Rachel Golden and the Retriever of Sin (6 page)

The other two nodded, but Ratboy looked a little unsure. ‘Uh, boss?’ he asked, raising his paw. I mean hand. Toby looked at him irritably.

‘What?’

‘About my name. Is there any way I could be called something other than “Ratboy”? It just seems a little derogatory.’ He coughed nervously while Toby stared at him for a long time. Eventually he cracked. ‘Nothing. Sorry I brought it up. Ratboy is fine. I’ll be, uh, going then, shall I?’ Stare. ‘Right. Well. That’s settled then… Bye?’ Stare. He scurried away back down the trail.

As Toby and Pig-face made their way in the opposite direction, the leader put a friendly arm around his friend’s thick shoulders. ‘You’re happy with the name Pig-face, aren’t you Pig-face?’ he asked pleasantly.

‘Yes boss,’ Pig-face replied, without even having to think about it.

***

‘Is this another echo?’ Rachel asked, staring at the cars that were blocking their way.

‘No,’ Kel said. ‘Any echoes should have faded a long time ago. Something’s wrong here.’ He tapped on the glass of a frozen SUV. The woman in the driver’s seat was midway through applying lip gloss in the vanity mirror.

They had come out of the woods a couple of miles north of the unicorn poop and discovered a main road. But this was not the usual remnant of the real world—i.e. a straight ribbon of flat grass where a road used to be—but an actual road with cars and people. And it was faded and drained of color, the way the echo of the playground had been. Kel looked worried.

‘Have you ever seen anything like this?’ he asked Ros. The dog shook his head. He was looking worried too as he sniffed around the cars.

‘Rachel,’ he said, ‘take your pocket watch out, would you?’

Rachel did as he asked, and clicked the gold cover open. One of the small dials, the one that had been spinning itself into a blur before, was now barely moving. She took it to show Ros. ‘What does it mean?’ she asked.

The dog whistled. ‘It means,’ he said, drawing out the silence, ‘that something is effed. Fricked.’ Rachel was beginning to suspect that neither Ros nor Kel really knew what they were doing. Something occurred to her.

‘Hey Kel.’ He looked up from the SUV. ‘You asked Ros if he’d ever seen anything like this before. Like you hadn’t. Have you been to Altworld before?’

‘Sure,’ he replied. ‘I mean, a couple of times. I shadowed other Safeguarders before as part of my training. Why?’

Rachel was beginning to feel pretty alone. So far Kel had been her rock, her best friend that tied her to the real world, and she’d felt like they were going through this together. Now she just felt stupid and inexperienced and foolish. She blinked back the beginning of a tear and looked away.

Again, Kel did his mind-reading trick. Or at least, feelings-reading. She hated when he did that. ‘Hey, look Rach, of course you’re gonna feel out of your depth. Everyone does at first. But Heroes
never
go into Altworld until they’re tested. That’s always been the way. Trial by fire, right Ros?’ The dog nodded. ‘You’re the most powerful one in our group. The only reason I got training was so that I could look out for you. I would die to protect you.’

Rachel felt a lump in her throat. Would he really? Die for her? But then she felt stupid again. He probably meant because it was his job, not because he cared about her. Stupid Altworld. She’d never asked for this. Right now she just wanted to go home. Go home and hug her mom and have milk and cookies and just have everything be
normal
again.

She blinked her eyes clear, and as she did so she noticed a huge gaping crack in the asphalt of the road, like you see on the news after an earthquake. ‘Hey guys…’ she said to no one, ‘If this isn’t an echo we’re seeing, what is it?’

Kel looked to Ros. This was really more of a Guide’s area of expertise. ‘Well,’ the dog said, thoughtfully, ‘best guess is that what we’re seeing is actually the real world. That dial on the watch? It sort of measures the correlation between time in Altworld and time in real world. And since it was barely moving, I’d say that we’re
very
close to the real world right now.’

‘Oh right,’ Kel cut in. ‘I think I’ve heard about this. It’s something to do with the temporal wall between dimensions. Time can move at different speeds between universes. That’s something that the watch measures. Uh, I think. Well, anyway, there are some places in Altworld—and the real world—where the wall is much thinner for some reason. We don’t know why. But that explains why we’re seeing a glimpse of the frozen world outside of this one.’

‘Okaaay…’ Rachel said carefully, ‘But if that’s the case, why is there a massive crack in the real world?’ Ros, Kel and Assorted Colors all hurried over to where Rachel was standing. The crack in the road snaked away like a lightning bolt before opening out into a huge chasm. The speeding cars on the road looked like they would drive right into it if time started again. As they watched the crack widened.

‘Oh boy,’ Ros said. ‘This isn’t good.’

EL, TOBY’S BOSS, WAS TALKING TO THE OVERLORDS. He didn’t sound happy. ‘I don’t care about your blasted unicorns,’ he yelled. ‘They’re your business. I want the Golden girl. That was our agreement.’

One of the Overlords snorted, and stamped his foot. Or, more accurately, his hoof. Now
this
creature was one of the unicorns Rachel was thinking of. His coat was gleaming white, and his spiral horn was polished to a brilliant shine. He shook his silky mane. ‘Look El, you buffoon,’ he said patiently, ‘the two are inextricably linked. My unicorns will bring her here, as long as
your
idiots get them to my unicorns. And speaking of which, shouldn’t they have already done that?’

El looked a little uncomfortable at this, and suddenly became a little more humble. He thought about Pig-face and inwardly groaned at the thought of trusting him with anything. ‘Yes, well,’ he coughed, ‘there seems to be some sort of delay there. Unforeseen circumstances and whatnot, you understand.’

The Overlord raised an eyebrow, as if to say he didn’t understand. ‘Well if these “circumstances” you speak of don’t get fixed soon, there will be… problems.’ El didn’t like the look in the Overlord’s eye when he said that, and swallowed. ‘Look here,’ the unicorn said, and using his slightly creepy-looking jointed and opposable hoof, lifted a grey silken cloth from a large globe at his side.

El gasped. Underneath the silk was what looked like huge, slightly cloudy glass marble, about the size of a beach ball. He leaned in close to the globe and squinted his eyes. Inside the glass was a misty image. It was of a world, and he had a horrific feeling he knew which one. He shivered. A huge crack led to a crater, and the crack was growing as he watched.

‘Yes,’ the Overlord said. ‘Quite.’

‘Is that…’ El asked, and the unicorn nodded with closed eyes.

‘So you see why we’re a little bit concerned with why the girl isn’t here yet. The imbalance between the worlds has started to tear this one apart.’ He tapped a hoof lightly on the glass. ‘And as you’ll recall, this is
our
part of the bargain.’

El rubbed at his whiskery chin, and frowned. Yes, that was certainly a worry. If the Overlords were displeased, he wouldn’t get out of there alive, never mind with
his
part of the bargain, the thing Rachel was bringing with her. ‘Look,’ he said, trying to sound more confident than he felt, ‘I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about. Let me put out some feelers. I have more resources than just my—’ he struggled for a second to think of a suitable word, ‘—men [close enough] to use.’

‘Mmm, why don’t you do that?’ the unicorn said. ‘And this… thing she’s bringing with her. It can really open up worlds?’ He gazed longingly at the cars full of people in the globe. A fat drop of saliva landed on the glass and he licked his lips, revealing a mouth full of hideous pointed fangs.

El shuddered at the thought of what those fangs could do to him, if this should fail. ‘Of course my Lord. It’s a very powerful object called the Retriever of Sin. It was given to her by an old Guide. And the best thing is, she doesn’t even know what it does…’

***

The pocket watch ding-ed. Everyone’s head snapped up and they scanned their surroundings for any sign of danger. Nothing. Again. Rachel was getting pretty sick of the watch Sinbad had given her. She clicked it open and glared at the face. As usual, some of the hands were spinning like crazy; some were turning backward, and some didn’t appear to be doing anything at all. Rachel rolled her eyes and snapped it closed, stuffing it back in her pocket.

‘Wait a minute,’ she asked the group in general, ‘why did he give this to me?’ Kel and Ros looked at her. ‘Sinbad is a Guide or whatever, right? And I’m supposedly a Hero. So why didn’t he give the damn thing to Ros?’

‘Yeah!’ Ros chimed in. ‘Why didn’t he give it to me? But nooo. Old pink-hair trainee here gets it.
I’m
just the one who gets lied to and thrown through portals. Why would anyone ever do anything nice for me?’ Assorted Colors, who was riding on the dog’s back, broke out into giggles. He seemed to delight in Ros’s misfortune.

Kel scowled at AC. He knew how sensitive the Guide could be. ‘Hey!’ he said, excitedly. ‘I just realized something. If you get your license Ros, you’ll be a Guide dog. Haha!’ Everyone stared at him blankly. ‘You know,’ he went on, ‘like a seeing-eye dog?’ More stony faces. Ah well. Kel knew it was comedy gold. ‘Well anyway,’ he went on, feelings slightly hurt, ‘I suppose the
main
reason he didn’t give it to you, would be that you have no thumbs. You couldn’t even open the thing.’

Ros looked down at his paws, glumly. ‘And you have no pockets to keep it in,’ Rachel offered.

‘Plus,’ Kel went on, ‘Sinbad probably knew you’d sell it at the earliest opportunity. Or trade it for wieners.’ Ros looked shocked and hurt, and about to object. ‘But
anyway
,’ Kel continued, ‘If Rachel gets her license—and doesn’t get killed too early—she’ll be a Guide one day too. Sinbad started out as a Hero.’

‘Oh yeah,’ Ros said, but still looking hurt.

Rachel was getting sick of this. ‘I love how no one ever bothers to ask if this is okay with me,’ she said sarcastically. She folded her arms and stared at the sky as she walked (to show them how annoyed she was). Then she tripped on a root because she wasn’t looking where she was going. Sensing her temper rising, no one, not even AC, laughed. Rachel pretended it didn’t happen. ‘Why the HELL am I even a Hero anyway? I didn’t ask for this. And not even a
real
Hero. A goddamned trainee!’

Everyone was feeling a little uncomfortable at her outburst and walked on in silence, not daring to speak. ‘You,’ she said, rounding on Kel, ‘you said that Safeguarders “find” Heroes and watch over them.’ Kel gulped. ‘So what was so special about me? What qualified ME to receive such a huge honor as being forced into bat-shit-crazy-land with a talking dog and a condom [sorry Assorted Colors] and risk my life for god knows who or what? WELL?’

She glared at each of them accusingly. Assorted Colors leaned down to Ros’s ear and whispered, ‘What’s a condom?’

Kel coughed and shuffled his feet uncomfortably. ‘Look, Rach,’ he began, trying to be as tactful as possible. ‘I didn’t
choose
you for this. I found you. It would have happened anyway, sooner or later, and whether you wanted it or not. Didn’t you ever wonder about your skills? Remember how you solved that equation in class yesterday? In about a second?’

Rachel frowned. ‘Well that hardly makes me a—

Kel cut her off. ‘And when you took out those three guys in the park? Do you think
any
other girl at school could have done that?’

‘Yes but maybe it was—’

‘And how fast can you run? How far can you throw a ball? How about ALL those skills put together. You never wondered about that?’

‘Maybe I was a
little
curious, but—’

Almost too quick for the others to notice, Kel reached his hand into the backpack, pulled out an apple, and whipped it full force at Rachel’s face. No one else even had time to blink, but Rachel punched it out of the air before it could hit her, in a great juicy apple explosion.

‘Hey!’ she yelled. ‘What the hell was that for?’ But then she stopped, seeing the looks of amazement on the others’ faces. Assorted Colors said ‘whoa’. She’d reacted without even thinking. And in about 0.2 of a second. And she’d punched it. An apple. Even if someone else could have reacted that fast, surely they would have just caught it? A harmless apple? She stared at her fist, and the juice dripping off it. It hadn’t even hurt. She thought about the things Kel had said, and how stuff like that had been happening all her life. She looked around at each of them. Kel and Ros were nodding, and Assorted Colors’ mouth was still hanging open. ‘Whoa is right, AC,’ she said.

***

‘Why is it called the Retriever of Sin again?’

Toby sighed. He had explained this to Pig-face before, and was fairly sure it wouldn’t sink in this time either. But, since Ratboy still hadn’t returned, there was little else to do but to give it another shot. ‘Nobody knows, Pig,’ he said. ‘But, some of the Council reckon it’s got something to do with going back and fixing your mistakes. The worst “sin” a Hero can commit is to fail in their mission.’ He could tell he’d already lost Pig-face, but soldiered on regardless. ‘When a Hero fails, or gets killed, the Altworld splits. He remains frozen in his reality, and a new Altworld is formed where the consequences of the failed mission live out. Of course, there’s also an Altworld where the mission succeeded.’

He was talking as much to explain this to himself, as to the mentally challenged Pig-face. He picked up a small twig and snapped it. ‘So way back; way, way, back, some Guide apparently built a device that would allow someone to go in and fix past mistakes. They could go back and “retrieve” the failed Hero’s sin. And thereby set everything right again. Sort of an inter-dimensional cheat. And it worked. The problem is that no one knows how. And now the original Guide is dead. So it’s sort of useless. Except that El thinks he’s found a way to make it work.’