Darkmouth (9 page)

E
mmie was so startled by the sudden arrival of Finn's dad that she dropped the jar she was holding. It rolled unbroken to his feet. He picked it up. “You shouldn't be here.”

Finn, breathless and a little panicked, blurted, “
Emmie
, the bathroom isn't down here.”

Hugo and Emmie both shot Finn a look that wilted him.

Finn hadn't seen his father so annoyed in quite some time. At least not so annoyed with anyone other than Finn. “There are things in this room that could kill you,” he said, seething. “There are things here that could kill
everybody
. This is
not
a playground.”

“Dad—” started Finn.

“It's time your friend went home, Finn.”

Finn sighed, but signaled to Emmie to follow him. They were making their way toward the exit when
Emmie stopped and faced Finn's dad. “They're desiccated, aren't they?”

“What?” asked Finn's dad.

“The Desiccators. I heard about them.”

“Heard about them?”

“Yeah, Finn told me.”

“Did he now?” said his father.

Did I?
thought Finn.

“He said the Desiccator net became the weapon of choice for most Legend Hunters centuries ago,” continued Emmie, undeterred, “because it trapped Legends but didn't kill them. Is it true?”

“Yes,” said Finn's dad, a little calmer now, examining her. “We've used a Desiccator on them.”

“All of them?” asked Emmie, gaining a little courage to take a step back into the library.

“Remind me, what did you say your father does?”

“He's a technology consultant,” she answered, sounding a little shy again.

“Technology consultant.” Finn's father's anger seemed to have ebbed as he became more inquisitive. “And how long are you here for?”

“A short while. Dad's doing stuff with the phone lines. Or something. I didn't pay attention.”

“No. Why should you? And you heard all about the Legend Hunters from Finn?”

“Oh yes. I'm fascinated by them now. The life. The battles. What it must be like to come face-to-face with a Legend. I would love to be one. A Legend Hunter.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“But you can't, can you?” said Finn's dad.

“Can't I?” asked Emmie.

“Didn't Finn make that clear? No civilians.”

“Oh yeah, of course. But I think about it sometimes all the same.”

Finn's father narrowed his eyes and cocked his head. He was holding the jar containing the Hogboon, rolling it deliberately between his palms. “Go on now,” he said and shooed them away, shutting the door behind them.

Finn and Emmie walked up the long corridor without a word, entering the house and going straight to the front door. Finn opened it and waited for Emmie to leave.

“I'm sorry, Finn,” she said. “I hope I haven't gotten you into trouble.”

Finn felt something unsettling, but he couldn't quite identify the sensation. “Did you mean that? About wanting to be a Legend Hunter?”

“Definitely,” Emmie replied, her tone a little regretful. “What you do is amazing. All that excitement, and the Desiccators and other worlds and that huge room at the end of that huge hall. I mean, seriously, who wouldn't want this?”

Finn's face betrayed his deepest feelings about that. Finally, he spoke. “Did I really talk to you about the Desiccator? I don't remember that.”

“Oh yeah, you must have. Loads of times, I'm sure. Anyway, I'd better go.”

Emmie pulled her hair forward and turned for home. Finn closed the door, not noticing that the bright day had swiftly given way to damp gray, and that Emmie had already disappeared into a veil of gathering mist.

“T
here's one blip.” Finn's dad pointed at the computer screen.

Blip
.

“And there's the other.”

Blip.

Finn stood beside him, not entirely sure what they were both waiting for.

The two spots kept blipping.

Blip
.

Blip
.

On the screen was a map of the town. Every few seconds, a small green pulse appeared in two distinct spots.

Blip
. One at the harbor.

Blip
. The other a couple of miles from it, by the short tunnel at the entrance to Darkmouth.

Finn understood what the scanner was telling them:
two gateways had just opened. The alarm had sounded as Finn was making his way back down toward the library, but was silenced quickly. He had arrived in the room expecting his father to be rushing in the other direction. Instead, he was standing over the screen and had motioned for Finn to join him.

“Dad, I didn't know . . . ,” Finn started to say.

“Later,” came the curt reply.

Blip
.

Blip
.

“What do you see, Finn?” His dad didn't wait for an answer. “These are two gateways, but they're both small. Only one of them would let through a Legend of any size. Very odd. I'd like you to examine the smaller one while I check out the larger one. You can get changed in the car before I drop you off.”

“Hold on, drop me off?” asked Finn, not liking what he was hearing.

But his dad was already heading for some bookshelves at the back, where he lifted the stopper from a large, empty, triangular jar. To Finn's surprise, a whole section of the wall swung open and Finn's father ran through. Finn stared after him for a moment, irritated.

“A hidden door? When were you going to tell me about that?”

“I just have,” said his dad. He stuck his head back into the library. “I didn't want you messing around with it. Now hurry up.”

Sighing, Finn followed and found himself in a part of the building he hadn't known existed—a dark, apparently unused remnant of whatever this part of the library used to be before the Legend Hunters moved in, long hidden behind the circular wall, its deep red bricks exposed under crumbled patches of rotting plaster, apparently unchanged since the rest of the street had been colonized by Finn's ancestors.

Ahead of him, his father pulled at a large door, which opened reluctantly until the dull morning light flooded the space and released them onto the street.

“Very odd,” his dad repeated as they drove. Finn was in the back, wrestling with his fighting suit, trying to avoid falling against a row of knives lining the interior of the vehicle. “We have two gateways appearing at the same time, but even the bigger one is so small it shouldn't be of too much concern. That must be why this fog has come down instead of rain.”

Finn realized he was pulling his suit on backward, the
armor choking him at the chin. He tried again.

His dad had half an eye on a scanner on the dashboard, which showed the same map and unevenly sized green dots flaring every couple of seconds.

“Here's the thing, Finn,” said his dad. “Remember when that second gateway popped up the other day and then disappeared right away? I looked back at the scanner's records for the previous hunts and what do you think I found?”

Finn really wanted to get this right. “Other gateways?” he guessed, losing his balance again.

“Well done. This has happened four times now. Other tiny gateways opening in Darkmouth while we were off hunting a Legend. The others were so brief they hardly registered.” The scanner went
blip
. “So, this right now is curious. The smaller one might be a failed attempt by a Legend to open a bigger gateway. We need to make sure in any case.”

“I really have to check it out on my own?” asked Finn.

“You've got to do it sometime,” said his dad. “Better when there's probably no great danger.”

“Probably?”

The car's lights stabbed an arc in the fog as it turned sharply, causing Finn to flail across the back and crash
into a net of canisters.

“If the gateway is still there when we get to it, Finn, all you need to do is mind it until it disappears or I get back, whichever happens first. It'll be too small for any Legends to get through, so there's nothing to worry about. You can reach me on the radio if you need to.”

Finn was still fighting with his fighting suit.

“Come on, buster. Hurry up. Seriously.”

They arrived near the pier, the car's massive tires scrunching up along the curb as it pulled over. Its side doors slid open automatically and Finn half fell out, holding on to his helmet to keep it on his head.

Through the fog, he could see a gently pulsing smudge of golden light hanging in the air. It looked almost like a streetlamp, except that it was low down, about eye level with Finn. He was temporarily mesmerized by the thought of this gateway, open, raw. A hole between his world and another.

Despite his recent Legend hunts, Finn had only ever seen gateways in the few blurry videos and photos taken in the days before they closed everywhere but Darkmouth. He had grown up with the idea as commonplace, but his mind now burbled at the sight of an actual portal to a world of Legends. He was a little in awe. He was also very scared.

“Finn?” his dad called out, jolting him. “Forgotten something?”

He dangled Finn's Desiccator from the car window.

“Come on, Finn. I know you can do this, but you've got to use your head sometimes.”

Finn tried to crank himself up for a clever response, but his mouth was too dry with fear for him to muster anything useful. He simply took the weapon, wrapped its strap around his wrist, and watched his dad drive away until the vehicle was swallowed by the fog.

He continued to assess the gateway from a distance. He had heard many stories of civilians and Hunters getting a little too close to these portals and not having the chance to live to regret it. He had heard tales of Legend Hunter apprentices daring each other to put their heads in a gateway for a look, only for the portal to snap shut and leave them squirming in brief agony before their body was chewed in two, their legs twitching long after their front end had disappeared into the Infested Side.

That was if they were lucky.

There was a popular theory that, once it clamped onto a person, a gateway's energy seeped into the body, becoming one with it. This, went the thinking, would lead the unfortunate individual to live a bodiless existence for
all eternity, the monotonous torment relieved only by the special torture of being torn open every so often to let a large creature climb through.

It was only a theory, of course. Writing home to tell everyone about it would be quite difficult under the circumstances.

Still, for horrible ways to die, Finn had a few options on offer to him now. But he tried to push those thoughts away. His dad didn't believe there was any danger.
Probably
no danger anyway. He wouldn't have given Finn this job otherwise. And he expected him to go through with it. Finn had to trust his dad. He knew what he was talking about after all.

Finn really hoped his dad knew what he was talking about.

So he started to creep tentatively toward the gateway, his suit a minor chorus of rattles, his weapon raised, and his heartbeat raised even higher.

He could hear the sea to his left, lapping at the stony beach below the pier. The
sqwuaa
of a seagull came from somewhere above the fog. He picked his way carefully over the fishermen's ropes, unused lobster pots, and scraps of plastic scattered on the ground.

As he moved closer to the gateway, it became more
defined, emitting a sound like rushing water. Its brilliance was almost inviting, its fringes made up of dazzling, fizzing white light that felt familiar. He quickly recognized them as the same patterns of light he had seen under the microscope in Mr. Glad's shop.

But before he had time to dwell on that coincidence, he was startled by a dark silhouette at the gateway. Something. Some
thing
. A tall creature with a broad torso and a horribly misshapen head.

Finn's outfit squeaked. He halted midcreep. The creature stopped what it was doing at the gateway, turned, and looked in his general direction.

Finn hardly dared to breathe as he stood motionless, his foot still half-raised.

Apparently seeing nothing, the creature resumed its business at the gateway, bending a little to reach it.

Finn completed his step. Every sound from his suit seemed to him like a minor earthquake in a tin can factory. He crouched, carefully reaching for the button at his neck that activated the radio, and whispered, “Dad? Come in, Dad.”

Nothing.

A little louder. “Dad. This is Finn.”

Still nothing.

He pressed. Pressed again. Absolute silence. No static, no
bleep
when he tried to activate it, only the sound of his heart beating a panicked rhythm in his throat. He must have pulled on a wire when wrestling with the suit in the car. Now, even in a fog so thick he could have reached out and carved “Help!” in it, he felt completely exposed.

The figure, several feet away but still only a smudged silhouette, remained at the gateway. Finn strained his eyes. It looked like it might be
taking
something, some small object, from the portal. But what? Finn took another couple of steps forward to try to see more clearly, his weapon aimed, finger trembling at the trigger, grimacing at every minor creak of his suit.

Seemingly satisfied that its task was done, the creature stood back, with a surprising ruffle through its torso. Finn knew he had to take a shot now or he would never get another chance. He took a deep breath to still his coursing adrenaline, steadied his aim, felt the Desiccator's trigger in the curve of his finger, and counted down.
Three. Two. One
.

The creature glanced around. Squinting through the gray, Finn realized he was seeing something stranger than any Legend.

It was a
human
, a man, it seemed, wearing a long coat that hung loosely to his knees. Finn couldn't make out the face, which appeared to be almost fully covered by a scarf pulled up over the nose, and what he had thought to be a misshapen head was actually the wide brim of a hat that swept low across the man's brow.

Finn exhaled, released the pressure on the trigger.

Briefly, the gateway's golden light glinted off a pair of eyes, then, with a final pulse and a gulp, the gateway imploded, folding in on itself instantly, leaving behind only a feeble yellow afterglow.

The figure looked around one final time. Finn moved half a step forward to see more clearly.

This turned out to be a very,
very
stupid thing to do.