Darkmouth Read online

  Dedication

  For Maeve, my partner

  in this adventure

  Contents

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  About the Author

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  1

  The town of Darkmouth appears on few maps because very few people want to find it. When it is marked on one, its location is always wrong. It’ll be a bit north of where it’s supposed to be, or a bit south. A little left or a little right. A bit off.

  Always.

  Which means that visitors to Darkmouth invariably arrive having taken a wrong turn, soon convinced they’ll reach only a dead end. They drive through a canopy of trees, whose branches reach from either side to clasp ever tighter overhead, becoming thicker with every mile until the dappled light is choked off and the road is dark even on the brightest of days. Then, just as the wood is almost scraping the paint from their car and it seems that the road itself is going to be suffocated, the visitors travel through a short tunnel and emerge onto a roundabout filled with blossoming flowers and featuring a sign that reads:

  The next line has been updated by hand a couple of times:

  On a wall lining the road there is large, striking graffiti. It says only this:

  Except the last S forms a serpent, with mouth wide and teeth jagged. Visitors peer at it and wonder, Is that a . . . ? Could it be a . . . ?

  Yes, that snake really is swallowing a child.

  The travelers—by now a bit desperate in their search—have finally reached Darkmouth. Their next thought is this: Let’s get out of here.

  So they go right around the roundabout and head back the way they came. Which is a shame, because if they were to stay they would realize that Darkmouth is actually quite a nice little place. It has a colorful little ice-cream shop on the harbor, benches dotted along the beach, picnic tables and jungle gyms for the kids.

  And no one has been eaten by a monster for some time.

  In fact, they aren’t really monsters at all. They might look monstrous, and the locals might refer to them as monsters, but, strictly speaking, they are Legends. Myths. Fables. They once shared the earth with humans, only to grow envious, then so violent that a war raged through the world’s Blighted Villages for centuries.

  Darkmouth is the last of these Blighted Villages. And Legends show up only occasionally.

  This morning just happens to be one of those occasions.

  2

  Thinking back on it all later, Finn identified that morning as the time when things began to go badly wrong.

  Mulling it over a little bit more, he realized he could identify just about any morning of his first twelve years as when things began to go wrong. At the time, though, he wasn’t doing much thinking. Instead, he was running. As hard as he could. In the rain. Away from a Minotaur.

  Five minutes earlier, everything had seemed to be going according to plan, even if Finn wasn’t entirely sure what that plan was.

  Then it had been Finn doing the chasing, carrying a Desiccator, a fat silver rifle with a cylinder hanging in front of the trigger. He was the Hunter, lumbering through the maze of Darkmouth’s backstreets in a black helmet and fighting suit—small dull squares of metal knitted together clumsily—so that when he moved it sounded like a bag of forks falling down stairs.

  It was oversize because his parents had told him he should leave room to grow into it. It rattled because he had made it himself.

  From somewhere in the near distance, about two alleys away, he had heard the sound of glass being mashed into stone, or maybe stone being pounded into glass. Either way, it was followed by the scream of a car alarm and the even louder scream of a person.

  Darkmouth was a town of dead ends and blind alleys, with high walls that were lined with broken glass, sharp stones, and blades. The layout was designed to confuse Legends, block their progress, shepherd them toward dead ends. But Finn knew where to go.

  He followed the Legend’s dusty trail, emerging onto Broken Road, Darkmouth’s main street, where vehicles had screeched to a halt at wrong angles, and those townspeople who hadn’t scarpered were cowering in still-closed shop doorways.

  And at the top of the street was the Minotaur. It was part human, part bull, all terrifying. Finn’s heart skipped a beat, then hammered three more in quick succession. He took a shuddering breath. He had spent his childhood looking at drawings of such creatures, which were always depicted as mighty, almost noble, Legends. Seeing one in the flesh, Finn realized they had captured a Minotaur’s strength, but had not really conveyed any sense of just how rabid it looked.

  From where its jutting, crooked horns met its great bull’s head, the Minotaur was covered in the mangy hair of a mongrel. As it looked over its shoulder, slobber dripped from its great teeth and ran through the contours of muscles bulging along its back, past its waist, down to patches of skin as cracked as baked clay. It stood on two legs that tapered down to menacing claws instead of hooves.

  The Minotaur was worse than Finn had ever imagined it could be, which was impressive, as he had imagined it to be pretty bad.

  And now the Legend was looking straight at him.

  He ducked into a doorway. A woman was already hiding there, her back pressed against the door, a dog pulled close. Her face was tight with fear.

  “Don’t worry, Mrs. Bright,” Finn told her, his voice muffled by the helmet. “You and Yappy will soon be safe, won’t you, boy?” He pet the dog, a Basset hound, with his free hand. It sneezed on him.

  The woman nodded with unconvincing gratitude, then paused. “Where’s your father, young man? Shouldn’t he be—?”

  There was a smash farther up the street. The Minotaur had disappeared around the bend at the top of Broken Road. Finn took another deep breath and moved on after it.

  From the other side of a wall, there was a thud so forceful it sent a shudder from Finn’s feet to his brain, which interpreted it as a signal t
o run screaming in the opposite direction.

  But Finn didn’t run. He had trained for this. He had been born into it. He knew what was expected of him, what he needed to do. Besides, if he ran now, his dad would be disappointed in him. Again.

  I’ll be there when you need me, Finn’s father had told him that morning.

  Pressing a radio button on the side of his helmet, Finn whispered, “Dad? Are you there?”

  The only response was the uncaring crackle of static.

  A dark, looming hulk barreled across an intersecting alleyway, tearing along its narrow walls. Finn raised his Desiccator and followed. At the corner, he crouched and peered around. The Minotaur had paused no more than twenty yards away. Its great shoulders heaved under angry, growling breaths as it figured out which way to go next.

  It was all up to Finn now. He recalled his training. Focused on what he had been taught. Thought about his father’s expert words. Carefully, he aimed his stocky silver weapon, steadied himself, exhaled.

  At that exact moment, the Minotaur turned to face him, its eyes like black pools gouged beneath scarred horns. Froth dripped from chipped and jagged tusks. For a second, Finn was distracted by the way drool, blood, and rain clung to a crystal ring wedged through the Legend’s nose.

  The Minotaur roared. Finn squeezed the trigger.

  The force of the shot sent Finn tripping backward. A sparkling, spinning blue ball flew from the barrel of the Desiccator, unfurling into a glowing net as it was propelled toward where the Minotaur had stood only a moment before . . . and wrapped itself around a parked car.

  Finn groaned.

  With a flash and a stifled whooop, half the car collapsed in on itself with the anguished scrunch of a ton of metal being sucked into a shape no bigger than a soda can.

  Finn looked for the Minotaur. It was gone.

  He pressed his radio switch. “Erm, Dad?”

  Still nothing.

  He paused, calmed his babbling mind as much as he could, and moved off again through the alleyways. Using the ancient methods handed down to him, Finn began carefully tracking the trail of the Minotaur.

  He needn’t have bothered. The Minotaur got to him first.

  3

  Naturally, Finn fled.

  As he did, several thoughts went through his head, mainly to do with whether he should turn and shoot, or find a hiding spot, or whether he had time to stop and fling aside his clattering armor.

  For its part, as it chased him, the Minotaur had only a single thought in its head. Finn was better off not knowing just how many times the word “gouge” featured in it.

  Finn ran down the alleyway as fast as his rattling fighting suit would allow, his breath hot inside the helmet, his weapon flailing from a strap around his wrist. He spotted a gap and turned into it just before the Minotaur reached him. The creature smashed into a dead end, throwing up a cloud of brick, dust, and drool.

  Finn pushed on, darting across alleys, stumbling around corners, squeezing through gaps, until it occurred to him that the only sound he could hear above the noise of his suit was that of his own panting.

  With some effort, he persuaded his legs to stop running.

  Crouching at a corner, he looked around for any sign of the Minotaur. There was none. He sank down, feeling the rivulets of sweat running down his cheeks, the itchiness of the suit, and the thump of his heart in his chest.

  There was a rustle close by. The briefest flicker of a shadow.

  “Dad?”

  The Minotaur burst through a wall in front of Finn, collapsing with dreadful force into the alleyway, its horns scraping and sparking off the concrete, before righting itself and looming over him. Finn raised his Desiccator, but the Minotaur reached out a huge arm and swiped it from his hands.

  Backed up against the brick, Finn could taste the deathly sourness of the Minotaur’s breath and see the deep blackness of its mouth. He was briefly mesmerized by the radiance of the fat diamond ring lodged in the Legend’s nose.

  Finn tried to think of a way out, of a fighting move his father had taught him, a plan, an escape route, anything other than just giving in to the inevitable pounding thought that he was about to die.

  As it poised to strike, the Minotaur still had just one thought in its head, although it had evolved to include repeated use of the word “maim.”

  If this Legend had been a little less single-minded, however, it might have realized that the sliver of time it took to move in for the kill was long enough for a shadow to pass above it and the boy; for that shadow to grow larger, darker; for it to become solid as it bounded across the creature’s great shoulders and landed behind it.

  The Minotaur turned. The armor on this new human shimmered; it was hard to focus on. He seemed to be there yet not there. The figure carried a weapon similar to the boy’s, but larger. And the Minotaur knew instantly who it now faced.

  This was not a Legend Hunter. This was the Legend Hunter.

  The Minotaur had moved barely an inch in attack before it was struck by the glowing net of the Legend Hunter’s weapon. For the briefest of moments, it was frozen in an all-enveloping web of sparkling blue. Then, with a stifled whooop, the Minotaur imploded. All that was left was a solid, hairy sphere no bigger than a tennis ball.

  The Legend Hunter remained steady, a thin wisp of blue smoke drifting from the barrel of his weapon. “Bull’s-eye,” he said, popping open his visor to reveal a face as solid as the helmet and an obvious delight at his quip.

  Finn picked himself up off the ground and glared at him. “Where were you, Dad?”

  4

  Like 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.

&n
bsp; 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—?”