged on the deeper he was getting in trouble. He glanced at his two companions. All along he’d been planning to blame them for the mishap. Now he wasn’t sure, even if he did that, that it would save him.

‘I don’t think they know that the girl and her guard are going to the castle yet,’ he said to Ratboy. ‘And I think that by now they’re getting pretty impatient. I have a feeling that we need to get moving, and fast. I’d bet money that after the unicorns have found the Hero party, they’ll have instructions to find
us
. And these won’t just be regular unicorns. I know the Overlords. They’ll send the Dark Ones.’

‘CAN YOU MOVE IT OKAY?’ KEL WAS EXAMINING RACHEL’S HAND. She wiggled her fingers experimentally.

‘Yeah,’ she said, ‘I think so.’ The burning sensation had gone away, but her hand looked like it had been dipped in red paint. And ever since the departure of McKitten and Turtle, the unicorns had been very uneasy. Rachel looked over at them as they pulled at their tethers, throwing their heads back and snorting. Something was very wrong.