Darkmouth (3 page)

L
ike other Blighted Villages around the world—with names such as Worldsend, Hellsgate, Bloodrock, Leviatown, and Carnage—Darkmouth had been home to generations of Legend Hunters, families who swore to protect the world against the unending attacks from what they called the Infested Side.

Except the attacks did end.

Mostly.

Each year had brought fewer reports of humans captured or killed by Legends—and of Legends captured or killed by Legend Hunters.

In Blighted Village after Blighted Village, the attacks had slowly died out. For the first time in thousands of years, our world appeared sealed off from the realm of Legends. After many generations of war, the Legend Hunters could stand down.

Except for one village. One family.

“You were fine,” said Finn's dad breezily. “I had you covered the whole time.”

“That thing almost killed me.”

“You know I would never let that happen.”

“It didn't feel like that.”

“Look, Finn, don't be so hard on yourself. You did well. A little loose in parts maybe, but you weren't exactly chasing after a chicken there. And don't be so sour. Most twelve-year-olds would die for a chance to run around chasing Legends.”

“Die?”
said Finn.

“You know what I mean.”

Finn's father held his gaze for another moment before giving his son a gentle punch on the arm and picking up the desiccated remains of the Minotaur.

Wearily, Finn unhooked the container from his belt and entered a code into a keypad on its side. The lid hissed open, releasing a small cloud of blue gas and the faint tang of what smelled like orange juice. His father placed the round object in the box and pressed the lid shut. “It'll have a ball in there,” he said.

Finn shook his head in mild disdain.

“Oh, suit yourself,” said his dad as he grabbed the container and began to walk out of the alley. “Get out of
that gear and I'll drive you to school.”

“School? Seriously? How am I supposed to go to school after that? I'm not going. I'm just not.”

But his dad didn't stop, so Finn reluctantly picked up his Desiccator and started to follow. A glint of light in the rubble caught his eye, a tight curve of crystal lying where the Minotaur had been desiccated. It looked like the diamond that had been in the creature's nose.

Odd.

Finn picked it up and examined its jagged beauty. He began to call after his father, but stopped himself. If he was being forced to go to school after all of that, then he wanted a reward.

He slipped the diamond into his pocket before jogging clumsily on, his suit clattering all the way.

They drove through Darkmouth, their car a large black metal block on wheels, its seats torn out to make room for lines of weapons and tools of various shapes and sizes and sharpness.

There were a few people on the streets now, though most had their heads buried in hoods, their faces down, protecting themselves from the drizzle, looking like the last place on earth they wanted to be was the last place on
earth where Legends still invaded. It didn't exactly help their mood that Legends always brought rain with them.

“It's the same every time a gate opens,” Finn's dad observed. “At least a small gateway means only a light shower. There was a time when the bigger gateways brought terrible storms. The old stories blamed them on the gods. As if, eh?”

Finn didn't answer. His father tutted. The car swung right.

Before jumping into the passenger seat, Finn had thrown his suit into the rear of the car. On his lap were his schoolbag and his Desiccator. He held the canister in front of his face and gave it a rattle.

“It never ceases to amaze me, that trick,” said his father.

Finn felt a spark of sympathy for the creature trapped in there. From the outside, the only evidence that a Desiccator net's victim might once have been something living was the way the exterior of the resulting ball was coated in whatever the creature had been wrapped in originally: fur, scales, skin, leather trousers.

“Doesn't it seem a bit cruel to do this to them, Dad?”

“Maybe you'd prefer to tickle the next Minotaur into submission. Or pet him and offer him a cookie. Seriously,
Finn.” He glanced across at his son and noticed his scowl. “Okay, so this morning didn't go too perfectly.”

“Neither did the last time,” said Finn, grimacing.

“Yes, but—”

“Or the time before that.”

“My
point
, Finn, is that you are learning,” said his dad. “I was the same when I was your age. Did I ever tell you about the time I—?”

“Yes,” said Finn with a sigh.

“And the day I—?”

“That too. All I
ever
hear about are the great things you did when you were my age. You defeated this Legend. You invented that weapon. Unless you've got a story that ends with you falling down a toilet or something, you're not going to make me feel any better right now.”

The car pulled up at the school. Finn didn't move.

His father shifted a little, the armor of his fighting suit creaking in the car seat.

“It's not all bad news,” he started.

“How is this not bad?” interrupted Finn, dismay in his voice. “My Completion Ceremony is only a year away, Dad.”

“When did you turn twelve?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“So, the ceremony is eleven and a half months away, to be accurate, but plenty of time still.”

“What about this morning, did you not see?” said Finn, shaking his head in disbelief.

“Finn, our family has defended Darkmouth for forty-two generations.”

“Well, I haven't.”

“But you will,” said his dad. “You're going to be generation number forty-three.”

“I won't be ready.”

“Darkmouth is going to be your responsibility.”

“It can't be,” protested Finn.

“It
has
to be.”

His father let a hush settle in the vehicle before continuing.

“Anyway, the Council of Twelve has been in touch,” he said. “They have good news.”

“Does it have to do with me?” asked Finn.

“No. Well, yes. Kind of.” His father paused. “The Twelve have offered me a place on the Council. Forty-two generations, Finn, and not one of our family has ever been invited to become one of the leaders of the world's Legend Hunters. Sure, most of the world's Legend Hunters are sitting at home getting fat right now, but still,
it's a huge thing for us, a big honor, and—”

“Hold on,” said Finn. “You'll be on the Council of Twelve?”

“Yes, isn't that excellent?”

“Aren't they based in—?”

“Liechtenstein. Small place with big mountains.”

“So, you'll be out of Darkmouth?” asked Finn.

“Yes,” said his dad. “Sometimes.”

“And me?”

“No.”

“Oh great,” said Finn, feeling an enormous weight settling on his shoulders. “You'll be gone and the protection of Darkmouth will be up to—”

“You. Exactly. Won't that be cool?”

Finn stared at him as his brain tried to process that notion.

“It doesn't change anything, Finn,” said his father. “Not much anyway. You're about to become the first true Legend Hunter to graduate in years. Darkmouth was always going to become your responsibility at some stage after that. And I won't be going right away. The Twelve say there'll be a process, some checks.”

“What kind of checks?”

His dad shrugged. “I don't know. Background stuff,
subject to confirmation of rule thirty-one, clause fourteen of the whatever. You know, paperwork. The Twelve love their paperwork. Anyway, it's happening.” He cleared his throat. “Just as soon as you become Complete.”

“And what if I'm not ready?”

With a squeak of his fighting suit on the car seat's leather, his dad turned to look at him directly. “Finn, every Legend Hunter in this family had their Completion on their thirteenth birthday. Every single one, as far back as records go. They could have waited until they were fifteen or seventeen or even nineteen, like weaker families, but they didn't. So, our family—past, present, and future—needs you to be ready. I need you to be ready. This town needs you to be ready. You
will
be ready.”

Finn pushed open the car door and stepped out. “I feel so much better. Thanks, Dad.”

As he swung the door shut, Finn saw his reflection in the window. His hair was damp, his skin flushed. He opened his mouth to protest again about having to go to school, but his father cut him off. “We'll talk about it later.”

Finn stood at the curb with his bag slung over his shoulder, listening to the low growl of the car as it drove away. The drizzle tickled his forehead.

In his pocket, he felt the buzz of his phone. There was a message from his mother.

Deep breaths. Love you.

He took a deep breath, then another, steeling himself for the next challenge.

School.

F
inn was late. And he was sure that everyone knew why.

As he trudged up the corridor, Finn sensed a rising giddiness from each class he passed, lessons stopping so teachers and pupils could watch him.

“Was that a big fella this morning?” a voice called down the hallway after him.

“Any chance you got rid of them all this time, Finn?” asked another.

He ignored it all until he reached his own classroom, his arrival greeted with a frisson of excitement. He mumbled an apology to Mrs. McDaid for being late and headed for the last available seat. Unfortunately, it was between Conn and Manus Savage, identical twin brothers except for one chewed-up ear on Conn, which he had always claimed was the result of a fight with a Doberman. He also claimed that the dog had lost.

Finn wriggled into the seat between them, the metal legs screeching across the floor.

The twins looked a little confused for a moment as they grew aware of the ripe stench of sweat.

“Hey, monster boy,” whispered Conn out of the side of his mouth, “you forgot to change your diaper this morning.”

“Miss?” Manus asked the teacher. “Can we open a window?”

“Better make it two,” suggested his brother.

Finn wouldn't ordinarily have been too bothered by them. He knew his place. As a Legend Hunter in training, he couldn't really have friends. He practiced with his dad. He studied. He ate. He slept. He didn't have birthday parties or sleepovers. He didn't have other kids just stopping by. He didn't get a chance to answer their awkward questions about, say, that three-headed dog his dad had just brought home. He was never able to say, in a casual, it's-no-big-deal manner, “Oh, just ignore the Cerberus; its bark is worse than its bite.” Darkmouth's parents were understandably not too keen to let their precious children run around a house like Finn's.

His family had been in town for forty-two generations, but Finn would always be an outsider. There would
always be whispers swirling around him. Questions with a hint of resentment. Rumors. Why Darkmouth was the only Blighted Village left in which Legends still attacked. Why more wasn't being done to stop them.

He tuned out as much of it as he could, but it was hard to do that when it was coming at him from all sides.

“What did you do to scare the monster away this morning?” muttered Conn. “Breathe on him?”

“If you just waved your socks at them, maybe you'd finally get rid of them all,” added Manus.

Finn began to feel irritated. It was one thing being different because of what he was—that was part of his life, something he'd learned to live with. It was another to be picked on after trying to protect these people from being mauled by a mythical creature.

But he didn't say anything. The Savage twins were more intimidating than some Legends. He did, however, make a mental note to stash some deodorant and soap in his bag from now on.

Mrs. McDaid had resumed teaching and most of the class was paying attention to her again. Finn noticed there was a new girl sitting in the back corner, staring at him through a curtain of deep red hair.

A new girl? But there was never anyone new. You were
either born here or you visited by mistake and didn't come back again. No one
moved
to Darkmouth. Ever.

And yet there she was.

From behind her bangs, the new girl gave Finn the tiniest hint of a smile. Finn looked away. When he glanced back at her, her eyes were on the teacher.

Conn leaned in. “Fancy the new girl already?” he whispered.

“You never know,” added Manus in Finn's other ear. “Maybe she likes Eau de Armpit.”

Finn imagined the twins being chased by the Minotaur, the looks of horror frozen on their faces as its claws lopped their heads clean off their necks. The image cheered him for about half a second until he slumped down for what he knew would be a thoroughly miserable day. Which it was. Thoroughly.

F
inn walked home, the hood of his jacket pulled up to hide his face. The drizzle had cleared and the town was returning to normality—its own sort of normality at least. Not for the first time, Finn felt the pressure that came from knowing that the safety of this town would one day be entirely his responsibility.

Except now he'd been told the “one day” was less than a year away, when his father would leave to join the Council. That revelation made it hard for Finn to even breathe.

He had grown up hearing stories of the world's Legend Hunters, the defenders of each Blighted Village. The families in each town had passed down knowledge, techniques, and weapons through generation after generation, each swearing to protect the people.

Except the world's Legend Hunters weren't needed anymore. Their villages had grown quiet. The Hunters
remained in their once Blighted Villages as a precaution—some even continued to train themselves and their children just in case—but most had moved on to other careers. That man stamping your ticket at the train station could be from a long line of Legend Hunters. So could that dance teacher, that weatherman, that guy who's come to fix your TV.

But not in Darkmouth. Finn's family had been Legend Hunters as far back as the histories went. And as long as the Legends kept coming through, as long as they continued to attack Darkmouth, his family would be needed. As long as he was the only child of the only Legend Hunter, then Finn would be needed. And now that his father was moving up to the Council of Twelve, he would be needed to protect Darkmouth
on his own
.

Every bit of that responsibility weighed on him as he sulked home.

What made it worse was that he
wasn't ready
. He had needed rescuing. Again. His third time on a hunt with his father. His third failure.

The first hunt, a few weeks ago, had been pure humiliation. The Legend in question had been a Basilisk, a particularly stupid, fat reptile with a beak. Basilisks were brought up to believe that a single stare was enough to
kill a human being. When cornered, they would stop, open their eyes wide, and glare at an oncoming human. The only problem was that their stare was marginally less threatening than a baby's giggle. A Hunter wouldn't even break stride.

Only a particularly inexperienced or inept Legend Hunter could fail to capture such a creature. Finn happened to fit into both of those categories.

His father had strung the hunt out to show Finn how best to track a Legend using his own skills rather than any technology. “When their world meets our world, it creates a dust. Even the rain won't wash it away. Follow those dust tracks. Know the streets. Go at an even pace. . . .”

It was then that he noticed Finn wasn't in his shadow anymore. Instead, after quickly bagging the Basilisk, he found his son two alleys away, on his back, kicking his legs in the air like a stranded turtle. His dad's fear had been that a Legend would fell Finn; instead, his son had been undone by the awkwardness of his own fighting suit and the not-exactly-famous fighting skills of a sidewalk.

There was an uncomfortable silence on the walk home.

The second hunt, just the previous week, had started well enough. Following a few modifications to his armor, Finn was even given his own Desiccator. His father stayed with him as they hunted the intruder. It was a small Manticore, with the body of a lion, the stubby wings of a dragon, a scorpion tail lined with poisonous darts, and, most dangerous of all, an inability to shut up.

They moved quickly, Finn tracking the dust
from the Infested Side, just as he had learned, until he corned the Manticore in an alleyway. Then it all went wrong. When Finn tried to get his Desiccator from the holster at his waist, he snagged his glove on his armor and couldn't even raise his arm.

“Hold on a second,” he said to the Manticore.

This was a big mistake.

The first thing Legend Hunters in training are told about Manticores is:
Never engage them in conversation
. The Manticore will keep you there all day, talking almost exclusively in riddles. Bad riddles. You will eventually go quite mad.

Luckily, as the Legend opened its mouth to respond with a particularly devastating riddle, Finn's father desiccated it.

He and Finn again walked home in a deeply awkward silence.

And then, of course, there was today.

In less than a year, Finn would be expected to Complete and become a full Legend Hunter. Among the criteria to even be
considered
were three verified, successful Legend hunts. Being cornered by the Minotaur that morning had instead completed a hat trick of calamities.

He had caught the look on his father's face as he got out
of the car outside school, the disappointment furrowing his brow. Now, as Finn walked home, he had a greater understanding of how deep that disappointment ran. He faced two possibilities.

Either he would fail so spectacularly that he couldn't become Complete, thereby preventing his father from being the only Darkmouth Legend Hunter in forty-two generations to bag every Legend Hunter's dream job.

Or he would somehow succeed and be left with the responsibility of defending Darkmouth, and every soul in it, alone. Finn couldn't decide which was the best outcome.

Or, more accurately, the worst.