Rachel Golden and the Retriever of Sin (5 page)

This went on for about a minute while Rachel just watched, confused. When he’d pulled himself together he sat up, eyes shining with tears once again. ‘Dude,’ he said to the black Lab, ‘you’re
famous
! And you’re my hero! Is it true they found you in the Bahamas?’ He didn’t wait for an answer before falling about laughing again.

Ros looked apologetically at the other two. ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘this happens sometimes.’ The others nodded, a little embarrassed for him.

When it seemed that AC had finally calmed down, he got to his feet and shook Ros’s paw in both his hands. ‘Well this changes everything,’ he said. ‘This guy here is a legend. No one’s going to believe this.’ He was grinning hugely. ‘Alright, I’ll take you to where I saw the ’corns. And I suppose if they’re on the move, the safest place to be is with a Hero party.’ He winked a Rachel. ‘And I think Ros here knows a thing or two about staying out of trouble, eh Ros? And shouldn’t you guys be making camp anyway? It’s getting dark.’

The pocket watch ding-ed.

***

Rachel was sitting next to Kel on a log as he tended the fire. She looked around at the sleeping bags and cooking equipment and food that had all come out of the impossibly small backpack. ‘So, this is like some kind of magic bag then?’ she asked. ‘Some kind of Harry Potter crap?’

Kel paused in his stoking and stared at her like she was stupid. ‘No,’ he said slowly, as if talking to a child, ‘Harry Potter is a character in a book. He’s not real.’

Rachel felt her cheeks redden. Right. Not real. Of course… She was still trying to get her head around some things. She looked over her shoulder to where Assorted Colors was grilling Ros about his travels. ‘And, uh, AC? What’s his deal? Are… creatures like him common in Altworld?’

Kel gave him a surreptitious look too. ‘It’s hard to say,’ he said. ‘Altworld changes each time you enter it. It’s never really the same universe twice. And as I said, we change it ourselves just by being here. There could be loads of things like him here. Luckily we haven’t seen anything too bad. Yet.’

Rachel decided to let that go for now, and watched as Kel fried potatoes and onions and bacon and eggs in a massive skillet. The pan itself was bigger than the backpack. ‘Has that got something to do with why we needed to make camp before dark?’ she asked. ‘These “bad” creatures?’

There was a pause and Rachel could tell Kel was choosing his words carefully. He looked out at the inky sky beyond the glow of their campfire. ‘Partly,’ he said. ‘The fire gives us some limited protection from anything that might want to harm us. And partly because it’s hard to see in the dark.’ He laughed a little, and Rachel thought it was more for her benefit than anything else. He was trying to put her at ease. She scooched a little closer to the fire, subconsciously, and decided to change the subject.

‘So how did you get into this Hero business then?’ she asked.

‘Safeguarding,’ he corrected. ‘You’re the Hero. Well, trainee Hero anyway.’ He winked. ‘And just like you did. We’re born into it. The Council sends Guides out to find Safeguarders, and we find the Heroes. It all just sort of happens. We all give off a certain energy, that attracts us to the ones we need.’

Rachel flushed again. ‘You’re… attracted to me?’

Kel coughed. ‘No! Not like that! I mean, I think you’re pretty and everything, and we’re best friends, but I meant attracted to your Hero force.’ He looked uncomfortable.

Rachel was full-blushing now, and was glad that the glow of the fire was probably concealing the fact. Wow. Kel thought she was pretty? She looked at him sideways as he cooked their dinner. She’d never really thought about Kel that way before. As he said, they were best friends. But in the light of the fire, he
did
look kinda cute. His long dark hair hung over his eyes and—

No. Stop. One thing at a time, she told herself. You do NOT need to go getting goofy over Kel right now. Plus, he’s more like a brother to you… Luckily at that moment Ros and AC came over to join them. ‘Breakfast for dinner?’ Ros asked, eyeing the contents of the skillet. ‘You rebel.’

‘Hey man, it’s just what was in the bag,’ Kel said, scooping out the food onto tin plates. It
did
smell absolutely fantastic. (Yeah, your narrator can smell what’s happening as well as see it. Don’t get too jealous—later in the book I’m going to wish that I couldn’t.)

‘Sinbad always said that the bag knows what you need,’ Ros said, tucking into his food. AC was sharing his plate, and I think that Ros was more disturbed by this than Assorted Colors, though he was too polite to show it. ‘It’s like the watch,’ he said, chewing, ‘It’s magical and knows things we don’t. And just sort of tries to help. Kinda like the sorting hat in Harry Potter.’

‘Ah-HAH!’ Rachel crowed at Kel as she accepted a steaming plate bacon and scrambled eggs and home fries. ‘He said Harry Potter too. So it wasn’t such a stupid thing to say after all.’

‘Whatever,’ Kel said sulkily. ‘And anyway, we need to get to sleep after dinner. Tomorrow will be a long day. We need to make ground on the unicorns.’

Rachel was in no mood to argue. The day had been long and strange and exhausting. She could feel her eyelids getting heavy even while she was still eating.

THAT NIGHT RACHEL DREAMED OF UNICORNS IN ASSORTED COLORS. It must have been a fitful sleep, because when she woke up to the sounds of arguing she was tangled in her sleeping bag and damp with sweat. Kel was snoring loudly next to her. She sat up and rubbed at her eyes.

‘…because it’s disgusting, that’s why. Ah, Rachel, you’re up. Good. You can settle this.’ It was Ros speaking. Rachel blinked him into focus and tried to smooth down her hair. So it hadn’t all been a dream then…

‘Settle what?’ she asked grumpily. It was starting to get light, but the sky still had that dark blue of night that meant it was altogether too early. The smell of fresh coffee hit her nostrils and she immediately perked up.

‘I was making coffee,’ Ros complained, ‘and this…
thing
,’ he jabbed a paw at Assorted Colors, ‘is trying to put an eggshell and some salt in it!’

‘Makes it better,’ AC grumbled. ‘That’s how my mother made it.’

Rachel groaned. She didn’t need to wake up to a talking dog and a magical creature arguing over the best way to make coffee. ‘Ros, pour out three cups for you, me and Kel, then let him put in his eggshells. Fair enough?’ The two combatants looked at each other, then at the coffee. Then immediately started arguing again. Oy. Too early.

Rachel sat up in her sleeping bag and dragged the backpack toward her. Without thinking she reached in and pulled out a hairbrush. Oh. That was a nice surprise. Wow, the bag really did seem to give you what you need. She also found a toothbrush and toothpaste. This was a
really
helpful bag. Something else occurred to her. She closed her eyes and thought ‘some soft toilet paper would be nice’. When she opened them again and looked in the bag, it was empty. Gee thanks, bag.

When everyone was up and enjoying their coffee and cold leftover bacon, egg and potato sandwiches (the bag had graciously given them a loaf of bread), they were feeling a lot better (though Ros kept giving AC the stink-eye). Kel wasn’t much of a talker first thing, so Rachel stepped into her role of trainee Hero and coordinated a route using AC’s directions and Ros’s sense of smell. The day was bright and fresh by the time they got underway.

When they got out of the park Rachel got her first real look at Altworld. And it was strange. There was a definite resemblance to the real world, or rather, the world they’d just left. The road, the one she’d walked down from the 7-Eleven just the day before on the other side of the portal, was gone. You could
kind of
still see it, but only as a flatter part of the landscape. Everywhere was grass and trees now.

Which sounds nice, in theory. But if you looked closely at the trees, and in the grass, you’d find things that told you you weren’t in Kansas anymore. Weird, brightly colored mushrooms and fungi grew on the trees. Millipedes the size of snakes and other large insects wriggled through the grass. On one of the nearby trees a crow cawed, but when Rachel turned to look she saw that it wasn’t a crow at all. It was a black-feathered toad the size of a cat.

Ros was watching her as she looked around in horrified fascination. He started to sing
White Rabbit
again.

‘And if you go chasing rabbits

And you know you’re going to fall.

Tell ’em a hookah smoking caterpillar

Has given you the call.

Go ask RACHEL!

When she was just small…’

‘
Really
not helping, Ros,’ she said, and Assorted Colors giggled. He’d somehow managed to wrangle a ride on the dog’s back. Ros looked like he was about to argue, but stopped suddenly, sniffing at the air. ‘What?’ Rachel asked, alarmed at the look on his face.

‘The wind changed,’ he said, pressing his nose to the ground, which caused Assorted Colors to tumble forward off his back. ‘I can smell… crap!’ He started off across the old road in a slightly weaving line, head low, following a scent trail.

‘What?’ Rachel asked, hurrying to follow him, ‘What can you smell?’

The old dog stopped and looked ahead. ‘I told you,’ he said, nodding towards a clump of bushes. ‘I can smell crap.’ A pile of horse manure sat basking in the morning sun with a few flies buzzing around it. The party approached with care.

‘Unicorn dung,’ Kel said, crouching down to examine the heap. ‘Can you tell how old it is?’ he asked Ros. The dog was about to answer when Assorted Colors stepped forward. He dipped his index finger into the poop, examined it closely, then sniffed at it. Then he stuck his finger in his mouth.

‘Oh my GOD!’ Rachel exclaimed. ‘What is
wrong
with you?’ She had to turn away and gagged, throwing up in her mouth a little. The little man was swilling the taste around in his mouth, looking thoughtful.

‘Well?’ Kel asked after a couple of seconds.

AC spat on the ground. ‘Well what?’

‘Can you tell how old it is?’

AC looked at him like he was crazy. ‘No. How the hell would I be able to tell that?’

Kel stared at him, horrified. ‘Then… then what was all that?’ He gestured at the unicorn poop. ‘I thought you were doing some secret tracker thing!’

‘Oh,’ Colors replied, spitting again. ‘No. I just wondered what it tasted like.’

Ros was staring at him with his mouth open. ‘You really are the most unpleasant little creature I’ve ever come across.’ He shook his head in disgust and AC gave a shrug that just said ‘what?’ Ros turned back to Kel. ‘I’d say it’s no more than a day old.’ He looked around at the soft ground and saw definite hoof imprints. ‘Looks like we’re on the right track.’

Rachel had composed herself a little and rejoined the group. ‘Uh, is that
blood
I can see there?’ she asked, pointing at the poop.

Kel nodded grimly. He picked up a stick from the ground and poked at the pile. It fell apart and revealed all manner of undigested waste. There was a plastic six-pack holder, what looked like broken glass, and some jagged metal in there; maybe a tin can lid. ‘Unicorns in Altworld eat garbage,’ he said, ‘so they often leave blood in their, uh… waste. Told you they weren’t the kind you were thinking of.’

Rachel straightened up and shuddered. They certainly weren’t. She was having second thoughts about riding one now.

‘Come on,’ Kel said, ‘We’d better get moving. We need to pick it up if we’re going to catch up to them.’ The rest of the group shared uneasy glances and followed after the Safeguarder.

***

About six miles to the north, another party was having their own little discussion. The leader of the group had scratched a crude map into the dirt, and was tapping at it with a stick. ‘I’m telling you, we should have caught up with them by now,’ he said. The other two nodded in agreement.

Now, there are a few things worth mentioning about this trio. Maybe not noteworthy for Altworld, but you may find it interesting nonetheless. Firstly, the leader of the group just looked like your average 14 year old boy. Slightly mopey look on his face, messy hair, acne, that kind of thing. But what was unusual about him was his feet. They were bare, and very hairy, and the long yellow toenails came to points. A lot like a dog’s claws. And the big toe on his right foot was swollen and bruised purple. And the claw was smashed and clotted with dark red dried blood.

The other two were almost sort of the opposite. They had normal bodies, but their faces were off. One of them, the biggest of the group, had the face of a pig. I’m not saying he was ugly; he had an
actual
pig’s face
. Massive flabby pink hairy cheeks, rolls of fat around his neck, and two long curved tusks coming out of the corners of his mouth.

The last guy was small and nervous looking. He had bright beady little eyes that could never keep still, and his nose twitched non-stop. His two front teeth were large and yellow, and looked perfect for gnawing on things. A thick pink tail grew out of a hole in the back of his pants, and his fingers were clawed. You could imagine him scrabbling about in the dark under your house.

‘So what do you want to do?’ asked Ratboy.

Toby exhaled through puffed cheeks. He wasn’t sure. He looked at his two companions, and weighed up each of their qualities. Ideally what he wanted to do was keep moving north, and send one of them to circle back the way they’d come. If they had indeed passed the Hero party—which he was starting to suspect—then they would catch up to them from the south. He had a feeling that he’d screwed up.

See, the plan had been to intercept Rachel and Kel at the lake when they came through the portal. But Toby being Toby, he had a better idea. Or a lazier one. Instead of going all the way south to the lake, he’d decided that they should wait for their target to pass, then re-join the unicorn trail south of the party and catch them up. Simple.

But something had gone wrong. He was beginning to feel that they had jumped the gun, and were now actually
ahead
of their target. They should have caught them by now. But not to worry, he thought. This was fixable. He really did NOT want to get in trouble with El again. ‘Alright,’ he said, ‘this is what we’re gonna do. Ratboy, you’re the quickest. You circle back around to the south and rejoin the trail. If you spot the quarry, overtake them and let us know. We’ll set a trap and wait. In the meantime, me and Pig-face will keep heading north, on the off chance that they’re moving faster than we thought and we haven’t caught up to them yet. Got it?’