Rachel Golden and the Retriever of Sin (4 page)

Kel coughed a little nervously. ‘You’re a trainee Hero,’ he said.

Rachel almost burst out laughing, but the dog and her friend were looking deadly serious. ‘I see,’ she said carefully, again wondering where the hidden cameras were. ‘And where are we, exactly? This place looks just like Beaver Lake. Though you made it rain somehow.’

Kel could sense that she was slipping into denial. ‘You saw what just happened on the other side of the portal,’ he said. ‘Beaver Lake just
fell away
. Like out of existence. Pop.’

Rachel scowled. Yeah, if that had been a trick it was a damned good one. ‘Maybe it was the Slurpee,’ she offered. ‘I’ve seen some messed up stuff after a 64oz Slurpee.’

Ros cut in. ‘Why didn’t he tell me he was retiring?’

Kel gave him a sideways look. ‘You know very well why. You would have run away again.’

Ros managed to look shocked—not a bad feat for a dog. ‘I got lost!’ he wailed. ‘When they said I was going to be tested that time, I got lost. I don’t know how it happened.’ He scratched at some pebbles on the ground with his paw.

‘Yeah right,’ Kel said, ‘I heard you got lost all the way to the Bahamas. And you seemed to have no problem finding the buffet.’ Rachel got the feeling that if dogs could blush, Ros would be glowing. ‘Anyway,’ he went on, turning back to Rachel, ‘we’re in the Altworld now.’

Rachel looked around her. Apart from the weather change it seemed exactly like the world they’d just left. ‘So what’s “alt” about it then? I’m guessing alt is short for alternate?’

Kel nodded and Ros looked surprised. ‘Is that right?’ he asked. ‘I never knew that. How come no one ever told me that?’

‘Most people figure it out for themselves, Ros. And trust me, there’s plenty that’s alt about it. But we’ll break you into that gently. Right now we should probably get moving.’ He tossed Rachel the gold pocket watch Sinbad had been carrying. ‘I guess this is yours now. Can you read it?’

Rachel pressed the little winder on the top and the cover popped open. She frowned at the face. There was a main dial with four hands—some spinning backward—and three smaller dials. None of the symbols on it made any sense to her. Though it
did
seem somehow familiar. ‘I… I don’t know,’ she said slowly, ‘I don’t think so.’ She turned it this way and that in the light. There was something faintly hypnotic about it.

‘I wouldn’t worry about it,’ Ros said as Kel shouldered the backpack. ‘I don’t think Sinbad could read it too well either. From what I can gather it either reminds you of things, or warns you of things. But sometimes it doesn’t.’ He sniffed. Right on cue the watch dinged. They all looked at each other, then scanned the beach for any sign of danger. ‘Oh and sometimes it just dings for no reason,’ the dog added.

‘Sounds great,’ Rachel said, and rolled her eyes. She slipped the watch into her pocket and followed Kel back in the direction of the park. As they walked she kept shooting sideways glances at Ros. It was all feeing quite unreal.

Ros noticed her looking. ‘Pretty trippy, right?’ he said, grinning. ‘A talking dog. Pretty
Alice Through the Looking-Glass
stuff.’ He started to sing Jefferson Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’.

‘One pill makes you larger…’

Rachel sighed. She was starting to get a headache.

‘And one pill makes you small.

And the ones that mother gives you

Don’t do anything at all.

Go ask RACHEL!

When she’s ten feet tall…’

‘Do you mind not doing that?’ she snapped at the dog. ‘It’s really quite annoying.’ Ros looked hurt, and she felt bad. ‘Sorry. It’s just that, this is all kind of a lot to take in, you know?’ Ros nodded. Maybe if she talked to Kel, who she
knew
existed, it would help. ‘So what’s this mission all about then?’ she called ahead to him.

Kel looked back over his shoulder. ‘Well, from what Sinbad told me, most of the unicorns in the area have started to move north. It’s our job to track them and find out why. When they start to move all at once it usually means something’s up.’

Rachel laughed out loud. ‘You can’t be serious!
Unicorns
? Come on. Now I know you’re messing with me.’

‘He ain’t messin’, missy,’ Ros said. ‘Where we came in, back at the lake? That’s where the last two were spotted. I could smell them.’

Rachel thought for a minute, then something occurred to her. ‘Ah, now I
know
you’re full of sh… it. Full of it. We were on the other side of the portal when you said that. In real world, not Altworld.’ She looked triumphant.

Ros sniffed. ‘Nope. I can smell in five dimensions. That’s my skill. Tell her Kel.’

Kel looked back again. ‘Uh, he can smell in five dimensions. That’s his skill,’ he said awkwardly.

Rachel snorted. ‘FIVE dimensions? Come on. There are only four. Length, breadth, depth and time. Right?’ She looked from Ros to Kel.

‘The fifth is Altworld,’ Ros said. ‘Or parallel universes, whatever you want to call them. Same thing.’ He tapped the side of his nose. ‘And this baby can smell between them.’ He puffed out his doggy chest proudly as he trotted along.

Oy. Rachel was feeling whelmed. Not quite
over
whelmed yet, but close to it. Okay, just deal with one thing at a time, she told herself. Then brightened. ‘So there are really unicorns?’ she asked, trying to keep the excitement out of her voice. Man, that would be cool. Real unicorns. She wondered if she could ride one in slow motion through a forest.

‘Calm down, spaz,’ Kel said, and Rachel was affronted. She thought she had sounded perfectly calm. ‘These are not the kind of unicorns you’re thinking of. The unicorns in Altworld are… different.’ The watch ting-ed in Rachel’s pocket. ‘The watch is right,’ he said. ‘Come on guys. It’s starting to get dark. We need to set up a camp.’ He picked up the pace.

‘WAIT, CAMP? WHY CAN’T WE JUST STAY AT MY HOUSE?’ Rachel asked, trotting to catch up with Kel. They were coming close to the old playground now and it was indeed starting to get dark.

‘I told you,’ he replied, ‘it’s not there anymore.’

‘Yes, I understand that it’s not there in the real world anymore, but in Altworld—’ She stopped dead as they came through the bushes where she’d fought Toby and his boys. It was the same, but… different. She walked forward slowly, feeling a little creeped out. The old playground rides were still there, but they were transparent, and their color had faded. It was like she was looking at a picture, and the foreground was just a pale layer of celluloid. Kel and Ros stopped to watch her.

As she got to the carousel she reached out a tentative hand to touch it. It
felt
solid enough, and was cold to the touch like metal should be, but it felt insubstantial. Lighter maybe. A less solid version of solid. Like when you pick up a gold statue and realize that it’s just painted plaster. It was wrong and somehow off. She shivered.

‘Well?’ she asked, turning to look back at Kel and Ros.

‘It’s an echo,’ said a voice by her feet. Rachel shrieked and jumped onto the carousel. A tiny man, maybe eight inches tall, was staring up at her. He wiped his nose on the back of his hand, then wiped his hand on his pants. ‘The name’s Assorted Colors,’ he announced proudly. ‘And there’s no need to ask who you are.’ He looked from Rachel to Kel and Ros. ‘You’re a Hero party.’

The two boys came over to join Rachel and Assorted Colors at the carousel, and introduced themselves. Rachel cleared her throat. ‘I’m sorry, Mr… Colors, was it?’ The little man hopped up to sit on the carousel also, carrying what looked to be a transparent bag of potato chips, which he proceeded to messily stuff into his face. He nodded in response to Rachel’s question. ‘Did you say this is an echo?’

‘S’right,’ he said, talking with his mouth full, ‘most of this stuff here is just an echo from when you came through.’ He rapped the carousel with his knuckles. ‘It’ll be completely faded soon. Make hay while the sun shines, right?’ He winked and held the bag of chips out to Rachel, and she felt slightly nauseated at the thought of sharing half-existent chips with the less than clean little creature. She shook her head.

Kel tried to explain. ‘See, when we came through the portal, we changed Altworld. Until we did, Altworld didn’t technically exist. But it also kind of did.
Now
, the real world, the one we just came from, has ceased to exist. But then it also kind of hasn’t.’ Rachel opened her mouth to speak, but couldn’t find anything adequate to say, so closed it again. ‘It’s like multiple universes,’ Kel went on, ‘Each of them occupying the same place in time and space, but unaware of each other’s existence. They’re exerting forces on each other, and affecting one another through probabilities and so on, and so simultaneously everything and nothing is happening at the same time. Dig?’

Rachel did not dig. ‘I’m not with you, but we’ll come back to that,’ she said. ‘So what happened to the world on the other side of the portal? And how are we going to get back there?’ For the first time in all this weirdness she thought of her mom, and her heart skipped a beat. Mom! God, how could she have been so thoughtless?

Kel must have seen the look of sudden panic on her face and tried to calm her down. ‘Everything is fine on the other side of the portal, or back in the real world or whatever. Right now it’s just kind of frozen. In a state of being and non-being. What happens to it now depends on what happens to us in Altworld.

‘See, since Guides and Safeguarders and Heroes have the power to cross between worlds (or universes), what we do affects
both
sides of the portal. We crossed over for a mission. And to re-open a portal we need to complete that mission. If we fail… Well. We’ll worry about that if and when we need to.’

Rachel groaned and rubbed at her eyes, suddenly feeling very tired. She had so many questions buzzing around her head, but none that she could put into words easily. She sighed. ‘Look. Just tell me this. Is my mom safe?’

‘Yes,’ her friend replied. Rachel breathed a sigh of relief. She’d finally gotten a straight answer. ‘And no.’ Rachel felt like screaming. She ran her fingers through her hair in frustration, and had to fight with herself not to pull it out in clumps. She sat down heavily on the carousel, exhausted and stressed.

Assorted Colors was munching happily on his chips and watching the exchange with amusement. He looked like he’d seen it before.

Ros decided to show a little rare compassion. ‘Listen, Rach. What Kel is trying to say is that no one knows for sure how this stuff really works. This is Stephen Hawking level crazy theoretical physics. All you need to know is that the real world (and your mom) are safe for now. Think of it like it’s paused. All we have to do is complete this mission—whatever it turns out to be—without dying, and boom! New portal opens up and we can all go home. The world will be just like you left it. ’Kay?’

Rachel looked around at them all and felt a sense of relief. This was crazy and improbable, and when she woke up next it would more than likely turn out to have just been a Slurpee trip, but at least now she sort of had an idea of what was happening. And there was a chance, it seemed, that everything would be okay. A great sense of peace came over her. She closed her eyes and breathed in deeply, feeling very Zen right there on the carousel. Then she exhaled and opened them again and punched Kel on the arm.

‘Why couldn’t you have just said that, idiot?’ she shouted. Assorted Colors burst out laughing and fell over backwards, rolling around in his chip crumbs. Rachel rounded on him. ‘And you! What kind of a name is “Assorted Colors”, anyway?’

The little man stopped laughing and wiped tears or mirth from his cheeks. ‘My mom gave it to me,’ he said, a little defensively. ‘She saw it on a box of balloons, and just liked it.’

Rachel was about to rant some more, but stopped short. ‘What do you mean “a box of balloons”? Balloons don’t come in boxes.’

Ros coughed politely. ‘I, uh, don’t think they were balloons, Rach,’ he said, carefully not looking at her. She couldn’t swear to it, but he looked like he was trying not to laugh.

‘Then what…’ Realization dawned. ‘Ohhh. Okay.’ She was trying hard not to giggle herself now. ‘Well, um, Assorted Colors is kind of a mouthful. Do people call you anything shorter?’

‘Johnny maybe?’ Ros suggested, and Kel had a mysterious coughing fit. It
almost
seemed like he was laughing. Rachel bit the insides of her cheeks to keep from doing the same while poor Assorted Colors sat there oblivious to what was so funny.

‘Well, I guess some people call me AC. You know, like the initials?’

‘AC it is then,’ she said, her expression completely neutral. After a few deep breaths everyone had composed themselves again, and Kel spoke up.

‘So, AC, we’re on the trail of a couple of unicorns. You haven’t seen any lately, have you?’

Assorted Colors, aka AC, sat bolt upright. ‘Unicorns?’ he repeated, with panic in his voice. He looked around the park in terror. ‘Unicorns here? Oh that’s not good. We have to go.’ He got to his feet. ‘Why would you be
looking
for unicorns? I ran into some a couple of weeks back and gave them a wide berth. Nasty creatures.’

The group exchanged glances. ‘They’re on the move,’ Kel said, ‘and we want to know why. It probably has a lot to do with our mission. Can you show us where you saw them?’

‘Not likely,’ the little man said, dusting chip crumbs off his hands. ‘I’m out of here. They were up north somewhere. But if you have any sense you’ll stay away too.’ He hopped down off the carousel and started making for the bushes.

Kel sighed. ‘So much for that,’ he said. ‘Getting anything with your nose, Ros?’

AC froze in his tracks. He turned around slowly and looked Ros up and down with wide eyes. ‘Ros?’ he asked. ‘Like
the
Ros?’

Ros seemed to know what was coming and rolled his eyes with an exasperated sigh. ‘Yes.
The
Ros. Go on, get it out of your system.’

The little man burst out laughing once more, throwing himself on the ground and rolling back and forth, pounding the ground and kicking his feet in the air. He seemed to have momentarily forgotten his fear of unicorns.