Rachel Golden and the Retriever of Sin (9 page)

‘’Fraid not, old sport,’ McKitten said. ‘You see, El has engaged our services to find and serve the Golden girl ourselves. And we have strict instructions that if we come across you,’ he looked over at Pig-face and Ratboy, ‘that we’re to send you back to the castle
tout suite
. El and the Overlords would like a word with you.’

Toby went pale and swallowed hard. There was not a chance he was going back to the castle without Rachel and the watch. It was sheer suicide. McKitten knew exactly what he was thinking, and his lip curled into a cruel smile.

‘And,’ he said, ‘not that I don’t trust you, but I have a feeling that if my associate and I untie you, you’ll disobey your master’s wishes about returning to the castle. You might even try to pursue the group again. We couldn’t allow that, could we Turtle?’ Turtle shook his head. ‘So I’m afraid you’ll have to remain tied up for the time being. Best of luck to you gents, though. Come along Turtle, time is wasting.’ And with that, the legal team of Turtle and McKitten strolled and wheeled their way out of the clearing.

***

Back to the night before the morning after, and Toby was sitting in front of the fire examining Rachel’s pocket watch. He couldn’t make head nor tail of the dials on it, but was fairly sure that the girl was telling the truth when she said she couldn’t either. He sighed and slipped the watch into his pocket. Still, at least he had them now. Once he presented them to El it would be unlikely that he’d be punished. Sure, the brief had been to just get the Hero party to the unicorns, and then let the unicorns lead the girl to the castle. But he’d gone one better, surely? He’s be presenting the prize already bound and gagged. He should get a frickin’ medal.

He looked over to Ratboy and Pig-face where they lay snoring. Of course, if there was any blame to take, he’d make sure as damn it was one of those two that got it. The heat from the fire was making him sleepy. He had volunteered to take first watch on the prisoners, but was it really necessary? The Safeguarder was still out cold from his blow to the head, and Rachel was so weak from blood loss that he doubted she could fight her way out of a paper bag. Maybe he’d let himself sleep for just a little.

The next thing he knew he woke with something very sharp pressing against his neck. His eyes snapped open, and he found himself face-to-face with a grinning black Labrador. ‘Hello,’ Ros said. ‘I wouldn’t move if I were you. What my good friend Assorted Colors is pressing against your neck probably isn’t very clean, and if on the off chance he manages to miss your jugular, you can rest assured that you’ll die of blood poisoning.’

Toby’s eyes swiveled sideways. A tiny man was holding what looked like a toothbrush to his throat. ‘Hello,’ Assorted Colors said, beaming.

15 MINUTES LATER, RACHEL AND KEL WERE FREE, AND TOBY AND HIS CREW were tied up and gagged. Kel was examining Rachel’s back by the light of the fire. ‘It doesn’t look too bad,’ he said, frowning and possibly trying to downplay the seriousness of the injury. ‘It hasn’t punctured your kidney. I think you’d be dead if it had. It’s just sort of torn you up a bit. The main problem is blood loss and the risk of infection.’

Ros had found some first aid supplies in the backpack; sterile saline, cotton wool, gauze and antiseptic cream, and now Kel was cleaning and bandaging her up.

When he was done Rachel sighed and pulled her shirt down. It was still very sore to move, and she silently prayed that it wouldn’t get infected. What would happen if she was seriously wounded in Altworld? Probably best not to find out, she thought.

She had already apologized to Kel, and thanked Ros and AC for their daring moonlight rescue, but was still feeling very guilty about the whole thing. She was so grateful she hadn’t even made fun of AC for his new jungle commando look.

‘So what now?’ she asked, wincing in pain with the effort of talking, and glancing over at their former captors. Toby looked like he was fuming, but amazingly Pig-face had already fallen back to sleep. Plus there were the unicorns to think about…

‘Well, we’re not going anywhere tonight,’ Kel said. ‘It’s too dangerous to travel in the dark. I suppose we should get some rest—in shifts so we can keep an eye on the prisoners—and make a plan in the morning.’

‘We could torture them,’ AC said. He was sitting by the fire and using his razor toothbrush to carve a stick into a point. Everyone stared at him.

‘Okaay…’ Ros said, cautiously. ‘Why?’

‘Well, ’sobvious, innit? They’re up to something.
Why
did they set a trap for you with the unicorns? How did they know you were looking for unicorns, and why did they want to trap you? And where were they taking you? They obviously didn’t just want you dead, or they’d have killed you right there and then.’ He tested the point of his spear on his thumb and looked menacingly at Toby.

The other three members of the Hero party exchanged glances. That hadn’t occurred to any of them. But crazy little Assorted Colors had a point. What exactly
were
they planning on doing with them? They obviously had some purpose in mind.

Rachel spoke. ‘What I want to know is what Toby’s doing in the Altworld to begin with. And those two.’ She pointed at Ratboy and Pig-face. ‘I fought those guys on the other side of the portal, right before we came through. They go to my school.’

Ros shook his head. ‘No they don’t. I told you, when a portal is opened up into Altworld, it changes what’s on the other side of it. These guys probably didn’t exist until we stepped through from your world. I mean, they did in some form, but not exactly like they are now. But when you came through you brought the echo of Toby with you, and it changed these…
things
into what they are now. But they’ve also always been like that.’

‘Alright. Screw it. I’m with AC. Torture them.’

Everyone looked shocked. ‘Rachel, just wait a second…’ Kel began, but she stopped him with a raised palm.

‘AC’s right. They were taking us somewhere, and I want to know where and why. Get ’em AC.’

Assorted Colors sprang to his feet with a salute and had his pointy stick pressed against Toby’s throat in under three seconds. With his free hand he pulled down Toby’s gag. ‘Speak, mongrel!’ he yelled.

Toby looked like he was going to wet himself. He had been listening to the entire discussion, and had spent the last 10 minutes trying to decide who he was more afraid of; the little creature called Assorted Colors, or El and the Overlords. On balance he guessed he was more afraid of the Overlords, with their fangs and taste for human flesh, but the Overlords weren’t there right at that moment, sticking spears in his neck. He decided on a compromise.

‘IswearI’lltellyoueverythingIknowjustgetthatthingawayfromme!’ he garbled. AC looked to Rachel for instruction and she nodded. He lowered his spear.

‘Speak. And tell us
everything
, or next time I won’t stop him,’ she said.

Toby took a shaky breath. ‘Okay, all I know is that we were supposed to meet you at the portal, and lead you to the unicorns. The guy I work for, El, knew you were looking for them, and would follow them. So we were just supposed to make sure you found them.’

Rachel and Kel exchanged concerned glances. ‘This is bad,’ he said. ‘That means that this El guy knew when, where and why we were being sent into the Altworld. He must have got his information from the Council. He could even be
on
the Council. Either way there is obviously a spy involved somewhere.’

‘That’s crazy,’ Ros said. ‘There couldn’t possibly be a spy on the Council. If there is, then we could be in serious trouble. If the Council is compromised, then the Guides may be too. We can’t even be sure of getting out of Altworld even if we complete this mission. Oh god…’ he moaned.

‘Who is El?’ Kel asked Toby.

Toby shook his head fiercely. ‘I don’t know, I swear it. Like I said, he’s just some guy who hired us to get you to the unicorns.’

‘Where were you taking us then?’ Rachel asked.

Toby swallowed hard. There was no way he could lie about that. He couldn’t say he didn’t know where they were going. ‘To the castle,’ he said. ‘The Overlords’ castle. But before you ask I don’t know why.’

Assorted Colors let out a low whistle. ‘That’s messed up,’ he said. ‘No way am I going near the castle.’ There was a brief recess while AC explained to the others about the unicorns and the Overlords.

‘So,’ Rachel said, trying to get her head around it, ‘these Overlords, the pretty unicorns, they sort of control the wild unicorns?’ AC nodded.

‘Something like that, but I think “control” isn’t the right word. They have power over them, certainly. They’re more intelligent and mean and cunning than the wild ones.’ Everyone turned to look at the two tethered unicorns who were swishing their tails and being flatulent. Rachel wrinkled her nose.

‘Do you think he’s telling the truth?’ Rachel asked Kel and Ros, who shrugged. ‘Only one way to find out then, I guess. Stick him AC.’ Assorted Colors raised his spear to stab Toby in the throat, and this time he really did wet himself.

***

Rachel was the first to wake the next morning. The pain in her back had gotten worse, and the wound felt hot and itchy. Despite Kel’s medical care, she was fairly sure it was infected. She tried not to think about it, and decided to keep it to herself. The others would only worry.

She stoked the fire back up to cook breakfast, and looked in the pack for coffee and something to eat. What was in there surprised her. It looked like a hairbrush, only bigger, and with no handle. There was a leather strap across the back of it to slide her hand into. She’d seen something similar on the Discovery Channel, on a show about horses. It was a grooming brush. She looked sideways at the unicorns. Was the bag trying to tell her something? She really wasn’t sure about going near those animals, with their hooves and fangs, let alone brushing their coats.

She set the brush aside and checked the backpack again. This was more like it. There was a big sack of oatmeal. Not her first choice for breakfast, but it would do. Oh but wait a minute… the damn crafty bag
was
trying to tell her something. Don’t horses eat oats? But she thought the unicorns of Altworld only ate garbage. She looked at the others but they were still fast asleep. Oh well, she guessed the bag kind of knew what it was doing.

She poured out the oats on the ground, then went off to see about getting them some water too. The bag threw up a pail, and she found a stream close by. She filled it with fresh cold water and brought it back to the unicorns. While they ate and drank she cautiously tried out the brush. Amazingly, they didn’t try to bite her, and even seemed to quite enjoy being groomed. Within 30 minutes she had them clean and tangle free, and actually looking kind of…
happy
. Weird.

When she was done she kicked the others awake. Ros went straight for the backpack to find breakfast, but was puzzled to pull out a couple of carrots. ‘What the hell are these things?’ he asked, sounding disgusted.

‘Oh I’ll take those,’ Rachel said, and fed them to the two unicorns. She petted their muzzles while they ate. When she turned back to the group they were all staring at her open-mouthed.

‘Are you
crazy
?’ Kel said, looking at her like she was. He rubbed his head where he’d been kicked the day before.

‘What?’ she asked. ‘They seem perfectly calm today. I fed and watered and groomed them before you got up.’ She patted the closest one on the rump and he whinnied softly. Rachel grinned and everyone else still stared.

After breakfast, they had decided that they had no choice but to go to the castle anyway. They knew that it was a trap, but had no other option. The best they could hope for was to get there stealthily, forewarned, and try to scope out the nature of this El guy and the Overlords’ plan. They would leave Toby and his sidekicks tied up. (Assorted Colors had
not
in fact stabbed Toby the night before. He had never intended to. It was just a test to see if he had told them everything. But when he screamed and peed his pants, everyone safely assumed that he had indeed been truthful with them.)

By lunchtime they were a good four hours away from Toby and the gang, and were wondering whether they’d managed to free themselves yet. Ros said that they would definitely get free by nightfall, as the prospect of spending the night tied up and without a fire was about the strongest incentive there was to break loose.

Even AC, despite his earlier protestations, had been convinced to come with them. He claimed it was to look out for them, but Rachel secretly suspected that he was afraid to be on his own. Plus they were kind of growing on him, and vice versa. He was doing his best to scrape a map of the castle into the dirt with his heels.

‘Now, I’ve never actually been inside,’ he said, ‘but you can get a pretty good idea of what it looks like from the outside.’ He had drawn roughly where they were then, where the castle was in relation, and a rough diagram showing bridges and portcullises and battlements.

Kel whistled. ‘Looks like Fort Knox,’ he said. Ros was looking grim.

‘And we think this is
really
the best way to go, do we? I mean, one: we know it’s a trap. That’s where they WANT us to go. And two: it looks really difficult.’ He sat down and scratched at his ear with his back foot nervously.

‘It’s not like we have a choice,’ Rachel said. ‘We know the dangers (sort of). But what else are we gonna do? Our mission is to find out why the unicorns are moving north. And
this
,’ she tapped at the dirt map, ‘is where they’re going. Toby said so. We were supposed to follow the unicorns, and the unicorns are going to the castle. Under orders of the Overlords.’

She sighed. They were all thinking the same things. Could they trust Toby? And why did El and the freaky unicorn leaders want them to go to the castle. It all seemed very wrong, but what else could they do?

She was about to speak again, when two girls crashed through the bushes in front of them. And they were armed. ‘Nobody move!’ the first one shouted. She was holding a bow, drawn back and loaded with an arrow. The second girl, who was quite a bit bigger than the first, was carrying a Taser. She squeezed the trigger and blue sparks crackled between the electrodes. Everyone just stared at them from where they were crouched on the ground, studying the map.