Darkmouth

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 kerb 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.

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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 corridor 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 Dobermann. 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 nappy 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 practised with his dad. He studied. He ate. He slept. He didn’t have birthday parties or sleepovers. He didn’t have other kids just calling in. 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. Rumours. 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 of it as much as he could, but it was hard to do that when it was coming at him in stereo.

“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 fringe, 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.

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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 any more. 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 weather presenter, 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 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 any more. Instead, after quickly bagging the Basilisk, he found his son two lanes 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 pavement.

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 armour, 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 cornered the Manticore in an alleyway. Then it all went wrong. When Finn tried to get his Desiccator the holster at his waist, he snagged his glove on his armour 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.