Rachel Golden and the Retriever of Sin (20 page)

She bit her lip thoughtfully. Had that really been such a bad mess-up? None of them really knew what the Retriever was even
for
. Though perhaps that made it worse. Another cloud crossed the sun and she gave Kel’s hand a slight squeeze. She felt like things were about to get very dangerous for the Hero party. It definitely seemed like they were about to come to the end of their mission, one way or another.

As far as she saw it, they had several upcoming things to be worried about. They were about to try to break into the castle, the same castle that was filled with murderous mythical creatures (though when you’ve seen them in the flesh, they can hardly be called ‘mythical’ anymore). There was this El guy, who had sent human/animal hybrid bullies to capture them, for reasons yet unknown. There were Dark Ones; massive, powerful, fire-breathing unicorns. And perhaps worst of all, the Overlords. From what she had heard about them they were vicious, evil human-eaters.

And they had no idea what they would face inside the castle. They had no idea what they’d been sent to this Altworld for, nor why El and the Overlords would be interested in capturing them. And all they had to wage war on countless unicorns was a .44 Magnum and five rounds of ammunition. Oh and a prison shank. Things were looking pretty bleak. And about to get bleaker.

‘No, no, no,’ came a whining cry, intruding on Rachel and Kel’s touching moment. Ros and AC were back. ‘No. No. I tried to look the other way, I
tried
, but this is simply unacceptable.’ Kel sighed and sat up.

‘Can it, Ros. What did you find out?’

‘I most certainly will not “can it”, Kelsey,’ the dog said, then in a slightly softer tone, ‘I don’t blame
you
, Rachel. I know this is your first mission and you’ve received no training, but your Safeguarder should know better. This kind of fraternization is Strictly against the rules.’ Rachel could actually hear him capitalize the word.

Kel stretched and scratched his head. ‘What did you find out?’ he asked again, almost as if he hadn’t heard Ros.

‘I’ve found out that you’re in serious breach of the Council’s guidelines, is what I’ve found out! I suspected what you were up to, back at Crabs’ shack, but—’

‘There are about ten feral unicorns at the tunnel entrance,’ AC interrupted. He slid off the dog’s back and came over to where Rachel and Kel were sitting. ‘And two Overlords. El is with them.’

Rachel became very conscious of the weight of the gun in her waistband at the mention of El’s name. She didn’t know why, but felt very strongly that she was going to end up killing the guy. And it was crazy. She’d never met him before, and only had it on hearsay that he was responsible for trapping her dad in limbo. She thought back the dream where she’d seen him, frozen in time on the cliff top. And Crabs’ words: ‘The Retriever of Sin might be just the thing you need…’

‘Well that’s good then, isn’t it?’ Rachel said, getting to her feet and brushing off her jeans. ‘I mean, if El and the Overlords are at the tunnel, we can go and have a poke around in the castle safely. Well, in relative safety. I’m sure the place won’t be unguarded.’

Kel and AC nodded, liking the sound of relative safety, but Ros seemed unhappy. He looked from face to face in dismay, like the wind had been let out of his sails. He opened his mouth to speak, but Kel got there first. ‘If this is going to be about me and Rachel again, Ros, you can save it. Let’s get this mission finished and get off this frickin’ Altworld first.
Then
you can cry all you want about the rules. You can even tell the Council on us.’ Everyone looked at the dog, who closed his mouth again without speaking. ‘Good,’ the Safeguarder said. ‘Now let’s get to the castle before El and the Overlords realize we’re not coming out of the tunnel. Lead the way, Mr. Colors.’

Inside the castle El was watching them on the globe. His palms were sweating and he glanced nervously at the two feral unicorns that had escorted him. Luckily they were too engrossed in nosing through a pile of garbage to pay any attention to what he was doing. All they’d been ordered to do was watch him to make sure he didn’t run away. Stupid screws.

But this was
very
good news. He took a deep breath to steady his nerves. If he played his cards right, now he could just disappear, once he had the girl and the Retriever of Sin. He could just forget about the Overlords and the promises he had made them, and their thinly veiled threats to consume him. He hated dealing with them anyway. They terrified him far more than the Dark Ones did.

His eyes scanned the glassless windows of the castle keep as he worked out where he was. He hadn’t been aware that Rachel and Kel were in the company of a homunculus, but that would explain how they’d managed to make a beeline straight for the castle. The little weasel was guiding them, obviously. Those things were like vermin. Even worse than the feral unicorns, he thought, sneering in the direction of his guards.

But again, this could be to his advantage. Judging from their position on the globe, he guessed that the party would be coming at the castle from the west, instead of the south, where the tunnel would have brought them out. There was a service entrance on the west side of the castle, for bringing goods in and garbage out. It came up through the dungeons, and he’d seen little creatures like the one with Rachel and Kel scavenging for scraps there. He’d bet money that’s where they were heading.

He coughed and one of the feral unicorns looked up. ‘Come on,’ he said, wiping the nervous sweat from his hands on his robe, ‘let’s go down to the kitchen and get some meat for your bosses.’ The wild unicorn blinked at him. He sighed. Did these dumb creatures even understand English? ‘
Follow me, geniuses
,’ he said loudly and slowly. They clopped after him out of the keep.

‘Follow me,’ AC said cheerfully. ‘I’m a genius!’ So far things were going well. The Hero party had decided to just brazen-out their approach to the castle. There was really no way to conceal themselves in broad daylight, and with the absence of the bosses, they hoped none of the feral unicorns would ask any questions.

‘The trick is to just act like you belong here,’ Assorted Colors said. ‘We used to scavenge for food around this service tunnel. Way back. I don’t even think the Overlords know about it.’

They had gone unchecked so far, and AC’s plan appeared (amazingly) to be working. Though Rachel still kept one hand on the butt of her gun, under her T-shirt, just in case. It also happened to be the red hand, so it was wise to keep it out of sight.

The tunnel mouth was dark, and Rachel and the others took a surreptitious look around before ducking inside. They could see a couple of dim torches further inside the gently-sloping passageway. ‘Where does this come out?’ Rachel asked.

‘Dunno,’ AC replied, prodding at some garbage with his toe. ‘We never went in very far. There are
Dark Ones
in there.’

Ros whined. ‘He’s right. I can smell them. And… blood. I don’t like this one bit.’

Kel was feeling pretty anxious himself, but tried to put a brave face on for the sake of the others. ‘Come on, rule boy. I’m sure that cowardice is against the Council’s guidelines as well.’ Rachel smiled weakly, appreciating Kel’s effort, well enough attuned to his emotions to know that it
was
an effort.

The tunnel gradually climbed as they walked, carrying them higher into the foundations of the castle. The group fell into an uneasy silence. Rachel wondered why an entrance to the castle would be completely unguarded. Surely there should at least be a gate of some kind?

Before she could wonder any more, Kel came to a sudden halt and held up his hand. The others grouped around him to see why he’d stopped. ‘There,’ he whispered, pointing up the dim tunnel. Rachel, Ros and AC craned their necks to see what he was pointing at. On the stone wall of the tunnel, just before it took a sharp turn, the shadow of a unicorn was cast in silhouette from the orange glow of the torches. Automatically Rachel found herself on her toes, fists clenched, ready for fight or flight.

‘Is this a trap?’ she breathed. Kel narrowed his eyes and slowly shook his head.

‘I don’t think so. It’s a feral unicorn. Look at the shape of the horn; it’s short and thick, like a rhino’s. If they were going to post a guard—or set a trap—wouldn’t they put a Dark One there instead?’

The rest of the group all exchanged looks. That
sounded
plausible, but was it a risk they could afford to take? ‘I don’t like it,’ Rachel said quietly.

‘Me either,’ Kel replied, ‘but what choice do we have, really? We can’t back out now. There’s no way the main gate will be any easier to breach than this. And besides, we don’t know how long El and the Overlords will be gone.’ Rachel nodded, biting her lip, and knew that he was right.

‘Alright,’ she said. ‘Let’s go. And let me do the talking.’ If it comes to that, she added in her head. ‘Just be ready to fight, everyone.’ They all nodded, even Ros, and crept slowly up the tunnel.

Rachel was so nervous that she had forgotten about the Magnum tucked into the waistband of her jeans. She paused, took it out silently, and cocked the hammer as quietly as she could. The others turned at the metallic click, and Rachel could have sworn she saw the shadow of the unicorn’s ears turn toward the sound.

They were close now, just feet from the corner, and Rachel made eye-contact with each member of the Hero party. One by one they nodded their readiness, and holding the gun partly concealed behind her thigh Rachel stepped around the corner. The man she saw standing there almost made her drop the gun in surprise.

Standing between the two feral unicorns, El was beaming at her. ‘Rachel!’ he said, grinning. ‘So glad you could make it.’

Rachel let the gun hand drop to her side and stood staring at the man with her mouth open. ‘
Mr. Lemming
??’ She couldn’t believe that the man standing in front of her was her math teacher. She was also slightly surprised to see him holding a sword. ‘What are you
doing
here?’ she asked in a state of shock.

The man’s eyes flickered with a look of confusion, then threatened to pop out of his head as he saw the massive revolver in Rachel’s hand.

‘Uh, Rach,’ Kel coughed behind her. ‘That isn’t Mr. Lemming. Temporal echoes, remember?’

But Rachel wasn’t having that. The fat, red-faced man standing before her was
definitely
Mr. Lemming. ‘But… but…’ she stammered. ‘He just called me Rachel. How do you explain that?’ No one could, it seemed, and all eyes turned back to El. The man was scowling in confusion. ‘And his name!’ she cried. ‘El? Like the letter L? That obviously stands for Lemming.’

Before anyone could say anything AC had raised his shiv. ‘Don’t think about it,’ the little man said. Rachel glanced down and followed AC’s gaze; it was locked on El’s hand. The knuckles had whitened where he was gripping the hilt of his sword, which twitched in readiness. El’s own eyes were fixed on Rachel’s gun.

She didn’t have to think. She raised the gun and pointed it straight at El’s chest. ‘Drop the sword.’ El/Lemming did so immediately, and it clattered to the floor of the tunnel. ‘Now walk,’ she said, gesturing up the passageway with the gun. ‘I’m
extremely
tempted to kill you right now, but you’re going to answer some questions first. I want answers, about my dad, and about the Retriever of Sin.’

El’s eyes were bulging as he stared at the weapon in Rachel’s hand. Where the hell had she found a gun on the Altworld? He swallowed, walking backward up the tunnel, reluctant to turn away from the girl with the gun. And, perhaps more intriguingly, why weren’t the feral unicorns doing anything? Were they really that stupid? Maybe they don’t know what a gun is, he wondered.

Kel picked up the sword El had dropped as they walked. Things were looking up. Now three out of four of them were armed, and they had (somewhat) captured El. True, they were still heading deeper into the castle (with two large feral unicorns following them), and true, the Overlords and Dark Ones were probably on their way—but right now, right at that second, it was advantage: them.

RACHEL SAT DOWN AT THE LONG, ROUGH-HEWN WOODEN TABLE in the castle’s banquet hall. There were no human chairs in the hall, so she and Kel had dragged over a couple of empty barrels to sit on. The spigots were stained red, though she guessed not with wine. There was a nauseating, sickly-sweet smell coming from them. El remained standing.

‘So,’ she said, levelling the gun at his torso, ‘why are we here?’

El licked his dry lips nervously. What the hell was she asking
him
for? He was kind of wondering the same thing. He tried to work out how long it would be before the Overlords realized something was up and came back to check on him. He should try to stall for time. But how much had the girl figured out about his plan? ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘In this castle, you mean? Or are you being philosophical?’

Rachel looked sideways at Kel. She tried again. ‘Alright, I know why Kel and I are here. We’re on a mission. Apparently some “Council” got wind that some unicorns were acting strangely, and sent us to find out why. Now, I suppose a better question would be, why did you send Toby and his sidekicks to try and capture us?’

Toby, El thought. Yes. Whatever did happen to that kid? He probably ran away when he realized he’d be eaten for effing up so bad. The lazy little bastard had probably tried to get one of his cronies to do the job for him. ‘Toby…’ El said slowly, narrowing his eyes as if trying to recall the name.

Rachel squeezed the trigger of the Magnum and blew a massive chunk out of one of the stone blocks behind El’s head. The explosion was deafening in the bare castle hall. Both unicorns reared up on their hind legs and whinnied, snorting and pawing at the air. El himself had physically jumped, and a little bit of pee came out. He didn’t dare look down to see if his robe was stained.

‘Toby! Yes, yes, I know who you mean now,’ he babbled, speaking fast and loud over the ringing in his ears. Rachel cocked the hammer again. Four shots left, Kel thought. Careful, Rach… El continued, panicking and trying to work out how much truth—if any—to tell the girl. ‘Yes, no, here’s what happened, see.