Rachel Golden and the Retriever of Sin (23 page)

But as soon as the floor had broken, before the dust even cleared, the two Overlords had made a run for the dungeons and released over a hundred Dark Ones into the castle. Drawn by the scent of blood of one of their own, they made a beeline for the banquet room.

That’s when things turned ugly. Seeing their fallen brother in the midst the rabbits and moles, the Dark Ones had gone, as psychiatrists say, absolutely ___king nuts. So the odds switched again. The rabbits and moles were now outnumbered four to one. It was messy. Have you ever seen two rabbits fight, on a nature show maybe? They jump in the air and box and kick and scratch. Now, when the rabbits in question weigh over a ton, and the creatures they’re fighting are similarly weighted fire-breathing unicorns… well. You can imagine.

Stomachs were torn open, fur caught fire, moles were gored and Dark Ones were decapitated by furious moles. Two foot thick stone walls were smashed down by the battling giants. It was all the humans could do to keep from getting crushed in the melee.

Rachel had grabbed Ros and dived for cover behind the massive banquet table that had been upended in the fight. It was made from whole tree trunks, so was doing a pretty good job of shielding them from horns and claws and flames.

Kel’s Safeguarder instincts to protect Rachel had kicked in, and he grabbed the only weapon in sight; the Dark One horn. Wielding the three foot spike alternately like a sword and flipped around like a baseball bat, he found it to be an incredibly strong, light and sharp implement. He somersaulted through the air, whirling, slashing, stabbing and clubbing any animal that threatened to come too close to his Hero.

The two feral unicorns moved in to protect Rachel also. It seemed they remembered her kindness. And though slightly smaller than the Dark Ones, they used their rhino-like horns and considerable weight to keep the battling creatures away from her. They gored and charged and rammed, while Rachel was busy trying not to die behind the table with a terror-stricken Ros in her arms.

But even twelve rabbits, twelve moles, two feral unicorns and Kel were having trouble keeping back a hundred Dark Ones. More and more of the creatures kept forcing their way into the banquet hall. The black beasts were born to fight, and it would only be a matter of time before they overwhelmed the new allies. A knot of bodies were struggling to get through the door, and the rabbits and moles were tiring.

‘We might need to think about falling back,’ the rabbit Crown said breathlessly to one of his generals. ‘Start moving your men back to the tunnel.’ Rachel’s heart fell when she heard this. If the rabbits and moles left it would all be over for them. Then something remarkable happened.

Pig-face and Ratb—Trevor. His name is Trevor, okay? Pig-face and Trevor were huddled in another corner, also trying to keep out of the way. As Trevor cleaned Toby’s blood from his dagger on the hem of his jacket, a small silver whistle fell out of the pocket and rolled across the floor—the same silver whistle he’d used to summon the feral unicorns in the forest.

Assorted Colors, giggling and dancing his way across the flagstones, came across Toby as he lay dying on the floor. The whistle rolled to a stop in front of the boy’s eyes, between him and the homunculus. They both stared at it, Toby’s eyes struggling to focus. Skin pale and shining, breath rattling as blood filled his lungs, the bully fixed AC in his gaze and tried to speak. AC thought he was going to ask him to deliver a coup de grace—a fatal strike with the razorblade—to end his misery. Instead he whispered the words ‘Blow it’.

Never one to pass up the chance of blowing a whistle, AC did so. He put it to his lips and blew. But no sound came out. He tried again, harder and longer, but still nothing. Annoyed, he tossed the whistle aside and continued across the floor to try to find Rachel.

Outside the castle, in the fields and barns, pulling carts and eating garbage, hundreds of feral unicorns stopped what they were doing and looked in the direction of the castle. They were being called.

AC, darting between hooves and feet, was almost at the table where Rachel and Ros were hiding. But so was someone else. Crawling across the floor, leaving a trail of blood from his ankle, El was reaching out for Rachel’s leg. The pocket watch was in his other hand. She had her back to him, and Ros in her arms, and was unaware that he was sneaking up on her.

AC shouted, trying to warn her, but his voice was lost in the maelstrom of battle. He was leaping through the air, toothbrush poised, when he saw the man click the pocket watch. All three vanished from the room. AC landed, a fraction of a second later, and his razorblade shattered on the stone where El’s reaching hand had been. The Hero was gone.

The last thing Rachel felt before her ears popped was someone grabbing her ankle. Then the sounds of the battle vanished to be replaced by crashing waves and wind whistling through marram grass. Cold, salty air filled her nostrils and tiny drops of ocean spray hit her face. She was back on the cliff top from her dream.

Was she dreaming now? She didn’t think so. For one thing, Ros was in her arms, struggling to get free. For another, someone was still holding tightly to her ankle. She turned and saw the mad grinning face of El staring back at her.

‘Get the hell off me!’ she yelled, and with her free foot kicked at his face. Her heel connected with his nose and smashed it flat. The man screamed and let go of her, blood squirting everywhere. Though dazed from the porting, she let go of Ros—or the Retriever of Sin—and struggled to her feet. She looked around for somewhere to run to, but the cliff top was bare and empty. The only way out of there was down, over the edge.

She turned back to El just as he was cocking the revolver, blinking back tears and trying to wipe away the blood and snot that bubbled from his nose. Her shoulders sagged. She was beginning to dislike the gun. At least, being on the wrong end of it.

‘Well?’ she asked, annoyance in her voice. ‘You’ve got me here. Want to tell me what this is all about now?’ Then added, ‘Get back here, Ros.’ The dog had been trying to slink away unnoticed.

El rolled himself into a sitting position, puffing and grunting with the pain and effort. ‘It’s been 13 years since I was last on these cliffs,’ he said, thickly through his broken nose. He spat red into the dune grass. Rachel said nothing, waiting for him to continue. He struggled to his feet and turned to look out over the ocean. ‘And I’m here again because I thought you might want to see your daddy again before you die.’

Rachel’s stomach lurched at his words.
See her dad before she
died
? She had no idea what—

And then she saw him, faint against the slate sky. The ghost-like image of her dad frozen in time over the cliff edge. She walked toward him slowly, hardly daring to breathe. So it was real then. The image she’d been shown in her dream was real. She was looking right at him. El stood back and watched as Rachel reached out a hand and tried to touch his face, as she had in the dream. Again, her fingers passed straight through him as if he were made of mist.

She turned to El. She wasn’t angry or afraid anymore. ‘How am I seeing this?’ she asked, eyes wide.

El was grinning again, but there was malice in it. ‘Didn’t anyone tell you what happens when a Hero fails?’ he asked.

Rachel thought back to what Ros and Kel had said about it. ‘Yeah…’ she said, slowly, trying to remember the exact words. ‘Something about reality splitting. Two worlds are created out of one moment. One where he succeeds,’ she turned back to look at Robert Golden, ‘and one where he fails.’ She desperately wanted to reach out to touch him again but knew that it was pointless.

‘That’s right,’ El said. ‘Thirteen years ago I fought with your dad, right here. I fought him and the old man Crabs. He was known as Crabtree back then. You see, there’s a terrible cruelty about this particular Altworld. The Overlords back there? They like nothing better than eating humans. But there are no humans on this world. Is that fair?’ Rachel had no idea.

He went on. ‘So about thirteen years ago the Overlords made a deal with me. They offered me the rule of your world. All they wanted in exchange was a portal that they could use to go and feed whenever they wanted. Imagine it! The Overlords with hundreds of Dark Ones at their disposal, and the ability to appear anywhere on your world at any time. The human race would be decimated. So with a little bargaining and management, a man who could act as a go-between would become extremely powerful on your earth.’

Rachel felt sick. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘Oh don’t give me that look, girl,’ El said. ‘It’s no worse than the way you treat animals back on your own world.’

‘That’s different…’ Rachel began.

‘How is it any different? It’s just animals eating other animals. The only difference is that
you’re
human. So the thought of other humans being eaten is disgusting to you. How do you think cows feel?’

Rachel didn’t exactly agree with him but she could see his point. ‘Whatever. Get on with it.’

‘And it’s the same on this world. The Overlords are the humans of this world. They’re at the top because they’re the smartest. The Dark Ones could wipe them all out easily, but they don’t. Why?’ Rachel just stared. She didn’t much care what one group of monsters did or didn’t do to another. ‘Because the Overlords are smart enough to play the Dark Ones and the feral unicorns off against one another. The feral unicorns are in mortal dread of the Dark Ones, but the Overlords stepped in and imposed a kind of order on the whole thing.

‘Now the Dark Ones are locked away in the castle; the feral unicorns don’t need to live in constant fear; and the Overlords are the boss of everyone. The unicorns get eaten when they’re old and no good as workers anymore. The Dark Ones don’t go on killing sprees. It’s a perfect system. Everybody wins. Except for the Overlords. They eat feral unicorns because they have no alternative. What they really want is human meat. They wanted to set up a similar system to the one they have here, but this one spanning universes. See?’

Good god, Rachel thought. She finally got it. And it was horrific. The thought of her world’s elderly and infirm being sacrificed to the Overlords in exchange for a relative peace was abhorrent. ‘So what happened?’ she asked.

‘Your dad and Crabs happened,’ he said. The council found out I was meeting with the Overlords and sent them to follow me. I was a Hero myself, back then.’ A faraway look came into his eyes. ‘But I could have been so much
more
…’

While he was speaking, lost in the sound of his own voice and daydreams of madness, Rachel had be moving closer and closer to him, slowly but surely. ‘Then what?’ she asked, trying to keep him talking. If she could just get within grabbing distance of the gun…

‘This,’ El spat, and flung his arm in the direction of her dad, frozen in time. ‘Robert had to go and get involved. The council had been opening portals to this Altworld for me. I pretended I was spying on the Overlords. But when they got suspicious, they sent Robert and Crabs to spy on
me.
That was their mission. And when they failed, when I pushed him over the cliff, they wouldn’t open a portal back.’

Rachel
thought
she was beginning to see.

‘And so that was my punishment, for killing another Hero. I’ve been stuck on this god-forsaken Altworld for the last thirteen years!’ He was almost shouting now. ‘And Crabs too! That was his punishment for failing his mission. That great Council you work for are so kind and forgiving, aren’t they?
I
deserved what I got, but him??’ El gestured in the direction of Crabs’ shack, lost in the distance. Rachel turned to look and could have sworn she saw the shape of a huge bird, wheeling high above the cliffs.

‘But he didn’t die though,’ Rachel said, turning back to El. ‘He’s right there.’ She pointed at the transparency of her father.

‘Idiot girl. That isn’t this world. In this world he
did
die. I won when I pushed him off the cliff. And this is my prize.’ He laughed and waved his arms around the barren windswept cliff top. ‘You know the walls are thin. This is where one universe became two. When he died I won. In another world he won and I died. And this,’ he pointed at her dad, ‘is the universe before either happened, the one now frozen in time.’

Ohhhhh.
Now
Rachel understood. ‘So, wait,’ she said, edging ever closer. El didn’t seem to have noticed. ‘Why have you come back here then? Why bring me here and tell me this?’

El laughed. ‘Oh, that’s the best part,’ he grinned. He held up the pocket watch. ‘
This
, and him,’ he pointed the gun at Ros, ‘will allow me to open that universe up again.’

‘To what end?’

‘Look around you, Golden,’ he said, sounding more like Lemming than ever. ‘Because of your father I’ve been stuck here for thirteen years. I’m going to open up his universe so he can watch you die.’ Rachel felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. He wanted her dad to watch her
die
? ‘And then I’m going to kill him.’ El giggled and Rachel fought the urge to throw up. She couldn’t believe how deranged the man was.

There was a little ding from the pocket watch. ‘Yes, yes, I’m getting to it,’ El said irritably. Rachel wondered whether the man was insane enough to believe that the watch was actually talking to him. ‘Come here, dog,’ he commanded, and Ros slunk over. El twisted some dials on the pocket watch.

‘Ros, you can’t seriously be about to let him do this,’ Rachel said, nearly in tears.

‘I was just trying to help us,’ was all the dog could reply. ‘I—I had no idea…’

Something snapped in Rachel’s head. She wasn’t going out like this. If she was going to die, then so be it. But she didn’t have to let it be on El’s terms. ‘No,’ she said, forcefully, and stepped back from El. She grabbed hold of Ros by the scruff of the neck and pulled him back too. ‘I’m not going to let you do this. You’re going to have to shoot me.’

‘Fine,’ El said. He pointed the Magnum at her chest and pulled the trigger. This time there was no dull click. Just a huge booming explosion.