“It’s quiet,” whispered Finn.
“Not for much longer,” replied his father.
They burst in, Desiccators high, ready to fire, Hugo shouting, “Right, you little scut, it’s bedtime!”
The shopkeeper shrieked and dropped a lettuce.
Kenzo’s rabbit hopped over to where the vegetable lay and nibbled on its leaves. Finn bent down. On the animal’s neck was a locket with a combination lock on it.
Finn remembered loosening it when it was on Broonie’s neck, but now wasn’t entirely sure he’d locked it properly afterwards.
“Any idea how Broonie got out of that lock?” Hugo asked.
“No clue,” said Finn.
He wanted to hide now. From responsibility. From everything. He felt like his face might burn up with guilt.
“You’ve always been a terrible liar, Finn.”
Near the harbour, at a spot where the wind whipped off the sea, carrying with it a low moan like bored ghosts, stood a church. About the building was the usual array of decorations. Stained glass. Plaques. Crosses. And, high up on the clock tower, gargoyles.
Those statues were weathered and grimy after years at this exposed point, smacked by salt water, slapped by flecks of slimy seaweed, and were only there because many, many years ago they had been bought cheap from a cathedral that had ordered far too many stone creatures for its own needs.
There were three gargoyles perched on the sides of the bell tower, gazing across the sea, appearing somewhat silly with their blank eyes and eroded beaks. There should have been four, but one had been dropped during the building of the church, crashing to the ground and leaving an empty stone pedestal just beneath where the clock’s hands slowly trundled round its face.
The pedestal was not empty now.
Instead, it held something that did not particularly resemble a gargoyle, but was close enough that it could hide there for a while without being noticed.
And Broonie had, at least, once met an actual gargoyle.
He crouched in the shallow alcove, pressing as hard as possible against the rear wall to prevent the wind blowing him out and down to his death. While Hogboons were known for always being able to land on their feet, he knew that if he was to fall from this height his feet would become fatally acquainted with his brains.
A young girl passed on the street below. Bouncing a ball, she paused to look up. Broonie froze, stared out as blankly as he could while salty air tickled his eyeballs, until the sound of the bouncing ball heading away told him it was safe to move again.
Across the maze of the town, he could see the distant but distinct figures of Finn and Hugo. Their confusion and bewilderment were clear even from this remove. They would have to hunt for him now. Sooner or later, they would find him. And what they would do with him then was yet another weight on a mind already laden down with dread.
“We need a plan, Broonie,” he mumbled to himself. “Use that big brain of yours to think of something. You’ve done it before. You’ve escaped deep pits of bones, flown from certain death. There was that time you ran out of shoes and fashioned new ones out of discarded nostril hair. You are resourceful. Clever. Handsome. So, come up with a plan. Think. Think.”
The bells rang out in the tower, crashing at his ears. He almost leaped clean from the alcove with fright. As each bong counted the hour, Broonie slumped back, the breeze pulling at his toes, resignation dragging at his mind, hunger nagging at his belly already.
He had absolutely no idea what to do next.
Finn didn’t get back in his dad’s car. He wanted to walk home – or, more accurately, mope home, drag himself through the streets, regardless of the attention he’d get. The alternative was to sit in the car with his dad, but if he was to guess how that might feel it would be a bit like being inside a car in a crusher at the scrapyard. While that crusher was being crushed by a bigger crusher.
But there was no escape from things now. He turned a corner and could see the stage where the Completion Ceremony was to take place. Regardless of everything going on, the boiler-suited Half-Hunters were still preparing for the big day, apparently oblivious to the growing crisis in the town.
Finn watched them go about their work, carrying scaffolding and rigging and various bits and pieces of equipment, pulling them in over the stage, dragging them underneath the heavy drapes that skirted below it from platform to ground. It was a level of decoration that seemed ridiculous to Finn. But then the whole thing seemed ridiculous to him at this point.
He just wanted it over with. Wanted his town back. He could feel things unravelling, and knew his father was feeling that way too. He didn’t want that to happen. Not now. Not after everything they’d been through.
He scratched at his neck where his locket itched. Frustrated, he released it and examined it. It was decorated with an elaborate swirl, almost like the coil of a snake. This was, though, the least exotic thing about it. The dust inside, the remnants of a crystal from the Cave at the End of the World, was a route to the Infested Side – maybe even a part of it. And a means of travelling in time.
It was, all things considered, a strange piece of jewellery.
Yet he’d earned it. Having for so long wanted to avoid becoming a Legend Hunter, he now found he didn’t want to lose out on it.
He was temporarily blinded by the flash of a very big camera, held so close to the side of his face it might as well have been up his nose.
“Excellent!” announced the stocky Half-Hunter behind the camera, not able to believe his luck at nabbing this prize picture.
“Not now,” said Finn, rubbing his eye. He fished for the bag on his back, put the locket into it and, as his vision returned, he looked up and immediately decided he preferred being temporarily blind.
The traffic was being blocked by a large van trying to manoeuvre a trailer down the street towards the stage. On the side of the van was a somewhat disconcerting image of a snake with a tarantula perched on its head.
Finn recognised a familiar sensation. Whatever was in that van, it wasn’t good. And it certainly wasn’t good for him. And, as that thought was bouncing about his mind, Estravon appeared at his shoulder, clipboard in hand.
“That’s Animal Al, the Half-Hunter who handles the wildlife for us,” he said. “Whatever happens about the whole Mr Glad business, there is still much to sort out between the monkeys and the scorpions.”
“Hold on,” said Finn, alarmed. “I’d heard there were six hundred scorpions for the Completion Ceremony, but I didn’t believe it.”
“Of course not,” laughed Estravon, striding off towards the stage, clipboard aloft. “That would be completely ridiculous. Six hundred scorpions. Ha ha. No, no, not at all. It’s only three hundred.”
While Finn’s mind was whirring away with this worrying information, his eyes stayed fixed on the commotion further up the street, where a few people were complaining about Animal Al’s clumsy attempts to turn a narrow corner, and the florist came running out of the shop as the truck edged on to the path and clipped a display. But the van was already revving up and moving away again.
Finn turned to head back home, his chest squeezing in on him at the scale of all of this.
Because he was anxious to become a Legend Hunter, to not let down the family tradition, even if he wasn’t so anxious to be attacked by actual Legends.
Because Emmie would get her turn to be a Legend Hunter once he took his.
Because he feared whatever Mr Glad had turned into.
Because of the scorpions.
Because of everything.
And he would have remained completely wrapped up in those confused feelings if he hadn’t been startled by a screech of brakes behind him, immediately accompanied by the wrenching of metal and a lot of screams.
Turning, he saw the van driver swerve suddenly to avoid a collision. He lurched dangerously towards the street and its pedestrians, then tried hard to pull away again, to get back on the road. The vehicle righted itself, but
the trailer clipped a postbox, flipped on to two wheels and detached from the van.
Pedestrians and Half-Hunters dived away from the out-of-control vehicle.
A woman jumped behind a car.
A man jumped behind the woman who had jumped behind the car.
The trailer narrowly avoided them and ended up against a wall, resting two wheels against it for a second, before it dropped on to its side on the street.
Its doors flopped open. Hundreds of scorpions found themselves with a freedom they had not expected and scuttled off in every direction.
The people and Half-Hunters of Darkmouth ran for it in every other direction.
Except for one person. Finn stayed right where he was, even as the fleeing crowds began to stream around him. Because he wasn’t looking at the van or scorpions. He was looking right at what had caused the vehicle to swerve so disastrously in the first place.
Mr Glad.
There were scorpions scrambling and fleeing and clinging on to whatever they could, be it trees or cars or hair.
There were shoppers flailing and swatting as if – well, as if they’d suddenly found themselves in the middle of a river of fleeing scorpions.
And there were about half a dozen Half-Hunters arriving on the scene, so stunned at this sudden eruption of chaos that they simply stood still and gawped, although one of them raised an arm to point dumbly at the supernatural figure that had materialised in the middle of the road.
Mr Glad stood within the melee. Or what looked like Mr Glad did. It was as if he was constantly melting and re-forming, his hair an oil slick crawling on his back. He was stretching out a hand, testing it, turning it in the air.
At the opposite end of the road there was a squeal of tyres. Finn turned to see Hugo’s car bouncing off a kerb, alert to the unfolding trouble.
Emboldened by the arrival of his father, and without really thinking, Finn ran. Towards Mr Glad. He ducked under the arm of the frozen Half-Hunter in front of him. Towards danger. It felt necessary. It felt right. And it felt like his dad would get there before him to sort out the problem anyway.
“Everyone out of the way!” he shouted while crunching on something, but deciding not to see how much squashed scorpion was stuck to the sole of his boot.
Animal Al himself had leaped from the van and yelled at the panicking crowd, “They’re only Emperor Scorpions! They don’t sting!”
Darkmouth’s postman went screaming past with a scorpion on his ear.
“Not too painfully anyway,” said Animal Al. “And it would be far worse—”
A large window on the side of the trailer flopped open.
“—if the golden monkeys escaped,” he groaned.
Monkeys poured from the van in a golden cloud of screeching, leaping, furry fury.
Finn was almost at Mr Glad now. He became aware of his own breath, his muscles, every movement. Aware that he would reach him before his father did and that he didn’t know what he’d do when he got there first.
He spun past a shopper barrelling along wildly to his left. He pushed off the bonnet of a car that skidded to a halt to his right. He ignored the monkey that bounded so close to his face that he could smell the stink of its breath.
On the road, Hugo’s car was close. The roar of the approaching engine seemed to catch Mr Glad’s attention, and he turned to look over his shoulder, his face passing through his head to the other side.
Finn stopped to avoid a shopping trolley shooting in front of him, just about missed its shopper following close behind, then resumed his chase. As he reached Mr Glad, he realised he had nothing with which to attack or to defend himself. Still running, he pulled his backpack from his shoulder and swung it at Mr Glad.
It met him on one side and, after a brief moment of resistance, exited the other.
But it stopped Mr Glad. Sent a ripple through his form. Seemed to leave him struggling and distorted for a moment.
Mr Glad turned to Finn, slowly and menacingly, then noticed Hugo’s approach. He flowed towards a car abandoned on the road in front of him, touched the rear wing of its petrol tank, drew a line down it. With a loud crack, the vehicle burst away from him, spinning in a ball of flame and smoke that landed on the front edge of the bonnet as Hugo slammed on the brakes.
Finn stopped. Hugo scrambled to the passenger door, throwing himself out of it just before the thrown car exploded. The blast caught Hugo in the back and Finn in the chest, lifting them both and throwing them to the ground.
The monkeys went crazy.
Finn didn’t notice. He just felt like he’d been kicked in the chest by every one of the hooves on a Sleipnir.
His bag spilling out beside him. His father sprawled face down on the road, unmoving.
“Dad!”
Pain shot through his chest as Mr Glad loomed over him, reaching for him with a spectral finger.
Finn felt stretched across the skin of the universe. He could see its connections, the vibration of its strings, sense every molecule as if they were grains of sand pouring through the neurons of his brain. Could feel them flowing between the worlds, the never-ending drift between realities.
The pain burned, ate at him like acid, and built into a rage grown in the darkest corners of his mind.
His eyes saw two worlds at once. His own and the Infested Side, that burning world beyond his own, and, standing at the centre of it, a fierce Fomorian with a helmet lined with broken teeth.
And, between both worlds, he could hear voices. Screaming, distressed, calling out for vengeance, help and release. They were in his head. Outside his head. Everywhere. Were these the Trapped? Finn was being pulled into their world. Their cries were in him, part of him.
His cry was part of theirs.
His hold on himself was floating away, and the strangest sensation of all was that he felt an intensifying desire to let go. He couldn’t fight any more. It was easier to be taken. It was like slipping into a dream, wanting to give in to sleep, fighting off reality. He could hear Mr Glad’s voice, summoning him, controlling him …
Suddenly, unexpectedly, there was pain again, as if he was being hauled back to his own world. Then it was over.
Mr Glad recoiled, rippling like a stone thrown in a puddle. Finn didn’t understand why and had no time to think about it.
Instead, he found himself struggling to regain his senses. Suddenly he was Finn again. A person. With a body. With a mind pieced back together, like a jigsaw with a couple of pieces missing. Just for a moment, he’d been ready to let go of everything, slipping under the control of someone else. Of something else …
Shaking his head, he tried to get a grip, realising that as the pain in his chest dissipated it was being replaced by an ache in the fingers of his right hand where he was, he saw, gripping hard on to his backpack, as if clinging desperately to his own world by pure instinct.
Mr Glad eyed him, the fires in his irises flaring, and then turned his hand out. And Finn could immediately see why. He had set his eyes on new prey. And Finn could see who it was. Clara was standing before him, dental scrubs on, probably having appeared just to see what the commotion was and finding someone she had never, ever expected to see again.
Mr Glad moved towards her, folding into her path rather than walking.
“Mam!” shouted Finn.
Mr Glad stretched for her and, just as he was about to touch her, she was forcefully pushed out of the way. Steve stood in her place.
Mr Glad touched him at the neck, drew his fingers down to the chest, opening a shock of light that convulsed Steve, held him in place.
Finn pushed himself up, his body aching.
Mr Glad’s blood-bruised eyes watched him struggle to his feet, even as he kept hold of the convulsed Steve, light boring through him. Finally, Mr Glad spoke, scorched words that seemed to have been dragged from the depths.
“Tick, tock.”
Sparkling light burst from Steve’s chest; his back arched grotesquely. It could have been a thing of be
auty if it wasn’t killing a man.
“Time’s up,” said Mr Glad. “An army is ready.”
Mr Glad evaporated on the breeze, a foul leer the last thing to go.
Steve clung to the world for a moment longer, silently reaching for help. The gateway expanded suddenly, shockingly, then imploded just as quickly. Steve was gone with it. All that was left was a symbol floating slowly upwards like a belch of smoke.
Hugo staggered towards Finn, through crazed pedestrians, crazier monkeys, shocked Half-Hunters and a man in a jungle outfit rounding up scorpions on an Irish street.
And beyond the scratch in the air that marked the spot where her father had been only seconds before, stood Emmie, her face white with the shock of what she had just witnessed.
Steve, her dad, was gone.
Broonie saw it happen.
He was in a bin at the time, chowing down on whatever rubbish and wrappers he could find, having slid down the side of the church, stone tearing at him until he landed with a crunch on the ground.
His stomach had, eventually, won the battle for attention. He didn’t want to get caught, but he didn’t want to go hungry either.
He had slunk through the town, found a quiet road on which to scavenge from bins, when a human family shuffled into view. A man, woman and boy-man thing. Broonie couldn’t be sure. He looked sort of in between.
The man was carrying a camera. The woman was wearing a strange outfit, with flapping scales on its top half and something like snakeskin for trousers. The boy wore a look of annoyance with the world that reminded Broonie of what generally greeted him when he looked in the mirror.
“I’ll take a photo,” he heard the man say, crossing to the other side of the road while the mother and boy stayed where they were.
“It’s a hole in a wall,” said the boy, his boredom as clear as the air. “Like every other hole in a wall. How many holes in walls do we have to stop and look at?”
Chaos Descends Page 6
