Darkmouth

by Shane Hegarty

  “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.

  5

  Finn 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 i
n. “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.

  6

  Finn 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.

  7

  Finn turned onto a street that featured a row of apparently derelict houses on one side, windows bricked up or boarded, some painted with childish images of flower boxes in an attempt to brighten them up a bit. A couple of trees sprouting from the sidewalk softened the view a little, but a long blank wall on the other side of the street gave everything an inescapably austere look.

  In a town with street names that spoke of Darkmouth’s violent past, this one had no name. Finn’s house was the last in the row, ordinary looking and unremarkable.

  As he approached, Finn could see a police car parked just behind his father’s. The front door to the house was open and he could make out the figure of the local sergeant just inside.

  Finn scurried to the low wall that hemmed in the small patch of grass outside his house. Out of sight, he crouched and listened.

  “You know we appreciate what you do, Hugo,” Sergeant Doyle was saying. “And we know you’ve got to teach the boy.” The sergeant was a large man who used to be barrel-chested, but that barrel had slumped into his belly with age. “But this is the third time in only a few weeks.” There was a pause. Finn peered over the wall into the open doorway and saw Sergeant Doyle flip open a notepad and begin reading. “Two walls pulverized in Fillet Lane. A car half-destroyed by your boy at the Charmless Gap—”

  “Okay, Sergeant,” said Finn’s dad, raising his hands. “We’ll be sure to—”

  “Two people treated for shock.”

  “We can cover whatever costs—”

  “The real cost is to you, Hugo. The people here are already scared stiff of the monsters; they don’t need to fear the people who are supposed to be protecting them.” Sergeant Doyle never looked pleased to be in Darkmouth. This day was no different.

  “I have to train him, Sergeant—” began Finn’s dad.

  “We know you need to teach the boy, but there must be a better way than giving him a weapon and letting him loose,” said Sergeant Doyle, stepping away from the door. Pressed against the wall, Finn felt the heat rise in his face. The sergeant walked right past Finn without noticing him, got into his car, and rolled down the window. “Hugo, you and I both know people here wonder why Darkmouth is the last place left where these attacks still happen. They’re beginning to blame you. Some of them are even asking if you keep letting the monsters in deliberately to keep your job.”
r />   “Ah now, Sergeant . . .”

  “There are people in Darkmouth who wonder if they might be better off dealing with this themselves. It’s the twenty-first century, Hugo. They think they can buy monster-killing kits on the internet.”

  Finn’s dad sighed. “They’re called Legends.”

  “What?”

  “See you, Sergeant.” Finn’s dad watched Sergeant Doyle drive off. “Close the door on your way in, Finn,” he remarked as he reentered the house.

  Finn groaned. He should have known it was pretty much impossible for him to snoop on his dad. Even his childhood games of hide-and-seek had been ruined by his father’s inability to even pretend he didn’t know where his son was.

  As Finn started toward his front door, he saw something out of the corner of his eye, a blur farther back along the street, moving quickly from one doorway to another. It was smaller than him, but tall enough, and he caught a glimpse of what might be fur. Red, flaming fur. Either that or . . .

  Finn hesitated, opened his mouth to call his dad, then decided against it.

  He held his palm out but felt no rain, turned his head toward home but heard no alarm.

  He looked at his house, then back toward the figure. Quick and deft, it disappeared around the corner.

  This was one chase Finn needed to do himself.

  He followed it.

  8

  As he turned the corner, Finn got a better glimpse of the figure he was pursuing.

  He felt a shot of relief as it confirmed what he had hoped from the moment he saw it. He was confident now that he would not need any help, any armor, any weapon. Nor would he need any of the courage his father kept insisting he would one day find.

  It wasn’t a Legend but a person. And, if a person was going to be sneaking around, a mass of blazing red hair wasn’t much use for blending in.

  Arriving onto the next street, he saw her right away. She hadn’t even attempted to hide, but instead appeared to be waiting for him, leaning against a wall, her eyes only half-visible behind her hair. Finn had felt those eyes trained on the back of his head throughout the school day, but whenever he had glanced back at her she hadn’t been looking at him.